aacheinthejaw - Tumblr blog

aacheinthejaw · 6 days ago

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Awkwardly Stretching And Yawning

it’s always hard in the morning (would have been the better title but I’ve already used it)

warnings: fetus!al, fluff, smut, piv, young and in love, it’s cheesy

word count: 8k

His hair was sweaty the first time you met him, and it was sweaty every single time after that. Even in the cold, when the wind bit through your coat and left you shivering, his dark strands still clung damp to his forehead like he’d just run a marathon. He wasn’t a runner. You were sure of that — he was slow, always trailing behind like he had nowhere urgent to be. You’d once joked about it, something about snails moving faster than him, and he’d just grinned lazily, all soft lips and cockiness, like he knew something you didn’t.

Still, the sweat lingered. It made no sense, but you didn’t mind. It was the kind of detail you’d come to think of as uniquely his. Something only you knew because you were the one who reached for him. Always. Your hands threading through his hair, the damp strands slipping between your fingers as you pulled him closer — close enough to kiss, close enough to feel the heat radiating off his skin like he’d been out in the sun all day.

Sometimes, you’d do it just to see what he’d do. Just to watch that stupid grin break across his face like it couldn’t be helped, like he couldn’t stop himself from leaning into the touch no matter how hard he tried to pull away. “Stop that.” he’d mumble, though his voice never carried any real weight, his hands always ghosting at your waist or curling around your wrists like he wanted you to keep going.

You always did. It was impossible not to.

And maybe you should’ve teased him more about it. His perpetually sweaty hair, his inability to keep from leaning into you — but you never did. Because when you pulled him closer, when his grin faltered just a little and his breath hitched, you felt it. That shift. Like the world had stilled, leaving only the two of you in its quiet aftermath. His hair was damp, yes, but it was real, and it was his, and you could never resist tangling your fingers into it just to feel something so alive beneath your touch.

Now you’re in his lap, his hands splayed warm across your thighs, and your fingers are tangled in his hair like they always are. It’s still damp. Of course it is. But now you can blame it on the heater turned up to the max, the radiator rattling like it might burst, the heat heavy in the air and curling around you like smoke. It’s stifling, almost unbearable, and you swear you can feel it searing into you from across the room.

You don’t care.

Because you’re kissing him, and you’ve been kissing him for so long that you’ve forgotten where you are, forgotten the way the rest of the world feels. You’ve kissed him until your lips feel raw, tender and buzzing like a spark waiting to catch. Until your chest aches from holding your breath for him, like breathing was a luxury you’d trade just to stay close.

And then you’re forced to pull away, gasping, your head swimming.

His lips are red and slick, his hair more disheveled than it ever was before, and he’s looking at you with that expression like he knows exactly what he’s doing to you. He licks his lips and it makes you want to kiss him all over again, the pull of it deep and restless in your chest.

“Hot in here, isn’t it?” he murmurs, low and rough, words pressed out like he’s trying to catch his breath too.

You huff a laugh, your hands sliding from his hair to his jaw, your thumbs brushing over the invisible stubble that’s just starting to show. “Yeah. Your fault, though.”

His grin is slow and lazy, the kind of smile that makes you feel like he’s got you figured out, even when he hasn’t. “The heater?”

“You.” you correct, nudging his forehead with yours.

And you’re still so close you can feel his breath fan against your lips when he laughs. “I’m the problem?”

“Always.”

It’s teasing. You don’t mean it. Not really. Because there’s something about him that’s always been so easy, so natural, like you’ve known him your whole life, even if you hadn’t. It’s in the way he lets you pull at his hair, in the way he leans into you like you’re the only thing he needs. It’s in the way he’s looking at you now.

You press your palms against his cheeks because you feel like you might float away without something holding you there. “You’re sweaty again.” you murmur.

He groans, his head falling back with a dramatic thud. “It’s hot in here. Not my fault.”

You roll your eyes, though you’re smiling. “I don’t mind.”

“No?”

“No.” you say, threading your fingers through his hair again, pulling just slightly so he tilts his head back to meet you. “Not if it’s you.”

And maybe you’ve been kissing him all afternoon, maybe your lips are already swollen and your body is buzzing from the heat of him, but you kiss him again anyway. Slower this time. Like you’ve got all the time in the world. Because you do. You’re still young, and his room feels like the only place on earth that matters, and this is enough for you to live off of.

His hair is damp, and his lips are soft, and his arms curl around you like he couldn’t hold you close enough if he tried. And for once, you don’t feel like teasing him about it. You just kiss him.

When you break apart again his hands rest on your thighs, just barely there, and when you look at him, he’s grinning again — that slow, lopsided smile that’s all teeth and something else that makes your stomach flip. You roll your eyes at him, pressing your hands to his chest to steady yourself as you climb off, and he lets out this little whine of protest, though he doesn’t stop you.

It’s later, and the heat of the room has settled into something quieter. You’re perched at the edge of his bed, rummaging through your bag with a growing sense of dread because, of course, you didn’t pack pyjamas. It wasn’t supposed to be an overnight thing. You were just supposed to hang out, maybe grab dinner, and then leave, but plans like that never stick when you’re with him. He’s too good at convincing you to stay longer, to forget the time.

So now you’re stuck, turning your bag inside out like maybe a pair of shorts will appear, but nothing does. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” you mutter, looking over at him where he’s sprawled on his back, flipping a pen between his fingers.

“What?” he asks, looking up with that innocent tilt of his head, like he hasn’t been watching you the whole time.

You hesitate for a second before deciding not to care. “Nothing.” you mumble. You grab one of his shirts from the drawer — soft and a little worn, smelling like him — and strip off your jeans and sweater. You change with your back to him, just enough skin showing to get a reaction if he’s looking, but still leaving enough covered for modesty’s sake. His shirt hangs loose over your frame, brushing against the tops of your thighs, and you tug at the hem to make sure it’s long enough. You glance over your shoulder just in time to catch him biting his bottom lip, trying to look nonchalant about it.

The corner of your mouth lifts. “What?”

“Nothing.” he says, too quickly.

You smile to yourself as you climb back onto the bed, sitting cross-legged near the pillows. “I forgot pyjamas.” you explain, tugging at the hem of his shirt again. “Totally not intentional, by the way.”

He snorts, rolling onto his side to look at you properly, his hand propping up his head. “Sure it wasn’t.”

“It wasn’t.” you insist. “Staying the night wasn’t the plan, remember?” You pause, biting your lip. “Is it okay? If I stay, uh, with your…”

“Me parents?” he finishes for you.

“Yeah.”

His expression softens. “’Course it’s okay. They like you.”

“Yeah?” you ask, glancing at him.

“Yeah.” he says simply, his smile warm and a little boyish, and you know he doesn’t give it to just anyone.

That quiet admission makes your chest ache in the best way. You watch him as he rolls out of bed, muttering something about needing to change too, and he starts pacing toward the corner where a pile of clothes sits precariously on his desk chair. You curl up beneath the blanket, watching as he picks through the heap, holding up shirts and tossing them aside.

He’s smiling to himself as he sifts through the mess, the muscles in his back shifting under his skin. You can’t look away, even when you try to, and when he pulls his shirt off over his head, you stare. It’s instinctual, automatic. Even from a distance, you can see the little mole on the side of his ribs, and something about it makes you want to reach out and touch him, to trace the lines of him with your fingertips, to kiss him there just to see if he’ll shiver.

You want to hold him. You want to kiss him until you can’t feel your lips again. You want to press your face into the crook of his neck and breathe him in.

Oh, god. You’re really, terribly in love, aren’t you?

“Eh, stop staring, you perv.” he says suddenly, teasing but his ears turn a little red as he tosses a shirt over his shoulder.

You snap your gaze up to his face, cheeks flushing. “I’m not-”

“Yes, you are.” he interrupts, grinning as he finally finds something that looks halfway clean. “Don’t think I don’t notice.”

“I wasn’t staring.” you protest weakly, though you both know it’s a lie.

He’s unbuttoning his jeans now, and you realise you hadn’t even noticed, too distracted by the more sensible top half of him. The more sensitive half, too, if you’re being honest. Ugh.

He shimmies out of his jeans, and you bury your face in the pillow, groaning. But you don’t bury your face for long. Curiosity — or something far more dangerous — gets the better of you, and you glance up just in time to see him standing there in his boxers. The lamplight in the corner of his room catches on the soft angles of him, the long stretch of his legs, the slight dip of his hips, the way the waistband clings low. He’s lean but solid, just enough muscle to make him look effortlessly strong, the kind of strength that doesn’t demand to be noticed but somehow always is. His skin is pale in places where the sun hasn’t kissed it, and you swear there’s a faint flush climbing up his chest like maybe he knows you’re still watching.

Then he turns, his back to you, just like you’d done when you changed earlier. He’s not subtle about it. He bends slightly as he peels off his boxers, and you don’t mean to stare — well, not really — but his butt is right there, perfectly shaped and smooth, and for a second you think about biting it, just to see what he’d do. If the bed weren’t so comfortable, if you weren’t tucked in just so, you might’ve actually gone for it.

He knows. Of course he knows.

“Enjoying the view?” he calls over his shoulder.

“Shut up.” you mumble. You don’t look away.

He’s tugging on a clean pair of boxers now. When he turns back around, he’s grinning — softly this time. He’s caught you red-handed but doesn’t mind one bit.

You roll onto your side, pressing your face half into the pillow to hide the warmth in your cheeks. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

He laughs, that low, throaty sound that always makes you smile. He crosses the room and climbs back into bed, the mattress dipping under his weight as he settles in beside you.

“You stared, though.” he teases, turning his head to look at you.

“You undressed in front of me.” you counter, narrowing your eyes at him even though you’re smiling.

He shrugs, all nonchalance. “You started it.”

You huff, turning to face him properly, and he’s close now, close enough that you can see the way his lashes brush his cheeks when he blinks. You want to kiss him again, but you’re too tired, too comfortable, too full of something soft and sweet that makes your chest ache.

“What?” he murmurs, voice softer now.

“Nothing.” you say, shaking your head.

You’re still curled up, his shirt falling loosely around you, and when you peek at him, he’s looking at you too.

“What?” you whisper, barely audible.

“Nothing.” he murmurs back, shaking his head. But he’s still looking at you like you’re something he doesn’t quite know how to put into words.

And you think, maybe, you’re looking at him the exact same way.

“Your hair’s a mess.”

He scoffs, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, well, whose fault is that? Yours.” he says immediately, propping himself up on his elbow. “You’re the one who kept running your hands through it.”

“Because it’s always sweaty.” you shoot back, glancing at him out of the corner of your eye.

He groans, flopping onto his back beside you. “Why do you keep bringing that up?”

“Because it’s true.”

“It’s endearing.” he mumbles, like he’s convincing himself.

“It is.” you agree, and his head turns toward you, surprised. You look over at him, your expression softening. “It’s gross, but it’s cute. Like you.”

He stares at you for a second, his lips twitching like he’s trying not to smile, and then he laughs. “You’re so mean.” he says, but his voice is fond, and he’s still smiling when he turns his head back toward the ceiling.

“You like it.” you say. “Masochist.”

“Yeah.” he murmurs, almost to himself. “I do.”

It’s quiet for a while after that. His arm brushes against yours as he shifts, and you think about reaching for his hand but decide against it.

“What time is it?” you ask eventually, your voice cutting through the stillness.

He twists to glance at the clock on his nightstand, squinting. “Half past midnight.”

You groan, pressing your hands to your face. “I have class tomorrow.”

“Skip it.” he says, so casual it makes you laugh.

“You skip too much already.” you say, nudging him with your elbow.

“Yeah, but I’m not you. You’re responsible. You’ve got, like…notes and shit.”

“Notes and shit.” you echo, grinning.

He shrugs, turning onto his side to face you. “It’s a compliment. You’re smart. Like, scary smart. Sometimes I think you’re gonna realise you’re too good for me and leave.”

You blink at him, surprised by the sudden turn, and then you shake your head, rolling onto your side to face him too. “That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever said.”

“It’s true, though.”

“Alex.” you say, reaching out to brush your fingers over his knuckles where his hand rests between you. “You’re, like, my favorite person. Ever. I’m not going anywhere.”

He stares at you, trying to find the words, but then he just nods. “Good.” he murmurs.

“Good.” you repeat, smiling.

And for a while, neither of you says anything. You just lie there, the space between you warm and buzzing, and when you close your eyes, you think you could stay like this forever.

It’s quiet, the hum of the heater filling the room, and the faint rhythm of Alex’s breathing beside you is already slowing. His right arm is tucked under your waist, holding you close, while your left hand rests just beneath the curve of his chest. You can feel the rise and fall of his breaths and it’s grounding in a way that makes your eyes flutter shut.

He’s the first to doze, just like always. It’s something you’ve come to expect from him — how his tired eyes will eventually drift shut, his breathing will even out, and the little tension in his body will melt away. Sometimes, you wonder if he fakes it, just to escape the nerves that still creep up on him when you’re this close. But not tonight. Tonight, it’s all real, all soft breaths and tiny, quiet snores that have that same nasally tone as his voice.

You shift, feeling his arm tighten instinctively around you even in sleep, like his body knows to keep you near. He doesn’t move much when he sleeps — always calm, always still—but you’re restless. You can’t help it.

It starts small, just a subtle roll of your hips as you try to find a better position, but it never stops there. Halfway through the night, you turn over, your arm slipping from under his chest. Then you turn again, pulling the blanket with you, and then once more until you’re on your stomach, tangled in the sheets.

He doesn’t stir, not even when your movements tug at the arm he has slung over you. But somehow, by the time dawn starts to creep through the window, you manage to end up back where you started. It’s always a guessing game — whether you’ll wake up as you fell asleep or in some entirely different arrangement.

This time you’ve got it and you open your eyes to his face pressed into the pillow, and his hair’s a mess, sticking up in all directions. The first light of morning spills across him, catching on the curve of his cheekbone, the line of his jaw.

You sigh quietly, turning away from him because the proximity is too much. If you had easy access to his lips for a second longer, you’d cave, and you know it. But you can’t — not now, not with your morning breath making itself known. You cringe a little at the thought, pressing your face into the pillow.

Oh fuck. Do you even have a toothbrush here?

The thought nags at you for a moment, but you shove it aside. Later. You’ll figure it out later.

You settle into the sheets again, your back to him, hoping to drift off for just a little longer. But then he stirs, his arm tightening around your waist as his chest presses closer to your back. His nose nudges against the back of your neck, warm and soft, and you almost melt into the touch.

And then you feel it.

Your body goes completely still, frozen as the unmistakable pressure of him presses against you, firm and insistent. What the fuck.

Okay, yes, you’ve slept together before — slept. As in, shared a bed, tangled limbs, whispered secrets into the night. But this? This is new.

You’re no stranger to intimacy with him. You’ve done things — things that have left you breathless, aching, satisfied. You’ve seen him naked, and he’s seen you. You’ve taken him in your mouth, made him groan your name. He’s touched you, too, kissed you there, made you come undone with his tongue and fingers in ways you didn’t know were possible. Equally mutual satisfactory fulfilment.

But you haven’t done it together. Not yet. Not because you don’t want to, but because time has never been on your side. It’s always been a stolen moment here, a rushed goodbye there. Too much tension and not enough space to let it all unravel.

You bite your lip, your mind racing. He’s so close, too close, and the heat pooling between your thighs is impossible to ignore. You’re…oh, God, you’re dripping just thinking about it. But now isn’t the time — not with his parents in the room down the hall, not with him lost in his dreams, innocent in his state of unintentional desire.

You shift slightly, trying to ease the tension without waking him, but it only makes things worse. The movement causes him to press against you more firmly, and you have to bite back a whimper.

Okay, okay, breathe. Think unsexy thoughts. Math equations. Old textbooks. Your friend’s crush on her weird philosophy professor.

But none of it works when his hand tightens on your hip and his body is so warm against yours.

“Alex.” you whisper, barely audible, hoping he doesn’t wake up but also kind of hoping he does because then maybe-

No. No, not now. Later. Later, when you have more time and privacy and not the looming threat of his parents overhearing something they definitely shouldn’t.

You squeeze your eyes shut, willing your body to calm down, and after a few agonizing minutes, you feel his grip slacken, his body relaxing again. His breathing evens out and he’s still fast asleep. You exhale shakily, trying to steady yourself, and then close your eyes again, determined to fall back into some semblance of rest.

Later, you tell yourself again. And God, you hope later comes soon.

But later seems to be now because before you can settle yourself, you feel it — him, again. His hips shift behind you, pressing insistently against you, the heat and firmness of him unmistakable. He’s…rutting into you.

Your breath catches, heart racing, and you think, No. He has to still be asleep. Right?

The soft, steady rhythm of his snores continues, only confirming it. And then they falter, turning into a deep, rough cough that rattles through his chest. He stirs, pulling back from you just enough to stretch, his arm leaving your waist. You can hear his joints pop as he yawns, long and loud.

You don’t dare move, still frozen, thighs pressed tightly together in an effort to keep your body from betraying you.

He turns toward you, his eyes heavy-lidded and his hair sticking up in every direction, but there’s no mistaking it: he’s awake now. And yet, the duvet is still covering him from the waist down, doing nothing to hide the outline of him. Oh, he’s very much awake.

“Morning.” he whispers, his voice deep and scratchy, rough from sleep.

“Morning.” you manage, though it comes out quieter, tighter.

He doesn’t seem to notice, instead rolling onto his back and stretching again. You take the opportunity to lean over, pressing your face into the spot between his arm and chest. The crook of his armpit, warm and soft, the place where his skin smells the most like him. You inhale deeply, savoring the scent of him, that mix of sweat and soap and something you can’t describe but is so unmistakably Alex.

He huffs a laugh, looking down at you as you nuzzle into him like a cat. “You weirdo.” he murmurs, his hand lazily brushing over your back.

You’re too caught up in the warmth of him, in the way your nose fits perfectly there, in how his skin feels against yours even through the thin fabric of his shirt to respond.

He shifts again, turning onto his side and pulling you with him, his arm draping over your waist. His thigh hitches over your hip, pulling you closer, and it’s only then that you feel him again.

Pressed against you, hard and obvious, and he doesn’t even realise it. You hold your breath as he rubs against you, slow and absentminded, his body moving on instinct alone. It’s clear his brain hasn’t caught up yet. He’s still in that hazy space between sleep and waking, where dreams and reality blur together.

But you are fully aware. Too aware. Every nerve in your body is alight, and the ache between your thighs is impossible to ignore.

“Alex.” you whisper, your voice trembling just enough to give you away.

He hums in response, his nose brushing against your shoulder as he pulls you even closer. His hand rests on your hip, his thumb stroking idly over the fabric of his shirt that you’re wearing, and he presses against you again.

Your resolve is hanging by a thread, your body screaming for you to move, to push back, to let this moment become what it so desperately wants to be.

But his breathing evens out again, and his lips brush your shoulder in a subconscious kiss, soft and lazy.

“Alex.” you say again, a little louder this time, and his eyes finally flutter open, the hazy warmth in them clearing as his mind catches up to his body.

“Oh, fuck.” he mutters, his cheeks flushing as he freezes, his hand still on your hip. “Oh, fuck.” he mutters again, louder this time, his face going beet red as he pulls back the covers to confirm what he already knows.

And yep, there it is. His hard-on, unapologetic and obvious, tenting his boxers in a way that would’ve been funny if he weren’t so mortified.

“Shit.” he hisses, scrambling to cover himself again. He turns away from you in his panic, rolling onto his stomach like that’ll fix it.

It doesn’t.

As soon as his hips hit the mattress, he lets out a strangled noise, his face scrunching in pain.

“Fuck- ow-” He twists awkwardly, trying to lift his hips off the bed, his voice breaking into a groan as he clutches the duvet beneath him.

You can’t help it — you laugh. It’s not a mean laugh, more like a surprised, delighted giggle that bubbles out before you can stop it. “Alex.” you manage, caught somewhere between concern and amusement.

He’s still half-buried in the mattress, his arms bracing against the bed, trying to hold himself up without putting pressure on his…situation. “Don’t.” he grumbles, his voice muffled. “Don’t laugh at me.”

“I’m not.” you lie, even as your shoulders shake with barely contained laughter. “Come here, you idiot.”

He groans again but finally relents, pushing himself off the mattress and turning back to you, his face still flushed. He flops into your arms like he’s seeking refuge, burying his head in your neck and mumbling something unintelligible against your skin.

“What was that?” you ask, still grinning as you wrap your arms around him, pulling him close.

“I said, I’m never waking up again.”

“Oh, sure.” you tease, running your fingers through his hair. “That’ll fix everything.”

He groans again, his hand resting on your waist as he tries to melt into you. Maybe if he stays there long enough he’ll just disappear.

You lean back slightly, tilting your head to look at him, and you can’t help but smile at the way his eyes are squeezed shut, his nose scrunched in embarrassment. “Good morning.”

He finally cracks one eye open. “Good morning.” he mutters back, his lips twitching like he’s fighting a smile of his own. “Sorry,” he whispers, “didn’t- didn’t mean to-”

“It’s fine.” you cut him off. And it is. Fine. More than fine, actually. But you don’t say that part.

He hangs awkwardly next to you, hovering just far enough away that it doesn’t touch you, his arm still draped over your waist but with a noticeable gap now. You can feel the tension, the way he’s holding himself stiffly to keep his hips from brushing against yours like that’ll make the situation less obvious.

“Were you dreaming?” you ask.

He shakes his head, face still tucked into your neck. “Nah.”

“Then?”

There’s a pause, and then he giggles, this soft, boyish sound and it makes your heart flip. “Think the knowledge of you half-naked in my bed was enough.”

You laugh softly, your chest warming at his honesty. “Dirty boy.”

He grins, his confidence peeking through despite the blush still dusting his cheeks. “Yeah, well, you’re the one wearing my shirt and no pants, so…”

You can feel his gaze on you, lingering where the hem of his shirt just barely skims the tops of your thighs as you press them together, suddenly hyper-aware of the dampness pooling between them. “It’s comfortable.” you mumble.

He hums, his hand brushing over your hip. “Yeah.” he says, almost distractedly. “Looks good on you, though.”

Your leg brushes against his. He tenses. He’s still trying so hard to keep his distance, and it’s endearing in a way that makes you want to push him just a little. “You’re really embarrassed, huh?”

You glance up at him, catching the way his eyes flicker to yours before darting back down again. He’s trying so hard not to stare, not to make it obvious how much he wants you right now, but the flush creeping up his neck and the way he’s nervously biting the inside of his cheek gives him away.

“Maybe.” he mutters, his voice muffled. “It’s a little hard to be suave when you wake up like this.”

“Who said anything about suave?” You drag your fingers lightly down the back of his neck, feeling the slight shiver that runs through him. “You’re cute when you’re flustered.”

