#and often fell within points of each other | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

a-small-writer-in-a-big-world · 9 months

Text

Duty Over Heart

Pairing: Captain John Price x medic!reader

Warnings: canon typical violence, angst, fluff, mutual pining, inappropriate workplace flirting? no power imbalance, f!reader, reader is implied to be American but can be read as anyone

Reader is called "Doc"

Words: 6.1k

Synopsis: You and Lieutenant John Price worked together on a mission in Bosnia, only to find out that your lives were forever changed afterwards...

You are currently reading the prologue to Duty Over Heart

(I guess technically lieutenant Price in this but he’s captain in the rest so)

Price can vividly remember what the day felt like after your first mission together.

It had been a nice day, warm and sunny to the point he wondered if maybe he would overheat if there wasn’t a breeze. To him, he could vaguely smell sea salt and the promise of the fish dinner his mother used to make on Sundays after having dragged him to church earlier that morning. The smell of petrol and the feeling of the warmth from a very particular quilt he had grown up sleeping with.

The feeling, at the time, had been quite odd to him since he had met you far from the ocean and far from Liverpool, the place he had called home up until the age of sixteen before he decided to enlist in the military, but after as many years as the two of you have known each other, he understood why he had remembered those things.

Price had gotten home from a long deployment overseas. Anyone normal would’ve taken the time to settle back within their home, let themselves rest for a moment before they decided to be active again, especially when they had been risking their lives nearly everyday for months on end, but Price was anything but normal.

No one normal killed people for their job, no one normal had to make certain calls that risked the lives of people he would call friends for the rest of the world.

Civilians didn’t see the horrible shit he saw everyday, they shouldn’t in his mind, which was why he had the job he did.

Which was also why he found himself at a football game the day after he had gotten back home.

He didn’t particularly care for the teams that were playing but that didn’t stop him from getting into the game, not when it kept his mind from wandering into places he wished he could snuff out like the cigars he smoked far too often.

A game was a game, he’d enjoy it if it meant he didn’t have to be reminded of his last deployment.

He had been stuck in his own world, engrossed in the football game when someone sat down next to him. He wouldn’t have thought anything of it, it was a busy game and people often got up from their seats and switched them to get better views of the field.

“This seems like a very intense soccer game.”

Price’s face fell into a scowl as he suppressed an eyeroll and he glanced at the woman who sat beside him.

He could immediately tell she was American, not only because of her accent or because she called football “soccer”, but because of the way she looked.

She stood out almost like a sore thumb, wearing clothes that American tourists often wore when visiting London as if she were on vacation but he knew better. She sat with confidence but there was an air of professionalism around her that couldn’t be mistaken for anything else and he knew the moment that she looked at him with a smile his leave was going to be cut short.

“It’s football.” He countered and scoffed. “Americans…”

“I didn’t realize you took soccer so seriously, Lieutenant.” She said and this time he couldn’t stop his eyes from rolling.

“I find football to be relaxing.”

She raised an amused eyebrow, most likely because she must’ve been around to hear him screaming very angrily about the last couple of calls the refs had made. However, she didn’t say anything to disagree as the crowd around them cheered from a goal that he had missed entirely.

His attention had been taken from the game only to go back to work, as it always did. He could argue with anyone that his entire life was his work and though that was mostly by choice, at the moment he wished he could have just these few hours to himself.

“Kate Laswell, CIA.” She introduced herself with a smile, one that was polite but had a hidden meaning behind it.

“What do you want?” He nearly demanded, unable to keep the poor attitude that had crept into him since the moment she had sat next to him.

Price didn’t want to be rude, normally he wasn’t but his nerves were still high from yesterday and he wasn’t too happy about being interrupted on his time off, let alone during a football game.

“I need you for an op,” Laswell began and he sucked in his lips. “You’re the best man I know for the job and I can’t afford mistakes on this one.”

“Best man, eh?” He laughed.

It was true that he had gained quite the reputation for himself within the SAS over the many years of his service. He was one of the highly respected soldiers and often the one that many of his higher ups turned to when they wanted the job done. However, it never would’ve occurred to him that he was also considered the best in the minds of the Americans, especially those in the CIA.

For anyone else, they would’ve gotten cocky about it, but for Price, it just meant he worked more often than not.

“I’ll spare you the details right now but I need to know if you’re in.” She said in a serious tone and one look into her eyes, Price knew she meant business.

She was tenacious, he liked that. She didn’t beat around the bush and waste his time with formalities or “politics”. Straight to the point and honest, he couldn’t fault her for that and despite the fact that she wanted to use her silly American words, he was open to working with her.

It wasn’t like he had much of a choice if she specifically came looking for him. If the job was that important, then there was nothing that would stop him from taking it, not if it meant there would be lives on the line.

“When?”

“My plane leaves in a few hours, we’ll debrief on the flight and then you’ll be shipped out the day after tomorrow.”

Price nodded and turned his attention back to the game as a long sigh left his chest. He should’ve felt more upset about the fact that he was being pulled away from his home after only being back for less than a day, but he had hardly given himself time to feel at home so it didn’t matter.

From one job into another, that was his life, and yet when he met you everything became so much more than that.

The plane had touched down in Bosnia on a small base that the CIA occupied for the mission. It was a small operation for how much Laswell had built it up but no less dangerous; a war criminal on the loose, the need for capture to bring in alive, a simple job but Price knew better.

Nothing was ever simple.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had a simple mission, one that didn’t require him to be constantly vigilant. He wasn’t sure those existed, he couldn’t recall a single mission where he hadn’t nearly died, though he was sure there had to be at least one.

Everything had blurred together nowadays, days into weeks, into months, every mission became the same in his mind and the only thing that kept his head on straight was the paperwork detailing what happened.

Laswell led him into a small stuffy conference room, one that didn’t even have and instead had chairs set out as if they were in a classroom. It was only the two of them there and Price waited for the CIA agent to start but she didn’t.

Instead the door opened and in stepped you.

Price couldn’t help the way his eyebrows knitted together when he saw you walking in full gear just like him, ready for a mission. He almost hated to admit to himself that the first thought that went through his mind was that you looked far too soft to be in the military, let alone work on high profile jobs such as these.

He didn’t want to make assumptions, he’d much rather do that after he’s been able to watch you work, but he couldn’t help it when your eyes looked bright as you glanced from him to Laswell and a warm smile stretched across your face.

He had to deliberately ignore the way his chest warmed when he saw it.

“Sorry I’m late, Kate.”

“We’re still waiting for the others.” Laswell dismissed you with a smile of her own. “You and the lieutenant can acquaint yourselves in the meantime.”

The others? Price didn’t have much time to wonder or ask before his attention was taken by you as you stood in front of him practically beaming at him with only what he could assume to be admiration.

He found that all thoughts were forcibly taken from his mind as he sucked in his lips, glancing down at your own, and he grabbed the straps of his vest.

Up this close, you were quite beautiful which caused him to mentally kick himself for being strange about someone he hadn’t even spoken to yet.

“You’re Lieutenant Price?” You asked and when he nodded your smile grew. “I’ve heard a lot about you, sir, and I’m excited to work with you.”

It took everything in him to hide the disgust he felt when the word sir fell out of your mouth.

You were being polite and respectful, something that many others who he’s met do and yet he didn’t like the way it sounded in your voice. There was something about it, something that put up a barrier he wasn’t sure he liked all that much, not when you seemed so friendly.

That was a stark contrast to many people who had met before, including Laswell. Everyone always approached him only with professionalism that he had gotten accustomed to the longer he worked in his field.

Was this your first job? This wouldn’t be the first time that someone had paired him up with a rookie and he didn’t have an issue with being the one who would teach you the ropes on this mission if that were the case-

“I’m sergeant L/n.” You introduced yourself and his eyes widened slightly. “I don’t know if Kate has informed you but I’ll be your medic for this assignment.”

Price raised his eyebrows and nodded before he glanced at Laswell. He knew that this was serious but he didn’t realize he would need a medic for it and he couldn’t help but wonder just how bad this war criminal was.

When he glanced back at you, he saw that there was a little more determination in your eyes than before but you still had that bright look on your face, something that he felt was entirely out of place.

You shouldn’t be in a place like this.

“Good to know I’m not working alone.” He gave you a quick smile. “M’sorry I wasn’t able learn more about you before this.”

“I only know so much because of your extensive medical records.” You gave him a playfully stern look that made him chuckle.

“I’ll try to be more careful this time.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll patch you up when you aren’t.”

Price felt his chest warm up as he found he was caught completely off guard by you once again. The look of confidence in your eyes didn’t help as you showed him just how much faith you had in your skills which made him feel a lot more comfortable, despite the fact that he hadn’t felt all that out of place before.

Your voice was warm and the smile on your face made him really believe that maybe this was a joke, that maybe you were brought here by accident despite the fact that you seemed to be well acquainted with Laswell.

No other medic had even said that to him. It was a medic's job to make sure their team didn’t die if they sustained an injury and yet you had made it seem that it was so much more than that, even when you had just met him.

He wanted to question you about it, about why you were so friendly, before you excused yourself to speak with Laswell. He was at a loss for words even as two other soldiers came in and the quick briefing started.

You sat next to him and when your knee touched his, he felt himself tense up as he fought back against the weird prickling feeling that came from it.

He glanced at you and for a moment he watched you pay careful attention to Laswell, undisturbed and focused like a soldier as if you hadn’t acted like a completely regular civilian. He studied your face, watching the way you took in the information that he barely processed because he was too focused on you.

As if sensing that he was staring at you, you glanced at him and before he could look away your eyes met. He felt like a creep for being so strange towards you but instead of giving him a look of disgust, you only gave him a shy smile before you looked back at Laswell with that same determined look on your face as before.

His heart skipped a beat and he forced himself to pay attention.

Bloody hell…

Price felt the burn of a bullet pierce his shoulder and he ducked behind the wall of the building he hid by. He huffed, gripping his gun tightly as he turned his attention to the area surrounding him while the sound of gunfire went off around him.

Nothing was ever simple.

Even when he and his group had cornered the war criminal in a small shop on an empty street. He had expected that he would give up when he realized that he was pinned and there was no way out.

Unfortunately, he should’ve expected that the man wouldn’t go down without a fight and that he had his own protection with him.

No one was dead. Any civilians around had left the scene and as far as Price knew he was the only one who had been hit by a stray bullet. His main focus was on the war criminal and making sure that he could capture him without killing him.

Price heard someone duck beside him and glanced back to see you, weapon ready as you provided some cover so he could reload his own.

“Is it lethal?” You fired a shot towards the store window, killing one of the other hostiles and ducked back behind cover.

“I’m good!” He grunted and ignored the pain as he raised his weapon to shoot as well. “We need to flank ’em!”

“Just say the word, lieutenant!”

Price kept his eyes on the war criminal and looked for an opening. That’s all he needed in order to get the job done without getting anyone killed, but currently he couldn’t move without the high chance of getting his head blown off.

Suddenly, there was a lull in the gunfire and just as he was about to give the order to move on the building, something flew through the air towards the both of you.

“Grenade!” He called out and grabbed you on instinct.

He pulled you to cover and hid you underneath him as the explosion went off. His attention immediately went back to the war criminal as he heard tires squealing and saw him speed away in a car.

He cursed and helped you up.

“We’ll chase him, the others can cut him off.” You tugged his vest and sprinted towards the humvee you came in together.

Price relayed the plan into the comms and followed right behind you, jumping into the driver side as he pushed the pedal to the floor to pursue the war criminal. It didn’t take long for him to catch up and he kept his distance as bullets began to ricochet off the hood of the humvee.

He tried to pick up his gun to shoot, but the bullet wound in his shoulder sent hot fiery pain that made him clench his jaw tightly.

“How good is your aim?” He glanced at you as you rolled down the window on the passenger side.

“If you keep us steady, I can get the tires.” You sounded confident and he nodded as he watched you pull your gun up.

You leaned out of the window and looked down the sights of your gun. You took a deep breath and fired two shots, the back two tires of the getaway car exploding with a loud pop before the broken wheels began to spark against the pavement.

The car quickly spun out of control towards the humvee and Price pulled you back inside just as the front smashed into the side of the getaway car.

The two of you were jerked around as glass pieces flew through the air and you smack your head against the dash of the humvee. The getaway car screeched and bent from the crash as both vehicles slipped across the pavement before they came to an abrupt stop.

Steam rose from the hood of the humvee and for a moment everything was still.

Price’s heart was in his ears and he looked to you when you groaned, his eyes searching for any injuries as you held your head.

“You broken?” He asked and when you shook your head he gave out a quick sigh of relief.

“I’m good.” You huffed and swung the door open.

You jumped out of the car with your gun and raced towards the getaway car with Price in tow.

The other from your team showed up just as the both of you rounded to the front, and before anyone in the getaway car could grab their weapons or make a run for it, all weapons were pointed at them.

“Bravo Six to Watcher One, target is secured.” Price relayed the information into his comms as he caught his breath.

“A bird is coming your way for pick up.” Her voice came through the comms and he felt the adrenaline slowly leave his body.

Before Price knew it was back on the small base, watching as a select crew of highly trained individuals take the war criminal to the US.

He stood off to the side of the landing pad as the adrenaline still pumped through his veins. It took too long in his opinion for it to wear off and he could feel himself itching to find something to help ease it as he waited for Laswell to debrief him and tell him he can go home.

Home. It should make him feel better, it should put him at ease and yet his eyes narrowed and he clenched his jaw at the thought of having to go back to London. He knew he needed rest, once the adrenaline wore off he would feel the effects of his last deployment and the car crash, but he didn’t want to stop.

Not when there were more war criminals and people willing to harm innocents still out there.

Price huffed and gripped the strap of his vest before he went to make his way to Laswell.

“Lieutenant.” You called out behind him a little sternly and he felt his heart skip a beat. He stopped and turned around, seeing the serious look on your face which had him looking at you confused.

You narrowed your eyes and gave him an incredulous look.

“Sergeant?” He questioned and you raised your eyebrow.

“I’d be a horrible medic if I let you walk away with a bullet in your shoulder.” You told him and his eyebrows widened.

He looked at his blood soaked shoulder, having completely forgotten about the injury until just now. He could already start to feel the aching sensation return and yet he couldn’t help but think that it wasn’t that big of a deal. “It’s alright-”

“Respectfully sir, I’ll drag you in if I have to.”

Price didn’t have the chance to cringe at the use of sir as he was too caught off guard by your threat. He felt a genuine smile pull at his lips as he looked at your face, seeing that you were serious and he couldn’t help but chuckle.

He shook his head and unsure of why he felt his chest warm again before he gestured for you to take the lead.

You nodded and soon you had him sitting on a spare bed in the same infirmary you threatened to force him to on base.

He watched you intently as you methodically gathered everything you needed, taking special note of the way you silently spoke the list of items that you needed to yourself before you instructed him to take his shirt off.

He managed to take his vest off, feeling a little relief that the heavyweight was off his shoulder but the moment he went to take off his shirt, pain erupted from the bullet wound and he grunted.

His shoulder was stiff and just barely moving had him feel as though he were about to rip off his entire arm. He’s had worse injuries, some that had forced him in a hospital bed for days, and yet this one seemed to be the most persistent.

Price tried again but he could hardly move his shoulder at all.

“Can I help?” You offered and he couldn’t look at you as he nodded without a word.

He felt a slight tinge of embarrassment as you helped him pull off his shirt with little pain to accompany it.

Once it was off, he felt a slight chill as he waited for more pain to follow as soon as you started to patch him up. He was used to the way that medics roughly handled the injuries in front of them, it was just the way things were, especially as the adrenaline was still coursing through their veins.

However, instead of being jostled around and manhandled by you, he felt your hand softly press against his wound with a piece of gauze to soak up any remaining blood. You were gentle as you cleaned it up, apologizing for the stinging from the antiseptic and for how cold he must be since he was shivering.

Shivering from your touch, but he couldn’t admit that to you.

Price couldn’t help but feel incredibly confused but also intrigued by you. At first he believed maybe you wouldn’t fare well on the battlefield but then he saw how efficient you were catching the war criminal.

You were the complete opposite now, treating his wound as if he were a child and touching him with a softness that he had left in Liverpool.

You were strange in the best way possible. You were experienced and a hell of a good shot which wasn’t something that came naturally to most, yet you didn’t boast or act prideful. You were back to that softness he had seen just hours before and he couldn't quite wrap his head around that.

You glanced at him, catching his inquisitive eyes and you quickly looked away from him as if you were startled to know that he was staring at you.

He didn’t miss the way a shy look spread across your face again which made his eyes immediately jump to your lips as he watched you work.

“Did I live up to your expectations?” You teased, seemingly having read his mind and his eyes widened.

Price’s frowned. He hadn’t realized it had been that obvious and it almost made him more embarrassed to realize that you must’ve felt the need to prove yourself to him.

He could only assume by the way that your eyes were devoid of that brightness that this wasn’t the first time someone had made you feel this way.

He couldn’t help the anger that boiled inside of him at the thought.

Anger at himself for being the same as the pricks who had most likely put you down your entire career considering you didn’t seem all that phased by it.

How many times have you had to prove yourself? How many times did someone completely disregard you without giving you a chance?

Guilt bubbled up in his stomach and he clenched his jaw. He never wanted to be like them and yet he had done it to a good soldier who didn’t need to have the extra pressure on top of everything else.

“I’m sorry.” He cleared his throat, knowing that his face must be a few shades redder, especially when you gave him a sad smile. “It was incredibly unprofessional of me to make you think that I-”

“Lieutenant, it’s okay.”

Price shook his head despite the sincere look on your face and grabbed your wrist to stop you. He stared into your eyes with a serious look, one that he hoped would change your mind, and found that for a moment he couldn’t breathe.

His eyes bounced around your face now that he had a chance to look at you properly, and saw every detail that made you, you.

He wasn’t sure why he found himself studying your face. Maybe it was because this would be the last time he’d ever see you and the thought of forgetting your face made him uneasy.

Though, he was sure he’d never forget you, especially when he noticed a small gash on your forehead he had completely missed.

From the car crash…brilliant first impression, he thought.

You stared at him expectantly but didn’t pull your hand away from him as his fingers burned into your skin. It felt as if you had stepped closer to him for a moment as you swallowed hard and your eyes flickered around his face while you gave him a surprised look.

The two of you stared at each other for a lot longer than what normal people did all because he just couldn’t think.

The more he stared, the harder it became to ignore the way his chest warmed as he drew a complete blank on what he was going to say to you. It took a moment for him to come to his senses, realizing that maybe it was a little strange for him to stare, before he finally cleared his throat.

“Really,” his voice barely above a whisper, soft and sincere. “I’m sorry.”

Price let his hand fall from yours, already missing the warmth of your steady pulse in his palm and sucked his lips into his mouth as he waited for you to answer.

He watched you stare at him as if he had grown three heads, as if no one had ever apologized to you so sincerely and it only made the anger inside of him bubble more. He held it in as you glanced away from him, uncertainty flashing across your eyes before you took a deep sigh.

You glanced back up at him with an appreciative look in your eyes that brought back some of the light that had him letting out a sigh of relief.

“Thank you, sir.” Your voice was soft as you gave him a small smile.

“Price.”

A smile stretched across his face at the confused look on your face. He couldn’t help the little chuckle that escaped his mouth when you gave him a look of uncertainty, as if you were trying your hardest to figure out if he was joking or not.

“You don’t have to be that formal with me.” He added and your eyebrows knitted together.

“Is this a test or something?” The corners of your mouth twitched when he shook his head. “We only just met a few hours ago, Lieutenant.”

Price shrugged, or attempted to without injuring himself further, and watched as you gave him a genuine smile.

You were right of course, you were still practically strangers and yet he couldn’t help the feeling in his gut that he had seen enough from you to believe you were somebody he could trust. Somebody who he wanted to see again, to speak to again, and hopefully never have to truly say goodbye to.

He hoped you felt the same but no matter how long he stared into your eyes, the beautiful ones that twinkled with a sort of friendliness that stole his breath away, he couldn’t tell.

All he could do was hope that you wouldn’t be repulsed with working with him again.

“You certainly live up to the stories, Price.” You said as you went back to patching him up with a smile.

“Stories?” He wondered and you nodded. “Hopefully not all bad, I’ve not heard about them until now.”

“They’re not. Promise.”

He was sure the two of you looked like idiots the way that you both grinned at each other. He wasn’t sure when the last time he had smiled so genuinely yet he didn’t mind the ache in his cheeks at all. His attention was on you as you continued to patch him up, completely enthralled by you and your presence alone.

“Shame I haven’t heard anything about you.” He watched you raise an amused eyebrow.

“There’s nothing to say.” You scoffed and he grumbled.

After all he had seen today not only on the field but now as you treated him so gently, he had to disagree.

