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dilemmaontwolegs · 10 months

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Not A Verstappen: Sibling Rivalry {3}

Pairing: F1 drivers (platonic) x fem!reader Summary: The rift you have caused comes to a destructive head when summer breaks is over. Warnings: 18+ only, lots of bad language, crash, injuries, angst WC: 2.9k F1 Masterlist NAV: Sibling Rivalry One || Two || Three NAV: Gridlocked One || Two || Three

Summer Break “I really fucked up.” Your voice was barely above a whisper, the sound hoarse from all the crying. You were curled up on your side on the couch in Pierre’s apartment in Milan, your head on his lap as his hand ran up and down your arm in comfort. “He’s never going to forgive me.”

“He’s your brother, he’ll forgive you,” he assured you once again. “I’ve said way worse things to my brothers. Maybe this break is exactly what you need, get away from Max for a few weeks, have some space.”

“And Lando, and Charles.” You groaned as you rolled onto your back and stared up at your closest friend. “You have a bear in the cave.”

“Gross, don’t look up my nose,” he said as he pushed you off his lap.

“I can’t help it, it’s the angle,” you laughed as you sat up before sobering. “Have you spoken to them?”

“Lando was heading back to Monaco to spend the holidays with Luisa, and Charles was on his way to the Alps to meet up with Charlotte.”

You sighed at the mention of their girlfriends and Pierre gave you a look of pity that you resented. Pulling your phone out, with the determination to move on from the silly crushes that had developed over the years, you opened the Raya app and shifted closer to him. “Can you help me?”

“Sure,” he said, taking the phone and locking it. “I’m taking you on a road trip.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Ah, but I think it’s what you need.”

Round Fourteen - Netherlands You reunited with the team for Max’s home race and a sea of orange filled the stands, all cheering for their Lion. You had tried to talk to him when you arrived at the track but you didn’t know what to say to repair the rift you had made. Every time you opened your mouth, nothing came out.

“That one’s for you,” Lance said as he tapped your elbow.

“Huh? What? Yeah, totally,” you rambled trying to recover from zoning out thinking about the three weeks of silence, not only with Max but Lando and Charles too. You had sat beside the Canadian on the sofa, the furthest point from the others and it hadn’t gone unnoticed. “Sorry, what was the question?”

“You look like you enjoyed your vacation with Pierre. It was quite different to how you usually spend your down time.”

“Because I was sober?” you teased. “My liver needed a break, as did my PR team, and it was really quite fun. Exactly what I needed actually and it was great to reconnect with Pierre since he upgraded to Yuki.”

You could feel three sets of eyes on you from the other end but then the conversation was diverted their way and you sagged back into the couch. That was until you heard the news that the holiday had been dubbed ‘break-up season’. Both Spaniards had become single in the first week, Logan and Lando in the second and Charles in the third. It had been quite the shock to their fans.

If Pierre hadn't removed your social media for the break you would have known all of this but instead you had to find out on stage with dozens of cameras capturing the surprise on your face.

The second the interview was over you chased after Lando and finally caught up to him at the McLaren motorhome.

“Hey, can we talk?” You were aware that there were still plenty of cameras around, and it looked like the Netflix crew were scheduled to his team too. “Somewhere private.”

He didn’t exactly look happy at the request but his eyes softened as you quietly begged, “please, Lan?”

“In here,” he sighed, taking his cap off and running a hand through his hair as he opened the door to his room. The door clicked shut behind you and you looked around the small space, the air still humid and smelling like his body wash from the shower he took before the media conference.

“How was your break?” you asked as he sat down on a padded bench, leaving the more comfortable chair for you.

“Could have been better.”

There was a pregnant pause where you both waited for each other to speak. It wasn’t like him to be so short and you thought more would follow but he just stared back at you.

Clearing your throat, you looked down at your hands on your lap. “I, uh, wanted to apologise for what I said to you. You were just being a good friend and I was a complete bitch.”

“You were a bitch,” he stated bluntly before he bit his lip and mouthed a silent, ‘sorry’ and tucked his knee up so he could rest his cheek on it.

You huffed a laugh of agreement. “I’ve heard that once or twice. I’m a work in progress, but I’m trying to change. Can you forgive me?”

His head lifted with a frown, his soft curls falling over his forehead to meet them. “What? No.”

“Oh.” You hadn’t expected everything to go back to how it was but you had thought he would at least accept your apology. Rising from the chair, you started to make your way to the door until you heard the vinyl bench squeak as he followed.

“Wait,” he said as he caught your hand reaching for the handle. “You were right. So there’s nothing to forgive.” He tugged your hand so you turned to face him before he let it slip through his fingers. “I was unhappy, and I probably should have broken up with Luisa a long time ago.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I guess I just didn’t want to be alone again. Which, after you left, I realised is a poor reason to be in a relationship. So I really wasn’t up for offering advice. ” He smiled sheepishly and opened his arms. “Forgive me?”

You stepped into his embrace and buried your head in his neck with a nod. “You were right too.”

“About what?”

“Everything.” You were reluctant to leave the comfort of his arms but there was still one other person to apologise to. “I owe you and Charles for saving my ass. How about dinner at my place on Tuesday?”

“I mean, it was mostly me,” he joked as he puffed his chest up and pushed his shoulders back. “But we can invite him too, I guess.”

“Of course, my hero,” you swooned sarcastically before leaning in and kissed his cheek. “See you next Tuesday. See what I did there?”

“There’s my Spitfire,” he laughed and shook his head. “For a moment I thought you were gone.”

Max’s motorhome was empty when you reached it and so was the garage but his engineer, Calum, was there and said Max had gone to visit family. It hurt more than you expected to hear that you hadn’t been invited, especially since it was Jos’ side of the family that lived in the Netherlands. The side of the family you shared with Max.

That pain followed you as you wandered around the paddock a little lost, signing autographs and stopping for photos with fans on autopilot. You didn’t know where to go, or how to fill the hours until Max returned. Then when he returned you weren’t even sure he would want to see you after what you said.

“Hey, I’ve called out like three times,” Charles said as he suddenly appeared in front of you and frowned at your startled reaction. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah, no, sorry, I’m in a world of my own,” you said as you looked around to see you were outside Ferrari hospitality. “How, uh, how have you been? I meant to call you over the break and thank you for what you and Lando did for me.”

“It’s no problem, but it was mostly me.”

“Funny, he said the exact same thing,” you smirked. “Anyway, as a thank you, you two are coming to my place for dinner on Tuesday. I promise I won’t give you food poisoning, this time.”

“Well, that’s something to look forward to,” he said sarcastically. “But Tuesday works for me. Where were you heading anyway? I thought you would be with Max.”

You couldn’t hide the wince on your face at the mention of your brother and Charles reached out and rubbed your shoulder with a look of concern. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I’m fine. I actually need to go do a thing,” you lied as you started to feel the increasingly familiar burn of tears in your eyes.

“Chérie, wait.” Charles made to follow as you backed away but he stopped when you shook your head.

“Fuck,” you swore under your breath as you turned your back and wiped your eyes. It was race week and your emotions were all over the place, it was a recipe for disaster.

Race Day

You threw your phone across the room and watched it bounce off the couch before hitting the floor with a crack. You could worry about the broken screen later, with the race only an hour away and Max still ignoring you there were more pressing things to think about.

You worked through your warm up routine under the watchful eye of your physiotherapist before making your way to the reflex machine. The lights danced across the buttons and you slapped each one with precision until it suddenly clicked off.

“You’re not focused,” Kristian tutted.

“I hit them all,” you argued as you caught the bottle he threw to you and took a drink.

“Reacting out of habit is not the same as responding by reflex. You need to think, then do, not just do.”

You grumbled under your breath about what a load of crap it was but made a show of the next round before he gave up with a sigh. “I’m going to head down to the grid,” you said as you grabbed your helmet and balaclava. “Pierre can help me finish up.”

It was easy to spot Pierre with his PT, his concentration solely on the tennis balls he was focused on catching before they hit the ground.

“Mind if I butt in?” you asked as you took the tennis balls and replaced Ben. “He still won’t talk to me.” You dropped the balls at the same time and he easily swiped them from the air before tossing it back into your palm.

“You can take my spot for the anthem, I think I saw my name next to his on the seating chart.”

“That’s probably not a good idea,” you admitted as you dropped the balls one after another trying to trick him. “I called him a dick, twice.”

One ball bounced along the asphalt when he laughed, missing the easy catch. “That’s the opposite of apologising.”

“I know, he just pissed me off.” You caught sight of the race suit that matched yours and watched him walk on the far side of the grip with Charles. “I don’t like being ignored.”

Pierre grabbed the wayward tennis ball and returned to hold them up over your hands. “You did start that by ignoring him first.”

“I thought we were friends.” You caught the ball he dropped and tossed it at his face. “You’re meant to take my side.”

He caught it before it could connect with his nose and crossed his arms with an amused smirk on his face. “I am your friend, so I will tell it like it is. Go talk to him.”

You narrowed your eyes at him as you stepped away and he nodded encouragingly as you made your way across the home straight.

“Not now,” Max said as soon as you stepped into his field of vision, making Charles look over his shoulder.

“Then when?” you asked. “After the race? Next week? Next year? Should I put my name up for a transfer? Is that what you want?”

“Woah, what's going on?” Charles asked as watched you grow increasingly more upset with each question.

“Nothing, just an inchident,” Max said coldly. “Oma sends her regards and she’s sorry she didn’t get to see you.”

“You didn’t fucking invite me,” you growled as you stepped closer jabbed a finger into his chest.

Max rolled his eyes and schooled his face to one of boredom. “You told me to leave you alone.”

Your hands balled into fists at your side. “You are such a fucking asshole.”

“Hey, hey, that’s enough,” Charles interrupted, pushing himself between you and your brother before you could get disqualified. “Walk with me.”

Charles stepped closer and his hands grabbed your shoulders, turning you around before one hand pressed against the small of your back, urging you to keep moving.

“What’s going on?” he asked as he took a seat against the pitwall and pulled you down beside him. “And don’t say it’s nothing. You haven’t been yourself all week.”

“We had an argument and now he hates me.”

“He doesn’t hate you.” Charles draped an arm over your shoulder and pulled you closer to kiss your temple. “He’s your older brother, he could never hate you. Trust me, there’s nothing Arthur could say that would make me hate him.”

“Arthur’s too nice to say anything mean, but me? I’m a bitch.”

“You’re not a bitch, you’re just passionate.” He let his head fall back against the wall with a chuckle. “I like that about you.”

“You must be the only one.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” he murmured quietly and you followed his line of sight to Lando who was making his way over while everyone else started to move to the front of the grid. “Time to go.”

Charles stood up as Lando offered you his hand, pulling you to your feet.

“Try not to get too excited hearing the Dutch anthem,” you grumbled, earning a laugh from both of them as they fell into step either side of you, “again.”

You were driving recklessly, determined to beat Max, but it had meant receiving a black and white flag warning for exceeding the track limits three times. One more violation and you would get a five second penalty, practically handing the win over on a silver platter.

“You need to manage your tires,” Nicholas warned over the radio. “You are pushing them too hard, the degradation rate is exponential. They won’t last to the end of the race unless you slow down and stay between the white lines.”

“I can’t slow down when I have Max with DRS behind me.”

“That’s not the plan. We want a 1-2 finish, it doesn’t matter who leads across the line.”

“It does to me.”

You passed the next DRS detection line and took the corner at speed before hitting the straight and trying to defend your position. Max was right at your bumper, riding the slipstream as he increased speed in preparation to slingshot out and past you.

Only something went wrong.

Instead of going around you, Max’s front wing crashed into the back of your car, lifting your rear wheels off the track and sending you scraping the length of the pit wall while he spun out. Debris hit your helmet as Max’s car slammed into the concrete barriers and carbon fibre splintered apart, raining over you and the track.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” you growled into the comms as you pulled your steering console out and unbuckled the harness. You jumped over the side of your car and ran towards Max’s, hurling abuse at him the entire way. “Who’s the spoiled brat now? You just couldn’t let me have the win could you? Dick!”

A pained groan was all you heard from the cockpit and the anger evaporated in an instant as dreaded fear replaced it. You leapt onto the top of the car and reached over the halo, pulling the visor up on Max’s helmet to see a dazed look in his icy blue eyes before they fluttered shut.

“Max, I need you to open your eyes. Look at me, dammit!” you growled as you started to pull his harness open and looked around wildly, wondering when help was coming. “I’m sorry for everything I said. I don’t hate you, okay? I don’t hate you. You’re my big brother and I love you, so you have to stick around and be overprotective and piss me off for a very long time. So open your fucking eyes!”

“Zusje?” he asked after a moment of blinking dumbly. “What happened?”

“You forgave me and said I could borrow your yacht.”

“Bullshit,” he groaned as he pushed his harness off his shoulders and accepted your hand to help him climb out. “I would never let you borrow my yacht.”

A groan wheezed out as his boots hit the ground and you wrapped an arm around his waist to take his weight, holding him steady. “Does that mean you forgive me?”

“Only if I can get a recording of your radio, you actually sounded worried for me,” he said with a laugh before he clutched his ribs. “Ow, fuck.”

“Of course I was worried, asshole. I thought you were hurt.”

“I am hurt,” he pointed out before rapping his knuckles on your helmet. “I love you too, little sis. Even when you say you hate me.”

Click here for Not A Verstappen: Gridlock {1}.

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andypantsx3 · 11 months

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fruit first (ask questions later) | k. bakugou

pairing: Bakugou Katsuki / Gender Neutral Reader

length: 3.6k

summary: When the grocery store you’re in becomes collateral in a villain attack, pro hero Dynamight comes to your rescue. When you become armed with a handful of oranges, however, someone may need to come to his rescue…

A short, mostly fluffy nothing for the prompt Bakugou + oranges. Part of the Willow’s House server Meet Fruit collab, where I took “meet fruit” extremely literally. Thank you @willowser for letting me in even though my dumb ass signed up late!!

tags/warnings: sfw, fluff, sexual tension, gender neutral reader

You were in the produce section when it happened.

The season was creeping into summertime now, the weather outside hot and humid and perfect for fresh produce–stalks of crunchy asparagus, fat ruby-red tomatoes, and tiny little berries nestled in their containers like a fistful of jewels.

You had admittedly been getting a little over-indulgent, your basket already straining against the skin of your forearm, heavy with more fruits and vegetables than a single person might feasibly consume before they went bad. But you were heady with visions of summer salads and fancy grain bowls, cool and leafy and refreshing, a balm against the sweltering city heat.

You’d just been adding a couple oranges to your basket when the first sign came.

It started as a rumble from far off, like the sound of slow-rolling thunder.

It echoed through the store, the bass buzzing through the shelves, making them hum. The lights flickered for a moment, their fluorescence dimming. A few of the people around you glanced up curiously, but nothing else in the interior of the store changed—no screaming, no crying, no running.

At first there was nothing to indicate that you might need to abandon your groceries in a pique of terror.

That was, until another boom sounded just overhead. And then the ceiling was suddenly ripped open with violent force.

A hunk of the steel frame was pulled back like the tab on a sardine can, the caging screaming in protest, and a shower of plaster rained down around you, breaking apart in slabs. An enormous, hulking figure peered through the hole, then dropped into the aisles before you, shaking the floor with his heavy landing.

Behind him, several other figures skittered into the building, one woman climbing down the wall like a lizard as a few others dropped in through the hole. A man suddenly popped into existence a few feet away from the orange stand with a crack like a gunshot. You startled, stumbling backwards, knocking into the oranges and sending a wave of them plopping to the floor.

There was no mistaking who these people were.

Villains. An entire crew of them.

All at once, the shoppers around you scrambled for cover, letting out a cacophony of shrieks and screams. You backed away, only for your foot to catch on an orange, rolling your ankle.

A bright stab of pain lanced through the joint, and you went down, hard, banging your elbow on a nearby display. You caught the floor with your rib cage, crushing an orange under your hip, your basket screeching across the floor next to you.

It knocked the breath right out of you, and you gasped, just as a blade of energy went singing overhead, slicing through the shelves and sending explosions of fruits and metal into the air. They rained down around you, a chunk of shelf framing tipping over and slamming down on your leg, fruits and vegetables slapping across every inch of your body.

Screams went up from the far side of the store, and you bit back a yelp of pain, tears forming in your eyes.

“Grab as many civvies as you can!” a deep voice barked out. “Hold ‘em like a shield and get moving to the next location!”

Your whole body iced over in fear, your ankle and leg screaming in protest as your limbs locked up. Footsteps echoed in every direction as the group of villains split up, hunting down their civilian targets. You hoped wildly, desperately that no one had seen you go down behind the citrus display.

Your hopes were in vain, however. Bootsteps rounded the corner, and the man who had appeared from thin air bent over the shelving pinning you down.

He was tall and wiry, with a face like a weasel and a thinning crop of dark hair. A malicious grin split the sides of his face as he took you in, yellow eyes flickering over you. “Hello sweet thing,” he cooed.

Your stomach flipped in despair as he prowled closer, oranges rolling away from his boots. Your hands scrambled at your sides, fingernails digging into the floor, as you tried to drag yourself backwards, away from him.

He cackled, high, reedy and excited, stalking down the aisle between two fruit stands. Two steps brought him right to you, and he leaned in, smiling widely. He reached out his long, straggly fingers, grasping for you—

And then he promptly blinked out of existence as a furious explosion crackled into life right where he had been. The brightness seared your eyes, blinding you, and a scorching heat scalded your face as a deafening boom rattled your teeth.

You snapped your eyes shut reflexively, but the light and heat was gone as soon as it came. The pad of boots approached you over the ringing in your ears, and you blinked open your eyes. Behind the spots that dotted your vision was a familiar face—one you’d seen on TV dozens, if not hundreds of times.

Bakugou Katsuki, alias pro hero Dynamight.

The first, wild, reeling, nonsense thought you had was that he was so much more handsome in person.

Red eyes glowed like scarlet embers through the dark of his black domino mask, and a scowl sat angrily but prettily on his plush mouth. He had scratches raked across one high cheekbone and down the line of his strong jaw, and his hero uniform had endured something worse, torn in several places, baring the bulge of one enormous bicep, and the trim line of his waist at one side.

The sight dazed you almost more than the flash of his explosion had, and Bakugou turned his scowl down on you, sweaty strands of blonde hair falling across his forehead as he did.

“You break anything, extra?” He rasped. His voice was lower, too, gravelly in a way that apparently didn’t translate well over TV airwaves.