“Don’t.” he groans.

“Don’t what?” you ask, feigning innocence as your fingers trail lower, grazing his back.

“Don’t- ugh- don’t mess with me.”

“I’m not messing with you.” you say softly, your hand sliding lower until it rests on his hip, dangerously close to the duvet-covered evidence of exactly how not fine he is. “You’re the one who woke up like this.”

“Yeah, well…” He trails off, biting his lip as he glances down. “Thought you said it was fine.”

“It is.” Your hand moves just a little higher, brushing against his stomach, and he exhales sharply.

“You’re playing with fire.” he warns, though it’s half-hearted at best, his hips twitching involuntarily toward your touch.

You shift closer, your lips brushing his jaw as your hand moves lower, skimming over the waistband of his boxers. “Maybe I want to get burned.”

His breath stutters and he doesn’t move, just staring at you like he’s trying to figure out if you’re serious. Then his hand moves, sliding down your side and over your hip, his fingers brushing the edge of your panties.

“Al…” you say, your voice barely above a whisper, and he looks up at you, his lips parting like he’s about to respond. But he doesn’t get the chance.

Your hand trails down.

“Wait-” he stammers, his own flying to catch yours, though he doesn’t actually stop you.

“Wait for what?”

His breath catches again, and his hips shift, pressing against your hand. You can feel him, hard and insistent beneath the thin fabric, and it sends a thrill through you.

His hand moves too, hesitant, his fingers brushing over your thigh before creeping higher. They hover between your legs, just barely grazing. You can feel his breath against your neck, shaky and shallow, before his fingers dip lower.

When he touches you — just barely, a featherlight graze over the damp fabric — you shudder, your thighs twitching.

“Shit.” he breathes, his voice low and strained.

And then he freezes.

“Oh, my God.” he mutters, his eyes snapping open as his hand flies back to your hip.

“What?”

“You’re…” He trails off, his eyes flickering down, and you realise what he means. He felt it — the wet patch on your panties where they’ve been soaked through. “You’re so wet.” he whispers, almost like he doesn’t mean to say it out loud.

You shrug, your cheeks burning even as you try to play it off. “Well, you’re hard.”

“Don’t say that.” he mumbles, his voice muffled against your skin.

“Why not?” you tease, your hand trailing back up to rest on his chest. “It’s true.”

He doesn’t respond, just lets out a low, frustrated laugh before finally meeting your eyes again. Pupils dark and blown wide, and there’s a quiet, unspoken question in them.

“Alex.” you say softly, your hand sliding up to cup his cheek.

“Yeah?”

“Stop overthinking.”

And with that, you lean in, pressing your lips to his in a kiss that’s slow and sweet and just a little bit desperate. Your hands splay against his chest as you settle over him, his erection pressing against you in a way that makes your whole body flush.

“Still embarrassed?” It comes out breathier than you intended.

His hands find your thighs, sliding up and under the hem of his shirt that you’re still wearing. “Shut up.” he mutters.

“Make me.”

“I can do that.” he says, and then he dips forward, capturing your lips with his.

A tender slide of mouths that sends butterflies spiraling through your chest, all teeth and tongues and the kind of frantic energy that makes your heart pound so hard it’s all you can hear. But when you press down — accidentally, just slightly — and brush against him just so, you both gasp into it.

It’s instinctive, the way you press into him, your body seeking friction and finding it. The pressure so delicious. A steady drag of him against you. His hands tighten on your waist, guiding you as you move, and when your lips break apart, it’s only because you need air.

When you’re not kissing him, you’re biting his lip, tugging at it just enough to make him gasp. And when you’re not biting his lip, you’re biting your own, trying to keep quiet because you’re all too aware of the thin walls.

But it’s hard to stay quiet when every roll of your hips sends a new wave of heat pooling low in your belly, and the sound of his breathing makes you want to give in completely.

“Fuck.” he mutters, and the way he looks at you — lips swollen, hair messy, cheeks flushed — makes you want to ruin him.

You lean down, capturing his lips again. And then you press down just a little harder, the angle shifting just enough to hit just right.

It’s game over.

“Can I?” he asks, barely above a whisper. His hand hovers at your hip, thumb grazing the edge of your panties. The intention is clear: more, baby, give me more, I need more.

You nod. That’s all he needs.

His hand trembles slightly as he moves it lower, brushing over the curve of your thigh before tugging at the fabric, fumbling as he tries to pull it down. You lift your hips to help him, the movement brushing you against him again, and he groans low in his throat, his breath shaky as he finally gets the panties down far enough to push them aside.

Then he pauses. “You’re sure?” he asks, his voice cracking just a little.

You nod again, more emphatically this time. “Yes,” you murmur, your hands sliding up his chest, under his shirt, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath your palms. “Yes, Alex.”

It’s enough.

He fumbles again as he reaches for himself, pushing his boxers down with a little too much force, and his dick springs free, flushed and hard and — oh god — so close. It would almost be funny, the way he struggles to get the fabric out of the way, but it’s not. It’s really, really not, because all you can think about is how much you want him.

So bad.

His breath catches as he looks down at you, his hand wrapping around himself almost instinctively, and you feel your whole body tighten at the sight.

“You’re so-” He cuts himself off, shaking his head like he can’t even find the words, his free hand sliding up to cup your face. “I want you.” he says, his voice raw, his thumb brushing over your cheek. “So much.”

You press your forehead to his, your hands gripping his shoulders as you whisper, “Then take me.”

“Okay.” His breath stutters, his eyes squeezing shut for a moment before he shifts, guiding himself to you. He hesitates, just for a second, lips brushing yours as he whispers, “Tell me if-”

“I will.”

And then he pushes forward, just barely, and you gasp, your nails digging into his shoulders as he fills you slowly, carefully, like he’s afraid of hurting you.

“Oh, fuck.” he breathes, his voice trembling, holding himself back, trying to stay in control. He groans as he sinks deeper.

And then he’s finally there, fully there, and you both pause, your breaths mingling as you adjust to the feeling, the weight, the sheer intimacy of it all.

It’s everything. It’s too much. It’s not enough.

And then he moves.

“Fuck, that feels so good.” he whispers, the words spilling out of him unguarded, and you can’t help the quiet sound that escapes your throat, a soft, needy confirmation that yes — yes, it feels so good.

You shift your hips against him, slow and deliberate, so slow that anyone watching wouldn’t even know you’re moving. But inside, he’s shifting with every tiny motion, and the stretch, the fullness — it’s overwhelming. He’s so big, and every inch of him feels like it was made to fit you, and you’re not sure how you’ve gone this long without knowing this feeling.

“Wait.” he says suddenly, his hands gripping your hips to still you.

You stop immediately, your lips parted, your teeth catching on your bottom lip as you remember how undone you must look. Your hair is a mess, sticking out in every direction from the night before, and you’re sure there are still traces of sleep in the corners of your eyes. It hits like a bucket of cold water, and you want to disappear, to bury your face in his pillow and hide from the thought that he might see you like this and regret everything. But he doesn’t pull away. He leans in, pressing a soft kiss to your cheek, an apology written in the tenderness of it.

“Don’t.” he murmurs, and it’s like he can see the insecurity blooming in your mind. And then it hits you — he’s inside you. His body is wrapped around yours, his hands holding you like you’re the most precious thing in the world. It’s far too late for him to find you repulsive.

You exhale shakily, relaxing into his touch just as he says, “We didn’t- I didn’t put on a- a…” He stumbles over the words, his face flushing as he looks up at you.

“A rubber?” you offer.

“Yeah. Fuck.” he mutters, his hand running through his already-messy hair.

You know you should care. You should be concerned, should pull away and figure it out. But the thought barely registers, drowned out by the heat pooling low and the way he’s looking at you, all flushed cheeks and wide eyes and breathless uncertainty.

“Alex.” you whisper, and he looks up at you like you’ve just spoken the most important word in the world. You lean down, your lips brushing his, and kiss him softly, slowly, until you feel the tension melt from his body, his lips moving against yours like he’s already forgotten the interruption.

“Fuck it.” he breathes against your mouth, low and desperate, and you can feel the smile tugging at his lips as you press your forehead to his.

“Fuck it.” you agree, and the moment you start moving again, the rest of the world disappears.

It’s soft. It’s lazy. Not so lazy that it doesn’t feel good — because it does. It feels too good. Like, you-know-will-ruin-you kinda good. The kind of good that turns your world upside down and leaves you wondering how you’ll ever survive without it again. And it’s not just the way he’s touching you or the way he fits inside you. It’s the way he looks at you. It’s dangerous, this feeling. You can already sense it sinking into your bones, settling deep in your veins, and you fear you’ll never get it out. How are you supposed to pull away from him when it feels like this?

“God,” he breathes, his voice wrecked, “you’re perfect.” He laughs softly before he says “Can’t believe we waited this long.”

“Worth it.”

“Yeah.” he agrees, his hands sliding up to cradle your face. “Yeah, you’re worth it.”

So honest, so sure that it has you pressing closer, your body trembling as the pleasure builds slowly, steadily, until it feels like it’s wrapping around you, pulling you under.

“Alex.” you whisper, and his eyes lock onto yours, dark and full of something that feels so much bigger than the two of you.

“I’ve got you.” he says, his voice steady despite the tremor in his hands. “I’ve got you, babe.”

It’s so much. There’s so much of him — his length, his heat, the way his hip bones graze yours with every thrust. Each motion feels impossibly intimate, like he’s carving himself into you, piece by piece, and you can’t help the way your fingers dig into his chest, searching for something to hold onto.

“Takin’ me so well.” he whispers, a secret meant only for you.

The words make you whimper, a soft, broken sound that you wish could say everything you’re feeling. But it’s not enough, and you almost feel bad that you can’t muster anything more coherent in return. You hope he understands. You hope the way you’re falling apart over him — every little gasp, every shudder, every desperate press of your hips — tells him he’s doing good. Tells him he’s doing everything right.

“God, love.” he breathes. His movements are still slow, but there’s more purpose now, more urgency, like he’s teetering on the edge and holding back just for you. “Feel so good. So fuckin’ good.”

He’s hitting that perfect spot inside you that has you seeing stars and your body’s giving in. He’s pulling you down so your chest is flush with his, and his lips find your neck, brushing kisses along your skin that make you shiver. You can feel him twitching inside you, every little pulse. He’s losing control, you can tell, and it’s making you lose it right along with him.

“Fuck-” he groans, his voice breaking, “I’m- I’m close. So close. Really close.” His head tilts back against the pillow, his mouth open as he gasps for air, and it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. He’s a mess beneath you, and it’s everything you’ve ever wanted. “I- how do I- tell me what to-”

You know what he’s asking. He wants to make you fall apart, just like he is, but his brain is too scrambled to figure out how. Your hand moves instinctively, grabbing his wrist and guiding it between your legs.

“Here.” you whisper, pressing his fingers where you need them. “Just- like this.”

He gets it. He gets it so right. The circles he’s drawing are perfect, the pressure just enough to have you keening softly as your thighs begin to tremble.

“That’s it.” he says.

You’re shaking now, your body so tense you feel like you might break apart. His hand keeps working between you, his cock throbbing inside you with every desperate thrust, and you’re so gone. There’s no other way to describe it. You’re gone for him, gone because of him, gone with him. White-hot and all-consuming. Your walls clamp down around him, and he chokes out a curse, his hips faltering as he tries to keep moving through the vice grip.

“Fuck- fuck.” he groans, his eyes squeezing shut, his face scrunching up like he’s in pain. “You’re- oh, my god, love, I’m- I’m gonna-”

He’s fighting it. But you’re still pulsing around him, your body shaking with the aftershocks, and it’s too much for him. “I need to-” he stammers, his breath catching as he pulls out.

The sudden emptiness makes you whimper, and you glance down just in time to see him. He’s slick and flushed, his cock impossibly hard and glistening from you, and the moment the cool air touches him, he gasps. He strokes tightly, quickly, his fist sliding over the slickness you’ve left behind.

“Oh-” His free hand clutches at the sheets, his hips bucking up into his own grip. You’re transfixed.

It only takes a few strokes before he’s gone, a choked moan spilling from his lips as his body tenses. His cock jerks in his hand, and he comes hard, painting his covered chest with thick, messy ropes that glisten in the soft morning light. He keeps stroking himself through it, his thighs trembling beneath you. You can’t help but reach out, your fingers brushing over the sticky mess he’s made. He groans at the touch, his hand falling away as he finally collapses against the bed, utterly spent.

“Holy fuck.” he whispers. There’s a flush high on his cheeks, and his chest is still heaving as he tries to catch his breath. You collapse against him, your face buried in his neck, and he’s still gasping.

“Yeah.” you giggle, and he laughs too.

It’s messy, it’s clumsy, it’s perfect.

You stay draped over him, your cheek pressed against his collarbone as his arms lazily wrap around you. You just want to stay like this — floating in the quiet of the morning, the hum of his breath against your temple.

After a few moments, he huffs a soft laugh, his chest rising beneath you.

“What?” you ask, your voice muffled against his skin.

“Just…y’know. That.” he says. “Wasn’t exactly how I imagined it’d go, but-”

“Oh, shut up.” you say, swatting at his chest, and he winces dramatically.

“Careful.” he teases. “Still recovering here. You wore me out.”

You roll your eyes, but you’re smiling. Neither of you mentions the obvious — what just happened, the closeness of it, how real it all feels. It’s not awkward, though. Just…warm.

“God, you’re heavy.” he murmurs, teasing, his voice still soft with the afterglow.

“Shut up.” you mutter, lips brushing against the curve of his neck. “You’re sticky.”

There’s a comfortable silence for a beat, the two of you just basking in each other. It’s peaceful, or it would be if Alex weren’t incapable of keeping still for longer than thirty seconds. He shifts, testing the waters, and then — suddenly — he’s twisting you both around, flipping you onto your back as he props himself up on his elbows above you.

“Alex!” you squeak. “What the hell-”

His laugh is bright, filling the room as he nuzzles his face into your shoulder. “Oh my God.” he says, dragging the words out as if he’s just had the greatest epiphany of his life. “You’re mine. I’ve got you. Right here. In. My. Bed.”

“Alex.” you hiss, trying to keep your voice down as you squirm under him. “Shut up! What if-”

He cuts you off with a kiss to your forehead, his grin so wide it’s getting infectious. “What if my parents hear?” he finishes for you.

“Yes, exactly!”

“They won’t.” He pulls back, still grinning like a madman. “They’re not even here. They leave for work early, remember?”

You blink at him, momentarily stunned. “Oh.”

“Oh.” he mimics, laughing again. “We’re free, baby. Just you, me, and this very comfortable bed.”

You groan, slapping his arm. “You couldn’t have told me that before?”

“Before what?”

“You know what.” you huff, trying to look annoyed but failing miserably because he’s looking at you like that.

He props his chin on your chest, right between that valley of breasts. “Not talking about it, are we?”

“Talking about what?” You blink, all mock innocence, and you roll your eyes.

“You know what.” His grin widens, and for a second, you think he’s going to say something ridiculous but he stays quiet.

“Maybe later.” you murmur, and he hums in agreement.

“Relax, love.” he says, his voice dropping to something softer, gentler. “We’re good. Promise.”

You narrow your eyes at him, but his smile is too infectious, and eventually, you find yourself smiling back.

“You’re lucky you’re cute.” you grumble, and he laughs, leaning down to press a kiss to the tip of your nose.

“I know.”

a/n: This somehow went on so long but it feels very fast paced to me? I like it though. I think it turned out cute. I think I really want him. Based on this request.

#i love this sososososo much #i missed fetus al

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aacheinthejaw · 6 days ago

Photo

The Dream Synopsis - Terminal 5, NYC - 8/2/16 don’t repost without permission! (idk why u would but)

#he was born to play juliet

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aacheinthejaw · 8 days ago

Text

yesterday still leaking through the roof

what comes after the storm

warnings: angst, smut, fluff, blowie, piv, cream filling (ew, i hate that i wrote it like that), etc.

word count: 4.3k

The air was bitter. You're not sure you ever felt anything as bitter before. The air was cold and your shoulder was too. In fact, both you and Alex's shoulders were cold toward one another.

The night before had been rough—a jumbled pile of words. You ripped at one another, tore one another down, pulled each other apart, and then went to bed. After your restless sleep, where you awoke before him, you had little idea what to do next. The argument was so long and about so much that by the end you weren't even sure what you were fighting over anymore you were just fighting.

You had gotten out of bed and made coffee. Part of you wanted to be spiteful and only make enough for yourself, but you left some for him. You took your mug over to the couch and turned on the TV to a quiet volume, not that you were listening anyway, you were just thinking. It was a cluttered confusion, a mix of rehashing the night before and what you would say to him when he woke up.

You took small sips and waited. Then, he walked out, rubbing his eyes and pulling at his sweatpants. His feet were covered in the fuzzy socks that you got him for Christmas last year. He didn't look for you but he stopped at the coffee pot and seemed to notice you had left some for him. An olive branch you'd hope he'd take.

You hoped he'd speak first because even with all this extra time on your hands, you have little idea of what to say to him. He pads around the kitchen for a while, slowly pouring his coffee and looking around for something to eat. He grabs a banana, peels it, and eats it at the kitchen counter.

The gap between you two feels wider than just the distance from the couch to the kitchen counter. It feels like two different universes and you never felt that way with Alex, never in this house. A house that feels so warm, even when it's freezing and the heat isn't on.

He throws the banana peel away and picks up his coffee. He walks at a turtle speed like he's trying to decide which direction he should go in. You watch his feet, covered in that soft fuzz. They're headed toward you.

Alex sits down on the couch with a sigh. He takes a sip of his coffee. You look at him staring straight ahead at the TV as if you were a ghost, completely non-existent in this room. "What's on?" He asks, gesturing toward the television.

"I don't know." You could be saying it about everything you're feeling right now, all those feelings lingering in the room. You can't tell if his question is his version of an olive branch or if last night wasn't as big of a deal to him as it was to you. But you know that isn't true because he yelled so unlike himself last night. He was mad. You were mad. The house was mad. Everything felt like it was falling apart and now you're both just lying in the rubble, unsure what to do with this mess.

But you love this mess, even with all the wreckage. You look at him, his brown eyes staring directly away from you like he can't bear to see your eyes. He once said your eyes made him fall to pieces. He couldn't concentrate when looking into them because he couldn't do anything but look into them. It was such an emotional description from a man, unlike anything you had ever heard before. It had made sense to you before because you felt it when he looked at you. This overwhelming, unbearable feeling beating through your chest. Now, it weighs heavy, an anchor pulling your heart down to your stomach.

His eyes flick down to his coffee mug. You follow his line of vision. His finger traces around the circumference of the mug. It's the one that your dad gave him. It was dumb and dorky, the kind of gift a dad would get when he has no idea what to get someone, and it says "Let it Tea" on it because Alex is a musician and Alex is British. You laughed at it but Alex loved it. After he got it he rather emotionally told you that he loved it because it made him feel like he was a part of the family. He drinks out of it every morning.

"I don't know what to say," you tell him. "I've sat here for over an hour and I don't know what to say, Al."

He nods. His eyes were downcast, stuck in thought, looking for the answers in the cloud in his coffee. "Neither do I." He brought the mug up to his lips, sipping out of it slowly.

You place your empty mug on the coffee table and turn the TV off, not needing the murmur of it in the background. "You won't even look at me." You felt like he might never look at you again, not completely, not directly in the eyes with all that loving sincerity he holds toward you. The last time he looked at you it was bitter. It was hurtful and mean and sorrowful. Nothing about it felt like love.

He put his mug down and rubbed his hand over his face and hair as if he were trying to scrub everything away and uncover the truth somewhere inside him. "Do you want me to look at you?" You wonder if he asks because he knows the way he looks will be the same as last night and nothing has changed for him. It all still hurts.

"Yeah," you say because, even if it's painful, you'll know how he feels. It's terrifying that you have to question it.

He moves slowly, everything methodically as he lifts himself up and Alex's eyes finally meet yours. They're not bitter, but they're not loving either. They're something else: unreadable. "I'm done fighting," he announces. "I don't like it."

"Neither do I." He snickers at this, which is fair enough. You were the one who started the fight, but he was the one who kept dragging it out, who kept coming up with more reasons to stay up and fight for another hour. "Are you trying to start a fight now?" You snap at him.

He quiets himself and nods a potential apology. He leans back against the couch and crosses his arms. "I'm tired," he says, scrubbing away at his left eye.

You lean back too, slouching down into the cushions, tugging the blanket up to your chin. "Me too."

He places his hand on your shoulder, startling you. Your body grows goosebumps. You feel a rash grow underneath his handprint. "Go back to bed."

You shake your head. "No. I've been up for too long. I'm thinking too much."

"About what?" His face has changed. To the unfamiliar eye, his face looks neutral, but to you—the one who knows each pattern inside and out—he's frowning. You know each other through and through, crawled around in the muck together, and bathed in the sun, yet, at this moment it feels like he might not know you at all. Like it's your first fight all over again. This feels like it has ripped you apart but you don't want it to tear the two of you apart. His face drowns in the worry that you might think that.

You lay your head on his hand, turning your head to give a kiss to the back of his hand. It's a sacred imprint, designed to burn itself into his skin. "Like I've messed everything up."

He shakes his head. "Not everything."

His denial isn't full coverage. You know yourself that you can't deny blame for some of last night's words. You laugh, "Alright then almost everything."

Alex leans closer down to you. His head rests on the back of the couch beside you. Still, the only part of you that he touches is your shoulder on his hand with your cheek resting against him. It feels like holding heaven in the palm of your hand. He furrows his brow, squinting with worry that he might squish it between his fingers.

He hums. Everything is so close but so far. His lips smack together in a cruel form of temptation. He painfully smiles as if you're twisting a knife inside him. "I love you." It's simple. It's always been. It isn't your shared touch that keeps you connected, it's that love balancing on a string in between you too. Like the man on the wire crossing back and forth from each of you.

You close your eyes. You breathe to take in the words, smelling the bitterness melting if only enough to thaw the space between you and him. "I love you too," you whisper back. Because that'll never fade. You can yell and bitch and fight to the death with one another but that'll be the only thing that'll remain when you both go.

He sighs, releasing a weight from the depths of him. His hand lifts, rubbing against your cheek with a tenderness that would make even the coldest of people crack open and cry. "We're not going to fight anymore," he vows.

You laugh because it's wishful thinking. You love each other so much that's why you'll fight. "Yeah, right," you remark.

He chuckles, one "Ha" at a time, his chest rising slightly. "At least not today. I don't want to do it today."