You had to be one of the best combat medics he had ever had the pleasure of meeting. It was a disservice to you that no one seemed to know who you were or know about your skills, save for him and Laswell.

You finished patching him up, carefully examining your hand work with a proud twinkle in your eyes that completely enraptured him.

“Then I’ll say something.” He spoke before he could even think.

You snorted and gave him a look as if you thought he was joking.

However, even with the fact that he had let that slip out, he was serious about saying something good about you if this mission ever came up in the future, and gave you a look that showed he meant it

There was nothing that would stop him from letting your expertise be known to anyone who would listen.

“Are you always this nice to your medics?” You wondered as you began packing up your equipment.

“Yes-“

Price stopped you and grabbed the few items he needed before he started to clean the gash on your head.

He didn’t miss the way your eyes widened and the flustered look on your face as he made quick work to patch you up. You opened your mouth to say something and attempted to step away from him, but he quickly grabbed your elbow to stop you, making you forget about any of the words you might’ve said.

His fingertips felt like they were on fire as he touched your skin and he tried his hardest to push down the good feeling that he had in his stomach. He was sure that his cheeks had turned a few shades darker and he avoided looking at you in hopes that maybe you wouldn’t notice.

“-but I think I need to make it up to you for acting like a muppet.”

When he pulled away, you touched the small bandage on your head with delicate fingers and gave him a grateful smile.

There was a sort of fondness in your eyes when you looked at him, something that was a lot warmer than anything he ever could’ve imagined coming from someone he had worked with and it left him feeling lighter.

“You don’t have to do anything.” You told him with a giggle that made his heart skip a beat. “Even if you are a muppet.”

Price grinned at your imitation of him and you had a proud look in your eyes, something that was much better than the sad look you had just earlier. He hoped you were telling the truth or else he was willing to do just about anything to make it up to you.

He slipped his shirt back on, ignoring the pain in his shoulder as he did so, before you handed him a few pain meds. He sent you a thankful nod as he took them and that was when he spotted the clock on the wall in the small infirmary.

The smile fell from his face when he realized that he had to go back home soon and that heavy feeling came back. He clenched his jaw and a soft sigh escaped his chest before he glanced at you.

He had a bad taste in his mouth. He didn’t want to say goodbye to you, not yet.

“When do you go back?” He wondered and you gave him a tired smile.

“They’ve got me on a few more assignments before I can go home.” You stated matter of factly and yet Price couldn’t help the sympathetic feeling he got in his stomach. “I wasn’t the one who was rudely interrupted during a game.”

“It wasn’t that entertaining…”

The words were stuck in his throat as he watched you pack up the rest of your items and put them back on your vest as you mentally counted the list of items you still had left.

He wasn’t sure why he felt so nervous speaking to you, why all of the sudden his entire confidence as a leader had disappeared when it came to you, but it made the prospect of saying goodbye a lot worse than it should’ve.

You both were soldiers, that’s how this job was.

“You’re not at all tired?” He wondered and you scoffed.

“I didn’t say that.” You gave him a soft pat on his good arm before you gestured for him to walk with you. “But when you’re one of the most needed people on the battlefield, you don’t get to rest that often.”

Price hummed and nodded, knowing a little bit about what that might feel like considering his reputation.

He followed you outside of the infirmary, trying his hardest to come up with something more to say to keep the conversation going, just so he could talk to you for a little while longer but he couldn’t think of anything.

The two of you made it back to the tarmac and he sighed heavily when he saw the helicopter that was meant for him.

“I find that going on walks helps.” You said softly and his eyebrows knitted when he looked at you.

You gave him an empathetic smile. One that showed a sort of softness that made his chest feel lighter and made him want to prolong his departure even more.

“When you work with injured soldiers you learn the signs.” You explained and he sucked in his lips when he realized that you were actually seeing him. “It’s in your eyes.”

He wasn’t sure how he could feel more compelled to be around you but knowing that you saw John Price and not ‘the Lieutenant Price’, made him feel incredibly vulnerable but in the safest way possible. He was almost relieved that you saw past his ranking and the stories that seemed to travel through the special forces all around the world.

It almost made him feel more at peace.

You placed a comforting hand on his arm, causing him to tense up slightly and step closer to you. He stared deep into your eyes again, studying everything about them so he could hope to remember them when you were gone.

“Walks, eh?” He repeated softly and nodded, causing you to give him a light squeeze. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks, Doc.”

You grinned and pulled your hand away from him, fidgeting with your fingers as you shook your head with that same flustered look on your face you had earlier.

“You know, strangely no one’s called me that before.” You chuckled and he hummed as he heard the sound of the helo turning on.

“Well, then I get the honor of being the first one.” He smiled when he saw the twinkle in your eyes. “I’ll make sure it sticks.”

“How generous of you.”

Price chuckled and tried his hardest to ignore the pit in his stomach as he realized there was nothing he could do to stop him going home. He could only hope that one day he’d be able to work with you again if Laswell ever needed him to clean up another mess.

Maybe she would assign you with him if that happened. Maybe she would listen to him if he personally requested to have you on the team with him whenever she inevitably did call him again.

“Thanks, Doc.” He nodded to you as he began to make his way to the helo.

“Take care of yourself and don’t get shot! I won’t be there to patch you up.” You jokingly called out to him and he laughed.

Price was done for the moment he laid eyes on you.

Tags: @cathnoneofyourbusiness @lillianastuff @sofasoap

A/N: AHHHHHHHH it's finally out and i'm so excited and nervous. I hope you guys like it because it has a very special place in my heart

#captain john price x reader #captain john price x you #captain john price x female reader #captain price x reader #captain price x you #price x you #price x reader #captain price #captain john price #john price x reader #cod price #john price #captain price mw2 #price mw2 #john price mw2 #mw2 price

686 notes · View notes

ghostfaceaddams · 9 months

Text

guts

summary: Wednesday confesses her feelings for you in her own Wednesday Addams way.

warnings: cussing and fake death (mention of blood)

word count: 2,514

a/n: this is based off of this post! This sucks, just a fair warning. I love Wednesday and I know how she would do romance, but articulating it is super difficult. I'm hoping I can get better at writing her since this is only my first time and I love her so much. Anygays, enjoy!

The day had been dreadful for you.

Dreadful in the sense as it being so awful that you wanted to go home and just gently cry yourself to sleep. Ever since knowing Wednesday, you had realized just how potent perception was to each individual. A dreadful day for Wednesday would end with a gentle tugging of the corner of her lips before crossing her arms comfortably across her chest.

They were not the same. It didn’t take much effort into noticing the differences between the Addams family and the rest of the world. And yet, the two of you always seemed to get along. Well, getting along in terms of Wednesday Addams. That meant there was less scowling and a minimum amount of threats within the presence of each other.

Developing a fascination with Wednesday was almost instantaneous for any and everyone. Harboring a crush for the goth wasn’t an unusual occurrence either. Being compared to Wednesday only meant pointing out all the differences between Wednesday and the other person. It was only natural to become intrigued by the lifeless, unblinking stare and morbid interests.

As for the feelings, Wednesday Addams was aesthetically pleasing to the eyes. Her pale skin and raven hair were stark yet appealing contrasts with freckles sprinkled around. One could simply not fall in love with the goth after noticing the sea of freckles. Not to mention how soft and full her lips looked, always pale but darker than her pale skin.

The aurora that surrounded her and the way she held herself were both handsome attributes that lured you in. Her intelligence was admirable (as well as sexy if anyone was to ask you). Her voice was often times even and lifeless as she spoke, or even and factual; the sound was always pleasing to the ears, caressing the skin of your body and your heart.

It was when emotion trickled through her voice that you were really left weak in the knees. The fact that ninety-percent of that was directed towards you when conversing? Well, it would be more of a mystery to not fall for her.

So, yes, you were completely and utterly infatuated with Wednesday Addams. Her grace and beauty were so captivating. The goth’s entire being was an addiction for you.

Wednesday wasn’t a romantic person though. She burned romance books and nearly fell ill whenever Enid or Divina decided to display a romcom. Any form of affection had her wrinkling her nose and stitching her eyebrows together in a ferocious, pout. She always made discouraging remarks about Ajax and Enid’s relationship; everyone only knew the remarks were half-assed because the rainbow werewolf had managed to worm her way into the goth’s heart.

Yoko and Divina holding hands as they walked along the lake or cuddled on the couch for movie night always prompted a scowl from Wednesday.

Of course, everyone knew how much she abhorred physical touch. Despite wanting to drift your fingers through her bangs to smooth them out after a vision or lightly drag your fingers along the palm of her hand, you never did. Kissing Wednesday was the most prominent and recurring fantasy of yours, but you left it at that.

You respected Wednesday’s boundaries and loved her too much to attempt to cause the girl any discomfort.

Even with all of the walks to classes and shared isolation wasn’t enough to warrant suspicions from you. The only person allowed to be present during Wednesday’s writing period (Enid would be there wether she was allowed or not) was you. You’d never once asked to read her novel, but you did mention wanting to if Wednesday ever changed her mind; to that she had just hummed thoughtfully.

Her eyes were always a shade lighter and her face marginally softer when in the company of you. She declared you were the least annoying person out of “this group you all like to label as a friend group.” To Wednesday, it was just a group of people that she didn’t want to kill (as badly as others). Even her digs at you weren’t as callous as the others.

Enid had been trying to convince you to make a move because “Wednesday totes likes you!” but, “is too stubborn to make the first move.” But you’d spent enough time studying Wednesday and enough time putting yourself out there just to be shut down, to not make a move. You wouldn’t label the relationship between you and the goth as a friendship, but in their own unique slash dysfunctional slash bizarre way, they were friends.

You didn’t want to lose the nights of wordlessly stargazing after having watched her practice her cello, of days where she glared at Xavier in botany for even attempting to converse with you, of philosophical spiels from the goth and her in return trying to keep up with your hyperfixations, of her warning you to be careful if you were in the woods alone before deciding to accompany you because it was the “smarter” decision.

Wednesday was different with you from the others, you knew that, but the reasoning having to do with romance was absurd.

Absolutely, completely, and totally absurd.

Yoko was staying at Divina’s for the night, so you flipped the light-switch as soon as stepping foot into the shared dorm. You made sure to lock the door behind you, knowing that Wednesday would pinch your ear if she found out you didn’t.

She always threatened to hurt you if you got injured or killed and glared when you would laugh at the irony. You didn’t really mind though, because you could only find her scowl adorable and not intimidating. Though, you’d never dream of saying that to her. She’d probably either ignore you for a week or stick needles in her eyes.

You dropped your bag off by your desk then went to your closet to find some pj’s. As heavy as your limbs were and how your eyelids kept drooping, you knew you needed a shower and showers before bedtime always helped you sleep better. So, you quickly brushed your teeth and turned all of the lights off.

The last thing you did before rolling onto your side and easily drifting off to a different state of mind was plug your phone in.

You weren’t sure how long you had been under Mr. Sandman’s spell, but the sky was just as thickly black as before and Yoko wasn’t back. In fact, the door wasn’t even opened. The window leading into your shared dorm was opened barely an inch, and you knew it had been shut before going to bed. No one could get into your room from there anyways, unless they were Spider-Man and could climb walls.

The chilly noise that had roused your from your sleep wasn’t uttered again. Deciding you were probably only half-asleep and imagined the noise, you moved to curl back up in your previous position. But then there was a thump and a swirl that sounded like a body zooming across the room, ending with a thud on the floor.

Considering your deep-rooted love for horror and having faced a Hyde and a Pilgrim raised from the dead, not much could scare you at this point. Your hand was sturdy as it reached out to turn your lamp on and the racing of your heart wasn’t an obnoxious thump but a steady hum. What you saw next had your heart stilling in your chest.

“Wednesday!”

You leapt off the bed without a second thought and rushed to the aid of a seizing goth. Her body flung itself so she was on her back. Despite her head flinging this way and that and the rest of her body spasming, you quickly grabbed her and cradled her against your lap.

“Wednesday! Wh-what’s happening?” You asked despite her seemingly partly unconscious.

Two shallow breaths scratched the thick air around them and then Wednesday’s small body slumped. While it wasn’t unusual for the goth to be laying exceptionally still and her face expressionless, it was dialed to one-hundred. Or more like negative-one-hundred from how still and chilly she was.

There was blood scattered all over her body, turning her black clothes even darker. Even her sweet face that held so much information with the lack of expressions had blood splashed all over. There was barely an inch of her skin that was just her pale complexion and not slick blood. Her bangs that you were so obsessed with were messy and the rest of her hair was goopy with blood.

You gently cupped her cheek, as if that would keep the Addams girl from being harmed. She was already unmoving and unresponsive, you didn’t want to make matters worse. You couldn’t hurt Wednesday, especially when she already was so terribly hurt.

You sniffed and strummed your thumb along her elegant cheekbone. Her already chilly skin was even cooler, causing your fingertips to twitch and the rest of your body to spasm. Tears were cascading down your cheeks and dripping onto Wednesday’s face. You hadn’t even realized you were crying, you didn’t feel the slick heat on your cheeks or your eyes burning.

You didn’t feel anything. All you could feel was the barbed wire tightening further and further around your trembling heart. You were sure you were bleeding internally from her heart, and you hoped it would overflow so that you wouldn’t have to live in a world that didn’t have the insatiable Wednesday Addams in it.

“Wednesday, come on, wake up. This…” You swallowed hard. “This isn’t funny, though I know you find your cruel shenanigans to be just that.”

Seconds ticked by without a witty remark from the cold girl in your arms. Tears kept spilling down your face, so much so that you could wipe all the blood off of Wednesday. When too many tears blurred your vision and you could never see the most beautiful person ever, you dropped your head to her chest and clung to her tightly.

‘I should’ve listened to Enid.’ You couldn’t believe that something so horrible and so horribly cliche could be true! All this time you had waisted pining for Wednesday and now she’ll never know how you truly feel about her. You’d never get to know if she’d rather know or not, even if she didn’t feel the same.

Enid.

How were you going to explain this to her? The person she deemed her best friend, the girl she risked her own life to save last her, her roommate, was now dead. Someone so special in life and to Enid’s heart was no longer going to be around to threaten people and stun strangers and make their classmates laugh.

The girl you loved was gone.

“Oh, cara mia, it was all just a playful ruse.”

You jerked away from that metallic voice grazing your skin and kissing your ears. The rare tone of voice that was either used when speaking about a devious plan or talking to Uncle Fester or Enid. It was smooth and warm with a slight rasp tickling it, but still even and steady like her daily, monotone voice.

When you jerked away, you were met with a smile gracing the lips of the girl you had thought was dead. For a full sixty seconds, you were sure that Wednesday had been possessed because Wednesday Addams did not smile. But then you remembered her smirk at Outreach Day when her and Thing had successfully ruined the event, and you remembered the very few times she had snuck a smile here and there.

You could hear Enid’s voice in your head screeching how Wednesday looked at her with the goth’s own version of heart eyes. And you remembered how Wednesday would escort you to class and offer to hold your books, how she’d sit with you at lunch and didn’t threaten you like the others. How angry she got whenever you were careless and your safety was at risk.

That smile was innocent and it was infectious. A one-hundred-percent, bonafide Wednesday Addams smile.

Her hand cupping your cheek startled you from the reverie you had been induced in. The subtle shutter had that small smile widening and a warmth flooding her eyes. You always found the girl to be so beautiful that there were no words to adequately describe her, but this smile and the heat in her eyes was something even more remarkable.

She ran her thumb along your cheekbone and smirked as you leaned against her delicate touch.

“Y/N, my heart beats when your heart beats, and I suffer when you suffer. Which is not as fun as I expected suffering to be. As long as the earth rotates, that will never change. My fealty belongs to you and my heart will never forget the kiss your presence has left on it.”

Even if you had ever fancied the thought of Enid being right, you never in a million years expected Wednesday to say that as her love confession. And definitely not with that smile that kept trying to pull up further! You jerked your head down and counted your fingers and were left stunned to count ten. So you weren’t dreaming.

Your heart was thudding harder against your ribcage from that declaration of love than it had been when you thought Wednesday was dead.

Dead. Right. This whole sweet and enchanting confession was only given after she had faked her death. She pretended to die for what exactly, your reaction? If you hadn’t reacted appropriately would she have left you to believe she was dead? Or would she have woken up and left unimpressed?

As relieved as you were that she was alive and you got to do the next thing, you were pissed at her.

You smacked her - hard - on the bicep and glared at her. “Wednesday Friday Addams!”

“I’m assuming this is in response to my flawless scene I had enacted of demons possessing my body and effectively murdering me.”

“Yes! This is in response to…all of that!”

Your response only made her grin bigger. You guessed that it was only satisfying Wednesday’s knowledge of you reciprocating her undying love. As aggravating as it was, it was what made Wednesday Wednesday and you loved her more than breathing.

Sighing, you cupped her face and rubbed your thumb against the red stain on her face. “I’m assuming this is pig’s blood.”

She gave a single nod of her head, her eyes doing all of the smiling for her. “My smart girl.”

There weren’t any powers in the world that could have prevented you from shuddering at that compliment.

Wednesday’s smile morphed into something wicked, very on par for her, and she began to lean in.

“Darling, as much as I love that devious brain of yours,” she smiled brightly, loving the adjective. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again.”

She gave a solemn nod of her head. “Allow me to make it up to you, cara mia.”

And with that, you finally let your love kiss you.

#gfaddamswritingcorner #ghostfaceaddams #wednesday addams #jenna ortega #wednesday addams x y/n #wednesday addams x reader #wednesday addams x female reader

863 notes · View notes

azlrse · 1 year

Text

a/n: goddamn this account's dead asf but an imagine would revive this place chdhfh

cw: fluff w/ a bit of angst, au not tied in the og! storyline, ooc characters, mc didn't attended the exchange program

Imagine an AU where the reader doesn't go to RAD (not even in the Devildom) but instead, they met one of the brothers while that specific bother went on an errand in the human world. To set the scene, you accidentally dropped something that valuable and then that brother finally catches up to you, returning the said item to you. At first, each of the brothers weren't too fond of you since 1.) You are a powerless human, duh and 2.) You are a bit of a clutz and almost lost that one item that's valuable to you but as time went by, the more you met him, had some kind of small talk to him and by God's love, the shared interest you two shared (for ex: Lucifer's being old records/music, Satan's being cats, etc.), you two became friends and met each other often at the same park you dropped that item months ago.

Fast forward to 2 years and the two of you fell for each other, especially that brother who often came to the human world just to visit you. You and that brother were now dating and he's now open about his life, about his siblings and his fake occupation. Out of all the things he told you in his life, he will always kept that one secret he prays you'll never find out.

Is the fact that he's not a human but a powerful demon that's residing in the Devildom, not to mention as one of the avatars of sins. He didn't want to scare you and this man loves you so much to the point that he is willing to keep such secret in order to protect you.

And the fact that his other siblings are beginning to be suspicious about their brother visiting the human world so often that they began to follow him and eventually meeting you for the first time. Despite you being a human, they know that deep within their hearts that you are a kindhearted person that makes their brother very happy and accepted you when the two of you are now proposed.

Now, 5 years has passed and the two of you are now very happy and married.

Until that specific day wherein your husband's acting very strange lately to the point that you became worried about his health, even offering him to go to the hospital but he refused. Hell, even those late nights he came back as a red light shines through the window of your shared bedroom. You became paranoid, thinking that he might be seeing someone else and leaving you or something or someone is watching you and your husband in your quaint and quiet life in the suburbs.

But it looks like it was different.

Because the moment you came home from your errands in the supermarket, you screamed in horror at the appearance of your husband–horns on his head and wings/tail appeared on his body. Your husband forgot to change back by the time he got home and began to chase after you in an attempt to comfort you, saying that he won't hurt you. You lock yourself in the bathroom and began sobbing hysterically, yelling at the demon that he's an impersonation of your beloved husband, a monster and a human's worse nightmare.

He didn't force his way into the locked bathroom. Instead, he sat down by the door and reassures you that he's the same person you truly loved for all these years, the same man that gave you that item that almost got lost and the same man you befriended and get to know. He knows that you still don't trust him because all the secrets he kept from you, hell even his own siblings were demons and he didn't want his worse fear to happen right in front of him–leaving you for another person because this man loves you very very much.

After an hour of the ordeal, you emerged from the door and sees him on the floor, still sitting as to prevent you from being scared again. He, still on his demon form, opens his arms and hugs you very tightly as he apologizes profusely for keeping such secret Even though the two of you are in good terms, you are still wary of your husband, even if he's on his human form but it's okay. As long as you warm up to him being a demon and doesn't harm you, he is finally contented with you on his arms.

Not until you begin to constantly bug him about seeing his wings/tail excitedly but who are you to blame about admiring the appearance of your husband <33

[please credit/tag me when you compose a fic/drabble with this imagine!]