You gaped for a moment, then quickly corralled yourself as his scowl deepened. You tried shifting your leg under the shelving, a fresh wave of pain lancing through you. “Um, my ankle I think is no good—I’m not sure if it’s broken—”

You were interrupted by a sound like a gunshot, splitting the air right in front of you, and then the teleport villain appeared just in front of you. He lunged for Bakugou, and you caught the flash of a blade in the fluorescent lighting. A reflexive scream tore out of you, trying to warn Bakugou—

But Bakugou was faster. He whipped around, a terrifying smile splitting his mouth, an explosion already crackling in his palm.

The teleport villain flickered out of sight again, just in time for Bakugou’s explosion to rip apart the air where he had been, splintering several of the displays around you and blasting a shelf of crackers and jelly apart. You could hear the glass and cracker bits raining down like chunks of hail.

Bakugou quickly turned back to you, eyeing you evaluatively. “Stay down, extra, and don’t fuckin’ move. I’ll take care of this asshole.”

You nodded hurriedly, shifting under the shelving that had you pinned. You managed to wedge yourself into the rough wood of the citrus display at your side, as if you could disappear into it if only you pressed hard enough.

Bakugou turned his back to you, one arm out as if to block anyone’s line of sight to you. The lines of his broad shoulders were tense under the white-hot glare of the store lights, and you noticed another gash in his uniform along one shoulder blade, exposing a peek of his back muscles.

Bakugou was moving almost before you even heard the next teleportation crackle, spinning to aim an explosion to his right. He launched himself after it with a vengeance, only to blow right through another display as the villain winked out of existence again. It seemed like he was fast, possibly too fast…

And then that gunshot noise again–and the villain was right next to you. In one impossibly fast movement Bakugou rerouted himself with a searing blast that ripped the tile right off the floor. In less than a second he was screaming down on the villain with all the speed and fiery fury of a falling comet. He aimed another shot right where the villain was standing—

But the villain disappeared again.

Bakugou neatly dodged you with another explosion aimed at the ground, the hot wind of it throwing you back against the orange crate. He somersaulted over the display just as another crack sounded behind it, and you could hear another explosion tearing through yet more of the produce.

And then another growled swear from Bakugou told you the villain had vanished again.

Your heart beat double time, wondering anxiously how bad this match up was. Bakugou was the number two hero, and you’d always assumed he’d be well-matched against any type of quirk. You’d seen a million broadcasts of his takedowns, quick and purposeful and scarily precise, with one of the fastest takedown averages on record.

But it was clear this villain was slippery and all together too quick. You didn’t know how Bakugou was supposed to catch someone who could disappear within milliseconds.

You thought probably the only chance could be to unleash his full power. On the news, you’d seen him send entire buildings crumbling. If he wanted to, he could tear this entire storefront down, set the entire inside on fire and catch the villain no matter where he teleported to in this space.

But instead you were in the middle of things. Bakugou had to aim, had to hold back lest any debris hit you, had to angle himself around you to protect you, all while the teleport villain had no such qualms.

It was possible Bakugou wouldn’t be able to catch this guy under these conditions–and you were the impediment to blame.

You heard Bakugou’s explosion rip apart another display in the distance, and that gunfire crack of the villain disappearing. Heart in your mouth, you cast around you for something, anything that could help him.

If only there was something to even the odds…

And then you found it. Your gaze landed on the spill of oranges at your feet. Fat, round, heavy and hard. Perfectly projectile shaped.

Now that…that was something.

You quickly gathered as many of them as you could, your ankle twinging in protest when you leaned across the shelving that had trapped it. You scooped the oranges up in an armful, depositing them in your lap, grabbing the largest and hefting it aloft just as another gunshot sound echoed in front of you.

The villain flickered into view right in front of you. You drew your arm back, whipping the orange at him with all of your might. But then like a lightning strike, Bakugou was there, explosion in hand. The villain flashed back out of sight, flames raking the store behind him, nearly blinding in their brilliance.

In another millisecond, the orange caught Bakugou on the thigh. You could hear the hard thump of it against the muscle even over the crackle of Bakugou’s explosion. It sent Bakugou slightly off course, and he had to aim another shot at the ground to catch himself before landing on his feet.

Instantly he whipped around to glare at you, smoke rising off his hands. “Oi, brat, what the fuck’re you throwing shit at me for?”

Your mouth dropped open belatedly, shocked that you’d just beaned the number two hero with a navel orange.

“Oh shit—” you gasped out. “I didn’t mean—it was for him—”

Bakugou’s mouth opened, but then another crack sounded across the store, the teleport villain undoubtedly in sight again. Bakugou threw a shot at him again, but you could tell it had missed by the way the villain materialized again just behind Bakugou.

Before you knew what you’d done, another orange was already in flight. Instead of turning to hit the villain, Bakugou was forced to duck before the orange went right through where his head had been. You heard it hit the floor as the villain was gone again, bouncing into a roll.

“Fucking—! Brat, knock it the hell off!” Bakugou growled, his red-hot glare searing your skin. “Or I will cram those things so far up your—”

Another teleportation crack cut him off, and he launched an attack over your head. The heat scalded the top of your head, blowing a flurry of fruits off of the citrus display.

Good. More ammo, regardless of what Bakugou said.

Except, well, this time you would try to aim better.

It was another few heart-pounding minutes before you got your redemption shot, Bakugou and the teleport villain chasing one another all over the grocery store in the most anxiety-inducing game of cat and mouse you had ever witnessed. You could hear entire sections of the store becoming victim to Bakugou’s quirk, hear the sharp cackle of the villain’s laughter and Bakugou’s angry swearing.

And then came the moment.

The gunshot noise that heralded the teleport villain’s quirk exploded in the air right in front of you again, and it was then that you unleashed a volley of fruits–whipping one as hard as you could as you unleashed several more across the floor. A heel materialized just over a rolling orange, and then the rest of the villain—and you watched with malicious pleasure as his ankle buckled and he went to the floor just as hard as you had.

That moment of stunned surprise was all Bakugou needed. He was there in a single second, an explosion catching the villain and blowing him straight across the floor. He hit the side of another display with a sickening thud. Lettuce spattered him in a shower of leaves, plastic bagging fluttering in the aftershocks of Bakugou’s explosion.

Bakugou was on the villain again instantly, and you caught the silver flash of quirk suppressing cuffs as Bakugou buckled him to the shelves, snarling a victorious stream of swear-laden insults. The villain was unresponsive, clearly knocked unconscious by the force of Bakugou’s blow.

In under a minute, Bakugou was striding back over to you, his boots echoing heavily on the tile.

“Watch where the fuck you’re throwing shit next time, brat,” he snipped at you, even as he bent down, hands going under the shelving that had you pinned. His bicep corded with effort, and the metal screeched as it was lifted, clanging to the tile as Bakugou threw it off of you.

You watched it fall, dazed. Bakugou squatted down next to you, catching your ankle and pulling it carefully to him.

You blinked, surprised by the gentle touch, eyes following Bakugou as he leaned over your injury, poking and prodding carefully. His eyelashes dusted the tops of his cheekbones, long and golden and a little too pretty for a man.

“I–ouch–I got him though,” you said defensively.

Bakugou’s scarlet gaze flicked up to your face, and a weird zing went down your spine. He really was so gorgeous in person, you had to admit, even beat to hell like he was now.

“Got me too, you fuckin’ brat,” Bakugou said. Strangely, his expression went clearer as he spoke, however, like he wasn’t even that mad about it. His fingers pressed delicately at the inside of your ankle, just beneath the jut of bone.

“Well you were in the way,” you groused, though you knew your second throw really had been a little poorly aimed. Bakugou snorted.

“...Got a good fucking arm on you though,” he allowed after a few more seconds of prodding.

It startled a laugh out of you, and a surprising hint of a grin cut across Bakugou’s own mouth, white and straight and viciously pleased.

“I—thanks,” you said, strangely flattered. “I think.”

“Yeah yeah,” Bakugou said, red eyes wandering over you. Then he went back to poking around your ankle, and you tried not to watch his arm flex as he shifted through the motions. “‘S fractured but not broken, I think,” he declared when he was finally satisfied.

“Oh,” you said, “Well that’s better than I thought.”

You shifted uneasily, wondering what the process was now that you’d been diagnosed. You’d never been in an attack before. Did you just sit here and wait for a paramedic to come to you? Or, could you ask Bakugou to help get you up to hobble out of the store?

You’d just decided to sit tight when Bakugou decided for you. A strong hand wormed its way under your thighs as another swept around your back, and then you were being hefted into Bakugou’s arms in one smooth, upsettingly easy movement.

Embarrassingly, your thighs clenched, even as your arms reflexively went around Bakugou’s neck.

You could feel a prickle of heat flaming across your face as he looked down at you, those scarlet eyes picking across your features. “Gonna get you to the paramedics, brat, they’ll fix your shit right up,” he said, so close now that you could feel his exhalation on your collarbone.

You nodded, your throat suddenly dry. “I—yes, that sounds good—thanks.”

Bakugou nodded, shifting you more securely against him, and then picked his way across the rubble, holding you tight. You tried not to revel in the feeling of his arms around you, aware this was an entirely inappropriate train of thought to have during a rescue. Especially when you’d hit the man with an orange.

It was a disappointingly short journey—you were outside in nearly a minute, and it was only another few seconds before Bakugou set you down on the back of an ambulance. A young, friendly paramedic bustled over and Bakugou relayed your condition in a brusque growl.

Surprisingly, however, he lingered close as the paramedic assessed the condition of your ankle and applied his quirk—a green light that made every nerve in your leg hum in response, but instantly took away the pain in your ankle. Then the paramedic wrapped you in compression bandages to keep it set straight.

“Ice it when you get home and keep it elevated when you sleep,” he advised you in his spritely tone. “I’ve got a regeneration quirk so you should be all healed up by the time you wake up, but you’ll want to keep off of it as much as you can in the meantime.”

You thanked him, and were surprised when Bakugou thanked him too, although much more briskly.

Then Bakugou turned back to you, red eyes catching yours again. You found you couldn’t look away from him, as shy as you were suddenly feeling out in the daylight. A few seconds ticked by, and you could feel your ears going hot as Bakugou looked you over.

“So. You want dinner or what?” Bakugou asked finally, crossing his arms over his chest. Your eyes got momentarily stuck on the tear in his sleeve, the way the divot of muscle peeked through in the afternoon light.

Then you gaped up at him when you caught up with what he’d said. “Do I—dinner—with you?”

Bakugou looked down at you, a smirk curling his lip as if he’d just realized where your attention had been. “Yeah. ‘M off shift after I give this report. Thought you might want a thanks for the assist or whatever. But if you’re gonna be fuckin’ squirrely about it, then—”

“Yes!” You gasped out, almost before you even realized you’d spoken. A thrill like lightning sang down your spine, electrifying all your nerve endings. Bakugou Katsuki—pro hero Dynamight—had just asked you to dinner?

Of fucking course you were gonna say yes.

Your brain swam, still unsure you’d heard him correctly, but then he leaned in, an arm coming up to catch the side of the ambulance van just beside your face.

“Good,” he said, another viciously pleased smile cutting across his mouth. Something hot crawled into your stomach, and you suddenly realized dinner might be only the tip of the iceberg Bakugou was steering your ship towards. “Gonna have to have a word about your aim, though,” he said, his gaze searing. “Don’t think you’ve gotten out of it just because I like you and you got that teleport asshole too.”

The low, raspy way he spoke was heavier with promise more than reprimand—and it sent another swarm of shivers over your skin.

Bakugou’s eyes caught it, a reply even clearer than if you had spoken. He grinned victoriously, pushing off of the ambulance to stalk over the police presence that had started to amass just beyond the sidewalk, presumably to give his report.

“Stay right here, brat, I’ll be back for you,” he promised, and you grew roots in your seat.

And then you watched him stalk off, staring in disbelief after his broad back. You couldn’t believe the number two hero had just asked you to dinner. And after you’d accidentally beaned him with an orange!

All you’d done was go to the grocery store in anticipation of produce, and you’d walked out with the promise of a date instead.

A ridiculous loop of orange you glad you decided to go grocery shopping? echoed wildly in your brain, a sign of the sheer ridiculousness of your situation. But yeah, you thought, as Bakugou leaned in to speak to a police officer, those scarlet eyes cutting unmistakably back towards you.

You really, really were.

#bakugou x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #katsuki bakugo x reader #katsuki bakugo x y/n #katsuki bakugo fluff #bnha x reader #bakugo x reader #bakugou x you #meet fruit collab

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vivwritesfics · 2 months

Note

Hi my baby 🫶❣️❣️

Got another one lol

This I really want different drivers like the one I shown up before??

Was thinking max, lando, carlos, oscar, lance, Daniel, seb ( any versions works for me lol)

Just them using their partners panties to rub one of??

Like how would they all react? Some shy? Some would proud?? Some was hoping to get caught???

Hopefully taht makes Ny sense 😅

Love you

warnings: smut, masturbation, pervy-ness

i took out Lance because I couldn't think of something for him ngl

Max

He shouldn't have been in there

he knew he shouldn't have been

but he was

her underwear was held tightly in his hands as he pumped his cock

fuuck he had to be quiet

couldn't let her know

but it was so fucking hard

he let out a moan as the door opened

"max"

he came then and there

head thrown back

cum spilling into her underwear

"what're you doing?" she asked softly

the fact that she hadn't shouted at him to get out was an incredibly good sign

it was an even better sign when she took his hand and led him to the bed

Lando

they were young and in love

as much as they wanted to spend every minute together, they couldn't

but she had her own drawer of clothes at his place

on one particular night, when lando was needy and she wasn't there, he did the one thing he could think to do

he searched through her drawer for her underwear

he wore a grin as he climbed into bed and got to work

when he was done he took a picture of his cum painting the inside of her underwear and sent it to her

Carlos

Carlos didn't sneak around about it

she was his, just as he was hers

but he wanted everybody to know it

including her

it mainly happened when they went out to the club

she picked out her underwear and the rest of her outfit before she went into the shower

while she was in the shower, carlos got to work

he tugged at his cock until he game, making sure to spill into her panties

he was smirking when she stepped out of the shower

"I love you," she said as she looked at his mess in her underwear

she pulled them on and Carlos kicked her

Oscar

oscar was in love with her

but who could blame him

every night, when he touched himself, she was all he could think about

he needed a taste of the real thing

they were watching a movie together

oscar disappeared to get a drink or use the bathroom or something

except he didn't

he went to her bedroom

the way he crept across the room, he was so fucking careful

oscar was filled with anxiety as he fished through her underwear drawer

there was a particular pair he was looking for, a blue pair that she had accidentally flashed him just a week before

as soon as he spotted them, he picked them up and shoved them into his pocket

as soon as he had then he headed back to watch the movie with her

Daniel

He was going away for a race

she couldn't go with him and he hated it

he needed something with him, something that reminded him of her

so, he snuck a pair of her underwear into his suitcase

just one pair, she wouldn't notice it

the first night that Lando was alone in his hotel room, he used them, moving them up and down his cock

he bucked his hips up against the underwear, pretending he was moving his cock against her clothed cunt

just as he finished, his phone rang

breathless, he picked up

"Hey babe," he said as he laid down on the bed, the underwear beside him

"Danny, have you seen my lucky panties?" She asked suddenly. "You know, the pink ones with the little flowers on them?"

The pink ones with the little flowers and his cum on them

fuck

Seb

seb fucking goes for it

he calls her over while she wears a skirt, pulls her panties down and pockets them for later

he stares at her as he wraps the panties around his cock

she can't help but watch him as he moves his hand up and down, keeping the lacy underwear against his skin

his head was thrown back as he brought himself closer and close to the edge

when he finished, he spilled himself inside of the panties and called her back over

she happily obliged, anticipating what he was going to do

he just made her step back into her panties and pulled them up her legs

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fxrmuladaydreams · 5 months

Text

drunken bets (cs55)

carlos x mclaren social media!reader

summary: carlos makes a bet with a few other drivers, claiming that he can get you, a new (introverted) mclaren employee, to fall for him

notes: what can i say? i love writing driver x mclaren worker apparently 😂 i think it’s because she can be bffs with lando and oscar and that makes me soft. someone had to be the villian/bad influence so i’m sorry drunk pierre/lance. i hope you guys like the “she fell first, he fell harder” trope

next part

The music in the club blasts through the speakers. Drinks are thrown back as warm bodies dance, or more so grind, against each other to the beat.

Carlos feels the buzz from the alcohol coursing through him. He takes drink after drink. He deserves to relax after this race weekend, hangover be damned. He’s approached countless times by girls looking to spend some time with him, all to which he brushes off, choosing to go home alone at the end of the night.

“C’mon man, what’s up?” Lance asks as Carlos sends another breathtaking girl away. “You’re just not in the mood?”

“I don’t think he can do it. I think he needs his “smooth operator” title revoked.” Pierre drunkenly laughs.

Carlos scoffs, pushing Pierre away by his shoulder. “I could get any girl I wanted. Try me.”

Pierre grins and nods. “Alright,” he looks around the club and nods to a blonde at the bar. “How about her?”

Lance shakes his head. “No, that’s too easy. She’s been staring at him all night.”

Pierre points out a few more girls, all of whom have already expressed some kind of interest in the Spanish driver, until an idea pops into his head.

“What about that new McLaren girl?”

Carlos knew who he was talking about almost instantly. You were a newer part of McLaren’s marketing team. While most others from the team could be found creating content with the boys, you tended to keep yourself behind a computer. Lando said you were hired to do things like edit videos or photos, more behind the scenes stuff.

Others had taken an interest in you when you had shown up. A few engineers or pit crew from other teams attempted to get closer with you, all while you turned them down with a quick no. Hell, even Pierre tried to shoot his shot, but you very quickly shut him down.

You tended to stick closer to Lando and Oscar, both boys somehow able to get you to open up to them.

“You mean Y/n? She won’t date anyone.” Lance shrugs.

“Yeah, so I don’t think Mr. Smooth Operator could get her to date him.” Pierre smirks.

“I could.” Carlos is quick to defend. “Easy.”

“Alright then, let’s make this interesting. You get Y/n to have actual romantic feelings for you, and I’ll give you one hundred euros.”

Carlos reaches his hand out for Pierre to shake. “Deal.”

Carlos wakes up with a pounding headache the next morning, the sun streaming in way too bright through his hotel window. He drags himself out of bed and into the shower, attempting to feel a little more like a human before he actually has to go outside and face the world.

