#borracho magalon headcanon

[tropes-and-tales]

FOREHEAD KISSES FOREHEAD KISSES FOREHEAD KISSES with Benny please, if these asks are still open!

The nurse warns them that you’re still out of it, still in that liminal space between anesthetized sleep and wakefulness. 

“You can go back and see her,” she tells them.  “But she’s still a little…loopy.”

Loopy hardly captures it.  You’re a lightweight, Borracho knows.  You never partake in the harder drugs at their parties, and you limit yourself to a single beer when you go out.  Hell, even an extra Coke in the afternoon is enough to set you bounding around, full of caffeinated energy.  

Anesthesia and then the good pain killers delivered intravenously?  Forget loopy.  You’re telegraphing from another dimension entirely.

Case in point?  He hears you before he sees you.  You’re singing “Hurts So Good,” but mostly mumbling it.  It’s loud enough to hear that you are just mumble-singing the chorus, but it’s enough to make Big Nick groan, “fuck, it’s karaoke hour, I guess.”

When Borracho and Nick enter your room, you look up.  Your face lights up to see them.  Given how shitty you looked just hours earlier, it makes Borracho’s stomach swoop in relief.

“Big Nick!” you exclaim.  “And Borracho.  Big Ben!”  You laugh at your own joke, wince and lay a bracing arm over your abdomen.  “Shit, why’ve we never called you Big Ben?  Thass a better nickname.”

He can’t help but grin at you.  “How you feeling, champ?”

“Good.”  You smile back at him, give him a thumbs up.  “How you feelin’?”

“Better.”  He pulls a chair over to the side of your bed and sits down.  “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Scared all of us,” Nick interjects.  He remains standing, leans against the doorway.  “Next time you want an ambulance ride, be a real cop and get shot.  Save this burst appendix shit for, fuck…I dunno…mall cops.”

You flip him the middle finger, and Borracho studies you closer.  Already you look better.  That morning you had rolled into work looking rough:  wan with a grey cast to your skin, a sheen of sweat on your forehead.  Now the color is back in your face.  The rictus of pain is gone, replaced by the goofy grin that curves your lips.

“I’m gonna head back,” Nick continues.  “Borracho, you good to stick around?”

He nods.  “Yeah, I’ll keep you updated.”

-----

There’s not much to update Nick on, and besides—Borracho wants to keep this moment private, between the two of you.  

He puts on a strong front, a neutral face, but you scared him shitless.  The way you slumped over at your desk, how hard you cried in pain as he called for the ambulance….of course, in retrospect, it was obviously a burst appendix, but in that moment, he had been terrified, confused.  There was no obvious injury, and he had felt helpless.  All he could do was grip your hand in his, tuck his flannel under your head and wait for the EMTs.

“You really scared me,” he tells you again, his voice soft.  You’ve calmed a little (no longer singing, no longer calling him “Big Ben”), and you turn your head on the pillow to fix him with a glassy look.

“I know.  I’m sorry.”

“Despite what Big Nick says, I’d prefer it if you don’t get shot either.  You know, going forward.”

You smile at him.  “’m not planning on it, Borracho.”

“Good.”  He reaches out, pats you gently on your shoulder.  “I’d hate to break in a new partner.”

You snort, then wince at the effort.  You roll your head back on the pillow and close your eyes.  “Who broke in who, huh?”

“I was in Major Crimes first.”

“Yeah, and you were as feral as the rest of ‘em.  I’m the one who housebroke you.”

He chuckles and sits back in his seat, crosses his arms over his chest.  “Make me sound like a stray dog.”

“Mmm,” you agree, and your voice is getting thick with impending sleep.  “A cute stray.”

His stomach swoops again at your words, and he studies you.  Your eyes are closed, and he can hear the way your breathing lengthens, stretches out.  You’re finally falling asleep, right after calling him cute and setting the butterflies aflutter in his stomach.  

“I’m glad you’re okay,” he says softly, and there’s no response beyond your steady breathing.

Maybe it’s the adrenaline dump from the stress of your collapse in the office finally hitting him.  Maybe it’s that old cliché, the brush with death that reveals feelings.  Maybe it’s seeing you—unflappable, unstoppable you—so vulnerable in a hospital bed.

Borracho doesn’t know what it is, but something pushes him out of his chair until he’s standing over you.  He bends his head and presses a gentle kiss to your forehead.

When he pulls back and glances down at you, you’re staring right back at him.

That makes his stomach turn in anxiety, but you offer him a soft, drowsy smile and mumble, “you leaving?”

“Nah.”  He sits back down, plays it as cool as he can.  “I’ll stay until they kick me out.”

It’s not a big thing.  You’ll bring it up later, once you’re healed and back in the office, once you have him alone and can talk to him.  Right now, you just close your eyes again, smile again…but then you add, “thanks, Benny.”

[desuidesu]

A quick insight on our favorite guy 😍

Dany may I have some Borracho with babies and I'll give you the heads of my enemies?

Oh...I mean I feel like you should keep those for yourself? Like, you earned those. I'll take the sentiment, though.

*tucks sentiment into Sentiment Drawer*

I feel like I've talked a bit about Borracho with kids with The Pool and this drabble

I always headcanon that Borracho comes from a big family

So I like to think that even if he wasn't the youngest in his family, there were always little kids or little cousins around

He wasn't always good with kids

I mean maybe he and his siblings were rough with one another growing up

So it was a learning curve with the little ones

But Borracho has no trouble around babies.

He's fine changing diapers, he's find feeding them, he's not weirded out by seeing anyone pump breast milk

He'll be bummed if one is sick on him, but not mad

There's like nothing that weirds this man out about children.

He's just good with them. He's happy to play with them, he's happy to be the one that gets them to bed

He may or may not capitalize on the way you go all gooey at the sight of him shirtless and holding your child

And he just offers a sweet little smile and says, "The skin to skin contact is good for them."

He knows exactly what he's doing with that.

That's not to say there are never issues, of course.

He's still got late shifts, he's got a hectic job.

He worries about you and the baby being put in danger, of someone he's pissed off coming after you.

He's not always in a great mood around the child, but he's careful not to raise his voice to or in front of the baby, or to curse.

He'll tell you he needs a minute, or needs to step out when he gets like that

You give him that if you can, but it's not always that easy

And the baby gives him something to talk about when he can't get out of those nights with the team and the 'friends' that get invited to a hotel room

He spends the night knocking back beer and sharing baby pictures with the girls.

Who all just crowd around his phone and coo and take their phones out to share baby pictures

It's so wholesome it makes Nick sick.

[brandyllyn]

Brandyllyn’s Masterlist

Firstly and most importantly, I wrote a book. Love nor Money is a “why choose” romance about Maya Alvani, a down on her luck woman who agrees to pretend to be the mistress of three of the cities most powerful criminals. For more information about the book itself go here. 

Buy it here. Buy the holiday epilogue here.

Both are available for free with Kindle Unlimited at the same links.

📚<- This work is complete.

Requests are currently closed but thots are always welcome.

I am also brandyllyn on AO3

If you want fanfic updates follow @brandyllyn-writes. For more general updates Join my mailing list!

Most things I write are explicit and I’ve also tried to tag / warn everything appropriately. Let me know if I missed something.

Soulmate Headcanons

Pedro Pascal Characters as Cats with @blueeyesatnight

Because I was inverted... Pretty much every character I write for has a blurb or two in here. This was for a follower celebration.

Kinktober 2021 - here there be smut

Fandoms in alphabetical order.

NSFW Alphabet: Max Phillips 📚

The below fics can be read as standalones or as parts of the Max x Sugartits series.

Fringe Benefits : Max Phillips x f!reader (Explicit) (5k words) 📚 Max has a proposition for you.

Consensual Violence : Max Phillips x f!reader (Mature / Explicit) (3.2k words) 📚 Max’s enthusiasm in the bedroom accidentally sends you to the emergency room. It’s honestly more embarrassing than painful.

Did you mean it? : Max Phillips x f!reader (Explicit) (6.4k words) 📚 Max accompanies you to a family function. It goes about as well as expected.

By the numbers : Max Phillips x f!reader Once Bitten :: Twice Shy :: Safety Third :: Forever (Explicit)(12.7 words) 📚 Max and you hit some turbulence in your relationship.

Bonus: Half a Mind to (2k words) 📚 Max’s POV between Once Bitten and Twice Shy. I suggest reading all of By the Numbers before this one.

After : Max Phillips x f!reader (Mature) (2.4k words) 📚 Things aren’t quite back to normal for you and Max.

Various Requests:

All of these are standalone (as above) but are theoretically in universe and would take place somewhere between Consensual Violence and Did you mean it?

Max reacts to you cutting yourself accidentally. (640 words, smut adjacent) More about Max enjoying a bendy reader. (600 words, smut) Max being an annoying pest where you work. (790 words, smut) Max does not fly economy. (690 words) Getting a taste (2.2k words. hella smut) Turnabout is fair play (770 words, smut?) Max watches porn (300 words, smut adjacent I guess?) Teasing Max (1.2k words, smut) Repellent (1.7 words)

.

Adventurous : Benny ‘Borracho’ Magalon x f!reader (Explicit)(5.7k words)📚 Your friend drags you to an unconventional party. Mysterious (Explicit)(4.6k words)📚 Benny tries to follow-up the next day.

.

Doppelgänger : Nathan Bateman x f!Reader (Explicit) (13.6k words) 📚 You’re invited to Nathan’s house after ‘the incident’ to test his new AI. A masc one this time. Of course Nathan made it in the form of the most perfect man he knows, himself.

.

Silk from their Soul : The Ghoul / Cooper Howard x f!Reader (Explicit)(39k words)📚 It was supposed to be an easy bounty. But something ain't right about her - and Cooper's itching to find out what.

.

Monstruo : Pero Tovar (no pairing) (Teen)(3.7k words) 📚 After the events on the wall, Pero and William make an unexpected discovery.

Innocence need not tremble : Pero Tovar x f!reader (Explicit)(3.3k) 📚 Pero is finds himself on the receiving end of an indecent proposition.

Sinners : Pero Tovar x f!reader (Explicit)(8.4k) 📚 A promise made to protect William’s wife complicates Pero’s pursuit of you.

.

Bought and Paid For: Frederick Chilton x OFC (Explicit)(13k words)[AO3] 📚 Disgusted by the idea of going to his first public event after the shooting alone - Frederick Chilton decides to hire the services of an escort for the evening.

Dove Grey Bows: Frederick Chilton x OFC (Everyone)(1k words)[AO3] 📚 Sequel to ‘Bought and Paid For’: Everything was going wrong, Chilton was definitely going to fire the person responsible - but did he have time to fix it?

Time’s Fool: Frederick Chilton x OFC of color (Explicit)(11k words)[AO3] 📚 A woman from Chilton’s past has the power to throw his entire life into disarray - but will their unfinished business ruin him or save him?

.

Honorable Intentions : Aloy x Erend (Explicit)(5k) 📚 Erend offers to help Aloy before the Proving.

A Chance : Aloy x Erend  (Explicit)(5k) 📚 At the base, Erend and Aloy have a long overdue conversation.

.

Dreams are sweet until they’re not : Jack 'Whiskey' Daniels x f!reader (Explicit)(8.6k) 📚 A crimson rose only ever meant one thing, death. [Soulmate AU]

Harder to Hold : Jack 'Whiskey' Daniels x f!reader (Explicit)(32.5k words) 📚 You’re confused but pleased when a handsome cowboy puts moves on you at a bar one night.

Next Time : Jack 'Whiskey' Daniels x f!reader (Teen)(2.5k words) 📚 Jack takes you out on a date. It does not go well.

This Time : Jack 'Whiskey' Daniels x f!reader (Teen) 📚 Second date with Jack.

Trust in Me : Jack Daniels vs. f!reader (Teen)(drabbles exist on their own) Jack has been assigned a bodyguard. He’s not happy about it.

.

A Good Man Feelin’ Bad : Rafael Barba x OFC (Explicit)(44k words)[AO3] 📚* He really should go out more often if girls - *women* he heard Olivia correct him in his head - were this forward now.

.

Baubles of Stolen Kisses : Richard Alonso Muñoz x f!reader (explicit)(17.6K words) 📚 A slow dive into the start and growth of your relationship with Richard. Deals with themes of insecurity and self-worth.

Nene : Richard Alonso Muñoz x f!reader (Teen)(2.5K words) 📚 What to expect when you and Richard are expecting.

.

Crimes of Passion : Obispo ‘Bishop’ Losa x f!reader (explicit)(hiatus) You’re a good girl. And Bishop is a very bad man.

.

To sell your love for peace : Javier Peña x f!reader (Explicit)(27k words) 📚 You are Javier’s newest informant. And all that that entails.

To perish twice : Javier Peña x f!reader Pt 1  ::  Pt 2  ::  Pt3 (Explicit)(7.7k) 📚 You can feel when your soulmate comes.

.

Cross My Heart : Ezra x f!reader (T)(5.7k) 📚 "I do not know who I am when I am half a man.”

Lucky Stars : Ezra x GN!reader (Teen)(3.3k)📚 “Are you a good man?” “I like to believe I am a man of good intentions.”

Into the Shade : Ezra x f!reader (E)(8k) 📚 Who would fake a soulmate? [Soulmate AU]

Hold fast to dreams : Ezra x f!reader (Teen)(4.3k) 📚 Returned from the Green Ezra has debts to pay.

Blind Trust : Ezra x f!reader (Explicit)(4k words) 📚 Could he help her find her pleasure - one armed and unable to speak? Ezra was willing to bet his reputation he could.

Make dreams truths : Ezra x f!reader (Explicit)(4.3k words) 📚 Ezra had been a killer. Was known to be a rogue. Occasionally even a degenerate...

When they disentwine : Ezra x f!reader (Explicit)(4.3k words) 📚 Ezra returns to his tent to find you going though his things.

.

NSFW Alphabet: Poe Dameron (NC-17) 📚 SFW Alphabet: Poe Dameron (PG) 📚

Goofballs in Love Masterlist: A series of spicy, funny one-shots about your relationship with Poe Dameron (virtually all E)

In Our Own Image… : Poe Dameron x OFC (Mostly T, has tagged M/E chapters) (64k words) 📚 Poe had a type. He’d admit it. And that type was “could kick his ass and steal his ship.” It had gotten him into trouble too many times to count in the past, and yet here he was.

Alabanza: Poe Dameron x f!Reader (Mostly T, has M/E chapters) (60k words)[AO3] 📚 A mis-delivered message causes You and Poe Dameron to become anonymous penpals. But falling for each other via letter while at the same time falling for each other in the real world leads to more than its fair share of complications.

The Art of Falling: Poe Dameron x f!Reader (Mostly T, has M/E chapters) (40k words) 📚 The arrival of Black Squadron on Ansion means a lot of new changes for you, the base's Chief Mechanic.

For the first time seen : Poe Dameron x ? (General audiences.)(2.1k words) 📚 Poe is looking for his soulmate.

Give me a ring : Poe Dameron x gn!reader (Teen)(900 words)📚 Poe tries to flirt. Key word: tries.

.

Justifiable : Bud Cooper x f!Reader (Mature) (3k words) 📚 Your husband’s death leaves you the beneficiary of his policy

Death come knocking : Bud Cooper x f!Reader (Explicit)(2.4k words) 📚 Mr. Cooper is investigating your neighbor’s disappearance.

.

NSFW Alphabet: Santiago Garcia 📚

War makes thieves, and peace hangs them : Mostly Santiago Garcia x f!Reader (OFC in that she is described as being moderately thin)   (Hella Explicit) (28K words or so) 📚 When Santi needs people for a mission he knows just who to call. But it quickly becomes apparent they’re short one key role - a thief. Preferably one with nice breasts who makes friends easily.

Note: Pt13: Frankie’s Epilogue can be read as a standalone

Never meet your heroes : Santiago Garcia x gn!reader (Teen)(900 words) 📚 You introduce Santiago to your dad.

Mi Hermano : Santiago Garcia x gn!reader (Teen)(1.3k words) 📚 Followup to Never meet your heroes, yours and Santi’s rehearsal dinner.

How High : Santiago Garcia x gn!reader (Teen)(1.3k words) 📚 Followup to Mi Hermano, Frankie invites a guest to drinks with the boys.

Validation : Santiago Garcia x f!reader (Explicit) (5.6k words) 📚 Santi comes home early to find his new roommate a little undressed.

Corroboration : Santiago Garcia x f!reader (Explicit) (5.6k words) 📚 Celebrating a new job and trying to keep your relationship a secret from Frankie. Maybe you two should have just stayed in - you always had more fun there. [sequel to Validation, can be read as a standalone]

Patriotic : Santiago Garcia x f!reader (Teen) (360 words) (just a little domestic drabble) 📚

Love and Cookies : no pairings (Everyone) (1.2k words) 📚 The boys help Frankie’s daughter sell cookies.

Family Friendly : Frankie Morales x f!reader [wife] (Explicit)(1.2k words) 📚 Teasing Frankie at the family BBQ.

A Triple Frontier / Jurassic Park AU. Co-written with @blueeyesatnight (Mature) (8.5k)  📚 The boys take a job on an island off the coast of Costa Rica. They are not prepared for what they find. 

A Triple Frontier / Pacific Rim AU. Co-written with @blueeyesatnight Part One - Part Two (Mature) (3.4k) 📚 It’s drift match day for the Triple Frontier boys

A Triple Frontier / Aliens AU. Co-written with @blueeyesatnight (Mature)(11k)📚 The boys take a job at a colony in the far reaches. They are (yet again) not prepared for what they find.

Teaser

.

Half Empty: Nevada Ramirez x f!Reader (Explicit)(13k words)[AO3] 📚 It was supposed to be a fresh start, a new business and a new life in Washington Heights. But when Nevada Ramirez strolls through the door of your bar, demanding ten thousand dollars for his ‘protection’, you find yourself negotiating with your body. You can only hope you find the money before he loses interest.

Debt Makes Promises: Nevada Ramirez x OFC (Explicit)(47k words)[AO3]📚 When she asks Nevada Ramirez for a favor she’s expected to give one in return.

Further on the Edge: Nevada Ramirez x OFC (Explicit)(21k words)[AO3] 📚 Drawn together by circumstance - Nevada meets a woman who gives him a run for his money. But she’s not quite what she presents herself to him…

Oh Santa : Michael Perry x f!reader (Teen)(1k words)📚 You and Michael have the same idea one Christmas.

I refuse to give him a whole header but I also wrote a Dave York thing...

[tropes-and-tales]

A Package Deal

December 6:  Mittens/Kid - Parent and child’s caretaker (Benny Magalon x F!reader)

(From the winter prompts found here)

CW:  Single dad Benny; convoluted plot; I dunno.

Word Count:  1538

AN:  Requested by anon!

Benny Magalon didn’t necessarily feel any sort of way towards children before.  He always assumed he’d have kids someday, after he met a woman and married her, but it was just an assumption about a hazy future when he, a detective with Major Crimes, necessarily lived in the present.

It all went out the window when his girlfriend got pregnant and decided to keep it.  He wasn’t sure they’d last as a couple, but he thought he’d at least have a partner to co-parent with.  Six months after the birth of their daughter, though, his girlfriend split without a word.

It was the worst six months of his life—sleepless nights, a yawning black hole of terror that he won’t be able to handle single parenthood.

Six months after that, she sent paperwork signing over any and all rights to their daughter, Ava, and Benny realized he had no choice but to handle his new life as a single dad and sole provider to his young daughter.

-----

He’s not completely alone.  

His parents help a lot.  His mother and sister are invaluable; they help him navigate the tricky world of infants with their sleep regression and unformed skulls and burgeoning immune systems sensitive to every germ.  He has cousins who pitch in, who show up with one-dish meals that require only a quick reheating, who quietly tackle the mountain of laundry that accumulates during the work week.

Hell, even the guys help out in a pinch once in a while.  It’s a sight, Connors sitting at Benny’s kitchen table with Ava and coloring in her My Little Pony coloring books.

His best help comes from next door.

Benny meets you when he’s at his absolute lowest point:  abandoned and left to care for an infant, he manages to find a little bungalow that he can actually afford the mortgage on.  He desperately wants to give Ava stability, and something about owning a house—albeit a small one—with a tiny backyard makes him feel like he isn’t failing completely as a father.

He meets you the day he moves in—his next door neighbor.  You’re an illustrator; you work from home.  Ava’s red-faced squalling pulls you from the tranquility of your home as he struggles to handle his daughter while directing the movers.

