#(playing it off as if I’m not 😭😭😭)
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how would quinn react to reader doing that prank about when he says “goodbye/goodnight i love you” and you don’t say “i love you” back just to mess with him
omg this guy avoids tiktok like it’s the plague so there is no doubt in my mind that he has absolutely no idea about this trend so he’d be SO confused and wouldn’t know what to do with himself except pout and stay close until he gets to the bottom as to why you hadn’t said it back 😭
Quinn’s brow furrowed the second the words left his mouth and yours didn’t follow.
“See you soon. I love you,” he had said, as casually as ever, tossing his backpack over one shoulder, leaning in for his usual goodbye kiss.
But instead of the automatic, almost musical "love you too," that always followed, there was… nothing. Just you, standing there, watching him with the faintest glimmer of mischief in your eyes. At first, he paused, waiting like you’d simply forgotten. Maybe you were distracted. Maybe you didn’t hear him. He glanced back at the door, then at you again, the crease between his brows deepening.
“You good?” he asked, his voice light but tinged with the slightest bit of uncertainty, like he wasn’t entirely sure if this was normal or if he’d just entered a parallel universe where you suddenly forgot how this whole goodbye thing worked.
“Yeah,” you said breezily, smiling just enough to make him squint.
“Okay,” he said, drawing the word out as he shifted his bag higher on his shoulder.
He moved toward the door, opening it halfway before pausing again. And you could see it — really see it now — the way his mind was spinning, trying to figure out what he’d done, if he’d done anything, and why you weren’t playing along.
He half-turned, his hand on the doorknob, giving you one last expectant look.
“You, uh…” He hesitated, rubbing the back of his neck, his voice quieter now. “You sure everything’s okay?”
You nodded, biting your bottom lip to keep from laughing.
“Yep.”
And that’s when the full force of Quinn’s what-the-hell-is-going-on face hit you. He didn’t look mad — not even close — but the confusion was written all over him. His mouth opened, closed, and then opened again like he was about to ask a question but didn’t quite know how to phrase it. His hand fell from the door as he took a step closer, his eyes narrowing slightly.
“You didn’t… You didn’t say it back,” he pointed out, almost cautiously, like maybe it wasn’t something you’d realised. “I said 'I love you.' You usually…” He trailed off, his lips pressing into a thin line as he waited for some kind of explanation, one that you weren’t giving because you were too busy pretending you had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. You tilted your head, your expression perfectly blank except for the big, wide eyes you fixed on him.
“Do I not say it enough?” he asked, softer this time, like the words came with a little sting. “Is that what this is?”
And now you felt guilty because, of course, he’d think this was some kind of message, like you were trying to make a point instead of just pulling a dumb prank for no reason other than your own entertainment.
“Quinn,” you started, the smile breaking through despite yourself.
But he cut you off, shaking his head slightly, the tiniest bit of exasperation creeping in.
“Because, like… I mean it every time. You know that, right?”
And now you couldn’t hold it in anymore. The laugh bubbled out, loud and sudden, and you reached for his hand, tugging him closer. “Oh my God, Quinn. I’m kidding. It’s a prank.”
His brow shot up. “A prank?”
“Yeah,” you said, still laughing as you slid your arms around his waist.
He huffed, but there was relief in it, his hands settling on your hips as he gave you a halfhearted glare.
“Not funny,” he muttered, though his lips were already twitching. “I was about to cancel my flight.”
“Sure you were,” you teased, leaning up to press a kiss to his jaw. He didn’t move, but you could feel the smallest twitch of a smile forming despite the way he was still obviously trying to stay mock-annoyed. “See? You’re too sweet. That’s why I had to mess with you.”
Quinn let out a long-suffering sigh, shaking his head like he was already filing this away as one of the countless pranks he’d endure over a lifetime with you.
“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, his voice gruff but too soft to be anything but affectionate. “You’re lucky I like you.”
You couldn’t help it — you started laughing again, the sound spilling out as you tucked your face against his chest, clutching his shirt like it was the only thing keeping you upright.
“I love you,” you said through your laughter, your voice muffled.
His smile finally broke free, slow and warm and just so Quinn.
“I love you too,” he said, his tone soft now, steady, like those words were always going to be there no matter how much you tried to mess with him.
#planes? grounded. trips? cancelled. panic? engaged#capquinnchats#quinn hughes x reader#capquinn’s requests#quinn hughes
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OKAYYY FINALLY I GET TO RN THIS. first of all, thank you so much for reading :,) just know that i read this so many times over. this was just the best notif to receive.
MC is also SO me. which means we are TWINSSSSS. i’m around the same age as her, and also just so sad to be letting childhood go. i tried writing that sadness out in MC, and i think the best thing ever is getting multiple messages abt how so many people relate to her. it means we’re all in this together. we’re not alone in our feelings, which is honestly the biggest comfort to me.
COMPLIMENTING MY MUSIC TASTEEE. you are the loml. AND you listened while reading. as intended. i literally could not be happier. i was feeling that playlist while writing🤤
and then you compiled all your favorite quotes here 😭 stop. i am so giddy. those are some of my favorite from the fic as well. especially “you clutch childhood to your chest like a wild animal guarding scarce food; you refuse. you refuse to acknowledge its end.” that one i am so proud of, for how incredibly powerfully it illustrates how i feel about this stage of my life. im glad that the stars aligned and my brain was in the right mood to put that on paper.
and oh my god, if that’s the same erin morgenstern as the night circus, i will absolutely be reading it. ABSOLUTELYYYY.
I LOVE FLORENCE + THE MACHINE. and ALSO dog days. i think our music tastes are lovers. dog days is so so so perfect. thank you so much for reading, kipo. i think you’ve made my whole life with this rb. i’m so deeply in love with the way this story came out. at first, it was just a few bare bones scenes, and it just kept on growing and growing and i really knew i had to see it out. i think it flourished so beautifully:,))
THE BLOCK OF TAGS hell yeah.
ribs playing at the ending and scott street and more than this during the confession oh shuffle had it OUT for you 😭 but i also think those songs at those specific scenes are PERFECT.
and yeah FUCK yeonjun!!! it was tough writing him like that 😕
IM SO PROUD OF THE MOTH SYMBOLISM. i wanted it to feel like, even when kai and MC were lost and confused and apart, they were never really alone, and there were perhaps bigger things at play here. or maybe even the instances of moths appearing were nothing more than coincidence (of course except for at the creek and during the confession). i want to leave it up to the reader to decide that.
OKAY I GOTTA CUT THIS RB OFF because it’s lagging to even type because it’s all so long. i wish i could say more omg i could talk about it forever with you. thank you so much for reading, like really so so so much. T^T
𝑯EART 𝑊ORM ⸺ hueningkai ℘˒´ˎ˗
⨾𓍢ִ໋ ˒˒ 𝚑𝔢art𝚠𝔬rm
[𝑛]. a relationship or friendship that you can't get out of your head, which you thought had faded long ago but is still somehow alive and unfinished, like an abandoned campsite whose smoldering embers still have the power to start a forest fire.
⸺ listen to the playlist .ᐟ ‧˚
〝﹙ 📼 ﹚“I was just... wondering,” you say, blood roaring. "Well, Yeonjun wants me to come over to his place this weekend, and... I’ve never...” Sucking in a quick breath, you just spit it out to get it over with, “Would you be my first kiss, Kai?” ˛ 、、
wc ➛ 17.9k
𝔭airings childhood bsf!kai x reader (lowkey soulmates?) ⤷ ft. asshole!yeonjun x reader
𝒢 ; smut ˒ angst ˒ some fantasy
𝔴arnings angst, family issues, fingering, jealousy (i’m sorry i just love ts), yeonjun really is an asshole, orgasm denial, thigh fucking, unprotected sex (they're stupid!), strength kink a lil bit, breeding kink, possessiveness, creampie, choking... i think that's all, lmk if i missed any
✎୭ ashlynn's note omg. this was such a fun palate cleanser to write. this wasn't supposed to be as big as it is, but it just kept getting bigger and bigger, and i got super into the story. this kai is SOOOO!! yeah. i’m so nervous posting this because i’ve only ever posted TSFAWC, but…. here you areee (^^;; this is not proofread, so if you see a mistake... give me a sec. i'll get to it. hehe
Though you fan your hand furiously over your face, the little breezes washing over your clammy skin are not enough. The air is thick and heavy with summer’s heat. So thick that you almost feel it each time you swallow. It’s better than just letting yourself melt away, though. The cushion at your back doesn’t help much. It holds your warmth and returns it to you the longer you sit slumped back into it. You suffer it though—you’ve gone too sluggish to move.
You let a leg dangle over the arm of a chair, watching a hopeful moth dance in the light of the buzzing porch light overhead. It flutters frantically in it, making a grand fight to reach that false moonlight, only to drop away when it realizes that it’s being burnt. You watch it rinse and repeat, relentless and sure, for who knows how long. It’s no special moth—no luna moth or the ones with the pretty pink wings—but the light falls down on it and colors it a pleasant stardust silver.
You delight in letting your conscious brain turn off to watch it. It lets you forget the sweltering under your skin, and also that Kai had drug you out here. His dad gives him shit when he plays inside, but it’s way too hot to be out here. Isn’t it supposed to cool off after the sun goes down? It doesn’t feel like it. The deep acoustics are drowned out each time a car whirrs by. Playing outside should be the best option, but you and Kai live right on a busy road.
When the roar of some car going ten miles over the speed limit doesn’t obscure his playing, though, you admire the intricacy of it. His fingers work up and down the neck, jumping frets that you imagine would be impossible to anybody without those long fingers of his. You had always been a loud supporter of his playing, even way back when the most he could play were simple chords, but you became especially so when a few years back he put a guitar in your hands and tried teaching you. Even with his fingers guiding yours, it was quick to learn that the effortlessness with which Kai handles the instrument is hard earned.
He practices on the acoustic guitar, but that’s not his domain. With houses just a dash across the street from each other, Kai had grown up at your home more than he had at his own. So vividly, you remember the stars in his eyes when he’d listen to your dad’s music. Metallica, The Smashing Pumpkins, Linkin Park, any of it. He had fallen in love with it a long time ago. Your whole life you knew that it was only a matter of time before he was in his own band, chasing his dreams with a boundless mind and an indelible vision of himself on stage. How had that time come so soon, though? You don’t know if the notebooks full of inky lyrics that live wherever he deems inspiration might hit him make you proud or nervous. He’s making good on his dazzling aspirations, and you?
You speak finally into the air, cutting through heat waves and his music and the night. “Isn’t it weird that we’re not going back to school after this summer?”
He doesn’t have to even stop playing to answer you. Playing comes to him as a second nature. “Kinda,” he answers, brown eyes flitting up to you. “But it’s not like you won’t be back to it in September. College is the same shit.”
The leg you’d been dangling and bouncing pauses. That’s right; you’re supposed to be going to that college you’d chosen because it was only a three-hour drive away from here. You pluck at the seat’s threadbare fabric, and the moth, still there, becomes oh-so-interesting once again. When his playing stops, you drop your head back with a cushioned thud and a groan that you wrangle in your throat.
“Why are you acting like that?” he says, voice gone sharp like accusation. He doesn’t even know the truth, but he’s known you too long.
Can’t you just keep secrets for yourself, sometimes?
Kai, arms clad in a well-loved hoodie even in this dreadful weather, lays the guitar down. You maintain your silence. “Seriously, what?”
Some secrets have timers, though. This one could only last you until about September, or even August when he realizes that you’re not preparing to return to school. A controlled sigh from your chest isn’t enough to soothe the nerves that sparks. “Nothing.”
“Secrets, huh?” Kai says. When you do finally look to him, black spikes of hair frame his eyes and the accusation in them.
It’s a simple poke, but it gets under your skin as sharp as any thorn might. It’s not like you don’t keep secrets from him, and you’re sure he keeps some from you too. But those are the little kinds, the inconsequential ones—like I ate already when asked why you’re not eating or like Yeah, I’m fine when it’s been a bad day. You don’t hide this kind of stuff from each other. Usually, you’d run over to his place to tell him whatever’s bothering you. Why not, when he’s known even the worst details of your life for almost the entirety of it? You’ve been holding this one close to your chest since somewhere around the end of senior year, though. The longer you let it fester, the worse your nervousness snowballs. “C’mon, Kai. Let’s not do this. Can you keep playing?”
He doesn’t like that, of course. But you watch recognition dawn over his chocolate brown eyes, helpless to stop it. “You’re not going,” he says. It’s not a question nor a suspicion, it’s a bone-dry fact.
Well. There that goes. You want to tear every hair on your head right out. Why had you even thought you’d keep him in the dark about it? When he’s not out in some garage making music, you two are together. The conversation was going to stroll by at some point; this was only inevitable. His disappointment radiates off him in waves and blisters you. He hasn’t even said anything yet, but you know exactly what he thinks of it. It’s why you kept it from him in the first place.
Your silence is enough confirmation for him. “Why?” he says. “I thought you were excited to move out.”
Wincing, you nod slowly. You were. Even went through the whole application process, along with most other kids your age. Ultimately, you never went through with declaring a college. You don’t exactly know why, but somewhere weaseled down in the shadowy recesses of your soul, you know. Taking those steps, the massive and terrifying ones from adolescence into adulthood, meant agreeing that this form of your life was over. It meant that at some point, you’d be moving away from here to where living your days away in Kai’s room would not be a choice. Everybody has to do it eventually, you know that. Kai’s music gig could take off any day, too. He’s going to make it happen. And then what? All this stalling and wishing on just a bit more time would mean nothing, he’d be off and chasing that dream. As excited as you are for it to finally become reality for him, there’s a nasty bitterness that’s budded in your chest, infecting your person.
Can’t things just stay like this?
“I was,” you say. It comes out of your mouth heavy.
“Then why aren’t you going?” he says. Crickets, never seen but always heard, sing their song into the night’s darkness. “You didn’t get rejected. You’re too smart for that.”
An ache sits heavily somewhere near the center of your chest, maybe over your heart. All those good grades, nights spent bent over a desk and AP paperwork—you’re wasting it. You shake your head. “No... just...” It’s an effort to dress your thoughts in a way that might appease him. A quiet moment stretches with your thinking before you continue, “I don’t know what I want to do.”
He doesn’t like that, the yellow wash of the overhead light dancing over his taut lips and hard eyes. “Don’t know what you want to do?” he says, bringing his legs up onto the seat to crisscross them. He wears his favorite jeans. They’re heel-bitten and baggy enough over his legs that he can wear them around the house without any bother. “You’ve wanted to be an artist your whole life. You know exactly what you want to do.”
Your chest only seems to ache harder. When the both of you were only young and hopeful, you both had big dreams. Kai was going to be the face of a metal band, and you were going to be an artist. A painter, potter, sculptor, even doing animation for those big companies like Dreamworks and Disney. You wanted any of it, just as long as you were doing art. You’d even promised him that you’d do the cover art for his albums with interlocked pinkies and flushed, hopeful cheeks. That passion and love wasn’t gone from you, it blazed strong in your veins. This blaze wasn’t the kind that kept you warm and excited to push forward into life, though. It had morphed into something that scalded you when you got too close or started imagining yourself pursuing its call. It’s a taunting silvery glow, no longer a guiding north star. Taunting words of family members stamped down on that hope hard. When you were little, it was said lighthearted and in passing. The older you got, though, the more serious their faces became. They wouldn’t say it outright perhaps, but you hear what they think well enough. Art is a dead-end career.
