I’d Like To Say Hello To The Lb, First Time Caller Long Time Listener And We WILL Get Through This

Jonathan Joss comedian and actor has been murdered

You've probably already heard.

He's most known for his King of The Hill character John Redcorn. Sadly most comments I've heard from people were, "Now we have to recast Louanne and John"

Which is fucking disrespectful.

Texan news outlets report he was in a fight with a neighbor while visiting his property, which had burned down in a freak fire.

His husband has corrected these claims.

He and Jonathan had been threatened repeatedly while living together there. It was Jonathan's life long childhood home.

They neighbors threatened to burn the house down, before it had burned. And their two dogs burned inside. While getting mail yesterday and when they arrived they found their dogs skull and collar on display as a threat to them. They began crying and grieving. That's when a neighbor began cursing at them and calling them homophobic slurs, and they asked the man to leave them alone as they grieved, and the man without warning lifted a gun from his lap and began firing. Jonathan pushed his husband out of the way and was shot. He saved his husband's life.

His husband wants everyone to know it was NOT a fight and that he and Jonathan were minding their business when there was a deadly homophobic attack

See You! Spring 2024. A new short comic. : ) Debuted at TCAF 2024. [edit: i've now added a PDF of this comic in my store! : ) ]

I think I speak for a lot of people when I say this:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Croissant manatee 🥐

Godzilla in Montreal!

Tag list: @st-leclerc @rubywingsracing @saviour-of-lord @three-days-time @the-wall-is-my-goal @albonoooo @ch3rubd0lls @brawngp2009 @korolrezni-nikolai @d00dlespng @beenucks @mintraindrop @march32nd

ahhhhh!!! this was so good! i have a question, did you research fire tips for this? cause i was thinking that for the whole p a s s part and just thought it was funny

All up in Flames

Pairing: Firefighter!Bucky x Reader

Summary: You just want your toxic ex-boyfriend’s things to stop haunting your apartment. So you let your friends lit the match. But then the sirens come, and with them Bucky Barnes, who puts out more than just the flames.

Word Count: 9.4k

Warning: destruction of personal property; toxic relationship themes (not Bucky); mentions of an ex-partner; anxiety symptoms; fire; consequences of own actions; reader’s ex is an oc; mentions of ghosting and manipulation; Wanda, Natasha and the Reader are roommates

Author’s Note: I'm not sure how this started, but I felt a strong urge to indulge my unexpected obsession with Bucky as a firefighter. This is ever so slightly inspired by a scene from the series friends. There is an, although fluffy, but also really angsty second part coming up to this in the next few days. The writing part is complete, but I still need to finish some editing. In the meantime, I would love to hear what you think. I hope you enjoy ♡

Part two

Masterlist

You are not okay.

You are so far from okay that if you sent a postcard to okay it would get lost in transit, eaten by a dog, and then set on fire.

Which sounds stupid. But that’s about the luck you are blessed with.

The sun is setting and it might be doing you a favor with that. Spilling soft gold across the city skyline, painting your apartment’s tiny rooftop garden in a glow so warm and gentle it almost feels like forgiveness.

But you’re not in the mood for forgiveness.

You are in the mood for revenge. The emotional, irrational, wonderfully dramatic kind. The kind that smells of smoke and fury and the remnants of a man who once claimed to love you but couldn’t even spell commitment if it came with a free fantasy football draft.

Nolan Aspey. Even his name is a rotting corpse in your mind.

You’re sitting on an old beanbag chair shaped like a strawberry. It squelches when you move. You suspect it might be leaking. You don’t care. Your body is wrapped in a bathrobe that isn’t yours. It’s Natasha’s. It’s also silk, red, and wildly inappropriate for rooftop lounging in May. Still, she insisted. Said heartbreak demands drama.

To your right is Wanda, perched on a rusted garden chair stolen from the community center’s Zumba class. She’s nursing a glass of something suspiciously green and swirling it as though it’s a portion, legs crossed, eyes twinkling with mischief. Her nails are black and so is her soul. You love her for it.

To your left is Natasha, preparing your small setup. She’s wearing aviator sunglasses even though the sun is barely hanging onto the sky, and you’re sure she’s doing it for the aesthetic.

You stare at the setup. There is a bottle of wine - half full, or half empty, depending on whether you’re crying or screaming at any given moment - and a Bluetooth speaker playing a playlist titled Sad Bitch Anthems Vol. 1

You don’t feel like a bitch, though. You feel more like 73% pathetic and 27% rage.

Because in front of you, next to the trash can Natasha is placing - on a cracked terracotta platter that used to house a very unfortunate basil plant - is the pile.

Your ex-boyfriend’s stuff. A pile of heartbreak. The skeletal remains of your relationship.

One hoodie that still holds traces of his cologne - a scent that haunts your dreams and also your laundry hamper. Four concert tickets from that indie band he dragged you to. Two dozen Polaroids of smiles that now feel counterfeit. A necklace he gave you from a kiosk in the mall and claimed was real moonstone but it was plastic, who would have guessed. A series of agonizingly handwritten love letters he sent you after ghosting you for a week. A book you lent him that he never returned, except now it’s water-damaged and somehow sticky. You don’t want to ask why. And a mug that says Boss Man.

You’ve always hated that mug.

You stare at the pile and the pile stares back.

“Okay,” Natasha starts, stretching the word out and flicking open a Zippo lighter with a casually pleasing look. “Let’s set this bitch ablaze.”

“I don’t know,” you hesitate, like a woman who knows this is a terrible idea and is about to do this anyway. “Is this even legal?”

“Is heartbreak legal?” Wanda asks dramatically, putting on oven mitts and holding a fire extinguisher as though it’s a designer clutch. “Is betrayal legal? Is gaslighting-”

“We get it,” you cut in quickly. “He sucked.”

“Oh he did more than suck,” Natasha exclaims, crouching beside the metal trash bin. “He emotionally vaporized you.”

“And that’s why we’re liberating his soul,” Wanda nods solemnly, her Sokovian accent making everything sound like a funeral dirge or a hex. “With fire.”

“Alright, you freaks,” you chuckle a little weakly, something tugging at your chest. “I just- I feel like we should say something,” you continue, voice low. As though you’re standing over a grave.

Wanda lifts an eyebrow. “An eulogy?”

Natasha, already about to strike the match, snorts. “A spell, more like.”

You ignore them. Or try to.

You reach down, pick up the hoodie. Hold it in your hands as though it still is something important to you. You hate that. And it’s ridiculous because he once wore this while spilling bean dip all over your white couch and didn’t even apologize.

Still, you hesitate.

“I mean,” you go on, voice small, “is this crazy? Like, should I be processing this more healthily?”

Natasha tosses the match into the bowl with all the ceremony of a seasoned arsonist. “This is healthy,” she says lowly. “You’re purging. This is emotional detox.”

Wanda nods. “Also, we brought marshmallows.”

You stare.

She lifts a grocery bag. “In case the fire gets big enough.”

You want to protest. To say something sensible. Something like, this surely is illegal, or this is definitely going to attract attention, or rooftop gardens are not structurally designed for bonfires. But instead, you sigh. Pick up one of the letters. Hold it above the flames that are just beginning to flicker.

“I hope he can feel this from wherever he’s ghosting people now.”

The paper catches as though it was waiting for this moment. As though it has always wanted to be free of the nonsense inked into it.

Wanda claps softly. “To ashes.”

“To cleansing,” Natasha adds, sipping her wine while watching you in satisfaction.

You pick up the mug next. Look at it one last time, the painted letters mocking you with their ceramic certainty. Then you chuck it into the trash can. The sound it makes - crack, splinter, dead - is gratifying in a way therapy can’t afford to be.

Your therapist would say this is unhealthy.

Your landlord would say this is grounds for eviction.

Your heart says burn all of it to ashes.

You sit back. Watch as the fire grows bolder, licking up the fabric of his old hoodie. The smoke rises in ribbons, curling around the string lights above and the half-dead succulents in your rooftop sanctuary.

The flames kill fabric, memories, and lies. For a few seconds, it’s cathartic.

You feel free, weirdly, relaxing in your seat. Powerful. Slightly unhinged.

Wanda lets out a feral scream and throws in a pair of his socks.

Natasha sips wine straight from the bottle, smirking.

You’re laughing. Or crying. Or both.

Then there is a crackle.

A pop.

“Is it supposed to make that sound?” Wanda asks, a little too casually.

Natasha shades her eyes with her hand. “Oh.”

“Oh?” you repeat. There’s dread in your voice. A sweet, rising note of oh no I didn’t sign up for actual consequences.

“The candle wax spilled,” Natasha states, calm.

“Why was there wax?” you ask, less calm.

“I thought it would smell nice. Vanilla coconut. Seasonal.”

Wanda leans forward. “Um.”

The fire gets bigger.

It gets way bigger.

The flames lap - ever so enthusiastically - at the rim of the metal bin and start talking to the wind and now the wind is flirting back and suddenly this has escalated into something biblical.

“Uh,” you let out.

“Don’t panic,” Wanda says, panicking.

“I am panicking,” you shout, slapping at a spark that just landed on your blanket as though it’s a bug from hell.

Natasha grabs the fire extinguisher from Wanda after she only fumbles around with the handle.

Wanda holds out her wine as though it might help.

You just stare at the roaring column of flame that used to be your dignity and think you should have just blocked Nolan like a normal person.

“Should I call someone?”

“I mean,” Natasha says, still somewhat calm, brushing ash from her robe, “probably-”

Wanda does it for you.

You hear her muttering into her phone, giving your apartment number like it’s a confession while fanning the smoke with a pizza box.

And you sit there with that sinking, desperate feeling that comes only from realizing you made a terrible life choice, and you’re about to pay for it in paperwork and possibly a visit from the landlord.

The air is full of smoke and regret and singed hoodie.

At least his cologne no longer stings in your nose.

You fan the flames uselessly with a throw pillow and silently pray the neighbors of you three are too busy binge-watching reality TV to notice that the building might be on the brink of spontaneous combustion.

All you wanted was to burn some memories. Some manipulative words. A tiny, hoodie-shaped piece that saw you cry on two separate birthdays. The hoodie that watched you fall asleep restlessly on couches that weren’t yours. The hoodie he left behind as though it meant nothing, as though you meant nothing.

So now you are holding a pillow with shaking hands and a mouthful of second guesses, standing over a metal bin on your rooftop, trying not to make eye contact with the fire as it gets uglier.

And Natasha doesn’t seem to know how to use a fire extinguisher either, bits of foam leaving it, like tiny sprinkles.

You try to help with your blanket. The one with the flowers on it.

They start faintly.

The sirens.

Growing louder.

Like judgment. Or fate. Or the consequences of impulsively burning your romantic history without a permit.

That sound, loud and authoritative and promising rescue, bounces off the buildings and down alleyways like a soundtrack written just for your mental breakdown.

Somewhere in the distance, a car alarm starts wailing as though even it can’t handle the drama.

You hear the brakes of the fire truck before you see it. Hear the way they hiss and groan against the street as though the truck is just as tired of cleaning up after emotionally unstable civilians as you are of being one.

You lean over the ledge of the roof, peering down like Rapunzel mid-crisis, and there it is.

Big. Red. Serious.

Three firemen step out. Their silhouettes are backlit by flashing lights. You feel, absurdly, as though you’re in a heist film. Or a rom-com. Or a public service announcement.

One of them is talking into a radio.

One of them is already unloading equipment.

And one of them is looking up.

At you.

He squints. Cocks his head slightly. Takes you in.

A moment later, they’re clomping up the stairs, boots loud against the old steel.

The door to the rooftop bursts open.

You are trying very hard to look like someone who has not created a situation requiring professional intervention. But you know it’s not working.

You expect seriousness. Gruffness and unamused men, middle-aged with a mustache and a strong opinion on smoke detectors.

But the men walking onto your rooftop are none of that.

There is a blond one. Tall. Built like the world’s most polite oak tree.

Another one is smiling. Smirking. Radiating fun uncle energy despite the full turnout gear.

And the last one. He’s tall and broad and also wears the full gear - helmet tucked under one arm, soot-smudged gloves on the other - and still, he manages to look as though he walked off the set of a calendar shoot titled America’s Hottest Emergency. He’s the one who looked up at you from below.

“Evening, ladies,” he says, voice low and a little raspy, as though he chews gravel for breakfast but politely wipes his mouth after.

His eyes are blue. Clear. Kind.

His gear fits him as though it was pressed in heaven.

He’s calm. Collected. He glances once at the smoking bin, then at Natasha holding a fire extinguisher as though it might double as a weapon, then back at you.

“This the source?”

His voice is deep and even and somehow gentle. He gestures toward the bin, that’s now doing its best impersonation of a forge. The fire’s down to a few stubborn flames now, black smoke rising into the sky.

