The Void State Is SOOOOOOOOOOO Easy Once You Actually Realize What It Is. One Major Reason Why You Aren't

okay next, i js wanna laugh. okay so, were at a charity event or something, and im volunteering, helping hand out juice boxes, signing people in, keeping children from using cones as swords, that typa stuff. until FRANCO COLAPINATA shows up, he's js being annoying really, until shes had enough and YEET the juice box at his head, and then he's all nonchalant and shit like "UH HUH I DESERVED THATTT AHAHA" .... and then you can tell the juice box turned him on bc you can like tell he wants her, and thennn WEEKS pass, and he DM's her. "saw apple juice today. thought of you. still flinch when i see boxes. wanna hang out?” MUWUAHAHSNA

❦ - manzanas contigo.

warnings:: none, maybe cussing..?

writers notes:: pls send more franco/f1 reqs bc i loved writing this sm and hes so fun to write for!

tags:: @barcapix @n0vazsq @httpsdana @paucubarsisimp @cherryloveshs

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you don’t even want to be here.

the email had said volunteers needed, and your overly kind soul had said sure, why not, and now you’re seven hours deep into wrangling children hopped up on fruit snacks and sun. the charity event is cute in theory, music, booths, a little track set up for games, and a bounce house, but in practice? it’s a battlefield.

you’re stationed at the welcome tent, handing out wristbands and juice boxes and fake smiles.

your feet hurt. your shirt is sticking to your back. a toddler is crying because he dropped his balloon into a bush. and some guy just tried to cut the line because he ‘swears his cousin is already inside.’

you’re not proud of how close you came to smacking him with the clipboard.

but then, because life has a sense of humor, he appears.

franco colapinto.

and you know it’s him, because who else shows up to a local charity event in an alpine cap, looking like he walked out of a sports magazine and directly into your personal hell?

you glance up at the exact moment he’s brushing a curl out of his eyes, all casual and oops i’m hot and didn’t mean to beenergy.

he scans the crowd, sunglasses pushed up on his head, mouth curled like he already knows he’s being stared at. and of course he is. a group of teenage volunteers behind you are whispering, one of them literally smacks the other on the arm and goes that’s him. that’s that guy. the car one.

sigh.

maybe if you stay perfectly still, he won’t notice you.

but of course, you are not blessed with that kind of luck.

his eyes land on you. direct. intentional.

and he starts walking over.

great.

you busy yourself with the juice boxes, shuffling them around pointlessly as if they need organizing, as if you’re not seconds away from face to face contact with a walking headache.

‘so,’ he says, leaning against the table like this is his full time job. ‘what does a guy gotta do to get one of those?’

you glance up. ‘a wristband?’

‘nah. a juice box.’

you stare.

he smiles.

you hold one up. ‘take it and leave.’

‘whoa. feisty. is this how you treat all guests, or am i special?’

you blink. ‘i’ve been here since 6am. i have zero patience and less charm left.’

‘good thing i’ve got enough charm for both of us.’

you raise a brow. ‘that supposed to work on me?’

he shrugs, peeling the wrapper off a straw. ‘worth a shot.’

he doesn’t leave.

he just stands there, sipping slowly, watching you like he’s never seen anyone pass out juice before. his gaze trails across your face, not in a creepy way, just annoyingly observant. like he’s trying to figure out what kind of person signs up for this kind of chaos and doesn’t run away screaming.

you try to ignore him. you really do.

but then he starts helping. like… physically taking wristbands from your hand to hand them to kids, leaning way too close to read names off the sign in list, nodding solemnly at the parents like he belongs here.

and the worst part? people believe it.

‘you two are adorable,’ one lady says as she signs in her daughter.

you nearly choke. ‘we’re not—‘

‘thank you,’ franco cuts in, smiling like he just won an oscar. ‘we try.’

you give him a look. he winks. kill me, you think.

it gets worse when a small child asks for apple juice and franco picks one up, does a dramatic gasp, and goes, ‘apple! the superior juice. i like your taste, kid.’

you break.

you don’t mean to. you truly don’t. but something inside you snaps, and the next thing you know, you’re yeeting a juice box straight at him.

it arcs through the air with surprising grace, smacks him right in the shoulder, and bounces off harmlessly onto the grass.

a moment of silence.

he blinks.

then he laughs. hard.

‘okay,’ he says, holding his hands up in surrender. ‘i deserved that. i fully, absolutely, one hundred percent deserved that.’

you cross your arms. ‘you think?’

he’s still grinning as he bends to pick it up. ‘apple again. symbolic.’

‘you’re ridiculous.’

‘you like me though.’

you scoff. ‘i like peace and quiet.’

‘you’re blushing.’

‘i’m hot. it’s eighty degrees.’

‘you threw a juice box at me.’

‘you were annoying.’

he tilts his head. ‘admit it. it was kinda satisfying.’

you bite back a smile. ‘maybe a little.’

he grins, stepping back finally. ‘i’ll leave you to your cone wrangling duties. but don’t be surprised if you see me again.’

‘god help me,’ you mutter.

he strolls away, sipping the slightly dented juice like it’s champagne.

and yeah. maybe your heart is doing something dumb.

maybe you do glance up once or twice, wondering if he’s still watching you.

maybe he is.

you don’t expect to see him again.

honestly, you’d hoped the juice box incident would be enough to scare him off. but two saturdays later, at a completely different event, you’re there, collecting raffle tickets and babysitting the world’s most chaotic face paint station, and there he is.

franco colapinto.

wearing a hoodie this time. hood up. trying and failing to blend in, as if his stupidly nice smile and the way he walks like the world was made for him don’t give him away instantly.

you see him from across the lot.

he doesn’t even try to be subtle. just lifts his hand in a little wave and starts walking straight toward you like this is a planned reunion and not a complete surprise.

you look around. as if there’s someone else he could be greeting. spoiler: there isn’t.