Shifting in your seat, you tell him, “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean?” Kai says. “There are good colleges for that.”
“I just... don’t know.”
Shaking his head, he tells you, “But you love it.”
You do. In its every form, you love creating. But loving it doesn’t mean that it’s right for you, or that you should trust your future in its hands. “I think I can do it in my own time,” you say, finally pushing yourself upright from the cushion. “Don’t wanna kill the passion by doing it for a living, you know?”
He thinks on that for a moment. “If you love it, you should do it,” he says.
An awful frustration bubbles in your chest. Kai has always had a clear life path, the steps ahead of him set in stone and waiting for him to follow in them. It’s hard for him to see why you might not want to do the same. There’s nothing that makes you as happy as the fact that he has it all figured out, that he knows just where he’s going and that he’s so incredible at it that he doesn’t have to worry about meeting the requirements, but your path seems obscured and untrodden. Punctuating a deep, resonant sigh, you say, “It’s not that easy, Kai.”
“If you’re not doing that, then what are you going to do? Are you just going to settle for a nine-to-five?” he says full of accusation, the tapping on his knees gone still.
A dry laugh, you say, “Maybe I’ll marry a super rich guy and just do my art for a living. No nine-to-five.”
His face flashes. He’d always been a bit reserved, especially around others, but he bared his emotions freely around you. You hold them dearly to your chest and made sure to do your best to make good on that trust. He says, “You’re more than some guy’s housewife.”
Cheeks radiating in the heat, you snort. “I know, dork. I’m a rockstar’s best friend. It’s my personal favorite achievement.”
His face sours when you reach out and pinch hard at his cheek, but he doesn’t pull away or brush you off. The skin there is warmed and clammy. Really, the two of you should go meet the cool AC inside before you suffer heat stroke. But this moment feels so nice—your shoulders feel tons lighter without something to hide. If you had it your way, things would stay like this forever. Just the two of you, sat here like you have so many times before, just taking for granted the time you’ve got together.
His mouth opens to banter, probably something about how he’s not a rockstar yet or to get you back for calling him a dork. Wingbeat and sterling dashes about your face send the image into a blur, though. You’re a quick mess of limbs and a whipping head, as if it’ll chase the thing away from you.
“Seriously?” Kai says. You’d climbed halfway over him, elbows digging into him and knee doing a number on his thigh. “It’s a moth. You’re not scared of moths.”
Lingering for a few moments later to ensure the flying thing was nowhere on you or around you, you hold back a laugh before you climb off him and fix your hair with undignified tucks behind your ears. “He was in my face,” you say around a laugh, because you know it was a bit too much. Nobody likes wings in their ears and spindly legs in their face, though, and you’re in no control of what you do when anything with six legs tries and get too friendly. Even moths.
“You just wanted me to protect you,” he says. A sarcastic, shit-eating smile tugs at the corners of his mouth.
“Oh,” you scoff, batting your eyelashes and clasping your hands together all saccharine-sweet. “Yes, Romeo, won’t you kill that bug for me? This girl’s heart just can’t take it!”
Kai’s nose crinkles, and the playful light twists into a glare. “Nasty.”
“That’s how you sounded,” you say. “I only reacted accordingly.” Laughing, you kick your legs out over his lap and sprawl back out. He takes the guitar back into his hands.
As much as you want to escape the mugginess, you’ll survive it for just a little while longer—if only with the force of an indulgent heart. The eternal moments are those you allow to linger.
⚝⭒
Some things, you forget when you’re older. Maybe it’s time’s hand, eroding memories down and stuffing more in the longer you live to experience them. But also maybe because they’re the sort of things you can’t say in the adult world without a laugh in the face and a look from down their noses.
This memory is one of those forgotten things. It’s moth-bitten and dusty, something you one day folded up in a moving box and decided to never revisit.
You’d been down at the creek. Kai and you had spent so many summer days there. It wasn’t too far from home, just past the filbert trees and into the shallow neck of the backwoods, but there you were out of sight and free to get up to nothing good. It was a wonder your mom ever let you do it. Kai’s dad didn’t care too much where he went or what he did, but your mom dug her claws in deep. You like to think that she imagined you two would have each other, if anything ever happened.
Usually, you’d be there holding your jeans up from the stream and Kai would be letting his jeans go dark with it. The bite of water was nice as it washed over warm skin. Fun was a simple thing to find, then. You dug your fingers into the mudbanks and tossed stones way too big to be throwing at each other, just because you two remembered how much the adults hated it when you did. Then, you’d drag tired limbs home avoiding sweetgum tree spikes that had fallen to the ground and dug splinters out from your feet.
This day, you had been in the blackberry bushes. It was maybe late July or early August, and they’d gotten heavy on their branches. You’d waited until the smell of them, summer-warmed, was sweet and cloying in the air to pick them. With buckets in your hands, you plucked only the fattest berries from their bunches. Your fingers were stained a delightful purple and perhaps a bit thorn raw, but you didn’t mind much then. You plucked for hours, and it was dusk before you could catch it. Dinner was no doubt waiting for you back home.
“There’s a bunch over here,” Kai had said. He reached a long boyish arm, still awkward and lanky with puberty, up high for ripe bush. You finished off picking before climbing around thick branches sticking out to take a peek. A bunch, there was.
When you went to drop a handful of them into your bucket, Kai hissed. He’d been snagged by a vicious looking branch, those ones as thick as a finger with thorns to match and you’d warn each other tongue-in-cheek to watch out for that one. He’d worn those ridiculous shorts that day, the ones that looked half pants half shorts with how long and baggy they were, and the claws of the bush had jumped at the opportunity. At first the scrapes were white, but then red blood crawled out and down his leg.
“Kai,” you said, some parts chiding and some parts just wondering how he’d managed that. You surveyed his leg for a bit, and then determined that he should wash his leg off in the stream. He walked there strong, but of course you noticed the hobble beneath his acting. When you squatted down into the dry grass and cupped water to wash off his leg, you laughed.
“What?” he had said, holding the shorts up. You covered your laugh with a hand, but it erupted past your palm. You remember the glare on his face very well.
You still laughed. “You’re stupid,” you had told him.
“I didn’t see it,” he said. “I tripped over it because it was sticking out.”
That time when you brought your hands to catch some water, there was a twinkle in its surface. You didn’t notice it for a second. The creek moved fast and you could see a lot of things in its reflection. When it lingered, that’s when your brows furrowed. It seemed to twirl, dancing around like alive over the stones.
The sound of Kai’s voice remains with you. “Hey,” he had said, strong to call your attention but also wavered with uncertainty.
When you looked up, there was silver dust dancing around you.
It was fluffy and whorling, fine silver stardust. It’d moved weightless in the air, as though it barely existed. In the center of it were a few moths. They seemed to be made of sterling powder just as the dust was, and they glowed against dusk’s backdrop. If your memory serves you right, there had been a sweet hymn of coos from them. They beckoned you. Summer’s heat felt lighter, and so did your chest. You wondered where they had wanted you to go.
Almost afraid that if you spoke they might have fluttered away, you whispered soft and low to Kai. “What is that?” He was stood frozen there, pant leg still scrunched up in his fist. Stardust glowed soft in his brown eyes while he took it all in, you remember. It wasn’t a scared frozen. You weren’t scared, either—rather, it was as if that lightness had found its way into the core of your being and brushed over it with mending hands.
He whispered back, “I don’t know.” How could he have known? It was absurd.
Those whisps had beckoned you, flowing toward the deeper woods. The soft moths, their murmuring brushing up against your ears, seemed to wait for you to follow. You remember a pull, soft tendrils wrapping themselves around your heart and the yearning it planted there.
But there was also this reluctance, a bone-deep answering that had told you: No. You’re not ready.
“Kai, I wanna go,” you told him.
You didn’t even need to tell him twice. Berry buckets forgotten; the journey home was a stranger one. When your dad asked why you returned from berry picking emptier handed than you had left the house, Kai and you only shared a look. You pair kept that evening at the creek hidden so well that it became more forgotten than shared secret.
⚝⭒
Once, you had been the type of girl that loved being around family. Some of your favorite days of your life were spent in this living room, T.V. roaring over bouncing conversation. Some of those nights ended in rosy cheeks and laughs, and some ended with words thrown angry like fireworks. You never knew which you’d be getting, but you endured the fear of not knowing because it was a simple love—the basic kind built with biology into you the moment your infant skin touched your mother’s. You endured it because eventually, sleep washed away the bad taste left in your mouth and you forgave them quick, sometimes quicker than you ought to, and things would go on as if it hadn’t even happened. You endured it because you could handle its burden, if only to feel the warmth you feel when it’s a good day.
Kai was always there—his dad was hardly home, so he found family in yours. When you were younger, you’d been embarrassed he was there for caustic, spitted words and intimate fights. Now, you’re just grateful for his shoulder.
So, yes. Once, you had loved being around your family. But things feel tenser now, nights spent all together less frequent and when they do happen, they’re tainted by a strange air. You think that this strangeness is new, but an awful worry also makes you think that it’d always been there, that you only feel it now because you’ve grown into your adult mind. A hollow ache stakes its claim in your chest, declaring that it won’t leave until you find that youthful ignorance and joy once more. You think that it might stay there forever.
Bare feet bounding down the stairs, you make a rare appearance downstairs. The cupboard is only half open to make way for a snack raid before your mom’s voice cuts through the air. You know quickly just by the look on her face that you should’ve stayed upstairs.
“Hey,” she says, gathering laundry into a basket. “You’ve been applying to jobs?”
With an anxious belly, you tell her, “Yeah. A few. They’re not really, like, ideal, but I sent applications.” You don’t remember when it got hard to look into your mother’s eyes, but you can’t bring yourself to do so now.
“Not ideal?” she says. “It’s not like you can be picky. Mcdonalds or wherever, I don’t care, you’re going to need to get a job if you’re staying here.”
“I know. I applied,” you reiterate around a mumble. You close the cabinets, not so interested in a snack anymore. “I just... I don’t know, ma. I don’t want to do that for a living, going between those sorts of jobs.”
Face hard and abrasive against the truth you bare, she does that awful taunting smile that makes you feel small. Stupid. “You’re not going to college, so that’s what it’s gonna be. You can’t sit up there and draw for a living. You’ve gotta get into the real world, get some real experience.”
There’s a burst of hurt in your chest, dazzling and gnawing. She’s getting closer to saying how she really feels about your dreams out loud every day. Your face burns and so do your eyes, knot thick in your throat. “Yeah, okay. Got it,” you say, nodding. You’re at the front door before you even know it, slipping on shoes and fighting the greatest internal battle to will back tears. She’d use those against you, no doubt about it. “I’m going to Kai’s,” you throw over your shoulder.
Whatever she barks back at you, you’re glad you don’t hear. Bells on some old Christmas decoration hung on the door that had yet to be taken down, even into summer, jingle and wash it away for you.
Kai’s brows shoot up when he opens the door to your face crumpling. You’d done so well at damming it up, but the wall cracks and the water crashes through once you see him. If it were anybody else, you’d feel icky and attention seeking, but you’d held Kai to your chest through gut-wrenching sobs as much as he’s done it for you. Without question, he takes you into his arms, warm hand running up and down your back. The warm soothing is so familiar. You melt right into it.
He keeps you there for a long moment. Then, his chest rumbles as he tells you, “Come on.” The walk through the AC to his bedroom is nice. Having a house like Kai’s to come to where it can just be you is nice, too. You step around the mess of clothes and scattered belongings on his floor like you have a muscle-memory roadmap of his room. Boxsprings creak and hard mattress welcome you back home. His room is dark as always, a night-dweller you call him. The array of peeling band posters plastered over walls you two had painted blue some years ago, when it’d been his favorite color, don’t help to lighten it up. He keeps a low lamplight on.
“She never listens to me,” you say, crying gone to occasional sniffles from your chest. You rest your cheek on your bent knee.
“I know,” he says. “But at least she cares about you. Pays attention to you.” His voice is soft and deep and right next to you. Always right next to you, there for you even when you might not appreciate it as you should.
His dad cares too little what he does, and yours care too much. The grass is always greener on the other side, you know it. Still, you hold a fantasy where you’re able to do teenager stuff. Where you’d allow yourself to do bad things, because you weren’t so intent on painting yourself with their will. You two hold eyes for a long moment, your twinkling ones caught in that steady brown. “I just want to get away. Be my own person.” Your words are muffled in the softness of your skin.
“You had the chance to do it,” Kai says, hand playing with your fingers. “But you didn’t.”
Holding your legs closer, you lick your lips. What do you say to that? Would it ever be the time to tell him that you did it because you think that your soul is pathetically intertwined with his, and that it might snuff your lifeforce out to even try pursuing life without him? Without this? How do you tell him that you’re so frozen and unwilling to pursue any sort of future because it means accepting that this chapter is over? You clutch childhood to your chest like a wild animal guarding scarce food; you refuse. You refuse to acknowledge its end.
“Kai,” is all you say, trembled and thick. It’s not just your mother’s words that dig at you and tear to shreds the last bits of what dreaming you had left in you, but so many other reality checks too. This isn’t the first time you’ve heard those sorts of words, urging you forward. You can only dig your heel into the ground for so long before you’re swept away in time’s ruthless, endless moving.
He understands. Lifting your face with warm fingers against your cheeks, he says, “Hey. How about we go get ice cream, or something?”
Ice cream does sound nice. “Dairy Queen?”
Smirk tugged over his mouth, he says, “Yes, Dairy Queen. A blizzard. C’mon, let’s go.” Sliding off the bed, he offers you an urging hand up.
But you falter. “I don’t know if we can. She’s mad at me. I don’t think she’ll let me go.”
“Let you go?” he says, eyes narrowed. “She doesn’t have to let you go. You’re an adult now, you go if you want to.” He offers his hand to you again.
It’s so him, freely going wherever he ordain it. The bullheadedness is very him, as well. Always the devil on your shoulder, he was the root of any rebellious thing you’ve ever done. He could never understand your apprehension, or why getting in trouble was such an awful thing to you. “I have to ask to get money.”
Brows pinching, he says, “You think I’m not gonna pay for you? You don’t need them to give you money, I’ll pay. I’ll take care of it.” He drags you up from the bed this time. “Live a little. Do you want to go?”
It was never the punishments or the getting in trouble that you were scared of, though. Disappointment was a scarier word than grounded. Sneaking out and those sorts of things, it’s not like you had angel wings at your back and never considered them. It’s that you are deeply, utterly terrified of changing how they look at you. You begin to tell him, “I do, but—”
He cuts you off, adamant. “Then do it. Let’s go. If you want to go, then go,” he says. “At some point, your life needs to become your own. It’s not sneaking out when you’re graduated and eighteen years old, it’s going wherever the hell you want. You’ve... You’re gonna end up stuck here, in this town, forever. You don’t deserve that.”
That sounds like both the best and the worst thing you’ve ever heard. You take his hand.
⚝⭒
Your frozen fingers nurse your ice cream. The cup itself is cold, but the Dairy Queen on your side of town is always thirty degrees below what it should be. It’d always been that way. Even way back when you two couldn’t drive, you’d get dropped off here to escape the melting weather and get a frozen treat with a handful of dollars. Each time, you’d start off sagging with the relief of summer’s weight off your shoulders and left the place shivering and sugar-mouthed.