“Yes,” you answer, after what is definitely too long a pause.

His name tag says Barnes.

His uniform is clean and neat and slightly smudged at the knees. His hands are gloved. His expression is unreadable.

“We take it from here,” says the blond with the tag Rogers, already moving toward the bin.

“We’ve got a call about open flame, potential spread. You ladies okay?” Barnes speaks up again.

You open your mouth.

Wanda opens her mouth.

Natasha gets there first.

“It was controlled.”

He raises an eyebrow. Glances at the still-smoldering hoodie, the wine, the melted candle that now looks as though it’s auditioning for a horror movie.

“It was semi-controlled,” she clarifies.

Barnes exchanges a glance with his colleague, the one dousing the final embers. The patch on his jacket says Wilson.

“Uh-huh,” he simply lets out, though there is a hint of amusement in his tone. He doesn’t laugh. But his eyes sparkle as though he wants to.

You want the ground to open up and swallow you. You want to disappear, evaporate into smoke like the hoodie, the letters, the relationship, your pride.

You clear your throat.

Barnes already turns back to you. And oh. Oh.

His intense gaze is doing things to you.

And it doesn’t help that your face probably is covered in soot and existential shame.

“Just out of curiosity,” Bucky says slowly, a small tug at the corner of his mouth. “What exactly were you trying to do?”

Natasha folds her arms.

“Therapy,” she responds, as though it’s obvious. “We were doing therapy.”

“With fire?” Wilson chimes in, skeptical and mildly delighted.

“Had a rough night,” Wanda offers suddenly. “Her ex. Real piece of work.”

You inhale sharply. “Wanda,” you warn, wobbling with the effort to appear dignified while wearing fuzzy socks and an aggressively red bathrobe that’s slowly coming untied.

“No, he was,” she insists. “He lied. Manipulated her. Ghosted her after a year of dating. Said he wasn’t ready for a relationship, for commitment, and whatnot, and then got engaged. Two weeks later. To someone who doesn’t even like dogs.”

You see Barnes wince.

“Damn,” Wilson lets out.

You close your eyes for a moment.

The rooftop is very still, save for the hiss of water on ashes.

Barnes doesn’t laugh.

He doesn’t say anything for a second. Just looks at you. Measures you.

“That’s rough.” His voice comes low. Even. However, there is more to it.

You nod once. You’re not sure what else to say.

He runs a hand over the back of his neck. He looks as though he wants to say something else. Something a little softer. But the blond speaks up.

“Next time you feel like getting rid of things,” he says, voice sympathetic, but firm, “might want to try a donation bin.”

Natasha smirks. “Not as satisfying.”

Roger’s lips twitch. Just barley. “Well, if you’re going to keep burning stuff, maybe give us a heads-up next time.”

You just want to be swallowed by something. The earth maybe while we’re at it.

Bucky’s eyes are soft. Subtle. Like watching an iron door swing open just a crack.

“Did it help, though?” he asks, seeming sincere.

You blink.

You certainly didn’t expect a question like that. You might have expected teasing. Or mockery. Not gentleness. Understanding. As though he stood where you are. As though maybe he tried to burn his past too.

You nod, a little shyly. “A little.”

The fire has now been extinguished. Wilson and Rogers share a few words, poking the ashes with a metal rod.

And Bucky still looks at you as though you are not ridiculous. As though you are not ash-streaked and emotionally unstable.

Then he clears his throat. Smiles a slow, crooked, criminally charming smile. It’s the kind of smile that makes you want to confess things. Dreams. Secrets. Your social security number.

“Well,” he starts smoothly. “Fire’s out. No citation this time, but maybe go easy on the candle sacrifices.”

You feel something in your chest flutter. Or combust. Honestly, hard to tell at this point.

You want to thank him. You want to say something easy. But you are still a hot, melted candle of a person yourself.

So instead, you nod. “Okay,” you promise, voice rather small.

He tips an imaginary hat. Then turns back to his team. Taps his helmet once against his leg and gives the others a low command you can’t hear.

The moment is over. Clean-up begins. The fire is out. The chaos is settling.

But for some reason, your heart is still making noise.

****

Time doesn’t tiptoe.

It lumbers, loud and unbalanced, dragging itself across your days with all the grace of a wounded elephant.

But still, it moves. And you start to feel like yourself again. Piece by piece.

You sweep the ash out of your ribcage. You remember what it feels like to listen to music without flinching. To laugh and mean it. To make pasta at two in the morning just because you want to. To exist without waiting for the next disappointment.

It’s enough for you to walk barefoot again without stepping on invisible landmines disguised as memory - his coffee mug, his toothbrush, his phone charger, his smell stuck to your pillowcase like grief with a cologne subscription.

But all of that is gone now. Burned.

Literally.

Charcoal in a rooftop bin. Ashes scattered to the wind like bad omens. The hoodie’s gone. Melted into memory. Along with the notes, the tickets, the Polaroid of the two of you at that Halloween party where he said he loved you for the first time with sugar on his lips and a lie in his mouth.

You’re better now.

And on a Thursday, you find yourself sitting cross-legged on the couch, wrapped in a blanket that smells of Wanda’s lemon detergent and safety, your head in Wanda’s lap, legs draped over Natasha’s thighs, all of you filled with late breakfast and post-shower hair and the warm, sleepy glow of late morning.

Wanda is ranting about her dream journal. She always tries to analyze her dreams for some reason.

“But I was a tree, Y/n,” she’s saying, balancing a mug on your shoulder. “An emotional tree. I cried leaves.”

Natasha doesn’t blink. “That’s tracks.”

You hum amused. “You’ve always been sympathizing with nature, Wan.”

Wanda points her spoon at you as though it’s a wand. “You get it. Nature is screaming and I hear her.”

A worn novel lay on your shins on Natasha’s lap, cracked open. But she’s been on the same page for twenty minutes. You think she’s listening more than she lets on.

The apartment smells of roasted bread. The sun is slanting in through the windows just right - those lazy golden stripes that make even your chipped coffee table look cinematic.

“Do you think he knows?” you voice after a silent moment.

Natasha raises an eyebrow. “Knows what?”

“That I burned his stuff?”

Wanda hums, carding her fingers through your hair. “Don’t think about that. It doesn’t matter if he knows. The universe knows. That’s enough.”

You glance at the windows. You wonder if the hoodie screamed when it caught fire. You hope it did.

“Honestly,” you say around a handful of cereal, voice lighter, “burning that stuff was the healthiest decision I’ve ever made.”

Natasha smirks. “Aside from therapy.”

“Obviously.”

“And cutting your bangs.”

“That was a journey.”

Wanda lifts her mug. “To combustion and personal growth.”

You clink your cereal box against her cup. “Amen.”

There were, of course, consequences. A polite but stern letter from the landlord. An eye-roll of a fine from the city. For future ceremonial burnings, please contact the fire department in advance, it read.

But it was worth it.

Every last spark.

There’s a comfort here, in the clutter, in the way time is moving again. Not fast, not smooth, but forward. You’ve started reading books again. You’ve stopped stalking his Instagram. Well, mostly.

“You seem about a few steps away from writing a memoir called How to Set Men on Fire (and Still Make It to Brunch)” Natasha muses.

“I’d buy that,” Wanda immediately chimes in.

You snort.

Outside, someone yells at their dog. A siren shrieks in the far-off distance like an unfinished thought. Your apartment smells of burnt toast and coffee grounds, and it’s home.

You’re okay.

Almost.

And then the fire alarm goes off.

It screams. A wailing, shrieking, banshee of a sound, as though the building is having a panic attack and wants you to join in. Lights flash. The walls vibrate. Your soul tries to exit your body.

Wanda’s spoon hovers in the air.

Natasha glances at the ceiling with an unimpressed look.

You feel your pulse do a little skip. Not in a full panic. But a creeping suspicion unfurls behind your ribs.

Natasha is already standing, moving, with the efficiency of a woman who’s never been surprised in her life.

“Is this us?” Wanda asks, voice high and uncertain. She looks around your shared apartment. “Did we- was it the oven?”

You bolt upright. “Nothing’s in the oven.”

“Well then who-”

“I swear I didn’t light anything.” You raise your hands.

“Well, I didn’t either,” Wanda insists.

“Doesn’t smell like us,” Natasha says, sniffing the air like a human smoke detector.

But none of that matters because the building has made a decision and that decision is everyone out now.

You’re still sitting. You’re in pajamas. You all are. And not the cute kind either. The kind that suggests you’ve been crying into a tub of ice cream while watching documentaries about whales. The kind with ducks on the pants and a sweatshirt that’s two sizes too big and maybe has a mustard stain from Tuesday.

You hear doors opening. Feet on stairs. Someone is yelling about their cat.

Natasha grabs her phone and keys. “Let’s go before it turns into the Hunger Games.”

You move. Slowly.

You’ve made your peace with fire, sure - but only the kind you start on purpose. Symbolic. Controlled. Supervised by emotionally repressed firefighters with sharp jaws and suspicious amounts of upper body strength.

But this is unexpected.

This is the kind of thing that sends a hot flood of unease down your spine, because what if the universe is laughing at you again? What if you are, yet again, being punished for trying to let go?

You follow Wanda and Natasha out the door.

The hallway is bright with flashing lights - red, urgent. The sound is louder out here. So loud it makes your teeth vibrate. You can’t tell if it’s coming from your floor or somewhere above, but there’s a smell this time. Faint, sharp, ugly. Plastic and heat and something bitter curling in the air.

There’s a river of bathrobes and sweatpants and panicked neighbors. The stairwell smells like old takeout and anxiety. A toddler is crying. Someone’s dog is barking. A woman herds two cats into a carrier with shaking hands.

Mr. Feldman from 3B is arguing with someone on speakerphone about whether he unplugged the coffee maker, and you think the fire alarm might actually be the least chaotic sound happening right now.

“Was this us?” you repeat Wanda’s question, a little unsure, as you file down the stairs like middle-class refugees.

“No,” Natasha mutters coolly. “But I’m still blaming you.”

You clutch the railing and follow, ducking your head, trying not to make eye contact with any of your neighbors as your duck-printed pajama pants flap dramatically behind you.

You shouldn’t care. No one looks good during evacuation. And Wanda and Natasha look the same.

And yet. Your heart is doing something strange again.

It isn’t panic. It is expectation.

Your chest knows something your brain refuses to name.

At the bottom of the stairwell, someone holds the door open and you all spill into the daylight. The whole building is out now, buzzing like bees, people muttering and shielding their eyes.

You breathe in. Sharp. Cool. You try to ignore the knot forming in your stomach.

Smoke - real and thick - drifts from one of the kitchen windows on the fourth floor.

The crowd shifts around you - barefoot neighbors, a couple wrapped in matching bathrobes, one guy in boxers and cowboy boots holding a microwave. Someone brought their goldfish out in a bowl.

You stand near the hedges with Natasha on one side, arms crossed, and Wanda on the other, biting a fingernail and muttering something about how she definitely turned off the stove.

And then - like something out of a fever dream or a scene you didn’t realize you were still starring in - you hear it.

The sirens.

Louder this time. Close.

You freeze.

Wanda gives you a side-eye.

Natasha is already smirking. Already watching the street like a woman with a secret.

There’s a rumble. A hiss. The low growl of something inevitable.

And there it is.

The truck.

Big. Glossy red. Familiar. Like a mouth ready to swallow your dignity whole. Lights flash, the crew leaps down, gear gleams in the late morning light.

Fife firefighters fan out with mechanical movements. Their boots hit the pavement.

And one of them is Barnes.

He swings out of the cab with the ease of someone who does this for a living, the kind of grace that comes from muscle memory and a thousand repetitions.

Helmet under one arm. Radio clipped to his shoulder. That same uniform hugging his frame beautifully, as though even his clothes know how lucky they are.

He doesn’t see you at first.

He’s too busy scanning the building, hollering orders. Wilson and Rogers follow behind, already moving. You watch them as though this is a movie.

Barnes is all lines and velocity. His body moves as though he doesn’t need to think, as though instinct lives in his spine. The heavy jacket makes his shoulders look even broader, the suspenders visible where the coat parts, and everything about him suggests competence with a capital C. He’s not just handsome, he’s horrifyingly capable.

Your mouth is dry.

His eyes sweep the crowd.

And then he sees you.

He stops. Only for a second. His face changes.

You wish you had the words to explain it, to bottle it, to pin it down like a butterfly under glass. It’s not surprise exactly.

It’s something softer. Smaller. Recognition.

His eyes travel down your frame like a soft inventory. Not lewd, not invasive. Just checking to make sure you’re still whole.

Your whole body wants to shrink into itself like an accordion. You are in duck pajama pants. You have mascara from yesterday smeared beneath one eye and your socks don’t match and you have nothing to use as a shield against judgment.