You nod in agreement. Your head turns to kiss the palm of his hand. Your fingers wrap around the wrist, holding his hand to your chest. "What do you want to do today?" It's salacious as you move his hand to hover above your nipple, tempting him to squeeze your breast.

"Aren't you tired?" He asks as he comes closer and closer. You shake your head with a smile. "Too cold?" You shake again. He inches closer. "Too angry?" You shake again. He inches closer. "Too hungry?" You shake again. He inches closer. "Too tired?"

"You already said—" His lips are the finest feeling of them all. It makes you understand why lips were invented, solely for his to touch yours. It's divine. His hand comes back to your cheek and he holds it tight, desperate to keep a hold of you and never let go. There would never be a reason to let go of this.

His body overtakes you, covering you, consuming you. His hands move down, smoothing down your body like you're a stick of butter melting in his hands. He grips the sides of you, squeezing your hips. You wrap your legs around him, pushing him into you. You'd absorb him if you could, take him into you, and force him to stay there forever, not that he'd mind one bit.

He pushes his arms under you, stuffing them in the space between your back and the couch cushions. He raises you up gradually like this is a ballet and you've died in his arms. He kneels on the couch as you wrap your arms around his neck. He places one foot on the floor before fully lifting you. It's far more romantic-seeming than when you usually have sex but every time his body meets yours it is romantic.

The air around you is freezing but his body against your skin is the bonfire that keeps you alive. Alex moves quickly to escape the cold air. He lays you onto your unmade bed, covering you once more.

Even though the temperature gives you frostbite, you break away from kissing him to take his shirt off before taking off your own. This captures him even more. His eyes are dark and glazed staring down at your breasts. Your nipples are hard from the cold air and his dick is hard. It's easy to tell through his sweatpants.

He doesn't move his mouth to your boobs right away, instead taking a bite out of your neck. His hands, which are somehow warm, move up from your waist, scratching along your ribcage before squeezing your boob in his hand. The surprise when he takes your nipple in between his fingers makes you moan and you feel him smile against your neck.

"See. I know how to make it up to you," he says. He tends to get really cocky during sex. Every sound that ripples out of you helps him stand up straight and spurs him on to get more of those sounds out of your lips. You don't mind, in fact, it probably turns you on more. Not that you'd ever tell him that.

You shush him and take to running your fingers through his hair. He moves his mouth down, stopping momentarily to kiss your collarbone twice before his lips land on your other breast. He likes this the most because he says he can't do it in public, which you still find funny because he can't do a lot of things to you in public, but he reasons he can grab your ass in public and no one will care, well, except your mother, who caught him grabbing your ass one time. She didn't care either but Alex was mortified by it.

"Al," you say. He hums against your areola. "I'm cold."

He lifts himself, looking dazed as if he was hypnotized by your breasts. "Get under the covers, love."

You sit up, crawling upward to the head of the bed. He takes the opportunity to slap your ass because it's right there, still covered in your pajama bottoms and you know he can't resist. You don't even deem a glance back at him, rolling your eyes as you pull the blanket down.

"Take your pants off first," he instructs.

You smile as you sit up against the headboard and pull the blankets over your lap. He stands with his hands on his hips at the foot of the bed. "You take your pants off first," you counter.

Alex slaps his forehead. "Oh, no, another argument!" He's so dramatic but can't play the role to save his life, already breaking character to chuckle to himself.

"Shut up," you say as you reach down to your waistband and pull both your bottoms and your underwear off. He catches a glimpse of your underwear as you toss the clothes off the side of the bed, but you hide your valuables under the blanket.

In one swipe, he takes his sweatpants off before tackling you at the top of the bed. The blanket separates you as he begins to kiss you again. "Get under," you tell him, lifting the blanket on his side of the bed.

He rolls over, tucking himself in. You lay side-by-side until he situates himself before you move over to lay on top of him. "Hi," he says as he pets your hair down on your head.

You kiss his bare chest, starting at his throat and working your way down the column of him, stopping briefly at the sternum, checking in on his pecks, before riding down his stomach and stopping to lift the blanket behind you. You cover both you and his dick to allow some precious alone time.

"Oh, come on," he says, "I want to see you do it."

You hold the blanket down to prevent him from lifting it. You touch his shaft and he shivers under the touch of your cold hands. "Sorry."

"No, no, feels good," he promises. He's always had a desire for painful pleasure. He won't say it flat-out but he likes the torturous feeling when you leave him waiting, when you turn him on and refuse further release, when he suffers all day. He could very well relieve himself but he chooses not to because it doesn't feel as good as this. Nothing comes close to the payoff.

You kiss the head and slide your tongue back and forth over to slit, something that makes him tense up. You cover the head with your mouth and suck on it making him breathe through his teeth. You cover him with your hands, rounding the palm, making love to just the top part of his dick.

"I feel like I'm a teenager again," he says with a slight laugh to his tone.

"Why?" You ask.

"Because you're hiding on the blanket," he says, tapping the top of your head softly over the covers. "I feel like we're playing it safe in case my mum walks into the room. Guess we should've done this last time we were at my parents' place."

You let go of him and peek out from the covers, only revealing your face. "We said we're never going to talk about that again."

He lifts his hands up in defense. "Sorry, sorry." But he's laughing, so amused by how much it gets under your skin. It gets under his skin too, freaks him out that the last time you visited his parents his mum walked in on you topless on top of her son. You thank god every day that you weren't completely in the throes of sex yet, just on your way to getting there.

Alex reaches out to touch your cheek but you go back into your blanket cave, returning to your holy grail. You touch him and quickly take him into your mouth. It takes Alex off-guard. It makes him moan. Loudly. You smile into his dick. You push down to reach the bottom of him, to rub your nose along the skin of his pelvis. He's so lovely.

You can hear him scrunch his hands on the sheets of the bed. This would usually be the part during the blowjob where he would take ahold of your hair but he can't do that and now he's desperate to find something else to grip onto, to keep him from floating away.

You remove your mouth from him with a pop. You run your hand up and down his junk before he says, "Get on top of me now. Please." It's said in despair, so deeply in need of that release that it's hurting him inside. "Come on out now."

His hand snakes under the blankets and grabs your arm, pulling you up out of the covers. You crawl upward to meet his lips, kissing him briefly if only to give him a small taste of himself. "Do you want me to be on top?" He asks because this is about you too, even if he's about to burst inside, he feels shameful for not giving you the same pleasure.

You'd like to please him too but the blowjob was your groveling and maybe having him be on top and do all the work will be his groveling. You nod and flip off of him onto your back. He joins you soon after, trying his best at foreplay, even if it's rushed as he kisses your neck and runs his cock through your folds.

But then he makes it slow, sliding into you at just the right speed to both savour it and want to claw him alive. You put your hands on his back and slide them over his shoulders to pull him in closer, bringing him to you, bringing him into you. You want this all the time. "I've decided," you say.

"Decided what?" He asks you, a moan tipping off the end of his sentence as he reaches the bottom of you. He tucks his head into your neck to hold onto some of this comfort because you're not sure either of you will ever feel this warm again.

"We're going to live like this," you say as you kiss the top of his head. You love him like this. When he curls up to you like this and isn't afraid to feel small. He told you once he liked the feeling of you holding him, of breathing in your perfume after a whole day of wearing it and falling asleep, forgetting about anything else. It tends to happen when he's out all day and just makes it home in time before you turn off all the lights with the exception of the living room lamp, which you always leave on for him. You said to him it means I love you just in a different language.

He chuckles into you. "With me inside you?"

"Yeah," you smile, biting your lip and trying to hide it, even though there is no one else here to see it. "Isn't it the best feeling in the world?"

You know he's smiling as he kisses one small kiss on the side of your neck. "I think so. Who wouldn't want to be this close to you?" He lifts his head to look down at you. He looks so clearly into your eyes that you almost think he's X-raying you.

You laugh. "A lot of people. But that's why it's only for you." You tap the tip of his nose and he squishes it up, carving a million lines into it. He's the cutest thing ever and you think you might die right here, underneath him in the most glorious way a person can go.

"Only for me," he says to himself like some comforting mantra. It helps a lot after the words said the night before. This is an assured thing no matter what you hurl at one another, there's no leaving this behind.

Alex drops his head back down and you sigh because it's so nice but impatience is growing. "Al." He hums. "Can you fuck me now and do that later?"

He laughs, rather boisterously. His hips buck slightly as he's so turned on by the vulgarity you’re spewing. He lifts himself, towering over you. "Alright, missy."

He begins to thrust in your established rhythm, one you set in stone many fuckings ago. It's perfect because he knows exactly how to start, exactly how to spur you on, and have you clinging for more.

You circle your arms around his neck and pull him closer for body heat. You moan up to his ear and cause him to buck harder, always hitting the right spot. He's got it down so good it's a science and it kind of blows your mind how good you both are at this. Sex was never hard and you had experienced some bad sex in your lifetime, especially right before you met him. You once asked him if it was weird that the first time you knew you'd spend the rest of your life with him was when he made you come. He said no because he knows he's just that good in bed. You rolled your eyes and he became serious and said that's when he felt it too because nothing could ever be better than this.

He pushes further, quickening the pace. You can tell he wants this to last longer but he's so eager for that release. So, you command him, "Harder."

And when he says, "Fuck" in return, you can tell you picked the right path. It's not rough but it isn't gentle lovemaking. It's about release now for both of you. He knows exactly what's right as he slides his hand down in between and plays you just right, moving his fingers along your clit.

You moan again and he groans. It's close. Everything is close. He does everything to make you tense up and let go first because that's the way he likes it. He pinches your clit in between his fingers and you never thought that would feel so pleasurable until he did it and you were throwing your head back and coming.

That's right around when he grunts and decides he's had enough for himself and he lets go, emptying into you. He pants and drops his head back into the crook of your neck. "I love doing that," Alex says.

You giggle and drop your hand on the back of his head. "Good. Me too."

The room feels hot now with how fast you both moved and how fast you both are breathing now. You stay tangled with him buried deep in your cave and you scratch the back of his head to give him that final pleasure.

It's quiet for a while minus the recovery panting and the sound of your fingers moving through his hair. At one point you think he falls asleep. At another point, you think you fall asleep. But then he lifts his head and says, "I guess it's time for me to take myself out of you."

"It's fine," you say with the hope of him staying there a little longer.

But he removes himself anyway and tells you, "I gotta pee, love." He rushes off to the bathroom while you laugh, feeling him spill from you. You guess you have to get up too.

You go into the bathroom while he is still peeing, his head thrown back with pleasure so similar to when he comes that it makes you laugh, alerting him of your presence. "Toilet paper," you say as you stand behind his bare body and reach around for a few sheets.

He nods and finishes up while you rub the dripping mess off of you. "Don't like me hanging around in you all day." He doesn't mind, other than the fact he likes when he fucks you, and some of his cum from the last time is still in there.

You throw the mess away as he moves to brush his teeth. "I have other things to do today."

Alex suggestively smirks. "Like what?"

You shrug. "Eat breakfast."

"Hm, what do you want?"

"I don't know. You can decide."

He smiles so bright you think a spark might fly off his teeth. "Okay."

You’re both nude, well, minus those fuzzy socks still on Alex’s feet. Maybe you’ll talk about last night later but for now, this is fine.

a/n: i'm done school!! well, for a month, but i plan to be writing a whole lot more as much as the holiday season will allow. i have one long fic idea that i am writing now that i hope will be out before christmas but we'll see. anyway, thanks!

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aacheinthejaw · 8 days ago

Text

Heaven Tonight

｡･:*:･ﾟ༓･*˚⁺‧͙ﾟ+..｡*ﾟ+˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆ₓ˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚.˚₊✩｡˚☽

word count : 1957

warnings : cockwarming, unprotected sex, wet dream, sleep sex, dom!reader sub!alex (in dream), creampie

The faint whisper of the gentle breeze and the distant sound of the occasional car driving past were muffled as Alex shut your bedroom windows for the night. He crawled into the cool bedsheets next to you, the duvet draped lazily over your tangled bodies, the warmth and intimacy all-encompassing as he settled behind you, his chest pressed firmly against your back. The short, twiddly hairs on his chest always gave you a sense of comfort; the subtle scrape of them against your soft skin whenever he shifted slightly, reminding you that he's right there. He looped his strong arms around your waist tightly, the slightly raised inked skin from his Yorkshire Rose tattoo on his forearm pressing against your stomach as he held you.

Your body curved into his in a way that felt effortless, as if you were made to be held by him. He pressed a kiss to the back of your head, holding his face there for a moment as he breathed in the sweet smell of your honey-scented shampoo, before dipping his head into the crook of your neck, burying his face there. His lips brushed a few lazy kisses over your nape and jawline, another silent promise of deep love and comfort.

His right hand slowly moved down your torso as he continued with his languid kisses, gently slotting his fingers between your thighs and parting them just enough for him. The soft trail of kisses on the side of your neck stopped just as his fingers began rubbing lazy circles on your clit through your underwear, a small smile playing on his lips as he felt the slight damp spot in the centre. You let out a small exhale through your nose, somewhere between a laugh and a moan. “What're you doing?” you hummed, shifting slightly to give him better access.

Alex let out a low, content hum, not answering your question and instead murmuring, “Want to keep me warm, babe?”

“Mhm, please…” you drawled, your voice a soft mutter as he slowly slid your cotton knickers down your long legs before shuffling out of his own grey boxer shorts, tossing both the pieces of fabric aside onto the floor, quickly forgotten as he lifted your leg just enough to slip his half-hard cock inside your slick, inviting pussy. You sighed softly at the familiar feeling, the way the stretch was always so delicious no matter how many times you'd done this before, while he groaned as your muscles instinctively clenched around his thick length in welcome.

It wasn't about the sex; it never was when you did this. It was more about the intimacy, the closeness, the comfort that it brought you both from being connected in that way as you slept.

Even though it was usually just about the connection, it didn't stop the occasional teasing. You let out a little snicker as you clenched around him a few more times, and he huffed a laugh against your neck. “Behave, you,” he muttered, though his tone lacked any real bite. He gave your hip a light squeeze, pulling you back a bit closer against him before pressing one last kiss to your neck.

You fell into a comfortable silence, your breathing slowly syncing up as your bodies settled together, his right arm draped over your waist, fingers tracing absent patterns over your ribcage. “Goodnight, Al,” you whispered, your voice soft and warm as the sound of his gentle breathing and the slow pulse of his cock inside you lulling you to sleep.

“Goodnight, love,” he replied, his voice low and steady as he slowly drifted off. With that, you both let sleep claim you, tangled up together.

The room was still, bathed in the soft glow of the moonlight filtering through the blinds, painting pale lines across the opposite wall. Your breathing was steady as sleep held you both locked tightly in its quiet embrace. You lay snugly against him, your body a perfect fit against his as his arms stayed looped around your waist, holding you close as his soft exhales brushed against the back of your neck as his forehead stayed pressed against the back of your hair.

As the night deepened, Alex's mind began to wander, slipping into a vivid dream. You were straddling his hips, your movements tantalisingly slow as you rocked back and forth against his length. His tip pressed against the soft skin just above his belly button as your wet folds glided up and down the velvety underside of his cock, your teasing grin combined with your torturous movements melting him into a puddle of need. You were perched over him like a goddess, your hands resting on his strong chest, giving his nipple an occasional pinch or twist as you ground your hips back and forth slowly and deliberately.

“Is this what you wanted?” you asked in the dream, your voice like a soft melody. It was like hearing your voice through a veil, so close to how he remembered it. The words had the same warmth, same rhythm, but it felt strangely hollow. Like it wasn't fully real.

Alex could only nod, his dream-self captivated and all-encompassed. You weren't letting him inside you, just sliding your slick heat up and down along his dick, your teasing driving him closer to the edge. His hands itched to grab your hips, to push you down onto his aching cock the way he so desperately needed, but every time he tried to give in to his urges and reach up to your hips, you batted his hands away with a mocking laugh. “Not yet,” you teased, giving his left nipple a twist. “You'll take what I give you, Al.”

In the real world, in their bed, his body responded unconsciously. His cock was still nestled deep inside you from behind, and his arms tightened slightly around your waist as his hips instinctively began to shift, lazily grinding against your ass. A quiet, soft whimper escaped his lips, almost inaudible in the stillness of your bedroom.

In his dream, you leaned down, threading your hands through his messy hair, sweat-drenched hair as you kissed him hungrily. Your grinding picked up pace, your clit drawing lines up and down his thick cock, the friction pushing him closer and closer to a release he didn't know if he'd be able to reach. His desperation grew, the need to be inside you getting stronger and all-consuming.

Back in bed, his movements became more pronounced. His hips rolled against you in slow, rhythmic, shallow thrusts, his cock twitching and pulsing inside you with each sleepy thrust. His breathing quickened, short puffs brushing against the crook of your neck, but still, neither of you stirred.

Dream-you was relentless, keeping him right on the brink of the release he so deeply craved. “You're such a good boy for me, Al,” you cooed, your voice laced with teasing. “But not yet, baby. You can hold on for me. I know you can.”

His frustration in the dream translated into his even deeper urgency in real life. His thrusts grew firmer, his hips pressing more insistently against you as he humped you subconsciously, chasing the pleasure that his mind conjured in sleep. The warmth of your body against his, both in the dream and in real life, only amplified his need, his sleepy groans muffled against the soft skin your neck.

Finally, in the dream, you gave in. You sank down onto his aching, throbbing cock with a smirk, and the overwhelming sensation of your warm, wet pussy enveloping him shattered every ounce, though there was very little, of restraint he had left. His dream blurred into the real-life sensations, the vividness fading and bleeding into reality as his orgasm tore through him like a freight train.

In bed, his body tensed, and his movements stuttered, his arms loosening before tightening around you again as he came deep inside you, his cock pulsing with each spurt of his release. His breathing slowly evened out as he came down from his wet dream-induced orgasm, his face pressed into the crook of your neck as he drifts back deeper into sleep, both of you completely unaware of what had just happened.

You remained undisturbed, still sound asleep, your body warm and pliant against his as his softening cock kept his cum inside your pussy. The room returned to its previous stillness, the only sounds being your steady breathing and the occasional gentle rustle of the sheets as you both adjusted your positions in slumber.

The warm sun began filtering through the blinds, replacing the glow of the moonlight from the night before, the morning light casting rays across your cream-coloured bedroom wall. You stirred first, stretching slightly but careful not to disturb the warm, comforting weight of Alex's arm draped over your waist. You first felt him shift behind you, his chest pressed against your back, and as your consciousness started to seep in, you became aware of the sticky warmth between your thighs, and the unmistakable sensation of wetness inside you.

You propped yourself up on your side, looking over your shoulder behind you at where you were still joined. “Alex,” you murmured, your voice thick with sleep. His eyes fluttered open lazily, his eyebrows knitting together as he squinted, the bright morning light briefly stinging his eyes.

“Morning,” He mumbled, his voice gravelly with sleep. The grogginess soon faded away as he noticed the faint smirk tugging at the corners of your lips. “What?”

Your smirk widened and you shifted again, subtly clenching your muscles around him. He was still inside you, and his cock gave a sleepy twitch in response. “Alex…” you said, dragging out his name teasingly, “did you…?”

His brain started to slowly catch up, and that's when he felt the warm stickiness inside her. His face flushed immediately. “No,” he denied it quickly, but the redness creeping up his neck to his cheeks said otherwise. And so did the cum inside you.

You laugh, shifting your hips and making his cock slip out of you, a small stream of his cum dripping onto your thigh. “You did!” you teased, turning onto your other side to face him, your fingers tracing patterns on his chest. “You had a wet dream.”

“I didn’t,” he protested weakly, though the evidence was right there. He quickly averted his gaze, suddenly very focused on the pattern of the duvet cover.

“You so did!” you let out a laugh, your tone playful rather than accusatory. “You actually had a wet dream.”

Alex groaned, burying his face in his hands. He sat up slightly, his back resting against the wooden headboard. “God, stop saying it like that.”

“What was it about?” You asked, rolling onto your stomach and resting your chin in your hands. “Was I in it?”

He pulled his hands from his face, resting them in his lap as he looked down at you. “Of course you were,” he said, the redness fading from his cheeks. “You were grinding on me, that's pretty much all it was.”

You raised your eyebrows a little bit. “Just grinding on you? That's it?”

He ran a hand through his messy, tousled hair, leaning his head back against the vertical wooden slats of the headboard as he looked up at the off-white coloured ceiling. “Yeah, but you weren't letting me put it in.”

She smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she gazed at him. “I can't believe you still have wet dreams,” she teased, her voice soft but filled with amusement.

“Yeah, well…” he rested his hands behind his head, crossing his legs lazily at his ankles. “You make it bloody hard not to.”

｡･:*:･ﾟ༓･*˚⁺‧͙ﾟ+..｡*ﾟ+˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆ₓ˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚.˚₊✩｡˚☽

ive been wanting to write fics for so long but ive rarely been able to find the time to write any (which is why it's so short😭) but ive been working on this (thinking about it but not actually writing it) for a while. when i first had the idea i imagined it with fetus instead but then i wrote the first part and realised he obviously wouldn't have the tattoo then, so i guess this can be any time post 2013(?). i also know this probably isn't great, just close your eyes and pretend it isn't there x

#i love this

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aacheinthejaw · 9 days ago

Photo

Brooklyn Steel, 9 May 2018 By Will Oliver

#i think i had an orgasm just seeing this pictures

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aacheinthejaw · 13 days ago

Text

Somewhere In The Ether

could this be considered a writing exercise?

warnings: smut, handy, blowie

word count: 6.5k

Usually, his pen would come to paper, the bead of ink would form, and then — like a soft exhale — a word would be birthed. A letter. A sound, reshaped into scribblings. Usually.

Now, his pen came to paper, the bead of ink obediently gathering at the tip as it always did, an inevitability of physics. But what followed wasn’t creation — just a silent stalemate. A blob. Another blob. Ink pooling like stagnant water, blue turned black against the pale expanse of the page. He let it bleed into the fibers, spreading out like something alive, then watched as it dried back into something dead.

The blobs grew bigger when he forgot to lift the pen, when his mind wandered so far he forgot where he was, what he was doing. He stared at the smudges on his fingertips, already dried into an ink-dark tattoo, and thought maybe he should try a different pen. One of those cheap ones with the thick paste inside — the kind you had to press down so hard with that your fingers would ache after a page. At least he wouldn’t make such a mess with one of those. Wouldn’t leave behind these aimless, bleeding stains.

But that would require something worth pressing down for. A sentence. A word. An idea to scrawl out with the force of conviction. And he had none of that. So, no pain from tense fingers. Just the silence of his failure sitting heavy in the room.

Scream he could. But he didn’t want to. He liked the quiet. Or, he thought he did. The weight of it settled over him like a heavy curtain, and in its folds, he felt both comfort and suffocation.