‘you again,’ you say when he reaches you.

‘me again,’ he grins, pulling down his hood like he’s revealing a secret identity.

you sigh. ‘are you following me?’

‘you wish.’

‘so this is a coincidence?’

he shrugs. ‘or fate.’

you deadpan. ‘you’re insufferable.’

‘you say that every time.’

‘i mean it every time.’

he gestures around, like he’s settling in. ‘need help again? or do i have to earn my juice box rights this time?’

you narrow your eyes. ‘don’t you have a job?’

‘i do. it’s off-season. i’m thriving.’

‘this is how you spend your free time? crashing fundraisers?’

‘not crashing,’ he says, very seriously. ‘contributing. i donated five bucks to the bouncy castle. i’m basically a hero.’

you don’t laugh. you don’t.

okay, maybe a little.

he’s already rolling up his sleeves and jumping into whatever task you’re doing, like last time, and suddenly you’re stuck with him for three hours again.

he helps a little girl glue pom poms onto a paper crown.

he nearly gets paint on his nose and doesn’t notice.

he lets a five year old draw a blue lightning bolt across his cheek and calls it his new racing stripe.

and every now and then, he looks over at you like you’re the funniest thing in the world, even when you’re just frowning at a clipboard or trying to untangle a balloon string from a folding chair.

you pretend not to care.

you pretend really hard.

the third time is the worst.

mostly because… you kind of expect him now.

you’ve made the mistake of mentioning your volunteer schedule to a friend on your story. and it’s fine. really. except now, when you show up to the saturday pet adoption drive with a clipboard and a tight ponytail, you scan the crowd. like an idiot.

he’s not there.

you tell yourself you’re relieved. that you don’t need another afternoon of his smug little comments and stupidly good hair.

but you still keep checking.

twenty minutes pass.

an hour.

two.

he doesn’t come.

you keep busy. hand out flyers. try not to cry when a little dog named charlie gets adopted. organize leashes by size.

and you don’t look at the time more than seven times. promise.

at some point, you’re wiping your hands with a napkin behind the tent when your phone buzzes.

it’s a dm.

from franco.

you blink.

sorry i couldn’t be there today. doing actual job things. tragic.

you stare at it.

then another:

but saw apple juice earlier. still flinched.

and another:

still want to hang out sometime. even if you hit me with stuff. maybe especially because you hit me with stuff.

you can’t help it. your lips twitch.

you don’t reply right away.

you finish your shift. take the long way home. drink half a juice box you saved from the cooler, even though it’s lukewarm now.

and when you’re lying on your bed, staring at the message, you finally type:

you’re impossible.

three dots.

impossible but charming?

you:

debatable.

him:

you didn’t say no though.

you stare at your screen for a second too long.

then:

one coffee. you pay. no weird pickup lines.

his response is immediate.

deal. i’ll try to behave. no promises.

you tell yourself it’s just a coffee.

one coffee. thirty minutes, max. maybe forty five if he says something dumb and you need time to drag him for it.

it’s not a big deal.

except it is. because you spend too long picking an outfit. change your shirt twice. then change it again. then panic change it back to the first one and tell yourself to get a grip.

you meet at some small place he picked, half hipster café, half bookstore. it smells like cinnamon and old paperbacks. you hate how nice it is.

franco’s already there.

and of course he looks… stupidly good. hoodie, again. curls poking out. one hand lazily spinning his coffee cup. and that grin, that stupid boyish grin, when he spots you.

‘you came,’ he says, standing.

‘don’t sound so surprised.’

he does a little half bow. ‘welcome to the least boring hour of your life.’

you roll your eyes and sit across from him. ‘don’t flatter yourself.’

‘not flattering. manifesting.’

you try to look annoyed, but the truth is, you’re already smiling. just a little. traitorous.

you talk.

not about anything huge at first. just… dumb things. favorite drinks. worst airport experiences. why he thinks pineapple on pizza should be illegal (you argue passionately against this).

he tells you about crashing a go kart once when he was twelve because he was ‘trying to wave like a champion’ and forgot to steer.

you tell him about the time you accidentally walked into the wrong class and sat through fifteen minutes of astrophysics before realising.

he laughs with his whole chest.

and it’s easy. too easy. every time your fingers brush reaching for the sugar, it feels like something electric. every time he leans in a little, like he’s really listening, your heart stutters.

you should not be this into him. and yet.

you’re both halfway through your drinks when he goes quiet for a second, then says, ‘i almost didn’t message you.’

you blink. ‘why not?’

he shrugs, looks down, spins the empty cup between his hands. ‘i dunno. didn’t want to be annoying.’

‘you already are.’

he grins, but it’s softer now. ‘yeah, but like… in a cute way.’

you shake your head, but your cheeks are warm. ‘you’re such a menace.’

‘you threw juice at me.’

‘because you were asking for it.’

he leans forward, elbows on the table, eyes on yours. ‘maybe i was.’

your breath catches. just a little. just enough.

you clear your throat. ‘you’re not smooth, you know.’

‘i don’t need to be. i just need to make you smile.’

you hate him.

you really, really don’t.

you leave the café two hours later.

two.

neither of you wants to say goodbye yet, so you walk. just… around. your shoulder brushes his once. then again. then a third time, and this time, it stays there. just for a second longer than it should.

he doesn’t let go first.

eventually, you end up back where you started.

he looks at you like he wants to say something. then looks away. then back.

‘can i see you again?’ he asks, soft.

you nod. and for once, don’t try to be clever.

‘yeah. i’d like that.’

the second date happens faster than either of you expect.

you’d planned to wait. play it cool. but then franco sends you a picture of a strawberry smoothie and says ‘looked gross. thought of u,’ and you end up laughing so hard in the middle of your kitchen that you just… cave.

you text him:
you free tonight?

he replies in literal seconds:
always. pick the time. i’ll teleport.

you meet again at the same café. but this time, he’s not already sitting.

he’s waiting outside. leaning on the wall. hoodie again, he really only owns five of them, he tells you later, and his curls are just barely damp from the light rain that’s started falling.

he sees you and that grin hits his face like clockwork. like he’d been saving it just for you.

