#but bc of the pit he doesn’t
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oifaaa · 6 months ago
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Started following for the Jason. Stayed for the Jason
Jason content is the one thing I can do and will continue to do which speaking of jason am I the only one conflicted about jason with scars like on the one hand it's a cool design but if the insinuation is that he got them before he got thrown in the pit then I don't care what excuses you come up with the pit should have healed them I do not care
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shewhowillrise · 1 year ago
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DC x DP
Jason never made it to the Lazarus pit or the league of assassins.
Bruce gave him that excuse for his green eyes and short temper.
Jason knows he didn’t crawl out of his grave with the giant Y that scars his chest.
Jason knows he’s a revenant.
Jason knows he needs to kill to stay sane. To stay whole.
A soul sucker they called him.
Jason agreed not to kill, because he misses his family. No matter how much he starves himself, it’s worth it to get Dick’s hugs, experience Tim’s genius, see Cassandra’s award winning performance, to help Damian experience a childhood.
Jason didn’t realize Bruce doesn’t know what he is. Jason didn’t realize Bruce meant Black Gate when he said he’d take him in the next time he killed. Jason didn’t realize Bruce had no idea about the anti ecto acts.
Jason swore to stay in line, so he’d never end up on that metal table again.
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transmechanicus · 18 days ago
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Unironically i do think there are some ppl who engage with Sleep Token more as a boy band that just happens to play metal, rather than a metal band with all the associated cultural etiquette, and I definitely feel like that contributes to the mindset of wanting to know Everything About Them against their express wishes. Do we need to have A Talk about distinguishing how you treat The Men vs The Stage Performance vs The Characters In Lore? Cause some of y’all need to do better.
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sopuu · 2 years ago
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I had a dream where Romeo made like, fake versions of champion!jesse’s friends saving him and then revealing at the end when he was actually happy that they were fake
So when (or if idk) Jesse’s friends actually save him he won’t be sure
actually you’re not far off from what i got planned— romeo’s main goal with jesse isn’t to make him stronger (since he’s already proven himself many times on that aspect) but to make him stop caring so much for his friends, to get him to be like romeo himself ideologically.
but with jesse’s undying loyalty romeo’s gotta come up with creative ways to break that, and pretending to be his friends and turning on him would be one of that.
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warangs · 1 year ago
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Tbh I’m not interested enough yet to care about the main couple as I should. It’s been only three episodes so far and the only real talk Charlie and Babe had were when Babe opened himself up to him about his past, that’s literally it. Some scenes are cute yes but they don’t talk enough with each other, oh yes they talk either about where Charlie went or about racing strategies. I’m missing one on one talk about everything even if it’s about stupid things but not going to get it. Babe has more talks with his manipulative ‘best friend’ than with Charlie. That’s why I also can’t quite understand why Babe is suddenly head over heels for Charlie to lose a race? (I’m open for someone to enlighten me on that matter). Yes his emotions were heightened because of what Way said and Charlie hid, he lost control and unfortunately lost…. Babe gave Charlie many opportunities to come clean and say the truth but he didn’t and even if Babe is a special Alpha, I don’t think he can read minds or could tell that Charlie and Jeff aren’t a thing from the get go so yeah he do thinks that Charlie is playing a two time thing and yes it can confuses people yet even alphas. I understand everything yet I still don’t get why Babe is head over heels for someone he barely knows….
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pepprs · 2 years ago
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LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOJUST GOT OFF THE PHONE IM ACTUALLY DEAD OBSR THIS. i am giving him what he wants FOR HIS OWN IMAGE but THSI one last time. bc im too scared to be honest w him UDBAKDBSKHD BUT THAT IS SO SLEAZY. ok i have to calm down um. guys. he called me bc he’s CONCEREND ABT ME ENDING IT W AN EMAIL AFTER I TEXTED HIM THAT I WAS IN DISTRESSS BC IT MAKES HIM LOOK BAD TO HIS SUPERVISORS. so he wants to end it with a session. and i said yes 💀💀💀💀💀💀 but it’s fine. I’m SCREAMING THOUGH.
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urfaveautisticlesbian · 2 years ago
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Do you ever just sit there like “I thought you loved me” and “what did I do wrong to make this happen” bc me too
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wolfwillowisp · 2 months ago
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The fact that the cutting room floor had to add a content warning to the cut/beta Canalave library texts makes total sense given the material
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This is crazy. I’m re-canonizing Groudon’s reasons for targeting Maxie and Sada specifically. THEY CANT CALL IT EDGEY IF ITS ALREADY BEEN DONE BY GAME FREAK.
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exopelagic · 7 months ago
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I am baking cake at midnight and it is going to kill me <3
#it’s just gone in the oven which means at least 25 minutes and probably more like 45 bc I made a Lot#am also kiiiinda winging the recipe so my expectations are on the floor#this is. for a bake sale. pray for me#I’m gonna make the icing tonight and leave it in the fridge overnight I think for tomorrow morning#this has gone wrong at every available opportunity it was 100% not worth it#however! given the prices my friend wants to sell this at i May have turned this into like over £100 which isn’t bad#TWO CAKES. WHY AM I MAKING TWO CAKES#I’m procrastinating washing up the stuff I used to make the batter (hell) bc itssosososo messy and I just wanna shout abt stuff#primarily that I am once again so upset that I only get one more week of ice hockey before summer#there are two parts to this feeling: 1. I love ice hockey I’ve been having such a good time this past week while I’ve not had to stress#abt anything else. 2. gay. gay gay homosexual gay#like okay I’ve been worried abt whether this is an actual crush or I just convinced myself I like him bc pretty+queer#(because of course I can worry abt that). BUT yeah sorry no can confirm I like this dumb fuck this is so unfair#we talked a BUNCH last night and he’s just really cool.#ohhhh fuck I don’t think the oven was properly preheated bc I opened it for a while to fit the two tins in. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯#anyway!! he’s really fun to talk to someone help like if he does turn out to be single I could in THEORY text him over summer. maybe.#his birthday will be coming up and my friend suggested that. I’m being insane but oh my god this is torture#I ALSO watched the newest dr who episode today and that did NOT HELP. one of the first things in a while that have given me like#this same specific feeling when I get into gay romantic media. the ‘reading gay shit on wattpad at age 14 feeling’ if you will#where there’s like this weight in the pit of my stomach. it’s NICE that doesn’t sound good but it is#is this what straight people get with romance all the time. I know I just don’t watch/read much anymore but also#there’s straight romance in literally everything so.#but yeah basically I need another month of fuck around time minimum when everyone’s in this city so I can get my shit together#ALSO. I ONLY HAVE A YEAR LEFT HERE. THATS TERRIFYING. a year is a long time but it’s also not this one disappeared and this is like.#WAY too early to even consider that but he’s gonna be here probably for a year after I leave and that could suck if anything does happen.#I guess in theory I’m taking a year before phd probably so I could work here. idk man anyway that one is actually insane of me I’m just gay#boy 😔. they shouldn’t be allowed to do this#on Wednesday he’ll be done with exams and so will my other friend who knows him well. so I will be able to 1. subtly see w her if girlfriend#2. potentially. MAYBE ask what she thinks I’m just trying to decide whether that’s too much to put on her. I think I’m being insane there#luke.txt
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gaywineauntsstuff · 1 month ago
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Broke: everyone fights over whose Batman’s favorite
Woke: everyone fights over whose Dicks favorite bc Dick isn’t an emotionally stunted loser (I shit talk Bruce so much but I love him, he’s just also a loser) and trying to get in the bats favor is like trying to catch sand in a sieve
————
Damian: obviously I’m Graysons favorite I was his Robin
Tim: dude I was the first Robin he trained and we still talk every day I am 100% the favorite
Steph: fuck you! You disappeared off the the face of the earth when he was Batman I was actually here I’m 100% the favorite everyone knows Wing loves me.
Jason: Dick willingly went to Gotham to spend time with me even when he was mad at Bruce. Has Dick ever been in Gotham when he was mad at Bruce for you guys? No? Didn’t think so?
Damian: ….
Steph:…
Tim: that’s because you sucked so much he thought you’d get blown up trying to have to bludhaven.
Jason: oi! Low blow, you can’t use a man’s death against him
Damian: shut up we’ve all died before
Steph: you literally said you were allowed to break Tim’s laptop bc you died b4
Jason: yeah it’s MY DEATH I can use it how I want
Tim: we really gonna call your 14yr old 4’7 self a man?
Cass: he helped me train when B rejected me I’m the favorite
Tim: you can’t be Dicks favorite you’re already Bab’s favorite those are the only 2 likable older members of the family. (They’ve decided Alfred doesn’t count since he’s legally not allowed to have favorites)
Dick: Duke is my favorite
Damian: what?
Tim: how?
Jason: this shit is rigged
Steph: What?? You barely spend time with him?
Duke who has been eating popcorn quietly this whole time:???
Dick: he doesnt steal my suit and murder people
Jason: …
Dick: or tell his friends I threatened to send him to Arkham when I told him to get therapy
Tim:…
Dick: or break into my apartment at 3am because he can’t communicate with his father
Damian:…
Dick: or make me believe he flatlined on the operating table
Steph: …
Dick: or tell me he can’t meet up for a bust because he’s too busy fighting Wonder Woman a hero we work with over text with no context and then go AWOL for 5 days
Cass:…
Dick: or overload his plate with 50 million things I will have to come in and help with
Everyone:
Steph: he started a cult tho??
Dick: was it before or after he was fostered bc if it was before it’s. Not. My. Problem.
Duke: I’m the favorite???
Dick: also I feel like if I died you’re the most likely to take over my duties and not go on a quest for vengeance or try to clone me or put me in the Lazarus pit.
Jason: ID NEVER PUT you in the Lazarus pit…. No comment on the rest tho.
Tim: ditto
Damian: meh you are superior to Todd and he’s relatively functional post the pit I don’t see the issue here.
Steph raising hand: I wouldn’t-
Dick: or help TIM do it
Steph lowering hand:
Dick: plus you have a parent so I don’t have to do 80% of the child rearing while giving Bruce credit
Duke still a little star stuck bc that’s nightwing: IM THE FAVORITE.
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asahicore · 5 months ago
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stupid in love - psh (m)
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this work contains smut - minors please do not interact
pairing. best friend!sunghoon x fem!reader
synopsis. One night early on in your summer vacation, your best friend Sunghoon admits that his biggest anxiety about starting college is going there as a virgin - one thing leads to another, and you end up learning a few things from each other. The more time passes, the more obvious it becomes that your feelings for each other surpass friendship, but with the end of summer looming over your heads, it's hard to tell where these newfound emotions will lead you.
genre. best friends/childhood friends 2 lovers, summer au, lots of fluff and smut but also some angst to spice things up, when i say smut i mean LOTS of smut. like mostly smut lol (mutual first time, ice play, crazy stuff)
word count. 22.1k
a/n. bringing this one back from the pits of my google docs guys.. its been so long since i've posted anything and im not sure when the new hoon fic will be ready so i thought i'd repost an og asahicore fic!!! the title was originally 'hot like ice' but i changed it bc this is my blog and i do what i want <3 i'd also like to say that in terms of plot this is probably not something i would write nowadays, it's very smut-heavy and thats not what im about now idk i was crazy back then... but i rmb being happy w this fic and its reception when i first posted it so i'm happy to have it back on my blog and hope u guys will like it too <3 as always lmk what u think!!
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It all started with a lollipop. Well, two, to be exact. One strawberry-flavored, one apple-flavored. 
You stand in front of your friend, lollipops in hand. “Which one do you want, Hoon?” 
“I don’t mind, just pick whichever one you like best,” he replies absent-mindedly, eyes on the TV as he tries to find a suitable movie for this late summer afternoon.
You plop down on the couch next to him and look at the two lollipops in your hands, unable to decide which flavor you like better. “I don’t know what I feel like right now,” you announce to an uninterested Sunghoon. “I’ll just try both.”
That seems to catch your best friend’s attention. He watches as you unwrap both candies, tasting each once, twice, then as you decide you want the apple-flavored lollipop and hand him the strawberry-flavored one. He doesn’t take his eyes off of your lips as you wrap them and swirl your tongue around the candy, letting its sweetness wash over your taste buds. You raise your eyebrows when you notice his staring and he blinks a couple times, trying to snap himself out of it. “Did you want the other one?” you ask, confused by his behavior.
“N-no, I like strawberry,” he stammers, turning his gaze back to the screen in front of you and settling for ‘When Harry Met Sally,’ a movie you’ve both seen a thousand times but never get bored of.
You’re used to Sunghoon getting lost in his thoughts, so you don’t question it much. You sit back on the couch, your knee touching his. You two are no strangers to a little skinship - after being friends for almost eight years, physical contact comes naturally. You have to admit that recently, it’s started to feel different; but the idea of your friendship changing tugs at your heartstrings so much that you ignore the prickles on your skin when he hugs you or the way your stomach flips when he smiles at you, dimples and sharp canines on display. You tell yourself it’s all stupid and that you can handle so much as your knees touching.
Sunghoon, on the other hand, can't. The lollipop in his mouth right now was in yours mere moments ago and you’d given it to him like sharing saliva was no big deal. He feels like a thirteen year-old for thinking like this, but this was pretty much an indirect kiss.
He stares at the TV screen, but all he can see are your perfect lips sucking that lollipop, and his mind is desperately not trying to go there, but he just cannot help himself. Blood rushes to his dick as he pictures your mouth around him, sucking him off with as much enthusiasm as you are the lollipop. Would you like his taste? Would you look up at him with those pretty eyes of yours, smiling even with his dick stuffed in your mouth?
His own thoughts catch him off guard, and before they can get any wilder, he runs off to the bathroom, knowing he’d never live it down if you caught a glimpse of his erection. Thankfully, you don’t, and you call after him, asking if he wants you to pause the movie, to which he shouts back a strangled ‘no.’
He comes back ten minutes later, face flushed and breath heavy. “Goddamn, Hoon, I know we’re best friends, but if you’re going to dump a massive load, I wished you did it in your own bathroom and not mine,” you tease him, laughing as his face gets even redder and he opens his mouth to protest.
“I was just on my phone!” he replies, mildly offended.
“Whatever,” you say, still laughing, and turn your attention back to the movie.
Well. Sunghoon would rather have you think he just took a huge shit than have you know he came to the idea of you sucking him off and swallowing every last drop of his cum. 
--
A few days later, you and Sunghoon are lying on his bed, the both of you on your backs, talking about this and that as you often do. It’s almost 3 a.m., and it feels almost rebellious, being up this late after months of waking up at 6, but your high school graduation was a week ago and you feel like you can do anything. The dim fairy lights you forced him to put up and the bright moon outside are the only sources of light in the room, and when you turn to look at him, you can just make out the outline of his face, the curve of his nose, the sharpness of his jaw. You've looked at him a thousand times before, so your memory makes up for what the light takes away from your eyes. You shift to lying on your stomach, propping yourself up on your elbows so you can take a better look at your friend. Something about the moonlight makes him look ethereal, and his beauty makes your heart skip a beat, but you’d never admit that to him. Out of habit, you reach out to touch his moles, gently placing your middle finger on his nose and your pointer finger on his cheek. Sunghoon closes his eyes at your touch, used to the warm feeling that settles in his stomach whenever you do that.
“Y/N?” he calls out, just as you pull your fingers away from his moles.
“Yeah?”
He opens his eyes again, meeting yours. “Is there anything you’re scared of for next year? You know, heading off to college and all that?” You shift again and lie on your back, the sides of your two bodies touching. You stare at the ceiling for a while, thinking about his question, and Sunghoon patiently waits for your answer.
“I’m scared about not making friends. I’m not the least outgoing person ever, but it’s so intimidating, not knowing anyone. And it’ll be weird not having you around. Shut up,” you warn before he can make an egotistical remark, so he just chuckles. “I’m also worried about the amount of work I’ll have. I’ve heard so many times that it’s a huge step-up from high school, the workload and the type of work and all that. What if I don’t even like the degree that I chose? I know I can change it, but it still stresses me out. Turning 18 doesn’t feel like a huge deal, but going to college does. It’s when all the responsibility hits. My mom told me to make my own doctor’s appointment the other day, and I almost cried when I had to call them. I’m not gonna have anyone to do my groceries for me. I’m scared I might get an awful roommate. I hate the idea of communal showers. I don’t even know what I want to do after college, and I know I have four years to make up my mind, but I’m scared those four years are gonna flash by and I’ll be indebted and unemployed by the end of it.” You pause to take a breath, and you can feel Sunghoon’s eyes on the sides of your face, but he doesn’t say anything. “Also, I heard that you put on a lot of weight during your freshman year.”
You turn to look at him to find him smiling at you. “Wow. That’s a lot.”
The two of you giggle, eyes not leaving the other’s. After a moment, you turn your gaze back to the ceiling and sigh. “Yeah, I know. But I’m more excited than I am scared. What about you?”