And then, hands. Yours, presumably, though the fleeting idea of an intruder crossed his mind. That might’ve made for a good story, he thought dryly. Something to write about, finally.

“Mhm.” He shut the notebook with a soft thud, the ink still drying, and let it drop to his lap as your fingers pressed harder into the tension in his shoulders. It startled him, how quickly the silence gave way to you.

“You should stop frowning. You’re gonna get ugly wrinkles.” you told him, your voice a gentle tease, as if to coax him out of whatever dark corner his mind had wandered into.

“You can’t see my face. Maybe I’m not-”

“You are.” There wasn’t even a beat of hesitation in your reply. He exhaled a small laugh, but you kept going. “I like your wrinkles, but not these ones.”

You knew, without looking, that he had that familiar furrow etched between his brows, the one that had become second nature when his thoughts got too tangled. It was something you’d noticed over time — how his shoulders would wind up too tightly, visibly drawn in on themselves, and how you could feel it now under your hands, like tightly coiled rope beneath his skin.

“It makes you look like an angry little goblin.” you told him, and this time his laugh came easier, warm and sharp-edged at once. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, you’re cute, but…” you added, the sentence trailing off with a playful rise, and his laugh broke into a huff of mock exasperation.

“Yeah, yeah, got it.” he said, tilting his head slightly back toward you, the corner of his mouth twitching into a half-smile.

Your hands lingered, the pressure easing slightly, but still there — rooting him in place, pulling him out of his restless spiral. His shoulders softened, almost imperceptibly at first, but you noticed. You always noticed.

For once, he didn’t care.

“What’s up?” you asked, tilting your head toward the notebook balanced precariously in his lap.

“Nothing. Just…literally nothing.” He scrambled to open it, flipping past the heavy, ink-smeared pages, the evidence of his failure on display. Blobs and smudges, nothing resembling the words that used to come so easily. He tilted it toward you with a faint grimace, like a student bracing for their teacher’s disapproval.

“Hmm…” you hummed, leaning closer, the sound drawing itself out in quiet contemplation.

“What?” he asked, glancing at you over his shoulder, his voice tinged with defensive curiosity.

“You’re too in your head, Aly.” you said simply, the name falling from your lips with an unspoken familiarity that softened the sting of your observation.

At that, his frown deepened, almost reflexively. He twisted back around, retreating into himself again, hands fidgeting with the string looped into the spine of the notebook, a would-be bookmark that had long since stopped serving its purpose. He pulled at it absentmindedly, as if untying the knot might untangle something deeper inside him.

You didn’t let him sit in the silence for long. Instead of walking the few steps around the couch like a normal person, you hoisted yourself over the back with a surprising lack of grace. The couch creaked slightly under the sudden weight, and he glanced up, startled by the motion.

“What are you-”

It was quicker this way. Probably. Maybe. But that wasn’t really why you did it. There was something about breaking the monotony, about making a little chaos in his neatly ordered, crumbling world.

Your knees landed on either side of him as you perched precariously on the cushions, leaning forward just enough that your breath tickled the back of his neck. The notebook slipped from his lap, hitting the floor with a soft thud, but neither of you moved to pick it up.

“You’re ridiculous.” he muttered, his tone more amused than irritated, though the frown was still there. You could feel the tension in his shoulders creeping back, inch by inch, like the tide rolling in.

“And you’re annoying.” you countered lightly, fingers finding their way back to the knots under his skin. “So I guess we’re even.”

He didn’t respond immediately. His hands fell still in his lap, no longer having the string to pick at, and you felt him let out a long, slow exhale. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

“You want to talk about it?” you asked, quieter this time, your tone less teasing now.

“There’s nothing to talk about.” he said after a pause, his voice low and flat. “That’s the problem.”

“Maybe you’re trying too hard.”

“Or not hard enough.” he muttered.

You let the words hang in the air, heavy and unanswerable, before you spoke again. “It doesn’t have to be perfect, you know.”

He let out a dry laugh, shaking his head slightly. “Tell that to them.” he said, though he didn’t clarify who they were. Fans, critics, himself — it didn’t matter. The weight of expectation sat in the room like an unwelcome guest, and you weren’t sure how to banish it.

“Well, maybe start with a sentence.” you said, your fingers kneading into his shoulders again. “Just one. Don’t think about where it’s going or who’s going to read it. Just let it be what it is.”

His head tilted slightly, leaning into your touch in a way he probably didn’t realise. “You make it sound so easy.”

“It’s not.” you admitted, your voice softening. “But you’re too smart to be outsmarted by a piece of paper.”

That earned a real laugh, quiet but genuine, and you felt the last of the tension in his shoulders give way. The notebook remained on the floor, forgotten for now. You decided not to push him further, content to let the moment settle into a fragile kind of peace.

“I can think of something to get you out of your head.” you said.

He waited, his silence an invitation for you to continue.

“You need some head.”

Your words were met with such a complete lack of response that a flicker of uncertainty passed through you. Maybe you’d crossed a line, taken the teasing too far. You were about to retreat, to laugh it off, when his head dipped slightly, his shoulders jolting once. Then again. The dam broke, and his laughter spilled out in soft, uneven waves.

It started small but grew, shaking his frame, and the wrinkles you loved replaced the ones from earlier. Softer ones now — the kind that gathered at the corners of his eyes when he was truly smiling, the kind that warmed you from the inside out.

“I don’t think it’s going to work.” he said between fits of laughter, the words tripping over each other in their rush to escape. But there was something in his tone, a faint lilt of invitation, that betrayed him.

His laughter stuttered to a stop, replaced by the deliberate stillness of a shift. A kiss to your shoulder, his lips brushing against the fabric of your shirt as if testing it, as if daring you to mean what you’d said. His hands moved next, one sliding up to rest lightly at your waist, the other grazing along your arm. Small touches, soft and unhurried, but they carried a quiet insistence.

Like he was trying to coax you into following through — not with words, but with the way his mouth lingered just a second too long, the way his fingertips pressed just firm enough to remind you he was there. Present. Ready.

He wasn’t laughing anymore, though the faint ghost of a smile lingered on his lips. That smile turned into something else entirely as he tilted his head slightly, brushing his lips higher, just barely grazing the curve of your neck.

“You know,” he murmured against your skin, his voice low and inviting, “I won’t say no…if you’re offering.”

There was something in the way he said it, the way his hands settled, the way his breath hitched that made the words feel heavier than they should have. More loaded. Like he was daring you to push him further, daring you to see how far the teasing could go before the air between you shifted into something else entirely.

“Anything for daddy.” you murmured, the words slipping from your lips with a teasing lilt as you shifted to your knees in front of him. They hung there for a beat, long enough for you to catch the faint twitch of his jaw, the way his shoulders stiffened.

Then you laughed — light, careless — undermining it just enough to keep the tension taut but not unbearable.

He winced, his eyes squeezing shut and his brows drawing together in that way you knew so well, a flush creeping along his cheekbones as if the words themselves bad been to much, let alone the implications. “Oh, don’t call me that…” he mumbled, the faintest hint of exasperation in his tone.

But his hand betrayed him. It found its way into your hair, threading through the strands with a kind of hesitance that wasn’t hesitation at all. His fingers curled with just enough force to serve as a threat, a silent command — or maybe a plea — to say don’t stop.

“You seemed to like it.” you pointed out, a sly smirk tugging at your lips, glancing up at him through your lashes. The angle gave you a full view of his face — the hard lines softened by the warm light of the room, the faint sheen of sweat already present on his temple catching the glow.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, but…not now.” he said, his voice quieter now, trailing off as if the words themselves were an afterthought. His hand eased slightly against your scalp, but not enough to let you pull away. Why would he think you’d want to pull away anyway?

“Fine.” you relented, though your hands had already started their slow ascent up his thighs. You pressed your palms into the muscle there, hard enough to feel the tension that was practically pouring out of him, rippling beneath your fingers. He was so tightly wound you wondered if he’d even remember how to let go. It was almost unbearable, like trying to pry open a fist that had been clenched for hours.

Oh Alex…how had he let himself get like this? How had you let him?

His legs parted slightly, spreading wider almost subconsciously, and you shifted closer. The rough fibers of the carpet bit into your knees, though the sensation blurred against the way your focus honed entirely on him.

His hand slipped lower, brushing your cheek, a faint counterpoint to the burning heat radiating from within him. It wasn’t deliberate, not exactly, but the faint pressure of his touch sent a warmth blooming across your skin.

He was melting, slowly.

Tense. But melting. Soft. But unmistakably growing harder against the worn fabric of his sweatpants, a contradiction of softness and heat, tension and release.

His hair was tied back in that little careless bun he wore around the house — strands sticking out haphazardly in a way that would’ve annoyed him if he cared to notice. But he didn’t. Not now. You knew why—he hated washing it more than he had to. He hated it, hated the ritual of it, the cold that inevitably followed, creeping into his bones and lingering, that seeped in afterward and refused to let go. He avoided it when he could.

You pressed higher, your hands creeping upward with a deliberate slowness that made him flinch under your touch. “Come on…” he whispered, his voice taut with the kind of restraint he didn’t like to acknowledge he had.

Alex wasn’t the kind of man to push, not really — at least, not often — but sometimes the need got the better of him. Sometimes, enough was enough, and he couldn’t stand it anymore. Like now, tinged with a quiet desperation, enough was enough. You’d offered, after all, and he hadn’t said no.

He wanted it now. Needed it, maybe, because at the end of the day, no matter the image he cultivated, he was just a man, wasn’t he?

“I’ve been a bad girl, haven’t I?” you murmured, not quite apologetic. Your hands worked at the bow he’d tied in the drawstring of his sweatpants, the knot tighter than you’d expected, tighter than either of you would’ve liked. Too tight, of course, because Alex couldn’t help himself.

He didn’t answer immediately, watching your fingers fumble with the knot. There was something about the way his gaze burned into you, heavy and unwavering, that made your skin prickle. The knot finally gave way under your persistence, the fabric loosening as you glanced up at him again. He wouldn’t tie it next time, he thought distantly.

“Why?” he finally asked, the single word edged with breathiness. He didn’t deny your claim, though. Didn’t argue the idea of your supposed badness.

Instead, he let the question hang there, his breath catching slightly as you slipped a hand beneath the waistband, finding him bare.

Commando.

The discovery made you pause for half a second, a faint smirk pulling at your lips. A lazy choice, perhaps, or maybe something closer to wishful thinking.

Your fingers wrapped around him, warm and firm, and you felt him shudder beneath your touch. A low groan slipped from his lips.

“I’ve been careless, no?” you said, the mockery soft but purposeful. “With…such a delicate man.”

That word — delicate — made him flinch, a faint growl of frustration slipping past his lips. That earned him a squeeze, and his breath hitched audibly. You couldn’t help the smile that curved at your lips. You were one for dramatics, sometimes.

“Are you talking about me?” he asked, his words breaking slightly, barely holding onto composure.

“Who else, Alex?” you replied smoothly, your fingers shifting just enough to make him groan again.

“Right…” he whispered, the word barely audible, his head tipping back against the couch.

The glow of the room cast shadows along his jaw, the sharp angles softened by the way his mouth parted slightly, his breathing uneven. His hand tightened in your hair again, not enough to hurt, but enough to keep you tethered to him, or maybe vice-versa.

Half-lidded and heavy, his eyes were stuck on you, the faintest flush spreading across his cheeks. You could see it in the way his chest rose and fell, in the way his lips parted to let out breathy sounds that weren't quite moans.

You liked him like this — vulnerable in a way he rarely let himself be. Breathless. Softened by the heat and weight of the moment. Just a man. Just Alex.

“Would ya?” he asked, his voice low, roughened around the edges like a frayed guitar string.

His hand left your hair, leaving the strands to fall free, reluctantly, only to bring it to his mouth. His tongue darted out briefly before he spat into his palm. The wet sound of it landing was quiet but intentional, intimate in the kind of way that sent a rush of heat to your cheeks.

Before you could react, he edged your hand away, the warmth of his skin exchanged for the cool air of the room. He replaced it with his own and spread the wetness down the length of himself in lazy strokes, not quite enough to satisfy but enough to keep the anticipation sharp.

“What?” you asked, your eyes flicking up to meet his.

“Put your mouth on me.” he said, thick with need, no longer softened by hesitation.

You huffed a soft laugh, almost as a reflex. “Getting there.” you replied. “Gimme that.”

“What?” His brows knitted slightly, still caught up in his own movements, his fractured focus flicking back and forth between his own hand and you.

“Your…” You gestured vaguely, the word caught somewhere in the back of your throat, refusing to form. For all your confidence, the moment made you falter, a faint flush creeping into your own voice.

His expression stayed blank, and you realized he wasn’t going to get it. So you took it upon yourself instead. One knee pressed into the couch for balance as you leaned forward, fingers reaching for the small knot at the back of his head.

“What are you doing?” he mumbled.

“It was too tight anyway.” you murmured, loosening it with careful fingers. “You’re ripping your hair out.”

“But…”

The bun came undone. Strands fell loose around his face and over his shoulders. You brushed some of it back in a way that made him look softer, younger somehow.

He snatched the tie back from your hand, though. The roles reversed. “I’m not going bald.” he grumbled defensively, almost petulant.

“Didn’t say that.”

“You implied it.” he shot back, his gaze narrowing slightly, though his lips twitched like he was fighting off a smile.

“Maybe.” you admitted.

He didn’t argue further. He gathered your hair back with a care that felt almost out of place for the moment. He twisted it, his fingers precise despite the roughness in his expression. You could feel his calluses scrape lightly against your scalp.

“There.” he said finally, snapping the last loop into place with a satisfied sort of finality. His hands lingered for a moment, his fingers brushing against the nape of your neck before retreating. “Now can you…” His eyes flicked downward, the meaning of his unfinished sentence hanging heavily in the space between you.

You caught the faintest hitch in his breath when you shifted again, settling fully between his legs. From where you knelt, you could see the way his chest rose and fell, the way his jaw tensed with every uneven breath.

His lips were parted slightly, still damp where his tongue had flicked over them moments before.

You watched his hand resume its lazy movements, his fingers tightening slightly around himself as if he couldn’t quite wait for you to take over.

For a moment, you just watched him, taking in the sight of him like this — God, Alex…you thought — How do you manage to always look like a man begging to be undone?

It made your own pulse quicken, a heady mixture of affection and something deeper, more visceral.

He was a mess of contradictions, this man. Precise in the way he handled himself one moment, careless in the way he sprawled out before you the next. Quiet in the way he withheld his needs, but unguarded in the way he looked at you now, as if his entire world was condensed into the small space between you.

He caught your eye, his lips twitching into a faint, crooked smile. “You’re staring.” he said, his voice soft but teasing, though it lacked the bite it might’ve had in another moment.

“Can you blame me?”

His hand stilled, his fingers curling tighter for just a moment before releasing. “If you’re done admiring…” he trailed off again.

“I’m getting there.” you murmured, leaning in closer, your breath ghosting over his skin.

For his part, Alex’s thoughts were a jumbled mess. It wasn’t supposed to feel this desperate, this consuming. But God, your hands, your mouth, the way you looked at him with that teasing glint in your eyes — it was all too much and somehow not enough.

He couldn’t help the way his hand twitched, how he reached for you again, brushing his fingers lightly along your jaw to remind himself that you were real and here and his.

“Please.” he murmured, the word so soft you almost didn’t catch it.

An offering, a relinquishment of control he rarely surrendered. And it made something inside you twist and tighten.

“Patience.” you said, though your own resolve was slipping, fraying at the edges with every passing second.

But Alex didn’t have patience, not right now. Not when he could feel the warmth of your breath against him, not when the anticipation was burning through him like a live wire.

His fingers tightened slightly against your jaw, his voice breaking when he spoke again. “I need you, love. Now.”

He looked too cute to deny.

Fluffy and soft, with the messy spill of his hair framing his face, and yet so hard in your hand it made your stomach tighten with want. He smelled too good — clean, but still distinctly him, with that faint musky undertone that was uniquely Alex.

You were nothing but an addict when it came to him. It was as if he emitted some invisible scent designed to disarm you, to bypass reason entirely and hit your most primal instincts. You could almost laugh at yourself — like you were some wild animal responding to the call of its predator or prey.

You weren’t even sure which role belonged to who anymore.

It wasn’t just biology. Not entirely. Sure, there was something undeniably physical about the way your body hummed when you were near him. But it went deeper than that, dug into places inside you that logic couldn’t touch. It wasn’t just your body reacting; it was the fact of him. All of him.

And he knew it, of course.

Even now, there was a flicker of self-satisfaction in the way his mouth quirked up at the corners, even as he fought to keep himself composed. But his composure was slipping, you could see it in the way his chest rose and fell too fast, the way his hips twitched under your touch, like he couldn’t stop himself even if he tried.

Without another thought, you leaned forward, letting your lips part and taking him into your mouth. No teasing kisses, no playful licks, no more delay. The heat of him against your tongue, the weight, the way he filled your mouth — it felt like relief, like surrendering to a need you didn’t fully understand but couldn’t resist.

Alex mumbled something, his voice low and wrecked, but the words didn’t register.

Your gaze flicked upward, locking onto his face. His lips were parted, his jaw slack, and his eyes were the picture of abandon.

You hollowed your cheeks, focusing on the loose skin around the head, letting your tongue flick just slightly against the ridge before you sucked harder.

It was all too intentional, calculated even, but the sound he made in response — the soft, desperate gasp that broke from his throat — was anything but.

He didn’t look away, not for a second. He watched. And God, the way he watched. It was almost too much.

When you pulled back, you made sure to do it with an exaggerated slowness, letting the suction break with a loud, wet sound that felt almost obscene.

The reaction was immediate.

Hips jerked upward, just barely, as though the motion had escaped him before he could stop it. His hand twitched at his side, like he wanted to reach for you, to pull you back to him, but he held himself in check.

It was restraint, but only just.

And you loved it — the way he teetered on the edge of control, the way he let himself be vulnerable with you in a way he never was with anyone else.

The thought made you smirk, your fingers wrapping more firmly around him as you tilted your head. “Something you need, Alex?” you asked.

His lips parted as though he was going to answer, but no words came out, just another sharp exhale. His head tipped back against the couch, his throat bobbed as he swallowed, and for a second, you just looked at him.

Flushed cheeks, sweat beading along his brow, hair falling loose and wild — he was a mess, and it was because of you.

It was intoxicating.

“Don’t stop.” he managed finally, his voice rasping like he’d dragged it up from somewhere deep inside. His eyes found yours again, and there was no mistaking the plea in them now. “Please.”

It was rare to hear him beg. So you savored it, letting the word settle before you leaned forward again, pressing your lips against him.

“Never.” you murmured, and then you took him back into your mouth.

“Can I?” he asked, his voice gravelly, his hands hovering just above your head like he needed the permission to let himself go.

You nodded, the gesture slight but enough for him.

He didn’t push too hard — just enough to guide, to steady. After all, it was still daylight, the late afternoon sun painting the room in soft gold, and that seemed to subdue him. The quiet intimacy of it wasn’t the setting for unchecked ferocity. He wasn’t an animal.

But he was still a man, and you had him right where you wanted him.

“Just like that, baby, fuck-” The words tore from him, raw and broken, as you worked him deeper, your head buried in his lap.

The sounds — wet and unapologetically messy — filled the room, bouncing off the walls in a rhythm that was both obscene and hypnotic. He was gasping and cursing in time with it, the sharp inhales and low groans threading together like some primal symphony.

You knew him too well by now, knew exactly how he liked it. You’d trained yourself to be attuned to his every reaction, his every shift and shudder. It was like a language only the two of you spoke.

He never had to say it, but he thought it every time: You’re perfect.

You made sure to take every inch of him, throat tightening around the length of him in a way that made his hips stutter. It was instinctive, a reflex, but still, he never wanted to push too far, too fast. Just rough enough to teeter on the edge, that precarious balance he loved.

You had standards, after all.

When it came to Alex, you’d never let him settle for anything less than the best of you. You spoiled him, in a way, but it wasn’t a passive indulgence. Rather a gift he never took for granted — not too much anyway.

“Jesus Christ-” His groan caught halfway between a growl and a gasp, low and guttural. The collar of his sweatshirt tugged awkwardly at his neck, and he reached for it, pulling at the fabric like it was suffocating him.

If only he knew how you were suffocating.

The weight of him in your mouth, the heat, the thickness. The spit that had gathered in your throat pooled around him, messy and slick, and when you finally pulled back to take a breath, it trailed down his length in glistening ribbons. It had him biting down on his bottom lip hard enough to leave a mark. His hand loosened its grip just enough, enough to give you a moment to catch your breath.

“Look at you.” he murmured, voice rasping, laced with a kind of awe that sent a jolt through you. “You’re too good for me.” He wasn’t just talking about what you were doing now — though that certainly played a part.

You smiled, heat pooling low in your stomach at his words, at the way his pupils were blown wide, swallowing the light in the room. A teasing glint danced in your eye as you wrapped your hand around him.

“Flatterer.” you said softly, the corners of your lips curling up.

“Not flattery.” he murmured, the words trailing off into a sharp inhale as you leaned forward again, lips brushing him. “It’s fact-” And whatever else he meant to say dissolved into a low groan as your mouth claimed him once more.

“Don’t be dramatic, Alex.”

“Dramatic?” he repeated. His laugh was shallow, a fleeting escape that dissolved as quickly as it came. The sound bled into a shuddering exhale when your lips brushed against him. He tried to finish the thought but it was pointless. “You’re the one-” Whatever clever quip or teasing accusation he’d been fumbling for died in his throat.

He thought he could hold back. At first, he always thought that. Be good. Be patient. Let her set the pace. He told himself it was out of respect, out of care, but the truth was more selfish. He was terrified of losing himself too soon, of letting go so completely that there was nothing left of him but this — his need for you, his utter helplessness under the weight of your touch.

He was already slipping.

The softness of your lips, the slick heat of your mouth, the way you moved — he tried to steady himself, gripping the edge of the couch with one hand, the other tangling in your hair again.

And then his hips jerked.

It was slight at first, an unconscious twitch more than anything, but once it started, he couldn’t stop it. A messy, uneven rhythm emerged, his body moving on its own.

Shallow thrusts that were just enough to drive himself further into the slick, wet heat. He wasn’t sure if it was desperation or worship, or some twisted mixture of both, but he couldn’t care anymore. His breath came in ragged gasps, each one laced with a quiet, broken moan that slipped past his lips before he could catch it.

God, she’s going to ruin me.

You didn’t pull back, didn’t flinch or protest. If anything, you seemed to lean into it, into him. Your hands gripped his thighs, fingers digging into the firm muscle. But your touch wasn’t soft — it was possessive, claiming, as though to say, I’ve got you. You’re mine.