It’s really only you two in here. You crinkle your nose when he takes a spoonful. “Out of all the flavors...”
Unbothered and no doubt expecting you to say it, he offers you a flat, “You get your flavor, I get mine.” He makes a point of taking an extra-long bite. His lips linger around the red plastic of the spoon and his brows rest high in silent challenge.
The corners of your lips twitch up. “Hmm. Well. I just have a hard time believing that Oreo... or, like, brownie fudge, is right there, and you actually want M&M. I don’t get how M&M your favorite.” A familiar banter falls over your tongues. Your heart buzzes and your cheeks radiate. This is the first you’ve done this all summer, and it’ll be weaning off into fall soon. Any other summer, you would’ve been here on all the hottest days. You hate that Kai’s been so busy with his music; you hate that you can hear the resounding ticks of the clock counting down your time. You also hate that the stubborn depths of you still believe that if you freeze yourself here in stasis that the world will relent and stop along with you.
You look over the sharp lines of Kai’s jawline as it feathers with his chewing, and the broadness of his shoulders where his jacket stretches around it, and the starkness of his collarbones against his chest and the bobbing of his adam’s apple when he swallows. No, time doesn’t stop. Some of him remains the same, though. In it, you see the boy that had love creeping up on you so long ago, with all its aching and all its hope. That freckle on the column of his neck, the bump in his nose leading down to the button tip that beckons your lips to steal a quick kiss.
And, those lips. They’re as soft as ever around the discontented grimace he pulls. “M&M isn’t my favorite.”
With a pursed mouth and patronizing brows arched over your eyes, you say, “Oh, huh. That’s funny, because if my memory serves me right, it’s the only flavor you’ve ordered for the past... six years.”
Kai husks a laugh at that. “That’s because they haven’t had my favorite for years,” he tells you, scooping up the final bit and then pushing it off to the side. “It was a blizzard of the month that they discontinued. The blackberry cheesecake one. I made peace with it, though. It lives on in my heart.” He grins, arms crossed over his chest and his back settled into the booth seat to let you finish your cup.
“Blackberry cheesecake,” you say, voice made taunting. Your nod is slow and taunting, too. “Well, forget M&Ms.Why would blackberry cheesecake be your favorite? Ever?”
His face falters, a moment where something flows over his eyes as if reliving a memory in a few short seconds. Then, he shrugs. “It just is.”
You roll your eyes. “Whatever,” you laugh. “Maybe my palate is unrefined.” Imagining the tarte fruit in purple swirls of ice cream, you’re taken back to a humid July day and the scent of churned mud.
The strange memory unfolds itself quick. As if it were waiting for you to find wherever it’d hidden itself away. With a sharp gasp, you say, “Oh my god, Kai. Do you remember that one day? That weird stuff we saw down at the creek?”
He nods. “Yeah. I was just thinking of that the other day, actually...”
Less interested in finishing your cup now, you let the spoon rest. “What?” you say, the word peaking in the middle. That day hadn’t crossed your mind once since it’d happened. “How weird is that?”
Scoffing a laugh, he says, “Weird, yeah. Just as strange as two kids high on fermented berries.”
That draws a breathy laugh from you. “Is that what you think it was?” you ask him with knitted brows. The berries had been fresh, and you two had popped plenty into your mouth. But no doubt, you’d have spat them right back out if they were that ripe. “I mean, we saw the same thing.”
“It happens to animals all the time. Squirrells, and stuff.” He lends you a gallic shrug. “We just freaked ourselves out. Like that one time you said you saw the shape of something in the dark and we freaked out. And it was clothes.”
Well, hallucinating, in tandem, a glowing mist because you two by chance ate fermented berries is a very long shot. However nonchalant he acts about it, he seems to have thought long and hard about it. Enough to reason it away with some far cry explanation. Would you have even been able to get drunk off a handful of fermented berries? And, god, you’re really sure that you’d have noticed. That taste isn’t really one you just don’t notice.
Whatever. Maybe you were just drunk idiots. That’s a lot easier to swallow, anyway.
“Okay, but you saw that. Did it not look sinister?” you say. With your spoon back in your hand, you punctuate the sentence pointing it at him. “You freaked out with me, too.”
An unsatisfied scowl on his lips, he steals a spoonful of your dessert. You don’t even swat him away—your phone buzzes in your pocket.
Catching sight of who’s calling, you share a long look with Kai. It’s funny, how fast those three white letters scramble you up. When you hesitate to answer, Kai tells you, “Answer.”
You hope she can’t tell you’re not at Kai’s by the refrigerators’ dull buzzing. It’s an effort to tussle that invasive worry back. You’re at Dairy Queen. Getting ice cream with the boy she’s known since childhood. She should clutch her hands and thank the sky that you’re here, not out in some nasty frat house like you could be. You thumb the green button.
Her voice comes through the speaker crackled and asking you to run over to do a quick dish load. For a heartbeat you consider telling her that you will and then start rushing home. Instead, you fork out the truth through resistant lips.
The hangup tone sits heavy on the air between you and Kai. Having listened to the whole thing on speaker, he says, “What was so hard about that? The world didn’t end, did it?”
The plush of your lip takes a hard gnawing. No, it hadn’t. “I know she’s not going to get mad at me for just going here,” you say as you rest your elbows onto the table. “It’s that they’re supporting me right now. I still live under their roof. The more I go around and insist I can do whatever I want, they’ll start reminding me of it.”
His face drawn, he lets his mouth twitch to one side. “Yeah,” he muses. “I never thought yours would be the type to kick you out.”
Kai’s dad had started threating him with getting kicked out years ago, when he first started telling him that he wanted to do music. How many times had he let reluctant tears flow into your shoulder over it? Because music wasn’t a real job? Back then, you’d whispered in his ears that he’d become everything he’d dreamed of and more as your fingers carded through shaggy locks of hair.
“I don’t know,” you say, humming it out noncommittally. “Is your dad still... y’know?”
Nodding slowly, his eyes tell. “Yeah. Always.”
“Because you’re taking the band seriously, now?” you ask.
“Probably. I don’t give a shit what he thinks about it. If I’m just his goddamn problem, I’ll give him what he wants soon enough.” His eyes blaze with promise of it.
It takes a bit out of you to not wince. Kai living anywhere but in the house across from yours is wrong. “I don’t think he necessarily wants that, Kai...” You take his hand in your icy ones, the urge to reach out to him thinly veiled under the guise of searching out warmth. He’d always run warmer than you—your personal heater. “It’s probably because he can see that you’re doing it for real. Not just saying it anymore.”
“Yeah, well,” he spits, “I can’t fucking wait to see what he’ll say to me when I make it. That piece of shit, though, he wouldn’t even care. It’s not like he ever gave a shit about me enough for it to matter.”
But, it matters to you, you want to tell him. You understand his need to throw it all in his face. Though. “Is that one label going to sign you? The one you were talking about?”
His tongue darts out to wet dry lips. “They haven’t yet. I don’t know. But I don’t need that money to get out of here, I’ve been working on it.”
“They will,” you say. “But, where would you go? Not too far?” You try and keep it light and playful, even as your heart aches.
“Come with me,” he says. It’s painfully blunt, as if it were that simple. “Let’s go get and apartment; you and me.”
“Kai...” you say. “You don’t have to drag me along because you feel bad.”
The idea doesn’t sound half bad, though.
“What?” His face tightens, as if somewhere under the surface your words had scraped somewhere tender. “You don’t have to stay here forever. Please. I want... I want you to come with me. You wouldn’t have to even tell them; just bring all your stuff and go together. We could do it together. Like we said we would.”
“We were like, five. Everybody tries to pretend running away at five,” you deadpan. It’s a washy attempt at lightening things back up.
Living with him, moving out together, should feel like everything you’ve ever wanted. And, maybe it is. But, he’s not asking you to live with him the way you want him to. Not in the way that your aching heart wishes he would.
Kai doesn’t share the laugh you give him. “Yeah, okay,” he says, leaning into the table.
Perhaps you should consider the potent disappointment he’s terribly masking with a face of indifference, though.
⚝⭒
Slowly, the knots in your belly have worked themselves out. When Kai had dropped you off, they’d been so awful that you felt borderline sick. You sat the whole ride there in his old beat-up truck picking at your nails and rambling to him. He listened to you the whole time. And then when it was time to walk in, it had least felt a little easier to do so with his eyes on you, watching to make sure you made it in safely.
You’d gotten a job. It’s not too bad, folding clothes out on display. It would be nice if they kept the lights a bit brighter, but you’ll get used it eventually, you hope.
Most of your coworkers are around your age, but the one showing you the ropes... your heart had fluttered.
“You’ll get it,” Yeonjun says. The smile you find on his lips once he straightens up from placing product on a display is smooth and smug. Sleek strands of black hair fall over his eyes. You fluster under his gaze.
With arms crossed over your chest you say, “Yeah, probably.” You reach into the cardboard box for stock to practice on.
“Where’d you work before this?” he asks, leaning back into a wall to watch you. Suddenly, you make sloppier work of your folding. “Your first retail job?”
Some obnoxious pop song falls down from the speakers over the store. Nobody’s in here yet, thankfully; you’ve got some time to try and get a handle on everything. “No, this is my first job. I was so nervous walking in.”
Interest catches in his eyes. It encourages that smooth smile on his lips further. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ll show you the reins.”
Your mind stalls. The suggestive, sly flicker to it—are you looking too much into it? Maybe that’s just how guys like Yeonjun act. It’s hard to pretend that you don’t see how he’s looking at you, though. It has your belly twisted up in fluttery knots. It’s not like you hadn’t had your share of his type. But, for some reason you’d rather not address, he’s got your heart thumping in your chest.
He laughs at your fifth attempt to fold up the shirt. When he takes it from you to help, he smells of musk and vetiver. “You going to college near here?” he continues.
“Nah, just doing this, I guess,” you answer, watching him fold it up to try and soak it up.
“Really? Why not?” he hums, crossing his arms about his chest. “You seem like a smart girl.”
Buffering, your blood buzzes in your veins and your cheeks burn. “Dunno. Not really sure what to do. Are you in college?”
“Nah. I’m trying to figure things out, too.”
The both of you pop your heads up when the bell rings to announce the arrival of a customer.
“Yeah,” you say, eyeing him. He’s a few years older than you, no doubt, and yet his life hasn’t fallen apart because he’s not done anything grand yet.
Time’s hand around your neck loosens. Just a little bit.
⚝⭒
You sit crisscrossed on top of Kai’s bedsheets. He’d thrown the windows open because the AC died, but it’s no help. The hot air wafting about the room sits heavy on your skin. You’d dressed in as little material as possible to let it breathe, bare thighs clad in a pair of loose shorts and a thin tank top, but it’s still miserable.
Perhaps you two should be going over to yours, but you haven’t had time alone with him for a few weeks now. You hate this busier life, where you struggle to make room for this.
Your new job isn’t so awful, though. Especially with Yeonjun there. A bout of nerves flows up through your stomach. That reminds you.
Sitting up a bit straighter, you consider not doing it. In fact, you really shouldn’t. But your mouth moves before you can put a stopper on it.
“Hey, Kai,” you say. The thickness in your throat makes you believe that your heart’s jumped up into it, caught. God, what are you doing? The unsure waver in your words has you regretting.
His eyes flicker up to yours. He hums out a, “Huh?”
No, this is wrong. You mess with the thin cotton strap of your tank top where it’d slipped down. “Never mind,” you tell him, trying to shrug it off.
That piques his interest. “No, what?” His brow pinches.
You lick your lips and shake your head. “Nothing, never mind. Really.”
His eyes search you from where he sits up against the wall. “Tell me,” he demands.
Really, you shouldn’t have said it in the first place. It was a ridiculous idea. But now you know he’s not going to let it go. And, ridiculously, you say it. “I was just... wondering,” you say, blood roaring. "Well, Yeonjun wants me to come over to his place this weekend, and... I’ve never...” Sucking in a quick breath, you just spit it out to get it over with, “Would you be my first kiss, Kai?”
Insects buzz outside as he looks at you, frozen in spot. You reject the urge to dart away or throw up. You’re honestly just as shaken as him. But really, who else could you trust with something like that? You don’t want Yeonjun to be disappointed if he kisses you, or to seem inexperienced to him.
And, perhaps, the hopelessly in love part of you hopes to at least feel his lips on yours at least once. If you’re going to be alone forever in your longing, you just wish that you can have this.
“What?” Kai says. He looks rattled.
Of course, he’s shocked. You shift. “Forget I said that,” you tell him, unable to meet his gaze.
String-roughened fingers wrap around your upper arm. “I didn’t say anything,” he says, voice strained and face less shock-fallen and more darkened. “But... I mean, you want me to teach you to kiss for some other guy.” He spits out the last bit as if bitter in his mouth.
“You don’t have to do it,” you say. “I just... thought that I might ask you to do it. I don’t know, I’m sorry I said it. I’ll just wing it or something.” His room’s grown ten degrees hotter, if that was possible. Especially where you feel his eyes on your face.
Almost imperceptibly, his hand tightens around you. He swallows hard. “You want to learn how to kiss?” he says. “Fine. I’ll teach you.”
In a heart-stopping moment, your eyes snap to his. Brown and familiar, they hold you with an intensity that turns your limbs into jelly. The air is stifling. “What... do I do?” you ask when the silence becomes too heavy.
A muscle feathers in his jaw, reflected in the low light of his room. It’s quick and so easy to miss, but it tells you everything you need to know about how this is making him feel. How much disbelief he’s in. “Come here,” he says, stilted around the absolute absurdity of it. He pats on his lap.
You make a hesitant crawl across the bed toward him. It seems as though your elbows might buckle beneath your weight, but you make it despite the odds. A fog settles over your brain when you rest your hands on his shoulders and bring your legs to straddle his lap.
But you shove it back; you want to live and breathe every last second of this. No matter how unbelievable or blistering it is.
Breaths fan out over your face. It’s seizing your mind like undiluted liquor. “Where do I put my hands?” you ask him. It’s breathless, the air stolen right from your lungs though your mouths haven’t even touched.
“There is fine,” he says. His words sound breathless, too. The weight of his touch on you as he runs his own up to support your back is unsure. “And then...” he says. It falls out on your mouth slowly, and then he’s taking your lips onto his.
The walls melt away, sound does too. All that is real is the taste of his lips and how they move against you. Your lips start tentative, but you try his mouth movements yourself. It feels like a timid dance—it feels like deep, deep down, finally everything is right. That mist, thick and blinding, falls back over you.
Something changes. Something in it, where you two meet, changes. He becomes hungry. Softly locked lips turn biting and nipping, shaky breaths exhaled slow through your nose. His hands on your back become surer, and one even ventures off to grab your chin. The other holds you to his chest, melded together despite the intense smoke and flame rolling off your bodies. You wonder if he can feel your heart beating a mess there.
Reluctance paints you both when you pull back. You’re panting deep drinks of air. It’s hard to think; your mind’s run off and sits just out of reach. Licking your messy lips, stained with illicitness, you can only manage to brush your fingers against it to form words. “How... was that?” you say, searching his eyes. You find his pupils blown so wide that they consume the warm brown. You’re ready to jump out of your skin with that look pointed at you.
