mai

I know recently I've came out with a lot of fics at once or very close together. Yes, I know thats weird, it looks bad on me. But when I have something fully written I don't like getting into the habit of waiting to post it. That's why it took me months to finally clear out my drafts and post a ton of fics around the same month.

I will say this, I know I don't use ai, I don't need other peoples validation to know that I don't. I know I've spent my hours writing, rewording, using grammarly, and cutting scenes out.

I run my fics through an ai checker before I post them, every time. And yes, sometimes they come back as maybe 30% ai... I don't know why. Oh wait, yes I do. Ai learns from us. Don't we all remember back around May, when a ton of peoples fics were scanned by Open ai? Because I surely do. It took phrases we use, words, slang, everything. It took it all and uses it to make it's own writing more 'human'.

My words are not 'ai sayings' or 'phrases', it's mine. It's everytime I've heard someone say a word and searched it up, it's when I've read someone elses fic and fell inlove with how they worded it, it's learning how I can make my sentences better.

Another point, I'm a teenage girl who will resay 'iconic' or 'ooh' a thousand times. Ask my mutuals if you really doubt that. Reusing a phrase isn't a sign of ai it's a sign of being human and liking certain words. It's a habit everyone has. I'm guilty of it, you are, your friends are. Its a human habit.

If you don't want to read my fics because they're supposedly ai, that's fine. Ao3 has a block feature, that's fine to block me. It won't hurt my feelings. Social media is fun in that way.

Christmas Eve smells like garlic and butter and wine.

The table is a mess in the best way—crumbs everywhere, an empty bottle tipped on its side, the good bread torn apart with hands instead of knives. Lando is laughing about something dumb, something about Carlos would say the pasta needs exactly two more minutes next time, and Oscar is warm in that loose, boneless way that only happens when he forgets to be careful.

The doorbell rings.

Lando stands immediately. “That’ll be it,” he says, already moving. “I ordered something last minute, don’t yell at me.”

Oscar huffs. “You’re impossible.”

“Yet beloved,” Lando shoots back over his shoulder.

The door opens.

Oscar doesn’t hear anything strange. No bang. No shout. No sound at all, really—just a heavy, wrong thud that rattles through the floorboards.

“Lando?” Oscar calls, smiling, still seated. “You okay? Did you trip?”

No answer.

He stands, mildly annoyed, heading toward the hall. “If you spilled wine on the—”

He smells it first.

He wants his mum to be right here, now, immediately.

A car pulls up across the street.

Not a taxi.

Black. Clean. Too quiet.

Oscar doesn’t look at it at first. He keeps staring down the road in the direction Mum is supposed to come from. Traffic hisses by. A bus passes without slowing.

Then the car door opens.

Footsteps move through the rain.

Measured. Unhurried.

Someone stops in front of him.

Oscar looks up.

The man is tall. Dark coat. No umbrella. The rain beads on his shoulders like he doesn’t notice it at all. His smile is small, polite, practiced.

“Oscar,” the man says.

Oscar’s stomach drops.

“…Yes?”

“I’m a friend of your mother’s,” the man says gently. “She asked me to make sure you weren’t waiting out here alone.”

Relief and fear hit at the same time.

“Mum’s late,” Oscar blurts. “She was supposed to be here already.”

“I know,” the man says smoothly. “Something urgent came up. She’s on her way, but she didn’t want you standing in the rain.”

He gestures to the car behind him.

“She asked me to drive you home.”

Oscar hesitates.

He’s been raised well. Don’t go with strangers. Don’t get in cars you don’t know. Don’t talk to people who already know your name when you don’t know theirs.

“What’s… what’s your name?” Oscar asks quietly.

The man’s smile deepens just a touch.

“J.P.”

Lando studies Oscar for another second, then glances at the discarded number on the floor.

“Eighty-one,” he says aloud, testing it like a placeholder. “That’s what I’ll call you for now, yeah?”

Oscar stiffens.

It’s safer than a name. He nods.

“Alright,” Lando says evenly. “Eighty-one it is. For now.”

The words shouldn’t matter. They do anyway. They slide into the empty space where Oscar’s real name used to live and settle there uneasily.

Lando turns toward an adjoining doorway. “Bathroom’s through there. Shower. Hot. As long as you want.”

Oscar doesn’t move.

Lando notices immediately. Of course he does.

“I’m not locking you in,” he says calmly. “And I’m not bringing the medic in while you still smell like the floor of an auction house. That’s just rude.”

The lights dimmed just a little, candles flickering across the cake as someone started the familiar tune. It was off-key, chaotic, more shouting than singing—but Charles’ smile made it holy. He leaned over the cake, his curls catching the candle glow, and blew them out in one breath.

Applause followed, whistles and cheers bouncing off the walls. Pascale dabbed at her eyes discreetly; Arthur clapped him on the back with enough force to jostle him; Lando nearly knocked over a wine glass trying to get closer.

Logan stood a little behind the crowd, his phone up, filming. The screen recorded the moment, but Logan’s eyes didn’t leave Charles himself—the ease in his posture, the quiet radiance he carried even when the world had done everything to try and dim it.

Here was the man who played piano until the strings ached, who brewed two espressos in the morning without asking which one Logan preferred, who somehow always knew what Logan was feeling before Logan had the words for it.

The man who’d lost so much—his father, his godfather, Jules—and still, still had never let the grief calcify into cruelty. Logan couldn’t picture Charles being cruel if he tried. Even when Ferrari broke his heart on live television, even when the internet twisted him into a caricature, mocking him for being too soft, too emotional—Charles never lashed out. He wore kindness like armor, and it never seemed to crack.