Barnes doesn’t say anything as he walks past your cluster, but his gaze brushes yours again. A flicker. Like a note passed under the table. You feel it in your spine.

And then he’s gone, slipping into the building.

The door swings closed behind him.

And your whole body forgets what it was doing.

The tall blond and another man whose name tag you’re not able to make out follow him, shouting something into the radio as they rush through the front doors. Wilson stays near the truck, communicating with a woman in a blazer. Another circles the building’s exterior, already unraveling the hose in a way that feels choreographed.

Wanda exhales beside you. “Okay but why do I feel like I need to sit down.”

Natasha keeps smirking. “Girl’s not even on fire and he still looked like he wanted to carry her out bridal style.”

You don’t answer. You pretend not to hear them. You’re too busy trying to teach your lungs how to work.

A woman nearby is having a loud conversation with her parrot in a travel cage. An older man keeps pointing at the sky and saying something about chemtrails.

Across the street, a woman with curlers in her hair cradles a barking Pomeranian. A man in flannel pajama bottoms is life-streaming on Instagram, offering uninformed commentary like, “Yeah, looks like they’re going in hot. You seen that one dude? That’s the captain. I think. Or maybe the lieutenant? I don’t know, he’s got the vibe.”

But you are watching the front door.

Five minutes pass. Maybe ten. It feels like too long. You chew the inside of your cheek until it tastes of metal.

Then the door opens again.

Barnes steps out first.

He’s holding a cat.

A full-grown orange tabby against his chest. It meows furiously but stays nestled against his jacket, one paw resting just under his collarbone.

The crowd parts for him as though he is Moses with a fireproof jacket.

“Oh would you look at that,” Wanda whispers delighted. “A true hero.”

You inhale through your nose. It doesn’t help.

You continue watching how he walks across the street and hands the cat to a sobbing teenage girl who is engulfed in a comforter and clutching the fabric with trembling hands. He squats in front of her. Saying something. Something soft, gentle, reassuring. And she laughs through her tears. You watch her nod. You watch her wipe her face with her sleeve.

You want to ask what he said.

You want to ask a thousand things.

But mostly, you want to stand still in this feeling a little longer.

It’s something shaped like interest, tilted toward longing, balanced on the lip of something you never expected to feel just yet.

“Just smoke from a toaster,” one of the other firefighters calls out. His name tag says Torres. “No damage. False alarm.”

The neighbors sigh. Groan. Someone claps.

You still can’t look away from him.

He stands again. And then there’s another glance.

His posture is relaxed now. The light hits the silver of his belt buckle and makes your eyes squint. A breeze picks up and he runs a hand through his hair.

God, he looks human in a way that makes you forget you’re made of skin and not glass.

People are filing back into the building, muttering about smoke detectors and building codes, their faces pulled into various expressions of relief, annoyance, and boredom.

You’re still on the curb.

The sirens have stopped. The smoke has thinned.

And then suddenly, Barnes turns. Starts walking. Straight toward you.

Your pulse is pounding as though the building is about to fall.

You pull your sleeves over your hands because it’s all you can do with them.

You’re staring at a crack in the pavement. One that branches like lightning across the sidewalk. One you’ve never noticed before, though you must have stepped over it a hundred times. It looks like something trying to split open, as though even the concrete is tired of pretending.

You look up and he’s already halfway to you.

He is walking as though he means to. Not rushing, but not wandering, either.

He’s got his jacket slung over one shoulder this time, sloppily, as though he forgot it mattered. The suspenders are still visible, stretched over a plain navy shirt that shouldn’t be as flattering as it is. His gloves are tucked in the crook of his elbow. The radio clipped to his belt is crackling with static and shorthand codes, but he doesn’t reach for it. A smudge of soot streaks his jaw like a shadow of what he just walked through.

His boots are heavy, but his steps aren’t. His eyes are on you.

He walks like someone who isn’t thinking too hard about where he’s going but definitely knows where he wants to stop.

You blink twice. Your heartbeat forgets what tempo it’s supposed to be playing.

Natasha says nothing, but you feel her lean imperceptibly to the side, just out of the line. Wanda pretends to scroll on her phone, though the screen is black and upside down.

There is still the faint scent of smoke in the air. But his scent cuts through it - soap, metal, something warm and masculine that probably shouldn’t make your knees wobble, but does.

You consider digging a hole in the sidewalk and folding yourself into it like a collapsible chair.

But you don’t. You don’t move.

You don’t breathe.

And then he’s there. Right there.

Boots planted on pavement. A hair’s breadth too close for casual, a hair’s breadth too far for intentional.

You look up at him.

He looks down at you.

“Well,” he starts, rough voice, but you see a twitch of amusement in his mouth that seeps warmly into his tone, “this isn’t gonna turn into a habit, is it?”

Your pulse makes poor decisions. You forget every single word you’ve ever learned in any language, including your native one.

A corner of his mouth quirks up further. “Because if it is, I’m gonna start thinking you just like havin’ us over.”

You find scratches of your voice somewhere in your throat. “Wasn’t us this time, gladly,” you say, a bashful and breathless laugh fleeing your lips. You turn to Natasha and Wanda for a moment but it seems they expect you to lead this conversation.

“Glad to hear it,” he says, tilting his head. “Had me worried for a second. Fire call, same building. Whole lotta commotion. Coulda been you tryin’ to burn something again.” His tone holds a teasing edge. His eyes are glinting.

You cringe. “Right. Sorry about that, again.”

A smile breaks fully across his face - slowly, as if it’s deciding whether it’s allowed to exist. It changes his whole face. Brightens him, somehow. As though there is a light inside his chest and someone just flipped the switch.

“Ah, no worries. S’ what we’re here for,” he rumbles, amused but soft.

He’s still smiling. Still watching you with that calm, unreadable focus that makes you feel as if you’re standing under a magnifying glass, but not in a cruel way.

“Name’s Bucky, by the way,” he says, like a gift.

You stare. “Sorry, what?”

He smiles wider. “My name. Bucky. Captain Barnes, technically, but Bucky’s fine. You know, in case you decide to burn anything again and want a direct line.”

Your mouth parts.

“Oh,” is all that comes out. Brilliantly. Eloquently. Like a poet in the throes of emotional ruin.

Bucky chuckles softly, a little small. Then scratches the back of his neck.

“I, uh-” he starts, then stops. Then shifts his weight a little. “I didn’t get your name last time.”

You study the smudge on his ridiculously handsome face. The square of his jaw. The lashes too long for fairness. The scar, faint and silvery, placed just under his left eye like a comma he forgot to erase.

You tell him your name.

His smile deepens when he hears it. Grows softer. He repeats it once, quietly, as though he is trying it out. You wish he wouldn’t do that. You wish he’d do it again.

“Well,” he notes, glancing down at the pavement, then back at you. “Nice to meet you officially. Under slightly less dramatic circumstances.”

You smile. “Slightly.”

There is a beat. A quiet one. His eyes flicker down your frame and back up - quick, respectful, but curious. You swear he clocks the fact that your hands are shaking a little.

He rebalances, a ripple passing down his spine to his heels. “You okay, though? Really?”

You nod, heart hammering too loudly in your ears. “Yeah, we’re okay. It’s a relief that it was only a false alarm. And it wasn’t us.”

You gesture lamely at the girls. Wanda waves with exactly one finger. Natasha stands there with the corner of her mouth tugged up smugly. She barely nods.

Bucky doesn’t take his eyes off you.

It’s not overt. Not predatory or invasive. But it’s not nothing, either. Just direct.

He nods slowly. As though your answer passed inspection.

“You girls all live together?”

You nod again, teeth catching the inside of your cheek. “Yeah. All three of us. Since last spring.”

He hums. Doesn’t look away.

Doesn’t look at Natasha. Doesn’t look at Wanda.

Just you.

“Good,” he says finally. “That’s good. You’ve got backup.”

You smile, tentatively. “They’re alright.”

“Sure are,” Natasha deadpans.

Wanda throws a heart at you with her hands.

Bucky’s eyes crinkle a little at the edges. You want to bottle that look. Hide it in your drawer. Peek at it when the day is quiet and you forget what warmth feels like.

A pause.

You think maybe that’s it. Maybe he’ll tip his head, excuse himself, go back to his team. That would make sense. That would be the responsible, professional thing to do.

Instead, he points to your pants. “Nice ducks, by the way.”

You stare at him. You absolutely, completely stare.

Natasha makes a pretty unattractive snorting sound behind you.

Wanda is suddenly very interested in retying her shoelaces.

“Thanks,” you manage. “They’re vintage.” You hope you sound less embarrassed than you feel.

He lets out a rumbling laugh.

Then the tall blond calls his name. Rogers. Sharp. Quick. Business.

Bucky turns, lifts a hand in acknowledgment. “Duty calls.”

He takes a step backward, but his eyes stay on yours a second too long.

And then he winks. It’s absurd. It’s illegal. It’s completely unnecessary.

“It was nice seeing you again.”

Then he walks back to the truck. Climbs in.

The engine roars. The lights flash once more for good measure. The truck eases into the street, and he is gone.

But you don’t move.

You just stand there, blinking into the smoke-tinged sunlight, your names still hanging between you.

You roll his name around in your head like a stone you’re not ready to skip.

Wanda steps up beside you, peering after the truck. She sighs like a Victorian ghost. “I love that you didn’t blink that entire time.”

“I blinked,” you grumble.

“You didn’t,” Natasha confirms flatly.

You inhale deeply.

Wanda grins. “So, what are we going to burn next.”

You exhale. Laugh, light and shocked and a little bit lost.

And you don’t answer.

But you’ve never wanted to set something on fire so badly, just to see if he’d come back.

****

You don’t want to go.

Not even a little. Not even at all.

You say it with your whole chest, with your arms crossed and your face stuffed into the corner of the couch cushion.

Wanda is painting her toenails on the coffee table. “Come one. It’ll be fun.”

Natasha doesn’t look up from her phone. “It’s good for team bonding.”

“Team bonding?” you squeak. “What are we, a softball league?”

Natasha shrugs. “I’m just saying. If there’s ever another toaster incident, I’d rather not die because you were emotionally incapacitated by a bread product.”

You groan into the pillow.

Wanda and Natasha signed you up for a fire safety class.

And you’re terrified.

Because it’s been weeks since you saw him last. Weeks since the smoke, and the heat, and the stupid lingering eye contact. Since he said your name as though he meant to keep it in his mouth for a while.

And you know - because your spine told you before your brain caught up - you know Bucky Barnes is going to be there.

You know this because Wanda knows things, and Natasha forces things into being.

And yes, okay, you miss him. You do. You hate that you do. You met the guy two times and still, your heart folds a little at the sound of diesel engines, you started keeping your hair brushed and your lips soft just in case the universe decides to toss him back into your orbit.

But seeing him again would surely feel like touching a sunburn.

You don’t want to burn.

You don’t want to heal, either.

You want to stay in this in-between where you get to miss him quietly without having to do anything about it.

So naturally, you end up in a folding chair in the local fire station’s multi-purpose room at 6:59 pm on a Wednesday.

There is a faint scent of metal and ash in the air. The kind that stays on walls no matter how many layers of institutional paint try to hide it. The overhead fluorescents are buzzing as though they are irritated by your presence. A series of old community flyers hang crookedly by the entrance. One says Stop, Drop, and Roll Your Way Into Preparedness! with a cartoon Dalmatian smiling as if it has secrets.

And although you would rather perish than admit it to your best friends, you came prepared.

You’ve been preparing for this moment the way some people prepare for court trials or emotionally complex family dinners.

You know the difference between a Class A and Class B fire.

You know the ideal temperature range from smoke detectors to function.

You know that a grease fire should never be doused with water and that lots of people don’t find this fact to be obvious.

You even practiced saying pull, aim, squeeze, sweep in a tone of detached casual interest while brushing your teeth last night.

Because you thought maybe if he sees you as competent, as calm, as someone who doesn’t panic around fire or men with broad shoulders, then maybe he’d-

You don’t finish the thought.

Because it’s dangerous.

Because although you didn’t agree to go here, you technically didn’t say no, which Natasha argued was basically a signed contract in this household and Wanda only hummed from the kitchen while printing out the registration forms.

Because your stomach flipped when Wanda said his name earlier. Because it flips every time. It still flips now.

Because you think about him too much. And you know you shouldn’t.

You’ve been doing well. Truly, objectively, almost scientifically well. You burned the things of your ex. You deleted his number. You ignored the last two texts, even when they got mean. You ignored phone calls from anonymous numbers because you knew he had his ways of reaching you. You told yourself it was done.

But it was Wanda who said it last night, curled into your couch with her knees tucked under your blanket and sympathy as well as concern in her eyes.

“He’s going to keep trying, you know. That kind of man always does. The trick is to stop listening before he gets loud enough to convince you you’re still his.”

