“…that’s the difference between you and I. Once we Bonded, there was nothing that was ever going to keep Oleander away from me… not the Resistance, not the god inside her, not even death itself…”
Jameson loves to wake you up with kisses all over your body
He takes you around the house through the passages
You have to kick him out when you're changing because he gets too handsy
He tends to be shirtless around you because he knows how "aware" you are of his body
You let him rest his head on your lap
He's tried to teach you how to pick locks many times but you can't seem to get the hang of it
He likes to have you hold onto his arm the whole night if you go to an event
He's really good at massages
Jameson prefers to look you in the eyes anytime he talks to you to better gauge your emotions
It's always impossible to hide the fact that your upset
Anytime you two danced together, it's like magic
He likes to show off his driving and motorbike skills
You end up taking care of him if he gets too drunk
You brush your fingers through his hair to lull him to sleep (it works every time)
He enjoys physical contact with you
If you fall asleep before he does, he watches you sleep because you look so beautiful to him
You end up getting dragged along when he's working through puzzles
You've done drinking competitions before
You guys have a new bet every week
He lets you put face mask on him
Jameson is surprisingly clingy and is usually the first one to text you if you don't wake up in the same bed
"Hey gorgeous, I can't believe how long it's been since we've seen each other." "Jamie it hasn't even been 10 hours."
You two sometimes film little videos together and he likes to watch them when he misses you or when you two have a fight
He'll never admit it but if you go on a trip or something where he won't see you for days, he sprays certain items in his room with your perfume so he can smell you around his space
If you ever notice that something you've never touched smells like you he WILL deny it
He loves to watch you get excited about something you love
You've gotten quite a few drunk voicemails from him and they all talk about how he misses you and thinks you're the most beautiful girl he's ever seen
You two like to buy blind boxes to see which one you get
When you guys sleep together he always ends up half on top of you
You've had to help get him dressed cause he's been late so many times
summary - y/n and jameson finally spend time together by playing one of jameson's favorite games.
warnings - maybe spoilers from the book "inheritance games" ??? making out + shirtless people.
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a/n: i promise that a grayson hawthorne x reader fic will be coming after this. but enjoy this one for now ;)
y/n sat on jameson's bed, leaning against the headboard, as she read a book.
since avery's arrival, she found herself more often spending time in different rooms, reading or writing, and she couldn't help but notice, that every time she was almost alone.
alone. a funny, but hurtful feeling.
the girl wasn't the jealous type, and she didn't have anything against the mystery girl. but she did feel a sharp pain in her heart, every time she saw jameson leaving. because she knew that he was going to her. to meet avery.
every.
single.
time.
her thoughts were interrupted when the door opened, and the brown-haired boy walked in. he immediately went to lay down beside the girl, and snuggled into her - his hand around her waist, pulling her closer, and his head in the crook of her neck.
"what's up?" y/n's hand found jameson's hair, and she started to run her fingers through it.
"alisa had other plans for heiress, so we had to cancel our plans, and so the investigation will continue tomorrow."
a small 'hmm" was the only thing that the girl could reply with.
jameson had nicknames for everyone. but still, the sinking feeling in her stomach from hearing about avery couldn't leave her. not to mention how stupid she started to feel, that now when he's bored, he will waste some time with her because heiress has other plans.
she felt a light kiss be placed on ber neck, "don't think that."
"what?"
y/n y/l/n hated the fact that jameson hawthorne could understand what she was thinking and feeling. he was a game player - puzzles and riddles, to solve, were easy for him. and like a game, the girl, was easy to read for him, too.
he trailed soft kisses up her neck, towards her jaw, "you know what," he pulled back, as he gazed into her eyes, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear, "you're my girl. my favorite girl. so, please, stop the thoughts infecting your gorgeous brain."
a small smile appeared on her face, as he leaned in and pressed a small kiss to her lips, "how about this," he got up and grabbed y/n's hands, as he pulled her up, "if you guess the number i'm thinking, we'll do whatever you want... if you don't," he smirked, "i'll choose."
"hey," y/n stated with a smile, as she saw jameson grab a marker and a piece of paper, "i'm not good at this, like, at all."
"well, good for me," he caught her still watching him, "hey, no, cheating," jameson put a hand over her eyes. the girl rolled her eyes and smacked his hand away.
when jameson was done writing the number down, he hid it behind him and looked at y/n with a big smile, "i'll make it easier for you, love. the number is between 1 and 10," he glanced at her lips and then back to her eyes, "now the only question is, what is the number?"'
y/n y/l/n already knew she would lose. she hadn't grown up as the hawthorne brothers had. her grandfather didn't make her do puzzles and riddles or solve mysteries. but she took the time to think. and it was indeed hard when beautiful green eyes were gazing at her.
"seven."
"sorry, to be the one to say this," and the girl already knew, "but you have lost," jameson showed her the paper, "the right answer was three," his pretty big smile was annoying, "i guess the winner, once again, is me."
"yeah, yeah... so riddle boy, what will we be doing?"
a wicked smirk replaced the victory smile on the boy's face, "strip bowling."
"are you doing this on purpose!?" y/n frustratedly sighed as she saw the bowling ball once again land in the gutter.
since they had started playing, jameson has been poking her or pressing kisses on her neck and even whispering things in her ear, making her lose.
the boy smiled at the girl, who looked at him, "what me? and cheating? of course not, don't be funny, love," he walked towards her and grabbed the bottom of her shirt, "but you should take this off now."
"idiot," y/n murmured, as she took of her top that revealed her black bra.
the hawthorne boy pressed a kiss to her shoulder, "it's your turn," the girl said.
jameson just hummed as he continued to lay soft kisses on her skin, his hand pulling her closer by the waist, "later," he trailed his kisses towards her ear.
"but james-"
"god, woman," he sarcastically sighed, which made y/n let out a small giggle. he pulled back with a smile, looking in her eyes, "just let me love my girl."
"yeah, yeah," y/n stated and wrapped her arms around his neck, as she pulled him into a kiss.
and like that, the world disappeared. just them. no one else.
she sighed when she felt him pull her closer, her chest to his bare one. while her hand lightly tugged at his hair, his soft lips moved to her jaw, "i love you," he said in between the kisses, "never forget that."
missing his taste she turned her head and pulled him back into the kiss. his hands slowly started to go down from her waist to the back of her thighs, so he could lift her, but before he could do that, the door shot open.
"JAMESON DID YOU EAT THE LAST BLUEB- oh," xander stopped when he saw the scene in front of him.
y/n smiled, when she heard jameson groan, as he pulled back from the kiss, moving his hands away from her legs.
"you horny bastards should find a room... a private one."
"Alexander-"
"just saying," and with that the youngest hawthorne brother left the room, closing the room.
"so," the girl smiled, as she grabbed a bowling ball and handed it to her boyfriend, "it's your turn."
SUMMARY: When you’re outed as pro hero Shouto’s soulmate on national television, there are really only two sensible things for you to do: blame someone else and run.
TAGS/WARNINGS: pro hero au, fem + afab reader, romance, soulmate au, fluff, pining, not actually unrequited love, aged up characters, eventual smut, 18+ minors please dni!
LENGTH: 38k, STATUS: COMPLETE
NOTES: Now with amazing art by the incredible @volatilematters!! Also a huge shoutout and all the credit to📎anon for the prompt: “a soulmate!au shoto x reader except whatever soulmate-identifying interaction/feature they have occurs in front of the paparazzi and thus the entirety of social media so the reader is suddenly wrenched into public opinion as shoto’s soulmate…and the reader is quirkless.”
CHAPTERS: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine
⪩⪨ featuring: lando norris, oscar piastri, george russell, kimi antonelli, lewis hamilton, charles leclerc, carlos sainz and max verstappen
⪩⪨ synopsis: f1 drivers react to their engineers letting you do their radio check during practice
⪩⪨ genre: fluff
a/n: oh how i wish i could actually talk to them through their radio. short blurbs!
➜ lando norris
the second he hears your voice, he forgets he's in the car.
"wait, what?"
you giggle, talking into the headset again. "radio check, lando."
lando smiles, focus back on the track. "bit tacky but we can fix it during quali. also hi, love."
he giggles for the rest of the practice and refuses to listen to his engineers, asking to put you back on (they don't).
➜ oscar piastri
oscar takes a second. you hear him inhale quietly before answering. "radio check loud and clear. hi."
he's much calmer, full attention to the car and the track, but his ears are burning under his helmet and his face hurts from smiling so hard.
➜ george russell
george is locked in, annotating in his head everything he sees and feels from the car for his engineer until his radio goes off first.
"okay, and radio check please."
he blinks, doubting if he heard right or not. "that's... not my engineer."
he stays quiet for a second, going through a curve, then he speaks again with a little laugh, "radio is good. you're distracting me."
he sounds mean, but he was smiling under his helmet.
➜ kimi antonelli
with kimi there is immediate chaos.
"hold on a second... ITS YOU!"
his engineer takes the lead back and tries to get the boy to focus again. "kimi, radio check."
"yeah, yeah — radio works. tell y/n i say hi!"
when he's done with practice he goes up to you and asks if you can do it again. this definitely boosts him.
➜ lewis hamilton
lewis goes soft and sweet as soon as he recognizes your voice through the radio.
"radio loud and clear," he pauses for a second and then: "good to hear your voice, sweetheart."
he absolutely loved the change.
➜ charles leclerc
charles laughs quietly, breathy. he's professional but still affectionate at the same time.
"radio check is good. you sound lovely."
he's smiling like an idiot by the way.
➜ carlos sainz
carlos's brain reboots for a quick second.
"radio check—yes—perfect."
then, unable to resist te urge, he says: "careful there, cariño. you're making this difficult."
his engineer doesn't let you say more, but carlos drives like he's trying to impress you specifically after that.
➜ max verstappen
max reacts the least with his nonchalant personality, which for some reason means the most.
"radio clear."
a pause.
"you're not supposed to be on my radio, love."
he tries to be professional, serious, but his tone was light and you could hear the smile in his voice.
☆ ⠀⠀⠀ ⑅ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ♩ ⠀⠀⠀⠀◌ ⠀⠀⠀ ꕤ
i've had this idea for quite a while and i finally got the time to write it out! i hope you all enjoy it <3 the reactions are a little short but it was the idea i had in the first place. something short and sweet. feel free to leave feedback in the comments or my ask and if you want you can even leave a request! not without reading my pinned first :). thats all from me! ciao lovelies 💘
you thought andrea kimi antonelli was just your childhood classmate. then he became a formula 1 driver. then he became technically family. then he started looking at you like that.
genre: rom-com, soft romance, teenage feelings, emotional support boyfriend (in training).
warnings: kimi antonelli being a cocky menace, idiots in love behavior, hands appreciation (sorry not sorry), terrible and mildly suggestive jokes, mutual pining, fluff levels may be dangerous, one (1) very smitten driver, one (1) girl trying to survive it, poor attempt at italian.
word count: 9.7k
a/n: guys, oh my god, this took me such a long time to finish! i’ve done my best to proofread it, but there might still be some pacing, structural, or grammatical hiccups. i apologize in advance if anything slipped through! this is my first long-form story, and i really hope you love it as much as i do.
The story of every legend begins… simply.
First, you are born. Then you grow. Then you live through childhood. It would be possible to quote Batman and say, “you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” but this isn’t that kind of story.
No. These are different kinds of legends.
Take Lewis Hamilton as an example: born in Stevenage, a small town north of London, England. He spent part of his childhood with his mother, and it wasn’t until he was ten that he chose to live with his father to focus on racing. At five, with a remote-controlled car, he was already making a name for himself, and at six, with a small used kart, he kept chasing it.
Years later, after countless hardships and difficulties, a legend emerged. Seven-time world champion, three teams in Formula 1, he now stands among the most remembered and respected names in motorsport history, not only for his skill, but for what he represents.
And it isn’t just him: Senna, Prost, Schumacher, Vettel, and so many others who shaped the sport into what it is today are remembered as symbols of determination, greatness, and pride for their fans and their nations.
For years and years, that was all Kimi Antonelli ever talked about.
You were never close to him, even though you studied at the same school. In fact, the only thing you truly shared was a photo from a recital you both took part in at five years old — the one where you thought it was perfectly appropriate to kiss his cheek and cause a chorus of “awww” around you.
But proximity was never the point.
You didn’t have to be part of his inner circle to know that Kimi Antonelli was in love with motorsport. Anyone who cared to listen had heard him say he would become a legend one day — just like those drivers.
For that reason, during the second-to-last year of high school, you weren’t surprised at all when he told the entire class he was going to Formula 1 the following year.
Kimi had already climbed the other steps. He had already been champion in lower categories more than once. There had been tributes to him on ordinary school days — celebrations of his talent and the pride he brought to both the school and to Italy. But Formula 1… Formula 1 was different.
It was big.
A step closer to the dream he had chased for so long: becoming one of the best.
And at that age, he was already considered a rising promise in the racing world. The golden boy. The next prodigy. It wasn’t just Formula 1, that alone would have been enough, but for Kimi Antonelli?
Kimi Antonelli would begin his first Formula 1 season driving for the Mercedes AMG PETRONAS F1 Team, personally chosen to take the seat of none other than sir Lewis Hamilton himself, a fact that earned him his own Netflix documentary.
So many good things followed that, if the announcements hadn’t been officially published, you wouldn’t have believed them.
Oh — and you had the biggest crush on him.
Having a crush on Kimi Antonelli was hardly absurd. In fact, at school it was the most normal thing in the world. After all, he wasn’t just famous, well-managed, and surprisingly intelligent, he was also kind to everyone and very, very cute. And, perhaps, just perhaps, you had occasionally caught yourself daydreaming about rebellious wavy hair that only behaved under a cap and an easy smile that gave his face that boyish look.
And his hands.
In a completely appropriate way, of course.
But that had only become a thing during the final year, when one of your best friends shoved her phone in your face to show you the photoshoot he had done with George Russell. The focus was very specific: Kimi putting on his helmet, his hands fully on display. You had never noticed them before. Naturally, you were completely normal about it.
Totally normal. Completely normal. Nothing unusual whatsoever. Just a normal boy with long fingers and prominent veins and…
Yeah. Right. Sure.
Now school was over. All of that (cute boys, inappropriate hands, endless books about subjects you never quite mastered) had been left behind. A great relief, if anyone asked you — and yet, now that it was over, you missed it too. Years and years with the same classmates, hearing updates to the same stories, walking through the same hallways had quietly created a sense of attachment.
You hadn’t really wanted it to end.
And some people might have wondered whether that feeling could, at some level, be related to a certain prodigy driver who, by a twist of fate, had studied alongside you since early childhood, but… life is strange. And it does even stranger things, because after everything — after the whole year had passed and Kimi Antonelli had traveled the world and become a rookie with two podiums in his debut season, making history — he ended up spending Christmas in your living room.
Because your sister had done you a great favor: she had said yes to becoming an Antonelli.
It was there, on December twenty-fifth, two thousand and twenty-five, that you discovered your sister was engaged — not to Kimi Antonelli, thankfully, but to one of his older cousins.
You didn’t even know she was dating anyone! That’s what happens when your sister decides to move to another country and forgets to tell you about her dramatic new relationship.
Anyway, you were happy for her all the same. And it happened. So… somewhere between plates that were never empty, constant hugs, and elegant clothes, Kimi Antonelli had his first proper interaction with you.
You stood near the Christmas tree, finishing adjusting the bow on the head of one of your younger cousins, who refused to stay still for more than a second. She kept talking nonstop about how badly she wanted to open the presents, and you had to keep reminding her that it wasn’t time yet.
With an exaggerated pout, she ran off, leaving you behind with a fond laugh lingering on your lips.
Beside you, however, with steps far too deliberate to pass as casual, Kimi Antonelli approached.
“I didn’t know your sister was dating my cousin,” he said, taking a relaxed sip of his drink.
He was talking. To you. As if that made perfect sense. And, well… technically, it did. Aside from a couple of his cousins, you were the only person there who was actually his age.
You smoothed a hand down the skirt of your red dress. Blink. Blink. Blink. An attempt at normalcy. You had to make a double effort not to stare at the ring resting on his index finger like a complete weirdo.
“O-Oh! Yeah. Yes. Well,” you said, a little awkwardly, your gaze drifting toward the couple. They looked comfortable, happy. Your expression softened. “I didn’t know either. But I think they really like each other. From what I can tell.”
What a stupid answer. My God. You sounded like you had never learned how to speak. Kimi didn’t seem to notice, or perhaps he was just too polite to comment on your painfully obvious lack of composure.
“Yeah. I can see that too,” he agreed, his eyes following yours in the same direction. It didn’t last long, though. His attention returned to you. “We studied together.”
Yes, Kimi. We did. I know that. I know that very well.
You nodded, because words suddenly felt unreliable.
“That’s cool. And now we’re family,” he said, sounding so casual about it that it bordered on absurd.
It wasn’t normal. It was the complete opposite of normal. You hadn’t thought about it that way before, but… thinking about it now, he was kind of right.
You were going to faint right there.
Except you didn’t. You did something far more human — far more reasonable and, honestly, surprising: you smiled like a perfectly normal person.
“That’s crazy, right? It’s nice,” you replied.
You were actually quite proud of yourself.
He laughed softly and pointed toward the table with his thumb.
“Should we get dessert before it’s all gone? Maggie was planning to finish everything.”
You, who had fully expected the conversation to end after the first sentence, laughed quietly and followed him to get dessert, still not entirely convinced this was actually happening.
It had been a nice night — you had to admit that. Your sister announced her engagement, your nonna made your favorite dessert, your mother somehow won at karaoke, and two families met for the very first time. And you, somewhat shyly, allowed yourself to laugh until your stomach hurt at the silly things Kimi Antonelli kept saying, as if he were just a boy like any other.
When it came time to open the presents, the festive Christmas evening slowly drew to a close. It ended with him unwrapping the gift his mother had chosen for him — a plush version of himself dressed in his Mercedes race suit — which he immediately declared, laughing, “this one’s going into the collection,” before she handed him the actual present.
Nice. Very nice, actually. Something interesting to tell your friends, something that would absolutely blow their minds. You would see Kimi again at the wedding and… that would be it. A very interesting story to tell. Maybe you’d run into each other at another family event or a school reunion — both unlikely, considering his packed Formula 1 schedule — and life would simply move on from there. You were already happy with the night you’d had.
But the next day, he texted you.
“Okay, I have thoughts about your farm take.”
And the day after, he texted again.
“My mum says you’re exactly like your sister. I don’t agree with her, but that’s not a bad thing. Hear me out…”
And the next day. And the one after that. Always something new. Always a conversation that somehow wandered into unbelievable directions, music tastes, colors, dinosaurs, terrible internet jokes, about how much he knew about Formula 1 or motorsport in general, and that topic could go on forever. You had never imagined Kimi could talk that much.
The messages became so constant they turned into… normal. So normal that you forgot to ask how he had gotten your number, considering you had never given it to him.
Everything had gone completely off script, assuming there had ever been a script to begin with. So far removed from anything you had imagined that, on a random day in the middle of January, you somehow found yourself at his family’s house.
Because he wanted to show you his new helmet. The one he would wear for the entire racing season.
He had actually come back to town just for that.
Ah! You said house? No, no, no. Bedroom. You ended up in his bedroom.
“Wait here, I’ll grab it!” he said, already heading toward the closet.
And you waited, sitting on the bed.
During the three minutes Kimi took to grab the helmet and bring it back to you, you had enough time to look around and understand a little more about him. First, you needed to calm your racing heartbeat and the slight tremor in your hands. Then you noticed all the motorsport posters — and basketball?! — on his walls. There were some books too. Everything was organized in a way that suggested no one really lived there for long.
You knew Kimi didn’t actually live there anymore — he had his own apartment now, or so your sister had said. Somewhere else.
Kimi came back carrying the helmet inside a black case, holding it carefully with both hands. You had never seen a Formula 1 helmet in person before, so you hadn’t realized it was that big.
“Are you ready? I haven’t opened it yet. I don’t even know how it turned out,” he said, placing it on the bed as you stood up.
He hadn’t seen it yet? You frowned.
“Okay… show me,” you said, stepping closer. “I’ve never actually seen one before. It's my first time.”
“Hm, is it?” he asked, looking at you thoughtfully. “Alright. I’ll be gentle. No need to worry. It doesn’t hurt.”
Wait.
You blinked.
Was he saying what you thought he was saying?
The corner of his mouth twitched, like he was barely holding back a laugh, and you immediately covered your face with both hands.
“Oh my God,” you groaned. “You are such a boy. Just open it already!”
And Kimi was laughing. Really laughing. Until he wasn’t anymore, and all that remained was a cheeky grin. He walked back to the bed and unzipped the helmet case.
“You got all flustered. The way your neck turns red when you’re embarrassed is really cute,” he said casually, taking the helmet out of its cover.
Your heart skipped a beat. Your brain didn’t quite manage to process his words, looping instead on a single thought — compliment, compliment, compliment. Much to Kimi’s obvious delight, you turned even redder. Your hands suddenly unsure of where to exist, and for one terrifying second, you forgot entirely how conversations were supposed to work.
Apparently, this was going to be a recurring problem.
You went quiet, didn’t answer, and honestly wouldn’t have been able to. If Kimi noticed, if he had been expecting a response, he didn’t show it. In fact, he picked up the helmet to examine it, now genuinely focused on the object. He turned it from side to side, running his hand along the inside to test the padding before lifting it over his head to look inside it.
“What do you think?” he asked, holding it out to you.
Stepping closer, you took the helmet carefully into your hands. The first thing you noticed was the weight of it. Heavier than you had expected, solid in a way that immediately made you adjust your grip.
You glanced up at Kimi instinctively, as if searching for confirmation that this was normal. Your eyes landed on his neck. Very… different… from a normal neck.
Right.
Neck training.
Mandatory.
Just a neck. But bigger. Nothing unusual.
That long voice message he had once sent you about G-forces. You knew about it, of course.
You swallowed and forced your attention back to the colors, and there were many. A very colorful helmet. Very Kimi.
“Doesn’t this one have stars?” you asked.
He tilted his head to the side.
“Stars?”
“Yeah, stars. Like those on last year’s helmet.”
Kimi raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms. You looked up at him, confused.
“You know what my helmet looked like last year?”
Oh. Oops. You had just revealed that you knew an extremely niche detail about an object he used exclusively for work. Haha. So funny. You were very tempted to put the helmet you were holding straight onto your own head and disappear inside it forever, but you didn’t get the chance, because Kimi gently took it from your hands.
“You’re going to help me put it on,” he said.
Wait, what? A sudden flutter settled in your stomach.
“You don’t know how to put it on by yourself?” you asked, instinctively hiding your hands behind your back.
Kimi shrugged and pushed his hair back from his forehead with his free hand.
“I don’t have a balaclava. It’s harder,” he said, as if that explained everything, which it absolutely didn’t. His eyes drifted back to yours, like he couldn’t quite understand what was holding you back.
He adjusted his grip on the helmet and waited.
“Hm… you’re not coming over here?”
“Over there?” you repeated, still rooted to the spot.
Kimi tilted his head, a hint of amusement tugging at his mouth.
“Unless you have magical powers I don’t know about, I think you’ll need to stand a little closer if you’re going to help me adjust the helmet.”
“Right. Okay. I’m coming over,” you said.
“Okay.”
You took a step toward him. Kimi wiggled both eyebrows, a mischievous smile spreading across his lips. You rolled your eyes, glanced away, and threatened to take a step back. He clicked his tongue.
“The three longest steps I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Your arms stayed relaxed at your sides as you looked back at him.
“Could you put the helmet on so I can adjust it, please? You’re talking too much.”
Kimi let out a quiet laugh but lifted the helmet anyway, lowering it carefully over his head before looking back at you through the visor opening.
“You’re very bossy.”
You stepped closer, raising your hands hesitantly toward the sides of the helmet.
“I thought you wanted me to adjust your helmet.”
He tilted his head slightly so you could reach better, but instead of answering right away, his gaze lingered on your face, far too amused for someone supposedly focused on racing equipment.
“Oh, no,” he said softly, his voice muffled behind the helmet. “I just wanted you closer.”
Fuck.
Once again, there were no words in the world that could fully describe what had just happened. You were starting to lose all dignity at an alarming rate. You blinked once, twice, your gaze slipping away from his, even knowing Kimi was still watching you, dropping instead to focus on fastening the helmet strap beneath his chin. Without the balaclava, your fingers brushed softly against his skin.
When that happened, Kimi closed his eyes.
“Done?” he asked, voice low.
“Yes,” you agreed, taking a step back.
Kimi lifted a hand to close the visor and tilted his head slightly, testing the fit. Then he took a step back and turned toward you. Even with his eyes hidden behind the dark visor, you had the distinct feeling he was looking right at you.
“Is it good?”
At one moment, your eyes were on the helmet. You really wanted to say it was beautiful, that you loved it — the colors were vivid and cool. But your eyes had a habit of betraying you, and now they drifted slightly downward… his neck again… his shoulders… the movement of his arm as he lifted his hand to test the tightness of the strap. And his hands themselves. You’d already mentioned the hands, hadn’t you? The rings around his fingers and… well. Yes.
You cleared your throat.
“It looks good,” you managed, swallowing right after.
For one brief moment longer, the two of you stayed like that: the helmet visor lowered, Kimi standing still, and you not quite sure what to do with your own hands. The silence stretched just a little too long, your heartbeat suddenly loud in your ears. You tucked your hair behind your ear, glancing around the room as if searching for something to anchor yourself to — and your bag on the bed became the perfect excuse. You stepped toward it, grateful for the movement. When you looked back at Kimi, he was finishing taking off the helmet, unsuccessfully trying to fix his hair with one hand while holding it with the other.
“Are you leaving already?” he asked, setting the helmet carefully inside its case as he spoke.
“Yeah, I… have to help my mum with a few things.” You shifted the strap of your bag on your shoulder. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t entirely the truth either.
Kimi watched you, his gaze steady enough to make you suddenly aware of yourself. You straightened your posture without meaning to. His hair was a mess, his face slightly flushed from the helmet.
“I’m traveling tonight,” he said suddenly, glancing down as he adjusted the zipper of the case before looking back at you.
“I thought you were staying there until testing started,” you replied, fingers absently brushing the pendant at your neck.
“I was. I am.” He hesitated, one hand resting on top of the helmet case. “But I wanted to come here to see the helmet at home.” A small pause followed as his thumb traced the edge of the case. “I chose the details, so it felt fair that the first time I put it on would be somewhere important.”
For someone who had worn special helmets so many times before, he seemed to consider this new one something particularly meaningful. You still hadn’t decided why that was.
Your gazes met again, and you became fully aware of the soft shiver that ran down your spine. At last, Kimi let the helmet rest and stepped away from it, moving closer to you.
“I guess this is a goodbye, then. For now.” He said, cutting through the growing tension that had nearly become tangible. But there was something hopeful in the way he looked at you. “I’ll be back soon and, well, you can watch me through the pre-season testing cameras if you want.”
A little breathless, you nodded, and a second later remembered to smile.
“Yeah, okay. I will.” you replied, trying to match his enthusiasm.
Kimi let out a laugh, light and melodic, and then did something you would have never, not in a million years, imagined would ever happen to you: he lifted his arms, closed the distance between you, and pulled you into a tight hug, as if you were close friends who had known each other for years and not… Andrea Kimi Antonelli and, well, you.
Your face had never felt so warm before, so close to being mistaken for a fever. When you hugged him back, uncertain, trembling, hesitant, he destroyed whatever remained of your sanity:
“Thanks for coming. I’ll text you when I land.” as if it were unthinkable that you wouldn’t be informed of his safe arrival in another country.
You weren’t entirely sure how you made it to the front door. All you knew was that your heart was beating so loudly it could probably have been heard from the other side of the city.
That night, while Kimi was crossing continents, you stayed home, reading a book in bed, trying to decide whether you should ask your mum to take you to a doctor just to make sure you weren’t experiencing some kind of delusion or if you should look for someone specialized in the supernatural to confirm you hadn’t accidentally slipped into a parallel reality.
You knew there were plenty of movies like that.
There was that one… 16 Wishes, right? The one with Debby Ryan, where her character receives a box of candles on her sixteenth birthday that grant the wishes she had written in a letter as a child. Maybe that was what had happened to you, just by accident.
You set the book aside and threw yourself onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling. For a long moment, you simply lay there, stretched out and thoughtful, thinking that after spending so long liking a boy from afar, hearing him say sweet things to you should have felt like a dream coming true. Especially when the boy in question was him.
So why couldn’t you fully sink into the idea that someone like Kimi Antonelli was deliberately flirting with you because something about you had caught his attention?
The thought made you laugh.
You knew the kind of girls he was surrounded by. Not at school, outside of it. The kind of girls he had access to, the kind of girls other drivers dated. Beautiful women, models, actresses, famous singers. They all wanted to be with guys like them. So it was better to be realistic, because if Kimi Antonelli hadn’t been within the realm of possibility back when he was just a little boy dreaming of becoming a kart driver, how could he possibly be now?
But all of that, that entire spiral of thoughts, was a cliché too. Everything about this whole story felt impossibly unreal anyway.
You let out a childish little whine, pretending to cry as you rolled onto your stomach, burying your face in the pillow.
You remembered his scent.
That scent. God.
At the time, everything had felt so overwhelming that you hadn’t stopped to notice it properly, but your brain had kept it anyway. Even through the frenzy, you could still remember the smell of his cologne: something so unmistakably Kimi that you couldn’t even begin to describe its notes.
Oh, no. I just wanted you closer. Handsome, smug bastard. Pulling off something that smooth without a hint of shame. And you fell for it. Of course you did. Honestly, you’d fall for it again and again and again. He should stop saying things like that. Stop doing things like that.
But really, the most pathetic part of this entire situation was you treating it as if it meant more than it did. Honestly, what an exaggeration. Kimi flirted as naturally as he breathed, and now, as he had already made clear at Christmas, you were family.
Except he still hadn’t seen the finished helmet and had flown all the way there to see it with you. In a place that mattered.
And he hadn’t even needed to be there. It was the middle of his work week. Kimi had made the trip just to spend a single day in his hometown to see the helmet somewhere important, when he could, and probably should, have seen it with his teammate and the staff who would actually help him put it on properly, balaclava and all.
You switched off the bedside lamp and slipped beneath the covers as if you were trying to escape your own thoughts. It felt dangerous. Like a ritual, you whispered, stop thinking, stop thinking, stop thinking, and finally closed your eyes.
Falling asleep that night wasn’t difficult. What was difficult was stopping your brain from deciding to dream about WAGs and magazine covers where you were holding hands with your handsome driver boyfriend.
You liked the dream, of course. You would never admit that out loud.
Kimi really did send a message saying everything was fine. Except he was late. He texted two hours after landing and apologized for it.
Apologized. Right.
He said his mum had been worried sick and that he’d had to send her a photo with his engineer just to prove he was alive. Oh, yes he’d been late texting her too. Which, in all the unnecessary explanations he insisted on giving, basically meant he had texted you right after replying to his own mother.
You knew how much Kimi adored her.
You were trying not to let that go to your head.