Kai doesn’t answer, though. He slams your mouths back together as if starved by just the brief moment you’d parted for air. Nips on your bottom lip and emboldened hands—he moves like roaring water through a dam. A dam that he’d worked hard to fortify, and yet, at a crack it’s all falling down. Fingertips digging through the fabric of your shorts down to your soft hips, his chest rumbles. You feel it reflected in your core, electricity charging there and shooting up your spine and down your thighs.
You kiss him for all the times you wish you would’ve, but didn’t. The slight rolls of your hips down onto him come easy. You love how it has him making a sound into your mouth and taking the fat beneath his fingers harder into his hands. He helps you.
He drops his head into your neck. Your head swims for air and he has you shuddering with just the brushing of his nose against the column of your neck. The walls of his room spin around you. “Kai,” you whine, every bit of friction his jeans provide, even clothed as you are, just enough to rile you but not to give you what you need.
“God,” he growls, thumbs hooking under your waistband. “You always fucking run around dressed in nothing,” he says, letting his fingers linger like a suggestion of undressing you. “Did you do it on purpose? Expect to make me crazy, knowing I couldn’t touch you?”
And, in those words, it seems that he steals every last bit of breath from you. How often had you gone braless or worn something like this around him? Laid here, in his bed, like that?
Grown tired of your fruitless grinding, he brings a hand down to support your lower back and says, “Turn around.”
Though you explode with the prospect of what he might be intending to do or what’s next, if you’re really going to do this, you do so in a flash of eager limbs. His chest is solid against your back, you melt against the feeling of it. He’d become such a man lately, filled out, and you watched it happen. It was hard for your eyes not to catch on muscle-corded forearms while he picked at strings or to not appreciate the timbred rumble of his voice when you’d feel it come from his chest. How could it not do things to you? Now, he’s dragging your shorts down your legs and you’re in disbelief.
“Fuck,” he breaths out. His fingers find your panties soaked through. “So, you’re the type to get dripping wet.”
An embarrassed blush decorates your cheeks. Kai drags his index finger in circles around your clit through the fabric as if enamored with how much of a mess you’d made of it. Your hips twitch every time he rolls right over it. It’s strange how he’s got your body acting on its own volition with his touches. Even stranger that it’s your best friend doing it. “Sorry,” you tell him, wavering.
He continues those terribly slow circles. “Sorry?” he says, chin on your shoulder. He’s got you wrapped up in him, with nowhere to go but to melt back into him and let his fingers work. Free hand on one of your inner thighs digging divots into the plushness there to hold it still, he tells you, “It’s nothing to be sorry about. It’s hot as fuck. You’re so excited for me to touch you, huh?”
The words wreak havoc on you, feeding the flame that has your belly twisted up tight and the ignition point between your thighs pounding. To hear them coming from him, reserved Kai, has you digging your fingers into his forearm to prove that it’s real. You’d never have imagined him being so... filthy. You imagine him behind falsely nonchalant eyes, devouring you with a perverted mind all the times you’d spent innocently sitting together in this room.
Your cheeks squish beneath his fingers as he takes your face and turns it to him. He wants to make sure you’re look at him as he asks you, “Do you want me to finger you?”
Like a record, your brain skips. Between the blunt, lewd question and his hand on you, it’s in overload. How could ask something like that so simply? Stunned as you are, of course you want him to. You want him to do anything to you. You nod.
Every last nerve and neuron in your system, just below the skin, cry out when his fingers slow down to nothing. “Hmm?” he says, ignoring the chasing of your hips and the opening of your thighs to invite him into paying your poor pussy the attention he’d ripped from it. He wants to hear you say it.
About ten minutes ago, you lost your mind. It does not return to you now. “I want you to,” you say, chest beating in tandem with your cunt.
“You want me to, right? Not some dumbass you met a week ago, huh?” he says. “Because you know that this is what it’s meant to be. Me, doing these things to you. Not some twenty-five-year-old piece of shit. He doesn’t deserve you, baby. Understand?”
His fingers slider under your panties. Dumb brained and cognition gone muddled, you nod. All you can really think about is the moment his fingers slide over you. Fire licks up your lower belly and your insides as he brushes calloused finger tips finally right against your clit.
Puffed breaths of a scoff raise goosebumps over your skin. “Teach you to kiss so that you can go over there and get his hands on you,” he says, middle two fingertips prodding at your entrance. “As if you were ever anybody’s but mine. You’d come crawling back to me, baby, because it was always meant to be us. He could never satisfy you.”
His words might alarm you or have you asking questions if he hadn’t pushed his fingers into you and begun curling them with strong, pointed presses, pulling soft mewls and hums from you until he finds a spot that twists up your insides. Even through the palm you press over your mouth, your moans come out more like wavering grunts and croaks. Your thighs quiver and twitch, threatening to snap closed against your own will with each. Only your feet stay planted to the mattress. Like a cone of soft serve under the sun’s blistering attention, you melt down him. Just his frame keeps you upright.
“Right there, huh?” he says. The smirk on his mouth filters his words into something taunting. “That’s where you like it.” It’s like he’s learning your body step by step, fulfilling all the questions he’d been forced to only guess at before this.
“Uh-huh.” It comes out whiny and cracks in the middle, but you can’t find even an ounce of you to care right now. If this moment had been a long spiral, a fall from grace, down into a dark pit of forgotten inhibitions, you’ve just hit the bottom. Cheeks blazing cherry blossom pink and with your fingers curling into his pant leg, you don’t doubt that you are a picturesque mess. The kind of mess that’s beautiful because it’s dirty. Your teeth are not gentle on your plush bottom lip. It stings, tugged back and bitten and still a bit swollen with kisses. Perhaps you taste the tang of metal on it, but you pay it no mind.
Kai redoubles his efforts. Now that he knows exactly how to play you, he’s fucking you on his fingers without mercy. The sounds coming from your cunt were wet, but now they’re different— nasty squelching. The only noises coupling with your pathetic keening. Forget anchoring yourself on his thigh, forget muffling your sounds. Instead, your hands fly to encircle his flexing forearm. Under your nails, angry red crescents dig into the muscle there. What had been a languid, building pleasure suddenly becomes everything. Your breaths run away from you, and you chase them frantically. Deep down in your core, the muscles spasm and rage against his fingers. “H—oh god,” you groan. Even the muscles in your thighs and tummy tighten up.
“So whiny...” Kai mumbles, voice taut with the effort of eroding you down into pure, blinding-white pleasure.
And then, in a swoop of mercy, your belly tightens. You hover here, on the precipice of something so consuming and voracious that your muscles and bones reject it, and yet your heart sings. Your eyes and cheeks and lungs and belly burn, the flame charring the edges of you in a beckon. You answer its call. Kai doesn’t mind the snapping of your legs shut around his arm, nor does your bucking or shaking deter him. He just holds you through it, arm like a metal bar around your waist. He’s everywhere, in this moment—the smell of him, leather and utterly familiar, his mouth dusting hot kisses over your skin, his fingers guiding you through orgasm. Where you’d gone silent in the initial crash of it, you devolve into mewls and grunts as you come down.
He holds you even as you slump against him boneless. Afterglow simmers in your veins and has your brain all lethargic and lazy. Neither of you speak for a while, your pulse thumping a rhythm. His breaths rise and fall against you; it grounds you in this moment where you feel all spacey and gone. You become aware again of how disgustingly sweltering it is in his room, your skin sheened.
That brainless bliss only lasts you for so long, though. When rational mind returns to you, no matter how you wish it wouldn’t, you’re hit in the chest with regret so hard it knocks the wind out of you.
How will anything ever be the same after what you’d just done? Stricken still by the thought, you barely register him pulling his fingers out of you. After all your worrying about making sure no wedge comes between you two, look what you’ve gone and done. No; nothing ever will be the same again.
⚝⭒
A couple of weeks ago, you ruined the one friendship you were supposed to have forever. It presses down heavy one you while you sit sprawled out on Yeonjun’s couch, his arm around your shoulder. His phone casts a glow over his features with all the lights out.
It doesn’t smell like home. He, pressed against your side, doesn’t smell like home.
Some stupid movie that he’d picked out, yet somehow you’ve ended up the only one still watching it, weaves a hum into the quiet of his apartment. Tangy hurt wells up in your throat. Even the moments when you and Kai would sit in mutual silence on your phones never felt like this. This is different.
You haven’t seen Kai since that night. He’s been busy getting ready to move out, and you’ve been here most days. How fast all of it had changed. You wish you’d feel whiplashed, left empty, by the drifting that you’d been so terrified of. But you don’t. It’s just been you, locked on land, watching him being taken away by the ocean’s tide with no way to change its course. You tried and screamed to call him back, but now your voice has gone hoarse.
And instead of watching him go, you choose to look elsewhere. It’s all you can do to protect yourself from the hurt.
“Hey,” Yeonjun says, finally addressing you rather than whoever’s he’s got in his phone. “Did you bring anything to change into?”
“I brought stuff to sleep in,” you say, eyeing him. You know that’s not why he’s asking. If it came down to it, you could just steal something from him and pull it on. He means going out clothes. Your jaw tightens. “But nothing nice. Why?”
He stretches his arms behind his head in a flaunt of long arms and tanned muscle. Hours spent at the gym lent him those; you appreciate the look of it with a watering mouth. Kai had earned his build by hours spent outside with your dad, because his own could care less, helping him fix up cars and vehicles of all ridiculous sorts. You remember when Kai had first gotten his truck—junk on wheels, honestly—he’d spent so much of summer out there getting it running. And, well... the sun-kissed bronze of his skin and frame that came with it, you had no qualms with.
But those memories only sit heavy in your chest as you’re sat here beside Yeonjun. You banish them elsewhere; you need to let him drift off. If you can’t have each other, and your feelings won’t permit just being friends, then you have to. You want him to do amazing things, and you fear that it’s your presence in his life that will interrupt that. As much as your feelings are real, they are selfish. You, your unsure direction and all your dead weight, should let him go. Because you love him.
“The guys want to come over,” he tells you, pushing off from the couch. “You should probably into change into something less showy.”
Less showy. Your mouth drops into a scoff of disbelief, looking down. A pair of shorts and a shirt, showy? You have to laugh, or else you’ll succumb to the strange embarrassment crawling at the back of your skull. What’s he trying to say? Is that what he thinks of you? “What’s that supposed to mean?” you say, face tilted up to him in a twist of distaste. “I’m wearing something comfy.”
He shrugs, hands shoved into the pockets of his black sweats. “Don’t want to give them the wrong idea about you, that’s all, baby. They’re guys; I just want to protect you.”
“No,” you say, the word falling out in a barked laugh. “Why would you even be bringing over dudes that you think will look at me like that? Why are you even friends with people that you think are gonna make moves on your girlfriend?” He holds a hand out to you, but your hands stay right where they are: crossed solidly over your chest.
Throwing that hand up in audacious exasperation, he gives you a look that makes you feel small and petulant—like you’re throwing an overblown fit. And, maybe you are. You should probably just do it; him seeing you as some overbearing or high maintenance girl has that embarrassment flaring like wildfire that’s found dry brush. “C’mon, baby,” he says, a lazy smile on his mouth that gets under your skin. “Let’s just have an easy night. Don’t make it a big deal.”
Let’s just have an easy night. As if you’re the one ruining the night. Something snarky tries to seize your tongue, but you hold it down. “I thought it would be just us. We wanted to watch the movie together, Yeonjun. Can’t you wait to hang out with your friends? Let’s enjoy our time together; you’ve got your shift tomorrow.”
“My fucking god,” he groans, running a hand through his hair furiously. “You’re needy, you know that? The neediest I’ve ever had to put up with. I don’t put up with needy, baby. Can’t you just chill out a little? My last didn’t mind when I’d have friends over.”
Your eyes burn. Your cheeks burn. He’d been with plenty of other girls before you; that, you’re well aware of. It’s been a corrosive source of self-doubt for you. You don’t want that title: the neediest he’s ever had. Don’t want him to think of you as some prude that won’t let him have fun. Just... hearing him bring up the other girls he’d been with before you stings and leaves welts no different from a slap in the face. Feelings of inadequacy shackle you and have you saying, “Fine. I’m gonna borrow some of your clothes.”
Heavy resentment blooms on your skin where he bends down and presses kisses to your cheek, and then mouth, and then down your neck. “Thank you, baby.”
And, where those ugly, wilted flowers of it bloom, you hear echoes of something. Something that tells you that Kai wouldn’t treat you like this. But you’ve made your bed, decided to do it yourself, and now you’ve got to lay on it.
⚝⭒
The frat parties are the worst kind of social outing that Yeonjun insists upon. The smaller kinds, more intimate gathering with just his closer friends, you tolerate much easier. You’re not fond of the circles he chooses. Breathing in thick, smoked-out air surrounded by alcohol-coated breaths is not your type of fun night. Somehow, you end up doing that more than date nights. But that’s better than being here. The base rumbles up through your feet and makes your stomach sick, and it reeks of grinding bodies and body odor, and condensation coats your fingers from the red solo cup as full as when you’d first gotten it.
But, still, you come along. Not every time, but when you don’t, you lay in his bed sickening yourself with images of what he might be doing here. How pathetic is it to attend parties with your boyfriend because you fear that otherwise, he might stick his tongue down the throats of other girls?
You’re looking for him right now, awkward and left alone. He’d promised to stick around; you had begged him to. That was pathetic, too. You know that you put up with too much. If he loved you, or honestly even liked you, you two would be in the thick of the throngs dancing or off somewhere talking with others. Together. The frantic skimming and weeding of your eyes through the blur of faces is not right. That’s not how he should make you feel. It’s not how Kai would make you feel.
Well, Kai would never have you here in the first place.
Venturing out from your little corner, you sift between the bodies of people have a hell of a lot better time than you. Drunken, some you bounce off of like bumper carts. You press your palm over the round face of your cup to spare the floor from spillage threatening to pour over the lip. It’s not like a splash from yours would matter much, though. The linoleum has already been made a fetor mess of dirt off shoes and the sticky sugar of liquor. Your shoes peel from it as you walk. God, what would your parents think of you being here?
You peek around corners and eye big groups. He’s not in the kitchen when you look there, either. Your stomach feels sick in a knowing way—a gut feeling that doesn’t justify anger or tears just yet, but you know. Right in the center of your chest, you know.
It’s in some room that you find him. Sat on the floor along with a few faces you don’t know, he pulls from his bottle. And on his shoulder, he lets a girl with shining curls and pink cheeks rest her head. At your busting in on the intimate gathering, Yeonjun’s eyes slide to you. Recognition flashes over them and wars with bleary drunkenness.
“Hey, baby,” he says. Their gazes all fall on you, but you can hardly see them through blurry eyes.
The girl lifts her head from his shoulder. She’d caught the memo.
“I think I’m gonna go.” You make it sound resigned, try to not let them see your shame, but your voice betrays you and crackles. Maybe it’s better to pretend it doesn’t feel like you’ve just been kicked in the stomach and left to reel against the force, but you can’t. You’re nowhere near shocked, nowhere near blindsided, but still you hurt.
He follows you down the hall. “What’s your problem?” he says, the few, plain words mending and waving into a slurring.
You’ve got one goal: get to the front door, away from the shitty music and him. His words, sharpened, fall off your skin despite his efforts. What good would fighting do you, anyway? It was always going to end up this way. This is just who he is, and he doesn’t give two shits enough about you to want to change that.