He was beautiful like this — head tipped back, jaw tight, his flushed face contorted with pleasure that bordered on agony. You drank it in, memorizing every twitch, every shiver, every choked sound. You wanted to sear him like this right into your mind, to keep it like a relic you could worship when the world felt too cold.

And when his rhythm faltered, those thrusts becoming sharper, more erratic, you stayed with him, meeting him in that strange, obsessive dance of control and surrender, until there was nothing left.

His grip in your hair tightened, getting somewhere between a prayer and a demand. His movements weren’t elegant — no, this was far too desperate for that — but they were decisive, as if his body had ceased to answer to him and instead bent entirely to you, the cause and the cure.

His hips moved faster, breaking whatever fragile rhythm he’d tried to maintain, his need spilling out in fractured breaths and soft curses that barely reached the air. Your hand on his thigh and the squeeze of your fingers was meant to slow him down — slow down, baby, breathe, it’s too much, we’ve got time — but it only served as a catalyst. He couldn’t stop. He couldn’t listen. He couldn’t even pretend to have control anymore.

The thing about Alex…he was many things, more often than not a man of precision, one who could drag a thought into the light and polish it until it gleamed — but control was always a tenuous game. Here? With you? He was just a boy unraveling at the seams.

So he couldn’t stop. Not now.

He tried. He really did. But it was as if his body had betrayed him entirely, every ounce of restraint he’d fought to maintain snapping under the relentless, maddening heat of your mouth.

“Fuck,” he hissed. His voice cracked in a way that would have embarrassed him if he weren’t so far gone, teetering on the precipice of something he could no longer hold back.

You squeezed his thigh again, a silent easy, love, you’re going to break something. The message was drowned in the flood of sensation coursing through him. And then he was gone. He was so far gone.

Teetering on the edge, hanging by a thread so thin it could snap at any second.

Until it did.

Thick, hot ribbons filled your mouth, spilling over with a heat that seemed to brand itself into you, as familiar as it was overwhelming. The salty taste of him, the weight of him — both were burned into memory, into muscle, like a ritual you’d practiced countless times but never tired of, moulded so perfectly to you, to your throat, to every curve and edge of his body that you had made your own.

He gasped your name, prayer or a plea, or something in between, and his head fell back against the couch, exposing the pale stretch of his throat. His chest heaved under the sweatshirt that clung to him now, damp with the heat of his effort.

How does someone manage to look wrecked and holy at the same time? you thought fleetingly, as if you weren’t the one who had made him this way.

His mind was a haze, blown apart and piecing itself back together in fragments that didn’t make sense. It was pleasure so sharp it felt like pain, a release so overwhelming it left him lightheaded, dizzy, like he might float away entirely if you weren’t there to tether him.

You stayed with him, swallowing him down as if it were second nature. The grip in your hair loosened, fingers softening. Your knees throbbed and protested against the unforgiving carpet, the burn sharp and insistent, but it felt like a small price to pay.

If it’s so filthy, why does it feel so elementary?

The thought came unbidden, curling in your mind like smoke as you sat back slightly, still braced against his trembling thighs. It should have felt obscene. Shameful, even.

But it didn’t.

Instead, it felt…pure. Honest. Stripped of all the pretenses and defenses you both carried every day.

A hand fell to cup the side of your face. His thumb brushed your cheek. “You…” he started, but the word faltered, falling apart on his tongue before it could land.

You wiped the corner of your mouth with the back of your hand. “You’re welcome.” you teased, because of course you did, because how could you not?

His breath hitched on a laugh, though it was weak, barely more than a ghost of sound. His hand lifted to brush your cheek again, his thumb tracing an idle path across your skin. The touch was light, barely there, but it felt like the weight of the world settling in its rightful place.

He didn’t say anything else — didn’t have to, really.

You both knew.

You climbed up beside him, your knees bruised and humming, but you didn’t care about the sting. It felt earned. He felt damp and hot like some fever je never suffered from had finally broken. That look on his face made him look less like a rock star and more like a boy who’d been handed something too good to be true.

The tissues sat within arm’s reach on the side table, folded into a haphazard pile, crumpled from too many near misses of coffee cups, until now. He fumbled for them, his hands shaking slightly, clumsy in their urgency that only exposed how far he still was from himself. You tried to stay quiet as he pulled one free, then another, and carefully wiped the sheen of spit and slick from himself.

“Give it here.” you murmured finally, reaching for the tissue when his shaking hands faltered. He exhaled through his nose, a quiet, wordless acknowledgment, and let you take over.

You weren’t in any hurry.

His head lolled back against the couch, eyes fluttering shut as he sighed. “You’re a saint,” he mumbled, the words slurring together.

“Don’t push it.” you quipped. There was no real bite to it.

He opened his eyes just enough to watch as you reached for the waistband of his sweatpants, still loose and resting low on his hips. He twitched when your fingers brushed against his skin — not from arousal this time, but from the barest hint of sensitivity left in the aftermath.

“C’mon.” you murmured, gently tucking him back into place like sealing away something precious with a care that made his chest tighten. “You’re no good like this.”

He hummed in agreement, but his hands remained limp at his sides, leaving the task of tying the bow on his drawstring entirely to you. You looped the fabric, retying the knot he’d sworn to never bother with again.

“Better.” you declared, sitting back to admire your handiwork.

“Gonna start charging for services?” he teased.

“Don’t tempt me.” you shot back. “Anyway, I should be asking…did it help?”

His laugh came suddenly, sharp and unrestrained, shaking his shoulders. The sound was beautiful in its absurdity.

“Yeah, think so.” he managed between breaths. His eyes flicked down to the knot you’d tied, then back to you.

“Good.” You leaned back into the cushions, letting the silence stretch between you again, comfortable now, as if the room itself had exhaled with relief.

“Yeah…” His hand found yours on the couch, loosely twining his fingers with yours.

“Yeah?” you pressed.

“Yeah.” he repeated, firmer this time. “You, uh- you’re good at this. Too good. Dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” you raised a brow.

He gestured vaguely at you, at himself, at the room as if it all meant something he couldn’t quite articulate. “This…all of this.”

You smirked, leaning back into the cushions. “So dramatic.”

“Yeah, well.” he muttered, rubbing a hand over his face, as if he could scrub the lingering haze. “I’m a mess, aren’t I?”

a/n: I don’t know…

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aacheinthejaw · 14 days ago

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alex turner in the snap out of it video

#boyfriend

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aacheinthejaw · 15 days ago

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fuji rock festival 2011

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aacheinthejaw · 15 days ago

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men need to be bicurious again

#(men = alex turner)

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aacheinthejaw · 16 days ago

Text

Murder Of Crows

part 4 | series masterlist

are you part of his project?

warnings: you know it by now, mentions of death, suicide, dead animals, implied age gap, piv, eating, blood, restraints

word count: 7.3k

“And you have to spread them like this.” he murmured, his voice low and precise, like a teacher’s, like a sculptor’s. Methodical. Every word was deliberate, measured, and paired with a subtle gesture. His fingers moved with a kind of artistry that made you forget, just for a moment, that what he was working on had once been alive.

It felt eerily normal, the rhythm of his movements, the almost reverent care he took, how easily he handled the bird, how steady and unshaken he seemed. Yet, the scene was anything but. There was no smell, no pungency you might have expected, no mess. Nothing visceral. You had imagined something grittier, bloodier, but the scene before you was unnervingly sterile.

The absence of it somehow made it worse.

He had gloved his hands in thin pale latex, the type that clung to his fingers and made the softest, almost imperceptible squeak as he adjusted his grip. You weren’t allowed to touch — only to watch — but the texture of the gloves felt like it imprinted itself onto your senses. Somehow, you could feel them anyway. That powdery, almost waxy texture haunted your mind, slipping over your skin like a phantom sensation.

He worked quickly, pinning the left wing into place before you even realized what he was doing and the speed of it made you wonder how many times he’d done this before. His movements were so smooth, so practised, that it was impossible to believe he hadn’t done this dozens, maybe hundreds of times before. You wondered how long it had taken him to get this good. How much practice did this take? How many creatures had fallen into his hands for the sake of this obsession? You didn’t ask. But the questions turned sour on your tongue. Some truths were better left buried.

He looked like he was carving something holy. His brows furrowed, but not in frustration — this was focus, pure and undistracted. His lips parted slightly as he leaned closer, his breath shallow and even. You could hear it if you listened closely enough, steady and rhythmic, like the ticking of a clock. You hated how much you were listening, how much you were watching.

It wasn’t just his hands. It was the line of his jaw, the slight curve of his neck as he tilted his head to examine his work. It was the way his shoulders shifted beneath his shirt, how they seemed so broad but so fragile at the same time. It was the faint shadow of stubble catching the light, the way his lashes fanned over his cheeks when he blinked.

You drifted. Your eyes found the bird’s face, its hollow stare fixed on you, unblinking. It was so perfect it almost looked alive. Like a cruel trick of the light, or some last remnant of its former life lingering to watch this strange act of preservation.

“Listening?” His voice cut through the haze, sharp and steady. He didn’t even glance over his shoulder, but somehow, he knew. He always knew.

You flinched at the suddenness of it, blinking hard. “Yeah- yes.”

“Good.” He returned to his work, unbothered, unconcerned by your distraction. You wished you could say the same.

His attention went back to the bird. The long, delicate needle in his hand moved like an extension of himself, and he began to fix the other wing in place. His focus was unnerving, his hands an artist’s, but his subject felt like a sacrifice. You couldn’t stop staring at him. The way his fingers moved with such certainty, the subtle curl of his lips as he concentrated. He was beautiful in the most terrifying way. Beautiful like the sharp edge of a blade or the first spark of a fire. You wanted to keep looking at him even though you knew you shouldn’t.

“You wanted to see this.” he said, not looking away. There was no malice in his tone, but the words carried weight, as if he were reminding you of something you had asked for but now regretted.

“I did.” Your voice was quieter than you intended, but it felt wrong to be loud here. To interrupt him.

“Good.” he repeated, as if that settled everything, pinning the final feather into position. He leaned back slightly, head tilting as he surveyed his work, examining the bird’s wings, now spread wide. The firelight caught the edges of his face, casting shadows that made him look almost otherworldly. He had always seemed a little unreal to you, like a figure pulled from a half-forgotten dream. “Most people don’t understand. But you…” He turned, just enough to catch your eye. “You could. If you wanted to.”

You weren’t sure if it was a compliment or a warning or a threat. The words sat heavy in your chest, coiling tightly around your ribs like something alive.

“Why do you do it?” you asked, and immediately regretted it.

He paused, his hands stilling for the first time since he’d begun. The air shifted. The silence that followed was almost unbearable. He removed the gloves with a snap, peeling them off one finger at a time. “To keep them.” he said finally, his voice quieter now. “To make them last.”

You swallowed hard, throat dry. “Is it just birds?”

The corner of his mouth quirked into a shadow of a smile. “For now.”

Your breath hitched, but you didn’t move. You couldn’t. Something about him kept you there, rooted to the spot, like a moth caught in a web. You thought about the way his hands had felt on you, how they had pressed and pulled and claimed, with the same intensity he gave to this lifeless thing. And you hated yourself for wanting it again.

Maybe you were becoming obsessed. Maybe you already were.

“Deconstructing and putting them back together, recollaging them…just — death and renewal…” he said, like he was peeling back layers of meaning as much as flesh. He stepped closer as he spoke, his presence filling the space between you. “It’s a sensuous subject.”

He paused then, just long enough for the weight of his statement to settle between you. Long enough for you to feel its boldness, its audacity. The room felt smaller somehow, the shadows from the lamp growing heavier as the firelight from the next room flickered faintly on the walls.

“But in our presence,” he continued, his voice dropping lower, intimate, “it also becomes a sensing, sensual, sense-making object.”

He was close now. Too close. Close enough that the sharp, sterile scent of latex mingled with the natural warmth of him. His eyes locked onto yours, and you were struck by how unblinking they were, how intent. As though he were dissecting you now, seeing through your skin to the raw tissue underneath.

“It also gets sticky.” he added, his voice dipping into a near-growl, pulling you back to the moment with a jolt. He snapped the gloves off, letting them crumple in his hands before tossing them carelessly to the side.

The sound was stark, breaking the quiet. You flinched at it, more from the way it cut the air than anything else.

His bare hands flexed at his sides now, the faint indentations from the gloves still visible on his skin. He didn’t move back. If anything, he seemed to draw closer, his eyes scanning your face as though he was looking for something — recognition, understanding, permission.

“Sticky?” you echoed, the word slipping out before you could stop yourself.

His lips curled into something between a smirk and a snarl. “Life is sticky.” he said simply, his tone almost amused, like he found it funny that you didn’t already know this. His hand came up to brush a strand of hair from your face, leaving a phantom trace where his fingers had been.

“Messy. Unclean. But that’s what makes it real, isn’t it?” His thumb hovered near the corner of your mouth before falling away. “The stickiness makes it human.”

You didn’t answer, but your silence didn’t seem to bother him. Instead, he let it linger, thick and charged, leaving you alone with your thoughts. Or perhaps, with his.

“Where do I fit into all of this?” you asked, the words soft but weighted, as if the answer might shatter you. You weren’t even sure what you meant. The words spilled out unformed, driven by something deeper than reason — an instinct, a need.

He didn’t move at first, his focus still fixed on the fine balance of delicacy and control he wielded with such ease, almost as though the question hadn’t even reached him. Or perhaps it had, and he was simply measuring his response. “You’re…our bodies are conduits, reflecting each other.” he said at last. “Something like…elemental fusion.”

Your heart kicked in your chest. The words unsettled you, as much for their strangeness as their intimacy. “So did you come to me to see your fantasies performed before your very eyes?” you asked, the accusation trembling on your lips.

That was when he turned to you. Slowly. Deliberately. The room felt darker. It made your skin prickle His gaze found yours, heavy and unyielding. “You came to me, remember?” he said, his voice sharp enough to carve you apart, cutting through you like the edge of a blade dulled just enough to bruise without breaking. Small. He made you feel small again.

Small in the way he had a talent for. It wasn’t a diminishment that came from malice but rather an awareness, a stark and cutting reminder of your fragility in the face of his intensity.

“We’re both…looking.” he said, his voice softening just enough to unsettle you further.

The air seemed to shift with him, thickening, growing weighty. You couldn’t move — not because he forced you but because his presence locked you in place. He left the bird alone, its wings spread and vulnerable under the lamplight. It was then you realised he wasn’t just speaking about the bird. He’d found something else to pin, something else to dissect. He came to his bird instead.

His hand found your neck — not rough, not even threatening — fingers curling around the column of your throat, not squeezing, but holding. Light but firm. His touch felt surgical in its precision, and though it didn’t hurt, the tips of his fingers pressing just enough to remind you they were there, you couldn’t ignore the power that simmered just beneath his skin.

It wasn’t a choke. It was a claim.

His thoughts moved through him like dark water — slow, deep currents filled with things he could never say aloud. You were fragile, too fragile, and yet you were something that refused to break no matter how much he pressed. He wasn’t sure if he wanted you to. There was a part of him that feared your strength and a part that craved it. You were a contradiction to him. Soft and delicate in all the places that called to his most base urges, yet unyielding in ways that left him restless and raw.

And yet, as his hand rested on your throat, as his thumb brushed against the hollow there, he thought about how easy it would be to ruin you, to take the raw materials of you and shape them into something more his. Something beautiful, not unlike the bird on the table. But he didn’t want to ruin you — not fully. Not yet. He wanted to see you unmade, but he also wanted you to keep standing.

His lips met yours, and everything sharpened.

They crushed against yours, hard, swallowing your gasp like he was consuming something he thought already belonged to him. His thumb brushed the hollow of your throat as his mouth moved against yours, hungry, urgent, leaving no room for doubt. The kiss wasn’t soft. It wasn’t gentle. It was claiming, devouring. He kissed you as though it wasn’t an act of affection but of necessity, as though your lips had something he needed to survive. His mouth moved against yours with a kind of hunger that felt old, like it had lived in him far longer than you’d known him. His tongue slid against yours, tasting, coaxing, demanding.

The warmth of him pressed into you, and your body registered every detail — the roughness of his unshaven jaw, the faint scent of latex and soap that lingered on his hands, the tension in his body that vibrated just beneath his skin. He was solid against you, overwhelming, and yet his grip on your neck remained careful, precise. He didn’t tighten his fingers, though you felt them twitch, as though he was constantly holding himself back. Or maybe he wasn’t. Maybe this was just part of the game.

For a moment, you thought you could taste his contradiction, the way his mind warred with itself. He wanted to keep you safe, and he wanted to tear you apart. He wanted you untouched, and he wanted you completely ruined.

You clung to him, your hands gripping the fabric of his shirt as if anchoring yourself against the storm he brought with him. He kissed you deeper, harder, his breaths rough and uneven against your cheek.

In his head, his thoughts twisted. You weren’t just a distraction. You were the thing — the thing that made him feel too much, that made him want to forget himself and remember you instead. You were raw material, yes, but raw material he didn’t need to mold. You were already beautiful in ways he couldn’t replicate, and it infuriated him.

“You’re mine.” he whispered against your lips, his voice ragged and heavy, breath hot and heady. He wasn’t asking. He wasn’t even confirming. He was stating. A fact he expected you to accept without protest. A truth as simple and unyielding as gravity.

Your chest tightened. His words shouldn’t have felt comforting, but they did. “Yours.” you whispered back, the word catching in your throat like a secret too dangerous to release.

But the question still lingered in your mind, even as his other hand slid up your spine, pulling you closer, making it harder to think. Where did you fit into all this? Were you his reflection, his experiment? Or just another bird, pinned neatly into place, caught in his grasp?

“Good girl.” he murmured, and the warmth in his tone contrasted sharply with the cool weight of his hand still on your throat. It made your head spin, made everything blur and sharpen all at once.

His lips left yours, trailing down to your jaw, your neck, pressing marks into your skin like he wanted to leave proof of this moment. You tilted your head, offering yourself to him, and his breath came heavier against your pulse.

Then, something in his gaze shifted — like a shadow passing over a light. He pulled back, his hand lingering on your neck for a moment longer before he let you go. He stepped back, the space between you suddenly unbearable.

You couldn’t stand it. The emptiness where his hand had been, the hollow absence of his warmth against you — it was suffocating in its own way, and you acted before you could think better of it.

Your hand shot out, grabbing him by the front of his shirt with a force that surprised even you. His eyes widened for the briefest of moments, a flicker of shock crossing his face before you surged forward. You dived into him, reckless and unrelenting.

You kissed him hard, desperate, pouring everything into it. Your hands roamed, gripping the fabric of his shirt, sliding to his jaw, threading into his hair. You pulled at him, as though dragging him closer might make him a part of you, something you couldn’t lose. Your tongue swept against his lips, and when they parted for you, you licked into his mouth with a hunger that bordered on feral.

He groaned, low and guttural, the sound reverberating through your chest. His hands were on you again, pulling you to him, holding you steady as your knees began to falter. You felt his fingers sink into your waist, even as you threatened to collapse under the weight of your own desire. But then your knees did give out, the strength leaving you in a rush. He went down with you, and the next thing you knew, your back hit the wooden floor.

The impact jolted you, the cold of the wood a sharp contrast to the heat coursing through your body, but none of it mattered. He braced himself over you, his knees digging into the floor on either side of your hips, his weight held by his palms planted firmly on either side of your head.

You stared at each other, breathless. His face was close, so close you could see the way his pupils had swallowed the color of his eyes, could feel the warmth of his breath against your skin. His lips were swollen from your kiss, and there was a slight flush to his cheeks that made your chest ache.

“Take me.” you whispered, your voice trembling but firm.

His expression flickered — hesitation, hunger. His chest heaved, and for a moment, he didn’t move, didn’t speak, as though he was trying to decide whether to obey you or devour you whole.

Then he leaned down, his lips brushing against the shell of your ear. “Careful what you wish for.” he murmured.

His mouth found yours again, slower this time, but no less consuming. Clothes were pulled off. Yours, to be precise. Piece by piece, each layer peeled back to leave you bare beneath his gaze, vulnerable in a way that somehow didn’t feel humiliating. Exposed. And yet, even in this exposure, there was a power that lingered, palpable and undeniable.

Even from below, you could see the way his body betrayed him. He was at the mercy of his own desire, as much as you were at his. His jaw was tight, his breathing labored, and his trousers, straining with every sharp inhale, were proof that this wasn’t just you unraveling. It was both of you, caught in the pull of something you couldn’t fully explain.

His gaze burned into you, devouring every inch of your skin as though memorizing it, committing the sight of you to something deeper than memory. You could almost feel the weight of his eyes, the way they lingered on the rise and fall of your chest, on the subtle curve of your stomach. His hunger was unmistakable, and yet, restrained — painfully so, you thought.

He reached for your hands and you didn’t resist as he grabbed your wrists and brought them together. His grip was firm but not cruel, his palms warm against your skin as he maneuvered your arms. The motion brought your own body into sharp focus — your arms squeezed your sides, pressing your breasts together, and your hands found a place just above your womb, a posture that felt ceremonial, like you’d been molded into an offering.

He was the one holding it all together, the tie that kept you bound in place. His fingers lingered on your wrists for a moment longer than they needed to, and when his eyes met yours, they were dark and smoldering, barely contained.

“Stay like that…” he said, his voice rough, almost trembling. “Don’t- don’t move.”

There was a note of desperation in his command, but you didn’t dare disobey. You nodded, too breathless to speak, your chest rising and falling in shallow, uneven breaths.

He was up before you could get a word in, his body moving with a deliberateness that left you both anxious and aching. You heard him rummaging, something shifting, though your gaze stayed forward, locked onto the space where he had been. It wasn’t until he returned, crouching above you again, that you looked down and saw what he held.

Rough, coarse rope.

The first loop circled your wrists before you fully registered what was happening, the fibers scratching against your skin. It was precise — tight enough to feel, but not so tight as to hurt. Yet.

You flexed your hands instinctively, testing the bond, and felt the burn of friction as the rope resisted. Terrifying in its finality.

“Tighter?” he asked, though it wasn’t really a question.

You opened your mouth to answer, unsure if you’d even dare to admit you…liked it, but he didn’t wait for your reply.

“Tighter.” he concluded for himself, his voice low and definitive as he pulled the rope taut.

Your breath hitched as the pressure increased, your wrists pinned together, immobile. Your fingers twitched against each other, your palms brushing the faint warmth of your own skin. There was no escape.

The tension in the air was unbearable. You watched his face as he worked — focused, obsessive, his lips slightly parted as though the act of binding you was something sacred to him. His fingers moved with precision, tugging and adjusting, and you realised this wasn’t just about control. This was art to him. He was shaping you, sculpting you into something that could only exist beneath his hands.