‘you came,’ he says.

‘you say that every time.’

‘yeah, but like… every time you do, it messes me up a little.’

you pretend you don’t hear that part.

it’s darker inside. quieter. the same table’s free, but this time, you sit next to each other.

close.

too close.

he smells good. not in an obvious, cologne drenched way. it’s something warmer. shampoo and sugar and the kind of scent that lingers even after he leaves.

your knees touch under the table.

neither of you moves.

you talk again.

about bigger things this time. pressure. travel. burnout. he admits he sometimes feels like everything’s moving too fast, and he’s scared he won’t be able to hold on.

you nod. you tell him about how you fake confidence half the time. how sometimes you feel invisible until someone needs something.

he listens. really listens.

then says, ‘you’re not invisible.’

you blink. ‘okay?’

‘just saying. i notice you. always have.’

you laugh a little. ‘that’s creepy.’

‘yeah,’ he says, smiling into his drink. ‘but like… romantic creepy.’

you don’t mean to stay late. but time’s slippery around him.

by the time you realize it’s almost midnight, you’re both sitting outside the café, sharing a leftover pastry and watching the rain slide down the windows.

you don’t want to go.

he doesn’t want to say goodbye.

so he walks you home.

he stops outside your door.

you both kind of hover there. like two idiots waiting for someone to do something. say something.

‘this was nice,’ you say quietly.

‘yeah,’ he says, and then, softer, ‘i wanna kiss you.’

your breath catches.

he doesn’t move closer. doesn’t touch you. he just stands there, all warm eyes and soft voice.

you whisper, ‘then why don’t you?’

he grins. all teeth and nerves and too much hope.

‘cause the minute i kiss you, i’m not gonna stop thinking about it. and i want you to wanna kiss me back. like really want to.’

you stare at him.

he shrugs. ‘just being honest.’

you nod. heart in your throat.

then say, ‘next time.’

he smirks, already backing away.

‘i’ll hold you to that.’

you tell yourself you’re not waiting.

not waiting for a text. not waiting for a call. not waiting for the memory of him saying i wanna kiss you to stop looping in your head like some kind of cursed romantic ringtone.

but when his name flashes on your screen two days later, your whole face warms.

what if we didn’t do coffee this time?

you stare.

what do you wanna do then?

he replies instantly.

drive. music. idfk. i’ll bring snacks. you bring the vibe.

you:
so i’m the vibe?

him:
always.

he picks you up at 7:03.

he’s in a black hoodie this time, and his car smells like mint gum and the ghost of bad fast food. there’s a half eaten bag of crisps on the passenger seat, which he tosses in the back when you open the door.

‘you’re late,’ you say.

‘you’re early. time’s fake. get in.’

he drives like he thinks he’s in a movie.

one hand on the wheel. other messing with the aux. windows down. hair wind-blown and wild. he sings under his breath to every second song. raps to the third one badly. you don’t stop laughing the entire first hour.

you don’t know where he’s going, but you don’t care.

being next to him feels like its own kind of destination.

eventually, he parks by the water.

some random lookout. the city’s lights glitter below, far enough to feel small. the kind of view that feels too beautiful to deserve.

you sit on the hood of his car. shoulder to shoulder. knee to knee. the air’s cold, but not too cold. and everything’s soft. quiet.

for a second, neither of you says anything.

and then, gently, he says, ‘i think about kissing you a lot.’

you blink.

he keeps staring ahead, like he didn’t just drop a bomb. ‘not in a creepy way.’

you laugh. ‘do you always think you’re being creepy?’

‘only when i like someone too much.’

the words settle in your chest like warmth. like lightning.

‘franco,’ you say.

he turns.

‘kiss me.’

his eyes go wide. like for a second, he’s not sure if he heard you right.

then, slowly, he leans in.

he kisses you like he’s afraid to mess it up. like he’s been waiting exactly this long, and not a second less. soft, steady, sure.

and when he pulls back, he just rests his forehead against yours.

neither of you speaks for a minute.

you break the silence. ‘not bad.’

he huffs a laugh. ‘that’s it? not bad?’

‘seven out of ten. you’ll need practice.’

‘cool. guess i better keep showing up.’

you’re not sure when it shifted.

when the maybe turned into definitely. when the texting turned into facetime turned into mornings with your feet tangled under his on the couch. when the almost turned into always.

but now, here you are, franco at your door with a half-melted milkshake and a stupid grin, like he’s been thinking about this all day.

‘you’re late,’ you tease, taking the drink.

‘you’re still hot,’ he says, walking in like he lives here.

(he kind of does.)

you’ve been soft ever since the drive.

he kisses you now like he needs to. like he missed you, even if it’s only been a few hours. like kissing you is just a normal part of his day, something between brushing his teeth and ruining your kitchen by cooking you breakfast at 2 a.m.

sometimes, you wake up to his hand resting on your waist, his face buried in your shoulder. like his body forgets how to be without you.

you don’t say it. not yet. but you feel it.

you think he does too.

it’s been weeks.

weeks since franco colapinto got beaned in the forehead with apple juice and decided that was the hottest thing that had ever happened to him.

weeks since he dm’d you with that dumb message:
saw apple juice today. thought of you. still flinch when i see boxes. wanna hang out?

weeks since you said yes.

and now here you are, propped up on his couch, socks mismatched, face lit by the glow of a documentary you’re not watching, because franco’s lying with his head in your lap and he keeps dragging his fingers along your leg like he can’t believe you’re real.

‘what,’ you murmur.

‘nothing,’ he says. then, quietly: ‘just thinking about the juicebox.’

you snort. ‘again?’

he nods, sleepy and fond. ‘you threw that thing with intention. it was beautiful.’