#❥ azalea daydreams *.✧#obey me x reader #obey me fic #obey me one master to rule them all #obey me imagine #obey me fluff #obey me angst #obey me lucifer x reader #obey me mammon x reader #obey me levi x reader #obey me satan x reader #obey me asmo x reader #obey me beel x reader #obey me belphie x reader #obey me shall we date #obey me x you

888 notes · View notes

hanasnx · 8 months

Note

i desperately need more thoughts and ideas about baby daddy!anakin bcos why has that never crossed my mind??? that sounds so 😵‍💫

baby daddy!anakin.

MINORS DNI 18+

You aren't married to him, even if he asked you— begged you to. It's not the right move, it's not what you want, and you won't let him bully you into doing "the smart thing" as he calls it. It's partly his fault you got knocked up, and he's acting as if marriage will magically solve it. He's not the kind of person you can share a life with, and you're not comfortable seeing him as often as you have to when you trade off your son to him. He's learned some boundaries, keeping his distance. Unfortunately, you fell for him and all his crazy tendencies. So it was more than difficult for him to sweep them under the rug when you two split. He noted how you responded negatively to when he came over unannounced, saying it was because he missed his son, when that was guise to see you. You responded even worse when he'd barged in after he threatened to break down the door. So he learned that he won't get what he wants when he does them. Even though, at one point, you liked those things about him. You liked that he took what he wanted, and now he has to repress those urges in order to be allowed visitation to his son at all.

Of course, there are things you miss about him. You don't like the idea of teaching anyone how to please you, so the easiest thing is to ask him for his assistance since he's already an expert in the field. After heavy debate, you decide to call him after a bad date. “Hello? Is everything alright?” he demands into the receiver. This untimely hour could only be explained by an emergency, and his first thought is something happened to his son. “Hey.” your response on the other line is a sigh. “Everything’s fine. Can you come over?”

Once the floodgates open, it takes no time at all to unravel each other. He knew he missed you, but he didn’t realize how much until you’re a quivering mess underneath him. Your dress having been hastily ridden up around your waist so he can twist your body to meet his needs, folding your legs up as he leans on you. That fat cock you adore being driven into the deepest parts of you, kissing that spongy spot inside you exactly how you like it. No one can do it like him. As frustrating at it is. You're partly to blame for his infatuation, you can't stay away from him either. Letting him do this to you, fuck you like this, planting those seeds of need within you.

When you and him first split, he couldn't know about the dates. You would avoid tipping him off about them at all costs, anything to evade his potent jealous rage. "You've walked with my child growing inside you. And some stranger thinks he lays claim over you? What about me? Does my hard work mean nothing? Must I do it again?" As if you'd make the same mistake twice, let him breed you for a second time so you're reliant on him again. Or worse, you'd make the same mistake with someone different. Does he think that little of you? You and him were just stupid kids when your son came into the picture. Neither of you knew what you were doing. You're smarter now... aren't you?

Now you use your dates as leverage. Make him angry, make him fuck you harder, make him fuck you like he's never fucked you before. Talk shit about whatever guy you let hit before you called him to "clean up that fucker's mess." and how after this, you'll "kick him out like you always do. but you can't stay away from him long." He'll even degrade himself, "And I'll keep coming back too. You'll do the same damn thing next week, act like you want nothing to do with me. Treat me like a stray. Only to get soft and horny and call me to come give you a fix 'cause you can't do a thing for yourself. You're a fucking addict, you know? I'm tired of it. But I'll keep doing it, because I'm the only one who fucking will. Only one who can handle you, isn't that right?"

When the entrance sounds familiarly, he opens the door to the bedroom. Shirtless, and black pants hanging low on his hips, he leaves you spent in your bed as your son gets inside and realizes who's over. Your son breaks from the babysitter's hand, sprinting towards him. "Dad!" he exclaims. He stoops, catching his son in his arms to scoop him up. "My love," he responds tenderly, cradling the back of his son's head as their cheeks press together. "You're here!" his son notes with awe. You can hear them through the walls, smacking your hand against your forehead. He wasn't supposed to let your son know he was here, the babysitter's early. Fuck, now your son is gonna insist he stay for dinner or something. That's exactly his plan, isn't it? Use your son to get closer to you.

400 notes · View notes

hellcat8908 · 6 months

Text

Neglected Rhysand x Female Reader

Over the last few weeks, you've noticed a growing distance between you and Rhys. At first, you told yourself he was just busy with his duties and that things would slow down. It seemed like the exact opposite. His nights got longer as he went over reports, and his meetings seemed to last longer and become more frequent.

You had tried to tactfully bring up your feelings, but he either made empty promises of trying to make more time for you, or he just disregarded your feelings altogether. After he seemed to be getting annoyed with the conversation, you stopped bringing it up. You tried to flirt with him and tease him during the day, craving any sort of attention from him. Often, he dismissed you telling you he had work to do.

Tonight was no different. After dinner, he headed back to his office and all but locked the door. You decided to go to bed. The bed had become cold and lonely in his absence. You reached over to his side, feeling the cold of his pillow and the emptiness under the blanket. You longed for things to return to how they were in the beginning.

When the two of you couldn't get enough of each other. You practically had to kick him out of bed in the morning. The way he would hold you until you both fell asleep. You missed those times. A few tears escaped your eyes at the memories. You decided enough was enough and quickly found a piece of paper and pen before writing a note and leaving it on the pillows for Rhys to find.

You grabbed a few changes of clothes and snuck out through the garden. You made sure to put enough distance between you and Rhys before reaching out to Azriel, hoping he was still awake. In a matter of minutes, he was in front of you. You asked him to fly you to the house of wind for the night.

He looks at you concerned, knowing something isn't right. "I'll be fine, Az." You say, not sure who you're trying to convince more yourself or him. He gives you a small nod before lifting you in his arms and carrying you to the house of wind. Once you're on the terrace, he lets go of you. "Thank you, Azriel." You say softly before giving his arm a gentle squeeze.

You carry your bag to your old room before climbing into bed. You wonder how long before Rhys finds the note and comes looking for you if he comes looking for you. Your heart becomes heavy at the thought he might not. You curl up under the blankets and cry yourself to sleep.

Rhysand,

I have felt us slowly drifting apart over the last few weeks. I have tried to voice my concerns, but your focus is elsewhere. I have decided I need some time to myself to figure out where to go from here. I love you, but I fear you don't love me how you used to. This is not an ending. This is simply a pause in our story, unless you want otherwise.

Countless nights, I have fallen asleep alone in the bed we once shared and have woken alone, often unable to tell if you even came to bed at all. I understand that you have responsibilities to your court, and I can't fault you for that. However, you have responsibilities to me as well, and I've often gone neglected. I always knew that your court and your people would come first, but I am hoping you still have a place for me.

Love always,

Y/n

Rhys sat on the edge of the bed, reading your letter over and over. His mind raced with how things had gotten to the point where you'd leave in the middle of the night. He thought of the last few weeks. He hadn't realized how much he neglected you. You had tried to tell him, tried to make him pay attention, but he just dismissed you.

He was torn between tracking you down and giving you the time you needed. He kept going back and forth, realizing he had already wasted too much time not giving you the attention you deserve. Within seconds, he was reaching out to Cassian and Azriel. "Y/n is gone, and you must help me find her." He commands them. "Calm down, she isn't gone she is sleeping in her old room at the house of wind." Azriel answers, sounding half asleep.

"I'm on my way." Rhys tells him. "Surprised you're not already here." Azriel replies with a smirk. Azriel is waiting on the terrace when Rhys arrives. "She sleeping?" Rhys asks, glancing towards the house. "For the moment. It's not a deep sleep." Azriel says. "I've messed up, and I'm not sure how to fix it." Rhys admits as he leans on the railing overlooking Velaris. "You'll figure it out." Azriel assures him as he squeezes his shoulder to comfort him.

"She left in the middle of the night." Rhys says, sounding distraught. "Yeah, but she didn't go far, and she made sure she was easy for you to find. Man up and go apologize, grovel, and do whatever it takes." Azriel says before telling him you're awake. Rhys runs his fingers through his hair and takes a few deep breaths before walking inside to find you.

He gently opens the door before stepping in, "Y/n, are you awake?" He asks softly, knowing you are but trying to guage your reaction. "I'm awake." You murmur. He shuts the door behind him and moves to sit on your bed. "I am deeply sorry for not realizing how I've been neglecting you these last few weeks. I'm even more sorry for dismissing you when you tried to tell me. I will spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you. I never want to make you feel this way ever again." He says.

The bond is full of all his emotions, regret that it took you leaving to realize the mistake he made, his undying love for you, fear that you won't be able to forgive him causing you to leave. Just when you thought you couldn't cry anymore, a few tears fall to your pillowcase before wrapping your arms around your mate. "I love you, but things are far from fixed. You'll have to prove things will be different, love." You tell him. "I will, darling." He says, holding you tight.

"We're both tired and emotionally drained. Let's get some sleep, and we can continue this conversation when the sun is up." You say before yawning. You lift the blanket up as a silent invite for Rhys to join you. Once he is next to you, you cuddle up beside him before he wraps his arms around you. For the first time in a while, you feel like you've made a step in the right direction together.

#acotar #batboys #sarah j maas #acotar fanfic #acotar angst #rhys acotar #rhys x reader #rhysand x reader

270 notes · View notes

mecachrome · 4 months

Text

pre-mclaren oscar piastri primer (ft. maxf, landoscar)

0. introduction

for a few months now i've been wanting to make both an oscar primer and a timeline of pre-mclaren landoscar moments, but i couldn't figure out which one to prioritize… then after some deliberation i finally realized i could just combine the two things together! so. here is an oscar-centric timeline that is mainly about his racing background, moving to the uk, and how he became acquainted with other members of the rfm pack—aka lando, maxf, and logan. i don't know whether any of this information is useful or even vaguely interesting, but i mostly just wrote it for myself and thought i'd share what i had in case anyone else wanted to check it out. please feel free to comment or shoot me an ask if anything here is egregiously incorrect; i've checked and linked as many sources as i could but it's of course possible that some errors remain :)

1. background, rc racing, early karting days (2007-2015)

oscar piastri was born on april 6, 2001 in brighton east, a suburb of melbourne not far from albert park circuit, as the son of chris and nicole and to-be oldest brother to 3 younger sisters. a love for all things automotive ran deep in the piastri family: both of his grandfathers were mechanics and his father had also co-founded his own vehicle diagnostics software company, hp tuners, aka oscar's sponsor throughout his racing career. thanks to his father's business, oscar's family was objectively well-off and managed to contribute a fairly substantial amount of support toward his junior career, but they also weren't swimming in cash by multi-millionaire motorsport standards either.

(L-R) mae, edie, hattie, and oscar, from nicole's twitter — each sibling is ~2 years apart (source)

while most drivers on the current grid were introduced to motorsport through go-karting, usually at or before the age of 7, oscar's path to single-seaters differed slightly. he first developed an interest in racing via remote-controlled cars at the age of 6, when his father brought him a monster truck as a souvenir back from a business trip in america. oscar began racing them that same year, eventually moving to safer electric track vehicles and even winning the second class of the national titles in 2010, at the age of 9. he was so small then that he often needed to stand on a milk crate to see the cars on track, and the next-youngest competitor at the time was twice his age. (source)

youtube

oscar on the podium at age 8 (nov 16, 2009)

oscar with his father chris, who often competed alongside him in a separate class (dec 21, 2010)

by 2011, oscar and his father were seriously considering his potential of pursuing rc racing as a viable career path, but things changed when he was introduced to karting via a friend's daughter in the rc community and his aspirations slowly shifted toward racing from inside a car. oscar was an unsurprisingly sporty and competitive child growing up; he'd played some cricket and aussie rules football and knew that all he wanted to do was race professionally, full-stop, at the time thinking along the lines of australian racing categories like v8 supercars. he was still competing in remote car racing as late as 2013, but he began karting seriously within australia in 2014, placing respectably in the junior categories of several regional karting series against relatively senior and more-experienced racers, and even going to france for a one-off event where he finished on the podium of the iame international junior x30 final. this outing affirmed his potential to his father and motivated the two of them to split time between australia and europe in 2015 as they juggled his karting future; plans for two more european events that year fell through, including the cik-fia world championship at the kfj level (which logan sargeant would go on to win), but at this point they were officially looking to take his career to the next level and commit fully to european karting in 2016.

this is when ricky flynn (and the hypothetical idea of lando norris!!!) comes in. before we get into rfm and karting professionally in europe, it's important to note that the defining aspect of landoscar's junior careers is that their pathways never once intersected. in fact, they don't even seem to have met properly before oscar entered the f1 grid as alpine reserve, although they'd spoken over social media and oscar was familiar with several people around lando's life—for example, maxf, logan, guanyu, and even lando's older brother oliver, who had also raced for rfm.

in short, you could say that landoscar's biggest hindrance was their parallel excellence. oscar was good enough to catch up and even surpass everyone else at lando's level, but lando remained untouchable throughout the years. oscar is only 1.5 years younger than him, but their f1 careers are offset by 4 years (2019 vs. 2023 debut) because of exactly two things: oscar's 2022 gap year in alpine and his two attempts at formula renault eurocup. on the other hand, lando sped through all of his junior categories in blistering fashion, falling short of the championship only once: the year he placed 2nd in f2 behind george russell. this is significant because many talk about the clinical nature of oscar's rapid single-seater ascension and three b2b2b victories (still very impressive, especially given his limited karting career!), but all of that speaks equally to the illustrious nature of lando's junior success and the sheer magnitude of faith placed in him as mclaren's "golden boy" coming up the ranks. to put things into further perspective, lando was teammates with maxf and jehan daruvala at rfm until 2014, jehan competing in the same class and max one below, yet by the time oscar was racing max and jehan—in f3 in 2020 and f2 in 2021, respectively—lando was already into his 2nd and 3rd years of f1. here's a chart that hopefully makes a bit more sense:

majorly simplified timeline showing lando, guanyu, maxf, logan, and oscar's junior careers + the karting classes they primarily competed in each calendar year. maxf did not complete his 2nd f3 season and many of them contested multiple/different formula renault series, but this is just a rough overview of their feeder series experience.

2. moving to europe, rfm, regional formulae (2016-2019)

back in australia, oscar was a member of the oakleigh go-kart racing club and being actively mentored by james sera, a multi-time australian karting champion and fa kart dealer who worked with young karting talents alongside his cousin david. in late-2015, he presumably helped oscar and his father reach out to ricky flynn, who ran ricky flynn motorsport (rfm) and whose team was at the time enjoying exorbitant success in the karting scene; lando had won the world championship at the kf level the year prior, and logan would soon clinch the kfj title in 2015, results which further drew oscar's interest toward the team. ricky flynn agreed to take oscar on and have him and his dad move out to europe, and by november 2015 oscar announced on social media that he would be joining rfm the next year. in january of 2016, he and his father moved to hertford, uk, so that oscar could begin a 100-day karting program and travel extensively around europe to attend races. this is where he met logan sargeant, who was in his final year on the team but competing a class above, now at the ok (previously kf) level. oscar himself was only competing in the okj class.

not oscar-related, but as you can see guanyu, logan, and maxf were already acquainted before oscar and logan met, since the three of them and lando had been in rfm together as of 2014 — (may 11, 2014) & (feb 6, 2015)

oscar and logan in 2016

in an interview published on june 7, 2023, oscar reflected on leaving australia and committing to his racing dream, saying:

"i think if there was a turning point, it was probably when i started finishing towards the front in australia, and i started winning a couple of races here and there and finishing in the top three of championships and stuff, and then went to europe and fully committed to going down that route. [...] there's obviously a very big commitment at that point when you move halfway across the world without family and stuff. so i knew at that point that i really wanted to become a professional because, firstly, that's what i want to do anyway, but, secondly, now i'm sacrificing seeing my family, and stuff like that to be able to do this — which was a sacrifice i was more than willing to make."

like the majority of oscar's karting career, his time with ricky flynn can primarily be summarized as decent. none of his performances were particularly stellar, and in november 2016 he placed 6th in the fia world championship final behind the likes of victor martins and théo pourchaire (he mainly competed against guys like them, dennis hauger, caio collet, etc… once again logan was a class above and lando/maxf had already graduated to single-seaters), but he showed promising racing foundations and a great capacity for improvement, especially given that he'd moved to europe the same year and was still adjusting to life and racing on the opposite hemisphere. about 6 months into his new karting venture, oscar had settled in reasonably well and his father decided he would return to australia to continue on with his life, so they made the joint decision that oscar was to begin boarding at haileybury's uk campus and continue racing in europe entirely on his own. uk and australian school years are misaligned, so my personal understanding is he moved to europe after finishing year 9 in australia, attempted online school/took a few months off (he says he did online coursework here, but mentioned here that he was out of school, so it sounds like it must have been a very half-hearted effort…), came back to australia over the uk summer to do some more karting, then began boarding in september 2016 as a year 10 student. he spent ~4 years there and eventually received his a-levels in 2020, except his final year was disrupted by covid and he never sat his exams. (blog post mentioning his a-levels + btg transcript excerpt about his exams; his website says he attended haileybury from 2016-19, but i think this mainly encapsulates his boarding period, as he was still doing remote work in april 2020.)

oscar in f4 with his gcse revision guide, 📸 sebastiaan rozendaal (may 20, 2018)

2016 is also when oscar began his well-documented super-liking of several of lando's social media profiles. i think understanding oscar's time in rfm and his extremely british single-seater origins helps better paint his history with lando and maxf; my personal understanding of pre-mclaren landoscar is that while oscar never formally met lando or maxf during his karting days, he knew of them quite well through rfm and thus followed them on instagram/twitter after moving to the uk. of course, oscar has a fairly active social media presence in general, so young oscar quietly liked instagram posts and tweets from many different people, but i do feel compelled to note that in the early days he liked lando, maxf, and logan's posts with seriously impressive frequency compared to anyone else on the grid (or anyone in general, really); after creating his twitter account in may 2016, some of the very first tweets oscar liked were from maxf, and he also liked a multitude of mundane lando tweets from 2016 until… today, while on the other hand he didn't start liking george's tweets—another similarly-aged young british talent—until late 2017. (he does have some fun george-admiring moments though, but that can wait for another time!) outside of rfm, other people oscar was familiar with during his early racing years were british f4 teammate ayrton simmons, to-be series champion jamie caroline, and old australian karting friend christian pancione, who appears to still be one of his best mates (if not his best) as of today. fun fact is that christian raced for the carrera cup as a support event to the australian gp in 2023; here's oscar allegedly checking the quali live timing at lunch during his own media day.

so, to conclude, oscar's early lando focus basically traces back to the motorsport path he took at the behest and guidance of his early rfm connections in the uk. the thing is that despite growing up in australia and vaguely admiring several aussie drivers in f1 as a child (read: mark webber and eventually daniel ricciardo), oscar has never had a specific driver he consistently mentions when pressed for his racing "idol," likely since his personality inherently resists idolatry and he instead views successful people more as actionable benchmarks or reference points for self-improvement rather than as unattainable paragons of accomplishment. as a kid forced to grow up almost entirely on his own, the majority of his racing aspirations were molded independently in the uk—he completed his karting career in the uk, boarded at haileybury for 4 years (fun fact: other drivers to attend include jehan, callum ilott, and clément novalak; callum was a few years above oscar and finished school in 2017, but the two would later become quite talkative over social media anyway), raced in british f4, became a brdc member, contested eurocup under a british license and therefore had the british flag raised and british national anthem played during his wins, stayed in the uk even at alpine since the factory is based in enstone, etc. oscar basically moved to the uk from australia without having really met anyone significant in the racing scene (other than jack doohan, or more importantly jack's father mick, but jack is younger and did an extra year of karting) and pretty much didn't have anyone specific to "look up to" at the time. oscar's first acknowledgement of lando's online existence was in december 2015, when he liked one of lando's instagram posts prior to moving to england, so it can be assumed that lando basically functioned as his most accessible reference point in the junior ladder as a 14 year old dipping his toes into the european racing scene for the first time. that is my highly subjective analysis of the situation!

select quotes re: oscar's inconsistent responses to his motorsport "hero" (or his favorite driver / a driver he looks up to in general):

(f1fs; mar 9, 2022) "i started watching f1 in… 2009 was the first season i properly watched. so when brawn came in, obviously mark was the only aussie on the grid at that point, so i was kind of naturally going for him. then joined by daniel, so obviously going to support the aussies, but i think watching lewis has been nothing short of spectacular, and a very good role model. [...] i think when i was first watching, i supported mark, but, you know, and i hope he takes no offense to this—vettel was winning everything at that point. so i was supporting mark, but vettel was doing most of the winning. i think now that i understand more about racing though, i would say [the driver i look up to the most is] lewis, mainly. the way he goes about things on and off the track is quite exceptional."