“Does it hurt?” he asked, his voice softer now, a strange juxtaposition to the roughness biting into your skin.

You shook your head, though the raw sensation prickled your nerves. “Not yet.” you whispered.

His lips quirked, the faintest shadow of a smile.

His hands lingered on the knot, testing it. And as you lay there, bound and bare, you couldn’t help but wonder if this was the moment he saw you as something beyond flesh — beyond what you thought you were. You wondered if he saw something transcendent.

But his thoughts weren’t as lofty.

He looked at you, laid out and helpless, and the only thing he could think about was how much he wanted to ruin you. How the sight of your wrists bound together stirred something he couldn’t ignore. How your skin, so soft and pliable, made his restraint feel more like a curse than a choice.

He leaned closer, his breath warm against your ear as he murmured, “Stay still.”

And you did, because what else could you do?

His hands left you for only a moment, and you shivered at the loss of his touch. He stood over you and began peeling off his shirt. The fabric clung to him, damp with heat and tension, and the way he tugged it over his head revealed more of him in agonizing increments.

Muscle stretched taut under pale skin, his chest rising and falling with every breath. There was something mesmerizing in the act — how casual it seemed, yet how intimate it felt. Like he was stripping away more than just his clothes.

The scrape of his belt buckle was louder than your breathing, and the sound of the zipper being undone made your pulse quicken.

He didn’t hesitate after that.

He was on you in an instant, his weight pressing you into the floor as he kissed you with teeth and need. His mouth latched onto your neck, biting down hard enough to make you gasp, his tongue soothing the sting only to bite again.

His cock brushed against your bound hands each time he moved, a heated, silken pressure that made you burn with anticipation. You could feel the pulse of him, the way he twitched against your skin, and it was maddening.

“Can’t hold back.” he growled, his voice ragged as his teeth grazed your collarbone.

“Don’t.” you whispered, and the word barely had time to settle between you before he surged forward, filling you in one swift, unrelenting thrust.

You cried out, your body arching beneath him, your wrists straining against the rope as your fingers sought something — anything — to hold onto. But there was nothing to grasp except him.

He was everywhere.

His hips pressed flush against yours, leaving no space between your bodies. He was so close, so deeply buried inside you, it felt like he’d erased the boundaries of where he ended and you began.

“Fuck.” he hissed through gritted teeth, his forehead pressing against yours. His hands gripped your thighs, fingers digging into soft flesh.

Your breath hitched as he moved, his pace slow but merciless, each stroke dragging him against every sensitive part of you. Your tied hands were pinned between your bodies, brushing against the base of his cock with every thrust, and the friction only added to the delirium.

“You take me so fucking well.” he said, his voice low and reverent, though his movements were anything but gentle. “Like you were made for this. For me.”

Your thoughts were a haze of heat and sensation, your body pliant and open beneath his relentless pace.

“Say it.” he demanded, his teeth nipping at your jawline.

“Made for you.” you managed to gasp, and the sound of your voice seemed to break something in him.

He cursed under his breath and surged forward, his movements growing more erratic, more desperate. His hands left your thighs to grip your hips, pulling you against him with bruising force. The rope around your wrists burned against your skin as you writhed, but the pain only tethered you to him.

You felt his breath against your ear, hot and uneven. “You’ll remember this.” he murmured, his voice raw. “You’ll feel me tomorrow, and you’ll know who you belong to.”

“I already do.” you whispered, your voice breaking as his pace pushed you closer to the edge.

He groaned, low and guttural, and you knew he was losing himself in you, just as much as you were losing yourself in him.

It hit you then, like the floor beneath your back and his weight pressing you into it — this wasn’t simple desire. It was the raw, consuming need to dismantle you, to strip you bare in every way, and yet you weren’t afraid. If he wanted to destroy you, you’d let him. You’d beg for it, even, and when he was done, you’d still be there, pressing your lips to the hand that delivered the final blow.

Your wrists strained against the rope as his movements became rougher, more insistent. Suddenly, you felt them being tugged upward. He was holding himself up on one elbow, his other hand grabbing the bindings and pulling them closer to his face.

You bit your lip as he drove into you harder, your cry muffled behind your teeth. He didn’t let you stay quiet, though. He bit into the fleshy part of your palm, his teeth sinking deep enough to make you gasp, the pain sharp and startling.

“Al-” you whimpered.

“Shh, shh…” he murmured. His lips were soft against your hand as he kissed over the fresh indentations, soothing where his teeth had been just moments before.

“I’m sore.” you said, barely able to find the words as he rocked into you again.

He shifted, rubbing his thumbs along the rope marks on your wrists, but it wasn’t a gesture of comfort. He was studying the way they bloomed red against your skin, admiring the effect. “What?” he asked, feigning concern. “Your pussy’s sore?”

You nodded, unable to voice it properly, but your answer didn’t soften him. It spurred him on.

“Good.” he said, his voice dropping an octave as his thrusts grew deeper, more deliberate. His cock filled you so completely it felt like there was nothing left for you to give, and yet he kept pushing, kept taking.

He leaned down, his lips brushing your ear as he spoke. “I’m gonna fill you up all nice.” he rasped, his breath hot against your skin. “You’ll forget all about it.”

The promise was as cruel as it was intoxicating. His pace never faltered, his hips driving into yours with bruising precision. Each thrust sent another shockwave through your body, your mind blanking with the intensity of it.

“I-” you whimpered again, your voice breaking as tears pricked at the corners of your eyes.

He kissed your temple this time, a fleeting gesture of tenderness that contrasted the unrelenting force of his body against yours. “I know.” he whispered. “I know, baby. Just take it for me. That’s all I need from you.”

And you did. You took every bit of him, every thrust, every bite, every rough squeeze of his hand on your flesh, until you weren’t sure where the pain ended and the pleasure began.

It happened all at once — the unraveling of him. His pace grew uneven, frantic, each thrust harder than the last as if he were chasing something just out of reach. His face twisted, caught between tension and release, his jaw tightening, lips parting as a guttural sound escaped his throat.

He was beautiful in that moment, devastatingly so. His head tilted back slightly, the muscles in his neck straining, veins prominent as he gave in to the wave overtaking him. His eyes, half-lidded and glazed, were almost unseeing, lost in the intensity.

Then came the sharp cry, almost animalistic, torn from his chest as he spilled into you. The heat of it was overwhelming, searing, the evidence of him claiming you in the most visceral way. His cock twitched inside you, over and over, each pulse sending more of him deeper, marking you in a way that felt irreversible.

But he didn’t let the sound echo far. His teeth found your shoulder first, sinking in hard enough to draw a startled gasp from your lips. Then your collarbone, then the curve of your neck — he bit wherever he could reach, muffling his cries against your skin. Each bite was sharp, leaving tender marks in their wake, a series of his claiming scattered across your body.

“Fuck.” he groaned, his voice muffled as he pressed his lips against your neck again, softer this time, lingering. He stayed buried deep inside you, his body shuddering with the aftershocks.

You felt his cock twitch one last time before it started to soften, still filling you but no longer with the same urgency. He didn’t pull away, though. He stayed close.

His hands moved to cradle your face, rough and tender all at once. When his lips brushed against your forehead, you realised his breaths had quieted, but his body hadn’t moved. He was inside you, still holding you as though he couldn’t bear to let go. You couldn’t tell where his need ended and this tenderness began, and maybe neither could he.

“So good to me.” he whispered.

He stood, pulling his pants up as if regaining a semblance of control, leaving you still tied, exposed, and utterly vulnerable on the floor. You watched him move, calm and precise, and for a moment, you thought he might leave you like this — abandoned in your own wreckage. But then he returned, holding a small knife in his hand, the blade gleaming faintly.

Your breath caught. It wasn’t unlike the one he’d used earlier on the bird, but this one was slightly larger, heavier in his hand. He crouched in front of you, his gaze flickering between your bound wrists and the rope that kept you there.

“Hold still.” he murmured. He aimed the blade at the rope, but as he pressed it against the fibers, you flinched — just barely, but enough for the knife to slip.

It kissed your skin, sharp and unforgiving, and a sting followed as blood welled up along the shallow cut on your belly. You gasped, the sound involuntary, and his hand froze. His gaze snapped to yours, unreadable at first, before it dropped to the crimson bead that now trickled down your skin.

He stared at it, entranced. “Look what you made me do.” he said, his voice low and almost accusatory, though the words were tinged with a dark sort of fascination.

You stretched your wrists, testing the bonds, but his hand on your stomach stopped you. Before you could say anything, his head dipped, and his tongue dragged along the cut, collecting the blood before you even had the chance to process what was happening.

“Al- what are you doing?” you asked.

“Tasting.” he murmured against your skin, his lips brushing the wound as he pulled back just enough to meet your eyes. “You’re sweet, you know that?”

His head dipped lower. At first, you thought he might simply kiss the curve of your hip, but he kept going, his lips trailing a path down, and lower, and lower still.

When his mouth closed over your clit, you flinched again, a sharp, startled cry escaping you. “Fuck-”

A hand flew to his head, your fingers threading through his hair. He didn’t stop, didn’t even slow down. His tongue was relentless, flicking and swirling with a precision that left you gasping. His hands gripped your thighs, holding you open, keeping you exactly where he wanted you.

“Alexander-” You couldn’t get the words out, your thoughts fragmented as the pressure built and built until it became unbearable.

He hummed against you. “Don’t hold back.” he muttered between licks, his voice muffled but clear enough to command. “Let me hear you.”

Sharp and sudden, your thighs trembled as you cried out, clutching at him like he was the only thing. His tongue didn’t stop until you were twitching, overstimulated and breathless, and even then, he gave you one last, deliberate suck that made you whimper.

When he finally pulled back, his lips were slick, his expression smug. “See?” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Good for both of us.”

You could only stare at him, chest heaving, your wrists still bound and raw. He reached for the knife again, cutting the rope this time without hesitation.

“You’re bleeding.” you managed to say, noticing the faint red streak smeared along his jaw.

He didn’t even glance at it. “No…you are.” His hand brushed over the cut on your stomach, now smeared with a mixture of blood and his spit.

He didn’t move far, didn’t seem able to. After freeing your wrists, he set the knife aside and crawled back over you, his presence looming but his touch…different now. Gentler.

He leaned in, pressing his lips to your neck, faint and fleeting kisses that barely grazed the surface of your skin. They trailed down to your shoulder, each one a whisper of warmth that left your body tingling in their wake. It felt so unlike him, so far removed from the roughness and force of moments ago. The contrast made your breath hitch, made your heart ache in a way you didn’t understand.

It was odd, almost unsettling, but also…lovely.

You let your hands wander, brushing over his shoulders, sliding down his back. His skin was warm, but beneath it, he felt unyielding. The curve of his spine was firm, the ridges of his muscles hard, like something long locked in tension. There was a toughness to him, not just physical but something deeper, like an atrophied muscle that had grown stiff with time and disuse.

Your fingers traced one vertebra after the next as if you could soothe whatever it was that kept him like this. He shivered under your touch, almost imperceptibly, but you felt it. Felt the way his breath hitched against your shoulder, how his body stilled as if caught in a moment too vulnerable to escape.

“Alexander.” you whispered, barely audible.

He paused, his lips resting against your collarbone. “What?”

“I don’t know.” you admitted. It was the truth — you didn’t have the words for what you felt, for what he was doing to you, for what you were doing to him.

“Then don’t say anything.”

And he dipped back down, his kisses resuming their path along your shoulder and collarbone. Your hand slid to his nape, fingers threading into his hair. He leaned into it, just barely, and the subtle way he responded made something twist inside you. You wanted to ask what he was thinking, but the words wouldn’t come. Maybe because you were afraid of what he’d say. Or maybe because you were afraid he wouldn’t answer at all.

Instead, you stayed silent, your hand stroking down his spine again. He let out a soft, shaky breath against your skin, one that you might have missed if you weren’t so attuned to him. For a moment, it felt like he might say something, but he didn’t.

He just kissed you again.

When all the clothes came back on, it felt like something had shifted. Alexander was distant again, leaning into the couch as though it would swallow him whole, his hands hanging loosely between his knees. The fire painted restless shadows across his face, but his expression was unreadable. His ruminations had started — you could see it in the way his eyes darkened, his mind somewhere else entirely.

You didn’t sit. Couldn’t. The raw marks on your wrists burned under your touch, and your pacing felt inevitable, as though standing still might crush you under the weight of everything unsaid. The air felt thick between you, but not impenetrable.

Your voice broke the silence, louder than you intended, startling even yourself. “Did I ever tell you about my father?”

Alexander’s eyes flicked to you sharply, his brow furrowing just slightly. “No.” he said. It was quiet, almost, like he already knew he wouldn’t like what you were going to say.

You stopped, rubbing your wrist absently as you stared at the window. The darkness outside seemed endless, like a mirror of your thoughts. “He killed himself.” you said flatly, the words falling between you like a stone. “In my bedroom.”

The fire popped, but Alexander didn’t move. His stillness made it worse somehow, like he was absorbing your words in a way you hadn’t expected. You paced again, feeling like a caged animal, your arms crossed tight over your chest.

“I wasn’t there when it happened.” you continued. “I didn’t find him. Thank God for that, I guess. But sometimes I wish I had. Isn’t that fucked up?” You laughed bitterly, shaking your head. “I feel too much without anything actually having happened. Like there’s no room to let it out, no picture to hold onto except the ones my brain paints for me.”

Alexander’s gaze tracked your movements, his hands tightening slightly, a twitch of the fingers. “Why your bedroom?” he asked quietly.

You stopped in your tracks. “I don’t know. Maybe he thought it was the easiest way to say something without having to say it. Maybe he thought I’d know what it meant.” You glanced at him, searching his face for something — understanding, maybe, or condemnation.

“Did you see him?” you asked suddenly, your voice sharp, almost accusing. “I mean…you must have. Afterward.”

Alexander’s jaw tightened, and he looked away for the first time. His hands rubbed together, the faintest sound of skin on skin breaking the silence. “No.” he said, and it felt too fast, too automatic. “I didn’t see him.”

You took a hesitant step closer. “Then what-”

“I just…” He paused, the words caught somewhere in his throat. His hand dragged across his jaw, his fingers rough. “I just dug the…” strained, and he trailed off as though even saying it aloud was a step too far.

Something in his tone made your stomach twist, but you didn’t press. Not yet. Instead, you crossed the room and sat beside him on the couch. The cushions shifted under your weight, but he didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge the way you leaned into his space.

Lulu’s soft meow broke the silence, and she leapt onto the piano down the hall. Her paws struck a few discordant notes, the sound grating against the fragile atmosphere.

“Lulu.” Alexander said, his voice low but sharp. She meowed again, unfazed, stepping over more keys.

“Lulu.” he snapped, louder now. He started to rise, but you put a hand on his knee. “She’s fine.” you murmured, though your voice shook slightly.

He stayed seated, but the tension in his frame didn’t ease. His jaw was tight, his shoulders hunched forward like he was ready to spring up at any moment. Lulu pawed at a few more keys, and his hand balled into a fist.

You hesitated, your hand still on his knee. “I can’t stop thinking about it.” you said softly, pulling his focus back to you. “About him. About what he felt in that moment. If he was scared or if he just…let go.”

Alexander’s gaze was heavy on you now, his fists unclenching as he leaned back slightly. You stared at your hands, your fingers brushing over the marks on your wrists. “I think about what he saw before he…did it. My things, my bed…did he look at them and think of me? Or was it all just…a blur to him?”

Alexander’s hand shifted, moving closer to yours but not quite touching. “You’ll drive yourself mad thinking like that.” he said quietly.

You gave him a small, humorless smile. “I think I already have.”

His brow furrowed, but he didn’t respond. Instead, his hand finally moved to cover yours, his touch light, almost hesitant.

“Do you think he was selfish?” you asked suddenly, your voice cracking. “Or brave? Or- God, I don’t even know. I can’t figure it out. I just…I can’t stop wondering if it’ll ever make sense.”

“It won’t.” Alexander said, his voice steady now, certain. “Not the way you want it to.”

You looked at him, your eyes searching his face for answers you knew he couldn’t give. But the way he held your hand, firm, made something inside you shift.

The silence didn’t feel quite so unbearable.

Alexander pulled you closer, circling your shoulders with a quiet decisiveness that left no room for protest — not that you would have protested. He didn’t hold you too tightly, didn’t speak or push. He just folded you into his chest, his chin brushing the top of your head, and let it take over.

Usually it was suffocating, a vacuum that forced you to fill it with restless thoughts. But for him, silence seemed easy. Natural. At least on the surface.

Inside, his mind roiled. He told himself to focus on your breathing, the rise and fall of your chest against his, the faint tremor in your hands as they clung to him. But even in this moment, he felt the itch — like static beneath his skin, his compulsions sparking at the edges of his restraint. You were soft against him, vulnerable in your grief, and part of him wanted to stay here, to hold you and absorb every jagged piece of pain until there was nothing left. But another part of him wanted to strip you bare — not just your body, but your soul, your defenses, your very essence.

He knew how to take things apart. Knew it so well that sometimes he wondered if he could do anything else.

“You should stay.” he said finally, his voice low but resolute.

He thought you might argue, might retreat back into yourself like you sometimes did when the weight of the world pressed too hard.

“I will.” you said softly.

The relief that coursed through him was almost painful. He hadn’t realised how badly he needed you to stay until you agreed.

You shifted closer, settling into him. He held you tighter, his hand trailing down to rest on the small of your back, his fingers spreading wide as though anchoring you there.

Outside, the wind howled faintly, rattling the windows. But inside, the world narrowed.

You didn’t fight him on staying because, deep down, you wanted it too. You wanted the quiet, the pull of his presence that made you feel seen in ways that were as thrilling as they were terrifying.

And so you stayed.

a/n: Not really the biggest fan of this one. Don’t wanna talk about it. (insert sticker of my tbhc alex memoji giving you the hand to talk to)

#i am obsessed #also i need to see the tbhc alex memoji

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aacheinthejaw · 16 days ago

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#slut!!#always on the floor for some reason

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aacheinthejaw · 20 days ago

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AL PACINO as SONNY WORTZIK | Dog Day Afternoon (1975) dir. Sidney Lumet

#al pacino #fav movie #not alex related but also yes alex related #sort of

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aacheinthejaw · 22 days ago

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2011

beneath the boardwalk, part 8 (series masterlist)

love is a laserquest

warnings: fluff, angst, fluff, angst

word count: 11.8k

I got a job at the New Yorker. Condé Nast moved me over as a staff writer. I'm not sure if it was because they knew my desire for the job, Fennel did some talking, I charmed David Remnick, or my piece in the Paris Review. I've never found out. Either way, it made an optimistic start to the year.

Alex took me out to dinner when we found out. It was a far more fancy dinner than our usual ones. He wore a suit because it was that kind of restaurant and I was the kind of girl who liked a man in a suit. I wore a navy-coloured dress with a cream-coloured cardigan.

We went to Le Bernardin where I never figured out how Alex managed to get a reservation so last minute. Alex and I began to talk about things we had never talked about before. Often when living with Alex in those years, we had the same conversations over and over again. I was never bored by them but I never learned much about the history of Alex and I knew he knew little of me other than context clues.

He told me of his childhood basketball games and I laughed at tiny Alex trying to shoot 3 meters off the ground. "We were awful," he said, "like really bad. I was okay but only because everyone else was really awful."

I giggled and sipped on my white wine. "I can't picture you sporty. You've always seemed scrawny to me."

"Hey. I work out," he defended.

It made me laugh again. "Maybe now but I've seen pictures of you young. You could have snapped in half."

"Most basketball players aren't buff," he reasoned.

I countered, "Most are over 6 feet tall."

Alex always worried about overstepping. I believe I had previously scarred him with off-the-cuff recountings of my childhood. Alex didn't even know how Tommy died. He was scared to ask and I never wanted to touch the subject. He retreated to the nonsense and we talked about the days when I played football.

"Now, you," he pointed his finger at me, "you are not sporty."

I laughed with my wine. "That's why I only did it for a week."

The days were so short in that January. We had celebrated his birthday in Sheffield. It would be the last time he would stay home for his birthday. The following years got tricky for him to make it home and by the time he could, he had grown up and gone so long without it that the idea of returning home felt childish.

When we returned I started my new job and Al returned to Los Angeles. He asked me about it. He cited that it was a good meeting point for all the guys for making a record. He reasoned that I didn't have to come. He promised that it would be a short amount of time. He swore I wouldn't even notice he was gone.

Truthfully, I didn't care much. Maybe if he had left for months but he was gone for five weeks. It wasn't much different than touring, in fact, it was easier because he was always in the same place. He asked me if I was okay with it and for that I noticed and appreciated his matured abilities in communication. I preferred not to go with him. I wasn't uprooted from my life and, in New York, I had found an occupation in both labour and leisure. I don't care whether he came or left. That should have shocked me more but it didn't. Life was too quick for me to care.

I acquired a group of friends that felt like my own circle of beatniks and lost generation writers, although that was mostly my fantasization of them. We drank, we smoked, we doped, but nobody shot their wife or was "going mad" from my knowledge. It often felt like elders embarking wisdom onto the youth. That wisdom was usually through buckets of liquor and the faux elegance of smoking a cigarette in between a small dinner and an even tinier dessert. But I liked it a lot.

Before Alex left, the band came to New York and we had a little party with some of their friends. It was a lowkey affair for the most part. We mostly drank and chatted. It didn't feel right to invite any of my friends to this dirty British fun, even if a few Americans slipped by the door. It was the only "party" Alex held in that apartment but it was probably the best we had. It felt nostalgic.

Alex and I sat in front of the couch with his arm around me while Jamie attempted to balance a glass on his head. We were all drunk and with no sober thoughts there wasn't much logic to letting a clumsy guy balance a glass of liquor atop his head.

It crashed to the floor, spreading out across our feet. It should have been tragic and mildly painful as Jamie proceeded to step in a piece and cut his foot, but all of us, even a bleeding Jamie were laughing.

I tucked my head into Alex's shoulder, struggling to breathe with how hard I was laughing. His arm hugged around me and he was a cushion to fall asleep on. I felt warm from the alcohol but he felt even warmer in that January chill.

Alex got up to sweep up the mess and I fooled around with Katie, grabbing a tambourine and smacking it against my hand. It was a racket and not very pleasing to the ear but Katie and I were laughing too hard to put any care into it. Both of us were very musically inept.

"I feel like we're in Will's basement," I told them. "Feels just as childish as then."

Jamie laughed. "I guess we haven't grown much." Or maybe it was just the alcohol that brought us back to those states. But, to me, it was the idea that whenever we were with each other like this, we would regress back to the ways we met. The behaviours we exhibited when we first bonded.

