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reiderwriter · 10 months

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Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You🃏

Chapter 1 of That's What You Get

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Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female Reader

Word count: 5.2k

Summary: After three weeks on a case in Vegas and a particularly draining phone call from your mother, you decide to take Reid up on his offer to show you the sights of Las Vegas. When you wake up the next morning, you realise one of those sights was a 24hour Wedding Parlor, and that you're now Mrs. Reid.

Warnings: Alcohol consumption, loss of memory, marriage (yeah that needs a warning), mommy issues, mentions of emotional abuse, implied sex scene, use of handcuffs in a sexual way, they theorize a possible creampie but I will neither confirm nor deny at this point, talk of contraception, no actual smut though, you guys are gonna have to wait for that. 18+ Minors DNI

A/N: The first chapter is here! Sorry for drawing you in with a silly little premise and then giving you mommy issues, I swear that after this chapter it's not bought up all that much. If you enjoy this chapter, you can sign up to the series taglist here, check out my masterlist and if you want leave a request! :D have fun reading!! ✨

Las Vegas, city of sin and entertainment capital of the world. Population approximately 600,000, home to the most famous casinos in the world, and unluckily for you, your latest unsub.

You’d been in Vegas for three weeks trying to hunt down this specific murderer, but now the case was all wrapped up and you could finally breathe, the weight of the stress you’d been carrying for almost a month now dissolving as you finally finished up the paperwork in the local precinct.

“Thank god that’s over. I cannot wait to be in bed with a good book and an empty head,” you groaned as you met the eyes of Penelope Garcia, your favorite tech analyst in the entire world and absolutely the only one you knew. She’d ended up having to join you on this case because some of the crime scenes just happened to be casinos that weren’t so happy sharing their data, but also didn’t want to be lumped with the warrant from the FBI. She’d been working between their offices and the precinct, and looked just as haggard as you felt.

“Oh, I feel you sister, this free travel experience thing is nice, but I would like to be back at my own perfect little desk hovel ASAP, thank you very much.” The two of you shared a small laugh, and then began collecting your stuff.

“Come on now, baby girl, you’re telling me that you don’t want to hit up the strip while we’re here? See the sights a little?”

“Sweet cheeks, I have been working from the most harrowing of surveillance units all week on that very strip. I have already seen the sights and they were not pretty, and definitely not worth using up my precious vacation time for.”

“Unfortunately Garcia, I don’t think you’ll be needing to use any of that vacation time to stay here,” Hotch announced as he walked in, and every member of your team snapped to attention to hear what he had to say. “I just got off the phone with Quantico, there’s a storm cloud moving in directly in our flight path and we haven’t been cleared for take off. They’re extending our stay by another day.”

“Shit,” you let out a silent curse, and noticed that your other team members didn’t seem all that happy about it either. JJ quickly excused herself from the room to call Will, Garcia let out a faux sob and fell back into her chair, and Rossi had the look of abject Italian disappointment on his face that he usually only got when you talked about your love of pineapple on pizza.

“How’s about that drink now, baby girl?” Derek Morgan teased, but it was half-hearted and you knew it. You were all desperate for bed, and you could only imagine the mistakes you would make if you went drinking now after the month you’d all just survived.

The only member of the team who didn’t seem put out quite yet was Reid, but you chalked that up to the fact that this place was his hometown.

“If you guys do change your mind, I know a bar downtown where you’re 34% less likely to be propositioned, robbed or over-charged.” He smiled over at you, and you couldn’t help but let out a giggle knowing the man was 100% serious.

“Dare I ask how you found that statistic, Reid?” Emily inquired from the other corner.

“One part actually reading the annual crime report, one part personal experience?” Reid replied, and you laughed again, unable to hold it back.

“Count me out, thank you,” you replied, and you could have sworn for a second you saw a flash of disappointment flash over his features, but you didn’t get the chance to question it, because a call was lighting up your phone screen.

You quickly excused yourself and moved to pick up the call from your mother.

“Mom, hey, what’s up?”

“What, I can’t check in on my daughter now for no reason?” you sighed and rubbed your temples, knowing exactly how this phone call was going to go, because it was how the last ten calls home had.

“Yes, mom, of course you can. How are you?”

“Terrible. Cindy’s daughter is getting married, and it’s all she’s talking about now. Can you believe it? The girl was absolutely wild when you were friends with her in high school and now she’s settling down with a lawyer of all people. Someone should warn that young man before he realises what he’s got himself into,” she scoffed on the other end of the line and you did your best to not get worked up. If you got angry it only made her more self-richeous.

“I know, Mom, Jessica sent me an invite, and I’m sure Trevor knows exactly what he’s getting into since they’ve been dating since high school.”

“Well, how was I supposed to know that? You never tell me anything.”

“I’m sorry, Mom, I’m in the middle of a case right now, can I call you back later?” You did your best to escape the conversation before it devolved into something you really didn’t want to talk about, like yourself, and more specifically your love life. But the gorgon had you frozen through the line and you weren’t about to make the mistake of hanging up on her.

“I’m sure your boss could spare you for five minutes, over-working you like he does. You haven’t had the time off to come and visit me since you got that fancy little job of yours, so you can do me this favor at least.”

“Sure, mom.” At times like this, you knew it was best to just let her talk and ride out the wave.

“And I’m sure you don’t even have time to date. Are you taking care of yourself, at least? Making sure you’re at least presentable, I hope? Its like I always say, you could meet your future husband in one of those precincts, you know. Get a big, strong man to take care of you.”

You had to resist the urge to throw your phone. You’d explained to your mother time and time again that you were perfectly content being the big, strong man for yourself, but there was absolutely no getting through to her. You received one of these phone calls everytime one of her friends or coworkers kids announced an engagement, got pregnant or bought a house, three things that she was desperate for you to do, as well. As soon as you saw the instagram post from Jessica you’d been counting down the days, almost thankful for your mothers lack of online presence.

“A crime scene isn’t exactly the most charming of meet cutes, Mom.”

“Well, then what about Virginia? There are some fine men working at the FBI surely. What about that one coworker of yours, what was his name?” Your heart-race increased for a moment, praying she wasn’t about to put a thought in your head that you wouldn’t be able to escape.

“Derek Morgan, was it? Now, that’s a fine young man.” This time you couldn’t stop the startled cry that came from your mouth. Sure, Morgan was an incredibly attractive man, but he’d joked around with you like a brother ever since you’d taken down your first unsub with the team. Your team was your family and your support system on the road, and they had your back on the case, so really, had your mother said anything, you’d have responded with incredulous guffawing. Hotch was like your dad, Rossi a fun Great-Uncle or something. You saw the sister’s you’d never had in JJ and Emily and of course Garcia was your best friend and you shared so many likes and dislikes that you regularly joked about being long-lost twins separated at birth. And Reid was Reid.

“Just give dating some thought, would you at least? The clock is ticking for you, you know.”

“Mom, I’m not even thirty yet. I’m in no rush.”

“That's what your Aunt Linda said, and look at her.” Your Aunt Linda was a perfectly content single woman in her late forties who had a high paying executive job, in NYC of all places, so yeah, you were in no rush at all.

“Listen, Mom, I’ve got to go, Hotch is calling me into the office to talk about some case files. I’ll speak to you later?”

“God, it’s like you don’t even want to talk to your mother for even five minutes. Go on, then, go do your big fancy job. Call me soon.”

“Yeah, Mom, I will.” And with that you finally hung up. Running a hand through your hair you paused for a breath for a second, closing your eyes and letting your hand just grip your hair for a second before releasing your breath for a second.

In the grand scheme of things, you knew that your mom wasn’t all that much to complain about. You and Emily had bonded over your respective mommy issues early in your time on the team, and you knew a lot of the other team members were either lacking some family member or the other, so you were just thankful that she was still around to annoy you, but god did she make it difficult sometimes.

Realising that any second, you’d have one profiler or the other come find you and ask you (with the best of intentions) what was wrong, you plastered a smile on your face and walked back into the office. You didn’t exactly want to relive that call anytime soon.

“Back so soon, Y/N? I thought that was your mom,” Morgan questioned you when you stepped back in.

“Yeah it was. One of my friends from highschool is getting married and you know how she loves to gossip.” You’d learnt early in the profession that you were in that the best way to hide something was to tell the truth about it for as long as you could, and then change the subject.

“Hey, Reid, you still up for a drink at that bar?” You looked hopefully at the man in the corner, and prayed noone would bring up your absolute change in attitude. “I was thinking a glass of wine or two after a successfully closed case couldn’t hurt, right?”

“Yeah, sure. You wanna head back to the hotel first and change, or do you want to go from here? Hotch said we’re free now until 2pm tomorrow.” You could see a questioning look from Morgan to your left, but you kept your vision focused on Reid, quietly thankful for the rest of the teams disinterest.

“Give me five to drop off my badge and gun in my room and freshen up a bit and we can be on our way. If this bar is bad though, Reid, you know I’m never letting you hear the end of it, right?”

“I ran the statistics, there’s only a 14% chance you’ll dislike it.”

“You know what’s scary is, I can’t even tell if you’re being sarcastic or not.”

–x–

Sarcasm or no, you had to admit, the bar he’d taken you to was pretty nice. It was a low-lit bar only a twenty minute taxi ride from your hotel and whilst it wasn’t exactly on the strip, it wasn’t so far out to be inconvenient. The best part about it was that it was lined with bookshelves, and each booth was blocked off by another, making it feel more like a library than a watering hole. You almost forgot you were in Vegas when you stepped in.

“Yeah, this is definitely a Spencer Reid place,” you said as you took the final swig of your wine, the glass you’d ordered on arrival having gone down easier than you’d expected.

“How so?” Spencer said as he returned to your table, carrying the replacement drinks he’d gone to order with him.

“Come on, Spencer. I’ve never seen the inside of your apartment but I’m sure it’s just this place with less furniture and more books.”

“Y/L/N, are you profiling me right now? Because that sounds pretty close to profiling?” Spencer teased and you rolled your eyes at him, grabbing your next drink from him and giving it a stir - the wine was good but at the price per glass you’d decided maybe cocktails were the thing for tonight.

“Besides, you did mention wanting to curl up with a book tonight, so I thought this bar was probably a good fit for you too.”

“Whose profiling who now, Doctor?” It was his turn to roll his eyes, and he took a sip of his drink. You knew he didn’t drink that often, but he seemed pretty open to the idea tonight, and you were absolutely glad for the company.

“Okay, I won’t profile if you don’t, but do you mind me asking you a question, Y/N?”

“Fire away,” you were playing with the stirrer in your cocktail, waiting for him to ask the question but he’d hesitated for a moment before speaking again, causing you to look up directly into his eyes.

“What’s going on with you and your mom? I don’t mean to pry and I didn’t overhear any of your call earlier or anything, but when you came in again you were all tense and you had that strained smile on your face. Then you suddenly changed your mind and decided we should get drinks so, I’m just guessing here, but you could probably do with talking about it, right?”

You let out a groan and let your head hang a bit. Yeah, you were starting to regret taking that role in the team of profilers. But at least Reid was sincere, and you knew his intentions were good. Of all the members of the team, you’d probably have described him as the safest. It was strange to think, considering all the comfort you found in your other friends, but there was just something so reassuring about Reid’s presence, the way most people overlooked him at first, how he could easily fall into his work and how you could see the cogs moving in his head as he made one genius leap to another that just made you think that everything was going to be okay if he was there.

So because it was him, you decided to talk.

“She’s just…She’s just a little much sometimes, you know?” He smiled back a knowing smile, but didn’t try to add anything and encouraged you to keep going.

“She’s been really persistent recently in bothering me about hitting some of lifes big milestones - marriage, kids, you know? And it always leaves me in a panic because though I’m pretty sure I want those things just yet, I don’t want the pressure of having them yet.” You swallowed the bile in your thoat and continued

“Everytime she says something, I feel bad that I don’t have them. And the way she talks about them its like they’re some kind of… of personal failure, that I’m not trying hard enough to catch a man or something, and I just wonder what if she’s right?” You start slow but you feel yourself gaining pace as you begin rambling, by the end you’re left wondering if Reid even caught any of that.

“I’m perfectly content living alone, but what if I’m secretly not, and I end up forty and alone and can’t even get a guy to look at me.”

“I can pretty confidently say that that’s not going to happen, Y/N.” Reid replied when you finally grabbed your drink ready to take another sip.

“How come?”

“You won’t have to put any effort into catching a man, Y/N.” Reid replied.

“You’re saying that because you’re my friend and you care about me Reid, of course you think that.”

“No, I’m saying that as an FBI Profiler that’s noticed the barman, the man on a date in the corner and the group of guys smoking outside the door eye you up since we’ve been here. And considering we’ve been doing paperwork all day, and the only change in your appearance since 8am this morning was the fresh coat of chapstick you put on while we were in the taxi, I’d think you hadn’t really put that much thought into what you look like right now.”

“You’re exaggerating,” and you really believe that, until you turn to look at the guy on the date and see him avert his gaze from you quickly, and you realise there might be something in what he’s saying.

“Okay, but that still doesn’t mean that I need or want to hear those things from my mother.”

“Y/N, take it from me, mother’s can be complicated.”

“God, I feel so stupid talking to you about something so trivial with my mom, I shouldn’t be doing that, we’re here to have fun.”

“Y/N, its okay. I can do the mommy issues talks, I’m perfectly qualified, but…” he trails off and grabs his drink for another sip and you find yourself hanging off his words begging for him to bring you more comfort and spoken caresses.

“But what, Reid?” you finally ask, as you realise he’s dragging this out on purpose to tease you a little.

“But how about a distraction instead? Have you ever been in a Las Vegas casino with a man that is banned from gambling in most of them?” He wiggled his eyebrows a little as he asked that and you giggled again, grateful for the reprieve from the serious talk.

“That doesn’t sound all that fun, Spencer.”

“Oh yeah, it’s not, but we could always use those vouchers we got as a token of appreciation earlier in the bars and drink some pretty fancy alcohol?”

“Spencer Reid, you are finally speaking my language.”

“I’m still speaking English Y/N, but if you wanted me to switch to russian or some other language, I could accommodate that depending on your linguistic preference.”

“It was a joke, Spence, now let’s get out of here.”

With that, he stood and dramatically offered you his hand like a gentleman, placing your hand in the crook of his elbow when you took it and guiding you swiftly out of the sweet bar. You were with Spencer, your safe friend, close work colleague and probably the least likely member of the BAU Team to get into trouble in a bar in Vegas. What’s the worst that could happen? You thought, as you took a final step out into the humid night air of Las Vegas.

–X–

The first thing you noticed in the morning was the pounding in your head, and it was pretty much the only thing you noticed for quite some time. When you managed to finally unglue your eyes, the second thing you noticed that this definitely wasn’t your room. The third thing you noticed was the gaping hole in your memories that explained how you possibly could’ve ended up wherever it was that you were. Or really any memories from the night before at all.

Letting out a quick groan you sit up in bed and take stock of your surroundings. Although the layout is different, you quickly recognise the interior matches the hotel you’ve been staying at, so you’re thankful that you’re at least somewhere relatively safe, and most likely in familiar company. The room looks to be neat on the whole, but there’s obvious signs of a drunken escapade strewn everwhere - two champagne flutes and a drained bottle, the contents of your purse spilt onto the chair in the corner, some random balloons in the corner you must have picked up somewhere in a drunken stupor, your clothes discarded in a trail to the bed.

That last one wakes you up a little bit more, and almost embarrassingly, you look down at yourself and see your lack of clothing, pulling the covers of the quilt closer to you as you feel yourself flush.

Fuck.

There’s a shifting in the bed next to you, and you look down in horror to see exactly which member of your team got you so plastered last night. You try to move to see who it is, but theres a tightness around your wrist and you’re pulled right back down into bed. You look down at your arm, and that’s when you realise you’re really screwed.

There, around your wrist and restraining you against the bed, is a set of handcuffs. FBI standard. The insinuation flames your face as you whip around to see which close friend and coworker you maybe - possibly - hooked up with last night, too embarrassed to look at your hand any more.

Luckily, your mystery man shifts again, and you catch sight of the nest of brown curls right before he turns over to see you, so when you finally meet the eye of Doctor Spencer Reid, you don’t scream in surprise.

“Y/N? What are you doi-” he cuts himself off as he lets his eyes trail down your body, quickly noticing your state of undress and pulling himself up into a seated position. He is similarly disrobed and it takes all of your strength to pull your gaze away from his bare chest to look literally anywhere else, your face practically flaming now.

“Spencer, would you mind helping me out over here?” you manage to squeak out quickly, as he does his best to avoid your eyes. “I seem to be a little stuck?”

That draws his attention back to you, and he finally notices the strange position of your arms and the handcuffs keeping you pinned to that spot in the bed.

“Shit, Y/N, I’m so sorry, fuck,” he quickly pulls on the pants he discarded by his side of the bed and scrambles over to you, tripping over once in his haste.

“Do you know where the key is?” you ask as he arrives at your side again, your free hand clutching the sheets over your breasts like your life depended on it.

“If that’s my pair they should be in the safe in the nightstand with my creds, give me a second to look.” After a second, he reaches the aforementioned safe box, pulling it open. He roots around inside it for a few seconds and then he spots something ad you watch the blood drain from his face.

“Spencer, what’s wrong?” you spit out quickly, tongue still heavy, and lips probably still swollen, from the night before, so you trip over the words a little. He pulls out the keys from the draw, and you let out a sigh of relief, but you’re still tense as he reaches back inside the draw and pulls out something else.

“Y/N, there wouldn’t happen to be a ring on that hand would there?” Spencer still isn’t looking at you, still staring intently at whatever else is in his hands. You try to angle your head to look, but between the restraints and the fact that Reid had turned his back to you couldn’t quite see what it was.

“What? No, I don’t wear a ring on this hand-” you cut yourself off abruptly as you look down and see it. There on the fourth finger of your left hand, the one that is still chained to the bed by your partners handcuffs, is a ring. There’s a ring on your ring finger. You just woke up in Las Vegas with no memory, in your coworkers room, naked, with a ring on your ring finger.

Your heart drops to your ass as you snap your head back around to Spencer, who finally works up the courage to look you in the eye.

“I think you should look at this” he stutters out and finally presents you with the other item he pulled out of the draw. Your jaw drops open and the pounding in your head turns into a continuous buzzing as you see yourself presented with a marriage liscence. Pinned to the corner with a paperclip is a polaroid picture, and you recognise yourself and your clothes from the night before, with the addition of a veil and bouquet, your arms slung around Reid’s neck as he pulls you in for what you can assume was a pretty passionate kiss.

“Y/N I think we got married last night.”

For a second you could’ve sworn your heart stopped. This was not happening, not to you, not right now. How stupidly drunk could you have gotten to have actually gone and married someone you weren’t even dating. And considering your current lack of clothing, it was dawning on you that you had probably done a little bit more than what was in that photo.

“Spencer unlock these handcuffs right now, so help me God,” you breathed deep and screwed your eyes shut, hoping that wihtout the distraction of the glaring lights you’d be able to remember some of what you’d done last night, but nothing came to you.

Reid, for what it was worth, got you unlocked quickly. You winced slightly as you pulled your arm away from the position it’d been in for however many hours.

“Sorry, I’m so sorry, I should have undone those last night, I don’t know why I didn’t, I’m usually pretty good at remembering stuff like that.” Reid rambled, running a hand through his hair and pacing slightly at your side of the bed. You pushed yourself up and watched him for a minute, just looking at this man who was now, probably, your husband.

Your husband.

You shook the thought from your head and cut his rambling off quickly.

“You put me in these?” you asked, just desperate for any clarification on any of the events of the last 24 hours, not fully grasping the implications of what you were asking until Reid was looking down at you with a flushed face and a mouth gaping like a fish, struggling to find the words to say.

“This is my hotel room. Those are my handcuffs… I kind of just assumed…” he trailed off the thought and you were right with him, the embarrassment heating your face just as much as it had his. You found it hard to meet his eyes the, and dropped yours to your lap.

“So you don’t remember, either?” You almost sighed in relief at that. If even a genius with an IQ of 187 and an eidetic memory was in this state after a night of drinking, then you really couldn’t be blamed for getting so drunk you married your coworker and most likely had some pretty kinky sex with him, remembering absolutely nothing on top of that at all.

“Do you need me to grab you something to wear?” he asked as he looked down at you, letting his gaze trail probably a little bit too low for a little bit too long. You grew heated under his stare, as your body reacted, and you realised how easy it must have been to fall underneath him last night if this was how you were feeling from just one look.

But you pulled yourself out of those thoughts quickly, and it seemed that so did he, as he began grabbing clothes from the floor and handing them to you, turning away as you started getting yourself into a semi-decent state.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit,” you heard Reid mumble to himself as he made his way around the side of the bed, and in your concern for him, you called out.

“Anything specific those curses were for, Spence? Because I know this isn’t exactly the most ideal situation, but four Spencer Reid swears in a row is a cause for concern.” You tried to joke, hoping to relieve some of the anxiety of your predicament.

“I can’t find…” he started and then dragged a hand over his face, trying to wipe the exhaustion from his eyes. “Y/N, I think we didn’t use protection.” You could see him panicking now, and for a second you thought of joining him too, but you crossed the room and grabbed his arms.

“Spencer, look at me, it’s fine. If we did end up… doing that, I’m on birth control, and we probably have time to grab something extra just to make sure, right?” he looked down at you then and after a moments hesitation, he wrapped his arms around you.

“I’m so sorry about all of this, I’m so stupid for suggesting we go to that casino bar last night, I don’t know what I was thinking. You even said last night that this wasn’t what you wanted for yourself, right now, god I’m an idiot, you don’t deserve this.” He buried his face in your neck and held you tight, and you pulled yours up to his back, rubbing circles into his skin slowly.

“Spencer, listen to me. I can think of noone I would have rather had a shotgun Vegas marriage with, okay? This isn’t your fault, we were both drunk, and I’m sure a Reid who was thinking straight could give me some kind of statistic about inhibitions dropping with a certain amount of alcohol.”

“A study in the United Kingdom found that there was an increase of risky sexual behavior in young people who had participated in binge drinking, including unprotected sex with a new partner and the use of emergency contraceptives and I’m not sure why I’m still talking when that was probably rhetorical, right?” You smiled at his panic, finding him just as endearing as ever, even in this predicament.

“What I’m saying, Spencer, is that we’re going to be okay. This isn’t the first time someone has gotten married in Vegas on a whim. Hell, this isn’t even the first time it’s happened to someone on our team. In a sense, this was a very traditional wedding.”

He groaned into your neck again and you laughed up at him. Sure, you were panicked still, but just having him in your arms there sharing his honest feelings with you instead of bottling it up and leaving you to deal with it on your own in your head too was doing you a world of good, and you found the words you used to reassure him soothing you, too, in turn.

“Here’s what we’re going to do. One, find the nearest pharmacy. Two, find whatever Elvis-inspired love shack wrote that marriage license and figure out if it’s actually legally binding. Three, avoid all of our coworkers until 2pm. How does that sound?”

Reid pulled himself out of your neck then, and you were almost sad at the loss of that warmth near you.

“It sounds like I made the smartest choice of a wife I was ever going to make,” he smiled down at you.

“Oh you got jokes now, Doc? I see.”

“Thought I should let you know all my deep dark secrets now we’re married.” You shared a laugh, and standing there amongst the debris of the night before, despite all the mistakes, you knew you were safe, and that the two of you would always be safe together.

🏷️ @sailortongue @bethanyhaas01 @reidscaffeine @high-functioning-cosplayer @average-sunflower @multifandom-on-the-side @anniewhalelover @prentissesredtanktop @abbyshmaby @academiareid @hugyourlungs @w-windy @babybluecakes @SwaggySagieWagie@reidandhotchsgirl @lover-of-books-and-tea @star0055 @Zaapsite @daddy-dotcom @bluecandycake

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fangirl-dot-com · 5 months

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Chapter 18 - All For You

Guys, I fear this one may be worse than the last angsty one I wrote. Am I getting better or worse? – I have no clue…I’m just in a super angsty mood rn

Also, I know that it “Born to Break Records” I said that Max didn’t know about reader’s godfather passing. What I meant to say was that he didn’t know at the time when he gave reader the trophy after she won her debut f2 race. But, because reader has a special helmet for Imola since Lorenzo was Italian, she’d have to tell him about the helmet.

TW: EMOTIONAL ABUSE, HARSH LANGUAGE, SHITTY PARENTS, AND PHYSICAL ABUSE

I am prepared for the therapy bills…

How does someone write “and they swapped spit” in a romantic way?? Asking for a friend

Like always comments, questions, concerns, reblogs, and likes are always appreciated!

TAG LIST IS CLOSED

It couldn’t be them.

You blinked and stared in the direction that you had been previously looking. Your eyes narrowed as you gazed at the small crack of the garage and where the gate was. You quickly placed your special helmet down on a table and dodged mechanics as you stepped out. Mitch barely glanced at your leaving as you often went to visit other drivers before the race if you had time. And today, the parade was a bit earlier, so most of the drivers used this time to destress a bit more than usual.

As you got closer, two familiar people stood out to you. Right now, they were arguing with one of the Red Bull security guards. Your face grimaced as you could hear the shouting multiple feet away.

As you got closer, your blood ran colder. You knew it was a bad idea to come out here, but it was like a moth to a flame or even a lamb to a slaughter. You couldn’t stop your feet until you were just a few steps away.

“Mom? Dad?”

The group of three’s heads swerved toward yours. The security guard, who you recognized to be Frederik, looked at you with a questioning face. The other two looked relieved but also angry at you.

Your father rolled his eyes and pointed toward you before yelling at Fred. “See, I told you that we were her parents, now let us in,” he demanded.

Your heart dropped a bit at the statement. You were never one to stand up to your father, especially when he was already angry.

Your hear barely nodded, almost as if you were trying to even convince yourself that you were fine with them invading your life.

Fred looked over with concern.

“It’s ok Fred.”

“Are you sure kid?”

Your mother huffed. “She said it was fine. Now let us through.”

Fred sure took his sweet time to unlock the gate, something that you could find some thankfulness for.

Your mother came close to you first and wrapped you in an awkward hug: one that you did not return as it was too quick to reciprocate. Your father just stood there, with the same disappointing stare he always had.

You put your hands to the side. “What are you two doing here? Last I knew is that you wanted nothing to do with me.”

Your father rolled his eyes and your mother let out a squawk. “Is that what you’ve been telling your friends? Goodness gracious child, going around speaking lies.”

You winced at her demeaning tone.

Your father spoke next. “You make it into Formula 1 and forget everything that we did for you? How fucking pathetic.” He all but spit out the last word.

“Kid!”

Your head whipped around at lightning speed. Mitch was waving at you from the garage, a curious look on your face.

You tried to give her a smile, but it didn’t quite reach your face. “Coming!” You turned toward your parents. “You can follow me, but please do not touch anything and just stand in the corner.”

That earned another round of scoffs and groans.

“Someone has gotten bratty I see,” you mother seethed.

You paid no attention and walked back to the garage. You only knew that they followed you because you had memorized their footprints long ago when you were too scared to even get out of your room on multiple occasions. There was a difference between their normal strides, angry strides, and sneaky strides that they used when they tried to “catch” you doing something you shouldn’t have been doing – like getting an extra snack because they “forgot” to make you dinner.

You had hoped that Max, Christian, Vito, or even Mitch would be right there when you walked in, but the universe definitely hated you today. The said four were standing in a little circle, probably going over some last minute data. You had stopped in the entrance and watched them, scared that they would ask questions.

While you were watching, a rough shove was directed toward your back, sending you to the floor and making a noise. Your knees were definitely bruised now and your hands were scraped on the concrete. Max, Christian, Mitch, and Vito all turned toward the noise. You had just gotten back up and continued walking, parents behind you.

Some of the engineers had watched your father push you and were starting to question as to who he thought he was, pushing you around like that.

“Oops, didn’t see you there,” your father said.