Sunghoon follows your gaze and looks up above him. He doesn’t say anything for a while, and when he finally speaks up, he says it so quietly, you almost don’t hear it. “I’m scared of going to college a virgin.”
You try to stay serious for a few seconds, but you can’t keep your laughter in and snort loudly at your friend’s words, laughing so hard your stomach starts to hurt.
“Don’t make fun of me!” he whines, hands coming up to cover his face.
It takes you a while to calm down; not only was Sunghoon’s statement ridiculous, it was so unexpected that you couldn’t stop laughing. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you apologize, catching your breath. “I just can’t believe that that’s what you’re scared of, of all things.”
“What? It’s a perfectly reasonable concern,” he defends himself.
“Nobody’s gonna care if you’re a virgin, Hoon,” you try to reason with him, but if there is one thing your best friend is, it’s stubborn.
“I’m gonna care! What if I like a girl but I can’t bring myself to make a move on her ‘cause I have no experience?”
“But Hoon, chances are she doesn’t have a lot more experience than you do! She’ll be the same age we are, dummy. We’re not sixteen year-olds jumping into a world of twenty year-olds. Sure, some people have their first time in high school, but a lot do it at university. You’ll be fine,” you reassure. His furrowed eyebrows and pout tell you he’s not fully convinced, though.
“Oh, c’mon! If you really want to lose your virginity before leaving, we can get you laid during the summer. I’m sure we can find a girl nice enough,” you tease, jokingly patting his bicep, trying not to make a note of how firm the skin feels under your hand.
Sunghoon sighs, and you can tell he’s actually taking this seriously. “I’m not that desperate that I’d have sex with the first girl that agrees, you know. I’d still rather do it with someone…” He glances at you for just a second. “Someone I trust.”
You feel your face heat up at the possible meaning behind his words, so you look away, not wanting him to see the effect they had on you. He changes his position on the bed, and now it’s his turn to prop himself up on his elbows and look down at you.
“What about you, Y/N? Don’t you think it’d be good to get a bit of experience before going off to college? It’ll be one less thing to stress about,” he says, a small smirk playing on his lips, and his shy demeanor from moments prior is completely gone. Out of fear that his ego would get even bigger, you'd never tell him, but you love it when he gets like that - when he thinks he’s the shit and teases you mercilessly. You know he does it lightheartedly, and it never fails to bring a smile to your face.
Except right now it does. You’re not smiling, far from it; you’re looking up at your best friend, mouth slightly agape and wide eyes searching for a sign that he may be just joking. He raises an eyebrow expectantly, and your reaction is to scoff at him. 
“Do I need to remind you that you’re the reason I have no experience to begin with, Park Sunghoon?” you ask, sitting up on the bed to peer down at him. He shifts again and lays on his back, his hands coming up behind his head as he beams at you.
“Am I really?”
You wish you could slap that shit-eating grin off of his face. This is not the first time you're having this conversation. “Yes, Hoon. Every time a guy was even remotely interested in me, you chased them away. I’m still not over you telling Kang Taehyun I have smelly feet! I had a huge crush on that guy!”
Sunghoon loudly laughs at the memory, and you curse yourself for cracking a smile when you see his face scrunched in laughter. “That was in Year 5, Y/N! It’s been years!”
You grab a pillow and throw it at his head, unable to not laugh along with him. “What about Bang Yedam, then? That was only last year, and you totally ruined my chances with him!”
“Listen, if you having a creepy doll collection is enough to make him not ask you out, then he must not have liked you that much.”
“But I don’t have a creepy doll collection! That’s the whole point!” you say, on the brink of desperation. You sigh at your friend who’s still catching his breath from laughing so much. “You’re just lucky they didn’t repeat your bullshit to anyone. I would’ve had such a weird reputation otherwise.”
“Of course they didn’t. I told them I’d kill them if they did,” he stated matter-of-factly, as if that was a normal and appropriate thing to do.
“Couldn’t you have threatened them that way so they wouldn’t ask me out instead of lying to them about me?”
Sunghoon stares at you for a few seconds, eyes seemingly empty of thought. “Huh. Yeah, I guess I could’ve done that.”
“Ugh,” you groan, and plop down on the bed next to him. Neither of you says anything for some time, until you break the silence again. “You know you even stole my first kiss, Hoon,” you speak softly.
“I know,” he says, voice just as quiet as yours. “You never shut up about it.”
“Why would I? I was about to kiss Lee Heeseung, of all people, the boy everybody, including me, had a crush on, but no, someone had to get between us and kiss me in his stead,” you grumble, giving your friend a harsh side-eye.
Sunghoon sighs and shakes his head as if you’re being irrational. “I don’t get why you’re so hung-up on that. Why would you want your first kiss to be because of a middle-school party dare rather than have it with your best friend, whom you know and trust?”
“It was Lee Heeseung, for God’s sake!”
“And I’m Park Sunghoon!”
Still both laying on your backs, you turn your heads to look at each other. There’s something in his eyes you’ve never seen before that you can’t quite put your finger on. The person in front of you is one you’ve known for years now and yet the look in his eyes is of such unfamiliar intensity that it makes your stomach flip. You inhale sharply when his eyes drift down to your lips, and you can’t help but mirror his actions. The atmosphere has flipped like a light switch; it was playful just mere seconds ago, the sound of your usual banter filling up the room. All of a sudden, there’s something heavy dancing in the air around you, and it makes your heart skip a bit faster and your breath a bit shallower.
Your voice is barely above a whisper when you say his name.
“Yeah?” His eyes snap back up to yours, but you're still stuck on his lips. Have they always looked so kissable?
“Why did you do that? Why did you push those boys away from me?” you ask, even though you’ve asked this question a thousand times before. You want to hear his answer again.
“I’ve already told you. You deserved better than them.” Whenever you ask him about it, Sunghoon always stops here, and you never push. But there are unspoken words left hanging that you’re dying to hear.
“Who, then? Who’d be better than them?”
He's quiet for a second. “It’s a secret,” he whispers finally, a small smirk teasing his lips, and you roll your eyes at him. But then your eyes meet again and your breath hitches. You shift to your side so you can face him more fully, and he mirrors your actions. 
It’s his turn to say your name. “Y/N?”
“Yeah?”
“Have you kissed anyone since?” he asks, coming off shyer than he’d intended to.
You giggle and smack his shoulder lightly. “Why do you wanna know?”
He snickers too and, to your surprise, stops your fist from hitting him a second time, enveloping his larger hand around yours and laying it between the two of you on the bed. “Cause I should know that sorta thing. Also, if you did kiss someone since then, and I didn’t know about it, I'd be upset.”
“Why would you be mad?” you say, still giggling, trying to ignore the way your heartbeat quickens when he threads your fingers with his.
“Because you wouldn’t have told me!”
“Well…”
“No way, Y/N,” he practically shouts, already feeling betrayed, his free hand coming up to grip his heart in fake shock.
“Let me at least finish first,” you protest. He obliges, although he doesn't look very happy about it. “You know that summer 2 years ago I went away to camp?”
“Yeah, worst summer ever.”
“Well, I did sort of… get with someone, that summer,” you say, avoiding Sunghoon’s wide eyes as he gasps loudly.
“What? Who with? How come you didn't tell me?” he exclaims, letting go of your hand. He sits up on the bed and crosses his arms over his chest like an annoyed child. 
“Because of this exactly.”
“What’s this?”
“Your reaction right now!” you say, sitting up as well, both of your knees grazing his. The simple touch sends a shiver down your spine that you can only hope he takes no notice of.
“Wouldn’t you be a bit upset if I told you I ‘got with’,” he air-quotes, “a random girl two years ago?”
“No? Especially not if it was two years ago?”
You both look just as confused as the other, obviously not on the same wavelength. He furrows his eyebrows and glares at you. “Well, I am.”
You throw your head back in laughter and place your hands on his knees, but when you come forward again, you overestimate the distance between the both of you and find yourself mere inches from his face. The laughter immediately dies in your throat, and you feel it go dry when your stunned reaction elicits a smirk from him. You don’t know how long you stare into his eyes, all you know is you snap out of it when his gaze drifts down to your lips once more. You’re closer now than you were before, and having him so close makes your mind spin with all the possible outcomes of such proximity. You lean back on the bed, pulling away your hands from his knees to hold yourself up on them.
“There’s no reason to,” you say, hoping that breaking the silence will dissipate some of the tension in the air. You keep going back and forth between familiar and dangerous and you don’t know how long you’ll be able to handle that atmosphere. “It’s not like anything grand happened. We made out a bit and held hands. We never spoke after that summer, otherwise you’d have known about it.” 
Sunghoon lets out a low hum. His eyes are still trained on yours, and you wished he’d look away because you can’t seem to do it yourself. He still doesn’t say anything, so you speak up again. “You say that like you’ve never had girlfriends, by the way. Surely you’ve done more than just kissing.” Silence again, and you can’t decipher the look he’s giving you. “So, I don’t know what you’re so scared about, because it’s not like you have zero experience. I’m sure the girls at uni will love you, Hoon.”
He sighs and finally tears his eyes away from yours, and you’re not sure if you’re seeing things because of how dark and late it is or if there’s an actual blush creeping on his cheeks. “Sure, I’ve had a couple girlfriends, but you know they’ve never lasted long,” he says, looking down at his lap. “We made out… I guess I-” he gives you a quick glance, “I’ve touched their boobs and they’ve touched my… you know…”
You can’t help but giggle at how shy your friend is suddenly being. “Can’t even say the word ‘penis’, Hoon?,” you tease, and his eyes snap back up at yours.
“Of course I can. Penis! There.” You look at each other for a few seconds before bursting into laughter, Sunghoon hushing you so you don’t wake up his parents, but his hushes are louder than your laugh. After a couple minutes, you calm down and wipe your tears away, grateful for the break in the tension between you and Sunghoon.
“Anyway, yeah, I guess I don’t have that much experience. Which is why I brought it up in the first place.” And just as quickly as it’d left, the tension is back again.
You look around the room because the weight of Sunghoon’s gaze on your face is unbearable. You release a shaky breath when you feel his gentle hand on your knee, and your eyes drift to it, but you can’t get yourself to look him straight in the eyes. 
“Don’t you think it’d be good to get experience before leaving for college, Y/N?” he asks, and you can tell he’s trying to sound confident, but his voice comes out breathier and shakier than he must intend it to.
“I don’t know… I don’t think it’s necessary,” you say, eyes still trained on his hand resting on your knee. He squeezes it a bit, making you finally look up at him. Is it just you, or did the room get hotter all of a sudden?
“Not everything you do has to be out of necessity, you know.”
The both of you stare at each other for a few moments. This shift in your relationship was bound to happen; you’d been feeling it more and more recently. You didn’t use to think twice about Sunghoon taking your hand in his, nor did you feel those stupid butterflies eating away at your stomach every time his gaze lingered for a second too long. You’d tried to reason with yourself that it was just teenage hormones doing their stupid job, and that you were doomed to feel some kind of attraction for your extremely handsome best friend at some point in your life, but that if you ignored it hard and long enough it would go away.
Well, now that Sunghoon’s lips are barely inches away from yours and your skin is on fire under his hand, it definitely isn’t going away.
“What would you do if I kissed you?” Sunghoon asks, eyes fluttering down to your lips. You think he’s looked at your lips more than the rest of your face in the past hour.
“I’d slap you,” you lie, gaze mirroring his.
“Would you really?” he says, and your hesitation makes him smirk slightly.
“No,” you breathe out, and it’s the answer he’s been waiting for, the answer he needs to finally press his soft lips against yours. 
You don’t even have the time to savor the moment, though, because the warmth of his lips is gone as quickly as it came. He pulls back, a surprised look in his eyes, as if he can’t believe what he just did. The tension above you breaks and rains down on you like small pieces of confetti that settle comfortably on your head and shoulders. There’s a knot in your stomach but instead of twisting your insides in nervousness, it feels warm and makes you giddy for what’s to come next. Sunghoon’s surprised expression transforms into a grin at the sound of your laughter, and he can’t help but chuckle along with you.
You scooch closer to him, and his other hand comes to rest on your second knee. You can tell he’s not going to do much more, so you lean in bit by bit, and peck him softly on the lips. You both giggle again and you blame the fact that you want to feel his lips on yours again on the late hour of the night. You peck his lips once, twice more, giggling inbetween, but when you peck them a third time, he doesn’t let you pull away and keeps his lips on yours. The sudden added strength takes you aback, but it doesn’t take you long to yield to his touch and kiss him back. 
Sunghoon moves his lips slowly against yours and it’s surprisingly easy to fall into his rhythm. You don’t have the most experience with kissing, but something about doing it with your best friend reassures you and your whole body relaxes as you focus on the feeling of his lips moving in cadence with yours. The knot in your stomach stays there and tightens when his hands ride up your thighs and settle on your hips, holding you snugly there. You’re only wearing shorts and his palms against your bare skin make you release a shaky breath in Sunghoon’s mouth. You pull back for a bit, surprised at your own reaction, but nothing has prepared you for the way your best friend looks at you.
His pupils are dilated, dark; his glossed-over eyes bore right into yours. Your breath was already shallow from the kiss, but it’s his gaze that renders you completely breathless. Sunghoon tightens his grip on your hips and leans in for more, but you put a hand on his chest to stop him, making his eyes snap back into focus.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry, Y/N. I don’t know what took over me. Are you okay?” he asks, as short of breath as you are, but worry laced in his voice.
“No- Yes- I mean, yes, I’m fine, everything’s fine, I just-” you shake your head, trying to gather your thoughts. “I’m just…”
“Tell me. You can tell me,” he says, rubbing gentle circles into your hips with his thumb, and the unfamiliar yet intimate gesture makes it even harder to concentrate. 
“We- we’re best friends, right?” you ask, voice trembling, You ask, even though you know the answer, just because you’re afraid the line the two of you have just crossed is already miles behind you, and you won’t be able to retrace your steps.
“Yeah, of course we are,” Sunghoon reassures, head tilting to the side in confusion. 
“And best friends… Do they… Well, it’s normal for best friends to kiss, right?” you say, trying to calm the overpowering urge to kiss him again.
Sunghoon chuckles and tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear. “I don’t know about that, Y/N.”
“Oh,” you breathe.
Sunghoon quickly catches on to your hesitation. “But who cares about what best friends usually do and don’t do?” he says, holding your face between his hands to make you look up at him. “I liked kissing you, just now. I really, really liked it,” he admits, red dusting his cheeks. “Did you?”
You nod, too shy to put just how much you enjoyed kissing Sunghoon into words. “Do you want to do it again?” he asks and chuckles when you nod again, eyes already on his lips. This time, you don’t stop him when he leans in and let him press his lips to yours again. His words have reassured you and you sigh into his mouth, making him smile into the kiss. 
His hands ride up a bit and settle on your waist, bringing you a bit closer to him, and you circle your arms around his neck. The shyness of the first kiss is completely gone, and you’re both gaining more and more confidence, letting everything go and focusing solely on where your bodies meet. He tilts his head, deepening the kiss, and you push your body onto his, a sudden need to feel him against you, to feel his strong arms encaging you. 
You pull away at the same time to catch your breaths, smiling at each other when you see how lustful the other’s expression is. Sunghoon’s eyes have glossed over once more, and you’re sure yours have too. “C’mere,” he whispers, beckoning you to him. You climb onto his lap, one knee on each side of his hips. “Is this okay?” he asks, but you don’t answer, you just lean in and kiss him again, holding his face in your hand as his hands roam your back over the thin fabric of your t-shirt. Your kisses are curious, the both of you trying to figure out what feels best as you tilt your heads from one side to the other and let your inquisitive hands travel each other’s bodies. Yours find purchase in his hair, and you revel in the sighs that escape his lips whenever you pull and tug at the strands. 
As the kiss gets hungrier and needier, his hands fall down to your lower back, and then to your ass. He just cups it for a while, but after a few moments, grabs it harder and brings you close to him, making your core rub against  the hardness that had been building in his sweatpants for a while now. The friction is unexpected and you can’t help the loud moan leaving your lips at the feeling. It’s a feeling you know from your own hand in the privacy of your dark room, but Sunghoon making you feel that way is so foreign that it snaps you out of the daze you’re in. 
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, was that too much?” Sunghoon scrambles for words, but you’re already pulling away, and he doesn’t know what to do to keep you close.
You sit back on the bed, holding your knees close to your chest. You look at your best friend in front of you who’s looking at you with a worried expression. Something in you craves to reach a hand out to him, to feel his cheeks and jawline under your palms again, to find out if he’d shiver at your touch and if goosebumps would form on his skin. He’s been your best friend for eight years, and you’ve always thought you knew everything about him, the same way he’s supposed to know everything about you. But you realize in this moment that there are things you don’t yet know, melodies to be discovered, treasures to be unearthed. Your fingertips are burning to find them all. 
The sound of your name resonates inside your mind and it takes you everything not to fall back on him again. You furrow your eyebrows, confused by all those things you’re feeling. What was it that just took over you, that lit your insides up so?