(mcl youtube; mar 29, 2023) sporting idols mentioned: ayrton senna, alain prost, michael jordan (see also ultimate athletes list)

(p1; aug 10, 2023) "i would say i never had like one specific idol. when i was growing up watching mark webber was at red bull, and obviously being australian, red bull being very quick at the time, i kind of naturally followed him. i mean—even like some of the guys in the junior ranks above me. like lando was always kind of two, three years above me, winning… most things on his way up. so i guess kind of him in some ways?"

(eff won; dec 4, 2023) "i don’t really have like one specific [idol]. i think what lewis has been able to do in terms of getting to seven world championships was incredibly impressive. i think what max is doing now is also very impressive…"

the first lando post oscar liked on instagram (dec 21, 2015)

the first maxf posts oscar liked; instagram (feb 26, 2016) & twitter (may 9, 2016)

anyway, back to british f4! despite his initially unconventional foray into motorsport, oscar's journey progressed in a much more orderly fashion once he stepped up to single-seaters. his actual debut was in f4 uae, which he ran 3 rounds of between 2016 and 2017 (another fun fact: this is where he briefly acquainted himself with mclaren indycar driver david malukas, who would later recall him being very intelligent and whom zak brown allegedly spoke to oscar about before appointing to their indy team). after cutting his teeth on actual car-racing for the first time, oscar decided against moving up to the ok class as he felt confident in his ability to be competitive in single-seaters. his first full season was therefore the 2017 british f4 championship, during which oscar signed with arden while logan went to reigning champions carlin (lando had won with them in 2015, then maxf in 2016). oscar made his way to the top step 6 times in the season and placed just barely above logan for 2nd in the championship, finishing behind the considerably more experienced jamie caroline. arden was also founded and is currently owned by red bull team principal christian horner, so it was during oscar's time there that christian took note of and interest in his talent; oscar reportedly did a few runs in the red bull simulator but was passed over for joining the academy, which christian later voiced regret on. (source)

maxf, logan (center), and oscar (to max's right) on a day maxf was visiting the 2017 british f4 grid (april 11, 2017)

linus lundqvist, oscar, and logan on the podium at snetterton (jul 30, 2017)

jamie and oscar, who were… er, mathematically in the main championship fight. for some reason they made them take these photos (sep 30, 2017)

after a successful f4 outing with arden, oscar returned to the team for his first season of formula renault eurocup in 2018, a renault series that ran in its specific configuration until 2020 before merging with the parallel regional series frec to become what is today known as freca. this season proved to be less competitive for oscar, as arden was relatively inexperienced in this series and oscar's three teammates were afflicted with what can colloquially be referred to as a "skill issue," making it difficult to collectively develop the car throughout the season. (blog interview) the series was thus returning driver maxf's to lose, who at the time was racing for reigning champs r-ace with teammates that included oscar's fellow rookies logan and victor martins.

despite the unideal environment, oscar managed to prove his worth by placing a respectable 8th in the series, scoring 110 points as a rookie driver and capping the season off with 3 podiums and a top-finish of 2nd place—a jarring contrast to his teammates' joint total of 12 points. this result attracted the attention of r-ace and granted him a seat with them for the 2019 season, at which point maxf and logan both graduated to f3. thankfully that wasn't too much of a concern for oscar since he'd always intended to do two seasons of eurocup, and now he finally had a chance to win the first serious championship of his racing career with an established racing outfit.

oscar, max, and yifei ye on the hockenheim r2 podium (sep 23, 2018) [full gifset]

oscar's second season of eurocup is when he truly started proving himself as a driver, or at least to the people whose names, money, and opinions mattered around the paddock. his main competition in 2019 was again victor, who was now racing for mp and had been made a member of the renault sport academy back in 2018 after a strong performance in french f4. despite a close title fight, oscar managed to hold him off for the championship in the final race of the season, kicking off what would soon become an impressive string of consecutive single-seater series titles. even sweeter was the fact that all eurocup champions were awarded a renault sport academy spot that could be left or taken as they pleased, and of course—while the finances weren't nearly as impressive as alpine would later proclaim in their baseless smear campaign—oscar's connections in the racing world were limited as an australian driver almost exclusively managed by his father, so he gladly accepted the offer for the many venues of support renault presented to him.

see also: bby oscar briefly mentioning lando after winning eurocup in 2019 (@ 1:10)

oscar being lifted by his team (r-ace) after placing 4th in the abu dhabi finale and winning the title by 7.5 points

3. renault sport academy, lockdown, f3 (2020)

many things happened in 2020. one: oscar became an official member of the renault sport academy, joining the likes of max (who'd been picked up on merit after winning british f4 in 2017), guanyu, christian lundgaard, caio collett, and fellow new recruit hadrien david (victor had been strategically demoted after oscar's win because renault is a notoriously unserious organization, but again this is not the post). two: by the time oscar was ready for f3, moving up the ladder proved to be exorbitantly expensive, and he realized he needed better funds and managerial support to sort his career out. he'd been offered a spot in prema's f3 team by team-owner rené rosin at the end of his eurocup season, who'd named him for the post-season test before the championship was over and stressed that the spot was his no matter where he finished. (source) prema is unquestionably one of the top—if not frequently the top—teams one can drive for in most junior series (though there is also somewhat of a self-selection bias; if you ask oscar he is not a significant beneficiary of prematax!), having absolutely demolished the f3 competition that same year and achieved a clean sweep of the drivers' standings with rob shwartzman, marcus armstrong, and jehan at 1-2-3 consecutively. oscar completed post-season testing with them in spain alongside to-be teammates logan and fred vesti in october (source), before confirming on jan 26, 2020 that he would be joining them for the f3 season as a renault junior.

so, where does mark webber come in here? apparently mark's trainer from red bull and wec had also been oscar's trainer since 2016 (i'm pretty sure this is australian physiologist simon sostaric), and it was through their joint connection that oscar was introduced to mark. according to mclaren's 2023 season preview, "the pair hit it off, and webber took his countryman under his wing," signing oscar to jam sports management, aka the management agency he runs with his wife ann. mark's support would become a major factor in helping oscar progress through the feeder ranks and establish himself in f1, mainly because he had actual connections and could help oscar network with sponsors and negotiate his way during future signings. of course, more on this later.

as an aside, here are a few things mark has said about oscar:

"he’s got that white line fever when he puts his helmet on and turns into a different character, which is sensational." (mar 1, 2020)

"one of oscar’s biggest strengths by a mile, compared to everyone he is competing against — and this will be a huge string to his bow when he makes it to f1 — is his composure. he has immense levels of composure. [...] if you are weak mentally you won’t make it. he was on his own from an early age. he did brilliantly with his studies. but the racing disease would not go away, he wants it very much." (sydney morning herald; dec 11, 2021)

"he’s a prost, mate. he’s such a thinker and so calm. at first i thought i needed to inject a bit of urgency in him, but actually no, he’s got his own frequency. that’s just where he is." (the race; oct 7, 2023)

estimates provided by chris piastri on the cost of oscar's junior career, stressing the million-dollar commitments of running a single season of f3 or f2 (source)

anyway, back to the chaotic events of 2020. i think something that's good to keep in mind when discussing oscar's time in the renault sport academy is that he was actually a relatively new recruit, as in he only participated in a single training camp with the other juniors in 2020 and most of them (max, christian, guanyu, the temporary ghost of victor) already knew each other before. oscar essentially met with renault's factory team in early 2020, filmed promotional material with other juniors in january before attending the season opener together in february and then heading to winter training camp later that month, after which he and max left early for f3 pre-season testing in bahrain on march 1—a blessing in disguise, seeing as caio, hadrien, and christian remained behind and would soon be stuck quaranting in a hotel in tenerife—then briefly spent a week at school before returning home for what was meant to be a quick pit stop at the australian gp, which at the time had yet to be canceled.

then, of course, lockdown happened.

simplified breakdown of renault junior stints, notably showcasing the academy's struggles to meaningfully promote any of its juniors

oscar at the 2020 renault season opener alongside then-academy director mia sharizman, then-tp cyril abiteboul, alain prost, f1 drivers esteban ocon and daniel ricciardo, and the other academy juniors: fewtrell, lundgaard, zhou, david (feb 12, 2020)

oscar and maxf behind the scenes of the same event (feb 12, 2020)

stuck in australia for three months, oscar would end up participating in two fia virtual races, one for f2 and another for f1 (jun 7, 2020). a fun landoscar tidbit is that he finished 5th in the virtual gp right behind lando, so they technically had raced each other before 2023, depending on... well, whether you count a 2020 sim race wherein george russell and alex albon lead the pack as a real race. nevertheless, this was a time when drivers were becoming much more active online, seeing as streaming was the best way to keep their images relevant and connect with fans, and despite oscar expressing little interest in streaming on twitch he would still experience a considerable uptick in his online activity and twitter reach that year.

racing resumed on july 4 at the red bull ring in austria; oscar had been granted an exemption to travel to the uk and complete a 2-week quarantine back on may 27, a reassuring indicator to the motorsport world that the f3 season would run after all. now that he no longer had to attend school, having received 2 b's and 1 c for his maths, physics, and computer science a-levels, oscar relocated from hertford to oxford in june to be near the renault facilities, which he visited nearly every day to train at, and began living independently (as in in a flat) for the first time since 2016, rooming with fellow renault junior caio collet.

as i said before, this season is when oscar's online presence and "memeability" began to really conceptualize, enabled primarily by the fact that he was a) finally living outside of a school dormitory, and b) now, of course, signed at prema, a team notorious for its social media visibility, literal family atmosphere, and frequent youtube pandering. according to this f3 article, his twitter followers jumped from 795 at the start of the season to 11.6k by the time he won the championship, an audience built significantly off the self-deprecating string of jokes he used to tweet regarding drs and general reliability issues faced throughout the season.

what i guess i want to touch on here is how oscar's online presence has always been concentrated around the bare fundamentals of his personality: dry humor, candid words, sparing emojis, a few humorous photos detailing the mundane reality of his everyday routines, and at most the occasional inopportune meme or reaction gif (#thepiastri 🤷‍♂️, f2 in baku, jetpack guy, so on). he's bantered frequently with callum on twitter and near-obsessively liked memes, videos, and other updates lando shares with his audience, but he also has seemingly little interest in building up his own "brand" the way lando so smartly has with ln4 and quadrant, and quite frankly seems viscerally incapable of wanting to engage one-to-one with fans or otherwise leveraging the popularity of his material image. basically what i like to say is that oscar enjoys being adjacent to "lad humor" and will happily enable it, but he really has no interest in being the one to initiate it himself!

"there's some things you want to share, some things you don’t. in today's age and sort of having the profile that us drivers do, we kind of just have everything shared,” piastri said. “but (social media) can be used for good, certainly within the profiles that we have. but in some ways, it can be negative, and there's always going to be people out there that don't like you for being you.” piastri tries to write as many of his posts as possible, and he checks those written by his team to be sure they sound authentically him. (the athletic; jun 29, 2023)

along these lines, oscar does enjoy the spotlight, only he seems to prefer it concentrated in a specific lens toward a specific productive end. he's endlessly capable of seeing the objective upside of a situation, joking after he was made a meme in baku following his f2 sr1 collision that he was all for it if it got him popularity. after his eurocup championship he also said: "i think everyone loves a bit of spotlight on them. i think that's just human nature, so a bit of attention's always nice." which is interesting to me!

but back to racing. this season would unexpectedly become two things: maxf's last competitive season in motorsport—especially disappointing considering that he'd gone into the championship expecting to put on a second-season title charge, instead failing to gel with the hitech team to the point that each increasingly poor weekend made him spiral mentally—as well as oscar and logan's last season racing against each other before f1, since logan would later encounter financial difficulties that left him stranded in f3 as oscar catapulted himself to f2 victory. 2020 was obviously a weird season in general because of covid and the gap from pre-season testing, so it also meant that oscar had gone into the season fairly rusty; he managed to win the first race of the season, but on top of his drs rollercoaster he did struggle with middling results in qualifying and was met step-by-step throughout the championship by logan.

maxf's last race in f3 was the barcelona sprint race on august 16, with three rounds left to the end of the season. he dnfed in an unfortunate first-lap incident mere moments after oscar charged his way up from 5th on the grid to the front of the pack, where he would eventually breeze his way to victory and pull himself near-level with logan for the championship lead. i recognize that this is an oscar post and not a maxf post, but i think their time in f3 during an extremely isolated and covid-affected period speaks to both an interesting dynamic between them (the little kid who always lagged a series behind you suddenly beating you on merit) and their respective temperaments toward racing. while at renault, max reportedly lived with jack aitken during the week but would return to his family home on weekends, so it makes sense that he struggled to adapt when covid hit and drivers were collectively forced into very regimented sporting bubbles. mark webber, who worked for channel 4 as a commentator and had access to the f1 paddock, basically couldn't see oscar in person and instead spoke to him over the phone every day on race weekends. maxf said of his decision to quit:

"normally [...] i’m able to stay calm under pressure and i don’t let many things get to me but when you have a bad qualifying result and you see guys up there that you know you’re capable of beating, it definitely takes a dig at you inside and it’s been a lot to process throughout the year." (source)

while then-academy director mia sharizman, who worked closely with the renault juniors, spoke of oscar's inherent propensity for independence and how he adapted well to the pressures of living on his own:

"if you look at oscar piastri, he has been living on his own, [away] from his family who are in melbourne for the past five to six years. because he has been living on his own in boarding school, he learns how to live on his own, and he thrives in that. we have to force him... 'have you spoken to your father?!' it's just things like that, but he thrives in that. that's why he thrived in those weekends racing. he loves being on his own without anybody. on the other hand, we had max fewtrell, for example, who can't – he couldn't survive the 11 weekends racing, because he always needed his family to be around him. so those are the things that suddenly you see and, i think that that we see now, after a few years a driver who is quick, a driver who has the talent, and then the driver who is stable." (source)

2020 is also when lando and oscar spoke to each other on twitter for the first time. yay! after lando went semi-viral for having a meltdown over a hornet on three separate social media platforms, oscar first joked with him about it on august 24 (this was incidentally also the day maxf announced his functional retirement, which oscar liked as well 😭), before referencing the incident again a few weeks later in september.

(aug 24, 2020) / (sep 10, 2020)

outside of drs tweets and trying desperately to banter with lando norris, oscar's popular tweets at the time included several food-related mishaps and home appliance tragedies. while this isn't actually a lando moment, he was also slandered by the LN4 twitter account a month later on october 17 for reasons that remain a mystery, resulting in this set of interactions:

(oct 17, 2020) / (oct 19, 2020)

bonus: maxf's tweets @ oscar (when you aren't close enough to just text him.......)

but back to f3. similarly to his second season of eurocup, oscar would go on to clinch the title in only the final race of the year, this time even more stressfully—he never got pole that season and won arguably off of consistency, benefiting from errors and unfortunate collisions involving his primary competitors. after a hectic qualifying and string of contentious grid penalties set for the before-last round in monza, he began the feature race 15th on the grid but put on an impressive performance to finish on the podium, buffing his points lead after logan was tapped by clément and put out of the points. he, logan, and fred all dnfed in race 2 (read: the novalak pendulum swung away from oscar's favor to maintain stringent cosmic equilibrium, while logan and fred threw away a points opportunity with a teammate4teammate love tap), and oscar went into mugello with only an 8-point lead over logan and a 24-point lead over pourchaire. this weekend proved equally hectic, as is frequently the case with f3 racing standards, but in short oscar and logan entered the final sprint race level on points, with théo approaching terrifyingly near in their rearview mirrors. logan was unceremoniously taken out of contention on the first lap after contact with zendeli, and oscar managed to squeak his way to 164 points in the championship by placing 7th in the race; théo finished 3rd, with 161 points, two positions away from claiming both the race and the championship title.

a succinct summary of an eventful season! (posted jun 30, 2021)

despite winning the f3 championship in far-from-dominant fashion, oscar's career was now steadily on an upward trend. on october 30 he was rewarded with a private test in the r.s.18 at bahrain alongside christian and guanyu, and a month later confirmed that he would be racing for prema again in f2 (december 1, 2020). as a rookie f3 champion there was a moderate amount of interest in him, but no one really expected him to carry home the f2 title on his first try and so one of the main favorites going into the next season was his second-year teammate and 2019 f3 champion rob shwartzman.

4. f2, alpine reserve duties, #piastrigate (2021-2022)

at the start of 2021, fernando officially took daniel's place at renault and the team rebranded itself as alpine, parting ways with team principal cyril abiteboul and functionally replacing him with new ceo laurent rossi—part of a no-tp management structure, frankly a self-evident infrastructural faux-pas from a million miles away. the renault sport academy was then also renamed to alpine academy; again i know that this is an oscar post so i won't get too into the details of Alpine Being Alpine, but understanding how the academy functioned does help better contextualize the inevitable unfurling of piastrigate.

the main issue, really, would always be laurent rossi, or at least the values laurent rossi had been hired to represent and which he willingly peddled during his controversial tenure at alpine. after rossi's appointment it was reported that "the renamed alpine academy was now being tugged in two directions between director mia sharizman's ideal as a creator of future f1 drivers and alpine's chief executive officer laurent rossi's commercially-led preferences." (source) mia directed the academy from january 2016 until may 2022, and had been the one to restructure its recruitment process by demanding better funding and robust testing programs to cyril:

"when we first restarted the team in 2016, it was, we didn't even have a two-year-old car program at that time. we had to use a 2012 program using the [lotus] e20. [...] then in 2018, i went through it, and i said to cyril abiteboul, "look, let's try and do this." we needed financial resources. i needed a head start with financial resources to kick start the program whereby you entice drivers, and you offer [a place] to the academy drivers. it was more to see how they are... it was more of an evaluation process... that was what the first idea was. then we developed the program to develop the drivers to suit their formual 2 program." (source)

(note: mia also believed that 2020 was a disappointing year for all of his juniors save for oscar's performance in f3, which is a whole other thing. but rossi's greatest shortcoming was that he had singular, insulated vision, and he resisted any external input to the detriment of reactionary business decisions, a fact that alienated alain prost and soon led to his exit from the outfit in 2022. not a good look!!! prost would later call rossi "the best example of the dunning-kruger effect, that of an incapable leader who thinks himself able to overcome his incompetence with his arrogance and lack of humanity toward his troops." 🤌)

so basically, the cracks of mind-boggling incompetence within the team's leadership structure were long evident. on a brighter note, oscar's 2021 f2 season would quickly become his strongest single-seater contest ever (f1 youtube has a good summarizing video of his season, if interested); because of covid, f2 was experimenting with a three-race format this year in which quali set the reverse grid for sr1 and sr1 results then set the reverse grid for sr2, which essentially meant high qualifiers were rewarded for simply maintaining composure in the first sprint and running cleanly in the top 10 in order to secure a favorable grid spot in sr2. oscar adapted well to this format, building off his reputation of smooth, consistent driving on top of slowly improving his qualifying results over the course of the season, finally breaking through with his first feature-race win in monza.

oscar with mia sharizman

this is also around the time when lando mentioned oscar in official f1 media for the first time, reading off a question about him to daniel in an interview posted in october:

"this one's not even about formula one. it's about oscar piastri. oscar pias-tree! [...] he's been on it this year." — (full video) (oct 1, 2021)

of his own f2 campaign, oscar said:

"i thought that i could challenge for race wins, but i probably wasn't expecting to be so consistently at the front. consistency is something that i’ve had as a trait throughout my career, and i was expecting to be consistent in my results this year — but maybe a bit lower down!" (source)

not only did he end up being consistently at the front, he became virtually unstoppable in the second half of the season. on december 11, oscar clinched the title in abu dhabi with two races to spare, ending the season with 5 consecutive poles and 4 consecutive feature wins, 60.5 points above his previously-favored teammate in the standings. #notbadforashitqualifier!

by now oscar was a hot commodity in the paddock; the only problem was that alpine didn't really care, mainly because rossi had enthusiastically re-signed ocon to a three-year deal in 2021 and held zero intention of actually promoting any of its juniors to one of the race seats, plus the one open spot at alfa romeo had instead gone to guanyu and his considerable financial package (though oscar has always been vocally defensive of guanyu's appointment to his detractors). instead of moving to another series, such as indycar or super formula, oscar recognized that he'd proven everything he needed to prove within the feeder system and opted to remain on the grid as alpine's reserve driver, mainly so that he could embed himself in an f1 team environment and—most crucially—avoid being left "out of sight, out of mind," because once you go to america you usually don't come back.

i'll keep the rest of this post brief since i feel like everyone already knows What Went Down, but a quick highlight for fellow landoscar enjoyers was the 2022 australian gp on april 10, during which oscar accompanied rosanna tennant for the post-race show and awkwardly participated in a chaotic lando & alex interview. as far as i know, this was landoscar's first time interacting on-camera!

o: "i haven't raced either of them, no." l: "not yet!" o: "not yet. hopefully soon." — (full video) (apr 10, 2022)

then silly season started, and everything was thrown into disarray when sebastian vettel announced his imminent retirement and fernando subsequently took his place at aston martin; alpine scrambled to recover from this blindsided move and prematurely promoted oscar to an f1 seat, to which oscar eventually posted The Tweet—claiming he'd never signed a contract with alpine and would not be racing for them in 2023, thus kicking off #piastrigate. or the piasco, or whatever you prefer to call it.

here's a good article that properly summarizes the crb ruling, but tl;dr: mclaren and alpine had come to an agreement back in march to loan oscar to mclaren's stable of reserve drivers after daniel contracted covid; mark webber, who was close to andreas seidl from their time at porsche in wec, quietly negotiated a contract with mclaren for 2023 that oscar would then sign on july 4, which was reportedly initially a reserve deal with an upgrade clause to a full-time drive given a dr buyout; alpine's legal team turned out to be essentially one overworked legal director who mishandled the situation thanks to a lack of organizational support, while a concrete williams deal never actually existed no matter what people continuously allege, and any proprietary right to oscar's services that alpine purported to have for the 2023 season would soon be voided by crb rule on september 2. in other words, they dun goofed.

because tumblr dies when i try to include it in this post, here's a link to a condensed chronological timeline version of this post.

that's it for now. i'm sure you know how the rest goes!!!