"Time goes by, I suppose," I sighed and rested my head on Katie's shoulder. Matt pulled the glass out of Jamie's foot, Alex got him a bandage, and Nick poured him another glass.

I don't know much of what went down in LA with Alex. He wasn't one to open up without prompting and I wasn't one to talk about anyone but myself in those days. He gave me pieces but I imagined he was in the studio most of the time, which wasn't wrong.

He returned halfway through February and things resumed as they were. I went to work. He stayed home. We often went out for dinner with those from my circle. Alex had befriended some of them and it wasn't like he talked much during dinner anyway.

At the tail-end of February, there was a dinner somewhere on the Upper West Side. I can't place where but I had red wine and chicken, I remember that much. Neither the food nor the restaurant is very important here, but Alex got white wine and steak. I don't think he liked either.

The group would fluctuate between obsessing over Alex and ignoring him. He didn't like the former, he appreciated the latter. They were yapping on about something when I turned to Alex, whispering, "Isn't this right old fun?"

He pursed his lips and nodded.

I rolled my eyes and ignored him for the rest of dinner.

When we finished dinner, someone suggested continuing the night with drinks. Alex tugged on my coat like he was a little child who stood nothing above three feet tall. I looked over at him and he just stared at me. I frowned then he frowned. I wasn't sure what we were saying to one another. I wasn't sure if we were joking around or fighting. We passed on drinks and walked in the opposite direction.

"You don't want to have fun," I whined, tugging on his arm. He was stiff-figured with his hands in his pockets. He had all the signs of a man but looked to be about 17 and shy. "You don't want to drink, you don't want to talk. They think you're sullen."

Alex chuckled. "Aren't I?"

I tucked my arms away from him and moved over on the street, furthering the gap between our brushing bodies. "You like people to think that but it comes off as rude."

He shrugged. "Sorry." Not apologetically, just uncaring.

We stopped at a light. I lit a cigarette and he tapped his shoe on the cement. "What's got you down, blue boy?" I laughed in the moment thinking of the closeness in pronunciation to blue balls.

Something cracked within him, realigning the figure of him. He stood taller, dropped his hands out of his pockets, and slung an arm around me. "Just missed you." His hand reached out and pushed the strands back.

My face felt cluttered and my cigarette-yielding hand felt full. I took it up to my lips, edged it right on the bottom of it. "If you missed me so much, why don't you kiss me?" I trapped the cigarette and blew smoke into his face.

He laughed at me, let go, and moved across the street. I was stuck on the sidewalk, left to chase after him. He was still laughing when I caught up to him. "What? What?" I never found out what he was laughing at, he just kissed me, all bright and smiling, teeth colliding.

We went home and I undressed and showered. Alex did something, I'm not sure, but when I left the bathroom, he was in bed reading. I sought refuge in the covers, the chill of the air burning my skin. I scooted closer to him, tightened a grasp on his arm, and leaned my head on him. I was in perfect sight of the book but didn't bother to read it, instead tapping on his upper arm.

"Yes?" He didn't look up from the page but I spotted the cheeky grin spread on his lips.

My finger stroked the corner of it. "Nothing."

He chuckled. "You want something."

I leaned back onto the headboard. "Why do you always think that? Maybe I just want to look at you."

He laughed again. "Well, you answered your question there."

I rolled my eyes. "You know what I mean."

"I know." His eyes stayed on his book, flipping a page, somehow reading through all my talking.

I shelved my head on his shoulder. "Are you bored?"

His eyes escaped the page momentarily before returning. "No. I'm reading."

"Okay." I left it at that but I worried that we were leaving one another behind. It might have been a typical thing for other couples but it was weird to have intimate separation from one another. I mean, sure there was having sex but it wasn't often that Alex and I went to bed in these different junctions. He felt stiff and awkward as of late and not just with other people. He was reading a book in bed.

I slumped further into bed. "What do you want to do tomorrow?"

"I don't know." He waited, thought some, and asked, "What are you doing?"

"I don't know," I replied. I waited. "Should call Stacey." I waited and felt the sinking in my stomach as we seemed to stay still. "I have the weirdest feeling."

"Your dad's fine." The book stayed open and his eyes followed the sentences to an impeccable degree. It was impressive and confusing, perplexing, but no longer infuriating. It was so strange.

I played with my fingers, tapping them on my stomach, picking at my shirt, and debating what to say and whether to say it. But I vowed to myself to talk to Alex and so I did. "I miss you. I miss you and you're right here."

I had no clue what he would say. I thought I might have been left with silence or a kiss or a question, some form of confusion. But he never shifted, didn't spare me a glance as I stared up at him so attentively as he casually said, "You're tired."

"Okay," I decided. I flicked out my light (he left his on, a new thing) and went to bed. I don't know when he went to bed or if he ever did.

One Sunday, Alex and I sat in Washington Square Park. It was just starting to get warm and bearable to sit outside for prolonged periods of time. The center fountain still wasn't running water so people were skating on it. There was loud music blaring from somewhere but I never found the source. People were selling things: clothes, music, art, Bibles. I was sipping on a strawberry banana smoothie and Alex was eating some kind of disgusting sandwich that was practically spilling over with its contents.

I could feel the chill of the bench through my jeans, but it was comforting rather than chattering. Alex looked fluffy in a leather jacket. It was like a Yorkshire Terrier trying to be an American Bully.

I reached out and brushed my hands through the front of his mop top, trying to give sun to the part of his face that hid away from it. My hand crawled to the other side of him, putting my arm around his shoulders.

"Should I get my hair cut?" I was merely focusing on myself in this moment, not hinting toward anything. It was long, not yet too long, and my fringe had fully grown out sometime around the end of January.

Alex turned to me, getting a good look at me as if he were trying to determine his decision. He hummed in deep thought over this. "Maybe a trim."

I giggled. "You're just trying to agree with me."

He chewed through his sandwich. "No, I'm just being honest."

I hummed, uncertain of this. "You like my hair long."

He felt like I was trying to play games with him. "You're very beautiful, Janie."

I brushed it off. "You're just saying that."

"Jane." He turned to me with a very serious look on his face like he was about to break some bad news to me. It unnerved me to be stared at him in this way. "You say 'thank you' when someone gives you a compliment."

I couldn't help but give a little laugh. "You've been waiting to use that for years, have you?"

Alex smiled, very proud of himself and went to finish off his sandwich. "I have many tricks up my sleeve."

I would have kissed him if he didn't have sandwich residue all over his face. Instead, I reached for a napkin and wiped it off. "You're very beautiful too, Alex." Because I never said it enough. He had become more sure of himself through the years from getting older and growing into the person he wanted to be more but we all have that little voice gnawing away at us. Alex always fought off that voice for me and I never felt I put as sufficient of an effort in and I wanted to now.

He looked over at me, still wiping his hands as his cheeks flushed. It was quite a sight for a 25-year-old man who had a habit of being evasive to his emotions. To be overcome by something I had said, it made me blush too. "Say 'thank you' now, Alex."

He moved closer to me, almost touching. "Thank you, Janie." Then, lip to lip.

He pulled back and threw out his trash. When he came back, I let him have a sip of my smoothie and put his hand on my thigh. "What should we do now?" Alex asked.

"I don't know." We sat and people watched for a while. We gossiped about the passersby and made up stories about their lives. They started out small with the suspicion that an elegant-dressed woman had lost her way and wound up in the park and ended with us pretending all the skaters were aliens.

Then, we went record shopping. Music history was close by. Electric Lady Studios is a block over and The Bitter End is around the corner. We went into the basement of Generation Records and searched through the stack of $1 records and giant posters. We walked away empty-handed beside a David Bowie sticker I bought for Alex. He stuck it to the front of his notebook.

I woke up late one morning. It must have been a Saturday. I was definitely hungover. I remember the blur of trying to get to bed the night before. I ended up landing in bed and Alex had to take me apart piece by piece and pull sleep clothes over me. I was very quiet, if not already asleep.

Alex was out of bed sitting on the couch when I crawled out of our bedroom. It was silence other than the padding of my feet as I poured myself a glass of water. I sat at our tiny kitchen table, taking small sips from the ice cold glass. Alex moved over into the kitchen and whispered the question of if I wanted anything to eat. I wanted an apple so he cut it up into little slices for me.

I took a bite of one before deciding it hurt my jaw too much to do. I pulled out a cigarette to ease the pain.

Alex laughed at my display: smudged makeup, rough hair, and a cigarette. To me, it was glamourous. Writing it still kind of feels that way but Alex was probably right that it was pretty ugly and pretty funny. "I think you need a shower, Janie, not a cigarette."

"You smoke," I stated matter of factly. As if, his smoking outdoors was comparable to that sight. I was breaking my own rule of smoking indoors, not that Al would reprimand me for that.

"How was last night?" He asked. "If you can recall it."

I squinted. "Don't mock me."

"I'm not," he insisted.

I sighed and sipped my water. "Fine. We went to a nice club and had a nice dance. What did you do?"

He shrugged. He seemed so casual but he was staring so intensely at me as if to X-ray me. "Hung around here. Called me mum."

"You should've come out with us."

"Nah. I'm not much for clubbing these days."

I hummed and frowned. "Not even for me?"

He rolled his eyes. It wasn't playful, it was rejecting. I enforced many notions that Alex didn't want to hang out with me. At least, that was my belief in those days. It wasn't fair to him to force him to go to those places or place blame when he didn't. I think I even knew that then. Besides, we were split branches. Neither of us wanted to acknowledge we were growing the other way.

The Paris Review's Spring Revel was my first personal award show. I was no longer the plus one—Alex made a very good plus one. I was going to accept the Plimpton Prize, which I believe was the first award I had ever won in my life, minus those participation trophies.

Alex and I had already done our celebrating when I got the phone call. We jumped on the bed, we went out for dinner, we had sex—the trifecta. At the Spring Revel, I wanted to look sophisticated in the literary sense, whatever that means, but Fennel knew exactly what I meant. I wore a blue boatneck midi dress by Ralph Lauren, which I suppose screams American glamour. I was fancy proper without being frumpy or slutty. I quite liked it and Alex quite liked it. He just wore a suit, very easy for him.

I'm not sure why but I was most excited for the meal. Maybe because I didn't want to acknowledge people would actually be paying attention to me or maybe because, by the time the day came, I was really hungry. So, I ate my dinner, some meat and salad, and drank a glass of champagne.

I had my photo taken with Robert Redford and James Lipton and then hid in the bathroom for 20 minutes after. Alex was my emotional support animal. I dragged him with me whenever I went to talk to someone. It was always an easy out for when the conversation lulled to say, "This is my boyfriend, Alex. He's in the Arctic Monkeys." Most people didn't know what that was and asked. The others were in wonder by it. He was a great deflection tool, something he usually hated, but I knew that he knew that I needed it by the way he squeezed my hand whenever I did it.

"What shall I do with the $10,000? What did you do with your Mercury Prize money?" I asked Alex as the night began to wind down. We stood, waiting for a cab and the last of that winter wind threatened the spring night.

The cab approached and Alex opened the door for me. It was a very special night. "Well, I had to split mine with three other people. I think I just put it in my bank account."

I scoffed, "Lame." He chuckled as he hopped into the car. "I feel like I should do something special with mine."

"What's something you really want?"

I looked down at my purse. "I don't know. I can't think of anything I would buy. Maybe clothes."

"Maybe we should take a trip," he suggested. He was risqué and tempting with just the raise of his brow. He gave so much away with his tone. His hand sculpted its way across my face and brushed forgotten strands behind my ear.

"We? Who said anything about sharing the money with you?" I looked over at him and knew I would spend all the money on him if he'd let me, which, of course, he never would. But I understood the desire to care for a person, to look after them for all the days to come. Suddenly, I liked the idea of putting the money away. Saving it for some lovely toy he'd like to play with. Or maybe just a rainy day. One of his, not mine.

He placed his hand on my knee and we might have been stopped at a red light or stuck in traffic but I couldn't tell. He leaned close to my ear, whispering delicately for just me and the wind to hear, "You earned it."

By the end of April showers, I had been washed out. Things felt sloppier in nature by that time. The streets always seemed to be glazed with a pile of rain and the wind always seemed to have me rushing out the door.

Alex was soaking up the last few moments of relaxation before the tour kicked off in about two weeks. I wasn't there for most of that. I was drawn in by work, even when I didn't have much work to do. Every outing had something to do with a co-worker or a co-worker who knew this person who was going to that person's party. I loved it. It felt like the definition of being young and fabulous. A hallmark for New York and a girl who dreamed of a Sex & the City lifestyle.

Alex didn't like those kinds of things. He was a quiet, misshapen boy, who much rather enjoyed the quiet joys of the bar down the street or smoking with one of our neighbors on the roof. I liked those things too but they felt slow and downy by comparison.

Often, I would come home and find Alex on the roof. He liked the feeling of wind and it was an easy way to smoke outdoors without having to put his jeans on. He'd bring his notebook up with him but I often found it closed. He took more to reading around that time. It was an easy way to turn his brain off when he was so alone. I left him to think a lot.

I came home from work and didn't bother with going into our apartment. I trod up the stairs to the roof. His back was to me and I slid my hands down the front of him and said a quiet, "Hi."

He smiled and closed his book, dropping it down by his notebook, his pack of cigarettes, and his lighter. I sat beside him on the wicker bench that if you sat too far back on the strands in it would break. I stole from his pack and relaxed as stiff as possible. "What have you gotten up to?" I asked.

Alex shrugged, naturally complacent, but possessing an uncaringly cool front to him. I could always tell why people were drawn to him. Sometimes, it pissed me off how much he shrugged away all this attention people begged upon him, but it had always been his way and I loved that about him. He never deemed to change for anybody. He was firm in who he was, even if he hadn't yet figured out who he was. All the boys had been. Maybe because life had given them more freedom. They didn't have to be pretty and cool and mysterious and talented, yet they were. To me, it's obvious that you don't try to be those things because it negates the whole purpose but then unknowingly I wanted to be so much like him that it repelled people, the kind of people that really cared. Those who did, cracked through all that. They didn't see me as a cool girl in a white silk maxi skirt smoking on the roof with her quiet boyfriend. To them, I was Jane. To the closest, the one, I was Janie. And maybe that's the only way I'll ever be able to express how dearly I love Alex. Because things just made sense around him. It was as simple as that.

And when I strayed too far away, that is when I became a cool girl in a white silk maxi skirt smoking on the roof. But he shrugged and smiled and said he had spent the day reading and had gone out for lunch with one of his friends, the kind he knew really well and I knew in passing so the name isn't of much relevance. He had a nice time but was glad I was home now. That we were home together.

"Calvin is hosting a little get-together tonight and I said we'd go." It was simple, said over a puff of smoke, and a gaze at the clear blue sky.

But his brows furrowed and his cigarette grew ashy and he stared right at me though it took me too long to notice. "Really?"

I had expected this, his practice of reluctance. But I gushed and insisted, "It'll be plenty fun. Calvin always has nice parties and you've never been to his place. It's stunning. I'd use the $10,000 to save for a place like his. I'm sure I'm a couple of million off but it could be achieved in time with both our salaries. Maybe my parents would even—"

"Jane." He had been saying it the whole time but I was a buzzing alarm that refused to be put on snooze. He was tense and leaned back into his chair when I stopped talking. He shut his eyes like he was in the midst of a migraine. "God, do you hear yourself talk sometimes?"

Nothing mattered then. I hated myself. If he didn't like me, if he didn't want to hear me, then what was the point? However jolted I was, I was also stubborn. "Excuse me?"

"You just go on and on sometimes."

"Yes, Alex. I talk. It's what normal human beings do."

He shook his head and scuffed out his cigarette. His face was all wrinkled up in distress. "Jane, it's not a conversation if you're just rambling on about nothing."

"It's not nothing." It was my friend and the idea of a future. It felt so harmless and yet he was offended over it. "Thought you would want to hear about my day."

He crossed his arms and thought of something wise to say. I saw his face, full of that perturbed quality and a studious annoyance. I would have none of it. I stood up and walked to the roof's door. "Jane," he called after. I'm not sure what for. Apologize, lecture me, stare at me in disappointment.

"You're always doing this! You don't get to make me feel bad!" I yelled at him and stomped down to our apartment. I locked the door, even though I knew he was right behind me, I just wanted to piss him off. I stayed in front of the door so when he would open it, he'd be face-to-face with me.

And he was, but he walked past me. He knew my ploys too well. He was calm, swaying with himself and I was itching to explode. "I don't want to go to Calvin's place," he said. He sat down on the couch. Calm, cool, and collected.

"But I want you too."

"Jane, I've been to twenty of these parties you want me to go to. I want to relax on a Wednesday night with me girlfriend. Not fifty other people."

"You relax every day of the week. Let's go have fun."

"Jane!" He was yelling in an attempt to get through to me. "I don't find that fun. I don't find you coming home hammered fun. I don't find these people to be well-meaning and fun."

"You like Kaka and Fennel!"

"You mean going to dinner with them? Yes, I like going to places where I can talk to you without thinking you're going to throw up on me in the next sentence."

"Quit being so dramatic. Who are you even? That's how we met. Talking at places like this. Sharing a smoke after having too much to drink."

"Jane, I'm not 18 anymore. I have a different life now. I'm leaving in 2 weeks and you want to spend that time like that."

It felt wrong. I felt bad. I felt he had a point. But it was too late for all of that. This was an argument and it would only end when I got my way. "I like doing that! It's how I let loose after a long day of work."

"You don't have to be drunk to let loose."

All I could hear was him calling me my mother. "It's not being drunk. It's about being with my friends. It's about bitching about work."

"I don't want to hang around your friends. I want to hang around you. Why is that so hard for you? Do you not like me anymore?" He said it so seriously, it was terrifying.

My jaw fell open and it was like my life fell open. I was ready for the floor to let go and take me down with it. "Are you serious?" I grabbed my purse. "I might be a bitch or a drunk or whatever image of me you've conjured up in your head but I'm not that. You fucker." I didn't wait around. I stormed out.

I went to Calvin's. I had one shot and cried in the bathroom. Tasha came and held my hand. I was the biggest phony ever. She repeated last year's advice back at me but it felt like stones in my pockets pulling me down to the bottom of the river. I felt useless. My only choice was to sob. I was mourning, I could feel it, but not admit to it.

"Alex." I placed a hand on him, unsure if he was awake.

His head turned slightly upwards and he mumbled, "We'll talk about it in the morning." He turned away, escaping further under the covers, further away from me.

I sat on my side of the bed for a minute, lost on what to do, knowing I would be unable to go to bed. I got up and went to the bathroom, changing out of everything, removing my makeup, and then sitting on the toilet seat. Then, I cried. I'm not sure for how long but there was a crack in me that everything was pouring out of and I couldn't patch it up. So, I let the floodgates go, smushed my hands into my eyes, and shook with sobs.

The bathroom door cracked open and I could picture Alex popping his head in but I refused to look up. I wanted to avoid processing all of this. I wanted to be left alone and I wanted him to comfort me. I wanted everything and nothing and I couldn't get either. "Jane," he peeped.

I shook my head from my position. Words wouldn't allow themselves out. I became non-verbal, trapped by my silent cries.

He sighed. I heard the door open more as he moved further into the bathroom. He closed the door like we were hiding from someone as if it wasn't just the two of us in this apartment. "I don't know what you want me to do, Jane." His back leaned against the door, his hand grasped the doorknob, and his eyes averted my figure as I looked up at him.

Crying seemed to cease and I stilled for a moment to think. "That's the problem. I'm so sick of this need you have to wait for what I want because it used to just be with things I wanted to do, which was fine, but now it's like you don't even know how to act around me unless I tell you how to."

"You yell at me whenever I decide against it. I didn't want to go out tonight."

"But I did and you berated me for that."

"Sometimes it'd be nice to spend time with you without fifty other people around."

"They're my friends. It's the same as us hanging out in Joanie's basement. The only difference is you don't like my friends."

"I don't give a fuck about your friends. I give a fuck about you and this constant need you have to go out and get drunk."

"What? I'm an alcoholic now?"

"Don't do this shite. This putting words in my mouth. I can't handle that."

"It's no different than who I've always been, Alex. The only thing that's changed is the people. You had no issue with this when it was your friends too. You just don't like it when I pay attention to things other than you."

"What like Robert? The guy in Aruba?"

I stopped and squinted. "Why? Why do you feel the need to bring shit like that up?"

"Because it proves my point."

"What? That I'm a slag? You want me to get it tattooed across my forehead?"

"No. It's that you always find other things to want instead of me."

"You were away! I didn't fuck Robert until we had broken up. And we were barely together during the guy in Aruba."

"That's your excuse?"

"That's not my excuse! It's my explanation, which you were fine with 3 years ago."

"Because I wanted you! I wanted to get back together and then you told me that. I'm not...it's fine. I understand. I'm not mad about that."

"Sure seems like it."

"Stop." He was serious and I flushed like my father was scolding me. "It's hard not to feel like you choose things over me."

"Because I have friends? You're the one leaving. You're always the one leaving."

"For my job! You don't think I want to be with you all the time? That I enjoy doing that to you? Even when I'm here, you go off without me."

I crossed my arms. "I'm allowed to have a life outside of you, Alex."

"I know. But it doesn't really seem like you have a life with me in it."

"It's because you do nothing. You sit around here all day and mope when I go out. You don't want anything, you want to sit here and watch Breaking Bad."

"Any time that I want something we have a fight or we break up. I want to go on tour. Break-up. I want to go to LA. Major fight. I want a relationship with you. You run away."

"When did I ever not want a relationship with you?"

"Oh, come on, Jane, I'm well aware that before my little posh comment to you, I called you my girlfriend, and then you didn't talk to me for months."

"That? I was a completely different person then. The fact that you have to go back that far to make your point is ridiculous."

"Then, fine, Jane. Let's leave it at that. I'm wrong. You're right. Nothing will change. That's fine. Okay. I'll bend for you, okay? I'm fine doing that because I want to make you happy. But would you do that for me?"

"I moved to LA for you! I upended my whole life, my career over there, for you! If I told you to quit the band, would you do it?"

"Don't play that stupid game."

"Answer it."

"No. But would you quit your job right now to go on tour with me? No. You didn't give a shit about Simon & Schuster. If you cared so much, you wouldn't have left. It wasn't like I was leaving forever, okay? We both have other priorities other than each other."

"Great! Then, me going out with my friends from work should be no issue."

"Every night of the week?"

"You went out to LA for 5 weeks and don't use the excuse of the studios out there. We live in New York now. You can't really make that excuse."

He shook his head. "I'm not fighting with you. I don't like it. I don't want to do it. I want to go to bed. There."

"So, when you're wrong then it's okay to go to bed."

"No. I'm tired. I don't like doing this. Fine, I shouldn't have left your side, but I don't revolve around you."