You straighten your back suddenly and take in your surroundings. Sunghoon’s room is still the same old room you’ve always known, the same blue walls, the same posters he only ever changes when he finds a new interest and lets go of an old one. The same pictures from when you were 10, 12, 15, recent ones now that you’re 18; the same figure skating trophies and medals on his shelves. You turn to look at your best friend. The same soft, round cheeks contrasted by a sharp jaw; the same almond eyes, round with worry at your sudden movement away from him; the same two moles you’ve always found so comforting, for some reason. You almost reach out to touch them, to give you some sense of balance, to reassure you that things aren’t changing as much as it feels like they are. But you’re scared electricity might fry your fingers if you touch him right now. You’re scared you won’t be able to take your fingers off of him, no matter how much it stings. His face is the same as always before, but there’s something else to it, something you could probably figure out if you spent more than three seconds thinking about it, but you’re not sure you want to figure it out.
“Is everything okay? Did- Did I do something wrong?” he asks, voice laced with concern. 
Before he can put a reassuring hand on your knee, you get off of the bed, and hurriedly say, “No. I just- I think I should go home.” You look everywhere but at him.
He sits up at your words, concern turned into confusion. “It’s 3 a.m., Y/N, why do you want to go home all of a sudden? You’ve stayed over plenty of times before.”
“I know, I just…” you trail off, trying to come up with an excuse. “I’ve got cramps. I think my period’s coming,” you lie. It’s better than whatever truth is threatening to bubble up.
“Oh. Right.” He scooches a bit, sitting on the edge of his bed. “Is there anything- like- can I do anything?” He sighs, steadies himself. “You don’t have to go, is what I’m trying to say.”
A few months ago, when you had finally wrapped your head around the fact that your best friend was an attractive man and that he made you feel things friends weren’t supposed to make you feel, you’d told yourself it was all just a phase that would pass soon. But feelings this strong surely cannot go away that easily.
You take a deep breath in and tear your eyes away from him. “I think I should go home,” you repeat. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Hoon.”
You turn around and start walking away, but Sunghoon is quick on his feet and stops you from going out the door. “Do you actually have cramps? Or are you just scared that our friendship might change?” He sounds out of breath, like asking this question is taking him all of his energy.
You avert his gaze and try to push past him, but he’s much stronger than you. Puberty sure played its trick on him. You sigh and look down at your feet. “I’m tired, Hoon, let’s talk about it tomorrow.”
But if there is one thing your best friend is, it’s stubborn. “I don’t wanna talk about it tomorrow. I wanna talk about it now. Did it feel nice?” he asks, and his resolute tone of voice makes you look up at him.
“I- I mean-”
“Y/N,” he starts, wrapping his arms around you and leaning in a bit, his familiar scent filling your nostrils. You have to close your eyes. “Answer me. Did it feel good?”
“Yes,” you answer without thinking. 
“Is that why you’re scared?”
“Yes.” Your eyes flutter open when you feel his fingers graze your cheek. He leans in again and traps your kiss in a much softer and intimate kiss that makes your head spin and your thoughts cloud. Before you can get carried away, you pull away again, and ignore how beautiful he looks when his eyes stay closed for a couple of seconds longer. He only opens them once you tell him once again you should go home, that you need some time to think.
“Let me at least walk you there. It’s dark,” he pleads, his grip on your waist still tight.
“Hoon, I live right next door, I’ll be fine.” You let him kiss you once more and he makes you promise to call or text him tomorrow.
When you leave, Sunghoon plops back down on his bed, arm resting on his forehead as he plays back the events of the night. Had he done something wrong? Something that made you want to get as far away from him as quickly as possible? He’d tried to be gentle and to make sure you were okay with everything, but he couldn’t help but get carried away when he heard those sweet sighs of yours. He thought he was going to combust when he heard you moan, and he wanted to hear it over and over again, but you’d jumped from him like he’d told you he had killed someone.
He hopes you were telling the truth when you said you were just scared about your friendship changing. He hadn’t wanted to push and get you to stay; he knew it was weird, seeing each other in a different light all at once. He wasn’t completely oblivious; he’d felt that same shift in your relationship those past few months, just like you had, although you’d never spoken about it to each other. He knew he could never go back to seeing you as just a friend when he’d jerked off one day and you were all he could think of. He kept imagining the sounds you’d make and the way your hands would feel on him, and he’d gotten so close to getting that today, but he must’ve fucked something up and now his chances were ruined. He curses himself for letting you slip through his fingers just when he thought he finally had you.
You don’t get a wink of sleep that night. Your mind is reeling with everything that happened in Sunghoon’s room. Your fingers unconsciously keep coming up to touch your lips and feel the ghost of his touch there. Your skin turns hot at the simple thought of how perfect his lips had felt against yours, and you toss and turn in your bed as you consider what might’ve been, had you stayed with Sunghoon. 
But it’s all happening too quickly, and even though you’ve been curious in more ways than one about your best friend for the past few months, you hadn’t expected to kiss him and to enjoy it so much on a random summer night. Your thoughts only seem to calm down and your eyes finally close just as the sun starts to rise.
--
The next day, Sunghoon wakes up in the early hours of the afternoon and checks his phone right away. A couple of notifications, but nothing from you. A text from Jake in their group chat with Jay asking to hang out at Sunghoon’s pool, to which he replies that they can come whenever. He taps a quick one out in the shower, memories of your scent and your lips on his getting him to finish quicker than he’d like to admit. He’s in the middle of a late breakfast when Jake and Jay spawn at his door, swimming trunks already on. Still nothing from you.
It doesn’t take Jay and Jake long to figure out that something is up with their best friend. It’s not like he does much usually, but today especially, he makes no effort to entertain them. He laughs at their jokes, but it feels like he laughs because he hears other people laughing rather than because he genuinely finds them funny. He barely even reacts when the inflatable pool ball hits him right in the face.
His friends don’t say anything until they’re all seated at a table by the pool, sipping on some ice-cold Coke. The air is still warm but the sun is low in the sky, hidden behind the house. Sunghoon is still lost in his thoughts, unblinking eyes fixed on a random point in the distance. Jay and Jake exchange a look before the former breaks the silence.
“Is everything alright, Hoon? You look out of it today.”
Jay’s voice brings him back to the here and now, and his eyes jump back and forth between his two friends who are looking at him expectantly. “Huh? Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Just tired. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night,” he says, leaving some of the truth out, but his friends know him better than he gives them credit for.
“Are you sure? I feel like there’s something you’re not telling us. You usually act like a little bitch when you’re tired, you don’t get all…,” Jake shakes his hand in front of his face, “distant like that.”
Sunghoon bites his lip, debating whether he should tell his friends about you or not. No matter how stupid they may be, they also know both of you quite well, so they might prove not completely useless, he thinks.
“Y/N and I kissed last night.”
It’s almost comical, how Jay and Jake bring their head forward in astonishment, how wide their mouth gets, how their eyes look like they might pop out of their sockets, and how they say “You what?!” at the same time. On a normal day, Sunghoon would've laughed.
“We kissed,” Sunghoon repeats, eyes drifting down to the ground in front of him as he rubs his neck in embarrassment.
“Fucking finally!” Jay exclaims.
“Told you it was gonna happen. No way you two were going to stay just besties forever,” Jake teases, punching Sunghoon in the arm. “How was it?”
Sunghoon sighs and leans back in his chair, letting his head hang back. “Really fucking amazing,” he chuckles. His friends holler for him, snickering like 12-year old boys who just saw a hot girl walk past. 
“God, I saw this coming from miles away. I don’t know why you kept on insisting nothing was gonna happen between you two,” Jake says, beaming.
“I really didn’t think anything would… I just… Started seeing her differently recently, I guess.” Sunghoon shrugs, sheepishly smiling to himself.
“So, what happened? Did you guys just kiss or…?” Jay asks, raising his eyebrows suggestively. Jake giggles at the insinuation of sex but has a curious glint in his eyes when he waits for Sunghoon’s answer.
“Yeah, um, we just kissed cause she- she sort of ran away?” Sunghoon admits, wincing at the recollection.
“You what?!” Chaeyong’s voice rings out in the food court of the mall where you’re currently sitting, halfway through your strawberry milkshake.
“Keep it down, would you?!” you scold her, smiling apologetically to the people staring at you and your friend.
“If it was so good, why the hell did you run away, Y/N?”
“I just- I don’t know… Freaked out, I guess…” you mumble, cowering under the harsh look she gives you.
“Well, have you talked since?” You don’t reply, just guiltily avoid her gaze. “Y/N!”
“I know, I know! I just… don’t know what to do. ‘Hey, nice making out with you last night, bit weird since we’ve been best friends since we were 11, but that’s fine, right?’ Ugh! That’s so stupid,” you complain, flopping back in your chair.
“That’s exactly what you should say. Going MIA on him will just make things weirder. Plus you’ve never gone more than 24 hours without speaking so one of you will eventually cave in. It should be you,” she says, looking at you with a raised eyebrow as she takes a sip from her milkshake. 
You scoff when she gives you a ‘you know I’m right’ look. “I’ll think about it on the way home and text him. There.”
And you do think about it on the way home; but you don’t get the opportunity to send the text, because as soon as you get off the bus at the stop right across from your house, you see Sunghoon sitting on the bench of your porch, looking around nervously and rubbing his hands on his denim shorts. You chuckle to yourself; who knew he got so distressed from not speaking to you for a day?
He stands up when he sees you approaching and raises his hand in a quick wave. “Hi, Hoon,” you greet, and you can feel his whole body relax when you hug him. So, you don’t hate him, he thinks. You sit down on the bench together. “Sorry I didn’t text you. I didn’t know what to say after… last night,” you admit, hugging your knees to your chest as you sit facing him.
“Yeah, I figured,” he chuckles, smiling shyly at you. “I was scared you’d never want to see me again.”
You look at him with wide eyes, mildly offended, and punch his arm. “How could you think that?!”
“Well, you did sort of run away from me last night,” he says, lightly punching your arm in return.
You tut in defeat. “I did, didn’t I?” 
“Yeah. I’m just glad you didn’t walk past me straight into your house just now.”
You chuckle and rest your head on top of your knees. “That would’ve been a bit much, even for me.”
Sunghoon lets out a puff of air through his nose in response, and then the two of you sit in silence. You’re contemplating what to do next when your friend pulls you from your thoughts. “Should we, um…” He shuts his eyes tightly in reflection for a second before opening them again and looking straight at you. “Should we just pretend like last night didn’t happen? Would that make you feel more comfortable?”
His words take you aback and your eyes widen a bit; you hadn’t even thought pretending nothing happened last night was an option, because you didn’t think you’d ever be able to actually get it out of your head. Even now, if you stare at Sunghoon for too long, your gaze will naturally drift downwards or you’ll get a flashback of his large hands around your waist. But apparently, if he can offer to pretend like the previous night wasn’t a thing, then it must not have been such a huge deal to him. You quickly try to hide your disappointment and nod at your friend. “Right. Yeah. Sure.”
Silence makes its way between you two again. It makes the late afternoon breeze a bit chillier and the physical distance between you and Sunghoon feel much bigger than it actually is. Wanting it to go away quickly, you ask, “Do you wanna watch a movie, then?”
Sunghoon’s never looked so relieved about watching a movie, and he immediately accepts your offer. You get some popcorn ready while he searches for a movie to watch. He clicks on a horror movie that looks like it’s got a cliché storyline and awful acting, but you’re happy for any sort of distraction when Sunghoon is sitting so close to you.
You and Sunghoon always sit close-by when you watch something together, knees and shoulders brushing against each other. Tonight isn’t any different, except that your skin burns everywhere it touches his. You can smell the faint scent of chlorine in his hair, and it’s so intoxicating you want to bury your face there and breathe it in.
You’re thirty minutes into the movie and still nothing’s happened when Sunghoon puts his arm around you, letting his hand hang over your shoulder. The sudden warm contact makes you take a sharp intake of breath as memories of the previous night come flooding once again. You don’t know what you were expecting, but Sunghoon simply rests his hand there and doesn’t do anything more for another thirty minutes, except for squeezing your shoulder when there’s a small jumpscare, making you chuckle at him. This isn’t much more than what you’re used to with him, but knowing your friend, he must be thinking the ball is in your court. So you scooch a bit closer into his side and rest your head on his shoulder, the scent of his skin even stronger now that your nose is so close to his neck. You feel his chest raise and relax as he sighs deeply and tightens his hold around your shoulders. His small reactions to you spur you on and you decide to wrap an arm around his waist and you feel him flinch oh-so-slightly at your touch in such a sensitive spot. He starts to rub circles into your shoulder and rests his head on top of yours, and your whole body relaxes into his. This is so much more than what you’re used to with him; and yet, you so readily melt under his touch.
You can barely focus on the movie because of how close Sunghoon is. When a particularly scary ghost jumps on the screen, you flinch and hide your face in his neck, and he giggles at your reaction, hand coming up to stroke your hair comfortingly. It only takes you a few seconds to realize what position you’re in, and you release a shaky breath as you slowly lift your head towards Sunghoon, only to find him already looking at you, seemingly having had that same realization. When his eyes drift down to your lips, you know you’re done for.
You call out his name, and he’s already answered ‘Yes?’ before you’ve had time to finish uttering the second syllable. “I don’t think I want to pretend last night never happened,” you admit, holding his waist a bit tighter.
“Good. Me neither,” he breathes out before leaning down and trapping your lips in his, the kiss releasing all your pent-up frustration of the day. The world seems to melt away with his lips on yours, the movie already long forgotten. Sunghoon pulls you into his lap and you slide your palms up from his waist, against his chest and to his shoulders before wrapping your arms around his neck, bringing your body closer to his. His hands are sitting on your hips, fingers lightly pressing into them and your lower back. Now that you both seem to know what you want, it’s so easy, just falling into this kiss.
His tongue darts out to lick your bottom lip and you gladly open your mouth for him, letting his tongue explore it. You haven’t kissed someone like this in ages, maybe ever, but Sunghoon takes the lead and effortlessly gets you to follow his rhythm. When a flick of his tongue against yours feels particularly nice, you arch your back and press your chest into his, making him smirk into the kiss. This time, when he brings your hips down onto his, letting you feel his erection against your clothed core, the feeling doesn’t make you want to run away; instead, you want to feel it again and again.
You fall into a nice pace of rubbing yourself against him, eliciting hushed moans and loud breaths from the both of you. You can’t concentrate on kissing him and grinding down on him at the same time, so you drop your head down to bury your face in his neck, leaving a few pecks there but mostly moaning against his skin, enjoying how your hot breaths make him shiver.
You can’t keep a whine from escaping your lips when he bucks his hip into yours and his tip brushes directly against your covered clit, instantly bringing a hand up to your mouth. “Fuck, Y/N,” he breathes. “I know we gotta keep quiet ‘cause of your parents but the sounds you’re making are so fucking pretty. I wanna hear them over and over again.” His words make you whimper against his neck and you feel your slick starting to pool in your panties.
“H-hoon. This feels so good,” you moan, breathing warmly against the shell of his ear.
“I know, right? Feels so good,” he chuckles, hands grabbing at your ass to bring you harder down onto him. His actions are about to elicit another moan from you when, all of a sudden, a loud jumpscare in the movie makes you jump away from the boy underneath you and yelp in fear, which in turn makes him scream in surprise. You look at each other, panting and eyes open wide, hands clutching at your hearts, until you burst into laughter. The fun moment is short-lived, however, as your mom rushes down the stairs not ten seconds later, frantically asking if everything is alright. 
You sit up straight at the sight of your mother and clear your throat. You’re thankful for the dark of the room which hides your and Sunghoon’s swollen lips and flushed faces from her view. “Sorry, mom, we were just watching a scary movie. We’re fine.” She sleepily nods and walks back up the stairs, and when she’s back in her room, Sunghoon and you exchange a look and erupt into another fit of smaller, quieter giggles. 
That night, after Sunghoon’s gone home, the both of you get yourselves off in your own beds, the strong memory of each other’s lips and hands bringing you both to your releases. Without even realizing it, you moan out Sunghoon’s name as your orgasm hits. The window from your room doesn’t face his; but still, your heart is beating so loudly that you’re afraid the sound might carry from your open window to his. You get up and close it.
--
Now that you and Sunghoon both know you want to kiss each other, you do it everywhere: in his pool, his back pressed against the wall; on the sunchairs when you were supposed to be drying off; on your beds in the middle of the night, none of your parents or siblings suspicious of anything; in front of your house, because even though he was supposed to just walk you home, he couldn’t keep himself from tasting you one last time; in the backseat of his car after an evening with your friends and he drove you two home.
You spend a good two weeks of just kissing before your body starts to crave something more. At some point, Sunghoon’s hands resting nicely on your waist or sometimes, if he’s feeling bold, grabbing at your ass, start to not be enough anymore. You knew you wouldn’t be satisfied with just kisses and sweet touches when one day, his hands slowly but surely slid up your naked belly before grabbing onto your bikini-clad breast, lighting your whole body up on fire. He’d slipped his hand underneath your swimming top and rolled your nipple between two fingers and you had felt his dick twitch under your core when you let out a loud moan at the new yet so pleasurable feeling.