“Baby, seriously? That made you this mad? I didn’t even fucking do anything. Stop being insecure,” he says. At the gritting of your teeth, he sees an opportunity and pounces on it. “You don’t need to be jealous. I don’t do jealous shit. We can dance, or something. Shit, I don’t know what you want! Just stop throwing a fit.”
Didn’t do anything? You have to laugh. Maybe you didn’t walk in on him fucking someone else, but that’s not what this is about. Not even a little bit. You’ve checked out, and the fact that he thinks he can make you believe that it’s your fault this time only drives the killing stake in harder.
Maybe you’re bitter. It claws at your insides—turns your face hot and screams in your face that you’ve been used. But beside it sits a sadness. Not the slow kind, but the quick sadness of hurt. Why hadn’t you been good enough for him to love you? To like you? You’d left behind Kai and rested your new life on Yeonjun’s shoulders. You’d wanted so badly for his approval, or for him to want you. You did your best to try and make this work out because you needed it to. You needed so desperately proof that you could fall in love with somebody else. But your best was not what Yeonjun was interested in.
Pins and needles prick your skin as you step outside, like jumping into an ice bath. It shocks you out of dizziness. Words surge up and out in a flash flood like hard reality. You spin on him. “Jealous?” you say, choking out a scathing laugh. “The last thing I’d ever let myself suffer over you is jealousy. Get over yourself. I’m going, stay here if you want. I don’t care.”
“How are you gonna do that, huh?” he says. The flickering yellow of the porchlight paints his features. The shadow of something fluttering around it cuts dark spots in the light, and then a small little moth comes down and jumps around in his face. He waves it off. “Gonna have bitch boy come pick you up? You can’t leech off him forever; he’s gonna get sick of picking up another man’s girlfriend.” It seems like you walking in on that had sobered him up, but his breath still curls out onto your face with the reek of alcohol. “It’s not a big deal. You’re making this a bigger deal than it has to be. Do you not trust me?”
“You are such a piece of shit,” you grit out. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Ever. I don’t know how I let this go on for so long.” You don’t like him having Kai in his mouth, don’t like him trying to act like you’re conflating things, and especially don’t like that face he’s making. As if you’re acting crazy and overblown. “No, I don’t trust you. You didn’t fuck her, but come on, Yeonjun. Seriously? You think I’m stupid, and I’m sick of it. You thought this would be easy because I didn’t have the experience you have, but I’m sorry. I don’t like being walked over.”
“If you’re gonna be so goddamn jealous, then maybe we aren’t gonna work,” he says.
That moth, floating light in the air, is right back in his face. Yeonjun takes two hands and smashes it between a clap of his hands. He shakes its flattened, broken body off his hand. Looking down at it laying there on top of dirt-caked concrete, you get this... feeling. A tickling around your person.
“See if I care,” you snap, throat aching against the onslaught of emotion and held back tears.
⚝⭒
Rivulets of raindrops dilute the tears on your cheeks. Your hair plasters to your face and your clothes to your body.
For a week, you’d went about it all as if it hadn’t happened. And then you came here.
It’d not been this rainy when you first got down to the creek—just a gentle trickle, really. You hadn’t been crying then, either. But, watching the water work at babbling over stone, you let yourself feel it. Here, where you’d had so many good memories. You’ve gone and tainted it, now. But for whatever reason, you’d just wanted to be here. Arms curled around yourself and fingers digging into drenched sleeves, you don’t wipe away the tears or cover the sounds of your crying. You let the stream hear it; it’ll sweep it right up and down the way. Somewhere far off, where you don’t have to feel it anymore.
You realize that, usually, you’d be over at Kai’s right now. The fact that his room was not the first place you thought you could go to anymore is a punch to the gut. You drop your face into your hands and cry harder. Really, you’ve got to stop doing that to yourself. Thinking of sad things—putting your hurt under the microscope to see it closer. It’d be easier to just fold it up and tell yourself that it’ll pass, and that relationships end all the time.
It’s not him that you cry over. Well, maybe some of it is. Rather, it’s that you have absolutely no idea where you’re going. Where you are. Finally, you’d built yourself a raft to get off the shore and go out to sea, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, and it’s breaking apart right beneath you. And, stranded and alone in the water, you’ve got no way to get back to shore to build yourself another raft. You’re stranded, and the scariest bit is that you’re doing it all alone. You weren’t supposed to do this alone. You two made promises back then.
You suppose that a promise is one of those things you were supposed to leave faith in back on shore.
The raindrops are heavy over you. The fall of it roars against the ground, a torrent downpour. It’s not coupled with whipping wind or flashes of lightning—just straight, still falling. It’s a somber feeling no different from the gnawing in your chest.
Like chimes, there’s a distant, gentle sound. Maybe water falling over creek rock, but it’s more like suggestion. A sweet sound that you shouldn’t even be able to hear over the rest of it, it’s as if it’s right in your ear. A whisper.
You fix your blurry eyes with a wet sleeve. Rain falls right back into its place, but you see it: a silvery, whimsy haze. And the moths. They jump and call you, this time. Their glow bounces off the rainy mist against the grey of night’s arrival. Then, all you can hear is the whispering. Where you stand frozen, your feet beg to move. To follow them.
So you do.
Their entourage of moondust trails them where they go, wrapping you up and weaving between raindrop and space. You don’t worry where they’ll take you, or even try to wrap your head around this happening again. You just follow, mind glossed over and entranced with how beautiful it is. When you’d seen them before, it’d made you uneasy. Mostly because it looked so unearthly and unbelievable. But this time you just follow.
A far-off voice, one oh-so-familiar, peaks through the haze. It’s not enough to stop you, but then you hear it again, louder and closer.
You blink a few times. Once to break away the fog, and then twice to focus your eyes on Kai stood in front of you. His hair lays in wet spikes over his eyes and beads of rain trace the planes of his face. He’s as soaked as you.
“Kai?” you say. Looking around you, you’ve ended up somewhere in the field between your houses and the creek. But you’ve got no recollection of walking here. Whatever that mist is, sentient or not, had swept you here.
His voice is strained, but you appreciate hearing it. “Break up with him,” he tells you.
In his eyes, as you search them, there’s stardust glowing like reflection. Your face twists up. “What?” you say, breath a puff of smoke ahead of you. Summer had come and gotten away from you so fast, and now it’s gone all cold again.
“Break up with him,” he echos, face solemn. He looks ruffled.
“Why?” you ask, “And why are you out here?”
“Because I’m moving out today, and I think I deserve to at least see you before I go.” His eyes look over you. “And... your dad said you went down to the creek.”
He’s moving out today, and you had no idea. And really, it’s your fault. You’d driven that wedge between the two of you. “I did break up with him.”
Downpour fills his quiet for a few moments, his face swirling with emotion like the clouds above you. He nods. “Good.”
There are a few more long minutes between you; just you two searching each other's faces, antsy to say so much that it bunches up in your chests and stalls. It’s what a summer of longing does to you. Even with Yeonjun, even trying to slowly chip away the stitching that had connected the two of you at the hip, you were helpless to stop the gnawing of the love you bear for him. Even just seeing him now, you feel those threads mending back up. God, why does it have to be so hard?
He just looks at you. For a few beats, he just looks at you. There are so many questions in his eyes. They flit across and turn over, but all he settles on is, “Why?”
There’s so much you want to tell him. Words pile up to the top, some threatening to spill over. But you know that if you tell him some of it, just to make up for all the time you’d missed out on together, it’ll all come crashing out. And you don’t think you want him to know just how much you accepted, the way you let yourself get treated. So, you shake your head and say, “It doesn’t matter.”
Kai looks like he wants to push that issue, but whatever look he finds on your face deters him. “Come with me,” he pleads. “I want you to come with me.”
Your throat tightens. Curling your arms around yourself harder, the rain only coming down on you harder, you say, “Kai, I want to. I want to. I just... I don’t want to freeload off you, because you’re doing great things, and I’m just...” Your tongue darts out to wet your lips, but they’re already as soaked as the rest of you. “I’m just going nowhere. And I don’t want to be a burden, or ever be the reason that you can’t do what you dream of. If staying here means that you become everything that you’re destined to do, then I’m happy with that, Kai. I am.”
He shakes his head, stumbling toward you. “No, no you don’t get it,” he says, frantically taking your shoulders into big hands. Under his touch, every taut muscle goes slack. You melt. “You don’t get it. You are the music. Every single song is about you. Every single fucking song is about you. I want you to come with me, please. I love you, I have always loved you, and I will always love you, and I thought you’d loved me too, and I don’t want to do this alone. I can’t do it alone.”
He loves you. Kai loves you. The enormity of it rumbles the ground where you stand on legs you fear might just give in. You flex your fingers to combat the tears pricking your eyes. It doesn’t work; they brim and well up, spilling down over your cheeks. “What?” you say, voice softly breaking. “Kai, I didn’t...”
“And just when I thought I finally had you, you left me,” he says, throwing a hand up beside him in a big gesture. “You left me! I woke up thinking you’d be there, and that maybe you loved me too, and you had left me. And then you threw me away for some piece of shit, and you stopped coming around.” His chest heaves for breaths.
Your face contorts. That night, the one where you two had slipped up, you’d fallen asleep curled up against his chest on undiluted contentment. When you woke up, you had panicked. You thought he’d wake up and pretend it hadn’t happened, or he’d be uncomfortable, or even be disgusted and regretting. You couldn’t handle that, so you slipped out before he woke up. It’d been an attempt to protect your tender heart, but looking at the twitching of his lip now, you begin to think it’s the most selfish thing you’ve ever done. He thinks you used him and left him. Your stomach twists. Voice thick, you say, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left you, Kai. I thought you didn’t... I thought you didn’t see me that way. I was scared. I’m sorry I hurt you.”
Brows knitted together, he says, “Thought I didn’t love you?” His hand cups your cheek, warm against the soft frozen skin he finds there. “I’ve... I’ve dreamed of you almost every night of my life. In my sleep, I see you, and you’re happy and glowing, and that damn... mist is all around you. I couldn’t get away from you even in my sleep.”
Darting between his eyes, soft and reflecting your face back to you, it’s hard to breathe. Kai’s dreamt of you; he’s as sickly in love with you as you are him. Thunder claps, and the ground shakes, and the heavens open up above you, the trumpets belt, and you two are in love. Somewhere deep in your center, you feel it—your soul nodding yes.
The mist. You know exactly what he’s talking about. “I saw it. That stuff, those moths. The stuff we saw back then.”
“I did too,” he says, wet spikes of hair bouncing with a nod. “Not that long ago. It was the first time I saw it out of a dream since that day.”
Back then, you two had only budding, innocent love for each other. Things hadn’t become mangled and lost to confused hearts or expectations. When they’d appeared to you, you hadn’t needed it. This time, you’d followed it. And it had led you here—somehow had led you right to the very spot you needed to so that every last piece might fall into place. For this moment to happen. You know why it did.
“I’ll go with you, Kai. I’ll go wherever you go; I love you. I’ve loved you since forever,” you say, each and every word massive and lovely on your tongue. “I’m sorry I didn’t say it earlier.”
So unlike the last times your mouth had met, he brings his mouth to yours with a dazzling clarity. No longer is it confused kisses; he locks his lips against yours with the urgency of so many years being unable to. Kai’s hands cradle your wet cheeks, hold you so tenderly into his kiss. His touch grounds you, makes the moment real. You melt into him—your fingers curled into his shirt as if holding him there so that he won’t disappear like something of an incorporeal dream. He sighs through his nose, kissing you harder. Even if it all were fake and this was nothing more than a feverish figment of your imagination, you think you could die happy just knowing this once.
But it is utterly real, and utterly yours. You kiss him harder, too.
When your lungs start to burn and plead for breath, you two pull away from each other. Your eyes flutter open to capture his. Warm and brown and the same ones you’ve stared into so many times before, but not like this, you sink into them. He runs his thumb over your cheek as he sinks into yours. His tongue darts out to lick lips painted with you. In the inches between you, space no longer feels heavy or charged with grievances. Every last unsaid thing had been answered.
“I have my stuff up in the truck,” he says, breaths soft. Brown eyes dart around your face. “I’ll help you add your stuff to it.”
You shudder out a breath. Add your stuff to it. A nervous energy settles down over you, but it doesn’t seem so bad if you’re doing it with him. Together.
“Okay,” you whisper, a balmy secret just like the ones you used to share in small, giggly voices so many years ago. “Okay.”
⚝⭒
Shivers seize you like jittering bones, all wrapped up in a blanket. The velour cushion seats beneath you have soaked up water and become damp, but Kai’s got the heater blasting. You wind around back roads, headlights illuminating the way ahead of you. Stray droplets whip in them, but nothing much. Isn’t it funny how the rain had just stopped like that? That’s just how the weather is, out here. You wonder how the weather might act wherever you’re headed.
Your teeth chatter as if your jaw had its own will. The two of you had the windows down thinking that the wind might dry you off, but all it’s done is lap at your bitten cheeks. You reach down for the handle to crank it up. You’ve got a long drive ahead of you—either you’ll eventually dry off, or you can pull off at a rest area to change in a bathroom. The wet clothes are really not helping.
With an arm up on the steering wheel, Kai turns his attention on you. You know that smile. “Cold?” he asks, eyes darting between your face and the road. With the hand he’s not got working the steering wheel, he runs fingers over your thigh. Soft, gentle massages, yes. The number it does on your core is absurd. Each mindless digging into your thighs and brush of his thumb, sparks sputter there. You’ve sat here, right in his passenger seat, so many times before. Day trips up to the lake, the one he’d joined your family camping at for so many summers, all the times he’d driven you to school in this truck, and even just a quick run down to a convenience store for a late-night snack. You’d deemed it your seat. But never once had you sat in it like this. Your heart does a flip. All those times you’d wish he’d reach over and do just this—a small gesture that would’ve been so big then. And it’s your reality, now.
“Freezing,” you say. A brush of his fingers nearer the apex of your thighs sends you pressing them together and shifting in your seat. “But not everybody runs as hot as you, though, so.”
His eyes catch the movement in just the split second he looked over to you. “Huh,” he says. He turns to look at you, his gaze flickering with something anew. Something that you’d only ever seen once before. “Is that it?”
It’s hard to swallow. His fingers brush higher, and higher, feather-dustings of calloused fingertips that sends tingles shooting up your spine at the slightest suggestion of where he’s headed. “Yes,” you say, feigning indignance to cover the shiver that threatens to overtake you. When his fingertips dance at the waistband of your bottoms, it does so anyway. “Kai,” you say, blood hot in your veins. “You’re...driving.”
His eyebrows pinch into a taunting furrow. “I am,” he says, nodding. “Don’t worry about it, baby. I’ve got us.”
And he does; fingers slipping under the band of both your bottoms and your panties, he doesn’t even tear his eyes off the road. He’d driven these roads so much, you think he might be able to do it asleep. Even drawing a mewl from you with a brush over your clit, he doesn’t look away more than a quick glimpse at your pinkened cheeks.
Two fingers dragging up your folds, right over the source of the mess. “You get excited so easily, huh?” he hums. “You like it when I play with you.”
When he presses those fingers at your entrance, you can’t help but be taken back to that night. It echoes and reverberates through you. Long fingers, strong and punctual brushes against the sweet spot—he was criminally good with his fingers. Playing guitar did more for him than just music. He seemed to know exactly how to utilize those roughened fingers and trained flicks. Your muscles flicker as he abandons your hole for more brushes at your bud.