You didn’t say anything then.

But now, sitting here, hands tucked under your thighs, ankles crossed awkwardly, the words feel like something still echoing inside your chest.

You’re trying not to sweat through your light sweater, trying not to pull at your sleeves as though you are twelve again and back in gym class, trying very hard not to imagine what it’s going to feel like when he walks in.

Bucky.

God, even his name feels like a bruise you keep poking on purpose.

“Just relax,” Wanda eases from beside you, all calm and legs crossed and sipping her chamomile tea in a travel mug she smuggled in as though it’s not against the rules. “It’s just a class.”

“And not just any,” Natasha adds sultry, flipping her ponytail over her shoulder with the kind of confidence you’re not able to possess at the moment. “It’s fire safety. You’ll learn to stop, drop, and roll, and make eye contact with your future husband.”

You turn to look at her. “I hate you.”

She nods. “But in a sexy, grateful way.”

You sigh. Cross your arms. Chew on the edge of your thumbnail and silently negotiate with god.

And then he walks in.

You feel him before you see him. Like gravity shifting. Like a magnetic field drawing your molecules to the surface of your skin.

Bucky Barnes steps through the doorway in a dark navy station polo, sleeves hugging his biceps with zero regard for your emotional stability. His uniform is not the big, intimidating, soot-stained kind with suspenders and the heavy boots and the sense that something is burning. This is the community outreach uniform. His dark hair is swept back but a little tousled, as though maybe he was in a rush. There is a clipboard under one arm, a radio attached to his belt, and he looks like competence in human form.

You exhale as though you’ve been underwater.

The entire class - about twelve people in total - turn to look at him as though they’ve never seen a firefighter before in their lives. There are a few women in yoga pants, a very enthusiastic grandpa, one teenager who looks as though he was dragged here as punishment, and a few genuinely interested looking men.

He doesn’t see you right away. He’s scanning the front row, muttering something to one of the other firefighters - Danvers, her name tag reads, a straight-standing, no-nonsense woman with a kind smile. She looks as though she could carry a refrigerator up a mountain, and you sink further into your chair.

Wanda leans into your space. “I can basically hear your ovaries-”

“Shut up,” you grit out, feeling as though you might melt into the fabric of the chair beneath you.

Bucky scans the room, nods a polite greeting.

And then he sees you.

You freeze.

He doesn’t.

It’s not dramatic. Not some cinematic double-take.

It’s worse. It’s soft.

His eyes catch yours and he smiles. Just a small curve of the lips. But it’s tender. Not performative. Not polite.

Your heart cartwheels straight out of the window.

You try to smile back but you’re pretty sure what happens on your face is chaotic.

Wanda makes a sound into your ear that can only be described as a squeal disguised as a cough. Natasha looks far too smug.

Bucky turns back to the room as though nothing happened. As though he hasn’t just detonated something in your bloodstream.

But he does stand a little straighter. Taller. Composed.

Then he claps his hands once, enough to bring the room to attention. As though he didn’t already have all eyes on him.

“Alright, folks,” he begins, voice even and low and warm enough to steep tea in. “Thanks for showing up. I’m Bucky, this is Carol. We’re going to run through some fire safety basics tonight. Shouldn’t take too long. Might even be fun.”

He grins now, looking around, landing just short of you this time.

You are a molecule. You are made of panic and possibility.

“But,” he speaks up, adjusting the clipboard. His voice is still doing that low rumble thing, like warm honey poured over rock. “Before I start throwing a bunch of information at you, I wanna know where everyone’s at. What you know, what you don’t, if anyone’s set anything on fire recently - accident or otherwise.”

His gaze snaps to you for just a second.

Your face bursts into flames.

Natasha and Wanda both lean in sideways and you shut them both up with a glare.

Bucky paces slowly across the room as he talks, like someone stretching his legs, taking his time. He gestures toward the group with a nod.

“Let’s start simple,” he continues. “Say your smoke alarm goes off in the middle of the night. What’s the first thing you do?”

Silence.

A few people shift in their seats. One woman raises her hand. “Grab my purse?”

“Put on pants?” remarks one of the guys.

Bucky smiles. “Valid. But not ideal.”

You raise your hand, heart thudding. Bucky raises an eyebrow, facing you fully and nodding at you.

“Check the door for heat before opening it,” you say, voice clearer than expected. “Use the back of your hand. If it’s hot, find an alternate escape route. It not, open it slowly and stay low.”

Bucky grins. It’s real and blinding. Pulling up slowly, tugging at the corners of his mouth as though he forgot how good it feels to smile that way. A glint sparks in his eyes.

“Exactly,” he confirms, nodding. “Textbook.”

You smile back shyly before you can stop yourself.

Natasha exhales beside you as though she is watching a soap opera. “She’s showing off.”

“I’m so proud,” Wanda whispers, misty-eyed.

You ignore them both.

Bucky keeps going, asking questions you mostly end up answering.

And he keeps watching you. Keeps studying you. And every time he does, something tightens behind your ribs.

A woman behind you mutters something about you being a teacher’s pet, but you don’t care. You’re not trying to be perfect. You’re trying to show him you learned from your mistakes.

And his eyes - blue and gentle and a little too amused - sparkle when you catch him glancing again. He ducks his chin once, as if to say you got me, and moves on to demonstrate how to deploy a fire extinguisher.

When he picks one up with two fingers as though it’s a soda can, several women gasp delighted.

Your skin prickles.

Natasha takes a slow sip of her coffee and watches you as though she is analyzing battlefield tactics.

When Bucky explains PASS - Pull, Aim, Squeeze, Sweep - you mouth the words along with him without meaning to.

He notices. You know he does.

There’s this almost smirk on his face.

And you can see the softness in his expression.

He talks through the basics - smoke alarms, evacuation plans, kitchen hazards. There are visuals. Charts. A slideshow. Wanda takes notes. Natasha twirls her pen like a knife.

You try to pay attention.

But your eyes keep drifting.

To him.

To the way he gestures with his hands. The way his fingers touch the edge of the table when he leans forward. The way he makes everyone laugh when he admits he once set off a fire alarm in the station trying to microwave a burrito on one of his first days.

He glances up when you laugh.

Your hands are fiddling with the fabric of your trousers. Your nerves are a concert hall. Every thought sounds loud inside your skull.

And when you think your heart might climb fully out of your throat, he turns back to the class. “Alright,” he announces, “now that we’ve scared you enough with PowerPoint, we’re gonna break into small groups and run a few practice drills. Let’s get into the fun part.”

A few people chuckle. One woman near the front giggles, flipping her hair over her shoulder as though she’s about to audition for a shampoo commercial.

You look down at your shoes.

Wanda leans in. “Can you believe how hard she’s trying? That’s actually pathetic.”

“Shh.”

“She’s wearing heels. To a fire safety class. Who does she think she is?”

“Wanda-”

“I bet she-”

“Ladies,” Natasha interrupts, lazily observant. “We’re moving.”

You watch the people file out of the room to move to the next one.

And you want to die. Or melt. Or somehow escape through the vents like a cartoon ghost.

But you have no other choice than to get up.

Prepared. Composed. A little bit on fire.

And the first thing you notice is how warm the training hall is. Not uncomfortable, but undeniably warm, as though the air has been steeped in sunshine and engine oil and the memory of things burning. The industrial lights make a low sound above, a metallic echo rolling across the tall ceiling. The whole place smells faintly of rubber, extinguishing foam, and steel that’s been handled too many times.

The practice area is marked by orange cones and taped grids on the floor.

Bucky steps into the middle of it with a kind of slow-motion certainty that makes the floor feel as though it’s tilting gently toward him.

You watch the veins on his exposed forearms, mapping them like routes to forgotten cities.

He and Carol Danvers start with group demos. Together, they run through the basics again. People are listening, nodding, pretending they aren’t mostly watching him.

You are watching him too.

But you’re also pretending not to. A lifelong skill, fine-tuned by heartbreak.

“Now let’s try hands-on,” Bucky decides, setting down the extinguisher and glancing around. “We’ll split into smaller groups. Carol and I will come around and help out. Just don’t point the thing at your friends.”

Laughter, light and scattered.

People start pairing off. A trio of women - dressed as though they expected a photoshop - flutter toward Bucky with hopeful eyes and strategically slouched shoulders.

“Oh my god, I don’t get this at all,” one of them breathes.

The others are leaning slightly forward. “Me neither.”

Bucky doesn’t even pause. Doesn’t glance over at them. “Danvers, you good taking that group?”

Carol nods. “My pleasure.”

And Bucky walks away without another word.

Straight toward you.

Your hands are clammy.

He stops in front of your group.

“So,” he starts, eyes moving around you three before landing back on you and then on the prop extinguisher in Natasha’s hand. “Who wants to go first?”

Wanda elbows you so hard your soul might have been knocked out.

You step forward.

He hands you a fresh extinguisher, this one heavier than expected, and you try not to look as though it surprises you. He steps closer, one arm already reaching out to steady it when your grip fumbles. His hand brushes over yours. Warm. Firm. He doesn’t move away immediately.

He’s watching you. Smiling, slow, a little crooked.

“Just like that,” he mutters gently.

You are a marshmallow in a microwave.

“Okay,” he says gently, letting go slowly - painfully slowly. “Now I’m gonna walk you through it, all right?”

You nod. Words are impossible. Language is a memory. You’re not sure your legs exist anymore.

“P.A.S.S,” he says. “Pull. Aim. Squeeze. Sweep. Easy.”

You repeat the words in your head another time.

Behind you, someone clears their throat - loudly. It’s the shampoo commercial woman. You glance back and see her smiling up at Bucky as though she’s already sewn his name into a couple of throw pillows.

“Could you maybe show me next?” she asks, eyelashes fluttering like a wind turbine.

Bucky’s expression doesn’t change.

“Carol?” he calls over his shoulder.

Carol looks up from her own demo station across the room. “Yeah?”

“Got one more for you.”

The woman visibly wilts.

Carol grins and waves her over.

Bucky turns back to you without missing a beat.

And maybe it’s your imagination but he’s standing just a little closer now.

“Ready?” he asks.

You nod. Your grip tightens around the handle.

“Okay. First, pull the pin - here.” His hand finds yours again, fingers brushing over yours as he guides them toward the small metal piece near the top. It’s gentle. Confident. His breath is warm near your cheek, and you wonder if he always smells this good or if you’re hallucinating.

“Good. Now aim,” he instructs, voice lower now, not for any reason you can define. “Low, at the base of the fire. Like this.”

His arm brushes against yours as he shifts the nozzle, touching the outside of your elbow, guiding your arm as though you are made of delicate machinery.

“Then squeeze. Controlled, firm pressure.” His voice is deep. Soothing. Lulling.

He glances at you.

You do your best not to break out into a sweat.

Foam spurts out in a satisfying arc toward the mock flame target. He grins.

“Perfect,” he praises, and your breath stalls. “Last one, is sweep. Just like that.”

And he guides your hands - both of them - side to side, mimicking the motion.

You finish the drill. Exhale. Your hands tremble slightly, not from nerves. From the startling thrill of his proximity.

He steps back. You miss the warmth immediately.

“Nicely done,” he comments, and his voice is soft. Almost proud. “You did great. Handled it like a pro.”

You look away, flustered. Your fingers are tingling.

Wanda is making a face behind him as though she’s at a wedding. Natasha just raises one eyebrow.

“Thanks,” you say, and it comes out rather quiet.

Something churns in his face. A kind of satisfaction takes place.

He opens his mouth to say something else, but Carol calls from the front. “Barnes, we’re starting the fire blanket demo.”

He sighs.

And steps back.

“Alright, well,” he says, winking. Winking. “Don’t run off.”

As if you could.

As if your legs weren’t still made of goo and your brain wasn’t currently rebooting.

He walks away, and you feel every step like a loss.

You hadn’t thought you could feel like this again.

Not after him. Not after everything.

But here you are.

And Bucky Barnes just taught you how to put out a fire.

Still, your heart goes all up in flames.

“I am made for fire, for breaking and bending and healing in all the places that used to ache.”

- Nikita Gill

Part Two

A little longer

HI MY BEAUTIFUL 🐚ANON!! I adore this so much, I adore YOU so much, as always, your requests are everything!! 

Warnings: So so much fluffy fluff, angst if you really squint till your eyes go cross-eyed and blurry

-

“It’s been decades. Not even a couple years. Almost a century. You probably shoot dust. Or whatever your bionic ass reproduces with”

Bucky contemplated throwing his half finished milkshake at Sam’s head while they both scarfed down burgers from a late night diner after a taxing mission. Sam was pestering Bucky yet again about his nonexistent social and lack of a love life, a topic he seemed to get high off of. 

Keep reading

bringing back this video for no reason

love you like i mean it ⛐ 𝐀𝐀𝟐𝟑

alex is always going to be someone that you want; you have too many years between you. (or: you, alex, and the devastating situationship that reshapes your friendship.)