You know what it is that you want, but it makes you feel dirty. Your fingers have made you finish a hundred times before, but wanting Sunghoon to make you feel that way is a whole other story. Is that even what he wants? Would he be weirded out if you asked him about it? Is there even the sliver of a chance that maybe, just maybe, he has those same thoughts about you, and wants you to make him feel good as much as he wants to make you feel good?
If his grunts and the way he ruts into you when your make-out sessions get particularly steamy are any indication, then the answer to those questions would respectively be yes, no, and yes. 
You’re lying on a sunbed one afternoon, letting the sun dry off your wet skin from the pool, when you finally muster the courage to tell Sunghoon about your wishes. After all, he is your best friend, and you know you can talk to him about anything. Even when that ‘anything’ involves his fingers inside of you and his dick in your mouth.
“Sunghoon?” you call out, turning your head to look at your best friend. He’s bathing in the sunlight without a care in the world. His skin has tanned a bit since summer started three weeks ago and his muscles are even more defined after all that swimming and working out he’s been doing. You want to reach out a hand, to feel the taut skin of his abs and chest under your palms, and to maybe then slide your hand down until you feel his hard-on underneath his swimming trunks. Your chairs aren’t far apart and you could do it from where you are, but you’d rather ask him first.
“Yeah?” he answers without turning towards you.
You take a deep breath in before you start talking again. “You know how you said it could be good for us to get… experience before going to college… And how we’ve been kissing these past couple weeks…”
“Yeah, I know,” he chuckles.
“Well… people do more than just kissing, right?” you ask, voice slightly shaky. This seems to pique his interest as he turns to look at you.
“Yeah?” 
You hope you’re not just imagining the enthusiastic tone in his voice. “I think… I think we should try that too, don’t you think?” you ask, eyes not leaving his as he sits up on his chair and turns his knees towards you, fully facing you now.
“Yeah, I agree. I completely agree.” He stares at you for a few moments as if in disbelief. “Do you want to- Should we- Let’s go up to my room, yeah?” he offers, standing up and reaching his hand out to you. You gladly take it.
You and Sunghoon are a giggling mess as you practically run up the stairs, unable to get to his room quick enough. As soon as the door is closed behind you, you wrap your arms around each other, your lips finding his immediately as he walks you back to his bed. When you feel the back of your knees hit it, you detach yourself from him and lay on it, elbows holding you up as you look up at him expectantly.
“Fuck,” he whispers, leaning in to hover over you. He traps your lips in a short but sweet kiss before pulling back and murmuring against your lips, “Have I ever told you how pretty you are, Y/N?”
You beam at his words but decide to tease anyway. “You always go on and on about how pretty you are, but never about me.”
He giggles and pecks your lips again. “Well, I’m telling you now. You’re gorgeous.” You kiss him to hide your flustered face, pulling him so close to you he’s practically laying on top of you. Your hands are a bit more curious than usual, your kisses hungrier, the both of you anticipating what’s to come. 
You grind against each other, the feeling of his erection against your barely covered core enough to send your mind into a frenzy. You forget everything around you when you feel Sunghoon pull back in the slightest, far enough so that he can look at your face and gauge your reactions but not too much that you still feel his hot breath on your lips. One of his hands is holding the back of your head as the other travels downwards, stopping for a second on your breast to massage it lightly before continuing its journey. It ever-so-slightly brushes against your core, making you buck your hips up into his touch, but his hand is already gone leaving you whining and pouting and him chuckling at your cute reaction. “You want it that bad, huh?” he teases.
You scoff, not wanting to let your friend know the effect he has on you. You press your palm against his clothed erection and he hisses at the unexpected contact. “So do you, Hoon.”
When he presses his lips to yours again, you both smile into the kiss. You cup his jaw and tangle your fingers through his hair, and his hand slips from under your head and joins his other hand on your thigh, grabbing at both of them, fingers slightly digging in your skin. He’s so, so close to where you want him most, and he seems to have noticed your growing impatience by the way you squirm underneath him. Seeing you so needy for him only makes him needier for you; he has more experience than you, so you probably expect him to take the lead, but the truth is, he has no idea what the fuck he’s doing.
“Y/N?” he murmurs, face buried in your neck as he leaves a trail of wet kisses there.
“Yeah?”
“What do you want me to do?”
The question takes you a bit by surprise. You pull away to look at your friend. His eyes are completely glossed-over, and yours are probably the same. “Oh. I don’t know. I just… want you to touch me, I guess,” you say, voice a bit quiet.
“I don’t know how to do that,” he admits sheepishly. He kisses your neck and cheeks before pecking your lips. “Could you- could you show me? How you do it? And I can show you how I do it?”
You take a second to take his words in. Was he suggesting that you touch yourself in front of him, and that he do the same?
This was like a dream come true.
“Yeah, sure.”
Sunghoon giggles in response, and you can’t help but crack a smile too, even though the idea of getting yourself off in front of your friend, no matter how appealing, is still a bit nerve-wracking. “You first,” he says, a mischievous glint in his eyes, and you roll your eyes at him.
You sit back against the headboard of the bed and slip a hand underneath your swim bottom, the other hand coming up to cover your eyes in an attempt to escape Sunghoon’s heavy, lustful gaze. “None of that. I wanna see you,” he says, pulling your hand away from your eyes and resting it on a pillow next to you. “And if you keep these on, I won’t be able to see anything,” he says, looking down at your bikini top.
Before you can protest, he comes to sit on his knees in front of you, kissing your neck and letting his hands roam your back. “I wanna see all of you.” It’s so easy, untying your string bikini, he almost thinks you wore it on purpose for him to take it off. You avoid his gaze as he takes your top off of you, leaving you half-naked in front of him. “So pretty,” he whispers, and you can’t help but look at him, slick pooling between your legs from the fascination he’s looking at your breasts with. He trails kisses down your neck until he reaches them, taking a nipple in his mouth and swirling his tongue around it, then looks up to see your reaction. You never knew your nipples were this sensitive, and you can’t help but arch your back at his touch and moan loudly, hand flying up to tug at his soft hair. He releases your nipple with a pop and moves sideways to pay the same attention to the other one, but Sunghoon is impatient and doesn’t waste too much time on it; he knows he can come back to your boobs later anyway. Right now, you’ve got a hand between your legs, and that’s what he’s dying to see.
“Can I take this off, too?” he asks, looking up at you as his fingers hook on the sides of your swimming bottoms, waiting for you to nod. His eyes don’t leave your glistening core as he pulls the thin fabric down your legs, discarding it somewhere on the floor of his room. He lays on his belly and kisses the inside of your knee as he holds your thighs in his large hands, still transfixed by your pussy when he says, “Show me how you do it, please.”
You both take a sharp breath in when you start moving two fingers in gentle circles over your clit, already wet from making out with Sunghoon. Your fingers are nimble and know exactly what to do after years of doing this, but the pulse in your core is even stronger now that your best friend is watching your movements this intently. He looks like he’s scared to blink in case he might miss something. You can’t take your eyes off of his face; you’ve never seen him so fascinated by something, so eager to learn. It makes you want to put on a show for him.
A surge of confidence hits you out of nowhere as you slide your digits down your folds, gathering some slick before sliding them back up to your clit and rubbing it a bit faster, a bit harder, your moans growing louder and higher in pitch. With your free hand, you tug at the base of Sunghoon’s hair and make him look up at you. You release his hair and bring your pointer finger up to your mouth, sucking on it and swirling your tongue around it, and Sunghoon’s mind is taken back to that day a couple weeks ago when you had sucked on those lollipops. Oh, how things have changed since then. Not that he’s complaining. “Fuck, that’s hot,” he breathes out, eyes zeroed in on your lips and mouth slightly agape.
You smirk at his reaction, stomach on fire with the feeling of having this kind of power on him. When you’ve wet your finger enough, you bring it down to your slit, circling around your hole before entering it, releasing a loud moan for good measure. Sunghoon is mesmerized by the quickening with which your finger slips in and out of you, the fingers on your clit never relenting. He doesn’t even realize he’s released one of your thighs to palm himself over his shorts until you notice it yourself and tut in disapproval.
“Come and help me, Hoon,” you say, and the boy snaps out of his daze at the sound of his nickname. He nods slowly, changing his position so that he’s laying between your legs, head dangerously close to your core. You slip your other finger out of your hole and he takes that as a sign to replace it with his own. One hand still gripping your thigh, he imitates your previous actions as he gets his pointer finger wet with his saliva before pressing it between your folds, right underneath your clit where your fingers are still rubbing circles, sliding it down towards your slit, and finally pushing it in. 
“So warm… So wet, too,” he whispers in wonder, making you cover your eyes with your forearm out of shyness.
“Oh my God,” you moan, arching your back and letting your head drop to the side on the pillow. Sunghoon’s finger is much thicker and longer than your own, and it stretches you out and hits a deep spot inside you you never could, no matter how much you tried.
“Like this?” he asks, eyes curious as they bounce back and forth between your face and your entrance sucking his finger in.
“Yes, yes, just like that, you can also- oh- you can also curve it upwards a bit- fuck, yeah, just like that, Hoon, you’re doing so well,” you say, the praises just flying out of your mouth. 
This seems to instill some confidence in him, as he cocks an eyebrow at you and speeds up his actions. “Yeah? My finger making you feel good, Y/N?”
“Oh, shut up,” you bite back, but immediately let out a long whine when he easily inserts a second finger in your soaking pussy. He curves them inside you just like you told him to, and the feeling of his fingers filling you up and your own quick ones on your clit are creating a familiar knot in your stomach that is so close to breaking. That is, until Sunghoon pulls your wrist away from your clit.
“Y/N… Can I?” he asks, and you’re not sure what he’s planning, but nod anyway. He wastes no time before pressing his tongue flat down on the sensitive bud, and you actually feel like your soul might leave your body. Fingers knuckle-deep inside you, he licks and sucks at your clit, and the warmth of his tongue against your folds is what makes you tumble over the edge, tightly gripping his hair and bucking your hips into his mouth.
“Oh my God… Oh my God, Hoon, please, don’t stop, please,” you beg, voice getting higher and whinier as you cum all over his tongue. He continues eating you out until it gets too much and you have to tell him to stop. He hikes his body up yours, pecking you sweetly on the lips when he reaches them.
“Your turn,” you announce and hook your legs over his hips to straddle him. You’re about to lean in for a kiss when you notice how lovingly he’s looking at you: his eyes are soft and a small smile is playing on his lips. It takes you aback, but you’d be lying if you said butterflies didn’t spread in your stomach. “W-why are you looking at me like that?”
His grin gets a bit wider. “Did I make you feel good?”
“Y-yeah…,” you admit, averting your gaze from him.
“I’m glad. You taste good, by the way. Sweet.” You want to kiss the devilish smirk off of his face.
You scoff at your friend, glaring a bit. “Whatever. Sit up,” you order, but it just makes him smirk more.
“Yes, ma’am.”
You look up at him to check for confirmation, and when he nods, you hook your fingers under his swimming trunks, taking them off of him along with his boxers underneath. His already fully-hard cock springs free and slaps against his stomach, and you curse yourself for your reaction that will surely just inflate his ego, as if it wasn’t already massive. Your mouth hangs open, eyes zeroing in on his length, flushed red from lack of attention and what you can only guess is precum leaking at the tip. It's straight from a porno.
“Like what you see?” Sunghoon teases, making you look up at him, and you can only stupidly nod. You take the position he was in earlier, laying your head on his thigh and caressing the other, letting it ride up to rub his inner thigh and the tiniest bit over his cock, making his smirk vanish as he takes a shaky breath in.
“Show me how you do it,” you say, echoing his words from earlier. He gulps, finally realizing that he was going to have to masturbate in front of your curious eyes just as you had. He spits on his open palm and spreads the precum over his length with his thumb, lubing himself up before gripping the base and starting to move his hand up and down. You watch as his head falls back against the pillow when his palm grazes over his tip and his movements pick up some speed.
You rub his palms over his thighs, itching to get closer to his cock and make him feel as good as he had done to you earlier. Tentatively, you reach out to grab his balls in your hands, massaging them softly, feeling satisfied when a loud moan leaves his throat. “Oh, f-fuck, that feels good, Y/N,” he breathes out, voice much higher than you’re used to. If he thought that felt good, then nothing could’ve prepared him for the feeling of your soft and warm tongue kitty-licking his balls, then taking turns sucking each one into your mouth and releasing them with a pop. “Where the fuck did you learn how to do that?” he asks, involuntarily bucking his hips into your face.
You can’t help but giggle, and Sunghoon thinks he might come from the sweet sound contrasted with your lewd actions alone. “I read a lot of fanfiction,” you explain, and he doesn’t question it. If Wattpad taught you how to suck dick, then so be it.
You wrap your hand around his and tell him to keep going so you can get an idea of what pace and movements he likes, and you graze your fingernails over his abs and chest with your other hand, chuckling at how sensitive he is when you lightly pinch his nipples. Sunghoon takes his hand off of himself, laying both of his hands palms up next to him on the bed, so you decide to literally take things into your own hands. Trying to recreate what he did before, you spit into your palm and wrap your fingers around his tip, bringing your hand down in a swirly motion to the base of his shaft. You do that a few times, asking, “Like that?” to get confirmation from Sunghoon.
“Just like that, baby,” he says, not even taking notice of the pet name; but you do, and your face immediately flushes, surprised at how much you like it.
“Baby?” you repeat, but he’s too lost in his pleasure and just hums in response. His reaction eggs you on, and you lick a long stripe from his base to his tip, swirling your tongue around it and humming at the bitter but not unpleasant taste of precum there. When another moan escapes his throat, you take his tip in your mouth, at first just shallowly thrusting your head, but then trying to take more and more of him. 
You’re so focused on what you’re doing that you don’t even realize how quickly he’s panting and how his grunts start to get whinier until he’s moaning out your name. “A-ah, Y/N, feels so good, ‘m gonna cum, fuck-”
He goes silent as he shoots his release down your throat, eyebrows deeply furrowed and mouth open wide in pleasure. There’s so much of it and you can’t swallow it all, so you pull your head back, catching your breath, and a hot string of cum hits your chin and your throat. Sunghoon takes a look at you and the sight of you with some of his cum makes his dick twitch before he plops back down on the bed. You giggle as you take tissues from the bedside table (cause of course he’s got tissues next to his bed) and wipe away his seed, then lie down next to him, brushing away the hair that’s sticking to his forehead with sweat and peppering his face with soft kisses.
He opens his eyes and smiles, turning his head to look at you before engulfing you in a bear hug, sweaty bodies sticking together but neither of you minding it. “That was so good, Y/N. What the fuck,” he sighs, pecking your forehead.
You hum, nuzzling your nose into his neck. “I know, right? Who knew you could use your mouth for other things than saying stupid shit,” you tease.
He pulls back and gives you a look that tries to be stern, but you know he’s joking. “Do I need to remind you again, young lady?”
You giggle and peck his lips, forcing him out of character as his dimples appear on his cheeks. “Later, definitely.”
And after that day, he makes sure to remind you time and time again of how good his mouth feels on you. You should’ve seen it coming with how amazing of a kisser he was; but truly, there was nothing like cumming on your friend’s tongue.
--
You’re relieved to find that not much has changed, after all; you and Sunghoon still play around in the pool, watch stupid movies and hang out with your friends like always. Sure, there are stray hands here and there, or looks that last a little too long and mean a little too much, but if anything, it just makes your friendship more playful and exciting. 
You’re both open with what you like and don’t like, so it doesn’t take either of you to figure out exactly how to make the other come undone embarrassingly quickly. (The shortest amount of time it took him was 2:38 seconds - yes, he timed it - and he hasn’t let you live it down since.) You like it when he presses his large hand down onto your lower tummy while he eats you out, or when he sits you between his legs and whispers all sorts of things as his fingers work their magic inside you and on your clit. He likes it when you get down on your knees in front of him and look up at him as you suck him dry, or when you sit in his lap and kiss his neck and play with his hair while he plays video games. And don’t even get him started on when you palmed him over his sweatpants while you watched a movie with Chaeyong, Jay and Jake, making sure that the movements under the blanket went unnoticed by them. He wanted to punish you after they left, he really did, but you took him in your mouth right there in the living room and gave him an orgasm that had his thighs shaking for five minutes afterwards. You were pretty proud of yourself for that one. 
You also find out that he hates it when you tease and edge him, which only makes you do it more; the only problem is that, if you do that, he’ll make you ride his thigh and won’t help you at all. His proud smirk and snide praises combined with the feeling of his thick thigh underneath your core were more than enough to get you to your end, though.
And truly, nothing has changed, especially not Sunghoon’s special talent in pushing boys away from you.
“What do you mean, Lee Heeseung is coming back?” he heatedly asks, slamming his glass of lemonade down on the outdoor table so hard you’re scared it might break.