“Need help?” you ask that day, and in the five years since, you’ve been nothing but a blessing in both Benny’s and Ava’s lives.

-----

It’s hard to pinpoint when he falls for you.  Certainly, you’re a lifesaver almost immediately:  you step in when Benny’s called into work at all hours.  How many times, in that first year, do you sleep on his couch and watch over his sleeping daughter so that he can keep his job and health benefits?

And once he hits a rhythm, how many times do you bring dinner over for him and Ava under the flimsy guise of having too much for just yourself?

And who waves off his thanks, even when he’s so heartsore that the words crowd in his throat, that a woman who happens to live next door to him is more loving to his daughter than her own biological mother is?

Sure, the torch Benny Magalon carries for you is likely driven by the care you give to Ava, and to him too.  But he thinks in another universe it’d be just the same, a gradual revelation to the person you are—because you’re kind and selfless, but you’re also talented and funny.  He knows all your quirks and habits, how you hate to wear socks and live in sandals, how you bake things that taste delicious but look like dogshit.  How you drink your coffee, how you hate ice in your drinks, how you have a dainty little giggle but a hearty, wall-shaking sneeze.

You are friendly with the other people who help with Ava—namely his family.  His mother especially takes a shine to you, thinks you’re an absolute angel, and she gives Benny not-so-subtle hints that you’d be good for him too.

He never makes a move.  He lets that torch burn low and steady without ever letting on how he feels.  He thinks you must think him pathetic, the loser next door who needs your help, and he can’t imagine what you’d see in him even if he had the courage to ask you out.

-----

Somehow Ava turns five, and you’re as much her family as any actual Magalon.  You greet her when she gets off the bus from kindergarten, and you watch her until Benny gets home.  

It’s one of his favorite things, picking Ava up from your place.  By now, he has a key to your place (and you have one to his), and he loves to let himself into your house.  Loves rounding the corner to see his young daughter at your kitchen table eating a snack, and two of you drawing or coloring or paging through a picture book.

It’s better than any drug, the way the two of you both turn to greet him, both of you with smiles to see him.  When he’s having a rough week at work, he leans into the fantasy a little, pretends that he’s coming home.  That he lives there with you and Ava, and that he’s not just there to collect his daughter and take her home to their own house.

-----

It must be said, though:  if Benny loves you in secret, then Ava is unabashed in her love for you.

She’s at that age where she notices the family configurations of her fellow kindergartners.  Fathers, it seems, are optional—Ava rattles off the names of her classmates that have absentee dads with no compunction at all.  But she herself is one of only two classmates without mothers, and there comes a point when she draws the natural conclusion that her warm-hearted neighbor who watches her each afternoon should just go ahead and be her mother.

It’s one of the most difficult conversations of Benny’s life.  Ava is so damned earnest and there’s no convincing reason why you can’t be her mom.  How can he make a five year-old understand that he and Ava are a package deal?  And how you probably aren’t interested in signing up for anything more than you already do for them?

Ava seems to understand the gentle terms he uses to couch the situation, but he catches the stubborn pout of her lips when he turns away.  He knows the expression all too well:  his daughter isn’t defeated.  She’s only biding her time.

-----

Christmas is just around the corner, and Ava is old enough to help with gifts for friends and family.  He takes her to the Grove one weekend with a list of people to shop for.

Benny is not good at gift-giving.  He’s awful, in fact.  With family, he just slides a gift card across the table to them.  With the guys, it’s as simple as giving them a bottle of booze.  And Ava is easy enough—she gives him an exhaustive catalogue of things she wants from Santa.

Where he struggles is with you.

What can he even get a person like you?  You have an outsized place in his heart, but he can’t express that via a holiday gift.  He can’t get you jewelry or anything intimate, but anything else (candles, chocolates, whatever the fuck other things he can’t think of at the moment) is too impersonal for the woman who takes care of him and his daughter for no reason other than her own kind heart.

Ava has a better handle on you.  Kinda.  Maybe.  At least, she doesn’t hesitate to find what she thinks is the perfect gift for you.

“Here, daddy!” she says, and she lets go of his hand to run over to a display of gloves, mittens, scarves.  Of all things in California…

“I don’t think so, peqūena,” he replies with a chuckle.

She pulls a pair of bright purple mittens off of the display and turns to him with that pout.  “For when she’s in the snow.”

He smiles, holds out his hand, and she gives him the mittens after a beat.  “It doesn’t snow here very often,” he points out.  In fact, Ava only knows about snow as a concept from the holiday movies they’ve been watching…

When he goes to put the mittens back, her pouting lower lip starts to tremble, and Benny realizes that he’s about a minute away from tears.  It’s been a long day for a little girl, and the Grove is busy, and she is late for her nap…

“Okay,” he says, hasty to head off the impending meltdown.  “You think she’ll like purple?”

Ava sniffs dramatically and nods.  “It’s her favorite color.”

Benny takes the mittens and goes to pay, his daughter’s hand gripped in his own, and he doesn’t bother to correct her—purple is her favorite color, not yours.  

It’s fine.  He’ll let Ava give you the mittens as her gift, and maybe he can come up with something nicer, from him to you.  Something that will magically capture his feelings for you without being forward or creepy or too much.

[tropes-and-tales]

Rescue Me

Characters:  Benny “Borracho” Magalon and F!Reader

WC:  5576

Other Pieces:  The third part to this and this.

CW:  Angst; idiots in love; reconciliation; smut (PiV, unprotected).  18+ only.

Benny wakes up in a strange bed.  It’s not his bed, not his spartan bedroom in his spartan apartment.  He wakes up to strange sheets, a strange dark room with strange smells, and it’s like breaking the surface of water—of swimming up from the depths of sleep to wake and come to his senses.

It’s not a strange room at all.  It’s your room.

He feels like he’s been hit by a train.  Every bit of him aches, and some parts—his knees, his lower back, an elbow—hurt more, like he fell at some point last night.  Nothing hurts more than his head.  It feels like his brain has been scooped out and replaced by broken glass that jangles and scrapes against his skull when he sits up.

But it’s your bedroom.  The more he wakes up, the more he recognizes:  the soft, satiny sheets, the ghostly scent of your lotion that you rub into your skin before you go to bed.  The same gentle alarm clock that lights up slowly, softly.  The pile of pillows, the ones you tuck under your head and between your knees and the ones you cling to when you sleep.

You’re not there, though.  It’s just him.

The night comes back to him in pieces.  He drank so much.  He smoked so much.  The night…the moment with the hired girl…he had thought she was you, realized too late…

How did he get here?

He only has pieces.  Someone putting him in a car, probably Z.  Him thrusting his phone up at the driver, showing an address.  Your address.

He can’t remember much more.  There’s only flashes, sensations.  Your face twisted into a tight mask of concern.  The cool tile of your bathroom floor.  A sick taste in his mouth, your hands on the back of his neck, tilting his head forward.  Then later, your hands again helping him into your bed, turning him onto his side.

He sits up and winces against the headache thundering behind his eyes.  His stomach churns, but he can’t tell if it’s the hangover or the shame of crashing your evening after having sex with one of Nick’s hired girls—

“Fuck,” he mutters softly, and then he stands up and sighs.  He can hear movement beyond the bedroom door, and he goes to take his punishment.

-----

There’s no real punishment to be had.  You’re not one to yell.

You’re standing in your kitchen with a mug of coffee, and Benny’s stomach turns to see how tired you look, how wan.  He glances at your couch and sees the pillow and blanket, and he knows you had an uncomfortable night because of him.

You hand him an empty mug and move so that he can pour his own coffee.  He takes a sip, tests his stomach.  He’s queasy but he thinks he’ll be fine.  And anyway, you always make the best coffee:  just the right amount of strength to it.  One of many things he’s missed about you.

He clears his throat.  “I’m sorry about last night,” he says, and it comes out a rough croak.  

You shake your head, once.  “This can’t happen again, Benny.”

“I know.  I…I didn’t mean to come here.  I—”

Another shake of the head, cutting him off.  “No, you can’t get that wrecked again.”  You fix him with a gaze, and he can see how bloodshot your eyes are.  You look exhausted…and sad.  

“I thought you were going to die,” you continue.  “I kept thinking I should call for an ambulance.  You weren’t making any sense.  You were all over the place.”

He hangs his head.  He stares into the dark oil slick of his coffee and says nothing.

“I haven’t seen you in almost a year, and you turn up here so drunk that I spend the night checking on you.  I put you on your side, because I was afraid you might throw up in your sleep and I…”  You trail off and he glances at you.  You’re biting your lip, gnawing at the softness there until it’s ragged and chapped.

“I was scared,” you finish in a whisper, and he can hear now how close you are to crying.  The slight wavering in your voice.

Now he feels like throwing up.  He hates that he has done this to you, especially hours after fucking a stranger and pretending she was you.  He hates that he scared you, hates that he lied to you all those times before.  Hates that he caused you so much pain.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, and you exhale, shaky.  He sees it—the single tear that courses down the side of your nose, and he hates that he’s standing in front of you but still so far away that he can’t reach out and brush that tear away, can’t pull you against him and let you cry.

He’s had his low moments, but this is the lowest that Benny Magalon has ever been.

-----

He wallows in that low moment for days.  For a week.

But then you call him.  You don’t text—you call.

Of course he answers.  He answers as fast as he can, fumbles with the face of his phone, his hands suddenly slick with sweat—

“I thought maybe we could talk,” you tell him, and you sound uncertain.  “Maybe we could get a coffee and talk?”

Of course he says yes.  

-----

It doesn’t go the way he thought it might.

You get there before he does, because of course you do.  You are always fifteen minutes early to places, and you secure a tucked-away table in the café where the two of you can talk with some privacy.  

You’re already sitting with a coffee when he comes in, and he catches sight of you first:  he knows he looks like reheated shit, but you don’t look like yourself either.  You look a little deflated, like the past eight months have taken some of the shine off of you, and Benny feels that constant feeling of shame flare up bright in him.

You see him and offer him a small smile that doesn’t reach your eyes, and he nods at you.  Points at the counter, indicates he’s going to order first.  You nod back and wait for him.

Benny is rarely flustered, but he has to take a beat by the counter before he gets his coffee and joins you.

-----

It doesn’t go how he thought.

It’s awkward at first.  He’s never been good at small talk, and you’re only marginally better.  Half the reason he fell for you, the first time he met you:  how the two of you skipped the boring bullshit and immediately fell into a deep conversation where the hours bled away like minutes.

But you don’t let the awkwardness linger for too long.  You hit some internal marker of courage, square up your shoulders a little, then look him in the eye.

“You talked a lot, when you came over the other night,” you tell him.  “A lot of it was just gibberish, but you said some things…”  You trail off, and Benny’s heart sinks at what he may have said.

“I thought about it a lot, and I wanted to apologize,” you continue.  “The way we…I left things, it wasn’t fair.  To you.  So I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head, vehement.  “No, sweetheart—”

“I just walked out without discussion,” you interrupt.  “There was no closure, not for either of us.”

His heart sinks at the word “closure.”  Some tiny part of him, some stupidly optimistic part of him, hoped this coffee date was an opening into reconciling with you.  But closure…

“I’m sorry, Benny.”  You look him square in the eye, and he can see the regret there, plain as day.  “I shouldn’t have just walked out on you like that.  You didn’t deserve it.”

He shakes his head again.  “I hurt you.  I don’t blame you for walking out.  I would have done the same.”

It makes the corners of your lips twitch into a ghost of a smile.  “Liar,” you say, a hint of teasing in your voice, and you don’t even realize what you’re calling him—how you’re laying the cardinal sin of your breakup right out in the open.  Benny, the liar.  Benny, the man who lied to you and broke your heart.

“You wouldn’t have just walked out,” you continue.  “You’re too patient for that.  You would have sat and had the conversation.”

“We can have the conversation now.”

The faint smile drops from your lips, and you nod, serious.  You take a sip of your coffee, and then you start.  You talk and Benny listens, and it makes him feel better and makes him feel worse.

He never had any specifics on your exes, only the broad strokes.  You only ever said two of them—the two most serious ones—had cheated, and you hadn’t offered more up and he had never pressed.  He only ever had the sense that you were in deep pain about it, that you were insecure, and that’s how the whole web of lies started—with the best of intentions that quickly spiraled out of control.

You tell him the specifics now.  The first ex, your first everything.  How he cheated and lied and gaslit you into thinking it wasn’t happening when he came home smelling like another woman’s perfume, when his phone pinged at all hours of the night and how he tilted the screen away from you when he texted his replies.

How extricating your life from his got so ugly that you had to call the police (LAPD—at least it was the sheriff’s department) and got brushed off and dismissed by the officers.

The second ex, the one right before him:  so serious that there had been a ring on your finger, that there had been the beginning plans around a wedding.  Benny is startled to hear it, and you drop your gaze to the table when you tell him.  

“You weren’t the only one who didn’t volunteer the truth,” you say sadly.  “Looking back, I should have never dated you.  I was just out of that relationship when I met you, and I liked you so much, but I wasn’t ready.  I should have gotten a therapist, not a new boyfriend.”

“I liked you too,” he replies, just as sadly.  “I would have waited until you were ready.”

You lift your gaze and smile at him, sardonic.  “Honestly, Benny?  You wouldn’t have waited.”

“I would have.”

The look on your face says you don’t believe him, and he guesses that you know he hooked up with someone that night.  That he came stumbling to your place after he had his dick in another woman, her lipstick still smeared at the corner of his mouth and at the hinge of his stubbled jaw.  

You take another sip of your coffee, and there’s a long moment of silence, so he takes it as he cue to say his piece.  He explains the slippery-slope of promising himself that he’d tell you the truth…then chickening out, being a cowardly shit.  The truth always seemed more promising for tomorrow, never today, and how it spiraled out of control so quickly he didn’t know what to do.

And he explains that fucking voicemail, the misdial that made you think he had hooked up with one of the girls.  You have no reason to believe him, but he finds you nodding as he talks.

“I know,” you tell him when he finishes.  “You…told me as much the other night.  And you…well, you told me about your hookup, that night.  You were so upset, even though we were broken up, so I guess…”  You shrug, give a sad laugh.  “I guess if you were that upset having sex with someone when we were broken up…”  You don’t finish, but he catches your meaning.

And he feels a flood of relief, that you believe him.  Underneath the shame of confessing his hookup with a hired girl, there’s relief.

-----

But the coffee meetup remains about closure, not new beginnings, and Benny’s relief is short-lived.  As the two of you finish your coffees and go to leave, the message is clear:  this was to offer closure for the two of you.  Nothing more.

Outside the café, you hesitate, take a stuttering half-step towards him and then pause, but he is more decisive.  He bridges the distance and holds his arms out, an invitation, and you step into them.  Benny folds you into a gentle hug, and it hits him then that this is the last time he’ll get to hold you like this.

He thinks he’s hiding it, but you seem to sense the quiet desperation that floods him.  You shift, from the polite hug around his shoulders, barely touching, to wrapping your arms around him properly.  You strain onto your toes enough to hug him tight, the side of your face pressed against his.  Benny shifts too; he wraps his arms around your back, lays one palm between your shoulder blades to hold you steady against him—

If he weren’t so closed off, he’d cry.  If he weren’t so good at burying this shit deep, he’d well up with tears and fucking beg you for that second chance.

Even if he would, he’s already too late:  you’re already pulling away, gently untangling yourself from him, telling him in your soft, sad way to take care of himself.

All he can do is nod and tell you the same.

-----

He tries to move on.

He’s got a shitty track record.  One failed marriage behind him (high school sweethearts, married way too young), he’s drifted ever since.  Hook-ups and short-term things until you came along, and for once, he could sort of envision a future beyond his spartan, lonely life.

His brother sets him up with a coworker, and it’s a bad idea from the start because Benny’s mother gets her hopes up, thinks her middle son is finally going to settle down and make a family for himself.

It’s that family pressure—subtle as a fucking heart attack—that makes him stretch the entire relationship out for longer than he should.  It’s a bad match:  there’s a lot of passive-aggressive fighting, and she has a very strict timeline for life’s milestones.

When they pass the five-month mark, Benny feels like he’s running a fucking marathon, exhausted and winded and cramping badly, so he mercifully ends it and feels nothing but relief to give her back her stuff and delete her number.

When he deletes her number, he has to scroll past yours.  He’s never deleted yours.  He doesn’t have the heart to.

-----

He’s never deleted your number, which is a problem.

Your birthday falls on a Tuesday this year, and Benny has nothing going on that night.  Just another night at home after a grueling day at work, and over his dinner of take-out, he remembers why the date tugs at his memory.

Is it creepy to reach out?  Is it intrusive?  You’ve probably moved on, and even if you haven’t you probably don’t want to get a text from your ex when you’re out celebrating.

He’s done so well at leaving you alone.  It couldn’t hurt to reach out, right?

Happy birthday, he types out, and his finger pauses over the send button.  He lets the message sit unsent while he goes to the kitchen, grabs another beer.  Halfway through it, he adds Ben thinking about you, then hits send before his courage fails him.

Then he catches the typo.  “Fuck,” he groans.  

But you’ve already read it, and you’re already responding.

Thanks, you text back.  

And then, Me thinking about Ben.

It’s been so long but he can picture the teasing smile of your face when you typed it out.  He’s a terrible texter.  The keyboard is too small.

Such a dumb exchange, and yet he falls asleep that night with the dead ember of hope coaxed back to fragile life.

-----

It’s a foot in the door, because on his birthday only a month later, you text him too.  You wish him a happy birthday too.

-----

Then a few weeks after, he wraps up a terrible case:  one that makes sleep evade him, one that gets into his head and lays him low.

He sends you a text.  Just finished a tough case, he types.

A few minutes before you reply:  Quit your job.

An inside joke from when you dated:  he’d tell you a little about the difficult cases, sketch out the broad strokes, and you’d shrug and tell him to quit.  When he’d reply that he had no other way to earn a living, you’d spin out an entire alternate reality fantasy life for the two of you:  him as a kept man while you earned for the household or him in ludicrous second careers.  Benny Magalon as a baker or a professional golfer or one of the artists who sketched along the pier in Venice Beach.

Just small moments between you, usually him with his head in your lap as you fussed with his hair.  Small moments where he showed you a little of the darkness he dealt with every day, and how you diffused it for him.

I gotta earn a living, he types back.

Ben Magalon, lipstick test subject, you reply, and he gets honest-to-god butterflies, that lightly queasy feeling in his stomach at the memory.  That you remember it too.

Pays more to test lip stain, he replies, and you reply to that with a smiley face.

-----

There’s not a great big moment that brings you back together.  He doesn’t know any details about your life now, and you can’t know any about his.  You have these moments where you text two or three lines to each other every few weeks, but that’s the extent of it.

Until the next hotel party.  Until Benny sits there, half-buzzed but nowhere near where he was in his lowest moment.

Until that same hired girl saunters in behind Nick, and half-buzzed, Benny cannot fathom how he thought she was you.  She has the same skin tone, the same hair color and that’s it.  Her smile is artifice, plastered on for the money Nick pays.  There’s no ease to it, not natural blossoming across the face like yours.

He sets down his half-empty bottle of beer, and he heaves himself off of the couch to go get a water.  To sober up.  

And he slips out of the room onto the balcony, and the cool air helps clear his head too.

He pulls out his phone and looks at the conversation with you, across months, back and forth.  

It’s never gotten any easier.  Even after the talk where you apologized to him and accepted his apology to you, where you ostensibly each got closure.  Even after months and months and him dating another woman for a while, he’s never stopped missing you.  

He takes a long drink of water and feels bit of his buzz slough off of him.  He calls you.

And you answer.

“Hey, Ben,” you say, and you sound happy to hear from him.  He’s only buzzed, not drunk, and he swears he can hear the smile in your voice.

“Hey.”  He glances through the glass door into the hotel room, sees the party in full swing now that the girls have arrived.  “What are you up to?”

He can hear noise in the background of the call, but you answer, “just watching T.V.”

“What’s up?” you ask when silence stretches over the line.  “Everything okay?”

He watches the party proceed without him.  Nick finds his girl for the night, takes her hand and leads her into one of the bedrooms.  The guys, on cue, clap and wolf-whistle, as if they haven’t seen the same sorry sight a hundred fucking times:  Big Nick, the asshole with a sweet wife at home who gave him two sweet daughters.  Big Nick the cheater, the manipulator, the broken dude who holds his detectives as his captive audience to his shitty behavior.