Vito’s back straightened in defense when his eyes looked at your parents. You shot him a sorry look as he made eye contact with you.

“Ah there you are kid. We were just going over some last minute notes. Who might this be?” Christian asked, walking toward you. Right now, he was thinking that they might be some older couple that you might have known from your childhood.

Boy, was he wrong.

Your eyes glanced back at your parents and sent Christian a look, trying to communicate to him that you really didn’t want these two in the garage.

“Uh, Christian, these are my parents.” Your hands lightly raised in the air, as if to show them off.

Christian’s eyes darkened as he looked at the couple. Max behind him was mentally killing them both. Mitch was just wondering about how she could get you out of this uncomfortable situation.

“Y/n didn’t tell me that we’d be having personal guests today,” Christian said, folding his arms in a defensive pose.

You prayed that your father wouldn’t roll his eyes at your boss.

Your father only stared at the slightly taller Brit before looking at you, annoyance evident on his face. Your mother, once again, scoffed.

“Wow,” your mother let off a very fake giggle, “our own daughter didn’t tell you that we were coming? Shows you how much appreciation kids have these days.” Another fake laugh followed.

Max winced at the sight of your crest-fallen face. You looked absolutely miserable.

“Hmmm, doesn’t sound like our kid.” Christian tried to back you up.

Your mother had walked over to where you special Imola helmet was laying. She picked it up and twirled it around.

It was a beautiful piece of work. The colors of the Italian flag blended beautifully. On the side you had Lorenzo’s crest with his birthdate and death-date underneath as a tribute to him. You watched as her lip curled in disgust. But, you also saw as one of the mechanics came up and took it directly from her, telling her that no one but you or authorized personelle should be touching it.

Christian spoke up again, “Well, we are very busy right now and I need to speak to my drivers.”

But before Christian could get you away, Max stepped forward, a false smile on his lips and a hand stretched out.

“Max Verstappen, three time World Champion.’

You knew this shpeel very well. Max only said the whole title when he was over someone’s bullshit, or he knew that they were just using him for his fame.

Your father had some type of dumbstruck look as he took Max’s hand. The fuming Dutchman used this opportunity to tightly squeeze his hand, tighter than a normal handshake should have been. It made him happy to see your father wince at the grip.

Your father’s hand then came and rested on your shoulder. You tensed as his grip got much harder and harder, probably leaving yet another bruise. “My daughter has a lot to accomplish if you’re her teammate. Good thing she doesn’t have the talent to outshine you.”

You hated it when your father belittled you. He had done this multiple times in front of old friends. He was a manipulator and a narcissist. Your breath, that had been a bunch of harsh inhales and exhales, started to hitch. Clear signs of a panic attack were just around the corner. And your team could tell that you were about to possibly have a meltdown if you didn’t get out now.

Mitch finally spoke up. “We have a race in just under 30 minutes and I need to privately go over something with my drivers. Max and Y/n, please follow me. Christian, I need you as well and Vito you know what to do, we’ll be in the main driver’s room (Max’s driver room).”

Your manager gave your parents one last glare before rushing out of the Red Bull garage.

Mitch was totally bullshitting them because it was actually closer to 45 full minutes rather than less than 30.

Max held your shoulders, much lighter than your father had. He noticed your breathing had started to pick up. He sent a worried glance at the Team Principal who was currently clearing the way.

To you, it felt like your head was underwater. Everything was blurry as you looked at the world through tears, and your head felt as though it was stuffed with cotton. Your skin felt tingly and it pricked where Max’s hands were now gently holding your elbows as he guided you to the room. You could barely hear them trying to get you to calm down.

Once in the room, you had sunk to the floor and wrapped your arms around yourself, as a means of protection. Hands waved in front of your face, trying to get your attention as you stared numbly forward. Each wave shook a flinch out of your body.

A sudden inhale brought on ugly sobs as you tried to breath out apologies for things you didn’t know.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I won’t do it again. Please, please don’t hurt…me.”

Your speech was broken, along with the hearts of Max, Mitch, and Christian who watched their strong girl break down because of someone who should have loved you. Quick knocks on the door alerted the room of someone else.

You suddenly froze, not breathing, as you were thinking that your parents were about to invade yet another safe space. Yet, your vision was filled with red and familiar cologne.

Your body acted on autopilot as your arms wrapped around the familiar figure of your boyfriend.

His voice was still fuzzy as he started to rock you back and forth.

Arthur looked around at the pained faces of your teammate, race engineer, manager, and team principal as they all looked down at you.

Christian kneeled down next to the younger Monegasque. “Is there anything we can do?”

He thought for a moment. You were curled sideways in his lap. Your legs were scrunched in fetal position, arms wrapped around his bicep as you clung to him. Your head rested against his chest with your eyes still closed.

“Her blood sugar gets low after an attack, can someone find some juice?” Vito and Christian all but bolted out the door.

“Mitch can you turn off the light? And Max, please rub her back. I’d do it, but her arms are wrapped around mine.”

The lights suddenly dimmed behind your eyelids and a hand gently touched your bad, trying to see if you’d flinch. When your back didn’t tense, Max continued to apply gentle pressure and his hand moved in small circles.

A big sigh escaped your lips as you came down from your sobs. Your lungs burned with each ragged breath, but they were thankful for new oxygen.

Your eyes remained closed as you took a minute to get your bearings in order. You tried to count down in your head starting from 100, which normally helped you calm down faster. You finally cracked your eyes open and sat up a bit straighter. The hand that was soothing on your back lifted away. A whine almost escaped your lips, but you reeled it in.

Arthur took notice of your open eyes and pressed a kiss to your forehead. “How are you doing? You were out of it for a while. Much longer than usual.”

You hummed. “I’m ok. A bit…”

“Thirsty?” The voice of your manager sounded as he walked in with multiple juice boxes in his arms, Christian behind him with even more juice boxes, and a certain Monegasque driver carried a variety of snacks in his arms.

Your eyes widened with excitement as your hand reached up to grab an apple juice from Vito. Arthur quickly took it from you and pressed the straw in and held it to your lips.

“Small sips,” he reminded you. You wanted to roll your eyes, but you knew he was right.

After a couple of sips, you asked, “How long was it this time.”

Your legs finally stretched out from their crunched position.

“Almost twenty minutes,” Mitch told you, handing you an icepack to put on your head. She guessed that you may be prone to migraines after panic attacks and got you one just in case. Mitch was glad to see you take it and put it on your head immediately.

The room was silent for a moment, before Max spoke.

“Kid, what were they doing here?”

You sighed. “I thought I saw them and I went to go check it out. Turns out it was them, and I really can’t speak up against my dad when he’s angry.”

Arthur concluded, “So he bullied you into getting what he wanted?”

You winced at the word, but nodded just the same.

Christian spoke up. “I couldn’t get them kicked out of the grand prix since they had tickets, but they aren’t going to be in the garage. Do you feel all right to race today?”

“You don’t have to kid if you aren’t feeling well,” Mitch also added on.

You shook your head. “No, I want to race.”

The room knew what this weekend meant for you. When you had happily shown them your new helmet, their eyes had welled with tears as you talked about the man who loved you more than life itself.

Max, who hadn’t known until Wednesday, had given you the biggest hug when it was a good moment. You didn’t know who was comforting who at that moment, but the hug would go down in your list of top 5 hugs ever.

Arthur sensed that you wanted to stand by the way you were wiggling. He slowly helped you to his feet as he pressed another juice box into your hands. Charles quickly opened a bag of Cheetos as you stared at the orange bag.

“I ran to Logan,” he simply stated. He knew that the American was the one who always had your favorite snacks on hand. One, because it was a big American brand, and two, the blond had a soft spot for you and always kept them stocked.

You took the orange twist and happily munched on the snack. The digital clock on Max’s desk showed that there was about 10 minutes left until you needed to get into the car. You quickly finished the small bag and chugged the rest of the juice.

Christian had to step out and start heading to the pit wall. Mitch followed the older Brit so that she could get to her spot inside the garage. Max and Charles left because Max needed to go over some things with GP, while Charles had to run back to Ferrari to get into his own car.

Vito stayed behind to check on you for just a few more moments. He knew first-hand how scared your dad and mom made you feel.

Then it was just you and Arthur for a couple of minutes. Your forehead pressed against his.

“Thank you, for coming to help.”

Arthur chuckled. “You really need to stop scaring me. No flipping today, ok?”

You nodded before he pressed a gentle kiss to your lips this time. He tried his best not to smile into the kiss, but he couldn’t help it.

You gently punched his chest. “Thur, you do that every single time.”

Arthur brought you back closer. “It’s just because you make me so happy chéri.”

You gave him another peck, before you led him out of the room. He helped you put your helmet on, and did his ritual “forehead kiss” to the top of it. With your handshake also done, you climbed into your car. The mechanics who had seen you with your parents made sure that you were all right. They were met with a bright smile and a thumbs up from you.

For this race, you qualified rather high. Max had pouted because today had been a Ferrari front-row lock out. You had to remind him that he had beaten Charles before from starting father back. It seemed to pacify the Dutchman.

Starting Grid

Charles Leclerc

Carlos Sainz

Max Verstappen

Lando Norris

Y/n L/n

George Russell

Lewis Hamilton

Daniel Ricciardo

Logan Sargeant

Alex Albon

Oscar Piastri

Lance Stroll

Fernando Alonso

Yuki Tsunoda

Nico Hulkenberg

Pierre Gasly

Esteban Ocon

Valtteri Bottas

Zhou Guanyu

Kevin Magnussen

To say this would be one of your worst races (and you'd DNF-ed before), would be an understatement. Your migraine had come back and your water was completely out by the last quarter of the race. You hadn’t been able to keep Charles off for long for Max to catch up, which made Charles take the lead in the second half.

Max had also been confused as you had dropped behind him as well when you should have been your strongest.

You loved racing, but today you hated it. Your brain felt as though it was pounding with a sledge hammer against your skull.

“For the first time in almost two years, Charles Leclerc has grabbed a victory. Charles Leclerc is the winner of the 2024 Imola Grand Prix. Max Verstappen clinches second with his rookie teammate Y/n L/n right behind him to make it a 2-3 for Red Bull. They are followed by Lando Norris and Lewis Hamilton…”

Race Results

Charles Leclerc – 25 points

Max Verstappen – 18 points

Y/n L/n – 15 points

Lando Norris – 12 points

Lewis Hamilton – 11 points

Oscar Piastri – 8 points

Alex Albon – 6 points

George Russell – 4 points

Logan Sargeant – 2 points

Carlos Sainz – 1 point

Fernando Alonso

Yuki Tsunoda

Pierre Gasly

Kevin Magnussen

Nico Hulkenberg

Zhou Guanyu

Valtteri Bottas

Esteban Ocon

Lance Stroll

Daniel Ricciardo

Standings After Imola

Max Verstappen – 168 points

Charles Leclerc – 120 points

Y/n L/n – 80 points

Lando Norris – 73 points

Lewis Hamilton – 60 points

Oscar Piastri – 53 points

George Russell – 35 points

Carlos Sainz – 34 points

Alex Albon – 26 points

Fernando Alonso – 23 points

Daniel Ricciardo – 21 points

Logan Sargeant – 19 points

Lance Stroll

Pierre Galsy

Yuki Tsunoda

Zhou Guanyu

Kevin Magnussen

Nico Hulkenberg

Valtteri Bottas

Esteban Ocon

Constructors Standings

Red Bull – 248 points

Ferrari – 153 points

McLaren – 126 points

Mercedes – 95 points

Williams – 45 points

Aston Martin – 23 points

Racing Bulls – 21 points

Alpha Romeo

Haas

Alpine

When you pulled into Parc Ferme, you barely had the strength to get out of the car. You only found out that you needed to get out was when Max lightly tapped your helmet and held out a hand. You gratefully grabbed it and Max hauled you out.

“Are you ok?” he asked, with concern storming in his blue eyes. A nod of your head pacified him for now.

Your headache only got worse when you spotted your parents standing at the wall. You tried to send the team apologetic looks when you walked right past them, something you never did even if you didn’t even podium for a race. You always ran to their open arms.

You’d send them lots of coffee and gifts for their families to make up for it.

You kept your helmet on for as long as you could. It helped to damper all the loud noise of the paddock.

Max and Charles both recognized that you wanted little to no noise if possible, so they kept quiet or spoke in soft whispers if they did speak. You immediately sat down in a corner, trying to cool off and will your migraine away.

You only opened your eyes once again when you were called to the podium. You were thankful that you didn’t feel any panic as you walked out and stood on the lowest step. You watched as Max walked out and stood on the second place step before watching Charles almost skip to the top step. You giggled as you watched the Ferrari driver subtly stick his tongue out at Max. For a moment, you were scared at the repercussions but Max only smiled and rolled his eyes.

You took off your cap for the Monegasque anthem along with the Italian one. When you were handed your trophy, you gently kissed it (even though it didn’t light up) and held it to the sky while also pointing. The two older drivers watched as you looked so happy. Deep down, they wanted you to be on the top step, but your time was coming.

Max was then handed his trophy. His lips were a bit tight, but he’d get over it.

Charles was quite the opposite. You guessed that he was finally happy that his dry spell was over. A sixth career win and first in almost two years. You clapped as the red-clad driver held his trophy proudly.

Your head was still pounding, but the migraine was slowly going away. You didn’t have much strength to do your usual champagne cannon, but you still sprayed Charles as much as you could. When there wasn’t anything else to spray, you poured the rest on your teammate.

You had a giant smile on your face as you looked down at the crowd. Yet, it slowly disappeared as your eyes found your parents, looking up at you with distain clearly written on their faces. You turned to Max, who was already looking down as well.

He pointed down, though, right next to them where Christian and Geri were both standing, proud smiles on their faces as they looked up at you.

Geri was trying to communicate for you and Max to stand closer and to smile for her camera. You quickly put your hand around his waist to bring him in closer. With trophies raised and bright smiles, she held a thumbs up when she took the picture. Christian just continued to look at the two of you as though you had just won him every single race possible.

You were then assured off the podium and back to the garage.

“I promise, I’ll find you after. You know how much I hate wearing my clothes after they get sticky,” you told Max as you walked toward your drivers room.

You had barely just gotten you shirt on when your door opened and closed.

Your rolled your eyes. “You couldn’t have just waited?”

You turned, expecting either Max or your boyfriend. Yet, you were met with a slap across the face. Your cheek stung as you shakily raised a hand to touch it. A hiss left your lips when your fingers glazed your reddening cheek.

You barely had time to get try to get away, before another hand hit the side of your head, making your migraine slowly creep up again.

This time, a sob slipped through your lips as you looked at your parents, who were fuming.

“What did I do?” you tried to get out, voice cracking.

“After everything we did for you, you can only get a shitty third place?” your mother spit.

“Seriously, how fucking pathetic do you have to be. Offering up the trophy to someone who is dead?” your father questioned.

It was your turn to suddenly seethe. You pointed a finger at your dad. “He loved me. He taught me everything I know.” You knew you were pressing his buttons, and you were about to press the big red one that says Do Not Press. “He was the man that you’d never be.”

Another hit to the face had your head swinging. You knew that there would be a big bruise in the morning. But you were proud for finally standing up to him.

Your mother’s hand hit the other side of your face, sending you staggering back to your dad. You braced yourself for another hit, but it didn’t come. Your eyes opened and widened at the sight of your teammate with murder in his eyes.

Christian was behind him, on the phone, with your manager to the right, boyfriend and his brother on the left.

“You touch her one more time and you’re fucking dead,” Max spoke, scarily calm. Your father jerked to hit him, and that was game over.

Security came quickly after Max had some more colorful words and quite possibly a hit to his face so that your father’s matched yours.

Arthur had come to wrap his arms around you, as a protective barrier.

As you watched your mother and father be led out by cuffs, the news coming that they had been banned for life from any Formula 1 activity, and that Vito had now gotten you a restraining order (something he said that he should have done years ago just in case) – you knew that you had finally found the family that you had always wanted.

The family that you had always needed.

And you’d keep racing and winning, because 4 years ago, you made a promise.

To keep going and to keep fighting.

As you walked out of the garage, with a third place trophy and your helmet, you gently pressed your own kiss to the top of it.

“You’d be proud of me,” you whispered, “and it’s all for you. Because you were everything that I needed.”

y/n.89 has posted

y/n.89 Imola was an experience. Glad I could podium in my late godfather's country to make him proud. I wish he could have been standing there to watch me today, but I have three other men who are enough for me. To Christian, Max, and Vito - I love you three, thanks for always watching my back. Oh, and my boyfriend is pretty great too, he's just shy. Thank you for an amazing experience, I'll be back next year to win (Charlie move over)

tagged: christianhorner, maxverstappen1, and vito_official

liked by christianhorner, maxverstappen1, vito_official, and 94,294 others

y/n_nation I'm not sobbing, you're sobbing

kid_y/n geri and christian both smiling like proud parents killed me

maxverstappen1 why would you do this?

y/n.89 ?? charles_leclerc he's crying right now y/n.89 oh, sorry not sorry?? maxverstappen1 you will be

christianhorner I know I can't speak for him, but he'd be so proud of you kid

gerihalliwellhorner we love you sweetie! can't wait for the next family dinner! maxverstappen1 family dinner? sebastianvettel you didn't get the invite?? y/n.89 oh no christianhorner uhhhhhh charles_leclerc he's crying again

mad_max the way that in every picture, they're looking at y/n

y/n_updates aahhhh the boyfriend has been mentioned!!!

y/n.89 I can't believe we're going to the track that THEE lightning mcqueen drove on

arthur_leclerc you mean...the Monaco Grand Prix....where you live...my hometown...Charles's home race... liamlawson she said what she said - lightning mcqueen's race charles_leclerc I'm done y/n.89 LIGHTNING MCQUEEN RESPONDED TO ME???? LIAM LOOK AT THIS liamlawson I'M LOOKING charles_leclerc goodbye y/n.89 DON'T GO

f1 see you all in Monaco!

author can everyone forgive me now?

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watermelonlovershigh · 10 months

Text

Day on the Yacht Turns Baby Making on the Yacht

AN: i've had this idea ever since these photos came out and knew i had to write it. and lots of you guys did too because you ate up this concept. so here yall go. hope you enjoy.

This story contains: mentions of sea sickness, trying for a baby, having sex on a yacht, slight choking (kinda), slight biting (during the sex)

{ husband!harry - softrry - current harry era }

word count: 1,962

When you're fertility tracker goes off on the yacht to let you know that now is a good time to try for a baby, you make the excuse you feel seasick and have Harry come to the bathroom with you where he fucks you good against the counter top.

You and Harry decided one way to celebrate Love On Tour ending was to rent a yacht for the day and take it on the water with a couple of his friends and family. The day you chose to sail on the waters was beautiful. The sky was nice and blue and the Italian heat was hot but not too hot. The sight of your gorgeous husband was also making the view ten times better, but that's just your opinion.

Everyone on the yacht was having a great time. Some were laying out to tan. Others were sitting around with wine coolers, chatting to one another. Harry, being the man who brought everyone together today, was going around and trying to spread his attention.

First having a laugh with his long time Italian friends who are actually a gay married couple which you both attended their wedding three years ago. Then sitting beside his sister Gemma and her long time boyfriend, Michal. Of course Harry pays attention to you as well, asking if you're alright and bringing you another drink when you mention being parched.

About two hours into your yacht ride your phone buzzes in your hands. You didn't really have cell service in the ocean so you thought that was weird. But when you checked to see who texted you, you realized it wasn't a text. It was a notification from your fertility tracking app that tells you when you're most fertile and need to try for a baby.

See, for a few months now you and Harry have been trying to get pregnant. You knew his tour was ending in July and thought it would be the perfect time for you to settle down for a while and have a baby.

At first you just had sex willy nilly to get pregnant, but after several negative pregnancy tests, decided to download an app to help tell you when you're most fertile. Though not every time you have sex is with the sole mission of a baby. Sometimes you just have sex for simply the intimacy aspect.

Fuck, you internally curse. How the hell are you gonna fuck your husband while you're on a yacht surrounded by his friends and family. Thinking for a minute you come up with a plan. You can fake being seasick so he has an excuse to go down to the bathrooms with you and do some quick baby making without anyone batting an eye.

Knowing it's now or never, you fake grown and cry out, "Harry..."

He looks over at you from where he's sitting beside his sister and asks, "Yeah, love? What's the matter?"

Not exactly wanting the whole boat to know you're seasick, you wave him over to you. Harry gets up imidiantly and stalks over towards where you're sat on the side edge of the yacht. When he's close enough, you whine, "Just feeling a bit seasick. Can you take me to the toilets on the bottom level, please?"

"Yeah, of course, baby." Harry is quick to agree. The genuine worry on his face makes you feel bad for lying. But you know you won't feel bad in a few minutes when his cock is deep inside of you.

He takes ahold of your hand and very quickly steps over to Gemma to inform someone, "Hey, Y/N is feelin' a bit ill. M'gonna take her to the toilets. Hopefully we won't be gone long."

Gemma frowns and replies sweetly, "Awe, that's fine. Hope you feel better soon, Y/N." You mouth a "thank you" and tug Harry's arm in the direction of the stairs that lead to the bottom floor of the yacht.

While on your journey to the bathroom, Harry kindly asks, "When did you start to feel sick? You could have told me sooner and I would have seen if I could've borrowed a motion sickness pill off someone for you." How did you get so lucky to have married such a pure and sweet man.

Before you answer, you barge in the one toilet bathroom and Harry is fully ready to hold your hair back while you vomit. But instead, is taken back when you turn around and kiss his lips hard with need. "Baby....... what, thought you were gonna be sick?" he mutters confusedly against your mouth.

You pull away, breathing heavy and respond, "I lied. I needed an excuse to have you come down here with me and fuck me. Got the notification on my fertility app saying my fertile window is open and now is the best time to try and conceive. I need you to fuck me and come inside me. Right now."

Harry tosses his head back and says, "Fuck!" rather loudly. Though he is a bit uneasy about potentially getting caught having sex on this yacht, he could never pass up the opportunity to fuck his sexy wife and give her a baby. "Well, okay then. Do you need, like, warming up first or..." He's fully ready to eat you out or finger you for a minute to get you fully aroused if you needed that.

Harry's too kind sometimes. Always thinking of your wellbeing and needs. You laugh and grab his hand to lower it to the front of your swimsuit. "No, babe. Seeing you in these tight, green swim trunks has had me wet for hours, see." His fingers come in contact with your clothed wet pussy and that has him hardening right up.

"Alright, turn around and lean over the sink f'me." Harry instructs and you do as told. This yacht's bathroom is rather small but you'll make it work. You've had sex in much smaller spaces before but those are stories for another time. Harry drops to his knees and as he goes to slide your bikini bottoms down your legs, he kisses over your ass cheeks and the back of your thighs.

"Harry, we don't have time for that, just put a baby in me. Hurry." you grumble. You're far too impatient for him to tease you right now. You just need him to fuck you.

As he stands back up and drops his green swim trunks to his ankles, Harry retorts, "Alright, stop being bratty. I'll give you what you want. Know I always do, m'love." He takes ahold of his now very hard cock and gives it a few strokes to make sure its fully erect for you. When it is, he helps spread your legs how he thinks would work best for this position and leans over your back, carefully nudging his dick in your soaked hole with the guidance of his right hand.

"Ohh, Harry!" you can't help but moan while he's pushing all the way in and that causes him to slap his left hand over your mouth to silence you.

"Love," he says from behind you're body, "gotta stay quiet. Can't risk anyone hearing us." You nod your head in understanding and bite your lip to silence yourself when you feel him bottom out. Then without warning, Harry pulls his hips back, leaving just the tip inside your cunt, before slamming forward.

The hand Harry had over your mouth has moved down to your neck. Not with the intentions to necessarily choke you, though he is applying slight pressure, but more so to help you stay upright and look at yourself in the mirror. The scene of Harry fucking you from behind has got you even more turned on than before. The way his tan skin is glistening with sweat. The way his curly hair has fallen over his forehead. The way Harry is looking right into your eyes from over your shoulders in the mirror. It's all so intense.

After a couple of minutes, Harry can feel the knot in his stomach tighten and he knows he's about to come. Your tight pussy just feels so good hugging his cock. Wanting to see if you were up there with him, he questions in heavy pants, "Are you close? M'bout to come. Just feels so - fuckin' - good, Y/N!"

You nod and squeak out, "Yeah, I'm close too, H." Knowing you may need a little bit of extra help, he takes his right hand that he had stationed on your hip for stability and reaches in front of you until he finds your clit. When he does, he begins rubbing the nerve in tight circles and that's exactly what pushes you over the edge. That and his cock rubbing against your g-spot from this angle. You nearly fall forward because as you come your legs give out and if Harry wasn't pressed up behind you, you're sure you would have collapsed onto the boats floor.

"Ah, God!!!" you gasp while waves of pleasure roll through your body. Your orgasm triggers Harry's and he shoots his load as deep as he can inside of you. His hips falter their movements and he has to bite down on your shoulder to quiet himself from the moans he's dying to let out.

Slowly, everything comes to a stop and you're both left sweaty and panting for air in this small yacht bathroom. Harry carefully removes his hand from your throat and you slowly start to lean forward over the counter top again. The movement causes you to accidently pulse around his softening cock and he curses in slight pain. "Fuckin' hell."

"Sorry, sorry." you repeat out of breath and Harry shushes you by gently responding, "It's alright. Gonna pull out now and then I'll help you up on the counter so my cum doesn't drip on the floor." You nod and Harry carefully pulls his dick out your pussy and turns you around to lift you up on the small countertop beside the sink.

Now face to face, Harry can't help but to lean forward and plant a kiss to your lips. The kiss stays soft and airy. But knowing people above is bound to become concerned with how long you've been down here, you whisper, "Love you. Thank you for coming down here with me and I hope we made a little baby. Can't wait for our family to grow."

Harry nearly cries and gets hard again at the same time with all this baby talk. "Y/N, no need to thank me. Love you so much and would do anything to give us a baby. Even if that means break away from my friends and family to fuck my wife in a yacht's bathroom in the Italian ocean."

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

Harry helped you get cleaned up and properly dressed again as well as redress himself. Then you both walk hand in hand back up to the top deck again where everyone looks at you with concern. Gemma's the first to come up to you and asks, "Feeling better, love? You can have a sickness pill if you need one? I always bring extra."

Feeling bad for everyone's genuine concern on your sea sickness but also happy you weren't actually sea sick, you decline, "Oh, no thank you. I'm feeling much better now. Your brother is a great doctor."

Everyone continues to have a great time. Laughing and enjoying the summer sun. Until Brad, Harry's friend and personal trainer comes up behind you and gasps, "Y/N, why is there a bite mark on your shoulder? Are you alright?" Your eyes go wide and Harry who heard the entire interaction goes pale in front of you. To the point he looks as though he may actually get sea sick.

"Um, um.." you stutter. Well fuck, how do you explain they're your husbands teeth marks from where he bit your shoulder to conceal his moans while coming inside of you to give you a baby.