“It’s the summer, of course he’s coming back. He just stayed behind for a bit to enjoy a few weeks of the city without college, and now he’s coming back here,” Jake explains, shrugging.
“Do you know when he’ll be here?” you ask, far too much excitement in your voice to Sunghoon’s taste.
“Just in a couple days.”
Sunghoon has smoke coming out of his ears when he sees how much you perk up at the news of your old crush being back in town for summer. He likes the boy, but he hates that you like him. And since Heeseung is friends with Jay, Jake, and by association Sunghoon, begrudgingly so, he’ll definitely see lots of him in the upcoming months. And if Sunghoon sees Heeseung, then you’ll see Heeseung, too. And that, Sunghoon doesn’t like.
You notice something is off with him that afternoon because of how uncharacteristically quiet he is. Sunghoon, ever the loud introvert, is always arguing for no reason and laughing louder than everybody around him. So when he merely chuckles at his friends’ numerous displays of stupidity in the pool and doesn’t even say anything in protest to you getting on Jake’s shoulders to play against Chaeyoung and Jay, you know something is definitely up. You also have a good idea of what that something might be, and you’d be lying if you said you didn’t find it endearing.
You stay behind when your friends leave in the early evening. Without a word, you and Sunghoon pack away the inflatable toys in the pool cabin and clean up the table, putting the dirty glasses in the sink. You do the dishes while he prepares sandwiches for the two of you, which he insisted on doing after he heard your stomach grumbling. You watch the latest Kurtis Conner video as you eat and can’t help but notice that he doesn’t even chuckle at any of the jokes or skits when he’d usually be clutching his stomach in laughter. 
When you’re done eating, you take a resolute breath and pause the video, but Sunghoon doesn’t even notice, only snapping out of his daze when you call out his name.
“Huh?” When his eyes find you, he almost looks surprised to see you, as if he’d forgotten you were there.
“Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” you ask, slightly frowning. “You look so out of it today.”
“Huh? I’m fine, nothing’s wrong,” he says dismissively and presses play, but you quickly pause the video again.
“I’m your best friend, Sunghoon, I know when something’s the matter and I know when you’re lying. We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, but don’t pretend everything’s fine when we both know that’s not true.”
He peers at you for a moment, cursing you for knowing him so well. He crosses his arm and averts his gaze, pouting like an angry child. “I hate it when you’re right.”
You giggle and make your way around the counter to him, standing inbetween his legs and wrapping your arms around his neck to make him look up at you. His hands come naturally up to your waist. “I just…” he starts, then immediately stops himself with a sigh., “You’ve always had a crush on Heeseung. But these are our last couple months together, and I don’t want somebody else taking up your attention…”
He buries his face between your breasts to hide his blush, and you can’t help but giggle again. “Stop laughing at me!” he protests, but the muffled sound of his voice just makes you laugh more. You stroke his hair and press a gentle kiss at the top of his head.
“Sure, I’m happy Heeseung’s coming back. But there’s no one I’d rather spend my summer with than you, Sunghoon, you should know that.” He leans back to look up at you with puppy eyes and a small pout. You cup his face, admiring how cute he looks like this, and smile softly down at him.
“Really?”
“Really,” you answer, and he leans in for a kiss.
It’s a soft one. It’s a patient kiss, neither of you urging to get somewhere else, to do something more. It reminds you of that kiss in his room a few weeks ago, when you were still curious and discovering each other. From then on, your kisses had become more feverish, more eager, more playful. But now, you’re taking your time. For now at least, neither of you is going anywhere. So your lips melt together slowly, and when you take breaks to breathe, you look each other in the eyes and smile before leaning back in.
It’s when you sigh against his lips, eyes still closed as you pull away, that it hits him. I could do this forever, he thinks.
I could sit here with my arms around her waist and her lips against mine and the smell of chlorine and the sound of her laugh forever and I’d never get tired of it, he thinks, but immediately afterwards, he realizes he won’t get to do this forever. Summer will end, you’ll both head off to college, and you’ll only get to see each other every few months until another summer comes. And who knows what might happen until then?
You might meet someone and realize Sunghoon isn’t all that; hell, he might meet someone, but he highly doubts anyone could even come close to the way you make him feel.
“Hello? Earth to Sunghoon?” you quietly joke, looking down at him with an affectionate look in your eyes. You press the pads of your fingers to his two moles before replacing your fingers with your lips, giving each one a quick peck. “You were up on the moon for a minute there.”
Sunghoon hums softly, smiling as he lets himself melt under your touch. “Sorry. It’s just really hot, isn’t it?” he says, a stupid excuse he uses as a blanket to cover his feelings. There is some sweat beading at his hairline, which helps make his lie more believable, but you don’t need to know it’s not just because of the summer heat.
Slowly, your smile turns mischievous, and Sunghoon can tell you have an idea in mind. “It is pretty hot… Wait here.”
He watches as you fill a tall glass with ice from the dispenser in the fridge and pop an ice cube in your mouth, a devilish smile on your face, and laughs when that smile is replaced with a frown as the coldness hits you and you spit it back into the glass, laughing along with him. “What the hell are you doing?” he asks between giggles.
“I got the idea a few days ago when we were having popsicles…,” you say looking down at the glass between your hands, slightly embarrassed. “You kissed me and your mouth was really cold but it felt nice.” Sunghoon hums, egging you to go on. You lift the glass up to his cheeks, applying just a bit of pressure to the soft skin. “I thought this could be refreshing.” 
You take the ice cube back in your mouth, sucking on it but not letting it melt completely before pressing your lips against Sunghoon’s and opening your mouth just a bit so he could feel the cold of the ice cube. You feel his smile into the kiss as the ice cube swirls between your tongues, sending shivers down your spine. 
“Very refreshing indeed,” he murmurs when the ice has completely melted. He gets up and takes the glass in one of his hands, leaning down to your level and says “C’mon” with the same mischievous smile as you on his face.
You two hurry up the stairs, and when you get to his room, he hands you the glass before throwing himself on his back, laying on his back with his hands behind his head. “Show me what you had in mind.”
You straddle his hips and take an ice cube from the glass, rubbing it over his lips before pushing it inside his mouth, the cold making him hiss. You quickly counteract that by pressing your lips to his, the contrast of your warm tongue and the freezing ice turning him on more than he would’ve thought.
When the ice has melted, you take another piece and brush it along his jaw, down his Adam’s apple and around his nipples. The cold temperature makes him squirm but he doesn’t shy away from it, even closing his eyes to focus solely on the feeling. While you play with the ice cube, you also leave warm kisses all over his skin, reveling in its slightly salty taste from the thin layer of sweat. You let the ice cube melt between his abs and watch him wriggle as he sucks in a sharp breath, then grab another one, starting off where the previous one stopped. You circle his navel while your fingers play with the hem of his swimming trunks. He pulls them down himself and you chuckle at his eagerness. “I should’ve known you liked the cold, with all those years of ice skating you did,” you tease.  
He’s almost fully hard, and it only takes a few kisses and trailing the ice cube down his inner thighs to have his dick fully erect. He’d only been letting out small sighs and hisses until now, but when you grab another ice cube and circle it around his sensitive tip, he throws his head back into the pillows and moans loudly. You push your luck and drag the ice cube down his shaft, his thighs snapping together when it reaches his balls. You put it in your mouth and let it melt so that your tongue is still cold when you swirl it around his tip, already tasting precum there. But before you can take him further in your mouth, he calls out your name.
“Wait. I don’t wanna cum just yet. My turn.”
He shakes his shoulders in excitement as you switch positions, you taking your t-shirt and bikini top off and laying on your back and him sitting down with one knee on each side of your thighs, an ice cube in his hand and a giddy smile on his face.
He brushes it over your lips before pushing it just a bit into your mouth, holding onto it with two fingers while you suck on it, gazes locked in each other. Just as you did earlier, he trails it down your throat and your chest until they reach your nipples, marveling at the thin wet trail it leaves in its wake. He licks this trail as he circles one of your nipples with the ice cube, and you don’t know if you should focus on his warm tongue or on the cold ice cube. Once it’s melted, he takes another one and circles your other nipple with it, his mouth coming to wrap around the now cold one. Your hands fly up to grab at his hair, your back arching into his touch as you moan and pant loudly.
He sucks and licks at your nipples until you’re calling out his name, begging for more. As nice as his mouth or an ice cube around your nipples feel, your pussy is throbbing and desperate for attention. “Sunghoon… Please,” you whine.
“Please what?” he teases, looking up from your breasts with a smirk.
You whine again, knowing he knows full well what you want. “Please…”
He trails the ice cube down your stomach, circling your navel a few times where it melts before slipping two cold fingers underneath your bikini bottoms. “Is this what you want, baby?,” he asks as he rubs his fingers between his folds, and you whine at the feeling of having him so close to your hole and to your clit but not quite there either. He smirks when you nod frantically but whine at the loss of his fingers against you as he takes your bottoms off and reaches for another ice cube.
You release a loud moan and arch your back off the bed when the ice cube touches your clit. “Fuck, Hoon!”
He rubs the ice cube up and down your folds, your heat melting it much faster than your skin. He takes another one and brings it to your entrance this time, circling around it before pushing the ice cube in and staring with wonder as it melts quickly. He holds your hips down so you stop bucking them up, whimpering at the amazing feeling of the ice against you. He replaces the ice cube with his fingers inside of you and his tongue on your clit, sucking expertly at the sensitive bud and lapping at your juices. And while it feels good - God, does it feel good - and you let Sunghoon know just how nice it feels with your moans, whispers of his names and the way you hold onto his hair, you’re craving something more.
It’s something you’ve been wanting for the past few days, but you couldn’t quite put your finger on it. No matter how nice Sunghoon’s fingers and mouth felt, they didn’t make you feel close to him enough. You wanted to be so close to him you didn’t know where you ended and where he started; you wanted to feel him. 
You pull him up by the face, asking him to come here and getting lost in his lips as soon as they reach your level. God, Sunghoon’s kisses. You could drown in them. But still, that craving, that need for more. And now that his body is pressed up against yours and you can feel his erection against your thigh, so close to your core, you think you know what it is that you want. “Hmm, please…”
“You keep asking me for something, but you don’t tell me what it is.”
“You. I want you, Hoon, please,” you beg, murmuring against his lips as you wrap your legs around his hips and bring him even closer, his cock now pressing against your cunt.
“M-me?,” he asks, leaning back just a bit, but you pull him back in right away, resting his forehead against yours.
“Yes, please. I need to feel you inside me.”
Your words are enough to get a moan out of Sunghoon. “Fuck, you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this,” he pants, planting kisses all over your face and neck. Usually, you’d giggle at the ticklish sensation, but right now, you’re so drunk on pleasure, it just makes your breath even shallower and your core wetter.
“How long?”
“God. Since the second time we kissed probably,” he replies, reaching for a condom in the drawer of his bedside table. You think back to that moment six weeks ago (how has it been six weeks already?, you think), after you and Sunghoon had made up and made out on his couch in front of a horror movie. He’d wanted you for that long? And he’d waited for you to say something since then?
“Today’s your lucky day, then,” you tease in an attempt to alleviate the need for him that takes over your bones, but his gaze when he looks back at you ruins any effort. If anything, it just makes you need him even more. You feel like you might explode if you don’t have him right now.
You watch as he clumsily wraps the condom around his member, clearly never having done this before, but you wouldn’t be of any help, so you let him figure it out on his own. You let your head fall back as he rubs his tip up and down your folds, gathering your slick on his dick before aligning himself at your entrance and giving you a long, deep kiss.
“Are you sure about this?” he asks, forehead on yours.
“Yeah. Are you?”
“Yeah, I am. But I’m also scared.”
“Scared of what, Hoon?” you ask, opening your eyes to look at him. You caress his cheek and cup his face in your hands, watching softly as he lets his head rest on your palm.
“I’m scared of hurting you. I heard it hurts the first time. And I’m scared…” he closes his eyes and frowns a bit. “I’m scared it’ll feel too good. That I’ll always want it. You.”
You take a small moment to think, your thumb brushing over his cheek in what you hope is a comforting manner. “You won’t hurt me, Hoon. It only hurts if you’re not ready… And I’m plenty ready. I know you’ll take it slow.” You smile softly when he nods, turning his head to kiss your palm. But if sex is as good as you’ve heard it is, you’re also scared that it might be the best thing you’ve ever experienced and that you’ll never get enough. You and Sunghoon have been meeting up almost everyday this summer and it has more often than not ended up with one of you between the other’s legs; you could never get bored of the things he made you feel or of knowing you were making him feel those exact same things. If you couldn’t live without his fingers, how could you live without his dick?
How could you live without him?
You tried to snap out of those thoughts, reassuring yourself that even before all of this you couldn’t imagine yourself living without Sunghoon, and that there was no reason this should change anything. “And don’t be scared of that, silly,” you say, making him smile. “I’ll always be here, Sunghoon. I’ll always want you, too.” 
“Fuck, okay,” he whispers, kissing your lips once before pulling himself up on his palms, hovering over you. “Tell me if you need me to stop, yeah?” he asks and waits for you to nod before finally pushing in.
You instantly moan when you feel his tip inside you, and Sunghoon stops, frantically asking if you’re okay. It takes some convincing to get him to push himself further in. “It feels so good, Hoon. Please keep going.”
You tell him to not stop until he’s fully inside you, and he obeys, even though he wants to stop when he sees your frown and your sharp intakes of breath. When he’s buried to a hilt, he can’t help but collapse on top of you, burying his face in your neck and wrapping his arms tightly around your waist. “Y/N,” he drawls out. “Feels so fucking good. So tight,” he murmurs against your neck.
“Mmh. Give me a minute, baby.” Your hands caress up and down the expanse of his back and you feel him relax on top of you. As you adjust around his length, the stretch starts to feel more and more pleasurable, until pleasure is the only thing you feel. “Hoon?”
“Yeah?” he says, kissing and nibbling softly at your neck and earlobe.
“You can move, now.”
Sunghoon doesn’t need to be told twice and ever-so-slowly slides out of you, leaving only the tip in before he slides back in. His thrusts are slow but deep, and it’s everything you’ve ever wanted and more. He’s barely started but you’re both already whimpering messes, holding onto each other tightly as pleasure like neither of you has felt before takes over your entire bodies.
As you both get more comfortable, his pace picks up just a tiny bit and you tentatively raise your legs higher so that they’re hooked around the back of his knees instead of laying on the bed. The new angle only adds to the intense pleasure, but you don’t even realize you’re crying until Sunghoon stops mid-thrust, wiping your tears with his thumb and worryingly asking if you’re okay and if it hurts and if he should stop. You open your eyes and smile, instantly calming his nerves. You bring his head closer to yours and kiss him like you’d stop breathing if you didn’t. “It feels so fucking good, Hoon. So, so good.”
He sighs out of relief and resumes his actions, heart swelling with pride that he’s making you feel so good, you’re crying. He’s always hated seeing you cry or hurt in general; but knowing what kind of tears these are, he thinks you look so pretty with tears streaming down your face. His hands grip your thighs a bit tighter as he quickens his pace, already addicted to the feeling of your warm walls taking him in so well.
He slips out a few times but you’re always quick to guide him back inside you. He lifts his body up a bit to get a deeper angle, hoping it’ll get him to stop slipping out, and he’s blown away by the sight underneath him. He thinks you’ve never looked so gorgeous as you do now, legs spread wide for him, cheeks flushed, brows furrowed and mouth agape for him. He kisses your tears, the salty taste bringing a smile to his lips. “So perfect,” he whispers against your mouth. “You look so beautiful.”
Sunghoon takes your legs and wraps them higher around his hips, the new angle hitting a spot inside you that’s making you see stars and has you moaning his name like it’s the only thing you know how to say. You feel that familiar tension build up inside your stomach much faster and much stronger than it usually does.
“Fuck, Sunghoon, I’m gonna cum,” you warn, and a harsher thrust inside you is what pushes you over the edge, the sensation crashing into you and making your thighs shake. An orgasm has never hit you this hard before.
You’re clenching around him like crazy and Sunghoon gasps as you milk him dry, his own orgasm hitting him all at once. He shoots his release inside the condom and stills inside you, breath completely taken away by the sudden, overwhelming sensation.
He lays on top of you for a moment as you both catch your breaths, trying to make sense of how something can feel this good without killing you instantly. He apologizes when his pulling out makes you wince and kisses the top of your head. He rolls onto his back, pulling you with him so that you’re now almost lying on top of him, head against his chest as his arms wrap themselves around you. You leave kisses all over his chest and neck and his hands caress your back.
“That was amazing.”
“I know, right?” he responds immediately, his enthusiasm making you laugh.
“Thanks, Hoon,” you say timidly, voice muffled against his skin.
“For what?”
“For making me feel this good.”
He chuckles. “No need to thank me, pretty. If anything, I should thank you for letting me make you feel good, and on top of that making me feel good.”