“Can I come over?” Ben asks.

-----

It’s not a great big moment that brings you back together.  It’s not a near-death experience or one of you seeing the other out on a date or any big realization.

It is only this:  Benny leaving the hotel party early, the dredges of that guilty night stirred up.  All those bad feelings.  He still misses you, and he’s tired of missing you.

He has no way of knowing it, but you miss him too.  You’re tired of missing him too.

So it’s not some grand moment, in the end.  It’s the toe-in-the-door of that coffee date, those handful of friendly texts, and months of each of you being absolutely miserable without the other person.  

It’s you answering your door to him, and the two of you misreading the other’s intention:  you go to step past him to deadbolt your door once you let him in, he thinks you’re stepping in for a hug, and you gently collide with each other.  

“Sorry,” you each say, speaking over the other, but he wraps his arms around you and pulls you in close, and you sigh as you hug him back, as if you’re exhausted and finally can rest.

-----

It’s not a great big moment that brings you back together in bed either.  That night, the two of you sleep together, but there’s no sex.  The moment is too fragile, too new and fraught and easily ruined.

And you are both exhausted.  When he holds you near your front door, you start to cry, but it’s weak and thin—more the crying of someone with a bone-deep fatigue who is too tired to really put much energy behind the tears.

Benny feels the same.

So he takes you to your bedroom, and he kicks off his shoes, and he curls up in bed with you.  

It’d be a cliché if he slept well that first night back with you.  Truthfully, he doesn’t sleep at all:  he spends the entire night with his arms around you, listening to your deep breathing.  Terrified that he’ll mess it up again.

-----

Things progress slowly.  You have to get to know each other again.

A lot of things are the same.  You still like your quiet Friday nights in, but you do more on non-Friday nights.  You took the opportunity to try new things when you and Benny were broken up, so you have more commitments:  rec league softball on Thursday nights, a pub trivia team on Wednesdays.

He tries not to be jealous.  He hates the implication that he loved you before because you were slightly introverted and were almost always home, waiting for him.  

-----

He tries not to be jealous when the two of you finally try to have sex again, but it turns into an argument, and Benny realizes the fallout from your first time around together hasn’t settled.

It starts as a nice date night:  he takes you out to a nice dinner, and you get tipsy on margaritas, and he feels the delicious tension of possibility when you take his hand in yours and lead him into your bedroom, when you push him backwards until he falls onto the bed.

This is new, you being pushy.  He finds he likes it.  Just like you’ve found some hidden-away extroversion, you seem to have found some nascent dominance.  

But when he reaches into your nightstand, there’s a different box of condoms there—a brand he has never used before…and the box is half empty, and he must pause or make a face because you still and then peer at him.

“You can’t be mad about that,” you say, and you seem stone sober now.  You cross your arms and watch him.

“’m not.”

“We were broken up.  For months.”

He breathes out through his nose.  “I said I’m not.”  

But it’s a lie, or halfway a lie because he is jealous and he’s mad, and he’s even more mad because he has no right to be.  You were broken up for so long, but Benny thought maybe you were pining for him the whole time, had pictured you worn down and weeping, not crawling into bed with some random dude or worse, several random dudes, or maybe they weren’t random at all, maybe it was the guy on your softball team who sits too close to you in the dugout, or maybe it was the guy on your trivia team who high-fives you like a fucking toddler every time you get a question right…

“Because you seem mad, Ben.”  You uncross your arms and gesture at him; he’s moved to the side of the bed and crossed his own arms, his jaw flexing as he clenches it.

“Were they better than me?” he asks, the mean question slipping out so easily that he winces the second it does.

“About as good as any of the women you fucked,” you spit back at him.  “Hired or not.”

“Yeah?  Great.”  He uncrosses his arms, grabs his phone from the nightstand and leaves.  

He makes it to his truck before he pauses, takes a breath.  Before he takes a minute to just wait and not act.  He breathes it out, drops his head.  He feels the shame again, layered with more now because he tried to shame you for doing exactly what he did.  Hell, he actually dated another woman while you were broken up, played around at imagining some future with her, and here he is getting on your case about…what?  Four or five hookups based on the number of condoms missing from the box in your nightstand?

“Shit.”  He breathes it out, then turns to go back to your apartment, but you’re already outside, walking towards him.

“I’m sorry,” he says as you reach him, stand in front of him.

You shake your head.  “I’m sorry too.  It was a low blow.”  There’s a long moment as you peer into his eyes, trying to read him.  “Do you still want this, Ben?”

“I do.”  He pauses, then asks, “do you?”

“Yes, I do.  I still want this.  I still want you.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeats.  “I’m an asshole.  I shouldn’t get jealous—”

“It wasn’t anyone you’ve met,” you interrupt.  “So don’t start getting all scary-eyed staring at people when we go out.”

The corner of his mouth twitches into a near-smile.  “Got it.”

You reach out, lay your palm on his chest.  You toy with the button right at his throat, and add, a little shyly, “you know, if you’re jealous, there’s a better way to work through it.”

“What’s that?”

You lean into him, the soft swell of your breasts pressing against him.  “You can take me back to my bedroom and fuck me senseless.  Make me forget about that other guy.”

He feels the jolt of desire, low in his belly.  “That so?”

“Mmm-hmm.  Because the other guy, he was pretty good after all and—hey!”

He cuts you off by getting under you enough to throw you over his shoulder, and you squeal as he does just as you’ve asked—he carries you back to your apartment, back to your bedroom, and he swats your ass, once for good measure, before he tosses you onto the bed.

And yes, he’s still jealous.  The jealousy burns in him, but every time he starts to picture what this other guy looked like, how he may have fucked you, Benny snarls and pushes through it.  Focuses on fucking you senseless.

Maybe if the fight hadn’t just happened between you, your first time back together would have been soft, gentle.  Maybe you would have stripped each other tenderly, fell back into the familiarity of each other.  But the jealousy unlocks some feral side of him, and you respond to it in kind:  pushier, more forceful then you’ve ever been before.

He fucking loves it.

It’s all the frustration, the lingering hurt—worked out in the battlefield of your bed.  An exorcism of remaining pain from your time apart and the issues that caused it.

He kisses you hard, hard enough to bruise your lips, maybe, but then you bite down on his lower lip, harder than a playful nip, almost hard enough to draw blood.  He growls, fists your hair in his hand, steers your head back until he can look in your eyes.  The pupils are so lust-blown that your eyes glitter black, and then you’re tearing yourself out of his grip and kissing him again.  Just as hard.  Just as needy.  Your tongue pushes into his mouth and he pushes his own back, tangles with yours until you’re both breathless and panting.

He paws at your dress, pushes it up over your hips until you shove him aside and handle it yourself.  Then he’s tugging at your bra, your panties until they are balled up and tossed to the side of the room, and you attack him with the same desperate ardor, tugging against his shirt so hard that two of the buttons go flying like shrapnel, undoing his belt so fast that your fingernail scratches his belly, just at his waistline.

And maybe if the fight hadn’t just happened between you, he would have slotted himself between your spread thighs, dismantling you with his lips and tongue and fingers until you close your legs around his head like you used to do, legs trembling, body arching off of the bed as you come.  Because he wants to taste you; he has every intention of feasting on your pussy, but as he pushes you back against the bed, you grab his arm and pull him off balance until he’s part of the way down too, and his thigh brushes against your core, and he feels how hot you are, how slick and swollen you are, and every single planned thought goes right out of his head as he spreads your legs wider, grips himself at the root of his cock, then pushes himself into you in one smooth, firm motion.

And the way you mewl when he does, when he buries the hot length of himself inside you, the way you breathe out his name and gaze up at him, stunned, eyes glittering black from the wide pupils, lips parted and kiss-swollen, he wonders how he ever thought Nick’s hired girl could be you, because this is you, right here, underneath him and surrounding him, rescuing him from the worst period of his life, moving past all the hurt, your hand soft against the back of his head as you pull him down for a kiss, finally gentled by the feeling of having him inside you again, and it’s your lips against his, murmuring his name, saying “please, Ben, please” and he wonders if you pretended that other guy was him the way he pretended the hired girl was you and the jealousy flares up again so he fucks you senseless, as you asked him to, fucks you deep, fucks you into the mattress.  

He gets a hand under your ass, tilts you up towards him until he’s fucking down into you, the crown of his cock nudging against the end of you, and he knows the other guy never got this deep, that he’s touching parts inside you that no one else has or ever will, if he can help it, if he can keep from fucking this up again, and he tells you so, pants out in time to his thrusts that you’re his, you belong to him, and he’s yours, that he’ll only ever be yours, and some Neanderthal part of him grunts out too that he’s gonna claim you, gonna fill you up, and that’s when he realizes he never put on a condom yet he’s so far gone he can’t even care.

And you don’t seem to either.  He feels how you clench against his words, how your breathing quickens.  You wind your fingers in his hair and tug, hard, and then pull him back to you.

“Do it,” you hiss.  “Come inside me.”

And then you kiss him, as brutal and stinging as before, but you also wrap your legs around him, hold him tight to you, and it pushes him right there to the edge.

“Shit, are you—”

“I’ll get Plan B.  ‘morrow.”

“You sure?”

“Come inside me, Ben.  Mark me.  Make me yours.”

He’s already there, right at the edge, but he manages to reach down between the two of you, manages to get the pad of his thumb against your clit.  Manages to roll a sloppy circle against it before you cry out, then bear down on him hard.

He has no idea how he thought Nick’s hired girl was you, because this is you too:  no drawn-out, bad porn actress moaning or panting…just the choked off cry, muffled against his shoulder.  Just your voice, weak and trembling like the rest of you, as you cry out his name.

He’s already there, and your orgasm is the shove he needs.  He comes a beat later, buries himself deep.  Does as you asked, does as the jealous caveman part of him wanted:  he comes inside you.  He marks you as his.

[tropes-and-tales]

The Past is Never Past

December 19:  Lights/Holly - Childhood sweetheart (Benny Magalon x F!reader)

(From the winter prompts found here)

CW:  Angst; childhood sweethearts; elitism, I guess?

Word Count:  2207

AN:  Requested by @bport76​!

The Magalon family Christmas party is already in full swing by the time Benny rolls up.  He’s late because of work, which is nothing new, but his childhood home is packed by the time he gets there.

His mom does it up big every year.  Invites friends and family and neighbors.  Has it partially catered, but spends a psychotic amount of time beforehand cooking and baking too.  Decorates the place from top to bottom, inside and out:  there are lights draped outside in the oleander, two trees inside laden with ornaments, and swags of holly in every doorway.

It’s like Christmas puked on his childhood home, and Benny chuckles to see it when he walks into the house.

-----

He finds you exactly where he thought he would.  

When his mom casually (not so casually) mentioned that you would be in town and would be at the party with your mom, Benny could have guessed where he’d find you.  Years since he’s seen you, and some things never change.

He finds you in the hallway where framed family pictures march in haphazard rows on each wall.  There’s a certain picture of him as a kid.  He’s six or seven in it.  He’s got a goofy grin on his face, revealing giant gaps where he had knocked out his teeth a few days earlier.

It was your favorite picture when the two of you dated.  You were unable to walk past it back then without studying it and bursting into gales of laughter.  He used to get so mad, embarrassed enough to ask his mom to take the picture down, but you always just poked him in his sides and said he used to be adorable and what in the hell happened to him?

It’s exactly where he finds you now.

He gets a split second to study you before you turn at the sound of his footsteps.  He tries to think…when was the last time he saw you?  Probably for his younger sister’s wedding.  So ten years.

And before that, the last time he saw you was the summer when you left for college out east.  That was night he broke up with you.  Ancient history.  You had been gracious at his sister’s wedding.  No hard feelings for how he’d broken your heart.  

Hell, you’d even saved a dance for him at the reception, a slow dance with your hands light on his shoulders, the scent of you under his nose.  That had been a tough night, letting you go after the final notes of the song faded away.

You hear him approaching now, and you turn to face him.  When you see it’s him, you grin—a brilliant smile.

“Knew you’d be here,” he grumbles good-naturedly.

“Of course.  Gotta visit the Shrine of the Toothless Boy.”

He’s beside you now, and you turn and offer him a hug in greeting.  Warm as always.  Open, inviting.  It’s been years but it’s so familiar to have you in his arms for even a moment.  You smell different—a new shampoo, new perfume—but you feel just the same.

“It’s good to see you, Ben,” you say as you pat his back gently before releasing him.

He says it’s good to see you too, and it’s the truth.

-----

You end up in his childhood bedroom.  It’s nothing scandalous, just the two of you sitting on the floor, your backs against his bed.  A stack of yearbooks between you as you page through one, snickering or sighing at the memories the pictures raise.

It’s not scandalous, but Benny shuts the door with a quiet click anyway.  It’s greedy.  He wants you to himself.  He doesn’t want his mother or his sisters to come and find you, lure you away with gossip and laughter.  He doesn’t want  your own mother to find you, give him that tight smile that holds no warmth, as she pulls you away under some flimsy pretense.  

He wants to monopolize this time and keep the moment quiet.  Just the two of you sitting together, remembering together.

You tap one page, pointing to a mutual friend.  “What ever happened to Mark?” you ask.  

Benny leans closer—an excuse to bridge the gap between you for a second.  “Moved to Chicago, I think.  Married some girl out there.”

“Hmm.  What about Miguelina?”

“Pretty sure she moved back to the D.R.”

One by one, you go through your friend list from high school.  Benny has a handle on most of them, since he never left:  the ones who did leave, like you; those that stayed and made something of themselves; the unlucky few in prison or the grave.

“What about this guy?” you ask, and he can hear the smile in your voice as you tap his senior photo.  He grimaces at it, the awful haircut, the valiant attempt at a goatee.  The non-smile, which he had thought made him look tough at the time—now with the wisdom of age, he can see that he just looked like a juvenile delinquent.

“Him?  Complete asshole.  Never did anything worth mentioning,” he replies.

“Stop it.”  You lean towards him with the same smile, elbow him in the side.  

But the moment must trigger something in you because he watches as you turn back to the yearbook and your smile fades bit by bit.

“Hey, Ben,” you start to say, and he can tell by your tone what you’re going to say.  Or what you’re going to ask.  You asked the exact same question ten years ago as the two of you danced at his sister’s wedding, and his stomach clenches to answer it again…

“Why did you break up with me?”  You don’t look at him.  You keep paging through the yearbook, reading the captions, but he can feel your body go subtly tense beside him.

He sighs.  “We don’t have to relive that—”

“No, I know.  I just never knew what I did wrong, and it still….I guess it still goads at me, a little.  Even after all this time.  Like I never got closure.”

He shrugs, tells a truth and then a lie.

“We were going to college on opposite ends of the country,” he tells you.  “It couldn’t have worked.”

“I disagree.”  You turn and give him a small smile, but he can see the old pain underneath it.  “I think it could have worked.”

“Maybe.  But I was young and stupid.”  Not a lie.

“I think you were smarter than you realized.”  Always too generous, too willing to see the good in him.

“What kind of life could I have made for you, though?  You, an Ivy Leaguer and me a state school future cop.”

You hum at that, shake your head in disappointment.  You let the moment of silence stretch as Benny settles back into that moment.  All those years ago, that single night when he dumped you.  As long as he lives, he’ll never forget the way you looked:  stunned, incredulous…then so wounded it was like you couldn’t breathe.

“I’m sorry,” you finally say.  “I do hold onto the past too much.”  You laugh, a little bitter.  “My therapist is tired of it.  ‘Let’s talk about something more recent,’ he’s always saying.”

“You go to therapy?”

You glance at him, shrug.  “Sure.  Work is stressful, life is stressful.  I can never seem to be satisfied or content with things, let alone happy.”

Benny Magalon isn’t a shrink, but he bets he could school your therapist on the reason behind your dissatisfaction with life.  It’s your awful mother driving all of it.  An only child to a single woman, nothing has ever been good enough—including yourself.  You’re held to an impossible standard, the ideal perfect daughter your mother had in mind when she decided to have a kid on her own.  She and Benny’s mother weren’t quite friends, and much of the coolness between them came from how Benny’s mother thought you were treated.  How you were mistreated, in her eyes.  

Benny, like everything and everyone else, had not been good enough for you.

It’s not like he was a bad kid or especially bad at school—he got mostly B’s, he ran cross-country and finished in the middle of the pack most of the time.  He was average, perfectly mediocre in his high school scholastics, but your mother saw him as a possible stumbling block to your future.

He figures it out years later, but at the time (when he was young and stupid), it had seemed a coincidence.  Him at his summer job working with the parks department, and your mother running into him.  Accidentally.

Accidentally, on purpose.

He remembers the sick feeling in his stomach.  Your mother (“Oh, since I’m here, I thought we could talk…) pulled him aside, not-so-gently and not-so-subtly laid out Benny’s situation with her daughter.  She laid out the obvious—different colleges, time zones apart, too young to make serious decisions.

And she laid out the less obvious.  How you had a full ride to Brown.  How you could set the world on fire with your talents, with your brains.  How all you needed was focus, but how it was wavering that summer.  Because of him.

“She tells me you want to go into law enforcement,” your mother had told him that day.  “It’s a noble pursuit, but can you really see her as a policeman’s wife?  Can you give her the sort of life she really deserves?”

Benny Magalon, young and stupid.  He believe it then, as he believes it now.  But it hurt then, just as it hurts now.

You jostle him out of the memory by snapping the yearbook shut, stacking it on top of the rest.  “I promise I’ll work through it in time for the next time I see you,” you try to joke.  “So in ten years, look out, Benny.  I’ll be ready to talk about the present instead of the past.”

You stand up and he follows.  Maybe that hurts the most now, how you never screamed at him or cut him off or burned his pictures.  Any anger you felt—feel—towards him…you keep it inside.  Ever since that night, after a period of silence, you’ve been nothing but kind to him.  Gracious to him.  Familiar with an air of sadness, the past never quite past enough.

“I’m sorry it hurt you,” he says, his voice low as the two of you stand in his childhood bedroom.  “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

“Oh, don’t even worry about it.  It’s ancient history.”  You wave him off, give him a rueful smile.  “I just get sappy and homesick this time of the year.”

He smiles back at you.  He loved—loves—how sappy you get over things.  You’re sentimental and always have been.  

“I hope those assholes in New York know they stole a good one from us,” he jokes.

You tilt your head, your smile widening.  “I thought the west coast, east coast beef was dead and buried.”

“Nah.  Not ‘til we get you back.”

You roll your eyes playfully, open your mouth to say something, but there’s a knock at the door, then his sister peeking her head in.

“Hey you two,” she said, her voice taking on a sly, insinuating tone.  “Thought I might find you together.”

You gesture at the yearbook pile.  “Just reliving our glory days.”

“Sure.”  His sister says it like she doesn’t believe it (he catches her eyes drifting to the bed, but the comforter is neat and smooth), but then she looks at you and says, “your mom is looking for you.  Says she’s not feeling well and wants you to take her home.”

“Oh, okay.”  You turn to Ben.  He holds out his arms and you step into them:  a light hug, just for a moment, but it’s heavy as lead.  It’ll sit heavy as a stone in his chest later on.

“I fly out on the third,” you tell him once you release him.  “Maybe we could meet up?”

“Yeah, maybe.  Work is busy this time of year though.”  A lie.

Sappy, homesick, trapped in the past:  he watches as your face falls at his noncommittal, his nonchalance at spending time with you.  Then he watches you compose yourself, plaster that smile on your face.

“Well, you know where to find me if you have time,” you tell him, and the false cheer in your voice makes him want to throw up.  

Tell me I’m a piece of shit, he wants to say.  Drop the act and tell me I hurt you so badly that you never want to even think of me again.  Never say my name again.  Burn all my pictures and move on.  Because I can’t move on until you do.

Because he’s never moved on either.  All these years, and not a single girlfriend ever came close.

Your mother, that day in the park when he was young and stupid:  “You’ll forget about her soon enough, and you’ll meet a nice girl.  You’ll get married to her and have kids with her, and my daughter will meet someone else…”

Only he hadn’t, and you hadn’t.  Years and years later, neither of you have moved on.

[youvebeenlivingfictional]

Youvebeenlivingfictional Masterlist

Hooooboy, alright. Caving and turning this into a post. I'm keeping the page up as well, so if you prefer that, don’t worry, it’s still there.

If this post is missing something and i can almost guarantee it is, lemme know! Also if a link is broken, lemme know. Also also if you see that there are missing drabbles, that is because 9/10 times, unless it’s part of a larger work, I don’t list drabbles. It would never end. It would be a monster of a post.