#oscar piastri #*m #quite possibly the dumbest thing i've ever written and most likely of no use to anyone at all. but i had fun so no flames pls 🥲☝️#there's so much more i could have said this is quite frankly the condensed version... scrapped a whole separate section on just his psyche #i need 2 be normal.........

382 notes · View notes

yazthebookish · 4 months

Text

I loved all of what Sarah highlighted in her interview today and I'll elaborate a bit especially on the romance part:

In Maas’ fantasy worlds, love interests often exist as fated “mates,” with invisible strings between them that are powerful and often poetic. Readers can see the literary metaphors, like complementary powers between two characters. But other times, there are no metaphors, with their connection initially seeming random.

She's too attached to the mate trope and I like that she gives us different cases and scenarios for it, otherwise it'll be boring.

“Sometimes, I will write a scene with two characters that I’ve planned for them to get together, and then they have no …” She shakes her head slightly at me. “It’s like holding two dolls and being like, now kiss! And they won’t. … And then sometimes a different character will walk in and they will just” — she snaps.

I yelled at this part because it's as if she plucked the scene from Azriel's bonus chapter and used it as an example. Those parallels between Elain and Gwyn are intentional. It doesn't mean Elain is bad it's just their dynamic doesn't work as a couple and it was obvious to the author. I know she didn't specify who this was about but like, come on, who tried to kiss and which character showed up in a bonus chapter after that depressing scene and gave a glimmer of hope?

“It feels like magic in a way where, as much as I tried to plot out things years in advance, I let my characters guide a story. And they usually wind up with the people that they need to be with and who offer them the most growth and joy.”

I love this so much and allow me to speak about my favorite ship and its because the snippets we saw of Az and Gwyn together especially in the bonus chapter brought out a lighter version of Az. His scenes with Gwyn were light-hearted and the bonus chapter ends on a hopeful note for them. It's hard to deny that connection between them whether you theorize she's luring him or they're mates, those theories wouldn't exist if she had no ties to him (she's in his own chapter like come on).

I go the philosophical route with my next question: We’re talking about fate here, but at what point is a character the agent of their own fate? What happens if someone rejects their mate? (Listen, if I were Fae and I didn’t like my mate, whatever God chose for me is not my business.)

People are jumping the gun and assume this example is set to be Elucien but... we have Helion and Lady of Autumn likely being an example of a tragic rejected mates story (if you read ACOWAR and their history it's obvious they're mates). Maybe it's Mor and Eris and that's the secret that ties them to each other. We have other characters from other series too.

For a convincing mate rejection story in my opinion, it needs more than one book or it's a case that we see with side characters where we can see their history and the long-term implications of a rejected bond.

It's too easy of a story to have one person's central conflict be the words "no I reject you" and they're done. Again, this is not exclusive to ACOTAR but also her other series.

“That’s something I find to be very interesting,” she replies. “What if the forces that be put you with the wrong person? Or what if you just decide, eh, I’m not interested. … There’s a lot to explore within the concept of mates and your agency about it.

The concept of agency is something many readers in the fandom discussed especially when it comes to mating bonds and there were arguments on (would Rhys fell for Feyre if she wasn't his mate or would have Cassian fell for Nesta if she wasn't his mate). We know that some mates don't work out but stay together because their dynamic is unhealthy (Rhys's and Tamlin's parents). We got examples of a loveless mating bond already.

We also saw that Nesta didn't immediately accept the term "mate" because it would mean cutting off her last tether with humanity. It's not a matter of "you're my mate" "yes I'll be with you", the dynamic between the mated couple is important to explore.

“I’m not going to say if I am exploring it in future books or not,” she continues, “but it definitely offers a wealth of things to explore with this concept of freewill and what is true love. Is it something that’s destined? Or is it something that you make? Is it both?”

This part aligns with what I think about Elucien. We never had a mated pairing who knew they were mates but are not in love with each other. Every mated couple found out they're mates when they were already in love.

Can a destined love turn into true love? Or do you settle for a destined love without love being in the equation. Love wasn't in the equation for Rhys's parents, but love was the equation for Feysand and Nessian. Elucien was left unexplored for a reason and both Elain and Lucien view each other by label "mate", they didn't have a chance to get to know each other. So it's going to be very interesting to see them navigate their feelings for each other despite the mating bond.

I didn't expect her to elaborate a lot on this but I love that she did and I hope in future interviews she gives us more good bits about her writing and examples of the decisions she took for some characters and couples.

Didn't expect this post to be long but happy reading! I'm still reeling from HOFAS 🥲

#acotar #gwynriel #elucien #nessian

310 notes · View notes

hollowwrites · 3 months

Text

Company

Ominis x MC

Summary - I wanted to write something with cheeky, teasing Ominis and it quickly devolved into Ominis in love. I like the idea of these two being really mature and serious but when they’re together they’re just comfortable and silly.

50 house point to anyone who catches the Baldurs Gate reference

Warnings - None (Fluffy, comforting goodness)

Word Count - 3200

This was getting a tad ridiculous.

Ominis couldn’t really say much. He was the King of sleeping at all hours of the day and in a manner of different locations.

But this was starting to concern him.

On at least five occasions over the last month he had found Evelyn completely passed out. In the Common Room. In the Room of Requirement. On one occasion he’d almost tripped over her legs, splayed forward outside one of the Defence Against the Dark Arts Classrooms. Like she was on her way to the Undercroft but simply didn’t make it.

It seemed as well that himself and Sebastian took it in turns to find her, bringing her back to somewhere she could properly get some rest before she started all over again the next day.

See, as soon as Evelyn made her return to Hogwarts, the beginning of her sixth and arguably her first proper year there, she hadn’t stopped. Essays, Assignments, extra curricular activities, extra lessons. Anything the school had to offer Evelyn was in.

That was the only way she could see herself catching up to her fellow classmates.

What she failed to see was that she’d already surpassed so many of them in most of their lessons. Whilst simultaneously learning an entirely unknown field of magic alone and saving Hogwarts from certain doom.

Not bad for someone who didn’t know what a Quaffle was.

But it was that lack of common knowledge that kept her thinking she was below average. Kept her busy.

So when Ominis managed to catch her it was a miracle.

Wrangling her in was something else entirely. Usually he could tempt her into more studying and from there would simply distract her away from her studies until they both collapsed from exhaustion and too many bags of Honeydukes fudge.

They’d made a habit of reading in the tiny lobby of the Room of Requirement, tucked up on the sofa in front of the cosy crackling fire. A blanket over their legs and books in hand, they’d often spend any available free time holed up this way. Whether it was a shared blanket or separate, sat besides each other or at each others feet. Books firmly planted in their laps or, more often than not, precariously dangling from fingers when one of them nodded off.

That cosy warmth is what often coerced Evelyn to sleep after a long day of studying.

And because of that, Ominis had grown accustomed to the dull weight of her head on his person. Leaning on his thigh, or even his chest if they lay at a funny angle. Most commonly was his shoulder.

He paid it no mind. The soft thud of her head falling to his shoulder normally indicated it was time to relax, no longer needing to keep an ear out for her. She was right there.

Where she belonged.

This time is was the gentle hum of his wand that sent her off. The moment he had produced the novel he was engrossed in and the thrum of magic radiated from his wand as it dictated its words to him, her eyes grew heavy. It was often the case, like the soft low drone of his charm was associated with peace.

Although it wasn’t just her. They both found their comfort within each other.

For her, it was his wand and the way it hummed with potential magic. The almost velvety lapels of his robes. The subtle scent of bergamot and black tea.

For him, it was her hair. Yes, he enjoyed the delicate rose that fell around her like a halo, but it was her hair that sent shivers down his spine.

After long days studying, naps and spell practise, her normal prim and proper bun, piled high on her head, began to droop. Tiny hairs escaped it confounds and fell over her face. Of course he only knew of this from the flyaways caressing his cheek as she lay there. And he’d be lying if he said, the small annoyed puffs of air didn’t amuse him as she blew them away. But he much preferred removing those offending strands himself, allowing its soft, barely wavy locks to slip through his fingers like silk.

When she was awake, said act was accompanied by a heat rising in her cheeks, the like of which he could only feel when his fingers eventually dropped from her face. The minute change in her temperature and the way she would stutter out her thanks were pure joy for Ominis.

Whilst she was asleep, he didn’t get the gratitude. Just a disembodied mumble and her soft breath falling over his neck in slow sharp huffs. As though she knew he were there.

It was moments like those, in the quiet when it was just them, that he realised he had fallen for her.

He wasn’t entirely sure when he stopped craving her attention as a friend and started needing it as part of his daily life. Sebastian insists it was from the moment they’d met, teasing him endlessly about being jealous and wishing to court her.

Maybe he had been right.

It didn’t matter now.

She was his friend. An established friendship that he cherished and he hoped she did too. He wasn’t about to lose one of the only people he cared about because of…what? Love?

He would.

He definitely would.

He’d do anything for her.

But so would his family. And he couldn’t allow that.

Besides…how does one approach your best friend and tell them that you love them, whilst simultaneously not wishing to actually be with them for their own safety and due to your own families prejudices? There wasn’t exactly a step-by-step guide…even in the Restricted Section…

So…at least for now, he would enjoy these moments with her where he could pretend. Pretend that she reached for him in her sleep because she loved him too. Pretend that nothing outside of these four walls could harm them. Pretend that they could live that happy fantasy life they read about so often.

Happily ever after.

He didn’t feel the exact moment she began to stir in his lap, her head rolling to look up at him. He was too distracted by his own thoughts, his own imaginings. Too busy distracting himself with her.

There was no indication to Ominis just how long she lay awake for. Her breathing unchanged, movements slow and lethargic. But it was long enough for her to watch the tangle of his brows grow harder, the knot grow larger.

Then a long dainty digit poked his brow. Directly in the middle, where he could feel his frown becoming deeper and deeper. Dwelling on thoughts of what ifs and maybe’s.

That knot was willed away with a single prod of her finger.

“Moody” she grumbled, the familiar husk of her sleepy state melting away the last little bit of negativity in his head.

Gods…I’m so in love her

The thought scared him somewhat. The unknown possibilities, the hurt, the rejection. No, Ominis was very much a creature of habit. He could remain as he was rather contently…for now.

His ever growing smirk became impossible to hide behind the thin veil of annoyance he wore across his features. His lip twitched upward as he tried, and failed, to control his grin. Tutting, with faux exasperation, he shifted his focus down towards his lap.

“Tsk…You can’t just point it out and expect it to go away” he scolded. She’d heard him tell her off before. Most memorable being the unfortunate Undercroft incident. This was a far cry from those times.

“Sorry, it’s just…” she mumbled, still sounding half asleep. Then came another poke to his brow and he could no longer control the easy and airy laugh that left his lips “…I don’t like it when you’re brooding”

“I am not brooding” Ominis pouted upon hear that word. He’d heard himself described as that many times and he couldn’t quite understand why. It wasn’t his fault his face naturally settled into a frown. From what he understood about Evelyn’s visage, hers was much the same but no one called her broody.

“Besides…” he continued after hearing her playful giggle. He hated being called that but somehow when she said it, it wasn’t half as bad. “…if I was brooding, you can’t stop it by simply poking it away. You’ve tried enough times, I would have assumed you’d have understood that fact by now”

His smirk grew to a wide arrogant grin as he teased her. At some point, he wasn’t really aware of when, but his fingers made their way to ends of her hair. Twirling and twiddling the soft strands around his digits, delighting in the tiny morsels of information he gathered from it.

She had longish hair. Thick, far thicker than any he’d felt before. Like a heavy fog laying over his hands.

Her voice suddenly snapped him out of his reverie. A fast and sharp reminder he didn’t live in his fantasies where she was his.

“Then why are you smiling?” She turned her head in his lap to look at his features square on.

Yes, definitely a smile…

“I’m smiling….because you’re, you” he said simply and confidently, not realising it caused a fiery flush to blossom across her cheeks. He just smiled in that half aware, half vacant way that he did. Easy. “…It is still rather irritating though…”

“Anyway…” he continued on, unaware of the bashful way she looked up at him “What disturbed you? I was having such a peaceful evening until you woke up…” He teased, the familiar crinkle on his nose appearing as his smile grew wider.

“Oh…I had a very odd dream…” shortly after she spoke, her head pulled up and out of his lap, a vague sigh leaving her lips causing Ominis to raise a pointed brow.

“Everything okay?” He asked softly, tilting his head towards her, as he always did.

“Mmm…” she hummed, shaking her head as though trying to rid the memories within “…yes, just…dreamt that I was falling”

“Ah…” Ominis replied with a smirk tugging back at his lips. His wand returned to the pages of his book, resting on the cushion beside him “…do you know the old wives tale that if you hit the ground in your dreams, you supposedly die?”

Evelyn glared at the side of Ominis’ face with enough contempt it could burn through him. And he felt it, causing the smirk to widen on his face, a flash of teeth peaking through.

“Wonderful. I trust you’ll wake me before I perish then” she jabbed him softly in the ribs as a low chuckle left him.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I shall let you fall. That way I don’t have to clean drool from my robes every other day”

That struck a nerve.

She shot up in her seat, clambering onto the cushions to get a better look at where she had laid her head.

“I don’t drool!” She exclaimed as she padded around his thigh and knee.

“You most definitely do. I already got rid of it. I’ve become quite proficient at the Drying Charm since becoming your friend” he grinned, wide, teeth bared like a cat as he bathed in her annoyance.

“I do not drool”

“Dribble then. Call it what you will-“

“I don’t dribble either” she muttered, folding her arms over her chest and slumping against the backrest. The distinct little huff as she pouted only caused Ominis to laugh loudly.

“I suppose I should go back to the Dorms…” she groaned as she stretched upwards “…wouldn’t want to dampen your robes any more than I already have”

Oh…

“Wait…” Ominis exclaimed suddenly, feeling the weight of the cushions beneath him shift as she rose from their seat. He quickly grabbed for her, aiming for her upper arm or forearm, but timed it too late and caught her palm perfectly. His long fingers slid over hers as he grasped for her, neither pulling her down nor standing himself. Just keeping her there, whilst his brain racked for an excuse.

“Is everything okay?” Evelyn asked inquisitively, the concern for his sudden shift in behaviour bled quite heavily into her tone.

“Everything’s fine…I just want to talk to you”

“Okay…” he relaxed once more when he felt her return to her position next to him “…What about?”

“I…”

Gods damn it…

“…I don’t have a topic in mind…” he scrambled. though you would never know. His voice, as always carried him with confidence, no stammering or stuttering. If it weren’t for the slight upturn of his brows…one would never suspect anything was wrong.

“You’ve been difficult to tie down as of late…” he continued “…I’ve missed you, missed your voice. I’d…just like to hear you speak”

“Okay…” she says softly, shuffling closer and leaning back into his arm. And the sigh that left him upon her acceptance was…heavy. As though he had just gotten in from a long day shopping around Londons markets, feet aching and awaiting a warm cup of tea. “Where to start…” she murmured to herself, hearing the slight tap of fingers as they drummed against her cheek in contemplation .

“Oh! Well…I read this book recently……”

This was perfect.

Ominis couldn’t imagine a better way to spend an evening. The slow crackle and pop of the fire wood. The soft cushioned nest he sat in. The gentle yet excitable tone in which she spoke.

All of it was so…comforting.

So homely.

He was home.

And as she continued, prattling on about this novel, he listened. Intently. Didn’t interject. Didn’t interrupt. Just listened. Hung up on every single word that passed by her lips.

It was a romance. And though he never expected her to enjoy those sorts of stories, he liked that she was so passionate about them. The cliches, the cringy dialogue, the overused tropes. She babbled on about them all. Though he could tell by the way she stumbled and over explained every tiny detail that she was embarrassed for liking them. Every sentence came with a justification tacked onto the end, as though it needed it.

Those words on those pages made her happy.

Therefore Ominis was happy.

Mainly for the manner in which she spoke.

He knew she talked with her hands. A visual mannarism of hers he never usually got to experience. But as she leaned into his arm, reluctant to let him move, the small twitches of her fingers and sway of her hands, accurately conveyed what she was saying. It was nice to witness her passion bubbling forward in another way.

And her laugh. Gods…

If the sound alone wasn’t enough to cause him to fall for her, her movements were. The way she leaned into him as she threw her head back. The vibrations of mirth sweeping through her whole being shifting the robes between them like kindling. He had to stop himself chuckling along with her from fear she assumed he was laughing at her. But her laughter was infectious, his willpower working overtime to not catch her bug.

It was like she was made for him. The way she laughed with her whole body. Gestured wildly with her hands, a flurry of excitement and joy or frustration and anger. Audibly thought through things, with little hums and ‘erm’s and ‘What to do’s.

She showed him, in her own way, everything he couldn’t see.

“…honestly-”

Her tone picked up. No longer the lull of softness as she explained characters, plot twists, plot holes, everything.

“-I didn’t think I’d enjoy the book. It’s rather cliche and not very well written but…I finished it in one night. I just couldn’t stop. That probably isn’t helping, me falling asleep around the castle…”

Evelyn pulled herself up and turned her head towards Ominis, finally finishing her mad rant about the silly little book she loved. His eyes were closed, head resting against the cushions, and a wistful smile on his lips.

“Ominis? Are you alright?” She whispered meekly, worried she’d knocked him out with her boring lecture.

But he simply smiled wider and opened his eyes, the glassy blue orbs settling over the fire. “I’m fine, I’m just…enjoying your company.”

Though his focus never wandered from her, or her words, he slowly shifted his gaze back towards her. He let out a relaxed sigh and sank further into the cushions, listening intently to the steady slow thump of her heart, the gentle breathes that sound more like tiny sighs.

“I’ve missed you. Missed your voice…I know I’ve already said that but…listening to you just then really emphasised it”

He was met with a simple scoff, a force of air that sounded just annoyed enough for Ominis to worry.

“You’ve finally gone mad...” She declared, her tone indicating amusement. So why the scoff? “…my voice is shrill. At best”

“I’ll admit when we first met…” Ominis started, unable to stop himself from teasing her just a little. “…I thought you were somehow half human, half mandrake but-“

Smack

“Hey!” She whined playfully smacking his arm, his smug chuckle making her own smile widen. She’d known him for a little over a year now and this was the most she’d ever seen him smile.

“BUT…” he said defensively, throwing his arms up in surrender “…I’ve since learned to love it. It’s comforting. Like listening to music.”

“Well…thank you” she said sweetly, unconsciously proving his point with her soft and gentle tone.

“I know you said that book was terribly written but I wouldn’t mind giving it a read. Do you still have it?”

“The Magister and his Mistress?” She asks inquisitively with a curious tilt to her head “Well well well, Mr Gaunt. I would never have took you for a Hopeless Romantic”

He rolled his eyes, shaking his head as he chuckled at the name.

“There is more to me than the Dark Arts and Curses”

He could hear her rummaging around, presumably in her bag or robes pockets, until her fingers wrapped around his wrist, guiding him towards a freshly bound book. The smell of its paper sent a shiver down Ominis’ spine. There was nothing better than the smell of books.

As he took it from her hands, their finger brushed against each other, delicate and deliberate. Neither flinched nor pulled away but that was expected.

They already pushed the boundaries of what was considered okay for ‘friends’. Especially for the normally standoffish Heir of Slytherin. Within a week of them knowing each other they walked arm in arm around Hogsmeade and the castle. So this casual and accidental caress most likely meant nothing. And he shouldn’t read into it.