Those teasing, sly touches turn to something more serious. His fingers roll over your clit, slow but enough to have you sighing and rolling your hips against the seat belt. But last time had gone just like this, him touching you and receiving nothing. He should feel good, too. “Shouldn’t you pull over?” you sigh, muscles taut. Your breaths come out shuddering and half-controlled, interrupted by the tightness that each delicious swirl provokes. The door takes the brunt of your grip, white-knuckling the interior.
He laughs, a husky sound that is tinder to fire. He knows what you mean. “Maybe,” he says. “But I think I’m enjoying this plenty. I think I want to see you cum on my fingers again.”
Fingers pinching and flicking faster, you grow breathy and whiny, hips rolling against the seatbelt and back into the seat. Your muscles, all the way down your thighs and deep in your belly, jump and twitch each time his fingers run over your clit in just the right spot—that tender spot that’s so good that it teeters on overwhelming. The kind that makes you hiss and then want more. “Shit, Kai,” you whine. “Right—there, keep going."
He doesn’t answer with any teasing words. No, he just doubles down right at that angle and pressure, leaned back into his seat and driving as if he wasn’t fingers-deep in your panties right now. His sculpted profile at total ease—it does something for you. A delicious tightness curls its fingers over your center, promising a sugary ecstasy that you can’t help but chase. Bucking into his hands as best you can, you go quiet. Right there—right there, you feel it. The cusp. Your fingers brush over it, clenching around nothing and squeezing your thighs tight around him. Every last drop of blood in your body reaches for it, singing and dancing through your veins and making you dizzy.
And then he stops. Your mouth drops open, whiplashed and helpless to its slipping away from you. You whittle your gaze into something sharp and turn to him. “What—why?” you complain. The tide slips further and further and further back, but you still taste sea salt on your tongue. Frustration sets in its place as you feel it go. Seriously, you’d been right there. “You’re so mean.”
He slows and then with the clicking of the turn signal, he’s off the road and pulling the truck into park on a little secluded side road. Where the headlights pierce the pitch black, nothing but gravel and field surrounds you. He doesn’t kill the engine, instead pulling his hand free from you.
Your heart, still stuttering with your lost orgasm, kicks back to life as he smears your slick over your mouth, dragging it over your lips and then taking his thumb to run it right over the plush of your mouth. “Am I?” he says, fingers taking your chin to meet your eyes with his. Endless hunger, pupils so blown that his eyes look black, pins you. “I don’t think you’ve seen mean yet, baby.”
Darting your tongue out to clean your lips, you look at him through your eyelashes. “Show it to me, then.”
Something dark passes over his face. It has your skeleton jumping out of your body. Then, he says, “Is that what you want? You want mean?”
Brain gone to mush that can only really think about him touching you, a slow nod is all you can manage.
The engine’s hum prevails for some long, thick seconds. And then, he tilts his head in a gesture. “Get in the back.”
Holy shit. You want to sit there frozen in an overwhelming sort of excitement, but his seatbelt clicks undone and you’re set into motion. In a flurry of giggles and clumsy limbs, you climb up over the center console and into the backseat. He slips out of the front seat, not bothering to even kill the engine.
The door beside you opens in a swirl of cold wind. In nothing more than a blink, a strong hand has both your wrists pinned to the cushions and your back flush against it. Nose-to-nose, his breath hot over your face. “I’ve got plenty of ideas as to how I can warm you up.”
You appreciate each other’s faces for a beat more, you looking up at him big-eyed and waiting. Kai breaks the moment to attack your neck in a procession of bites and kisses. Your mouth falls into a silent sound.
“You know,” he says, free hand working your pants off. His eyes are trained on you, though. “I thought about doing this to you all summer. Touching you again.” He moves on to your top, pushing the fabric up until your chest is freed, clad in soft cotton. He eats the sight up. You want to reach down and cup the back of his head or feel his hair between your fingers as he presses his mouth against the soft beginning of your cleavage, but he’s got your wrists firmly planted. So much so, that you wonder exactly how he’s got you so secure with just one hand. Kai is strong, but maybe you hadn’t seen just how strong. Your skin aches under the purple bites he decorates you in. The sight of him—face in your chest and marking you up so lazily—has your teeth abusing your bottom lip. Whatever sounds you might make otherwise would be embarrassing. Kai lifts his eyes to you. “And I think you thought of me, too. Didn’t you?”
“Oh, god, yes,” you say, writhing beneath him. He’s going so slow. You want him all over you. “So much.”
He likes that. He takes your pebbled nipple into his mouth through the fabric. Soft grazes of teeth and sucks, you’re burning all over. When he pulls back, he’s left you dark wet patches when the bra had only just dried against your body heat. “Good,” he rasps, taking his big hands demanding and hungry over your torso. They swallow your frame up, soothing skin but lighting it aflame all the same. “Good girl.”
You never thought just words could unravel you, but those did the job. Not a gasp, nor a sucking in of breath—no, you go silent and brainless, fumbling for rational thought.
The dropping of your jaw has Kai delighted. “You’re so pretty,” he says. In a swift and powerful hoist, he’s tugging you down the cushions toward him with greedy fingers. He’s got your thighs pressed up to your chest. You’re bent right in half.
Out of breath, you huff out, “You too.”
A quick laugh falls from his mouth, lips pulled into a smug tilt. He nips at your calf up by his face. “So sweet, it almost makes me feel bad for what I’m about to do to you.” Reaching down for your panties, he pulls back on the suffocating press for only enough time to drag them up your legs. Those get discarded somewhere on the floor. Who cares about that right now, though? All you can register is the metallic clinking of his belt being undone. It’s got your nervous system twisting up.
And, those words. Electricity shoots bolts of pure, sizzling revery into your core. What I’m about to do to you. You imagine a great deal of things that he might mean, but still, you think that none could hold a candle against the promise his voice held in saying it.
Kai presses his body to your thighs and hooks your calves over his shoulders, and it all becomes real. The press of his heavy cock to your folds, the digging of his fingers into your outer thighs, his pretty eyes sparkling with something feral. As real as it gets—more real than anything you’ve ever felt in the entirety of your life. Your hands find perch flattened to his broad chest.
The position leaving you two no option but to look right into each other, he holds your gaze and begins slow drags of his hot length up and down your slit. Tantalizing, awful, awful drags. When his tip nudges your eager clit, you jolt. And then he does it again. And again.
“Kai,” you mewl. A press against your hole has you hopeful, and he lingers there for a moment, but doesn’t give it to you. Can’t he just fuck you? You’ve never been more pitifully in need of something in your life.
“Shh.” His ruts get more daring, smearing your slick up onto your belly. “Take it.”
You wiggle your toes in the air and make passes at arching yourself into him in search of better friction. He’s got you pressed so suffocatingly into the seat that it does absolutely nothing for you. In fact, he holds your harder and changes tack so that your thighs press together. At the very apex of them, his weeping cock slips through the seam.
Pressing his cheek into your calf, he watches you. Every gasp and shaky inhale, he watches. It spurs his rutting on, sticky sounds and pants eating up the air. Your nails claw at his hands as, finally, a knot tightens in your core.
“Yes, please,” you breathe. He fucks your thighs harder. Faster. Every nudge at your clit and hole becomes euphoric. “Kai, baby—I’m gonna—”
Just as furiously easy as last time, he rips it all away from you. The rushing away of the buzzing and promise of shaking thighs—he takes it from you again. It brings prickling tears to your eyes. “Kai?” you hiss. “Again?”
His eyes aren’t playful. He pulls your calves back over his shoulders, handling your hips into a better position to press his cock right at your entrance as if you weigh nothing. Face utterly straight, he says, “I don’t think you deserve it, do you? Not after what you did with Yeonjun.”
A swallow goes down your throat hard. He presses himself just a bit harder into you. Not in yet, but right there.
When he does begin sliding in, the stretch of it... You cling to him and squirm between him and the warm cushions behind you. Each inch is a heady feeling, all the way up to the hilt of him. He shudders a controlled breath. “You’re so fucking tight, though,” he grits out. “Did he not fuck you right?”
Slaps of skin bounce off the car interior and between your bodies. He starts off at a brutal pace; you know it’s meant to make your brain go foggy. Squeezing your eyes closed, you manage, “I... didn’t fuck him.” It comes out strangled, voice bouncing as he fucks you into the car seat.
Thumb tugging your bottom lip down and then dipping into your mouth, he watches the show of your ecstasy down to every last detail. “Yeah?” he says, voice shaking and almost desperate. “Always thinking of me, huh? Such a good little princess. You know exactly where your heart belongs.”
You want to answer him, even just with a whine or moan. You try to. But with his thumb pressing down on your tongue, enough to pin it to the floor of your mouth, it’s not gonna happen. He tastes salty in your mouth.
His truck consists of his grunts and whines, and your taut groans for some moments that seem to stretch forever. The planes of his groin grind against your clit when he delivers occasional pointed rolls, but mostly it’s just an animalistic, feverish dancing of your two sweaty bodies, holds growing more frantic the closer you get.
Thumb wet with saliva; he frees your mouth. The hand trails slowly down your face and your chin, brushing feather touches, until he finds your neck.
Your eyes fly open, wide. He pressed his fingers into your neck—no real pressure yet, he looks at you through damp strands of dangling hair and says, “Want my fingers around your neck?” His thumb brushes over the buzzing pulse point there.
“Yes,” you grit out, body bouncing and back raw with friction against the coarse cushion’s surface. Your breath stutters, your mind stutters. Even your blinks stutter, eyelids too lazy to keep up. “Please.”
The pressure of his fingers there—it frightens you and has you tightening around him at the same time. But you would trust nobody more with your life than Kai.
He presses his cheek to your calf to indulge in the sight of you like this: underneath him, folded in two, nowhere to go but to take his pistoning hips, cheeks blazing, and his fingers pressed into your windpipe. If the way he becomes sloppier and more desperate in his tempo has anything to say for it, it does something for him.
“Gonna be my pretty little girlfriend, huh?” he says. His voice is tight—so is your belly. You’re both so close. Hopefully, this time he’ll let you cum. “Take you to every show; show you off to everybody. Fuck.”
Brain like static and swimming with a pinched flow of oxygen, you slur your words. “You’re—hah—gonna have other girls all over you.”
The taunting, split-second raise of his brows flips your belly. You tighten him again. If he keeps hitting that spot, tip ramming into the soft spot deep inside you that he’d taken such delicate care of finding last time, you’re going to burst into sparkling flame and firework. He growls, “Well, I’ll just have to knock you up so that they know I’m yours, huh?”
Holy shit. You like the sound of that. Your nails dig into his wrist around your neck, but you cry out a pitchy, “Yes!”
“Oh, you like that?” Kai releases your throat to take both your hips. You gulp for air, finding nothing but the thick air of sex and humid breaths, at the opportunity. He’s ramming into you like he’s found a purpose. “Isn’t this the perfect position to do it? Get you pregnant?”
With every last bit of brain power you’ve got, teetering on the edge excruciatingly close to salvation, you groan a long, hoarse sound. “Fuck, yes! Please, Kai, inside—” A hot trail of tears roll down your temples.
It’s all he’s got to hear to still inside you. His growl rumbles deep in his chest, holding you in place and filling you with his hot cum deep in your cunt. That feeling, coupled with his short grinds against your clit as he fucks his seed deeper, takes your soul by sinful claws and crumbles it down into nothing. You burst into a shaking, whimpering peak, sucking your lips into your mouth to bare through the sheer twisting of your insides and the flame that consumes up your thighs and cunt.
He falls on you heavy, face in your neck. Warm kisses against your clammy skin meld with your slow floating down, the two of you a beautiful, nasty picture of fucked out. He stays right inside you—the absolute stillness of him, you think he has no plans of pulling out any time soon. His long fingers card through your sweaty locks of hair.
Finally, he presses himself off you. You get a glimpse of the window behind him—fogged up and filthy with your affairs. Anybody to see the truck from the outside would know exactly what went on inside, but right now, you don’t care. Not one bit. Your panted breaths drag in nothing but musk and thick, hot air. The drumbeat in your chest tells you that, despite how you feel ripped straight from your body, you are very much still alive. More alive than ever.
“Warm?” he says, pushing sticky hair off his forehead. He’s a mess, too. His hair is ruffled with your touch, his clothes rumpled the same, beads of sweat rolling down the planes of his cheeks and neck, and his eyes a lazy smolder. As much as he looks like sex personified, a soft smile twitches at his lips.
You snort. You can’t help but feel giddy, here with him. You’re with him. Nothing has ever felt more right. Unplugged when he pulls out of you, your mess trickles down onto the seat below you. “Yeah,” you say. “Very.”
Warm is not enough to begin to describe how you feel. In your ears, you hear whisperings. Soft and gentle. Perhaps it was divine intervention, or the fates lending you their word, or maybe just rational thought. It says:
Home. You are home.
✎୭ ashlynn's note how do we feel about this pair? i really didn't mean for this to get so long, but i ended up RLLY liking their chemistry. i had to do their story justice. also, i finished this with kai as a guitarist and then his drummer performance came out... hmm.
﹙🏷️ ﹚@lvrs-street2mmorrow , @soohashits , @f4iryfever , @arcturus444 , @linqed , @serenityism00 , @immelissaaa , @luv4cheol , @lickingan0rchid , @20-cms , @hhoneylix , @beestvng , @hyucktapes , @bewitchless , @prince-jjae , @blankliving , @yaoizee , @stormy1408 , @missychief1404 , if your tag isn't working, check the mentions part of your settings!
#heartworm#IM SORRY I DIDNT RESPOND SOONER THOUGH#THANKSGIVING DISTRACTED ME#﹙ 🪶 ﹚ ༉‧₊ ashlynn#ILY#ILYYYYYY#HHEEHHEHE#kai smut#hueningkai smut#hueningkai fic#txt#txt fic#txt fanfic#txt x reader#txt ff#txt x y/n#txt fanfiction#txt smut#kai x reader#kai ff#kai fanfic#kai#hueningkai#beomgyu#soobin#taehyun#yeonjun#hueningkai hard thoughts#hueningkai hard hours#hueningkai x you
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♡ So American - FC 43 ♡
Summary: You and Franco celebrate Thanksgiving together for the first time and Franco nearly gags when he sees American Thanksgiving dishes
Author's Note: this is so ass so I’m sorry 😭 feedback is always appreciated
WC: 2296
CW: american reader 😲, fluff, thanksgiving food, wicked mentions, more overuse of song lyrics
You and Franco had been together for the better part of the year, about 7 months. Thanksgiving was coming up and, on the same weekend F1 would be racing in Qatar, not allowing Franco to be with you on Thanksgiving day, which was honestly a disappointment to the both of you. However, after moving around some plans, the two of you managed to pick a date that worked for everyone to be in your hometown to celebrate the holiday, before Franco had to go off and be a star (and an icon).
To say you were excited was an understatement. It was not only your first time having a boyfriend, but having a boyfriend during the holidays. You were excited to create new memories with Franco and show him how you celebrate the holidays in America.
Your family typically divides the work for the food every year and this time you were in charge of making the sweet potato and marshmallow dish, something you knew was gonna throw Franco into a whirl about. Your boyfriend enjoys making fun of some American dishes and you don’t mind because it’s fun and you can see how some of them are strange.