The following days passed silently. You didn’t hear from Kimi as often because he had a lot to do: interviews, team videos to film, birthdays coming up that required him to record something thoughtful, photoshoots, and pre-season preparations in general. And you were busy in your own way too. University was coming up. You had to study twice as hard if you wanted to get into that specific one you had dreamed about since you were very young.
But he still showed up.
Kimi was there — in the messages you read a little too late because of the time difference, in the photos of odd little things he found around the paddock, in the selfies he sent covered in silly filters. And you sent things back too.
The bubble grew so comfortable that, before you realized it, you had settled into it.
With time, he became just… Kimi. Even from the other side of the world. Even knowing he was there, racing in one of the most expensive sports on the planet.
He called you two weeks later.
You were still asleep when you heard your phone ringing. Annoyed, you reached out to grab it and bring it closer to your face to see who could possibly be calling. And then you saw his name on the screen. You almost declined it. If it had been anyone else, you probably would have.
But you answered.
It was a video call. Kimi appeared in all his effortlessly beautiful glory, Mercedes cap on and that constant smile that seemed permanently etched onto his face. You, however, had your camera turned off — and he noticed immediately.
“Ehi, buongiorno! What is happening? Where are you? Why is the camera off?”
You let out an irritated groan.
“I don’t want to talk.”
“My God, your voice… I woke you up?” Kimi asked, his voice softening instantly.
“What do you think?” you muttered.
Kimi let out a laugh and glanced upward, away from the camera, answering someone nearby. It didn’t take more than two seconds before his attention returned to you.
“Okay, doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’m about to get in the car for testing, and if I don’t see your face now, I’ll have very bad luck and the car will crash. The fans will know it was your fault.”
“They will? You’re going to tell them?” you asked.
He looked momentarily surprised by your answer. A good kind of surprised.
“You get quite mouthy when the camera’s off, don’t you?” he said, amused. “Let’s see if that attitude survives once I actually see your face. Come on.”
You rubbed your face and sat up in bed, yawning audibly. It took you a moment to fully wake up, running a hand through your hair until it looked at least somewhat presentable.
“You’re very annoying,” you said. A lie, of course.
He dragged his tongue slowly across his lips and nodded in approval. With a long sigh, you finally switched the camera on.
“There she is.” he said, his face lighting up at the sight of you. “I really did wake you up, look at you. Che carina.”
Your face turned red, and you buried it against the pillow beside you. Kimi burst out laughing. He was clearly having far too much fun with your reactions.
“Stop,” you said.
“Stop what?”
“That.”
“I’m literally walking toward the Mercedes motorhome. I can’t stop.”
“Very funny. You know exactly what you’re doing.”
You looked back at his face, brushing the strands of hair away from your eyes only to be met with his smile again. You were starting to suspect this call didn’t actually have any real reason to be happening.
Your stomach flipped.
“Is Kimi talking to someone?” you heard a strong British accent ask from somewhere behind him — somewhere you couldn’t see.
He shot a quick glance toward the voice, but before he could stop whoever it was from approaching, an arm wrapped around Kimi’s shoulders and George Russell’s face suddenly appeared on screen, curious and openly amused.
“Oh! It’s a girl!” he announced. Not to the camera, but to the nearby team members. Then he turned back to Kimi, who quickly lowered the phone, leaving you staring at nothing but a section of his T-shirt. “Your girlfriend?”
“Mate, give me a second. We’ll talk later,” Kimi replied, his tone noticeably different from the confident one you were used to hearing.
He sounded… shy.
“Aaaah, so it is your girlfriend,” George teased.
“She’s not my girlfriend…” Kimi said, uncertainty slipping into his voice.
“Yet,” the voice called from farther away, as if George had already walked off.
The tips of your ears burned red when Kimi lifted the phone back toward his face. And it wasn’t just your ears that were red: Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s entire face was flushed too.
He cleared his throat.
“Sorry about him.”
“Oh, it’s okay.”
“He’s an idiot.”
You laughed.
“He seems nice, though.”
Kimi smiled.
“He is. He just likes to mess with people.”
Your laughter faded into a small smile, almost matching his. Then Kimi glanced away from the phone, finally coming to a stop, clicking his tongue softly.
“I should go. Duty calls.” His attention drifted back to the screen. “Are you going back to sleep?”
You shrugged, letting out a fake sigh of annoyance.
“I don’t know. Someone kind of ruined my peaceful morning.”
“Ah, mi dispiace.” He didn’t sound sorry at all.
“Bye, Kimi,” you said, biting your lower lip to hold back your smile.
He looked at the screen for a second longer.
“Bye, carina,” Kimi said, then ended the call, leaving you with every butterfly in the world fluttering in your stomach.
Five minutes later, he sent another message:
Ah! I forgot to tell you. You and your sister need to stop by my mum’s house later to sort something out for the wedding. I told her I was going to call you, and she asked me to let you know.
You smiled to yourself in your room, your phone resting on your chest, because he had actually had a perfectly legitimate reason to call you and had simply forgotten.
Cute. Cute. Cute. Cute. Ugh, cute.
Somehow, in a way completely beyond your understanding, Kimi had managed to get time off from pre-season testing with only two weeks left before the first Grand Prix of the year just to attend his cousin’s wedding.
Before, you hadn’t realized what that truly meant. Now you did. For a Formula 1 driver, days reserved for family were almost a luxury, yet Kimi talked about it as if it had taken no effort at all to convince the people in the garage — as if being there had always been the obvious choice.
It was incredible.
You didn’t saw him when he arrived, even though you knew exactly when it happened because he had told you. You knew he was having a serious problem with his tie and that “you would be a great help in solving this situation, but he wasn’t going to force anything because you were busy being the bride’s sister” — his words. You knew when he made it to the reception, and just how handsome he looked, because he sent you a photo that nearly made you lose track of all your responsibilities that afternoon.
Only fifteen minutes before leaving the room where your sister was finishing getting ready for the best day of her life did you finally feel panic threaten to swallow you whole.
You stopped. Just… stopped. Your breathing came out uneven, your body refusing to respond the way it should. The anxiety was strong enough to make your stomach ache.
Through the mirror, your sister noticed you. She was already ready — spectacular, so beautiful you wouldn’t even know where to begin describing her — and definitely the person who actually had every reason to be nervous. And she was. Still, the moment she saw the slight tremor in your body, she stood up to help you.
“What is it, shorty?” she asked, cupping your face gently between her perfectly done hands.
Your eyes refocused and met hers.
“I think he’s waiting for me downstairs,” you admitted, biting the inside of your cheek.
The smile she gave you was so sweet it nearly gave you a sugar rush. Her laugh was just as soft, like she couldn’t quite believe that was your problem.
“You’re more nervous than I am, you know that? And it’s my wedding.” She sighed, her fingers brushing affectionately along the side of your face before settling on your shoulders. “Go talk to him before the ceremony starts. Kimi’s just a silly boy. I’ve seen him throw socks at the man I’m about to marry, a grown adult. They’re all ridiculous. Don’t let yourself be intimidated by those idiots.”
You let out a nervous laugh and lifted your hand to touch hers. The smile lingered as you thought about what your sister had said, turning her words over in your mind. Slowly, the smile faded, a small crease forming between your brows as you clearly drifted into thought. The sudden change made your sister’s expression shift into concern.
“What if he hugs me?” you asked, almost in a frightened whisper, as if that alone were something dangerous, something forbidden.
Her expression dropped instantly before she rolled her eyes. The hands resting on your shoulders turned purposeful as she spun you around and started pushing you toward the door. You let out a startled, “Wait! Hey!” but she had already grabbed the handle and pulled it open.
“You’re going to do me a favor and go talk to that boy right now! I need my own panic moment in peace. Go!”
Before you could protest, the door closed in front you with a soft click.
“She’s quite intense, isn’t she?” he said from behind, his voice lightly amused, a hint of laughter tucked into the words.
Oh, no. No. No. Oh my God, no.
You froze, still standing there with your back turned to Kimi.
“How much… um, how much of that conversation did you hear?” you asked, your fists clenched at your sides.
Footsteps. Getting closer. Oh no.
“That last part. The one suggesting there’s a boy you didn’t want to talk to… was that me?”
His voice was so close now. You could feel his presence behind you.
“No. It wasn’t you,” you answered quietly.
“Oh. So there’s another guy I should be worried about, then.”
“No! I mean… no…” You hurried to correct yourself, words tangling together. “It was you. Just… not like that.”
You didn’t see it, but the corner of his mouth curved into an amused smile.
Kimi took another step closer. Close enough now that you could feel the warmth of him at your back. Close enough that your heart felt one beat away from escaping your chest altogether.
“How was it, then?” he asked, more quietly.
You swallowed hard but didn’t answer. Kimi bit his lower lip, thoughtful for a moment, as if weighing a decision, and then he made up his mind. He placed his hands gently at your waist, and you felt electricity rush from your head all the way down to your feet.
“Can I turn you around?” he asked softly. “I want to see you. Your dress.”
You let out a shaky breath, worrying the skin of your upper lip between your teeth before finally nodding.
His fingers tightened slightly at your waist, and you instinctively closed your eyes. Slowly, carefully, Kimi turned you until you were facing him.
Your eyes stayed shut.
He laughed, a boyish sound, tipping his head back for a second in disbelief.
“You’re really not going to look at me?”
“No…”
“That hurts my feelings,” he said lightly. “Do you think I’m ugly?”
“No! No—”
A strand of hair had fallen across your face; he reached up and gently brushed it away from your eyes, his fingers lingering for just a moment longer than necessary.
“Then open your eyes,” he murmured. “Look at me.”
Slowly, you did.
Your knees nearly gave out.
Oh my God, he was beautiful. Truly, unfairly beautiful. His smile, his eyes, the softness of his cheeks. Those stupid eyebrows lifting again just to tease you.
You dropped your gaze almost immediately, but his hand moved to your chin, guiding your face back up until your eyes met his again.
“You’re torturing me,” you whispered.
“Oh, so you do think I’m ugly,” he said, the smile never leaving his face.
“Shut up.”
He laughed softly.
Then silence fell, charged, impossibly fragile as the two of you simply looked at each other.
His gaze flickered briefly to your lips before returning to your eyes.
“I could kiss you right now,” he said quietly.
Your eyes widened.
A beat passed.
“But I won’t.”
You weren’t sure whether you felt relieved or completely, hopelessly doomed — and he noticed.
His hand slipped away from your waist only to find yours instead, his fingers threading gently through yours.
“At some point tonight,” he said, “I’m going to kiss you. And it’ll be a surprise. You won’t see it coming.”
Still holding your hand, he stepped back slightly. His gaze traveled slowly from your head to your feet, and suddenly you became painfully aware of everything: the way you were standing, your dress, your hands, your breathing.
But he looked… awestruck.
Kimi drew in a deep breath and let out a quiet hiss.
“Yeah,” he murmured. “That’s unfair.”
Then he tugged you gently toward the exit.
The wedding was ruined.
Not properly, of course. Everything unfolded exactly as it should: your sister was still the most beautiful woman in the room, and you cried appropriately (excessively, actually) when she finally walked down the aisle. The groom looked at her as if she were the only woman in the universe, exactly as he should, and the ceremony was beautiful.
While you stood at the front, Kimi was beside you, both of you witnessing one of the most important moments in their lives. He looked genuinely moved, repeatedly lifting a finger to his eyes to brush away falling tears, far more discreetly than you.
When it was over, your sister raised the bouquet for photos and was quickly pulled into a kiss that bordered on excessive. Everyone applauded, celebrated, and embraced one another — perfection. It was the most beautiful wedding you had ever attended.
And it would have remained perfect, just as it had been planned from the very beginning, if not for one small interruption: the memory of Kimi’s voice. At some point tonight I’m going to kiss you. And it’ll be a surprise. You won’t see it coming. The words lingered over every quiet moment, impossible to ignore — and having him standing right beside you did nothing to calm the feeling.
Before the two of you walked down to join the reception, you lifted your eyes only to find his already fixed on you. Warmth rushed to your cheeks. He smiled soft, knowing and headed downstairs ahead of you.
The dance began, and you stood beside a pillar with a stolen little dessert in hand, watching the newlyweds spin across the dance floor. Your sister looked so genuinely happy that you couldn’t help the soft smile resting on your face, your head tilted slightly to the side as you watched her.
She deserved to be loved like that — completely, devotedly, breathtakingly. Nothing could have made you happier than seeing her that way.
The music drifted softly through the room, warm and golden, wrapping itself around laughter, clinking glasses, and conversations that overlapped into a comfortable blur. For a moment, you allowed yourself to simply exist there — unnoticed, safe behind the pillar, watching love unfold from a distance.
You took another bite of the dessert, barely tasting it.
At some point tonight.
You exhaled slowly through your nose, eyes still fixed on your sister as she laughed mid-spin, her dress catching the light with every turn.
Focus. This isn’t about you. This is her day.
You cleared your throat, as if that alone could convince you that you were fully present, appreciating what you were supposed to be appreciating: the beautiful solemnity of witnessing a love so strong it had to be made official, announced to the world.
You liked weddings. A lot. You wanted to get married someday too. You just didn’t know when that would happen, obviously — especially considering you didn’t even have a boyfriend who could… you know… propose… or—
Your train of thought derailed completely.
Because somehow, your traitorous brain teamed up with your equally traitorous eyes, and together they landed on Kimi across the reception, laughing with his cousins on the other side of the room.
Kimi stood in the middle of a conversation he seemed deeply invested in. There were animated hand gestures, frequent nodding, a lot of “yeah, yeah, yeah” slipping into the discussion. You could tell he genuinely liked the people around him.
None of that stopped you from noticing other things.
His tie was slightly crooked, apparently still losing its battle. The subtle tension along his jaw whenever he clearly wanted to say something but was politely waiting for the other person to finish. And his eyes.
Which shifted focus the very next second.
Toward you.
When your gazes met, his expression changed instantly — as if he had been waiting for you to notice him. A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Not teasing.
Not smug.
Just… fond.
Your stomach flipped so suddenly you nearly dropped the dessert in your hand. When you lifted your eyes to find him again, Kimi was no longer there.
Oh, no. Oh, no. No.
Your gaze swept across the room, searching instinctively, as if spotting him first might somehow prepare you for whatever he was about to do. Without thinking, you set your plate onto a passing waiter’s tray and turned quickly to keep looking.
Thud.
Your hands collided with something solid — a firm wall of very well-trained muscle belonging unmistakably to driver number twelve. Perfect timing. Almost suspiciously perfect.
Your shoulders pulled inward as you instinctively stepped back, just one step.
But Kimi’s hand closed gently around your elbow before you could go any farther.
“I want to show you something,” he said simply.
“You do? What is it?” you asked, still trying to steady your breathing.
“The maze out back. The garden.”
You blinked. “You want to take me to the maze? Just you and me?”
He laughed softly, like the answer was obvious.
“That’s the idea.”
Oh, no.
You drew in a slow breath, suddenly very aware of how close he was standing.
“You look scared,” he observed, amusement slipping gently into his voice.
“Me? Scared?” you said, a little too loudly. “No. Uh-uh. We should absolutely go to this… this… maze. Just you and me.”
He narrowed his eyes, clearly seconds away from laughing, his teeth catching his lower lip as he tried, and failed, to look serious.
Smug idiot.
Then he took your hand.
Smug. Idiot.
“You’re shaking a little,” he said, tilting his head, thumb brushing lightly over your fingers. “Cold?”
Smug. Idiot. He knew exactly what it was.
“Mm-hmm,” you murmured, barely parting your lips. Words were failing you at the moment.
Oh, God. He was leading you through the crowd, past people giving you that look — the unmistakable one that said they knew exactly what was going on and were fully rooting for it.
“Give me a minute,” he said casually. “I’ll warm you up. We just need somewhere a bit more private.”
Excuse me?! Your grip tightened around his hand, and Kimi laughed immediately.
“Wow, that came out terrible,” he said. “I meant my suit jacket. I’m lending it to you. I swear I’m normal.”
You took a deep breath. A very deep breath. This was actually happening. Andrea Kimi Antonelli was leading you by the hand toward the maze, his intentions suspiciously ambiguous, while your heart felt so tightly squeezed it almost hurt.
You hadn’t known it was possible to be this nervous.
As you passed beneath the archway, your eyes followed the leaves overhead. You had walked through there earlier in the day with your sister, seen the place in daylight — but it felt completely different now. Not just because of the lighting, breathtaking under the night sky, or the stone sculptures that gave everything a faintly mystical atmosphere, but because of the situation. Because of what the moment meant.
Kimi guided you toward the bench. Before either of you sat down, he loosened his tie, slipping it off without looking at you — his gaze fixed on the entrance as if making sure no one would interrupt. Then he turned back to you, tucking the fabric neatly into his pocket.
He smiled.
You blinked.
Oh.
Suddenly, you remembered school. Every time you had sighed when he walked past you in the hallway. All those chaotic mornings when he entered the classroom with his friends — loud, unmistakably boys, always seconds away from announcing something ridiculous.
The corners of your notebooks with his name written at the top. The silly games you and your friends used to play — who are you going to be happy with forever? — and every time it landed on Andrea Kimi Antonelli, you clapped like it was the revelation of the year.
You used to watch him from afar. The boy on the rise. So untouchable. So handsome. So… so many things.
You swallowed hard.
Kimi noticed.
“Hey. What is it?” he asked gently, draping his suit jacket around your shoulders.
His scent was everywhere now, and you needed an extra second just to steady yourself through it. God, you liked that smell.
“I… was thinking,” you admitted.
“Oh no,” Kimi said playfully.
You laughed, and a half-smile tugged at his mouth in response.
Then you looked up at him again. He waited patiently, giving you his full attention, ready to hear whatever you were about to say.
“I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“Of getting my heart really, really broken.”
“Fair,” he said softly.
You hesitated, gathering courage you weren’t entirely sure you possessed.
“Because I’ve liked you for… for a very long time,” you said, your voice coming out small and fragile. “And if what we’re doing here is just… just this… you need to tell me.”
Your breathing felt uneven. Saying those words had taken everything out of you, and Kimi seemed to understand that. He watched you carefully, like someone choosing his next words with care.
“I don’t want it to be just this,” he said softly. “Really… I don’t.” He hesitated, searching for the right words. “I like you. A lot. I thought maybe I was being obvious, but… maybe not enough. And maybe I arrived a little late compared to you, but… I cannot stop thinking about it.”
His hand lifted, gently catching a single strand of your hair between his fingers, absentmindedly playing with it.
“But?” you asked, already bracing yourself.
Kimi shook his head.
“No but,” he said quietly. “It’s simple for me. I like what we have. I don’t want it to end. I don’t think I could just… go back to before.”
You swallowed.
“But you’ve seen my routine. You know being a driver comes with… things. And being the… girlfriend…” He cleared his throat, suddenly shy. “The girlfriend of a driver, she has to deal with… Well, it comes with things.”
You nodded and stepped closer, closing the distance between you.
“I think… we could try,” you said softly. “Not everything right now. But we can start.”
You looked up at him.
“Okay?”
Kimi lifted his gaze to meet yours. He didn’t answer, but his eyes moved slowly across your face, as if mapping every detail. You didn’t interrupt him — you simply watched, feeling the anxiety begin to creep back in.
And then his lips were on yours.
Just like that. Sudden.
You didn’t even register the moment Kimi leaned in to kiss you.
It didn’t last long. He pulled back just enough to look at you, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Okay,” he finally murmured. “I told you I’d catch you by surprise.”
You laughed. Silly boy. The warmth of his lips still lingered against yours.
He lifted his hands, gently cradling your face just to look at you again — that soft, boyish smile you’d already learned you were helpless against. And then… he wiggled both eyebrows.
“Stop doing that,” you said, sticking your tongue out at him as if your heart wasn’t currently dancing wildly inside your chest.
He rolled his eyes playfully and pulled you closer by your cheeks.
This time, when his lips met yours, his arms slipped around your waist, drawing you in — and you finally… gave in.
Your eyes closed.
So did his.
Your hand found the back of his shirt before you even realized it, fingers curling into the fabric as if you needed something solid to hold onto. He pulled you closer in response, arms tightening around you as the kiss deepened, gently guiding your head to tilt toward his.
Would it be cliché to say it felt like fireworks were going off above you?
“Do you hear that?” he murmured against your lips.
You opened your eyes — only to gasp softly when you saw fireworks bursting across the sky overhead, actual fireworks, bright and undeniable, not just something your overwhelmed heart had invented.
“Oh my God. I thought that was just in my head,” you admitted without thinking.
Kimi pulled a smug little pout.
“Am I really that good at kissing?”
You rolled your eyes, ready with a comeback, but he kissed you again between a laugh before you could say a word. A warm, tender kiss — full of affection and the quiet promise of a happily-ever-after that had once felt unreal in childhood but somehow now belonged to you.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli might one day be remembered as one of Formula One’s next great legends. But there, on an ordinary night wrapped inside an extraordinary day, he was just your boy.
MELBOURNE, MEDIA DAY (Australian GP) — 2026.
No one knew you were there yet. Not even him.
All you knew was that the past few days had been chaotic — managing to secure paddock access much later than you should have, with tickets nearly sold out, scrambling to find a hotel and a last-minute flight, and still having to adjust to the completely unhinged time zone of that country.
It was a lot.
Even so, on the morning of media day, you had already landed — and after only a few hours of sleep, you were in an Uber on your way to the circuit, your anxiety growing with every turn the car made.
You kept wondering what Kimi would say. Would he be surprised? Would he be annoyed? How were you even supposed to introduce yourself? Were you his friend? Someone he knew? Or… could you actually say what you really were?
Had anyone in the garage even heard about you yet?
You had absolutely no idea.
When you stepped out of the car and thanked the driver goodbye, your stomach very nearly filed an official complaint.
You knew he was in the cafeteria having lunch, and you also knew you’d have to get past security to reach the Mercedes facilities. That part scared you too, because if you weren’t welcomed there, a very real possibility, your entire surprise plan would fall apart on the spot.
Still, you made it through the turnstiles with your paddock pass and suddenly… you were there.
There was so much to take in. So many colors, so much movement: drivers walking past toward their motorhomes dressed in their team merch, others stopped for interviews, surrounded by journalists carefully kept at a distance by security. The place buzzed with energy, crowded and alive in a way that made everything feel bigger than you had imagined.
For a few seconds, you fidgeted with the strap of your bag, turning slowly in place as you looked around, completely lost. There were no signs pointing toward the cafeteria or the Mercedes area, but you figured you’d just keep searching.
That was the problem with doing things without a plan.
A security guard approached, clearly noticing your confusion, stopping at a polite distance.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
You blinked, startled, then quickly held up your access pass.
“I’m looking for the Mercedes facilities. I…” you said, glancing around uncertainly. “I’m… acquainted with Kimi Antonelli.”
Ah, yes. Very convincing. Excellent delivery. Truly flawless.
Of course, he looked at you suspiciously, one eyebrow lifting. Maybe you should show him the photos on your phone? Would he even believe them? With AI these days, you doubted it.
“Yeah, alright. Sure. This way,” he said, already gesturing for you to follow him in the opposite direction.
“Hey! I am telling the truth!” you protested, hurrying after him.
He didn’t even spare you another glance, simply continuing forward while making sure you stayed close behind him.
For nearly an hour, they left you waiting in the public paddock courtyard — without your phone, without your bag, completely alone while they carried out the standard security check. Apparently, showing up at the paddock with a specific driver’s name on your lips qualified as a crime of the highest order and had to be handled with maximum seriousness.
On one hand, you were oddly relieved it meant Kimi was safe. On the other, it was incredibly frustrating to stand there unable to send him even a single message to explain the mess you had somehow gotten yourself into. At last, you were pulled out of your momentary trance when you felt a light poke just behind your ear.
“I think you let them take this,” a familiar voice said right behind you, your bag swinging lightly in his hand.
With an enormous, inevitable smile, you jumped up from the bench and threw yourself into his arms. Kimi let out a warm, surprised laugh as he hugged you back, dropping your bag onto the table beside him.
“What are you doing here?!” he asked, pulling back just enough to cup your face in his hands, as if he needed to make sure you were actually real.
But you didn’t say anything. You were too busy looking down at him — at the team kit, at the sight of him standing there in his Mercedes colors, dizzy from that unmistakable scent you were no longer satisfied experiencing only through the sweatshirt you had stolen from him.
You hugged him again, hiding your face in the curve of his neck.
“You’re so handsome. This feels like a dream,” you murmured, and he laughed softly once more.
Kimi gently ran a hand through your hair, resting his head lightly against yours.
“I wanted to surprise you,” you admitted, “but security didn’t believe me. Not even when I answered your favorite sock color.”
“That’s a very strange question. What kind of interrogation was that?” he said, amused.
You laughed and pressed a quick kiss to his chin.
“Thank you for coming to get me.”
He pressed a soft kiss to your forehead before pulling back, lacing your fingers together and picking up your bag so he could carry it himself, slinging it over his shoulder.
“Always.”
“Now let’s get you somewhere actually decent. It’s ridiculously hot out here.” He glanced at you, already guiding you forward. “And after media day, I’m having a word with that security guy. Nobody leaves my girlfriend waiting.”
Girlfriend.
Okay.
Hehe.
You hid your smile behind your free hand and let him lead you wherever he wanted to go.
thanks for you request!! I’m SO SO SO sorry it took me so long to complete, there has been so many edits and rewrites and start overs but anyways, here is the final product, I’m praying it doesn’t disappoint. my motivation has not been there lately… anyways I gave it a go, hope you enjoy 🤍🤍
title: the hawthorne with the green eyes
pairing: jameson hawthorne x (first person) reader
synopsis: your avery’s best friend and she’s suddenly been thrown into a world that isn’t her own and she needs you… but in going to support your best friend, you don’t expect a certain someone to take you interest
warnings: mild swearing and mentions of the reader having a dead father
a/n: this is set mid the first inheritance games book, timelines may clash a little but work with me please 😭😭
“I go on holiday for two weeks and of course that’s when everything blows up,” I exclaimed over the phone.
Avery was down the other end. I’d practically just stepped foot back in my house after fourteen glorious days in Europe and just about had time to fling my suitcase to the corner of my room before I straight away called her. How did I miss everything?! Pretty much as soon as the plane touched down back in America my phone practically blew up with messages and calls and news alerts. Suddenly my best friend’s face was all over TV and I had a billion DMs from people I’d never even talked to before.
“Timing is impeccable as always,” Avery laughed.
“Tell me everything,” I said.
Screw jet lag, this was way more important. We had the longest conversation I think I’ve ever had in my whole lifetime. She told me all about the will of this mysterious Tobias Hawthorne and the people involved. She explained how she’d been flown all the way out to Texas and was now required to live in Hawthorne house for at least a year where basically the whole family resided. Including four of Tobias’s scarily hood looking and intelligent grandsons.
“I can’t lie, this all sounds like it’s been plucked right out of a novel,” I said.
“42.6 billion dollars,” she confirmed, “what gets more fictional than that?”
“Ave this is crazy,” I replied, eyes as wide as saucepans.
“I can’t believe it,” she responded with a long sigh.
“You’re literally a billionaire,” I murmured. Saying it out loud made it even more real, even more shocking.
“I never thought I’d hear anyone say that out loud,” she said, then she sighed again,“I just can’t work out why I inherited it, I mean over his family it doesn’t make sense.”
“Well what did his grandsons have to say?” I asked.
“One thinks it’s a game of sorts, like a puzzle,” she explained, “their grandfather used to give them puzzles when they were younger and he thinks I’m the final one.”
“Are you okay?” I questioned suddenly, feeling guilty I hadn’t asked her right away,
“Yeah I’m fine,” she exhaled, “I’m a billionaire right?”
“No, I mean are you really okay?” I clarified, “because if it were me I know I wouldn’t be.”
“I think I’m okay,” she replied, hesitating a little.
“Avery,” I sang in an accusing tone.
She laughed a little and then, “I don’t know how to feel about any of this,” she sighed, “god I wish you were here.”
“Then I’ll come,” I blurted out, the instinct too prominent to ignore.
“What?” she gaped, as I pictured her with a hanging jaw.
“I’ll come to wherever you are, seen as you can’t come to me,” I replied, “that is if you want me to.”
“Of course I do,” she said, “but that’s a long trip for you and-“
“I don’t care about any of that,” I interrupted her before she went off on a selfless tangent, “seeing you is going to make whatever I have to do to get there worth it.”
“You’re an angel, a real life angel,” she whispered and I could hear the smile in her voice.
I laughed, “see you as soon as possible, I have a plane ticket to book.”
“Wait,” she told me suddenly, making me jump a little, “I’m paying.”
“Avery-“ I said, attempting to begin to decline.
“No, you can’t even decline because I’m a billionaire,” she snapped before I could even say no, “heck I could buy you the whole plane if I wanted.”
“You don’t have to do any of that,” I pressed further.
“Let me buy the ticket, it’s the least I can do,” she said, “and I’m getting Oren to pick you up from the airport.”
My mind flicked back to her explanation, the name sounded familiar. It took a few minutes for it to finally come to me, “Isn’t that bodyguard?”
“He’s the only one I’d trust with your life,” Avery explained.
“God Ave, you make it sound like I’m going to get shot,” I attempted to joke.
“I really need to be cautious at the moment,” she said, warning in her voice, “this whole billionaire business is not as glamorous as it seems.”
“Oh Avery,” I murmured sympathetically, “I’ll be there to hear every last drop in a few hours, okay?”
“Thank you,” she said, he tone thick with gratitude, “you have no idea how much this means to me.”
***
Next thing I knew I was on a first class flight to Texas at three AM in the morning. I’d never flown first class before. It’s a shame I didn’t get really experience it, seen as I fell asleep for the entire flight, still exhausted from my previous travels. For the parts I was awake, it was beautiful and such a lovely smooth ride. When I’d finally made my way through passport control and grabbed my luggage I was in search of Oren. Avery had text me the number plate of the car ready to pick me up. Seemed she’d forgotten to mention it was a limo I was being picked up in. That information alone would’ve sorted me out just fine as there was only one limo at the pick up station. I walked up to the window and tapped on the blackout glass. It rolled down all of a sudden, making me jump. A man sat in the front, a flat serious expression on his face.
“Identification,” he said before I could even get a word out.
Identification? What the hell did that mean?
“y/n l/n,” I guessed, my name seeming like a viable option for a response.
“Physical identification,” he clarified.
“Can’t you see my face?” I asked, not really knowing what else he meant by physical identification.
“Do you want to get in this car?” he deadpanned.
Great! I’d gotten on the wrong side of Mr. Smiley now.
I wracked my brain for what he could mean by physical identification, “do you want my passport or something?”
“That’ll do,” he nodded sharply.
I fumbled around in my bag like an idiot until I find my passport. I handed it over as soon as I could.
He took it swiftly and analysed it for a good few minutes, “okay jump in.”
“Are you Oren?” I asked, swinging the back door open and putting my suitcase down by the seats.
“Most certainly,” he replied, as I slid in.
“Avery mentioned you,” I clarified, worried he might he starts speculating I’m an enemy imposter dressed up as Avery’s friend coming to commit a murder.
He gave me a thoughtful look as he began to pull out of the pick up station, “all good things I hope?
“Very good things,” I reassured him.
He smiled to himself, almost looking touched, “that’s nice to hear.”