‘you’re so weird.’

‘you’re the one who assaulted me with a children’s drink.’

‘you flirted with me for two hours while i was working.’

‘you looked hot with a clipboard. sue me.’

you roll your eyes. he reaches up, brushes your hair behind your ear.

‘you know i really did think about you every time i saw juice after that?’

‘you said that already.’

‘i mean it. i’d be in a store and be like… damn. i miss her aim.’

you swat him. he laughs. kisses your wrist.

later, when you’re brushing your teeth in his oversized hoodie, he pulls you into his arms and rests his chin on your head.

‘should we save the juicebox?’ he asks, voice muffled in your hair.

‘what, like… frame it?’

‘yeah. put it above the bed. shrine to our origin story.’

‘you’re so dumb.’

‘dumb for you.’

you groan. he grins.

he still gets teased by his friends about the Incident.

he still buys apple juice ‘for the bit’ and lines the fridge with it like a threat.

but when he kisses you goodbye before his next race, all soft and slow like he’s imprinting it in his memory, he says:

‘thanks for hitting me.’

and you say,
‘thanks for being annoying enough to deserve it.’

and maybe, maybe, that’s just your love language now.

　𝓶𝔂 𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐅𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐈𝐅𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐎

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ this isn’t a self-help guide. i’m not your guru and this isn’t a powerpoint on gratitude. this is just me. sitting on the floor. i’m not here to raise your vibration. i’m here to ask why you think you need raising in the first place. i'm here because i’ve been hoarding revelations like they're concert wristbands. i'm here because reality is porous and i’ve got the straws. no, literally, i’ve sucked on time’s milkshake and found it lukewarm. we can do better.

you will not find steps here. there is no staircase. i burned it. we fly now.

　"how to"s . .

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ﹐⠀how to manifest.

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ﹐⠀how to get what you want without affirmations.

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ﹐⠀where is the stuff i manifested?

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ﹐⠀i have it, i have it, i have it, so where is it?

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ﹐⠀become the laziest manifestor.

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ﹐⠀manifest anything in hours, minutes, and even seconds.

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ﹐⠀banish resistance.

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ﹐⠀how to stop looking at the 3d for results.

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ﹐⠀how to manifest the future.

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ﹐⠀manifesting faq.

　thesis's & concepts . .

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ﹐⠀energy and matter cannot be destroyed or created.

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ﹐⠀barbie doll theory of self-concept.

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ﹐⠀do less than nothing , get more than everything.

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ﹐⠀i said what i said (and then it happened)

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ﹐⠀think it, know it, live it.

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ﹐⠀hoping or remembering?

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ﹐⠀manifestation and the eroticism of longing.

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ﹐⠀what's meant for me will find me.

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ﹐⠀screw trying.

　doubts & negatives . .

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ﹐⠀adrift on a sea of self-inflicted delays.

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ﹐⠀it didn't work before, why would it now?

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ﹐⠀the hardest pill to swallow.

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ﹐⠀" there is no new information on tumblr "

　interactives . .

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ﹐⠀the manifesting seance club.

⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ﹐⠀pick a card and find out about your manifesting journey.

when i was a kid i would get a sick thrill from learning someones middle name now i dont feel anything at all ever and im no good for nobody

much to think about on a night like this...

Here's your daily reminder to Click for Palestine!!!

Thank you!!! 💕

Tonight’s setlist! Inhaler’s new songs are called Your House and Eddie in the Darkness!

📸 HEWSONLUVR via Twitter

✶ FOR THE HOPE OF IT ALL

summary: the italian sun shines on you and oliver's summer idyll, but the month of august trickles away rapidly─ what will happen when it reaches an end? ✷ IVY'S POETRY DEPARTMENT EVENT: « will you love me in december as you do in may? »

F1 MASTERLIST | OB87 MASTERLIST

pairing: oliver bearman x f!reader

wc: 5.2k

cw: summer romance, bittersweet, fluff, hopeful ending, reader has an anxiety disorder, use of y/n, oliver has an injury for plot purposes

note: requested here! first time writing for ollie so i'm kinda nervous, hope i did him justice! also there's not near enough fics of the '25 rookies it's scandalous

♫ like real people do - hozier, august - taylor swift, let it happen - gracie abram

THE LASTING WEIGHT on your shoulders was something you became accustomed to. It settled there long ago. The quickened breaths, the sharp sting behind your eyes almost comforting in its regularity. The clatter of your pen dropping to the floor during another restless study session and the ache in your ribcage as you fought for hopeless takes of serrated air no longer startled you. Your newly-appointed therapist told you, scribbling away on her notepad— “Maybe you need fresh air, time away from university.” As if sunlight could smooth out the tension etched into your bones.

That was what the seaside house was meant to be.

It wasn’t a cottage per se. Just a weather-worn brick-walled home tucked near the Italian coast, kissed by salt and sun and blue shutters faded to memory, ivy hugging the balcony tenderly. You rented it with the help of your parents, who insisted that you go on this trip, but the silence you were standing in was yours alone. You, twenty years old, burnt out, along with a diary you promised your therapist you’ll write in every day, from the soft, sunlit beginnings of May to the cold end of August.

The house in itself was as isolated as it could get, perched above the sea along eroded rocks and concealed from the nearest town and its tourists. It stood alone, in all likeness to you, waiting for inhabitation. The only hint of human life you noticed, as you mindlessly sipped your iced tea from the back doorway, sun warming your knees, was the distant outline of another house, a few kilometers down the coast. Far enough that it’d take a good ten-minute walk to reach it, but close enough so that you could discern the silhouette of a tall man standing in its overgrown backyard.

You didn’t linger much on it. He was but the ghost of civilization— a shadow at the edge of your retreat you weren’t ready to let back in. This was the time to center on your thoughts, peel back the numbness eating at your heart, and relearn yourself. You stepped back inside, glass empty, and didn’t think about him again.

At least, not then.