(PLEASE REBLOG BECAUSE WRITING IS NOT EASY AND IT'S FREE SO JUST DO IT)

(no more tags are allowed because i've hit my number limit. sorry : ( )

tag list: @one-sweet-gubler // @harryscherrysugar // @hsfanficsrecss // @lollypopsx // @harrycanyonmoonn // @itfeelslikemytherapisthatesme // @damnasstyles // @mrsstylesharry // @softmullet // @meetmyblondemuffins // @thegirlnextdoorssister // @stanleystyles // @haarrrys // @michellekstyles // @skyangel57 // @the-gardener-31 // @lhharrylilpumpkin // @yousunshine-youtemptress // @clairestylessss // @kissmyaxe14 // @goldenmelonsugar-hi // @kaitieskidmore97 // @florencepughily // @alienorknight //@dancearoundthelivingroom // @swiftmendeshoran

// @luv-flor7777 // @alohastyles-x // @tenaciousperfectionunknown // @sleutherclaw // @siredtohybrid // @whoscamila // @a-strange-familiar // @golden-elodie // @mrspeacem1nusone // @goldenkhae // @lntwithharry // @shadowygladiatorlight // @manifestrry //@mendesblurb // @sunshinemoonsposts // @depersonalizationsucks // @academiaghost // @zendayassimp // @reveriehs // @vsnnstuff // @dancinsunflowerkiwi // @quinnsgrapejuice // @walkingintheheartbreaksatellite // @justlemmeholdyou // @stylesmygucci // @hsonlyangelxo // @luvonstyles // @howdey

______________

My Masterlist Masterpost

#harry styles #harry styles smut #harry styles fan fiction #harry styles fan fic #husbandrry #husband!harry #softrry #soft!harry #harry styles yacht smut #harry styles yacht #harry styles fluff

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supercalliefragelistic · 4 days

Note

could i request emily x polyglot!reader? someone finds out r can speak multiple languages, so naturally derek challenges her and em to see who can speak the most languages

so emily and r get into a language competition (?) and the 2 make a bet of whoever wins, gets a special prize from the loser *wink wonk* pls? it starts with innocent foreign banyer then ends up gettin dirtier if that makes sense? top!em pls 😊

thank u for reading, if ur not comfortable its all good! :D

hi anon!! thank you for the request <3 this is a super good idea, i was very excited to write it. it kind of morphed from your request a bit, but the main idea is still there. i do want to specify that i am by no means fluent or even proficient in any of the languages used in this fic (besides english 😭) because let’s be real— 4 years of spanish did *not* stick with me, so i used quite a bit of google translate. you might want to keep it handy too! i hope you enjoy :)

p.s. this is my first fic in a very very long time, please be kind <3

love language

emily prentiss x fem!reader

rating: 18+ MDNI

warnings: smut, cursing, oral (r receiving), fingering, dom!emily, i think that’s it?

w.c.: 1.3k

It was a long day for the members of the BAU. Back-to-back-to-back cases on short amounts of sleep were starting to wear on the team, and it didn’t help that the current case was stumping them.

“Oh, look at this, guys,” Morgan says, showing a picture from the newest crime scene. “Looks like there’s some writing in another language.”

You drop your head into your hands, taking a deep breath as you try to reset yourself and focus on the case.

“Looks like French, where’s Emily?” JJ asks.

You study the picture for a second before speaking up. “Dire la vérité— tell the truth.”

Morgan’s eyes cut to you. “Y/N, you speak French? And really, where is Prentiss?”

You’re about to respond as the door opens and Emily walks in from the bathroom. “Emily, did you know Y/N speaks French?”

Her face is surprised. “Huh. I didn’t. What else are you keeping from us?” She jokes.

Your eyebrows raise and you smile. “I speak a little bit more than French,” you say, not wanting to brag.

“What other languages do you speak?” Reid asks curiously.

“Well, French, and also Spanish, German, and Italian. Mostly Romance languages,” you say.

“Here’s a challenge,” Derek says. “Which one of you can speak in a different language for the longest?”

“¿Cómo no sabía que eras políglota?” Emily asks, effectively starting the competition.

“Nunca surgió en la conversación,” you respond plainly.

She laughs. “¡Podríamos haber estado teniendo conversaciones secretas todo este tiempo!”

“¿Qué tipo de conversaciones secretas te gustaría tener, Prentiss?” You say, raising an eyebrow.

She blushes slightly, flustered. She switches to French, trying to keep you on your toes. “Eh bien, je ne sais pas. Des trucs qu'on ne veut pas que Morgan écoute.” Her eyes flit to Morgan’s as she mentions him and he looks confused.

“What are the two of you talking about? And what are you saying about me?” He asks, looking between you and Emily.

You let out a small chuckle. “Tu ne veux juste pas que Derek m'entende te traiter de jolie et qu'il devienne jaloux, hmm?”

“This is all well and good, but shouldn’t we be getting back to the case?” Reid interjects.

“Yes, definitely,” you say, straightening your hair and pulling yourself back into focus mode.

After some more discussion on the use of a foreign language at the crime scene, the team decides to break for lunch. You take a quick trip to the bathroom and end up washing your hands at the same time as Emily.

“So, what was that?” She asks.

You’re caught off guard. “What was what?”

“You think I’m pretty,” she replies. “You told me I’m pretty in French. What was that about?”

You stammer a bit. “Well, I do think you’re pretty, Emily. I think you’re beautiful,” you admit.

“It’s interesting,” she says, stepping closer to you and placing a hand on your waist. “You speak three romance languages, and while it’s not the same meaning, you picked the most romantic language to compliment me in. Even if I couldn’t tell from the long glances and the way your heart is pounding right now, that alone would’ve told me what I’m pretty sure I know,” she finishes, looking you dead in the eyes.

Her hand is heavy on your waist and your mind is racing. “And what do you know?”

Emily’s other hand trails from your shoulder to your jaw and pulls your chin up so you’re forced to look in her eyes. “You have feelings for me,” she states.

You hold her gaze for a second. “I hate profilers.” There’s a noticeable tension between the two of you before Emily smirks at you. You feel yourself inching closer to her and then you’re pressing your lips to hers. She reciprocates the kiss without hesitation, and you feel her hands pull you in by your hips.

The kiss gets broken and Emily rests her forehead on yours as you catch your breath. Your eyes meet and you share a smile. “Embrasse-moi encore, s'il te plaît,” you say softly.

“Oui chérie,” she replies, already leaning into kiss you again. Her lips meet yours in a passionate kiss and she pushes you up against the door of the bathroom. She flips the lock of the door. Emily doesn’t want anyone interrupting.

Emily’s breath was warm against your neck as she kissed the tender skin. Pulling the collar of your shirt aside, she sucks a deep purple mark into your collar bone, drawing soft whines from you. “Shhh baby, don’t want the others to hear you, right?” She says, kissing the skin she marked soothingly.

She switches languages again and whispers in your ear. “¿Que quieres, hermosa?”

You meet her eyes and can feel the lust practically radiating off of Emily. “Want you to touch me,” you respond.

Within seconds, she’s on the floor in front of you, unzipping your slacks. Her fingers trace you through your panties. “You’re soaked, baby,” she says.

“For you,” you say, bracing your hands on the wall behind you as she teases you.

Emily pulls your panties down and rests your leg on her shoulder as her fingers find your clit. It’s almost electric, the way she rubs tight circles into the bundle of nerves. “Emily,” you moan out her name.

Her ministrations stop, causing you to whine out again at the loss of contact. “What did I tell you? Not a sound, or I’ll stop completely.”

You nod, covering your mouth with one hand as Emily runs her tongue through your wet cunt. She groans at the taste. “You’re fucking delicious,” she says, voice deep and dripping with arousal. It’s nearly impossible to stay quiet as her lips close around your clit, teeth gently scraping, making your legs tremble.

Your hands find a home tangled in Emily’s hair as you hold her face close. Her tongue slides back from your clit to your entrance. Your teeth clamp down against your lower lip as Emily’s tongue plunges inside of you. Her face is wet with your slick as she tongue fucks you, the sight alone bringing you close to the edge.

Emily then licks back through your cunt, sucking on your clit as she pushes a finger inside of you. Clouded in pleasure, you can’t focus on anything except the need to cum as she adds another finger and your walls are clenching around her. “Squeezing me so good baby, you want to cum?” she asks.

Your head nods frantically. “Yes— please, wanna cum,” you say breathily.

Emily curls her fingers up to press against that spongy spot inside of you. “Cum for me,” she commands, returning to suck at your clit as she hits your G-spot over and over again.

Your body shakes as she sends you over the edge of your orgasm. Her name is falling from your lips in a quiet whisper as you soak her fingers and face.

“You did so good for me,” she says, standing up and kissing your temple.

Catching your breath feels difficult, but you begin to fix your clothes and look presentable.

“Это было так хорошо, озорная девчонка,” Emily says, fixing her lipstick in the bathroom mirror.

“You may have just rocked my world, Prentiss, but I did not gain the ability to speak Russian,” you laugh.

The two of you make eye contact in the mirror, which starts you both up laughing, when a knock sounds from the door. You freeze, flushing in embarrassment.

Emily unlocks the bathroom door, opens it, and finds an impatient JJ awaiting you. “What are the two of you doing? We have an unsub to catch,” she says, turning around and heading back to the rest of the team.

Emily throws you a wink and follows after JJ.

You’re pretty positive this isn’t going to be a one-time thing.

#emily prentiss smut #emily prentiss x reader #emily prentiss x you #emily prentiss x y/n #emily prentiss fanfiction #emily prentiss #criminal minds #emily prentiss cm #emily prentiss criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds smut

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hotsinglesmusic · 13 days

Text

warframe is so weird because

You are always running into a thing you haven't tried out yet

"The sprimblaya is soo op! Its super boring to use, has a 10 minute reload time and stuns everyone in a 5 mile radius whenever i use it but damage number big so its meta"

"The three letters on this coaster have extreme lore implications"

Running into a glitch while in a squad and apologizing to each other about it

"look at my cool stalker fashionframe, I think it looks really cool" (it's just pitch black and violently saturated red)

Some random guy in region chat complaining about how he can't say words anymore, he will also use Grendel as shorthand for fat shaming seemingly unaware of what he's doing

Certain warframes/builds that can just completely change the game (Grendel, Speedva, Titania, Yareli, Zephyr)

Solaris United rank 5

Someone living out their entire game in character as their operator oc, making social media posts in character, extremely dedicated to saying everything in character. Their fashion also usually looks like a skyrim mod (sometimes they do it in third person and speak about their operator like it's their little virtual pet)

"look at my cool fashionframe, i did the newer thing but prime" (it's just white and violently yellow gold)

Some random person in relay chat offering blowjobs in exchange for an affinity blessing

Spending more time customizing shit/optimizing builds than you spend playing the game

"look at my cool fashionframe" (Their philosophy seems to be that every single customization slot needs to be filled by something or they will die)

Dropping into a lobby where two players frantically type brazilian portuguese/italian/etc in the chat and you don't understand the language but you understand enough to think that they might be making fun of you

Some random person in region chat saying the horniest shit imaginable

"look at my cool fashionframe" (it actually looks insanely good except the item they used is something you simply cannot get even if you wanted to pay $40000 for it)

Playing the most immersive, best quest ever only to find out that you are physically incapable of beating the archons and you have to teach your little brother how to play warframe just to finish the quest

I can go on and I will

#warframe #idk

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hysteria-things · 3 months

Note

I need a 3rd part with Nate soooo bad

SINFUL DESIRES (part three)

read part one here

read part two here

read part four here

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: nate x reader

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: you’re going on a date this weekend! oh, and the date is your arch nemesis… so you say.

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: FLUFF, swearing, friendly banter

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 704

𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: second anon i kid you not i wrote this in the afternoon and had it in my drafts to post later and when i saw that in my inbox i was gobsmacked LMAO

ANYWAY thank you sm and here is the awaited part three💕

the mirror placed on the wall next to your front door has your reflection on it as you fix up your hair and lipgloss.

you still cannot fathom that you’re going on a date with nathan doe.

well, he didn’t want to admit that it was a date. he said — and quote — “we should go get something to eat this weekend. dress fancy, too!”

the ringing of the doorbell echoes through the foyer, and you give one last peek at yourself before opening the door.

nate’s dressed in a white dress shirt, black dress pants, and shoes. he has a small bouquet of tulips in his hand, your favorite flowers ever since you were little.

he remembered.

his eyes scan your body that’s hugged with a sage green dress that has some poof to it, daisies embroidered on it. the sleeves are off the shoulders, and gold jewelry decorates your ears and neck. “well, well, well. look who came to their enemy’s doorstep holding presents. how thoughtful.”

“oh, shut up. i’m here to pick you up for our date.”

his hand never left your thigh as he drove to the restaurant, and you hate to admit that the feeling made you blush.

he opens the door for you, and you step out to admire the exterior. the lights around it are dim and the colors of the building are warm earthy colors. it’s definitely an italian restaurant. also your favorite ever since you were a kid.

he remembered that, too.

the hostess brings you guys to the table, and you get settled as the both of you look through the menus.

“you look very beautiful tonight,” he says, peeking at you from above the menu since they're bigger than your heads.

you hide your smile with a lip bite. “thank you. you look handsome.”

he chuckles, tapping your foot from under the table. the waiter comes over, places your orders, and takes the menus.

nate leans on the table to admire you, smiling as you start talking. “do you know what we should do after this?”

“what should we do, pretty?”

man. that nickname’s starting to grow on you.

you grin. “we should go to barnes and noble. i need more books.”

“you don’t need more books.” he rolls his eyes. “nerd alert.”

he lets out a sound of pain when you kick him under the table. “nate, please? for me?” you give him puppy dog eyes along with a fake pout.

he crosses his arms. “we’re not going to fucking barnes and noble.”

you went to barnes and noble. you drag nate behind you by the pinky, smiling when the whiff of books hits you.

you go over to the young adult section, skimming through them to find a book that’ll interest you.

he’s leaning against the bookshelf, staring in awe. he doesn’t understand how one can love books so much, but it’s okay because it’s you.

when you find a book you like, you go over to the counter. “hello!” you greet, placing the object on the counter.

the cashier scans it, tapping a few buttons on the screen in front of her. “that’ll be $21.00.”

you go to reach for your card, but hear a BEEP and look up, seeing nate’s card inserted into the machine. “you already paid for dinner.” you say lowly.

he nudges you with his arm, taking out his card. “do you have a pen by chance?” he asks the woman, using his hand to portray a writing motion.

she gives one to him, and he moves you so you’re behind him. he starts to write something in your book, and you jump to try to look over his shoulder. it’s no use.

“na—”

“thank you.” he smiles, giving the pen back and grabbing your book. “let’s go.”

when you guys get comfortable in the car, you sigh. “what’d you write in it?”

he stares deep into your eyes, taking the book off of his lap and handing it to you without saying another word.

you hesitantly open it, and a small message written in blue pen is revealed on the inside cover.

y/n,

will you officially be my girlfriend?

circle one:

yes or yes

𝐭𝐚𝐠 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭!

@bunbunbl0gs @lexisecretaccx @thy-mission @angelic-sturniolos111 @sophssturn @mattsneezing @janiellasblog @blahbel668 @meg-sturniolo @hearts4chris @mattslolita @sturnbaby @imwetforyourmom @tillies33ssss @sturnifyed @mayhem-72 @ripmattitude @p1xieswrld @alorsxsturn @txssvx @sttzee @multiluvr @delilahprentiss @matthewsspecial @idkhowtosleep @sturniolho @suga-daddy-69 @tworosesblackthorn @luckistar-posts

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chibrary · 1 month

Text

Some at the team knew he was the man for the job, but Charles Leclerc's procurement of a seat relied on a neat bit of manoeuvring in order for their boss to agree to a deal.

We're not talking here about the delay that followed Sergio Marchionne's death before Leclerc gained a 2019 Ferrari Formula 1 drive, rather his maiden season of car racing in the '14 Formula Renault ALPS series.

Fortec Motorsport engineer Martin Young knew all about the talents of the 16-year-old Monegasque driver.

"My background is in karting," he explains. "I used to work for the factory teams in Italy. I knew the drivers to watch from karting would be Max Verstappen, Ben Barnicoat and Charles Leclerc, and Fortec wanted to run teams in Eurocup, NEC and ALPS."

It's worth explaining here that in those days Formula Renault 2.0 operated as a pyramid structure, with the Eurocup at the top, and the Dutch-promoted Northern European Cup and Italian-run ALPS series as the base. Fortec was already established in Eurocup and NEC, but was venturing into ALPS for the first time.

"At the time it looked like Verstappen would be doing Eurocup, and we had Ben signed for NEC," continues Young. "I spoke to Jamie Dye [Fortec managing director] and said that if we wanted to move forward in ALPS we needed to get Leclerc.

"We did a test day at Motorland [Aragon] and we sort of lied about his times - we'd put Charles up against a lot of experienced drivers, so he was 1.2-1.3 seconds off - so that Richard [Dutton, team principal] would stay interested in giving him a bit of a deal. Richard was asking, 'Is he really good?', and we said, 'Yeah, we know he's really good.'"

Barnicoat, now a factory McLaren GT racer, was already familiar with Leclerc - as a Racing Steps Foundation protege, he was part of the ART Grand Prix line-up in international karting in 2012 and '13, while Leclerc belonged (and still does) to the All Road Management stable of ART shareholder Nicolas Todt.

"I had two years as team-mate to him in karting," says Barnicoat. "The first year I was directly racing with him, and in the second he went into gearbox [KZ] karts. He was one of the best team-mates I ever had, if not the best. A great guy.

"That first year, Charles won the WSK series and I won the European championship - that was up against the likes of Verstappen, so the competition was extremely high. I feel sort of left out!

"He had a bit more track knowledge so in the first half of the year he was beating me, but then we pushed each other really hard and that worked for the team - we got a lot from that.

"Looking at how good he is, it's nice to know I beat him on occasions, to know that I had the talent and ability to do that."

Fortec was one of the teams that tested Verstappen, and was also eyeing a deal with another talented karter: George Russell, whose plan was to combine Renault ALPS with what was then BRDC Formula 4.

Russell, who now is on course to succeed Leclerc as Formula 2 champion, eventually joined Prema Powerteam for ALPS, but that deal fell over on the eve of the season and he secured a last-minute berth at Koiranen GP.

"We wanted George; we tried to sign him," says Dutton of what could have been a mighty line-up had Russell joined Leclerc. "But he signed for Prema and then [Lawrence] Stroll [who had taken a majority shareholding in Prema] stopped him from going there."

"Me and Charles were testing for Fortec," says Russell, "and at the same time Verstappen was there with Josef Kaufmann Racing, I think. We were in talks with Fortec, but we decided to sign with Prema."

When it's pointed out what a mega line-up that would have been alongside Leclerc, Russell laughs: "In hindsight that could have worked out better for me than Koiranen. That [the late Prema split] put us in the shit a little bit, and three weeks before the first race I didn't have a deal. We took the gamble on Koiranen."

Autosport reminds Dutton of an awards evening over the 2013-14 winter when, asked about Russell, he said: "We've got someone even better - a lad from Monaco..."

"It was really quite a late deal," recalls Dutton. "He missed most of the winter-test programme. But you just knew he was the real deal. In and out of the car he knew what he wanted. In lots of ways he reminded us of Verstappen when we tested him."

Young confirms that the sum total of Leclerc's pre-season mileage was four days at Aragon, and two at Barcelona, before going straight into the pre-weekend test for the Imola opener.

"The first three race weekends his experience was a bit low," says Young, "but as soon as he got on the podium he was there every weekend.

Leclerc went on to finish runner-up to the flying - and experienced - Nyck de Vries in the ALPS points, with two race wins at Monza under his belt, but perhaps the more impressive performances came in his three 'wildcard' outings in the Eurocup. The first was at Spa, one week before the Belgian track's ALPS round.

"He was 30th in qualifying at the Eurocup," says Dutton. "We changed everything - we couldn't understand what the hell was going on. One week later he qualified third for ALPS. That was really, really special."

In his next Eurocup outing, Leclerc took a fifth and a second at the Nurburgring, and in his final one he took a brace of seconds at the Hungaroring.

"I was looking after Matt Parry and Jack Aitken in Eurocup," says long-time Fortec driver coach Matt Howson. "I'd heard [Leclerc] was something maybe a bit special, but you hear that all the time, and wait until you see it yourself.

"Usually you understand the driving style straight away - what's good, what's bad - and the thing with Charles is it didn't matter whether there was understeer or oversteer, he seemed to deliver a lap time."

The cerebral approach of Leclerc and engineer Young frustrated Howson at the Nurburgring.

"He'd never seen the place, and there were only two 45-minute [test] sessions, and furthermore Martin was determined to try things on the car," says Howson.

"I said, 'Don't do it, leave him out'. He was last in the second session, and then he was P3 on the grid for the second race - that's unheard of in Eurocup [for a newcomer]. Renault is a very finicky formula, and it all has to come together to deliver results, but Charles seemed impervious to everything.

"Based on that first year, I knew he was a little bit special. Whenever he was tested in Eurocup, he defied his experience. That's a marker - that you can break all the accepted rules."

Talking about that Nurburgring episode, Young says: "That literally sums up Charles Leclerc. That year we were struggling in Eurocup, and I said I'd come in with Charles and we'd do some testing. Going into qualifying he'd never run new tyres, but he went from last to the front. Nothing ever fazed him."

In Young's view, he also compared favourably to Lando Norris, who tested FRenault cars with Fortec in 2014 before his first steps into single-seaters: "I worked with Lando towards the end of the year, and Lando eventually got to the same point [as Leclerc] but needed a lot of testing, but Charles could just get in and drive. It was second nature to him."

Russell took a distant fourth in the ALPS standings, although he did claim the 2014 BRDC F4 title.

"With Nyck winning the championship it didn't make any sense to me, but I think at the time there were a few dodgy chassis around," he says. "When I tested Nyck's car it was extremely different in terms of characteristics. I wasted a season there, but it was character-building."

He also suffered from chicken pox that caused him to miss the Monza round, where Leclerc took his two wins.

"I didn't think it affected me at the time, but I struggled a bit for no reason in the following few F4 races," says Russell. "It was quite severe - I've still got some bad scars. I put my family off their dinner a few times!"

But Russell trumped Leclerc by joining Tech 1 Racing for the final Eurocup round at Jerez as a wildcard - and winning: "I got my self-confidence back a bit, jumped in that car and won."

Both Russell and Leclerc had initially targeted a full season in Eurocup in 2015, but such were their reputations by the end of '14 that each went to the Formula 3 European Championship, Russell with Carlin, and Leclerc with Van Amersfoort Racing.

Fortec tried to hang on to Leclerc for F3. "We tried so hard to get him for F3, but we lost him to VAR," says Dutton. "We did some tests with him in the F3 car and he was straight on the pace. At Silverstone he was quickest of everybody there, and then we went to Valencia with him and we had a nightmare with mechanical issues. I think that didn't do us any good."

All who worked or raced with Leclerc agree about his qualities as a man.

"Of all the drivers in F1 who've come through us, Charles is the one who gets [guest] passes for the British Grand Prix," says Dutton. "He had Martin [Young] and Jamie [Dye] there this year the whole weekend, in Sauber hospitality. He's a proper guy."

"I still speak to Charles every week or so on various topics," adds Young, who attended Leclerc's initial grand prix free practice outings in 2016. "He's still exactly the same person."

Barnicoat, who is one of the drivers for the McLaren hot laps at F1 events, bumps into Leclerc regularly.

"When we raced against each other in Renault there was quite a lot of rivalry from what we'd had in karting," says the Briton, who added three 'wildcard' ALPS outings as direct team-mate to Leclerc to his title-winning NEC campaign.

"But it would have been nice to get more direct comparisons. In 2013, when we were in karting, I went to the grand prix with him in Monaco and stayed on his uncle's boat, and had a really good time. We spent a lot of time together, and although we were rivals we helped each other out. He was a good friend of mine and still is."

Leclerc is also resilient. "Jules Bianchi came to the Hungaroring Eurocup round to mentor him," says Howson, "and I understood then how close they were. After that incident [for Bianchi] and his father [who died in mid-2017], he's probably been tested off track more than anyone else, but it's not bled over into anything on track.

"He's incredibly mature. He's relatively introverted - he doesn't come in and make lots of noise, but he's polite, considerate and always looks you in the eye when he talks to you. It doesn't matter whether he's got loads of cameras on him, he'll always come over for a chat."

Russell, meanwhile, is "100%" sure that Leclerc will flourish at Ferrari.

"Charles is one of a handful of others I put in the best-of-the-best group," he says. "In my opinion he absolutely deserves his chance at Ferrari. He's got the speed and the talent, and I'm excited to see how he fares next year. I've no doubt that he will be competitive."

#series:f1 #year:2018 #driver:george #driver:ben.barnicoat #format:article

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ugh-yoongi · 1 year

Text

the retreat | jhs

(or, the one where namjoon just wants hoseok to take care of himself, but then there's a fake relationship, only one bed, a guy who doesn't talk, and maybe a weird cult.)

✤ pairing: hoseok x f. reader ✤ genre: childhood bf2l, fake dating-ish au; crack, fluff, smut ✤ rating: explicit. minors do not interact. ✤ warnings: there is a lot of talk about food and eating in here, so i would not suggest reading this if you are sensitive to those kinds of triggers. tropes galore! side taegi. 5th muster jimin from that one vcr. hobi is pansexual and i do not wanna hear from the weirdos during pride month, or ever. he is a millionaire tho so he's not off the hook. a slight astrological dragging. a strained mother-daughter relationship. the smut is not super explicit or detailed but warnings are as follows: kissing, oral sex (f. receiving), biting, hair pulling, hobi may or may not rip a pair of underwear, fingering, protected vaginal sex. a brief but canonical breaking-the-fourth-wall appearance by park bogum. beta'd by me, so any mistakes are my own. ✤ wordcount: 19.6k ✤ thank you: @the-boy-meets-evil, as always, for the encouragement and reading every draft of this. @hot-soop for both the astrological advice and advice in general. @effortandmore for reading this over recently and telling me it was worth finishing. i would get absolutely nothing done without the three of you. ✤ author's note: i was supposed to have this posted for jess's birthday two years ago. we're not gonna talk about that, because this just means i'm a month early for this year. happy early birthday, jess! anyway~ this is basically a 20k love letter to jung hoseok bc i miss him. i hope you enjoy it.

Jung Hoseok is overworked.

(He’s also filthy rich, the proud owner of not one but two Lamborghinis [that he doesn’t even drive], and smiling on the cover of Forbes. He has a top floor penthouse in the most expensive high-rise in the city and a vacation home along the Italian coast. When he needs to go on a business trip, his driver takes him straight to the tarmac where he boards a private plane. His tailor just sends him clothes now, the cost of dressing Jung Hoseok far outweighed by the dozens of other filthy rich men who flock to his store to buy whatever he’s wearing.)

Jung Hoseok is also going to have a stroke and die before the age of 30, because what’s a little money at the expense of his mental well-being and cardiac health?

“All things considered, it wouldn’t be the worst way to go out,” he argues, clammy palms flat on his expensive desk. Rosewood, because not only is he a millionaire, he’s a millionaire with taste. None of that monochromatic minimalist bullshit for him, thank you.

In front of him, Kim Namjoon also looks to be on the verge of a stroke. Not of the same variety. Namjoon is paid well because he works for Hoseok and Hoseok insists on it. None of that heartless, dickhead-to-everyone, impossible-to-work-for CEO reputation for him, either, thank you.

Namjoon is also a militant vegan and has twenty-six plants and one bonsai on his desk named Bonnie. He insists on spending his lunch breaks in Hoseok’s office, lecturing him on the benefits of plant-based diets and exercise and meditation. Despite his perpetual smile and sunny demeanor, no one else speaks to Hoseok this way, but Namjoon does. Absolutely doesn’t give a shit.

“It absolutely would be the worst way to go out. Have you even been listening to me?”

Hoseok sighs and closes the symptoms of a stroke tab in his browser. “I always listen to you, Namjoon, I just don’t always listen.” A smart choice, too, judging by the swamp-colored sludge Namjoon has in a glass container, because he doesn’t use plastics.

Following his boss’s line of sight, Namjoon frowns. “It’s a pitaya bowl. Don’t look at it like that.”

“It looks radioactive,” Hoseok says, face contorted in a wince. “Like it’s going to become sentient and sprout six arms.”

Namjoon scoffs. “If it does, I hope it uses all six of them to slap the shit out of you.”

“I could pay it to spare me,” Hoseok insists, chin jutting out indignantly.

One of the reasons Hoseok had all but demanded HR hire Namjoon—despite there being a plethora of other candidates who were just as qualified and nowhere near as hell-bent on him taking care of himself—was his grit and determination. He’d showed up two hours early to his interview and steamed his suit jacket in the employee bathroom. It was completely insane and even more neurotic, but Hoseok had been taken with him immediately.