“Thank you…” he murmured, taking the book and pushing down any thoughts that she may feel the same.

There was no point.

They couldn’t be together anyway so why bother torturing himself over it?

Her sudden yawn caught his attention once again and he turned back to her, a soft smirk pulling at his lips.

“Tired already?” He asks impishly

“I’m always tired”

“Perhaps we should get you back to the dorms. Have you sleep in a bed…for once”

Masterlist

148 notes · View notes

lucid-loves · 4 months

Text

Taste Like Venom ~ Simon "Ghost" Riley Part 6

Pairing: Ghost x assassin!reader (fem!reader, no use of y/n, callsign “Hex”)

Word Count: 4.8k

CW: angst, violence, blood, strong language, scars, enemies to lovers trope, slow burn, fluff, clear attraction and sexual tension, smut later on, reader POV and ghost POV, minors dni, Soap lives in this AU

Let me know if I missed any CWs.

Story Synopsis: After Makarov gets away once again, Laswell decides to force a favor from you, the world’s greatest assassin and best-kept secret. You are now expected to help the 141 with taking down Makarov in addition to playing nice with them. It’s hard to play nice when you have always worked alone. It doesn’t help that one of the team members, Ghost, gets curious about you in each interaction.

Chapter Synopsis: Kate calls you with some news about the mole. Ghost stops by your room a couple hours before you are all meant to leave in order to spend some more private time with you. When everyone leaves to board the early train to Paris, he is still adamant about sticking to your side.

Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3 ~ Part 4 ~ Part 5 ~ Part 6 ~ Part 7 ~ Part 8 ~ Part 9 ~ Part 10

Dinner went smoothly. A little awkward for you, but fine. You mainly just listened to the conversations, not feeling comfortable enough to include yourself just yet. The 141 respected your boundary, only cracking jokes and discussing things that showed off their personalities. Kyle was the most mellow out of the group, despite being the youngest. Soap was definitely the loudest, a jokester. At least he was confident. Price was level-headed but sharp. He wasn’t afraid to tease his team when the opportunity was just right.

And Ghost? You got to see a new side of him. One that was more open around his teammates. Considerate, but snarky every now and then. Dry, blunt, caring. The side you were already familiar with though was still there at dinner. The entire time during dinner, he secured himself right beside you, close to you. He didn’t seem all that happy when Kyle sat next to you on your other side too. Every so often, Ghost’s leg would brush against yours, the exuding heat making you shiver. He really ran warm.

At some point, you caught on that he was brushing his leg against yours on purpose. He did it every time Gaz ended up bumping your shoulder during a fit of chuckles, completely by accident. It didn’t bother you too much, having grown more comfortable around the men as time passed during dinner.

However, it completely bothered Ghost. He knew that Kyle didn’t mean any harm. He most likely wasn’t realizing that he was doing it. Yet, it still bothered him. He’s the only one that wanted the privilege of touching you. By accident or on purpose. It scared him a little, the sinking feeling he got every time Gaz’s shoulder brushed against yours. The feeling of jealousy. He didn’t know that he was the jealous type.

Once dinner was over, everyone retreated back to their bedrooms to try to get some rest in. Ghost lied in his bed, Soap having taken over the shower as soon as they got back to the room. He closed his eyes, trying to see if he could actually rest up.

Simon has always struggled with sleep. Whenever he closed his eyes, he would see nightmares. Experiences that he has gone through that he wouldn’t even wish upon his enemies. The flashbacks were a bit more tolerable when his eyes were just resting. They were just images in his mind. It was when he actually fell asleep that his nightmares came to life. There have been plenty of moments where he would jump up in bed, clutching his chest and trying to get his panicked breathing under control. Sometimes his skin even twitched painful from where he would be stabbed, shot, or even bitten within his dreams.

He’s always dreaded sleeping. However, this time, when he closed his eyes and took deep breaths, he didn’t see his past behind his eyelids. He saw you. You tossing him the book you’re letting him borrow, you starting the fire in the cabin, you listening intently to confidential conversations, you giving him a teasing smile with the sunset behind you. He even saw you on top of him, hips pressed against his and a knife to his chest. Before he knew it, he was imagining a replay of that entire situation, only this time, you were dressed in only your panties and t-shirt like the first day he met you. Your t-shirt would weigh down with gravity as you would straddle him. He would have been able to see your cleavage. The thin fabric of your underwear would drive him crazy too. It would make him want to just rip them to shreds just to see all of you without a barrier.

All of these thoughts were involuntary, but Ghost was having a hard time trying to stop them once they started. It wasn’t until he heard the sound of the shower turning off that he opened his eyes back up to stop the dirty film in his mind. When he sat up and looked down, he cursed under his breath. Really? A fucking boner? Again? What were you doing to him?

He got up and shifted his pants just as Soap came out of the bathroom, feeling refreshed and ready for some sleep. When he saw his lieutenant standing and putting on some boots, he raised his brow curiously. “You going somewhere, Lt?”

“Gonna walk around a little. Burn some extra energy.” He made up, hoping the excuse would be enough for Soap to drop it. Hopefully, Soap wouldn’t look too closely at him either.

Johnny nodded and headed towards the room’s mini-fridge, helping himself to an ice cold water bottle. As Simon left, Soap didn’t notice the slight bulge in his pants. Although, he did notice the lieutenant walking a little differently. Not unlike the way most boys had to walk when they were trying to hide something they couldn’t control due to puberty. He held his breath to avoid laughing. Right up until the door was closed with a click. Soap never thought that he would see Ghost so down bad for anyone.

Simon headed up to the rooftops to get some alone time. He’s been meaning to find some more time to finish the book you lent him. Finding a comfortable spot leaning against the wall, he cracked open the book and began to read, a military-grade flashlight illuminating the words on the page.

The time ticked slowly through the night, having you wonder if time had actually stopped. There were still a couple of hours left before it was time to check-out, so you tried to fill the time as best as you could. You just stepped out of the shower, a long, warm one. You normally took quick showers that were lukewarm at best. When it was the hotel paying the hot water bill, however, you didn’t really care about how long your shower was or how hot the water rushed.

It was heaven feeling the water pressure massage your tense muscles. The scent of clean steam and soap helped you relax as well. You weren’t one for the standard, generic soaps that most hotels provided. You preferred your own scents, your own soaps that you were accustomed to. The scents that helped you feel most comfortable in your own scarred skin.

By the time you turned off the shower, your fingertips had turned pruny and you were craving a cold beverage. Wrapping a towel around your frame, you stepped back out into the beverage to pick a fruit juice from the fridge. As you sipped, the phone on your desk started to vibrate. There was only one person in the world that could call you. If she was calling at this hour, it must’ve been important.

“Kate.” You greeted nonchalantly.

“Hex, how are you doing?” She started with small talk. She always started with some small talk with you before discussing the important matters. Usually it was because she had to butter you up so she could ask for a favor.

Lucky for her, you didn’t mind it. “I’m fine. We’re making good progress with the mission. I’ve been getting to know the boys too. They’re not half bad.”

You could practically feel Kate beaming through the phone at your confession. She was incredibly excited for you. “That’s great to hear! I figured that you would get along with them better than anyone else. I told you they were good men.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet. There’s still a lot to do and a lot I don’t know. I haven’t given them my complete seal of approval yet.” You teased, a small smile gracing your own face as you imagined how happy Kate was. You couldn’t remember the last time you witnessed her smile.

She gave a warm laugh before clearing her throat. “John has told me about what he thinks of you as well as how you’ve been interacting with the team. It was a rocky start, but he told me that you had dinner with them tonight. Really, Hex. I think this is good for you. They’re good for you.”

“Anyway, talking about this isn’t the only reason why I called. I wanted to give you an update on our potential mole situation.” She continued, her tone shifting to proud and carefree to serious and grave.

You took a seat on your bed, preparing to hear the report. “And?”

Laswell paused for a while before releasing a shaky breath. “At the original checkpoint where you were supposed to pick up an armored vehicle, there was an ambush waiting. Makarov’s men. The vehicle wasn’t stolen, so there is no way that they were just there to steal military property. Their only reason for being there was to apprehend the 141.”

“So we have a mole situation after all.” You groaned. When it came to things like this, you hated being proven right. It wasn’t like you liked these kinds of things happening, waiting to brag like a child. This was serious.

“Your hunch was right and you have proven it. The only people that knew where the 141 was going and where they were supposed to be were me and Shepherd. Shepherd doesn’t suspect that I have been turning in false paperwork, but he has questioned me on where you guys were. I think in his panic, he bought my lie. He seemed spooked.” She elaborated in detail.

“Have you told the boys yet?” You inquired. From her tone, it sounded like she hadn't.

“Negative. I figured that you should break the news. Besides, I don’t have anything concrete yet. If tried in court, Shepherd could brush it off as a mere coincidence. Legally, I have to be careful with who I tell and how I say things. I’m going to keep digging on my end, see about getting something on record. You guys just keep going. Take down Makarov.” She decided, her determination clear in her decision. Kate wasn’t one to let these kinds of things brush under the rug. Her sense of justice was too strong for that, even if Shepherd was her superior.

You trusted her to get the job done. She was really risking her job with this one. The least you could do was play a little secretary for her. “Got it. Thanks, Kate. And be careful. If Shepherd is willing to release confidential information to Makarov for his own gain, who knows what else he may do to ensure that no one finds out.”

“Thanks for the warning, Hex, but I don’t think I have anything to worry about. I have an assassin on my side after all. The best in the world.” She claimed, her tone light again.

She wished you good night and hung up, leaving you to process the turn of events. It was going to be tough breaking the news to the team. You could imagine that they were going to get very angry when they finally do know.

You got up from your bed to finally get changed. Just as you were picking out some underwear, there was a knock on your door. Without thinking much of it, you yelled out. “Come in.”

Ghost unlocked the door and waltzed right in only to see you in nothing but a fluffy towel. He reacted to his surprise with anger. “What the fuck, Hex? Why would you invite me in if you were still naked?!”

“A good soldier shouldn’t get distracted by nudity.” You reminded him with a casual shrug.

“Hex.” He simply warned with your call sign, his eyes roaming your body. He could see more scars covering you than before, your full arms, shoulders, and some chest now exposed to him. God, he wanted to trace every scar you had with his tongue. At the same time, he wanted to strangle you.

You rolled your eyes and scoffed, proceeding to prepare to finally get dressed. “If it really bothers you that much, then turn around for a minute. There are more important things to worry about right now.”

He grumbled curses under his breath. How dare you put him in such a dangerous situation! Either he turned around and admitted that it did bother him, or he watched you change. For him, it meant sacrificing some pride while the other meant sacrificing his cool. And he just recently calmed down his dirty thoughts of you too.

To you, it really didn’t matter. He had already confessed that he cared about you as a teammate. He wanted you safe. What did you have to worry about in this situation?

In the end, he opted to turn halfway around. He could still see you just out of the corner of his eye, but he tried to keep his gaze straight. Still though, he ached to see you. Even the blurry figure of you nude was such a fucking tease.

You dropped the towel and slipped on some underwear followed by a shirt with a different band on the front. Briefly, you looked over to Simon who stood with his arms crossed, clearly irritated. You contemplated putting on some pants for a moment before ultimately deciding against it. You preferred to be comfortable at night. When he heard you sitting down on the bed, he turned back around.

He didn’t know what drove him crazier. You completely nude, you in nothing but a towel, or you in pajamas that just left a little something to his imagination. How infuriatingly attractive.

“Might want to take a seat for what I’m about to tell you.” You gestured to the desk chair, waiting for him to take a seat. When he settled himself in, hands strategically placed in his lap, you began with your update.

“Kate just called. She said that Makarov’s men were planted at the original checkpoint, hoping to ambush you. Shepherd is definitely a mole given the circumstance, but she needs time to gather more evidence that would hold up in court.” You pulled the band-aid right off. Your bluntness was usually something that knocked people off their feet. Hence, the offer to sit.

Ghost sat in silence, feeling betrayed. He wasn’t surprised. Not in the slightest. Ever since Shepherd allowed Shadow Company to take over in Mexico, he’s never trusted him again. Soap and himself almost died from that incident. More than once too. When Shepherd disappeared afterward, Ghost thought he was a coward. Lucky though. If Shepherd stuck around, Simon would’ve most likely lost his shit on him if one of his teammates didn’t do it first.

He clenched his fists, knuckles cracking menacingly. He could kill someone. Specifically Shepherd. All he could think about now was wrapping his hands around his neck and squeezing down as hard as he could. Hard enough to have his eyes pop out of his skull. “Fucking Shepherd. . .”

You weren’t surprised by his reaction. It was exactly how you expected to go. Anyone would be upset about this. Especially the 141. You’ve read those mission reports. You knew about what transpired in Mexico. However, you were worried that Simon was going to pop a blood vessel. You wanted to make sure that Laswell got back her down deposit on the hotel rooms too.

Simon didn’t notice you getting up, his vision only seeing red. Once you softly touched his shoulder, though, all he could see was you. Your hair still damp, your eyes more warm, and your fresh scent flooding his senses. It calmed him down, his blood pressure going down. Yet, his heart didn’t slow. In fact, it seemed to quicken even more at your proximity to him. Your scars, your hint of cleavage, your thighs. You exposed so much on the surface. But he wanted to explore your depths.

He stood up from the chair, almost causing it to fall over from his force. Your quick step back wasn’t fast enough to escape Simon’s reach. In less than a second, he threw off his mask, grabbed your face, and smashed his lips against yours. He couldn’t fight his attraction to you anymore. He wanted everything from you and he wanted it now.

It startled to be kissed so suddenly. To be grabbed and pulled towards him. He should’ve known better by now. At first, you growled in protest, fight mode kicking in as your natural instinct. You haven’t yet registered what he exactly was doing. Hands gripped his firm shoulders tightly, prepared to push him away. Once your brain flashed with the image of his face, you finally melted.

You only managed to see his face for a split second, but it was more than enough to know that he was devastatingly handsome. A strong jaw, light stubble, and a couple of scars that told a story. His lips were perfect too, just as you had imagined. Not only to see, but to kiss as well. Mostly soft, just a little rough, all sweet.

As soon as you relaxed, Simon wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you closer to his chest and letting his hand roam your back. Instead of easing up, he just dived deeper, his kisses getting more passionate with each second. It was making you lightheaded, moans threatening to escape as you began to feel your brain go numb. He barely gave you time to breathe as he continued to deepen the kiss, his own senses becoming heightened to how you felt on his lips.

Without warning, his hands slipped underneath your shirt to feel your bare back, causing you to gasp and shiver. Simon took advantage of your shock and slipped his tongue into your mouth, his heart going wild with the sweetness of your warm taste. You let out an involuntary moan as he took over your mouth which was more than just music to Ghost’s ears. It was the sound of heaven on earth. And he wanted to replay it like a skipping record.

Your legs were getting weak with each swipe of his tongue, the fear of having your knees buckle taking over. While you tried to grab his attention by tapping his shoulders, he just ignored you. That, or he didn’t notice. He was too busy exploring every inch of your mouth. Licking, sucking, and even biting. You were trembling with pure pleasure at this point, something that he absolutely relished with all his being. He loved feeling each shudder go through you. He loved being able to trace it up your spine to only cause more quivering. It didn’t take much longer for you to begin feeling your panties get damp with your wetness. You were practically dripping already.

It wasn’t like Simon wasn’t affected either. Pressed up against you was his rock-hard erection. One that was impossible to hide or make excuses for.

As soon as he bit your lip in a heated impulse, you pushed him back to catch your breath. Your chest heaved, trying to fill your lungs with air. He left you breathless. “Fucking hell, Simon! You’re gonna suffocate me! You gotta let a girl have some air.”

Jesus, you needed to sit down. Your legs were shaking like a newborn deer. If you didn’t take a seat, you may very well fall to the floor. While you caught your breath on the bed, Simon went to turn the lights off. While he didn’t mind showing you his face for a moment, he wanted to return to some of his comfort zone. He had a feeling that you would prefer the comfort of the dark too for what he was about to do to you.

As the lights went out, your eyes strained to adjust to the dark. Your stomach was flooded with butterflies, your heart raced, and your skin tingled. You could hear the rustle of clothing, Simon deciding that his shirt was no longer necessary. Through the dark with adjusted vision, you could see Simon approaching you once again. His whole torso was covered in scars as well. The tattoos covering his whole forearm probably camouflage even more. Besides that, his muscles were defined, his chest and abs revealed in all their glory. This wasn’t just the body of a man. This was the body of a soldier.

You would be lying if you said you weren’t a little scared of what was most likely going to happen. It has been a very, very long time since you’ve been with anyone. Not since fooling around in high school and a little bit right after. “W-Wait, Simon-”

“I’m not waiting and I’m not sorry.” He cut you off, his voice gruff, unapologetic. His voice was closer than you thought, the deep vibration of his vocal chords going right through you. Before you could protest further, he pushed you down on the bed, towering over you with his ripped 6’3” frame.

Instead of your lips, he went straight for your neck, quickly finding out just how sensitive you were there as he aggressively kissed it. Your back arched, torso pressing against his as he fulfilled his desires. You bit your lip, trying to mute any moan that may escape past your lips. When his hands went up your shirt to grope your breasts, you whimpered, voice shuttering. You weren’t used to this. This lack of control. This feeling of being consumed. But Christ, did it feel so good. Especially with Ghost. Regardless, you needed his attention in order to let him know what to expect if you were to go further. “S-Simon!”

The sound of you whimpering his name made him freeze. He daydreamed about that sound. Hearing it in real life had him reeling. It had his cock twitch in anticipation too. You really fucking turned him on, whether you knew it or not. As much as he wanted to keep going, he finally gave you a chance to speak up. Hopefully, this wouldn’t take long. “Hex?”

Ghost’s own breathlessness when he said your name made your heart skip a beat. You clenched your thighs together, feeling some slickness that ended up dripping from your weeping pussy. You needed to say your piece before it’s too late. “I. . . I haven’t done something like this in forever. . .”

You trailed off, wanting to say more but you couldn’t organize the thoughts that were scrambled in your head. He made you weak. Excited. As much as you wanted desperately to keep going, there was a small part of you that couldn’t ignore the fact that you were scared. You were scared to be so vulnerable again. More than you were now. You were just beginning to open up about your personality after all.

Simon swallowed hard, noticing your apprehension. He wanted to punch himself for rushing you. For pouncing on you like a wild animal in heat. He wasn’t sorry before, but he was definitely sorry now. It made his heart ache. “You don’t want to continue, do you?”

“It’s not that simple. If I’m being honest, I want more. Fuck, I want it all. I haven’t felt this fucking excited in years. I just. . . There’s something stopping me from giving all of myself away so suddenly. . .” You tried to explain, each word out of your mouth strained. Why couldn’t it be more simple? Why couldn’t you just say “fuck it” and have the night of your life?

Ghost was amazing. Sure, you two have fought. Your fights could cause earthquakes with how intense they got. At the same time, he was strong, confident, handsome, and alluring. He hasn’t minded that you have pressed a knife against him twice already. He hasn’t cared about you biting at him with each attempt of getting close to you. He’s been stubborn and patient with you. Most people would have been scared away by now. Most people would’ve left by now.

Yet, you still didn’t trust him completely yet due to your fears. What was that fear though? Besides being afraid of being vulnerable, what else did you fear?

His hand landed on your cheek with much more gentleness than before. He helped guide your eyes to look at him. In the depths of the dark, you could still see his blues. Vibrant like a midnight blue full of stars. His gaze has softened too.

Your breath caught in your throat as he looked at you with such tenderness. Such remorse for what he has done to you. His small smile, though, conveyed optimism.

Jesus, you could cry. You were starting to fall for him.

“It’s okay, Hex. I’m sorry for pushing for something you clearly weren’t ready for. I let my emotions get the better of me. The truth is, I find you irresistible. I didn’t kiss you because I needed relief from my anger over Shepherd. I kissed you because I’ve wanted to for a while now.” He explained with full transparency, something you deserved. He wasn’t ready to admit any deeper feelings that were growing within his heart. He couldn’t make complete sense of it yet. For now, we would keep those confusing feelings hidden, but he won’t hide his attraction any longer.

He got up off of you and rubbed the back of his neck, just now feeling slightly embarrassed for his actions. He couldn’t get the kiss out of his head just yet. Nor the sound of your moans or the softness of your breasts. Simon wouldn’t be able to forget any of that any time soon.

Slowly, you sat up, adjusting your shirt that was hiked up pretty high. “Thanks for understanding. I just need more time.”

Your hand was taken up in his, a little squeeze grabbing your attention again. “I promised you that we would take things slow. I broke that promise just now. Not again.”