He eats a simple breakfast, something that doesn’t make him feel like he’s about to puke his guts all over his plate. Then he finally starts to pack his suitcase for his trip back home.

He checks his phone before pushing it into his pocket. He sees a few message notifications from Pierre and Lance.

From Lance

Insane night last night. I never want to drink again.

From Pierre

I honestly don’t remember much from last night, but I do remember a bet, and I can’t wait to be 100 euros richer

Carlos groans as he remembers the bet he made the previous night. There’s no way they’re going to let this go, they’ll make sure it hangs over his head until the end of time.

A selfish part of him wants to go on with the bet, to prove that even though he’s had some time being single for a while, he’s still a hot ticket item in the dating world. It wouldn’t hurt his image either, he thinks. If he’s seen pursuing and dating someone who isn’t a model it could make him look like he’s matured, like he’s ready to settle down instead of spending his nights in different beds wherever they travel.

From Carlos

I think you mean 100 euros poorer

The next race weekend he makes it a point to hang around the McLaren garage. No one’s surprised to see him there, given his close friendship with Lando, so the striking Ferrari red practically goes unnoticed in the sea of papaya.

He keeps an eye out for you as he sits with Lando, excusing himself when he spots you making your way towards them. You’ve got a set of headphones on over your ears, clearly enthralled by whatever you’ve got playing on the tablet you’re holding.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and starts walking in your direction, scrolling through whatever social media app he happened to quickly open. He walks until his shoulder bumps into yours, a little too rough, nearly knocking the tablet out of your hands.

Carlos wraps an arm around your waist, keeping you upright, and manages to catch the tablet with his other hand.

“Are you alright?” He asks, flashing you a smile.

You nod and take a step back from him. “I’m okay, are you?”

He swipes a hand through his hair, then holds your tablet out for you to take. “I’m good. It’s Y/n, right?”

“Yeah, I’m at McLaren.” You tilt your head towards the McLaren garage.

“Yeah, I can see that.” He laughs, glancing down at your papaya team kit.

“Right, sorry.” You laugh. “I should probably go, filming and editing to do and what not.”

Carlos gives you a smile and a nod followed by a quick goodbye. He brushes his arm against yours as he walks away. He has to keep himself from looking back at you to see your reaction, but gets a text from Lando later in the day that gives him the satisfaction he was looking for.

From Lando

What did you do to my editor?

The next time Carlos sees you, he recreates your first meeting, bumping into you just so he can wrap his arms around you again.

“We have to stop meeting like this.” He laughs, holding you.

You laugh with him and shake your head. Your hands rest against his chest from attempting to catch yourself. “We really do.”

He smiles as he lets go of you, but keeps himself planted where he’s standing, giving you his undivided attention.

“I saw the recent McLaren video, it was really good. It kind of makes me wish you worked here when I was with McLaren.” He says tilting his head up teasingly.

“It’s mostly my coworkers, I pretty much just make it look good after it’s filmed.” You tell him, you duck your head down to avoid his gaze.

“Still.” He shrugs.

He’s pulled away by Charles after that, who gives you a quick hello before dragging Carlos back to Ferrari’s garage.

You see Carlos a lot more now around McLaren. You chalk it up to his friendship with Lando, but you begin to notice his seeking you out. He shares meals with you now, even if he ends up sitting with you while you’re focus is locked on your laptop.

Carlos is surprised to find that he’s started to genuinely enjoy your company, that he actually looks forward to seeing you every race weekend. He shakes away the feeling that blossoms in his chest whenever he sees you, afraid of becoming too attached.

That all flies out the window when he’s headed back to his hotel one day though. Dark clouds covered the sky, turning it almost black as rain poured down. You could hear thunder rumbling in the distance, likely headed towards the track.

Carlos sees you standing under the awning of McLaren hospitality, looking up at the sky. You’ve got your phone in your hand and a disgruntled look on your face.

He lifts his bright red umbrella up over his head and dashes over to the McLaren building. He puts his umbrella back down once he’s standing next to you, shaking the drops of water off.

“Did you forget an umbrella?” He asks.

You turn away from your phone to look up at him. He’s got a teasing smile on his face. The humidity in the air has made his hair impossibly fluffier, but somehow still picture perfect. He’s bundled up in a Ferrari windbreaker, his backpack slung over his shoulder.

“Yeah. And I walked here from the hotel today, so I can either try to get a taxi or I can wait until the weather clears up.” Just as you finish explaining your problem thunder booms above you.

Carlos shakes his head. “Yeah, no. I’m not letting you walk out in this.” He gestures to the sky.

“Well the other option is find a taxi.”

“I’ll drive you.” He says it as if it’s an obvious solution. Before you can respond he wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you close to him so that you’re both under his umbrella, then starts walking towards the parking lot.

You try to keep up with his pace, occasionally bumping into him, but he makes sure to hold the umbrella over the both of you. He leads you to his car, and holds the umbrella over you as you climb into the passenger side.

You notice how water clings to his hair, drops falling down his coat on his right side, evidence of him prioritizing keeping you dry over himself.

“Carlos, you could get sick, and it’d be my fault.” You scold him.

He shrugs and gives you a smile. “Then you’ll just have to nurse me back to health.”

He parks at the entrance to the hotel McLaren had booked, and walks you into the building. When you expect him to leave, he places a hand on your lower back guiding you to the elevator. He walks you all the way to your door, and leaves you with a “goodnight” and a soft squeeze of your hand.

You get a text from him later that night.

From Carlos

Lando gave me your number. What time should I pick you up tomorrow?

From Y/n

You don’t have to, that’s okay

From Carlos

That’s not an answer cariño

You feel yourself start to smile at the message on your screen and text him what time you usually leave.

He picks you up the next morning, driving you to the track with him. You make conversation about little things like how you slept and what you had for breakfast. He’s quick to run over to your side of the car to open the door for you, and keeps himself close to you as you enter the paddock.

He meets you at the end of the day as well to drive you back to the hotel. He keeps up this new routine each race weekend following. He enjoys your company, and you seem to enjoy his. After a few weekends you could say you have a new chauffeur in the form of a Ferrari driver.

With this new closeness to Carlos comes a wave of media attention you should have expected. Photos are posted over social media of the two of you walking together, you looking up at Carlos with bright eyes, or him looking down at you with his doe eyes.

It’s easy to tell that all of the new attention makes you uncomfortable, but you don’t want to lose your friendship with Carlos so you stick it out. You’re grateful when you see a clip of an interview with Carlos where he’s asked about you, and he sets the record straight.

“There’s nothing going on, we just like to hang out together. We’re just friends.” He smiles.

Although you’re glad he’s put an end to the speculation, you can’t help but feel like your recent hangouts have been only barely platonic. After the nights you’ve claimed are “movie nights” that have turned into falling asleep in each other’s arms, it’s hard to put a platonic label on your relationship.

The first time it happens, it’s you who wakes up first. His chest is warm beneath your head, and his arms lock you against his body. You tilt your head up to look at him. His hair is unkempt, yet still looks effortlessly good. You reach up and brush a few strands away from his face. You watch him for a few minutes, wondering how you were so lucky to be spending your time with someone so beautiful. You rest your head back on his chest and let sleep wash over you again, listening to the soft beats of his heart.

Carlos wakes up not long after you’ve gone back to sleep, lifting an arm to run a hand through his hair. He can feel the little puffs of air from your breathing against his chest, his heart melts when you subconsciously nuzzle your face deeper into him to get more comfortable. You look so sweet, so soft, and a part of him hates himself for it. He let himself accept that stupid bet, and he let himself fall for you. He wishes he’d never let his friends talk him into making that bet, but he also decides he’d never trade the time he’s spent with you for anything.

He’s pulled out of his thoughts when you slowly lift yourself up off of him. He misses your warmth as soon as he can’t feel it anymore.

The two of you continue spending your evenings together, wanting nothing more than to keep falling asleep wrapped up in one another.

He finds himself searching for you in the crowd at parties and events, even those he knows you won’t be at, just so he can spend more time with you. He texts you everyday you’re apart to make sure that you’ve eaten and gotten enough sleep.

Carlos can’t bear the thought of being away from you for more than a week between races. He casually mentions that he’s going back to Spain for the small break, and asks if you want to join him.

You laugh and scoff shaking your head. “Yeah, right.”

“I’m serious, it could be fun. You could relax a little bit. I could take you on my boat. C’mon.” He persuades you.

“I wouldn’t want to intrude on your time off.”

“You’re not. I want you there, I promise. Please?” He takes your hands in his, swinging them back and forth. He gives you his best puppy dog eyes and bats his eyelashes at you.

“Alright, I’ll go with you.” You sigh, but can’t stop the smile from spreading over your face.

It’s different, sharing a space with Carlos outside of the four-walled hotel rooms you’ve stayed in for work. It feels intimate being with him in his home country. He books a private villa to stay in on the beach.

The trip quickly feels more romantic than friendly, what with him cooking your dinner for you, and your evenings in either the hot tub or curled up together on the couch.

You spend your days with Carlos on his boat. You reading a book you brought with you, and Carlos laying out in the sun to tan.

It’s hard not to stare at him, his tanned toned chest on display, while his swim trunks hang low on his hips. He has just as much trouble keeping his eyes away from you as well, he can’t help but watch you as you scamper around the boat in a different little bikini everyday.

Occasionally he convinces you to hop in the water with him, to which you reluctantly agree. You keep your arms locked around him when you feel something brush against your leg in the water. Carlos keeps a firm hold on your waist as he can’t stop laughing at your distress.

Eventually you get back on his boat and sit side by side on the edge, with your feet dangling in the water. You stare down at the crystal blue sea, looking for any creatures swimming around.

Carlos looks back out to the shore. The smile that’s been plastered on his face for the last few days falls when he sees a figure on the beach. They’re far enough away that he can’t really tell who it is, but close enough that he can see the camera in their hands.

He leans back and grabs a towel, laying it over your shoulders, covering up the skin you had on display. He wraps a protective arm around you and pulls you closer to his chest, in hopes that the photos he knows will be everywhere in a few days won’t be clear enough to reveal you in them.

That night he decides to cook on the boat, which turns out to be a little more chaotic than he’d originally planned. He struggles to keep everything straight, but finds it all worth it in the end when he gets to see you surrounded by the sunset. You look breathtaking, looking out into the sea. The soft breezes wisps your hair away from your face. The sinking sun casts a gold light to wash over you.

He wants to tell you how he feels, but he knows he needs to come clean. Maybe you’ll forgive him, he hopes you will. He needs to put this in the past so that he can love you publicly and wholeheartedly.

You quietly share your meal, then break the silence simultaneously.

“I have something I need to tell you.”

“Carlos-”

“You first.” He nods.

You take a deep breath. “Carlos, I want to thank you for bringing me here, and really for spending all this time with me. I’m glad you bumped into me at the paddock because I’ve gained a new friend from it. You’re one of the best men I know, and I really appreciate you taking care of me.”

“Thank you.” He feels his chest tighten at your words.

“The truth is, I’ve come to care about you a lot more than I thought I would. A few of the other drivers tried to ask me out when I was first hired, but I told them no. I was happy when you didn’t try to make a move on me, and instead wanted to pursue a friendship with me.” You look down at your hands, and fiddle with your fingers. “But if you did try to make a move on me now… I don’t think I’d mind it…” Your last sentence comes out quieter than the others.

“Really?” Carlos asks, a soft smile growing on his face.

You clear your throat. “What were you going to say?”

He can’t tell you now. He can’t poison this perfect moment, after you’ve confessed your feelings to him.

“I was going to say that I feel the same way.”

#carlos sainz x reader #carlos sainz #formula one x reader #cs55 x reader

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autisticlancemcclain · 4 months

Text

this is how it continued

———

This is how it ends.

———

This is how it ends.

———

This is how it ends.

———

This is how it ends.

———

Lance tries for weeks to make it end.

The words crawl up like bile in the back of his throat. Keith, he tries to say, time and time again, we need to talk. And when he manages to push through the stinging burn and say them, breath turning to dust in his lungs, Keith crooks his finger under Lance’s chin and meets Lance’s eyes and replies, just as quietly, Of course, sweetheart. What’s wrong?

And every time Lance is faced with the softness in his dark eyes, the steady way he holds his gaze. And every time something inside him cracks, desperate and howling and selfish after being deprived so long, and his bravery dries up like a tiny stream in the summer heat. And instead of saying When did you start loving me, Keith, ‘cause you woke up one day and decided we’d been together for ages and everyone thinks you’re crazy his chin trembles and his eyes burn and he cries, again, and tells Keith of the months without him.

Every day I’m sorry I left you behind, Keith whispers into the heat of Lance’s skin, and every time in response Lance knows, I do not deserve this from you. And the desperate howling selfish part of him grows stronger and stronger.

Lance needs to make it end.

———

He cannot make it end publicly.

It’s too…messy for that. It has been too long now. He hasn’t counted the days but he knows what it looks like right before Keith screams himself awake, now, knows how to press his cold hands to the side of his neck and the curve of his ribs to startle his dream-self into thinking kinder thoughts. He knows how the chip on Keith’s right front tooth feels on his tongue, his knuckles, his shoulder. He knows that Keith showers with his eyes shut out of years of habit of showering in the dark and fearing the sting of the soap.

Rarely do they stop at a hotel. Usually they sleep in shifts, staying in space for days at a time instead of resting every night. It’s horrible and cramped and makes everyone cranky, but it brings them home faster. After everyone is fed up of air travel, which never takes long, they often stop somewhere small and uninhabited and out of the way – a moon, a burgeoning planet, a long-abandoned one. Whatever is closest. On those nights, the nine of them, plus the animals, will stretch and enjoy the fresh air, if there is any, maybe watch a setting sun. And then they will make a fire and cook rations or a real meal, if they can find ingredients and Hunk or Lance have the energy. And after everyone has eaten and conversations have long begun to slow, after teeth have been brushed and faces have been washed, after their friends have nodded off one by one, Keith will push their bedrolls together to make one, spread a blanket over the two of them, and hold Lance close; without question, without hesitation. And he will be out in moments, gently snoring along to whatever alien crickets are crooning into the night, and Lance will trace the shape of his face under the light of the dying embers and forget to be guilty. He will feel safe in Keith’s hold like he does not feel anywhere else and his feet will be warmed between Keith’s thighs. He will fall asleep with a smile on his face.

———

Five months into their journey, Coran says: “I have an announcement to make.”

“What’s up?” Pidge asks, swinging her feet from where she sits sideways in her chair, hair a mess, face buried in the not-quite-DS they found a few planets back. Lance smiles and rolls his eyes.

“In the next quintaint, we will be approaching Deruyn. The Deruy were close friends of the Alteans, eons ago, and the Chancellor has extended to me an invitation to reacquaint ourselves. If you’re all amenable, my dears, we have been invited to stay in the guest wing of her royal quarters for a week.”

Lance straightens up, rubber band ball he was toying with slipping from his grasp. He hears it bounce several times behind him before an abrupt stop, and then a very angry moo. He winces.

“Sorry, Kaltenecker.”

She huffs, clearly still miffed.

Everyone is talking over each other, eyes bright and excited through their video connections. Coran looks pleased, watching them all chatter. Lance catches his eye and smiles at him.

A whole week in a royal wing…and a real royal wing! Nothing like the paladin quarters they lived in on the Castle. They bedrooms will be huge, probably; fancy and ornate. Maybe a canopy bed and pillows comfier than Lance can even fathom.

And baths. Lance hopes there are big, deep baths he can almost swim in.

“You look dreamy.”

Keith’s amused voice startles him out of his daydreaming, although he can’t bring himself to be embarrassed. Everyone else is still chattering on, bubbling with excitement — no one is looking at him.

“I am,” Lance admits. He puts a hand to his forehead and sighs, more dramatically than necessary, pleased when it brings the expected reaction of Keith’s fond little smile. “There might be baths, Keith. Real baths. And oils and soaps and soft towels. And pillows! And a queen-sized bed!”

Keith’s smile turns teasing. “What you need is an Alaskan king.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Keith’s laugh has gotten rumblier since his space whale growth spurt, that’s the only way Lance can explain it. It’s softer and darker and suggests smile lines around his eyes he didn’t have before. Every time Lance looks at them he imagines them getting deeper and wider.

“Been a while since we’ve been somewhere with a real bed, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Gotta make sure they don’t book us two separate rooms again,” Keith huffs, crease appearing between his eyebrows. “I still don’t know what that was about.”

Lance’s mouth goes dry.

I do, he should be saying. I know exactly why there were two separate rooms booked for us. In fact I can guarantee it will happen again.

But he is a coward. And the words die somewhere in his belly, before they can come anywhere near his throat.

———

It takes time to reach Deruyn. Some of this is because Shiro read the map backwards and set them back two days. (“I’m dyslexic!” he had defended, to their booing and whining. “There is not booing and whining to dyslexia! Do you boo and whine a lisp? No! Let me live!”)

By the time they finally manage to drag their poor, exhausted Lions to the sizeable planet, everyone’s excitement is so palpable Lance doesn’t need an emotional bond to feel it.

“Fresh air,” sighs Allura.

“Good food,” seconds Hunk.

“People to talk to that aren’t you fools,” agrees Pidge.

“A mattress,” Keith adds, and shoots Lance a wink.

Despite himself and rolling mess of feeling in his stomach, Lance flushes.

Coran accepts a call as soon as they’re within radio range, greeting a narrow-faced, pink-skinned woman who must be the Chancellor. Immediately they delve into a conversation that Lance doesn’t even pretend to follow. He recognizes Coran’s tone from the many times his mother would strike up a conversation with an aunt or uncle or any guest at all as they were leaving the house — this conversation could be hours long. His eyes glaze over, sliding away from his Lion’s display to take in the planet in front of him.

Deluyn is large, that much is obvious. It’s hard to scale something with such magnitude when it’s so close to your face, but if Lance had to guess, he would place it somewhere between Jupiter and the Balmera. It has no rings but the whole planet seems to glow, slightly, although Lance can see no clear source for it. The colours visible from orbit are entirely alien to him, so he’s not sure what is water, if anything is, but from the angry look of the planet’s poles, the dark green things are clouds.

What feels like a million hours later, but it probably only around fifteen minutes, there’s a click as the Chancellor and Coran end their call, and they are urged forward into landing. As they get closer to the landing strip, Lance notices dozens of children sprinting along the barrier, holding signs and flags and cheering. He grins, twisting his hands tighter around Red’s controls, hanging back just slightly from formation to give himself space to move. Then he yanks the controls to the side, feeling Red roar as she whips around in a tight circle, flames rolling down her back. The children jump up and down, fists raised, mouths open in shouts of joy. Several of their grownups watch with wide grins, too, necks craned to watch Lance spin around.