Now, it seems that determination and hard-headed nature is coming back to bite Hoseok in the ass.

“Oh, yeah? You’re gonna pay your blood to not get cut off from your brain and your heart, too? Well, good for you, Hobi. I heard blood has even started taking American Express. You’re in luck—”

Unable to take anymore, Hoseok groans and waves his arms to cut him off. “Okay, I get it! God, why did I hire you? Your desk alone has to be violating at least fourteen different health codes. Your office is humid. Do you know how impossible that is to achieve outside of a greenhouse?”

“You hired me because I’m good at my job and I’m not afraid of you, so I have no issue slapping your fourth double bacon cheeseburger of the day out of your greasy, on-the-brink-of-dying hands. Christ, you act like it’d actually kill you to eat a vegetable for once.”

Hoseok squawks. “Hey! That definitely didn’t come up in the interview, and I have never eaten four cheeseburgers in a day. Stop being hyperbolic.”

“Speaking of things that start with hyper- and have a Bin them, hyperbaric therapy is great for people with infections from oxygen-starved tissue—”

“Is this what you do all day? You just sit on the internet and search for diseases I could potentially die from and then you come in here and harass me about them?”

Namjoon’s face, which had previously been scrunched up in righteous indignation, smooths over into something far more serious. (He doesn’t even have wrinkles. Namjoon’s skincare routine must be immaculate.)“Someone has a stroke every forty seconds in this country, Hoseok. I wouldn’t joke about this.”

Well, okay. Every forty seconds is far more often than Hoseok had been expecting. Not that he thinks about stroke statistics often, and definitely not outside of Namjoon’s overbearing presence—but, in his defense, it’s not like he’s had much of a reason. He gets a physical and routine blood work done every year and his doctor has never rung any alarm bells, so why would he?

But the resolution with which Namjoon is hammering away at this is definitely giving him pause.

It doesn’t go unnoticed by him, either. “See, you are concerned! Look, you’re far more likely to stick with something if you don’t overwhelm yourself, so let’s start small, okay? One salad per day. And a real salad, Hoseok—not one of those ones loaded with cheese and bacon and drenched in ranch dressing.”

Hoseok’s jaw snaps closed. “Then what’s the point of eating a salad?”

“To prevent you from dying before your thirtieth birthday. We’ve already established this.”

“Okay,” Hoseok drawls, “but it’s not the salad’s fault if that happens. You shouldn’t take it out on him.”

Namjoon gags. “Leave it to me to work for a man who thinks salads are male.” He casts his gaze skyward. “Please, Lord, if you’re listening, please put me out—”

“Please put me out of my misery first,” Hoseok interjects, also staring at the ceiling. Then, with a leveled glare, he says to Namjoon, “Fine. State your terms.”

“Really?” Namjoon asks, having the audacity to look shocked.

“Yeah, if it’ll get you off my back. I can’t spend one more lunch break in here with you.”

Namjoon smiles. Nothing friendly, either—it’s purely sinister and mocking. Then he says, “Great success!” in a horrible impersonation of Borat and the moment’s gone, lost to the stagnant air conditioning of Hoseok’s office.

Unsurprisingly, Namjoon’s terms include a lot of vegetables.

Hoseok has a private chef, of course, so it’s not like he has to really do much other than smile through the pain. But, really, would it actually kill him to be allowed a steak or some lamb skewers? What had started off as salads for lunch has turned into a full-blown war between the two of them. Hoseok had shown up with cheese and bacon on his salad one time and Namjoon nearly went off the rails, performing a very enthusiastic speech about how Hoseok cannot be trusted when left to his own devices, so here they are.

Namjoon’s trying his hardest to crack Hoseok, and Hoseok wouldn’t have become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company by the age of twenty-eight if he were so easily cracked.

So, yeah, here they are. Locked in a stalemate like two idiot deer with their antlers tangled together, except instead of feuding over territory or a mate, they’re ready to spear one another over vegetables.

Darwin would have a lot to say about this.

On Friday, at exactly one-o’clock on the dot, Namjoon barges into Hoseok’s office and slaps a stapled-together pile of papers onto his desk. “New terms.”

“Oh, no thank you,” Hoseok replies airily. “I’m not much of a Dua Lipa fan.”

“Wha—that’s ‘New Rules.’”

“Is it?” Hoseok’s smiling, eyebrows raised in that way that makes him look super charming and innocent.

Namjoon isn’t fooled, though. “Cut it out. I saw you eating ribs under your desk the other day. You owe me this.”

Not much shocks Hoseok, but being outed like this so brazenly sure does. “How did you know about that?”

“Uh, did you forget your office walls are made out of glass?” Namjoon twirls a finger in a circle, as if to say look at your four glass walls, you fucking idiot. Isn’t it great to be rich and have no privacy? “Not to mention you had a glob of barbeque sauce on your shirt that I could smell from a mile away.”

“I could’ve put it on my salad,” Hoseok reasons.

“Oh, please.” Namjoon rolls his eyes. “Six ribs and a side of potato salad does not a salad make.”

“What do you mean? It’s literally called potato salad, isn’t it? God, you’re uptight.”

Namjoon sucks in a deep breath, most likely reciting meditation mantras in his head while he thinks about his plants. “I didn’t come in here for this,” he eventually says, and Hoseok is honestly impressed at how collected he sounds. “The point is you can’t be trusted, so there’s new terms.”

Grabbing the stack of papers, Hoseok flips through them casually. “And if I don’t agree? Don’t forget I’m your boss.”

“If you don’t agree, I’m posting the security footage of you eating those ribs on Twitter.” Hoseok’s looking positively scandalized now. He wouldn’t. Namjoon wouldn’t do that to him. “Honestly, Hoseok. You should be ashamed of yourself. You looked like that video of that oversized baby covered in peanut butter.”

“Are you blackmailing me?” Hoseok asks, eyes narrowed. “Seriously, who are you? Because the man standing across from me is not my sweet baby Namjoon. Sweet, sweet Namjoon, who always checks the toilet bowl before he uses it because he saw one of those videos from Australia of a snake being in there and he’d feel too guilty to even piss on a snake—”

Namjoon plants his palms on Hoseok’s desk and puffs out his chest a little. It’s a great chest, Hoseok must admit. Namjoon had mentioned in passing he’d started going to the gym, so he’s not—“I’m not afraid of you,” Namjoon reminds him. “Try me.”

“I have thirty-two lawyers.”

All Namjoon does is quirk an eyebrow. “I have thirty-thousand Twitter followers.”

“I can fire you.”

“Please do. Capitalism is a scourge on this earth and I no longer wish to participate in it.”

“I can fire you and make sure you never find employment in this city ever again.”

Namjoon shrugs. “Fine by me. I’ve been thinking about moving out of the city, anyway. Too much air pollution and I have no space to garden.”

Two things become clear very quickly: 1. Namjoon is far more cut-throat than Hoseok ever anticipated him being; and 2. Hoseok is woefully underprepared for this particular battle. No matter. He’s business-savvy. There’s no shame in conceding an unwinnable battle if he can still win the war, and that’s exactly what he’s going to do.

“Fine,” he relents after an awkward staring contest that lasts two minutes too long. “What are your new terms, then?”

“You have to go to a wellness retreat.”

Hoseok can’t stop the giggle that bubbles out of his mouth. “Sorry, did you say a retreat? How is that a punishment?”

“It isn’t,” Namjoon says. “It’s meant to reset your body and mind. No phones allowed. Just you and your partner in the refreshing, reinvigorating air of the rainfor—”

“What was that?” Hoseok interjects.

“What, the rainforest part? Don’t worry, it’s safe. You’re not, like, sleeping outside with tarantulas and shi—”

“No, not that. Me and my who?”

“Oh!” Namjoon grins. “Your partner. See, I did a lot of research and found the absolute best and most effective wellness retreat for people of your… uh, standard. And the man who runs this retreat is incredible. Like, world-renowned. But the catch is it’s a couple’s retreat, so you’ll have to find someone to play pretend with you for a month.”

Hoseok is a great businessman. He’s good at negotiations and managing relationships and making smart, anticipatory decisions. He has the bank account and name plate with accompanying title on his desk to prove it. But, as he takes in Namjoon’s words, the only thing his brain can come up with is the Windows shutdown sound and a glaring blue screen alerting him to danger.

Nevertheless, one of Hoseok’s rules for business is to never let the opposition see him frazzled. “Why don’t you just come with me?” he offers casually, his tone completely at odds with the pained, panicked expression on his face.

“Two reasons,” Namjoon says quickly and without hesitation, as if he expected this and had all the time in the world to prepare a rebuttal. “First, you couldn’t pay me enough to act like we’re a couple. No offense, but you’re kind of insufferable and I would never date a carnivore—”

Hoseok clicks his tongue. “Wow. Some offense taken.”

“—Second, someone has to stay behind and hold down the fort if you’re going to be gone for a month.”

“Why can’t Brad do it?” Hoseok asks. This time his strained tone completely gives him away.

“You don’t trust Brad.”

Hoseok’s brows furrow. “I never said that.”

“You absolutely did say that,” Namjoon responds immediately, pulling out his phone. “On April nineteenth at approximately ten-twenty in the morning, you said, and I quote, ‘Namjoon, why do you think I hired you? If I had to suffer through having one more Ivy League white guy who played lacrosse and got grandfathered into a fraternity as my assistant, I was going to throw myself down this elevator shaft.’ To which I replied, ‘Oh, you don’t like Brad?’ And you said, ‘Brad’s fine, I guess. I just don’t trust him.’ So, I asked you why, and you said, ‘I wouldn’t trust Brad to order a box of staples, let alone to know the difference between tteokbokki and hotteok—’”

“That doesn’t sound like something I’d say at all,” Hoseok lies. It absolutely sounds like something he’d say at ten-twenty in the morning on the nineteenth of April. “Also, did you really make a note of that? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Of course I didn’t,” Namjoon fires back. “I obviously took a voice recording of it first and transcribed it later. Sometimes I listen to it on repeat when I really want to strangle you and it calms me, because it serves as a reminder that if I go to prison for attempted murder, Brad will take my job. And we can’t have that, because you might simply distrust Brad, but I fucking hate him.”

Hoseok gapes a little. “We sure can’t,” he agrees. Tense air settles between the two of them as they both wait for the other to make the first move. Namjoon’s patient, having already played his hand knowing Hoseok has nothing to trump him, but Hoseok’s stubborn. He’ll drag this out as long as humanly possible. He’ll be ninety years old, on his fourth heart transplant, and still waiting to go on this trip. He’ll—

He’ll have to step down as CEO, because he has, once again, severely underestimated Kim Namjoon.

“Stop thinking so hard. It’s already booked and paid for.”

“With whose money?”

“Company card.”

“Which has my name on it. I’ll just cancel it.”

“It’s non-refundable, but go ahead. You’re still out all that money, though, so you might as well go.”

“I can’t just take a month off,” Hoseok says. He’s grasping at straws now. No one would dare tell him no, even if he wanted to take the next six years off. Human Resources would simply say of course, sir, have a great vacation, sir, see you in six years, sir, and off he’d go.

“Sure you can.” Namjoon stands, wipes his hands on the dress pants stretched to their limit across his thighs, and looks entirely too smug. “Better start looking for a date. Maybe you’ll have some luck on Tinder.”

Bile rises in Hoseok’s throat. “Tinder? Are you joking? I’m too rich to go on there. What if I find a nice date, take them home, and wake up in a bathtub full of ice because they found out who I was and decided to sell my organs?”

“No one would want them,” Namjoon deadpans. “I see the absolute filth you funnel into that body of yours and I can say, with one-hundred percent certainty, that your organs are worthless. Mine, on the other hand. Pristine—”

“Get the hell out of my office. I can’t even look at you right now.”

Good thing, too, because Namjoon’s still wearing that stupid little smirk. The really smug one that infuriates Hoseok to no end because it brings out his dimples, makes him look innocent and cute even though he’s not. The one that gloats Namjoon’s victory, like he’d known all along it was going to end this way. He’d hid those cards so far up his sleeve, Hoseok’s surprised they hadn’t started sprouting from his ears. God, he’s really insufferable. Makes Hoseok’s blood pressure spike something fierce.

“Did you ever stop to consider you’re the problem?” Hoseok calls to Namjoon’s retreating frame. When had he gotten so broad? “That maybe, if my heart does give out, it’ll be because I have to deal with you, the most stressful person on earth?”

“Nah, it’ll definitely be because two of your desk drawers are full of those disgusting oatmeal creme pies.” Somehow, Namjoon looks even more smug as Hoseok tries to discreetly glance at the aforementioned drawers. How does he find out all these things? “Anyway, you leave in two weeks! Good luck in your search. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon, sir.”

Just as he’d assumed would be the case, Hoseok has no luck on Tinder.

See, he’d fucked up from the beginning, deciding to be honest and truthful and explain his plight to any sympathetic pair of eyes that may have gazed upon it. He’d also decided to use his real name, and anyone familiar with those List of Billionaires We Should Eat listicles had snuffed him out immediately. Long gone were the days of genuine conversation and playful flirting. Now, Hoseok’s inbox is full of more genitalia than he’s ever seen in his life. He’s literally drowning in it and can’t even take time to appreciate the situation in which he’s accidentally found himself.

He’s absolutely going to kill Kim Namjoon once this is all over.

After getting over the embarrassment of the next day’s MULTIMILLIONAIRE CEO JUNG HOSEOK SPOTTED ON TINDERheadline, because he hadn’t even had the good sense to use Raya, Hoseok resigns himself to scrolling through the contacts list in his phone. He’s not desperate or stupid enough to invite his ex, or any of the myriad of names he can’t put to faces because, despite what Namjoon says, he’s still concerned about his organs, so he also resigns himself to calling you.

His best friend.

Who’s going to spend the rest of her life roasting him over this.

“What a pleasant surprise,” you greet him. “Haven’t heard from you in weeks. Let me guess, you need me to make another burner account and explain to Rose Emoji and Hammer and Sickle Twitter why they shouldn’t eat you?”

“No—”

You tsk. “That’s a shame. I think I missed my calling in life.”

“Being a Twitter troll?”

“Yeah, obviously,” you agree. “Do you remember that time I set up the fake Gofundme to pay for my conservative cousin’s cephalanalectomy surgery because the liberal snowflake surgeon refused to perform it and he was going to die if they literally did not remove his head from his ass? That was fucking gold, Hobi. I’m a natural.”

“You’re definitely something,” he acquiesces. Then he has an idea. “Hey, do you wanna help me troll Namjoon?”

Your silence is deafening. “Uh, that depends.” Oh, Hoseok does not like your hesitation at all. “He has, like, a lot of Twitter followers, so I’m not trying to beef with him publicly, even if it is on a burner account.”

“Don’t tell me you’re afr—what the fuck kind of Twitter following does this guy have?”

“It’s probably better if you don’t know,” you say, voice laced with faux-concern. “I like Namjoon and I’d like him to remain employed by you simply so he can annoy the absolute fuck out of you until the day you either retire or die. So, yeah, let’s keep that between him and I.”

Hoseok feels dizzy. Probably because he’s been eating all these goddamn salads and now he’s nutritionally deficient. “Whatever. I do actually need your help with something, though.”

“You know my rates.”

“Why do I have to pay to hang out with you?” Hoseok whines. “Isn’t my life-long friendship enough?”

You snort. “No. Absolutely not.”

“Why is everyone bullying me lately? Can’t you spare a crumb of empathy for your best friend?”

“Empathy machine broke,” you deadpan. “Come on, ask me what my terms are. I already know what I want this time.”

Hoseok sighs. He wouldn’t relent this quickly for anyone else. He has a reputation to uphold, after all. “Fine. What are your—”

“I want a Birkin bag and dinner from that new Brazilian place by your office.”

“That’s a definite no on the bag,” Hoseok says. “I’m not spending that much money on anyone who isn’t my future spouse. We can have dinner, though.”

“I think you misheard me, sunshine. I said I want to go to dinner there. I’m going to gorge myself on expensive all-you-can-eat meats and I do not want to taint my experience watching you shovel a miserable, wilted salad into that pretty little heart-shaped mouth of yours. I’ll get agita.”

“Agi—I can’t believe this,” Hoseok whines, feeling the apples of his cheeks tinge red. “Have you and Namjoon been getting together to conspire against me? Is that why the two of you are bullying me?”

Hoseok expects you to say no. He expects you to say that you and Namjoon don’t even speak, you’d only met him once at that Christmas party a year ago, during which Namjoon spent the entire time waxing poetic about conifers and that time he dropped acid at Yosemite and cried for a week straight. But no. No, you don’t say anything at all, and if Hoseok was feeling bullied and just a little scandalized before, he’s absolutely feeling tortured now.

Namjoon, on his own, is bad.

You, on your own, are worse.

The two of you, together? No. Hoseok simply can’t—and won’t—allow it.

You suck in a breath. “In my defense—”

“You absolute traitor,” Hoseok seethes. “You, of all people, have betrayed me?”

There’s a tiny gasp on the other end of the line. “Oh, come off it, Hobi!” you snap. “Have you ever seen yourself eat? It’s foul. Like something straight out of Animal Planet.”

“It is not!”

“It is, and you know it,” you fire back. “I once watched you eat an entire personal-sized pizza in forty-two seconds. I don’t even think you chewed it. You just detached your jaw like some kind of creepy snake and inhaled. Something needed to be done.”

It’s Hoseok’s turn to gasp. “And that something was going full Judas Iscariot and selling me out to the Romans for thirty pieces of silver?”

There’s a pause on your end. “Is Namjoon the Romans in this scenario? Because, if so, I’ve got to say—”

“Who cares!” Hoseok snaps. “Who fucking cares who the Romans are—”

“The Romans, probably,” you chime in unhelpfully.

“—because the two of you have officially given me agita. How’s that? Huh? First I have to sit through all of Namjoon’s lunch lectures—”

“He should trademark that. Has a nice ring to it. Namjoon’s Lunch Lectures.”

“—then, I had to start eating salads. Salads. Then he signs me up for some stupid wellness retreat in the goddamn rainforest and tells me I have to find a fucking date, so off I go to Tinder, but everyone on there only wanted me for my harvestable organs, so I was like, ‘You know what, Hoseok? You know who you can always count on? Your best friend of twenty years. She’s never let you down. She’ll go with you, and the two of you will have a good time, because she’s your best friend and you enjoy her company.’ But no, come to find out—”

There’s a very loud shriek of laughter. “Oh my god. Holy shit, Hobi, is that really why you called? Namjoon actually signed you up for that couple’s retreat?”

Now, there’s a very loud shriek of disbelief. “You fucking knew about that?” You try to contain your snort. Really, you do, but it’s no match for Hoseok’s palpable ire. “You knew, and you didn’t tell me?”

“Oh, come on! It’ll be good for you, sunshine. You’re clearly overworked. You had visible stress lines in the last selfie you posted on Instagram.”

“I did not, I use hyaluronic acid!” he insists, but if Hoseok swipes out of your call to pull up his Instagram account, no one has to know.

You groan. “Why do you keep arguing with me? I’m never wrong.”

“Yes you are.” There’s a very pointed pause during which Hoseok can very clearly, in his head, hear you say see?

“Listen,” you say, voice strong with all the conviction of a person who hadn’t spent the last five minutes being a menace to society—and Hoseok. “I’ll go with you. I have some time off from my program and there’s nothing I’d rather do than spend a whole month in the rainforest with you.”

“I feel like that was sarcastic.”

You tut. “Honestly, Hobi, it’s like you don’t even know me at all. You know number three on my bucket list is going to Costa Rica to hang out with sloths.”

His phone pings a second later with a text from you. An article about a sloth sanctuary greets him, and he swallows the immediate ew that’s on the tip of his tongue. Sloths are cute, sure, but they also have bugs. “Great,” he chokes out. “Are you gonna meet a sloth and turn into Kristen Bell? Because I’m not signing up for that. You look like Kim Kardashian when you cry.”

“Fuck you.” Hoseok is a millionaire, he doesn’t deserve this treatment. “Now, what are your plans for tomorrow night? Let’s do dinner. We need to take a bunch of selfies during sunsets so we look like a plausible couple.”

When he was eight and you were seven, Hoseok witnessed his first act of violence.

A kid on the school bus had been giving him a hard time. Nothing totally awful, just being a bit of a dick the way kids are wont to do, and Hoseok was a pushover back then. Just wanted everyone to like him so he never really stuck up for himself. Just smiled and laughed off the teasing and cried about it later.

Apparently this was unacceptable to you.

You tossed your bookbag in Hoseok’s lap, pushed up your sleeves, made your way to the back of the bus, and told that kid you’d slam his head into the window if he didn’t stop picking on Hoseok.

He’d gotten his head slammed into the window approximately fourteen seconds later.

(Never messed with Hoseok again, though.)

Since then, the two of you have been nearly inseparable. Sure, there had been petty arguments here and there, and Hoseok had gone to an Ivy League across the country, but it was rare for the two of you to go more than a few days without talking. Even now, when Hoseok works eighty hour weeks and is busy being a Very Important Person, he still makes time for you. Sometimes that time is just exchanging stupid memes over text, but he always makes the effort.

Which is why, even though you don’t see the point in crafting some elaborate backstory and had only said the thing about the sunset selfies to con him into coming over, he stays quiet and shows up to your apartment for dinner and worldbuilding anyway, because it’s been too long since he’s last been here and he misses you.

“Are you taking notes?” Hoseok asks, pointing at you with his fork. “This is important.”

You groan into your wine glass. “Fake dating is so hard,” you whine. “Why can’t we just tell the truth?”

He levels you with a stare. “Because! Don’t you think it’s a bit…”

“What, you think it’s totally unbelievable that I could be in love with you?”

Oh. Hoseok doesn’t like this at all, either. Doesn’t like the way the words sound in your mouth. Doesn’t like the way his stomach drops as he digests them. Doesn’t like how nice they sound, like you’d just waded through all the extracurricular bullshit to get straight to the point and arrive at the inevitable conclusion, which is the two of you riding off together into that sunset you’d mentioned before.

He doesn’t like feeling like he might want that.

It’s not like he’s never thought about it. You’re his best friend and he has 20/20 vision, so of course he has. It's always just been one of those things: didn’t want to ruin your friendship, moved across the country, got too busy, didn’t think you’d want him like that in return.

“I—no,” he says unconvincingly. “I just… it’d totally be weird, right? Us pretending to be a couple?” He throws in a chuckle for good measure, as if the thought of dating you is so preposterous it simply has to be a joke.

You just shrug. Where Hoseok is all nervous jitters, you’re solid and unshaken, always. “Not really. We’ve been friends forever. We’re obviously comfortable with each other. You showing up to my place in those disgusting crochet shoes is proof enough of that.”

Hoseok looks down at his feet and frowns. “They’re Valentino.”

“More like Valenti-no.”

He rolls his eyes. “See, that right there is why we can’t wing this. I can’t pretend to like your awful jokes. I’ll out myself immediately.”

You roll yours right back. “Nah, I think it works. You’re obviously the high-strung CEO who doesn’t appreciate good humor when he sees it and I’m the sad housewife who just wants you to laugh at my jokes.” You jut out your bottom lip and pretend to cry. “Why won’t you just laugh at my jokes, Hobi?”

He flicks a green bean at you. “How’d we go from fake dating to fake marriage? Stop trying to swindle me.”

Once again, you pout dramatically. “God, first you refuse to laugh at my jokes, now you refuse to marry me? You’re breaking my heart here.”

“I’m not buying you a ring,” Hoseok scoffs. “I know for a fact you’ll just turn around and sell it for triple the price to some poor, unsuspecting bastard.”

“Not my fault there’s a lot of poor, unsuspecting bastards in the world. All of this just proves, for the billionth time, that I’m the better businessperson between the two of us.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Hoseok sighs. “Just because your lemonade stand outsold mine once doesn’t mean—”

“I also outsold you during that candle fundraiser in the fifth grade. And the candybars during Little League. And that bullshit one in high school with the pineapple pizzas—”

“Fine!” Hoseok throws his hands up. Then, with as little of a grimace as he can muster, he says, “Let’s go to Costa Rica, Mrs. Jung.”

It doesn’t land.

Your jaw drops immediately, an exaggerated gag spilling from your lips. “I changed my mind,” you deadpan. “No marriage for us unless you take my last name.”

“What’s wrong with mine?”

“Feels bad in my mouth. What’s wrong with mine?”

Hoseok rolls his lips together. “Nothing, really. Just—”

“Is this some kind of male pride thing? You refuse to take your wife’s last name for fear of public ridicule and castration jokes?”

“No.” Hoseok glares at you. “It’s just—the reservation’s in my name. Besides, if someone made shitty jokes about you, I’d slam their head into a window, too.”

“Oh.” As soon as your jaw snaps shut, a brilliant smile splits your face. “That was unexpectedly wholesome, Seok. You’re getting soft in your old age.”

Only for you, he wants to say. Instead, he shoves another forkful of rice in his mouth and a copy of the itinerary in your direction.

(For all your bravado and willingness to slam the heads of elementary school bullies into windows, you hate flying. So, if you squeeze Hoseok’s hand too tight and he snaps a photo of it under the guise of how comically purple-red it’s turning, and not at all because it’s the first time you’re holding his hand and some weird, sentimental part of him wants to commemorate it, that’s his business.

If his heart is so full it nearly bursts out of his chest at the sight of you crying over a sloth, and if he memorizes the stars in your eyes as you hold one—not caring about the bugs or the giant claws or the fact that sloth fur kind of looks like a bird nest, algae included—that’s his business.

If he posts the photo of you crying to his Instagram, knowing damn well you’re going to yell at him for it later, and he cackles wildly over Namjoon’s comment:

[namjooning commented: why does she cry like that kim kardashian meme? junghoseok replied: Right? That’s what I said]

—that’s his business. It’s only because he’d said you look like Kim Kardashian when you cry and, if nothing else, Hoseok loves to be proven right. It has nothing to do with wanting to remember you that happy forever. Not at all.

If he feels like he’s going into cardiac arrest when you hug him tightly, murmuring a quiet thank you in his ear on the last night of your stay at the sanctuary, it’s simply because you’re not very tactile. Hugs—and outward affection—from you are rare. That’s all. His skin absolutely does not break out in goosebumps. Doesn’t feel tingly all over. His breathing continues as normal.

If he finally comes to the startling realization that he’s in way too deep when you fall asleep on his shoulder during the drive to the resort, well…

Hoseok may be deadly smart, but he’s always been a complete fool when it comes to you.

If he sends a panicked text to Namjoon asking how he’s supposed to survive the next month, and if Namjoon misinterprets it as an ambitious, live-to-work type-A personality freaking out over not knowing how to unwind and tells him to just take it easy, and Hoseok misinterprets that as go for it, well…

The next four weeks sure are going to be interesting, aren’t they?)

See, the thing about Hoseok is he has all the money and prestige a man of his status could want.

He’s filthy rich, he’s well-respected, he’s kind. People love him. He loves people in return. He’s been called the living embodiment of actual sunshine more times than you or he could possibly count. There’s truly nothing he wants for in this world.

Hoseok is also the type of person who gets anxious at the thought of calling the Malaysian restaurant you two frequent to place a delivery order. Namjoon has to force him to make his own personal appointments under threat of death. He changed doctors because his new one lets him schedule appointments online. He won’t go to a fast food drive-thru unless they have mobile ordering.

It’s just the way Hoseok is. He’s been that way as long as you’ve known him—at least since that time in the fifth grade when his mother once gave him twenty bucks and told him to call the pizza place and order dinner for the two of you and he totally balked, resigning the two of you to toaster oven Ellio’s that tasted way too similar to skating rink pizza to be a coincidence.

Which is why he balks again as soon as the two of you reach the front desk of the resort, shoving you in front of him to talk to the man behind it.