As always, any minors interacting with explicit works will be blocked.

Last Updated: July 28, 2024

I do not give consent for any of my work to be copied, posted, or translated on other sites.

What it says on the tin. Archiveofourown: youvebeenlivingfictional

Kinktober 2022  *18+ Only

Kinktober 2023 *18+ Only

Fluffcember 2022 Fake Dating Masterlist

Includes: The Triple Frontier Boys, Javier Peña, Nathan Bateman, Percival Graves, Christopher Pike

Men I Always Meant to Write For

Includes: Bruce Wayne, Daniel Le Domas, Don Draper, Don Eppes, Harvey Specter

The Bear

Force of Habit - Carmy Berzatto x Reader  *18+ Only

Get What You Get - Carmy Berzatto x Reader

If You Can’t Take the Heat - Carmy Berzatto x Reader

Captain America

Love Isn’t Always On Time - Steve Rogers x Reader x Bucky Barnes (On indefinite hiatus)

Strange Bedfellows - Steve Rogers x Reader *18+ Only

Challengers

Estranged Wife - Patrick Zweig x Reader *18+ Only

the pro - Art Donaldson x Reader *18+ Only

reunion - Art Donaldson x Reader *18+ Only

tense - Patrick Zweig x Reader *18+ Only

Daredevil

Gauze - Frank Castle x Reader

Her Voice - Matt Murdock x Reader *18+ Only

The Dark Knight Trilogy

The Other Half - Bruce Wayne x Reader *18+ Only

Defending Jacob

Clandestine - Andy Barber x Reader *18+ Only

I Could Be Your Sometimes - Andy Barber x Reader *18+ Only

Where You Want My Lipstick - Andy Barber x Reader *18+ Only

Den of Thieves

Bad Idea - Benny ‘Borracho’ Magalon x Reader *18+ Only

The Pool - Benny ‘Borracho’ Magalon x Reader *18+ Only (The Pool ‘Verse)

Benny and Techie’s Holiday Plans  - Benny ‘Borracho’ Magalon x Reader (The Pool ‘Verse)

Benny and Techie Wind Up Skipping Arm Day - Benny ‘Borracho’ Magalon x Reader (The Pool ‘Verse)

Benny Teaches Techie How to Shoot - Benny ‘Borracho’ Magalon x Reader (The Pool ‘Verse)

How Benny and Techie Spend New Year’s Eve - Benny ‘Borracho’ Magalon x Reader (The Pool ‘Verse)

Benny’s First Thoughts - Benny ‘Borracho’ Magalon x Reader (The Pool ‘Verse)

Benny and Techie Have It Out - Benny ‘Borracho’ Magalon x Reader (The Pool ‘Verse)

Nick Makes Techie Uncomfortable - Benny ‘Borracho’ Magalon x Reader The Pool ‘Verse)

Last Resort - Benny ‘Borracho’ Magalon x Reader -*18+ Only

Points of Contact - Benny ‘Borracho’ Magalon x Reader

Procedure - Benny ‘Borracho’ Magalon x Reader -*18+ Only

You Know That I’ll Be Patient - Benny ‘Borracho’ Magalon x Reader -*18+ Only

You Want Me To? - Benny ‘Borracho’ Magalon x Reader - *18+ Only

Don’t Worry Darling

Dark Victory - Frank x Reader *18+ Only

Dune

A Stalwart Gem - Duke Leto Atreides x Reader *18+ Only

Be Changed; Be Undone - Duke Leto Atreides x Reader *18+ Only

Left Behind - Gurney Halleck x Reader

The View - Duncan Idaho x Reader x Gurney Halleck *18+ Only

The Warmaster’s Wife - Gurney Halleck x Reader *18+ Only

Enola Holmes

An Absolute Mess - Sherlock Holmes x Reader

Terribly Confounding - Sherlock Holmes x Reader

When We Were Young - Sherlock Holmes x Reader

Ex Machina

A Few Nathan Bateman Thots - Nathan Bateman x Reader *18+ Only

Bateman Begins, A Nathan Bateman Batman AU - Nathan Bateman x Reader

By Definition - Nathan Bateman x Reader

Loosen Up - Nathan Bateman x Reader *18+ Only

Magnetic - Nathan Bateman x Reader *18+ Only

Nathan Bateman Buy Me This Challange - Nathan Bateman x Reader

Rubber Ducky You’re the One - Nathan Bateman x Reader *18+ Only

Soft Nathan Headcanons - Nathan Bateman x Reader

That Algo is Fuckin’ Scuffed - Nathan Bateman x Reader *18+ Only

The Logical Progression - Nathan Bateman x Reader

The Logical Epilogue - Nathan Bateman x Reader

This Didn’t Happen - Nathan Bateman x Reader 

Three Years - Nathan Bateman x Reader *18+ Only

Wired - Nathan Bateman x Reader *18+ Only

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

A Grave Life - Percival Graves x Reader

Game of Thrones

Being Pregnant with Oberyn Martell’s Child Headcanons

Take Your Time - Oberyn Martell x Reader x Ellaria Sand

The Maiden of Summerwood - Oberyn Martell x Reader x Ellaria Sand *18+ Only

The Gilded Age

Bluff - George Russell x Reader

Lessons - George Russell x Reader *18+ Only

The Crossing - George Russell x Reader

To Have Loved and Lost - George Russell x Reader

The Gentlemen

Company Man - Raymond Smith x Reader *18+ Only

Indiana Jones

Relative Dating - Indiana Jones x Reader

James Bond

All Over - James Bond x Reader *18+ Only

Enemy at the Gates - James Bond x Reader *18+ Only

Give Me a Buzz - James Bond x Reader *18+ Only

Old Dog - James Bond x Reader *18+ Only

The King’s Man

illicit - Orlando Oxford x Reader *18+ Only

Knives Out

Homestead - Benoit Blanc x Reader

Morning Paper - Benoit Blanc x Reader *18+ Only

Mad Men

Better - Don Draper x Reader *18+ Only

The Starlight Room- Don Draper x Reader

The Mandalorian

Softly - Boba Fett x Reader It’s On the Cards - Boba Fett x Reader

Mayans MC

Good Cop, Bad Cop - Crossover with Den of Thieves. Angel Reyes x Reader x Benny Borracho Magalon *18+ Only

How to Have Fun - Angel Reyes x Reader *18+ Only

Hop On - Angel Reyes x Reader

The Mentalist

His Hands - Marcus Pike x Reader *18+ Only

I’ll Be Home for Christmas - Marcus Pike x Reader

I’ve Seen This One; It’s a Tragedy - Marcus Pike x Reader

Odd Hours//Getting Even - Marcus Pike x Reader

Stress Relief - Marcus Pike x Reader *18+ Only

The Long Con - Marcus Pike x Reader

Wooed - Marcus Pike x Reader

Wound Up - Marcus Pike x Reader *18+ Only

A Most Violent Year

Headcanon: Meeting Abel Morales - Abel Morales x Reader

Intrigues - Abel Morales x Reader

Might As Well Jump - Abel Morales x Reader

Pretty Things - Abel Morales x Reader *18+ Only

Moon Knight

The First Time - Marc Specter x Reader *18+ Only

Narcos

Don’t Get Too Close (For Comfort) - Javier Peña x Reader Explicit *18+ Only

Easy - Horacio Carrillo x Reader x Javier Peña *18+ Only

Empty, As Before - Javier Peña x Reader

Enough - Javier Peña x Reader

Just You and Me - Javier Peña x Reader Explicit *18+ Only

Middlemen - Horacio Carrillo x Reader

Movement - Javier Peña x Reader

Stubble - Horacio Carrillo x Reader

What’s the Use of Wonderin’ - Javier Peña x Reader

Ocean’s 8

Oh Whiskey Please - Lou Miller x Reader (On indefinite hiatus)

Outer Range

Closing Time - Rhett Abbott x Reader

Don’t Make it Weird - Rhett Abbott x Reader  *18+ Only

Waking Up Slow - Rhett Abbott x Reader *18+ Only

Peaky Blinders

Making Arrangements - Tommy Shelby x Reader *18+ Only

Princess - Tommy Shelby x Reader *18+ Only

Power

Itsy-Bitsy//Hunger - Diego Jimenez/Reader *18 Only

Ready or Not

Wicked Game - Daniel Le Domas x Reader

Scenes From a Marriage

Holiday Traditions - Jonathan Levy x Reader

Breathe - Jonathan Levy x Reader

Exhale (Sequel to Breathe) - Jonathan Levy x Reader

Star Trek: Discovery/ Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Christopher Pike Headcanons

Chapter and ‘Verse - Christopher Pike x Reader

Grounded - Christopher Pike x Reader

I Caught One Last Sight - Christopher Pike x Reader

I’m Always Curious - Christopher Pike x Reader

I’m Right Here - Christopher Pike x Reader

Intergalactic Prince Consort Christopher Pike Thread - Christopher Pike x Reader

Let’s Get Physical - Christine Chapel x Reader

Lonely - Christopher Pike x Reader x Una Chin-Riley

String Theory - Christopher Pike x Reader

The Bodyguard - Christopher Pike x Reader

The Captain’s Woman - Christopher Pike x Reader (On Indefinite Hiatus)

Star Wars

Effective - Poe Dameron x Reader

Everyone’s Got Their Reasons - Poe Dameron x Reader (On indefinite hiatus)

Heartless - Poe Dameron x Reader

Is That My Shirt? - Poe Dameron x Reader

Neighborly - Poe Dameron x Reader

No Pressure - Poe Dameron x Reader

Stupid, Slutty Collar - Poe Dameron x Reader

The Stars - Poe Dameron x Reader

You Never Know - Poe Dameron x Reader (On indefinite hiatus)

Succession

I Can Take a Beating (Like a Good Pair of Headphones) - Kendall Roy x Reader

Long Shot - Stewy Hosseini x Reader  *18 Only

Suits

More Than Enough - Harvey Specter x Reader

Bad Faith - Harvey Specter x Reader

Supernatural

A Little Dream Of Me - Dean Winchester x Reader

Stranger Things

You Spin Me Right Round - Eddie Munson x Reader

Sex Pollen - Eddie Munson x Reader *18 Only

Teen Wolf

Trouble Finds You - Chris Argent x Female OC (On indefinite hiatus)

Top Gun: Maverick

Our Girl - Bradley Rooster Bradshaw x Reader x Jake Seresin *18+ Only

The Periphery - Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw x Reader

Princess - Jake Seresin x Reader

Row 27 - Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw x Reader

What You Do to Me - Jake Seresin x Reader *18+ Only

When Are You Gonna Come Down - Bradley 'Rooster’ Bradshaw x Reader *18+ Only

The Worst Best Man - Jake Seresin x Reader

Triple Frontier

The Balance  - Santiago Garcia x Reader x Will Miller *18+ Only

Beached - Santiago Garcia x Reader *18+ Only

Caught (Up) in the Act - Santiago Garcia x Reader 

Don’t Treat My Love Like a Habit - Santiago Garcia x Reader

Fooled Around and Fell In Love - Santiago Garcia x Reader *18+ Only

Impressions - Will Miller x Reader

Patched Up - Will Miller x Reader *18+ Only

Plans Can Change - Benny Miller x Reader

Sweets - Frankie Morales x Reader

Under Covers - Santiago Garcia x Reader *18+ Only

An Unspoken Rule - William Miller x Reader

Well You’re Not What I Was Looking For - William Miller x Reader

You Shouldn’t - Santiago Garcia x Reader *18+ Only

Benny Likes to Talk

You Got a Ring for Me, Miller?

Benny Miller Headcanons

Drift-Compatible Miller Brothers

Venom

Will You Give Me Shelter - Eddie Brock x Reader x Annie Weying (On indefinite hiatus)

The West Wing

Clean Slate - Josh Lyman x Reader

I Don’t Mind the Company - Josh Lyman x Reader *18+ Only

Nickname - Josh Lyman x Reader

1,001 Reasons Not to Move - Josh Lyman x Reader

Wonder Woman

I Cannot Weave - Antiope x Reader *18+ Only

Steam - Antiope x Reader *18+ OnlySantiago Garcia x Reader 

[tropes-and-tales]

Talk Dirty to Me

Day 1:  Dirty Talk (Benny “Borracho” Magalon x F!Reader)

(For the 2022 Kinktober event offered by @the-purity-pen​​.  The original post and calendar/list can be found here.) 

CW:  Light angst (hurt feelings); smut (dirty talk) 18+ only.

Word Count:  2990

AN:  There is a sequel here.

It starts because of a case:  a family in Beverly Hills engaged in so many different crimes that Major Case’s other work grinds to a halt.

The biggest issue is that the crime syndicate is engaged in both illegal and legal businesses.  They have an entire portfolio, and you and your fellow detectives split up the list and start parsing out what is legit and what can be used to build the case.

The team attacks it in pairs:  Big Nick and Henderson, Borracho and Z, you and Connors.

You and Connors spend the entire morning at a scrap metal place, and the two of you return to the office just as a conversation is in process.

“Never saw the point to them,” you hear Z say as you hold the door open for your partner, then follow him into the office.  “Especially now with the internet.”

“Saw the point to what?” Connors asks.  He settles in at his desk, and you take the few steps to the other side of the bullpen, off in the corner.  You settle in at your own desk and glance around at the other guys—Z has his feet up, Big Nick is perched on the corner of Borracho’s desk, and Borracho himself is tapping his ballpoint pen, taking a break from his notes.

“Phone sex line,” Henderson replies.  

“There was one on the list,” Borracho adds.  “We cleared it.  Nothing suspect there, believe it or not.”

“They still have those?” Connors asks.  “I thought, like, that was something from the ‘80’s.”

The guys go on and on, and you let their chatter wash over you.  You’re tired, sweaty, and hungry, and the scrapyard was an entire mountain of nothing.  And the guys…well, they can go on and on in these discussions for a while, and you prefer to put your head down, lest they pull you into it—the sole woman on the team, and therefore the one who speaks for all womankind…

“What do you think?” Big Nick asks, and he has to repeat the question three times—and you have to look around at your fellow detectives, watching you expectantly—to realize he’s asking you.

“What do I think about what?”

“About phone sex lines,” he clarifies.

You shake your head.  “I’ve never called one, no.”

Connors chortles at that, and Nick gets a shit-eating grin on his face before he turns back to the rest of the guys.  “So are we sure it’s legit?”

Borracho looks at his notes.  “We’re sure.  The forensic accountants cleared it.  There’s no off-the-books stuff, no weird charges.  We can pretty much match up the money to the call log—”

“And that many calls came in?” Nick asks.  “I don’t believe it.”

You don’t speak for all womankind, but you also don’t always keep your mouth shut when you should.

“You don’t believe that people are willing to pay for dirty talk?” you ask, and Big Nick swivels back around to look at you.

“You’re saying they do?”

“Obviously. If the accountants said it’s on the level…”

He waves you off, does his patented Big Nick fuck-off flap of the hand, but the other guys pounce with an absolute feral glee.

“You into that sort of thing?”

“You got a side gig we don’t know about?”

“I bet that’s why she skips our nights out together—”

“—exactly, gotta hit up the phone bank—”

“—yeah, she’s like, sorry guys, got a guy on the line who needs help masturbating—"

“—she’s probably like, ooh what are you wearing, and the guy—

You let them go on and on.  They all trade off, making fun of you, spinning out an alternate reality where you run your own 900 number.  Borracho, as usual, is quiet, but he does sit back in his chair with a smirk, his dark eyes drifting between the guys and you.

“What’s wrong with dirty talk?” you ask when there’s a break in their teasing.  

“What’s the point of it?” Z shoots back.  

“Doesn’t do anything for me,” Big Nick adds.

You roll your eyes.  They are like overgrown boys sometimes, and it continuously shocks you that Henderson is divorced, and Nick is married with kids…when they get on a roll like this, you’re reminded of what your little brother and his grubby friends were like when they were thirteen, fourteen:  big talkers, little action.

“Then I guess you’ve never heard it from an artiste,” you reply archly, and you tilt your chin up at their laughter, pretend to ignore them as you open your email and scroll through your unread messages.

“Oh, an artiste,” Connors snorts.  You flip him off, and he snorts again.

Then it turns into what these sorts of discussions always turn into:  the five of them arguing against you.  Or, rather, the four of them, while Borracho—who prefers to sit back and listen—either smirks or shakes his head or laughs.

“I honestly can’t believe you’ve never had good dirty talk,” you finally tell them.  “Really?  Not a single one of you, not even once?”

Henderson, Connors, Z…they shake their head.  Connors helpfully adds that his last girlfriend sounded like late night erotic programming on basic cable, and that it had the opposite effect of turning him on.  Big Nick, always grossly blunt, informs you that dirty talk can never be as good as a pair of tits in his face.

“Borracho?” you ask, and you put on your wheedling voice as you turn to him.  “Not you too?”

He shrugs and when he doesn’t answer right away, you wheedle more.  

“C’mon, Borracho.  Benny, seriously.  Benjamin, come on now.  Benjamin. Ben—”

“Sorry,” he breaks in.  “Never had the good stuff from an artiste, I guess.”

You flip him off too, and you turn back to your email.  Focused on your screen, you miss the way his eyes linger on you, the way they study you before turning to his own work.

*****

The crime syndicate case is on its way to trial, which means that the rest of the neglected cases need to be picked back up.

Which means overtime.

Borracho doesn’t care—overtime is overtime, and his bank account is happier for it.  He’s more tired, but it’s not like he has anyone to rush home to every night.

Besides, nights like this—when it’s both him and you at the precinct late—he almost enjoys it.  

Big Nick rarely pairs the two of you up.  Since you joined Major Crimes a year ago, you’ve only worked a single case with Borracho.  You’re usually paired up with Connors; the two of you had a brief overlap in Homicide and already knew each other, work well together.

Borracho gets a twist of jealousy when he sees the easy way you and Connors are together.  There’s nothing romantic there, he’s certain…if anything, you’re like siblings, bickering with no heat behind it, pulling stupid pranks on each other.

It’s a stupid crush, Borracho realizes, a thing that bloomed only a few months after meeting you, getting to know you a bit.  He’s been single for a while now, and his track record before speaks to his inability to find stable, normal partners. Which may explain the crush:  you tease and goof around with them, but you’re a steady presence on the team.  You work hard.  You’re diligent.  

Like tonight:  just the two of you in the office, plowing through cell phone records together.  Each of you at your desks, scrolling through the data sent from the cell phone provider, calling out to each other when one file is finished.

Boring work, but it is made slightly less tedious because you’re on the other side of the room.  A stupid crush, sure, but a nice way to run out the overtime clock with you in his sightline.

Right until you heave a massive sigh.

And then a second.

“You okay over there?” Borracho asks, and when he glances over, you’re looking right at him.  There’s a playful gleam in your eyes—he’s seen it before when you’re about to spring a trap on Connors, but he’s never had it directed at him—

“Just frustrated,” you say.

“Wanna switch files?”

“No.”  You turn your head back to your screen, and then in the most nonchalant, most level voice you have, you clarify.

“Just frustrated sexually.”

If he were drinking at the moment, he’d choke on it, sputter.  You stress the last word, but you say it so matter-of-factly that his brain takes a long moment to catch up to what his ears just heard.

“What?” he finally asks, and it comes out faint.

“It’s just tough sitting here working, when you’re over there looking so good.”  

Again, you sound so everyday, so normal.  Not an ounce of smoke in your voice, no lowering it a quarter-octave to make it sound seductive.  It’s the same voice you used earlier to put in the delivery order—large pizza, garlic knots—and Borracho’s brain can’t comprehend what he’s hearing.

“What?”

“Just sitting here thinking about what it’d be like, being fucked by you.”

He sputters at that, and it earns him a single glance from you before you turn back to your computer.  His brain churns uselessly at your words, and a hot flush courses through him…embarrassment, for the briefest moment, but then…

Then something akin to arousal.  As he stares across the room at you, as your words sink in, he can feel himself coming to attention.  He doesn’t get hard, not yet—it’s just that spark of interest, the volume and color in the room going up a degree.  Like a roller coaster clicking up that first big hill, each word out of your mouth pushing him closer and closer….

“I think about all the places, all the ways you could take me.  Bend me over your desk and split me open on your cock, or take me in the evidence room against the door.  Or maybe in the server room, when everyone else is here…it’s loud in there with the fans, but you’d still have to cover my mouth, make sure I’m quiet and not give the game away.”