Relief washed over you like a tidal wave. Finally, you could breathe easier. Being with him still did things to your head and heart. Something that you would address in solitude later. Right now, you still wanted him to be with you. “What did you originally knock on my door for?”

His shoulders fell as you slowly turned back into your calm state. He loved driving you crazy in more ways than one. However, he liked you calm too. It was something he fed off of along with your other emotions. “I finished the book you recommended. I came to talk about it.”

“Well, we still have time before we have to head out. Wanna talk about it now?”

The train station platform was deserted. Most people were still sleeping comfortably in their beds.

Not the 141. Not Makarov’s weapon guys either.

They haven’t noticed any of you as you dressed in civilian clothes. Even Simon switched his balaclava for a simpler face mask, complete with a lower skull print as part of his brand. The military luggage was swapped out for regular travel luggage as well. Truly, you all looked like tourists. Maybe even residents.

You had told the rest of them about your call with Kate discreetly during check-out. Now more than ever, they wanted to take Makarov down. It would most likely lead to Shepherd’s arrest as well. They were willing to do whatever it takes, even if it meant taking your fashion advice when it was time to wear civilian clothes. You guys were in Italy. American-styled casuals weren’t going to cut it.

Makarov’s men sat in the boxcar two up from yours. Price planned on sneaking into the luggage cart to find their shipment to place trackers on later during breakfast service.You would be on the lookout when he does. Ghost would be the one to place the trackers on the men. Gaz, and Soap would check to see if they worked through their laptops within the safety of their seats.

As of now, you all sat in a car together, waiting patiently for your opportunities. You took the window seat, looking out at the platform that eventually began to slowly pass once the train started. Ghost was sat right next to you, ensuring that you could feel the warmth of his side against you. He would make sure that this would be his spot for the rest of the ride.

Taglist: @eatingtheworldsoffanfiction @dory-98 @cum-tea-and-towels @completelymarveltrash @watersquirtpewpewboomm @thychuvaluswife @sweetheart-im-the-boss @anotherrickinthewall @bluewinter39 @fortunatelydecadentstudent @transparentsheepsheep @rhaenryawhore @randomlyblues @issssawrap @lachimolalaa3 @callsign-pyro @corruptcrybaby @kdadss @lexuria @dookiedanish

184 notes · View notes

commodorez · 5 months

Note

What is the appeal of vintage computers to you? Is it the vintage video games or is it the programs? If so, what kind of programs do you like to run on them?

Fair warning, we're talking about a subject I've been passionate about for most of my life, so this will take a minute. The answer ties into how I discovered the hobby, so we'll start with a few highlights:

I played old video games starting when I was 9 or 10.

I became fascinated with older icons buried within Windows.

Tried to play my first video game (War Eagles) again at age 11, learned about the hardware and software requirements being way different than anything I had available (a Pentium III-era Celeron running Windows ME)

I was given a Commodore 1541 by a family friend at age ~12.

Watched a documentary about the history of computers that filled in the gaps between vague mentions of ENIAC and punch cards, and DOS/Windows machines (age 13).

Read through OLD-COMPUTERS.COM for the entire summer immediately after that.

Got my first Commodore 64 at age 14.

I mostly fell into the hobby because I wanted to play old video games, but ended up not finding a ton of stuff that I really wanted to play. Instead, the process of using the machines, trying the operating system, appreciating the aesthetic, the functional design choices of the user experience became the greater experience. Oh, and fixing them.

Then I started installing operating systems on some DOS machines, or playing with odd peripherals, and customizing hardware to my needs. Oh, and programming! Mostly in BASIC on 8-bit hardware, but tinkering with what each computer could do is just so fascinating to me. I'm in control, and there isn't much of anything between what I write and the hardware carrying it out (especially on pre-Windows machines)! No obfuscation layers, run-times, .dlls, etc. Regardless of the system, BASIC is always a first choice for me. Nova, Ohio Scientific, Commodore, etc. I usually try to see what I can do with the available BASIC dialect and hardware. I also tend to find a game or two to try, especially modern homebrew Commodore games because that community is always creating something new. PC stuff I focus more on pre-made software of the era.

Just to name a few examples from a variety of systems: Tetris, terminal emulators, Command & Conquer titles, screen savers, War Eagles, Continuum, video capture software, Atomic Bomberman, demos, LEGO Island, Bejeweled clones, Commander Keen 1-3, lunar lander, Galaxian, sinewave displays, 2048, Pacman, mandelbrot sets, war dialers, paint -- I could keep going.

Changing gears, I find it funny how often elders outside of the vintage computing community would talk about the era I'm interested in (60s-early 90s). [spoken with Mr. Regular's old man voice]: "Well, computers used to be big as a room! And we used punch cards, and COBOL!" I didn't know what any of that meant, and when pressed for technical detail they couldn't tell you anything substantial. Nobody conveyed any specifics beyond "that's what we used!"

I noticed that gaps remained in how that history was presented to me, even when university-level computer science and history professors were engaged on the subject. I had to go find it on my own. History is written by the victors, yeah? When was the last time a mainstream documentary or period piece focused on someone other than an Apple or Microsoft employee? Well, in this case, you can sidestep all that and see it for yourself if you know where to look.

Experiencing the history first hand to really convey how computers got from point A to B all the way down to Z is enlightening. What's cool is that unlike so many other fields of history, it's near enough in time that we can engage with people who were there, or better yet, made it happen! Why do you think I like going to vintage computer festivals?

We can see the missteps, the dead-ends, the clunkiness, the forgotten gems and lost paradigms, hopefully with context of why it happened. For the things we can't find more information on, when or documentation and perspectives are limited, sometimes we have to resort to digital archeology, and reverse engineering practices to save data, fix machines, and learn how they work. The greater arc of computer history fascinates me, and I intend to learn about it by fixing and using the computers that exemplify it best, and sharing that passion with others who might enjoy it.

#commodorez #retrotech crew #computer history

167 notes · View notes

kaisers-house-of-desires · 30 days

Note

Can I request a Gojo x male reader that owns a cafe. Reader is having an event for his cafe where if someone gets a special item in their dessert (like idk a cherry or something) he would make them a custom dessert. Gojo, who had won the competition, requested to have Olive as his dessert. (Olive and Gojo do know each other, so it's nit like Gojo is a stranger requesting this lol. If you choose this request then thank you <3

Consider it done~ And for the sake of not naming the reader, I won't be using the name Olive but the relationship can remain.

Title: Sweet Tooth

Characters: Gojo x m!reader

Contains: heated/sensual make out

Fandom: Jujutsu Kaisen

Full request below the cut

All characters are 18+

MINORS, FEM ALIGNED, AGELESS/BLANK BLOGS DNI

Reblogs > likes

"Congratulations! You won a custom dessert!"

Behind shaded lenses, Gojo blinked in reaction to the announcement. "Hah?"

You handed him a specialized card in both hands, a small one made of easy to punch paper. "A custom dessert! It's an event I'm holding. People who order a specific item from the menu get a special dessert made just for them, free of charge! With limitations of course."

As a café owner, you liked to hold these little events on occasion, especially if you ended up with more ingredients than you sold. It was a convenient way to get rid of them without having to throw them away and wasting them. For Gojo to win one felt like a thrill, as he didn't often stop by as of late thanks to his teaching position. He luckily had some time during the day to come by for a sweet treat, especially since he promised he would at some point.

Taking the card, Gojo scanned the text.

You've won one (1) free custom dessert*! Present this card at purchase to redeem. *Limitations apply. Good for one item up to ¥800

His drink and to-go box were already on the counter as he gazed back at you. With not a lot of time left in his break, he gave you a charming smile, picking up his items after sliding the card in his pocket. "I'll definitely stop by before you close to redeem this, maybe get some extra things while I'm here."

You two gave each other a wave before Gojo stepped out.

---

As closing time approached, you tried keeping the oven on as long as you could, keeping all the necessary ingredients nearby for whenever Gojo entered the shop, but despite your efforts and hopeful waiting, closing hour came, and you begrudgingly turned the heat off while putting the ingredients into storage.

You were upset, yeah, but not exactly at Gojo. It wasn't the first time his job made him stay out, and it wasn't the first time he didn't show up when he said he would. You didn't want to think about all the plans that fell through on top of this, so after locking the front doors, you set yourself to nearly deep clean the café to distract yourself.

You were going to start with the back. Since that area was out of customer sight, you never really cleaned it as well as you should, but at least it was always within code. You had put your apron up on the rack when a knock rattled the backdoor in the room, nearly causing you to jump out of your skin.

You don't recall ordering any new items, as this is where deliveries would be handled commonly, but you could have simply forgotten. That being said, you opened the door, revealing a towering male with familiar white hair and cloth-shielded eyes.

"Yo, am I too late?" His voice was all too casual for his delay in presence.

Disappointment had gave way to anger, and you turned around, allowing Gojo to enter the shop, gazing around the new environment for a customer.

"You have some nerve..."

"What? I came by! I said I would!"

"You said you'd come by before closing!" Built up frustration bubbled to the surface as you started gathering your cleaning items, haphazardly pacing back and forth to grab the items that were strewn about. "Like how you said you'd come over for drinks last week, or how you wanted to catch a movie the time before that."

Gojo let out a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck. "Look, I know I messed up. Things have been...crazy with the school for awhile."

"Then you should just focus on that instead of giving me hope." Water splashed from the soap filled bucket you made while talking, having slammed a rag in it after. There was an unsettling silence before Gojo spoke.

"But I'm here, right? After closing, sure. But I'm not bailing completely." He revealed the card from his pocket, still in decent condition despite the activity he typically does. "I still wanna cash in, if that's okay."

You stalled your movements, glancing at him with the revealed card before your gaze went back to the bucket, letting out a sigh.

"I...Yeah." There wasn't any point in being angry right now. You had to admit it was nice of him to come back when he said he would despite being late. He could have bailed out or gotten caught up with work like he usually did but he actually came back this time. "I'm sorry. I'm...really sorry." You straightened up, taking a nice deep breath to ground yourself for the moment. "I haven't started cleaning yet, so what would you like? I can get the stuff back out, but remember it's a ¥800 limit."

"If it's custom, what determines the price?" As Gojo spoke, he stepped over to you, rereading the text to make sure he read it all correctly.

You replied while tying your apron back on. "Size, mainly. You can take a menu item and change it how you want, and I can let you know if that will be within your range."

"Can I go off menu?"

"Well...I don't see why not, but you'd really have to know what you'd--" Your words cut off once you turned back around to face Gojo after your apron was on. He was so close to you, you could almost feel the heat radiating off of him, which contradicted the chilling feeling from the icy blue stare that now graced you. "--w-want."

"So as long as I really know what I want, I can have it, yeah?" His voice dropped to a husky tone as he leaned close, your back starting to press into the wall.

"S-Satoru--"

"Well, can I redeem the cute shop owner~?"

When his cold hand touched your heated cheek, your heart picked up in pace. It pounded in your ears, nearly drowning out all sound. You had no idea Gojo felt this way, but maybe you were just oblivious to past actions.

"I-I...um...I-I'm not exactly a dessert..."

"Are you sure? Because my sweet tooth kicks in whenever I see you~ Maybe I could have a sample first?"

Before you could respond, Gojo's lips found yours, and he was quick to help himself past them, humming from the sweet taste that coated your mouth from sampling your creations throughout the day. Soft groans left the two of you, and you found yourself gripping at Gojo's uniform sleeves, not in protest, but to keep your mind steady. Luckily for your sake, he didn't keep the kiss long, pulling away once notice you were shaking to get air. As you panted lightly, he gave you a playful smirk, licking his lips with a satisfied hum.

"Well after a sample like that, how could I not have more~?"

You didn't need to wait for him to make a move. This time, you urged in, connecting your lips once more with his. His body pressed flush against you, the silence in the air replaced with sensually charged sounds. You gripped at his clothes as his hands raked through your hair, tongues dancing with one another as you held each other close. You were emotionally charged; anger, desire, and excitement all mixing within yourself like a lumpy batter. You didn't exactly know what to feel with him, but desire seemed to be the strongest ingredient.

This sudden makeout seemed to last awhile to you, feeling like tens of minutes went by before you two finally disconnected, gazing into each other's glazed eyes while your chests heaved for air.

"M-My house later," you breathed. "Y-You better not be late this time."

"Trust me," Gojo exhaled in response. "I wouldn't miss that for anything...~"

114 notes · View notes

royallyprincesslilly · 1 year

Text

Title: Plus Baby Makes Three {One-Shot}**

Title: Plus Baby Makes Three {One-Shot} **

Lewis Hamilton x GF Reader

Words: 5.8k

Warning: Mild Angst, Fluff, Fun & Games, NSFW, Mild Breeding Kink, Preggo talk, Preggo Prank, Preggo Fic, Crude Language, Dirty Talk

Summary: It was supposed to be a retaliation prank. A simple, easy prank to get back at Lewis for the one he’d pulled on you months before. You didn’t expect it to turn out like this.

As always, thank you for reading.

If you enjoyed this, please, LIKE, COMMENT, REBLOG!!

***NOT Edited/Proofread***

Your entire relationship with Lewis had been a never-ending frat party. You enjoyed the same pastimes, including video games, nature, traveling, and pranks.

Hell, your relationship had started on a prank you'd done to your friends pretending to be in the middle of getting it in when they walked in. Everyone's reactions were the same "finally". You both were speechless as they all confessed they knew it was a matter of time before you saw the sparks and finally did something about it.

After admitting it was all a prank you were alone later that night when your first kiss happened. That torpedoed into your first night together. Hence beginning a beautiful, fun, and stress-free relationship

Now 3 years later, things were still going strong. You pranked each other often, a few of those pranks playing out through social media.

Everyone loved your relationship even the diehard Lewis thirsters who wanted him for themselves. They saw how happy he was with you and how unproblematic you were and fell in line to support you.

It had been a while since you pranked him and you could tell he'd lowered his guard. You’d spent weeks laying the groundwork. Weeks dropping hints and playing up faux symptoms and your period symptoms just to make this an easy sell.

You decided this would be a perfect thing to record so set up your filming equipment that you used for your gaming streams and makeup vlogs then got yourself ready.

"You are evil for this."

Snorting, you dropped onto your back and cackled.

"It’s not that bad."

"Not that bad? Y/N he is going to flip. I just don’t know what, a table or himself."

You laughed some more. Your best friend, Zoe was right. It was really 50/50 how this would go. You suspected it would be on the flipping-a-table side though. You hesitated momentarily, wondering if you should reformulate and try again. However, within seconds you committed.

You attached the ultrasound picture that you'd gotten from a lesser-known pregnancy website and edited with an arrow pointing to the blip of an embryo. You’d inserted a few words onto the picture.

"Little Hamilton says hello and can’t wait to meet you guys".

After scanning the picture again for typos and to make sure it all looked good, you started on your caption.

"What are you going to write?"

"Short and sweet right? Anything extra will be suspicious. Let's see. Ummm...ooh I know."

You began and read it aloud as you typed.

"I wanted you guys to find out at the same time as @lewishamilton. Omgg guys 🥺. I am so excited.🤗 Thank you @lewishamilton for this incredible gift. I love you more than words can say and am so happy and honored to be on this journey with you. Can't wait to meet you baby Hamilton. You are already loved so much.❤️🤰🏽👶🏽🍼 #babyhamilton2024 #surprisewerepregnant #bunintheoven

#babybyhamilton

#heshotupmyclub

#sunsoutbutthisbunisstillcooking #filledwithlove #coming2024

"Oh my god. The world is going to lose their shit," Zoe said.

"The world? He's gonna lose his shit. And---posted."

You turned your notification sound all the way up then placed your phone beside you and picked up the TV remote.

"Ready? Let’s see how far we get."

You pressed play on the movie you guys had selected on Prime and settled in. Before the movie had even gotten past the black screen, your notifications went blaring one after the other at rapid fire.

"Holy shit, your bestie squealed.

By the time the opening credits showed up, your phone began chiming with texts.

"Oh my god, barely 2 minutes. Is it Lewis?"

You looked while being very careful not to go into the messages. You wanted to play this very calm, cool, and collected. Sure enough, there was Lewis' name with the circled number indicating how many unread messages remained, increasing with each second.

"Oh my god. He is flipping out I bet."

You put it down and cackled. It was no use playing the movie because with the rapid-fire sounds from your phone, it would be impossible to pay attention. You didn’t click into Lewis' messages and instead read what showed up in the preview.

MSG Lewis: Why aren’t you answering your texts? Baby? You just posted that no way you walked away from your phone. Are you okay?

You snorted then went into IG to look at your post. It already was well into the hundred thousands of likes. The 4th comment, Lewis', had you pinching your lips.

"@y/nthaunicorn what?! This isn’t the kind of thing you post on social before telling me.

You giggled and continued reading the comments replying to him with congratulations and you’re going to be an amazing dad. The number of #mercedesbaby and #babygoatcoming hashtags only made you roll more.

The man was going to learn today that his last prank was too far. He'd canceled your appointment with your OBGYN and had one of your friends pretend to be you to make your appointment as a pre-pregnancy appointment with the intention to conceive.

Lo' and behold, when you’d gone to the appointment you were confused why your doctor was going over your estrogen and progesterone levels and checking the placement of your uterus. When she mentioned that you were in good health and should have no problems conceiving, you nearly passed out.

You tried to tell her you had no intentions of planning a pregnancy but she took it as you getting cold feet to which she then spent a lot of time trying to soothe your “fears”. When you went home with prenatal vitamins and a calendar on your best days for conception Lewis played along saying he was on board if you really wanted a baby.

He was so supportive about it that he freaked you out. He kept the ruse going so long that while you made love that night his whole dirty talk was about putting a baby in you. It was a slight turn on which shocked you because babies weren’t a topic you'd spent a lot of time talking about. For the most part, it took you off guard.

The following morning over breakfast was when he came clean. The way he cackled and ran around the house clearly pleased with himself was so over the top that you silently vowed revenge. You would make him rue the day.

Today was his retribution.

Your phone rang and Lewis' name appeared on your screen. You chortled and stared at the camera as it rang out. The man it feels good to be a gangster sound played in your head while your face evilly smirked. Seconds later, a message from him came in.

MSG Lewis: Why aren’t you answering your phone?

MSG Lewis: Are you okay?

MSG Lewis: Is this real? Are you being for real?

MSG Lewis: Did your IG get hacked?

MSG Lewis: Y/N!

Another call came in and again it was him. Zoe laughed loudly as she wiggled her legs in the air.

"He is losing his shit!”

MSG Lewis: Y/N. Jesus Christ. You're killing me. Pick up the phone baby.

You snorted. He was realizing assertiveness was not going to win. Now he was trying sugar.

MSG Lewis: Sweetheart. Are you pregnant? Is that why you've been sick lately?

MSG Lewis: Why you've been feeling so bloated?

MSG Lewis: Your boobs!😮 Oh shit. Why aren’t you answering?🥴

His texts came in one after the other each one more and more panicked. You just sat back and let him make his descent.

Placing another guac and salsa dipped chip into your mouth, you read the previews of his messages.

MSG Lewis: A baby? Our baby. Oh my god.😳

Your phone rang again, and again you let it ring out. A few minutes later, you got the notification of a voicemail. Once you hit play on the message, his voice came in and you and your bestie listened in.

"Y/N, I don’t know why you’re not picking up and it’s freaking me out a little. You know how I feel when I can't reach you, especially after what happened that last time.”

At that, you perked up because he’d nearly had a panic attack the last time he couldn’t reach you and it was because some paps were chasing you in your car nearly making you crash. He’d had to show up at the police station dropping everything. The pause in the message made you get ready to swipe to your phone app, but then he continued.

“I thought about it for a while and figured maybe you’re afraid to talk to me. Maybe you’re scared that I’m going to be angry or disappointed by the news. Maybe you think I’ll tell you to terminate or that I'm not ready. I thought about it and I wish I was there with you right now instead of halfway across the fucking world. Fuck.”

His sighed in a hefty huff.

“I wish I could hug you and hold your hand and tell you while looking into your eyes that it's going to be okay and that I’m not angry. I’m not disappointed.”

Your brows rose. He wasn’t, you questioned.

“I’m surprised, yes. So fucking surprised. I didn’t think this would happen and never really thought about the possibility of it happening which is so stupid because we don't use condoms. Like at all. I’m shooting your club up every day, multiple times a day. Why wouldn’t it be possible?”

You pinched your lips as your friend gave you a look that said she wasn’t surprised how y’all got down. You rubbed your brow to avoid her side-eye. It wasn’t that you were ashamed. You weren’t it was just embarrassing. You took a few sips from your cherry limeade and continued listening.

“Uggh, I’m rambling. I'm not mad and I wish you’d pick up the phone and let me tell you that plus how much I love you and want this."

A spray of cherry limeade shot from your mouth through the air, "What!!”