He pulls back into formation after a couple of tricks, sliding smoothly in between Black and Blue. His heart rate ticks up, and suddenly his undersuit feels tight, itchy. He squirms in his seat. When Shiro’s face pops up to relay landing instructions he flinches, and immediately hates himself for the hurt look that eclipses his friend’s face.

“…Lance?” Shiro asks softly, confusion lining his voice. He looks like a kicked puppy. Lance is a monster.

“I’m just jumpy, I’m just jumpy,” he assures, forcing a smile and holding it there until Shiro’s shoulders relax. “You know. So excited to see where we’ll be staying.”

“Yeah, me too! Coran even said they have this massive sauna they’re really famous for. I can’t wait. I miss what saunas do for my skin. And, plus, having our own rooms will be nice.” His excited grin turns sly. “Well, most of us will have our own room.”

Lance’s heart pounds for a totally different reason. “Okay thanks Shiro bye —”

He reaches to cut the connection but Shiro stops him, laughing.

“No, no, wait, I’ve got landing instructions. Their staff is limited so we gotta go one at a time, okay, stay in your Lion once you’re parked in case you need to adjust…”

Thankfully it’s nothing too complicated. Keith lands first, and Lance next to him, then Pidge, then Allura, then Hunk. Once they’re all parked and confirmed by ground control, they’re cleared it exit, none of them taking their time.

Well, everyone else disembarks pretty fast. Kaltenecker remains and stubborn pain in the ass as usual, and Lance is stuck trying desperately to drag an 800 something pound cow that has absolutely no desire to work with him. “Kallie,” he begs, tugging uselessly on her leash, “you dumb ass fucking animal. Please. I am begging you. I put up with your farts in the cabin for days on end, which has got to be shaving years off my life. The food I feed you could be better but in all fairness, I’m getting the same slop you are, so. Maybe cut me some slack.”

She doesn’t even moo at him.

Lance tries bribery.

“Say, you want good food? I bet they have good food on this planet. Nice, sweet, fresh grass. You love grass. You want grass? Please come on, Kallie. Everyone else has already left and I’m going to die of embarrassment if I’m the last paladin left, doing the walk of shame with his stubborn cow behind him. The jokes will write themselves. I’ll have to quit and join a travelling circus, and then who will put up with you? Remember that Allura wants to turn you into hamburgers.”

Clearly hamburgers were the wrong thing to mention, because if cows can glare, Kaltenecker does. She even has the audacity to huff her cow breath at him and drag them both further into Red. Red, who is a traitor, does absolutely nothing to help and is in fact laughing herself sick, loudly, in Lance’s mind.

“I shoulda left you in that damn mall,” Lance grumbles, not meaning it. He sighs and collapses against his cow’s side, closing his eyes. Just his luck. The rest of his friends are gallivanting about a fancy-dancy castle as guests of honour, and Lance is babysitting a methane machine. “I’m gonna have to sleep here tonight, aren’t I.”

“Well, I hope not.”

Lance yelps, jumping to his feet. Unfortunately, in his haste, his boot hooks around Kaltenecker’s hoof, and since she is still unmoving, he goes sprawling. Fortunately, Keith got stranded in a space whale for two years and took Prince Charming classes, or something, so he catches him.

“You’re such a nervous wreck,” Keith says fondly, leaning down to kiss him instead of letting Lance stand like a normal person. (Not. That Lance. Is necessarily complaining. But for prosperity’s sake, and everything, keeping a man in a dip for too long is just undignified, Keith, you should know that, you graduated top of your class from Fairytale University. So. Pull yourself together.)

“Am not,” Lance protests. He sighs as Keith adjusts his hold on him, patting around blindly until he finds the edge of Keith’s braid and undoing it. He slides his hands in that thick hair with a relish as soon as it’s free, making Keith chuckle (but, wisely, not say anything, because the one and only time he commented Lance avoided him for two days out of pure embarrassment).

“I sent the rest of the team on when you didn’t come out. Figured Kaltenecker was giving you trouble.” He meets Lance’s eyes and grins, dark eyes mischievous and sparkling, and Lance is seriously going to walk off a bridge because who authorized that, who, who approved the combination of big dark eyes and a crooked grin and a face that promises trouble. Huh? The fuck’s up with that. “Figured I could help.”

Lance manages to find a shred of dignity within himself and steps slightly away. “That’s great, Noble Kent, but last I checked you couldn’t drag an 800 pound heifer either, so.”

Keith nods. “‘Course not. Brought Kosmo. Here, boy.”

The wolf poofs to existence at Keith’s side, barking excitedly. He bounds up to Lance first, expecting his usual barrage of kisses and head scratches (which he gets), then gets all shy as he walks over to his crush. Kaltenecker looks over at him and no lie rolls her eyes, looking away again. Kosmo, however, is undeterred, barking happily before blipping them both out of existence.

“She is never gonna love you, dude,” Keith says, shaking his head.

Lance snorts, taking Keith’s offered hand and heading down Red’s ramp (finally). “Wouldn’t it be weirder if she did? I think we’d have to break them up. Like, ethically.”

“Could be a Donkey and Dragon situation.”

“Shut up. It ruins my perception of you every time I’m reminded you’ve seen Shrek.”

“You’re perception of me,” Keith repeats, musing. His right eyebrow twitches, and it’s too small to see at arm’s distance, but Lance knows a tiny scar ripples there, from when he was fourteen and got it pierced in defiance of Shiro. “What is your perception of me?”

Lance keeps himself steady. He puts one foot in front of the other and keeps his left hand held in Keith’s. There is nothing interrogating in Keith’s tone, he reminds himself, although maybe there should be. When he looks up Keith’s eyes are open and curious and something else he doesn’t know how to name.

“You’re honest,” he says quietly. He means to say more, has a list he could probably recite bullet by bullet, but he doesn’t.

“Honest,” Keith mutters to himself. “Huh.”

Lance swallows. He doesn’t know how he could possibly explain the weight to that. Keith is committed and brave and talented and beautiful. But more than that he is truthful. Does he see? Does he know?

An empty landing pad passes remarkably slowly when two people walk in silence. There are crafts of all kinds and tarmac upon tarmac. Eventually, though, they start walking somewhere a little more crowded; thin, reedy people resembling the Chancellor waving to them as they pass. Lance would stop to ask for directions, but the giant castle is kind of hard to miss, so they just walk in the direction of it hope their armour will do the talking for them.

Keith catches a richly dyed ribbon blowing by as they pass through a crowded market, trapping the fine thing between his fingers as it passes between them. It’s a strange and familiar colour, walking the line between indigo and deep violet. He glances around for a stall that might be selling them, and when he can’t find one, he turns to Lance and says, “Hold out your arm.”

Lance does. Carefully, Keith unlatches his vambrace, tucking it under his arm, then peels up his undersuit to lay bare his wrist. His tongue sticks out of his mouth slightly in concentration as he ties it among Lance’s dozens of string bracelets, right above his blue Moana watch still counting the hours back home.

“There,” he says proudly. “Looks good on you.”

Lance reaches up and kisses him until neither of them can breathe.

———

They know they will be teased when they finally meet with their friends at the castle.

“Let’s not,” Keith suggests, nodding at the guards who move to let them past.

“I’ll find out where our room is?” Lance says.

Keith nods. “Yeah, we’ll need that.”

“‘Kay, wait here. Don’t be obvious, or Allura will smell drama and come running.”

He’s jinxed them by saying anything at all — no sooner do the words leave his lips does Keith tense up, screwing up his face in an attempt to appear neutral but resembling instead someone who is trying very hard not to sneeze. Lance manages not to laugh, squeezing his hand once before darting off, choosing a random corridor and going with it.

Thankfully, he manages to find a person who holds a clipboard and walks with a purpose, so he assumes they know what they’re doing. Double thankfully, they do, and not only direct him to their rooms but press a labeled map into his hands. It even has a schedule on the back for mealtimes and room cleaning, which is something Lance totally forgot existed. He runs back to Keith quickly, careful to avoid the kitchen and the armoury — places he’s sure his friends will be.

Keith is earnestly inspecting a mounted sword on the wall when Lance returns. His nose is maybe an inch from the polished blade, probably less, honestly. Lance bites his lip to hold down a snicker and takes a picture, intending blackmail, but it ends up being the perfect shot — his hair is slightly wavy from the braid he wore earlier, and there’s a cute scrunch to his nose, not to mention his squinted eyes like he’s wishing for reading glasses. It becomes Lance’s background almost without him meaning to.

“C’mon, nerd,” he calls, smiling as Keith startles. “I got a map and someone is gonna meet us there with a key. I wanna check it out, get a move on.”

Keith does indeed hurry over. “I’m so glad they got it right this time. One room! No need to debate over it.”

Lance falters. He’d been so caught up in the excitement of the room and then Kaltenecker and then…Keith, he forgot. They’re not what Keith thinks they are, what Lance has been pretended to be.

“Right,” he manages, mouth suddenly dry. He desperately tries to shove the enthusiasm back in his voice, forcing his face into a smile when Keith looks back. “Right, yeah, that’s so much less of a pain.”

There is indeed someone with a key when they get to the room. The door is light, in both colour and material, and although his feelings are still heavy and conflicting, his excitement wins out. Keith takes the key, thanking the attendant, and a small voice in the back of Lance’s mind whispers this could be them some day, on Earth, with a key of their own. He does his best to ignore it.

“Ready?” Keith asks.

“Please oh please let the bed be bigger than Red’s cabin,” he responds.

Keith snorts. Slowly, out of what must be a desire to torture Lance, he slides the key into the lock and turns it. Lance doesn’t hesitate before shoving it open.

“It is bigger than the cabin!” he shouts, and wastes no time running up and onto it.

He practically sinks into the mattress, so soft it’s like it’s made of hopes and dreams. The blankets are the fluffiest things he’s ever felt in his life. And the space — he stretches out as far as he can, fingers to toes, and not a single limb comes even close to the edge of the bed.

The mattress dips beside him, and a hand slides along the back of his neck.

“This is you before you notice the big canopy.”

Lance lifts his head immediately. He fights back a very undignified squeal when he does, indeed, see a gossamer blue canopy hanging softly from the high ceilings.

“And the windows too, sweetheart. Floor to ceiling, like you like ‘em.”

Lance scrambles to his knees to check. They are. And the view is breathtaking.

“And the bathtub? Is it huge and clawfooted?”

Keith ducks his head, smiling, and presses a lingering kiss to his cheek.

“I’ll go check, you grandma. You take your armour off.”

He listens for Keith’s footsteps, waits for them to go from carpet to tile, waits for the “Yep! Claw foot!”, waits for the sound of rushing taps even though he didn’t ask, even though Keith didn’t offer. He turns on his back and stares as the canopy, inspecting the padded wooden roof structure from which the gauzy curtains hang, tracing its sturdy edges and even corners.

Keith makes him feel so warm.

He’s felt a lot of cold, in a lot of places, for a lot of his life. Part of it is the stupid anaemia that he gets to live with. Part of it is stuff he doesn’t like to think about. But Keith comes in with his warm hands and warm smile and stupid big warm heart, and Lance is thawed in every frozen inch of him. It’s good. It’s so good.

He wants it so desperately.

He comes when Keith calls, stripping his armour along the way. Keith is waiting for him in the bath when he gets there — and it is huge, close enough for them to both sit comfortably without brushing so much as a toe against each other, but of course Lance settles his spine against the curve of Keith’s chest the second he slips inside the steaming water. The room smells of sandalwood and lilac.

“You are so important to me,” Keith murmurs, seemingly at random, pressing his lips along Lance’s stretched neck, following the arch of it as he tips his head back to rest on Keith’s shoulder.

Lance’s breath sighs out of him, rising and mixing with the steam. He lifts a shaking hand to twine it to Keith’s, squeezing. Their joined hands are wet against his chest. Together they rise, up and down, up and down, up and down, with every shaky breath.

———

They giggle like teenagers, sneaking into the kitchen well after dark and well after most of the castle has finally gone to bed.

Neither has wanted to face the team’s teasing just yet, or even the team at all, really. Their room can’t be called a room so much as a small apartment — bookshelves lining the wall that Keith had been eyeing for hours, a massive wardrobe, a beautiful velvet sofa, even a small icebox. Neither of them have said it but it feels, implicitly, like their own little space, their own little commune, beyond the privacy of a hotel room. It feels like somewhere they could live. They’re billions of miles away from Earth and anywhere Lance could consider home, but it’s nice to pretend, and neither of them is ready to hop back into reality — or Hunk’s roasting — quite yet.

(It is not what Lance’s mind is pretending. In no world could they ever live in a castle like this. It is foolish to spend his time fantasizing about a future they will probably never have, a home they will never build. The guards stationed at every door should break Lance’s fantasy. But he has always been very, very good at pretending.)

“Just grab some of everything,” he whispers to Keith. “We have actual room cleaning, remember? We can have some dirty dishes, no one will mind.”

“There’s certainly space for it,” Keith agrees.

In minutes the two of them have piled almost more than they can carry. They’re much slower on the walk back, but no less giddy. As soon as the door is locked shut behind them, they’re sat on the bed, even though eating on a bed is disgusting and usually Lance would never permit it, and stuffing their faces.

“Oh my God, this thing tastes like strawberries. Here, try.” Keith holds up a juicy looking silver fruit, Lance leans over to bite it. It does taste like strawberry. He dusts off his hands and crawls over to chase the taste off Keith’s tongue.

“Strawberries get you going?” Keith mumbles, and Lance grins and says, “Something like that.”

They have more food than they can possibly eat and they eat until they can barely move. The rest they wrap up and stick in the icebox.

He can feel Keith falling asleep, head getting heavier, so he pats him gently on the hip and whispers, “Come on, get up, at least get ready first. Wash your face.”

Keith groans. He squishes his face further into Lance’s belly, making him squirm and laugh, and mutters something he can barely here. “Hnnngh. You first. I’ll catch up.”

“You’ll fall asleep,” Lance scolds, but he gets up first anyway. When he glances behind him he sees that Keith has at least managed to put one foot on the ground, so maybe he really will get up and put some pyjamas on.

Lance snorts. Yeah, right.

He takes his time and pokes around the bathroom, having been too preoccupied to do so beforehand. There’s a stack of fluffy towels and cloths on a shelf, and even a couple rough ones for exfoliating. In a cupboard lies dozens of soaps and oils and creams and a million other things, labelled in that same holographic translator stuff the Olkarions use so Lance can read them easily. He is impressed by the wide range of selection — he’s been slowly rebuilding his skincare collection, and will indeed be looting at least half of these bottles to complete it. There’s enough stuff here to do a whole soak. Nice.

Then he turns towards the sink. And he stares.

And he starts to cry.

Laid out exactly as he likes it is his stuff from his pack. His toothbrush, his primary face wash, his hair brush, his lotion, everything. In order of how he uses it, with the sink in the middle, and everything an appropriate distance from the sink so he doesn’t soak the whole counter trying to reach for whatever comes next in his routine. A setup his has perfected over many years and has had genuine conniptions over misplaced steps and wrong orders. Something inane and stupid and that only matters to him.

Of course Keith has noticed, of course Keith has memorized, of course he has replicated.

Lance is a horrible, horrible person.

This is has to be how it ends.

“Keith!” he shouts, and the man comes in running, half groggy and robbing the sleep from his eyes. He’s in a t-shirt and boxers.

“Lance?”

“My brush is — in the wrong place.”

Keith inspects him carefully. “You’re crying.”

“Because the brush is in the wrong place! I keep it in the same spot, I like it here, you know I like it here, why is it —”

He interrupts himself with a great, heaving hiccup, so large it shakes his whole body, and he’s furious with himself, with his shaking hands, with the careful look on Keith’s face.

This is how it ends.

“This is not where my brush goes,” he insists again, desperate to keep his voice steady, desperate to make it angry.

“Okay,” Keith says simply. He walks over and pulls the brush gently from Lance’s hands. “Where do you want it?”

Lance tries to breathe in. His chest shakes and shudders, poking holes in his voice. This isn’t working. Why isn’t it working?

“No, you’re supposed to — I’m being unreasonable.”

“You’re upset about something.”

“Something stupid.”

“Okay. I’ll fix it. I can fix it.”

“No, you can’t — I’m not —”

The rest of his strength leaves him.

This is how it ends.

Why can’t he make it end.

Slowly, Keith reaches out to grab his hands. Lance lets him, like the coward he is.

“Come to bed, sweetheart. You’ve had a long day. You need to sleep.”

“Okay,” he whispers, defeated, squeezing his eyes shut. He keeps them shut as Keith guides him to the giant bed, as he pulls back the covers, as he crawls in and waits for the sound of the light switch to be flicked off, of the tiny creak of Keith’s weight as he joins him.

For a long moment Keith is quiet. Long enough that Lance would assume he’d fallen asleep, except that he still sits upright, except that his hand has slid under Lance’s shirt, and his thumb traces a line across the small of his back, over and over again.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” he whispers.

A new tear slips hot down Lance’s face.

This is how it ends.

He knows, or at least he must suspect. Maybe he realized his mistake some time ago, and has been waiting for Lance to fess up, to explain why he went along with Keith’s mistaken affection in the first place. Why he used Keith, confused as he was, for his own selfish needs.

“I’m sorry,” he says hoarsely. He can’t bring himself to turn around, to sit up, to meet Keith’s eyes.

Keith’s hand doesn’t so much as twitch. “What for?”

“For leading you on.”

That certainly gives him pause.

“Leading me…on?”

“Yeah.” Lance sniffles, dragging himself upright and away from Keith’s affectionate hands, huddled against the massive headboard. “You came back…confused. I don’t know. You thought we were in love. I wanted it, so I let you. I’ve been manipulating you.”

“Lance…” Even only in the silvery blue moonlight streaming in from the windows, Keith’s face is unmistakable, obvious; strong brow creased in worry, head tilted in confusion, face pulled with something like desperation. “Lance, we are in love. Aren’t we? I love you. And you love me, I know you do.”

Lance shakes his head. His tears make his face crumple and he knows how ugly that makes him look, so he hides his face.

“No, I made you feel that way, I didn’t correct you back then and it’s habit now so…”

He trails off. Keith doesn’t respond. He wonders if he’ll stay the night, bed surely big enough for him to sleep without touching Lance at all, or if he’ll have to go get a new room.