You hum at his words and you both stay there for a bit longer, enjoying each other’s warmth. Something blooms inside your chest, and you don’t know whether to let it grow or to squash it down. It feels nice, almost too nice, and you’re scared it might get ripped away from you and it won’t feel so nice then.
Friendship, sex, love. In those weeks spent with Sunghoon, those previously clear lines have blurred to a point they were all one big messy ball of feelings and not three distinct things you could tell apart. Has sex turned your friendship with Sunghoon into something romantic? Or is that just an illusion, and being so intimate with your best friend has messed up your once platonic vision of him? But was your vision of him ever platonic?
Haven't the two of you always been teased about liking each other for a reason? After all, you and Sunghoon didn't grow up together, and he’s never felt like a brother to you. He has always been your male friend; you’ve always been aware that he was your friend who was also a boy. When you'd moved in the house next to his, you hadn’t instantly clicked; it took a while for the ice skating prodigy to warm up to you, but his parents had warmly welcomed yours into the neighborhood and quickly became friends, so it was only a matter of time before he’d open up to the idea of you being around. Constantly.
You’d walk to and from school together, do homework together, go on family trips together, cheer each other on at your respective competitions. After his ice skating lessons, when his coach let him have the whole place to himself for a bit more practice, he’d tie your ice skates for you and drag you onto the ice rink, holding you by the waist or shoulders as he skated backwards in front of you, but also laughing at you when you inevitably fell. He’d tease you for getting second place at the science fair or for getting your arguments torn apart during Model United Nations, but the way he’d be a little nicer to you or share his food more often that week wouldn’t escape you.
Being a handsome young ice skater, Sunghoon had developed quite the loyal following of boys and girls alike who would come to see him at his competitions. He thrived off of the attention, but no matter how much he enjoyed his fans’ admiration, you were always the one he’d skate to after having won first place, hugging you tightly over the barrier separating the ice from the bleachers. Especially during your younger teen years, Sunghoon wasn’t one for skinship or PDA, so it always meant that much more to you that even after his most important wins, you were the first thing on his mind. It never failed to make your stomach flip, and all the death stares from his fans in the world couldn’t have changed a thing.
You were already close, but you became practically inseparable after Sunghoon’s injury. During the competition that would have gotten him a place at the Youth Winter Olympics had he won, his nerves got the best of him and he didn’t land his triple axel, hurting his ankle in the process. Ten years of dedication and hard work, ruined in mere seconds. To say that it destroyed him would be an understatement.
You were the one to bring him back up. You listened to him when he needed to vent, held him when he needed a shoulder to cry on, cheered him up when he needed to smile. He didn’t even need to tell you what he needed, you seemed to just know. You reminded him that he had a lot more value than his medals and trophies and that he didn’t need them to be complete. His family and friends tried their best to make him feel better, but their words never reached him quite like yours did.
Slowly but surely, his confidence came back. He’d lost his fans, but he’d gained a friend he knew would always be there for him. His dimples would appear more often, his laugh would resonate louder. His injury had made the two of you grow closer, creating a bond that would only strengthen over time.
And yet there were moments when being friends wasn’t enough. When calling him your best friend didn’t feel right. You had other friends, friends you were close to; sure, maybe not as close as to Sunghoon, but close nonetheless. And you didn’t feel that way around them.
Their laugh didn’t make your heart skip a beat. You didn’t want to bury your face in their necks and breathe in their scent when they hugged you. You didn’t want to know every single detail of their day. And you surely didn’t feel a pang of jealousy in your chest when they danced with another girl at your school ball.
You also didn’t crave their lips on yours every single day since it had happened for the first time and didn’t want to see what they sounded or looked like while getting the life sucked out of them through their dick.
Everybody told you it was obvious you were ‘more than friends.’ Why did romantic love have to be ‘more’ than platonic love? Why were there levels to it? You didn’t like the idea of taking your relationship with Sunghoon ‘one step further’; that wasn’t the way it felt to you. Rather, it felt like having to change everything you knew and create something new. Something where you could see him laugh and tell him about your day, but where you could also kiss him and graze his skin with your fingertips. Something that only you could share with him and only he could share with you. But you were afraid the friendship would fall apart if things didn't work out. So, instead of taking the risk of changing everything, you made sure things would stay the same. You’d tell the butterflies raging in your stomach to settle down and you wouldn’t let yourself fall into his touch in case it’d be like falling from the highest mountain.
That is, until he kissed you. Until this moment, right now, lying in his arms, ear right over his heart so you can hear it beat for you. You look up at him. His eyes are closed and a soft smile rests on his lips. He looks so peaceful. He always looks pleased when you’ve just been together, but right now, he seems to be in such a serene state, it almost makes you laugh.
Now that you’ve given in to your feelings, you’ve realized just how strong they were this whole time. Nothing has ever felt better than being in Sunghoon’s arms, than being able to see him at his most vulnerable state and to give all of you to him. All those things you didn’t know about him just six weeks ago, you know them by heart now. You’re sure there’s other things to find out, and you’ll make sure you will.
But summer won’t last forever.
A wave of sadness slaps you right in the face, bringing you back to reality. There’ll come a time where you and Sunghoon won’t be able to lounge around all day or lazily make-out at your will. You’ll go your own ways and not see each other for months at a time. The thought of that is unbearable, and you feel like looking at Sunghoon for a second longer might rip your heart into a million pieces.
When you sit up, tearing yourself away from his grip, he immediately opens his eyes, asking what’s wrong.
“Just need to go to the bathroom. I heard you can get STIs from not peeing after sex,” you half-lie. He nods and falls back into the bed. 
You rush to the toilet, needing to get far away from Sunghoon as quickly as possible. Even your pee smells different - guess that’s what having a dick inside you will do to you. You wash your hands and look in the mirror: your skin is darker in some spots, surely Sunghoon’s work. So not only did he mess with your thoughts, he also had to make your body all weird, too?
You splash your face with cold water, hoping it will bring you back to your senses. You and Sunghoon have been best friends for years. There’s no point in changing all of that now, is there? You’ll be leaving soon enough, anyway. Why ruin a perfectly fine friendship for a summer fling?
Those are your thoughts as you head back to Sunghoon’s bedroom, ready to tell him that this whole thing was a mistake and you should just pretend it never happened. But your resolve crumbles at your feet as soon as you step inside the room.
Sunghoon’s got a couple of snacks ready as he browses through Netflix in search of an appropriate movie. “How about Twilight?” he says when he feels the bed dip under your weight next to him. He kisses your forehead and pulls you down on the bed with him so that you’re lying back against his chest.
Screw it, you think. Whatever this is, it’s much more than a summer fling.
--
The rest of the summer goes by in a flash. No, you don’t try to make Sunghoon jealous by flirting with Heeseung; if the mention of the latter’s name was enough to get your friend mad, then purposefully twirling your hair or batting your eyelashes at the older boy just might make Sunghoon white-boy-punch a hole into a wall. And it’s not like Heeseung would try coming onto you, either, with how clingy Sunghoon gets when he’s around, always an arm around your waist and a glare that could kill Heeseung.
Sunghoon gradually opens up to Heeseung being around, even though it takes you reminding him almost daily that he’s the one whose arms you wanna end up in over anybody’s. After a couple weeks, Sunghoon stops looking like he's on the brink of starting a fight every time Heeseung so much as talks to you or hands you a glass of lemonade, and finally relaxes around him.
You spend countless sleepless nights with Sunghoon. You’ve probably memorized every single one of his moles by now, and you’ve made sure to kiss all of them. He holds you against him like he might lose you at any given moment. The only nights you don’t fall asleep in each other’s embrace are when either one of you is sleeping over at your friend’s house. On those nights, sleep always takes hours before washing over you, the lack of warmth keeping you awake.
Your friends and you spend entire days at the lake or by Sunghoon’s pool, not a care in the world. You rest your head on Sunghoon’s shoulder as you watch the fireworks Jake and Jay bought go off. Sunghoon grills your marshmallows for you, blowing on them so they cool down before handing you the stick. You try to ignore how the night air gets slightly chillier and how the sun sets slightly earlier, but by the last days of August, it becomes too noticeable. When September rolls around, you’re sure there’s a small crack in your heart.
You know Sunghoon feels the end of summer too. His kisses are deeper and his lips linger over yours a second longer. He frowns when he kisses you and hugs you, like he’s trying to remember what it feels like. His usual playful demeanor when you’re in bed together is gone, instead seemingly hellbent on making you feel good and almost begging you to say his name. As if you could say any other name. As if you could say anything else.
Neither of you mention your departure until the night before you leave. After spending the evening with your friends, you lie together in bed, the side of your face resting against his chest so you can feel his heart against your ear. He’s tracing patterns with his fingertips on your back, and it takes you a while to figure out he’s spelling his name over and over again, as if to etch it in your skin. When, once in a while, he takes his hand off of you to reach for his phone, you can still feel his fingers caressing you, ghostlike against your skin.
The air around you feels heavy, pressing the both of you down into the mattress. You wish the bed would eat you alive so you could stay there, warm against each other, as long as you like. You know you can’t leave without talking first, but the words won’t come to you. Instead, they float around the bed, weighing your heart down into your stomach.
“So,” you start. You're unsure what to say, but you know this conversation has to happen, one way or another. In the end, you settle on, “Excited to leave?”
Sunghoon scoffs lightly, his motions on your back coming to a stop. “Not really, no. It’s not like I’m leaving that far, and half of our school is going to our uni.”
“Maybe, but there’ll be tons of other people. Tons of other girls, too,” you add after a short pause.
“Don’t do this, Y/N, please.”
You sit up at his words. He covers his eyes with his forearm and takes a deep breath in, sensing an incoming argument. “Do what?”
“This. Getting mad at me when I haven’t done anything.”
“I’m not mad at you,” you protest, frowning down at him.
“No? Then what’s this?” he says, smoothing down the lines between your eyebrows and on your forehead with the pad of a finger.
“Whatever.” You nudge your head away from his touch. It burns. “It’s not like I’m wrong, anyway. You’re gonna have a bunch of girls at your feet, and you’ll know what to do with them, right? Now that you’re not a virgin?” you question, avoiding his gaze.
“Y/N…” he sighs, shutting his eyes tighter as if in pain.
“What? This was the whole reason why, right? Get experience with me so you could fuck girls better, no?”
“Y/N!” he says, raising his voice enough to let you know he’s upset but not enough to scare you. He sits up, looking at you with hurt and disbelief in his eyes. “What’s this all of a sudden? It’s not like I forced you into this! We agreed on it together!”
“So you agree? That this summer was just about getting experience and now you’ll use it on other girls and pretend like we,” you gesture between the two of you, “never happened?”
“What do you mean ‘agree’? I never said any of this! Don’t put words into my mouth!”
He watches as you get up from the bed, arms crossed and pacing his room. He calls out to you a few times, but you don’t stop to look at him until he speaks your name with a sternness you’ve never heard before from him. “What?” you snap.
“I don’t get why you’re acting like this out of nowhere! We both knew summer was gonna end at some point, and why we were doing this! Why are you blaming me now?”
“Because… because…” you sigh, scrambling for an excuse. Why were you doing this? The thought of Sunghoon doing what he did to you to another girl, making her feel as good as he had made you feel, kissing her like he had kissed you, made you sick. It made you see red, it made you want to make him wear a shirt with your face on it so everybody knew he was yours.
Sunghoon gets up and stands close in front of you, too close. You close your eyes. If you see his moles, you might reach out to touch them and let yourself fall even more. If you fall, you’ll need to get up, but his scent makes your knees weak.
His hands find your face, holding a little too gently, you think. Your small ones wrap around his wrists and grip them, a little too harshly, he thinks. 
You take a step back and finally look into his eyes. There’s hope in them; hope you’ll say what he wants, what he needs to hear. That you want him like he wants you. That you wish summer wasn’t over. That you’ll keep him in your heart until you can see him again. So, when what you say next is none of the above, he feels his heart sink down to his feet, leaving a murky puddle there.
“I can’t do this.”
You rush out of the room, practically running home. You fight your tears back until you slam your bedroom behind you, pathetically sinking to the ground as you let out a loud sob. You don't have the energy to get up, and cry into your hoodie's sleeve right there on the floor.
When you’ve calmed down a bit, you get up and lay in your bed, hiding your whole body underneath the covers. Maybe this is for the best, you think. If you end it like this, you won’t have the knowledge of whether he’ll wait to have you back or he’ll move on like nothing happened. That way, you can do whatever you want, not caring about what he’s up to. 
But even now, your hands subconsciously reach out towards a person that’s not there and your feet hang over the edge of your bed as though to get up and run to him anytime. You curl in on yourself to stop your body from aching for him. It doesn’t work very well.
Sunghoon stays where you left him for a few minutes, too stunned to move. Should he run after you? Should he let you cool off for a bit and talk to you in the morning? Would you be mad at him if he didn’t try to see you now or would the mere sight of him just make you angrier? He plops down on his bed as these questions run through his mind, butting into each other and making everything more confusing. 
He thinks back on everything that led to this, and his mind settles on that day a few days after graduation where his thoughts had dropped to the lowest pits of hell. If only you hadn’t brought those two damned lollipops.
--
The next morning, Sunghoon wakes up as if somebody had slapped him awake. He doesn’t bother to brush his teeth or eat anything before running over to your house, almost forgetting to put shoes on. He finds you in your room, packing the last of your things into an already full suitcase. He stands at your door, panting as his hands rest on his knees.
“You haven’t left yet. Thank God.”
“God, Hoon. It’s not that far between your house and mine. How are you so out of breath,” you say, glancing at him from the corner of your eye.
He walks to you and kneels in front of you, taking you in his arms before you can say anything. “Talk to me, please. Don’t leave like this. I’d never forgive myself if you left and you were mad at me, Y/N.”
You thought you’d cried so much last night that there was not a single drop of water left in your body, but you thought wrong. Your eyes immediately well up at his words, and he leans back when he hears a soft sniffle escaping you. Only then does he notice how puffy your eyes from all your crying.
“No, no… Have you been crying? I’m so sorry, pretty, please don’t cry,” he pouts, pulling you back into his embrace. It hasn’t even been half a day, but you missed his warmth so much, it only makes you cry harder.
After sobbing against his chest, possibly staining his shirt in the process, you pull away and in your light-headed, dehydrated state, spill your heart out. “It’s so stupid,” you sob. “We’re not gonna see each other for months and I’m gonna miss you so much and I don’t want you to be with other girls. I want you all to myself and I don’t want to be your friend that you fucked for a summer just so you could get experience, it was a stupid idea in the first place, if you wanted to kiss me, you should’ve just kissed me. But you didn’t just kiss me and now I’m scared that this all meant nothing to you but everything to me and that I don’t want to be friends anymore but you do and I’m mad that it took me all summer to say this even though I’ve known it for years but I didn’t want to admit it to myself but also you didn’t say anything and I’m mad about that too. Because there’s no way you don’t feel like I do but maybe you actually don’t and-”
Whatever you were about to say dies out against Sunghoon’s lips as he presses his lips to yours, interrupting your rambling. He pulls away, looking at you with a huge, stupid grin. He’s so stupid, you think. I love him so much.
“Fucking hell, Y/N. I’ve been waiting for you to say this so bad, you have no idea.”
You punch his chest, frowning at him. Those stupid tears won’t stop. Everything is so stupid. “Then why didn’t you say it first?”
“Because I didn’t know how to. You know I’m bad with words. And I was scared it’d make things weird.”
“I don’t want things to be weird,” you pout.
“I don’t want things to be weird, either. I want things to be nice and happy.”
You giggle. “That’s so stupid.”
“Right? It’s so stupid,” he repeats, kissing you again.
“Your breath smells,” you complain when he pulls away.
“And you have tears on your lips. Tastes salty,” he teases.
“Yeah, thanks to who?”
“Sorry.” He smiles and kisses you again. He holds you against him for a while, enjoying this last moment together. As long as he can see a smile on your face before you leave, he’ll be fine.
“I’m gonna miss you so much too, Y/N. And forget about those non-existent girls. There’s no one I’d rather be with than you.”
“How do you know? You haven’t met any of them yet,” you say, voice muffled against his t-shirt.
“I’ve met other girls before. None of them compare to you,” he says, and you immediately gag at how cliché it sounds. “What?! It’s true,” he giggles.
“You’re not gonna go and date a random guy, are you?”
“Of course not. None of them compare to you,” you say, lowering your voice to imitate his.
He helps you finish packing, and when you’re done, you lay together on your bed, not saying much because not much needs to be said. Your parents struggle to tear you away from each other and from your bed when it’s time to leave. He helps your dad put your baggage in the trunk of his car, telling you to not lift a finger so you watch him go to and from the car, leaving a kiss on your forehead every time he walks past you. You notice with a smile that he doesn’t carry much at once, making him have to go back-and-forth quite often.
After saying goodbye to your family, your dad waits in the car as you and Sunghoon hang back awkwardly, kicking small pebbles on the pavement. He takes your hand in his, making you look up at him, then takes the other hand, then hugs you close to him.