You bolted up in shock with wide eyes and a racing heart.

"A baby. Our baby. A piece of you and me. We didn't plan this, but we've been given this soul for a reason, and I am going to welcome and love them with everything I have. I’m going to be there 100 percent. You’re not in this alone, you have me. Call me, please. I love you so much."

Your eyes were wide. Had you heard him right? Was he actually happy about this? Your head snapped to your friend who was also wide-eyed.

“Well shit, plot twist!”

“Was he--.”

“Happy? Yep.”

“Did he say--.”

“He wanted this? Oh yeah.”

You went over the message in your head again.

“Was he--.”

“The sweetest and cutest about it? Yes. Oh my god, Y/N.”

You played the message again and listened to it in its entirety. You didn’t stop at once, or twice. You listened over 5 times but each time you were still flabbergasted by his words.

“Oh my god.”

“Well look on the bright side—he’d never be one of those asshole deadbeat celebs trying to make their girl get rid of a baby they helped create.”

“Why does he want this? Why isn’t he mad? We haven’t really talked about kids. This is so out the blue?”

“You want him to be mad?”

You paused and thought about it. Any other answer besides no was ridiculous. This was an ideal reaction if the situation was real. This was how every man should react to an unplanned pregnancy. He was being major goals right now and it made your heart swell with love and pride.

Your notifications went off some more and you checked them to find some of his fellow F1 drivers commenting about the news. They all were sweet and thoughtful, which made you think again about this prank.

“Shit. How do I tell him it was a prank now?”

Zoe laughed loudly. “I suggest starting with apology head then let him shoot your club up for real and voila baby.”

You smacked her across her stomach while kissing your teeth.

“Be for real.”

“I’m being as for real as your man is.”

A text notification came in then.

MSG Lewis: The jet will be landing in a few hours. It’s not planned but come see me this weekend. I really want to be close to you right now.

“Oh my god.”

Your friend laughed again as she teased you about your prank gone completely wrong.

~~~~~~~~

Just as he’d said, Lewis’ jet arrived 4 hours after he’d texted. The call from the pilot came at nearly midnight. You were packed and ready for the weekend with a possible week’s extension, but you were also still debating how you were going to make this right. He thought he was going to be a father and that prospect had him in his feelings. You felt horrible.

MSG Lewis: Did the pilot call?

You’d replied to his text after the message about spending the weekend with him because you knew staying quiet longer would make him more anxious. You were messed up, but you weren’t cruel.

MSG: Yeah. Guess I’ll see you in a few.

MSG Lewis: Don’t be scared. Everything’s going to be all right. I love you.

“Uugh. I’m an asshole,” you said, hanging your head.

The chauffeured car took 40 minutes to get to the airfield and the whole time you tried to come up with a way to easily let him down. If he had been angry you would have been obnoxious with it and laughed in his face, but seeing how sweet he was about it there was no way you could now.

Of course, the flight to Barcelona didn’t take long. The pilot even had the audacity to cut what was a 2-hour and 20-minute flight to just 2 hours flat. The nerve! The whole flight your nerves toiled which made your stomach uneasy. Nothing helped, not ginger ale, 7-up, Sprite, cranberry juice, tea, nor sports drinks. You suspected it was your anxiety manifesting in an upset stomach, so you didn’t stress the flight attendant with helping ease it.

Now it was 3am Barcelona time and you were steadily approaching the penthouse that Lewis was staying in. The closer you got the more nervous you got. When the car began to slow down in front of a cute building with adorable Verona-style balconies you groaned. It was time to face the music. The driver unloaded your bags and helped you inside to the door. As he was about to ring the bell you stopped him and told him you could take it from there.

Once you were alone in front of the door you took a few breaths and tried to get control over your nerves. Before you could ring the bell though, the door opened and there stood Lewis in a white sleeveless T-shirt and grey sweat shorts. Instantly you pouted and waited for him to speak first.

“C’mere,” Lewis said holding open his arms for you.

Without hesitation you rushed into his arms and allowed him to hold you.

“It’s okay,” he whispered as he stepped back into the penthouse taking you with him.

He lifted you off your feet and carried you inside. When he placed you down on a soft couch, he kissed your forehead.

“I’ll be right back.”

Lewis disappeared for a few minutes. You assumed he was bringing in your luggage and rolling them into the bedroom. By the time he came back, you still had no idea what to say. He kneeled in front of you and lifted your chin.

“I’m glad you’re here. I missed you.”

Your stomach churned then and you clasped your hands over your mouth while gagging.

“What’s wrong?”

You pointed to your throat, and he got it instantly. Lewis rushed through the halls showing you to the bathroom. Dropping to your knees, you allowed every drink you’d consumed on the flight to empty into the toilet. As you retched Lewis dipped beside you and rubbed your back like the perfectly sweet man he was. It only intensified your “you ain’t shit” feeling and you began crying.

“What? What’s wrong? It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No baby. Don’t say that. It’s not your fault. It’s okay. There’s nothing to be sorry for. It’s a baby, a blessing. Not the end of the world.”

You cried more and repeated your sorries. It was all you could get out. You remained on your knees in front of the toilet vomiting with Lewis rubbing your back and whispering soft words to you promising everything would be just fine. After, he got you in the tub and washed your body for you as you relaxed against him. He rubbed every knot out of your muscle, massaged every tension from your scalp, while making your skin gleam and glow.

When he got you in bed he topped it all off with a body massage from head to toe. You didn’t deserve it at all. When you laid on his chest, you tried to find the words.

“Lewis,” you began with a meek voice.

“Princess.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing. I don’t know when along the line of our relationship you got the impression that I was some asshole who would be angry about something like that. I’m not,” he assured.

“You’re not an asshole. I’m the asshole.”

Lewis rolled over to peer into your eyes. “What?”

“How? Why?”

“I—I lied,” you quietly finished.

“Lied? About what?”

“The baby.”

You watched worry and fear wash over his face.

“What do you mean?”

“It—it was supposed to be a prank.”

Lewis rushed a breath out then dropped on his back to stare at the ceiling.

“It was supposed to be payback for your last prank on me with my OB appointment. I didn’t expect you to take it like this. I thought you’d be mad and freak out a little. I didn’t think that you—want it.”

He was so quiet and so unreadable right now you worried he was really hurt.

“I’m sorry baby. I feel like shit now. I didn’t mean to--.”

“So you’re not pregnant.”

“No,” you quietly replied.

Lewis scoffed, covered his face. “Wow.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Wow. Wow. Wow. I was really—I truly—jeez.”

He sat up and stared out into the darkness. You didn’t know how to make this better. You could sense his disappointment, sense his hurt that it wasn’t real. You were speechless and so confused about how long he’d been secretly wanting a baby. Right now didn’t feel like the right time to inquire though.

“Okay. You got me.”

You leaned forward to study his face. “That’s it?”

“Yeah. You got me. I really thought you were pregnant, especially with the way you’ve been acting the last few weeks. Ha! Good one.”

“You’re not angry?”

“Angry that you had the balls to prank me like this or angry that you’re not pregnant?”

You thought about it for a quick minute. “Both.”

Even he looked to think about it. “I’m not angry about the prank. I'd been wondering what you’d do to get me back, but I let my guard down. It was a good prank, ballsy, especially putting it on social but it was good,” he explained.

“And the other?”

“I wouldn’t say I’m angry you’re not pregnant. I’m—disappointed. I should be relieved because as you know our lives right now are chaotic. You with your business, me, and F1. Adding a baby in now would be nuts.”

You heard a but. “But?”

Lewis chewed the inside of his mouth for a few moments then he laid back down. “But the longer I sat with it and thought about what it meant the more I wanted it. I wasn’t mad, or freaking out for the most part, I was relieved it was with you.”

Your heart melted. You rolled on top of him and splayed yourself across his chest. “I’m sorry baby.”

Lewis wrapped his arms around you and traced his fingertips up and down your bare spine.

“How do you feel about a baby—our baby?”

You thought about it for a few moments dividing points into pro and con columns in your head.

“I understand what you’re saying. Our lives are hectic right now. You just signed a contract extension with Mercedes which means more racing, more time away from home. My lingerie line has been blowing up and I just opened a second store location. Things will only get more and more hectic.”

“I want us both to be present,” Lewis added.

“Yeah.”

A contemplative silence filled the room. Both of you were lost in your own thoughts.

“Do you want to have a baby with me, though?”

Your head popped up meeting Lewis’ eyes.

“Only you. No one else.”

A smile slowly spread across Lewis’ lips.

“Only you, no one else,” he repeated.

You kissed him gently and that kiss intensified within seconds. Soon your hands were pushing down Lewis’ shorts with urgency needing to get closer. You were already bare for him, but he needed to catch up. Once his shorts were rumpled at the foot of the bed, you straddled his hips and lowered yourself on his ready and waiting member.

Both of you sighed out in unison relishing the pleasure you only found in each other. As you slowly rocked back and forth on him, Lewis’ hands gripped your hips helping you move. Bit by bit he picked up the pace taking full control of the way your body moved. Back and forth, round and round, up and down.

When you began bouncing on him, Lewis abandoned your hips to cup your breasts. His moans filled the room as his eyes drank in every inch of you. In no time, you felt your orgasm creep up on you. Lewis flipped you onto your back, placed your ankle on his shoulder then took over. That was the final push to send you over the edge.

“Fuuuuck!”

“Mmm!”

Lewis brought your other leg to join the first then held you off the bed as he flicked his hips forward with such force the bed jerked giving the craftmanship a run for its money.

“Yes, baby. Right there!”

“Yeah right there? Like this?”

He slowed his moves, then pulled out fully only to slam his hips into you filling you to capacity. Every time he did it you yelped unable to control yourself.

“Like that?”

“Yes!”

“Mmm, I’m going to fill this sweet little pussy up. You’re gonna be so fucking full of me you can’t walk.”

Lewis ground his hips against you making you feel how impossibly deep he was. Instinctively, you pressed against his abs hoping to keep him at bay, however, he wasn’t having it. Lewis dropped your legs, hovered over you then began rocking into you in the most artful way. His body rocked, ebbed, flowed, rolled, and torpedoed you into yet another release.

As you clenched around him, Lewis groaned.

“So fucking tight. You loving this dick baby?”

“Yes, I love your dick baby. Fuck me.”

“Fuck you’re gonna make me cum, you’re so beautiful when you take this dick.”

You cupped your breasts, holding them out like ripe fruit for him. Lewis dipped down and bit down on your nipple making you wetter than ever.

“Fuuuuuck!”

Lewis lowered his lips to your ear as he fucked into you. “You’d look so fucking pretty with my baby in you. Makes me want to fill this tight cunt up.”

“Fill me, baby. I want your hot cum, I want it now," you whined.

Lewis locked eyes with you just as his hand wrapped around your throat. Rolling your eyes to the back of your head, you let him use you as he wanted.

“You want me to cum deep in this pretty pussy?”

Yes!”

“You’re gonna keep every fucking drop, right where I put it.”

“Fuck Lewis, I’m gonna cum.”

“Cum with me princess.”

His thrusts sped until you were seeing stars and rainbows. It was an impossibility, but it was what you saw. Your moans matched, desires synced and desperation for one another took over. Lewis flicked his hips forward then came so hard and so deep his grunts were all you heard as he released stream after stream. Your body broke out into shivers at the thought of him intentionally trying to knock you up.

Lewis pulled back and dropped his attention between your legs. Slowly he pulled out only to shove himself back inside. It was like he was trying to keep every single drop of himself inside of your body.

“Fuck baby, this pussy looks so good with me dripping out.”

“How good?”

“So good I’m gonna fill you again.”

With that, Lewis crashed his lips to yours and in seconds round two had begun. You felt sorry for him tomorrow because he would be useless with how little sleep he would have gotten. He didn’t seem bothered in the least though. His only thought was fucking you into oblivion until he’d planted a seed.

The next afternoon, you woke alone with a note on Lewis’ pillow.

“See you on the paddock. Love you.”

You sat up and a sea of nausea filled you. Quickly you ran to the bathroom and heaved the contents of your stomach into the toilet. For the life of you, you couldn’t understand what was going on. You’d confessed about the prank you weren’t anxious anymore. Why were you sick? Could it have been jet lag? You’d never experienced nausea with jet lag before and the flight was only 2 hours long. As you went through the possibilities, you continued to heave.

After 20 or so minutes, you got back into bed with your phone and began googling reasons for nausea when first waking. You’d barely put your head on the pillow before the first result popped up. The result had you bolting upward with wide eyes.

“No fucking way.”

You kept scrolling but your mind still lingered on the first result. You thought back over the last weeks to a month trying to debunk it. You’d only made it a few seconds before your eyes widened even more. You swiped open your love tracker and scanned through the last few weeks. There were so many red colored in boxes, that signified every day you’d been intimate, throughout the month you began to panic.

“No way. Right?”

You sprang out of bed and hurried to get dressed. As you did, you tried to find the closest drugstore. In record time you found yourself in the back of the chauffeured car that Lewis had left behind for you to get to the racing grounds. As the car zipped through traffic, your brain was going almost as fast as a Mercedes race car. You were afraid to put your hat in any basket because you just didn't know what was going on.

With your dark sunglasses on and one of Lewis’ bucket hats tipped low, you dipped inside the store and did a once around the store to be sure no one had recognized or noticed you. You then walked in the general vicinity of where those items rested. If you were a NASCAR driver and this was a pit stop, you would have been the fastest back on the track. In less than 5 minutes you were back in the car and headed back to the penthouse.

Soon you sat in the bathroom at the edge of the huge porcelain tub staring at the 14 boxes of pregnancy tests. You couldn't decide on which one, so you bought 2 of every brand, 5 from brands you knew and the other 2 from unheard-of probably local brands. With a large juiced vegetable and fruit blend in hand, you attempted to finish it off. Since you'd returned another bout of nausea hit you that took nearly 30 minutes to pass.

Right now you were stalling. You had to pee so you could easily take them but it was the thought that crippled you. Right now the unknown felt like a comforting place to be. In 10 or so minutes you would either be disappointed or happy. You were in Lewis' shoes in reverse.

You sighed, guzzled the rest of the juice, then slammed it on the sink counter as a wave of determination filled you.

“Okay, Okay, okay. I got this. I got this. I got this!”

You grabbed the disposable mouthwash cup then tackled it head-on. Once you’d finished and ripped open every bod, you dripped the tips into the cup and laid them all out on the counter. You’d told yourself to sit right back on the edge of the tub, but your legs would not obey. So, you paced the room. Back and forth, back, and forth, round and round, corner to corner, wall to wall.

By the time your phone went off indicating time was up, you were perched on the porcelain tub staring out to nothing thinking of everything. You remained there for a minute more trying to control your breathing then you stood and approached the mess of tests on the counter in organized chaos.

Hyping yourself, you took the first up and stared at the window. Your breath hitched and you moved to take another test up. Glancing at it, you were met with the same answer. You sifted through the tests, taking them up, looking at the results, and moving to the next. You checked once, then twice and every single one of them mirrored back one collective and cohesive—positive.

“Plot fucking twist,” you said.

Your phone sounded making you open your messages to see Lewis’ name.

MSG Lewis: Feeling better?

You scoffed. His timing was impeccable. You took another calming breath before you replied.

MSG: Not much but I’m okay.

MSG Lewis: Still throwing up?

MSG: Here and there.

MSG Lewis: You can stay in bed today. I’ll see you after.

MSG: Not a chance. I’ll be there. Wouldn’t want to miss your P1.

MSG Lewis: Don’t push yourself.

MSG: Says the man who only got like an hour of sleep because he kept pushing for round after round.

MSG Lewis: Wasn’t much pushing needed. You know I can go for days.

You couldn’t help but chuckle. He was always cocky; it didn’t matter about what. You stepped back and took a picture of all the tests making sure a few showed the results then you began getting yourself ready.

~~~~~~~

By the time you got to the racing grounds, it was packed. With two of Lewis’ guards flanking your left and right, you walked through saying hello to the drivers, waving at faces you knew, and taking some footage for your socials. You even had some approach you to congratulate you on the pregnancy. It tripped you up for a second because you’d just found out but then you remembered your prank that had gone wrong and was not right back on track. Every time someone came up and said it you couldn’t help but giggle. It was all so ironic.

Once you made it to Mercedes, the crew saw you first. They began clapping and as you approached. When you were close enough many of them patted you on the back as they expressed their happiness over the news.

“Our first Mercedes driver baby. Congratulations.”

“Uh, thank—you.”

You smiled and tipped your head at the others who were smiling from ear to ear. Toto approached with a grin.

“Such great news, Y/N. You and Lewis are going to be amazing parents. You can count on Suzie and me up for babysitting.”

You nervouisly giggled. “I think we’ll hold you to that.”

“Eh-em.”

To the left Lewis approached with his brow crooked.

“There he is, the soon to be dad.”

He looked evidently uncomfortable as he stood beside you.

“About that," Lewis began.

“He’s going to be such an amazing dad,” you said while staring at him.

The two of you stood there staring at one another. You in complete love and adoration of him, and he in utter confusion. Gradually everyone took the hint and went back to what they were doing before you got there.

“What’re—what’re you doing? Shouldn’t you be telling them it was all a prank?”

“Maybe that’s how it started but—we’re past that now.”

“What do you mean?”

You laced your fingers with his then smiled.

“I—I’m pregnant.”

Lewis looked even more confused.

“What? Is this about last night? I’m sure it’s too soon to be--."

You snorted as you rolled your eyes. “Seriously?”

“What? You said it wasn’t real.”

“It wasn’t, not then. Or maybe it was but I didn’t know. You didn’t put a baby in me last night. There was already one in me. I got sick again this morning and that made me look back into some things on my calendars which had me taking 14 pregnancy tests and they are all positive.”

Lewis’s eyes widened.

“What?”

You nodded. “Yeah. I’m pregnant.”

“For real, for real?”

“So for real for real.”

Lewis looked down to your stomach area, then to your face. He smiled before he lifted you into the air. You laughed as he spun you around. Your combined laughter brought the attention of nearly everyone around you.

“Oh my god. We’re having a baby?”

He put you down then peered into your eyes. “Yep.”

He snorted then laughed heartily. “What a fucking plot twist.”

“Right! oh my god.”

The two of you cackled together before he kissed you, not caring who was watching. When his hand cupped your backside you squealed.

“Behave.”

“Not a chance. I can’t believe I put a baby in you.”

“Me neither.”

“Are you happy?”

You smiled and nodded. “Very.”

The way he smiled back at you made your heart swell. You were sure you looked like fools in love giggling with each other like idiots but neither of you cared. Lewis cupped your cheek and then softly caressed your skin.

“You and me.”

You took his other hand and put it on your stomach.

“Plus baby makes three. And with Roscoe--.”

“Makes a home,” Lewis finished.

A stray tear rolled down your cheek, but Lewis’ thumb flicked it away then kissed the spot it once laid.

The news must have been what he needed because a few hours later he stood on that podium claiming that P1. You beamed at him while you tenderly held your nonexistent bump, feeling closer to him than ever before.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TagList:

@chaneajoyyy @caramara3 @valkryienymph @babyflowa07 @est1887 @halfrican-heat @mauvecherie-writes @nunya7394 @lovebittenbyevans @gardenwonders2 @sweetlikecoffy @dillie60 @ olabelle757 @ophiaedits @kenequa @triton08 @skyesthebomb @shipatheart @keytodespair @xsweetdellzx @labella420 @coldmuffinbanditshoe @ak329 @shar74nett @youremysuperstar @whore-like-behaviour

@alookintohersoul @asiaaisa77 @jd-now-jq @naturalthrone22 @mrsbarnes-rogers @beyourownkindofbeautiful @beccacupcakesxo @toni9 @wonderlandfandomkingdom @partypoison00 @queenoftheworldisdead @doublesidedscoobysnacks @sophiealiice @richonne4life @coffeebooksandfandom @siempremamita @raveviolet @dumbchick @amennariee @briellableu @leebabe444 @31miw-inkpsycho

@rororo06 @disaster-rose @bugngiz @yourwonderbelle @queenbetter @melaninhawtie @bekindbecoolbeyou @heartfullofgolden @idkiwantchocolatee @missuniee @avngrsfangirl @a-highly-opinionated-mess @19jammmy @nunya7394 @eltima02 @motheroffae @luckydiorxoxo

@majx00 @bbhyuneee @queenanababy @ravenqueen27 @multi-fandom5 @xsweetdellzx @bqueensweet @misswolff @g-l-o-b-e-w-h-o-r-e @blveeeeeee @majx00 @rowansshit @tian-monique

#lewis hamilton #lewis hamilton fanfiction #lewis hamilton fanfic #plus baby makes three one shot #lewis hamilton imagine #lewis hamilton blurb

720 notes · View notes