Charles cut into the cake with steady hands, passing out slices, his smile bright and tired and real. The camera caught the moment, but Logan barely looked at the recording. He just watched. And somewhere deep in his chest, something both hurt and healed at once.

They slipped out into the morning air, cool and damp, the stones of the house darkened by rain. Charles traced his fingers along the walls, where ivy crept upward in twisting patterns. “It looks like it’s been here forever,” he said softly.

Max shoved his hands in his pockets. “Most things in France look like they’ve been here forever.”

Charles wandered further, toward the apple tree just outside the fence. He hesitated for a heartbeat before climbing over.

“Charles,” Max warned, already sounding exhausted.

Charles grinned, reaching up and plucking an apple with an easy twist. “They won’t miss one.”

“You’re stealing.”

“Borrowing,” Charles corrected, already biting into it. Juice dripped down his chin, and he laughed—bright and delighted. “Mon dieu. It’s the best apple I’ve ever had.”

Max just shook his head, but the corners of his mouth twitched.

Further along the path, they discovered it—the hidden dining spot. A little oak table, chairs tangled with wildflowers creeping up their legs, tucked away where the path curved near the sound of running water.

Charles stopped dead. “Max.”

Max looked around once, slower, quieter now. Even he had to admit—it was beautiful. Intimate. Like the house itself had secrets.

Charles turned to him, voice low. “Logan has no idea what he’s given us.”

The rain had thinned to a mist, the kind that clung to their hair and jackets. Charles dragged Max along the garden path, fingers brushing the ivy curling up the stone walls, before they looped back toward the apple tree.

“He’s… quiet,” Charles said finally, voice hushed like Logan might overhear through the glass. “Too quiet, maybe.”

Max kicked at the damp gravel. “A week out here alone will do that. But it feels like more than that.”

Charles glanced at him, curious.

Max exhaled, admitting, “I watched some of his old stuff. Prema days. He was—different. Loud. Smiley. Like he couldn’t sit still.” His brows knit, restless. “Then I looked at this year. Interviews. He barely looks like the same person. It’s like he just… faded.”

Charles slowed, stopping under the apple tree. He bit into the fruit he’d stolen, juice dripping down his thumb, and studied Max like he already knew where this was coming from.

“Max,” he said softly, “we can’t psychoanalyze someone we’ve only just invited into our home.”

Max frowned but didn’t argue. His gaze lingered on the house, curtains shifting in the breeze of an open window. “I’m just saying—it’s like he stopped expecting anything good to happen. That’s what it looks like.”

Charles slipped his free hand into Max’s, the apple still warm in his other palm. “Then maybe our job isn’t to pick him apart,” he murmured. “Maybe it’s just to remind him what good feels like.”

The stream murmured somewhere beyond the path, unseen but constant. Max squeezed Charles’ hand once, hard, and for a moment neither of them spoke.

Max doesn’t look up, but the tip of the pen presses harder into the paper, like the words he wants to write are heavy.

Max’s hand trembles slightly as he writes, the scratch of pen on paper loud in the quiet apartment. He presses down hard, the letters uneven and cramped, like they fight him on the way out.

He slides the notepad toward Daniel without looking at him.

Were you scared of your dad?

Daniel blinks, caught off guard, and leans back slowly. His throat goes a little dry. “Blimey, kid… you don’t pull punches, do you?”

Max’s jaw tightens. He doesn’t look up, but the pen taps against the margin, sharp, anxious.

Daniel runs a hand through his hair, exhaling. “…Yeah. Sometimes.” He doesn’t soften it, doesn’t sugarcoat. “Not all the time. My dad was a good bloke, but… he had a temper. Yelled a lot. Thought being tough was the only way to raise a kid. Scared me, yeah. Didn’t mean he didn’t care, but… I remember that fear more than I’d like.”

He lets the words hang there, doesn’t try to fill the silence.

“Call it a gift,” Logan said, crouching to pluck up a potted plant from the row of glossy green leaves. He held it out. “Logan.”

The guy hesitated just long enough for Logan to notice — like he was deciding if he should give his name at all. “Alex,” he said finally, taking the plant. He held it gingerly, like it might explode.

Logan tilted his head, studying him. “City boy?”

Alex gave him a sideways look. “…Is it that obvious?”

“Painfully. You’ve got ‘I don’t own flip-flops’ energy.”

Alex huffed something between a laugh and a scoff. “I own flip-flops.”

“Lemme guess,” Logan said, “they’re the kind you bought for a vacation and wore twice.”

Alex’s silence was all the confirmation he needed. Logan grinned. “Tell you what — I’ll sell you this lily, and throw in a surf lesson. One day in the sun, my treat.”

Alex blinked again, like the sentence had been in another language. “I’ve never surfed in my life.”

“Even better,” Logan said without missing a beat. “You’ll learn fast. You look like you’ve got balance.”

“And if I say no?”

“Then you’ll never know if I was right,” Logan shrugged, “which, personally, would haunt me forever.”

Alex stared at him for a long second — then, almost reluctantly, smiled. “One lesson. And if I drown, I’m suing.”

I didn’t want him there because I personally went in to this thinking of the ending. Logan never wanted his ‘failed’ career to overshadow Alex’s. It’s just the boundaries Logan himself has set. And I was going to include a scene of Logan trying to get a last minute plan ticket there to surprise him but it just didn’t make it in.