Maybe it’s the raging pansexual inside Hobi rather than his uncharacteristic fear of talking to literally anyone, but you totally get it. You don’t really want to talk to this man, either. He’s ash blond and bathed in golden light, highlighting his already golden skin to look completely ethereal, and he’s got a smug look on his face that tells you he knows exactly how intimidatingly good-looking he is.

Still, you’re not easily shaken. Jung Hoseok is your best friend—and fake boyfriend, lest you’ve forgotten—for fuck’s sake. You’ve committed violence for him. Golden Desk Boy is going to have to try a whole lot harder than this. “Hiii,” you say, lips painted in a saccharine smile. God, you’re so fake. “We’re checking in under Jung.”

The man—whose name badge says Jimin—returns your fake smile. “Great! Thank you so much for joining us for your stay.”

You take a moment to look around while Jimin pulls up your reservation, purposefully skipping over Hoseok’s form. He’s not doing anything, just sitting in a plush armchair as he pretends to read the newspaper, but you feel the flames of annoyance licking at your heels nonetheless, because you wouldn’t be here to begin with if it weren’t for Hoseok and his subordinate micromanager, and what kind of weird place has he brought you to?

Everything is white. Not in the sterile kind of way, because the monotony is broken up with lush greenery and the occasional piece of teak furniture, but there’s enough white for you to wonder if it’s some sort of statement. The floors and walls are white. All the non-wooden furniture is white. Jimin’s silk uniform and teeth are both blindingly white. Not that you’d seen many people since you stepped into the lobby, but the ones you had seen had been wearing white, too.

Jimin looks up from the computer screen and you’re almost surprised to find his irises aren’t white, too. Maybe it’s rude, but he seriously gives you the creeps. “Everything is ready for your stay, Mr. and Mrs. Jung. I’ve requested someone come to retrieve your luggage.”

You gawk. “Oh, we’re not—we’re not married.”

“Oh?” Jimin asks, one perfect eyebrow arched as his eyes twinkle with intrigue.

“Yeah,” you insist. “Not that I need to explain my morals and ethics to a stranger, but I don’t believe in the patriarchy.”

“Really? That’s great,” Jimin lies. This man is overflowing with shithead energy. “Neither do I.”

You scoff. “Oh, sure. That’s why you just assumed my bes—my partner and I were married.”

“That’s what the reservation says.” He looks very amused now. Kim Namjoon is going to receive a very lengthy text message in approximately ten minutes. “I do apologize for this mistake. I’ll make sure to correct it right away.” Amusement slowly morphs into a challenge. “Is there a new last name I can put on the reservation for you instead?”

Call it a hunch, but you think it best to not give this person any of your identifying information. “No.”

“Shall I leave it as Jung, then?”

It physically pains you to say this, but you manage to choke out a very strained, “Yes.”

“Fantastic,” Jimin sing-songs. “I’m very glad we were able to sort out this issue for you, Mr. and Mrs. Jung.”

Choke on a dick and die is what you want to say (for no reason, really; it isn’t like Jimin’s been outright cruel to you), but as much as Hoseok avoids people—and avoids confrontation even more—he appears at your side, looking every bit the sunshine after a storm he always is. “Everything okay?” he asks, placing a gentle hand at the small of your back. “…Dear,” he tacks on as Jimin’s eyes study the two of you.

“Everything’s great!” you chirp, determined to cast away Jimin’s obvious suspicions. “Jimin here says someone’s coming to get our bags.” Another fake, saccharine smile. Like sweet’n low. “He’s been very helpful.”

Everything’s great, in you-speak, translates to I once, foolishly, thought Kim Namjoon was on my side. I now see the errors of my ways and I demand justice and revenge. Fool you once (getting roped into being Hoseok’s fake partner to come to a weird wellness retreat), shame on Namjoon. Fool you twice (allowing him to book the reservation and label you a married couple), shame on you. There won’t be a third time, because Kim Namjoon’s days are numbered once you’re both in the same country again.

“Will you be needing a tour?” Jimin asks, voice tinkling like expensive crystal.

You grasp Hoseok’s hand far too tight to be believable and wave off the receptionist. “No, thank you! Just a map will do. That’s how we met, you know—at a… map… class.”

“A map class?” Jimin parrots. “Riveting.” He smiles. Sweet’n low.

“It sure was!” You turn to Hobi. “Wasn’t it? …Babe,” you choke out. The word tastes so gross on your tongue.

When you look up at him, Hoseok’s wearing that trademark expression of his: the one where his eyes are too wide, tight-lipped smile stretched too thin. Hoseok’s convinced it’s convincing. It isn’t. It’s terrifying and makes your skin feel itchy from the inside. “Mmm, yep,” he agrees easily. “Love a good map. Some good… cartography.” He pinches three fingers together because he’d seen it on The Sopranos and it’s just a thing he does now.

Sometimes you forget Hoseok is rich-rich.

Of course Namjoon had mentioned booking the trip on the company card and of course you know what someone like him having access to a company card implies. It’d implied you were going on an all-expenses-paid trip on some massive company’s dime. But, perhaps naively, you’d just envisioned a fancy hotel room at some resort near a beach. Shoreline bonfires, tiny portions of food on massive plates when you order room service, colorful drinks with tiny umbrellas and a skewer of fruit stuck inside, three-digit price tag.

Instead, the two of you follow the map to a secluded, private house. There’s a balcony. The shower is made entirely of glass and surrounded by the lush greenery outside. The exterior wall in the bedroom is also made of glass and affords you panoramic views of the beach and forest and everything in between. The thread count of the Egyptian cotton sheets is disgustingly low.

(Which, speaking of Hoseok and all his money��he’d been the one to teach you about thread counts to begin with. You’d wrongfully assumed the higher the number the better, but Hoseok had gently grabbed the scratchy 1500 count sheets out of your hands with a pained grimace and handed you a set of Supima cotton sheets with a startlingly low thread count instead.

Rich people have everything backwards.)

Truth be told, it’s exactly the kind of place you’d see on some influencer’s Instagram account. The kind of place they’d delude you into thinking you could afford, too, because having your influencer boyfriend take a picture of you sinking into the lush white duvet and plastering a $10 filter on it is more important than affording your student loan payments.

But you digress.

Either way, you’ll have to send a thank you card to the board of directors.

Hoseok, on the other hand, balks for the second time. Takes one look at the singular bed and completely shuts down, Windows sound effects practically blaring over an invisible loudspeaker above his head once again. “Where’s the other bed?” he asks stupidly.

You snort. Stash your suitcase in the corner. You’ll unpack it later… or next week. Whenever you get around to it, really. “What other bed?”

“You know, like. The other one.”

“There’s only one, Seok. Why would there be two? This is a couple’s retreat.”

He pouts. “Not every couple sleeps together, you know. My grandparents have separate bedrooms.”

“No offense, bud, but your grandfather also wears diapers.”

“So?”

“So there might be a correlation, is what I’m saying.”

“Are you saying you wouldn’t sleep in the same bed as your husband of seventy years just because he might pee the bed sometimes?”

You level him with a look. Unpacking doesn’t sound like such a bad idea anymore. “I’m well past the age where I could conceivably be married to someone for seventy years, so it doesn’t matter.”

“You’re not even thirty yet.”

You click your tongue. “Hoseok, you of all people know I never expected to live past the age of thirteen. There’s no way I’m making it to ninety-seven.”

“You only thought you were gonna die when you were thirteen because you had your appendix removed.” You give him another look. “And you got your tonsils removed that same year.” Another one. “What?” he huffs. “What’d I forget?”

“That time we were playing volleyball in gym class and you spiked the ball right in my face and broke my nose.”

“Not a life-threatening injury.”

“Thirteen was a really hard year for me,” you retort, overdramatic as always. “It’s a miracle I survived.”

“Oh my god—”

“A miracle, Hobi.”

With a disapproving shake of his head, he’s off to unpack his luggage, because Hoseok is filthy rich and has expensive clothes that, according to him, cannot, under any circumstances, go hours without being hung up properly. You’ve never seen a silk shirt with a wrinkle in it, let alone a wrinkle on any article of Hoseok’s clothing, but you learned a long time ago it’s much less stressful to just let him be neurotic about his wardrobe.

You, on the other hand, are going to do no such thing. You’ll live out of your suitcase for as long as you can get away with it, so you flop face-first onto the bed, careful to leave your shoes dangling off the edge. Hoseok’s already going to give you shit about—

“Yah!” he wails, his fifteenth white button-down shirt draped haphazardly off a hanger. “No street clothes in the bed!”

You roll your eyes. “Street clothes? Who says shit like that? Most people just have clothes.”

“You’ve been wearing them all day,” Hoseok argues, because there’s very little he loves more than an argument. “They’re dirty, and now they’ve made the bed dirty, too.”

However, to the detriment of Hoseok’s well-being, you love arguing, too. You look down at both your clothes and the pristine duvet and vaguely gesture at both. “Ah, yes. So filthy. The bed—which you’d nearly had an aneurysm over sharing with me not even ten minutes ago, might I add—is so dirty. How will we ever be able to sleep in it?”

Watching Hoseok mentally tabulate through the Seven Stages of Grief is the most entertainment you’ve had in hours. Jaw clenched, he simply stares at you for a few seconds before leveling his voice and repeating, “No street clothes in the bed.” Then he tacks on a please that’s clearly an afterthought. “Didn’t you bring loungewear? Can’t you just wear that instead?”

You did, in fact, bring loungewear. It would’ve been irresponsible not to, considering the length of your stay and proximity to paradise, but stubbornness seems to be the flavor of the day so you just shrug and toe your shoes off. “I’m not going to change. We don’t have long before we have that welcome dinner, anyway. I’m not going to put on loungewear only to change into dinner-wear and then come back, shower, and change again into pajamas.”

Hoseok’s nose scrunches in distaste. “What welcome dinner?”

“Do you not read?” you tease. “There was a whole itinerary attached to the map. We have a welcome dinner tonight with that guy Namjoon’s in love with.”

“Which one?”

You click your tongue. “The guy who runs this place.” Then you furrow your brow. “What do you mean ‘which one’?”

“Nothing. Just—you know how Namjoon is. He falls in love at least eight separate times whenever he goes to the gardening store.”

“Guess he doesn’t herb his enthusiasm.” Hoseok groans loudly as you point finger guns at him.

He lobs a mated pair of socks at your head that bounce off your ass instead. “Please just get ready for dinner. I can’t do this.”

To put it mildly, Kim Seokjin is fucking weird.

Hoseok hadn’t noticed. He’d taken one look at him and his mischievous eyes and welcoming smile and dove right in, engaging him in endless conversation about god-knows-what. That’s just how Hoseok is. Aside from his justifiable distrust of Tinder dates, he makes and keeps friends effortlessly. It’s the sunshine in him, your mother always used to say, because Hoseok was always the sun and everyone else were sunflowers, desperate to bask in him and reflect his light.

(Namjoon has always said it’s because he’s an Aquarius. You don’t know what that means, but you assume it’ll click once you buy a few crystals and start exclusively listening to Fleetwood Mac.)

And that has always been okay—good, even. He’s never lost that innate goodness, even when he’d been placed at the head of a billion-dollar corporation where ruthlessness is encouraged. Hoseok’s edges remain rounded and soft; he emphasizes a need for kindness, shows it has a place amongst the cold, calculated world of business. Really, it’s great. You can’t be more proud to call him your best friend.

However.

It doesn’t mean Hoseok isn’t a fucking idiot sometimes.

Because he’s good, his first assumption is always that others are good, too. No matter how many times you’ve grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him away from a fire, his first instinct is still to reach out and touch it.

His first serious girlfriend, back in high school? Yeah, you’d warned him about her. Told him she was messing around with a kid on the soccer team on the side, but Hoseok had insisted she’d never do that. “She’s into embroidery,” he’d said, as if that excused someone from being a two-timing cheat.

That guy he’d been partnered with for a serious project in business school? You’d listened to Hoseok talk about him over Skype once and suggested he find a new one. Kept silent as he unloaded on you a few weeks later after the guy had fucked him over.

You’d even advised him against hiring Namjoon. Couldn’t fathom why Hoseok would even be considering hiring someone who showed up to an interview hours early. Obviously he hadn’t listened, and look where it’s gotten the two of you.

It isn’t that you’ve got a sixth sense for assholes or anything. It’s just that Hoseok’s such a terrible judge of character that it makes you look like Sherlock Holmes in comparison.

So it comes as no surprise to you when Seokjin excuses himself for a moment and Hoseok turns to you with hearts in his eyes only to be greeted by your Hoseok you’re doing that thing again where you put people on a pedestal who are not to be trusted look.

“No,” he dismisses immediately. “Him? No way.”

Your nostrils flare. “Hoseok. Don’t be an idiot about this. He’s weird.”

“He’s just eccentric. Aren’t all these New Age hippie types like that? The guy runs a wellness retreat for fuck’s sake—of course he’s weird.”

“His vibes are off,” you retort, which admittedly sounds like a New Age hippie thing to say, but the longer Hoseok insists you’re wrong, the more you begin to wonder if you are. The two of you had been sent here by Namjoon, and he’s easily one of the weirdest people you’ve ever met. Maybe Hoseok’s right.

You allow yourself two minutes of self-doubt. Then you’re shaking your head and poking your tongue into the fat of your cheek because you know bad vibes when you feel them and Kim Seokjin has them in spades.

The man in question returns a few moments later, two new men in tow: a taller one with a boxy smile and a tan and a shorter one with a scowl that looks permanent but not on purpose, like it’d just shown up on his face one day and forgot to leave. The grumpy-looking one sits across from Hoseok, looking every bit as unsure as you, while the other one takes the empty seat to his left, right in front of you.

“I’m Taehyung,” he says, ass barely in the chair before he’s leaning over the table to shake your hand. His feels like a hand that’s shaken many others—firm, warm, soft. Feels a lot like shaking Hoseok’s hand might feel, an importance simmering beneath the surface, but you’ve never had a reason to do so. “This is Yoongi.” Taehyung gestures to the man beside him. “He doesn’t talk much but you get used to him, I think.”

“You think?” Hoseok laughs, an eyebrow quirked, fully in his element. Words soft, edges softer. Hoseok was born for these types of moments. Meeting strangers, knowing what to say.

Yoongi stays quiet. Barely looks around the room, which is a feat in itself. Seokjin had invited all of you to dinner in a grand dining hall, walls tall and floors gleaming, both stark white like the rest of the resort. Immediately sat at the head of the table like some sort of king, and you would’ve thought something of it, maybe looked at Hoseok and mouthed what’s this guy’s deal? But then he placed his napkin neatly across his lap, looked at the two of you, smiled dazzlingly, and said, “Is cereal soup?”

It had all gone downhill from there, really.

Now Taehyung and Yoongi are seated across from you and Hoseok and Yoongi still hasn’t said a word and you’re hoping maybe, just maybe, he’s also picking up on how weird all of this is. Taehyung has that exuberant optimism that reminds you a lot of Hoseok so you disregard him as a comrade immediately. Just the kind of guy to love any and everyone, oblivious to bad vibes. No, Yoongi’s the one you need on your side and it’s glaringly obvious.

One small hiccup, though: he really doesn’t talk.

Like, at all.

Taehyung talks enough for the both of them, endearing everyone with a smile and an endless supply of stories told in that deep baritone voice of his. Every now and then he’ll turn to Yoongi and say isn’t that right, dumpling? and Yoongi just hums an acknowledgment. Doesn’t seem put off by the pet name at all, despite looking like someone that’d be put off by pet names.

They’re cute. You mouth as much to Hoseok and he just smiles at you in return, a soft little thing. Yoongi and Taehyung are the kind of couple who give off we’ve been together for decades energy even though they don’t look much older than you. Just two people completely at ease with one another, and it does something to your stomach. All small, hidden touches and words communicated through looks alone. Best friends and lovers. Partners both in crime and in life.

It’s a sweet moment.

It’s a moment completely negated by Seokjin’s booming voice at the head of the table. “Well, this was fun, wasn’t it? Let’s move to the lounge.”

Yoongi doesn’t look to Taehyung. Yoongi looks to you, and it’s only because you’d looked at him instead of Hoseok that you notice the subtle downturn of the corners of his mouth, the slight pinch between his brows. He doesn’t outright ask it, but there’s a question in his body language: What’s this guy’s deal?

It’s one you’d also like an answer to.

Yoongi keeps his eyes on you the entire time the five of you talk in the lounge. Well, Taehyung’s once again speaking for both of them, hands and arms gesturing wildly all around him, and Yoongi seems more than content to sit in silence. Seokjin and Hoseok chime in where they should, asking questions and emphasizing words and generally being agreeable. You, on the other hand, sit next to Hoseok and try to exude the same energy Taehyung and Yoongi do. The we’re so in love and comfortable with each other we don’t even need to touch type. The we only post selfies together three times a year because we don’t need to flaunt our relationship variety.

But, as all inevitable things inevitably do, the conversation moves to relationships. Seokjin sneaks it in under the guise of getting to know everyone, and Taehyung takes the bait immediately, seemingly always looking for a reason to show off Yoongi and talk him up. You hate that it’s endearing. You hate that you want something like it—someone enamored with you without preamble. A just because kind of love. Something solid and bone-deep.

“It was totally by accident,” Taehyung’s saying as your attention drifts back to him. Not soon enough, because he’s clearly halfway through a story and you have no idea what the plot is. “We’d both been backpacking through Europe, and I was trying to check in at this tiny hostel in Thessaloniki but my Greek is terrible, understandably, so I was really struggling. Trying to tell the poor woman behind the desk my name and that I’d booked a private room, and she just kept shrugging and looking at me like I was crazy. It was, like, midnight, so I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep, and then out of nowhere this guy”—He jerks his thumb at Yoongi, who remains silent and still—“just comes up behind me and starts speaking fluent Greek.”

Hoseok’s eyes widen. “Fluent Greek? Wow,” he says, eyebrows disappearing beneath his fringe, “that’s really impressive.”

“You have no idea,” Taehyung continues to gush. “He speaks, like, fifteen languages fluently, I swear to god. Anyway, turns out the hostel never received my reservation, which makes sense because I’d tried booking it from the top of a mountain. Yoongi took pity on me and let me share his room since they were fully booked.”

Seokjin smiles and touches a hand to his heart. It’s completely performative but it works—Taehyung looks like he’s just passed some silent test and won the lottery. “Adorable. And so noble, Yoongi. Not many people would do that for a stranger.”

Yoongi shrugs.

Undeterred, Seokjin turns his attention to you and Hoseok. “How about the two of you? Set up by friends? Blind date?” His beady eyes are studying you both diligently, eyes raking over your face for the tiniest tell. “Childhood friends turned lovers?”

Hoseok coughs.

“We met at a cartography class,” you explain, voice even despite Seokjin’s prolonged eye contact making you want to lock yourself in the nearest bathroom. Hoseok had nearly given the two of you away, and it was all you could do to recall whatever bullshit you had tried selling Jimin to cover your asses.

Yoongi’s fighting off a smile. Taehyung looks enthralled. “Cartography? Whoa, now that’s something you definitely don’t hear everyday.”

“A lost art, if you ask me,” Seokjin says. “Are either of you geographists, then?”

Hoseok tenses, fidgeting ceasing immediately. The two of you hadn’t talked about this—about how honest you wanted to be, how much would be fabricated—so while this is typically the kind of environment he’d thrive in, you pluck the reins from his hands and take over. “Double majored back in undergrad. Geography and psych.”

“Interesting combo.”

You nod. Not the first time you’d heard that. “Well, there are things you want to do and things you should do, so I did both.”

“And what was it you wanted to do?”

You wave your hand, gesturing vaguely. “Ah, you know. You go into university with all these aspirations, have all these starry-eyed ideas. You’re gonna be someone, you’re gonna help people, you’re gonna make an impact and travel all over and be super important. People are gonna pay to hear you speak and all that bullshit.” Hoseok’s looking at you—you can feel it, but you can also see the blurred outline of his profile. “What did I want to do? Something in human geography, maybe cultural or political geography.”

“The psych degree?” Seokjin continues prodding, and you find you don’t mind it. Hoseok certainly never had. Was always far too busy doing important business things on the opposite side of the country.

“Picked it up about halfway through. Figured I should have a back-up plan in case I wound up being the only geopolitician working at Starbucks.” Your fingers start picking at your pants even though there’s nothing to grab onto. You’d only packed your best, keenly aware of the standards required to be in Jung Hoseok’s inner circle. “A lot of the research and analysis courses overlapped, so I just… did it.”

“That’s very ambitious.” Seokjin’s compliment feels like some weird kind of approval, like another unspoken test Taehyung would grin over passing. “And now? You’d mentioned undergrad.”

“Started a post-bacc in GIS since I liked doing research. Hence the cartography class.”

Hence the cartography class, as if that’s the end of it and there’s nothing else to say. Like you hadn’t dropped out of that to pursue a Master’s in psychology and maybe med school or a PhD to follow, because your mother would be proud of someone with a doctorate, right? You could finally stop hearing—

Did you hear Hoseokie got an internship at Google? They pay $8,000 a month!

Did you hear Hoseokie graduated at the top of his class? His mother said he didn’t even have to apply to any MBA programs, they recruited him! He’s torn between Stanford and the University of Penn. Isn’t that a nice problem to have?

Did you hear that Hoseokie finished his program early? He’s so smart. His parents must be so proud of him.

Did you hear Hoseokie’s moving back? Just an associate vice president position for now, but his mother says there’s already talks of him being promoted to CEO within the next few years.

That’s not to say you weren’t proud of him or that you were resentful. You’ve always been Hoseok’s biggest fan, but Hoseok had moved across the country and still casted a shadow so large it was impossible to not be swallowed up by it, and it’s hard to have all the things you want to hear be said about someone else.

So, yeah, hence the cartography class.

“What about you, Hoseok? You’ve been quiet.”

Hoseok’s never quiet. When you turn to look at him, he’s already staring back. There’s no perpetual million-dollar smile, no wrinkles at the corner of his eyes from laughing too much, smiling too much, enjoying life too much. There’s just a concerned look that you don’t really know what to do with, because you’ve spent so much of your life worrying over Hoseok—over his concerning judge of character, his inability to cook, those kids on the schoolbus, his diet and now his organs—that things feel out of sorts now that the script is flipped.

It takes him a while to come back down to earth, realize someone has asked him a question. “Business,” is all he says.

He’s still staring.

Things are tense.

Weird-tense, because things are never tense between you and Hoseok. Not even back in high school when you’d threatened his then-girlfriend, the one who was cheating on him, and she ratted you out. Hoseok had shown up all red in the face, talked a lot about what would happen if you ruined things for him, but you’d just said alright, Hobi, whatever you say and things had gone back to normal.

But back in your overpriced rental house, things are definitely weird-tense.

“You never told me any of that.”

Ah. You shrug, toweling off your hair after your shower, and rifle through your suitcase for suitable pajamas. “You never asked.”

“I thought the map story was bullshit. You never—you double majored?”

Isn’t this so typical, you think. You could write a biography on Hoseok, all his accomplishments and dreams and all those silly little subplots that connect at the end, and he didn’t even know your college major. Majors. “That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

In the bathroom, you go through your skincare routine on autopilot and floss and brush your teeth. Try to rid yourself of the taste of disappointment. Smear cold cream under your eyes and try to pretend the sting is from the scent and not welling tears, because this is not something to cry over. This is stupid and unimportant, and you now have two and a half degrees in psychology that tell you how to deal with it.

But Hoseok’s reluctant to let it go. Wants to talk it to death when you’re more than happy to never discuss it again. You’re twenty-seven, meaning you’ve had at least five years to accept the fact that your mother had given all her pride to Hoseok instead. You’re not really keen on spending another five years feeling inadequate. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He appears in the doorway of the bathroom looking positively distressed. “Mom had only told me about the psych degree and that you were trying to get into UCLA for your Master’s. She never said anything about the geography degree.”

You just shrug. “Things you want to do and things you should, right?”

Hoseok doesn’t buy it. “Was telling me what was going on in your life not something you wanted to do, then?” He looks stung.

You’re tired, still a little fucked up from the jet lag and sitting through a bizarre dinner and serving yourself up on a silver platter to an even more bizarre man that now knew something about you that not even Hoseok had known. “I’m going to sleep,” you say, because you’re even more loose-lipped than usual when tired and prone to irritability, and provoking an argument on the first night of a month-long vacation is not something you’re going to do.

And Hoseok—

Hoseok must get it, you think, because he seems to deflate. Just sighs, shoulders hunched, before he steps aside to let you out of the bathroom. No argument, no thinly-veiled threats, no guilt-trips. Resignation: the same kind Namjoon had spoken about when he’d relayed the story of how the wellness retreat came to be.

A resigned Hoseok is probably a dangerous Hoseok, but you’re too exhausted to give a shit. You’ll strategize in the morning, come up with a new plan.

Except the morning comes and Hoseok doesn’t mention it at all.

He doesn’t say anything about it for the next three days, actually, which are all the same and go like this:

On the morning of day two, Hoseok reluctantly wakes you up just after six. There’s a small offering of fruit and coffee waiting for you on a tray that you promptly ignore in lieu of going back to sleep, which lasts until approximately 6:06am when Hoseok wakes you again. The two of you are scheduled for a morning yoga session at seven-o’clock, which is supposedly mandatory and can’t be canceled.

Taehyung takes the mat next to you, leaning over to ask, “Have you ever done this before?” with a slightly panicked expression on this face.

“Every Saturday morning back home,” you answer. Taehyung chuckles nervously, and your experience becomes painfully clear when you’re nailing your Sugarcane pose and everyone else topples over sideways. Yoongi doesn’t make a sound as he hits the floor, and he’s so quiet that your instructor misses him completely when they fret around the room helping everyone else.

You’re so distracted by helping Yoongi yourself that you miss the deep furrow of Hoseok’s brow. And the crestfallen look on his face. Just another thing he hadn’t known.

After you survive yoga, the two of you sit through an awkward breakfast with Taehyung, Certified Chatterbox, and Yoongi, Not One. Taehyung doesn’t comment on Hoseok’s newfound quietude, which is a little surprising, but Yoongi quirks an eyebrow at you that makes your coffee suddenly taste stale.

Between the hours of nine and one, Hoseok disappears to go to the spa or the gym or the gift shop, because he is literally incapable of not spending money. You’re waiting for him to realize how weird it is for a wellness retreat to sell souvenirs but he never brings it up, just strolls back into the room each time and dumps a concerning amount of magnets into his suitcase.

(You wonder if any of them are for your mother. You wonder what she’ll think about this—you and Hoseok going to a couple’s retreat together, playing pretend. You wonder if bagging someone like Hoseok would finally make her proud of you and how shallow that is.)

After lunch, which is barely less awkward than breakfast, the four of you are ushered into a so-called Meditation Clinic, hosted by a very muscular guy with a baby face and a lot of tattoos. His name is Jungkook, and he nearly sends Hoseok into Sexuality Crisis Episode No. 2. Hoseok doesn’t do a damn second of meditating for three days, just stares at the wall looking like a baby who’d just been tricked into sucking on a lemon. Taehyung chatters away at you the entire time, completely oblivious to Jungkook’s annoyed stare. You share an exasperated look with Yoongi on your way out.

Hoseok returns to your rental home on the evening of day three looking scandalized. Apparently, this is the result of him running into Jimin, who’d offered to read and analyze his birth chart for him. Apparently, this is Jimin’s second job when there’s no new check-ins to harass. Apparently, Hoseok has been “read for filth” by “the stars” and “doesn’t wish to discuss it further.”

(Interestingly, Jimin corners you not long after. There’s a dangerous twinkle in his eye as he says, “Curious?” and gestures to a small room just off the lounge.

“The curtain’s kind of corny, isn’t it?” you say, scoffing as one strand of beads smacks you in the side of the head. “Like, this all feels very mysterious carnival tent and not billion-dollar resort, y’know?”

Jimin takes a seat behind a large desk, completely void of decoration. You’re not sure what you expected—some tarot cards, maybe a crystal ball to sell the illusion—but it’s empty. “You must have Leo placements,” he mutters.

