#WHEEEE DEALER ARES LETS GO

[achenetype]

better the devil you know. — dealer!ares

pairing: dealer!ares x reader

content/warnings: suggestive content, no sex in this one sorry but i do have a sequel planned, age gap, modern au, reader's parents are implied to be abusive, ares drives recklessly, Inappropriate Thigh Touching (TM), drug mentions, dealer!ares

listening to: home by daughter

In hindsight, you should have gone to a college further away from your hometown. It would have been harder for your parents to convince you to come home if you weren’t living forty minutes away.

It would have been easier, actually — easier because you could have been hanging out with your friends, studying and drinking and smoking, instead of sitting with your back pressed against your door while your parents fought in the kitchen down the hall.

Jesus fucking Christ, your mother yells, muffled by the door, you don’t even care about this family!

You can’t hear what your father says in response, but the crash of a plate shattering against the wall makes you jump. Your hands shake as you pull your phone out of your pocket and scroll through your contacts until you reach the last number.

“Hey, kid,” Ares’ voice crackles through the speakers of your phone. “What’s up?”

Another thud sounds against the wall. You let out a shuddering breath, clutching your phone in your hands. “I, uh—I need, like, a favor,” you say.

You can almost hear Ares raising an eyebrow through the phone. “A favor?”

“Yeah,” you whisper. “I need—are you at your apartment?” You chew on your lip, pulling your sweatshirt tighter around your body. “Cause my—uh, things aren’t the best at my place right now,” you say.

Ares sighs, the sound made crackling by the speakers. “Thought you were at school?”

“I went home for the break,” you say. Another piece of glassware smashes against the wall; the sound crystallizes in your mind, piercing and terrible. Tears well up in your eyes.

You flinch and gasp, pressing your back against the door. “My parents—they, uh, they’re fighting, again.”

Ares clicks his tongue. “Shit, angel.” The sound of a lighter flicking on rasps through the phone and you squeeze your eyes shut.

This is the worst idea in the history of bad ideas. Ares isn’t a friend—he’s something different. Your dealer, yes. A smoke buddy. And sometimes, sometimes, there’s this weird tension between the two of you—this energy that makes your stomach turn and your head spin.

But asking him a favor like this…it could ruin everything.

“Can you,” you say, “can you, um. Come pick me up?” You bite your tongue as Ares lets out a slow exhale.

You’re about to retract your request when he says, “Send me your address.”

“Huh?” You blink, your breath catching in your throat.

“Send me your address,” Ares repeats. “I’ll be there in half an hour.”

It feels like the air has been sucked out of your lungs. “Okay,” you breathe. “Okay.”

You’re not sure whether he hangs up or you do.

A few taps at your screen later, and a location pin pops up on in the black space of your messages.

You slowly stand up, still leaning against the door. The world feels like it’s moving in slow motion as you grab your backpack and absently start to fill it. Clothes. Your wallet and keys. The last dregs of the weed that you’d bought from Ares a few weeks ago.

You slide the panel of your window open, wincing at the scrape of metal on metal. You were used to sneaking out, but your legs had never shaken like this before—you’d never been running from something. You’d always been trying to get to somewhere, never away from it.

You step out onto the roof and shuffle to the edge of it, shimmying down the fire escape and jumping down to the pavement. Rain soaks through your sweatshirt as you walk around to the front of the building, dampening your skin and hair and chilling you to the bone.

You’re sitting on the sidewalk when Ares’ car—a battered Jeep—pulls up. You hear the door slam before you see him, but he kneels in front of you and gently brushes your hair out of your face.

“Hey, angel,” he murmurs. “C’mere. Up you go. Let’s get you inside.” His hands are warm and strong, pulling you to your feet, and his arms bracket your chest as you lean against him. “C’mon, angel. In the car.”

You nod numbly, stunned from the cold and the fear swirling in your chest. Ares’ eyes are dark as you climb into the passenger seat of his car and pull your knees to your chest. He tosses your bag into the backseat.

“Thank you,” you mumble.

Ares looks over at you and sighs, turning the key in the ignition. “‘S nothing.”

You tuck one soaked piece of your hair behind your ear as he pulls away from the curb. Cold air wafts through the air conditioning, making your sweatshirt stick uncomfortably to your chest and your arms. Your legs, exposed by your shorts, pebble with gooseflesh as you shiver and shift in the seat.

Ares’ eyes snap from the road to you, up and down, and one of his hands slides from the steering wheel to rest in the empty space between the two of you.

Despite the AC, it is suddenly and dizzyingly warm in the car.

Ares’ hand wavers in place for a split second before moving again, settling against your bare thigh. His thumb draws small circles on the flesh of your thigh as he drives.

“You okay?” he says, low and rough, not taking his eyes off the road.

You nod. “Mm-hmm,” you murmur. Your legs part even more, shifting your hips up slightly, and Ares’ grip on your thigh tightens.

The tension in the air was so thick you could have cut it. Your eyes flick from Ares’ hand to his face, back and forth, and the car speeds up as he merges onto the highway.

“Hold on,” he says, maybe more to himself than to you—his fingers dig into the soft flesh of your thigh. You can feel a bruise forming under the skin, and the thought makes you just the slightest bit wet.

Just a little. You’re not that depraved.

Ares slides his hand higher, his fingertips grazing the seam of your torso and your leg, and you shudder as he slips a hand under the hem of your shorts.

Against your better judgement, you spread your legs that extra inch and lean back.

“[Y/N],” he says. “Tell me not to do this.”

“What?” You blink and look over to where Ares is white-knuckling the wheel. The speedometer on the car ticks up—Ares had already been speeding, but now it reads eighty, eighty-five. Ninety. You feel gravity pressing your back to the leather seat.

“You need to tell me to stop touching you,” he says lowly. “If you don’t want this, tell me no.”

You bite your lip. Oh.

“We can’t do this, angel,” he says, still pressing the gas pedal down. Ninety-six. Ninety-seven, eight.

“What if—what if I want you to?” The words come out of your mouth before you can stop them. Your heart batters against your rib cage. Ninety-nine.

Ares takes an exit—you're going too fast to see the sign—and leans on the brake, stopping just short of the crosswalk. The momentum throws you forward.

His hand moves from your thigh to rest across your collarbone, holding you back from hitting the dashboard.

"We're going to my place," he says roughly. "And we're gonna finish all this." He gestures with his free hand in the space between you and him.

You lean forward, so sweetly, and press a short kiss to Ares' lips. "I look forward to it," you say softly.

When the light turns green and Ares' eyes flick back to the road, you sneak a glance at his legs. Something satisfied and a little giddy curls up inside your stomach when you see that he's hard in his jeans.