“W-wait, what?”  He stammers, breathless.  He can picture it, fuck—can picture exactly how you’re describing it, you perched on the edge of the table in the server room, your ankles locked around him as he drives into you, his hand over your mouth, muffling the sounds, the guys in the other room none the wiser—

“You heard me, Borracho.”

It takes him a long, painful moment to realize what’s happening.  Weeks after the discussion about dirty talk, you’re taking your revenge against him.  It was cute, how aghast you’d been at them, how you had argued so passionately about how good dirty talk could be.  

How you had turned to him last, begged him in your playful way to back you up, to take your side…which, he hadn’t.

You prop your head in your hand, your palm cupping your chin as you scroll through the phone log.  Your eyes read your screen, back and forth, back and forth, never once darting over to look at him again.  You keep that same tone, almost bored, as you tell him some of the filthiest things he’s ever heard aloud from a woman’s mouth in regards to himself.

“I think about what your cock is like.  I bet it’s that perfect girth, just long enough to be right on the edge of too much, you know?  Bet it’s gorgeous, enough curve to hit that spot inside me, make me see stars, a vein on the underside like it’s been sculpted...”

“Jesus,” he breathes out, and when he shifts in his seat, tries to relieve how painfully he’s straining against his jeans, the motion draws your eyes back to him.  You study him again, make eye contact, and Borracho swears he doesn’t see a single hint of that mischievous look in your eyes as you watch him.

“You think it’d be too much for me?” you ask.  “Think it’d make my jaw ache to go down on you?  How much do you think I could take before I tear up? Before I gag?  I bet I’d have to use one of my hands just to take it all…”  

You trail off, clock the way he shifts again in his seat.  The logical part of his mind has shut down:  all of his blood has coursed southward, and it doesn’t help that you’re telling him what he wants to hear, that you’re painting a picture and making it so easy to imagine you on your knees in front of him, your mascara running as you struggle to swallow him—

“I should ask Nick to send us out together more,” you continue.  Still, your voice is level, ordinary.  No huskiness to it.  You shift your eyes back to your computer, continue scrolling through the phone records.

“Yeah?” He asks.  It comes out strained—enough for you to notice, enough for a little smile to tilt your lips.

“Yeah.  Imagine sitting together on a stake-out.  I’d go down on you, then we go back to the precinct afterwards—me with the taste of you in my mouth, you marked by my lipstick.  No one would even know but us.  It’d be—oh, hey!”

You interrupt your own stream of consciousness, the everyday quality of your voice turning bright as you lean closer to your computer.  

“I got something,” you say, excited now, and you point at your screen.  “Suspect called the victim on the tenth of July.  Looks like the call lasted forty minutes.  Cell tower pinged right near the crime scene too.”

Just like that, the game is dropped:  you do a dorky little fist pump at your find, you print out the log, practically skipping over to the printer and back.  You highlight the relevant lines, then tuck the pages into the file.

“I’ll shoot Nick a text to let him know we found it,” you tell Borracho, generous with saying “we found it” and not “you found it.”

Then you’re turning off your computer, standing up.  Pulling on your jacket and looping your messenger bag over your shoulder, and you look at him expectantly.

He realizes, his spirit deflated by the thought, that you’ve already moved on, forgotten your game.  That it hadn’t affected you at all….not the way it affected him.

“Ready to go?” you ask, and Borracho can’t remember the last time he’s felt so humiliated.  He fell into the fantasy you’d been weaving, and you weren’t even flustered.

“Got to check a few things,” he grunts, and he gives you a terse nod as he turns away.  Already he can feel his lust cooling, but his feelings are hurt too.  It was just a game, but it feels mean-spirited, even if the guys deal out far more shit than you ever do.  You’d only been teasing, proving a point, and it had nothing to do with him.  It could have just as easily been Henderson or Z, you talking dirty to them—

“I can wait for you,” you break in, and you settle into the chair near his desk.  He doesn’t look at you, but he can feel you watching him.

“You okay?” you ask after a beat, and he nods.  Doesn’t look at you, but you are sharp enough to guess what’s up.

“I’m sorry if I overstepped, Ben.”  It’s your use of his first name—he’s not sure he’s ever heard you call him anything but Borracho before, or at least not so seriously—that makes him look at you.  You’re staring back at him, but you’re frowning too.

“’s fine.”

You shake your head.  “No, I took it too far.  I’m sorry.”

He gives a faint smile, even though he’s still stung by the entire thing.  “You were just proving that you’re…what’d you call yourself before?  An expert?

“An artiste.”

“Yeah, well…you can tell the guys now that you were right.”

“I won’t.  I…shit, I’m sorry.  I thought I was playing around and it backfired.”

Borracho has to concede that point:  the guys do play rough all the time, tease far worse than what you’ve just done, and you usually just sit back and listen…or take it.  He’s only being short with you because of that stupid crush he has.  If you’d pulled the same thing on Henderson or Z, they would have laughed it off, or played along, or dealt it back twice as much.

“It’s fine.”

You raise your head to peer at him.  “You don’t have to say it’s fine if it isn’t.”

“It is.”

“Okay, well…”  You raise your hands in a sort of shrug, then add, “I am sorry, Ben.  Really.”

It’s the way you say his name that soothes the sting, just a little.  It still feels like a rejection, somehow, but seeing you looking at him so plaintively, so apologetically, and saying his real name and not the stupid nickname Big Nick gave him years ago…it soothes him.  A little.

“It’s fine,” he says again.  “Really.”  A beat.  “Why don’t you head out?  I have a few things to finish up.”

“You sure?”  

“Yeah, no sense in waiting.”

You watch him for a moment longer, then ask, “are we okay?”  There’s an anxious edge to your voice, and it soothes him even more—the worry apparent in your tone.

He nods at you, offers another small smile.  “We’re good.”

You nod back at him, and you stand up.  You murmur for him to have a good night and not to stay too late, and then you’re gone.  It takes Borracho longer to wrap up and leave:  with you gone, it’s easy enough to push the hurt aside and shift straight to pretending that all the things you said to him were real after all.

[tropes-and-tales]

No Give

Day 2:  Floor Sex (Benny “Borracho” Magalon x F!Reader)

(For the 2022 Kinktober event offered by @the-purity-pen​​.  The original post and calendar/list can be found here.)

CW:  Light angst (pining idiots); a technical kidnapping; smut (dirty talk; PiV, protected); 18+ only.

Word Count:  9257

AN:  A sequel to this.

Requested by anonymous!

It’s not as if you are ever especially chatty with Borracho—or he chatty with you—so no one really seems to notice when you talk to him less.  After that night when the two of you worked late together, after that moment between you went sour…you interact with him less.

Borracho just feels that same disappointment.  For the briefest moment before the illusion was shattered, he had allowed himself to fall into the fantasy of you wanting him.

For you?  He can guess that you’re embarrassed because you dodge him as much as you can.

Now, for example:  he and Connors are going out to the roof for a smoke break, but you’re already out there.  You don’t smoke, but you told them once that if they get to leave their desks ten times a day to indulge in a lung dart, then you get to leave your desk too.  Usually you go to the roof:  put your earbuds in, listen to some music while you stretch and twist until your back pops.  

You’re on the roof now, and when Connors throws the fire door open with a bang, you turn and see them.  Just like every time now—when you make eye contact with Borracho, your eyes slide away, you grimace slightly.

You take your earbuds out and shove them into your pocket, and you go to leave.

“Stay with us,” Connors says, but you edge past them, mumble something about needing to get back to work.  Your partner watches you go as he shakes out a cigarette from his pack, tamps it, then lights it.

Once you’re gone, he turns to Borracho.  “Something happen between you two?”  He exhales a stream of smoke through his nose.  

Borracho shakes his head.  “Nope.”

Connors studies him, takes another drag of his cigarette.  “She thinks you’re mad at her.”

That makes Borracho raise his eyebrows, you talking to your partner about him.  “Why’d she think that?”

“You tell me.”

Another shake of the head.  “No idea.”  A lie, but Borracho doesn’t want to reopen that evening between the two of you.  If he tells Connors, he’ll tell the other guys, they’ll make an entire thing about it, and the weird vibe between you and Borracho will only get worse.

He thinks the conversation is over; the two of them smoke in silence, watch the skyline in silence.  Connors lights a second cigarette, and he gets halfway through it before he says anything else.

“She asked after you when she first joined Major Crimes, you know.”

Another surprise, another raising of Borracho’s eyebrows.  “Yeah?”

Connors nods.  “Yeah.”  He takes a puff, blows it out.  “Told her not to bother.”

It’s even more surprising, and it makes Borracho’s stomach twist—Connors steering you away from him.

“Why?” Borracho asks.

The other man shakes his head, tosses his cigarette and grinds it out with the heel of his boot.  “Told her she’s not your type.”

Borracho tosses his own cigarette aside, and he jams his hands in his pockets to hide his clenched fists.  “What’s my type then?”

Maybe there’s some edge in his voice, because Connors glances over at him before he finally shrugs.

“I told her.  Hot and crazy, like the rest of us,” he says.  He starts to make his way towards the fire door, and he claps Borracho on the back as he passes him.

“Don’t worry about it,” he adds.  “She’s too much of a Girl Scout and anyways, she’s not looking for a hookup, you know?  Wants the husband and kids and the fucking house in the suburbs.  Not really our thing, bubba.”

Then he’s gone, and Borracho takes a long moment alone to process this new information.  He lays it against that evening all those weeks ago, sees how the new evidence changes the tenor of that moment.  

Maybe it wasn’t playing around as much as he had thought.  Once he is back at his desk, he looks over at you—your chin in your hand, staring at your computer screen—and he wills you to glance over at him.  To give him that small smile you used to give when you made eye contact before.

But you don’t look at him, and Borracho is left to mull it over all alone.

-----

There’s never a good way to broach a conversation with you, and there’s never a good time.  Big Nick still doesn’t pair you up often.

The situation resolves itself without any intervention from him.

In your entire time with Major Crimes, you’ve never joined them for one of their parties.  You obviously never sweat your drug test (Connors calling you a Girl Scout wasn’t that far from the truth), but you also never join them.

The first month after things got weird between you and Borracho, Big Nick tries to persuade you to join them.

“No,” you say flatly.

“Why not?  It’s a fun time—”

You huff in exasperation, cut him off with an unhappy grumble.  You stand up, pull your jacket on.  You sling your messenger bag over across your chest, and you glare at your boss.

“What’s fun about sitting in a hotel room while my coworkers run through bunch of sex workers?” you ask.  “I’d rather sit at home and stare at my wall.”

There’s anger in your voice, and Borracho isn’t the only one who catches it.  Henderson leans forward in his seat, and he glances over at Big Nick, catches his eye, who shrugs at your vitriol.

“We could get you some companionship,” Nick offers with a grin.  “What’s your type?”

You snort and shake your head, and you walk past him.  “Hot and crazy,” you mutter, and you’re out the door before Borracho even registers what you’ve said.

----

The second month after things got weird between you and Borracho, Big Nick pulls rank.  Tells you in no uncertain terms that you’re joining them that night for their usual party.

“Team building,” he says.  He throws an arm around your shoulders, pulls you close.  “We have to feel like we can trust you.”

“How does that build trust, exactly?”

“It just does.”

You shrug out of his hold.  “If anything, it could destroy trust.  If I’m not there to see all the shady shit you boys get up to, then I can’t be questioned if Internal Affairs ever turns their steely gaze onto us.”

Nick chuckles—his patronizing laugh.  He looks around the bullpen at the rest of the guys.

“See?  Turns their steely gaze.  That’s some funny shit.  You’re funny.  You’ll have fun.”

“I’d rather have a root canal.”

“If you need a cavity filled, we can find someone for you.”

You curl your nose at that, frown in disgust.  “Gross.”

-----

In the end, it comes down to a basic kidnapping.  Big Nick and Connors coordinate:  you and Connors go out on a bogus call late in the afternoon.  Connors drives.  After the bogus call, early evening, he drives you straight to the hotel where the party is, and there’s not much you can do, because once he ushers you into the room, Big Nick ambushes you—steals your phone, your wallet.  Locks them in the room safe and tells you that you can have them back in the morning.

Borracho is already posted up on the couch, halfway through a beer, and he smiles to see the absolute shit-fit you throw.  The way you stomp your foot like a put-upon toddler, how your voice cracks in outrage as you threaten to call 9-1-1, to call your union rep, to call the fucking state attorney general’s office.

If you’re a temperamental toddler, then Big Nick is a nonplussed parent.  He ignores your tantrum and strolls over to the mini-bar.  He pours himself a drink, then asks what you want.

“I want to leave!” you shout, and you look at each of the guys—eyes half-accusing, half-pleading.  Henderson snickers, Z shrugs and smiles.  Connors has the good sense to look down at his feet.  

When you look at Borracho, your expression shifts to something else.  There’s dread there, and maybe it’s the half a beer he’s already drank, or maybe it’s just his finely-honed detective’s intuition, but he is suddenly certain of a few things.

One, that whatever nascent interest you had in him when you first came to Major Crimes hasn’t abated, despite Connors misguided discouragement.

Two, that night with the two of you that turned weird?  You weren’t joking around.  Not completely.  Borracho is certain that you were testing the waters.

Three—and this might just be the beer talking—but Borracho is almost completely convinced that the main reason you’ve skipped these events in the past was him.

If you are interested in him, and if Connors told you that you weren’t Borracho’s type….why would you turn up at a party where Borracho would theoretically hook up with other women in front of you?  

But some of the preconceived notions you may have (these parties are raunchy, but the guys also embellish them in the retellings on Monday mornings) are resolved that night.  Henderson calls in the food order for delivery while Z fiddles with the TV, gets to the pay-per-view fight that is on that night.

And Big Nick?  He claps you on the back, hard enough to throw you off your balance.  He jerks his chin over at the couch where Borracho sits.

“Go sit with Borracho,” he tells you.  “I didn’t have time to get you any party favors, so you can stick with him.  He never bothers with the girls anyway, the pussy.”

It proves out Borracho’s third point, the way the dread drains out of your face, the scant bit of hope that seems to replace it.  The way your eyes drift over to him in interest but then look away, as if you realize you’ve revealed too much of yourself.  As if you can see Borracho figuring you out in real-time, right in front of you.

*****

You are furious.  Fuming.  

Furious at Connors, your so-called unofficial partner, who seems to have no actual loyalty to you.

Furious at Big Nick, the swaggering asshole, the coarse leader who can’t say a single sentence without a leer and a smirk.

Furious at their accomplices who sit around the hotel room:  Borracho on the couch, Z and Henderson perched in armchairs and listening to the pre-match commentary of the boxing match.  

Furious at the entire group of them.  Barely more than overgrown boys half the time, set off by innocent words that get spun into innuendos, dirty jokes.  

Of course, the galling little voice in the back of your head points out, reasonably enough, that Borracho typically abstains from that stuff, usually just sits back and shakes his head.  Though now he’s watching you with those dark eyes of his, clocking you as you cross the room to where the booze is.

He’s still mad at you, you figure.  Even after you made an offhand comment to Connors, tried to get your partner’s take on the detective you had a crush on.  An embarrassing crush, made all the more embarrassing by your awful attempt at a half-seduction during that late night months ago when you were so tired that you had the punchy, drunk feeling you sometimes got.

It’s not like you and Borracho are ever especially chatty, but you talk less now.  It’s half you being embarrassed, but half him being so…intensely brooding.  You feel his eyes on you all the time, and when you chance a look at him at work, he never has his usual small smile for you.

He’s always staring at you, his eyes narrowed a little bit, and his mouth is always turned down at the corners in a frown.  

Like now:  you glance out of the corner of your eyes and you see him.  He’s sitting forward on the couch, studying you, and you feel the back of your neck get hot from the attention.

Your feelings are too turbulent—from Connors�� betrayal, from the dread of the coming evening.  If you weren’t so all over the place, if you were your typical cool-headed self, you’d be able to make an educated guess about Borracho:  those dark narrowed eyes, the slight frown.  It’s not anger at all.

It’s the exact same face he makes when he’s figured something out, or is close to it.  If you were just a shade calmer, you’d realize—that night months ago, you became a puzzle to Borracho, and in the past few months, he’s been steadily solving you.

*****

He watches you for a while.

The other guys seem to forget you.  They order food.  They wait for the girls to turn up.  Nick lays out some party favors—coke, weed, decent cigars, condoms.  The commentators on the TV hype up the boxing match to come.

The food arrives.  The girls arrive.  One, a leggy brunette, sits down beside Borracho, and he murmurs a greeting but then he launches himself out of his seat and over to you.

You’ve been standing at the minibar the whole time, studying the bottles one by one.  Connors jokingly calls you a Girl Scout, but it isn’t far from the truth.  In the rare occasion you join them at a bar, you always nurse one mixed drink the entire night, taking painfully small sips until it’s watered down from the melted ice.  

“Need help?” he asks, and it startles you.  You glance at him, then look away, that same guilty expression on your face.

“I’m okay.”

“You been standing here for like half an hour.”

You turn and look at the room behind you, duck your head.  “Nowhere to sit,” you mumble.

“Get a drink, then sort out the seating.”

You mumble something he can’t make out, and he watches as you reach out.  Start to pick up the bottle of whiskey, put it down.  Reach for the gin, falter.  Your hand drops by your side, and Borracho swears he can feel you wilting right beside him, deflating like a balloon.

“Here.”  He reaches past you, snags the bottle of tequila, snags a can of lemon-lime soda.  He mixes you a drink, weak on the alcohol, just enough for a taste.  

When he hands it to you, you glance at him again.  This time, it is paired with a smile—tentative, shaky at the corners.  Ready to fall in an instant, but it’s something.

“C’mon,” he says.  He wants to put his hand on you, on your lower back or between your shoulder blades.  He wants to touch you, just a tame touch, but it’s too early in the evening and you’re skittish.  He hasn’t had a chance to talk to you yet, and he has to play the evening with a deft touch.  With finesse.  Which is why he’s been nursing his own alcohol situation, pacing himself with just beer.

He jerks his head at you, motions for you to follow him.  Back at the couch, he tells the brunette to move over, to make room, and then he settles at one end.  He pats the cushion beside him, putting you between him and her.

You hesitate for a beat, but you sit.  You sit beside him, and it’s the closest he’s ever been to you.  Closer than at the precinct, closer than the times you’ve been in the same car.  Close enough that if he moves a fraction to his left, he’ll brush his arm against yours, touch his knee to yours.

“It’s never as bad as we make it sound,” he tells you.  He takes a sip of his beer and watches as you sip your own drink.

“So not an orgy?” you ask, a wry edge to your voice.

He snorts.  “I can’t speak for what goes on in the bedrooms, but out here in the common area?  Nah.”

“What goes on out here then?” you ask, and yes….he can hear it in your voice, the joking lilt you usually have.  He bites back a smile to hear it.

“Well, we wait for the food, then we eat.  We laugh at Nick’s stupid jokes, watch the boxing match, have some more drinks.  Easy enough.”

“Easy enough,” you echo.

-----

These parties are never an orgy, but they also are fairly explicit.

Nick has no moderation:  he eats a lot, does most of the blow, then takes two women (one of them the brunette) into one of the bedrooms before the boxing match even starts.  Borracho doesn’t need to look at you to see how uncomfortable you are—the walls aren’t soundproof, after all—so he snags the remote and hits the volume until Nick’s coked-out threesome is mostly drowned out.

Zapata, as usual, mainlines tequila and Coronas, takes another girl into the other bedroom, though all anyone hears after five minutes is his snoring, which sounds like a rusty chainsaw and will lead to the usual Monday morning jokes about bringing a CPAP machine to these events instead of drugs.

Henderson takes an edible, eats too many of the wings, then taps out halfway through the evening.  He’s got a handful of girls on rotation since his divorce, and he scrolls through his phone, texting them until one bites.  Then he orders a car and is out the door without a backwards glance.

It leaves you and Borracho and Connors, and two of Nick’s hired women.  One of the hired girls makes a remark that the group is mismatched now, unless someone wants odd-numbered fun.  Borracho can practically read your mind:  you’re thinking you’re the odd one out, and you look pointedly at your partner before you say you’d be willing to leave if you just had your wallet or phone.  Your voice is laced with disdain, and Connors rolls his eyes at you.

“Can’t,” he replies.  “Nick set the code for the safe.  But if you want to go in there—” Here, he jerks his head in the direction of the bedroom where Nick is “—be my guest.  Sounds like they are done.  Might get an eyeful of something you can’t unsee, though.”