ꔮ starring: alex albon x childhood best friend!reader. ꔮ word count: 10.2k. ꔮ includes: implied smut, romance, friendship, light angst with a happy ending. mentions of food, alcohol; profanity. friends with benefits, idiots in love, the reader pines… so much…, carlos as a plot device. heavily inspired by & shamelessly references spring into summer by lizzy mcalpine. ꔮ commentary box: this was initially supposed to be inspired by chappell roan’s casual, but i listened to too much lizzy mcalpine and ended up with *gestures vaguely* this. the fic got away from me at some point hence the 10k (lol). i was supposed to give up on it, but i pushed through because i owe @cinnamorussell some alex before the month ends. please enjoy my first ever alex long fic!!! 𝐦𝐲 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

♫ modigliani, lucy dacus. the bolter, taylor swift. right side of my neck, faye webster. touching toes, olivia dean. ode to a conversation stuck in your throat, del water gap. do you love me?, georgia parker.

Alex calls you late, the way he always does when he’s just lonely enough to admit it.

Your phone screen lights up with a sepia-toned photo from your shared childhood, featuring you and him sharing a comically large lollipop. His contact name is his initials. AAA. It puts him on the top of your list, which honestly feels like a cruelty in the grand scheme of things.

You answer his call anyway.

His hotel room in Tokyo is all muted beige and filtered city light, the kind that makes everything look like a memory. He’s in a white tank top, hair wet from a shower, collarbone shining faintly with leftover steam. He looks tired. He looks beautiful. You hate that.

“Come to Suzuka,” he says, not bothering with hello.

You smile without showing your teeth. “That’s a bit dramatic.”

“It’s not,” he complains, flopping back down against his pillows. You itch to reach through the screen and trace all the parts of him you’ve come to know and love. “You didn’t even come to Melbourne for the start of the season. What’s the last race you were at?” 

You know the answer. Still, you feign like you’re thinking. “Abu Dhabi,” you say after deciding Alex has squirmed just enough. Last year’s season-ender. 

Alex winces like the truth physically hurts. “That’s criminal.”

You shrug. “I’ve been busy.”

“Too busy for me?” 

His voice is so small, so soft. You adjust your grip on your phone, desperate not to fall into this cycle, this pattern. Coming, taking, giving, leaving. “Work has been a lot,” you grit out. “I’ve texted you about it.” 

“Don’t do that.”

He sits forward. The screen tilts. A flash of his knee, the edge of a pillow. You’ve seen that bed before. You’ve been in it, legs tangled, laughing into his shoulder while the world outside blurred into something manageable. “I’m not doing anything,” you lie.

Alex blows out a breath and rubs the back of his neck. “Okay, fine. Then I’ll just tell you. The helmet. The special one for Japan. It’s—it has you in it. Well, not you you. But something that’s about you.” 

Your stomach pulls. “Why would you do that?”

“Because I want you there. Because maybe it’ll make you come.”

You have half the mind to accuse him of trapping you. Of having nefarious intentions or whatever bullshit you can spew to get Alex to stop doing all this. Instead, a sigh rattles out of your chest and you say, “Fine. I’ll go.” 

His smile is quick and boyish, and it kills you. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

You end the call before you can say anything stupid, like I wish you didn’t do that or this isn’t fair or I want you so bad, I’d go back on the things I believe. You sit in the dark, phone face down, trying to remember how this ever felt simple.

Alex moved to Suffolk during the summer your bike had a flat tire. His family settled three houses down, in the white one with the peonies that never bloomed. He wore a school jumper too big for his frame and didn’t talk much, but when he did, it was with a sharpness that made you listen.

You found each other in the way quiet children do. At the edges of playgrounds, in the hush before rain, somewhere between a shared silence and a dare. He let you ride his scooter once. You gave him half your sandwich. You became the kind of childhood friends they croon about in indie songs. 

By eight, he was already racing. Karting on weekends in places with names you couldn’t spell. You’d sit on a folding chair, hands sticky from petrol-slick air and melting sweets, watching him blur through corners. He never looked at the stands, never waved. But afterwards, helmet in hand, he’d find you first.

“Did you see that overtake?” he’d ask, grinning, teeth crooked and proud.

You always said yes, even when you hadn’t. He trusted you with his joy before anyone else, placing it in your hands time and time again. Who were you to drop it?

You grew up like parallel lines—close, steady, never touching. Until you did.

Three years ago, it had been raining in London. You’d both had too much wine and not enough food, and he had to race Silverstone in two days. His hotel room smelled like wet wool and expensive soap. You were laughing. About something stupid, a memory, one of the many things only the two of you remembered exactly the same way.

And then he kissed you.

It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even hesitant. It was just there, sudden and sure, the way you’d always known it would be if it ever happened. Fate, you thought, you prayed. 

You hoped that would be the start of it all. The shift, the change, the inevitable. Instead, he had pressed his forehead to yours and whispered, “Still friends?”

You were so dumbstruck that all you could say was yes. Yes, even though your heart clenched when he breathed a sigh of relief. Yes, because it meant Alex could comfortably lean in for a second kiss. A third. A fourth. 

You kept saying yes. Every time he reached for you in the dark. Every time he flew you out and touched you like something sacred and temporary. Every time you watched him leave in the morning, shoulders lit by the sun and never once looking back.

Still friends.

Yes.

It’s the biggest lie you’ve ever told.

The suitcase lies open on your bed, half-stuffed with clothes that still smell like dust mites. You fold things with more care than necessary, pressing your palms flat over each cotton shirt like you’re trying to smooth out a thought.

Your mother hovers in the doorway. Not saying much. Just watching. “Japan this time,” she says matter-of-factly. 

You nod. “You know how it is.”

She walks in, slow and quiet. Treading light. Her hand brushes over the edge of your suitcase, the one she’d gotten you when you first started taking these jet-setting trips to visit Alex wherever he was racing. It wasn’t frequent, but it was enough to rake up a significant amount of miles.

“You’ve been going less lately,” your mother says.

You don’t look up. “Been busy.”

A silence stretches between you, gentle and persistent. “You were always thick as thieves, you and Alex,” she says. “Even when he moved away, you’d look at the calendar all the time. Count down the days until he came back.”

You smile faintly. You remember that. For the longest time, you had scribbled in the race calendars into the Saturdays and Sundays, taking note of the time differences. It was a little quirk you stopped doing last year. “We grew up,” you say vaguely, but your mother is relentless. 

“Sometimes growing up just means getting better at hiding things,” she hums. 

You stop folding. Your mother sits beside you. Her fingers find a loose thread on your jumper, twist it once, then let go. “I won’t ask,” she says carefully. “It’s not mine to ask.”

You’re grateful and aching all at once. That mothers know best, that your love for Alex is so blindingly obvious to everyone but him. 

“Just—be careful,” she warns, and you nod. That’s all you can do.

She pats your knee, stands, and leaves the room with the soft efficiency only mothers have. You finish packing in silence. It feels like preparing for something other than a race.

By the time you’re flying out, you can only focus on the imminent promise of Alex’s hands cataloguing all the changes since you last saw each other. 

Fourteen hours in the air does something to your bones. Your spine feels longer, your limbs looser, like you’ve been pulled apart by altitude. The Narita airport lighting is too clean, too kind. It reveals every wrinkle in your clothes, every bruise of fatigue under your eyes.

And then there’s Alex.

Grinning like it’s spring and not just the arrivals gate. Ball cap low, hoodie creased, holding a bouquet of jet-lagged daisies and baby’s breath like he bought them because they looked sort of like you.

“Hey,” he greets, and it’s so simple, yet it undoes you.

“Hi.”

He pulls you into a hug without warning, arms looping around your shoulders like they’ve been missing their purpose. He smells like travel and the aftershave you teased him for when he first bought it. You let your forehead rest on his collarbone for half a second longer than you should.

He doesn’t notice. Or pretends not to.

“You didn’t have to come all the way out,” you murmur.

“You flew fourteen hours. I can drive forty-five minutes.”

He says it like it’s math, like it adds up, like there’s logic to the way he always tries too hard when you’re about to slip through his fingers. You pull back. "Flowers, though?"

Alex shrugs. “Figured you’d like them. The lady at the stand said they were sweet. Like you.” 

Your laugh is dry. He takes your carry-on like he always does, hand brushing yours for a second that buzzes longer than it should. You walk in step without trying. An old habit that never bothered to leave.

“How was the flight?” he asks.

“Long.”

“Sleep at all?”

You shake your head. “Tried. Kept dreaming about missing the gate.”

He smiles sideways. “You didn’t miss anything. I’m right here.”

You don’t answer. Can’t.

Because he is right here, and he doesn’t see it—the weight of three years pressed into every beat of silence, every time he looks at you like nothing has changed.

You want to scream. You want to hold his hand.

Instead, you follow him into the soft Japanese evening, suitcase wheels humming against tile, the daisies wilting in your arms. 

You’re not surprised when there’s only one hotel key card.

Alex doesn’t say anything as he hands it over, just gives you that familiar look, half sheepish, half expectant, like this is just how things are. Like you wouldn’t have come otherwise. 

The room smells faintly of cedar and lavender, the kind of scent pumped through vents by hotels that cost more than you’d care to admit. There’s a single bed, king-sized and already turned down. The lights are low. Evening has softened the edges of everything—the city beyond the glass, the echo of jet lag in your bones, the sharpness of what goes unspoken.

Alex drops your bag by the wardrobe and shrugs off his jacket. He stretches like a cat. Arms high, shirt lifting just enough to show the skin at his waist. You look away before he catches you. You’ve memorized the lines of his back in hotel mirrors, the way his shoulder blades rise when he’s tired.

“You hungry?” he asks. “Could order something. Or just raid the minibar like we’re twelve again.”

You smile, toeing off your shoes. “Minibar dinner sounds appropriately tragic.”

He laughs, pleased. “Perfect. I’ll get the world’s saddest sparkling water. Maybe some mystery peanuts.”

You sit at the edge of the bed while he rummages, pulling out a half-sleeve of biscuits and something that might once have been chocolate. He tosses them on the duvet with the flair of a magician, then flops beside you, shoulder brushing yours.

The room settles around you in the way shared spaces do. His charger, already plugged in on your side; your toothpaste, beside his in the glass. He pads over after brushing nighttime routine, hair damp from a quick shower, shirt loose and collar stretched.

There’s something about him in these moments. Unguarded, tender. Like the world forgets to ask too much of him for once. And in that forgetting, he remembers how to exist soft with you.

He pulls you in like muscle memory. His hand on your waist, his breath near your temple.

You go unquestioningly.

The kiss is slow. Familiar. Less heat, more gravity. He touches you like you’re fragile but necessary, like this is the only part of the weekend that makes sense. He murmurs something against your skin—your name, maybe. Or just the word please. You can’t tell if it’s a question or an apology.

You let him press you back onto the mattress, the sheets cold for half a second before his warmth fills the space. His touch is gentle, reverent, like he thinks this is how you say thank you. You hold him, nails digging into his back, trying not to hurt him more than necessary. 

Later, you lie tangled in the hush, his head on your shoulder, one arm wrapped loosely around your waist. You run your fingers through his hair, slow and steady. You think about what it would mean to let go.

It’s just a thought, though. 

The next morning, you wake to an absence.

The sheets beside you are still warm, faintly creased from where Alex’s body had been. But his pillow is abandoned, and there’s no sound but the gentle hum of the city beyond the window. For a second—just one clean, heart-punched second—you panic.

Then you hear the shower running.

Relief and resentment wash through you at the same time.

You sink back against the pillows, pressing your palms to your face. Your throat feels tight in that half-awake way that makes you wish you dreamed less vividly. The room smells like steam and his shampoo. 

The bathroom door opens with a soft hiss of air.

Alex steps out with a towel slung low on his hips, hair wet and curling against his temples. He’s grinning already, eyes catching yours across the room. “Could’ve joined me, you know,” he says, voice still a little hoarse from sleep. “Water pressure’s phenomenal. Would’ve saved time.”

You groan into the pillow. “Pervert.”

He laughs, padding barefoot across the room, steam trailing behind him. “You love it,” he says cheekily. 

You throw a pillow at him. He ducks, and the sound of your shared laughter feels almost like the old days. Before things blurred at the edges, before kisses replaced inside jokes and you started sleeping with your memories.

“Go put some clothes on, you menace,” you say, swinging your legs over the side of the bed.

He gives you a mock salute and turns back to the bathroom. “Yes, captain.”

You head for your toiletries, feeling the day tug at your skin already. In the mirror, your face looks quieter than it feels. Your mouth remembers his. Your hands remember where he pulled you close. But what you remember most is how easy it is to fall into him—how friendship once felt like enough.