“Moon and Mars, actually. Lucky guess.”

He gestures for you to take the seat in front of him. “Mm, not really luck, they’re just really good at lying.”

“And what am I lying about?”

Jimin ignores your question. Instead, he cocks his head to the side and says, “When’s your birthday?”

“Aren’t you the astrologer? Take a guess.” Jimin just stares, looking endlessly amused. Eventually you huff and answer. “March 15th.”

Overdramatic as always, Jimin fake-gags. “A Pisces sun with a Leo moon? Horrendous, truly. How do you function?”

“Stunted, clearly.”

He actually laughs at this, rewarding you with a brilliant smile and an endearingly crooked front tooth. “No matter.” He shakes his head, blond locks falling elegantly around his face as if arranged by the gods themselves. “You may have a truly tragic sun-moon pairing, but it bodes well for you and that neurotic mess of a best friend you’re fake-dating.”

You choke so hard Jimin actually offers you a glass of water.)

Dinners are spent as a five-piece. Seokjin asks more idiotic questions, such as are eyebrows considered facial hair, which prompts a very deep exhale from Yoongi, and did Adam and Eve have bellybuttons, which sends Taehyung into an existential crisis he’s yet to recover from.

Sometimes there are bonfires on the beach at night during which Jungkook plays an acoustic guitar and sings like an angel. Hoseok is conspicuously absent during these.

He’s also absent during your nightly routine. You shower, smear your skincare all over your face, and brush your teeth alone. You change into your pajamas and crawl into your side of the bed alone. By night three, you’re so annoyed you build a pillow wall between the two of you that you instruct Hoseok, under threat of bodily harm, not to demolish.

On the morning of day five, you’re awake before the sun. You sit in the darkness for a while, listening to Hoseok’s soft breaths on the other side of the pillow wall. He hasn’t gone five days without talking to you in twenty years. Even when he’d threatened you over his high school girlfriend, you were back in his good graces within 48 hours, and all of this for what? Because your mother is kind of an asshole and you’re kind of jealous and Hoseok is kind of self-centered sometimes?

“Hobi,” you say, leaning over the wall to nudge his shoulder. “Hobi, wake up.”

He doesn’t budge, mouth hanging open as he continues snoring quietly, these little hiccups of breath every now and then. All you can do is sigh. “Hoseok.” Nothing. “Jung Hoseok,” you try again, voice hardened into a baseless threat. He keeps snoring.

You groan, run your hands over your face in exasperation. Stupidly, you’d assumed that Hoseok would be easier to wake up now that he’s a Very Important Person worth millions of dollars. Clearly he’s not. So you throw the duvet off your legs and stumble to the bathroom in the dark. Brush your teeth and wash your face and throw on a loose long-sleeved shirt and a pair of yoga pants. It’s the weekend, so you’re free to do as you please, no mandated schedule, and you know exactly who you’re going to see.

Unsurprisingly, Taehyung is on the beach, cross-legged in the center of a large blanket close to the water but far enough away that the tide isn’t a concern. His curls are blowing gently in the breeze and every now and then he lets out a huff as he tries to flick them out of his eyes. No wonder Yoongi took pity on him back in that hostel in Thessaloniki. You’ve barely known him a week and are already hopelessly endeared by him.

“Good morning,” he says, eyes closed. Even the sun is barely awake this early, but it spills across Taehyung’s cheeks in dusky, golden rays nonetheless. “The beach is beautiful at this hour, isn’t it?”

Ah, so Taehyung’s one of those. Chatty at all hours, just like Hoseok. You groan. “Yeah, sure.”

“I have a thermos of coffee if you want some.”

“You just carry around thermoses of coffee?”

Taehyung laughs. “No. I don’t drink it, but I always make some in the morning and put it in a thermos in case today’s the day Yoongi decides to wake up before noon and join me.”

You eye the empty space next to him. “I’m guessing today’s not the day.”

He quirks an eyebrow. “After forcing him to wake up at 6am to do yoga the last few days? I might never see him again.”

“It’d be deserved, in his defense.”

Taehyung seems to think on this. Has a laugh just as airy as the gentle ocean wind, one that makes you feel like you’re the funniest person in the world. So much like Hoseok. You wonder if you’re like Yoongi. If you’re just as closed off but more talkative. You wonder if there’s a reason Yoongi holds his cards so close to his chest or if he simply sees no reason for anyone to know him. He’s got Taehyung and fifteen languages and a lifetime’s worth of stories, what more could he need? “You’re probably right. Where’s your other half?”

“Also asleep.”

“Wow,” Taehyung deadpans, “there are parallels everywhere.”

You don’t know him well enough to know how he means it. If it’s sardonic and taking the piss out of that sort of thing the way Yoongi would mean it, or if he’s genuine how Hoseok would be. So you just hum a maybe-agreement and stare out at the ocean.

Truth be told, you’re not sure why Taehyung was the one you wanted to find. He just seems like the type to know a lot about relationships, people. Seems like someone who’d meet and befriend more people in a day than you would in five years, so someone like that’s gotta have some sort of answers.

“How long have you and Yoongi been together?”

“Oh. A long time. I was nineteen when I went to Greece and Yoongi was twenty-one, but it was such bad timing, you know? Like, I was only two months into a year-long trip, and Yoongi has to be dragged into everything kicking and screaming, so we didn’t reconnect for over a year after we met.”

“That must’ve been hard.”

Taehyung smiles: small, tender, fond. “A little, yeah, but I think that sort of stuff is inconsequential in the long run. What’s a year’s worth of distance when you’ve got the rest of your lives?” He shifts on the blanket, a frown dragging down the corners of his mouth. “Although I went to Australia a month later and got bit by this huge fucking spider, so I guess the rest of my life was questionable for a while. In that case, yeah, it would’ve been really hard.”

You hum again, and in a need to fill the silence, Taehyung asks, “What about you and Hoseok?”

“What about us?”

“How long have you been together?”

We’re not, really, sits on the tip of your tongue. Jimin has already seen straight through the bullshit, so why not Taehyung, too? What’s the worst that can happen—they kick you out because you’re not a proper couple? What does that even mean? You’ve known Hoseok for twenty years. You watched him grow into a successful, kind, intelligent adult from a stupid-as-fuck eight-year-old. You’ve watched him fall in love and get his heart broken and piece it back together again. You know his takeout orders and his favorite color and the movies he still cries over but lies and says he doesn’t. You know the smell of his mother’s perfume when she squeals and hugs you like you’re her own. You’re one of two-hundred followers on Hoseok’s private Instagram account—the one you and Namjoon and Hoseok’s sister always join forces to bully him on when he tries posting a thirst trap.

You know what Hoseok looks like when he cries. You know what he’s like when he’s vulnerable and insecure and you know how to be a pillar for him when he’s like that, and he knows the same about you.

Some couples don’t have half of that, so what does it mean or even matter if your coupling is proper? Isn’t what you have enough?

You sigh. “We grew up together. I’ve known him for twenty years.”

“Oh.” Taehyung sucks in a breath. “I thought you’d said—”

“Yeah,” you interject. “We’re not, like, romantically involved.” Another sigh. “It’s a long story.”

Taehyung just smiles, looks at you with those butter-soft eyes, and you’re diving into twenty years of history and backstory. You tell him about punching the kid on the bus. You tell him about Hoseok’s first serious girlfriend in high school and how it made your stomach hurt—

(“Because you had a crush on him?”

“What? No.”

“Hm. Okay.”)

—and you tell him about your mother and all her misplaced pride. He laughs at every story you tell him about Namjoon and how you and Hoseok wound up at this weird wellness retreat. He stops laughing when you tell him that you and Hoseok haven’t spoken properly in days, and his eyebrows get very serious when you admit it’s the reason you came to find him.

“You just look like someone who might know how to help me fix it,” you finish.

Taehyung tries—and fails—to not look pleased as punch at this. “I’m generally very unhelpful. Well, Yoongi says I’m not-not helpful, but sometimes I try to help too much and wind up making things worse.” You shoot him a dubious look. “I won’t do that this time, though, I promise! Please consider me your official relationship fixer.”

“I’m not sure this is a good idea anymore.”

“It probably isn’t, if I’m being totally honest, but if I can manage to make Min Yoongi fall in love with me, I’m extremely overconfident I can do just about anything.”

“Yeah, that’s fair.”

He claps his hands together. “Great! We can start with you apologizing and telling him you’ve been acting out due to temporary insanity on the basis of being in love with him for years and never saying anything.”

“Excuse me—”

“It’s best to be extremely honest about these sorts of things as to leave no room for misinterpretation or misunderstandings,” Taehyung says, tone condescending like you’re a child though it’s working overtime to not sound that way. At your slack jaw, Taehyung’s eyes grow wide. “Have you seriously never thought about it?”

“Me and Hoseok?”

Of course you’ve thought about it, it was just dismissed immediately each time. You love Hoseok; he’s the most important person in your life, and that’s exactly why you shooed those intrusive thoughts away every time they crept up. You’re not generally one to overthink on consequences, but Hoseok is always an idea you’ve treated with kiddie gloves. Something delicate. Something placed in an enclosure with 21mm glass walls and eighteen security alarms. So, sure, you’ve thought about it in the same way you’ve thought about winning the lottery or telling your PhD advisor to fuck off and moving to some remote island paradise where there’s always someone to wait on you hand and foot.

Of course you’ve thought about you and Hoseok, in the same way you think about all inevitable things (like the heat death of the universe) and also impossibilities, both wistful and staunch.

“Yeah,” you eventually answer. “Of course I have.”

Taehyung blinks owlishly. “I thought for sure you were gonna deny it.” Then the smile is back and it makes his eyes glitter like tiny stars. “But that’s great! The first step is admitting you have a problem, or whatever. Anyway! Do you still have feelings? Yoongi thinks I’m bad at reading people”—Yoongi is right, you think—“but I’ve seen the way he looks at me a million times, and sometimes that’s the same way Hoseok looks at you. So I think you should tell him.”

Snorting, you turn your gaze to the ocean. Even the water seems to still be sleepy at this hour, the waves small and gentle as they lap against the shore. “Maybe later on. Getting rejected a few days into a month-long trip doesn’t really sound like my idea of fun.”

Face scrunched up in disgust, Taehyung whines, “You wouldn’t! You’re gonna waste all this time because you think you’d get rejected when in actuality all you’re doing is wasting some really great glass walls to fuck against.”

You blanch. You can say, with one hundred percent conviction, that you’ve never thought about sleeping with Hoseok. Okay, so that’s not entirely true. There was the one time you had to defend him from Rose Emoji and Hammer and Sickle Twitter when they threatened to eat him and one person suggested sparing him because, excessive wealth aside, he had big dick energy. That’d given you pause. Did Hoseok have a big dick?

“No way,” you retort, “Hoseok is like a Ken doll. Completely smooth from the waist down. Dickless.”

Taehyung heaves a long-suffering sigh. “Another L for the gay community.”

Hoseok sleeps until noon.

You’ve already washed the sea salt from your hair and returned to the rental house with your own small haul of gift shop magnets by the time he stirs awake, groggy and looking worse for wear. “Wha’ time s’it?” he slurs, voice far too deep for you to remain unaffected.

“Just after twelve,” you answer. “I can make you some coffee if you want.”

All you get in response is a muffled groan, Hoseok’s dandelion bed-head disappearing under the fluffy duvet once again. You’ve known him long enough to know that means yes, to know he takes his coffee with far too much cream and sugar, the liquid something close to bone white by the time he’s done adding and mixing.

You set the mug on his nightstand and sit on the edge of the bed, leaning over to peel down the duvet and scratch at his scalp. “Coffee’s ready, sunshine.” Eyes still sealed shut, you move your fingers lower to tickle at his neck. “C’mon, Hobi, you’re pissing away another beautiful day in paradise.” You don’t bother telling him it’s overcast and drizzling; not like it matters, because Hoseok groans again and swats your hand away before shoving his head under his pillow.

He says something you can’t catch, words unintelligible beneath layers of down. “What’d you say?” you ask. When his head pops up, expression frustrated and cheeks flushed red, you poke the dimple in his left cheek. He has to fight off a smile.

“I asked why you’re being so nice to me.”

You frown. “What do you mean? Why wouldn’t I be nice to you?”

Hoseok sighs. Adjusts until he’s sitting up, long, skinny legs tangled in the comforter. Something about his hands is so interesting he’s unable to focus on anything else. “Because I’ve been a dick to you.” When you move to protest, he tacks on, “And not just on this trip, either. For a while.” For a second, you think he might cry. Hoseok used to cry a lot as a kid—had too much empathy for such a small body to know what to do with so all the excess tended to leak out. “God, there was so much I didn’t know? Like your majors? And the yoga? I just…” He trails off, looks lost. Picks up the coffee mug just to do something with his hands. “It feels bad. It just feels really bad.”

You return his sigh, wishing Hoseok was a little less honest. Always the first to put himself out there, be vulnerable, and sometimes it’s nice and sometimes it makes you feel guilty. “It’s okay.”

“It isn’t,” he argues.

You hold up a hand. “I know where you’re coming from, and I get it. I would probably feel bad, too, if I were in your position.” He whimpers, earning a soft laugh from you. “But I’m telling you it’s okay. I don’t blame you, all right? I never have. I don’t lay in bed at night agonizing over it. This isn’t like that for me.”

“Then what’s it like?”

You hum, knowing this is a moment to handle with care. You can’t be reckless here. So you think it over, and you say, “It’s… I don’t think this happened because you don’t care, because I know you do. I know I’m your best friend in every way someone can be your best friend, and you’re my best friend in all the ways someone can be mine. It’s just that those two things look different, is what I’m saying. And I think that’s okay.”

“It’s unbalanced.”

You nod. “Yeah, maybe it is, but sometimes that happens. It hasn’t always been unbalanced.”

This seems to calm him, and his smile is slow, reluctant, but it’s there nonetheless. “Okay.” He exhales the weight of the world. “Okay. I’d still like to be better, though.”

“We have all the time in the world, Seok.”

You normally eat most of your meals with Taehyung and Yoongi anyway, but since your conversation on the beach, Taehyung attaches to you like a limpet.

The first time had been unnerving. He’d cornered you outside the dining hall, stomach rumbling even as he demanded to know everything, please spare nothing, no detail is too small. There hadn’t been much to report, just that the two of you had talked and things were better.

“Did you tell him you’re in lo—” had earned him an elbow to the ribs.

He hasn’t asked again.

But he’s still hard to shake during mealtime, especially breakfast, because he wakes up ready to talk, conversation locked and loaded on his tongue. Yoongi, of course, doesn’t talk at all, so he offloads onto you and Hoseok, who’s too good-natured to ask for some peace and quiet.

“Seokjin asked me last night if water was wet,” he says, spearing a long piece of pineapple on his fork. “Like, obviously it’s wet? It’s water.”

“It isn’t, though,” you argue. “Water is just water. Wet is a state—”

Taehyung, cheeks bulging around the fruit like a hamster, frowns. “Huh? No. California is a state.”

Yoongi faceplants onto the table.

“No, Tae.” You shake your head. “Like, a state of being. Water makes other things wet, but it’s not wet itself.”

His frown deepens. Looks to Yoongi for help, clarification, but he’s still face-down, so he looks to Hoseok instead. He, very steadfastly, says, “She’s weirdly smart, man. I dunno. I’m not arguing with her.”

“Why? Because you’re also—” Another elbow to the ribs. He coughs, makes a very valiant attempt to look cool, calm, and collected. “You’re also very smart, Hoseok,” he amends. “I am very interested in hearing what you have to say.”

“In business, though. I’m not really smart in science stuff.”

“Interesting,” Taehyung muses. “Would you say you’re smart in love?”

Hoseok is good-natured enough to look genuinely confused. “Huh?”

Yoongi finally picks his head up. Sends Taehyung some kind of look that must mean something to only the two of them, because Taehyung just sighs, put-upon, and shoves a piece of cantaloupe in his mouth. He doesn’t talk to Hoseok for the rest of the day.

Two weeks pass in a blur.

The schedule remains the same. Yoga, shared meals, weird quasi-therapy sessions which you have come to realize are just minor cult recruiting, bonfires on the beach. You and Hoseok stay up late talking and barely make it on time to whatever activity you have first thing in the morning. Jimin corners you at least once a week to talk about your “fucked up and frankly demonic” birth chart because he refuses to believe it’s real. Jungkook offers to teach the four of you how to surf but abandons that five minutes into the first session after Yoongi refuses to touch sand and Hoseok nearly passes out from seeing Jungkook shirtless.

…Which Taehyung catches, of course, because he just sidles up alongside you. Says, “Ooh, interesting,” again, in a really smug way, before intercepting Jungkook and leading him far, far away from the beach. You think he winks at you over his shoulder.

Bastard.

But it works, much to your surprise. Of course the two of you have talked it to death, but part of Hoseok’s bid to be better also seems to include being more tactile. Which… is nice, you’ll admit. Hoseok’s fingers are long and slender and perfectly manicured, his hands soft, so it feels nice when they play with your hair or scratch gently at your back or hold your hand, but it also fills you with an anxious kind of dread.

Uncertainty, maybe.

You know how these things work. Forced proximity, only one bed. You’re two-thirds of a psychologist, after all, so you wouldn’t be surprised if Hoseok is just caught up in the moment, at the relief of overcoming an obstacle and making it to the other side. (God knows the bender he’d gone on after graduating business school attests to that.)

Curiously, none of that stops you from leaning into it.

It doesn’t feel weird. It doesn’t feel awkward or strange or anything besides natural. Hoseok’s bare face is the last thing you see before you fall asleep and the first thing you know you’ll see when you wake up, and just having that certainty, that security, makes the early mornings bearable. It makes them something worth looking forward to. It makes all the tension in your body unwind. Makes you pliable, has you laughing freely and leaning into Hoseok’s side during all those meals Taehyung spends talking. Except he’s not talking so much anymore—now, he’s studying. Smiling. Sending little glances only you and Yoongi catch.

Everything comes to a head at another of Seokjin’s weird dinners.

“A question for your discussion,” he begins, and you swear you hear Yoongi groan under his breath. When you look over at him, he’s nonchalantly chewing his food, no indication at all that he made a sound for the first time in two and a half weeks, so you convince yourself you’re hallucinating. “If no one ever sneezed again, how long do you think it’d take you to notice?”

Yoongi must feel you looking this time, because he offers up a dead stare in return. While Taehyung and Hoseok debate their answers—

(“Well, I work in an office, so probably not long.”

“Ah. I work from home, but I think it’d be pretty obvious? Especially during allergy season.”

“Yeah, for sure. It’s one of those things you’d definitely notice. It’s like—you know when you’re cooking and finally turn off the vent hood and the quiet is a little disorienting? It’d be like that, I think. Like, you definitely—”

“You notice something’s absence more than you notice its presence.”

“Yeah! Yes, exactly.”)

—that dead stare of Yoongi’s morphs into something more mischievous, slow like molasses. He catches your eye, winks, and fakes a yawn.

Taehyung startles, like he forgot Yoongi had been sitting next to him the entire time. “Oh, you’ll have to excuse him,” he says, cheeks dusting pink. “Someone told him once he’d been a rock in a past life and it catches up with him every now and then.”

Seokjin lets out a high-pitched giggle, looking absolutely delighted at this. “A rock, huh? Fascinating. Please tell me all about it.”

“Well, I think a lot of people would assume igneous, but that’s always seemed a little shallow to me, you know? I think he’s more metamorphic—”

As Taehyung rambles on, Seokjin turns his attention to you and Hoseok. “What about you two? What do you think you were like in a past life?”

“He had to have been a monk or something,” you declare, poking the crater of one of Hoseok’s dimples. “He’s been hoarding good karma for centuries and cashed it all in for this lifetime.”

“Aish,” Hoseok replies, cheeks matching Taehyung’s as he scratches at the back of his neck. “I don’t know about all that. It’s just luck, isn’t it?”

You look at Hoseok. Really look at him—at the way his lips curl around his teeth as he tries not to laugh at the way Taehyung’s still going on about rocks; at the way he pouts and gags a little whenever he takes a sip of champagne; at the way the stars in his eyes turn to glitter when Seokjin gives him an opening to talk about his dog. You look at Hoseok and you think yeah, it could be luck, but it feels more monumental.

It feels predestined.

And you’re not sure what that means. Of course friendships can feel predestined; you’re not one to discount the importance of platonic relationships. You’re not sure what it means in the context of yours and Hoseok’s friendship. You’re not sure if your stomach hurt back when Hoseok got a girlfriend back in high school because it was predestined to be platonic.

You frown as you swirl the wine around your glass.

Truth be told, you’re not sure about much of anything right now.

“Hey,” Hoseok says, patting your thigh to get your attention. You’re in a dress. A nice one: silk, a slit up the side, drapes perfectly over the lines of your body and clings where it should. Does absolutely nothing to spare you from the heat of Hoseok’s skin through the fabric. “You okay?”

You’re fucked, is what you are.

“Yeah,” you reply, offering what you can only hope is a convincing smile. “Think I drank this a little too fast.”

“Do you want to go back to the house? We don’t have to stay. Taehyung’s still talking about the difference between limestone and sandstone, so I don’t think we’ll miss anything.”

You nod, dropping your voice to a hushed whisper. “Yeah, that might be a good idea. They look like they’re about ten seconds away from mixing up geography and geology and being really offended when I don’t know anything about rocks.”

The two of you stand, and Hoseok’s hand immediately moves to the small of your back. Warm, warm, warm, and you can’t convince yourself it’s the wine that’s making you lightheaded.

“Oh-ho-ho,” Taehyung chimes, looking pleased as punch at the sight of Hoseok’s hand at your back. Throws an elbow into Yoongi’s ribs. He doesn’t even flinch. “And where are the two of you going?”

“Uh, home?” Hoseok answers at the same time you say, “Fuck off, Taehyung,” because your face feels like it’s on fire and you’ve had enough of his ribbing.

Except, as it turns out, some amalgamation of home and fuck off sounds a whole lot like home, to fuck, and Taehyung might’ve been serious about the matchmaking thing, but even this kind of misunderstood forwardness has him choking on his sip of wine. Yoongi slaps at his back in the most patronizing way you’ve ever seen someone try to save another person from choking.

“Is he okay?” Hoseok asks, completely oblivious.

You shrug. “No. In so many ways.”

Through his choking, Taehyung manages a glare. “Takes one to know one,” he childishly responds, and you roll your eyes at the exact moment Seokjin grins and does a little wiggle, starts up a very enthusiastic fight, fight, fight! chant.

The thing is—Taehyung is drunk. You know he’s drunk, so him overriding Seokjin’s chant with one of his own—kiss, kiss, kiss!—certainly excuses and explains his behavior, it does absolutely nothingto extinguish the wildfire that’s sparked in your belly.

It’s a bad idea.

You and Hoseok have kissed before, when you were twelve and he was thirteen and he landed on you during a game of Spin the Bottle. Everyone around you had erupted into excited jeering, but the two of you shared a mortified look before he shuffled over on his hands and knees looking less like he was about to have his first kiss and more like he was being dragged to his death.

Looking back, that had been offensive, but he’d still puckered his lips and kissed the pout off your face all the same.

So it’s a bad idea, and you should tell Taehyung that the two of you have already kissed and to knock it off, because the second time you kiss shouldn’t only be to shut him up, but you’re both a little drunk in general and a lot drunk on the thought of redemption. If you pursed your lips the way he had fifteen years ago, leaned in close enough for him to smell your perfume, would he wear another mortified look? Or would he—

Fuck it, you think.

Because, once he realizes you’re serious, that you’re actually considering kissing him, the look he wears is not mortified. He looks a little awestruck—slightly dumb, if you’re being honest; definitely dazed—and it takes all that wildfire raging in your gut and unleashes it. Inspires just enough confidence to step closer, lean in; close enough to feel the warmth emanating from Hoseok’s skin, but still far enough for him to pull away if he wanted to.

Hoseok doesn’t want to.

And his hands are already at the small of your back, so it’s so easy to pull you closer. So easy to move them to your hips, grip a little tighter just in case you start to drift away. So easy to press his lips to yours and kiss the absolute life out of you.

You've kissed a lot of people over the span of fifteen years. None of them had lips as soft as Hoseok’s.

He must’ve done a lot of kissing, too, because the way he moves his mouth is sinful. Precise and confident, just a tease of his tongue. You can feel his smile against your lips and it nearly makes your knees buckle. Reminds you, more than the taste and smell of him, that it’s Hoseok you’re kissing, and the thought alone has you gripping at his dress shirt.

Any other time he’d complain about the wrinkles.

Not this one, though.

“Are you nervous?”

The question finds you halfway out of your dress. “Not really,” you answer. “I think my strap is stuck.”

A nervous laugh is punched out of him, but he moves to help you nonetheless. Gently touches your arm and spins you around, fingers ghosting along your skin as he untangles the strap and pushes it off your shoulder. The fabric pools on the floor, emerald and glittering, as you step out of it, and you laugh. It’s been three days since you and Hoseok kissed. The two of you have done a lot of kissing since then, and he’s still so hesitant; eyes still widen every time you lean in close, like he can’t believe it.

Hoseok is still so shy.

“Why would I be nervous?” you ask, because keeping him talking is the best way to keep him out of his head. “It’s you.”

He whimpers, like that’s the worst possible reasoning you could’ve given him. “Yeah, that’s exactly why I’m nervous.”

“It’s okay if you are,” you say, turning around to fully face him, and Hoseok looks struck. Torn between the way his nerves are eating him alive and the sight of you in just a pair of lacy panties. “We can do whatever you want, Seok.”

“I—no.” He swallows hard. “No, no, I think—we should definitely… you know.” You quirk an eyebrow. “My dick is fighting for its life right now.”

You dare a glimpse downward. Hoseok’s dick doesn’t look like it’s fighting for its life, outlined and half-hard in his expensive trousers, but what do you know? “Taehyung asked me about your dick once.”

“What.”

“Well, not exactly. He’d asked me if I ever thought about having sex with you—”

Hoseok whimpers again. “Please do not tell me what your answer was.”

“—and I told him you were like a Ken doll.” At his questioning look, you clarify, “You know. Dickless. Smooth from the waist down.”

“Wow. Why would you tell me that? Not gonna lie, it’s a little emasc—”

“I might need to see it. For science.”

Hoseok startles. “M-my dick?”

“Yeah. For science,” you repeat. “Taehyung is gonna be thrilled. He called your dicklessness, and I quote, an L for the gay community.”

Your best friend seems to ponder this. His hands hover uselessly in the air, and it’s ten seconds, twenty—you think he might call the whole thing off, but then he shrugs and undoes his belt, the metal clanky in his haste. “For the gays,” he explains as he pushes his pants down his thighs.

“Of course,” you agree, nodding seriously. “They deserve it.”

“What else did Taehyung say?”

“Nothing much. Just that we need to get our shit together because we’re wasting some really good windows to fuck against.”

Hoseok doesn’t fuck you against the windows the first time.

The first time is slow and unhurried. Because it’s Hoseok, he lights a candle and the two of you take your time touching, learning, shaking off the dregs of apprehension. He flushes crimson and nearly does a runner anytime something goes less than perfectly, and it’s so endearing you have to stop yourself from sinking through the mattress under the weight of all your affection.

The second time is all raw, desperate need. After a day of sly smiles reserved only for you, Hoseok meets you in the bathroom at the end of another night. There’s a spot of toothpaste on your sleep shirt that he disregards at the sight of your bare legs. His eyes meet yours in the mirror and then there’s only enough time for anticipation to start simmering beneath your skin before he’s moving.

(Technically, the third time is only a few hours later. Just like it has everyday since you arrived, your alarm goes off at six sharp, time for yoga, but instead of ushering you out of bed, Hoseok hits the snooze button and pulls you closer. Fits himself to your back and slides your panties to the side, speaks an is this okay? in his impossibly deep morning voice, and then you’re nodding your head and he’s pushing inside.)