“Fuck you.”

Connors only sighs and stands up, stretches.  “No thanks.”  He looks at everyone left in the room—you and Borracho, the two women.

“I’m up for some odd-numbered fun, if you think you and Borracho can play nice without me here to babysit you,” he tells you.

“There’re no beds left,” you point out.  “And if you think I’m going to sit here—”

Connors holds up his palm, silences you.  “Calm down.  Big Nick always books a second room.”  

The two women stand up, expectant, while Connors rifles around on the coffee table for the spare room key.  When he finds it, the three of them turn to leave, and Connors pauses.  Turns back to you and Borracho, and his eyes are bright with interest.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” he says, and then they are gone—out the door, down the hallway, for some odd-numbered fun.

-----

This is what Benny’s been waiting for.

For months now, since that night and since Connors’ intel, he has wanted a chance to be alone with you.  To talk to you, possibly, but to see how you’d act.  To see what you might say.  What you might offer up to him, unbidden.

“This was stupid,” you finally say after long moments have passed.  You’re facing the television, though the boxing match was over almost as soon as it started, three entire punches with the third being a knock-out.  An overhyped, overpriced match that no one really watched anyway.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”  You scoff, full of disdain.  “Nick sold it as some trust-building, team-building thing, and it was just eating take-out together before everyone split off to go fuck.”  You glance at him and shrug apologetically.  “Sorry you got stuck with babysitting duties.”

Benny is three beers into the night (far less than usual—his nickname isn’t completely off-base), so the careless way you say fuck feels like an opening to him.  

“I wasn’t babysitting you.”  A beat, and he takes a sip of beer.  “You think Connors is gonna dirty-talk those two?”

You snort, say, “I doubt…” and then it dawns on you and you add weakly, “oh, ha ha.”

“We have a second key to that extra room.  Want to go in there and give him some pointers, artiste?”

“I knew you were still pissed at me.”

Another sip of beer.  “Yup.”

You slump a bit on the couch.  If you had any way of escape, Benny knows you’d take it:  snatch up your wallet and phone, out the door in a flash.  But you’re his captive audience and have nowhere to go.

“That’s not why I’m pissed at you, though,” he adds, glances at you out of the corner of his eye.

“Ugh, what else did I do?”

“You got questions about me, you ask me.  Not Connors.”

“I only wanted to see if you were still mad.  I felt so bad, Ben, honestly—"

“Nah, not that.”  He waves you off.  “I’m not mad about that.  I mean, when you started at Major Crimes.  You asked Connors about me then.”

You’re quiet for a moment, clearly casting back in your memory.  Then you say, “oh.”

“Because Connors is a fucking moron.”

You don’t say anything, but you huff out a breath that could be a laugh.

“And because he doesn’t speak for me.  Got it?”

You nod and reply, “okay.”

“If you have questions about me, ask me.”

“Got it.  Okay.”

You don’t sit up, though, and Benny can still feel the tension and humiliation radiating off of you.  Your eyes are fixed somewhere on the carpet in front of you, and he can see the frown on your lips.

“So ask me,” he prods, gently.

“Ask you what?”

“Ask me the question you asked Connors when you first started.”

“I don’t remember—”

“Bullshit,” he says, cutting you off.  “You remember.”

You sigh.  “I think it went, ‘hey Murph, what’s the deal with Magalon?’”

“And what’d he say?”

“He told me I was wasting my time.  Not to bother.”

Benny clucks his tongue in mock-disappointment, and he twists in his seat until he’s facing you.  He reaches out a hand and cups your chin, lifts your head gently and turns it until you’re facing him.  Still, your eyes stay downcast until he tells you to look at him.  When you finally do, he adds, softly, “and that’s why I’m pissed at you.  If you’d asked me back then, I would have told you the truth.”

You breathe out, “which is?”

“That it wouldn’t be a waste of your time.”

The corner of your mouth twitches into a ghost of a smile.  “Really?”

“Really.”

“Even if I’m not hot and crazy?”

“Hot and sane is better anyway.”

“Interesting that you think I’m sane.”

“Maybe just crazy enough,” he amends.  “Like, not crazy enough to slash my tires, but crazy enough to dirty-talk me while digging into phone records.”

The ghost of a smile falls, and you wince against his hold.  “I’m sorry, Ben—”

“Shhh.”  He shifts his hand, lays his thumb over your mouth.  He has to bite back the bolt of desire that runs through him—all this time, never touching you beyond incidental stuff at work.  Now he’s here:  his knee pressed against the side of your thigh, his hand cupping your warm face, his thumb touching your soft lips.

“I was only pissed that night because I liked it,” he confesses quietly.  You stare back at him, unblinking, but your eyes narrow a fraction, studying him.  Weighing the truth of his words.

“Liked hearing you say those things,” he adds.  “Thought you were just teasing me, though.”

He can see the moment his words sink in, and he can see the moment you believe them.  Your eyes go darker, just a shade, and they flit down to his own mouth for a split second before they return to meet his gaze.  

“I’m still pissed at you,” he adds.  “But I think…if you told me more, I could forgive you.”

In his mind, the rest of the night goes like this:  he removes his hand from your mouth, you turn that dirty talk of yours onto him, and then you make out, possibly more.

But the moment he offers forgiveness for a price, your eyes go even darker.  You part your lips underneath his thumb, then pull back a fraction, slip it into your mouth.  You bite down on him lightly, the even edge of your teeth against his knuckle, but your eyes never leave his.  Never blink once.  

It’s the warmth of your mouth, warm and wet, as you engulf his thumb.  You suck against him lightly, and the comparison is obvious, the other parts of him he could slip in your mouth.  Then your tongue flicks out, quick as a snake, against the tip of his thumb before you release him.

“You asshole.  You let me twist in the wind for months,” you say, but you’re smiling at him, dark-eyed, lips parted. “Fuck you, Magalon.”

“Shit, that’s the plan—” he starts to breathe out, but you’re already on him, your hands on his face, hauling his mouth to yours.  Hot and crazy, hot and sane, former Girl Scout or whatever….he’s never been kissed like this in his entire life, never felt so much want in a kiss.  It’s a hundred things at once:  needy and hot and gasping, the way you nip at his lower lip, the way you press your tongue against his, invading his mouth, tasting like lemon-lime soda and faintly of tequila.  

But it’s sweet too.  You somehow manage to make the moment sweet, and Benny can’t remember the last time he’s had a moment tinged with such sweetness.  Your mouth is hot and insistent, but one hand cups his face, and you run the pad of your thumb over his stubbled cheekbone.  The other is on the back of his head.  You run your fingertips through his hair gently, and it makes him break out in goosebumps, the strange intimacy of the gesture set against the urgency of the kiss.  He pulls you onto his lap, you straddling him, your weight welcome on him.

He has to break away, catch his breath.  His head spins, and even though he’s not had enough beer to be drunk, he has that light-headed, light-bodied feeling.  He presses his forehead against yours as he catches his breath, but he murmurs against your mouth, “tell me,” and you understand what he wants.

“I’ve thought about this a lot,” you murmur back, and this time, your voice is low and quiet.  There’s a quality of seduction that wasn’t there before, all those months ago.  “Thought about you a lot.  Fantasized about you.”

“Yeah?”

You kiss him again, more lingering this time.  When you break away, you say, “yeah.”

You shift, kiss the corner of his mouth.  Kiss his stubbled cheek.  The hinge of his jaw, and here, you nip at him lightly.  

“I told you about the work fantasies,” you whisper in his ear, and you nip at him again before you add, “had a few fantasies around these get-togethers too.”

Benny shifts his hands from where they are resting against your waist, reach around to cup your ass, kneading at the soft curves of you.  “Tell me.”

“I always got jealous,” you admit, and your voice loses its husky quality for a moment, goes painfully straightforward.  “Always sat home alone, torturing myself, thinking about you hooking up with one of Nick’s hired girls—”

“Not my thing,” he breaks in.  He gazes at you, nods encouragingly.  “I’m no Boy Scout—” (here, he smiles a little at his own inside joke) “—but this is more Nick’s deal than mine.”

“I know.”  A beat, a returning smile.  “I mean, I know now.  But I was jealous before.”

“So how’d your fantasy go?”

You dip your head again, resume the path you’d been kissing across him.  He feels your lips skate over his neck, against his pulse point.  Another nip, and this time you suck a mark against him, and he’d go feral at it…but again, you tinge the moment with sweetness, soothe the sting with a gentler kiss.  Not even enough to leave a mark, but you soothe it anyway.

“Imagined you leaving one of these parties and coming to my place.”  Your lips ghost over him—his throat, the other side of his neck, the notch at the base of his throat where his collar ends.  “Imagined opening my door to you, and you not even letting me get a word out before you were on me—”

“Should have told me.  I would have come over—”

“Imagined those big hands of yours tearing me out of my clothes—”

“—shit—”

“Imagined not making it to the bedroom, not even to the couch.  Imagined you taking me against the door, and I’d already be ready for you, already wet because I’d been thinking about you all night, thinking about being split open by—”

“Shit,” he repeats, and he cuts you off with a kiss, swallows down the rest of your words.  He’s already hard, straining painfully against his jeans, and you must feel it because you do a little move in his lap, you roll your hips until you’re grinding against him, and now there’s no sweetness to stop him from going feral.

Benny gets his hands under your ass, manages to hoist you off of his lap while he turns you.  Tosses you down along the length of the couch, and he follows you down, stretches over top of you.  You each move, adjust yourselves until you fit together just so:  one of your legs hanging off the edge, foot planted on the floor.  The other bent at the knee, bracketing his hip.  Benny between your legs, bracing himself on one forearm laid alongside your head, and the kissing is desperate again.

More desperate, maybe, because you’ve both clearly wanted each other for longer than you each realized.  

And more desperate because you’ve realized it here, in the dregs of another lackluster team party—Henderson gone, Connors in a room somewhere else in the hotel, but Z and Nick in the two bedrooms on either side of you.  It’s not ideal, but maybe it’s a little hot, having to be quiet, trying not to get caught but too far gone in each other to care much if you do.  

And the two of you are quiet, or as quiet as you can be.  Benny knows he’s biting back his own groans.  He can’t lose himself in the moment as he might if it were completely private, can’t sweet talk you beyond the murmured words he offers.

But as quiet as the two of you try to be, the couch is the loudest.  He’s on top you, rolling his hips against you, grinding against you and drawing the sweetest little whines from you each time, but each roll of his hips pulls a loud squeal of protest from some rusted spring deep in the innards of the couch.

Squeak.  Squeak.

You hear it; after a handful of thrusts with their accompanying squeaks, you break the kiss and giggle.  Benny smiles down at you, but then he thrusts against you again, pulls another squeak from the couch.  It’s a comical sound.  It’s the sound someone would make if they were imitating a squeaky bed, if they were doing a funny imitation of people having sex on a loud bed.

“It’s so loud,” you whisper underneath him.

“It’s fine,” he replies, but he’s not sure.  Z is a heavy sleeper and will stay in a coma until morning.  But Nick did a shit-ton of coke, so who knows what sound might pull him out of his sleep?

“You want to get out of here?” he asks after a moment, but you shake your head.  

“I don’t have my phone or wallet.  My bag and keys are back at the precinct—”

“We could go to my place.”

You’re considering it.  He can see you weighing that option against staying, and after a beat, you ask, “where do you live again?”

He lives about fifteen miles away, which in L.A….on a Friday night…you’d get there on Saturday afternoon.

“C’mon,” he says.  He kisses you, groans into it when he tries to break away and when you stop him, laying a hand on the back of his neck and holding him there.  You release him after a moment, and when he opens his eyes, he catches the way you smile at him.

Benny climbs off you (the couch gives another loud squeak, for good measure), and he holds out a hand to help you sit up.  If he were thinking clearly, he’d realize that there are at least ten better ways to resolve the issue—sit in the chair, call down to the front desk and snag another room—but he’s not thinking clearly.  All of his higher thinking has collapsed down to baser needs…mainly, the way it felt to kiss you, to grind against you.

If he were thinking more clearly, he’d note that a hotel carpet probably is filthy, and it’d be better to chance waking Nick up.  But he’s not thinking clearly at all, so he lies down on the floor, tugs you towards him, and you must not be thinking clearly either because you join him, straddle him, lean down and kiss him again.

Now you’re the one grinding against him, and there’s no squeaking, but there’s also no give.  No mattress, no cushioning to absorb any of the motion, and he has to huff out a heavy breath, tell you to stop for a second.  What a fucking disappointment that’d be, him coming in his jeans like some horny teenager.

“Slow down,” he pants underneath you.  He tugs the hem of your shirt from under your jeans, unbuttons it so it falls open and gives him a view of your cleavage.  He pushes the sides away, pushes it off of your shoulders, and you help him toss it aside.

The bra you’re wearing isn’t explicitly sexy—when you dressed that morning, you probably hadn’t figured this party into your lingerie selection.  It’s just a plain cotton one, light pink, but there’s a little embroidered flower right in the center, over your sternum, and something about it makes his heart twist.

You take his hands in yours, put them on your breasts.  You push against his hold, and it doesn’t help his situation, how he needs to calm a little.  He can feel your nipples through the cotton.  He can feel how they pebble as the slightest bit of pressure from him, how sensitive they must be.

A moment of clearer thought:  he should have taken the effort to get you someplace quieter, more private.  He wants to strip you in a bed, take his time to learn these things about you.

You reach down and fumble with his jeans.  You get the button undone, get the zipper down, and then your hand is on him.  The clearer thought leaves his head, and his universe is centered on all the sensation.  You palming him through his boxers, your breasts in his hands.  The weight of you against his thighs.

And yeah, it goes to his head, the way your eyes widen when you touch him, then the way your lips tilt into a smirk.  

“Shit, Benny,” you whisper.  “I knew you had a perfect cock.”

It’s dirty talk, sure.  It’s filthy words falling out of your mouth, but somehow it’s sweet too, in a way.  

It’s dirty talk but it’s talking him up, boosting his ego, and while Benny doesn’t exactly suffer from low self-esteem, he also has the usual insecurities in bed.  He’s had a fair amount of bad hookups, a few girlfriends who’ve been meaner than necessary, who’ve mocked his performance as mediocre.  And here you are:  smiling down at him in the dim light, stroking him through the cotton of his boxers, talking him up and making him feel like he could conquer the world.

“Can I?” you ask, and he’s not sure what you’re asking, but he nods his head and swallows thickly.  

You release him, twist your hand to reach under his waistband, and then he feels your warm hand, soft, on him.  He chokes out a groan, has to bite back against the sound.  You only grip him lightly, but then you are shifting, moving off of his thighs, working your way down him.  

The look you shoot him is pure sin, and he’d love nothing more than to let you wrap your lips around his cock, but he knows he won’t last.  He needs a condom to help desensitize him, and he’d rather look up at you riding him than down at you swallowing him, at least this time.

This time.  That thought bounces against the inside of his skull, the little licking flame of hope that this isn’t a one-time thing.

“Fuck, sweetheart,” he breathes out.  He reaches down, covers himself with his hand, and when you still and give him a confused look, he reaches out to cup your face.

“Not this time,” he explains.  “Some other time.”

You arch an eyebrow at him, but you don’t remark at the some other time.  Instead you ask, “condom?”

Nick always supplies those too along with the drugs and booze and girls, says that the last thing the department needs is three or four detectives coming down with clap all at the same time.  Benny taps you lightly on your shoulder and you clamor off of him.  He sits up, kneels, shuffles over to the coffee table where the little pile of condoms sits, and he tears one off.  He can hear you behind him, the quiet rustle as you shuck your jeans.  When he turns around, you’re undressed, so he takes a moment to strip too.

It takes him another moment to roll the condom onto himself, but it’s a struggle:  even in the dim light of the common area, there’s plenty of light to see you by.  There’s a moment of self-doubt that crosses your mind, he can see:  your face takes on an uncertain cast, and you wrap your arm around your middle.

You’ve talked him up so well.  Benny does the same for you.

“Look at you, sweetheart,” he murmurs, his voice low as he shuffles back over to you.  He reaches down and gently unwinds your arm from your middle, places it on his own shoulder.  “Fucking gorgeous.”

You duck your head at his words, and he dips his head to kiss you.  Waits for your unease to fade, then breaks away and presses his forehead against yours.  Waits for you to open your eyes and look at him.

“Don’t you dare hide from me now,” he says.  “Want you to ride me.  Want to be able to see you when you fuck me.”

You smile, then lean in and kiss him back.  “You dirty talking me now, Magalon?”

“You like it?”

Your smile widens.  “It’s not bad for a beginner.”

He shifts his head, puts his mouth right against your ear so you can hear his words.  

“Want to see you riding me,” he whispers.  “Want to see these perfect tits bouncing as you ride my dick.  Want to see where I’m splitting you open, want to see how wet you get my dick as you—”

“Jesus, Benny—”

“Love it when you say my name like that, sweetheart,” he says, and he does—you usually only call him some variation of his first name in a joking way, calling him Benjamin when you are wheedling him or chastising him at work.  Hearing you say Benny, especially is such a wrecked whisper, harsh in your throat, makes him feel at least three things at once:  his dick twitching at his name, his brain catching his name and turning it over and over.  

And a curious little clench in his chest, almost like indigestion.

“Wanna make you say my name over and over,” he adds, and you dig your fingertips into the meat of his shoulders as his words sink into you  “Think you can be quiet enough, sweetheart?”

You nod against him, your hair tickling his face, the faint scent of your shampoo ticking past his nose.

“Think I might want you to scream it though.  Let all these assholes know how good—”

“Fuck, Benny, shut up.”  You move lightning-fast, whip your head around to kiss him hard, silencing his words.  You slide one hand to the back of his head, gripping his hair almost to the point of pain.  He fumbles at you in turn, manages to steady himself with one arm but gets the other hand on one of your breasts, and you keen at the touch, push against him.

It’s hot how feral you get at his words, and he knows that later, when you are calmer, you’ll give him hell, make him say you were right about dirty talk and it’s power.  He can hardly care at the moment, though, when you’re pushing him onto his back, when you’re straddling him.  The desperate way you reach for him and how you push into his own grasping hands.  

The adorable way you keep whispering, harsh, if this is okay, if he really wants this, can you—

“Shit, yes,” he whispers back.  “Yes, baby, fucking take me already—”

But you don’t.  Not quite yet.  You straddle him, and he can feel the heat of you, but you only slide against him, slicking his cock with your arousal, coating him to make it easier to take him.  You repeat the motion over and over, and he can feel the tip of him bumping against your clit.  When it does, you bite your lip hard, the softness catching against your teeth, and he knows you’re holding back and trying to be quiet.

On one pass, though, he catches at your entrance, slips in just a little.  You gaze down at him and repeat the same question you’d asked him.

“Do you really want this, Benny?”

He does.  He absolutely does.  

He reaches up with a gentle hand and runs his thumb over your ragged lower lip that you’ve been biting.  He cups your face, holds you steady and waits for you to really look at him.

“I really want this, sweetheart.  Want you.”

It’s a filthy moment:  fucking on a filthy hotel room floor while two coworkers sleep nearby, but the smile you gift him when he says he wants you—not this moment, but you—tips the entire thing into that sweet territory.

Benny’s not quite sure if he’s ever had both at the same time:  filth and sweetness.  He wasn’t even sure it was possible before now.  He’s fucked plenty of women senseless, but without an ounce of tenderness.  He’s also had girlfriends who were sweet but had no passion, no fire.  

Funny that he may have found both with you.  The former Girl Scout who rarely even drinks; the woman who says the dirtiest words and is game to fuck him on the floor of a hotel room.

He reaches down and grasps himself.  He holds himself steady so that you can mount him.  You do, and his entire universe collapses onto the feeling of you sliding onto him, a slow, steady movement until his hips are flush against your splayed thighs and every blessed inch of him is buried in your heavenly cunt.

“Look at you,” he breathes out, and he watches your face—your eyes are closed, but your lips are pressed together in a thin line.  Pained?  He doesn’t think so.  He thinks you’re biting back the same groan he is, trying to be quiet, trying to not give the game away.

Then you start to ride him, just a little at first.  Slow movements:  lifting off of him halfway, sinking back onto him.  He puts his hands on your hips but doesn’t hurry you along; he just kneads at your soft curves as you fuck him at a leisurely pace.