You used to be best friends. Before everything. Before late nights and shared beds and pretending it meant nothing.

And some days, like now, you still are. Best friends, that is.

You wonder if it will ever be enough again.

You ride to the paddock in the backseat of a tinted car, shoulder pressed lightly to Alex’s. The morning is golden and forgiving. 

Suzuka blurs past the windows—red lanterns still swaying from the night before, cherry blossoms beginning their slow fall, the air touched with the delicate scent of fried batter and spring. Alex hums along to something playing faintly on the radio. He taps your knee with his fingers in time to the beat. 

Just once, then again. Like he doesn’t know what else to do with his hands if they’re not touching you.

The air between you is easy. Intimate in the quiet way that friendship can be when layered over something else. A liminal space neither of you names.

He steals your sunglasses and you let him. He makes a show of adjusting them on his nose, eyebrows raised. “Do I look cooler already?” he asks, grinning. You roll your eyes and try not to stare at his mouth.

He offers you a sip of his energy drink and you make a face but take it anyway. He wipes something from your cheek with his thumb and doesn’t comment on it, just lets his hand hover there for a beat too long. The silence fills up with old knowing, soft and dangerous.

Almost enough to fool you.

Almost.

The driver pulls up at the paddock entrance, and you’re met with the orchestral chaos of race day in its early rhythms. Media crews already swarming, engineers in fireproofs wheeling gear past, the crackle of radios and the distant whine of a power unit being tested. The scent of burnt rubber and fresh coffee threads through the breeze. Alex walks beside you, hand skimming your back once, twice, as though to anchor you.

You’ve done this before. Many times. But there’s something about being here again, together, that presses a quiet ache into your sternum. Like returning to a childhood bedroom that’s been rearranged without your permission.

The Williams motorhome appears like a cathedral in blue and white. You’re recognized immediately. A few engineers smile and nod. One of the comms girls hugs you tightly, laughing something into your shoulder about how long it’s been. Someone presses a coffee into your hand, just the way you like it. Two sugars, no milk. It’s a strange kind of comfort, this small network of familiarity in a world that moves too fast.

Then—

“Carlos,” Alex says, reaching to clap the shoulder of his new teammate, who stands just outside the motorhome in full kit. “This is my best friend.”

You turn to meet Carlos’s gaze. He’s charming, polite, smiling in that open, easy way that says he’s used to being liked. He extends a hand, firm but not overdone. You’re sure he’s a good guy, but you’re too hung up on the introduction to care about anything else. 

Best friend.

You shake Carlos’s hand and hope your face doesn’t flinch. You know the role. You’ve played it well for years. Smiled through it. Laughed through it. Shared hotel rooms and winter holidays and the softest versions of yourself, all under the umbrella of that phrase.

Something about hearing it aloud, in this place, in front of someone new—it lands different. It presses cold fingers against your chest.

Alex is already moving on, ushering Carlos toward a PR meeting, tossing a grin over his shoulder. “I’ll find you after. Don’t disappear.”

You smile back, lips curving with practiced ease. Of course you do.

You take a long sip of your coffee. It’s too hot. It burns going down.

You swallow anyway. 

Alex finds you later, just as he promised, in the quiet hours between press and briefing. Afternoon light slants through the windows of the hospitality suite, dust catches like static in the air. You’re tucked into a corner seat with your knees drawn up, phone unread in your palm. 

“Got something to show you,” Alex says, voice low.

You glance up. He’s already smiling, hair a little damp at the nape, lanyard tangled around his fingers. There’s a kind of eagerness to him, the kind he used to have before kart races, before it all got louder.

You follow him without speaking.

The room he leads you to is cooler, quieter. A storage space, maybe, or a converted engineering nook—lined with crates and spare parts, the stale tang of tyre rubber hanging faintly in the air. And there, propped on a cloth-draped workbench, is the helmet.

You pause.

It’s not what you expected. Not flashy. Not loud. It’s soft. White matte base with brushed, almost watercolour swathes of indigo and lavender bleeding toward the edges, like dusk spilling into night. On the side, near the visor hinge, is a single motif: a swallow in flight.

“It’s not finished,” Alex says quickly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Still needs clear coat. But... yeah.”

You take a step closer. Fingers don’t touch, but hover. The paint looks hand-done. Imperfect. Beautiful.

“Swallows are your favourite, right?” he adds. “You said once they’re always coming home.”

“Yeah. That was years ago.”

“I remember.”

You look at him then. Really look. He’s leaning against the wall, watching you with the kind of expression that unravels things. Eyes searching. Mouth set.

“It’s beautiful,” you say, and you mean it. Then, quieter: “Why me?”

He shrugs, like it should be obvious. “Homecoming,” he answers, plain and simple and absolutely gut-wrenching. 

There’s a silence after that. Not awkward. Just wide. You think of the years, the way he always made space beside him without asking if you wanted to stay. You think of how easily you did.

Your throat feels dry. “You know,” you say slowly, because the thought has been on your mind since this morning, “he thinks I’m just your friend. Carlos.”

Alex winces. Fucking winces. He glances away, jaw ticking a bit, like you’re not about to head back to the same hotel room later and fuck in the shower.

A beat. Alex doesn’t say anything to your accusation.

You don’t ask him to. You only step closer, the helmet between you like a talisman. “Thank you,” you say, and this time, you do touch the helmet—just briefly, your fingers grazing the painted sky.

He watches you do it. And then, quietly, almost laughing to himself, he says, “Figured if I crashed, at least it’d be wearing something that reminds me of you.”

You shake your head. But you’re smiling, and it hurts. “Idiot,” you chide.

He grins. “Your idiot.”

You don’t answer. Not because it’s untrue, but because it’s too close to what you want—and too far from what you have.

Alex doesn’t crash.

He finishes P9.

A number that used to feel like clawing victory. Like a miracle wrung from a midfield car held together by tape and tenacity. And now—it just feels steady. Not easy, but earned. There’s something clean in the way he crossed the finish line today, a quiet defiance. The kind of performance that leaves no bruises, only breathlessness.

You watch from the back of the garage, arms crossed tight against your chest. Headphones clamped over your ears. The final laps passed like a dream.  One where the world narrows to telemetry and engine whine, the flicker of sector times on a screen. When the checkered flag waved, your lungs finally remembered how to breathe.

Now, the paddock is in chaos. Post-race buzz. Cameras flashing like static. Someone’s shouting in Italian. Mechanics high-five. There’s champagne somewhere, but you can’t see it. Just the press of bodies and the smear of victory across the asphalt.

And then he’s there.

Helmet off, hair damp with sweat, eyes scanning until they find you. He doesn’t wait for an opening. Doesn’t care about the line of journalists trailing behind him or the media handler trying to tug him toward the pen. He walks straight to you, cutting through everything.

You take a step back. Instinct, maybe. Habit.

He pulls you in anyway.

The cameras catch it. You know they do. The embrace, the way his arms wrap around your shoulders like they belong there. You stiffen, palms flat against his chest. You’ve been labeled Alex’s childhood best friend, have been subject to speculation of various rabid fans and gossip sites. 

“Alex,” you hiss, low. “People are—”

“Let them,” he says.

His voice is hoarse from radio calls and engine growl, but it’s soft now. Just for you.

You shake your head, and your hands find the hem of his fireproofs, fingers curling there like they might ground you. “You’re ridiculous,” you grumble. 

“P9,” he says, like it explains everything.

Maybe it does, because he’s beaming. Not with the sharp joy of a podium or the reckless rush of a win, but something gentler. Like he’s proud. Like he’s content. Like you’re a part of it, maybe, and that’s why he’s with you instead of everybody else. 

The cameras flash again. Somewhere, someone’s calling his name.

In this moment, though, it’s just you and him. You let your head fall against his shoulder, just for a second. He smells like sweat and rubber and the faint sweetness of whatever hydration drink he refuses to stop using.

“I’m happy for you,” you say.

His hand curls at the back of your neck. “Come with me?”

You want to ask where, but the question feels too fragile. Too close to breaking something.

So you nod.

And when he takes your hand, you let him.

He leads you down the corridor with his fingers wrapped around your wrist, still sticky from the gloves, still trembling with leftover adrenaline. The world outside—flashing bulbs, echoing interviews, the scream of celebration—falls away, muffled by white walls and the hush of engineered insulation.

His driver room is barely bigger than a closet. Spare. A bench, a chair, his race suit unzipped and hanging like shed skin. There’s a bottle of water half-finished on the counter. A towel draped over the back of a folding chair. Everything stripped to function.

But when he turns to face you, the room holds its breath. What’s about to happen is far from functional. 

His mouth is on yours before you can speak. Before you can ask what the hell any of it means. This morning, the helmet, the P9, the arms around you in front of half the paddock. His hands frame your jaw, a little too firm, a little too desperate. You taste the salt of him, the heat, the care.

He kisses like he’s still racing. Like the throttle’s still open and the finish line is somewhere in the shape of your mouth.

You melt. Of course you do.

Because you remember every version of him—mud-caked knees and scraped palms from karting days, late-night phone calls from airport lounges, sleepy secrets across hotel pillows—and this is all of them, distilled. This is every inch of history pressed into your spine as he backs you into the wall and exhales against your neck.

You want to say his name. You want to ask. What are we now? What does any of it mean? Do I get to keep you, or just these seconds?

But your hands slide beneath the hem of his fireproofs, and your fingers learn again the familiar slope of his waist, and he breathes your name like an answer. “My favorite part,” he murmurs absentmindedly into the crook of your neck. “This ‘s my favorite part.” 

And it should be enough.

It isn’t. 

Regardless, you let him kiss you again. You let him take you, hand over your mouth to keep your sounds muffled. You let him finish, let him bring you to that same peak, let him piece you back together after taking you apart. 

Your shirt ends up inside out.

Alex points it out between fits of laughter, eyes crinkled, bare feet padding across the linoleum floor as he tosses you your jacket. He’s flushed from the high of it all. He buttons the top of his race suit with fumbling fingers, grinning like he hasn’t done that exact thing a hundred times before.

“You look like you’ve been caught in a wind tunnel,” he says, smoothing your hair with both hands, thumbs pressing briefly at your temples. “A cute one, though.”

You try to smile. You do. But there’s a hollowness under your ribs, something heavy and low and familiar. Like something’s rotting sweet in your chest. He doesn’t see it.

He’s still beaming, tugging at a wrinkle in your sleeve. “There. Perfect.”

And you almost say it then. Almost let the words fall out: What are we doing? 

I can’t keep doing this, Alex. 

But he looks so happy. So golden in the overhead light, still caught in the orbit of something good. Something that feels like hope. You can’t ruin it. Not yet.

So you reach for his hand. His fingers slot through yours like habit, like home.

You nod toward the door. “They’re probably wondering where you are.”

He leans in, presses a kiss to your cheek. “They can wait.”

You let out a sound that might be a laugh. Might be a sob, if it tipped the wrong way.

I’ll tell you next time, you think, as you follow him back into the noise.

Next time, when he’s not smiling like that.

Next time, when it won’t feel like stealing joy just to be honest.

Next time.

Just—

Not now.

The timing is never right.

Saudi Arabia. P9 again.

He dances you around the hotel room with his hands still smelling faintly of fuel and rubber, laughing into the inside of your thigh as if nothing else exists. His joy is unfiltered, real. You think, maybe, you’ll tell him then.

But then he kisses you like you’re part of the celebration, like you’re champagne on his lips, and you can’t find the words in your mouth. Not when his hands know every part of you better than your voice knows how to form the truth.

In Miami, it’s P5.

He lifts you off your feet in the hallway outside his suite, spinning you once like a man who’s just won something permanent. He smells like the sun, his cheeks pink from the heat. “Did you see?” he asks, breathless, giddy. “Did you see how I held off Antonelli?”

“Of course I did,” you say, and you kiss him because it’s easier than telling him what you really mean. Because it would be cruel to take this moment away from him.

Italy is the same. Another P5.

Another night in a borrowed room, you pressed against the cool tile of a motorhome bathroom while he moans your name like it’s the only thing that exists beneath his ribs.

And still, you don’t speak.

You let him take. Let him thread his fingers through your hair and guide your mouth to his. Let him find comfort in your skin, in the shape of you, in the softness that greets him after every race. It feels like penance. Like proof that this is the version of you he wants, so long as it stays unspoken.

Each night, you lie awake beside him, the sheets tangled at your ankles, sweat cooling on your bare shoulders. You study the slope of his nose, the twitch in his fingers as he dreams.

You try to remember the sound of your own voice before it forgot how to say no.

In Miami, after the noise, after the warmth, after the sex that feels too much like lovemaking to just be chalked up to something primal—he falls asleep with his head on your chest. One arm draped across your ribs like a promise he never made. You don’t move. You barely breathe. The room hums with the air conditioner and your unspoken ache. 