A tiny, tiny part of Lance’s brain recognises the irony in that and wants him to laugh. But the steady breaking of his heart keeps it at bay.

“…Back at the tarmac,” Keith says what feels like hours later, startling Lance out of his skin. He looks up at the man with wide eyes, having half-convinced himself he was already gone, and Keith meets his gaze determinedly. “Back at the tarmac, you said I was honest. Did you mean that?”

Lance swallows.

“Yes.”

Keith holds his gaze, looking for something, then nods, having found it. “Believe me then, sweetheart.” He crawls forward, slowly, as if he is afraid Lance will startle away from him. That fear is what startles Lance out of his stupor, out of his guilt, out of the dread that has been building in his stomach for months. He hasn’t seen that kind of fear — the fear of getting too close — on Keith face since he came back. And never does he want to see it again. He throws himself into Keith’s arms, too hard, hard enough to hurt, but Keith catches him and holds him and squeezes just as painfully tightly. “I love you, star of my skies.”

“That’s cheesy as hell,” Lance croaks, and Keith laughs, wetly and beautifully. “I love you too.”

“Good.” Keith kisses the top of his head. “Good.” He exhales, long and shuddering; relieved. “God, I spent two years waiting for this exact moment.”

The statement strikes Lance as odd. “This exact moment.”

Keith tenses. Lance tenses, too, and immediately he relaxes again, breathing steadily until Lance matches him.

“On the space whale, time was…stretchy.”

“You mentioned.”

“Two years I lost.”

Lance tightens his hold. “I know.”

“Most of it was survival camping, really, but there were these visions, sometimes. For Krolia and me. Our pasts. You guys, in the present.” He takes a breath. “Our future.”

Somehow, Lance gets the feel he’s not talking about his and Krolia’s.

“Our future?”

Keith’s breath tickles his neck. Lance doesn’t dare move. Goosebumps pimple his skin and he lets them, shivering, warmed.

“Yes. So much, all the time. More than anything else we saw. Just — tiny snippets, here and there; your face when you sleep, your fingers on a bow, you dragging me on a surfboard and a million other places I woulda followed you to anyway.”

One of his hands slides down Lance’s ribs, fingertips light enough to make him shudder, and rests, cupped open at his hip. “I saw this,” he admits. “Not — the whole conversation, or why, but my hands on you, in this bed, in the moonlight. It kept me going.”

Lance closes his eyes and tries to imagine. Stuck in a strange place where days don’t seem to pass with a stranger who claims to be his mother, watching visions of himself in the future, over and over again.

“No wonder your head was all wonky.”

“Yeah.”

“You’d already been with me. For two years.”

“For twenty. Thirty. Seventy.”

“…That’s a long time, Keith.”

“God, I hope so.”

Lance smiles. “You gonna stick with me that long, hotshot?”

“Like glue, darlin’.”

Lance looks up and, sure enough, Keith’s eyes are closed, face slack. He’s clinging onto consciousness with every bit of strength in his body, things like keeping his accent in check losing priority. Lance settles again against him, guiding them gently so they lie comfortably against the pillows, and breathes out, slow and long.

“Tell me about our future.”

“House on th’beach,” Keith murmurs. His words are slow and pulled apart. “Stone’s throw from your mama’s.”

Lance traces sleepy circles on his skin.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Little boy with hair like yours followin’ every little thing you do.”

His breath hitches. He hadn’t thought about that — hadn’t let himself think about it. It’s dangerous, for more than one reason.

But tonight they’re safe. Under the silvery moonlight, with a bed three times bigger than they are, nothing can touch them.

“What about a little girl with your smile?”

“You got it.”

Lance’s smile is warm and giddy, tucked into Keith’s arm, etched there like it’s permanent. “Good. Goodnight, mi alma.”

“Night, baby.”

This is how it stays, forever and ever and always.

393 notes · View notes

mochimooon · 5 months

Text

Nurse Gojo - gojo satoru x reader

pairing: Gojo Satoru x fem! Reader summary: A few days post-op, you're still in the trenches of recovery. You had expected this, and assured everyone that you would be okay. In Satoru's mind, that meant you need him to be your nurse. word count: 2600+ notes: Back on the fluff train 🚂 The prompt used came from this list. Not requested, just something I wanted to write. Inspo came from my own experience recovering from a tonsillectomy. Nothing but fluff here. Also, still experimenting with Gojo's character. Haven't pinned down a solid characterization yet, but I'm having fun playing around with his personality. No references made to canon, but can be interpreted as in canon or as a non-curses AU. warnings: FLUFF ! the sugary-sweet kind ! stubborn and prideful reader, zero plot, just an excuse to write something cute ☻

prompt - ♞: Caring for each other while ill

A series of coughs burst forth, one after the other like a litany.

Your eyes fly open, cursing the coughing fit that tore you back to the waking world as you reach to the end table for your bottle of water.

It quells the tickle in your throat, but swallowing a gulp sends lances of pain along the surgical site.

You inhale sharply through your nose to keep from coughing from the pain this time. Seconds tick away until a minute passes, and you set your bottle down, certain that you’re okay for now.

The bottle nudges the humidifier on your nightstand. A steady stream of moisture floats in the air like it has been the past few days. Cutting a glance at your mirror on the wall, you notice it's fogged up, and you don’t doubt that your whole room is mistier than normal.

But it’s meant to help. Moisture and hydration, along with the pain pills will ease your recovery—not expedite it.

You sigh, lying back down on the stack of pillows. From the corners of your vision, the afternoon sunlight pours in through the window, reminding you that you’re inside confined to bedrest. This’ll be worth it when you’re better, you muse.

A light knock on the door grabs your attention. Too tired and unable to speak, the door opens on its own.

Utahime peeks through the crack, only to push her way in when she finds you awake. “Hey, heard you coughing, so I figured you were up.” She takes in your appearance.

You haven’t showered going on three days post-op and have been living in the same oversized shirt since. Because you’ve been laying around, you didn’t bother to run a brush through your hair. And during the last few days, you had next to nothing in your stomach. Tonsillectomies rule.

You barely had the chance to look at yourself except for when you go to the bathroom. The rest of the time you’re watching TV or asleep. Either way, you’re stuck in bed.

As far as your room goes, it was already a mess before you left for the hospital. By the time you made it back, it only got messier. Several empty plastic bottles piled in a box for recycling that you’ll get to when you recover, overflows onto the carpet of your room. Open, half-eaten cups of applesauce litter the nightstand and your dresser, joining the bottle of pain medicine you had within reach.

“Would you like more?” Utahime gestures to the applesauce.

On cue, your stomach groans, making your head spin from the lack of food. You had never been hungrier in your life, and yet each gulp of anything, mushy food or water is like swallowing glass.

You part your lips to speak but stop yourself, opting to shake your head instead.

Utahime nods. Your roommate means well, and you’re grateful for her checking on you.

Unfortunately, there’s little she can do. There’s little you can do other than ride it out. Three weeks you were told and warned that tonsillectomies were harder to bounce back from as an adult. It was just your luck that your tonsils suddenly gave you trouble when you hardly had issues as a child.

There’s an urgent knocking somewhere in the apartment, followed by a few dings of the doorbell.

Utahime checks over her shoulder, brows pinched together. “I’ll be back.” With the click of your door, she’s gone.

A minute passes and there’s an argument playing out in the living room.

You straighten to sit up, arching a brow.

Muffled voices rise, growing louder as they approach the other side of your door.

“Gojo, I didn’t say you can come inside—”

“I’m her boyfriend, I have every right to be in there with her, and if you don’t mind—”

Your bedroom door swings open with grandeur, your boyfriend and your roommates’ bickering flood inside.

“—I’m here to nurse her back to health.” Satoru hangs onto the door handle, motioning to close it.

Bless your roommate, Utahime, but the ire she holds against Satoru is next-level and shoves past him to demand his departure.

“She could have been sleeping, you idiot!”

Satoru waves her off, beaming at you. “She’s not, my girl has a sixth sense for me; she knows when I’m coming for her.”

You cringe at his words, even if they are well-meaning and incorrect. It is a regular occurrence for Satoru to drop by unannounced, you’re still shocked to see him here.

It had been a few days since your surgery, and you ensured Satoru that you would be okay. Utahime was kind enough to check in on you every once in a while.

Naturally, Satoru insisted that he come stay by your side, which led you and your roommate to persuade Suguru to keep him busy so that you could heal in peace.

Yet, here’s Satoru in the flesh, breaking that four-day streak.

“Get going, Gojo—”

Satoru spins around to glower at her. “Respectfully, Utahime, she’s got me to take care of her.”

Utahime flounders, another litany ready to spill out when her eyes flick over to you.

With a wave of your hand and an apologetic smile, you let her know that you’ll be okay, wishing that Satoru didn’t look so smug at your roommate like he’d won some victory.

But, of course to him it is a victory. “Told you.”

Utahime bites her tongue, stepping away until she begrudgingly leaves your room. Satoru is quick to shut the door and lock it behind him.

He turns around, doing a sweep of your bedroom and whistles. “Wow. Did a truck drive by?”

You level him with an annoyed scowl. If you had the ability to speak right now, he’d get another earful from you.

Satoru crosses the room, stopping at the end of your bed. He rocks back on his heels, hands behind his back.

You give him an expectant look.

Satoru smiles wide. “I got your favorite.” He reveals a carton of strawberry ice cream and two spoons. Because when it comes to sweets, Satoru believes in sharing.

You bend your knees under the covers to allow him space to sit.

He leans over, kissing the top of your head. “Still smell beautiful to me.”

Your face burns and you shove his shoulder, only for him to lasso you in with his arm. You’re too weak and mute to fight him off, accepting the shower of affection all over your face.

“These past four days have been the longest of my life. You know how much I missed you? Loads! Just picked this up. Still frozen. We’ll give it a few minutes to thaw out.”

He’s on his feet again, moving about the room like a gust of wind. He grabs your trash bin, tossing the applesauce cups and any other debris you’ve left around in the last few days.

Your eyes widen, trying to get his attention, but now he’s collecting the plastic bottles, picking the fallen ones off the carpet, and tossing them into a box. All while he laments how lonely it’s been without you around.

“Every time I was ready to head over, Suguru needed something. I don’t get it. Yeah, he’s my best friend, but he’s been so needy lately…”

He moves as fast as he talks that the room spins with his energy. You shuffle out of the blanket, clearing your throat.

Big mistake.

Another cacophony of coughs cut through your throat, and you scramble to the side in search of a bottle of water.

An arm is spread along your shoulders, Satoru offers you a new bottle, rubbing a hand along your back.

The water is sharp going down, but after a long gulp, it puts an end to the coughing fit.

A moment passes as you wait, expecting another tickle to rise in your throat.

“Better?” Satoru tilts his head.

Pursing your lips, you nod.

He gives you a bright smile, on his feet in a hurry. “To finish my thought…”

You don’t hear him, not because you don’t want to but because you’re back to watching him bustle around your room, resetting the space to how you normally keep it.

If he notices your attempt to get his attention, Satoru is slick about it, skating in circles as he gathers the last of your mess and opens the door.

He leaves the room, cutting his own rambling short and shuts the door.

Tension simmers in your chest, ears straining to catch any sound of another argument somewhere in the apartment.

Instead, silence is all you hear, a rarity that you associate with Satoru’s absence. But it’s brief. The door widens again with his return, already yammering on about something else.

And he’s also back to sorting your room again. You didn’t notice the glass cleaner and the paper towel roll he brought with him. He coats your mirror with the foam spray, talking a mile a minute, clearing the mist that’s built up and only pausing to grin at his own reflection.

“That’s better,” he says. “Now we can both see ourselves."

Now he’s across the room, spraying your window. After a few swipes, your room is brighter, stronger and the warmth distracts you for a moment. That is until Satoru’s at your nightstand, lifting up the humidifier.

“Whoa, this is empty already,” he muses.

You want to interrupt and ask what he’s doing even though you’re already aware. The better question is why. Sure, your room is in shambles, but that’s not something he needs to worry about. It’s not something anyone needs to be concerned with.

During the first few days of recovery, Utahime did offer to help tidy up the place, clear up the empty bottles and even do your laundry. Every time, you politely rejected her help, privy to the way your roommate would purse her lips like she wanted to say something.

You knew what she was thinking. The same as what Satoru had once expressed.

“You don’t have to do it all, you know? That’s what I’m here for.” It was always said with a bright, albeit overconfident smile.

“Sa…Toru…” His name scrapes harshly in your throat. “Satoru…”

In a flash, Satoru snaps his attention to you, eyes wide, setting the humidifier back down. “Whoa…don’t speak, you’ll hurt your throat.”

You pout, huffing through your nostrils. “You…don’t have to…” Your voice is so hoarse, you don't recognize yourself. Clearing your throat, your lips press tight as you wince. “My room…I’ll clean—”

Satoru presses his palm over your mouth. “Hey. Shhh. Don’t say anything.”

Forever obstinate, you pull away with a frown. “Satoru…”

He shakes his head. “Nuh-uh. Not going to listen if you don’t listen to me. It’s going to hurt if you keep trying to talk.”

You refuse to heed his advice, though your withering pride fails to ease the throbbing in your throat, voice cracking. “I’m fine. You…don’t need to…do anything.”

A humored sigh spills out of Satoru’s mouth. “You don’t need to do anything, other than stay in bed and let me take care of everything.”

Your lips part again to argue, and you’re already bracing yourself for the pain to follow when you speak.

Only your words melt away before they have a chance to form. Your mind blanks, heartbeat in your lips at the firm yet soft kiss.

You’re grateful that Satoru holds your face in his hands. The longer he kisses you, the harder it is to think let alone stay afloat, forgetting your train of thought.

His lips move along yours, gentle, minding that you’re still recovering and can only handle so much. However, you wish you can deepen the kiss, let him explore your mouth that you’re almost ready to endure the discomfort in your throat.

He smiles as you whimper from the loss of his lips. Instead, he levels you with a tender gaze, holding your attention with the calming blue.

“You’re so stubborn,” he murmurs, lacking any ill-feelings. “What am I going to do with you?”

Your face goes warm, looking up at him with a furrow in your brows. When you say nothing, Satoru fills the silence like he always does.

“I know you’re okay doing things on your own. No one doubts that. I just want to help. Won’t you let your charming, strong boyfriend spoil you, hm?” There’s the playful tease you’re familiar with. But his words are earnest, you know that.

He's right, you are stubborn. Too independent, oftentimes soldiering through everything, declining all assistance with a strained smile, never asking for help unless you had no choice.

It’s a mystery, even to you, why it’s so hard to receive help. Bedridden, mute, starving, yet for the past few days, your pride wouldn't accept a single helping hand.

But with Satoru here, stubborn in his own way, you realize how much better your spirits are now that you have his company again.

And when you relent with a nod, it warms your heart to see him beam, knowing that the feeling is mutual.

He kisses the crown of your head, spinning around to take the humidifier. “Be right back, I’ll have this thing filled, and the ice cream should be nice and soft to eat.”

As promised, he returns with the humidifier full. Satoru plops next to you with the carton of ice cream, blinking at the two spoons in his hand.

“Don’t know why I brought two, when we can always share one.” He wiggles his eyebrows, setting the extra spoon aside.

He lets you have the first scoop, the cold strawberry coats your throat, numbing the pain as the flavor revives your spirit.

Satoru leans closer, giving you a knowing look with his lips splitting apart.

You bring the second scoop to your lips to tease him.

He pouts. “After all I’ve done, that’s how it is?”

You smile, unable to resist feeding him a spoonful.

The ice cream is gone in minutes and the carton is tossed out. Taking stock of your room again, it’s like night and day since Satoru dropped by, tidy as though you hadn’t been wasting away for the last few days. You’re grateful for him. You take another pill to manage the discomfort. Satoru hands you your bottle of water, rubbing your back as you force a gulp down. "Another few days, and you'll be better soon."

But you're better now. The pain may flare up, though it's minimal compared to the company of your nurse—boyfriend who's just happy to be at your side.

Satoru settles on the bed, kissing your forehead. Long legs dig into your blanket, falling at his ankles as he gets comfortable. With one long arm wrapped around you, the other stretches to your nightstand for the remote.

He’s already scrolling through Netflix, making a comment about binging something together.

“What’re you in the mood to watch?” He scrolls endlessly at titles until he stops at your ‘continue watching’ list. “Oh, you’ve been watching Bridgerton! Already on season two? Well, I haven’t seen any of it yet, let’s start from the beginning.”

The show plays, Satoru rambles at something every few minutes (“Look at that dress she’s wearing. You’d look really good in it”). It’s a sudden contrast to the last few days you had, alone and miserable.

Satoru’s intentions are always good, golden even, and no matter how much you try to put on a front that you’re okay on your own and can heal fine in solitude (in peace), it’s an odd blessing that Satoru refused to leave you alone.

You snuggle closer to his side, hooking arm across his chest, and as always, he pulls you even closer. While your words remain lost, Satoru hears you through your silent gesture.

“I love you too.”

#gojo x reader #gojo satoru x reader #satoru x reader #satoru gojo x reader #jjk x reader #gojo x you #gojo saturo x you #gojo satoru #satoru gojo #jujutsu kaisen #jjk fanfiction #mochi-writings #gojo fluff

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vellicore · 10 months

Text

FAVORITE PLACES

Various characters and their favorite places to have sex.

Warnings: public sex, shower sex, car sex, voyeurism, exhibitionism, cum kink, basically this is all filth.

A/N: Please do not report this! It's so frustrating to have things reported. If I missed any warnings you feel should be listed, please let me know. Gifs made by me. I know I didn't list all of Seb's characters, but I did some of my favorites.

𝐁𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐲 𝐁𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐬 - After being denied pleasure for many years, Bucky is desperate. He’s more than happy to have sex any place at any time. Out to dinner with friends? He doesn’t care, he’ll gladly take you in the bathroom of the restaurant. Heading to a mission? No better place than the back of the jet. He even took you in the laundry room of your parent’s house. The man is insatiable.

𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐁𝐚𝐢𝐳𝐞𝐧- Carter loves the thrill of making you cum while riding the elevator. It all started when the two of you got stuck on one. He knew he needed to distract you somehow. What better way than having you cum on his cock? Now, whenever you two ride one together, he considers it a challenge to see just how fast he can make you cum.

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐁𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐰𝐨𝐨𝐝 - Charles loves to take you apart in the back seat of his red convertible. He gets even more excited when you let him keep the top down. It’s almost like he’s determined to get caught. He craves the sound of your moans and screams. Let the townspeople hear you while his tongue is buried deep into your soaked pussy.

𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐓𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫 - The gym, of course. Lance loves to use the different gymnastics equipment to his advantage. You'd never considered yourself to be flexible. That is, until Lance came along. He causes you to bend and stretch in ways you didn't even know was possible. Whether it's bending you over the pommel horse or having you ride him on top of the mats, he always manages to give you a solid workout.

𝐋𝐞𝐞 𝐁𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫 - Lee loves to fuck you at the station. It all started when he spotted two of his deputies staring at your ass. That afternoon he made sure they all knew who you belonged to. He bent you over his desk and pounded into you until you were screaming his name. Now anytime you bring his lunch (which happens frequently). Everyone in the station knows what’s about to happen. Lee can't help but feel smug as you walk out of his office with his cum running down your thighs.

𝐌𝐚𝐱 𝐁𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐭𝐭 - Max craves the riches in life. He lives for the thrill. He loves to have sex in your current mark's house. Once, you were conning a millionaire. Max fucked you up against the window of the man's penthouse. He always finds a way to be a part of the con. Whether it's posing as your best friend, brother, or coworker. He doesn't care. As long he finds a way to have you.

𝐌𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐲 𝐇𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐲 - Mickey loves to fool around inside his DJ booth. Once the club was so dark, he was able to fuck you without anyone noticing. He's constantly looking for opportunities to make it happen again. But most of the time, the two of you are only able to manage to sneak in a blow job or some fingering. It doesn't matter though, because the set is over. He'll find a place so he can be buried deep inside your pussy.

𝐍𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐅𝐨𝐰𝐥𝐞𝐫- Nick loves to take you apart in the shower. There's just something about the way the water trickles down your breasts that makes him feral. He loves the way you look with your hair soaked and the blissed-out expression on your face. Whether it's first thing in the morning or ending a long day. Nothing relaxes Nick more than a shower with you.

𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐊𝐞𝐦𝐩 - Steve never expected to be able to fuck you once he put you in his basement. No, he thought once you found out the truth of everything, you’d want nothing to do with him. But that wasn’t the case at all. He quickly realizes you're just as twisted as he is. So, that's why he loves to fuck you while you're locked away. Knowing that his other victims are listening only causes him to want this more.

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delulujuls · 5 months

Text

emotional support rivals | ls18, sp11

hi! i dont know how to comment on this one, basically i thought that i would try to tame sergio and lance a bit because i know that some people may not like them as much. but they did pretty well here!

anyway, enjoy!

summary: reader is having the worst day of her life aka first day of her period, lance and sergio dont know how to act but they tryna be supportive

warnings: none i think

pairing: lance stroll x fem!mclarendriver x sergio perez

This day was terrible. And that was it.

But you might ask, how could a day be terrible when it hadn't even had a chance to start? Y/N just felt in her bones that this would be the case. She also knew her current schedule of duties, which considering the current jetlag that weighed heavily on her mind, added quite a bit to her already full plate.

Of course, days like these were allowed to exist; balance in life was the norm. Nevertheless, Y/N fervently wished for this one to, as soon as possible, come to an end.

Unfortunately, a quick end was out of the question, as her alarm had just rung. She struggled to open her sleepy eyes and saw the gloomy 6:30 on her phone's display.

She sighed and sat up in bed, feeling an unpleasant sensation in her stomach. She was familiar with this feeling and it signaled one thing and one thing only.

"Oh no, it can't be."

Y/N muttered under her breath and quickly reached for her phone, opening one of the apps. The notification confirmed her worst fear. "Your period may start today!"

"Fantastic, just fucking fantastic."

In a already bad mood, she tossed her phone into the pillows and got up with a symphony of groans, sighs and curses. As soon as she got out of bed she checked the sheets but the snowy white fabric assured her that today would be a one big roulette of waiting for her period to start.

When she showered and got ready to leave, she also packed her emergency kit for days like this. She had to use it partially though, because the pain in her stomach was simply unbearable. And it wasn't the typical stomach ache that everyone thinks of when they hear 'oh no, my stomach hurts' but this stomach pain was the Lance Stroll of all stomach pains. It doesn't seem to hurt too much, but it spoils your whole mood with its terrible nature.

Since talking about Stroll, it happened like that she still had practice laps that day, which she failed to pass while everyone else did. As it turned out, the same task was waiting for Lance, because in the cafeteria, apart from the busy employees, there was him. And that damn Mexican, too.

"What time are you supposed to be on the track?"

Checo asked from behind her when she was grabbing breakfast from one of the swedish tables.

"What happened to 'hi, good morning'? 'Buenos dias,' at least?"

She muttered, pouring syrup on her pancakes.

"Normally you don't talk to me, so I figured there's no point in trying."

He replied, somewhat thrown off by her response.

"Hello Sergio, nice to see you too and yes, it just happens that we're stuck with each other today. I'm on at 10am, you're ahead of me at 9, and that Aston idiot is at 11."

Y/N said sarcastically, putting on the nicest tone she could muster.

Sergio didn't know how to respond, so when she turned to leave for her table, he simply stepped out of her way.

Lance ate in silence, observing the scene quietly. He was watching the McLaren sun, today completely covered by stormy clouds, going away and sitting alone. Inadvertently his gaze met with Checo, who just shook his head and returned to choosing his breakfast.

Y/N sighed heavily, sitting at one of the empty seats. She ate absentmindedly, not used to the absence of Oscar and Lando. They had different things to attend to that day, so it wasn't unlikely that they wouldn't even cross paths. Maybe it was even better for them; each of them would probably receive a monthly dose of sulking. The charms of being the only girl in the company could be really tough at times.

And it's not that Y/N was a pain in the ass only for Oscar and Lando. She got along well with most people she interacted with daily. A few times she even went out with other girls; she wasn't limiting herself to the company of guys only. Unfortunately, Oscar and Lando had happened to take a particular liking to each other, which made the trio basically unseparable.

There were people with whom she didn't have frequent contact, or with whom she only exchanged smiles in passing but she had never had the chance to exchange a word.

It's also known that in life you can't be liked by everyone and not everyone can be liked by you. In this case, there was no magical exception. It just so happened that she would spend today in the company of those people who sat at the other end of the cafeteria, occasionally throwing her stolen glances.

After finishing her meal, the girl got down to her duties, wanting to bring this day to an end as quickly as possible. At the appointed time, she appeared on the track, quickly changing into her racing suit. She put on her helmet and after a brief discussion of notes, she sat in the car. That's when she felt that something was wrong. The worst-case scenario flashed before her eyes.

"Can I quickly go to the bathroom?"

She asked, looking at the technician nearest to her.

"We're a bit behind schedule. Can it wait?"

Y/N resignedly nodded. She knew there was nothing left to salvage.

She adjusted her straps and when she got the signal to leave the garage, she drove outside and headed straight for the track. After the radio test and receiving permission to start, she clenched her fists and roared the engine.

She was angry and as it's known, there's nothing worse than a female rage.

She was angry at this day, at herself, at this damn car. She was angry at the bloodstain on her damn orange suit, even though she hadn't seen it yet.

She was so hormonal that if it weren't for the helmet restricting her movements, she would have screamed at the top of her lungs.

However, female anger was priceless.

"Best lap time, I repeat, best lap time."

She tightened her grip on the steering wheel, not responding to the message.

In moments like this, she didn't care about anything. And it's pretty well known that a person who doesn't care has nothing to lose.

When the session ended and she received the message that she could pull into the pit lane, she complied. Mechanics rolled her into the garage and only then did it dawn on her that her hands were still clenched on the steering wheel. When she managed to free herself from the car, she immediately checked her seat. She cursed under her breath and took off her helmet, placing it aside. Quickly grabbing the nearest rag, she began to wipe away the stain of shame on her seat. The technician, whom she asked about going to the bathroom before the start, when he realized what had happened and what she was doing, just gave her an apologetic look.

She unzipped her suit and slid its top off, covering the stain on her backside. Zac wanted to congratulate her on the result and discuss the outcomes, but she apologized and grabbed her emergency kit, heading straight to the bathroom. She changed into her unstained clothes, guarded against another unpleasant surprise and bundled up the suit, muttering under her breath that a visit to the laundry awaited her later that day.

When she returned to the McLaren garage, Zac, upon seeing her, immediately smiled.

"Young lady, you charmed us today! You literally flew in that car!"

"I guess that's good, I think."

The girl replied, mustering a smile as she glanced at the monitors in front of her.

"Good? It's brilliant!"

Zac replied with a smile and checked his notes.

"After checking the car, I would ask you to put on your suit again for a moment because we need to do a few more laps on different tires."

"I thought that was it for today."

Y/N replied, looking at him.

"Now, you were driving on mediums; it would be good to know what time you can achieve on the hard compound."

The girl tightened her suit under her armpit.

"But—"

She started, but it felt silly, so she lowered her voice and approached him, "My suit is not suitable."

"How so? What happened?"

He frowned and looked at the bundle she was holding.

"I won't be able to drive in it anymore today."

Zac looked confused, so she just said "period" without using any words. He quickly understood and immediately nodded his head.

"Ask someone if we have another suit in stock. It would mean a lot to me if we could finish these tests today."

Y/N nodded and walked away, sighing heavily when she was out of his reach. However, as it turned out, racing suits are not as straightforward as one might think and the only McLaren suit in this garage was hers—rolled up into a ball of shame and unfit for use. One of the women upon hearing her situation only gave her a comforting hug and suggested borrowing a suit from Sergio or Lance, taking advantage of the fact that they were only drivers nearby. The situation was exceptional and it was all about internal measurements.

Disheartened by the fact that she would be forced to confront the men, she left the garage and looked around. Checo and Lance were sitting nearby, chatting in front of the Aston Martin garage. Y/N gathered herself and approached them, causing them to immediately pause their conversation.

"Can I borrow a suit from either of you?"

"You drive for McLaren, not for Aston or Red Bull."

Sergio said, taking a sip from his bottle. The girl involuntarily clenched her fists. Be professional, she thought and took a deep breath.

"If I didn't have to, I wouldn't ask. I need a suit; mine... is not suitable for driving."

"What happened?"

Lance asked, glancing at her. His expression lacked the hint of malice that Sergio currently possessed.

"I just need one; is that not enough?"

"Give a good reason and I might even give you mine."

Pérez said, crossing his arms.

"I just got my period which means my suit is having a fucking bloodstain on my ass and even though I feel like they're cutting me in half completely alive I have to do some extra laps because this fucking fat idiot didn't think about pitstop to change my tyres and let me go straight to the track" Y/N she spoke quietly and calmly, but her voice was dripping with fury "So do me the pleasure and let one of you give me your overalls before something hits me, for fucks sake."

Lance and Sergio stood still. Sergio's face lost its fierce expression and Lance suddenly realized that he had started holding his breath out of stress.

"I'll give you mine, no problem."

Stroll spoke up, starting to unzip his suit.

"Yours is light, you idiot; if something happens again, everything will be visible."

Pérez scolded him and turned his gaze back to the girl.

"Wait a moment; I'll bring you mine right away."

Y/N nodded and watched him leave.

"Do you feel very bad?"

Lance asked, looking at her. He couldn't wrap his head around how the girl standing in front of him, bleeding and all, could endure such a great strain and still set the best lap time.

"It's been better."

She sighed.

Lance, not knowing exactly what to do or how to help, reached out his hand with a bottle in it. Y/N looked at the bottle first and then at his face. Seeing that he was genuinely concerned, she whispered a quiet 'thanks' and took the water from him.

Sergio returned shortly after, handing her his suit.

"I hope it'll fit well for you."

The girl handed back Lance his water and thanked Pérez as well.

"Good luck, tigresa."

Y/N nodded at them one last time and returned to the garage, changing into the borrowed suit and taking her place in the car again.

As she sat there, waiting for permission to leave the pit lane, she noticed that she wasn't angry anymore, at least not as much as she was some time ago. When she drove out and headed towards the track, she passed Lance and Sergio once again, who were giving her thumbs up.

For the first time that day Y/N genuinely smiled and who would have thought it would be thanks to her rivals, who had now become her emotional support ones?

#f1 imagines #f1 one shot #f1 #formula 1 #f1 oneshots #f1 imagine #lance stroll x reader #sergio perez x reader #sp11 #ls18

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f1version · 2 months

Note

Congratulations! Your works are amazing! You totally deserved this. Can i please request a headcannons about a secret reliationship between mick schumacher and a female driver?

KISSING IN SECRET ★ MSC47

pairing: mick schumacher x merc driver!reader ( she/her ) word count: 1679 warnings: mentions of misogyny !!!

2k celebration ★ general masterlist

Love comes easy to you and Mick—friends for too long, eager to make up for the time lost. What’s hard is the nature of your relationship; secrecy protecting your peace.

It begins at a pub in Austin, 2021. You were celebrating your first win for Mercedes, and even though his result was far from good, Mick decided to tag along. Then, all it took was a couple of shots, a bit of dancing, and a lonely corner to blur the lines of friendship and fall on each other’s lips.

A week of tension, anxiety, and avoidance later, you were falling asleep in his arms, heavy breathing and soft touches all over your body.

Now your life is based on clandestine meetings, brushing fingers or stolen kisses, and a well put illusion of friendship.

And no one ever thought much about your closeness, not until Mick moved to Mercedes in 2023.

When people saw Mercedes’ star driver sharing so closely with the new guy—one whose performance didn’t leave people’s mouths,—they prayed for a big story. By the time Australia rolled by, the PR team requested distance while the cameras were on.

And it wasn't as if these types of requests were foreign to you; misogyny was a thing after all, but you were never in love with George, or Lewis, or Alex, or Lance, or anyone but Mick. It was frustrating, but it didn't change a lot of things—especially because Mick was a reserve driver.

Of course, the topic would make it into your conversations:

“Do you think it would be a disaster? I mean going public.” Mick asked almost out of nowhere. You were lying on his chest, freshly showered after a disappointing Austrian GP. “Maybe. It will most likely follow us forever.” You said, and he sighed, “Do you think the team would be okay with it?” “I think they care about us enough.”

There were stories about this. Drivers within the same teams having such a strong relationship (let it be romantic or platonic, who knows) that they destroy not only their’s but the team’s trust.

Both of you believe Lewis knows. Your only evidence being the small pep talk he gave you moments before his last race in the sport, in 2022. Something about being selfish, about how this sport will always judge, so you might as well take what you want.

You wanted everything. To be selfish, to take your time, to figure everything out first, but also to just be reckless. You didn’t tell him that; you just expressed your gratitude.

The European arm makes it a bit easier. Motorhomes are used, and hotel rooms become unnecessary. It’s as simple as walking into a room and not caring about avoiding people in the hallway; your only excuse is your well-known friendship.

You love spending nights laughing, kissing, crying, and everything in between.

You were reckless, and learned to be as careful as you needed after the George incident™

It happened in Belgium; the race and debrief ending hours ago. You were in your room, boyfriend sneaking in to talk about the race, which ended in a very lovely make-out session. And that’s when (clueless) George decided to knock on your door.

Mick ran to your closet, making a mess of your race suits to be able to close the door. You, absolutely terrified of the Paddock’s Gossip Girl, threw a blanket over your body, taking a deep breath before facing George’s comments of: “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” and “Also hit by a truck,” and “Need help with the suits?”

You rolled your eyes and had him complain about the car with you for forty-seven minutes. Mick could barely feel his legs after that one.

At some point, the team starts talking. More about Mick having a crush than anything—especially since he doesn't deny it. But it’s mostly a joke; no one takes it too seriously until that teasing reaches Toto’s ears.

For a second, you were ready to be called to his office and hear him talk about how he supported whoever you chose to love, but that if someone or something was making you uncomfortable, you must tell him.

You had always been grateful for those talks. In the end, you knew they were there because of how ruthless the media had been in 2020, after your first dating rumors with a driver—with George, out of all people, your teammate then and your teammate now. George who had (and has) a girlfriend. It had been an awful sophomore season, to say the least.

This was different, though. This was not the media making up things; this was his own team talking about his reserve driver having a crush on his driver. This could be a different story.

Here’s the thing: You had never heard the teasing in person, you knew of it because of Mick. You spent nights laughing at it together, making up responses he could give to hard launch your relationship. They never got out of the coziness of your bed, but it was fun.

That particular day wasn’t Mick gossiping, that day you were there, and it caught you off guard. A good off-guard, you were ready to laugh it off.

But Toto was also there, mistaking your surprise for discomfort. And so you weren’t called to his office, you stood next to him during a 20-minute talk on professionalism, respect, and boundaries.

You were grateful, not knowing where that joke could end up… But still, you and Mick laughed the whole night.

Also, I would be lying if I said it didn’t set off an alarm, bringing to the table a thought you had been trying to avoid: the consequences of public. The need for security.

Consequences mean a lot to people, especially in your sport. A driver’s health could be destroyed by not acknowledging them after all.

For you, consequences meant having the media hang on to it forever to diminish your work. It means being called names, be harassed by fans. Means being accused of taking advantage of your power. It could even mean closing doors to other female drivers because misogyny is a thing.

For Mick, it means another reason for his place in Mercedes to be questioned. “Who knows how long they have been dating?” “She and his last name gave him a place.” It means being portrayed as an exploiter, his relationship reduced to an unethical plan to get back on track. Means being praised at your expense.

But there are pros. There’s a necessity to continue changing people’s minds, to be happy, selfish, and own it.

Summer break gets in the way of those conversations though...

Breaks are your favorite part of the year (as a couple). You either stay in Switzerland or avoid the so-called “hard launch islands,” where drivers pretend obliviousness towards snapping pictures of them and their partners.

(Sebastian Vettel gave it the name by the way)

“What if we soft launch?” You asked one morning, scrolling through Pinterest and looking at all the ways a soft launch could happen. Mick choked on his drink, coughing a bit before answering, “I’m so sorry, babe, but what?” “Hear me out! We can have people know we are in a relationship, but they don't have to know it’s us yet. It can be a years-long soft launch if we want.”

Mick stared at you for a whole minute, smirk following it. He thought it was brilliant, laughing while trying to properly kiss you.

“We have to tell PR, tho.”

Two weeks later, you called on a meeting with PR, lawyers, and Toto, they had no idea what would be discussed.

Toto's eyes went wide as he saw you and Mick enter the room together, and everyone followed his motion after you briefly explained the situation.

Your PR manager spoke first, “I won't lie and tell you it’s going to be easy; both of you understand how cruel the media is, but I also don’t think it will be as hard as we imagine... if you go public, of course.”