You move faster, spurred on by what you’re feeling.  Which…Benny can feel some of it through the condom:  the way you twitch against him, the easy way he slides through you as you get wetter.  You move faster and harder—you rise up until only the tip of him is in you, then you sink down, bouncing at a proper pace, and it’s like he willed this vision in front of him into existence with his words:  you riding him, your tits bouncing, his slicked-up cock disappearing into you.

“Not gonna last long,” he grits out.  “What d’you need?”

“Just touch me,” you pant out, and so he does.  He puts one hand on your breasts, alternating between the two, palming them, testing the sweet heft of them, swiping his calloused thumb along your diamond-hard nipples.  

Then the other hand lower, between your legs where your grasping heat is joined to him.  You’ve made a mess of him (or him of you, depending on one’s perspective):  your arousal slicks up your inner thighs, coats him, pools against his groin and lower belly.  He regrets it again for the briefest second:  he should have done this somewhere more private, where he could have lapped it up or been more tender—cleaned you up afterwards, then coaxed you gently into an encore.

He presses his thumb to the place where he disappears inside you, and your smooth motion stutters at his touch.  You sink down onto him and then still, and you watch him through narrowed eyes as he runs his thumb along that edge.  Where you and he are joined, the blurring point where he ends and you begin, or where you end and he begins.

Something unspoken passes between the two of you then.  You stare at him, and when he manages to tear his eyes away from where you’re nestled in his lap, he locks eyes with you.  No words, no nodding or shaking of your heads.  It’s telepathic, and Benny feels that same curious clench in his chest.

He knows he’s never had this before.  Never had a moment where he was so in sync with a lover; always had to pant out instructions (more, harder) or beg for direction (what do you want, baby?).

Because you stop riding him, and it’s exactly what he wants.  He wants to feel you against every inch of his cock when you come, and you sense it…so you stop riding him, and you set a rocking sort of grinding against him.  You lay one hand low on his stomach but reach the other around to grip the meat of his thigh, and you grind against him.  There’s no fucking give to a hotel room floor either, so you get every single bit of him, as deep as he can go.

There’s no bounce to your tits anymore, and your breathless panting has slowed, but you’re looking right into his eyes, and it’s been months of you avoiding him, months of you ducking away, refusing to meet his gaze.

“Touch me higher, Benny.”  It comes out a whisper.  A whine.  “Just a little higher.”

“Show me.”

You move your hand from where it rests on his belly and take his hand in yours, drawing it up just a bit until you’re both touching your clit, swollen and slippery.  You start to pull away, but he grasps your hand and stills it.

“Show me,” he repeats.  “Show me how you touch yourself when you think about me.”

You do.  The tip of your forefinger and then the pad of his thumb chasing right after it, you both circle your clit, and it has an instantaneous effect—Benny can feel how it hurries you along to your pleasure.  Your breathing gets a harsh edge to it, a hint of groaning, and he can feel you tightening, twitching along his length.

“Like this?” he growls.  “This how you touch yourself?”

“Yes.”  It’s punched-out, breathless.  

“Gonna come for me?”

“…yes.”

“Let me see it.”  He bends his legs and braces his feet on the floor, drives up in to your slow grinding, and it looses a sharp moan from you.  “Let me see you come, gorgeous.”

You do, a beat later, and thank fucking god for it.  Benny’s been so damned close.  He’s hanging on by a thread, but when you come—biting your lower lip, a choked off moan in your throat, and your heavenly pussy rippling along him, trying to pull him deeper—he manages to hold off another moment.  Manages to pull a second, weaker one from you before he feels his own coiling pleasure snap.

*****

Part of you is horrified by your behavior, and a cynical, self-doubting part wonders at first if this was some elaborate revenge on Benny’s part.  That he was that mad about that night months ago, that he’d set you up…but deep down, you know he’s not like that.  That your doubt speaks more to your disastrous past relationships and not him.

That deep down certainty proves to be right:  immediately afterwards, he is his usual Benny Magalon self.  He’s quiet, but solicitous.  Helps you dismount, helps you gather up your wayward clothing.  He points you quietly in the direction of the bathroom so you can clean up.

And after that, he gives you the couch.  It’s not wide enough for two, and the two of you argue over it, hissing at each other in the darkness.  You’re younger by a bit, able to sleep anywhere, but he scoffs and says not to worry about him.  He hesitates a beat, then brushes a kiss against your mouth that feels almost…shy.

“Take the couch, sweetheart,” he whispers.  “Please.”

So you do, and he settles on the floor alongside the couch.  As you’re nodding off—your head spinning, a faint, pleasant ache between your thighs—you hear him rustling around and then feel it.  

He covers you with his jacket, and you bite the inside of your cheek to stop your smile.  It’s the last thing you remember before morning.

-----

It should be easy to escape with the guys none the wiser.  In retrospect, you think you and Benny were quiet enough, certainly quieter than you normally would have been…and neither of you left any visible marks.  The heavy fug of last night’s cigar smoke masks any smells, and the thought makes your face heat up.

Benny is already awake when you wake up, and you wince when you see him twisting, hear the quiet pop of something in his back.  He catches you watching him and gifts you one of his smiles—he’s one of those guys, the type to play the quiet and mysterious thing and rarely smiles too broadly.  

You feel queasy.  In the harsh light of morning, things feel far less certain then they did last night, and embarrassment flares up from the things you said and things you did in the dark with him.  A million questions float to the surface of your mind:  will things be weird with him from now on?  Will you be able to work with him?  

Does he want more or was this a hook-up, a one-time thing?

Will you be able to hide it from the guys?

To the last question, it doesn’t take long for an answer.  Connors rolls back into the room shortly after you wake up, and that brief bit of scrutiny he offered before he left last night is still there.  He glances between you and Benny, studies each of you closely.

“Good night?” he finally asks.  He looks right at you, the bastard.  He knows your poker face is flimsy.

“Terrible.  I slept like shit on this couch.”

“Hmm.”  He turns his gaze to Benny.  “What about you, Borracho?”

“Same.  Floor’s hard.”

Connors hums again, and he looks between the two of you.  He shrugs, then walks over to the safe.  He punches in a number and opens it, and he hands you your wallet and phone.

You glare at him.  “Asshole.  You knew the code?”

He shrugs and doesn’t even bother to look contrite.  “It’s Big Nick.  Safe to guess that it was 1-2-3-4.”  A beat, another studious look at you.  “You didn’t have any fun at all?  Not even a little?”

“Nope.”

“Too bad.”  He glances back over at Borracho, then let’s his eyes fall on the mess on the coffee table.  The few grains of coke that are left, the half-empty packets of weed gummies.  The scatter of condoms.

“Nick can line up anything you want next time,” he offers.  “But if you’re gonna get freaky, bring your own protection.  He likes to poke holes in the condoms.  Calls it a fun version of Russian Roulette.”

It’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard…but you’ll think that later.  You’ll kick yourself at falling into such a dumb trap, and you’ll feel especially embarrassed to have been caught out by Connors.

When his words sink in, you feel that queasiness in your stomach double, and you whip your head around to look at Benny, wide-eyed in fear.  You aren’t on any sort of birth control, and fuck’s sake, you don’t even know if he’s clean—

The look on his face isn’t horror, like yours.  The look on his face is a rueful smile, a shake of his head, and then he drops his head to hide his laughter from you, though you can see his shoulders shaking—

“I fucking knew it!” Connors yells.  “I fucking called it!”

He takes the two steps over to Borracho, claps him hard on the back, tells him congratulations…then he comes over to you, does the same.  

“Knew you had it in you, champ,” he tells you.  “Great work.”

“Shut up,” you reply weakly.

“Nope.  Tell me I’m a great detective.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Tell me I’m the best at interrogation.  C’mon, I walked you right into that—”

You feel a hand on your arm, and Benny steers you away.  “Fuck off, Connors.”  There’s no heat to his words; you can hear the smile in his voice, and it makes the queasiness ease up a bit.  If the two of you are found out, he doesn’t seem to be mad…

“I’ll take you back to the precinct to get the rest of your stuff,” he murmurs near your ear.

“Okay…”

He gets you out the door and into the elevator without another word.  The two of you walk into the hotel garage without a word either, but in his truck, before he turns the ignition, he hesitates and glances over at you.

“Kinda hungry.  You up for breakfast?” he asks.

You look at him and see the half-hopeful look on his face.  You offer him a smile and ask, “you buying?”

He smiles back.  “Sure am.  Least I can do, because you’re gonna hear it from the guys for months.”

[tropes-and-tales]

Underwater

Day 10:  Drunk sex (Benny “Borracho” Magalon x F!Reader)

(For the 2022 Kinktober event offered by @the-purity-pen​​.  The original post and calendar/list can be found here.  Literally a month late because I had other things I needed to do.)

CW:  Intentional run-on sentences; impairment (alcohol, marijuana); heavy angst; (impaired sex, so non-con territory; PiV, protected) 18+ only.

Word Count:  1885

AN:  A sequel to this.

AN2:  Seriously, heavy angst.  You’re gonna hate it.

No one would ever accuse the employees of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department of being ethical, upstanding law enforcement officers.  There was a story in the news every other day that proved out the opposite of that.

Certainly no one would ever accuse Big Nick and his team of detectives from Major Crimes as being moral.

If one laid out the guys at Major Crimes, they would fall along a sort of dirtbag spectrum.  At one end is Big Nick:  a habitual liar and cheater.  The man who caught a case of scorching chlamydia and had to tap dance around his wife until it was cleared.  The man who routinely bucks police policies like chain of custody.  The man who fucks witnesses, who strides through crime scenes, who makes bad choices every single day.

At the other end is Benny.  He’s certainly a better man than Nick.  He’s never cheated on one of his girls, you included.

But he does lie.  He did lie to you, both explicitly and through omission.  And you broke up with him without a second thought; too hurt from past boyfriends cheating on you, and too hurt when you thought Benny had cheated on you too.

Benny is at the milder end of the spectrum, but he’s no saint.  He’s a liar.

And he doesn’t always accept ‘no’ as an answer.  Like when you tell him not to call you, with the implicit, larger order:  stay the fuck away from me, Benny.

He doesn’t consider it stalking.  Stalking, in his estimation, has bad intentions.  Stalking has a sinister end-game.  

No, what he is doing is checking up on you.  Making sure you’re okay.  Watching you from a distance, keeping you safe from afar.  He checks your social media obsessively but you’ve gone silent there, so he spends much of his free time staking you out.

It hurts him every time he catches sight of you.  As you go into your apartment, as you go for your jog each morning.  For the first month, you look so utterly worn down.  Your shoulders slump as if the weight of the breakup is crushing you, and maybe it is.  You had been so reluctant to let Benny in, had been so hurt in the past that it had been a terrifying thing for you.

And the moment you had started to let your walls down, that stupid mistake of a voicemail happened.  That recording at one of the guys’ hotel parties—just enough for you to get the wrong idea, but the salient fact remained:  Benny had lied to you.  Over and over.

For the first month, Benny can see how much he’s hurt you.  The rounded shoulders, the way you look as though some of the color has bled out of you.  Once, he is parked outside of your apartment, and you park only a few spots away from him across the street.  You don’t see him, but he sees you.

He sees you kill the ignition in your car, and he sees you take a visibly deep breath as your hands curl around your steering wheel.

Then he watches as you drop your forehead against the steering wheel too, and it’s obvious from the way your shoulders shake that you’re crying.

Benny may be at the opposite end of Big Nick, but he still feels like a complete piece of shit.  He knows he’s the reasons you’re crying like this.  Knowing that if you seem deflated, your light dimmed….that he’s the cause of it.

-----

Three months pass, then a fourth.  Before Benny knows it, he’s been single for half a year.

He goes on one date, and it goes miserably.  The woman is pretty but dull; the conversation stalls at least three times over drinks, and Benny finds himself missing you keenly.  It was never work, spending time with you.  It was never a chore.  He always wanted to be with you; he missed you when the two of you were apart.

He misses you the most now because you’re not a text or a phone call or a short drive away.

He still follows you, but less than before.  He only checks your social media once a week, but you barely ever post anything.  He has no idea if you’ve moved on, and he’s not sure which idea makes him sadder—that you have moved on, or that he’s hurt you so badly that you don’t.

-----

The guys notice.  How can they not?  Their most silent member has gone mute, and they try to cheer him up.  

They take him out to strip clubs, pay for lap dances that do nothing to spark any interest for him.  Connors tries to set him up with one of his sister’s friends.

Big Nick tries a variety of girls at the hotel parties.  He pulls Benny aside one night and tries to give him a fatherly talk, even though the asshole is not old enough to be his father.

“Bitches,” Big Nick tells him, “are a dime a dozen.  Anyone can find one.  Anyone can get one.”  

What Benny needed, according to Nick, was a woman.  Not a bitch.  Not a whiny bitch who couldn’t forgive.  He needed a woman, a secure one, a ride-or-die who’d forgive the little shit because she understood the stress and pressure he was under.  

Benny bristles at his use of the word bitch, but he bites his tongue.  There may be a sliver of wisdom there, though.  You hadn’t even heard his side of the story.  You had just played the voicemail for him, then dumped him.  You hadn’t even listened to him.

“Let me see her,” Big Nick says, and Benny pulls open his phone, opens up social media.  He finds your profile and hands it to Nick.

The man scoffs, scrolls a little.  “You could do better,” he proclaims.

Benny bristles at that too.  If he could do better, why hasn’t he?  Six months later, he still misses you so badly it feels like a broken bone that wasn’t reset properly before it healed, all grinding pain and nerves.  He feels like he’s drowning, like he’s underwater and a second away from pulling a breath and letting the water fills his lungs and pull him under.

He reaches out and pries his phone of out Nick’s hands.  “She could do better,” he clarifies.

-----

Month eight, and things take a turn.

It’s the hotel party.  Always the fucking hotel parties, and sometimes when he’s drunk and sitting there, he wonders if he was shot and died and now lives in some version of hell because it’s always the same stupid party, the same girls, the same blustering alpha-male bullshit from Big Nick, the same laughing and nodding from the rest of the guys, and Benny thinks, is this all there is?

He goes too hard at this party.  He goes to hard at all the parties now.  He used to stick to just beer before, kept it sober or just a little buzzed because he had you, but now—without you—he goes too hard.  He likes to get cross-faded now:  smokes a strong joint, then switches to booze once he’s stoned.  

Stoned and drunk.  It’s easier to forget about you if he has two impairments going on instead of just one.

He’s already off in his own world when the girls come.  Big Nick ushers them in, the usual bevy of gorgeous, slender girls with big tits and big asses and skin-tight dresses, and they disperse through the room—

But one breaks away from the group and comes to stand in front of where he sits on the couch.  She’s backlit by the ceiling light, and he squints and can just make out the girl’s features under the eye makeup and lipstick—

He blurts out your name, a question, and he sees her nod her head against the halo of light that surrounds her.

“Come on, baby,” you say, and you hold a hand out to him.  “Let’s go someplace quieter and talk.”

-----

There isn’t much talking.  Benny is too drunk, too stoned.  He’s a mess.

“Why’re you here?” he slurs, but you push him gently back onto the bed and say, simply, that Nick brought you.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles.  “So sorry, baby.  I messed up so bad—”

You shush him.  You tell him that you can talk later.  You tell him you want him.

He reaches for you, tugs you closer to him and you oblige.  You straddle him on the bed and lean down to kiss him.  

You taste different, but it must be the lipstick.  You never wear lipstick—if you wear anything, it’s a lip stain, and he knows that because one time you sank to your knees in front of him with a grin and said that you wanted to test your new lip stain, see if it was as good as the saleslady said it was, and he had laughed and said he was happy to be your test subject, and afterwards your mouth had been bare of color except for a thin ring that hadn’t transferred and you had said it was the biggest waste of thirty dollars you’d ever spent and he had laughed again, soothed your stung pride by returning the favor for you, spreading your thighs and feasting on you—

You taste different now.  You kiss different.  Your mouth is greasy with the lipstick, and there’s a bitter taste underneath.  Sweetness at first, and then bitterness.  He wants to ask why you’re different, but it’s been almost a year and he’s different so maybe you are too:  more bitter.  

But at least you’re here.  Big Nick, tired of Benny’s moping, of bringing the entire squad down with his sad eyes and dark-cloud aura—Big Nick found you, talked to you, brought you here, and now you’re here, you’re naked underneath him, and Benny’s head is spinning but he’s inside you, moving inside you and you feel different too but maybe it’s just the condom, or maybe it’s because he’s drunk and stoned and the room is spinning, and maybe that’s why you smell different.  You must have replaced the niche perfume you loved—the fig and vanilla, warm and sweet—with something heavier, more musky, not you at all, he almost says it, almost says you’ve changed, but you hook an arm around his shoulders and pull him down to you and you whisper in his ear, husky, breathy, how he feels so good inside you, so big, oh, he’s going to make you come and then you do, or you seem to though that feels different too—no velvety gripping of your pussy against him, no pulling him in deeper, no hitching breath as you sigh out his name—no, now you moan loud, high pitched like you’re in a porno together, you’re chanting god yes, oh yes over and over but he doesn’t feel you…he can’t feel you, you aren’t there at all, but he comes anyway, spills harmlessly into the condom and then collapses against the hired girl that only looks like you a little, and a moment later—through the haze of pot and tequila—he realizes what he’s done and starts to cry.

[tropes-and-tales]

Back Together

Characters:  Benny “Borracho” Magalon and F!Reader

WC:  1707

Other Pieces:  An unofficial sequel to this.

CW:  Fluff.

AN:  Idea by @thesandbeneathmytoes​!

AN2:  Not beta-read and dashed off without any edits.

You don’t mind staying in on Fridays.  Your work week is long, and you are a natural introvert.  It feels almost decadent to put on loungewear and order in.  To settle in for an evening of indulgent self-care and decompression.

Since you and Benny Magalon have decided to make a go of it, you’ve been going out on Fridays more. Sometimes you meet him at a bar or restaurant after work.  Sometimes you pack an overnight bag and go to his place when he gets off shift.

Tonight though?  You’re on your own.  Ben called you earlier and heaved an exasperated sigh before he explained the situation.

“Big Nick’s going through some shit,” he grumbled.  “Me and the guys are going to take him out, at his insistence.”

You had grinned to hear his frustration.  You had made soothing, sympathetic noises.

He had hesitated for a moment, then added, “we’re going to a strip club.”

“Ah.”

He rushed the next words, out of character for his usual taciturn nature.  He wanted to be upfront with you.  He didn’t want you to worry about him making stupid choices.  He was only going because he could only turn down Big Nick’s social bullshit so many times, and he has skipped a fair amount of Major Crimes’ boozy hotel parties since the two of you started dating���.

“Ben, I trust you,” you cut in gently.  “It’s fine.”

A beat.  “You sure?”

“Of course.”  You had glanced around your living room, already prepped for an evening in.  You had Thai food on the way, a documentary about Joan Dideon queued up….

“I promise you can trust me,” he added, and there was a plaintive edge to his voice that made your heart twist a little in your chest.

“I trust you.  Be safe and have fun, but like…PG-13 fun.”

He chuckled over the phone.  “What’s PG-13 fun at a strip club exactly?”

You laughed too.  “Honestly, I have no idea.  But shoot me a text when you’re home so I know you made it safely.”

-----

You thought you’d have a quiet night.

Your phone chimes about once every few minutes with updates.

The guys go to dinner first, at one of those hibachi places from the looks of it.  Ben sends you a text with a photo, snapped of Z on the sly:  the man holds his fork like a shovel, and Ben’s accompanying text—Z chews with his mouth open—makes you smile.

But it’s once they get to the club that the texts come through constantly…..so constant that you sigh and pause your documentary because you can’t focus.

Ben:  At the club

Ben:  Music is so loud

Ben:  Does it mean I’m old if the bass hurts my ears?

You laughed at that, then replied, they crank up the music so you stop thinking clearly and start getting lap dances.

Ben:  giving me a headache

Your phone goes silent for a long stretch, so you hit play on the documentary again….and then another text comes through.

Ben:  hey where do we come from?

A random question.  A big, esoteric question.  He must be tipsy, if not drunk.  You smile as you imagine it:  Ben is a strange drunk, sometimes handsy and chatty, sometimes thoughtful and quiet.  It’s the latter moments when he’s so quiet that he turns and drops some strange question on you, almost childlike in his interest at plumbing the depths of your scientific knowledge.

You:  ???

Ben:  are humans evolved from neanderthals?

Yes, there it is.  The man has a few drinks in him, and instead of focusing on the entertainment in front of him, he’s asking you big, thoughtful questions.