We fell into an awkward silence. There was nothing more necessarily to be said but something hung in the air waiting to be said, but I don’t think either of us could work out what. Thankfully for me, it was Oren who broke the silence first.
“It is also nice Avery has a friend coming to stay with her but I hope you understand you won’t be able to have your normal coffee and catch up anymore, Avery’s life is so different now,” he said, his tone authoritative and serious.
“I know,” I nodded, “I understand how dangerous it all is. I’m just here to make sure she’s okay.”
“That’s very nice of you,” he replied, “you are a good friend.”
“This is the bare minimum,” I shrugged lightly, “and I know she’d do the same for me if ever I needed it.”
And that was true. She’d do anything for me in a heartbeat. Avery needed me right now, so that’s exactly where I’d be.
***
The rest of the car journey was relatively smooth. I conversed briefly some more with Oren, having the standard school and home life, getting to know me talk. I didn’t mind his company at all, he was a genuine man with a kind heart. I could tell as much from just that hour in the car. When we finally pulled up, sunrise is on the horizon. The house was a phenomenon.
I got out of the car and just stared up at it, my jaw dropped in pure shock. The exterior was huge and it looked like a castle crossed with a Manor House crossed with the worlds biggest mansion. Everything about it screamed prestigious. It reminded me of a historical palace I once toured when I was younger.
“It’s quite something, isn’t it,” Oren smiled, handing me my luggage.
“Oh thanks,” I nodded, “and yeah, woah. Avery owns the whole of this?”
“Every acre,” he nodded.
“Someone needs to pinch me, so I know I’m not dreaming,” I murmured, “it’s magnificent.”
“It truly is,” Oren agreed.
I stared up at the building again and attempt to take in the grounds. It’s so vast I can’t even see all of it. It expands for what seems like forever. I was so lost in thought when my name was shouted that I nearly didn’t hear it altogether.
“Y/N!” shouted a voice. It could only be one voice.
“AVERY!” I screamed, whipping my head around.
I spotted my best friend and suddenly discarded all of my luggage, it somehow seeming irrelevant at this time. We sprinted towards one another as fast as possible and collided. I flung my arms around her and squeezed her as tightly as humanly possible, it’s a wonder I didn’t suffocate her. She did the same, holding me so close that I heard the uneven thumping of her heart in her chest. I inhaled the comforting scent of her perfume as I closed my eyes, suddenly feeling at home in her arms. I didn’t even realise I was crying until we pull away from each other.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” she laughed, tears also rolling down her cheeks.
“You better believe it girl,” I smiled, “thanks for the plane ticket, first class is gorgeous.”
“Get used to it,” she told me, with a little wink.
“No, I’m not becoming a gold digger friend,” I shook my head, putting a palm out, “I refuse.”
“We’ll see,” she said, with a graceful shrug.
“Nope,” I shook my head stubbornly.
“Let me show you the house,” she said, veering the subject elsewhere.
“I know you said it was big but you didn’t mention it was this big,” I gaped, my eyes glued to the structure.
She smiled sheepishly, “big was a bit of an understatement on my part.”
“You think?” I laughed, still trying to drink up the details.
As we walked up to the doorstep I became aware of movement coming from behind us, I turned around to see Oren walking around two meters behind us. Quickly I whipped my head back around to Avery, to avoid awkward eye contact with him.
“Does he follow you everywhere?” I asked, dropping my voice low.
“Most places,” she shrugged in reply.
I raised my eyebrows.
“It’s not as creepy as it seems, trust me,” she said, “he’s very subtle.”
“Okay,” I replied unsurely, tempted to turn around again.
“Just don’t think about it,” she told me as we approached the door.
I tried to, but it was impossible not to be aware of someone tracking your every move. I began to wonder if I’d been microchipped with cameras and microphones yet. Avery grabbed the door handle and turned it, pushing the door open to reveal what looked like magic.
It seemed even larger on the window with its towering central staircase and large windows. The corridors seemed endless and so did the rooms within them. The floorboards were wooden and glossy, clearly expensive. The carpeted parts were velvet, they must’ve been. I wouldn’t have been surprised to discover that everything was embroidered with some sort of gold laced trim. A large, intricately crafted chandelier hung roundly from the ceiling, glistening with crystals. It was mesmerisingly beautiful. And my best friend owned it all.
“Ave…” I trailed off, at a loss for words.
“I know,” she nodded, beaming at me, “come in.”
“I feel like if I walk on the floors I’ll scratch them or something,” I scoffed.
“Don’t be stupid,” she grinned, yanking my arm so I practically fell in, “where should we go first?”
“Shouldn’t we pick up a map or something?” I joked, “is there a tour guide who can show us around?”
She giggled, “I’m your certified map and tour guide today.”
“Lucky me,” I winked, “where to first, oh noble one.”
“How about my room?” Avery suggested.
“Yes! I need a room tour!” I replied, excitedly.
“This way,” she said, grabbing my hand and cocking her head towards the large central staircase, that split into two.
***
I’d thought the house was beautiful but I couldn’t believe Avery’s room. Heavenly was an understatement. She had a queen sized bed sat in the middle of the room, that looked so comfy just staring at it made me sleep. She had a chest of drawers and matching vanity and a massive bookshelf that I was green with envy of. I noticed two bifold doors on one side of the room, which confused me.
“Open them,” she grinned, as if reading my mind.
Slowly I curl my hand aground the edge and pried the two doors apart. I almost fainted at the sight. A walk in wardrobe. Of course I’d seen them in the movies but never in real life, in someone’s house. It was such a massive wardrobe, it reminded me of that scene from Barbie, where her wardrobe seemed endless.
“No way!” I gaped at her.
“Way!” she winked.
There were of course other species of furniture, like shelves, a desk and chair, a beanbag, bedside tables, an armchair and so much more. Anything could ever want or need was in that room. Like the huge TV or the mini fridge. There was a small door on the other side, which I presumed lead to an en-suite, as I caught a glimpse of bathroom tiles inside as the door was slightly ajar.
“It’s definitely an upgrade from the car,” Avery exhaled.
I looked at her sadly. I’d offered her to live with us for a while so many times, but she declined each and every time. I thought it was because she didn’t want to be a burden. She never deserved the life she had, she deserved this now. After all she’d been through, all she’d lost, all she’d worked for, she deserved this. And secretly I was glad a random dead billionaire left her in his will.
“Don’t give me that look,” she said quietly.
“What look?” I asked.
“The one where your eyes go all sad,” she murmured.
“My eyes go sad?” I said, almost laughing.
“You know what I mean,” she rolled her eyes, then sighed, “I wanted to live in my car okay?”
“Okay,” I mumbled, unconvinced.
No one wants to live in their car, it’s something you’re forced to do when your home is no longer liveable. But I didn’t press the matter, those days were long gone now. Now she had this. She pulled me down onto the mattress beside her. We laid down staring up at the ceiling, my head resting on hers. We didn’t say anything for a good while and the silence was comforting, it was nice. It allowed us to breathe a little.
“This house is full of secret passageways,” Avery murmured after a while.
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“Nope,” she grinned.
“This just gets more and more like a mystery movie by the second,” I replied, wide eyed.
“I know,” she said, “I’m finding it a little mental.”
“A little?” I scoffed.
She laughed lightly, airily. It was a pretty laugh but not a proper one, if I’d been looking at her face, I was sure that the smile wouldn’t have quite reached her eyes.
I say up and she followed suit, so I looked into her eyes and asked her, “are you really okay?”
There was a long pause. Hesitation. It told me everything already but still I waited for her to respond.
“No,” she sighed. It surprised me that she said that. Avery wasn’t one to admit she wasn’t okay very easily, not even to herself. So the fact that she was admitting that to me out loud spoke volumes. She was really not okay. I didn’t say anything right away and let her carry on.
“This is a lot,” she exhaled, “and I know it makes me sound so selfish. I have everything and anything I could ever want but it’s just so much to adjust to.”
“You don’t sound selfish, you sound human,” I reassured her. She needed to know that her feelings were normal, if I were in her position I know I’d be a mess. But she was here, holding it all together or trying to at least.
“I have a helicopter, a freaking helicopter and there’s all these interviews I have to do, functions I have to attend,” she exclaimed, “I don’t know what to do with myself half the time. I mean it’s so obvious I don’t fit in, I wasn’t born into all of this.”
She took a sharp breath in and I decided I needed to let her rant and get these things off of her chest.
“School is like a living hell, most people hate me,” she groaned, “private school is not for me, I’ve got no friends there and everyone seems to be either shooting me weird looks or whispering my name. And it shouldn’t affect me and I know it’s pathetically stupid but it really does.”
“Hey,” I soothed, rubbing up and down her arms, “kids are stupid and you know they’re just jealous. Besides you won’t be in school for that much longer anyway. One, two years with these people and then you never have to see them again. And you’ve only just joined recently, there’s time to make friends if you want to. And I’m only a call away, no matter where you are, what time it is, we have phones for a reason.”
“Yeah,” she blew out a breath, “yeah, okay.”
“You can carry on,” I told her, “just get the weight off of your shoulders.”
“I don’t want to complain, it feels wrong,” she sighed.
“Nu-uh,” I snapped wagging my finger, “you’re a human with feelings which means you have every right to complain so shoot girl.”
“Thank you, really,” she said, her big hazel eyes deep with gratitude.
“Stop thanking me for doing the bare minimum, this is like getting you a spoon from the cutlery drawer when you ask,” I said, “now tell me, what else?”
“My life is apparently constantly at risk, I mean I have bodyguard who is standing outside this door right now,” she replied, “I could be killed. Literally killed. And people want to do that to me and that’s so hard-“
Her voice broke and she struggled ro pull herself together, despite how hard she was trying. I instinctively enveloped my arms around her and pulled her tight to my chest
“I’m sorry Avery,” I murmured, “that’s awful, absolutely awful. But you have Oren and you know he’s going to take good care of you, you have whole teams of people preventing that from happening.”
She mumbled an indecipherable response and let a few tears slip.
“And these stupid people aren’t making things any easier for me. All of them are so…” she trailed off, “I can’t find the right word to describe them. Grayson thinks I’m some sort of threat and I’ve inherited this money because I’m a scheming, lying, manipulative snake. Xander seems to live to confuse me, constantly throwing out weird phrases that just throw me off. Nash, well Nash is just very laid back, he doesn’t seem to care about me or my role in the will which is good, but I don’t like the way he looks at Libby. And Jameson…” she hesitated, “Jameson thinks I’m just a game, one left by his grandfather. And the worst part is I dont even know what I’m here and I can’t figure it out.”
“Yet,” I replied.
She titled her head, confused, “What?”
“I can’t figure it out yet,” I explained.
“That’s patronising,” she said, “are you trying to take me back to first grade?”
“It might help you,” I shrugged.
“First grade?” she laughed.
“An open mindset,” I clarified.
She doesn’t reply.
“These grandsons for the most part seem a bit snobbish if you ask me, you shouldn’t pay too much attention to them,” I said, “they’re not worth you at all. You’re not a snake, you’re not stupid, your sister isn’t a prize and you’re not a game. You know this, in here,” I press my palm on the left side of her chest, “don’t let them make you forget it.”
She smiled through glossy eyes,“what would I do without you?”
“Have a mental breakdown in the shower alone and pretend it’s all okay,” I guessed.
“I did that yesterday,” she told me.
“Damn it I didn’t get here fast enough,” I joked, my heart breaking at the thought of Avery sobbing all alone.
She cracked a weak smile, “you got here, you are here, that’s all I care about.”
“Just take a second and breathe, okay?” I said.!
“Breathing,” she replied. I could hear she was breathing in and out in a rhythmic, calming motion.
“Good, keep going,” I nodded in encouragement.
We fell into silence again but like most of our silences, neither of us felt discomfort. I let her breathe, I let her think, I let her have the moment to herself I know she’d felt to selfish to take since she got here.
“Better?” I asked after a while.
“Better,” she nodded her head.
“You’re going to get through this, it just all seems a lot right now because you’re not used to it and it’s all come at once,” I said.
“Yeah, you’re right,” she replied.
We wrapped our arms around each other, a warm hug acting as some sort of cocoon, excluding the outside world for mere moments. I breathed in her shampoo, the smell comforting. We stayed in each other’s arms for long time. We had both needed it.
“I’m really glad your here,” she whispered as we pull away.
“I’m glad I’m here too,” I told her.
***
“I still can’t believe you live here now,” I exhaled, the side of my cheek pressed on her head.
We’d gone back to talking, catching up on each other’s lives for a bit. It seemed we just never could stop talking. And it felt good.
“I know, it’s crazy,” she admitted, “me and Lib have just about got used to it.”
“Libby’s here? Now?” I asked excitedly.
Avery nodded.
“Please can we go and see her?” I asked, “I haven’t seen her in so long.”
“Of course,” she grinned, “I’m just going to ignore the fact that you love my sister more than you love me.”
“It’ll probably make you feel better,” I shrugged, teasing her slightly.
“Hey!” she laughed, slapping my arm lightly.
I’d forgotten how much I’d missed Avery’s company. She wasn’t just my best friend, she was part of me. Every time we were together I was just immediately elevated. I needed her.
“What? You said it,” I grinned, poking my tongue out.
“My best guess is that she’s baking in the kitchen, so we’ll look there first,” she explained.
“How comes she’s baking at nine in the morning?” I asked.
“She’s productive,” Avery shrugged.
I nodded as we exited her room. I followed Avery, presuming she would know where she was going. But after a labyrinth of corridors and a few smiling landmarks, I began to doubt her orienteering skill and decided we were lost.
“Ave I swear I’ve seen that suit of armour before,” I mentioned to her.
“There’s a suit of armour?” she asked.
“We’ve seen it like three times now,” I nodded, pointing to it.
She tilted her head and examined it, “we have not!”
“I’m telling you we definitely have,” I replied,
“You have walked past it four times actually,” a sudden voice said, making me jump out of my skin.
I turned around to see a boy coming up behind us. He was very tall, towering over both Avery and I. There was a bounce in his step and amusement in his voice, he was young, energetic and full of life. He had dark skin and a small grin planted on his lips. And there was a certain wistful sparkle in his eyes. I presumed he was one of the four grandsons, but I was trying to work out which one due to the descriptions Avery had given me.
“Have you been watching us?” Avery scoffed, arms folded,
“I just happened to notice you walking past four times,” the boy shrugged.
Avery narrowed her eyes at him, “why did you count?”
“I wanted to see how many tries it would take you until you realised you were lost,” he replied coolly.
“We’re not lost,” Avery insisted.
“Are you sure?” he chuckled, eyebrows raised.
“I call it non-purposeful wandering,” I piped up
He looked at me for the first time, his deep chocolate eyes meeting mine. His eyebrows now shuffled inwards and he tilted his head to the side, “I don’t recognise you.”
“I’m y/n,” I smiled, “I came to visit Avery.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” he nodded, “did you only just arrive?”
“It was about an hour ago,” I shrugged in reply.
“Did you fly all the way out here?” he asked me.
“From Connecticut to Texas,” I confirmed with a short nod of the head.
“Now tell me,” he said, looking very serious, “do robots interest you?”
I side glanced at Avery and she subtly signalled for me to carry on conversation.
“I’ve never really thought about it before,” I said honestly.
“How have you lived your life without thinking about robots?” he gasped, looking somewhere between purely shocked and offended.
“I don’t know,” I replied, “should I start?”
“I’d strongly advise you to,” he said, “they’re most interesting.”
“Is that why you’ve got a singed eyebrow and oil on your sleeves?” I asked, not being able to suppress my mind’s curiosities.
“Observant,” he smiled.
“That’s what they say,” I replied awkwardly, knowing Avery would tease me about this later.
“Robots have a tendency to explode when you get them a bit wrong,” he explained, “if you can get past that, it’s great.”
“Explosions don’t really sound like my cup of tea,” I said, “but I suppose you never know until you try.”
“You have a good spirit,” he told me, “I think you would work well with robotics.”
“Thanks,” I replied, taking it as a compliment to mask my confusion over the whole conversation. I took him as someone who you just rolled with, no matter what. So that’s what I was attempting to achieve.
“Blueberry or lemon?” he asked me.
“Blueberry, no matter the context,” I answered without missing a beat.
“I like you,” he nodded, “Avery can we keep her?”
“For the time being,” she grinned, “unless she starts biting.”
“Can’t make any promises,” I winked then turned back to the boy, “you know your way around this place right?”
“Most of it, though I still discover a new secret passage way every now and then,” he shrugged, as if it were the norm to find secret passageways around your house.
“Do you know how we get to the kitchen?” Avery asked.
“And you said you’re not lost,” he teased her.
“She’s testing you,” I said,
“Is it because you got stuck non-purposefully wandering on your way there,” he smiled, using my precious wording,
“Precisely,” I nodded.
“Okay then,” he replied, “to get the kitchen you just need to follow these suits of armour and when they stop take two rights and walk down your closest set of stairs. You should find it there, if I’m not mistaken.”
My jaw hung slack, “you memorised that?”
“Sort of, thought I usually end up stumbling upon the kitchen by accident through a secret passage way,” he shrugged, “it’s an important room to locate.”
“I guess,” I agreed
He nodded, “Safe travels.”
“We’re not trekking across a desert,” I laughed.
“No,” he smiled, “this is much worse.”
And with that he turned and walked in the opposite direction. We watched him until he exited the corridor and went off elsewhere.
“That’s Xander,” Avery filled me in.
“The one who’s addicted to scones?” I asked, the blueberry or lemon question finally making sense.
“Yes, that’s him,” she confirmed.
“Yeah that figures,” I nodded, “I like him.”
“He’s nice, I mean he doesn’t act like he wants to kill me all the time so that’s a plus,” she said.
“Oh yeah, when do I get to meet the angel of a man who keeps wishing you death?” I grinned.
“Hopefully you won’t have to,” she grimaced
We finally made it to the kitchen, after a few wrong turns and a game of eeny-meeny-miny-mo. I spotted Libby from the doorway. She was piping vibrant blue icing, almost the colour of her hair, into a pink sponge cupcake. I snuck up behind her and wrapped my arms around her waist, tightly squeezing her closer. She let out a small gasp in surprise.
“Guess who?” I murmured excitedly.
“Is this real or does someone have to pinch me?” she asked, the smile in her voice.
“It’s real,” I assured her.
I let go of her and she spun around, cupping my face in her palms.
“Y/n!” she beamed widely at me, brining me in for a hug, “hi love, it’s been a while, huh?”
“Too much of a while if you ask me,” I mumbled into her.
“Glad to see you again,” she smiled as we break apart. The unspoken ‘make sure my sister is okay’ running through her eyes.
“Me too,” I replied, silently reassuring her of the reason I was here.
“I’m starting to think you prefer my sister to me,” Avery scoffed, scooping a little buttercream onto her finger tip and popping it into her mouth
“Sometimes I do,” I replied mischievously.
“Hey,” she complained.
I stuck out my tongue in reply.
“Ooo please taste this,” Libby said, quickly grabbing a couple of cupcakes and handing one to both me and Avery.
“Well it’d be rude not to,” I grinned, taking one gratefully.
“It would,” she agreed as Avery broke the half of the bottom off of her cupcake and put it into of the icing to make her little cupcake sandwich.
I stared at her in disapproval, “you are a monster for doing that.”
“You’re just bitter because it’s the smartest way to eat a cupcake,” she replied.
“When you eat a cupcake you shouldn’t be analysing how you eat it you should just eat it how it is,” I exclaimed passionately. We’d had this fight many of times and I would never stop backing my corner.
“I don’t want icing smeared up my nose,” Avery defended, “and this is the best way to prevent that.”
I shook my head and took a bite of my cupcake, like a normal person. The flavours tantalised my tastebuds, teasing them to crave more. The cake itself was airy and light, not too dry but not too moist. It was the perfect cake to icing ratio and nothing was over sweet or too artificial. It was like heaven on my tongue. I’d really missed these.
“So…” Libby asked, nervously, “what do you think?”
“How do you do it?” I replied, taking another bite.
“Good?”
“That’s an understatement,” I told her, “is there fairy dust in this or something?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” a new person entered, cutting off whatever Libby’s reply was. His accent was definitely Texan and I looked up to my surprise to find an older looking man. Well not old at all, just older than me. I presumed he was in his twenties. He wore a cowboy hat, titled slightly to one side and from under it I noticed his brownish-blondish hair. He had hazel eyes and a sharp jawline but what stood out to me was his nose. He had a similar nose to Xander which gave him away to being another grandson, but which one?
“What are you doing here?” Libby asked, annoyance in her tone.
It surprised me. I had never heard Libby talk to anyone with any remotely negative connotation. I widened my eyes and looked to Avery who only shrugged in response.
“Coming to check up on you and your crazy cupcake baking obsession,” he explained, walking further into the room.
“I don’t need checking up on,” she grumbled, turning back to her piping bag.
“Oh I know that darlin’,” he smiled. It was the kind of smile that you don’t see often, the kind of smile that shows everyone else in that room that the person who is being smiled at is the other person’s whole world.
No one had ever smiled at me like that.
I scooted closer to Avery and whispered, “Are they…”
“I don’t know, I’m 99% sure but it’s not official,” she explained quickly.
“Oh okay,” I nodded.
We watched as they bickered, back and forth for a little bit, unsuppressed smiles on both of their faces. They meant something to one another, even if they didn’t know it yet. They continued to argue until the cowboy noticed my presence.
“Who’s the new one?” he asked, nodding at me
“New one? She has a name,” Libby said sharply.
“I’m y/n. Avery’s friend and Libby’s practically adopted little sister, nice to meet you,” I introduced myself.
“Am I even relevant anymore?” Avery sighed.
“Nope,” me and Libby grinned simultaneously.
“Nash,” he nodded, shaking my hand, “nice to meet you too.”
“We’re going to get going now,” Avery said, “I haven’t shown her the bowling alley yet.”
My eyes widened, “bowling alley?”
“Catch you guys later,” she grinned, pulling me out of the kitchen.
“You have a bowling alley in your house,” I said, still in shock, “why didn’t you tell me already?”
“When’s the best time to bring up the fact you have a bowling alley, I mean it’s not exactly normal conversation,” she told me.
“Okay fair enough,” I responded, as we start walking again, “so are we meeting everyone like it’s a parody of sorts?”
“Seems like it,” she sighed,
“Tour of the hottie Hawthorne’s,” I joked, spreading my arms out to reveal an invisible sign.
She giggled, “hottie?”
“Oh please, you can’t deny it, they’re all gorgeous so far,” I said.
She looked around cautiously, “they could be listening you know?”
“Oh well I’m sure they know,” I scoffed, “besides you’re telling me that you don’t find at least one of them attractive?”
“Moving on,” she said quickly, brushing over the subject, with pink-tinged cheeks.
“Are you blushing?” I asked her.
“No,“ she replied bluntly, “shut up.”
“You’re blushing,” I sang, “which one is it? Oh please tell me Ave!”
“None of them,” she insisted, digging her heals in.
“I don’t believe you,” I said, narrowing my eyes at her.
She replied, “that’s because you have trust issues.”
“No it’s because I know you’re lying,” I told her.
She didn’t reply.
“You better tell me fast because I will attempt to make a move on one of them at some point,” I warned her, “Nash is already out of the question because he’s Libby’s, so which ones yours? I’ll pick between the other two.”
She laughed. It was the first time since we’d met up that I’d seen her properly crack a smile, her eyes fully lighting up, “pick whoever you want, no one’s mine.”
“You might regret saying that later on,” I warned her.
“Doubt it,” she shrugged, “just be careful, okay? These people, this family… just be careful.”
“I will, promise,” I nodded, “so who’s on stage next in ‘let’s meet the Hawthorne brothers’.”
“It’s a surprise,” Avery said,
I smiled, “oooo how intriguing!”
We turned the corner and I noticed someone approaching. Avery did too, as I noticed her breathing sped up a little.
“Speak of the devil and I mean the literal devil, here comes another,” she muttered.
Approaching us was a blonde. Like his brothers, he was tall, but not as tall. He was dressed in what looked to be a highly expensive suit and matching designer shoes. His face was serious and unemotional, like it was paralysed in a state of seriousness.
“Woah, hello jawline,” I mumbled, after catching a glimpse.
“Wait until he looks you in the eyes,” Avery murmured.
“Oh god he walks really fast,” I said quietly, as he approached closer and closer.
She grinned at me, “rich boy leg strides.”
I tried to smile but fail, “Why is my heart beating so fast?”
“He has that effect of people,” she shrugged, “intimidation.”
“Why does he look like he wants to kill me,” I said under my breath when he was about two meters away.
“That’s just his face,” she reassured me.
I began to ask another question, “Are-“
“Shut up,” Avery hissed and I understood why. The blonde had stopped infront of us and he was staring me up and down, as if he were scanning for some sort of hidden weapon I had.
“Who’s this?” Goldilocks snapped, his voice clearly portraying his dominance.
“A friend,” Avery replied curtly.
“A potential threat,” he said sharply.
Why did everyone in this place think I was some sort of axe-murderer. Was it common in Texas or something?
“She’s none of your business,” Avery grits through her teeth.
“We’ll see about that,” he replied walking away.
He hadn’t bothered to introduce himself, though I couldn’t work out if it was because he felt I was too below him or he just didn’t feel a need to. Whatever it was, it was clear that there was a tension between those two, but I decided not to bring it up yet.
“What’s he going to do? Research me?” I scoffed.
Avery shrugged as we continue walking, “probably.”
“You’re kidding!” I laughed.
“I wish I was,” she said, wiping the smile off of my face.
“So I take it he’s the one that hates you for breathing?” I clarified, mentally ticking him off of my list of what Hawthorne’s I had met and what ones I hadn’t.
“Yep,” she nodded, “that was Grayson.”
“Yeesh, his jawline looked dangerously sharp,” I winced.
“Better not get on the wrong side of it,” she winked.
“I think I already am,” I blew out a breath, “I mean if looks could kill…”
“Oh we’d both be long gone,” Avery giggled.
“I get the eye thing now,” I groaned rubbing my eyes, “god, ouch, it burns.”
“Doesn’t the piercing grey just give you a headache?” she asked.
“It really does, have you got aspirin?” I said.
She shrugged, “somewhere in the maze of a house.”
“Was he wearing a designer suit?” I was dying to ask.
“Always,” she nodded.
“You’re kidding, all the time?” I gaped.
She sighed, “All the time.”
***
We spent the rest of the day in various different places. I adored the library and the dance studio as well as the karaoke bar and swimming pool. These people had everything. But something was playing on my mind. I’d met three of the four Hawthornes, which meant there was still one to go. I hadn’t seen the other all day, but I had stumbled across his brothers another few times. I found it odd. Avery only shrugged when I asked her about it and presumed he was drunk somewhere. Avery and I had also convinced ourselves Grayson had a murder club, consisting only of himself, and we were the first on his hit-list. We figured if we went, we’d go together so it’d be alright.
Somehow, after touring not even a quarter of the house, we ended up back on her bed again, me catching her up on old school drama. I’d forgotten that she’d missed the break up of the century with an added cheating scandal from the girl with the guy’s brother.
“Hey I just need to run and find Libby a minute, I’ll be back,” she’d told me, after she’d received a text in her phone.
“Everything okay?” I checked.
“Fine,” she nodded once, “I’ll be back soon.”
But soon didn’t feel that soon. It was a little awkward sat in someone else’s bedroom without them. I didn’t know what to do with myself. After a while, I decided I should look for Avery. I opened the door and smacked into someone and almost toppled over.
“You should really watch you’re going, heiress,” the person said.
“Maybe you should too,” I scowled, looking up to meet a pair of alluring green eyes.
“You’re not Avery,” he replied, looking very confused.
“Gee, you’re observant,” I rolled my eyes, then suddenly felt a pang of guilt, “sorry, I tend to overreact when I’m pissed off.”
“A quality we share,” he grinned slightly.
“I wouldn’t call it a quality,” I said.
I stared at him properly, he was tall with dark, unruly hair. He had a similar bone structure than his brothers but his face was softer than Grayson’s, his features warmer.
“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure,” he smiled, a witty, mischievous smile, “Jameson Hawthorne.”
He extended a hand towards me and I took swiftly it. His grip was hard, strong I noted. Jameson, the brother I was yet to meet. And dare I say it, he was the best looking by far.
“So who are you?” he asked.
“I’m y/n,” I said, “I’m a friend of Avery’s, I’ve come to stay with her.”
“That’s nice of you,” he commented, a little awkwardly.
“It’s the least I can do,” I replied quietly.
He doesn’t say anything back but I don’t want him to. It was hard enough focusing on conversation when he was looking at me. He was gorgeous. Simply gorgeous. His whole face with was the picture of perfection. Symmetrical, but not harshly, it was more of a mellow, kind symmetry, that enhanced all of his features. His soft looking lips, his nice shaped nose and his eyes. God those eyes. They were a rich green like nature, glistening with intelligent thoughts.
“Well I suppose I’ll see you around then,” he said, pocketing his hands.
“I suppose you will,” I replied.
He walked away slowly and I realised that evening that my stomach fluttered whenever I thought about the Hawthorne with the green eyes.
***
That night I found it so hard to sleep. Avery was out in a mere few minutes but I couldn’t even shut my eyes. Tossing and turning and tossing and turning until I got so bored that I just slipped out of bed all together. I pulled a pair of socks on and left Avery’s room, beginning to wonder the dark hallway. I didn’t really think any of it through. Wandering in the dark, alone, in a house I didn’t know, surrounded by people I didn’t know.
“Midnight wandering are we?”
His voice made me jump but I didn’t let him see that. I turned around to see Jameson Hawthorne stood behind me. How long had he been there then? He looked so poised, so ready, like a big cat on the prowl. He needed to know I wasn’t his prey.
“Maybe,” I replied, a smile adorning my lips, “but even if I am I don’t know why that’s any of your concern.”
“Maybe I’m not concerned, just curious,” he said, “are you lost?”
“No,” I lied to myself and the world.
He waited a few beats.
“Maybe a little,” I smiled shyly, “this place is even harder the navigate in the dark.”
“Lucky for you I know it like the back of my hand,” he did, extending his hand towards me.
I stared at it, “do you want me to hold it or something?”
“No,” he shrugged, “I mean if you want to-“
“No,” I blurted out quickly, “not at all.”
He dropped his hand, a shadow of an expression I couldn’t read shifting across his face.
“Follow me then,” he said, shooting me a lopsided grin that I somehow manage to make out in the dark.
I walked beside him. He was wearing a plain black t-shirt and slightly baggy pyjama pants. My cheeked heated up as I suddenly became horribly aware that I was dressed in my pyjama top reading ‘I need coffee’ and shorts decorated with cartoon coffee cups. I hoped Jameson wasn’t paying that much attention to me.
“So why are you awake?” he asked casually.
“I can’t sleep,” I replied bluntly. There wasn’t much more to it.
“Straight forward as that?” he said.
“Pretty much,” I shrugged, “why are you awake?”
“Can’t sleep,” he replied, with a small smile.
“Copycat,” I teased.
“Am I stealing your thunder?” he played along.
“Very much so,” I said, folding my arms across my chest, with a pointed stare laced with banter.
“My deepest apologies,” he exaggerated.
“Not accepted!” I exclaimed.
He grinned, then shoved his hands in his pockets, “Where do you want to go first?”