You two were in your apartment the morning of Thanksgiving dinner. You got ready for the day and decided it would be best to change into your outfit after you’ve cooked. You settled on wearing one of Franco’s shirts and a pair of his shorts for now. You then decided to head to the kitchen to prepare your dish, Franco trailing behind you like a puppy.
“You look pretty wearing my clothes.” Franco complimented.
You deadpanned to Franco with an emotionless face asking, “do I not look pretty any other time? Is this the only time I look pretty?”
Franco’s face turned red and he was panicking, “I- no, no, amor. Thats- that’s not what I-“
“I’m kidding, love. Relax, looked like you almost shit yourself then.” you laughed.
Franco took a breath of relief and just smiled at your antics, “ha ha, so funny.”
As you pulled out the ingredients you’d be needing, Franco watched in confusion.
“Amor, what- what are you making? You have sweet potatoes, marshmallows, and pecans on the table. Is it all for one dish? No, right?” he questions, cocking his head to the side.
“It is for one dish. I’m making a sweet potato casserole!” you exclaim excitedly, knowing it was one of your favorite dishes and you can only have it during Thanksgiving.
“Eugh. No, amor. No.”, you watch as Franco makes a face of disgust, “Why?”
“It’s good, baby. I promise. When it’s all baked together with the seasonings, it tastes like heaven.” you think, displaying a picture of the dish in your mind.
Franco all but side eyes to your response, “I thought I tasted like heaven…” he pouts.
“Sweet potato casserole tastes better, babe. Sorry.” you flash a toothy smile.
“Ay dios mio. Is this what I’m marrying into?” Franco jokes, dropping head into his hands.
“Ehm! I beg your finest pardon?! Where the fuck is my ring?”, wiggling your ring finger at him, “Don’t joke about marriage, bitch. Or I’ll start doing the ending riff of Defying Gravity all day long.”
“Ay no, por favor, no. As much as I love your singing, amor. I can’t listen to any songs from Wicked right now. It’s all you’ve been playing the past month! Please, anything but Wicked, anything!” Franco pleads with you.
“Fine. Your funeral though.” you say, carrying on with your cooking.
“Que?”
“Nada”
Franco is left speechless, but you carry on with your actions.
After plopping onto a chair and pouting, Franco got curious, “Amor, can you tell me what Thanksgiving is? I know you give thanks, but why?”.
“Well, in school we were taught that years ago, around this time, the pilgrims and Native Americans came together to share a meal and be peaceful with one another. They basically celebrated a successful harvest but with most of American history, there’s some lies. But Americans really don’t care about history. It’s just a day where most of us don’t have to work and an excuse to stuff our faces with food that’s really bad for us.”
“That’s….nice.”
“I can feel the judgement from here.”
“I’m not judging, just learning.” he smiles cheekily, “but in all honesty, your reality is so different from mine. In Argentina we don’t have this holiday and strange foods, but I want to learn all about your crazy American traditions if it means I get to be by your side. I go where you go.”
“I go where you got too.” you say, still blushing from his words.
“Maybe ‘I go where you go’ can be our ‘always’.”
You tried to suppress your laugh and threw a few marshmallows at his response, “You’re done. You’re done. I cannot believe you just quoted The Fault In Our Stars.”
He’s giggling to himself and it’s one of your favorite things in the world. It’s just not fair of him to be so cute and funny. If he keeps this shit up, you swore you were gonna marry him.
-=+=-
During the drive to your parents house for dinner, you and Franco listened to music. As passenger princess, Franco had control of the aux and he played a playlist he had made when you two first started dating. He knew that sharing music was sort of a love language of yours so he saved all the ones you had mentioned at times or the songs he would always find on repeat when you were around.
It was a peaceful drive, that is until No Good Deed from Wicked came on. As soon as the opening chords started, Franco knew there was no stopping you. He watched as you put on a one woman performance for him, and him only. Yes, it was from Wicked but he couldn’t lie. If you’re the one singing, he didn’t mind the constant sound.
He was also thankful it wasn’t Defying Gravity or else you would’ve been asking for a broom to hold. He also knew you would’ve fucked up your voice a bit if you attempted Cynthia Erivo’s riff.
The two of you arrived at your parents house and were warmly welcomed by the rest of your family. Though the house was already decorated in Christmas decor, the feeling of Thanksgiving was flowing through the air. Your dad already had the (American) football game
playing on the tv, calling Franco over to once again try and convert him into a fan.
You watched as your boyfriend was practically dragged away from you, laughing as he mouthed the words ‘help me’. Your dad adored Franco and your Franco loved hanging with your dad. As they went on to do their antics, you walked to the kitchen, setting down the dish you had prepared and began to help your mom finish up some cooking.
“So,” your mom starts, “how are you and Franco?”
You couldn’t help but smile, you’re glad she brought him up first because you can never have a conversation if it’s not about him.
“We’re good. When he found out that he was able to make it to dinner, he was so excited. He’d immediately asked me a million questions on whether he should bring something or not as a gift. But I told him to not worry about it, there’s enough food and drinks so we didn’t need anything.”
“He’s a sweet boy. I’m glad you found him, he’s brought back a light in you that I haven’t seen in a long time.”
You looked up at your mom and almost burst into tears. You didn’t know that color was coming back to you. Before any tears spilled, Franco walked into the kitchen and went straight to you. When you were close enough, he wrapped an arm around your waist, pulling you close and kissing your hair.
“Do you guys need any help?” he’d asked you guys.
“I don’t think we need any help here but you know what I need help with?” you aunt asks, raising a cheeky eyebrow at Franco, “I need help dancing to this song.”
You watched as your aunt grabbed Franco's hand and pulled him away from you to dance with him. The two danced and swayed to the music as the rest of you laughed and cheered them on. You’re glad your family gets along with Franco well.
Music, laughter, and chatter filled the air, along with the savory and sweet smells of the food that was almost ready to eat. Once everything was cooked, your mother, aunt, and yourself began to set the table with the silverware and make the table look as beautiful as can be. As if they could sense that everything was ready, Franco, your father, uncles, aunts and cousins joined you at the table.
As each of you began to take your seats, Franco was almost split in half. Everyone wanted to be seated next to him. You were all for sharing but Franco was yours. As long as you got to sit on one side of Franco, no heads would roll and peace would prosper.
In the end, one of your cousins ended up sitting on the other side of Franco, ready to bombard the poor boy with questions about racing and F1.
Before digging into the food, everyone had to give thanks and say what they were grateful for. Most of your family said the typical stuff like thankful for having a happy, loving family and having a roof over their head. That was until it was your cousin’s turn…
“This year, I’m grateful that Logan was dropped from Williams and that Franco was able to have that seat. My best buddy is a F1 driver now. But R.I.P. Logan, my American king. Also R.I.P. Sebastian Vettel, you would’ve loved Franco. Anyways, who's next?” your cousin clapped his hands, looking around the table.
Crickets could be heard from the silence.
Franco, thankfully, moved the conversation forward and said his thanks. “Well, ehm. I think I have a lot to be thankful for this year. I’m thankful for my opportunity to drive in F1, and even though I don’t know where I’ll be next year, I’m still happy I got this chance. I’m also super grateful for y/n. We only met this year but she’s still amazing and has been there for me through a lot. And I’m also grateful for having been invited to join you guys today and that you guys are so cool and welcoming, so thank you.”
Everyone basically awed at Franco and his little speech. Meanwhile you were on the verge of tears. You’d never known love like this and you couldn’t believe he chose you. He was like a poem that you wished you’d written.
After some deep breaths from you, everyone began to dig into the food, well, everyone except for Franco. The boy was absolutely lost, he didn’t know what half the stuff was and he wasn’t sure how to go about anything. You took it upon yourself to start his plate for him so that he could familiarize himself with some of the foods and not get overwhelmed.
When you set his plate down in front of him again, he looked at the plate confused and then turned to you, silently asking you to tell him what everything was.
“You’ve got some ham, sweet potato casserole, green beans, and mashed potatoes to start. I know you like all those even if you haven’t tried some yet. From here you can work your way around the dishes on the table.” you smile.
“Gracias, amor. I really am grateful for you and all that you do.”
“Tell me, lover. How grateful are you?” you cheekily ask.
With a wink, Franco replies, “I’ll show you after dinner.”
-=+=-
“The only thing I will be showing you if anything is my shit because I am so full.” Franco tells you as he settles himself on the couch.
The whole family had wrapped up dinner and finished off the night with some dessert. Now some of the family were chatting over some drinks to end the night.
“Please don’t.” you tell Franco.
“Ok, I wasn’t actually planning on showing you my shit. Ay dios.” states as he rolls his head to rest on the back of the couch.
You take a seat next to Franco, resting your head on his shoulder, his arm instinctively wrapping around you. His other arm reached for your hands and held them close. You swore his hands were so warm that they made hell seem cold.
You really were grateful for him. The two of you had been through some tough times so early into your relationship. There were times where you wondered if it was meant to be and if it would all work out. You’d even tried to push him away at some point, believing his life would be easier if you weren’t there to drag him down. But he stayed. There have been moments where you’ve been mean to him, times where you were so depressed that you would stay in bed all day and didn’t move. Days where you didn’t respond to his texts or calls because you couldn’t. But despite all that, he’s still here.
You’ve burned so many bridges in your life. You’ve made the same mistakes over and over but now you know you did one thing right. You love Franco with everything you have and he’s the person you trust the most. He knows you better than you know yourself most of the time. Even when you lose your mind, he’s still yours.
#f1 fanfiction#f1 fic#f1 fanfic#f1 x reader#f1 imagine#formula 1 x reader#formula one imagine#formula 1 imagine#formula 1 fic#formula 1 fanfic#franco colapinto x reader#franco colapinto x you#franco colapinto imagine#franco colapinto fanfic#franco colapinto fluff
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This is so weird but I just can up with the idea of Nikki and his girlfriend doing reverse cowgirl and there’s a movie playing in the background and she’s just getting distracted the entire time. If you can make this into a fic I would be so happy 😭
“Focus ” Nikki sixx x reader NSFW
Okayyy. Thank u for the request!!. ALSO, I LEGIT WAS JS WRITING A FIC LIKE THISSS. so hope y’all like it :3
💋
By now the movie playing on the tv and the glow of the tv wasn’t really something Nikki was focusing on anymore
As of now, he was focused on the feeling of your walls wrapped around his dick. Expect for you. Who was still trying to see some of the movie.
“Nikkiii” you whined in protest as his hands came to your hips trying to move you up and down.
“C’mon baby..ride me” he mumbled. His fingers tracing over you tits. Y’all were trying to watch “don’t tell mom the babysitter’s dead” and you were invested yet Nikki wanted you and to be honest.
You didn’t mind cock warming him for a little. It did feel nice to have him in you. You Slowly you turned back towards him and started to slowly bounce on his dick.
“Good slut..mhm, keep going” he said wrapping his fingers around your hips gripping your flesh. By this point he was getting needy and practically bucking up into you.
His eyes kept looking back and forth between how your face reacted every time his dick hit a certain spot in you and your tits.
“Take my dick..take it nice and deep” he said. As you kept bouncing up and down on him. Gripping the sheets
“Your all mine okay? And this pussy of yours is mine too..” he said. You could hear him groaning strings curses under his breath. Knowing that he was close, you slowed up trying to edge him. While also focusing back on the tv .
“Focus or I’m gonna bury your face into these sheets and dick you down” he threatened as his hands went up your back and around to grip your tits. Feeling him twitch inside of you. You started bouncing again, chasing your release.
“Nikki, I-I’m gonna cum” you breathlessly stated. Before Nikki flipped you off his dick and soon you were face down into the pillows. And Nikki was suddenly back inside you.
“No you’re not..not until I say. I get to cum first cause you kept getting distracted..” . Damn, he was an asshole sometimes.
“Good girl take it, lay right there. Let me fucking use you” he said before setting a pace that immediately made you practically scream.
“Nikki please..can I please cum” you whimpered out as his pace kept going. “Go ahead..cum on my cock” he said as that pushed you over the edge. But his pace never slowed
“Fuck, I’m so close. Your gonna let me cum inside you? . You want me to fill your pretty cunt up with my load?” He teased. “Then take it” he said before you felt rope after rope fill you.
“Can we please watch the movie now?” You asked breathlessly.
“Fine..”
-
#motley crue#motley crue smut#motley crue x reader#nikki sixx#nikki sixx smut#nikki sixx x you#nikki sixx x reader#nikki sixx imagine#nikki sixx fanfiction#tommy lee#mick mars#vince neil
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@dollypopup AWWWW did I strike a nerve? I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were delicate little snowflake that has to be babied because you have ADHD.
WELL I DO TOO AND THE LAST FUCKING THING I NEED IS SOMEONE TO CODDLE ME.
You do realize that this same exact comment has shown up on other blogs too right? I had that confirmed today Why? Because you can’t think of anything else to say can you?
You do look fucking stupid. To sit there and act like you know this man and his business and his stimms and whatever else is the epitome of looking stupid. And don’t get it twisted like you’re trying to do. You’re actively trying to “burst bubbles” based off your own ideas of Luke touching his lips. Did you read his mind? Did he tell you “I’m only touching my lips because I’m stimming and it’s not related to Nicola at all.”
Oh, he didn’t? Ok. Then SHUT THE FUCK UP.
STOP leaning on ADHD like a crutch for your sensitive fucking feelings. I’ve dealt with this shit my whole life and it’s fucked things up for me and made learning harder but do I ask for pity on the internet?
Do I sit here and go into a full blown fucking episode because someone said mean words to me about stimming and ADHD😭😭😭???
No. I don’t. And most likely neither does Luke. Because we’re adults. And not everything is related to our ADHD but is very obvious that that’s all you bother to talk about. You probably wear it like a badge. Make sure everyone knows you struggle with being on time, or focusing on work, or having three things to do all day and not doing a single one. You probably share ADHD memes to regularly remind everyone that you’re DIFFERENT 🦄✨
You know EXACTLY what you were doing with that comment. Don’t play dumb sweetie.
Grow up and act like a functioning adult or get offline, pop your meds and go clean something you dumb bitch.
You don't need to share this. I just love those people. They know Luke so well. ADHD: the reason for everything.
„Sorry to burst the bubble, but us peeps with ADHD almost always have some kind of oral fixation (I see you, Luke. He smokes too (well...vapes?) and as a fellow ADHD oral fixation babe, I feel the kinship), so we're licking our lips and touching our mouths and all that because we're stimming. Many people have thought I'm flirting when I'm just self soothing with a stimming activity like playing with my tongue piercing or biting my lip. Neurotypical people often have a misunderstanding of how neurodivergant people's body language differs from theirs, since it isn't widespread knowledge. But yeah....he's literally just stimming. Same as when he's touching his lips”
Here’s the thing.
We don’t know Luke. We don’t know for sure if that’s how he stimms.
Unless you know Luke Newton I think it’s really weird to tell other people what he does when he’s stimming.
So unless he tells you that to your face, in person, that he’s stimming when he’s touching his lips and eye fucking Nicola, I don’t care to hear or take this shit in to consideration.
STOP USING ADHD AS A FUCKING EXCUSE FOR LUKE NOT BEING ATTRACTED TO NICOLA.
I’m starting to get really pissed off that something I also struggle with is being used a counter argument for people who can’t accept that these two are likely together.
Shut the fuck up. Stop claiming this man does certain things when you don’t know him in real life. You look fucking stupid.