You:  They used to think no, humans evolved separately.  But DNA tests are showing that early humans maybe mated with other human-types.  

You:  You know I work at the JPL, not in evolutionary science, right?  

Another long stretch of silence.  He is probably absorbing your words, letting them sink past whatever liquor he’s been drinking.

Ben:  so are neanderthals extinct

You:  Yes. 🙂

Ben:  wrong

You:  ???

You:  Ben, you’re drunk.  Watch the dancing girls, marvel at their grace and upper body strength, and drink some water.

Ben:  not drunk

Ben:  found one

Ben:  Neanderthal I mean

Ben:  look

He sends a photo of Big Nick—snapped on the sly, in profile.  There’s something about the low light of the club, or Nick’s posture (slumped over, head pushed forward) or Nick’s expression (blank eyes, slack jaw), but the man looks exactly like a Neanderthal.  Like the missing link somehow landed in Los Angeles and in a job with LACSD.

You laugh, and you reply with a laughing emoji, and there’s another stretch of silence from him.  Your merriment fades off, and you frown at the sudden silence of your phone.  

You aren’t naturally a jealous person, and you trust Ben completely, especially after everything the two of you have been through…but you do have a faint sense of jealousy.  Jealousy-lite.  Or maybe it’s insecurity, feeling like you perhaps don’t stack up against those gorgeous women dancing in flattering lighting for your boyfriend and his coworkers.

But Ben texts you all night.  He laments the lack of food (rather have some chicken tenders than a lap dance fr), the overpriced drinks (bud lite should be free), and his sad-sack boss (dude literally got a lap dance from a girl that looks just like his wife).

You are never quite sure how you got so lucky with him.  Of all the narcissists and fuck bois in Los Angeles, you somehow met the lone guy who was genuinely nice, genuinely good.

The two of you still haven’t shared I love you’s.  You certainly feel it from him, can feel him watching you thoughtfully sometimes, and you get the sense in those moments that the words are close to the surface.  

The texts stop, and you feel yourself nodding off on the couch.  Your last thought before you fall asleep, though, is that you should be brave and say those words out loud.  He’s a good guy, maybe one of the best guys, and he deserves to hear it.

*****

Benny could go home.  

He could go to his lonely apartment and fall asleep alone, but he’s somehow both exhausted and keyed-up.  Low-key horny, maybe, from the strip club—he’s not made of stone, after all—but it’s deeper than that.

He has just watched his boss throw a ridiculous amount of money at beautiful women in a sad attempt to forget that he fucked up his home life.  To forget that he had a beautiful wife and beautiful daughters, but he took them for granted and lost them.

Benny is not like Big Nick at all, and he’s smart enough to know that he’s got a good thing with you.  He doesn’t ever want to be the sad asshole at the club, staring slack-jawed at a dancer and masking his pain because he lost you.

He goes to your apartment.  He knocks on your door and waits, and he silently chastises himself when you finally open the door.  You’ve been sleeping, and he’s woken you up.

But he loves you when you’re sleepy.  The sleepy way you blink at him, the sleepy way a smile curves your lips.  The husky quality to your voice when you invite him in, tell him you missed him.

“Missed you too,” he says softly, and he pulls you into a hug.  Feels your sleep-warmed body in his arms, and he feels a sudden tightness in his chest.  Big Nick had this and lost it.  Benny has some experience in heartache with his ex-girlfriend, but he knows that if he lost you, it’d be ten times worse.  A hundred times worse.  Infinity worse.

You gently pull away from him and rock onto your bare toes to press a gentle kiss to his mouth.  You don’t let it linger—you break away and take his hand, and you lead him back to your bedroom.

He releases your hand and stands in your bedroom doorway, watches you crawl into bed.  You turn on the bedside lamp, and he turns off the overhead light.  Then he ducks into your bathroom, rinses out his mouth with your mouthwash, runs a damp washcloth over his face.

When he returns to the bedroom, you’re out cold.  You’ve also drifted to the middle of the bed out of habit—still not used to sleeping with anybody, you always take the center of the bed, and Ben always has to gently move you until there is enough room for him.

Not that he’d complain.  You are cuddly, and he loves nothing more than falling asleep touching you.  His arm over you, your arm over him.  Your head on his chest or shoulder, or him curled up behind you, your warm body tucked against the curve of his own.

He moves you carefully now, tucks your arms against you and tries to roll you, but you grumble and wake up enough to do it yourself.  Benny sheds most of his clothes and crawls in beside you, and he reaches past you to turn off the lamp.

He thinks you’re asleep, but you haven’t nodded off quite yet.  You give a sleepy hum as you turn and settle against him, your head pressed against his shoulder, your arm over his waist.  That too-tight feeling returns to his chest, and he thinks he might finally whisper the words he’s wanted to say for a while now but is too chickenshit to say.  The last time he said those words he was left heartbroken, but you aren’t his ex at all, and he’s tired of the specter of that relationship haunting this one.

The words are right on the tip of his tongue.  He takes a deep breath to say them, but you heave a contented sigh and say them first, shocking him.

Those three words, in your sleep-laden, gravely voice.  Technically two words.  Slurred a little as if you are drunk, but you’re just at the edge of falling back asleep.

“Love you,” you mumble, and the deep breath he was pulling in hitches in his throat.

“Love you too,” he whispers back.

~~~Tag List~~~ @bananas-pajamas  @massivecolorspygiant​   @imspillingcoffee​   @amneris21​   @paintballkid711​   @mad-girl-without-a-box​   @bestattempt   @rosiefridayrogersunday​   @strawberrydragon​   @hoeforthefictional​   @greeneyedblondie44​  @leannawithacapitala​   @stardust-galaxies​  @buckybarneshairpullingkink​   @harriedandharassed​  @thatpinkshirt​   @xoxabs88xox​  @melaniecraig80​   @thesandbeneathmytoes​

[tropes-and-tales]

Any HCs for Borracho going out with his coworkers then coming home to his girlfriend?

Do I have head canons, you ask? Of course I have head canons!  (18+ under the jump for smutty thots).

If the guys of Major Crimes are on a spectrum, Big Nick is at one extreme, and Borracho is at the other.

Which doesn't mean that Benny hates those boozy, post-drug test events.

He likes the camaraderie it builds with his brothers-in-arms.

He just doesn't like the other stuff.

Despite his nickname, he's not a boozer like Big Nick.

And he doesn't partake in the party favors.

When he goes to a team extracurricular, he inevitably reaches a point in the evening when he gets antsy. Bounces his leg, checks his watch obsessively. Just wants to get home to you.

He'll get home and shower really quick to get the scent of cigar and cigarette smoke off of him.

Then he'll slide into bed, curl up against you all damp and clean-smelling.

Half of the time, he falls straight to sleep—having your warm body in his arms is the last little thing he needs to pull him into a deep sleep.

Other half of the time? Having your warm body in his arms makes him the opposite of sleepy.

If you're fast asleep, he'll just lay there in the sweetest torture ever until he calms and finally falls asleep too.

If you're awake, he lets you drive the moment.

Sometimes you'll push back against him until he pushes your sleep shorts to the side and slides into you.

Other times you'll hook an arm around his shoulders and pull him onto you.

You whisper in his ear, your voice husky. Telling him to take what he needs. Telling him to take you.

Still other times, you push him onto his back and mount him. You're bossy as hell when you're keyed up like this, and Benny absolutely loves you having control.

A single time, he messes up pretty terrifically.

It's your second anniversary as a couple, and he completely forgets it...despite your numerous reminders.

His days blend together sometimes.

He misses the dinner you made for the both of you, and he goes to a team event at a hotel downtown instead.

He realizes what happened the moment he gets home and sees the half-burned candles, the leftover meal and flowers.

He realizes how badly he messed up when he gets to the bedroom and finds you in special lingerie you'd bought for the occasion.

It's petal pink and sheer. He can see everything, swathed in filmy pink lace. Bra, panties, and a garter belt. At the sight of the garter belt, his mouth runs dry.

He can't help but try to reach for you while he apologizes.

"You fucked up big time, Magalon."

He thinks, for a brief, horrifying moment, that you are about to break up with him.

You shake your head, disappointed. You remind him that you love him and that yes, you understand how he loses track of what day it is.

Still....he needs to learn his lesson.

"You were out having fun without me," you tell him. "Only seems fair that you sit and watch me have fun without you."

His mouth went dry at the sight of the garters. When you reach into your nightstand for the fancy vibrator you recently bought, he starts to salivate.

You make him sit on the bed beside you while you take care of yourself. And you do, slowly: you often tease him with a lot of foreplay, and now he can see that you tease yourself just the same.

That sheer lingerie...he can see everything, especially how wet you get.

When you are done running the vibrator over your clit, when you finally hook your panties to the side and start to push the purple silicone into your gorgeous pussy, he tries to touch himself.

"Only good boyfriends get to come," you tell him, and he has to watch you while his erection strains against his jeans, untouched.

He doesn't come that night, but he learns his lesson. He makes it up to you in the morning, and then you finally let him come.

"I'm sorry, mamí," he tells you over and over, afterwards.

You only kiss the tip of his nose. "All is forgiven, Benny."

"Kinda liked watching you though. Might fuck up again if—"

You turn your head and nip at his pec, making him laugh.

"You can watch anytime, Detective. Just don't miss an anniversary again."

He doesn't, and the next year, you let him watch again...but then you let him touch too.

[youvebeenlivingfictional]

2,000 Follower Celebration Prompts

I’m compiling all of the prompts that I wrote for my 2k Follower Celebration below the cut. Thank you to everyone that sent in requests!! I’m breaking the prompts up by fandom, and will denote which prompts are explicit (minors, do not interact!).

Thanks again, y’all!!

Fake Titles - Various Fandoms

Fake Titles - 1 - Fandoms: Knives Out, Triple Frontier   Fake Titles - 2 - Fandoms: Kingsman: Golden Circle, Game of Thrones, Enola Holmes, The Mentalist, Wonder Woman

Den of Thieves

Benny Borracho Magalon - Tiny Hands in Big Hands

Benny Borracho Magalon (and Techie) - Kissing Each Other Breathless

Benny Borracho Magalon - Picking Them Up Hugs

Ex Machina

Nathan Bateman - Bateman Begins Part Eleven: Dancing Together

Nathan Bateman - Hand Kisses

Nathan Bateman - Kisses to Shut Them Up Nathan Bateman - Pinky Swears

Nathan Bateman - Putting a Hand Over Their Mouth to Shut Them Up

Nathan Bateman - Public Kisses

Nathan Bateman - Sitting in the Other’s Lap

Nathan Bateman - Squishing the Other’s Cheek, Sitting Close and Knees Touching, and Dancing with Each Other

Knives Out

Benoit Blanc - Hiding Face in Neck, Squishing the Other’s Cheek, and Falling Asleep on the Other’s Shoulder

Benoit Blanc - Massaging The Other

Benoit Blanc - Putting One’s Head on the Other’s Chest

Narcos

Horacio Carrillo - Bandaging/Stitching Up an Injury

Horacio Carrillo - Giggling While Kissing

Horacio Carrillo - Grabbing Onto Their Arm

Horacio Carrillo - Jaw Kisses

Horacio Carrillo - Kisses to Shut them Up

Horacio Carrillo - Passionate Kisses

Horacio Carrillo - Playing with Each Other’s Fingers

Javier Peña - Frustrated Kisses

Javier Peña - Grabbing Hand to Show Them Something w/ Abejita from What’s the Use of Wonderin’

Javier Peña - Grabbing Hand to Show Them Something & Only Realizing When They Have to Let Go

Javier Peña - Holding Hands During Sex - Explicit, 18+ Only

Javier Peña - Hugging the Other While Straddling Them

Javier Peña - Kisses to Shut Them Up

Javier Peña - Unconditional

Javier Peña - We’ll Get Through This Together Kisses

Star Trek: Discovery

Songs that Remind Me of Pike and Mirror!Pike

Mirror!Christopher Pike - Kisses to Shut Them Up

Mirror!Christopher Pike - Putting a Hand Over the Other’s Mouth to Shut Them Up & Angry Kisses

Christopher Pike - Fake Titles and Headcanons (Finding Out He’s Going to Be a Dad & Pike and Jim Kirk’s Relationship)

Christopher Pike - Frustrated Kisses

Christopher Pike - Kissing Each Other Breathless

Christopher Pike - Not Realizing They’re Holding Hands Until Someone Points It Out

Christopher Pike - Not Wanting to Lose the Other in a Crowd; Secret Kisses

  The Mandalorian

Boba Fett - Forehead Touches

Boba Fett - Hug Headcanons

Boba Fett - Squishing the Others’ Cheeks

The Mentalist

Marcus Pike - Linking Hands During Sex *Explicit, 18+ Only

Marcus Pike - Grabbing the Other’s Hand to Pull them Back From Something

Triple Frontier

Fake Titles - Will Miller: All Our Graves Go Unattended

Santiago Garcia - Kisses for Cover Santiago Garcia - We’ll See Each Other Again Kisses

Santiago Garcia - Feather-light Kisses

Santiago Garcia - Shielding the Other With Their Body & Listening to Their Heartbeat

Will Miller - Brushing Against Each Other, Linking Fingers Together for a Second

Will Miller - Carrying the Other in Their Arms

Will Miller - Feeling for Each Other in the Dark

Will Miller - Hugging and Kissing

Will Miller - Kisses For Cover

Will Miller - Slowly Kissing Down the Body

[brandyllyn]

Because I was inverted... ↕️

CLOSED. If you’re here it’s through an old link which is cool. but this is over and I had 43 requests which is about 40 more than I expected. You can find them all HERE.

I feel like I should do some kind of announcer voice for this.

Attention my beloveds!

To celebrate all my followers (there are so many of you now holy shit) I am going to open my asks up to a challenge. 

Pick a character & pick a trope and send me an ask - I will do my best to turn that trope on its head in a fic.

For examples please see my Goofballs in Love masterlist.  Current list of requests/prompts

My asks are open for this for the next week (Aug 1-7). I can’t guarantee I will get to all of them - some of you may have noticed I’m only just finishing up from my last set of requests and that was over a month ago - but I will do my damnedest.

Y’all da real MVPs. All my love.

Characters I will GLADLY write for :

Poe Dameron

Santiago Garcia

Ben ‘Borracho’ Magalon

Jack Daniels

Ezra

Bud Cooper

Richard Alonso Muñoz

Nathan Bateman

Characters I will also write for but these are more likely to get you headcanons / drabbles than a full fic (mostly because I find it hard to get their voice right) :

Dave York

Frankie Morales

Javier Peña

Pero Tovar

Characters I know you’re going to ask for no matter what I say :

Max Phillips

(Feel free to ask for someone not here but you run the chance of getting a shrug emoji in return.)

You can pick ANY trope you want but if you need some inspiration here’s a few resources. If you chose from here please INCLUDE WHAT IT IS in your ask. I beg of you.

Fanfic Tropes

List of tropes in fanworks [external link]

Fanfiction Tropes [external link]

(Lord some of these bring back memories y’all.)

If you have anything you do or (especially) do not want to see in addition to your request let me know and I will take it under advisement. 😉

In service to this exercise, unless otherwise stated I reserve the right to make it not a happy ending. I don’t care what my bio says.

[youvebeenlivingfictional]

👄 = Benny Magalon

You know I love how smoochie he is ;-)

(I do know and I haven’t forgotten about that make out chapter you suggested 🥴) 👄 : A kiss headcanon - Borracho’s a lip sucker and biter. Not to the point of like pain or anything, but he savors biting and sucking his girlfriend’s lips. If you’re wearing a flavored lip balm? Look the fuck out. Especially if you’re wearing one that you know he likes (and this is by no way influenced by the mojito flavored lip balm I have 👀)

[justreblogginfics]

This prompt and Benny Magalon is just perfect!

FOREHEAD KISSES FOREHEAD KISSES FOREHEAD KISSES with Benny please, if these asks are still open!

The nurse warns them that you’re still out of it, still in that liminal space between anesthetized sleep and wakefulness. 

“You can go back and see her,” she tells them.  “But she’s still a little…loopy.”

Loopy hardly captures it.  You’re a lightweight, Borracho knows.  You never partake in the harder drugs at their parties, and you limit yourself to a single beer when you go out.  Hell, even an extra Coke in the afternoon is enough to set you bounding around, full of caffeinated energy.  

Anesthesia and then the good pain killers delivered intravenously?  Forget loopy.  You’re telegraphing from another dimension entirely.

Case in point?  He hears you before he sees you.  You’re singing “Hurts So Good,” but mostly mumbling it.  It’s loud enough to hear that you are just mumble-singing the chorus, but it’s enough to make Big Nick groan, “fuck, it’s karaoke hour, I guess.”

When Borracho and Nick enter your room, you look up.  Your face lights up to see them.  Given how shitty you looked just hours earlier, it makes Borracho’s stomach swoop in relief.

“Big Nick!” you exclaim.  “And Borracho.  Big Ben!”  You laugh at your own joke, wince and lay a bracing arm over your abdomen.  “Shit, why’ve we never called you Big Ben?  Thass a better nickname.”

He can’t help but grin at you.  “How you feeling, champ?”

“Good.”  You smile back at him, give him a thumbs up.  “How you feelin’?”

“Better.”  He pulls a chair over to the side of your bed and sits down.  “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Scared all of us,” Nick interjects.  He remains standing, leans against the doorway.  “Next time you want an ambulance ride, be a real cop and get shot.  Save this burst appendix shit for, fuck…I dunno…mall cops.”

You flip him the middle finger, and Borracho studies you closer.  Already you look better.  That morning you had rolled into work looking rough:  wan with a grey cast to your skin, a sheen of sweat on your forehead.  Now the color is back in your face.  The rictus of pain is gone, replaced by the goofy grin that curves your lips.

“I’m gonna head back,” Nick continues.  “Borracho, you good to stick around?”

He nods.  “Yeah, I’ll keep you updated.”

-----

There’s not much to update Nick on, and besides—Borracho wants to keep this moment private, between the two of you.  

He puts on a strong front, a neutral face, but you scared him shitless.  The way you slumped over at your desk, how hard you cried in pain as he called for the ambulance….of course, in retrospect, it was obviouslya burst appendix, but in that moment, he had been terrified, confused.  There was no obvious injury, and he had felt helpless.  All he could do was grip your hand in his, tuck his flannel under your head and wait for the EMTs.

“You really scared me,” he tells you again, his voice soft.  You’ve calmed a little (no longer singing, no longer calling him “Big Ben”), and you turn your head on the pillow to fix him with a glassy look.

“I know.  I’m sorry.”

“Despite what Big Nick says, I’d prefer it if you don’t get shot either.  You know, going forward.”

You smile at him.  “’m not planning on it, Borracho.”

“Good.”  He reaches out, pats you gently on your shoulder.  “I’d hate to break in a new partner.”

You snort, then wince at the effort.  You roll your head back on the pillow and close your eyes.  “Who broke in who, huh?”

“I was in Major Crimes first.”

“Yeah, and you were as feral as the rest of ‘em.  I’m the one who housebroke you.”

He chuckles and sits back in his seat, crosses his arms over his chest.  “Make me sound like a stray dog.”

“Mmm,” you agree, and your voice is getting thick with impending sleep.  “A cute stray.”

His stomach swoops again at your words, and he studies you.  Your eyes are closed, and he can hear the way your breathing lengthens, stretches out.  You’re finally falling asleep, right after calling him cute and setting the butterflies aflutter in his stomach.  

“I’m glad you’re okay,” he says softly, and there’s no response beyond your steady breathing.

Maybe it’s the adrenaline dump from the stress of your collapse in the office finally hitting him.  Maybe it’s that old cliché, the brush with death that reveals feelings.  Maybe it’s seeing you—unflappable, unstoppable you—so vulnerable in a hospital bed.

Borracho doesn’t know what it is, but something pushes him out of his chair until he’s standing over you.  He bends his head and presses a gentle kiss to your forehead.

When he pulls back and glances down at you, you’re staring right back at him.

That makes his stomach turn in anxiety, but you offer him a soft, drowsy smile and mumble, “you leaving?”

“Nah.”  He sits back down, plays it as cool as he can.  “I’ll stay until they kick me out.”

It’s not a big thing.  You’ll bring it up later, once you’re healed and back in the office, once you have him alone and can talk to him.  Right now, you just close your eyes again, smile again…but then you add, “thanks, Benny.”