You stare at the ceiling and try not to count how many ways you’ve chosen him over yourself.

You lose count before morning.

By the time Monaco comes around, you fake a migraine. A vague stomach ache. Something that sounds gentle enough to pass as believable, but just real enough to keep Alex from pressing.

He calls you from his hotel balcony, sun caught in the lighter parts of his hair. He frowns at the screen, concerned. Or at least something close to it.

“You sure you’ll be okay?” he asks. “Want me to send anything?”

You shake your head. Smile faintly, let your voice come out soft, strained. “I’ll be fine. Just need to sleep it off.”

He nods. Looks off-screen for a moment, distracted by something—someone. Then back to you. “Rest, yeah? I’ll call you again later.”

“Yeah,” you say. “Good luck.”

He hangs up. You stare at the empty screen until it darkens and your reflection blinks back at you. He doesn’t call, and you don’t fault him for it. 

The article finds you by accident.

One of those sidebars that pop up when you’re checking the weather. You almost scroll past it, until the name catches your eye, buried in the speculation. A tabloid photo, bright and cruel: Alex on a golf course, sunglasses perched low, grinning across the green at a pretty girl whose name is Lily and whose swing is better than yours. Professional, the article notes. 

They look good together.

You tap the images, one by one, like touching them might change what they show. In the last one, he’s laughing. Head thrown back. Free. He laughs like that, too, when you’re showering after sex or trading stories over dinners. Often in private, never anywhere someone else can see. 

You stare at that one photo until your throat closes. Until you can no longer remember what it felt like to be looked at that way.

Your mother finds you like that. Curled on the couch with your knees to your chest, phone abandoned on the floor, eyes wide and glassy.

She doesn’t ask what happened. Just sits beside you, wraps an arm around your back, tucks your head beneath her chin like she used to when you were small. “I don’t know how we got here,” you whisper.

“I think you do,” she murmurs. Her hand strokes your arm, slow, steady. “You just didn’t want to admit it.”

You nod, brokenly.

“I wanted to be enough,” you say.

“I know,” she says. 

You cry until you have no more tears. Until your breath evens out against her shoulder. Until the ache becomes a dull, familiar thing.

She holds you through it all. By the time she’s getting up to make you one of your comfort meals, you already know what you have to do. 

You stop answering.

Not suddenly. Not all at once. Just the way a tide recedes—softly, so softly, you wonder if he even notices at first. He texts the morning after the Monaco GP. 

AAA [8:20 AM]: Morning. How’re you feeling now? You missed the best post-race sushi of my life.

You don’t reply. Not because you want to hurt him, but because you don’t trust what you might say if you open the door even a crack. Later, another text:

AAA [5:39 PM]: Mum says hi, by the way. I told her you were under the weather. She’s making soup just in case, and it should be sent over. 

You see it. You say nothing.

Spain comes. He finishes P10.

Barely. You watch from a stream muted low, the sound drowned beneath your own breathing. He looks tired. He still smiles into the cameras. And when he texts—probably stolen in between media obligations—it feels a lot like a man who’s bargaining. 

AAA [4:43 PM]: You watching? Hope you’re proud. Even if it’s just one point.

He calls the same night. You let it ring.

Canada is worse. Outside the points.

His face is closed off in the post-race interviews. The text comes later. 

AAA [11:10 PM]: Did I do something wrong?

Then:

AAA [11:53 PM]: I miss you.

At three in the morning, a voicemail. His voice is low, frayed at the edges.

“Hey. I know you’re probably busy. Or just… done. I don’t know. You never said. But I—fuck, I don’t know. You usually tell me when you’re busy. If this is about—that stupid tabloid, or whatever? It was just a golfing lesson. Anyway. You have no reason to be… jealous. Or whatever. Just… call me, okay? Please.”

You don’t.

Austria. He doesn’t even start. DNS.

Technical issue, they say. The look on his face when he climbs out of the car—grief and rage and something dangerously close to despair—it unspools you.

Another voicemail, sent somewhere between him disappearing after media interviews and showing back up in front of the journalists with a tight-lipped grin.

“You’re avoiding me. I know you are. You didn’t even tell my mum you were alright, and she’s been worried sick. I had my dad check if your family was okay and even he said you’ve gone quiet. What’s going on? Just tell me.” A pause. Then, wretched, almost like a sigh of defeat: “You don’t get to ghost me. Not after everything. Not you.” 

You sit in the dark with the phone pressed to your chest like it might warm the place where he used to live inside you.

You still don’t call.

There are some things you can’t avoid, though. Silverstone comes like a tide.

The roads fill with flags and Ferris wheels and cardboard cutouts. Your village pub sets out Union Jack bunting again. Your father makes some dry comment about the national holiday Formula One has become. And you know. You know you can't hide anymore.

You get the first text Monday morning:

AAA [1:43 PM]: I’m flying in. Can we talk?

You don’t answer. You clean the kitchen instead. Scrub the countertops, wipe down the windows. As if clean glass could clarify anything at all. He doubles down. 

AAA [5:28 PM]: I’ll come to yours. Just want to see you. I’ll bring the bad flowers from Tesco, if that helps.

A voicemail, later that evening, tentative and thinly veiled: “Hey. I know it’s been a while. You’re probably still mad. Or sad. Or both. I don’t know. I just—I’ll be there tomorrow. Even if it’s just to see you across the street. Even that would be better than this.”

True to his word, by tomorrow afternoon, there’s a knock at the front door. Not loud. Just three gentle raps, like he’s afraid your mother might answer.

You open it anyway.

He’s there, holding a slightly crumpled bouquet of peonies and eucalyptus from the supermarket down the lane. His hair’s damp with mist, lashes clumped. He looks like someone who hasn’t slept right in weeks.

You don’t speak.

He clears his throat. “They were out of sunflowers.”

You step aside wordlessly.

He walks in like a memory. Like he’s been here a thousand times. Shoes off by the mat, flowers passed into your hand, eyes scanning the room like he expects to see a version of himself still here. The silence is soft, but full. You boil water out of habit. He lingers by the doorway, unsure.

“You’re not going to yell at me?” he asks, almost sarcastic. 

You shrug, trying to be noncommittal about it all. “What would be the point?”

He swallows. His jaw twitches. You leave the tea half-made, walk upstairs. You don’t say anything. Just know—somehow—that he’ll follow.

And he does.

Up the stairs. Down the hall. Into your room that still smells like dust and the lavender you leave under your pillow. He stands in the doorway, taking in the fact that the air is thick with expectation.

“Are you going to tell me the truth now?” he asks.

You say nothing, sitting on the edge of the bed. You don’t know if he wants to hear it, or if he only wants what he can still take.

And so you don’t answer his question. Not directly. Instead, you ask, “How was Spain?”

Alex hesitates, eyes narrowing slightly. “Hot. P10.”

You nod, like that’s all there is to say. “And Canada?”

He shifts, arms folding. “Slippery. Out of the points.”

“Austria?”

“DNS.”

You offer a small sound of sympathy, but it’s hollow, transparent. A stall tactic. He sees it. He knows you. Knows you’ve watched all the races you’re asking about, knows you’re trying to delay the same way you dragged out this arrangement for much longer than necessary. 

He steps forward, voice low but strained. “Are we going to keep talking about races? Or are you ever going to get to the point?”

Again, you don’t answer. You get to your feet. You cross the room to where he is.

You kiss him.

It’s not soft. Not a reunion. It’s blunt, desperate, pleading. A distraction dressed in affection. And for a moment—just a moment—he kisses you back like he needs it to survive. Like this is what’s been missing from his string of ill-fated races. His hands slide into your hair, his body molding against yours as if it never learned to be apart.

Your fingers find the hem of his shirt. You tug.

He pulls away abruptly.

“Wait.”

You blink, breath catching. “What?”

He doesn’t step back, but he doesn’t come closer either. His hands hover near your arms, not quite touching. “I still want to know,” he manages. “I deserve to know.”

“Alex…”

He shakes his head, slow and quiet. “You disappeared. I thought you were sick. Hurt. I thought I did something wrong. And now you want to pick up where we left off like it never happened?”

You stare at him. He’s flushed. Hair mussed from your hands. Lips swollen. Still panting a little from the heat of the kiss.

But his eyes are hurt. 

You stand there, inches apart, in the middle of your childhood bedroom. The silence is deafening. You’re both breathing like you’ve run a marathon, like you’re on the edge of something neither of you can name.

You’re still catching your breath when the words crawl out of your throat.

“I love you.”

Alex freezes. Like the words are a crash, not a confession. Like they’ve splintered the floor beneath him. He doesn’t answer right away. Just looks at you—gaze gentle, shoulders locked—like you’re something he almost recognizes but can’t quite name. Then, quietly, “I love you too.”

You close your eyes. That should be enough. It should be everything.

But it isn’t. “Not like that, Alex,” you sigh. 

His brow furrows.

You try again. “Not like… what you mean. Not in the way you mean it.”

Silence. The kind that leaves room for heartbreak.

He draws back a step. “What do you mean?”

You laugh. Not because it’s funny, but because it’s helpless. “I mean I’ve been in love with you since before all this.” You gesture vaguely, between the two of you, between what the kids nowadays call a situationship. Personally, you call it an undoing. An unraveling. 

His mouth opens, but no sound comes out. He looks gutted not what he finally understands what you’re getting at, now that you’ve used the word in love. 

“How long?” he asks, and his voice is barely more than breath.

You look at him. “Years,” you say, thinking back to the boy in the kart, the teenager next door, the man in front of you now. You’ve loved all of them. Your voice cracks as you repeat, “Years, Alex.”

He crumples under the weight of your words. At the fact he’d asked, in the first place, and you spent the past three years of your life letting all of it wash over you. 

“God,” he mutters. “God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. I—fuck. I thought you were okay with it. I thought we were okay.”

“I know,” you say, voice barely above a whisper. “I let you think that. I let myself think that.”

He presses his palms into his eyes like he can scrub the guilt away. “You should’ve told me.”

You tilt your head. “Would it have changed anything?”

Alex looks at you, helpless. Desperate. “I don’t know,” he says, sounding almost panicked. He knows it’s not the right answer, not the answer that you want. 

You step toward him. You touch his hand, gently. “It’s okay,” you manage, even though it’s not. “Really, Alex, it’s alright.” 

Somehow, you manage to tell him. Truths so tender and close to the heart that to relay them verbatim would be a crime.

You tell Alex you’re grateful to have had him, even if it were just like this. Even if it was just bits and pieces. Even if it was casual. 

He doesn’t answer, just looks at you like he’s trying to piece it all together. The silence stretches again. His eyes flick to the bed, then to the door. He doesn’t move. He looks like he doesn’t know whether to hold you or walk away.

Alex leaves anyway.

He says he’s sorry, eyes flicking between your face and the floor like he can’t quite decide where the damage is worse. You repeat that it’s okay, which is the kindest lie you know how to give. And then he’s gone—hood up, shoulders shaking, not looking back.

You don’t watch him leave. You sit on the edge of the bed with your hands in your lap, palms pressed together like prayer and surrender. 

It should’ve been a clean break.

Three years of blurred lines and soft touches that always stopped just short of real. He’d kiss you like it mattered, then laugh about it an hour later. You let him. Again and again. You think that’s the end of it. You try to believe it is. It’s easier to hate an absence when it’s permanent.

But the day before the race, your phone rings. His name lights up the screen like a wound reopening.

You let it go once. Twice. You’re letting him back out, but he doesn’t buck. The third time the phone rings, you answer.

“Hey,” he says, uncharacteristically shy. “I’ve got a paddock pass with your name on it.”

You pause. Not out of surprise, but because you’re waiting to feel something. You don’t.

“Silverstone,” he adds, as if you could forget.

You picture the pass in his hand—laminated, official, hollow. A gesture more ceremonial than sincere. “I can’t go,” you say evenly.

A beat.

“You busy?”

“No.”

Another pause. This one longer. Thicker.

“Okay,” he says. But he doesn’t hang up.

You hear the static of his breath on the line. The shuffle of something—maybe his hand in his hair, maybe guilt settling in his bones.

“Alex.”

“Yeah?”

“You don’t have to do this.”

“I’m not doing anything.” 

You’re not sure if you should laugh or cry at this performance of care, offered like a consolation prize. This is probably an olive branch, but you know you still need some time. You need to be furious. You need to be hurt. You need to hate him and what he’s made of you before you can even consider loving him again. 

“I should go,” you say.

He doesn’t argue. Just murmurs, “Yeah. Okay.”

But he lingers. You almost say something. Almost tell him not to call again unless it means something. Unless he means it. 

You don’t. You just let him sit there in the quiet with you, not speaking, not hanging up.

And then finally—too late, too long—he does.

You end up seeing it on the news.

P4 at Silverstone.