The month of May passed slowly, honey dripping down the rim of a jar. You mostly stayed in your little alcove of the world, letting the days stretch out in silence. Mornings were slow— toast with jam, milk coffee, the dog-eared pages of half-read books sitting on the sunlounger outside. You wrote in your diary about it, about how you’d paint your nails one day and chip them off the next, or how on other days you’d lie out on the balcony, the crash of the waves lulling you in and out of sleep. You watched the ivy grow and the sky change. For a while, it was nice, soft, and still.

But solitude, even chosen, eventually turns sharp at the edges. By the third week, the silence wasn’t so romantic: you started counting the hours between meals, pacing the kitchen tiles barefoot, and you reread your own diary entries even if you hadn’t spoken aloud in days. The stillness you once craved had started to feel like a trap— yet the worst of it was yourself: thoughts of precious hours you were wasting away instead of sitting at the desk of your dorm room haunted your boredom, similar to a ghost.

Which is why, now and then, when the breeze shifted just right, you found your gaze drifting down a few centimeters down the coast, toward the other house, and the man you suspected might still be there.

To the unknowing eye, you’re sure it could have looked unsettling, but truthfully, you didn’t have anything else to do but to observe. He was a welcoming presence, something that didn’t make you feel so secluded. Some days, the man would tinker with a bike for hours until the sun bled orange. Other times, he’d vanish with a towel slung over his shoulders and goggles in his hand, not returning until dusk. Occasionally, he’d mirror you, barefoot in the garden, basking in the sun. And sometimes—only sometimes—you swore he tilted his head upwards and caught your eyes. On those days, you always turned away first, slipped back inside, and retreated for the night.

Your personal game of people-watching stretched for a week or two before you spoke for the first time.

You spent the afternoon on a small, sheltered beach just a few minutes away from your house. The dry air had nipped at your skin just enough for it to become uncomfortable after a few hours, and the sun-turned—from warm to punishing—had your cheeks tight with the start of a sunburn. You packed up as the sky began to blush with the first hints of sunset, already fantasizing about the cool shade of your living room and the steady hum of the fan. It would have been glorious.

Would have, if you hadn’t locked yourself out.

You jiggled the handle once, twice, but nothing. Your towel slipped from your arms, and you cursed under your breath, pressing your forehead to the wooden door. Saltwater still clung to your skin, your hair stuck to the back of your neck, and the stupid key was sitting smugly on the kitchen counter inside.

A posh, British accent spoke from behind you. “Do you need some help?”

You turned, confused about the origin of the sudden voice, and there he was. The man from the neighboring house.

It was unmistakably him— there was just something about the tousled mess of brown, semi-curls falling in front of his face, the soft eyes crinkled at the corners with barely contained amusement. His skin, darkened by the sweep of summer, looked like it had soaked up every hour of its beginnings. There was familiarity in the delicate shape of him and the easy way he stood, towering over you. The towel in his hand was the same deep navy you’d seen slung over his shoulder days before. His gaze—sharp, steady, curious—felt exactly like it had when you’d caught him looking up at you.

“I, uh… I might?” You stumbled on your words as you answered.

He chuckled, leaning slightly against the fence in front of your house. “Locked yourself out?”

“I wish I could say no,” you nodded, making a noise somewhere between a whine and a laugh.

The man, who looked increasingly more boyish the more steps he took toward you, gripped the door handle. He twisted it a few times before kicking the bottom of the wooden plank and, before your stunned expression, it snapped open. He looked at you with a proud smile. “Don’t worry, people who rent this house usually don’t know about this trick.”

Your eyebrows shot up. “Does that mean you come here often?”

Mortification crashed over you along with realization— you threw an accidental pick-up line at a complete stranger. A stranger who, objectively speaking, was very cute, yes, but still a stranger. You opened your mouth, already halfway through a flustered attempt to walk it back. “Wait— I didn’t mean that like— I wasn’t trying to—”

He let out a surprised, wheezy laugh. “No, no- you’re fine,” he said, grinning now. “I come here every summer, actually. I’m in the house further down the coast.” He seemed to catch the flicker of recognition in your eyes and gave you a knowing smile. “My name’s Oliver, by the way.”

“I’m Y/N,” you replied. “I… I think I’ve seen you around. Sometimes.”

Oliver’s traits softened, and you could see the playful interest behind the darkness of his irises. “Yeah.” His voice dipped slightly. “I think I saw you, too.”

Both of you stood there with the hesitant awkwardness usually reserved for teenagers— which, to be fair, you weren’t far from. He couldn’t have been older than you, early twenties at most. The silence stretched until he announced he had to go, something about needing to work on his bike. You had to abstain to say I know. 

Yet, before he could disappear completely around the corner, Oliver paused. He looked back over his shoulder. “If you ever want company, it’s just me down there. Come by whenever.” You didn’t have to add that you were alone as well. In a strangely comforting sort of way, it looked like he knew.

And it didn’t take you long to take him up on his offer.

It started when your trips to the beach began to align— first by coincidence, but then by something more deliberate. You came to realize that you and Oliver had claimed the same forgotten stretch of land where the sea kissed the rocks, and you drifted toward each other like its tide. At first, it was just run-ins: you, stretched out on your towels, half-asleep due to the sizzling heat; Oliver, standing over you, droplets of salt water falling from his hair onto your flushed cheeks. “What are you doing here?” you’d ask, squinting up at him.

“I like running,” he’d say with a shrug, before his characteristic, mischievous smile reached his lips once again. “And a dip after a run keeps me motivated.”

Oliver started sticking around. He’d keep the last of his water bottle to rinse the sand off your feet, sharing watermelon he’d always accidentally cut a little extra from. He would walk you home, and you’d lead him with slow, lazy steps, to drag the moment longer. Your laughter would echo against the rock and sea walls paving the way to your house, and he’d talk about little things—the birds and the heat—then about bigger things, how the ocean seems to always stay the same but feels different every year, for example. You’d match him, word for word, stories unfurling like waves, and miss him when he’d continue his way without you.