Now, though—

Nerves have been shaken off. Another weird dinner has been sat through to which you’d worn a two-piece outfit, the top cropped just enough to show off a strip of skin—modest enough for the motley crew you share your evenings with, but apparently scandalous enough to drive Hoseok insane. He’s all barely-contained energy beside you, hand gripping your thigh, not paying a lick of attention to the conversation.

You lean over, speak the question just below his ear. “You okay?” Goosebumps erupt all over his skin.

“We need to leave right now.”

“Really? Why? You aren’t having a good time?”

Hoseok makes you pay for your smart mouth. Has you pressed against the expanse of windows in your bedroom, stripped down to just your underwear and the top he insisted you keep on, only your shoulders pressed against the glass. Presses wet, open-mouth kisses along your calves, the sensitive skin of your inner thighs, and then he’s canting your hips forward to nip at you over your underwear. More silk and lace—thin enough to feel the warmth of his breath, then nothing but warmth when he licks a stripe up your folds, spit seeping through the fabric.

“Fuck.”

He does it once, twice more before he leans back, refuses to meet your gaze. Your brows furrow because your hands are tangled in his hair, tugging as you try to get him to look up at you, wanting to see the evidence of your arousal on his face, but then he’s smirking out of the side of his mouth, hands reaching for your underwear.

You register the cold air of the room on your skin before the sound of fabric ripping.

Then you’re saying, “What the fuck, Hobi, did you just—” and he’s laughing as he nods, not a care in the world except getting his mouth back on you. He licks and sucks until you’re nearly trembling with the need to come, begging him to let you, and you think if you were anyone else he’d drag it out longer. Make you beg a little more. But regardless of whatever he’s told himself over the years in order to cope, Hoseok can’t deny you anything, so he presses two fingers inside, right on the spot that whites out your vision.

He touches himself to the sight of your orgasm.

Rolls the condom on. Runs his cock through your folds, tells you to slick him up. As he presses inside again, crowding close, breath fogging the glass behind you, he tells you to thank Taehyung for the idea.

You’re gonna have to thank him for a whole lot more than that.

In hindsight, you should’ve known Namjoon was nothing more than a dirty little schemer.

There’s three days left of your stay, and the question had been nagging at you ever since you cut through the reception area to get to the meditation class you were running late for. Jimin, of course, gave you shit for it: wordlessly, because he was busy checking in a man with far too much luggage. A man who was checking in alone, and that was not a thing, so far as you were aware, so your curiosity was to be expected.

“Can I just ask,” you say, once again in Jimin’s strange little room behind the beaded curtain. “Why a couple’s retreat?”

“Huh?”

“Isn’t it less effective for Seokjin’s weird cult? Like, statistically speaking, you’ve got to be more likely to recruit single people, right?”

“Huh?”

You blink. “What part is confusing you? And don’t say the cult, because I had that pegged on, like, day three.”

“No,” Jimin agrees quickly, “Seokjin is definitely officiating a cult. I just—why do you think this is a couple’s retreat?”

“Uh, because Namjoon said it was? That’s why me and Hoseok are faking being a couple—”

“Were. Were faking.”

“—and it just sort of made sense, considering the people who showed up after us were literally a couple.”

Jimin sighs, schools his expression to the one he always uses when he has to be condescending and speak to you as if you’re a woefully stupid child. “I don’t know who Namjoon is, but I’m assuming he lied in order to get you two to do… exactly what you’ve done.”

“What.”

“This isn’t a couple’s retreat, buttercup, just a regular ol’ wellness one.”

“That Seokjin also uses as his cult recruitment headquarters.”

“Yep.”

“I feel betrayed.”

“Pisces usually do.”

“Excuse me—”

“You’re excused,” he dismisses, shooing you out of his closet.

Despite his innocent nature, Hoseok isn’t nearly as shocked as you to learn Namjoon deceived him.

That’s life, I guess, was all he’d said, the picture of comfort and nonchalance as he lounged in bed, wrapped in a fluffy robe, arm behind his head like a king. You had been shocked—no longer at the betrayal, but at Hoseok’s quick acceptance of it. Hoseok from a month ago would’ve been flustered and on the brink of a meltdown. Hoseok today just shrugs it off.

“I’m just saying.” He dangles a stem of grapes over his mouth like an asshole. “Jimin called it a wellness retreat, right? I didn’t get roped into Seokjin’s cult and we’re… well, whatever we are, so a win is a win. Seems like wellness to me.”

“Whatever we are,” you mimic, pitching Hoseok’s voice up a dozen octaves. “Wow, how romantic.”

Hoseok rolls his eyes, pats the spot next to him on the bed. “If you’d like to come over here, we can have the highly-anticipated ‘what are we’ discussion that no one in the history of human relationships has ever once dreaded having.”

You wave him off. “No need. It’s you, and I trust you, so I don’t think we’re going to go back home and you’re going to write this off as a weird forced proximity thing and ghost me.” You finish the application of your facemask, laughing to yourself at Hoseok’s offended scoff. “Besides, constantly having to defend you from Rose Emoji and Hammer and Sickle Twitter is the pinnacle of devotion and love. That’s the kinda shit that forms a trauma bond.”

“For my peace of mind, then.”

“Fine. Hoseok, I love you dearly as my best friend and I’m probably halfway in love with you as a romantic partner, and even though this vacation has been incredible and rewarding and you are very good at sex, I am also very much looking forward to having my own space again because you are almost impossible to live with.” You roll your lips at the sour expression marring his face. “That said: you still owe me dinner at the Brazilian spot near your office, so I would like it very much if you took me there as a date. You can tell Namjoon I’m your girlfriend if you wish.”

“And are you?”

“Ugh. Of course I am, Hobi. What do you take me for? You think I’m the kind of woman who agrees to spend a month in the rainforest and almost get roped into some sketchy cult with anyone who asks?”

“Well, I don’t know! Maybe!”

“You’re impossible. Do you want to be my boyfriend or not?”

At this, Hoseok’s face lights up so bright it puts the sun to shame. Smiles so big you can hardly believe it. “I would love nothing more.”

During your last group meal, Seokjin invites the new guy to join you.

Taehyung is enthralled immediately, gesturing for him to take the empty seat to his left. “Hello, nice to meet you! I’m Kim Taehyung and this is Min Yoongi. Are you here for the wellness retreat part or the cult part?”

Seokjin chokes on a slice of mango.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Kim Taehyung. I’m Park Bogum,” the man responds. “I’m here for the cult part.”

Seokjin promptly stops choking.

Saying goodbye to this place, these people, is bittersweet.

The last four weeks have undoubtedly been the weirdest of your life, but they’ve more than made up for it with what you’ve been given in return: a blossoming relationship with Hoseok, Taehyung and Yoongi’s friendship. Even Jimin and Jungkook come to see you off, and Jimin surprises you by wrapping you in a tight hug, assuring you that you’ll still be his second-favorite Pisces long after you’re gone.

“Wow, rude. Who’s the first?”

“Yoongi.”

“Yoongi? How is he your favorite? He doesn’t talk!”

Jimin smirks, smug and patronizing. “Exactly. Have a safe trip, buttercup.”

Jungkook, on the other hand, doesn’t say much at all. You suspect he showed up only to look hot and catapult Hoseok into his final sexuality crisis, and that suspicion is confirmed when he leans against the wall and pushes his hair away from his forehead. The sound that comes out of Hoseok is part whimper, part pain and suffering, and truly catastrophic for his ego.

“Get it together,” you plead, but it falls on deaf ears. Hoseok is in a Jungkook-induced haze until you’re halfway to the airport, Taehyung chattering the entire way.

And then—

And then.

“Well, that was fucking weird, huh?” Yoongi asks.

Hoseok is running late.

He’s gotten better at equalizing his work-life balance since returning from your trip, but he still gets held up sometimes. A lot to catch up on, he’d said, and you can understand that. He’d spent his first week back doing nothing but haranguing Namjoon, so that surely ate up a lot of time.

Still, he’s never been quite this late.

The waitstaff are looking at you with concern. They used to look at you only to see if your water needed topping up, so this is an unfortunate development, especially for someone who looks as you currently do. Any person in this overpriced Brazilian steakhouse would be honored to even sit at the same table as you, let alone be able to call you their date, so Hoseok really has a lot of nerve.

You’re halfway to telling him as much over a very angry text message when he appears in front of you, face flushed, chest heaving, hairline dotted with sweat. “Sorry I’m late,” he apologizes, leaning down to press a kiss to your cheek. “Got a little caught up.”

“No shit,” you whisper-yell, “that waiter over there looked like he was about ready to call the cops on me. I probably can’t even afford the water in this place.”

Hoseok grimaces. “In my defense, I have a very good reason.”

“Oh yeah?” you retort, crossing your arms over your chest. “And what is that?”

Wordlessly, Hoseok hands over a garishly orange shopping bag emblazoned with a very familiar logo and brand name. Suddenly, it feels impossible to breathe. “You didn’t. Hobi, tell me you didn’t—”

“You know how much bullshit you have to go through for one of those things? God, I had to put in a request. Not to mention it was like fourteenseparate credit checks…”

You tune him out. Instead, you peek inside the bag with what you can only describe as pure dread. Not at the implication, because that has you thrumming with joy and affection, but at the cost of—

“You got me a Birkin.”

Hoseok looks at you like you’ve sprouted a second head. “Um. That’s what you said you wanted, right?”

“You said you weren’t spending that much money on anyone who isn’t your future spouse.”

The look doesn’t budge. “Yeah? I’m clearly not following.”

“When did you put in the request?” If your voice is audibly waterlogged, Hoseok doesn’t mention it, but you can feel the tears pooling at your lash line nonetheless.

The confusion finally clears and gives way to another brilliant smile. A little bashful, too, because he hides behind the menu and refuses to look at you. Says something you don’t catch, can’t hear over the dim chatter of this restaurant, and he groans in pleased faux-annoyance when you tell him to repeat himself.

“I said… I put it in the night you kissed me.”

It feels like you’ve been punched in the chest. “You’ve known that long?”

And Hoseok—Hoseok ducks behind the menu again, but this time you can hear him loud and clear: “I’ve known a lot longer than that.”

author's note pt. 2: if you've made it this far, thank you so much for reading! i really hope you enjoyed this. as always, any reblogs are greatly appreciated and my inbox is always open for feedback. ♡

#hoseok x reader #hoseok x you #hoseok x y/n #jhope x reader #hobi x reader #hoseok fluff #hoseok smut #hoseok imagine #hoseok fanfic #jhope smut #jhope fanfic #bts x reader #bts smut #bts imagines #bts scenarios #bts fanfiction #bts fanfic

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st4rg1rl-16 · 4 months

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━━ ✶✶˖° 𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗣𝗧𝗘𝗥 𝗦𝗜𝗫 | 𝗡𝟰𝗦.

𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴(𝘀) ━ 2019 to 2023!11 grid x driver!female oc

𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆 ━ mattia calls for a meeting to talk about the relationship between his drivers, after it nick becomes suspicious about his feelings towards arabella

𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲 ━ 2019, 10 april

𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 ━ shanghai, china

𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 ━ anxiety, anxiety attack, sexism (there’s going to be a lot of this in this fic) mattia binotto slowly starting to show his true colors, kids being little shits to our babygirl

𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗿 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗲 ━ i was going to post this yesterday for valentines but since I’m single af and I was tired and bored of seeing all those people in love I tried to do my own bangs and guess what? i fucked up HAHSHSH so I was sad (I still am, I hate my hair so much right now) btw the parts in cursive like this are flashbacks or little previews of the future, keep that in mind!!!

𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 ━ @namgification @louvrepool @d3kstar @omgsuperstarg @whoselly @yl90 @wcnorris

• — need for speed’s masterlist

“OH, I also receive threats from tifosi. Things like "You are a traitor, you have left Ferrari for the enemy."

"Why did you leave Ferrari?" The interviewer, sitting in front of her but out of the eye of the camera, asked her.

The twenty-two-year-old Arabella let out a laugh in a snort raising her hips to get more comfortable in the armchair “Ferrari was not very... kind to me so I stopped being kind to Ferrari”.

Two, almost three, years earlier, an eighteen-year-old Arabella was sitting in an uncomfortable chair without being able to avoid comparing the beginning of her day to that moment. The cold office did not look anything like the warm room, the uncomfortable chair could not be compared to the comfortable and soft bed and, of course, the look that Mattia Binotto was giving her was the opposite of the affectionate and warm look that Charles had given her when she had woken up in his arms.

She looked up at her manager, who watched her standing behind Ferrari's boss, with his arms crossed over his chest and serious face. Next to him was Charles' manager.

She looked down at her hands where her fingers had begun to play with the rings that occupied the opposite fingers. She wanted to look at Charles to see a smile, a look or at least feel his hand against her giving hers a squeeze trying to say that everything was going to be fine but she preferred not to do it.

"I'm going to get straight to the point, I don't want to waste some time we need" The Italian's black curls peeked out under the red cap when he shook his head looking at his wrist where a watch was. He looked up to the front again to see his drivers “Are you dating, yes or no?”.

A deep silence crossed the room after the question while the three "adults" looked at them expectantly. The silence was clear but for Arabella there was a lot of noise in the room, she could hear her heart beating in her ears, Charles' breathing next to her, the annoying noise that Binotto's fingertips made when he hit the glass of his desk.

When he saw that they didn't answer, the Italian let out a sigh “I need you to tell me the truth. It's not that I care who you sleep with but the men above seem to care and they don't find it funny their drivers dating” He looked at them desperately “You can lose your seats in Ferrari because of this, guys”.

"It would be a breach of contract," Nicolas, the manager of the 16, said in a sigh. He looked at his client with severity “Not only would you lose your position in Ferrari but you could be sued”.

An alarm began to sound non-stop in the head of the youngest in the room, suddenly she felt a dizziness and her chest contracted. She thought of her parents, of her brother, of her eleven-year-old self. It would be a disappointment for them.

Everything she had fought for would go to hell in a second.

She dared to look at Charles sideways and when she did she had to take a breath, he was already looking at her. She separated her gaze from his and lowered it to the ground, her hands began to play with each other again before she squeezed her jaw and looked up: looking, for the first time since she had entered the room, at their boss.

"We're just friends, can't friends hold hands?" A crooked smile slipped down her lips while she shrugged "I'm sorry, I can't help it, I'm very affectionate. You can ask Carlos, Lando or anyone, I'm always holding hands with them or hugging them”.

The eldest of the room turned to her manager looking for confirmation and when he saw Nick nod he let out a sigh of relief that almost went unnoticed by the others present. He turned his gaze to the young duo in front of him and nodded to himself "Well, then there's not much to say. You are free to go”.

The first to get up from the chair was the girl, who began to go to the glass door wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible. She heard the chair in which Charles was sitting crawling on the floor and a short time later she felt his presence behind her. She placed her hand on the doorknob ready to leave but the voice of the team boss stopped her.

"Avoid expressions of affection in public, please. We can let it go once, but twice...”His tone was calm but it hid something behind his words, the girl didn't want to jump to conclusions but could swear that it was a threat. She knew that the words were for the both of them, but then, why did she feel his eyes only on her?.

She heard Charles' voice respond with a "Yes, sir" while she turned again to get out of there once and for all but then she heard her name with a slight Italian accent overflowing through the white walls causing her hand to freeze on the doorknob, she closed her eyes strongly waiting for the worst.

"I'm sorry for what has happened in Twitter, the advertizing team has already taken care of everything. I can't even imagine what you've been through” His words were nice and even somewhat kind but the tone with which he had said them made it clear that those were not the feelings he really felt towards the girl. She looked at him over her shoulder, ignoring the questioning expression on Charles' face and the frown of her manager, and nodded before running out of there.

She passed through the garage aware of the not at all disguised looks of the team on her, she accelerated the pace wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible.

She needed to be alone, get away from reality even if it was for ten minutes. She felt that at any moment she was going to faint.

She went to her driver’s room, she was mentally grateful that the area of the rooms was empty, she hurried to close the door but Charles' foot in the middle prevented her from doing so. She looked up slowly over the boy's leg until she reached his face, she snarled.

"Move”.

“No”.

"Charles, move” She pushed the door but with the boy's foot in the middle it didn't move too much. She looked at him angrily “Remove it or I'll destroy your foot”.

"We have to talk about what has happened, Bells" He looked at her pleadingly but she still didn't remove her expression from her face.

"There's nothing to talk about" She snarled, squeezing her grip on the doorknob "Everything has already become clear in there”.

The Monegasque bit his lower lip, this could not be happening. Only four hours ago they were lying in bed kissing until they were out of breath. He looked at her face, her precious face, and cursed himself for having fallen into her charms. Because of them, they were now on a thin line that threatened to break. He felt guilty, he was the one who had kissed her, he was the one who was looking for her, he had started everything.

On the other hand, he was angry, with Binotto, with him and right now with her. Why did she have such a hard time talking about things? Why did she run away at the first change? He thought that maybe it was because she was younger than him, after all, they were three years apart and she was only eighteen, she was a still a kid.

He sighed leaning his forehead on the door “Whether you like it or not, we have to talk”.

A silence formed between the two that was soon interrupted by the girl's sobs trying to escape through her throat, he heard her sip her nose.

"What do we have to talk about, Charles?" She no longer sounded angry but sad and hurt, her voice trembled "We can't be together, if we do we will lose our seats. Everything is against us”.

A puncture made a hole in the male driver’s chest “So that's it? Don't you want us to be together?”.

She opened the door and pushed him into the room, closed the door quickly. Unfortunately, now they couldn't risk anyone seeing them arguing or anything. Now they would have to think very carefully about what their interactions would be like both in public and in private, you never know because as her grandmother said "the walls have ears and eyes."

Charles dedicated himself to observing her, her green eyes were already injected with blood and her cheeks wet. Her nose was red. He felt even worse because he knew it was his fault.

"It's not that I don't want to be with you, it's that I can't!" She exclaimed frustrated. She was tired, she felt that all this was way big for her. Her anxiety didn't help the situation too much and that she had little experience in couple arguments wasn't very helpful either. She moved her hands in front of her showing her frustration, she didn't really know how to express her feelings or her thoughts “I can't risk everything I've achieved, everything I've suffered for”.

"And you think I haven't suffered?" He looked at her in disbelief "I have also suffered to get here. It took me a long time to get here, you know?”.

An ironic smile stuck on her lips as she snorted “You have grown up with money, with friends and a dick between your legs. I didn't. I hardly had any money to eat, the other children didn't want to be my friends and I was a girl. You don't know how difficult it is to be a girl in this world and much less in a sport in which there are only men. So yes, it may be that you have suffered, but I don't think you have suffered the same as I did”.

"I understand, but you can't run away just like that" He tried to touch her arm but she moved away, he licked his dry lips and frowned feeling rejected "What did Mattia mean by what happened in Twitter?".

He observed how the color went away from her skin and how her face deformed showing several emotions that he didn’t know how to decipher although he could differentiate the fear from the others before faking a look of indifference “I don't know”.

"Yes, you do" He raised his arm pointing to her face "You have it written all over your face, don't lie to me”.

"I'm not lying to you”.

"Then tell me!".

"There's nothing to tell".

Both began to raise their voices, one more fed up than the other of the conversation. It was clear that neither of them wanted to have that conversation but, unfortunately, you don't always have what you want.

Charles' face began to take the same color as the red that decorated some of the walls and objects of the room, a vein began to take shape on his forehead “Let me help you, Arabella! I'm here for you, it's not that hard, fuck!”.

"Maybe not for you, but for me it is!" She shouted back, her eyes getting redder and red as tears ran freely down her cheeks. She put a hand to her chest and pulled her shirt “I feel like I can't breathe every time I want to explain how I feel and you want me to let you help me because...don't you feel connected to me or something like that?! I'm sorry, okay?! I'm sorry I'm not like the other girls you've dated, I'm sorry I can't tell you at all times what I'm thinking or feeling!”.

Finally the silence was present between them, the only thing that could be heard was the girl's quick breathing and how the boy absorbed his nose from time to time. Both were with red eyes and soaked cheeks.

Finally she let out a sob breaking the silence, wiped her nose with the sleeve of her red sweatshirt and gave him a sad smile “I'm sorry, but I can't risk it”.

"Ma belle, I..." The angriness that ran through his body was still there but now Charles felt bad, bad because she was right.

She took a breath of air feeling an anxiety attack cover her body, squeezed her lips trying to swallow the sob that was on its way down her throat and looked at him with her eyes bathed in tears "Everything has gone very fast and look at us" She pointed between the two while shaking her head "Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. We should give ourselves some time”.

And with that she turned around and, again, she ran out of there, leaving Charles trying to pick up the pieces of his broken heart from the ground.

“ELVIRA, Elvira...” The tall man's gaze moved non-stop throughout the red garage, trying to find the black and smooth hair between the sea of red shirts.

He clicked his tongue rolling his hand in the bicep of his little girl's engineer, Alexander raised his neck to look at him curiously.

"Have you seen Elvira?" He asked urgently to which the eldest smiled broadly, kneeling his index finger in the chest of the tall one, he looked at his finger frowning before turning his gaze to the man.

"I knew that there was something between you two" He also clicked his tongue shaking his head while the blond looked at him as if a second head had come out on his shoulder.

He began to question whether that man was in a good mental state to be a Formula One engineer but he ignored it, it was not the time.

"Have you seen her yes or no?"

"Ah, yes, yes" He took off his glasses and wiped them clean with the edge of his red polo shirt before pointing in the opposite direction "I think I saw her go around there”.

He sighed a thank you before starting to jog in that direction. He felt a bad feeling on his chest, he knew that something was not right as soon as he left the office of the head of the team. Had he heard wrong or had Binotto threatened Arabella? Well, technically he had threatened both of them but while he was doing it, he could see his gaze on the girl more than on the monegasque.

He moved in the direction of the cafeteria, he lightened his step when he saw the black, long and smooth hair move on one side on the fabric of the red polo shirt that covered Elvira's back. He approached her exclaiming her name, making her stand in her place and turn to look at her.

"What did Mattia say?" She asked him once he was close to her. The publicist observed him worried because although she knew Arabella for a short time, she had taken affection for her and was worried about her.

He took her by the elbow and started pulling her “Come, we have to talk somewhere where they don't hear us”.

The woman's frown furrowed as she looked at the back of the blond's head, beginning to feel anguish in her chest “It was that bad?”

He pulled her until he found a small space between garages, they both got into the small "alley" hoping that there was no one nearby to listen to them.

"Nick, can you tell me what happened?!" Elvira was already hysterical, her coworker was getting on her nerves with so much secrecy.

He raised his hands trying to calm her down "Well, okay, okay" He put both hands on his hips and took a breath “I have the slight suspicion that Binotto has threatened Arabella”.

"What?" She looked at him strangely "What do you mean, has he threatened her?".

"He was scolding them over the photo that has gone viral but his gaze was on her all the time, it was as if Charles was not present. And in the end he said something like "it can't be repeated again" and, seriously, Elvi, he just looked at her!”

"But, it doesn't have to. Arabella hasn't done anything wrong”.

"Not everyone likes a woman in Formula One, Elvira. Mattia may be one of them”

"But he has been treating her well so far”.

"Maybe he was trying to be professional until he saw the opportunity" He sighed running his hand over his face showing his frustration.

Maybe they were taking things out of context but when there was as much money involved as there was in Formula One, neither of them was surprised that the situation was true.

Both remained silent, weighing the situation and the consequences it would bring with it if it were true.

The woman with pale skin like milk bit her lower lip “Do you think she has noticed?”.

"I know she did. Arabella is an observer, of course she has noticed” He nodded, turning his head to look for something to sit on. There were a couple of boxes so he took a few steps back and sat on top of them, he really needed to sit down. He felt that his blood pressure was raising.

"And what are you going to do?".

"For the moment, try not to get her into some scandal that involves Leclerc, keep an eye on Mattia and pray that these two years will pass quickly and without any problems”.

"And when her contract with Ferrari ends?".

"Last month Toto Wolff made it very clear that he is interested in Arabella, Zak and Christian are also looking to sign her" He denied with a smile on his face, but it was not a smile of joy but one of incredibleness.

"Horner? I don't think it's a good idea for her to go to Red Bull, not when they have Verstappen”.

He nodded in agreement with her “Yes, they would belittle her as they do with Pierre but if she goes to Mercedes they would do the same, they have the five-time champion as the leading driver”.

"Valtteri doesn't seem very unhappy" She crossed her arms resting his back on the wall.

"This sucks" He let out a sigh, throwing his head back "When she was in Formula Two, everything was much easier. I miss that”.

She looked at him with empathy “But now she is in Formula One. She is going to be a star, Nick”.

"But the stars fall from the sky and I don't want her to be hurt. You've already seen what they say about her on the internet, she's just a little girl!” Unintentionally, his head revived yesterday when his was in his hotel room watching a chinese romantic comedy and suddenly his phone seemed to explode from all the notifications he was receiving. He almost started to cry when he read the things people said about Arabella.

"She is a little girl who drives a car at three hundred kilometers per hour defying death every weekend. She is a little girl who has entered in Fotmula One, something that no little girl has been able to achieve for many years” She approached him looking at him with sadness because she knew it hurt. I knew that the girl was the closest thing he had to a daughter “You know she's not just a little girl”.

"But it's been so recently that her race suit was bigger than her" An expression of melancholy crossed his face as he remembered a little Arabella fighting with her race suit so that it didn't fall off her waist.

"I know that you've known her for many years and that you see her as a daughter and that's why it hurts you that all this is happening because you know that it also hurts her, but it's her dream, isn't it?" She looked at him expectantly and after a few seconds he nodded.

He began to play with his hands, a bead bracelet, clearly made by a little girl, peeked out of the sleeve of his left arm attracting the woman's attention. It was seen that it was old because the beads were white but with pieces of colors staining them indicating that they had lost the color and the rope on which it held itself seemed to be struggling for every second of it’s life.

She was able to appreciate the letters forming a 'Nicky ♡'.

"I have shed sweat, blood and tears for that girl since I met her ten years ago" He began to play with the bracelet, an act he did every time he was nervous "And I have never asked for anything in return, only that nothing ever happened to her but now there are fifty thousand people saying dirty shit about her on twitter, her boss seems to hate her and I don't know what to do. I always know what to do but not now” The air got stuck in his chest and his voice trembled becoming hoarse “And I can't ask her because she has trouble letting people help her, now I never know what she's thinking and I know that her anxiety is not helping. And I'm afraid because I'm the one who must protect her, her parents gave me that honor and now I can't do it”.

She stroked her arm to tell him that she was there for him, she felt a tear running down her cheek "You're doing well, Nick. Just... talk to her and make it clear that you are there for her.”

The man let out a little laugh “I wish it was so easy”.

“AND Arabella Torres crosses the finish line two minutes apart from Marcos Gómez!

From ear to ear, the smile of the eleven-year-old girl couldn't be bigger. From the podium she looked at the audience and smiled even more –if it was possible– when some hands showed up in front of her and extended the trophy. Her small hands took it between tremors, she analyzed it for a few seconds before lifting it over her head. She looked at her podium teammates waiting to see their smiles but it wasn't like that, both children looked at her seriously before looking at each other sharing a look of displeasure.

Suddenly her smile no longer reached her ears.

She lowered the trophy and after the photos she got off the podium, trying to find her parents. She pulled the brilliant trophy without much desire going to where they decided that she would meet with her family after finishing the race.

"I'm sick of her" The voice of the second winner of the day filled her ears, she frowned and hid behind a wall of one of the trailers.

Listening to other people's conversations is wrong, Arabella. Her mother would have said but she couldn't help it.

"I don't understand what she is doing here" Another voice joined him "She's a girl! This is not for girls”.

"My father said that they let her win because her family is very poor”.

"In addition to the fact that she is very annoying, I hate her. She gives me a headache just for listening to her”.

"She's not even good at driving”.

"She thinks she is a big deal for being the only girl but she'll never get to anything”.