Just short of champagne and cameras, but still something to be proud of. Still something you would’ve teased him about. You might have told him he was allergic to podiums, just to watch him roll his eyes and smirk like you’d said something stupid but sweet. And maybe he’d kiss you, again, in his driver room, waxing British slang to tease you, all the while driving you crazy with the way he can grope and squeeze. 

You almost text him. A good job. A thumbs up emoji. A dot, even. Something weightless. Something he could pretend didn’t matter if it made things worse.

You hold back. 

You brush your teeth instead. Crawl into bed. Turn off the lamp. The room folds in around you like silence is a kind of blanket. You almost get away with sleeping until your phone rings.

You don’t even have to check the caller ID.

“Hello?”

It’s loud on the other end. Laughter, glass clinking, music with too much bass. “You didn’t watch,” he slurs, like that’s just hitting him now.

“I told you I couldn’t.”

“You didn’t say why.”

You sigh. “Did I need to?”

He goes quiet, but the noise behind him doesn’t. It presses in, distorted and joyless. Celebration without clarity. Then, softer, garbled: “You’re the post-race celebration I miss the most.”

You sit up. “Alex—”

But he’s crying now. Not loudly. Not theatrically. Just little, broken sounds, like something leaking out of him slow and unwilling. “It didn’t feel as good,” he sobs. “Didn’t feel as good to win—without you there.” 

You close your eyes and rest your forehead against one hand. “I’ll come get you,” you say.

He sniffles. “You don’t have to.”

You stand. Already pulling on jeans. Grabbing your keys. Not sure of anything but this: he can’t stay lost like this, not tonight.

“I know,” you say, and then you’re hanging up to book yourself a proper cab at two in the goddamn morning. 

The speakeasy isn’t marked, not really. Just a nondescript door off a narrow alley, guarded by a bored-looking man with an earpiece and a clipboard. But when you give your name, his expression changes. Softens.

“He’s in the back,” the man says solemnly, nodding you through.

Inside, the music is velvet-loud, low, and pulsing. Everything glows amber, lights like melted gold dripping down the walls. People in team polos and sharp jackets toast to something that sounds like victory, even if it’s just the illusion of it.

They all know who you are.

Someone from comms gives you a tight smile and gestures toward the hallway behind the bar. “In there,” she says, like she doesn’t need to explain further. Like you’re the inevitable ending to his night.

You find Alex hunched over a sink in the men's bathroom, one hand braced on the cold porcelain, the other trembling around the rim like even that is too much to hold. He doesn’t hear you come in. Or maybe he does, but pretends not to.

“Jesus, Alex,” you say, nose scrunching up with distaste.

He lifts his head, barely. His face is pale, lips chapped, eyes rimmed red. Not from the alcohol, but from whatever came after.

“You came,” he breathes, like it’s a miracle. Like he’s seeing something holy.

You step forward and crouch beside him, grabbing paper towels, wetting one with cold water. “Of course I came.”

He laughs, ragged and too loud in the tiled echo. “Didn’t think you would. Thought I fucked it.”

“You did,” you say, matter-of-fact, blotting sweat from his forehead. “You absolutely did.”

He closes his eyes. “Then why’re you here?”

You hesitate. Not because you don’t know the answer. Because you do. And it’s the kind that costs you something every time you say it out loud.

“Because you called.”

He leans into your touch like it’s a lifeline. “You always come when I call.”

You help him sit back, guide him to the floor with his back against the wall. The tiles are cold. He shivers.

“Yeah,” you murmur. “That’s kind of the problem.”

Alex rests his head on your shoulder, the weight of him more familiar than foreign. “I didn’t know who else to call,” he whimpers.

You exhale, slow. “That’s not true. You just didn’t want anyone else.”

He nods, eyes fluttering closed. He’s too out of it to try and deny the fact. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, and you can tell by the quiver in his voice that he means it. 

You brush your fingers through his hair once, twice. You let the silence speak for you, and then you help him up. “Let’s get you home,” you say. 

The night air cuts through the alcohol-stained warmth of the bar as you step outside, Alex’s weight slung over your shoulder. He’s steadier now, upright at least, but still leaning into you like gravity is playing favorites.

You settle on the curb, one arm braced around his waist. The air smells like rain on asphalt, smoke, and the faint trace of spilled gin. Somewhere in the distance, someone laughs too loud. London doesn’t sleep for long.

You’re waiting for a cab when Carlos finds you.

He approaches quietly, hands shoved into the pockets of a fitted jacket, eyes scanning Alex the way someone might glance at a closed book. Worn, familiar, unreadable. “He okay?” Alex’s co-driver asks. 

You nod. “Drunk. Sick. Stubborn,” you answer, not bothering to play nice when Alex is dead on his feet and half-asleep already. 

Carlos huffs a small laugh. “Sounds about right.”

There’s a beat of silence before he adds, “You’re the best friend.”

It still stings, still pricks. You keep your expression perfectly controlled as you give a small sound of affirmation, arms still focused on holding Alex upright. 

“Mm.” Carlos watches you for a second too long. “Doesn’t feel like that’s the whole story.”

“What does it feel like, then?”

Carlos shifts his weight. Looks away, then back. He glances at Alex to check if the man is listening, and then, Carlos confides as if it’s a secret: “It’s like you are his entire heart, and he’s just too scared to admit it.”

The words land like a bird flapping its wings across the Atlantic. No thunder, no accusation. Just something still and sudden.

You almost want to ask him to repeat it, to explain—but the cab pulls up before you can decide whether to believe him.

You help Alex into the back seat. He slumps immediately against you, arms curling around your middle without thought, face buried in your shoulder. His breath is warm and even, his fingers wound tight into your shirt like muscle memory.

You rest your cheek on the top of his head.

The cab pulls away from the curb. Carlos’s words echo, sage and unfinished. You don’t know what to do with them yet. So for now, you let Alex hold you.

You don’t think about it too hard. Just tell the cab driver your address, press your fingers against your temple, and watch the city blur by. Alex stirs once or twice, murmurs something incoherent against your collarbone, but otherwise stays folded into you.

By the time you reach your house, it’s well past four. You fumble with the keys. He sways a little when you guide him inside.

You don’t take him to your bed.

It feels too loaded, too intimate in the wrong kind of way. Instead, you settle him on the couch, pull a blanket from a nearby cabinet, and start toward the kitchen to get him some water. Before you can take more than a few steps, he reaches out.

“Don’t go yet,” he says, voice hoarse.

You turn back. “I’m just getting you a glass.”

He tugs gently on your hand. Not enough to stop you, just enough to anchor you. You kneel beside the couch. He’s watching you, eyes glassy but sharp in the ways that count.

“I want to kiss you so badly,” he says.

Here’s the terrible, terrible thing: You wouldn’t mind. You miss it sorely. The kisses, the touch. You’re convinced you’ll be dreadfully happy with the scraps of it all, but you figure the two of you have the right to make informed decisions. “You’re drunk,” you point out. 

“I know.” Alex exhales. “I won’t kiss you. Not tonight. Want the next one to be right.”

Your throat tightens. “You think there’s going to be a next one?”

His smile is impossibly sad. “Hope so.”

And then—because he’s Alex, and because this is how he breaks you—he leans forward and presses a kiss to your cheek. Then another, just beneath your eye. Then one at the edge of your brow, your temple, the tip of your nose. All of them clumsy and warm and deliberate. None of them where you want them most.

You don’t stop him. You don’t move. There’s too much in your chest—years of it—and not enough space to lay it all down.

When he finally sinks back into the couch, eyes fluttering shut again, his fingers remain curled around your wrist. Loose. Trusting.

You don’t move for a long time. 

The next morning, Alex is gone without so much as a goodbye. You half-expected it. Still, the hollow space where his body had been feels louder than anything else in the room.

No note. No message. No follow-up call.

You wait. A day. Then two.

By the third, you stop checking your phone so often.

When the knock comes, it’s gentle enough to be mistaken for wind. You almost don’t answer it. There’s no one at the door when you open it. Just a small brown paper bag, plain and unassuming, sitting patiently on the welcome mat.

You bring it inside, hands careful. There’s something fragile about it that you can’t quite name. Inside: a bundle of crocheted sunflowers, yellow and gold and clumsily perfect, like someone tried very hard to make them right even with hands that don’t quite know how.

Beneath them, a makeshift paddock pass—laminated, hole-punched, strung with navy-blue lanyard cord. Your name is written in all caps. There’s a photo of you from when you were kids. Grinning, windblown, your arm slung casually over Alex’s shoulder.

Underneath the photo, in bold handwriting: PARTNER OF ALEX ALBON.

The letter is tucked in a simple envelope, sealed with a strip of duct tape.

You open it with shaking hands.

I’m not expecting anything from you right now, his scratchy script leads with.

I get it. I know I’ve made this messy. I know I said too much too late. I still wanted you to have this, because you’ve always belonged next to me on race day. Not just as my best friend. Not just as something halfway. But for real. Something proper.

That’s why I made you this paddock pass. It’s stupid and I probably got the fonts all wrong. You don’t have to use it. If you ever want to, though, it’s yours. I don’t think anybody else is ever going to have that title. 

Also: the sunflowers. They’re not real, obviously. I wish I could give you fresh ones every time I leave, but I’m not good at that kind of thing. And they run out so often. So I made these. Or tried to. They took forever. I watched so many YouTube videos. I pricked my fingers like five times. Hope that counts for something.

I’ll let you have your space now.

I just want you to know that—given the chance, I want to love you like I mean it. 

Always and forever, Your Alexander Albon Ansusinha

The checkered flag waves.

P4.

Not a podium, but it feels like one.

Alex exhales, lungs finally catching up to the rest of him, the engine cutting to silence beneath him. His radio crackles with static and shouts, voices overlapping in celebration. The team is ecstatic. He lets out a whoop, punching the air from the cockpit, heart rattling against his ribs like it wants to break out and sprint down the pit lane.

“Brilliant job, Alex. Another P4. You nailed Sector 3.”

He laughs, breathless. “That was insane. The car felt so good. Thank you, everyone. Honestly. Thank you. Thank you.”

His gloves are damp with sweat. The world outside the cockpit is heatwaves and motion, but inside his helmet, he’s grinning so hard his face aches.

And then—a new voice cuts through the radio.

“Nice work, Albono. Kinda makes me want to crochet you a trophy.”

Everything inside him stills. 

The voice is familiar, unmistakable. Part comfort, part ache.

It’s a record scratch, a public declaration, everything he’s been dreaming of for the past couple of months. Voice shaking with unrestrained joy, Alex only manages a disbelieving, “Is that—?”

There’s laughter on the other end, muffled and alive. The team doesn’t answer. They don’t have to.

Alex is yelling again, louder than before. Whooping into the mic, a sound that isn’t filtered through performance or professionalism. A sound from the core of him. There’s something raw in the chant of yes, yes, yes, something uncontained. 

The P4 doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing does. Just that voice, soft and close and impossibly real.

You’re laughing, too, as you step back from the engineer’s radio rig, nearly breathless yourself. Your palms are still slightly damp with nerves, your chest still tight with something like disbelief. 

The Williams team surrounds you in a bubble of warmth—claps on the back, someone handing you a bottle of water with a grin, another looping you into a half-hug. “Told you he’d freak,” someone says.

You nod, cheeks aching from the smile that just won’t leave. Around your neck, your proper paddock pass swings with each breath. It’s glossy, official. But next to it hangs another—rougher, laminated at home, edges slightly frayed. The homemade one Alex had sent you months ago. The one that says PARTNER OF ALEX ALBON.

You touch it lightly, fingers brushing over the faded corner. It's worn, like something loved too hard.

You hadn’t been sure. You’d hesitated at the airport. Almost turned around at the gate. But the truth is: you missed him. And you were tired of pretending otherwise.

The garage is alive now—busy with celebration and noise. Mechanics moving in sync, voices rising in overlapping bursts, the scent of warm carbon, oil, and sweat curling into the air. The low whir of cooling fans. The scrape of tires on concrete.

You hear the car before you see it, the soft growl of the engine rolling into the lane. The screech of tires settling into stillness.

Alex climbs out.

Helmet off. Suit unzipped halfway, sweat darkening the collar. His hair is plastered to his forehead. His hands are trembling, still wired with adrenaline and something else—something unspoken and urgent. 

He tosses his gloves toward someone without looking.

Then he turns.

And he sees you.

For the longest time, you had doubted this would mean something. You worried that you’d waited too long. That all your silence had turned into something irreversible. That the distance you asked for had hardened into fact.

Time doesn’t stop. It just slows, enough for you to catch the look on his face. The way his shoulders drop, the way his mouth forms your name like it’s the only thing that makes any sense.

You don’t move.

You don’t have to.

Alex is already running right back to you. ⛐

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director’s cut of Let’s Play!

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