It wasn’t long before the space between your houses stopped mattering. One afternoon turned into an invitation to see the inside of his cluttered living room, and that was it. The next week, Oliver was sitting on your ivy-covered balcony, sipping homemade iced tea with your legs draped over his. Eventually, your days began to blur— his shirt left on the back of your chair, your books forgotten on his windowsill. You stopped counting whose house you were in until it became the house you were in together.

The month of May slipped into June in tentative brushes of the hand and peals of laughter lost to the warm air of summer nights. Oliver had become Ollie by the fifteenth—the nickname fell off your lips naturally—and you spent most, if not all, of your days in each other’s presence. The rhythm between you was almost domestic: you’d wake up and see his bare back at work in the kitchen along with the scent of coffee and discarded pans, or how you now knew his schedule by heart. He’d spend most of his Wednesdays and Fridays fixing up the old bike he’d found rusting in the garage, and he was partial to running on Saturdays. Swimming, however, was reserved for when you were with him. Any day. Every day, if he could have it.

By the time Ollie finished repairing the bike, the first month of summer was waning. One golden morning, with grease all over his fingers, he turned to you and asked if you wanted to visit the nearby town— a trip made easier now that the bike worked. To your own surprise, you said yes.

The town had become another stepping stone in whatever you and Ollie were building. The days spent weaving through the local market were your favorites, brushing past stalls of sun-ripened fruits and handmade trinkets, among which you both stumbled through clumsy Italian that vendors gently poke fun at you for. You’d mangle a greeting, and Ollie would butcher a question about apricots, and still, they’d smile like they knew what you were saying. You chuckled and asked him what the point of living in Modena was if he didn’t speak Italian. “My family’s still British, you know,” he answered. It only made you laugh harder, a sound he seemed to chase.

You never discussed the reason that brought you both to this isolated part of the Italian coast. It never came up, the questions drifted in the periphery— hinted at in the pauses between conversation, but never spoke out loud. It was a silent agreement: you didn’t ask, and neither did he.

But there was one evening, on the crumbling stone wall nearing the edge of town. Your legs were swinging gently over the drop— the cicadas had begun to quiet, the last smear of strawberry gelato clung to your fingertips, and the world was exhaling into night. Somewhere below, a dog barked once and fell quiet. That was when Ollie asked. “So… what brought you here?”

You didn’t answer right away. You wiped your fingers on a napkin that smelled faintly of lemon, tossing and turning the way you could shape your response in your head. “Uni,” you said finally. “Or… me, I guess. Everything just got really loud, and I could barely think about anything else. I stopped sleeping, I stopped eating… setting myself up for failure before I even started, basically.”

Ollie nodded, yet no pity or needless apologies fell off his tongue. “My therapist sent me there to remember how to be a person again,” you added to his silence.

“What about you?” You quickly asked, hasty to get the attention off.

He looked at you, mouth agape in a desire to say something, but ultimately deciding against it. Long seconds passed before the British spoke again. “I race professionally, right now I’m in Formula One.” One look at your face was enough for him to understand you didn’t know anything about motorsports. He continued with a crooked smile. “I, uh… I crashed back in March. Nothing huge, but enough to knock me out for the season, apparently. The doctors told me to rest and take it easy.”

You glanced over, catching the way his profile softened in the lamplight. You had noticed his grimace after long days spent walking around, the painful stretches in his living room when he thought you were still deep in slumber. You never brought it up.

“No one tells you how hard that part is—” Ollie continued. “The not-doing-anything part. I figured I’d go somewhere familiar to make it better, you know?”

Taking your mind off an obsession, when you made it a part of yourself so integral you’re unable to define yourself outside of it, can feel similar to the tearing of a limb— it’s something you carry around, an itch you can’t scratch because your fingernails will start digging for blood. It’s something you knew all too well, it was the reason for your presence on this stone wall.

“Well,” you murmured. “I think you’re going to get into your car next season and show them all the talent they’d missed.”

Ollie huffed a laugh. “Thanks for believing in me, but the car isn’t even—”

“You worked on your bike. You can work on a car.”

“It’s not even remotely the same thing.”

“Tomato, tomato.”

He laughed, curls catching the breeze, nudging his knees with yours. “Then you’re going to make every teacher regret putting you in this state when you go back.”

“That’d be assuming they care.” You rolled your eyes with nothing but fondness. “You’re too nice for the ruthless world of university, Ollie.”

The realization came as gently as the brush of his fingers above yours: you hadn’t thought about it at all. The tint of your skin had darkened, moles and sun-born freckles dusted your shoulders, your voice had picked up hoarser inflections from laughing, salt stuck to you like a robe, and you hadn’t noticed the oppressing heaviness of your shoulder ever since you ran into Ollie. You noticed, though, with a pleasant warmness swirling in your chest, that it seemed to have vanished. You couldn’t recall the last time you felt like the air around you wasn’t enough for your lungs.

In that moment, as the sky bruised deep violet and you could still taste the faint hint of strawberry on your tongue, it didn’t really matter what had broken you both to get there. You were here now, and that was what mattered.

The bike ride back to your house was spent in a sleep-induced haze. Your arms were loosely wrapped around Ollie’s middle, and he was pedaling slowly, not in a rush to get anywhere else but to you. When you reached the front door, you didn’t ask. He just followed you inside, barefoot and spent, and slept in the spare twin bed across from yours. The window stayed open all night. You could hear the sea mixing with his breathing. For the first time in a while, sleep came easy.

June made way for July, arriving in harsh, blinding sunlight, and days that stretched lazily into midnight. With it came a quiet shift, the startling and fluttering understanding that you might want to kiss Oliver Bearman.