“Where would you like to take me?” I countered.
“I respect people who answer questions with questions,” he noted.
“Good because I do it far too often,” I told him.
“We’re going to the games room,” he announced.
“Why?” I questioned, like a whiny child.
“Because it is where I’d like to take you,” he shrugged delicately, before picking up the pace with longer leg strides.
I struggled to keep up as I asked, “this isn’t going to be like one of those sadistic murders where you cook me alive and blame it on someone else is it?”
“How did you figure out my master plan?” he teased, with a joking expression.
“I guess you’re just too predictable,” I replied, with a laugh.
“So you watch true crime then?” Jameson said.
From that comment I gathered he was an analyser. Just like me. He analysed conversation and made educated assumptions about people. But what split us apart was that he had the courage to say it to there faces, I kept all my observations in my head. I didn’t care if they were unconfirmed. But Jameson did.
“I listen to a podcast now and then, not a fanatic or anything like that,” I replied.
“Should we play a game?” he said to me, changing the subject suddenly.
“I thought we were going to a games room?” I said.
He thought for a moment and then responded, “a pre-game game.”
“I’ve heard you and your family are quite fond of those,” I said.
“Oh really?” he joked, quirking a brow.
“Yes really,” I grinned back.
“I see,” he pondered “and do you like games?”
“Depends,” I replied.
“On…” he prompted.
“What I’m playing,” I told him, “who I’m playing it with and why I’m playing it.”
“Interesting,” he hummed, opting thoughtful tone, “the man who makes it doesn’t want it, the man who buys it doesn’t need it and the man who needs it doesn’t know it yet.”
“Is that a riddle?” I almost laughed. It was so out of the blue, so sudden asking me a riddle in the middle of a conversation.
“Is my last name Hawthorne?” he countered with a smirk.
“A coffin,” I answered briskly. It wasn’t difficult to work out.
His eyebrows flew to his forehead, “that was fast.”
“Your riddle was maudlin and far too simple,” I shrugged.
He raised an eyebrow, “too easy? Okay, let’s try another and see if you’re as cocky.”
“Not cocky, just honest,” I replied.
He paused for a moment, thinking, “how can you physically stand behind your father while he is standing behind you?”
“My father is dead,” I said. It was true. I don’t know he I suddenly felt the need to blurt it out. It just happened.
“Oh-“
“But we’d have to be standing back to back,” I replied quietly, “that’s the answer to your riddle.”
“Correct again,” he nodded, then hesitated, “and I’m sorry about your dad,”
“Oh it’s okay, it’s not your fault,” I shrugged lightly, “I was young when it happened.”
I didn’t remember much, just being told I wouldn’t see him ever again. I had asked why and they had said he was going to stay in the stars now. And when I asked them if he’d ever come and visit, they told me couldn’t. So I cried. During the most part of my childhood I despised the stars, I’d stare up at them with a tear streaked face and curse them for stealing my dad. When I got older I realised the only thief was death and that the stars were nothing but a metaphor to hold a memory.
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
I shoot him a small smiled, letting him know I’m okay and that we can move on. He read my expression well and together we carry on. After a little while he stopped in his tracks outside a set of doors. I almost crashed into the back of him as he paused to abruptly. He swung both doors open at the same time, having a little ‘Elsa’ moment in let it go, as he walked through with his held high. I quickly followed, trying not to gape at the extraordinary components of the room.
There was a pool or was it a snooker table, there was air hockey, ping pong, table football, everything you could ever imagine. There was also a regular coffee table, surrounded by comfy looking chairs and a sofa. But what caught my eye the most was the games cabinet. It was a sight to behold. It covered an entire wall and reached all the way up to the ceiling. There was a ladder on the side that looked like it could slide across, like a book ladder. Within the cabinet laid dozens upon dozens of board games and other games alike were piled atop of each other, like books in an old crooked bookshop, all slanted and uneven in the most perfect of ways. There must’ve been thousands of games here. Jameson caught me staring.
“Ever played chess?” he asked, cocking his head to the side.
“I don’t live under a rock you know,” I deadpanned.
He cracked a smile, “good.”
He jumped on the ladder and swiftly pulled out one of the several chessboards from the shelf and placed it down on the little coffee table. I followed him there and we both sat down. He then began to set it up and I was quick to help out the pieces in place.
“How good are you?” he asked.
“Why? You scared?” I teased, attempting to psych him out before the game even started.
“Only curious,” he said, cool as a cucumber.
“I can’t say,” I shrugged, “how can I judge my own ability fairly, I’m biased.”
“I suppose,” he replied, “but you would know if you’re alright at it.”
“I’ve won before,” I said. Actually I’d won quite a lot before, many many times. I wasn’t exactly lying, just being vague to work in my favour.
The board is set up, “what colour?”
“You choose,” I told him.
He shifted the board so the black chess pieces are on his side. Secretly my preference was the white anyway. I did a quick analysis of the board and sketch out a rough game plan in my head. I didn’t spend to long thinking, this game could go anyway and I didn’t want to be thrown off, but knowing what you sort of want to do was a start. Definitely the first few moves anyway.
“You start,” he urged.
“Such a gentleman,” I joked.
“I can’t help it,” Jameson winked in response.
I picked up a pawn between my middle finger a thumb, surprised at how smooth the finish was. This was an expensive chess set. I went with my classic start move of two spaces forwards into the centre. He grinned and mirrored the move on his turn.
“Copycat,” I teased.
“I would apologise but you still haven’t forgiven me from earlier,” he shrugged in reply.
“And I probably never will,” I grinned.
“Is this the beginning of some Shakespearean vendetta?” he scoffed, with a playful undertone.
“It might be, we’ll have to see,” I shrugged, “I haven’t decided whether it’s a comedy or tragedy yet.”
“Pick comedy, I don’t want to die at the end,” he said.
“We’re all going to die at the end,” I told him.
He replied, “not what I meant.”
“I know,” I smiled.
“You’re getting in my head,” he observed, realising my tactic.
“Am I?” I asked, batting my eyelashes.
“Yes you’re distracting me from the game,” he said sharply.
“Oh I hadn’t even realised!” I exclaim, doe eyed and innocent.
He narrowed his eyes at me, “your move.”
“Right,” I nodded.
We didn’t have much conversation after that. Actually the only conversation consisted of ‘your turn’ or ‘thanks’. Other than that only the sound of chess pieces being slid about the board could be heard as well as the dull silence that seemed like the loudest sound of them all.
Jameson had a lot of my pieces, the ones I didn’t need in my opinion. I let him have them, I want him to think I don’t know how to defend my pieces.
go on… my mind smiles, please. underestimate me.
I was deceptive and wanted him to underestimate me so I could surprise him, catch him off guard and steal the game from right under his annoyingly perfect nose. But Jameson Hawthorne wasn’t a big of a fool as I thought him to be. The few times I’d been forced to pull out critical moves, he noted them. He began to realise my talent for the game about half way through. He too was a talented player. His moves were swift but calculated, he was going to be a hard opponent to beat.
Move after move. Minute after minute. It was getting intense. Every move was critical, every second in between play was agonising. I found myself constantly self-consciously chewing on my bottom lip, captivated in my concentrated state.
He made his move and suddenly I realised what I can do. I could take a risk and bargain on what his next move was to trick him, but the tactic would only work if he moved the piece I needed him to move, otherwise it was checkmate for me. I sat there, weighing up my options. There was a chance he’d work it out and beat me, but there was also a chance he wouldn’t and I’d beat him. My eyes darted from left to right and back again until I impulsively took the chance. Praying my efforts had paid off, I watch his painstakingly slow next move. He shifted his knight diagonally by two. I wanted to stand up and scream in joy. I had him trapped. Brilliant. My calculated risk had actually worked. I kept a poker face as I realised he’d not yet noticed that I was a venus flytrap and he had crawled blindly towards me.
“Checkmate,” I smiled, leaning back.
His eyes were wide with surprise as his eyebrows shot up to his forehead. The reaction was so real, he didn’t have time to hide it. His jaw wanted to hang down but he was stopping it, I could see the clenched muscles.
“What?” I asked “didn’t plan on being beaten?”
“I was going easy on you,” he gritted through his teeth.
I grinned widely. So losing was a sore spot for Mr Hawthorne. Interesting.
“That would explain why you look so shocked that I won,” I said with a sweet victorious smile.
“Fine, rematch but this time we play Hawthorne chess,” he replied, as if it were a deadly game.
“Hawthorne chess?” I raised my eyebrows.
He only smirked in reply.
***
He explained the rules. It was a lot like regular chess but there were six boards to play over and a few added rules that confused me. It wasn’t long before Jameson had me cornered.
“Checkmate,” he grinned, nicking my king.
“I was going easy on you,” I teased, mocking his earlier comment.
“Ha-ha,” he deadpanned, looking very unamused.
“Is your ego mended now you have a win?” I asked.
“Not quite,” he replied.
“Shame,” I pouted.
“Another match?” he suggested.
I shook my head then rubbed my temples, “I can feel a headache coming on. It’s probably from my lack of sleep.”
“Do you want me to walk you to bed?” he offered.
I shook my head again, “I’m not tired. My head just hurts.”
“I know something that might help,” he said.
“Okay,” I agreed.
“Fancy taking a trip the kitchen?”
“This is feeling very serial killer-y again.”
“I only snap into serial killer-y mode every third Wednesday,” he joked.
“Well now I know I’m safe!” I grinned back at him
***
We walked to the kitchen together and I noted it was a completely different route to the one I’d taken with Xander’s instructions this morning with Avery.
Once we got there Jameson leaned against the counter and asked me, “do you like hot chocolate?”
I nodded.
“Or would you prefer a coffee?”
His eyes were pinned to my pyjama set as he said it. I self-consciously looked down and blush a deep shade of scarlet, remembering the deign, as he snickered.
“Very witty,” I rolled my eyes sarcastically, “hot chocolate is fine.”
He fumbled around for a saucepan in the endless row of cupboards. I didn’t know how he knew which one to search in, they were all identical. He put it onto the hob and added some milk.
“Our cook goes home after serving dinner so I’ve gotten pretty good at midnight concoctions,” he explained.
“The way you say that makes me a little nervous there,” I told him.
“Maybe you should be,” he flashed a smile.
He put the hob on to heat up the milk and grabbed the instant hot chocolate powder, whipped cream, mini marshmallows and sprinkles.
“Are you five years old?” I laughed.
“Mentally,” he nodded, “is that an issue?”
“Not at all,” I said , “I’m with you there.”
“Nice to know I have a fellow person who had the metal capacity of five year old too,” he beamed, “our conversations will be incredible.”
“We’re having a conversation right now,” I stuck my tongue out, childishly.
“I’m describing the ones in the future,” he rolled his eyes, before returning my tongue gesture by poking out his own.
I smiled to myself as I watched him silently. Even at this time at night - or was it morning by now - he looked good. I wished I could see him like this every night and not feel like I was stealing glances at him.
“So what about you?” Jameson asked suddenly.
“What about me?” I chuckled.
“Well I don’t know much about you,” he clarified.
“You know my name,” I shrugged, searching for more information about myself, “I’m seventeen, Avery is my best friend, my dad’s dead, I like hot chocolate but I also like coffee, I find the rain relaxing, I used to play chess a lot, I like to read novels, I don’t like sleeping but I do all at the same time… now what about you?”
“What about me?” he tilted his head to the side, copying what is aid moments ago
“I gave you my information now you give me yours.”
“Jameson Winchester Hawthorne, I’m eighteen,” he began, “my best friends are my brothers, I don’t know my dad at all, my grandfather liked to give me games, I like hot chocolate and coffee, I prefer the snow to the rain, I have played chess since I could talk, I like to read too and I love sleeping but I don’t do enough of it.”
He’s countered all off my points and mirrored them with his own. It was interesting to compare us. We were similar but so different. I was about to reply but he cut me off.
“Woah!”
“What?” I asked.
“The milk!” He yelled, worry outlining his features.
I spun around to see the saucepan emitting in a thick blanket of steam.
“Why is it smoking? Can milk even smoke?” he shouted.
“It’s steam!” I rolled my eyes.
“Can milk even steam then?” he quipped.
“It’s a boiling liquid of course it can steam!” I exclaimed, for someone so smart, I did wonder how he was acting so stupidly.
“What do I do?” he panicked, the stress evident.
“Take it off the heat!” I cried out. I’d thought that was logical but no. Apparently it was not.
“Oh shit, yeah,” he said, almost laughing
He took the pan off of the heat and the steam began to die down. We made eye contact and started laughing like mad people, until our lungs couldn’t take it anymore and we had to get our breaths back, our bellies aching. We just seemed to fit, me and him. It was like we were the two missing pieces of a jigsaw that have been lost between the sofa cushions for years and now we’d finally been found and put together to complete the puzzle.
The milk turned out pretty much okay and we prepared the drinks a lot easier than we’d heated them. Jameson added every topping going excessively, which made me shake my head and laugh. When we were both done I took a sip, the warm liquid seeping through my body to the tips of my toes, making me feel a little less cold. It was delicious.
“Verdict boss?”
“S’alright,” I shrugged, “I’m kidding, it’s really lovely actually.”
“I agree,” he nodded, “maybe I should smoke my the milk more often.”
I laughed, “you didn’t smoke the milk, it just got a bit steamy.”
“Steamy,” he wiggled his eyebrows
“You really do have the brain of a five year old,” I sighed inwardly.
“Hey! I thought we already established that and moved on,” he said.
“I felt like we needed the conversation to resurface but we’ll put it to bed,” I sighed, then with a mischievous look on my face added, “for now.”
He grinned at me, taking another swig of his hot chocolate, this time getting whipped cream on his nose. I subtly rubbed my nose, hoping he’d mirror my body language or take the hint. He did. Silence hit us like a bus would hit an animal running across the road in the dead of night. Quickly. It wasn’t exactly uncomfortable but nor was it comfortable. It just was. The only sound was the occasional sip of our hot chocolates.
After a while, I became aware that he was looking at me, actually it was more like staring. It was an analytical look in his eyes, like I was some sort of science experiment rather than a person.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” I asked, trying not to squirm as he held his gaze.
“You’re a lot like Avery you know,” he replied thoughtfully.
The comment caught me off guard and I couldn’t work out why. It wasn’t exactly an insult but it hit me like one. Why was Avery on his mind? And why was she on his mind whilst he was looking at me?
“Our brains work in similar ways,” I hummed, “I think that’s why we’re so close.”
“I noticed that,” he nodded, “but I also noticed you’re quite different at the very same time.”
The same and different? Being cryptic, I’ve decided, is a Hawthorne personality trait.
“How so?” I said.
“There’s something about you that is…” he paused to find the right word, “bolder.”
Bold? Really? That was one of last words I would have described myself with.
“You’ve only known me for a day,” I scoffed, “and you haven’t exactly known Avery for that long either.”
“I know,” he replied, “but you’ll find I’m very observant.”
It was only then I noticed his smile. It was the same smile Nash had on his face when he looked a Libby. And I hated to admit it but he look beautiful. His eyes illuminated, sparkling, bright. He looked genuinely happy. It made my heart melt a little, I wanted to see that smile every day. There was only major problem. I didn’t know if he was smiling at the thought of me or the thought of Avery. He could have easily be thinking about either of us and I didn’t want to get the wrong idea.
“You think Avery’s some sort of riddle,” I stated, trying not to let the bitterness seep through my tone.
“And you don’t like that?” he observed, an eyebrow raised.
“Any person who values another as just another game doesn’t get my greatest sympathies, no,” I told him blatantly.
“And what if she is?” he challenged, defensive.
“Is that all she is to you? Just a game?” I asked, getting angrier by the second, “what happens when the game ends Hawthorne, ask yourself that.”
“Then the game ends,” he shrugged, nonchalant as ever, “there’s not much more to say.”
“So she becomes nothing if not a tool for your own wants and needs?” I asked, stating it as bluntly as a pencil that barely writes.
“I didn’t say that,” Jameson insisted, a mixture of feelings betraying the usual mask he hid behind.
“You’re implying it,” I hissed, my eyes overcast, darkened.
He didn’t deny it and that gave me the only answer I needed.
“Now I don’t know you very well, but from what I have to go off of, I didn’t pin you as someone who was selfish,” I told him, raw passion in my voice, “a little bit cocky and far too brave, sure, but not selfish,” I snapped, my tone sharper, “but you’re acting like it and it’s not fair.”
He didn’t reply. Instead he morphed into some sort of stone statue, unmoving, unemotional, unwavering. I felt like a mother scolding her reluctant child.
“And did you even consider how hard this has been for her?” I questioned him, “coming here, to this labyrinth of a house, her life now dictated by a will, forever changed. She’ll never be able to walk the streets again like a normal person without paparazzi bombarding her. She’s just about adjusting to living here, one of your brothers seems like he wants to kill her, you treat her as if she’s a game and she’s being bombarded by the media, I mean the poor girl doesn’t even know why she’s here. She didn’t ask for this and I don’t want her to have to put up with your ‘I’m a Hawthorne so I’m going to use you because I’m entitled’ shit.”
Again, I got no response. For someone so witty and poetic with his words it was odd that now he chose to be silent. He stood still and said nothing. I wanted to shake him until he made a sound but instead I chose to be diplomatic, I chose to carry on.
“You can’t think of her like that, it’s not fair. Not for her or for yourself,” I said, “if you go by your whole life thinking everyone and everything is a game you’re going to lose people, fast.”
“You sound experienced,” he finally said, not replying to a word of my rant just picking out who he thought I was.
“Yeah well maybe I am,” I laughed bitterly.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, “I didn’t realise what it might feel like from her perspective of things. I’m used to being in my grandfather’s world, a world full of games and tricks and puzzles.”
“People aren’t puzzles,” I snapped.
“I disagree with you there,” he said, “people shouldn’t be treated like puzzles but every person is a puzzle.”
“Am I a puzzle to you Jameson?” I challenged, taking a step towards him.
“You’re one of the most intriguing ones yet,” he whispered, moving closer to me.
“Funny, I think I could say the same about you,” I murmured.
My face was inches from his, close enough to see his beauty up close. It was even more breathtaking. He looked down at me, his eyes so tentative, so gentle. We moved closer into each other, like a magnetic force was reeling us in, we had no control. It felt natural, it felt right. Our lips were about to brush…
He cleared his throat and pulled away quickly. My face grew very flushed as my eyes darted to the nearest corner of the room I could focus on.
“Still not tired?” he asks after a few beats of silence.
“Not in the slightest,” I replied, our eyes connecting once again. The soft rolling fields of hypnotic emeralds once again speeding up my heart rate.
“Good because neither am I,” he smirked, “say, have you ever played strip bowling?”
Now this could get interesting.
a/n: again, I’m really sorry for how long this took me to write and I realise it’s not my most amazing work, so sorry 😔😔 I really wanted to portray a strong friendship with Avery as well as interest in Jameson but idk if that was achieved. anyways hope this was okay, thanks for reading <3
HAPPY BIRTHDAYYY JUDEEE 💖💖 WORDS CANNOT AND WILL NOT DESCRIBE HOW MUCH I LOVEE YOUU AND I REALLY HOPE THAT THIS DAY IS ONE OF THE BEST FOR YOUUU BECAUSE YOUR DESERVE IT SO MCUHHH!!🎂🥳🎉😘 YOURE ONE OF THE SWEETEST, KINDEST, MOST AMAZING PEOPLE, I KNOW AND IM SO GLAD TO HAVE MET YOUUUU
(AND ALSOOO I MANAGED TO WRITE SOMETHING SO LONG THAT TUMBLR WONT LET ME POST IT ALL OM THE SAME POST SOOOOO THERE’S TWO PARTSSS 😭😭 SORRY GIRLLL )
THIS IS SET BEFORE AVERYYYY (TOBIAS IS STILL ALIVE JUST NOT A FEATURE)
HERE IS MY BIRTHDAY PRESENT TO YOUUU, I HOPE YOU ENJOYYYY…
title: jude’s birthday (part 1)
pairing: jude x jameson hawthorne
“I hate how long it takes popcorn to pop,” Xander groaned putting his head in his hands as he stared dismally brown bag of popcorn doing pirouettes in the microwave.
Jude laughed, shaking her head, “it’s like two minutes.”
“Two whole minutes,” he replied, eyes widened with hyperbole, “outrageous isn’t it!”
“You are funny Xand,” she sighed.
It was one of Jude and Xander’s classic movie nights, they were hosted at least once a month and were quite the occasion. But, as usual, Xander was being extremely impatient for his popcorn. If Jude had a pound for every time they had this conversation, she’d probably be richer than him.
“It wasn’t a joke I really think that-“ the ding of the microwave cut him off.
“You were saying?” she raised an eyebrow, folding her arms in challenge.
“In theory,” Xander began, “two minutes always feels a lot longer than it seems.”
“Mmm sure,” she grinned playfully.
Xander had been Jude’s best friend forever now. She couldn’t imagine her life without him in it. He’d been there for so long he was automatically part of every thought she had, connected to her heart. They knew each other like the back of their hands, an interlocking history of stories shared between them.
“Let’s change the conversation topic,” he said quickly, averting his eyes.
Jude shrugged, leaning against the countertop behind her, “I don’t mind this one.”
“Well I do,” he countered, “let’s talk about you and Jameson.”
Jude’s stomach somersaulted at the sound of his name.
“Xander! Lower your voice!” she hissed, looking over her shoulders.
The kitchen didn’t exactly have thick walls. She’d never actually meant to tell Xander about her feelings for Jameson, she’d promised herself she wouldn’t tell anyone. But Xander was her best friend and there were only so many things she could keep from him. It turned out that birthday presents were significantly easier than crushes. Every second she tried to keep it, she felt like a liar, so eventually the truth was just revealed.
“Relax,” he shrugged, “he’s not even home.”
“Doesn’t matter, you promised me you wouldn’t speak about it,” Jude said, giving him a pointed look.
“So as your best friend you really expected me to say nothing about him to you?” he raised the one eyebrow that wasn’t burnt off.
“Well no but-“
“So you’ve spoken to him?” Xander asked, excitement glimmering in his eyes.
“I talk to him every day,” she sighed, “we’re friends, remember?”
“Ouch,” he winced, “the friendzone.”
Jude laughed, “you sound like a documentary voiceover.”
Somehow Xander always managed to make her laugh. He had the rare quality to pretty much turn any situation into a positive light. Jude loved that about him.
“Maybe I should make a documentary about you guys,” he pondered, putting the voice back on, “the Jujubear backs away once again, retreading from the rare Jameson raccoon dog-“
“Raccoon dog!” she yelped, unable to stop herself.
“He gives those vibes,” he shrugged in reply.
“He does not!”
“I think you have an unconscious bias,” Xander grinned, wiggling his eyebrow.
“Nope I’m very conscious of my bias actually,” she stuck her tongue out, laughing.
Jude had liked Jameson for a while now. Maybe a bit more than a while. Initially, Xander and Jude had been the two to click, best friends since the day Xander had found her lost doll, the one with her name engraved on the front. She remembered the moment distinctly, a little boy with intelligent eyes and a shy smile walking towards her. She’d been crying and was still a little bleary eyes, yet her expression totally flipped when he revealed the doll and asked her if it was hers. From then on they’d just been stuck with each other.
Jude had always been close to all of the brothers in her own way, growing up around them just naturally made them gravitate together. But with Jameson it had always felt that bit different, that bit more special. He made her feel free, like she could breathe, like the stress of life didn’t matter, like no weight was heavy on her chest anymore. She loved how she felt with him, how he made her feel inside.
“So have you made a move yet,” Xander asked her, a mischievous smile lacing his lips.
She stared at him, her face saying it all, “what do you think?”
“Jude!” he exclaimed, melodramatically throwing his head into his hands.
“It’s really hard,” she defended, arms up like a convicted criminal.
“You’re just scared,” he told her.
Xander was always honest, annoyingly honest. He didn’t even embellish the truth to soften the blow. Jude knew he had a point, she was scared of ruining over a decade of friendship with Jameson. It wasn’t exactly something she wanted to lose over her feelings. She’d rather be friends than nothing.
Still, she was slightly stubborn and didn’t want to fully admit that quite yet, “am not,” she countered.
“Are too!” Xander quipped, “and you can’t even admit it so you’re also in denial.”
“Eat your popcorn,” she grumbled, not looking directly into his eyes.
“Ahhhh so I am right but you can’t accept it,” he grinned, throwing a piece of popcorn into his mouth, “I see you Judesicle.”
“I swear to you Xander, I will steal all your blueberry scones if this conversation doesn’t end here,” she glared at him.
His face paled slightly and his jaw hung slack, “you wouldn’t.”
“Try me,” she said, with a dark smile.
Xander knew better than to mess with that face. He’d only seen it a couple of times but he recognised it always as a direct warning sign.
“Fine I’ll end the conversation,” he replied with a sigh.
Jude grinned, satisfied, before he flicked her forehead. She was more in shock than in pain but complained just as well. Xander teased her further but she could only smile. He was everything. A ray of sunshine. If she was drowning, he was her lifeline. He was always there, no matter what.
“You know I’ve decided something,” Xander said, popping another piece of popcorn in his mouth.
“Are you finally going to properly grow your eyebrows out?” Jude guessed, “seriously I miss them.”
“What? No! Ouch!”
“Sorry,” she said quickly, reaching for her water glass.
“I’m going to get you two together,” Xander announced.
Jude almost choked, “what?”
“You and Jamie,” he shrugged.
“What happened to ending the conversation,” she exclaimed with wide eyes.
Xander only smiled, “you never said for how long!”
“Hawthornes and their loopholes,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. Of course, the one time she hadn’t been meticulously specific with her words Xander had taken advantage.
“Sorry I can’t help it,” he replied, “anyways I am committed now, to make this relationship happen.”
Jude knew that look in his eyes that stubbornly determined look that he often had when one of his experiments was constantly failing. ‘Failure is just success waiting to happen’, he’d once told her. It was safe for anyone to say that Xander was an optimist.
“No you’re not,” she shook her head, “you’re going to stay out of it.”
“You wish,” he pokes his tongue out, “think of me as your wingman.”
“Well can my ‘wingman’ stop meddling with my love life,” Jude deadpanned, folding her arms.
“That’s all a wingman is meant to do!” he yelled, exasperated, “you want to take away my destiny Jude? My one life goal, the desire and aspiration of my soul, the thing that makes my heart-“
“Fine.” she said dryly, “you can help-“
A wide grin spread across his lips, “I knew I’d make you crack.”
“But-“
“Why is there a but!” he pouted.
“On my terms,” she finished.
“Okay…” Xander said slowly, “but your terms can’t be ‘don’t help’.”
Jude made a face.
“You’re so predictable,” he teased, ruffling her hair, “you have to remember I’m the loophole master, you’re not getting anything past me.”
She rolled her eyes, smoothing down the hair on top of her head, “fine, but here are the terms so pay attention. Term one, don’t make it obvious because I swear Xand, if he finds out I’m going to kill you.”
“You know for you to get together he has to know you like him right?” Xander said.
“Yes but knowing you, he’ll find out way to early and if he doesn’t like me back-“
“Which I think he does,” he interrupted.
Jude groaned, she’d been in this cycle with him too many times, “stop feeding into my delusions!”
“But I’m your wingman!”
“Just!” she sighed running her fingers through her hair, “anyway, if he doesn’t like me back the it’ll get awkward so try and retain yourself.”
Xander saluted, “roger that!”
“Second term-“
“How long is this list?” he asked impatiently, somehow he had the attention span of three year old for conventional instructions but not for complex maths.
“You agreed to my terms remember so there’s as many as I like,” she beamed, batting her eyelashes sweetly.
He groaned. He’d missed a loophole.
“Second term: no grand schemes to noticeably leave us together,” she announced, “please try and be subtle.”
“Subtle is my middle name!”
“Xander,” Jude said flatly, “you’re about a subtle as an elephant doing a ballet routine on a pogo stick wearing multicoloured polka dots.”
“I thought you liked that about me,” he said, large brown eyes wide.
“I do,” she reassured him, “just not when it comes to me and Jameson.”
“Rewind,” he cut in, “isn’t term two the same as term one?”
“No, term one is essentially don’t reveal I like Jameson with your mouth,” she explained, “term two is don’t reveal I like Jameson with your actions.”
“What’s term three; avoid obvious body language?” he scoffed.
“Wow you’re picking this up faster than usual!” Jude teased.
“Hey!”
“No sneaky looks,” she instructed, “obvious eye contact, smirks or that wiggly eyebrow thing you do.”
“This?” Xander asked, pointing to his eyebrow and a half, wiggling them up and down.
“Exactly,” she said, “please don’t do that.”
His expression dropped, “but I love making my eyebrow wiggle!”
“Restrain yourself wingman,” she replied, patting his shoulder.
He gave a long and exaggerated sigh, “for the good of your relationship, I will.”
“There is no relationship,” Jude muttered, “don’t get my hopes up.”
“Yet… there is no relationship yet,” he corrected, “I’m not getting your hopes up, I just have a whole lot of faith that this is going to work out.”
She sighed, with a small smile silently questioning what she’d ever done to deserve a best friend with such a beautiful soul in her life.
“Okay,” she confided, “fourth term Grayson and Nash do not find out.”
Xander hesitated for a long second before replying. Jude’s chest seized in panic. No one else was supposed to know.
“Hate to break it to you,” he winced, “but I think they already know.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry but-“
“Why would you tell them!” she exclaimed, with wide eyes, her heart racing.
Part of her almost felt betrayed. It wasn’t like Xander to spill anything she’d told him, in fact he knew nearly all of her secrets. One side of her brain was telling her he’d never do that and the other was saying the proof is in the pudding. All Jude knew was that she was starting to get a headache.
“I didn’t say anything I swear,” he defended.
“I trusted you Xand!”
“I swear on my last blueberry scone I said nothing!” he said quickly, holding his hands in the air so she could see none of his fingers were crossed.
Jude knew then he was telling the truth. Not just from the uncrossed fingers or the fact he swore on his last blueberry scone, but from the earnest look shining through his eyes, that bled into his face. Guilt began to gnaw at her internal organs for assuming so quickly.
“Sorry I didn’t mean to jump to con-“
“It’s fine,” he shrugged with no hint of offence, “don’t worry about it.”
“How do they know then?” Jude wondered aloud, confused.
Maybe they’d overheard one of her and Xander’s many conversation on this topic? Maybe she’d spoken in her sleep subconsciously? Maybe Grayson was a secret mindreader? She’d always suspected to last one anyway.
“Jude,” Xander sighed, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder, “has it ever occurred to you that you make it a teensy bit obvious?”
She giggled and shook her head, “I don’t make it obvious.”
He looked at her.
“Do I?” she murmured, anxiously.
“Let’s just say I think the only person who doesn’t know you like Jameson is Jameson,” Xander said slowly.
She stood still, paralysed, “please tell me you’re joking.”
“I wish I could but as your best friend and newly appointed wingman-“ he paused to wink, “- I have to be honest with you.”
“This is so bad,” she groaned.
“Did you miss the part where I mentioned Jameson not knowing?”
“Of course he knows Xander!” she cried, “do you even know how perceptive he is!?”
“Not when it comes to girls, trust me.”