“I’m gonna miss you,” you say, as if that wasn’t obvious. You’re trying hard to fight tears from falling again, but it’s like there’s an ocean behind your eyes, water somehow never running out. 
“I already miss you,” he says, and that’s enough to get you to sob again, which makes him start crying too. You’re crying, he’s crying, your mom is crying from the porch as she watches the two of you, it’s a mess.
You force yourself away from him, cupping his face in your hands. “We’ll see each other soon, okay? And college will be fun. You won’t even have time to miss me. But make time to think about me, yeah? And text me.”
“I will. I’ll think about you all the time, I already do,” he says.
“Okay,” you whisper and hug him one last time, very briefly, pressing a kiss to his cheek. You’re about to walk away but he doesn’t let go of your hand and pulls on your arm to bring you back to him.
Pressing his forehead against yours, he whispers, “I love you,” and you sob.
“I love you, too.”
This time, when you walk away, he lets you go. He watches as you get into the passenger’s seat and as the car drives away, as it takes you away from him. You watch him stand there in the rearview mirror, until his silhouette becomes smaller, and smaller, and smaller, until you can’t see him at all anymore.
--
Summer went and fall came as they do every year. Dead leaves are falling but it’s a new start for you. It’s a new town and you don’t know anybody, but you click instantly with your roommate and make new friends throughout your first week there. You realize everybody’s in the same boat, and they’re all eager to meet people and are curious about college life. You love your classes but complain about them nonetheless. You eat more ramen than you’d like to admit and turn up hungover at a 9 am class on a Thursday. You pull all-nighters at the library and develop a caffeine dependency. You’re a college student.
You and Sunghoon were very dramatic when you left, you soon realize. You call almost everyday. He’s not there with you and you miss him but at least you don’t have to pretend you’re not stupidly in love with him anymore. Because it’s stupid, being in love, it really is. You wouldn’t trade it for the world.
Your first semester passes by almost too quickly, and before you know it, you’re on the drive home, already one eighth of the way through university. You’re excited to go home, but Sunghoon’s finals last a week longer so you wait around for him. When you complain about it, Chaeyoung tells you to get a grip. “You haven’t seen him in three months, I’m sure you can handle another week.”
And you can, but barely. You were about to explode but then he’s back and you’re in his arms and his hair is still so soft, his scent is still so comforting and his moles are still there. You kiss them both before you finally press your lips to his, and it makes you feel so alive, you could die right then and there.
You lie on his bed and talk for hours as if you didn’t keep in touch the whole time and it’s like you never left. It’s like summer never ended and you’ve just been lying in his bed the whole time, college just one big fever dream. 
But his skin doesn’t smell like chlorine anymore, and he’s not in his swimming trunks. It’s fall, almost winter, and you’re kissing Park Sunghoon. You realize you can kiss him whatever the season and you find comfort in that. It was a big day (you cried a lot when you saw him) and you’re tired so you think you’ll kiss for a bit and that’ll be all but then he whispers “I missed you so much” against your neck and a fire lights inside your stomach. Oh, how it burns. You think it might consume you whole, but you don’t dislike that idea.
In a flash, you’re on top of him, his shirt is off, your shirt is off, but it’s not enough so you take your pants off too and Sunghoon is confused as to why you’re going so fast, but follows you anyway. “What’s going on?” he asks when you’re done with the taking off of your clothes and have moved on to kissing and biting at his neck like it’s your first meal in ages, because it is.
“I missed you too,” you simply answer, and he smirks as he nods slowly, now understanding your eagerness.
“Missed me that much, huh?” he teases, letting his head fall back against the pillow so you have better access to his neck.
“Shut up. Kiss me,” you order, and he doesn’t need to be told twice. Your kisses are ravenous and desperate, very fitting for two horny people in love who haven’t seen each other in months. But the pulse in your core makes you too impatient to stay anywhere for too long, and really, it’s not your fault if you’re grinding down onto Sunghoon’s clothed erection, it’s just that he smells too good and you missed him too much.
Sunghoon laughs at you for being so impatient to hide just how impatient he is. His giggles keep him from moaning loudly enough to wake the whole house, and you laugh as you tell him to stop laughing.
“I’m serious. I missed you so much. Need you so bad,” you say as you get rid of your underwear and quickly do the same for his. He gasps when he feels you take his dick in your hand and brush its tip between your folds, both out of pleasure and out of surprise.
“Shouldn’t I get you ready? Stretch you out a bit?” he asks, his hands roaming up and down your back as he sits up on the bed so that you’re straddling his lap, and you shake your head no. You’re probably already embarrassingly wet from your short makeout session, anyway.
“I don’t care if it hurts,” you say, lining his tip with your entrance. “Need to feel you.”
You sink down on his cock, the both of you releasing loud moans at the long-awaited feeling. He lets you adjust to his size for a minute, but as soon as you move your hips just a bit, signaling to him that you’re ready for more, it’s over for you. He wanted to be patient and take his time, he really did, but you feel so warm around him and your small whimpers are so pretty that his resolve of letting you take the lead is thrown out the window. He pounds into you at a rapid pace that has you biting his shoulder to keep yourself from screaming.
You had imagined your first time back with Sunghoon so many times before. It usually involved a nice playlist in the background, fairy lights and candles lighting the room, hours of foreplay and sensual lovemaking, with a nice bath afterwards. Sometimes, when you were particularly needy for him, you imagined something closer to what was actually happening, where you’d rip each other’s clothes as soon as you got to the bedroom and fucked like animals (a bit much, admittedly, but you really missed him).
What you definitely hadn’t expected, however, was that you’d both cum in less than five minutes. What could you do, though, when he was hitting your g-spot over and over again, his length stretching you perfectly as he whispered in your ear how much he’d missed you and how good you felt? And what could he do when you took him in so well, clinging onto him as you told him how much you’d missed him and how good he felt?
You finish at the same time, hole clenching around him and milking him dry. He doesn’t pull out for a while, letting you collapse onto him as you both catch your breaths, just like you had that first time. “That was a bit quick,” he pants, and you can’t help but laugh. 
You pull back to look at his face. It’s so pretty and stupid. What a stupid face that you love so much. Do you love it because it’s stupid or is it stupid because you love it? You think that that’s a stupid question, and you kiss the mole on his nose, then the mole on his cheek, right next to his nose.
“We have all night to go slower.”
“We have all Christmas break,” he corrects.
We have the rest of our lives, you think, and you think that might be a bit much, but you say it anyway. Sunghoon hums and says, “yes, we do,” and you think maybe it’s not all that stupid.
Maybe it’s the greatest thing that’s ever been.
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brynthewriter · 4 months ago
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Oh god okay now I’m imagining this:
Alt!Tim sees they replaced him with JJ!Tim (and they’re secretly trying to de-JJ him if they can). He gets insanely jealous. So he goes to the one person in his family who knows what it’s like to come back from the Pits only to find you’ve been replaced:
Jason Todd.
Cue Jason trying to convince Alt!Tim that they were trying to save JJ because they failed to save Alt!Tim and miss him so much that this was the next best thing, but he’s no replacement for the real deal. (Also maybe Jason realizing ‘hey is this how they felt about me-“ in there.) Tim won’t hear it. He decides to get vengeance. But also, he loves his family a lot, so the first thing he does is concoct a cure for JJ and give it to Jason. If they want a Tim so bad they may as well have a Tim not a JJ. After that, he sets his plan into motion.
Insert Tim getting up to shenanigans. He starts taking down villains from the shadows and using the remnants of their organizations to take down other organizations by framing the second group for destroying the first. He creates basically a massive shell game where no one can tell which group attacked who first but now there’s like 7 fragmented villain groups too busy being at war with each other to attack the heroes or innocent civilians. The heroes are dumbfounded.
Jason knows what Tim’s mindset is, though. “If you can’t join them, be better at their jobs in a slightly more evil way than them.” It was the same as him fresh out of the Pit. So he grabs a cured JJ!Tim (who is horrified by his past and trying to recover and repent) and the two work through Alt!Tim’s mindset together to try to figure out his next move. And they do. They find him, and JJ!Tim has a heart to heart with Alt!Tim, thanking him for saving him and apologizing for taking his place, offering to go home and let Alt!Tim have his life back if that’s what he wants.
Alt!Tim isn’t really sure what he wants anymore, though. Does he really want to go back to the family who chose to fill the void of their loss with a broken copy of him?
Hi again!!!! Older brother JJ annon here
So i absolutley LOVE your take on this and ive got stuffs to add >:D
So the Joker finds the alternate universe Damian so JJ just- kills him right?? And then Damians bats come to get him and all that but WJAT IF instead of them going back to their dimension JJ sees these other people he vaguley recognizes and decides "fuck it. Im keeping them ALL."
So he does. And it doesnt matter that most of these guys are older than him, he treats them almost exactly like he does with Damian. (Except for bruce. Junior doesnt know what to do with bruce) JJ doesnt give two shits
And like- all the bats are weirded out because what????? Who is this mini joker??? And then they find out its a version of TIM. So they just...kidnap him back. Its bonus points because they dint have a Tim (anymore [i decided that because angst and yes. {id imagine their tim died from the widdower on Brucequest or smth along those lines but the evidence he collected still got sent back? Who knows. Deff not me}])
So its like a win-win for everyone involved!!! Tim JJ gets the bats back (even if he doent really recognize them) and the bats get a Tim back!!
(Thank you for listening to my insanity ted talk.)
Here's a link to the OG post!
Oh? ~ I like the way you think, Anon. Let's crank up the angst, shall we? As much pain as possible :) :D
TW: Major character death, dead body description, toxic obsessions
We'll refer to one Tim as Alt!Tim and the other as JJ!Tim (or JJ) for simplicity sake.
Alt!Tim was never caught by Dick when Ra's kicked him out of a window. Dick was right there, mere centimeters away, but Tim slipped right through his fingers.
Dick was forced to watch as another one of his family members fell to his death.
It's not the sound of bones impacting cement that haunts him so, nor the sight of his baby brother hitting the ground from over 80 stories tall.
No. It's the look of contentment, the small reassuring smile, the instant forgiveness, and the relief that poured from Tim's body when he noticed Dick was trying but would fail to catch him.
Tim dying at this time, when he still hasn't repaired any of his relationships with his family, absolutely obliterates the remaining Bats. They either feel guilt for how they treated him, for not being there for him, or for what he sacrificed for them.
[Whether or not Ra's scraped his body off of the ground and lugs his corpse to a Pit only to brainwash and hide him from the Bats is a separate storyline. In this case, Tim, who finally manages to escape, realizes that his Bats (and Tim is mentally not well. He's kind of obsessive post-Pit) are gone. Alt!Tim goes to track them down only to find them chumming it up with another version of him :) ]
JJ is also obsessive with the Bats. These newcomers are all his younger siblings (minus Bruce), and he will not let them go. The Bats, who miss Tim/feel guilty and desperately want him back, are also super obsessed with Tim. It kinds of works out for them.
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teehee · 1 year ago
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oooohhhhhh the thoughts r spiraling sorry everyone
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incognit0slut · 2 months ago
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was i stupid to love you?
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in which a lingering glance at Rossi’s wedding threatens your engagement.
content: angst, 4.8k, takes place right after truth or dare (14x15), a lot of dialogue, mention of prison arc, emotional distress, relationship conflict, not proofread a/n: when was the last time you saw me write angst? exactly. this is inspired by malcolm & marie bc i really like the idea of having an argument while moving around the house (also disclaimer i have nothing against JJ i just like being dramatic)
The lock clicks open. The door swings with a creak. Your heels tap against the hardwood in a hollow rhythm that feels almost too loud. There’s a tightness in your chest, that prickling behind your eyes, and a familiar ache pressing up from the pit of your stomach, churning into a faint nausea that you try to ignore. You’re trying to hold it back.
Not here.
Not now.
Spencer doesn’t even look up. The keys slip from his hand with a soft clink as they hit the side table, and he turns away with a quiet sigh that reverberates deep in your bones.
“Are you hungry?” he asks, tossing a glance toward the kitchen. “Think we could order something?”
You trail after him, the sharp click of your heels echoing as you step onto the kitchen tile. “We just came back from a wedding.”
He’s rifling through the cupboard, his fingers brushing over the mismatched mugs and neatly stacked plates before he pulls down two glasses. “I barely ate anything at the reception.”
You watch him, biting back a response as memories flicker to mind. The slice of cake he’d poked at absentmindedly, washing it down with sips of water instead of real food.
It wasn’t hunger he seemed focused on tonight. No, it was his quiet glances across the room you keep on catching from the corner of your eye, and that conversation he’d had at the bar. The one where his posture softened, his gaze so intent you’d found yourself staring at the back of his head, trying not to read too much into it—and obviously failing.
“Why didn’t you eat?”
He shrugs, his back still to you as he fills the glasses with water. “I don’t know,” he says, sounding almost absent, like it’s something he hasn’t really thought about. “I didn’t get around to it, I guess.”
The muscles in your jaw ticks as you bite the inside of your cheeks.
Spencer turns, offering you a glass. “I was thinking of Chinese, or maybe we can check if that Thai place you like is still open.”
You take the glass from him, barely sparing it a glance before setting it back down on the counter. “Whatever you want is fine.”
A subtle crease appears between his brows. “You sure? You usually have some opinion when it comes to food.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You don’t want to eat anything?”
You suppress a sigh. "No. I'm tired."
The soft amber of his eyes dims slightly as he studies you. There's a flicker of uncertainty passing through them before he nods. “Alright,” he concedes. “We don’t have to order anything.”
A faint, humorless laugh escapes you before you can stop it. It tastes bitter, a little unfair, but it slips out before you can pull it back, “You don’t have to change your plans on my account, Spencer.”
“I’m not changing any plans,” he responds. “I’m just making sure you have something to eat in case you’re hungry.”
Your shoes dig uncomfortably into your feet. You shift your weight, starting to pace a few steps back and forth. "It's dinner, you don't have to check on me for every little thing. Do whatever you like."
He blinks, looking genuinely perplexed. "What are you saying? I was trying to be considerate."
"Right. Considerate.”
There’s an unmistakable bite in your tone.
“Yes, because we like doing these things together," he observes, watching your uneasy pacing. "Am I missing something here?”
You shake your head. “Nope.”
"Honey."
The term of endearment lands softly, slipping from his lips like he believes it has the power to melt whatever tension has suddenly crept between you. But it only tightens the knot building in your stomach. It’s stirring the words you’re trying to hold back, tangling them somewhere between your chest and throat.
He calls your name this time, his eyes narrowing into sharp lines. “You’ve been awfully quiet on our way home, and now you’re… honestly, I don’t know why you're acting this way.” His voice dips with a tinge of exasperation. "What’s this really about?"
The words you’ve been biting back feel like a stack of stones in your throat, rising up, up, up, each one pressed tighter by the gnawing nausea in your stomach. You can feel them gathering, and before you know it, they tumble out messily.
“I’m just saying, don’t let me hold you back from getting what you want. I wouldn’t want to stop you from anything—or, god forbid," you add, letting your gaze drift away as if a little distance might soften the blow, “anyone.”
The soft, almost stifled inhale he takes is audible. You don’t even have to look up to see his expression shifting. You’ve known him long enough to recognize the way his shoulders tense, the way his breathing slows as he processes your words. You know his reaction by heart, yet right now, you wonder if saying this was a mistake, if this is the start of something neither of you can take back.
His fingers twitching at his side slip into your line of sight. He's angry.
Maybe this isn’t the time to start a fight.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Your heels click softly as you turn.
“Forget it. I shouldn't have said anything,” you mutter, already moving toward the bedroom that’s been yours, too, for the past year. Although it feels strange tonight, like a space that belongs to someone else. A life you’re not entirely sure you belong in.
“No." His voice is somewhere behind you. “I think you should explain to me what you mean by that.”
You don’t respond, choosing instead to sink onto the edge of the bed, hands fumbling as you try to undo the straps of your heels. You twist the stubborn leather with more force. His shadow fills the doorway.
“Honey.”
Not again.
You decide to ignore him.
“Is there something you’d like to say to me?”
You tug harder at the strap. “No.”
He doesn’t buy it. “You’re clearly bothered by something.”
You shake your head, fingers still fumbling, the leather cutting against your ankle with each pull. “I’m just tired. Can we leave it at that?”
There’s a flicker of frustration in his gaze now, a crease forming between his brows as he studies you. He moves into the room. You barely have the chance to react before he lowers himself, bending one knee to the floor as he reaches toward the strap you’ve been fighting with. “Here, let me—”
“Don’t,” you interrupt, pulling your foot away. “I can do it myself.”
“I know you can. But let me—”
“I can do it myself!”
Your heartbeat thuds loud in your ears, each pulse feeding the frustration that’s wound its way up from your chest. He rises slowly, not a word passing his lips, but the tension radiates off him like heat. He’s close enough that his warmth presses against your skin, although it’s not the kind you usually find comforting. It’s almost suffocating.