It wasn’t in theory, in some hypothetical sunset-glazed movie scene. You wanted to kiss the real him, your Ollie, the one on the stone wall: the boy who stole your sandals to water your neglected garden, the one who wrangled in catastrophic Italian with a vendor for a pack of cherries you craved, the same one who read aloud from whatever your liking had set upon to make fun of it, only to keep reading when you weren’t paying attention.

In the delicate dance of almosts that blossomed over the month of July, you allowed yourself to think he might want to kiss you, too.

The first time it happened, you were both locked out of his house— for a change. A tragic incident involving a missing key and a dinner reservation you were already late for had left you standing outside, your arms crossed, and his sheepish grin doing nothing to help the situation. Ollie suggested the bedroom window. You, naturally, thought he was joking. He wasn’t.

You’d both ended up clambering through the fragile wooden frame like teenagers sneaking in past curfew, laughing so hard your ribs hurt. It was stupid, and maybe a little childish, but it was part of why it always felt so easy with Ollie. When it was your turn to hop off the ledge, he helped you, hands steady around your waist. His hands lingered there a moment too long and as laughter died down, leaving you breathless and dazed, something pulled you closer ever so slightly. Never close enough to break, however.

There was a second time, when Ollie brushed a stray strand of hair after you’d both ran from a summer shower and the touch warmed your forehead for hours. A third, when you fell asleep over each other in the garden during a heat-drenched day and you woke up with his fingers tracing lazy patterns on your arm. There was a fourth, a fifth, an amalgamation of disarming instances during which your breath hitched in anticipation of what never seemed to come. When he caught you watching him, and never looked away.

The day you kissed him, you found yourself in a predicament you never thought would happen to you. Ollie had just leapt off the cliff.

There was no hesitation or second thoughts in the clean arc his body sliced through the air. The splash below was clean, and right when you thought he’d never find the surface again, his voice echoed upward, bright and breathless as he laughed. “Come on!” he shouted, waving at you. “It’s not even that high!”

You stood at the edge, toes curled against the rock, and you could only disagree with the brown-haired boy the way the water spiraled beneath you. “You’re insane. This is suicide.”

“Oh, you’re the one who climbed up there!”

“I climbed up to watch, not die!” you yelled back, heart hammering. “Also, aren’t you injured? Should you even be jumping off cliffs?!”

He shrugged. “The water’s deep enough.”

You glared, which only seemed to egg him on. “Come onnnn,” he complained. “You said you wanted to feel like a real person again, right? Nothing realer than that!”

Even in the lighthearted argument, you had to see the truth in what Ollie said. You had come to this quiet corner of the world to shake something loose inside of you, to try and find the pieces of yourself you misplaced among the tangy taste of tangerines and the soft mornings. This was the summer you were supposed to stop clenching your fists around fear, and to get rid of the anxious feeling lodged in your throat. Your heart had beaten loudly and unapologetically until now, what was slowing it down except for yourself?

So you took a breath. Two. Then a few steps back.

And jumped.

The fall was sharp, dizzying, and the scream that escaped your lungs was nothing short of horrified. Yet, laughter was wedged between the hiccups of it, and you broke the cold surface with a disbelieving gasp. Ollie was already swimming toward you— his eyes wide in wonder, and his hands reaching for your figure. “You did it!”

“I actually did it,” you sputtered.

Ollie’s hands found the dip of your waist under the water, steadying you against him. There were seconds of silence, filled with the splash of waves and your all too loud breathing. That was when his eyes dipped to your lips.

You hadn’t come there to find something as unreachable as love, and you especially hadn’t expected to fall for someone like Ollie, but somehow he had folded himself into your days and the smallest gaps of you— a placeholder until you could fill them yourself, you imagined. Still, you couldn’t envisage a version of your months without him, his voice, or the steadiness of the soul that comes with the brush of his fingers.

I jumped off a cliff, you thought. I can kiss Oliver Bearman.

So you did.

You surged forward before you could talk yourself out of it, arms slipping around his shoulders as your mouth crashed onto his in impatience. He stilled for only a second— more than enough to make you doubt your actions. But he kissed you back. Just as eager, the smile he put into it charmingly familiar. You could taste sea salt on his tongue, his sun-warmed lips moving hungrily against you, breathing your air and taking it away in the slow rocking of the waves.

You didn’t want it to end, but the lack of oxygen pulled you apart. Ollie’s forehead bumped against yours. “I was waiting for you to do that,” he murmured, dropping another quick kiss to your lips.

“Then you could’ve done it sooner!” You punched his shoulder with a laugh.

“I don’t know, I like it when you take the lead.”

You rolled your eyes, heat climbing up your neck, and dunked him into the water. You didn’t resist when he pulled you under.

The transition from July to August slipped from your attention, seawater between your fingers— impossible to hold onto but clung to your skin all the same. You barely noticed the days shifting; they blurred into one another with a sleepy sentimentality, each marked by rituals you and Oliver had grown to create. Mornings bled into slow breakfast where he’d sneak a bite of your toast before making his own, and you’d pretend to be mad about it even though you always saved the corner piece for him anyways.

There were afternoons spent with your ankles tangled together in the back gardens. He kept a bottle of your fragranced sunscreen in his bag. You knew what music to play when you both cooked dinner with the door open to let the cooler air of the evening sift through the kitchen. It wasn’t dramatic, nor was it sickeningly romantic. It simply came as a natural progression, an obvious evolution in the most beautiful sense— like something that could last, if you let it.

You kissed more often, now, much to both of your delight. At first, it was shy, quick, smiling kisses stolen between absentminded conversations. The further you got used to it, the slower they became: curious, confident, eager to know more about each other in a way you couldn’t quite grasp before. Your hands knew each other’s mapped faces and bodies, your mouth recognized the other’s rhythm. Once, you kissed Ollie with your knees still scraped from a hike he’d convinced you to go to. Once, he kissed you beneath the pouring rain, soaked and giggling like children.