“I’ve messed everything up all over some stupid feelings for a stupid boy with really cute, get-lost-in-for-hours green eyes!” Jude said, raking her fingers through her hair.
“You haven’t messed anything up, you’re overthinking entirely,” Xander soothed, putting an arm around her, “but can we keep fangirling over my brother to a minimum please, I do not need to hear that.”
“But you’re my wingman,” she teased, looking up at him.
“Touché Jude, touché,” he sighed.
“But fine I’ll keep it a minimum around you,” she replied.
“Thank you,” he said, “and I promise you Jameson has no idea you like him, trust me.”
She glanced over him sceptically, questioning his logic silently, as much as she did trust him, the signs pointed the other way.
“When have I ever let you down Jude? Have some faith in me,” he said.
He had a point. Xander had never let her down. Not in all the time she’d known him. No matter how big or small it was, he was by her side immediately. All his promises were kept, all the shared secrets, hidden.
“Okay then,” she told him, “I believe you.”
“Great,” he flashed her a grin, “now you go to bed whilst I go and work out phase one of mission:” he took a deep breath, “get-my-best-friend-and-brother-to-go-out-because-they’re-both-too-scared-to-make-the-first-move-which-is-totally-dumb- because-they’re-clearly-made-for-each-other.”
“Well that’s a bit of a mouthful,” Jude replied dryly.
“I shortened it to mission JJ,” Xander said, moving his hand across the air as if revealing a title.
Jude looked at him, head tilted to the side.
“Mission Jude and Jameson,” he clarified, “obviously,”
“Right…”
“Anyway I’ll catch up with you tomorrow,” he said, “you need to get your beauty sleep.”
“Hey!” she yelled, whacking his arm, “and what happened to our movie night? There’s cold popped popcorn in that bowl for about six people.”
His eyes widened suddenly remembering their plans, “oh yeah.”
“And I made homemade brownies this afternoon per your request!” she said, “did I do that for nothing?”
“How could I forget!” he replied, “change of plans, movie night first, plotting mission JJ tomorrow.”
“I call first dibs on the movie,” Jude said before he could get there.
“No fair!” he whined.
“You snooze you lose Hawthorne,” she grinned, “besides I made the tray of brownies that were about to enjoy so surely I should get first pick.”
“But I’m your wingman,” Xander pouted, trying to win her over with the puppy dog eyes.
Luckily for Jude, she’d gotten good at resisting. It was certainly not an easy task, something about the pleading expression and longing face from his eyes reeled you in like a sirens song.
“Wingman shwingman,” she stuck her tongue out, “we’re watching ‘bones and all’.”
“No not this torture!” Xander protested, “not again! It’s like the fifth time this week!”
“Second actually,” she corrected him, grabbing the box of brownies, “and don’t lie, you secretly love it. “
“No I don’t,” he replied, “it’s disturbing Jude, utterly disturbing that you enjoy it.”
“It isn’t!”
“And you always cry at the end even when you know what coming,” he rolled his eyes, carrying the popcorn and drinks.
Jude gasped, “don’t judge me, you bawled it on Tuesday night!”
Xander didn’t look her in the eye and made his way to their movie room. Despite Hawthorne house making multiple movie theatres Jude and Xander had created their own. It had all begun when they were ten, making pillow forts and now it had become this. A large white screen sat towards the back of the room, a projector ready to play the movie. The room was adorned with fairy lights and was cozy and warm. The sofa was a mess of fluff and blankets, dozens of mismatched pillows and soft plushies sat there, waiting to be cuddled.
“Do you really want to cry again tonight?” Xander sighed, slumping down.
“Yes,” she replied, sitting beside him with a grin.
“Do you really want me to cry again tonight?” he asked, trying to play on her heartstrings.
“Brownies,” she sang, waving the box towards him, a little incentive went a long way with Xander.
He glared at her for all of two seconds before taking the box, grumbling, “fine.”
“See I knew you secretly loved this movie,” Jude beamed, pressing play.
“I do not but I love you and I love brownies so I’ll brace it,” Xander said, taking a bite.
“Good idea.”
***
The credits rolled across the screen, not that Jude could even read them, her eyes were too blurred with tears. How did it get her every time?
“It’s so beautiful,” she choked out.
No matter how many times she watched it, the feeling never got old.
“Don’t cry you’ll set me off too,” Xander said, clearly trying to keep it together, wide brown eyes glossy.
“Don’t pretend you didn’t shed a tear at the halfway mark,” she exclaimed.
“I’m actually hardcore Judsicle,” he responded, “made soully of masculinity and weightlifting and football and…”
“And scones?” she raised a brow.
“Well of course I’m 98% scone,” he smiled.
“Naturally,” she grinned.
“Speaking of which you know what would be amazing,” Xander said.
The way he said amazing, made Jude question the next thing that might come out of his mouth, partly because she knew Xander so well it would be something utterly bizarre but equally wonderful that wouldn’t fail to surprise her.
“What?”
“If we cut a blueberry scone in half and put icecream in the middle,” he proposed.
“Like a scone icecream sandwich,” she asked.
“Exactly!” he clicked fingers, “that would be revolutionary.”
“I’ll stick to my brownies,” she laughed.
“Oooo ooo ooo,” he bounced excitedly, shaking her arm, “what if i sandwiched one of your brownies in a scone, now that would be-“
“Completely ruining a culinary masterpiece.”
Jude’s heart skipped a beat. It was only his voice that could do that to her. She shot a look at Xander that said ‘I thought he was out’ which Xander only shrugged in response to. Jude dared to look in Jameson’s direction and there he stood, loose tie, slightly messy hair, his top two buttons undone and blazer jacket slung over one shoulder. She noted the scratches on his patent shoes as well as the watch on his wrist which looked to be two minutes behind.
“Isn’t that right, Judy?” he grinned.
Butterflies attacked her stomach like an angry mob, hurling themselves at the walls. They fluttered around carelessly and bashfully. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep her from smiling right back like an idiot.
She glared at him instead, “don’t call me that.”
“Okay…” he paused, “…Judy.”
“You’re back early,” she commented, regretting saying the words as soon as they left her mouth.
Why was she being so obvious when she’d literally just lectured Xander in not being obvious? She knew she was going to replay this moment over and over tonight and drive herself mad over it.
“Got tired,” he shrugged.
Jude’s eyes fell over his attire again, scanning it for any clues. Jameson wasn’t one to leave places early, he liked a good party and a couple of drinks. But judging by his state he hadn’t had many, if any. Her eyes caught when they met his collar. A perfect red stain was printed on the white, a pair of round lips leaving their mark.
It felt like a punch in the gut, her heart just plummeted to her stomach. She didn’t think he liked her so why did it hurt so much to come to the realisation he actually didn’t. Why feel sad over something she hadn’t even lost?
Jameson caught her looking, his eyes growing wide with some sort of panic, “this isn’t what it looks like,” he rushed.
“I know you well enough now Jameson,” Jude laughed it off, burying the pain, “I’m not your mother, you won’t be in trouble for kissing a girl.”
“Like our mother would care,” Xander murmured.
She’d almost forgotten he was sat there, watching the whole thing play out. Tonight, Jude knew she’d definitely be asking him to analyse every detail of this conversation with her.
“Oh I didn’t kiss anyone tonight,” Jameson replied.
She raised her eyebrows and cocked her head towards his shirt, “lipstick says otherwise.”
He sighed, “I spilt whiskey down my shirt after getting a little tipsy and it stained, shame really I liked that shirt, anyway some guy offered me a spare shirt, one catch was he’d worn it the previous night, I didn’t even notice the lipstick stains until I was on my way back.”
She stared at him blankly, betraying no emotion with her face.
“You don’t believe me,” Jameson said.
“It’s a bit elaborate,” she replied, tilting her head to the side.
“That’s why it’s true,” he pressed on, an inch of desperation in his voice.
“Okay,” Jude said.
“You still don’t believe me, do you?”
Jude smiled coyly.
Looking at his shirt now, it didn’t fit as well as his other ones. Usually Jameson’s clothes were expertly tailored to his body, this shirt hung too loose around his torso yet his arms made the fabric taut. All of the buttons were there, also uncommon for Jameson as he nearly always had one that was loose or had fallen off.
Still, leaving Jameson Hawthorne the mystery as to why she wouldn’t believe him was one thing that would surely play on his mind. And Jude wasn’t exactly opposed to the idea of playing on his mind.
“Right I’m picking the next movie,” Xander announced, rushing to the movie box.
She groaned, “fine.”
“Don‘t give me that look I just sat through ‘bones and all’ for you,” he scowled.
“I love that movie,” Jameson grinned.
Jude look up at him, “you do?”
“I don’t,” Xander yelled from the corner.
“Yeah,” he replied, “I had no idea you liked it too.”
“Yeah I do,” she said.
“Maybe you two should watch it together sometime,” Xander said, plainly and simply, no weird signals or hidden messages, “it would save me from a few hours of torment.”
Jude smiled to herself. Maybe this wingman thing wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
“Yeah maybe we should,” Jameson nodded.
Her heart leapt and began to race uncontrollably. He wanted to watch her favourite movie with her. She pinched herself just to make sure this moment was real.
“I’d be up for it,” she agreed.
“Soon then,” he said, “but now I have to go and shower, I don’t know what happened in this shirt and I don’t think I want to.”
She wrinkled her nose, “you should probably burn it after.”
He leant down, “you read my mind.”
Jude felt her cheeks burn.
“Enjoy your movie night,” he winked, “goodnight Judy.”
“Jude,” she snapped.
“Judy,” he sang, sauntering away.
She shook her head with a laugh and watched him until he was out of the door. Still, Xander and Jude were quiet until they were sure he was completely out of earshot.
“Well hello Mr and Mrs Flirty McFlirtison,” Xander exploded, bringing back the eyebrow wiggle.
“Xand!” she yelled, slapping his arm before burying her face into his shoulder to hide her blush.
“I mean I thought rom coms were bad but you two top that entirely,” he said.
“Oh shut it!” Jude tusked, “he wasn‘t even flirting.”
“Please,” he scoffed, “were we in the same room?”
“You’re totally making it out more than it is,” she rolled her eyes, “besides you saw the lipstick.”
“He explained it,” Xander defended.
“Likely story,” she sighed, sinking under a pile of blankets.
“You know it’s true, I saw you analysing,” he replied narrowing his eyes at her, “and usually I can always see through my brothers lying and my lie detector senses were not tingling.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway, it’s not going to happen,” she said.
She needed to be real, honest with herself. The chances were slim, slimmer than slim. Maybe she could settle for just friends.
“Nu-uh I’ve started mission JJ now, it will be completed,” he replied a strong hard determination in his voice.
“Forget it Xand,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder.
“I have a talent for being annoyingly determined and persistent,” he sighed, “so sorry but no can do.”
She rolled her eyes, “what movie are we watching?”
He sensed the changed in subject and didn’t press her anymore. Another thing about Xander was his incredible ability to sense emotions and let things go when they needed to be let go.
“Finding Nemo,” he replied, “obviously.”
Jude looked at him for a moment. Time stood still and memories of their friendship played like a mini movie in her mind. Every movie night they’d had, every laugh they’d shared, every time he’d held her when she cried and every time she’d held him after his grandfather was horrible. Every moment, every second of her everything.
“Hey Xand,” she murmured.
“Yeah,” he replied.
“I love you,” she beamed.
A large smile spread across his lips before he swiftly tackled her with a classic Xander hug.
“Love you too Jujubear,” he said, “now where are those brownies, I need to make my brownie-scone sandwich concoction: the scrownie as I like to call it.”
“Did you just make that name up now?” she asked him.
“That obvious, huh?”
“You,” she said, “are one of a kind.”
“Best way to be,” he poked his tongue out pressing play on the movie.
***
Jude woke up with her head on Xander’s stomach. His long limbs were sprawled out every which way. She almost laughed at the sight. Light streamed through the curtains, giving her a perfect view of the chaos. Pillow there, sweatshirt here, half eaten bowl of popcorn there, Xander’s sock here. She noticed someone had covered them both over with a blanket.
Slowly sitting up, she stretched out her stiff body before she covered Xander back over with another blanket. Jude sighed, wiping the sleep from her eyes before untangling a piece of popcorn from her hair. That must’ve been from the midnight popcorn war. She smiled to herself and glanced at the screen, the jungle book was playing quietly the background, though the last thing she remembered watching was little women.
Groggily, she stood up and despite stretching, her legs and hips still clicked. She made her way to the kitchen, craving a warm drink. As she walked in she hit something hard and stumbled back. Jude felt her stomach drop as she fell backwards, panic seizing her throat, keeping her from yelling out. Inches from the floor, a strong hand grasped the small of her back, saving Jude from what seemed to be an inevitable crash into the tiles beneath her. Reeling her upwards and setting her straight, she met the emerald eyes of her saviour.
“Good morning,” he smiled softly.
She just stared, unable to form a coherent sentence or even a simple thank you. Jameson Hawthorne was stood there, shirtless, his arm still around her waist. An electric feeling tingled deep within her chest, a spark of sorts. Their eyes clung to one another’s and for a moment everything stood still. The clock’s hands didn’t tick, the birdsong was silenced and their mouths didn’t breathe.
And then it passed. Then it was nothing again and she jerked away suddenly, realising where she was and who she was with. Her brain could only process one word as she stared. Abs. Abs. Abs.
“Holy cow!”
“Ouch,” he laughed, “I know it’s early but I didn’t think I looked that bad.”
The regret sunk in, she’d pulled away from his touch, his hands on her waist. She shook the feeling away.
“No you don’t look bad,” she rambled, “you look the opposite of bad, actually, which is good, which is an understatement, not that I think you look good good but I don’t think you don’t look good, but you just surprised me because-“
“Hey I was kidding,” Jameson chuckled, “do you want a coffee?”
Jude knew her cheeks were bright red before she felt the heat in them. She’d never felt so mortified in her life.
“Rather a green tea please,” she replied meekly.
He raised an eyebrow fetching two mugs, “I thought you were a coffee person?”
Jude’s heart palpitated as her stomach tied into yet another love knot. He remembered. Why did he remember? How did he remember? Had he noticed her always drinking coffee?
“I am…” she hesitated, “…well was, I’ve recently found a new love for green tea.”
“Nash got you into them didn’t he,” Jameson sighed.
She winced, “possibly.”
He wrinkled his nose, “that means I’ve lost another bet.”
“Bet?”
“I wagered,” he explained, “that Nash couldn’t convince another person green tea was actually good because it tastes like grass-“
“It doesn’t not!” she interrupted him, passionate for her cause.
He laughed, a sound melodic to her ears, “I seriously thought I had this one in the bag.”
“I can’t believe my love for green tea is now all part of a bet,” she sighed, resting her elbows of the counter to cup her face in her hands.
“Awww are you really surprised?” Jameson asked.
“Oddly enough,” she replied, “no.”
“Good,” he winked, sending a swarm of baby butterflies into her stomach, “now let me make you a nice cup of grass stew.”
She rolled her eyes, “it doesn’t tatse like grass.”
“Are you trying to convince me or you, Judy?”
“Shut up,” she groaned.
“How about, no?” he proposed with a smirk.
“You’re annoying,” she commented, jabbing him in the ribs.
He squirmed, ticklish there.
“No, I’m Jameson,” he poked his tongue out.
She laughed, tilting her head back a little as she did. From the corner of her eye, she could’ve sworn his eyes were more fixated on her than the drinks he was supposed to be making,
“Did you sleep okay?” he asked, turning on the coffee machine.
“Ish,” she shrugged, “Xander as a pillow did not work any wonders on my neck though. Did you sleep okay?”
“As well as I could,” he replied smoothly, “there was the occasional midnight wander.”
She grinned in reply, then swiftly changed the subject, “thanks for not letting me crack my head open on the floor.”
“No problem,” Jameson said, “it would’ve been a real hassle to clean up.”
“Glad you saved yourself the trouble,” she joked back.
“You’re welcome,” he replied, “just watch where you’re going next time.”
“Maybe you should watch where you’re going,” she criticised.
He shook his head with a smile as he handed her a mug, “drink up your grass water.”
“It’s not grass water,” she snapped, her expression deadly serious.
“Keep telling yourself that and one day you might actually believe it,” he responded, taking a sip of his own coffee.
“Like how you keep telling yourself you’re actually funny,” she countered.
His eyebrows shot up, he swallowed, adam’s apple bobbing up and then back down. He cleared his throat, leaning down closer towards her, “you, Judy, are ruthless.”
“Don’t lie, you know you love it,” Jude teased, feeling a little bold.
“I do,” he said, not even denying it.
A golden hope blossomed in the left side of Jude’s chest. It burned with a fiery passion and glowed brighter with every little thing that happened between them. A comfortable silence settled over the kitchen as the two of them just sipped their drinks and enjoyed the presence of one another.
“I like those,” Jameson said suddenly, breaking the silence.
So deep in her own thought Jude registered the comment later than she normally would’ve, “what?”
“Your pyjamas,” he cocked his head towards her pink pyjama set.
She almost choked on her green tea, looking down at her attire, “my pyjamas?”
He nodded, “they’re cute.”
“Cute?”
“Is this a repetition game?” he deadpanned.
“No, sorry,” she laughed, “thanks.”
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
“It was horrendous Xander!” Jude exclaimed, on their walk, the air crisp and cold.
All the trees had shed their leaves, looking naked and icy on the pale winters day. Bleached of colour, a small layer of ice slush that you could just about call snow, lay on the ground. It was so bitter that you could feel the cold biting through your coat, tinting the tops of your ears and cheeks and nose with a warm red. Winter walks were a necessity to Jude, but on this one she needed to rant as well.
She’d finally managed to drag Xander from his slumber after many different tactics. Blasting alarm bell sound effects through speakers, pillow attacks and the good old temptation of food. Eventually she’d coaxed him out of the house to go on a walk to discuss the events of the morning. She explain everything to him in the exact detail she remembered it in, each part sounding worse and worse as she said it out loud.
“It doesn’t sound that bad,” Xander replied, pulling on his gloves after his hands had gotten too bored of sitting in his pockets.
“Ughhh and it was so embarrassing,” she groaned, “no, scratch that, it was mortifying!”
“You’re overthinking it,” he sighed putting an arm around her, “you have a tendency to do that.”
“Overthinking!” she exclaimed, “how is this overthinking?”
“Maybe he didn’t think anything of it,” Xander suggested.
“I can’t work out whether that’s better or worse,” Jude sighed.
If he didn’t think anything of it then it meant the moment he seen her and then caught her had meant nothing he if he did it meant she’d made an idiot of herself.
“Look I’m sure it’s fine,” he soothed.
“Easy for you to say,” she scoffed, “you didn’t humiliate yourself.”
“You didn’t humiliate yourself,” he sighed.
“I basically told him he looked good shirtless!” Jude said, with a dismal look.
“Hey you finally made a move,” Xander chuckled, attempting to get her to lighten up.
“Not funny Xand,” Jude deadpanned, “I hate the world.”
“No you don’t,” he laughed, pulling her closer into him.
“This is my second caffeine hit today!” she pointed out, waving her coffee cup in his face.
“Yeesh,” he coughed, “you’re really going through it.”
“It isn’t a joke Xand!” she said, “I just want the ground to just swallow me whole.”
“I know and it sucks,” he sighed, “but I have an idea.”
“Is this a Xander idea?”
“Of course,” he grinned, “we’re going to do something to take your mind off of things?”
Jude furrowed her eyebrows, “like what?”
“How do you feel about a game of laser tag?”
***
“This looks questionable,” Jude murmured as Xander handed her a light up laser tag vest.
“Don’t you trust me Judesicle,” he tilted his head to the side.
She sighed, pulling the vest on, “to an extent.”
“Good enough,” he shrugged, moving to her side to tighten the straps.
Their roles reversed as Xander slipped his vest on and Jude helped him do his straps tight enough. He went through the basic rules of the game and how to work everything as well as showing her around the area so he didn’t have such an advantage. Of course, he’d played many times with his brothers so he had an advantage there but Jude was ready. She had too much feeling to not be.
“There’s me and you and of course the simulations of extra people that you can shoot or get shot by,” Xander finished his explanation, “there are three, one blue, one green and one red.”
“Perfect,” she nodded, having had absorbed nearly every word.
“See you on the other side old friend,” he nodded, taking her hand and giving it a firm shake, with a solemn look in his eyes.
“Does this game entail death,” she asked.
“No but it sounded like a cool line to drop right about now,” Xander’s face broke out into a grin.
“Okay, let’s get this started,” she said.
Jude shook his hand with a grin before they walked in opposite directions. The question was where to start. She wanted to be hidden and even though she was familiar with the place, Xander knew it back to front was an obvious hiding place was pretty much out of the question.
She eventually chose a flat, unassuming wall and pressed her back up against it, holding her laser gun waiting for the sound to tell her the game had begun. A sharp, crisp whistle like sound screamed through the empty air and the game had begun.
***
Jude’s face was red and her face sleeked with sweat, she was also a little breathless. She’d managed to hit the other players quite successfully gaining her some points but she’d also lost some from being shot herself. Breathing heavily she’d found a corner to hide in, waiting for someone to pass to shoot them.
As soon as she heard footsteps she knew it was Xander. He was also heaving, trying to inhale as much oxygen as possible as he continued to run. Jude readied her gun and with one swift, well-timed pull of the trigger, Xander’s white light dulled to nothing. Xander looked up confused, until he saw Jude and screamed.
“Way to give a man a heart attack!” he yelled.
“It’s called tactics,” she winked, running off before his vest came back on and he could shoot again.
She ran across an opening, always a dangerous thing, but lucky for her, her lights still remained on. She made her way down a narrow pathway and twisted through walls and bends when she realised something. She looked down as her pink lights faded. Confused she looked around, getting a start when she saw Xander not three feet behind her, blowing the end of his gun as if it were a pistol.
“Did you follow me?” She asked.
“I wouldn’t prefer to say I tracked you,” he shrugged.
“How? I ran across the opening and no one followed,” she said.
“It was a combination of an epic floor roll,” he explained, “and very silent feet.”
The minute was up, her lights came back on, so she took the opportunity to shot first.
“Hey!” Xander yelled as she sprinted off, “you can’t distract me with conversation to beat me!”
“You snooze, you lose Xand,” she yelled back, running off.
She didn’t hear his reply if he did respond, she was too far away. Suddenly her lights faded again and in the corner of her eye she saw the blue simulation. She sighed, the whole game that blue one had been catching her out. She ran towards another set of jagged pathways with walls parallel to each other and slipped between them carefully, eyes on her target. The red simulation. Once her lights were back on she aimed.
Suddenly she saw a flicker of green approaching and knew she had to make a run for it. Mid-movement, she shot off the red, then turned to the green and managed to get it too. She noticed Xander trying to hide behind a wall so expertly aimed her laser gun around the corner to hit him too. The only one left was the blue simulation, but she wanted to hit it before the other’s lights came back on.
Her eyes darted from left to right until she caught it. The simulation seemingly sprinted down a different corridor, so Jude followed. Fearlessly running, she didn’t take long to catch up to the blue programmed player, and took even less time to shoot him. With a satisfactory smile, she watched as the lights dimmed and turned back to the other way to continue playing. She found Xander mid laser war with the green simulation. Dodging and shooting, dodging and-
A sound roared over all the chaos signalling the game was over. Breathless, Jude and Xander made their way to the exit and the simulations disappeared into thin air.
“Who knew laser tag could take it out of you huh?” Jude panted, taking her light up vest off.
“Daily workout checked off of my to do list,” Xander agreed.
Her eyebrows shot up, “you have a to do list.”
“Nope I have a scrambled mind full of things I’ve had to do in the past that occasionally come back to bite me,” he responded.
“I need to buy you a notebook,” she told him.
“Too conventional for my liking,” he wrinkled his nose.
“What if it played music whenever you opened it?” She proposed.
“I’m more intrigued now I must say,” he mused, making Jude laugh.
“So who won?” she asked him, shrugging off her gear.
“You,” he said.
“What?”
He pointed up to the point board, “you’re a natural.”
“I’m not sure about that one,” she laughed.
“Beat me and it’s your first go ever,” Xander shrugged, then his eyes sparkled, “I want to see you against Gray!”
“And risk my life?” she scoffed, “yeah, I think I’ll pass.”
“Come on Jude,” he sighed, “where’s your Hawthorne spirit?”
“I ran it over when you mentioned the possibility of competing against Grayson the Destroyer,” she replied smoothly.
“I forgot we nicknamed him that,” Xander contemplated wistfully.
“I’m still not over the scrabble incident,” she said, the game they had given him the nickname in.
“I’ll rope you into it one day,” he decided.
“Have fun trying,” she said with a stubborn smile.
“Race you back to the house!” Xander suddenly exclaimed.
“What?”
“Go!”
He took off before she even
“Hey!” Jude yelled, “get back here you cheat!”
And then she started sprinting.
***
She still beat Xander in the race, catching up to him easily. He was right, laser tag had been a good distraction, but what now? Now showered and in a fresh set of clothes Jude retreated to her favourite of the libraries in the house for a bit of quiet.
She needed some peace with her own mind and thoughts. Halfway through the second paragraph of the page, Nash sauntered in hands in his pockets and cowboy hat tilted forwards. Jude looked up to meet him, something about his eyes looked sad and hollow. That made her feel a little sad and hollow.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she nodded.
He sat down across from her, “you look tired.”
“Xander managed to get me to play three round of laser tag,” she replied, with a small yawn, “that might have something do with it.”
He chuckled softly, “only our Xand.”
Pain flickered across his face for the fraction of a second, if Jude had blinked, she would’ve missed it. She hummed in reply to his comment, eyes flicking between him and the page of her book.
She paused and shut the book, “are you okay Nash?”
“Yeah,” he replied quickly, hoarsely, like something had caught in his throat.
“Are you sure?” Jude pressed on.
Nash nodded, “of course I am.”
He wasn’t. Everyone knew it. Ever since his break up with Alisa he’d been a mess. Obviously no one saw what a mess he was but they could feel it. It didn’t feel like Nash was walking into a room, rather a mass of mixed up emotions.
“Okay,” she said slowly, “were you looking for someone?”
“Not in particular,” he shrugged, “I like this library.”
“Me too,” she replied quietly.
They fell into a comfortable silence as Nash surveyed the book shelves, his fingers running down spines of well loved books until the right one caught his eye.
“Try this,” he said, handing Jude a book.
She looked down, Amerika by Franz Kafka. Slowly she took the book from his hands and traced her hands across the cover.
“I believe it’s one of his first books,” Nash said, “you’ll like it trust me.”
“How do you know?” she wondered aloud.
“Because I have a tendency to observe people and based on previous reads,” he responded, “you’ll like this one.”
“Why’ve you been keeping such a close eye on me?” she raised her eyebrows looking at his quizzically.
“You’re my little sister at heart,” Nash told her softly, “how could I not?”
Jude’s heart squeezed. She’d always seen Nash as a role model, an older brother, but she’d never expected him to think the same of her.
“Thanks Nash,” she smiled.
“Don’t thank me kid,” he said, grabbing a book with an emerald cover and sitting in a leather armchair.
After a while she felt Nash’s eyes on her and looked up.
“What’s the question that you’re burning to ask me?” she shut her book, “just ask it.”
He sighed and paused for a long thoughtful while, “I’ll cut to the chase. Are you and Jamie a thing?”
“What? No!” Jude exclaimed quickly, too quickly, too defensively “I mean no, we’re just friends, just friends.”
“Okay,” he nodded slowly.
“Just friends,” she clarified.
He raised an eyebrow, “you mentioned.”
“You and Alisa broke up,” she blurted out, every compassionate, apologetic sentence she’d wanted to start with slipping through her finger faster than water.
“I know,” Nash said quietly, “I was sort of there.”
“Sorry,” she corrected herself, “I wanted to say I was sorry.”
“Thanks kid,” he nodded sharply, inhaling unevenly.
Jude groaned and put her head in her hands, “that came out all wrong.”
“I figured,” Nash responded, cracking a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
She sighed. She knew she had to ask. She had a feeling she also knew the answer. As she looked him in the eye, he predicted what she was going to say, yet still let her ask.
“Are you leaving again?”
“For a bit,” he murmured, looking at his cowboy boots, “yeah, need space, air, these place suffocates me too much, you know?”
“I’m sorry,” Jude mumbled.
“It’s not your fault,” he said sadly before he paused for a moment, “can I ask you something?”
“Anything,” she nodded.
“Take care of him for me, okay?” Jude knew in an instant, he was talking about Jameson, “all of them.”
“Of course,” she said softly.
He took her small hands and clasped them between his calloused ones. Nash looked her in the eye as he told her, “you’re the strongest one of us, kid.”
“Nash,” she murmured, tears welling up, “will you ever come back?”
“I always come back,” he promised silently.
“So did you really come here to say goodbye?” Jude said, biting the inside of her cheek.
“Yes and no,” he replied, as confusing as ever, as Hawthorne as ever.
“Bye Nash,” she whispered, her voice barely a sound.
“Goodbye J,” Nash said, pulling her into his arms, “I’ll miss you.”
“Not as much as I’ll miss you,” she murmured into his chest, inhaling his scent for the last time, she realised, in a while probably.
Nash was a constant, in a sea of madness, he was the rock that refused to erode. And now he was leaving because if he stayed he would break. He’d rather be broken far away and come back fixed than break here. Jude knew that. She wished she didn’t understand. Then she could be mad and this whole goodbye would be easier. But Jude had never been at goodbyes.
“Not possible, kid,” he said tenderly, kissing the top of her head.
He let her go, before squeezing her shoulders. With one final very cowboy nod, he began to walk away and she watched him with glossy eyes and a full heart.
“Oh and Jude,” he said spinning around.
“Yeah?”
“By the time I’m back you two better be going out,” Nash winked.
“Nash we’re just-“
“Friends,” he murmured, “I know.”
Then he left.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
She’d watched as the motorbike had pulled out of Hawthorne House and driven down the rode. She’d watched as he’d paused at the gate to take on final look behind. She’d watched as Nash, with a single bag and his cowboy hat had left. This was gong to be hard on all of the brothers, Jude knew that as well as anyone.
But still, the next day, a sadness weighed on her own chest. Nash was gone and might be for a while. The reality only just seemed to be sinking in. She slowly focused her attention to her book, not the one Nash recommended her but another. She wanted to save that one for when she needed Nash, so it would remind her of him.
“What you reading?”
It made her jump but she suppressed any reaction. She didn’t expect anyone to be there but she knew to voice all too well. It sent a tingle down her spine.
“A book,” she replied, not tearing her eyes from its contents.
“What book?” Jameson said from behind her.
“The metamorphosis,” she told him, closing it to reveal the cover.
“Franz Kafka?” He asked, walking around to sit next to her.
Her eyes lit up suddenly, “you’ve read it?”
“You sound surprised,” he laughed.
“Not surprised,” she said, “just shocked.”
“That’s a synonym of surprised,” he teased, ruffling the hair on the top of her head.
“Excited then,” she corrected, pushing his hand away, “now I have someone to talk about it to.”
“Mmm,” he hummed in agreement, an overcast of seriousness shadowing his expression, “Nash recommended him to me too.”
“How did you…” she trailed off, “why are you back so late anyway?”
“Detention,” Jameson replied.