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Shadow x sonic live reaction!!!!
(Trhough my very very biased eyeballs)
THEY CALL SEGA DAD!
brought up shadow dancing in the Olympics!! He danced at Amy’s concert, he’s going to a SABRINA CARPENTER CONCERT
SHADOW WOULD SAVE SONIC (he makes a copium answer but it’s bc he hates tails more than sonic lets be real)
Sonic is jelous that Big makes shadow smile 0-0
Shadow and Amy being girl besties is the best direction they could take them
Shadow annoyed boyfriend while Sonic annoying shopping gf experience canon??
THEYRE JUST FLIRTING ITS NOT EVEN FUNNY??? “I think you just secretly like it when we match 😏” -Sonic ????!!!!!
THEYRE NOT FLOATIES THEYRE A FASHION CHOICE
The banter goes CRAZY
Sonic?? Shaves?? His?? Chest????
DEEP VOICE SONIC!
Agreed we weren’t gonna go there” about Amy?hmmm
Shadow has daddy issues💔( it’s been known)
Thank you classic sonic very nice
Shadow denies having beef with rails (I disagree therefore it’s not canon)
Shadow Latino canon (yes I know what it was referencing but NO ITS BC HES LATINO)
A RUSH? HEART PUMPING? Not the same wiITHOUTEACH OTHER
Sonic has stronger thumbs😏
Cream in the fridge canon???
Sonic’s master plan was to hangout with shadow and get ice cream ofc. Shadows favorite flavor is coffee. I’m still debating this with the council.
GO OFF KING - Sonic
Shadow has very strong opinions on super monkey ball. Shadow doesn’t like their opresión
Sonic talks about jet like a weird on and off ex, shadow pretends he’s not bothered. I’ve chosen to interpret it this way
Silvers dRaMATIC
HES LITTLE BROTHER!!!
Why did they auto default to drawing each other😭 they both suck💔
Yeah shadow would play chess
SHADOWS JELOUS OF ALL OF SONICS RIVALS!!! He’s offended he’s not the top!!
THEY REMOVED ELISE AHAHAHAHAH
Shadow laughed at a Joe mama joke ❤️❤️
Shadow STILL lives in a cave
Mandatory Macarena sing along
Shadows pressed sonic hugs don’t mean anything 🤔 (this reminded me of such a good fanfiction where shadow is upset Sonic doesn’t understand the effect he has on him, I’m Delulu about this now)
Awkward estranged family reunion time!!!
Shadows fake as fuuucckkk shit talking ORbot😤
Sonic has a chao canon, shadow has a chao canon!!!
BOO!! B OO!!
Shadow sees tails as a bad influence on Sonic , this is most definitely why he keeps clocking him on sight
Skill issue. - Shadow
Shadow thinks his presence is a gift. HE DOESNT GIVE SONIC A GIFT
Shadows sleeping location is still a mystery!!! (It’s a cave he most definitely sleeps on the floor of a cave)
Again…Whose Elise???” The SHADEEEE
#ongo#oh my god#oh my god I love these two#thank you so much sega#it was perfectly#we are FEASTING tonight BOYD#I was squealing like a pig the WHOLE time#I refuse to believe the VAs don’t ship them a LITTLE bit#aaaaaa#so fun#sonadow#sonic x shadow#shadow the hedgehog#sonic the hedgehog#they’re GAY
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What would be a fetish board game? I'm curious 🤔
Oh there are def fetish board games but my grammar might have been off 😭 I’m going to a feedism meet up and we are playing board games.
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Oh my goodness regarding my last ask I’m having more thoughts! Yes hi it’s the inbox gremlin again
I personally love Nevada with mafia ties and California being an absolute diva being shipped together. Like Nevada’s sitting in a wooden chair with red velvet cushioning and his right hand on one of the arms with a gun pointed at whoever’s coming into the door and with California in a pretty tight and fold dress in Nev’s other hand. Nev’a hand on Cal’s ass maybe- lmao- but he’s sitting on the arm of the chair with his legs hanging off the side.
Nev either has long or short hair, it’s either tied up into one of those sleek man buns or whatever, or it’s just slicked back. Or it’s being played with by Cal, short or long, it doesn’t matter, Cal’s playing with Nev’s hair.
guh, then in this little scene I’ve built up, there’s like an ungodly amount of treasures behind them in the dark on a red carpet that matches the chair I described. I’m imagining this in your art style and I’m going a little feral, I’m not asking you to draw this but if you want to then go for it but I’m just describing the hell out of what I see in my head
maybe Cal has one of those feather boa cloaks or whatever they’re called, and it 100% looks like it belongs to Nev. California one hundred fucking percent stole that cloak from Nev but Nev isn’t complaining because Cal looks good in that sparkly dress and in his cloak
And Nev looking all fancy too? Absolutely, y’know you got the shirt that’s open, it’s not showing nips but it’s showing some of Nev’s chest off and maybe a tattoo is peaking out because we all know Nev has a tattoo or two. And Nev having hints of red to match the room.
Nev has mostly black with hints of red to match the dark colors of the chair and the carpet while Cal has the bright pretty gold to match the sparkly shit in the background and whatever other sparkly stuff that could be in the foreground
i think that’s it for that thought
goodnight, it be late
@and-the-flame-burns This is by far the most detailed drawing request I’ve ever gotten so I tried to bring it to life! I see your vision and I 1000% agree.
The Proceate glitter brush was made for these two.
Theres a few things I couldn’t get to look right, including the tattoos. 😭 Just picture them with matching Joshua tree tattoos, okay? Plus…a million other ones that I can never draw consistently even tho I have so many headcanons about it. Have some scar HCs instead as consolation?
Anywaaaaayssss…to my fellow Calivada fans, Happy Thanksgiving and hopefully this helps you eat well 😘
#mur art#wttt california#wttt Nevada#wttt calivada#welcome to the table#wttt#welcome to the statehouse#asks#wttt fanart
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Headcanons for Camellya:
Note: How do I see nothing about her 😭 Nobody writes about her, does nobody want content about her? I’m planning on posting about her more this week, anybody interested at all 😓
SFW:
-A very bit tease. Makes light jokes about how you do certain things but cannot handle other people teasing you. Even if it’s jokingly, she will glare at them and is proabably planning how she’s gonna torture them
-Loves clinging onto you especially when she’s napping. The vines from her body sprout out and wrap around you to keep you close not wanting you to leave. Her head usually pressed up against your chest as you both lay in the sun
-Your house is now filled with different flowers and plants. So many flowers everywhere. Even though there are so many the scent is pleasant like an alluring perfume. She loves it when you help take care of them with her. “How considerate of you, helping me water all of them. I hope you’re as excited as I am waiting for them to bloom…”
-Hates it when you’re out of her sight. She’ll find some way to keep track of where you’re going. In some way absolutely despises all your friends saying that they’re keeping you away from her and that you should get rid of them. Shes also really possessive always having a hand around you in public or clinging onto you. She’s obsessed and hates when you leave her side. “They’re trying to deprive me of the one thing that can make me happy. Oh isn’t it so mean of them…but don’t worry I can make them all poof if you let me”
-Sometimes she gets hurt on purpose because she knows you’ll give her extra attention that day to tend to her injuries. She never gets injuries but she’ll make injuries on herself and dismisses it if other people ask. But with you she’ll be so exaggerative when you ask her about it and you’re the only one that she allows to treat her injuries. She love seeing the worried look on your face as if you actually cared. Usually these injuries are large and bloody. She’ll look at you fondly with a smug smile on her face as you tend to them. “Aren’t you gonna kiss them well? I promise that I’ll feel 100 times better if you kiss it better for me”
NSFW:
-Very expressive and loud. She doesn’t care if others can hear her, she’ll only giggle before getting louder. Will tell you how much she loves what you’re doing and how happy she is. “Oh yes~ you’re so good it’s making me crave more…MORE”
-A massive masochist. Love any and all pain you inflict onto her. The more it hurts the better. Temperature play, whipping, paddles, anything you want. Probably a sadist as well but more enjoys it when you inflict it onto her. She moans so much more every time you cause pain on her body. Will stare at herself in the mirror afterward to admire your work.
-Loves leaving marks on your body especially if it’s any that someone else can see like hickeys on your neck. So so so many claw marks on your back. A lot of the time she draws blood on these marking and will lick the blood away. Loving the metallic taste in her mouth. After sex, she sometimes stares at them with a proud smile. Isn’t too much of a biter but will occasionally nip your neck to catch you off guard. “Oh your even more beautiful like this, I wish to make you bleed my dear~”
-Mirror sex is a huge turn on for her. When you bend her over and slam the strap into her ass. My hand tugging her hair up as she sees herself in the mirror. The saliva slipping down the side of her mouth and how messy you two are entangled together like two vines.
-Aftercare consists a hot bath together and laying in bed. Usually with her laying against her, as she traces the red claw marks on your back as she hums softly. Your hand gently rubbing her back as you reassure her. The smell of her shampoo engulfs your senses as you nuzzle into her neck
#gotta feed the shrimps#wuthering waves x reader#camellya#camellya wuthering waves#camellya wuwa#camellya wuwa x reader#wuthering waves#wuwa
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Michael Afton knows the FNAF Mimic’s secret..
#myart#chloesimagination#comic#fnaf#five nights at freddy's#fnaf fanart#mimic#the mimic#michael afton#fnaf puppet#security breach#secret of the mimic#fnaf sister location#fallfest#I can’t believe I still haven’t drawn everything that was announced during the anniversary#IM GETTING around it it folks 😭 so much to draw!#it’s a good problem to have BAHAH#SO steelwool dropped a trailer for their new game!#the secrects of the mimic LETS GOO#like huge day for book truthers first off#second of all I’m glad we’re gonna get more info on the mimic in game#plus fallfest moment it was so real#WITH ALL of this I can’t wait to play it#ITS FUNNY though if the game is set in 1979 like the trailer hints#that means Michael could of totally met the mimic#NOT saying they will but just they could#and that would be so funny Michael upon meeting the mimic already knows em#Lil Michael caught the mimic while it was changing into costume oops!#also a smaller Michael design compared the one I usually draw before he got all moody#maybe that’s the mimics fault BAHAH
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I know I was supposed to finish persona 5 but I got addicted to persona 2 lmao 😭😭 (+ persona 1 doodles cause I played that for a bit)
#I wanted to play persona 2 first but I heard it continues off of persona 1 so I tried that out first#I didn’t get too far on that unfortunately cause I couldn’t get into the gameplay …#lowkey gave me motion sickness 😭#so once I finished the sebec building I just read the manga lmao#then moved onto p2 innocent sin#I’m loving it so far actually#I love the characters sm 😭😭#I did enjoy my time with persona 1 tho I liked the story a lot#naoya might be my favorite protagonist so far ngl#I also really liked brown he lowkey carried me early game#loving persona 2 so far it’s so 90s#rlly wanna draw maya next#persona 1#naoya toudou#maki sonomura#hidehiko uesugi#persona 2#persona 2 innocent sin#eikichi mishina#michel#lisa silverman#ginko#my art#art#digital art#fanart#illustration#sketch#procreate#haliai art
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Today we beat honor mode in BG3 (on console) but it didn’t give us the achievement or the dice 😭 I don’t understand why but I’m super bummed out lol. This was really hard 🥲
#someone on Reddit said you have to make sure you close the game out before you turn off your console or else it thinks you’re cheating#and marks the whole campaign as dishonorable#we always just turn off the console when we’re done playing without closing the game#did that ruin it? 😭#it still says honor mode though so I’m confused#oh well 😫#I’m sad
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I like the human actors a lot too! (I say as if the actors weren’t initially human)
#this is kinda the sketchy vibe I was going for in my dsb wukong study#damn I wish I just kept it initial sketch like this o(-(#journey to the west 1986#journey to the west 1996#journey to the west#jttw sun wukong#sun wukong#digital art#my art#I do think the human actors are very handsome#it’s just that when they take the fursuit off they go from like a 10 to an 8 for me 😭#tf is 86’s lips so glossy for okay lip plumper king 👄✨#tbh everything in that show was so SPARKLY I loved it#I’ll never forget the entire set of the underwater palace just being COVERED by glitter#every inch just COATED in the stuff it was marvelous#also the costume designs were gorgeous you can say the rest of the show is dated but the fits will NEVER FAIL#ugh I’m gushing#96 wukong? cmon that’s dicky cheung who doesn’t wanna kiss him#dude actors fuck me up sometimes cuz I thought that the human version of 86 swk was played by a different person cuz when he’s in disguise#the actor uses a different tone of voice for him???#but it’s like he’s trying to imitate the voice for when he’s just monkey swk do you know what I mean????#so I thought it was just another actor trying his best to match the wukong actors voice 😭😭😭#so I just kept going no I don’t think that’s the same guy… but the facial expressions match! oh but the voice…. oh but-!#i feel like I’d be an easy target for doppelgängers
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#LMAO#this caught me off guard I fucking wheezed#WILLY HOW. HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN#WDYM THIS ISNT THE FIRST TIME THIS HAS HAPPENED#WTF DID U DO 😭#sorry for the Stardew spam I’m having fun#Willy showed me his boat like ‘aye…. it’ll take months.. nay years to rebuild the old girl 😢’#meanwhile I check my pockets like yep 👍 I have all the ingredience boss#Stardew valley#sdv#puppy plays sdv
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i am an expert at fingering
THE PIANO
the piano pls don’t cancel me okay
i don’t mean like yknow. i should shut up
#my friend’s mom asked me to play for them so i had to warm up 😭#i haven’t touched a piano in a full year#i’m so shit lmfao#this is why i should’ve stuck with violin#anyways hand reveal 😤#📢: london yaps#had to take off my press ons though 😐
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The way fans on the st sub are almost all in agreement Nancy ending up with neither Jon nor Steve wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, and how they can even come up with a sleuth of reasons as to why, honestly pretty valid and fair reasons, but then are absolutely gobsmacked when fans merely speculate something along those lines for El is, quite something.
#el hopper#byler#platonic elmike#stranger things#this is coming from someone who ADORED mileven in s1-2#I literally skipped all of s2 in my rewatch before s3 aired bc I just wanted to see their reunion#then s3 happened#and I was confused at#A LOT of ppl are#and anyone coming to voice that confusion is ran off Reddit like they’re committing a crime#like would it hurt y’all to have some of the same common sense you have for el like you do with Nancy#??#I am more jancy leaning but also I just feel like it’s certain stancy ain’t happening#but I’m also not totally against Nancy wanting to be on her own for a while#maybe they’d imply jancy Will find their way back to each other#maybe they’re teamed up in s5 and wait until the very end to cement that certainty for each other#but I would not hate their stories if Nancy and Jon decided to live their own lives#FOR THEMSELVES#Nancy doing what she wants and loves#Jonathan doing what he wants instead of just doing stuff that helps people around him#and I’m not going to even get into the reasons why el and mike would benefit from living for themselves outside of their relationship#the attachment to the ship is stronger than any sort of attachment to the character#and when the things keeping them together are not strong to begin with…#that attachment is doomed and hard to watch and enjoy like idgi at all#also; all the pro-ronance comments on there getting like 30+ likes??#go ronance I guess??!??#idk if it’s because they think byler actually has a serious possibility while ronance has less build up#so they can sort of play with that idea without actually having to take it seriously…#at least ronance has a positive audience on there#a win is a win I guess 😭🫡
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