There were times you stayed over, and times he did the same, and it would just happen with no clear decision. Ollie would just end up asleep beside you, together beneath the light covers— somehow, even in deep slumber, his hands would always find yours, his breathing even and warm against your neck and lulling you to sleep.

You thought that maybe you had gotten too brave during your stay, enough to turn your cautiousness foolish, because you caught yourself believing this wouldn’t end. That it didn’t have to. August had felt achingly saccharine, it made you wonder where all that sweetness would go when it ended.

The last weeks trickled like sand in an hourglass in front of your eyes. The weight of each moment slipped past you, yet you tried nothing to catch them. It’s what hurt the most: you had all taken it for granted, you let yourself believe time could stretch forever for the sole reason it felt right. It wasn’t the truth, because the truth was in the dates printed in your calendar and the unread emails from your university. The suitcase under your bed, you carefully avoided.

Another year will start again soon. The patterns you persisted in peeling off—stress, anxiety, the pressure to perform until exhaustion and still look perfect—would be ready to claw their way back beneath your skin, circling you. Ollie knew it as well.

Neither of you said it out loud, yet the end was coming whether or not the words spilled out. It hovered just out of reach, a promise of winter in the chill of the end of summer. You’d catch him staring at the sea a little longer than usual, or watching you tie your hair up before journaling, memorizing the motion. You stopped taking pictures, and he stopped making plans for tomorrow. You still laughed, still kissed, and gripped the hours as if they weren’t running out. There was a grace to the silence— a fragile kind of pretending which somewhat felt like mercy.

But try as you might, pretending can never last long.

The sky was painted deep shades of violet and rust, cicadas humming low in the nature around the steps of the back porch you and Ollie were curled upon. His hand was brushing absent circles on your ankle, head resting between your thighs as your fingers curled in his locks. A pot of pasta was cooling in the kitchen. It should have been a perfect night.

You stared at the horizon, then at your chipped nail polish tangled in his hair. You don’t know what pushed you to ask, what made tonight different. The only thing you knew is that it would have happened nonetheless. “What happens when this ends?” It came out as something similar to a whisper.

Ollie’s fingers paused. He looked up at you, turning around completely, and there was nothing but expectancy in his dark irises.

“I was wondering when one of us would ask,” he answered, voice low.

You breathed out through your nose. No matter the number of times it happened to you, you never succeeded in hiding the tremor in your hands correctly. “I don’t want to keep pretending it’s not happening. I’m leaving because of uni. You’re leaving because of racing. We’ve both known that since the beginning.”

Ollie nodded. “Yeah.”

“I just—” You paused, trying to find the thin breath you were holding onto. “I don’t know what happens next.” You looked at the crescent moons your nails had drawn on the inside of your palms. “I’m going back to school. There’s going to be deadlines and all-nighters and the pressure, and– it’s going to be hard to breathe. I don’t know how long it’s going to take before I… I slip again.”

Your voice cracked. “You never saw me like that, Ollie. You were lucky enough to get the version of me that wasn’t drowning, and I– I don’t know if you’d still want me if you did.” The confession came quiet and vulnerable, but you couldn’t linger on it when you had so many things to say and so little time. “And you’ll be racing again. You’ll have a whole world that doesn’t include this place, or me. I don’t expect you to hold space for me when everything changes.”

You were offering him a bright exit sign, the sole opportunity to be honest and to bring the sunset-colored haze you’d been navigating this relationship with down as softly as he could. There was no promise your heart would be spared the shock, but there was also no need to put it on display if it was the case.

Ollie stared at you for agonizing seconds. The traits of his face, the same you could trace with closed eyes, shifted into something different. It wasn’t fear, nor was it sadness, but a gentler thing that looked like something close to a quiet resolve. He took your hands into his, detaching each fingernail digging into your palm.

“I don’t know what happens either,” he admits, slowly, “and I’m not going to pretend I know what it’s going to look like. I just know I thought about it—about you—a lot. And…” His thumb brushed over your knuckles. “Listen, I don’t need you to be okay all the time. I care about your stupid overthinking, the spirals, the bad habits that drive you crazy. All of it. That stuff’s not going to scare me off. I want you, not just the half of it I met this summer.”

“I’ll be racing, yeah,” he added with a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “But I’ve got time. I can make it.”

Ollie leaned in, just a little closer but enough so you could feel the warmth of his breath along the shape of your lips. “I don’t know what you’ll be like in December, but I want to find out.”

It broke the pressure behind your ribs, only for the burn to rise behind your eyes instead. There was a need in his voice that you hadn’t expected, or maybe was it its intensity. Ollie wasn’t asking you to be better, he was just asking you to stay.

“I want to find out,” he repeated, quieter, in the shape of a promise.

You tried to blink back the tears forming on your lashes, failing miserably. “Okay,” you whispered. Your voice gave up in the middle. “Okay.”

Ollie kissed you tenderly and unhurried, a gentle, wordless reassurance in the movement of his mouth against yours in which you sank, a ship in a storm. Summer was ending, yes, but the world wouldn’t be. This could still be something, and maybe it would.

You couldn’t guess what December would bring, and you didn’t know who you’d be when the skies turned grey and the noise returned. Yet, you hoped.

And for now, hoping was enough.

©LVRCLERC 2025 ━ do not copy, steal, post somewhere else or translate my work without my permission.

i am also thankful for @literallyd34d and @belladonnamoonundead

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「 “ 𝘴𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘸𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘭𝘰𝘵. ” 」

eventual james potter x fem!reader; inevitable angst and annoyance as james slowly matures over his time at hogwarts. slowburn. total word count: 56.3K

2.7K | FIRST YEAR.

5.8K | SECOND YEAR.

2.7K | THIRD YEAR.

6.0K | FOURTH YEAR.

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14.0K | SIXTH YEAR.

18.7K | SEVENTH YEAR.

How did you learn to mix?

i just accept the possibility of being really bad at something and then proceed to do whatever i want