"I don't revolve around you."

"No, but I'm not even in your orbit quite frankly. You moved on and I let you. I put things ahead of you. I fucked up. But I don't think you even care about that."

"How do you know?"

"I've known you for eight fucking years. In and out, Jane. I've cried with you, I've fought with you, I've lived with you, and I love you. Is that so hard for you to understand? I know you haven't been shown it very much but this is what it is. And I want you through all of it. That's what I want. But you don't reflect that back."

"I hurt you so much. I get it."

"No, you don't."

"Yes. I do. You can comfort me and tell me you love me but you were hurt by tonight. You've been hurt by me for a while. It takes a lot for you to yell at me. And you've yelled."

"Sorry."

"Don't say sorry. Don't bend for me. I'm tired of beating you down. But I'm not going to change for you. I like my life. Love it. And I've never felt that way before, except there's one thing. I always feel like I'm failing you."

"No, you're not. We both fucked up. It's fine."

"No, it's not. That's what this whole fight has been about and I'm done with you comforting me and I'm tired of fighting. I love you but it just hurts because every move I make, I feel like I'm chipping away at you. I don't want you to dictate the way I act but I don't want to hurt you in the process." I sighed and thought for a minute, wanting to think every turn through. I kept falling down the same hole. "And you'll be gone soon and I think that'll help. Some time separated."

"You want to break up?"

I shook my head. "I don't want that. I'm not going to do that." I took a deep breath. "Maybe while you're on tour we should take a break. You readjust. I readjust. We'll come back and they'll be a whole new person to learn but that love won't go anywhere. I know that. That's never going to go away."

"What if I don't want that?"

"I think we both need it. We've been on top of one another so far this year but never with one another, maybe only briefly. It's been bitter. I don't like us this way."

"I don't either."

"You're never gonna get rid of me, you know that?"

He chuckled wetly. "Yeah."

"You're always going to be my friend. I'd be nothing without that."

"Not true. Goes both ways. You're right."

"Yeah. I know. Can't help it."

"I love you, okay?"

"Yeah. You too."

"Do you want me to sleep on the couch?"

"Course not. You're not a pariah. I still like being with you."

"Good."

We went to bed on opposite sides and woke up on opposite sides. It was a weird few days where we co-existed with one another. We got along fine. I was at work and he went off at night. I think he went out drinking with friends but I never asked. We had sex one night. Alex and I were both drunk. Woke up naked with one another. We never talked about it but both understood it wasn't going to change anything. It was nice just to touch one another.

About a week later, Alex packed up his things, not that there was much there. I would keep the apartment along with the furniture. He took his belongings and moved in with Matt temporarily. The tour started soon after.

In a way, it was like when we broke up back in '06, except we were older and had been through this before. We talked on the phone when he was in London. It was a short call where we checked in on one another. He complained about a flight he took and I told him about something I was writing. He said he'd like to read it but I never sent it. That felt too intimate.

Truthfully, I perceived myself as being fine. I was doing great at work, I was having fun, I had friends, I only cried for one week, and only once to Fennel and Kaka. Truthfully, I was out of it. I was a machine and I betrayed myself by not letting myself feel anything. I had shamed myself for so long for being an emotional person, who sobbed in front of people at the slightest thing, but now I had become nothing. A cog in the machine.

I didn't betray all my old habits. I slept around. Not heavily but enough to get pregnant and not know who the father was. But it all felt understandable under the circumstances.

The week before Alex was due to return to New York for a concert, I wiped myself out. I drank, I smoked, I snorted. None were great combinations and by the end of the week, I burnt myself out. I spontaneously flew to LA and stayed with Opal for a few days. I mostly stayed in her place. I was probably depressed but not clinically. I called Alex and told him I was in LA and he made some joke about turned tables. We laughed. I wished him luck. We said we loved and missed each other and it all felt strangely platonic.

I decided to myself that partying was fine but spending the week going to your Calvin's parties wasn't worth it. I settled for Friday night drinks and dinners with Fennel and Kaka. It didn't always measure out this way but it wasn't a whole week with barely any sleep. My work had suffered for it and I decided I was going to write these experiences down rather than chasing the next high. It also helped that since I gained some favour in the New York literary scene and had re-crafted some of my old work, Jackson had set up several book deal meetings.

A lot of this was me unknowingly changing for Alex. Or maybe just unknowingly recognizing that he did have some points to his argument but that didn't mean he was completely in the right. I just needed to be better for myself.

Mostly, I decided that if I ever felt the need to break these rules I had set myself that would be okay too. For the first time in my life, I was completely on my own. Everyone who had taken care of me throughout my life was at a distance. I had people that supported me but I wanted to do it on my own. It was the first time I saw value in achieving something without having someone applaud for me at the finish line. They would always be there. He would always be there. But I liked the idea of patting myself on the back. At least for now, that would be enough.

Suck It and See was a surprise to me. It's strange how much time you spend with a person and how much is left uncovered. I had heard bits and pieces of things but everything was very distant at the time he made this record. It shouldn't have surprised me so much what ended up on the record considering the state of things but it's all retrospective here and things felt different in the moment than they did in writing.

The weirdest thing: I was jealous. I was jealous of my own self. These were words that I presumed to be toward me or some sex doll daydream vixen version of myself and I was jealous of her. I didn't experience these words of passion in the middle of lovemaking. Alex didn't roll over and say I was a thunderstorm (that would have been plenty weird). But I strangely desired that affection. To be told I was rarer than a can of dandelion and burdock and my skirt was a sawn-off shotgun. Maybe I was just getting lonely.

It was different from his other writing. I didn't find myself embedded in it. There was no "505" or "Secret Door" where I could pinpoint moments that he had drawn from, other than "That's Where You're Wrong," which even in itself was muddled (what does it mean for the sky to be a scissor??).

I found myself questioning if all those times I caught him alone outside with a notebook were hidden clues to this album, especially with "Love is a Laserquest." I always felt he could read me before he even knew me and it had been a while since this quality had taken me aback, but I had all the air knocked out of me. It was depressing how much of a love song it was without seeming as such. But I locked it away in a drawer and decided not to touch it again. I wouldn't discuss it with anyone. I wouldn't make jokes about it to Alex and I wouldn't talk about it in mournful ways with friends. It existed, it was there, and I would leave it there. I would leave everything there.

The summer proved to be hot. Then, a heat wave pulled through and made it even more hot. At the end of June, Jackson flew out to New York and stayed with me for a few days while we made moves for the book. While it meant a great deal to be published, I tried not to think about it much. People had books published every day. I was still left with the question of if people were actually going to read it.

Alex was in the rush of festival season and we didn't talk much. He sent me two postcards. One from Paris and the other from Sheffield. I taped them to my wall, next to all my other trinkets from him. The contents of them were minimal. He was having a good time in Paris, Sheffield was all the same, nothing ever changed in Sheffield, but each ended with "Love, Al" and for that, I held onto something, even if it was hard for me to believe we still had much of a chance.

We told everyone, as we told ourselves, that it was just a break. People understood. He'd be away, I was reaching new heights in my career, and it gave us the freedom to sleep around. Many people in New York understood that part. However, Stacey was convinced that we were lying and everything had fallen to shambles and I was on the verge of killing myself. So, she flew to New York.

She was fully grown; an idea that is still so strange to me. She was cooler than I'll ever be with long legs and perfect hair that bounced with every step she took. But she still picked her nose and said friggin' instead of fucking and she could be a total bitch at times. I love her so much.

I often say Stacey factory resets me. I suppose since a childhood home hasn't existed for me since my parents moved and I try to avoid my parents besides the holiday season, Stacey puts things back in perspective. It feels like playing pretend with her. So, we went to the Plaza for lunch and pretended we were the kind of people who lived on Park Avenue and had nannies for our children while we went out day drinking. I used a tenth of my Plimpton Prize money on this lovely day in New York and that felt like a worthy recipient of my prize money.

When Stacey left, Jackson flew back to secure the book deal with Penguin and because I couldn't think of calling it anything else, I finally officially named it LA Times. It was weird to pitch a book that felt so far removed from that time in my life considering how much material I had written since then but perhaps that's why I was able to do it.

I didn't tell anyone about it, except Jackson, obviously, and Opal. She came to New York and the three of us went out to a series of restaurants and clubs and shared my apartment for nearly the whole month of July because it seemed like a fun thing to do. Opal and I shared my bed and Jackson slept on the couch, which I suddenly found out was a pull-out. Alex must have purchased that one. Then, I felt like I was in Sex & the City. Or maybe Girls. I certainly felt like a Hannah and Opal seemed like a Marnie, or maybe a Jessa, but both in a good way. I hope.

A heat wave passed through at the time that seemed never-ending. My AC was shit so we didn't spend much time in the apartment. We went out for lunch at a place in Brooklyn where the AC had superpowers with how strong it was but the food never got cold. It was magical.

"I think you should call him," Opal said over her salad. The topic of Alex had been a tricky one. Sometimes, Opal and I stayed up nights talking about it, other times I shunned it. "I know he'll be happy."

I wiped my face with my napkin. Jackson sat there awkwardly. "I know he will be. That's not the problem."

"The reason why you're so bent out of shape over it is because you know it'll feel real once you tell him. You want to avoid that for as long as possible." In another life, Opal was a therapist. In this one, she was the type of girl to shove stones up her vagina for healing powers. She claims this very proudly.

"I'll do it in time."

"Do it before the book comes out."

I was never alone much—that was my excuse for not calling. But it played on my mind as to why I avoided it so much. I know a part of me wished to do it in person. To be able to jump on the bed with him and dance around with such excitement that it seemed nothing could ever be bad. I also knew that wouldn't be a reality.

So, that night I went up onto the apartment's roof and smoked one cigarette before calling him. Then, I lit up another one while the phone was ringing. He was somewhere in South Korea. I knew that much.

"Hello," he said.

"Hi," I said.

"Hey. How you doing?" He was drunk. Not far gone, but lost to the sauce.

"I'm okay. How are you?" I debated putting off the news and telling him when he was in a more sober state but I knew it would be easier to tell him in this loose goose fashion.

"Good. Good. Hold on a sec." The noise diffused as he seemed to walk to a quieter place. I debated making a joke about partying but that felt too petty and snarky. The noise became muffled when he spoke again. "Sorry. Hi. Can you hear me?"

His tone was granular, inducing me to laugh. "Yeah. Yeah. I can hear you."

"You okay?" His concern was overt. I wondered how many times he had been anxious over me as if he pictured me in some alley with a needle hanging out of my arm.

"Yeah. Fine." I picked at the straying denim thread of my shorts. "I just had something to tell you."

"Yeah?"

It was out with it, at least that felt proper, even if it felt unnatural to relay the news to him this way. "Penguin picked up my book."

Silence rang on the other end and I thought the call had gotten disconnected. He cleared his voice and said, "You know, I knew it. You're a writer, Janie."

The dam broke and the water was let loose from my eyes. I was determined for it to not be overheard, but it was clear in my voice. He never commented on it as I never commented on his elongated silences. We both knew what it meant. "I'll buy you a nice car or something with the money."

"Nah. Just get me a signed copy."

"You'll get the first one."

I dedicated the book to him. He wouldn't see it for another year but I wrote it down that night. For the one who said, "You're a writer, Janie."

Alex called me a few days later. This time I was at a bar and excused myself for a smoke. It was the last day of July and it felt like the final day of the heat wave, even if more humidity was to come.

He was rough on the phone. His voice, his attitude, the way I pictured him running his hands through his hair, ripping at the roots of it. "Hey. What are you doing?" He asked.

"Just hanging out with some friends," I answered. "You?"

He took a heavy sigh and coughed once. He was smoking, I could tell. "I feel a little stupid, to be honest."

"Why?"

He waited, likely taking a drag and hanging with a deep thought. I nearly fell over when he said, "I, uh, just had sex with someone. Sorry if that's weird."

It was weird, not him doing it. Obviously, I had gotten up to my own business, but I don't know the decorum of calling your on-a-break girlfriend to let her know you fucked someone else. Still, I said, "No, I mean...well, I just." I struggled with how to respond. "Is there a reason you called me to tell me?"

He laughed. "'Cause I'm a soppy idiot, I guess."

"How so?"

"You know." I could hear him shift, either standing up or sitting down. The wind whistled around him. I wondered if he was outside while the girl he slept with was still in bed. I wondered how weird this was for her. "I've never..."

"You can't fake that you're a virgin when we met Alex," I joked.

He chuckled, coughing on something again. "Yeah, but I, uh, haven't done that with someone else in like seven years." He laughed through it awkwardly, not an ounce of him found it to be funny.

"Not even when we were broken up?"

"No." God, I really was a slag, slut, and a whore. Or maybe I was just normal and he was some modest conservative boy. "Well, I got a blowjob once."

"Hooker?"

"Very funny," he said dryly. "Anyway, I was smoking and thinking, you know, doing my worst. I guess, my impulses took over."

"Are we going to have phone sex now?" I quipped.

"Shut up," he chuckled. Something else happened around him that I wasn't able to catch. A moment later he said, "Thanks for listening. I'll, uh, talk to you soon."

"Okay. Sure."

Alex cut his hair in August. I received this news over Twitter and a text from Opal, who had just returned to Los Angeles. It was quite dramatic. No longer the kind of haircut down in a bathtub. I debated texting him about it but I didn't want him to think I was stalking him on the internet. I very much was, it was a lonely Tuesday night where I drank too much wine at dinner with Jackson (still celebrating).

However, this then caused me to make the mistake that I then had to do something drastic with my hair. Big mistake. Huge. The following night, I enlisted Tasha's help to dye my hair blonde. My hair...did not come out blonde. It was frizzy. It was orange. I nearly decided to just shave all my hair off if not for Tasha calming me down by having us watch Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Most dreadful thing was having to go to work the next day. I thought about putting a bag over my head. I thought about taking off work. I thought about quitting my job. I thought about taking my head off. I sent a picture to Opal, my yes-man cheerleader, who told me it looked great and wacky and I should just own it. I wore it in a low bun with a hat on and took one step out the door before deciding to call in sick to work.

I made an emergency call to my hair salon, which didn't have anything available until Monday morning. So I faked a long sickness, which in a way was a real sickness because I just sat on the couch watching TV and ordering take-out for 4 days. The only time I went outside was to smoke on the roof, which I stopped doing after my neighbor saw me and gave me a strange look, likely thinking I had just escaped the institution.

Monday morning, my hair stylist said to me, "You know, blonde just isn't your colour. You're too pale, it washes you out."

I melodramatically dived my head into my hands and said, "I know. I'm so stupid!"

"We could take you back to brown or we could...?" That dot dot dot seemed more appealing to me than going back to my old self, especially after staring at Bozo the Clown for the past few days. So, I went red, well, a coppery red. Tasha said I was a penny. It wasn't as good as my natural colour, I think I was blessed with the colour I was supposed to be. But if I was spiraling I'd like to associate it with a different version of myself.

It took all of this for me to realize that if I had stressed so much about changing my hair that maybe, just maybe, Alex's haircut wasn't to look cool for all the hot new babes. It was maybe to look cool for me.

Then, he got a new girlfriend.

I didn't know anything about her. She was tall, brunette, skinny with a cool name. I wouldn't label my feelings to be jealousy, maybe a little, but it was more like she had taken my toy on the playground and I had no chance of getting it back.

I wouldn't even go into my preconceived notions of what "being on a break" meant to me because then we'd be getting into a whole Ross and Rachel debate that I'm just not up for. What was the difference between sleeping with people and dating people? There was one thing: Alex and I were now exes. We could call ourselves friends as much as we wanted but above all else the way the world would label us was the ex-girlfriend of Alex Turner and the ex-boyfriend of Jane Cavendish.

I thought about being rash and going out to troll the streets until I got a boyfriend too but the logical part of my brain finally kicked in (frontal lobe development) and realized the whole reason why I wanted a break from Alex was that work and the extracurricular activities that came along with it were too much to maintain a relationship, especially since Alex had been my only long term relationship. To dive myself into anything but casual at that point felt reckless.

Instead, I focused on work, the book, and my friends. All three felt more valuable at that moment than some guy. I had balanced around friend groups since Barnsley and for the first time since I felt settled with friends I could call at the drop of a hat. I made Fennel and Kaka my emergency contacts. Tasha was who I went to if I wanted chaos. Opal was for sage advice. Jackson was my literary consultant.

It made me laugh but I quite liked how grown I was. I flip-flopped a lot. I was also 25 so it made sense. I told Stacey this when she and her boyfriend broke up. She said it was stupid and then cried about how much she missed me. Cavendishes produce quite dramatic women.

The next time Alex came to town, I didn't avoid it. My life had intertwined itself in tight, deep fashions that there was never a possibility of me not seeing the band live. It would be weird to miss out on this tour, especially when we had established and fostered that we would remain friends. Whether growth or distance, I didn't have mixed emotions about this. I was quite excited for the concert.

Thank god I didn't miss it because it might be the wildest show of theirs I ever attended. It felt like the old days back when we were beneath the boardwalk or stuck in someone's basement and people were sweaty and climbing all over each other, including the band themselves. The venue was in Brooklyn, Music Hall of Williamsburg, a venue that only held 650 people, possibly the smallest venue I had seen them in since the pre-debut days.

I took Jackson and Opal with me, who hadn't specifically come out for this show since Jackson practically lived with me since the book deal began and Opal had been trying to convince herself of ways not to move out to New York. However, I didn't want to go alone and Fennel's and Kaka's scene wasn't exactly a rock concert and Tasha didn't want to bring back bad memories. We made the wise decision to smoke a joint before going into the venue.

I told Alex on the phone a few days before that I was going and he was happy about it but that was about it. I texted Matt and he was quite excited for me to meet his new girlfriend, Breana. I did think there was a possibility I would meet other girlfriends too.

The show started decently normal. They opened with "Pretty Visitors," they did "Fluorescent Adolescent," and then things seemed to unravel around "Brianstorm" when a girl climbed on stage and began dancing. I have found this to be the greatest way to interfere with a show.

There's always the weirdos who climb on stage to try and hug or kiss the artist, but she simply climbed up on stage and started jamming out. I shun them for taking her off and interrupting her fun. She was quite the entertainment. They could use all the help they needed.

During "The View From the Afternoon," Matt missed his beloved signature drumstick throw and catch, likely due to Alex trying to intercept it. Neither men seemed so macho anymore. However, Alex then jumped off Matt's drum set in an attempt to gain some bravado back.

I suppose the point I should be commenting on the most is Alex singing his new girlfriend's name in a song presumably written about me, however, I didn't notice it. I noticed Jamie screwing up his guitar solo after this. Maybe that shielded me from the bullet but I think even if I had noticed I wouldn't have cared much.

Because there's something odd about Alex doing that at a show that I attended. I mean, she was there too, but I don't think that's why he did that. Maybe I'm being too self-centered to think he wanted to make it a point that he had moved on but I already knew that he had moved on and I was passed sobbing over it.

Nothing I did could change it now, in fact, I was part of the reason why they were together now. If I hadn't implemented the break then the song would have had a far different outcome but I don't know how Jane sounds in a song. Pain, rain, strange, vain. They aren't very pleasant words and she had a nice name for an elongated note instead of "oh-oh-oh." Plus, I mean, the song was written about me, right?

In any case, after the show, I met up with them backstage. It was a small area for a small venue, close proximity to everyone. Alex and his new beau, Arielle, were off somewhere else while I got introduced to Breana and teased about my new hair. I then got paranoid about the fact that Alex would think I copied him somehow but considering how much I constantly talked about changing my hair, I realized that the alarm bells should be raised with him and not me. I very well could have done it before his haircut and he would have been none the wiser.

It was the first thing he commented on when I saw him. He was casually dressed with his leather jacket slung over his arm. The hair was slicked back but the front fell at different angles after the intensity of the show. He made a sound along the lines of "Woah" before saying, "Almost didn't recognize you there." His arms hugged around me and I was determined for no one to think of this interaction as awkward.

"Could say the same thing to you," I countered.

He chuckled and rubbed the back of his neck. "Suppose so." He waved to Jackson and Opal and I could spot the conflicting pull he had about whether to introduce me to Arielle or not. But if we were going to be friends he'd have to introduce the girl on his arm. "This is Arielle."

She hugged me. She was delightful and bubbly and her hair colour looked too similar to mine. I worried that I had made things awkward for her but she either paid no mind to me or was in the same boat as me to combat any tensions. "Jane," she said so lovingly, "I've read some of your work. Alex told me you have a book coming out. That's awesome!"

I wonder if she had cyber-stalked me like I had cyber-stalked her. Did she get a subscription to the New Yorker to read my pieces like I had downloaded Vine to watch her? Should I have complimented her Vines? Is that a thing you do?

"Thank you." Deflecting attention away from me was key. I turned to Jackson and Opal. "These are my friends, Jackson, who is my book agent, and Opal, who introduced me to him."

They greeted one another and Arielle asked some questions about what Opal did for a living and what it meant to be a book agent. I stared at Alex. Not in that cumbersome longing way or flirtatiously. He smiled at me and I smiled at him. My lips nearly felt the urge to mouth if he wanted to step out for a smoke for me but I figured I wasn't in a position to do that anymore.

But he moved to the other side of Arielle to get closer to me and asked, "What did you think?"

"Of what?" I thought he was asking what I thought of Arielle.

"Of the show?" He chuckled when saying it like he already knew what my answer would be.

There was no shrugging off this show or promising a more detailed review later, it was clear. "It was maybe the best thing I've ever seen and it had nothing to do with you guys at all."

He cracked a laugh and I joined him in it. "Yeah, we're thinking of bringing her out for all the shows," he said, referring to the stage climber. "How's the book coming along?"

"It'll be coming out in June. We finalized the book cover last week." It wasn't big and fancy. It was actually quite similar to the Suck It and See album cover with it being mainly just text. Although, my font was better than his font. Jackson wanted to put palm trees on the cover but I didn't like that. It felt too cheesy.

"Your author photo taken?" He knew how much I stressed about that. I found most author photos to be ugly and was determined for mine to not resemble my primary school picture day photo.

I slapped my palm to my forehead. "Don't remind me. I'll probably break out into hives while it's being taken."

"You worry too much," he chastised me. "You'll be beautiful in whatever photo you end up with. It's about the book anyway and you already know that's great."

I smiled but didn't thank him for how much that meant to me. I'm not sure what everyone did after that, I think they went for drinks, but there was no invitation to hang out after the show. Opal, Jackson, and I went home.

When we said goodbye, I kissed everyone on the cheek. I wondered if that was too much. A lip gloss stain on the side of Alex's cheek from me.

a/n: i wrote the majority of this today and yesterday in random bursts of creativity while being sick. maybe being sick was key all along.

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