Jude wasn’t exactly surprised that Jameson had gotten a detention, it wasn’t uncommon. She was more surprised that he actually went, something was up.
“You never go to your detentions,” she murmured, slowly pressing him to reveal what he was hiding.
He shrugged his shoulders, his face betraying nothing of his feelings, “I felt like it.”
“What’s wrong?” Jude asked softly, touching the top of his arm.
He looked down to her fingers, “what do you mean?”
He tried to play it off as if it meant nothing but she’d known him too long to fall for it.
“There’s something on your mind,” she said quietly, looking into his hurt green eyes.
“What makes you say that?” he asked, some note in his voice a little strained, almost hoarse.
“A few things,” she replied.
“What things?”
Jude raised an eyebrow, “you want the list?”
“Desperately,” he replied, the ghost of a smile tingling on his lips .
“Well, if you must know, your stance is different your weight was more forwards it’s usually slightly more upright, but when something bothers you, you hunch over in the slightest way. You keep fiddling with things, your own hands, the cushion, my hair, the hem of your shirt. Your focus is shifting from anything but your problem and you keep making mindless conversation with me to distract yourself, but it’s not working. You never go to your detentions and suddenly you turn up to one and…” she paused wondering if she should say it aloud, then channelled her inner Xander and recalled his life motto: yolo, “…and your eyes looked sad, hollow almost, it’s hard to explain, they just looked like you were in pain.”
“Very observant of you Judy,” he said, eyes pinned to hers, almost captivated by something. He was trying to keep up his usual banter but it wasn’t getting past her. She knew him too well.
She didn’t tell him not to call her Judy, like he wanted her to. Instead she got straight to the point. No more distractions, no more detours, it was time to face the truth.
“It’s about Nash isn’t it,” she sighed.
“That obvious,” he mumbled, forcing a small chuckle to push down the wave of pain.
“It was an educated guess,” she murmured, trying to make him feel a little better. That was a lie. She could see it on his face but he didn’t have to know that.
“It feels like I’ve lost a piece of myself without him you know,” he admitted, finding the material of the sofa far more interesting than looking directly at Jude for the moment.
“Yeah,” she replied, letting him continue.
“You can’t build a house without a foundation, it’ll collapse,” he sniffed, “and Nash is our foundation.”
“And he still is,” she reassured him, slowly interlocking her fingers into his, “just from a distance now.”
“I don’t know,” he sighed, gripping her tightly in need of the comfort.
“You think if you needed him he wouldn’t be back in a heartbeat?” Jude asked.
“I know he would but I don’t know…” he trailed off, lost in a world of his own thoughts, “…I just hate it when he leaves.”
“He’s going through something,” she said, “he needs time.”
“I know,” Jameson muttered.
“And he doesn’t handle it like you or Gray or Xand,” she continued, “he handles it like this.”
“I wish he didn’t,” he sighed, closing his eyes and tipping his head back.
“Do you?” Jude said softly, “wouldn’t it be more chaotic if he got reckless like you or shut down like Gray, hid it with a smile like Xand,” she sighed, “Nash knows how to manage his feelings, he needs to feel freer, this house hasn’t exactly always been a home to him.”
“You’re right,” he said quietly.
Jameson wasn’t one to admit that easily. Jude knew that. She looked at him tenderly, her eyes speaking volumes to him in the silence. She tried to read his face.
“But you’re still doubting something,” she picked up, almost immediately.
“How can you tell?” he asked, worming his way around the question first before answering it.
“I can just see,” she shrugged.
“I’m…” he trailed off, the words lodged in his throat. He didn’t want to say them out loud, it made them more real.
Jude waited silently until he was ready, giving his hand a gentle squeeze to remind him she was there and she wasn’t going anywhere.
“I’m scared he won’t come back,” Jameson finally said.
“He will come back,” Jude replied, her voice strong and sure, “he always comes back.”
“What if he doesn’t this time?” he asked, worry lines rippling across his face.
It almost scared Jude. She wasn’t used to seeing him so vulnerable, so emotional. It had shocked her he hadn’t done something utterly reckless yet, like sky diving or bungee jumping. Usually it would’ve happened by now, but instead he was here, with her, actually talking out his problems. What did that mean?
“You know Nash better than I do,” Jude said slowly, “you know in your heart he’s coming back, just like I do.”
“There’s always that bit of fear in me though, the dreaded ‘what if’ he decides not to,” Jameson replied.
“He wouldn’t abandon you Jamie,” she soothed, the nickname rolling off of her tongue naturally, “he loves you.”
Just like I do, she thought, but the words didn’t dare near her lips.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
After talking to Jameson, Jude had checked on Xander who was also down about Nash leaving. He wasn’t in the mood for much. Seeing Xander so sad made Jude sad too. He wouldn’t even eat a scone which got to Jude the most. Eventually after a lot of coaxing and scone concoctions, she managed to get him to have one but usually it was a given he would.
It was strange. The whole thing. Hawthorne house was deadened without Nash, all the brothers had retreated to themselves and gone quiet. Grayson had disappeared to the music room playing emotional pieces on his violin, Jude felt it was best not to interrupt him in that state. He hadn’t come out in hours and the violin hadn’t stopped once. She wondered if his fingers were bleeding, so left him some food and water and a packet of bandaids outside the door, just in case.
The next morning she set her alarm to wake up early. She had a netball match, first thing. Part of her didn’t want to leave the brothers on their own but she realised she could only do so much when she was at the house anyway.
She figured they might want time to themselves or time to talk with one another about the situation. So she decided to play in her match. After a soothing, long shower, she did her morning skin care before slipping on her netball dress. She walked back into her bedroom standing infront of the mirror to begin on her hair.
***
Jude groaned in frustration, starting the braid again for the fifth time. Why wasn’t it working this morning? Of course it just had to go wrong the day she actually needed it braided out of the way.
“Let me braid it.”
She gasped softly upon seeing Jameson leaning in her doorway, silently watching her.
“What?”
“Let me braid it,” he repeated. She couldn’t detect any hints that he was joking about the prospect.
“How long have you been standing there?” she countered.
“Not long,” Jameson shrugged.
“That’s a little creepy,” she told him, looking back to the mirror as she ran her finger through her wavy hair.
“Well how else am I going to keep you on your toes,” he winked, “now are you going to let me braid your hair?”
“You know how to braid hair?” she folded her arms across her chest and raised her eyebrows.
“I have a lot of free time,” he shrugged.
“You’re surprising me more and more every day Jameson Hawthorne,” she smiled gently.
With a smirk he stepped in towards her back, “well what else am I here for?”
She couldn’t tear her eyes from his reflection in the mirror stood in front of them both even when his breath tickled her neck.
“French or Dutch?”
She spun around to face him suddenly, “are you serious?”
He gave her a confused look.
“You know how to French and Dutch braid hair,” she exclaimed.
He grinned, “it’s like a pattern, a puzzle, something to solve.”
“Okay then,” she thought for a minute, “french.”
“Turn around then Judy,” he said, raising her arm above her head and spinning her around as if she were a ballerina.
“Jude,” she hissed, glaring at the mirror so he could see the reflection.
“Hairbrush,” he said.
“Is that a new nickname?” she batted her eyelashes, “very cute.”
“No, I need the hairbrush,” he rolled his eyes, holding his hand out.
She passed it to him before he gently picked up a piece of hair and began to brush it from bottom up. He took each and every section and handled it with the upmost care, like each stand of hair was made of glass.
“Your hair is really soft,” he commented, after he’d finished brushing it through.
She felt the heat rise in her cheek, “thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, “you might want to sit down for the actual braiding part.”
She nodded and took a seat on the floor, just below her bed. He sat behind her and slowly began to pick up the first bits of hair needed. Carefully and neatly he twisted the pieces into place. Jude could feel that he was doing it exactly right, adding the right sections at the right times. She’d never thought of a braid a puzzle before, but now she supposed it was. The twists and turns of intricacy, one wrong move and the whole thing would lose its effect.
It was so relaxing for Jude, for someone else to do her hair. It was a nice change from her arms burning and her head aching every morning. Best thing was, Jameson knew exactly what he was doing and he was someone making it comfortable for her head. Usually she’d pull one strand too hard and it’d give her a headache but that hadn’t happened so far.
“Do you have a hair tie?” he asked, once he’d gotten to the bottom.
She passed him the one from around her wrist, before grabbing the ribbons on her team colours.
“Could you tie these in the bottom too?” she asked.
“Of course,” he replied, taking them and putting them into the bottom of the braid, “okay go and see if you like it, I won’t be offended if you don’t.”
She grinned walking into her mirror to admire the plait. It was near on perfect and it looked so much better than her five previous attempts put together. She walked back towards him.
“It’s amazing thank you so much!” she smiled, instinctively wrapping her arms around him to give a grateful hug without actually realising what she was doing.
Though when she did, she didn’t pull away.
“Careful,” he rushed, “we haven’t hair-sprayed it.”
“Is Grayson rubbing off on you?” Jude teased, with a giggle.
“Don’t insult me,” he deadpanned, “I just did your hair.”
“My humblest apologies,” she bowed, mockingly.
“Gratefully accepted,” he nodded at her, grabbing the hairspray bottle, “right, close your eyes.”
She did as he said before he sprayed her hair so it stayed in, setting his masterpiece in stone before she washed it out later.
“Perfect,” he smiled, as she opened her eye again, “you look perfect.”
Her heart nearly stopped beating.
“What?”
“Your hair,” he coughed, “I meant your hair.”
Something sunk, it just plummeted right into her stomach. She felt heavy with disappointment and mentally scolded herself for it.
“Are you only saying that because you can credit yourself?” she played it off as a joke to mask her true feelings.
“Possibly,” Jameson replied, his face slowly breaking out into a grin.
She laughed sideglancing at the clock, “I need to make sure I’ve got everything before I leave, I’ll be right back.”
“Can I come to your game?” he asked suddenly.
She stopped mid step and spun around.
“You want to?” she said.
“Of course I do,” Jameson replied, as if it were an obvious answer.
“Yeah,” she nodded slowly, “sure.”
He’d seen her play before, just not recently. Something about that made Jude nervous but more driven to win, not just for herself and her team but to make Jameson proud too.
“I’ll drive,” he said.
She laughed melodically, “you are such a gentleman.”
“What can I say Judy,” he replied with a wink, stepping closer to her.
“Jude,” she corrected him, stepping in as well.
“Judy,” he smirked back.
“Jude.”
“Judy.”
“You won’t win,” she whispered, fierceness in her eyes.
“Try me,” he murmurs back, mischief in his.
Their faces were so close, that their noses almost touched. His eyes looked down at her lips and flicked back up again. Before she knew it they were both leaning in. Her heart beat loudly in her ears, screaming to be heard. Was this moment really what she thought it was?
“We should go,” Jude cleared her throat, pulling away, “don’t want to be late,”
“Yeah,” Jameson nodded slowly, picking up her bags for her.
And Jude could’ve sworn his cheeks were suddenly a little rosy.
***
Jude cursed herself for pulling away and for the whole journey thought about what could’ve been. However when she got to the venue she had to put all those thoughts aside to play.
The match went well, better than well actually, her team won and her play was excellent. After she’d said goodbye to her teammates she met Jameson who enveloped her into a hug, picking her up and spinning her around, telling her how amazingly she’d played. Jude can’t remember a time where she’d felt more special. He always made her feel like she was the brightest star in an ebony sky.
On the car ride home, the two of them just discussed her game and he let her rant about all the things she felt she could’ve done better before he pointed out some of things she’d done excellently. By the time they got back to Hawthorne House, they’d pretty much dissected the whole game about a thousand times over. But Jude didn’t mind and from the smile of his face, neither did Jameson.
As soon as they got in the two of them went straight to the freezer to grab a well-deserved ice pop.
“Icepop berry for mon chérie,” he winked, with the most awful French accent Jude had ever heard.
She physically cringed, taking it from his hand, “that one was horrible, please never say that again.”
“It sounded better in my head,” he sighed, grabbing a blue raspberry one for himself.
“You butchered that accent,” she snorted.
“Leave me alone,” he complained.
“Hey you’re back! How was your game,” Xander asked walking in.
“Good,” Jude nodded with a smile.
“Good is an understatement,” Jameson scoffed, “Judy played amazingly.”
“It wasn’t that good,” she rolled her eyes, he made her sound like some kind of netball prodigy.
“Xand she was lightning fast,” he explained.
“I bet,” Xander grinned, helping himself to a cola ice pop.
“And her interceptions were killer!” he added.
“Not really,” Jude interjected.
“Passes were legendary,” Jameson just continued.
“He’s over exaggerating,” she rolled her eyes, “surprise, surprise.”
“The best wing attack to ever exist,” he said.
“Okay, that is a stretch now,” she laughed.
“You’re too modest,” he replied, slinging an arm around her shoulders. Her face glowed as she felt an electrical jolt when he touched her, a spark of sorts. She wondered if he’s felt it too, but if he had, he didn’t show it.
“We should celebrate,” Xander announced.
“I agree,” he nodded.
“Oh but would you look at the time!” His brother continued, eyeballing his watch as if he’d never seen it before, “I haven’t blown anything up yet today, off I go.”
Xander practically skipped out of the kitchen door, though just before he turned he snuck Jude a wink to which she almost face palmed right there and then.
“Just us then, I guess,” Jameson said.
“Yeah,” she murmured, eating some more of her ice pop that was slowly melting in her hands. It made her feel like a little girl again.
He looked down at her, staring for a little bit as his lips parted slightly, “want to go somewhere?”
“That depends,” she smiled playfully, “where are you taking me?”
“You’ll see,” he grinned, “get changed and meet me down here in half an hour.”
“That smirk is saying all the wrong things to me,” she replied, “what are you planning Jameson Hawthorne?”
He shrugged and with a wink, left.
WELLL THATS A WRAP FOR PART ONE… HERE’S THE LINK GO PART 2 💘💖💕😍💖🥰💗 https://www.tumblr.com/littlemissmentallyunstable/770127988151992320/inmyheaddd-hellooo-again-judeee-welcome-to
ᯓ★ +18 ★ Jon accidentally on purpose overhears his two best friends doing it. I'm aware this isn't how super-hearing works. Great title I know thank you. ★ᯓ
Jon’s always been a well-mannered young man. It’s been said by his parents, teachers, professors, bosses, random people he encounters on the street, and he always believed that himself, until now.
Because if that was the case, then why can’t he fly away, far enough so he can’t hear his two best friends going at it like rabbits.
He’s just been floating a few feet above your apartment building, stock still ever since he zoomed over five minutes ago.
He didn’t mean to, he really didn’t mean to, but when he first heard your groan he thought you were hurt. Then he picked up the quiet sucking and even the faint sound of your slick.
You let out a sound that was far more lewd than the first and Jon’s hand shot up to cover his mouth, as if there was anyone around to hear the man’s sharp intake of breath.
Sheets rustle and Jon imagines you clutching the fabric between your fingers. He hears a lewd slurp and imagines Damian right between your thighs, lapping and sucking at just the right places.
Jon’s fists clench at his sides when he hears your moans grow louder and a little higher. Sheets shuffle and he pictures your back arching off the bed, grinding up into his best friend’s face.
You groan his name so unabashedly, in a way Jon never dared to consider you could. You sound like you’ve been waiting for this all day and your boyfriend’s finally giving it to you and giving it well.
Jon can almost see it, your fingers in his friend’s dark hair, your thighs squeezing around his head as you cum around his apparently deft fingers and skilled mouth.
He’d be lying if he said he’d never thought of you two like this before. You were a hot couple and you were both such good friends to him. You’d ask him to tag along on what could’ve been dates with just the two of you; you invited him to sleep overs where you’d both squish him between you on the couch, you’d cook dinners with him at your apartment, go on vacations, to the park, the beach.
Done an array of things with him that you could’ve just done as a couple but you chose to invite him along because you’re both such good friends to him-- even if Damian can’t admit it outright most of the time.
It’s only natural then that he’d think about what other couple things you’d want him to participate in...right?
How was he supposed to constantly see the way you look at Damian and not imagine you looking at him the same way? How was he not supposed to imagine Damian giving him gentle little touches like he did with you. Honestly, his restraint so far has been admirable.
Now all that’s out the window. He just heard Damian make you cum on his tongue and as red as his face probably is, he’s not flying an inch further away from your apartment like he should.
All he can hear are soft kissing sounds and you trying to even out your breathing, and suddenly, a new wave of guilt hits him.
He doesn’t even want to think about what he’ll do with his hard-on but he has to leave. He runs his hands through his already wild hair, trying to will himself to move. The moment is so tender and quiet, he wants nothing more than to be in that room.
Then he hears fabric shuffling and a belt buckle hit the floor.
“Look at me, Hayati.“
It’s such a simple, gentle command yet it has both you and Jon at attention. He hears the bed creak, a short silence.
“Just keep your eyes on me.”
You reply with a breathy, “'kay.“
There’s a pause before you let out a choked groan, and then a wet squelch. Jon has to squeeze his thighs together when he imagines his friend bottoming out in his other friend’s soaked heat, their eyes never straying from the others.
“So good to me, my Beloved.”
And now that his lips are free, Jon makes a new world-shattering discovery: Damian’s a talker.
“Ya Rouhi, I’d be a happy man if all I ever lived for was to pleasure you.”
His voice is thick, accompanied by your soft sounds of pleasure and the slow, slick plaps that make it to Jon’s red ears.
“I’ll always give you everything, Hayati. You deserve more than I can give.“
You both let out deep grunts in time with his steadily increasing pace. The sheets shuffle and Damian must have switched the position up because you curse and cry out.
“I’m yours in every way and I know you’re mine.”
It must be beautiful, Jon thinks, Damian’s lidded eyes matching yours, your hips matching his thrusts, bodies sticking together, shared breaths. Jon ignores the worsening wet spot in his underwear, his suit feeling tight on his growing hardness.
He holds his breath so he can better hear the exact moment you and Damian cum together, maybe you’re still locking eyes, maybe your foreheads are pressed together, but all he can hear is your mixed moans and the stalling of your hips as Damian fills you up.
Once more, the only thing left to hear after the high is soft kissing and harsh breaths. Nothing but Damian’s husky,
“I love you, Hayati.”
Between kisses and your croaked hum in return, “Love you too, babe. S'good to me.”
You mumble the sweetest praises in-between kisses and Jon can hear Damian’s heart beat a bit faster, can hear the sheets shuffle as he imagines the man shoving his face into his girlfriend’s neck at such sweet words being uttered to him. You always did say he was a secret sap, not that it was much of a secret between you three, but Jon only realises now just how true that really is.
As the moment grows quieter, Jon’s guilt only grows again. The sound of the city comes rushing back and his head spins around the various apartment buildings around him as if someone could’ve possibly known what he was doing.
Regardless, he can’t stay here, listening to your extremely private moment. There's no pretense of shock keeping him here anymore, he's just being a creep! No better than a criminal!
Unbeknownst to Jon, both you and Damian heard his distinct sonic boom when he flew off and you’re now staring at each other with matching wide eyes.
You’re the first to break the silence with a laugh, shoving your face in your hands. “You don’t think he...?”
Damian runs a hand through his hair with a groan that doesn't hide his embarrassment.
“I told him he should come over today.”
“And you forgot?!”
“I was distracted.”
---Then poor Jon jerks off to his bffs and then cries because he feels bad about it. 😭💔
or: you didn't think a mere pheromone perfume would have this much of an effect on him. congratulations, you've earned his attention and the hatered of your neighbors, boo you whore
warnings: MDNI! ot8 x reader (separate), they go FERAL, probably highly unrealistic portrays of what a pheromone perfume does, dom/sub dynamics, overstim edging piv begging etc etc, scent kink?, they're really really needy, overuse of italics
bang chan
"P-please please, just -"
and it's the first you've heard him beg.
his voice breaks into a ragged exhale, forehead pressed against your shoulder, inhaling like he's trying to burrow into your skin. His hips stutter, losing rhythm entirely, and the bedframe bangs against the wall with every desperate push of his hips against yours.
He'd laughed when you uncapped the perfume bottle - "Really, babe? Pheromones?" - watching as you dabbed it behind your ears, along your wrists. "Cute," he’d teased, leaning in to sniff you with exaggerated flair. "Smells like -"
His breath caught.
"it actually smells...nice"
And within minutes he was on you.
You didn’t think it’d be this bad - didn’t think the perfume would turn him into this much of a mess, wrecking you like he’s trying to brand himself inside you.
He’s close, faster than any other time - you can tell by the way his rhythm stutters, the way his fingers tremble where they grip you. But he won’t cum, won’t let himself, not until you’re shaking apart under him first. "No wait-" he twitched when you clench around him, his hips jerking wildly, like he’s losing alll semblance of control.
His forehead drops to yours, sweat and tears and god knows what dripping between you, thrusting hard, grinding deep enough to make you sob. "Gonna - fuck, gonna ruin you-"
His thighs tense violently, muscles locking up as he tries - and fails - to hold back. You can feel him twitching inside you, his cock pulsing in erratic little jerks as his breath hitches against your skin. "you're - hnn -you're g-gonna -" His words dissolve into a broken whine when you tighten around him again, dragging a punched out moan from his throat.
His hand slides between you, thumb circling your clit with a precision that shouldn’t be possible when he’s this far gone, tipping you over with a scream that he swallows with his mouth.
He fucks you through it, rough, chasing his own release like he’ll die without it.
then entire body stills , eyes rolling back as he finally, finally gives in - cuming with a choked off cry that sounds more like pain than pleasure, his hips rutting forward in tiny thrusts as he spills into you.
But even as his orgasm crashes over him, he doesn't stop - can't stop. His hands scramble to grip your thighs, dragging you impossibly closer as his hips jerk forward again, his cock still hard and twitching inside you. "it's not -fuck- s'not enough."
lee minho
the perfume must've worn off by now, 'cuz it's been hours.
You try to push back against his thigh, your arms trembling, but he groans, and in one fluid motion, he wrenches your wrists behind your back, pinning them there with one hand.
"Thought you could - hngh - get away?" His voice is a dark laugh, but it cracks halfway through, betraying the desperation beneath the bravado. His hips stutter, losing rhythm for just a second, and he groans , forehead dropping between your shoulder blades. "Fuck - you’re ruining me -"
He’d been smirking when you first sprayed the perfume, leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed, one eyebrow raised. "Really, baby? You think that’s gonna work on me?"
but then it's like a switch flipped - One second he was teasing, the next he had you bent over the couch, his teeth sinking into your shoulder as he ruined you.
Now, his free hand slides around your throat, holding , "Gonna - hnn - gonna fuck you stupid ," he rasps, but it sounds more like a plea than anything. His hips snap forward, and you feel him twitch inside you, again, his breath coming in sharp, uneven bursts.
The couch creaks so loud you worry it's gonna break, leather protesting under the force of his thrusts, and you try to push back against his thigh again - just to see what he’ll do.
His grip on your wrists tightens instantly, fingers digging in hard " Stay still ," he orders, and then his mouth is on your neck, sucking, marking you as his. His hips jerk forward again, erratic now, and you can feel him trembling - shaking - barely holding it together.
"M-Min, please -" Your voice cracks, barely audible over the wet smack of his hips slamming into yours,
He pulls your hair sharp, tipping your head back, and his lips brush your ear. "Please what , sweetheart?" He’s panting, voice wrecked, but there’s that smug edge to it, "Use your words."
You whimper, and he groans like the sound punched the air from his lungs. His grip tightens almost painfully, and you can feel him twitching inside you again, so close. "Wanna cum,"
"Then cum," he growls, biting down on your shoulder again.
And you do -
you shatter around him, vision going white, and he follows with a groan, his hips stuttering wildly as he spills inside you for the nth time tonight.
seo changbin
“You smell so good,” Changbin groans, and it's the first time he's been so turned on - so hard - by something like the mere scent of you, and the thinks you've unlocked something new in him.
“Yeah?” you murmur, running your tongue along the underside in one slow, filthy stroke. His breath punches out of him like he’s been hit, fingers scrambling to fist in your hair. “You like how I look too, or just the perfume?”
Changbin chokes - half laugh, half moan - before his head drops back against the mattress. “Fuck - both, obviously - ” His hips roll up, desperate, but you hold him down with a palm splayed over his stomach, relishing the way his abs jump under your touch.
“God, please-” His voice cracks, and you finally take him into your mouth, swallowing him down until your nose brushes the wiry hair at his base. His hips stutter, thighs trembling under your grip, and you hum around him just to feel the way his whole body seizes.
his thighs quiver under your palms as you hollow your cheeks, dragging your lips up his length. A string of broken curses spills from his lips, fingers tightening in your hair - not to guide, just to hold on.
The musk of his arousal mixes with the heady sweetness clinging to your skin, and when you swipe your tongue over the slit, he whimpers, hips jerking off the bed.
“F-fuck,” His voice is ragged, breath coming in shallow pants. You take him deep again, relishing the way his cock twitches against your tongue, the salt of him thick on your taste buds. His abs flex violently when you swallow around him, a choked-off moan tearing from his throat. “God, your mouth - shit, shit, shit-”
You pull off just to watch his face crumple, lips slick and swollen as you tease the tip with featherlight kisses. His chest heaves, eyes wild, and when you grin up at him, he makes a sound like he’s been gutted.
“Please,” he gasps, hips canting up uselessly. “Please, please, please-”
The desperation in his voice sends a thrill down your spine. You lick a slow stripe from base to tip, humming when his fingers spasm in your hair. “Gonna-” His warning is half swallowed by a groan as you take him all the way down again, nose pressed to his pelvis, and stay there, throat working around him until his legs shake.
He comes with a sob, hips stuttering as he spills down your throat, and you swallow every last drop, lapping at the oversensitive head until he’s whimpering.
Hwang Hyunjin
The shower spray is hot, steam curling around Hyunjin’s bare shoulders as he kneels on the tiled floor, hands clamped around your thighs to hold you still.
He'd crowded you against the tiled wall, his mouth already on your neck before the showerhead even finished warming up, frantically pulling both your clothes off as his hands slid down your waist, "Fuck," he muttered, voice rough, nose dragging along your collarbone "What the hell do you have on?"
You barely had time to answer - not that you could’ve, not with the way his tongue was suddenly all over you, his hips pressing into yours with a desperation that made your breath hitch.
The saleswoman had promised the perfume would be effective, but you hadn’t expected this. Hyunjin’s fingers dug into your thighs as he lifted you, your back hitting the slick tiles, and then his mouth was between your legs before you could even gasp.
His tongue was relentless, hot and wet and insistent, licking into you like he was trying to memorize your taste.
"Oh my god-" you choked out, fingers tangling in his dripping hair, tugging as his lips sealed around your clit, sucking hard enough to make your vision blur. He moaned against you, the sound muffled but filthy, hips jerking forward, grinding against your leg.
"Taste - fuck -" he slurred, pulling back just enough to speak before diving back in, tongue fucking into you with a broken noise.
Water cascaded over both of you, he was too busy lapping at you like he was starved.
"Fuck, you taste—" he groaned against your skin, the words muffled by your flesh as his lips sealed around you again, sucking hard enough to make your toes curl against the slick tiles. You gasped, fingers tightening in his hair, tugging as his tongue pressed deeper, fucking into you with a rhythm that had your vision spotting.
"Hyune—" you whined, back arching off the wall, water spraying across your heated skin. He didn’t let up, his hands sliding under your thighs to hike a leg higher, spreading you wider.
His nose brushed your clit as he licked a slow, filthy stripe up your slit, and you squeaked, hips bucking wildly. "God, you’re - hnn - you’re ruining me," you babbled, voice cracking as his tongue circled your clit again. your orgasm was building up, fast .
He pulled back just enough to pant against your thigh, lips slick and swollen, "Smell so good," he slurred, nuzzling into your skin like he was drunk on you, his hips rutting against your leg in frantic, aborted thrusts. "Taste even better- "
You barely had time to even breathe before his lips sealed around your clit again, and - oh god - your vision whited out. Your back arched off the wall as you came with a broken cry, his name tumbling from your lips like a prayer.
He didn’t stop, tongue lapping at you through it, drinking you down, rutting against your leg-
And then he broke.
His own climax hit him, hips stuttering as he came untouched, his cock twitching against your calf, stripes of white mixing with the water running down your skin.
his forehead pressed to your stomach, whole body shuddering as he rode it out. You carded your fingers through his sopping hair, watching as he trembled, his breath coming in ragged gasps before he managed,
"please tell me you bought whatever you had on"
han Jisung
"please, please don’t stop," Jisung whines, voice cracking as his hands scramble uselessly at your hips, fingers slipping against your sweat slick skin. His thighs tremble under you, muscles jumping with every roll of your hips, every tight clench of your cunt around him.
You’re both a mess - his cock twitching inside you, oversensitive and leaking, your own thighs sticky with his spend and yours, dripping down onto his stomach in a slow, obscene trickles.
The room reeks of sex, of sweat and musk and the thick, honeyed scent of that godforsaken pheromone perfume you have on that got him so putty in your hands in the first place.
"You’re so good," he babbles, hips jerking up helplessly, chasing the drag of your walls around him even though he’s shaking with it, even though his cock is red and oversensitive and dripping.
"So pretty, so perfect - fuck, fuck, fuck, your pussy’s killing me-" His words are cut off when you grind down, the swollen head of his cock catching on that sweet spot inside you that makes your vision blur.
You’re exhausted, this is - what, the third orgasm? fourth? you've lost count. your thighs burning, cunt throbbing with every movement.
but with the way he’s looking at you, lips bitten raw, eyes wet and pleading, tears clinging to his lashes, you can’t stop. Not when he sounds like this, not when he’s begging so pretty.
His fifth (?) orgasm hits him so intensely, it's got his back arching off the bed, hands clawing at your thighs like he’s trying to ground himself, to survive it.
You feel him pulse inside you, but there’s barely anything left to spill, just weak little spurts that make him sob,
"N-no more, please-" he chokes, but his hips stutter up anyway, betraying him, fucking shallowly into you like his body’s forgotten how to stop.
"You can take it," you murmur, riding him through the aftershocks of his fifth release like it’s nothing, like his cock isn’t twitching pathetically inside you, oversensitive and spent.
"C’mon, baby, one more - just one. For me." You grind down, relishing the way his breath hitches, the way his hips jerk up helplessly, betraying him even as he sobs out a weak "No, no, ‘m gonna die-"
he looks ruined right now. it only spurrs you on, rolling your hips in tight, practiced circles, milking him dry until his sixth orgasm punches out of him with a choked gasp. It’s barely anything this time, just a weak dribbles that leak out around him.
You settle above him, panting, thighs trembling with the effort of holding still. His chest heaves, sweat slick and flushed, his hands limp at his sides like he’s given up.
You lean down, pressing a kiss to his jaw, humming when he whimpers at the contact. "So good for me," you coo, brushing his damp hair back from his forehead. "Took it so well."
His breath hitches when you shift, and then you’re moving again, slow at first, then faster, his oversensitive cock stirring inside you despite his weak protests.
His hands fly to your hips, fingers digging in, his voice cracking around a "Fuck " that turns into a broken moan halfway through.
You lean down, pressing your lips to his ear, your voice dripping with sweetness. "Think you can handle another?" His
lee felix
Felix’s thighs tremble where they’re splayed open, his cock twitching pathetically in your hand - red and overstimulated, dripping precum onto his stomach in a messy trail.