Then Toto started talking about how, to some extent, he understood your worries. How “People will talk sh*t all the time; you need to unconditionally support each other so it doesn’t kill you.” He gave the support talk and visited a couple of logistical questions.

Five days later, Mick had soft-launched his girlfriend, and five weeks after that, you had a boyfriend.

Eventually, you told some friends (those who didn’t know already.)

George was 100% not surprised. He grins and shouts, "Knew it!” and suggests a double date with him and Carmen. (To that plan, other couples are added—Alex, Lance, Esteban, etc.)

It turns out, with the help of your team and the correct people, everything becomes easier. From interacting in front of the cameras to booking rooms.

One of your favorite things is the teasing your friends/colleagues give Mick after you score a podium. He starts giggling and muttering about how proud he is of you, cheeks turning pink and eyes unable to leave you.

Mick loves sitting next to you during debriefing, letting you play with his hand under the table when anxiety strikes.

It feels good. Not to be so secret around the paddock.

“You know I love you, right?” “Yeah, but I love you more.” “Okay, competitive!”

Sometimes you want everyone to know. Surprise the world with Mick being the guy on your Instagram, and Mick feeling the need to shout in everyone’s faces that his girlfriend wasn't the model they speculated to be.

The third year of your relationship, 2024, is the hardest. There are eyes on you all season, commentary becomes stronger as you fight with Max on track, and so rumors of your relationship with Mick arise.

Mick hates everything being said about you and eventually can’t hold back the need to be loud about it. And so do you.

Both of you want to be selfish. Take whatever you want out of this sport. Who cares what people say.

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thisismeracing · 9 months

Note

Congratulations on 1k <3

Mick + drunk + fluff

Drunk | MS47

⸺ the one where your favorite driver drunkenly confesses his love to you. ✓ mentions of alcohol and food.

⁕ one word, a thousand stories blurb night (CLOSED) ⁕ my masterlist and my taglist

Mick was usually a very composed guy. He was often the designated driver whenever their friends decided to party, and when he wasn't, he still wouldn't get hammered. That's why Yn was so confused when she opened her door only to find her friend and, at some point, a coworker barely standing in front of her house.

"Mick?" she asked, confusion written all over her face.

"Hi, Yn. Wie gehts?" he slurred, starting to use his native language, and Yn frowned even deeper.

"I'm ok, I guess. You...not so much eh?"

She took a step back and motioned for him to get in, which he did stumbling inside and leaving his shoes at the entrance.

"How'd you get here?"

"So many questions," he mumbled jokingly rolling his eyes, or trying to because he was so drunk Yn swore that wasn't a proper eye roll. "I ubered here, or someone did... I dunno."

Yn took a deep breath and went to her kitchen to get the kettle ready. He would need the strongest cup of coffee and the coldest bath, and she would give it to him because if the roles were reversed Mick would sure take care of her, no questions asked.

"Wait, don't leave me alone, Yn." He stepped into the kitchen behind her and almost fell trying to sit on one of her stools.

"I had no idea you were this needy when drunk," Yn joked and Mick didn't answer. His hands were on the marble counter and he was watching with lazy eyes her every move.

They met when Mick started in F1. Yn worked with Mercedes and was close friends with Esteban, so it wasn't a surprise when they hit it off from the start. Once Mick went to Mercedes, they became even closer, and what used to be platonic, started having its own space in Yn's heart. She was in love with Mick.

What she didn't know at the time was that Mick was in love with her too.

"I had to talk to you."

"And it couldn't wait until you were sober?" she quipped.

"No, I'm terrified I'm-" Yn's coffee machine started its crazy noise swallowing what Mick was about to confess.

He directed his blue eyes to his palm, and he could almost hear a small and sober part of himself screaming that this was not a good idea, that she probably wouldn't be into him that way.

"Let's go, you're getting into the shower. I think I have a sweatpant that's going to fit you just right," she clicked something on the machine and started walking to the corridor.

Mick followed her in his drunk haze, just like he would follow her sober. Lance even joked once about how he looked like a found lost puppy while trailing behind Yn in the paddock.

"Can you hold yourself? Shower without falling in my bathroom or destroying it?"

"Of course!" His offended face made Yn chuckle.

When she reached the door, ready to leave him be, Mick's muffled voice called for her.

"I can shower, but I think I'll need some help with this shirt..." and sure enough Yn turned around to see Mick's torso on display while his head was stuck on his shirt.

Yn's laughter boomed around the walls of the bathroom, and she could almost hear Mick doing the same and being interrupted by a hiccup. She reached for the shirt and detangled him before quickly turning around and leaving, trying to ignore how intimate it felt to take care of him in such a vulnerable state.

While Mick showered to sober up, Yn got him coffee, some crackers, and hungover pills for he would definitely wake up with his head pounding the next morning.

When she walked into the room, he was sitting at the edge of the bed, a towel on his broad shoulders and some droplets of water running from his back to his waist, stopping at the waistband of the sweatpants he was wearing.

"Gotcha some food and coffee to help you sober up, are you feeling any better?" Yn asked, settling the tray on her nightstand.

"I love you," he whispered, and she was thankful her hands were free because otherwise, she would have dropped everything on her bedroom floor.

And, of course, part of her tried to tell her that it was the kind of 'I love you' you tell your best friend, but the second their eyes met Yn knew exactly what kind of confession that was.

"You're drunk, Mick..."

"I'm in love with you, Yn." He started again. "I have been since my first year in the grid, and I'm sorry I'm saying it like this, but-" he hiccups interrupting his own rambling, and then they're both laughing.

There's some kind of relief in finally sharing the truth, letting it free to go around.

"We'll talk about it in the morning, ok?"

"But...do you love me back? You don't even have to love me, you can just like me, do you like me back? I- I've never done this before, how does one ask if the other is in love too, but without sounding like a fool? Or is it just because I'm still a bit drunk?"

Yn giggled, rolling her eyes and carding her fingers to his blonde mop of hair that was still damp from the cold shower. She dipped down and kissed his forehead, and Mick closed his eyes enjoying the caress of her lips on his skin.

"I'm in love with you too, your dork."

"Can you kiss me?"

"We're not having our first kiss with you drunk," she shook her head.

"Oh- Scheiße!- that's actually true! Mhm but wait," Mick holds his pointer finger up as if he's about to state something, and Yn takes a step back to watch him attentively. "I just crashed your cozy Friday night at home- do you still love me? After taking care of me drunk? After I put you through all this trouble?"

Yn rolled her eyes, kissed the tip of his nose, and added, "Yes, Mick Schumacher, I still love you."

"Even after I accidentally dropped and spilled half of your shampoo on the bathroom floor?"

"Ye- Wait WHAT?"

― ⋆🪩 VOICEMAIL: That was a bit longer than I anticipated lol 1k words, but I hope you guys like it!! yay *forehead kiss* Don't forget to like and reblog this piece!

#ms47 #requests #op: blurbs #one word a thousand stories blurb night #mick schumacher imagines #mick schumacher #mick schumacher x reader #mick schumacher fluff #mick schumacher imagine #f1 fandom #f1 x reader #f1 fanfic #f1 imagines #millie writes

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dilemmaontwolegs · 4 months

Text

Not A Verstappen: Lights Out {4}

Pairing: Charles Leclerc x fem!driver!reader x Lando Norris Summary: The triple header is turbulent with some serious bad luck hitting your Monégasque man. Warnings: 18+ only, nsfw, fluff, angst, smut WC: 3k F1 Masterlist NAV: Sibling Rivalry One || Two || Three NAV: Gridlocked One || Two || Three || Four || Five || Six || Seven || Eight || Nine NAV: A New World One || Two || Three || Four || Five || Six || Seven || Eight || Nine || Ten NAV: Lights Out One || Two || Three || Four || Five

The Triple Header - Austin

Between the distraction of Lando and Charles arriving together, and Daniel making his grand return for Alpha Tauri, you were able to sneak into the paddock through the secondary staff entrance. You were sweating beneath the hoodie that swamped you but as soon as you were in the McLaren garage you took it off.

“This feels weird,” you murmured as you watched Lando get into his racing gear.

“It will probably take a while to get used to,” he said, kissing you as he reached for his balaclava. “But you heard what the doctors said, it’s a miracle we didn’t lose her with what happened. You know how hard the races are on our bodies.”

“I understand that, but it still feels weird. I don’t like missing out on things.” You sighed and opened the door for Jon who was waiting for Lando to start his warm up. “I’m going to check in on Charles. I love you.”

“Love you too.”

Though you could hide in Charles’ garage for the race there was nowhere to hide when Lando pulled into the third place parking spot. There was nothing that was going to stop you from waiting with the rest of his team and between your mother and his father, they kept you safe from the jostling engineers eager to clap their driver on the back.

Everything seemed to be going great and you had avoided all the media crews wanting to get a statement. You had to admit it was satisfying to watch Aston Martin struggle to pull 9th place for Lance and a DNF for Fernando so it was a good thing a microphone didn’t come close to you.

Everything was going great as you and Charles watched Lando take the podium before they both went to shower and change. Unfortunately word came that there had been two disqualifications. Charles seemed to have a sixth sense when bad news was coming and his smile dimmed before his engineer even relayed the information. Charles and Lewis were both disqualified.

Sinking into the couch in Lando’s room, he hung his head in his hands and sighed. The sound made your heart ache and you could feel all the pressure he was under in that heavy exhale. He was already concerned about how his points compared to his teammates but this would make the gap even closer and add to that worry.

“I’m sorry, babe,” you said as you sat beside him, lacing your fingers with his while Lando took his other hand.

“This sucks,” he groaned before looking at Lando. “At least you’re second place now.”

“Suppose,” he murmured. “Doesn’t feel like I earned it though.”

“You don’t know how much Lewis’ car could have been affected by the worn plank, it might have been a matter of tenths off the second without the proper weight,” you reminded him before biting your lip and looking at Charles. “No offence. It wasn’t your fault anyway, you’re the driver, it’s your mechanics who should be checking that the car meets the regs.”

“I know,” he murmured as rose to his feet. “I’m going to the pit then I’ll head back to the hotel.”

Lando had more media duties expected of him and he nodded his head towards Charles’s back. “Go with him, love, I’ll catch up after.”

You hung back in the shadows while Charles gave a statement in the media pit. You could feel the disappointment in his words but he tried to be positive for his fans and you knew he was a better person than you, because there was no way you could have praised your team in that moment like he did.

Thinking about your team, you looked over to Fernando who was able to smile despite his DNF. He was just happy to be back in a race car after finding his brief retirement too boring for his liking. Unfortunately the two disqualifications had bumped Lance up higher in the points and he spotted you watching their interview, sending you a cocky smile that had your fist closing.

“Ready to go?” Charles asked as he was finally free of his duty.

You tore your eyes away from the green uniform across the pit and nodded, grateful for the distraction. “Yeah, glad to go.”

Charles sighed and kissed your forehead as he draped an arm over your shoulder and led the way to the exit. “Me too, mon amour.”

The Triple Header - Mexico

“You look like you could do with a drink,” Lewis said as he joined you on the balcony above the pitland and offered a glass of amber liquid. “Don’t worry, it’s non-alcoholic tequila. It’s the first batch, reserved for special occasions only.”

You took the glass with a small smile. “Thanks, Lewis.”

“Congrats, by the way,” he whispered.

Your eyes widened in surprise and you almost choked on the smooth drink you had sipped. “For what?” you tried to play off the shock with coyness.

Lewis shrugged and looked down at Charles pacing in the pit lane. The two drivers had bonded over their DQ and it was Lewis who had been able to talk Charles into going out to celebrate Lando’s second place in Austin last week.

“They aren’t exactly the best at keeping secrets,” he chuckled, turning around to rest his elbows against the rail. “Especially once they’ve had a few drinks.”

“Trust me, I know. It’s only a matter of time until everyone else does too.” You swirled the liquid around the glass, amazed at how much it tasted and looked like the real thing. “I just want to enjoy the little bit of privacy we get for as long as possible.” Lewis coughed a laugh and you rolled your eyes. “I know it’s impossible, but I’m still going to try. ”

“I wish you all the luck in the world, honestly,” he said with a sincere smile. “And if you want any more ‘tequila’ to keep up the ruse, let me know.”

“Thanks.” You smiled at the offer as he pushed off from the rail and made his way down to Mercedes for the race. You felt the cameras on you and couldn’t help raising the glass to them before swallowing the last mouthful. Rumours had been swirling around social media since Fernando replaced you, but that photograph should at least put the brakes on the pregnancy rumours - even if they were true.

“Aren’t you meant to be keeping a low profile?” Lando asked when you stepped into the garage. He nodded his head to the footage of the pit lane on F1 TV and cocked a brow at the shot you took.

“Relax, it’s Lewis’ Agave. It’s really nice too,” you said as you velcroed his collar into place. “It was a gift, along with his congratulations.”

Lando took your hands and held them against his chest. “I’m sorry, it just slipped out.”

“Mhmm, I’ve heard that a few times now,” you chuckled. “I’ll see you after the race, be safe.”

“Always,” he promised, letting you go so you could speak to Charles before he disappeared into the grid.

Your throat was hoarse by the time the race finished and you hardly looked ladylike like the other WAGs when you celebrated Charles’ third place on the podium. It felt like it had been too long since he last stood up there with Max and you were ecstatic for him after the fight he put up.

“I’m so proud of you,” you gushed as you sat on Charles’ lap in the bar. The atmosphere was charged with excitement and you could see Lando and Max were well on their way to being drunk but Charles was happier to take it slow with a few beers. “You do realise you have a permanent sober driver for the next six months, you can drink, babe.”

“I know,” Charles chuckled as he watched Lando dance wildly. “But I am happy like this, seeing you and Lando happy.”

“Of course I am happy, I have you and him, and little bean, and Fernando DNF’d…”

You both watched Lando for a few minutes before Max clamped a hand over his mouth and started to drag him towards the booth you had taken. “Shhh, stop telling people. Ow, did you just bite me?” Max stared at his palm and saw the teeth marks in his skin.

“Mon cher, ça va?”

“I’m fine,” Lando grinned as he unbuttoned one of the few remaining ones on his shirt, baring even more skin that was flushed with colour. “I’m fucking amazing.”

“He was about to tell the whole club about your little surprise,” Max explained as he shook his sore hand out.

“I hate keeping secrets,” he whined as he shuffled across the booth and under Charles’ arm. You combed your fingers through his damp hair and he pulled your legs over his lap as he snuggled closer. “I just want to scream it to the world.”

“I know you do, mon cher, but not yet. Just a few more weeks and the season is over,” Charles reassured him. “It’s safer this way, you know how crazy it can get with fans.”

He sighed and dropped his head into nook between your neck and Charles, mumbling his agreement but that it still sucked. His racing heart slowed with the hand running calmingly up and down his spine and he eventually looked up with sleepy eyes. “Can we go? My tummy hurts.”

Charles smiled softly and nodded. “I think your head is going to hurt more in the morning.”

The Triple Header - Brazil

One week's good luck was all Charles was given. It was almost as if he was too happy and the universe needed to balance that happiness out. Starting from pole should have given him the best possible chance of holding the lead but then he disappeared from your view on the formation lap. One moment he was in the camera’s view as it panned around the corner and then he was gone, even the cameraman looked confused as he searched for the bright red Ferrari.

“Why the fuck am I so unlucky?!”

The voice in your headset was absolutely broken and the cameraman finally found Charles crashed out - yellow flags flying before the race even began. You only listened long enough to hear that Charles was uninjured before you left the Ferrari garage that you had been watching from.

The back paths were empty with the race gearing up to start without Charles so it was easy to break into a jog. You met him halfway around the track, his helmet still adorning his head that was bent down. He didn’t notice you at first, walking straight past you as he continued his walk of shame back to the pit lane. When you fell into step beside him he almost growled thinking you were a marshal trying to kick up a conversation to get an autograph.

He stumbled to a stop when he saw your face in the narrow slit of his visor. “Amour, what are you doing here?”

You reached for the buckle under the helmet and pulled it over his head, tucking it under your arm while he tugged the balaclava off his face. “I thought you might want some company.”

The whine of the engines spurring their cars off the starting line had Charles flinching and you cradled his face in your palms. “I’m sorry, baby.”

“Not your fault the car is a piece of shit,” he murmured as he closed his eyes and rested his forehead against yours until the cars had passed. “We should get back, the team will be wanting a debrief.”

“No, fuck the team. What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know, find a priest?”

You chuckled at the seriousness in his tone and shook your head. “I don’t think god has that power. He might have turned water into wine but turning your tractor into a race car might be beyond his capabilities.”

Charles snorted a laugh, taking his helmet back with one hand and holding your hand in the other. “Fine, let’s hope our man has better luck then.”

It was easier to dodge the few fans around the obscure ends of the track but Charles still chose to traipse through the trees instead of the footpath. He wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone and you respected that as you walked quietly beside him, catching glimpses of the red flags through the mesh fence until you got back to the garages and saw the carnage that had opened the race.

“Where did you want to watch from?”

He looked down the pit lane where Redbull separated McLaren and Ferrari. He was torn between loyalties and your heart ached for him before you made the choice that would hurt least.

“Come on, there’s spare clothes in Lando’s room.”

He kept his head down as you led him into the back of the McLaren motorhome, waving off anyone who attempted to approach him. “It will take a while for them to clean up the mess on the track. Why don’t you shower and change before we go back?”

Charles nodded sullenly while you locked the door to Lando’s driver room but he made no attempt to undress as he stood looking lost and broken. He barely breathed as you dragged the zip down his body, pushing the suit over his shoulders before pulling his fireproof shirt off.

“I wish I knew the magic words to make you feel better,” you murmured as you kissed his collarbone. He hadn’t even started the race but the suits were so hot that his skin tasted salty on your lips. “But, I do know one way to distract you…”

His chest finally moved as your hands dragged the rest of his suit down his muscular legs and you dropped to your knees in front of him. Green eyes darkened as he watched you lick your palm before wrapping your fingers around his cock and stroking him to life. His lips parted when you moistened yours and sealing them around his tip and a soft moan filled the room.

The sounds slowly grew louder as you took him deeper in your mouth and you revelled in the sweet praise he gave. His large hand gripped the back of your head as he surrendered himself to the escape from reality that you offered and you moaned when his cock pulsed with his release. The taste of his come coated your tongue and you swallowed it down before licking your lips clean of the saliva that had run down them.

“Shit,” Charles groaned as the door handle rattled, but it was Lando’s voice on the other side and he relaxed at the sound.