Maybe she should have thought more about what her mother told him and not let curiosity win her over. Because as they say, curiosity killed the cat but this time it killed the heart of little Arabella.

A pout began to threaten to be present on her small lips, she released the trophy and turned around ready to run away but her body crashing into a larger one prevented her from doing so.

"I'm sorry" She murmured, passing her small hand formed in a fist through her eyes, trying to wipe away the tears.

"Don't worry" The man bent down to see her better, he extended a tissue to her "You're today's champion, right?".

She frowned slightly when she heard him speak in english and let out the smallest of sighs, it's not that she was bad at english but she still didn't speak it fluently and it was a little tedious for her to have to be speaking in another language being sad.

She looked up a little, enough to see the tissue in his hands and accepted it murmuring a "Thank you" before wiping her face, once she did she looked at the man.

"Sebastian Vettel" A gasp came out of her little lips when she realized that he was the Formula One driver. She couldn't believe it, it was Sebastian Vettel!

The german laughed "Yes, that's me. What's your name?”.

"Arabella" She said and he extended his hand to her, she looked at him curiously.

"Nice too met you, Arabella” Between his gigantic hand he took hers and waved them up and down "Now, can you tell me why you were crying? Are you lost? I can help you find your parents”.

"No, no, I know where they are" The tissue moved with every gesture that the little girl made and Vettel smiled again, the girl seemed adorable with her big green eyes and dressed in her little race suit.

He had always wanted to have a daughter, he was still very young but he was sure of it and even more so after seeing little Arabella.

"Well, then?".

He regretted asking because he quickly noticed that she was uncomfortable, he squeezed his lips in a thin line waiting for the girl to say something. He opened his mouth to talk because it seemed like she wasn't going to tell him anything but he shut up when she suddenly answered.

"The other children hate me for being a girl" She shrugged, looking down at the tissue in her hands, began to play with it while a sad smile stuck in her lips "It’s okay, not always people have to like me”.

A puncture made a hole in the blond driver's chest. How is it that a little girl of nine, ten or eleven years old –he wasn’t very sure about her age– could speak like that? He grimaced by responding to himself, probably because she was already used to being rejected.

He looked at her with sympathy “That's true, not everyone will always like you and that's why you don't care. You have to ignore what they tell you or think, the only important thing here is you”.

Arabella looked at him with bright eyes and admiration coming out of every pore of her body because one of her favorite Formula One drivers was there in front of her giving her some advice. A piece of advice that she would take very serious.

"Seb, Seb!" A blond boy with blue eyes shouted the german's name as he ran towards them. Arabella looked at him cautiously, she didn't want another boy to make fun of her, much less in front of the next Formula One champion.

The older blond turned as soon as he heard the boy's voice and could swear that if he had looked in front of a mirror he could have seen a light bulb light up above his head. He smiled at the boy when he finally arrived next to them.

"Seb, dad is looking for you" He said between accelerated breaths, swallowed saliva and looked up, colliding with that of the mysterious girl who was with her father's friend. He frowned.

"Yes, I'm coming" Even without erasing his smile, he placed a hand on the boy's shoulder and brought him closer to him "I want to introduce you to someone”.

"What are you doing?" He asked in german to what Sebastian looked at him badly.

"She's Arabella" He pointed to the girl, making him to look back at her. He observed her, she was a little taller than him and his green eyes attracted more attention than his blue ones. She was in a red and blue rice suit and a trophy was lying on the ground, not far from her, he deduced that she was the champion of the race. She sent him a smile to which he replied blushing, she was beautiful.

Sebastian's smile got bigger “He is Mick and I think you are going to be great friends”.

She hid her face between her arms and squeezed her grip on her knees more, bringing them even closer to her chest if that was possible. She let out several sobs, one stronger than the previous one, almost drowning with her own tears.

She cried for herself, for her family, for the boys and cried for Charles.

She had screwed up everything and she didn't know how she was going to fix it or if she could fix it.

She regretted everything and for a moment she wanted to go back to that moment when she decided to sit for the first time in that kart that was not for her and avoid it, if she had not touched it maybe now she would be in college and would be a normal girl with normal problems or maybe she would be unemployed struggling to find something to put in her mouth, she didn't know but at that moment anything seemed better than the present.

At what point had she stopped being in a hotel room living a honeymoon moment with Charles to have broke up with him, to have been threatened by her boss to fire her and be sexualized on twitter?.

"Oh, tyttö" Little girl. She heard someone's voice bringing her back to reality, she still didn't raise her head because her body had stopped working, she didn't feel anything. "What happened to you?".

She heard a few steps and then a presence near her, she felt like some hands made her raise her head, finding Kimi Räikönnen's cold blue eyes looking at her with some concern.

She couldn't answer, when she tried to speak her lips contracted in a pout and another sob ran away for them. The blond frowned, holding her head.

"You have to breathe, tyttö” He said but he didn't get an answer. The girl in front of him really looked like a corpse. He moved her head between his hands “Eh! Tyttö, are you listening to me? Breathe with me, c’mon”.

He began to do breathing exercises trying to get the girl to follow him, his heart jumped in his chest when she began to follow him. They stayed like that for about fifteen minutes until she stopped crying and was able to keep her head high on her own.

Once he separated from her, an uncomfortable silence embraced them. The eldest looked at her “Eh...Do you want to talk about it?”.

The girl shook her head and he felt a little relieved "How did you know what to do?".

"I'm a father, tyttö." He raised the bottle of water he had left on the floor as if he were toasting and drank from it "I know how to do everything��.

She let out a small smile at the finn's attitude and began to play shyly with the zipper of her jacket. The blond looked at her curiously.

"Is this for Binotto?" Arabella raised her head looking at him surprised.

"How...?"

"I'm friends with some of the engineers. I heard them talk about the twitter thing and Binotto scolding you and Leclerc”.

She let out a moan taking her gaze to her shoes “Great, so everyone knows”.

"You should not care, you shouldn’t give a fuck" Before the expression the girl laughed covering her knuckles with the sleeve of her jacket and passing the fabric over her cheeks to wipe the tears that silently continued to fall. The blond looked at her from above “You know what? I thought you were tough, I guess I was wrong”.

"Excuse me?" She looked at him somewhat offended.

"I thought you wouldn't care so much about what they'll say" Kimi was trying to get a reaction from her and Arabella, unconsciously, she knew it but still couldn't help but feel his words.

"Well, sometimes you can't take it anymore" She shrugged, looking away from him.

"I know you can do it, but you can't yet" He pointed out "The first day I saw you, I knew you were going to be big, you know? I knew you were going to change things, that you were going to make history" He drank from the bottle of water as if nothing had happened while Arabella looked up to him with her mouth open, was this really happening or had she become unconscious thanks to the anxiety attack?.

She wanted to laugh, the situation literally seemed surreal to her.

"You have a champion's face, so don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Don’t mind them, do whatever you want. Win races, get on the podium and show everyone who you are. If they are going to hate you okay, but give them a reason to hate you: be the best” The finn spoke with passion and knew that it was because he had experienced hatred first hand. He had been in that world for many years, he had seen many friends suffer from the hatred of the public eye but none of them were like her. He knew it was different because she was a woman and very young. She had achieved what many men hadn’t been able to but, right now, before him she was only a scared little girl.

Maybe he wasn't aware of what he was saying to the girl, much less about how her skin had bristled or how something had "clicked" on her head thanks to his words. But he still continued “Make them get bored of seeing you win, I know you can do it but remember that after all not always people like you”

That phrase reminded her of an old friend.

A phone rang, causing him to separate his gaze from her. He looked for the device in his pockets and when he found it he looked at the screen. He raised his head to look at the girl, who was looking at a fixed point in front of her “I have to go. Will you be okay?”

At his question, she raised her head and Kimi could swear that there was something different in her gaze. She gave him a small smile of gratitude “Yes. Thank you, Mr. Räikkönen”.

"Call me Kimi, tyttö”.

And with that he turned around and left, leaving the girl alone again.

She licked his lips observing how the figure of the Alfa Romeo’s driver disappeared in the distance. She tested the salt of her tears on her lips and sighed before moving her hand down her leg, looking for her own phone. She took it out of the pocket and after unlocking it she went to the contact app, her eyes moved all over the screen in unison with her finger, looking for the right name. Once she did it, she pressed the call button.

She put the device in her ear and waited for it to sound “Hey, uhm. I miss you, do you think you can come to the next race?".

165 notes · View notes

icallhimjoey · 11 months

Note

Love love love your writing! I’d be so interested to see your take on a friends to lover situation where the reader and Joe are good friends and the reader constantly gets the ick so Joe sets a challenge at a party (thinking Italian summer party) for her to find someone who doesn’t give them the ick.

And she realises that Joe is the only one that has no icks 👀

okay so ive had an INTERESTING (read: 18+, v spicy) suggestion from werepartnersnow who, by the way, claims she doesn't read rpf but then found herself in my inbox asking for very specific filth 👀👀👀 but, anyway, it was good filth, and i was trying to find a way to tackle her request, and then this request really brought it all together for me, so, THANK YOU! here we GO sluts! Wordcount: 3.9K

---

Double Or Nothing

part one - part two - part three - part four - part five

“Did Joe say he was coming?”

“Yea, I’m surprised he’s not been spotted yet,”

Heads craned back, and you grumbled into your beer. Conversation had been flowing so nicely, and now, suddenly, everyone had to look at the pub entrance to check if there was any sign of Joe yet.

Like he was the guest of honour missing still.

Like the night hadn’t started properly yet, because Joe wasn’t there.

Ugh.

Now… listen...

By no means did you dislike Joe. He was your friend just as well as he was all of theirs. It was just that, Joe had seemingly become a lot more interesting to a lot more people in a very short amount of time. Even some of your friends sort of… fell for the sudden hype that surrounded him. Wanted it proven to the outside world that they were friends with Joe. That they knew him. Were part of his group.

And you kind of got it, or... at least a little.

Joe got to do very cool and exciting things, met very cool and exciting people, and he'd bring anyone who had the time to join. Any time he'd drop a message with the question 'who's got time off for these dates' it was really a first come, first served sort of deal.

So it kind of made sense that people wanted in with Joe. However, he couldn't pay you enough to sit next to him for a full day, or several, as he passed out autographs like boring assembly line work. To see people fawn over him. Tell him how amazing they all think he is...

Because Joe was… he was just Joe.

There was a lull in conversation, and you felt the need to remind everyone of the time Joe spent a full night ordering drinks for everyone before dipping out and leaving the last people with the bill.

He paid for his own share later, but, still. That was a shitty move.

Or when Imogen and Lawrence had gotten married, and he thought it was okay to help himself to a piece of cake before they'd done the ceremonious cutting of it.

Or when he'd invited everyone over to a party at someone's house without informing the host he was bringing seven other people. That night you'd just stood around awkwardly, all of you, knowing you weren't welcome and afraid to have any of the drinks for fear of them running out.

It felt healthy to remind everyone that Joe was just your shit friend. This guy who they’d known forever and who they also sometimes didn’t like. Because he could be a bit of a boring loser, who’d cancel on events last minute. One that you liked - he was still your friend, supported you when you needed support, made you laugh when you needed cheering up and was just... overall was a fun guy to hang out with. Despite all the shitty things.

Joe knew this is how you felt, and, not that you'd asked, but if you would have, he'd easily agree with you. Would just smile as you glared at him for forgetting someone's birthday and then pretending a gift someone else had bought was from him too.

And he got away with shit like that every single time because of that stupid smile. All charming, all endearing.

All handsome, and shit.

You felt a nudge to your knee under the table after you'd rolled your eyes at everyone looking around to find Joe. You were given a brief smirk by one of your friends before eyes turned away from you and you frowned. Idiot.

You knew what was insinuated there, and didn’t appreciate it.

It wasn’t the first time you’d been very adamant and obvious about not being impressed with Joe, and people took it to mean something else. Like you were overdoing it to hide your real feelings.

You weren’t overdoing anything, though, and you wanted to say something, wanted to argue and bite back at that stupid smug look you got, but you noticed the eyes of the people on the other side of the table focus on something over your head.

You jumped, tensed up with shock, when someone suddenly grabbed you by the shoulders. It nearly knocked over every drink on the table as your knees shot up and banged the underside of it.

“Jesus,”

“No, just me,” Joe joked, and he got heys and hellos and big smiles and even a drink handed over that someone had gotten him before he’d even arrived, and oh my fucking God, you needed more celebrities in your group because this was getting a little ridiculous.

You composed yourself fast, recollected yourself and tried your hardest to push down the blush that had crept onto your face.

Like you’d predicted, the second Joe joined the group, you suddenly all became his entourage.

Now you were all Joe's friends.

You weren’t, but, that’s what it felt like.

To Joe’s credit, he didn’t really act any different – he was still his quiet, normal self. Kind of dull, nothing crazy, just there for a laugh, comfortable with the spotlight being off of him for a little bit. That was nice, and you appreciated that.

It was just that your other friends were big dumb idiots. Not all of them, but, enough of them for it to bother you a little.

Although, Joe had changed his hair... so, he'd changed a little since Hollywood had come a-knocking.

It was all fine, though. The conversation automatically sort of continued from where it left of before Joe joined and the small bit of annoyance you felt before quickly disappeared.

You paid close attention to not paying close attention to Joe.

It wasn’t until Joe cheersed his glass with your half empty one to catch your attention that the irritation you'd felt before crept back in a little.

Not because of the focus landing on you, but because of the question he asked.

Not how are you. Not how’ve you been. But, “No David?”

You gave a little sarcastic smile, tilted your head down to look at him through your eyelashes and confirmed, “No David.”

Apparently that was enough for other people to comment on the matter as well.

“Yea, how’s that going?”

“Are you still seeing each other?”

You took too long to answer either question, and when you look a slow sip of your drink to give yourself more time to think of how you were going to frame this, you could see one of your friends groan. The lack of information said plenty.

“Oh no, here we go again,”

“Should’ve known it,”

“Did you dump him already?”

The whole table seemed to feel the same way about you and David not hanging out together anymore. Made sense though, David was the first guy in a good while you'd taken along to meet some of them. Before David, there'd just been a lot of first dates that only sometimes graduated into a second, and then, usually, contact would sort of... fizzle out.

“I didn’t dump him– there was no dumping to be done, we weren’t dating,”

You got a few scoffs.

“What was it this time?”

And, okay, so, your track record wasn't great by any means. It's just that... you were very easy to turn off, you guessed. And once you found something about someone that got under your skin, you couldn't not see it. You couldn't not hyper-focus on it, and you knew that from that moment on, whatever you and whichever guy had together was doomed to fail.

“Just... we didn't really match each other,”

That was the polite, vague way of putting it. You looked at your drink as you said it but felt Joe's eyes stare you down. It burned your cheeks a bit.

“No, be honest,” Izzy said, speaking to you as if you were a toddler before she went for a sip of her drink.

“What? That's essentially exactly why he's not here right now,”

Izzy scoffed, and you silently cursed your best friend. She was going to make you say it. The thing you told her in private. You took a mental note to never be honest with her again.

“Can I tell them the story, or are you going to do it yourself? I'd love to be the one to share it,” she sat up and leant in. Ready.

The eyes of your friends moved between her and you, like they were watching a tennis match, absolutely not sure where this was going, but very exciting to see where it was going to go.

“Well, it wasn't one specific thing,” you started, and foolishly, left too long a silence after. Izzy filled it immediately, because it very much was one specific thing and she couldn't keep the knowledge inside any longer.

“Bad sex.”

It got some hearty laughs from the group, and when you looked at Joe, you caught his narrowed eyes. He looked a bit hesitant, small smile playing his lips as he hovered his glass in front of his mouth, like was about to take a sip, but couldn't because he had to see how you were going to react to Izzy.

“Okay, no,” you fought. “It wasn't bad sex... not, like, not overall, anyway, it wasn't... it wasn't the worst by any means,” you stumbled through your words and it made Izzy shoot up her eyebrows.

“Oh, are we doing specifics?”

You groaned and saw Joe perk up a little from the corner of your eye.

Fuck.

“Absolutely not, that's not... that's not fair on David,”

What you meant was, let's not talk about my sex life in detail in the middle of this pub, thanks very much. But Izzy didn't care though. She hadn't listened to you faking your orgasms through her bedroom wall for a few weeks for fucking nothing.

“What did he claim to be good at?”

“Isabella...” using her full name did nothing, unfortunately.

“He'd boast about it so much, even I started getting a little jealous,”

“I'm going to get another drink,”

Escaping seemed a good idea. Izzy could just talk about the things she'd heard David say to you in the other room without you there. But you were kind of closed in. Couldn't just get up and make your way over to the bar without people having to move out of your way for it.

“What was it?” Joe asked carefully, voice not too loud, the question definitely only aimed for you to hear. Curious. Not that he was being any kinder towards you than any of your other friends were – you could see that cheeky smile, could see how he was ready to let laughter escape him. Plus, everyone heard him anyway.

You saw your friend open her mouth, ready to answer for you.

“Izzy, don't,” you raised a finger, and you silently cursed at yourself for not being able to keep a straight face anymore.

She was going to say it.

“Head.”

Someone snorted into their beer which splashed into their face and that made people laugh more than what Izzy'd said, but now, that information was out there. It made you slump down into your seat so far, you were practically under the table.

“You told him to fuck off for eating you out wrong? Am I hearing this right?” one of your friends asked, not even judgmentally, but more to coax you out of your hiding spot.

It worked.

“Okay, so, listen,” you sat up, ready to justify your actions. You weren't a horrible person, and you needed people to agree. “If you claim to be amazing at something like that, I would kind of expect you to then also... you know, actually know... where things, are?”

You looked around, read your friend's faces and most of them knew exactly what you meant. Didn't need to use the actual words to describe in detail what David couldn't locate.

Izzy read your friend's faces different, though. Thought they did need clarification, and she was an accommodating friend. Wanted to help out. Also enjoyed embarrassing you a little too much, the bitch.

“Kept licking her leg, sucked on everything but her clit,”

“Oh my G–” you hid your face with both your hands, elbows perched on the table.

“David, David, David,” Joe shook his head, tutted at you, seemed to feel genuinely sorry for the guy.

“To be fair, it's a good reason to stop seeing someone,” someone else said, and you quipped a quick thank you. The comment prompted people to go over all of the other reasons you'd turned men down before, and the list was... extensive, to say the least.

Chewed on his food with his mouth open. Dressed like he was colourblind. Was into weird experimental music that really got under your skin. Bit down on his fork when he ate. Held his phone only an inch away from his face when he used it. Kissed with his eyes wide open like a psychopath. Ran after a beerpong ball in a half-crouch and failed in his attempts to grab it as it bounced. Puns.

Every ick came with it's own backstory and you were shocked by how much your friends remembered - you'd forgotten half the things they were bringing up, reminiscing about the batch of men that you'd turned down for reasons they all deemed ridiculous. It was a lot of laughing at your expense. It was a good thing you were a good sport and that you genuinely liked your friends, so you just laughed along. Knew they all would've probably gotten annoyed by the same things you had. You know, eventually.

It wasn't until someone looked around and said, “There's got to be at least one person in here who doesn't scare her off immediately,” and no, no, no, no. You didn't need your friends actually getting involved in you meeting men.

Not tonight, anyway.

But heads started turning and eyes started scoping out the place, gliding across and lingering on men that maybe stood a chance.

You checked and saw that Joe didn't join in. He was looking down below the table, seemingly to check what his feet were touching, or something along those lines, anyway.

It could be a way to opt out of the game that your friends engaged in mostly to just make fun of you. It could also be that his attention span was too short and he was bored. Both options were awful. The fact that you even looked at him to check was awful in and of itself.

You were no better than your friends.

“Okay, enough,” you held up a hand, elbow in the middle of the table whilst you squeezed your eyes shut. “If you're going to make me look at people and come up with an ick, we'll be here all night. I could even go over all of you and think of several icks for each of you, so let's not,” you laughed, hoping it'd put an end to it.

It did the exact opposite.

“Not for me!” one friend argued, and the whole table laughed. Everyone could easily name multiple things, and so it kicked off.

You all went around the table, named things about each other that would drive you mad if you were to date them. It ranged from obvious things like snoring and working too much, to more niche things, like how someone would continuously pronounce a word wrong whilst insisting that they were right (they weren't) and someone else not wearing socks in certain pairs of shoes (gross).

You were the deciding factor each time. If you agreed with what someone said, there was no more arguing and you'd move on to the next person.

Until you reached Joe.

“Let's go, give me all you've got,” Joe beckoned with both hands, welcoming the criticism like a trooper. It was all innocent fun, after all.

And your friends would name things. All sorts. How he sometimes wouldn't reply to texts for days, leaving people on read for ages. How he'd cancel on people by saying wild shit like, “Oops, sorry, can't make it tonight, I'm in Tokyo rn”. The fact that he'd always hold up the last cigarette from a packet and say, “This is the last one, I'm quitting after this,” and then he'd just as easily buy another packet straight after.

But an unsettling realisation dawned on you.

You silently, almost automatically, dismissed everything that your friends mentioned, that got them laughing and got Joe to jokingly gasp and pretend offense to because... none of it turned you off per se.

Your eyes narrowed as you stared at him.

Oh no.

You had to be able to come up with something...

“She fucking hates smokers anyway,” Izzy commented.

“Yea... usually, I do,”

Joe looked at you and raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”

“I don't know...”

Wide eyes looked at each other across the table, and Izzy couldn't fucking believe what she was hearing.

“That doesn't bother you?”

You laughed and gave your friend a panicked look, “It should! But... somehow it doesn't?”

You got a nudge of a knee under the table again and knew exactly what it meant. You pretended you hadn't felt it. That felt safer.

People started repeating things, waiting for you to go, “Ugh yes,” but you didn't, for none of it, and you thought of lying. Of just pretending that something did, but learning that none of Joe's personality traits actually rubbed you wrong was just as shocking to you as it was to everyone else.

Joe even joined in himself, said, “I'm always fidgetting!” but it did the fucking opposite. Made you look at his hands and notice how nice they were.

Shit.

“Is Joe ick-less?” a pair of astonished eyes asked you, and you couldn't fucking believe yourself when you slowly nodded, lips pressed together impossibly tight.

Joe was ick-less... what the actual fuck?!

“Uh oh,”

“We've found the one, guys! Game over!”

“So, when's the wedding?”

You scoffed. Loudly. Your friends were confirming they were big dumb idiots, you didn't even have to do any convincing of it yourself.

“Nah,” Joe said, and when you looked at him, you grew immediately shy. The little smirk and the mischievous eyes threatened trouble. “I can break her...”

Oh, fuck. The air between the two of you sparkled as your friends oohed, all eyes moving back and forth between the two of you. Even Izzy seemed intrigued.

“One week to give her the ick,” someone suggested.

“Easy,” Joe boasted, not breaking eye-contact.

“Why would you care abou–” you started, but were cut off by Joe who's smile got wider by the second as he challenged you, “And if I win?”

Despite the fact that his eyes were on you, the question was directed at your other friends. When they didn't answer, Joe turned to them, “What are we playing for?”

This... this wasn't happening.

“If you lose, she deserves some good head,” Izzy quipped, and you could've murdered her right then and there. Could've broken a glass on the edge of a table to slit her throat with, because what the fuck was that?

“Three days of head,”

“I said good head,”

“Guys, stop!” you tried, but you might as well not have been there.

“And if you win, she'll return the favour,”

“What?! Oh my God, fuck off, we're not doing this,” you waved both hands in a line, signaling that this was enough now. The joke was over. You weren't laughing.

“Three favours then,” someone else proposed.

“Like that's going to make a difference, he'll just ask for three days of head,”

“No, he'll make her his PA, for a con, or whatever,”

“Ooh, good one!”

“Yea, I'm not falling for that again,”

Joe snorted as your friends debated about a bet that definitely wasn't going to happen. You weren't going to shake on this, no matter how badly they wanted this free bit of entertainment for themselves.

“Okay,” Izzy said, smacking the table with a flat palm, shutting everyone up.

“Joe is going give you the ick within a week. If he does, you'll owe him three favours and if he doesn't, you'll be getting from Joe what you haven't gotten from David,”

“What if she lies?”

“She's a terrible liar, I see right through her,”

And Izzy did. Had always been able to.

“Jesus Christ, you're a bunch of delusional losers,” you laughed.

There was going to have to be a moment where Joe would side with you and you'd swipe the whole ordeal off the table together. At least, that's what you expected.

You expected wrong.

Instead of Joe telling your friends to leave you alone, to be sensible and kind, because you hadn't even gotten good sex in a little while, poor puppy... instead of all of that, you noticed how he waited for the commotion at the table to quiet down a little before he said, “Double or nothing.”

“What?”

“Double or nothing. One week of head,”

“Izzy said good hea-,”

“One week of good head, or one week of favours,”

You frowned slightly at him, dumbfounded that Joe seemed to be going with all of this.

He was actually going along with it.

Were you going to want to let Joe go down on you?

Wait.

You wrecked your brain and tried to think of everything that someone had ever done to you that had turned you off immediately. Would those same things be awful of Joe did them?

Probably not. But... maybe.

Shit, you kind of wouldn't mind a full week of Joe going down on you. Making you come on his mouth. It'd be weird, sure, but also, when was the last time someone made you orgasm with just their mouth?

Jesus, what a wild conclusion - you had no idea that Joe confused you this much. If anything, you'd learnt something about yourself today that you honestly never thought was something you were ever going to have to think about.

So the question maybe wasn't, would you let Joe go down on you... The question was, would you let Joe drag you along to be his personal assistant for a week? Because that was most definitely what he was going to ask of you. You had no interest in tagging along to watch someone do their job, and everyone knew this about you.

Fuck, were you... were you considering doing this?

Joe felt the second of hesitation and held his pinky out, hoping he'd get you to link yours with his before that window closed.

Your eyes glanced at Izzy, who somehow looked bored and giddy at the same time.

Should you do it? Joe's pinky flexed and he questioningly raised his eyebrows at you, a small smile playing underneath.

Just for shits and giggles?

What came out of your mouth next was so quiet, it was barely audible in the loud ambiance of the pub.

“Fine.”

But it was okay, people didn't need to be able to hear you. Because it was embarrassing, but also, because what happened next was one of your arms, moving from where it cupped your own face to half way across the table. Your pinky finger met Joe's and they linked.

“Deal.”

Joe's stupid face broke into a huge grin that made you instantly regret agreeing, but his pinky was stronger than yours and held you in its grip as he repeated your words back to you.

“Fine. Deal.”

---

The Taglisted:

@ghostinthebackofyourhead @dirtyeddietini @jasminearondottir @cancankiki @sidthedollface2 @dylanmunson @thefemininemystiquee @alana4610 @emmamooney @thatonefan-girl @paola-carter @figmentofquinn @haylaansmi @thewondernanazombie @munsonmunster @kellyxo1 @chaoticgood-munson @sherrylyn628 @ohmeg @05secondsofsexgods @lovelyblueness @adoreyouusugar @nadixq @roosterisdaddy36 @alwayslindie @eddie-joe-munson @ali-in-w0nderland @pepperstories @phyllosilicate-s @thebellenouvelle @luvrsbian @joesquinns @choke-me-eddie @alizztor @frootvelvet @did-it-work @capricornrisingsstuff @quinnsmunson @frogers @kennedy-brooke @daleyeahson @harringtonfan4 @emma77645 @tlclick73 @eddies-puppet @electricmunson @everythinghasafacee @a-time-for-wolvess @lucifers-side @barfightzanddiscolightz

(taglist currently full, sorry!)

#Joe Quinn #Joseph Quinn #18+#Joe Quinn x You #Joseph Quinn x You #Joe Quinn x Reader #Joseph Quinn x Reader #Joe Quinn Fanfic #Joe Quinn fanfiction #Joseph Quinn Fanfic #Joseph Quinn Fanfiction #rpf #joe quinn x y/n #joseph quinn x y/n #requested #double or nothing

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