His breath comes in shaky gasps, lips bitten raw, fingers clawing at the sheets, trying to anchor himself. "P-please - fuck - please," His voice breaks, high n' so desperate , tears welling in his lashes as you slow your strokes to a torturous crawl.
You remember the way he’d grinned when you first showed him the perfume bottle - how he’d rolled his eyes but bought it anyway because you’d pouted, because he always caves for you.
Who knew he'd be like this. His hips jerk off the bed, his cock leaking against your palm, his entire body wracked with shudders as you squeeze him justtt shy of release again.
"No - hnn - no more , I can’t -" He sobs , back arching, eyelashes rimmed with tears.
his stomach is drenched , a glossy mess of precum and sweat, his abs clenching with every thrust. His cock pulsing in your hand, the head flushed dark and aching.
You brush your thumb over it, slow , just to watch his entire body jerk, his mouth falling open in a soundless scream.
his arm flew up to cover his face, ashamed of the tear spilling down his cheeks. "Y-you’re killing me -"
"You bought it for me," you murmur, and his hips twitch up helplessly. "S’your fault , baby."
Felix whines, a high and broken sound, his fingers tangling in the sheets like he’s trying to rip them apart.
"D-didn’t - hngh - didn’t know -" His words are cut off when you speed up, wrist flicking up in quick strokes, his toes curling into the mattress. "F-fuck - stop , s’too much -"
But you don’t stop- you slow down instead, your strokes lazy, teasing, and Felix keens, his entire body bowing off the bed. "P- please ," he begs, "just - fuck - just let me cum -" His cock twitches, dripping, and you grin, " Ask nicely," you purr , and he chokes, his face flushing darker.
Felix’s breath hitches, his lips parted around ragged gasps, his eyes rolled back with desperation . "P-please," he whispers, voice breaking , "please let me cum, please-" His hips jerk up, pathetic , and you coo, "good boy ,"
Kim seungmin
gosh if Seungmin was in the right state of mind, he would be embarrassed right now.
his fingers settle against your hips - gentle at first, just the barest press of his thumbs into your skin as you rock back onto him at a pace so slow it’s cruel.
The headboard isn’t even knocking. The sheets aren’t even rumpled. You can feel him trembling beneath you, his thighs locked tight, his breath coming in little gasps every time you clench around him "F-fuck," he grits out, voice strained, "you’re - hnn -you’re killing me -"
and you shift backwards, just enough for your hair to brush his cheek - just enough for him to catch a whiff of you .
And then - oh - his head falls back against the pillows with a thud , his eyes rolling so far back they might stay there. "Oh," he chokes, voice gone , "oh fuck -" His hips jerk up violently, slamming into you so hard you yelp, his fingers digging into your skin to hold you upwards. "S-smell - fuck - smell so good -" His words slur together, his hips pistoning up mindlessly , his cock throbbing inside you.
"hnng- thought it 'wasn't gonna work' " you tease, grinding down, and Seungmin snaps , you don't even register him flipping you onto your back so fast the room spins .
His lips crash into yours, messy and so desperate , tongue licking into your mouth "gonna ruin you -" he gasps between kisses, his hips snapping forward with a wet slap, his cock pulsing and leaking inside you.
His hands wander, greedy, one tangling in your hair to yank your head back, the other groping at your throat , "M-mine," he murmurs, teeth scraping your jaw, "all fucking mine -"
yang jeongin
Jeongin hates you.
At least, that’s what he keeps saying into your skin between desperate bites - his hips pistoning into you from behind so hard the bed screeches across the floor.
"f-fuck" His voice cracks , stuttering , his cock twitching inside you "H-hate you - hate how you smell -"
And it’s hilarious , really, because he was the one who bought it for you.
Jeongin had shoved the little black box into your hands two days ago, muttering something about "thought you'd like it."
The box was sleek, expensive-looking, the kind of thing that made your brows raise when you peeled back the velvet lining. Pheromone Amplifier, the label read in delicate silver script. For enhanced attraction - effects may vary.
Idiot. He hadn’t even read the fine print.
Now? His teeth are sunk into your shoulder, his hips slamming into yours like he’s trying to punish you for his own mistake.
"S’your fault," he hisses, voice wrecked, his hands clawing at your waist, pulling you back onto him, "Should’ve - hngh - should’ve thrown it away -"
You laugh between a moan, grinding back just to hear him whine, and he stops , flipping you onto your back so fast the room spins. His pupils are blown , lips swollen from biting them, his cock throbbing where he quickly sheathed it back nside you.
"S’not funny ," he gasps, his hips are already stuttering , his rhythm falling apart as he chases his release.
His forehead drops to yours, his breath hot against your lips, and when you clench around him , he sobs , his entire body locking up. "N-no - stop " His voice is shattered, raw, his hips jerking forward helplessly. "gonna cum too fast-"
You wrap your legs around his waist to trap him, and Jeongin cums with a moan , his cock pulsing inside you as he spills, his body collapsing onto yours, "H-hate you," he whispers , but his arms are wrapped around you, his face buried in your neck, his lips pressing shaky kisses to your skin.
"it's your fault," he mumbles, and you laugh, running your fingers through his sweat damp hair.
"You bought it," you remind him, and Jeongin groans , his hips twitching against yours, he’s already hard again?
"shut up ," he whines, but he’s pulling you closer, his mouth sealing over yours in a messy, desperate kiss. "... Again ."
Jameson loves to wake you up with kisses all over your body
He takes you around the house through the passages
You have to kick him out when you're changing because he gets too handsy
He tends to be shirtless around you because he knows how "aware" you are of his body
You let him rest his head on your lap
He's tried to teach you how to pick locks many times but you can't seem to get the hang of it
He likes to have you hold onto his arm the whole night if you go to an event
He's really good at massages
Jameson prefers to look you in the eyes anytime he talks to you to better gauge your emotions
It's always impossible to hide the fact that your upset
Anytime you two danced together, it's like magic
He likes to show off his driving and motorbike skills
You end up taking care of him if he gets too drunk
You brush your fingers through his hair to lull him to sleep (it works every time)
He enjoys physical contact with you
If you fall asleep before he does, he watches you sleep because you look so beautiful to him
You end up getting dragged along when he's working through puzzles
You've done drinking competitions before
You guys have a new bet every week
He lets you put face mask on him
Jameson is surprisingly clingy and is usually the first one to text you if you don't wake up in the same bed
"Hey gorgeous, I can't believe how long it's been since we've seen each other." "Jamie it hasn't even been 10 hours."
You two sometimes film little videos together and he likes to watch them when he misses you or when you two have a fight
He'll never admit it but if you go on a trip or something where he won't see you for days, he sprays certain items in his room with your perfume so he can smell you around his space
If you ever notice that something you've never touched smells like you he WILL deny it
He loves to watch you get excited about something you love
You've gotten quite a few drunk voicemails from him and they all talk about how he misses you and thinks you're the most beautiful girl he's ever seen
You two like to buy blind boxes to see which one you get
When you guys sleep together he always ends up half on top of you
You've had to help get him dressed cause he's been late so many times
Summary: A journalist who doesn’t believe in objectivity is asked to interview a man who has outlived empires.
She’s built her career on proximity—on getting close enough to wounds to describe them honestly. Armand has built his existence on distance—on turning centuries into abstraction and suffering into pattern.
He expects fascination. He expects to be looked at first.
Instead, she studies his watercolor.
Instead of orbiting him, she names him.
The interview begins as a test—of intellect, of stillness, of narrative control. What unfolds is not seduction, not surrender, but something quieter and far more dangerous: recognition. Two people who understand survival too well, circling the question of power, history, and what it costs to keep looking at the world without turning away.
This fic leans into psychological tension, philosophical dialogue, and restrained emotional proximity. It’s soft—but not soft enough to dull the edges. No grand declarations. No theatrical romance. Just gravity, and the choice not to fall into it ★ !
Part two ★★ - Chiaroscuro
warnings: psychological tension, power dynamics (intellectual, not physical), morally complex characters, discussions of grief, war, displacement, existential themes, manipulation / narrative control, subtle attraction, slow-burn tension, heavy dialogue, no explicit content, reader has autonomy and moral backbone
word count: 11,853
author's note: I wanted to write a journalist who isn’t dazzled by immortality and isn’t immune to it either. Someone who understands that proximity has a cost — and chooses it anyway.
This isn’t about overpowering Armand or being overtaken by him. It’s about two people who are very good at reading rooms, trying to read each other. It’s soft in the way quiet rooms are soft. It still has sharp corners.
I hope I did Armand justice here. This is my interpretation of him — the stillness, the control, the way he recalibrates when something doesn’t move the way he expects it to. I hope you can see the version of him I see, even if it’s not the only way to read him.
Thank you for being here and reading something that lives more in the pauses than the spectacle ! :)
Here is the first thing they teach you, and the last thing you believe: That the story is separate from the storyteller.
That you can sit across from a woman whose son was pulled from rubble with his shoes still on, and write about it, and go home, and eat dinner, and be fine. That objectivity is a real thing and not just the word we use when we mean comfortable distance. That neutrality exists somewhere beyond the political, beyond the personal, beyond the body that sits in the chair and asks the questions and carries the answers home like stones in the chest.
They teach you this in universities with good heating and worse coffee. They teach you this in the abstract, in the theoretical, in the language of journalistic ethics and editorial standards and the careful management of bias as though bias were a weed you could pull from the garden and be done with.
What they do not teach you is that the garden is biased. That you are the garden.
I learned this the way most people learn the things that stay with them: too early, too fast, in a way I couldn't undo. I was nineteen years old and I was sitting across from a man who had walked from a country most people couldn't locate on a map and he was describing his daughter—her name, her laugh, the particular way she'd hum while she drew—and mid-sentence, something behind his eyes went out. Not slowly. The way a light goes when you cut the power. He finished his sentence because what else was there to do. I wrote it down because I was there to write things down.
But I understood, sitting in that chair, that I would never be separate from this work. That the work would get inside me and rearrange things. That every story I told from that point forward would be built on the scaffolding of someone else's loss, and the least I could do—the only thing I could do—was refuse to pretend otherwise.
Journalism isn't objectivity. It's proximity. It's the decision to get close enough to the wound that you can describe it accurately, which means getting close enough to be wounded yourself. It's understanding that blood and politics aren't separate substances—they're the same thing in different states. One is what we call it when it's visible, unavoidable, running in the streets. The other is what we call it when it's been cleaned up and processed and turned into legislation.
Your job is to make people see the connection.
Most days, you fail. The article runs, the comments come in, the news cycle churns forward and swallows everything whole. You file the next piece. You swallow the stone.
But you keep going because the alternative is to admit that you've been complicit all along. And you're not ready to sit with that yet.
Daniel looked like a man preparing to confess something he'd been keeping too long.
He'd chosen a café near Saint-Germain—busy enough that no one would overhear, quiet enough that he could keep his voice low. His coffee had gone cold in front of him. He hadn't touched it. The folder he'd brought was sitting on the table between us like something he wasn't entirely sure he should have carried out of his apartment.
"There's someone I need you to interview," he said. Not I'd like or I was hoping. Need. I heard the weight in it and waited.
"His name is Armand." He pushed the folder across. "Goes by one name. Has for as long as I can find records of him, which is—" A pause. "Longer than it should be."
I opened the folder. Three photographs, different decades, different countries.
Same face.
1952, Paris. A gallery opening, figures in period dress, and at the edge of the frame—not quite hidden but not quite present either—a young man whose age I couldn't determine. Eighteen, maybe. Ageless, maybe. It was genuinely difficult to say.
1978, Venice. Cleaner image. The same face with the same dark eyes and the same quality of stillness, like someone who had simply stopped participating in the passage of time.
Last year, Berlin. Digital photograph, high resolution. Identical in every way that mattered.
I studied them for a long time. Daniel let me.
"Good genes," I said, testing.
"Dont," he said. "I spent two weeks on that. It wastes time."
I closed the folder. "What does he do?"
"Officially: cultural patron, collector, investor. He funds institutions, acquires pieces, operates in circles so old and so closed that most people don't know they exist." He paused.
"Unofficially—I don't know what he is. What I know is that he's been whatever he is for a very long time, and he's gotten very good at making people forget they should be asking questions."
"Have you interviewed him?"
"Once. Eight years ago." Daniel's thumb moved slowly against the side of his cup. "I went in with thirty questions and came out with none of them answered, convinced it was the best conversation of my career. Spent three days writing what I thought was the definitive piece." He looked up.
"Then I reread my notes and realized he hadn't told me a single true thing. I'd just—he'd gotten inside my head somehow. Led me through a maze I didn't know I was in until I was already out the other side."
"Inside your head," I said. Not dismissive. Just noting the specific phrasing.
"I know how it sounds."
"I believe you," I said, which wasn't quite the same thing as saying it didn't sound strange.
"He asked for you," Daniel said. "By name. And I have never mentioned you to him."
The café noise continued around us. Cups, conversation, the grind of a machine somewhere behind the counter. I let the information settle before I spoke.
"Why would he ask for me?"
"Because he's been watching the banlieues coverage. Your bylines. The Fatima piece, the one about the documentation." Daniel's voice was careful. "Or that's my best guess. Either he's been following your work or someone told him about you or he—" He stopped. "I don't know how he operates. That's part of the problem."
"Hm. And you're sending me anyway."
"I'm sending you because you're the only person I trust to go in there and come out still yourself." He met my eyes.
"You have this quality. A stillness. Most people, you can read them immediately—their anxiety, their ego, what they need from the room. But you—you give almost nothing away. And I think he's going to feel that and I think he's going to want to know what's underneath it."
He sighed. "He's going to want to know what's underneath it. Don't let that become his project."
"I'm not going there to be his silly project," I said. "I'm going to interview him."
"That's what I need you to remember." He slid a paper across the table. Address, time. "Nine o'clock. Île Saint-Louis. Top floor." He stood, pulled his coat on, and then paused. "The thing about Armand is that he's been alone in a very specific way for a very long time. He'll recognize you. And being recognized by him—being chosen, being the one he finds interesting—it feels like something. I know that. I felt it too." He looked at me steadily. "Just remember that what he finds interesting, he tends to keep."
I held the folder, prepared to leave. "I can look after myself, Daniel."
"I know you can," he said. "That's not what I'm worried about."
He left money on the table and walked out without explaining what he meant. I sat for a while with the three photographs in front of me, with that unchanging face looking out from different decades with the same patient, unreadable expression, and I felt something I recognized as the specific quality of a story that was going to cost something.
The good ones always did.
I spent the afternoon alone in my apartment with the curtains drawn against the late summer heat, sitting with the particular stillness that came before difficult interviews.
This was how I prepared. Not rehearsing questions—though I'd done the research, pulled the threads, traced what I could find. Not building psychological profiles, not scripting approaches. Just quiet. The particular quality of emptiness that let me walk into a room and be fully present without announcing myself, without filling space preemptively.
People spoke more freely into stillness. They filled quiet the way water filled whatever vessel it was poured into—taking the shape of the absence, revealing the shape of themselves.
What I didn't do, and had never done, was construct walls.
I didn't close off. I didn't harden. Some journalists developed that skill—the ability to stay behind glass, to observe without absorbing, to be present without being permeable. I had never managed it and had stopped trying young.
What I had instead was something different. I let things in—all of it, the grief and the rage and the specific texture of other people's loss—and I carried it, and somewhere in the carrying I had become dense enough that it didn't break me. I had become, through sheer accumulation, harder to move.
The fifteen-year-old girl whose brother had been killed by police. The way she'd looked at me—the particular flatness in her eyes of someone who had cried past the point where crying did anything—and asked: what's the point? You write about it, people feel bad for five minutes, and then nothing changes. My brother is still dead. What's the point?
I still didn't have an answer. I had filed the piece anyway. I had carried her question home and put it next to all the other questions I carried and kept going, not because I had resolved the doubt but because stopping felt like a worse kind of betrayal than continuing under uncertainty.
I took the metro and then walked the last stretch through cobblestoned streets still warm from the day, feeling the particular quality of a city that had absorbed so much history it had become indifferent to it. Paris at this hour, the sky deepening toward the specific blue that came just before dark, cars threading through narrow streets that had been there for centuries before the cars existed.
The building didn't need to announce itself. Old stone, old money, the kind of address that had absorbed so much history it had stopped being impressed by it. I stood outside for a moment—not hesitating, just arriving fully before I went in—and looked up at the top floor windows where the light was warm and amber and burning the way light burned in rooms that had been occupied for a very long time.
Then I went up.
Top floor. Single door. I didn't ring the bell immediately. I stood in the hallway and looked at the door and thought about Daniel's voice saying what he finds interesting, he tends to keep, and then I thought about the fifteen-year-old girl with the flat eyes asking what the point was, and then I stopped thinking about either of those things because the hallway smelled like old wood and beeswax and something underneath that I couldn't name, and I was here to work, and work required presence, and presence required the particular kind of emptying out that I'd learned to do standing in front of doors that contained difficult things.
I rang the bell.
Footsteps. Unhurried in a way that was specific—not casual, not indifferent, but the unhurry of something that has all the time it will ever need and knows it.
The door opened.
And here was the thing: I wasn't looking at him when it did.
I was looking at the hallway wall to my left, where someone had hung a small watercolor—barely a hand's width, tucked between the doorframe and the corner as though it had been placed there not for display but for private reasons, for passing, for the daily quiet acknowledgment of something loved. It was a city at dusk. I couldn't tell which city. Blues and greys and one window lit gold.
I looked at it for a moment, genuinely, because it was worth a moment.
Then I looked at Armand.
He was standing in the doorway watching me look at his wall, and his expression was the thing that told me everything I needed to know before a word had been spoken: he had expected to be looked at first.
Not because he was vain—or not only because he was vain—but because everyone looked at him first. Everyone arrived at that door already oriented toward him, already angled, already performing their version of meeting someone like him.
I had looked at his watercolor.
He was recalibrating. I watched him do it. The adjustment was nearly imperceptible but I'd spent years learning to read the small shifts, the micro-reorganizations of expectation, and I could see it happening behind his eyes. A new calculation being run.
"You painted it yourself," I said, nodding at the watercolor. It wasn't a question—the handling was too personal, too unpracticed-in-the-best-way to be anything else.
A pause. Fractional. "Centuries ago.”
“It's good,” I said. "It's honest." And then I looked at him directly, the full weight of my attention settling on him the way it settled, and said: "Hello."
He looked at me for a moment that lasted slightly longer than a normal moment.
"Hello," he said.
And he stepped back from the door.
I walked in and I didn't hurry and I didn't slow down and I didn't perform arrival. I just moved through the space the way I moved through any space—fully occupying it, not decoratively but actually, the way a body occupies a room when the person inside it isn't using any of their energy to manage how they're being perceived.
I felt him feel it. The shift in air pressure that happened sometimes when I walked into rooms, which I'd never entirely understood and had stopped trying to. Something about stillness in motion, Daniel had once said, watching me cross a press room. You move like you already belong wherever you're going. I didn't know if that was true. I knew it was useful.
I crossed to the center of the room and stopped and looked.
The art. The arrangement of it. The specific grammar of the choices—what was placed in dialogue with what, what was allowed to be alone, what unlikely things had been put in proximity and trusted to find their own meaning. A Byzantine icon next to a Rothko. A sculpture with the posture of something made to be worshipped beside furniture that had been made to be used. Things that had survived their contexts, every one of them, gathered here by someone who understood survival from the inside.
I turned around.
Armand was standing a few feet behind me—not crowding, not performing distance either. Just present, watching me take in his room with the careful attention of someone who understood that a person's response to a space told you more than their answers to most questions.
"The watercolor is the most personal thing here," I said. "Everything else is acquisition. That one you made."
Something in his expression shifted. "Most people don't notice it."
"Most people are looking at the Rothko."
"And you looked at the wall."
"I looked at what was interesting," I said simply.
He studied me. I let him. I was looking at the Byzantine icon up close now, at the gold leaf still bright, at the figure's frontally facing eyes that looked not at you but through you and through the wall behind you and through whatever was behind that.
"What do you see?" he asked, from behind me.
"Someone who was painted by a person who had never seen the face they were painting," I said. "Which means they were painting the idea of the face. The essential rather than the specific." I paused. "Though of course it was commissioned, so the essential was also institutional. What they painted was the church's idea of the divine, not their own."
"You think that makes it less true."
"I think truth and function aren't mutually exclusive," I said. "Something can serve a purpose and still contain genuine feeling. The painter could have believed completely in what they were making and still been making it for someone else's reasons."
I turned around. "That's not a contradiction. That's just how most of us live.”
He was closer than he'd been when I turned. Not alarmingly so. Just—closer.
"Sit down," he said, and there was something in it that was neither command nor invitation but occupied the exact space between them.
I sat. Pulled out my recorder. Set it on the table between us with the matter-of-fact efficiency of someone who had done this in rooms that made this room look unremarkable, in front of people whose power made his look recent.
"Do you mind?" I said, nodding to the recorder.
"Not at all." He settled into the chair across from me, and the settling had a specific quality—not relaxation, not performance, but the quality of something becoming fully present.
"I'm curious what you think it captures."
"The version of yourself you choose to give me," I said. "Which is useful even when it's incomplete. Maybe especially then.”
He looked at me. "Daniel said you were relentless."
"Daniel says that about everyone he respects."
"He said it differently about you."
I pressed record. "How differently?"
"Like he meant it as a warning," Armand said, "and wasn't sure who he was warning."
I looked at him steadily.
The thing about Armand—the thing I'd understood before I walked through the door and was now confirming—was that he was a person who was accustomed to rooms organizing themselves around him. Not because he demanded it. Because he was the kind of presence that created its own gravity, that pulled everything into orbit through sheer density. People leaned in without knowing they were leaning. Conversations curved toward whatever he wanted them to curve toward. He'd been doing it for centuries and he'd gotten so good at it that the mechanism had become invisible.
I wasn't going to orbit.
I looked at him steadily.
"How long have you been in Paris?" I asked.
"Longer than the question is really asking."
"Humor me."
"Longer than you've been alive. Longer than your parents have been alive. Longer than the institutions your readers trust to explain the world to them." He said it without drama, simply, like reporting the weather.
"I don't measure it in years. Years stopped meaning anything useful a very long time ago. I measure it in what changes and what doesn't."
"And which is which?”
“Everything changes," he said. "And nothing does. The city transforms every generation—the architecture, the people, the politics—and the fundamental dynamics of who holds power and who suffers under it remain so constant that you could transpose any century onto any other and recognize it immediately."
He paused. "That's the thing about living long enough. You stop being surprised by history. You just watch it rhyme."
"That sounds like a convenient way to stop caring."
His eyes sharpened. "Excuse me?"
"Familiarity as detachment," I said, keeping my voice light. "Everything rhymes, nothing surprises, therefore nothing requires response. It's a very elegant philosophical position for someone who would prefer not to be implicated."
He was very still. "You've been here four minutes.”
“Three,” I said. "And you've already given me the framework you use to make your own inaction feel like wisdom. I just wanted to name it."
The stillness went on one beat longer.
Then something happened in his face that I hadn't expected: the corner of his mouth moved. Not quite a smile. Something more contained than that, something that was managing itself carefully. Something that looked almost like—
interest.
Not the performed kind. The real kind. The kind that arrived before you decided to show it.
"You're going to do that the entire evening," he said. It was not a question.
"Do what?"
"Name things.”
“It's what I'm here for."
"Most journalists spend the first hour building rapport," he said. "Establishing comfort. Making the subject feel safe before they begin to —"
"Look, I'm not trying to make you feel safe," I said pleasantly. "And you're not someone who needs comfort before you'll talk. You need—" I considered.
"You need to feel like the conversation is worth your time. Like the person across from you is actually capable of handling what you're carrying." I held his gaze. "I'm establishing that. Just more efficiently than most people would."
The silence that followed had a specific texture.
He looked at me the way you looked at something you were trying to classify and kept failing to. Like the taxonomy he'd been reaching for didn't have the right category.
"You're not afraid of me," he said. And the way he said it wasn't quite accusation and wasn't quite wonder and lived uncomfortably in the space between them.
"Should I be?"
"Most people are. Not because I perform threat—I don't, particularly. But there's something—people feel it. Something that registers as danger before they've processed why." He tilted his head very slightly. "You feel it and you just—"
"Set it aside," I said.
"I've been in rooms with things worth being afraid of. You're interesting, Armand. You're not frightening.”
Something moved through his expression. Fast, involuntary, gone almost before it arrived.
But I saw it.
Something that was—pleased. Something that was more than pleased. Something that had the specific quality of a person discovering that they had been surprised, and finding the surprise not alarming but—
He looked away. Toward the window. Back.
"Ask your questions," he said, and his voice was smooth and level and doing a great deal of work.
I smiled—small, not unkind—and looked down at my notebook.
"Let's start with the theater," I said.
He looked at her.
The way she'd said it—let's start with the theater—with the same tone she'd used to ask about the watercolor. Conversational. Easy. The tone of someone who had done their research and was now simply locating the place where the real conversation lived, unhurried, certain it was there.
He'd been interviewed before. Many times, in many centuries, in many configurations of the same essential dynamic. He knew how this worked. He knew the shape of it—the careful approach, the gradual escalation, the moment the journalist thought they were going for the throat. He knew how to be present without being available, how to give the impression of disclosure while disclosing nothing, how to make someone feel they'd gotten close while ensuring they'd only gotten close to the version of close he'd decided to offer.
He looked at her sitting across from him—recorder running, pen in hand, watching him with those eyes that had looked at his watercolor first—and understood with a specific, crystalline clarity that none of that was going to work tonight.
Not because she was immune to it. Because she wasn't interested in it. She hadn't arrived looking for the performance. She'd arrived looking for the thing underneath, and she was patient enough to wait for it, and she was interesting enough that the waiting wouldn't feel like waiting to either of them.
"The theater," he said. "What do you want to know about it?"
"Everything," she said. "Literally start wherever it's most uncomfortable."
He almost laughed. "Most journalists start with the chronology.”
“Chronology for obituaries," she said. "You're not dead yet."
Yet.
The word sitting in the air with its specific implication, neither of them acknowledging it directly. She knew what he was, or knew enough—he could see it in the way she held that word, the deliberate weight of it, the small test embedded in the casualness.
He leaned back.
"It began," he said, "with the understanding that people needed somewhere to be. Not somewhere comfortable—comfort is insufficient, comfort is what people settle for when they've stopped believing in more. But somewhere—total. Somewhere that asked everything of them and gave everything back."
He paused. "I built a world. A complete one. With its own internal logic, its own hierarchies, its own language for what mattered and why.”
“So you built a world around yourself," she said.
"I built a world. I was at the center of it."
"Is there a difference?"
He looked at her. "Yes."
"The difference between—" He stopped. "Between a sun and a black hole, perhaps. One generates. One consumes. What I built generated things. Real things. Beauty, purpose, community, the specific kind of belonging that people spend their entire lives looking for and mostly don't find."
He paused. "The fact that I was at the center doesn't negate what the center made possible.”
“It negates the autonomy of everyone orbiting it," she said, pleasantly. "The sun still has gravity. Things still can't leave without cost."
He was quiet.
"The people there," she continued, in the same easy tone, turning her pen between her fingers in a slow rotation that he found, despite himself, distracting. "They couldn't leave. Not really. Not without losing the entire structure of meaning they'd built their lives inside."
She looked up from the pen. "You made yourself the condition of their existence. That's not generosity. That's architecture."
"I gave them things they couldn't have found elsewhere."
"And you made sure of that," she said. "By making elsewhere unavailable.”
The room was very still.
"You're describing it," he said carefully, "as though the only reading of it is predatory."
"I'm describing the structure," she said. "The structure is predatory. What you felt about it—what you intended—that's a separate question and a more interesting one." She held his gaze.
"Did you love them?"
The question landed differently than the others. Softer entry, deeper cut.
"Yes," he said.
"And did loving them make it easier or harder to see what you were doing to them?"
He said nothing.
"That's what I thought," she said, not unkindly. Not triumphantly. Just—noting it. The way she noted everything: directly, without performance, without using the accuracy of the observation as a weapon so much as simply placing it on the table between them for both of them to look at.
He looked at it.
"Harder," he said finally. "It made it harder. Because the love was real, and real love is—" He paused.
"Real love is the most effective justification available for almost anything. If you love someone, you can reframe almost any form of control as care. Can reframe any form of need as connection. The love was genuine, and I used the genuineness of it to avoid examining what else was happening."
"What else was happening?"
"I was afraid," he said, and the simplicity of it seemed to surprise even him. He paused with it.
"I built the theater because I was—I have always been afraid of what it means to exist without being essential to something. Without being the—" He stopped.
"Without being the reason the thing continues. If I am not needed, I am not—" He looked toward the window. "I am not sure what I am.”
She let that breathe. "And yet the theater ended."
"Yes."
"And you continued."
"Yes."
"So the premise was wrong," she said. "You exist without it. You've been existing without it. Which means the fear was not about survival." She tilted her head. "What was it actually about?"
He looked at her.
“The fear that I am—" He stopped. Started again. "That I am the kind of thing that should not be looked at directly. That if someone saw me fully—not the constructed version, not the performance, not the careful curation of what I allow to be visible—they would find something—" A pause.
"Insufficient. Or worse than insufficient. Something that justified every isolation it had ever experienced."
The room was absolutely quiet.
She didn't move. She held his gaze with those steady eyes and she didn't offer him comfort and she didn't offer him absolution and she didn't offer him the performed sympathy that people offered when something vulnerable was said, the reflex softening that was less about the other person's pain and more about one's own discomfort with witnessing it.
She just received it. Held it. Let it be said and real.
"That's the most honest thing you've said tonight," she said.
"I know."
"How does it feel?"
He almost smiled, and there was something desolate and wry in it together. "Like standing in the open air after a very long time indoors." He paused. "Cold. But—correct."
She looked at him for a moment, and then she looked back down at her notebook, and the returning of her attention to the page felt somehow like a kindness—like giving him a moment to reassemble himself without an audience. He noticed this. He noticed that she did it without drawing attention to the doing of it.
She was very good.
"The institutions you fund now," she said, back in the register of the interview, smooth transition, both of them accepting the return to solid ground.
"There's a consistent pattern. They outlast their original purpose. They become—self-perpetuating in a specific way. They stop serving the mission and start serving the continuation of themselves, and the people inside them stop asking whether the mission is being served because the institution has become the mission." She paused.
"I've spent three months documenting that pattern in the context of public housing policy. The mechanism is identical."
"You're saying I do it still.”
“I'm saying the pattern is visible across every institution you've touched over the past forty years." She said it as simply as she'd said everything else. Not building toward it, not landing it for effect. Just saying the true thing. "Whether that's conscious or residual is an interesting question. But the pattern—" She met his eyes.
"The pattern doesn't care about your intentions."
"I'm aware of it," he said, and heard how flat it sounded.
"Awareness doesn't interrupt it," she said. "You're aware. The pattern continues. Those are two things that are both true, and they sit very uncomfortably together, and the way most people resolve that discomfort is by deciding that awareness is sufficient. That knowing is the same as changing." She paused. "It isn't."
"I know that."