Charles reluctantly stepped into the shower cubicle as you opened the door and Lando stole a kiss as a greeting when he entered. He hadn’t seen Charles but his eyes darted around the room as he tasted the lingering musky residue on your lips, pouting at missing out. “You started without me.”

“You still have a race,” Charles pointed out as he turned on the shower.

Lando’s lips turned down and he took a seat on the couch, pulling you onto his lap so you could both watch Charles shower through the glass window.

“He was rather miserable,” you whispered. “He can’t wait for the season to end.”

Lando could understand why. It was an odd position he found himself in because the more points he scored then the more stress was placed on Charles’ shoulders. It was a double edged sword that he hadn’t quite thought about when he envisioned dating a driver.

“I can’t blame him,” Lando muttered. “Just two more races. Hopefully his team manages to fix the car for them. It sucked seeing him spin off like that. I knew he was fine, but it still freaked me out.”

You saw his worry in the form of a frown and forgot that he had been behind the crash. “We have been lucky there hasn’t been any serious crashes this season,” you mused as you rubbed his frown away. “It was bad enough before, but now…” You placed a hand on your stomach and shook your head. “I never want to know that kind of worry.”

There weren’t any words of solace he could find without lying so instead he distracted you from the thoughts with a searing kiss. Soon Charles stepped out of the shower with a towel slung low on his hips and Lando debated staying longer, but he reluctantly shifted you to his side so he could stand.

“You can watch from upstairs if you want,” Lando offered Charles as he watched the water droplets run down his chest. “Or hide in here.”

Charles chuckled knowing ‘hide’ was absolutely a euphemism for what you would actually do. “We will watch you, mon cher,” he assured him with a kiss. “Go and fight Max for first.”

Lando grinned at the thought, loving the challenge that was unlikely but still something to aim for. “Will do, but it should have been you, love.”

Charles shrugged, feeling a little lighter after blowing off some steam and the shower. “It is what it is.”

You heard the announcement over the PA system and checked your watch to see how long there was until the restart time. “Go, your team will be waiting. I’ll take care of Charles.”

“Again?” Lando laughed as he stepped back to the door. “Give the man time to rejuice, baby.”

“Focus on the race,” you reminded him as you opened the door. “I’ll still be here when you finish and then you can think about my mouth all you want.”

You enjoyed the soft groan that clawed up his throat at the thought but you closed the door with a laugh before he could step back in. “Go. We love you!”

“Love you too,” he replied before testing the door handle one last time and finding it locked. “Fine, I’m going.”

Click here for next part.

#f1 fanfic #f1 imagine #charles leclerc fanfic #charles leclerc imagine #lando norris fanfic #lando norris imagine #lando norris x reader #charles leclerc x reader #formula one imagine #formula one fanfiction #formula 1 fanfic #f1 x reader

648 notes · View notes

mothmanavenue · 7 months

Text

In conjuntion with this art piece here

...

The war doesn’t end with a crash or a bang. Nothing explodes in a fiery shower the way he’d read about in books as a kid. There's no rocking of the ground as the world shifts under their feet, and a curling anxiety in his gut as he desperately reaches out in the link for a glimmer of one just one of his teammates, his family, his lover.

There’s just the dead drop of a falling lion as a ceasefire is called. It’s just the feeling of his fingers relaxing from a white knuckled grip on Red’s controls and his head falling back with a dull thud against the headrest of the pilot’s chair. It’s the unwinding of his spine as he slumps, all his strength and exhaustion collapsing in on him as he surrenders flight back to his lion, her battle roar softening to a gentle rumble in the back of his mind. It’s the gasps of relief and whispered gratitude of his family echoing in his ears, letting him know they’re safe, they’ve made it, it’s finally done.

Keith is completely unsurprised to note which one he prefers.

Red’s purr is a constant source of comfort in his mind as he curls his legs toward his chest, eyes squinted in lazy, bone deep weariness, brain barely processing Shiro and Allura from their respective command stations outlining the conditions of ceasefire. He can barely think about anything outside the cramping in his fingers and the bleariness of his eyes from entire successive days spent raising Voltron’s sword, pouring his energy and willpower into convincing the strongest weapons in the universe to bend to his will.

It’s ok if he misses something. The team will catch him up. They always have, when the tiredness consumes him, and he checks out of conversations and discussion, slumping against the nearest comforting shoulder.

Allura’s voice is as sharp and clear as the crown that adorns her head; the queen of Altea in all her glory commands her troops from the midst of battle. Keith’s attention had been laser focused on ensuring Voltron’s continued presence, but nothing in the world could keep him from watching for Allura’s flashing blue light as she approached Haggar, now withered and raging, and knelt in front of her. Keith missed what was said, the words exchanged. But he saw the tightening of his Queen, his sister’s, shoulders, and the hand wrapping tight around the witch’s neck.

It’s been a long eight days on this earth of his.

His brain clocks out in that moment, and he rides the warm haze he’s in, letting the satisfaction of success settle into his bones. It’s not time for celebration just yet. It will come later once the dead is counted and the shrouds are laid. Keith knows better than most the toll of war, and he dreads the time that will come when the lists of the dead will be handed to them, and he will need hours, days, weeks, to grieve people he did and didn’t know and names he’s cherished and ones he’s never heard, and each loss will still hit like a blow to the ribs. After that, the celebration will come. The ballrooms of the castle will glow with life and Hunk will dress in gold, Shiro’s white hair will gleam in the light, and Pidge will protest that she just won a war, she deserves a drink. Allura will stand regal at their side, and her shoulders will be light, free from the burden of an avenger, and she will turn to them with a gleaming grin and they won’t have any choice but to smile back at her.

And lance.

Lance will be so handsome in his blue suit, golden and silver threaded in painstaking embroidery in the bed of deep sky. His hair will fall loose and natural in his eyes, heavenly blues, and earthy brown under the string set of his eyebrows, and he’ll gleam like a freshly lit candle.

He’ll take Keith’s breath away and Keith will never want it back.

But that comes after.

Right now, here, Red lands on dusty earth and grumbles in his head about doing all the work. He’s sure none of the other lions give their other halves this much shit. He loves her so fiercely it burns his throat and eyes. He can’t believe he ever spent a day outside of her. Can’t believe he wasn’t raised alongside this wonderful, temperamental, protective, grouchy cat, who bossed him and fussed him, and purred and cooed when he screamed in his dreams. Can’t believe there ever was a time he resigned himself to not having this. What a fool he was.

The wave of emotion fills the cockpit in a lilting hum, and she lights up around him, Voltron blue piercing through the chunks in his armour. Red is as alive as a blaze and warm as a hearth in his head.

Her mouth drops open with one final swell of affection, as she releases her paladin to his home ground.

Keith murmurs a breathy thank you i love you you’re everything to me, as he stumbles out, hand grasping the cool metal as he comes to a rest on the shifting sands. The sand is warm from fire and fighting and it hits him all at one.

He crouches down, head hanging as he pants and gasps for breath. The emotion of the past few days shutter his eyesight till all he sees in the grains of sand sticking to his gauntlets. His head spins and his hair is falling out of the ponytail he’d tied it back in, and his breath is coming hard now.

Something is missing. Somethings not quite right.

The swords have fallen, the helmets tossed to the side, red looms protective behind him. The shields are down the guards are dropped and he can feel the press of the Voltron bond that lets him know his team is landing nearby, drawn together with a gravitational pull.

He draws in breath, cool and refreshing and tinged with the scent of burning. Around him the sand is interspersed with freshly formed glass.

He raises his head, expecting to see the heavens above him. He wants to take in the freshly healed scar of the newly collapsed Rigel star system. Wants to know how the blazing lights of thousands of planets worth of warfare look set against the familiar earth sky. He think he might look at the constellations, like he did not far from here a hundred years ago, tucked into his dad's strong, solid arms, the scratch of a stubbly chin accompanying a moving mouth as it named Orion, Cassiopeia, Gemini.

He looks up expecting to see stars, and instead, he sees the sun.

Lance's smile is crooked, and his breath comes fast, like he ran, as he hovers over him. Their faces are so close he can count each individual freckle on this boy’s face, as precious to him as the gleam of moonlight cutting paths across the castle hallways. Oh this boy, this absolute death of him.

“Hey lover,” the words leave Lance’s mouth with ease and anticipation, years of pent-up adoration spilling out with every vowel, “we did it.”

Keith feels his own smile steal across his face, “yeah, we did.”

If possible, Lance's smile grows wider, crinkling the already forming smile lines at his eyes. Keith thinks of the products that line the counter of his bathroom sink, just waiting for a pretty bronzed hand to pick them up when the separation hits, and their resolves are softened by the press of late hours and long silence.

A silly waste. Keith likes this look on Lance.

Aging.

What a wonderful thing he never thought he’d get to have.

“You know what that means?”

Lance's voice is smooth, the tremble that only a practiced ear could pick out masked by the sincerity and anticipation that has dogged their every conversation since that night on the dais.

“We’ll wait.”

“Until when, Keith?”

“Until it’s done. When it’s done then we can have this. We can’t lose everyone for each other.”

“I’m yours?”

“When it’s done then. And when it’s done, I’m bringing you home with me. I’m putting a ring on your finger and I’m never letting you go. You’re it for me, Keith.”

“I’m not asking you to wait, that’s not fair-“

“I followed you into space Keith. I followed you to the point of no return. You aren’t asking me anything and that’s a damn shame. I’d give you anything you asked for.”

“When it’s done lance, when it’s done, I’ll ask you anything you want me to. I’ll come home with you, I’ll share a bed with you. I’ll be yours as long as you’ll have me.”

“Don’t joke, honey,”

“I’m not. You’re mine, lance”

“And-“

“you’re mine.”

The words reverberate in his head, and oh. This is what it was. The smooth slot of this thing that’s been so long coming.

Lance drops to his knees in front of him, one warm hand coming to rest on his cheek. Keith leans his head into it. He’s too tired for restraint, or shame, or any other useless emotion that would’ve held a younger him back. He’s got nothing to lose. He’s won. There’s no reason left to hold back. What a novel idea. It coats him and leaves him shivering at the feel of a gloved thumb running gently over his cheekbones.

His eyes fall back open from their unconscious close, and Lance is so close.

Honest, sweet, honourable lance. The sandpaper to all his rough edges. The iron that absorbed his burning heat. The shore that meets his rocking tide.

Keith can hear the thunder of Pidge’s feet as they run across the uneven terrain. Hunk is following after her, his voice a cacophony of relief and joy. Shiro’s laughter is warm and thick as honey, coming easier than it has since aliens were a late-night story. Allura is giggling, high and bright, and a little hysterical. It’s ok. She’ll pull herself back together and they’ll be there to fill the cracks with liquid gold.

(Or glitter. She’d like glitter.)

Lance is watching him, and Keith’s eyes drift back to him. Lance hasn’t looked away in years. Something, some last resistance hidden away so deep he didn’t even know to search for a cure, falls away.

He leans in and closes the gap.

...

posted on ao3 here

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itsclydebitches · 1 year

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We've all rightly been gushing over Trent listening in on the parent-teacher conference and there are a lot of cool interpretations for why he'd eavesdrop: a crush on Ted, a tendency towards gossip (as seen in "International Break"), the fact that you just can't take the journalism out of the boy, Trent is clearly picking up personal tidbits for the book if the group's initial "Don't print that" worries are any indication, etc. So yeah, it's clear why he'd want/be okay with the door staying open.

Meanwhile, I'm slightly feral over Ted letting the door stay open and what that conveys to Trent.

Based on what we've picked up about his personal life and the direction of this season, we have good reason to believe that Trent was a deeply isolated man prior to Ted arriving. His job makes enemies simply by virtue of the profession itself, especially when you "bring the heat" as hard as he did. Roy flipping the press off at the gala in Season 1 and Nate sneaking out at dark this last episode shows us how journalists are treated on the regular: ignored, dismissed, told to "fuck off" as a matter of course. That's often well deserved, as Roy's two personal stories (Trent's article about him + the response to Isaac's attack) attest, but the end result is still a profession that alienates you from anyone other than your peers. When you're a "colossal prick" in your articles, people hate you all the more.

So Trent at least has other journalist buddies, yeah? Well, not that we've seen. I always think back to that chorus of "--The Independent" in the press room when everyone knew what Trent was going to say and how it... wasn't entirely fun ribbing. I think there's a fair bit of mockery there. Even if others disagree, I doubt that was received well by someone who wears their professionalism as an armor, who takes off his glasses as soon as they're complimented, who was, notably, closeted into his 40s. Trent is a man who is deeply aware of how others perceive him (pointing out his "vibe" feels quite calculated now: highlight what you want people to notice rather than waiting for them to find something on their own) and he is likely to read the worst of most interactions. Cue his shocked, "You really mean that, don't you?" when faced with someone like Ted who is not only genuinely nice, but blunt about it in a way that Trent can't misunderstand, or brush off via denial.

What's his home life like? Married to a woman when he's gay and that's putting a serious strain on them both. He tries to come out and isn't believed. The only other family members we know about are a toddler (who, while lovely I'm sure, can't provide Trent with the kind of emotional support an adult needs) and a father who, if we read the series through Lance's headcanons, may not have been very supportive of his son. Who else does Trent know? Uhhh... other subjects who hate him? Owners like Rebecca who want to use him? A random, potential date that he felt so little for he ditched to get a quote?

(EDIT: I can't believe I forgot to mention the strong implications that Ted was bullied in childhood/as a teenager, based on how he reacts to the whole of the club ignoring him -- resigned but unsurprised -- his reaction to Roy telling him to fuck off after he tries to mend that relationship -- disappointedly awkward "I can't believe I even tried that. What was I thinking?" -- and his body language during the locker room scene -- jumping, furtive glances towards Ted, backed up against the shower stall because shit, he's been in this situation before.

So uh, yeah. Trent may not have had a lot of friends growing up either! That was not the response of a social butterfly, but rather someone who is already very used to being ignored/dismissed/cursed out/threatened, not just within his profession, but within the school-like atmosphere of Richmond's family too.)

I'm by no means reinventing the meta wheel here, but Trent has truly undergone a STAGGERING transformation in Season 3 and the result of that is the reframing of his Season 1 and 2 scenes as, frankly, more depressing than they originally seemed. Seeing him now smiling, singing, gossiping, dressing just in t-shirts, casually snacking, making jokes, letting go enough to be a complete, hyperactive "dork" in front of others... it just hammers home how deeply unhappy Trent was before. How closed off. How closeted--in more ways than one.

So what must it mean to someone like Trent for Ted to leave the door open?

It's not just an open invitation towards community--sit near me, listen in, quietly participate, there's literally no barrier between us--but a staggeringly personal one too. I don't care if a 10-ish year old failing science is inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, the fact remains that letting anyone hear a parent-teacher conference with your ex is a hell of a show of trust. That would mean a lot to Trent in general, this acknowledgement that someone trusts the ex-prick journalist with that amount of personal information, but Ted in particular? Oh boy. Ted is the one Trent betrayed with that article! And yeah, Ted forgave him the instant he learned of it, but Trent himself was obviously feeling a lot of guilt, hence him burning his source and orchestrating a firing. Toss in the fact that Ted, despite being a VERY open man on the regular (I still laugh at his "I don't mind" to Rebecca when over-sharing about Michelle) has in fact denied Trent information in the past. No, I won't tell you that was a panic attack. Yes, I will continue the lie that it was food poisoning. Perhaps for Ted it was less about Trent knowing and more about anyone getting at the truth, but at the end of the day it amounts to the same: there was a time when Ted did not fully trust him and Trent justified that fear by writing the very article Ted was looking to avoid, even if Trent approached that situation with as much grace as he could.

So this moment, beyond the humor, just makes my brain go !!!!!! for Trent. Ted Lasso, of all people, has left the door open for Trent Crimm, also of all people, to hear the messy details of his, Henry, and Michelle's life. He is not at all afraid that this information will be spun in a bad light--Local Gaffer's Son Suffers While Father Plays at Coach Across the Pond--despite the fact that Trent is actively writing a book about him. Trent himself is so unguarded in this moment, dressed only in a t-shirt, playing around with his orange, making little quips. The Trent of Season 1 would NEVER. I mean, I think we see small glimpses of the real Trent back then, especially when Ted amuses him enough to coax his guard down for half a second (Trent's reaction to “Make like Dunst and Union and bring it on, baby!" comes to mind. That's a gesture we're seeing a lot now that he's comfortable around the club), but on the whole he was still so, so, so isolated. No one knew the real him: gay, funny, dorky, inquisitive, longing for companionship and using the artificial 'closeness' of journalism to cover that ache up.

Now? Trent is fully a part of the Richmond community and he knows he's a part of it because everyone--Ted, Beard, Roy, Colin, Rebecca--are going out of their way to tell him that, notably in very overt ways. Trent strikes me as someone who wouldn't fully believe it when he's told someone enjoys his company; the kind of wounded, anxiety-prone person who, if casually invited to participate, would assume they're just being polite and he'd actually be an annoyance to them. Trent needs overt, obvious, beat-you-over-the-head-with-it reassurance, which is why Ted is so very good for him because Ted is composed of THE most over-the-top positivity you've ever seen. (Compare that need of Trent's to Michelle thinking that Ted is too much...) When faced with a defensive journalist Ted says explicitly that he liked spending time with Trent. When faced with a still unsure writer who thinks of himself only as an observer--never a part of the team himself--Ted literally begs with monkey noises to hear Trent's opinions. He's blunt to the point of absurdity and someone like Trent who has likely spent the majority of his life hiding/being told that his true self is inadequate needs that level of constant, neon-light reassurance.

So Ted leaves the door open to a personal conversation, refusing to literally bar Trent from his life. The best part? Colin re-opens the door because he understands Trent and he knows his coach; of course Ted wants him included. Colin asks permission to CLOSE the door, not open it, and Trent is seeing this openness again and again over the course of several months, with each episode bringing him further out of his shell as he slowly unlearns that self-doubt. Yes, please stay, please tell us what you think, please offer your advice, please join our Diamond Dogs, please ask us questions (they're no longer perceived as a threat), please become an integral part of our lives. We trust you and we like you and we want you here.

Everyone's waiting for Trent to catch the door again because, you know, the rule of three, but what if he doesn't need to? What if he's past slipping a hand or a foot through the crack and scraping by on what that gets him? He caught the door before it could close to get closer to Colin. He caught the door before it could close to get closer to Ted. Now they've both kept the door open for him, his presence welcomed from the get-go.

Trent doesn't need to sprint for that opening anymore.

#Ted Lasso #Trent Crimm #Tedependent #ted x trent #mymetas

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