“Do you?" She wasn't being aggressive. She was asking genuinely, the way you asked a question you actually wanted the answer to.
"Because knowing that awareness isn't sufficient should produce change, or at least movement toward it. And what I see—" She gestured, a small gesture, encompassing him and the apartment and the centuries and all of it.
"What I see is someone who has become extraordinarily fluent in the language of self-awareness and is using that fluency to remain exactly where he is.”
The words landed clean and accurate and he felt them land, felt the specific sensation of being seen doing the thing you are doing while you are doing it, which was among the most uncomfortable experiences available to a person and was apparently not limited to persons.
"You are," he said, slowly, "quite something."
"I'm doing my job," she said, for the second time since she'd arrived, and the repetition was not accidental—he understood that. She was reminding him. She was keeping the line clear between what this was and what it wasn't. Not for her benefit. For his.
He looked at her. At the stillness of her, the absolute lack of performance in it, the way she sat in his chair in his apartment and held the air of the room the way certain people held rooms, not by filling them but by being so completely present that the room organized itself around that presence without being asked
He felt something he hadn't expected to feel during this interview, or perhaps during any interview, or perhaps for a very long time: the specific sensation of being outmatched. Not defeated—she wasn't trying to defeat him. Not diminished. Just—met. Matched at every point. Every deflection returned, every frame reframed, every attempt to make himself the one conducting the conversation gently and completely declined.
It was, he thought, extraordinary.
He thought this carefully and then set it aside where she couldn't see it.
"The people inside those institutions," he said, deciding to be direct for reasons he examined briefly and set aside. "What would you have me do.”
“That's not a question I can answer," she said. "I can document the pattern. I can name what it produces. What you do about it is—" She paused.
"That's yours. I'm not here to prescribe. I'm here to describe accurately."
"Most journalists have an agenda."
"I have a perspective," she said. "That's not the same thing. My perspective is that patterns of institutional control cause specific and measurable harm to the people inside them, that this harm is often invisible precisely because the institution provides genuine things alongside the control, and that the provision of genuine things is frequently used—consciously or not—to justify or obscure the harm."
She looked at him steadily. "That's not an agenda. That's an observation with evidence."
“And I am the evidence."
"You're a case study in a pattern that exists at every scale of human organization," she said.
"From your theater in the nineteenth century to housing policy in the banlieues right now. The mechanism is identical. The people at the center believe they're providing something essential. They are. The provision doesn't eliminate the harm. Both things are true simultaneously, and most people find that intolerable, so they choose one truth and defend it against the other."
She paused. "You're smarter than that."
"You're flattering me," he said and smiled softly.
"I'm describing your capacity," she said and rolled her eyes briefly.
"You can hold both truths. You've had long enough to develop the tolerance for complexity. What I'm asking is why you don't.”
“Because holding both truths requires action," he said, and heard the honesty in it even as he said it. "Choosing one truth is static. Comfortable. You can live inside one truth and be still. Holding both creates—pressure. The requirement to move. To change the thing that can't be left unchanged once you've seen it clearly."
"Yes," she said. Just that.
"And change is terrifying."
"Even for someone who has survived everything you've survived.”
“Especially,” he said quietly. "Everything I have survived, I survived by being—consistent. By remaining what I was through the changes around me. The continuity of self was the survival mechanism. Change—genuine change, structural change, the kind that alters what you fundamentally are—" He paused.
"I don't know who I would be on the other side of it. And I have been who I am for too long to risk not recognizing myself afterwards," He stopped.
She was quiet for a moment.
"I understand that."
He looked at her.
"Not at your scale, of course," she said. "But the version of it that's available to someone my age." She turned her pen in her fingers again, and he watched the small movement, the easy rotation.
"The work shapes you. After enough time, you become the shape the work has made. And there are things about that shape that are—useful. That function. That you've learned to rely on. And changing them means not knowing what's underneath, whether underneath… there's anything worth keeping or whether the work was all of it." She paused.
"I think about that. More than I should, maybe.”
She hadn't offered it as an exchange—hadn't said I'll give you this vulnerability if you give me that one. She'd just said it. True and plain and undecorated.
He looked at her and felt, with the specific clarity of something he hadn't felt in a very long time, that the conversation had moved into territory that no longer had a clean professional edge to it.
"You don't do that often," he said.
"Do what?"
"Offer something of yourself. In the context of an interview."
She looked at him steadily. "When something is relevant, I say it. It was relevant." She paused. "You were using the abstract to keep the conversation at arm's length. I closed the distance. That's technique, not vulnerability.”
He almost smiled. "Is that what it was."
"Partly," she said, and she held his gaze for a moment with something in her eyes that was neither professional nor impersonal and then she looked back down at her notebook.
He felt the withdrawal of that look like a change in temperature.
They had been talking for perhaps ninety minutes—he'd stopped tracking time, which was itself unusual, which was itself information—when she set down her pen.
Not with finality. Not with aggression. She just set it down and leaned back slightly in her chair and looked at him with the specific quality of attention that meant she was about to say the thing she'd been building toward, and the building had been so patient and so well-constructed that he hadn't felt it happening.
"The control," she said. "The theater, the institutions, the architecture of dependency—I've been describing it as structural, as pattern, as something that continues despite your awareness of it." She paused. "But there's a simpler version of it that I haven't said yet."
"Say it.”
“You do it because it works," she said. "Not just as a survival mechanism. Not just out of fear. It works in the sense that it produces, reliably, the experience of mattering. Of being essential. Of having someone's reality organized around your presence in it." She held his gaze. "And you're—you find that—" She paused, seeming to choose.
"You find that pleasurable. The dependency. The being-needed. Not just reassuring. Actually pleasurable."
The room.
Very still.
"You're suggesting I enjoy it," he said, and his voice was level with the specific effort of keeping it level.
“I'm suggesting the control persists partly because it produces something you like," she said, with the infuriating evenness that she applied to everything. "Which is a more honest account than the purely structural one. The structure explains the how. The pleasure explains why the structure keeps getting rebuilt even when you know what it costs."
He stopped.
"I'm describing something uncomfortable," she said. "I know. Most people stop me here. They find a way to discredit the observation or reframe it or get angry enough that the anger becomes the subject instead of the thing I actually said."
She looked at him with those eyes. "What would you like to do with it?”
“I would like,” he said, and his voice had a tightness in it now that he wasn't fully managing, "to push back on the reductive quality of—"
"On which part is reductive?" she asked, genuinely, no performance of challenge in it, just actual curiosity.
"On the—" He stopped.
"Take your time," she said.
He looked at her. At the absolute stillness of her. At the way she sat in his chair with her pen set down and her recorder running and her eyes on him with that quality of complete and patient attention, and she was not anxious, not pressing, not performing patience. She was simply—there. Waiting. Not because she was being strategic about the waiting, but because she was genuinely curious what he would say, and that genuine curiosity was somehow more destabilizing than any strategic patience could have been.
“You make it sound like appetite," he said finally. "Like I built a theater full of people because I—liked the taste of being needed."
"Didn't you?"
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
She watched him.
"You're doing it again," he said.
"Doing what."
"Waiting," he said. "You ask something you know I can't easily answer and then you just—wait. With that—" He gestured, unable to complete the gesture. "That absolute stillness. Like you have all the time I don't. Like you're not even slightly concerned about whether I answer or not."
"I'm not," she said. "You'll answer or you won't. Both are informative.”
“That's—" He stopped again, and something was happening in him that he was trying to manage and finding, with increasing clarity, that he couldn't manage in the usual way. The usual management required being the most composed person in the room. She was more composed than he was. She had been more composed than he was from the moment she'd walked through his door and looked at his watercolor instead of him. "That's deeply irritating."
"I know," she said, and there was something in her voice that was not quite amusement but was adjacent to it, and it was not performed, and it was warm, and he felt it somewhere in his chest in a way he hadn't felt anything in the chest in some time.
“The answer is yes," he said. "The answer is that yes, I find it—I found it pleasurable. The being-needed. The dependency. The experience of someone's reality being organized around my presence." He said it flatly, without self-pity, without drama.
"And the architecture persisted because I kept rebuilding it, and I kept rebuilding it because I liked what it produced, and I liked what it produced because I had convinced myself it was the closest available approximation to being known." He paused. "I was wrong about that. Dependency is not intimacy. Need is not recognition. I understood this and I kept rebuilding anyway because the approximation was better than nothing."
"And nothing is what you've always been most afraid of."
He was very still.
"Nothing," he said slowly, "as in—”
“As in the space that would exist," she said, "if you stopped filling it with architecture. What's there if the structure comes down. Whether there's a self underneath the self you've built or whether the building was all of it." She paused. "That's what you're afraid of. Not loneliness. Not loss. The specific terror of the foundation being hollow.”
He looked at her.
She looked back.
The recorder sat on the table between them, patient and indifferent, catching all of it.
"How," he said, and his voice was low, "are you doing this.”
“Doing what," she said, for the second time.
"This," he said, and this time the gesture had more in it—encompassing her, the room, the entire evening, the specific sensation of having been steadily and systematically and almost tenderly excavated.
He stopped. "You're not pressing. You're not pushing. You're not performing any of the usual—" He paused. "You're just sitting there. Asking questions that go all the way down. And when I reach the bottom of them there's always another question and the bottom keeps moving and I cannot—" He stopped. "I cannot get ahead of you.”
“You're not supposed to, Armand." she said. "You're supposed to answer."
"Nobody," he said, and the word came out with the specific weight of centuries behind it, "has ever sat across from me and simply—expected honesty. Like it was the most natural thing. Like there was nothing remarkable about asking me to be truthful. Like the performance I've constructed over five hundred years of very deliberate effort was just optional. Something I could set down if I felt like it.”
She looked at him for a moment.
"It is..optional," she said carefully.
The room was very quiet.
He felt something—a pressure, a want, a specific impulse that he recognized and set aside. He needed to know what she was. He needed to know what was underneath the stillness, what lived inside the composure, what she carried. He needed to know it the way he'd needed to know things for centuries, the quick way, the certain way.
He reached.
Not far—just the first gesture, tentative, the testing of whether the door was there at all.
She felt it immediately. He saw it in the almost imperceptible shift of her focus—a fraction of a second of reorientation, a very small quality of awareness that had nothing to do with thought and everything to do with the specific alertness of someone who was accustomed to noticing things.
She looked at him.
He expected the door to close.
It didn't close.
She held his gaze across the table and she simply—kept looking at him. And she left the door open. Not carelessly. Not unknowingly. With the full and deliberate awareness of someone who had decided to let this happen, who had made the choice the way she seemed to make all her choices—directly, without performance, without requiring that the choice look a particular way from the outside.
He went in.
He went still in a way that had nothing to do with his body.
There were no walls. Not because she had none—she had, he could feel the density of her, the substance of someone who had accumulated and held and carried without closing off—but because the decision had been to carry rather than to defend. To let things in and hold them rather than bar them at the door.
To become dense enough that the weight didn't break her rather than light enough that the weight couldn't reach her.
And the weight was—
Everything.
The refugee with the light going out mid-sentence. The fifteen-year-old girl with the flat eyes. Every room she had ever sat in with someone's worst thing, every story she had absorbed and carried home and held alongside her own life, which continued, which required her to keep eating and sleeping and filing copy and waking up the next morning and going back. The doubt—enormous, present, not suppressed but held, this enormous serious doubt about whether any of it mattered—and underneath the doubt, not an answer to it but something that didn't need the answer. Something that kept going not because the doubt was resolved but because the alternative was worse, and she had decided that, and the deciding had been so complete and so thoroughly made that it had become structural.
It was the most extraordinary interior he had ever encountered in five centuries of looking.
He had expected defense. He had expected the thing that everyone had—the carefully maintained separation between what was shown and what was protected. He had expected to have to find his way around locks.
There were no locks.
There was just—her. Open. Entirely herself, carrying everything she had decided to carry, without apology, without armor, without the performance of being unbothered by any of it.
The bothering was there, was real, was present—and she was also there, and the also was the whole thing, the thereness of her sitting alongside the weight of everything she'd taken on, choosing it again and again and again.
He came back.
He was breathing differently.
She was still looking at him from across the table with those steady eyes, and she had not moved, and her expression had not changed, and she was waiting with the same quality of patient, genuine attention that she had been waiting with since she arrived.
"You let me in," he said. Very quietly.
"Yes," she said.
“And you just—left it open."
"I don't close things I'm not afraid of," she said.
She paused. "What did you find?"
He looked at her.
He tried to find the language for it and found that language was genuinely insufficient, that what he had encountered inside her was not a thing that words had been built to carry, that the closest he could come was—
"Everything," he said. "Unguarded. All of it just—there. The grief and the doubt and the—that question."
“I'll carry it a long time," she said.
"And underneath it," He stopped. "The thing that keeps you going. It's not hope. Hope is too—provisional. Too dependent on outcome. It's something else. Something that doesn't need the outcome to justify itself."
"Yes," she said, quietly.
“What do you call it?”
She thought for a moment. Genuinely considered. "..Obligation," she said finally.
"But the kind that comes from inside rather than outside. The kind you can't put down because it's part of what you are, not something imposed on you." She paused.
"I'm not sure it has a cleaner name than that.”
He was looking at her with the specific expression of someone who had been surprised so thoroughly that the normal response mechanisms hadn't come online yet. The expression of someone standing in a room that was different than they'd thought it would be and not yet knowing what to do with that difference.
“I've read minds for five hundred years."
"I've been inside people's heads—I've seen their fears, their wants, their shames, their secrets. I've seen people as they actually are when they think they're hidden." He paused.
"I have never—no one has ever been that open. That undefended. Not accidentally. Deliberately." He looked at her. "Why.”
“Because you needed to see something real," she said simply. "You've been performing all evening. You needed something true to respond to." She picked up her pen again. "Now you have it.”
He sat back.
The room felt different. He felt different, which was rarer.
"You used it. My need to know you. You let me in and used the letting-in as a way to change the conversation. To make this real." He looked at her with something in his expression that he was no longer trying to manage.
"You do know it's profoundly manipulative, right?"
She smiled—and this was the first full smile, the real one, and it arrived without warning and changed her face into something that had more light in it than anything in the room. "Welcome to the interview," she said.
He laughed.
He heard himself do it and couldn't identify the last time he had laughed like that—surprised out of it, genuine, with the specific quality of someone who had been bested and found themselves, unexpectedly and against all preparation, delighted.
But the delight didn't last, because she didn't let it. She let it breathe for precisely the right amount of time—long enough to be real, short enough to not become comfortable—and then she was back.
“The theater," she said. "The pleasure you described. The dependency that felt like connection." She looked at him. "There were people there who were genuinely talented. Genuinely extraordinary. People who might have built things, made things, contributed things outside the context you created for them. And they didn't. Because the context was complete. Because you made the outside unnecessary." She paused.
"What do you think happened to what they could have been?”
The smile was gone.
“They became what they were inside the theater," he said carefully.
"Which was less than what they could have been outside it."
"You don't know that.”
“I know that potential requires friction," she said.
"Requires encounter with things outside itself. Requires the specific discomfort of an uncurated world. Your theater removed the discomfort. Which removed the friction. Which removed the conditions that develop what people are actually capable of." She met his eyes.
"You kept them comfortable and called it care."
"I gave them—”
“You kept them beautiful," she said. "Preserved. Like your icon. Like everything in this room. Beautiful and surviving their context and unable to grow because growth requires damage and you removed the possibility of damage." She paused.
"You didn't love them into their fullness. You loved them into stasis.”
The silence that fell was the specific silence of something true that landed harder than expected.
He was very still.
“That's—" He stopped. Something in his jaw tightened. "That is—" He stopped again.
She waited.
The waiting had teeth this time. He could feel them.
"You are describing," he said, and his voice had gone low and careful with the effort of not being what it wanted to be, "five hundred years of genuine love and care as though it were nothing but a collector's impulse given human subjects.”
"I'm describing the structure," she said, for the third time, and the repetition was not accidental, he understood—she was holding the line, the same line, refusing to let his emotion shift the frame. "I'm not describing your intentions. I'm describing what the structure produced."
"The structure produced—”
“People who couldn't leave," she said.
"That's what the structure produced."
"Whatever else it also produced—and I believe you that it produced real and genuine things—it produced people who couldn't leave. That's the thing the structure produced most reliably and most consistently across every iteration of it." She paused. "And you knew that. You knew the architecture was—"
"Yes," he said. Sharp. "Yes. I knew.”
“You built it anyway.”
“Yes.”
“Because the pleasure of the dependency outweighed—”
“Stop.” His voice cracked through the room, not loud—he wasn't loud—but absolute. He stood up. "Stop describing it as pleasure. Stop—reducing it—" He was pacing now, the short controlled movement of someone whose thoughts were moving faster than the room could contain them.
"I was—I have been—alone in ways you do not have the vocabulary for. I have been present at the dissolution of everything I ever loved. I have watched the world change around me until nothing of the world I knew remained, until the very language in which I formed my first thoughts no longer existed, until every person who knew me as the thing I was before—all of it, everything, gone. And I built what I built because the alternative was—"
He stopped, facing away from her. "The alternative was to admit that I was entirely alone and would remain entirely alone for as long as I existed, which was possibly forever." He stopped pacing.
"I am not asking for sympathy. I am asking you to understand that what you're calling pleasure was survival. Was the only available mechanism for existing in continuous time without losing the self entirely.”
The room was very still.
He stood with his back not quite toward her, chest moving with more speed than usual, the performance of composure finally and completely broken.
She said nothing.
He turned.
She was sitting in exactly the same position she had been in since she sat down. Pen in hand. Recorder running. Eyes on him with the specific quality of her attention, which was not soft and was not hard and was not sympathetic in the performed sense and was not cold and was simply—present. Fully. Receiving what he'd said the way she received everything: directly, without flinching, without the management that would make it easier but also less real.
She nods while slowly looking down.
“You keep surpassing yourself," she said.
Something in his chest moved.
“And it doesn't change the structure," she said, quietly, carefully.
"What you just said doesn't change what the structure produced. Both things are true. Your survival required it and it still caused harm. Those two truths don't cancel each other. They just—coexist. And that's the thing that's intolerable about it, isn't it?”
“That you can't make one truth win. That the love and the harm and the fear and the pleasure are all real and all present and none of them excuses any of the others.”
He was looking at her.
“Yes,” he said.
“That's the accurate picture," she said.
"That's what I'd write, if I were writing this. Not the monster and not the victim. The person who did genuine harm out of genuine need and has been living with that coexistence for long enough to become fluent in every language except the one that would require him to actually change.”
He absorbed this.
“You're not gentle,” he said.
“No,” she agreed. "But I'm not cruel either. There's a difference."
"What is it?”
“Cruelty enjoys itself," she said. "I don't enjoy this. I find it—necessary." She paused. "I find you—" She stopped, and for the first time, something in her composure shifted. Not broke—shifted. A very small change in how she was holding herself, an almost imperceptible recalibration. "I find this conversation necessary. That's all.”
He noticed the almost-thing she hadn't said.
He filed it carefully away.
It was later—much later, the light in the apartment had shifted from amber into something deeper, the city outside had moved into its late-night register—when she asked about endurance.
She'd moved through several other things first: the funding patterns, the specific institutions, a string of questions about his influence on particular cultural decisions across the past two decades that told him she had done more research than Daniel probably knew about, and he'd answered them with the careful honesty that had become, somewhere in the past two hours, his default mode with her rather than the exception.
"You used the word endurance earlier. About your theater. You said the people there had endurance."
"Did I?"
"You said the beautiful thing about what you built was the endurance of it. That you gave people the capacity to endure.”
“Yes.”
“I've been thinking about that word," she said.
"Endurance. We use it as a compliment. We celebrate it. We make monuments to people who endure." She paused. "But endurance is a word for the static condition of surviving something ongoing. It's not a word for change. It's not a word for resistance or refusal or transformation. It's—the word for holding your shape while the thing pressing against you continues to press." She looked at him.
"And we praise it. We tell people who are suffering that their endurance is admirable. That their capacity to continue suffering without breaking is—noble.”
“Yes,” he said slowly.
“And who benefits from that framing?" she asked.
He was quiet.
“The thing pressing against them," she said.
"The endurance framing benefits the thing causing the suffering. It makes the suffering person responsible for managing their own experience of being harmed. It turns their survival into a virtue so that the harm itself doesn't have to be addressed." She paused.
"We celebrate endurance because it's cheaper than justice."
He looked at her.
“You were giving your people the capacity to endure their dependency," he said.
"I'm not saying that," she said. "I'm asking whether—alongside the genuine beauty and purpose and community you gave them—you also gave them a framework for understanding their situation that made it livable but not changeable. Whether you taught them to endure what they should have been able to refuse.”
The silence was absolute.
“Yes,” he said. "That's—yes. That's what happened."
She didn't respond. Let it settle.
“And the institutions," he said, following it himself now, because it was there, because once you saw the shape of something you couldn't unsee it. "They endure. They're built for endurance. For the continuation of the form even when the form has stopped serving—" He stopped. "I build things for endurance," he said, slowly. "Because endurance is what I understand. Because I have endured everything and I understand endurance as survival and I have been—" He paused.
"I have been building the capacity for endurance into everything I touch. Teaching the people and the institutions around me to hold their shape under pressure. Rather than building the capacity to refuse the pressure."
He stood.
Not a storming out—nothing so uncontrolled. He stood because he needed to be upright, because the sitting felt insufficient for the weight of what the conversation had just produced. He moved toward the window and stood at it with both hands flat on the railing, looking at the city below.
She didn't speak.
He stood there for a long moment, feeling the cool of the railing through his palms, watching the lights of Paris move and breathe below him. Feeling the specific sensation of a thing that had been arranged one way for a very long time arranging itself differently, the settling of pieces into a new configuration—not comfortable, not resolved, but—true. The specific discomfort of accuracy.
“Come outside,” he said.
Not quite a request. Not quite a command. Just words, offered toward the window.
He heard her set down her pen.
The balcony held the night like a cupped hand—cool air, the city spread below them in every direction, the Seine catching light at the edge of a long view. The noise of it rising continuously, never entirely absent, the specific ambient living of a city that had decided to continue for eight centuries and hadn't stopped.
He stood at the railing.
She came to stand beside him, and the beside had a specific quality now—not the professional distance of the early evening, not managed proximity. Just two people standing in the same air after a conversation that had cost both of them something.
For a while, neither spoke.
Below them, a car moved through the street, its headlights sweeping briefly across stone walls that were older than most countries. A window across the way was lit gold, someone moving behind it, ordinary and unknowing and entirely alive in the way people were alive when they had no idea they were being watched.
“Do you know what Sisyphus has?" he said.
She turned to look at him.
“Everyone quotes Camus on the absurd," he said, looking at the city. "The boulder, the hill, the endlessness of it. But that's not what Sisyphus has. What he has is—" He paused.
“Clarity. He knows what the boulder is. He knows what the hill is. He has no illusions about the outcome. The boulder will roll back. It always will. And he has decided that this is his. That the hill is his and the boulder is his and the absurdity is his, and that ownership—the full conscious claiming of the thing he cannot escape—is the only freedom available." He looked at her.
"Camus says we must imagine him happy. But I think what Camus meant was—we must imagine him whole. Not hopeful. Not resigned. Whole. In complete possession of his reality, without illusion, choosing it anyway.”
She held his gaze. "You've been thinking about this."
"Since you asked what had changed," he said. "Since I couldn't answer." He paused. "I've been enduring. That's what I've been doing. Surviving the ongoing pressure of existing in continuous time, holding my shape, building things around me that also held their shape, and calling it—" He stopped.
"I've been calling it living. But living requires—" He paused. "Sisyphus is not enduring the hill. He owns it. He chooses it. That's different.”
“It is different," she said.
"Endurance is passive," he said. "Even when it looks like strength. It's the posture of someone waiting for the thing pressing against them to stop. But Sisyphus isn't waiting. Sisyphus is—" He paused. "Sisyphus has decided that the pushing is the point. Not the reaching the top. Not the resolution. The pushing itself, chosen, consciously, with full knowledge of the absurdity.”
She was quiet for a moment, looking at the city.
“You asked me earlier," she said, "what I call the thing that keeps me going. Under the doubt. I said obligation. But—" She paused. "That's not quite it either. It's more like—I've decided. I've looked at the whole thing—the futility and the doubt and the girl's question and the pattern of nothing changing—and I've decided that the work is mine anyway. Not because it will succeed. Because it's mine." She paused. "I own the hill.”
He looked at her.
“Yes,” he said. "That's exactly it."
They stood in the particular proximity of two people who had talked their way to something real. The wind moved through the space between them, and below them Paris continued, and above them the sky had that deep city-blue of a night where the stars were invisible but you knew they were there.
“I've been building things for other people to push," he said quietly. "Creating the hills for other people and placing the boulders and—" He stopped. "I've never asked them what hill they wanted. What boulder. I gave them mine." He paused. "I gave them mine and called it purpose."
“That's—" He stopped. "That changes the entire—" He stopped again, and this time the stop had a different quality. Not stuck. Processing. The specific quality of someone whose internal architecture was shifting in real time, slowly and with resistance, but shifting.
She didn't press. She watched the city. She let him have it.
“What would it look like," he said finally, "to let people push their own boulders.”
“It would look like stepping back," she said. "Like funding the thing and not shaping it. Like being in the room without being the room." She paused. "It would look like being less essential. Which you said was the thing you couldn't tolerate.”
“I know.”
“Can you tolerate it?”
He was quiet for a long time.
"I don't know," he said finally, and it was the most honest answer available.
“That's okay," she said while nodding. "Sisyphus doesn't know either. He just pushes anyway.”
The wind moved between them again, and this time neither of them spoke, and the not-speaking was full rather than empty—the specific fullness of two people who have said enough for now and are sitting in the aftermath of it together, in the same air, under the same dark sky.
Her phone rang.
The sound was particular in its intrusion—the specific violence of the ordinary interrupting the extraordinary, Daniel's name illuminating the screen in her hand, and she looked at it for a moment with an expression he could read now, had learned in the past hours to read: not performing the consideration, actually considering. Actually deciding.
She looked at him.
His shoulders had already done the thing they did—dropped, fractionally, involuntarily, the body's admission of what the face wasn't showing. He felt it happen and he didn't try to stop it.
"I have to go," she said.
“Mhm.” He nods.
She took the call briefly, a few words, confirmed she was on her way. He had already turned back toward the apartment, the practical motion of wrapping up an evening, and he walked back inside and she followed, and the apartment felt different now than it had—not worse, not better, but changed in the way rooms changed when something real had happened in them.
She gathered her things with the quiet efficiency he had come to expect. Recorder into her bag. Notebook. Pen. The small ritual of reassembly.
He walked to the door.
He held it open, and as she passed through he had the specific sensation of the evening ending that he was unprepared for, which was unusual, which was information. The full weight of several hours of conversation settling into its final form as she stepped into the hallway and he understood that the room on the other side of this door was about to be only his again.
She stopped.
Turned.
He was aware of exactly how he looked—one hand on the door frame, the specific quality of someone who was doing a great deal of work to appear as though they were not.
She looked at him with nothing managed in it.
"Thank you," she said. "For tonight.”
“Thank you," he said, and found that he meant it with the full weight of the word, which was unusual, "for not closing the door."
She held his gaze for a moment that had the specific quality of being held deliberately—both of them present in it, neither of them performing.
"I'll be back.”
He was still.
She smiled—small, genuine, nothing performed in it.
"Off the record.”
Then she turned and walked to the elevator, pressed the button, stepped inside. The doors began to close.
She didn't look back.
He watched the doors close and stood in the empty hallway for a moment before going back inside, and he understood, standing in the apartment that was now only his again, that not looking back had been its own kind of communication—the deliberate inverse of Orpheus, the refusal to test the thing by checking, the choice to simply move forward and trust.
He closed the door.
He stood with his back against it and let himself have the full weight of the quiet.
Everything she had said was still in the room with him, had the specific presence of things that had been said truly—they didn't dissolve the way performed things dissolved, they stayed, they had mass and dimension and they were still here in the amber-lit space among his surviving things.
He crossed to the table.
The recorder was gone. She'd taken it.
He looked at the space where it had been and then at the chair where she'd sat and then at the window where they'd stood together with the city below them, close enough that he'd felt the warmth of her in the cool air.
Off the record.
He moved to the window, stood looking out at the city that was moving toward its deep-night configuration—thinner, slower, but still going, still refusing to stop, eight centuries of deciding to continue and no end in sight.
He thought about Sisyphus owning his hill.
He thought about her saying she decided the work is hers anyway. That she owns the hill.
He thought about the specific sensation of walking into her open mind and finding everything unguarded and being so completely unprepared for the openness that he'd stood in it for a long moment just—present. Just receiving the extraordinary fact of someone who had decided that the carrying was worth more than the protection.
He closed his eyes.
He had spent five hundred years building things for other people to push. He had built the hills and the boulders and the whole architecture of purpose and said here, this is yours, push this, and watched them push it, and felt essential, and called it love.
He thought about what it would mean to push something of his own. To own the hill—his hill, the specific absurdity of his own existence, the continuous time and the accumulated loss and the enduring and all of it—without building it into a structure that required other people to maintain.
He stayed at the window while the city went through its slow changes, and he let himself feel—really feel, without managing it, without containing it at the useful distance—the full specific shape of the evening.
What she had done to him, without violence, without cruelty, without any weapon except the absolute consistent refusal to accept anything less than the true thing. What he had found inside her when she'd let him in. What it had felt like to laugh, surprised, undone, delighted.
What it had felt like to stand on the balcony in the cool air next to someone who understood about the boulder and the hill.
What it felt like to watch the elevator doors close and feel the absence and know it was real, know it cost something, and know that the costing was not a warning but a proof.
Outside, Paris moved and breathed and continued, as it had always done, as it would continue to do, indifferent and ongoing and alive.
He watched the light at the edge of the horizon.
He waited.
A/N: Thank you so much for waitingg!!
If you made it to the end of this — thank you. genuinely. it means more than i know how to say properly:)
this one was quite difficult to write. not in the way things are difficult when they're not working, but in the way things are difficult when they matter too much. i sat with armand for a long time trying to write him in a way that felt true — the darkness, the loneliness, that specific hunger he has for being seen — without flattening him into a villain or a romantic ideal. he's neither. he's something more uncomfortable than both.
the political threads, the arguments, the things they pick apart — those came from real places. real grief, real questions i don't have clean answers to. i put them here because i think good fiction should hold the weight of the real world rather than escape it.
i just hope it made you feel something. that's all any of us are really trying to do:) make something that reaches through the screen and finds the person on the other side.
who knows, maybe there's a part two somewhere down the line! you guys should bully me into making one! ★
( 애인 ) you don't expect anything to come out of rating your exes—well, you don't expect them to see it. but it doesn't go as awful as you'd think...
💭 :: 27ss dirty jokes/innuendos allusions to sex reader is lowk #thatgirl jeongin gets his own warning seungmin barks han is precious sunoo/ni-ki/megan cameo
𑣲⋆ note ⸝⸝ this is for my lovely amazing thoughtful kind talented pretty girlfriend @kloversung because it's our one month (everyone cheer 🍻) i hope she knows how much i love her & i wanted to write a silly smau for her ♡ i love you ky baby (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶)
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