You turn your focus back to the stubborn strap, your fingers trembling slightly as you struggle to grip it. Out of the corner of your eye, you catch him slipping off his shoes, one after the other, the soft thuds barely audible over the rush of your own heartbeat. He pulls off his suit jacket, carefully smoothing the crumpled fabric before hanging it in the closet. For a moment, it seems like he’s going to let it go… until his gaze drifts back to you.
You can tell his patience is fraying, and you’re proven right when he asks again, “What did you mean by that? When you said you wouldn’t want to stop me from anyone… what was that supposed to mean?”
You finally manage to tug the strap loose. The heel drops to the floor with a muted thump. “It was nothing.”
“I don’t think you’d say something like that if it was nothing.”
Your focus shifts to the other shoe. “Just drop it, Spencer.”
"How am I supposed to drop it when you're implying... whatever it is you're implying?"
You keep your eyes down, wrestling with the strap in silence. He cuts through the quiet before it has a chance to grow.
“Don’t do that,” he says. “Don’t brush it off like it’s nothing when it clearly means something. I need to know why you said that.”
You kick off the other heel and meet his gaze for the first time since you walked into the room. “You really want to know?”
He reaches for his bow tie, yanking it loose it with one hard pull. “Do I want to know why you’re giving me this attitude right now? Yes. Yes, I do.”
Oh. So this is going to be that kind of fight.
You hadn’t expected it to go here. Fights with Spencer are very rare, usually more a clash of misunderstandings that you both laugh about with limbs tangled between sheets by the time you’ve made peace. But seeing him standing there with the tie hanging loosely around his neck and his five o’clock shadow casting an even darker line along his jaw, it hits you differently.
This is real. And this time, you don’t know if brushing it off will fix anything.
“Fine, let’s talk about it then.” You rise from the bed, tension carrying you to your feet. “Emily’s speech tonight.”
His brow furrows, not quite a scowl, more a cautious crease as he processes your tone. “Emily’s speech? What about it?”
“What do you remember of it?”
There’s a slight pause, and you can tell he's clearly caught off guard by the question. “She mentioned how Rossi and Krystal are twin flames."
“Right. Two souls that are always meant to be together.”
His face is still marked by confusion, but there’s something else creeping in. A subtle tightening around his eyes tells you he’s starting to piece it together. “I don’t understand what that has to do with—”
“You looked at JJ the second Emily made that speech,” you cut him off. “Spencer, you didn’t even spare a glance at your future wife because you were too busy making eyes at the woman who’s apparently been in love with you all these years.”
There. You said it. The words that have twisted around your insides all evening are finally out. And maybe they taste a little bitter, but at least they're not choking you anymore.
A second passes, then another, and by the time the fifth heartbeat ticks by, he’s standing there with his hand on his hip.
“That’s not what happened."
“Then what was it?” you demand. "I sat beside you the whole day, you didn't even try to hide it."
“That’s not—you’re twisting things.” His hand moves through his hair, fingers digging in as his curls tumble forward onto his forehead. “And you know what happened that night wasn’t real. It was a forced confession. She was under duress, we both were. JJ and I are just friends.”
You arch an eyebrow. “You look at all your friends like that?”
His hand drops to his side. "I don't know what else you want me to say. JJ said what she did because she thought we might die. She has a family, and a husband who she loves. We already went through this, I don't understand why this is suddenly an issue again."
“Maybe I wouldn’t be bringing this up if you didn’t look at her tonight like you were ready to break up that marriage yourself.”
A flash of shock and anger crosses his features.
“That’s not fair,” he snaps, his voice sharper than you’ve heard in a while. “Do you really think I’d disregard everything I have with you because of a look? Because of a history that has never gone anywhere?”
“I don’t know what to think. It's not like it happened just once, I saw you looking at her the same way at the bar." You step forward, accidentally kicking your discarded heel as you move. "What were you two talking about, anyway?”
He lets out a tight breath. “She was checking in on me. She… we haven’t talked much since then.”
The corners of your mouth pull down. “Mhm. Another round of truth or dare?”
“I can’t believe you’re using that against me." His hair flops forward as he shakes his head, falling messily over his brow. "If there were anything unresolved with JJ, I would’ve said something. But I didn’t, because there’s nothing there."
“And yet, she’s always been an important part of your life, hasn't she?"
He tilts his head. "What are trying to say now?"
Your tongue darts out, briefly brushing your lips. You're not sure you should say it, but it feels like a door has swung open—a door to words that have been waiting for their moment.
You take a slow, deep breath, filling your lungs with as much air as you can.
“When you were in prison, you put her on your visiting list ahead of almost everyone else. Doesn’t that say something about where she stands with you?”
He exhales sharply, dragging a hand over the back of his neck.
“She’s part of the team,” he says, as if he’s trying to spell out something he’s already explained a dozen times. "There were strict rules, I already told you that only a handful of people were allowed to visit. It wasn’t like I could just put anyone on the list.”
“But you could’ve put me on there!”
The familiar burn of tears prickles at the edges of your eyes, but you blink them back, refusing to let them fall. An explanation or protest is poised on his lips, but you’re already moving, closing the distance with a single, decisive step. A finger lands on his chest.
“I was your girlfriend, Spencer. Were you that determined to keep me out? Was the thought of seeing me really so unbearable? Do you even understand how hard it was to sit at home, knowing you were locked up, feeling completely helpless? Do you have any idea how much I hated myself day after day because I couldn’t do anything to help you?”
Your lips quiver. You feel like your heart is about to leap out of your throat.
“I was out here, just… waiting. Wondering if you were okay, if they were treating you alright, if you even had someone to talk to. And meanwhile, she’s there, with you. Every single time, she’s the one who gets to be by your side.”
Your nail digs into the fabric of his shirt.
“So forgive me if I can’t just let that go. Because when it mattered, it felt like you didn’t want me to be there for you. And now… now I don’t even know if you need me the way you seem to need her.”
Your breathing turns shallow, each inhale catching in your chest. The tears you’ve been holding back are dangerously blurring your vision. You swallow the knot lodged in your throat.
“I need a minute.”
Without another word, you turn and walk out of the room, leaving him standing there in stunned silence. You slip back into the kitchen, leaning against the counter as you finally reach for the glass of water that’s been sitting there untouched. You take a sip, barely feeling the cool water on your lips, when you hear his footsteps behind you.
“You think I don’t want you in my life?” he demands. “You think I somehow need her more than I need you?”
You set the glass down. “What part of ‘I need a minute’ do you not understand?”
“You really expect me to wait quietly after you unloaded every doubt you’ve ever had about us?”
You life your chin up. “Yes, I do. I need space to think right now.”
“What more do you want to think about when you’ve already convinced yourself that I’m always going to fall short? Is it so hard to believe that you’re the one I want?”
“You want to know why it’s so damn hard to believe?” You turn towards him. “Because every time I try to let this go, there’s always something. A confession. That—that not-so-subtle look. And when those things happen, it reminds me that I’m not as close to you as she is. I’m fucking tired of feeling like I’m fighting for space in your life.”
“Do you think I want you to feel like that? Do you think I’d go through everything we’ve been through if you didn’t matter to me?”
“Then explain to me why I wasn’t on that list!” you cry out. “Explain to me why, in one of the hardest times of your life, you couldn’t make space for me?”
“Because I was trying to protect you!”
A heavy, dreadful silence falls between you. He takes a step back, his eyelids fluttering shut briefly, and when he opens them again, there’s a softness in his gaze that mirrors the gentleness now threading through his voice.
“I know it probably doesn’t make sense to you, and maybe it never will, but I couldn’t stand the idea of you seeing me like that. Living through it was hard enough, but having you there, seeing me so helpless… It would have crushed me. I didn’t want that to be your memory of me.”
His Adam’s apple dips as he swallows, a quick, almost anxious movement you’ve witnessed countless times.
“And when JJ came to see me,” he continues, “the way the inmates looked at her, the things they said after she left… it was disgusting. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—let that happen to you. I couldn’t live with thought of you being subjected to that because of me.”
You lower your head with a sigh. “I don’t care if they looked. I don’t care what they would’ve thought.”
“But I care,” he fires back, taking a step forward. “Because you mean more to me than anyone. All I wanted was to keep you safe, and maybe I didn't handle it right, maybe I made the wrong call... but it was only because I—" His voice drops into an even more gentle note. "Because I love you."
Your heart stumbles, an uneven beat that feels almost bruised, pounding hard against your ribs.
"I-I love you so much. More than I know how to put into words." The ache in your chest sharpens as his hands come up to cup your cheeks. "I don't like fighting with you. I hate it, actually. I hate seeing you look at me like this."
You also hate the way he’s looking at you. There’s a depth to his annoyingly pretty eyes that makes it impossible to hold up your defenses without feeling them crumble. You let your eyes flutter closed.
“Why don’t we… call it a night?” He suggests. “Let’s lie down. We don’t have to talk about this now.”
The blackness behind your eyelids does little to quiet your mind. Nor does his voice. Or his touch. Instead of offering peace, his presence throws every glance, every moment of tension from tonight into sharper relief.
You draw in a breath, trying to find some comfort in his palms against your cheeks. Yet, even this can’t smooth away the doubt that’s settled in. With a resigned sigh, you release the breath you’ve been holding along with the words that have been pressing at the back of your throat.
“You haven’t explained it to me.”
The shadows in his gaze seem to deepen when you open your eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve been going in circles, but you haven’t explained to me what happened tonight,” you say quietly. “Why did you look at her, Spencer?”
His thumb absently strokes your cheek in a way that feels more hesitant than reassuring.
“Be honest with me,” you press. “Was there a part of you, even the tiniest part, that still wanted something with her? Some small part of you that… wondered what it might be like?”
The silence between you presses in from all sides, broken only by the faint hum of the refrigerator and the distant, muffled ticking of a clock on the wall. It’s the kind of quiet that sharpens even the smallest sounds, yet his lack of response feels like the loudest thing of all.
You pull back from him with an incredulous laugh.
“Unbelievable.” The word barely makes it past your lips, then louder as you start to move, pacing the length of the apartment. “Unbelievable.”
“Wait,” he says, trailing after you, “I didn’t even say anything.”
You stop short by the couch and whip around to face him.
“You didn’t need to! You—you hesitated," you stammer, searching his face for any flicker of denial, but it’s there, plain as day, that split-second of doubt you caught. “That was already an answer.”
He inches closer. A hand closes in on you. “Please—”
You flinch, pulling back, and every muscle in your body tightens. “Don’t. Don’t touch me right now.”
His hand falls to his side. “Please… let me explain."
You watch his hand drop, fingers twitching like they’re not sure if they should retreat or reach out again, but he keeps them there, hovering in some invisible line you’ve drawn. He looks at you with those big, pleading eyes, and for a split second, you almost feel bad for him.
Almost.
A bitter sort of smile tugs at the corner of your mouth. "So now you want to explain?"
He takes that as permission, and his voice comes in low, almost cautious. "When I first started at the BAU, I had… maybe a crush. A passing thing, barely anything, really. But that was fourteen years ago.” His hand scrubs through his hair in a frustrated sweep. “Fourteen years."
Your brows pull into a frown. “Why am I only hearing about this now?”
“Because it was nothing,” he says, almost too quickly. “I was young, it didn’t matter. I didn’t think it was worth bringing up.”
“Oh, I get it now. All those old feelings came rushing back the night she confessed, didn’t they?”
He mirrors your frown, a visible line of tension etching itself between his brows as he protests, “It’s nothing like that.”
“Then what is it?” you press. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks a whole lot like you’re caught between us because some part of you is still hung up on what might’ve been with her."
He shifts uncomfortably, and you notice the muscles in his jaw clenching the moment his gaze falters, dipping away for just a heartbeat before he looks back at you.
“It’s not that I don’t know what I want,” he starts to explain. “I didn’t expect her to say those things, and, yes, it threw me off for a moment. But that doesn’t mean I’m looking back, or that I want her. I want you.”
You shake your head, feeling a tired sort of frustration settle over you, and walk over to the couch. The soft cushions give slightly beneath you as you sink down.
“If you really wanted me, this wouldn’t be happening. You wouldn’t have let her get into your head like that. And now, you expect to believe that none of it meant anything?”
He’s quick to follow, closing the distance in a few tense steps. “It’s not—” His hands flex open and close at his sides. “You’re acting like one single look tonight is enough to decide I’m not committed to you. Do you really think I’d let some confession I didn’t even ask for get in the way of what we have?”
“It’s not just about that single look. It’s the way she could say something and suddenly, you’re pulled back to something you swore you’d put behind you. How am I supposed to feel secure when she still has that power over you?”
“And what am I supposed to do, then? Apologize for things I don’t even feel anymore?”
You flinch at the sharpness in his voice. A low, frustrated noise rumbles in his chest when you don’t respond.
“You’re always going to question me no matter what I say, aren’t you?"
You glance over at him, catching the disheveled strands of hair falling over his forehead, and it pulls you back to that night he came home after that dreadful night. He’d walked in looking worn in a way you’d never seen before, his whole posture weighted down as if he was carrying more than just the fear of being held hostage.
You remember sitting with him on this same couch, fingers brushing his, and asking what was bothering him.
JJ said she loved me.
Your heart lurched, a quick, quiet ache that you tried to swallow down. Really?
Don’t worry. It’s not true.
But with that same haunted look in his eyes right now, you can’t help but wonder if it really was just a well-intentioned lie.
“One glance and you’re accusing me of things that are never going to happen,” he starts again. “Do you really think so little of me? After everything we’ve shared, you really think I’d betray you like that?”
In true honesty, you don’t believe he would ever cross that line. But the doubts still linger, fed by those small hesitations, the moments when his eyes seem somewhere else. It’s not that you think he’d betray you. It’s that a part of him might still be holding onto something he won’t let you see.
“It’s like you don’t know me at all.”
Now those words you might actually believe.
“Maybe I don’t,” you say quietly, eyes drifting to the ring on your finger. You twist it absently, remembering the night he proposed. How he’d stumbled over his words, his cheeks flushing as he tried to make the moment perfect but ended up rambling in that endearing, nervous way of his. You’d laughed, reassured him that it was exactly right, that you didn’t need grand gestures. All you needed was him.
And yet, you don’t think he needs you as much you need him.
A hollow ache settles around your hand as you slip the ring off.
“What are you doing?”
You stare down at the gold band in your palm, blinking back the sting of tears.
“Tell me what you’re doing.”
Panic. Desperation. There’s a sudden rush of melancholy in his voice, a heaviness that wasn’t there a moment ago.
You swallow the lump in your throat. “I don’t know,” you whisper. “I—I don’t know anything right now.”
His face crumples, and in a sudden, almost instinctive movement, he drops down to his knees.
“No, no, you do know me. I’m sorry… I’m so sorry. Isn’t this—” he stops, then dips his head, trying to catch your gaze. “Isn’t that what couples do? They argue, they mess things up… but they work through it, right? Right?”
You look down, feeling the cool weight of the ring pressing into your skin.
“Spencer…” you begin. “I trust you. I do, and I’m sorry if I made it seem like I didn’t. But… I need to feel secure. I… I need to know that I don’t have to wonder or worry about where I stand. I never thought you’d be the one to make me doubt that.”
There’s a sharp ache in your chest.
“I didn’t think it could hurt this much. Not from you.”
Your pulse ring in your ear.
“I can’t—” The words catch in your throat, a stinging burn rising as you force them out. “I can’t be your wife when I’m constantly questioning if I have all of you. When I feel like… there’s always a part of you that isn’t mine.”
“I’m yours, honey. I’m always yours.”
“I wish I could believe that.”
There’s a slight falter in his voice. “Don’t—please don’t do this—”
“I can’t keep pretending it doesn’t hurt.”
He falls silent, and for a moment, the only sound is the rough, uneven rhythm of both your breaths filling the space between you. Then, like something inside him finally cracks open, he sinks down, pressing his forehead against your lap. The sudden weight of him forces a broken sob from your throat.
“Please,” he begs, fingers clutching at your sides. His chin presses deep into your thigh. “Tell me how to fix this. I can’t— I can’t lose you.”
“Spence…”
“I love you,” he blurts out, the words tumbling from him in a rush. “I love you.”
But what is love, really? Is it just a word people reach for when they’ve run out of things to say, a way to patch over bruised hearts and broken promises? Or should it feel like something more solid, something that doesn’t leave you questioning or aching? You can’t even tell anymore.
You wonder, too, if maybe you’ve been wrong all along. If this feeling in your chest isn’t love but something dressed up as it, something that fills the gaps while slowly hollowing you out. Because here you are, clinging to a love that somehow makes you feel like you’re both needed and unseen. Everything and nothing all at once.
You feel like a fool.
“I want to go to bed.”
His head lifts from your lap, a flash of surprise darting across his face, as though he hadn’t expected you to say anything at all, let alone that. “Yeah, okay, let’s go to bed. We’ll… we’ll figure this out in the morning.”
“I’d rather be alone.”
The words hit him visibly. His mouth opens, an argument forming there, but he catches himself, letting the silence stretch before he nods slowly.
“Then… I’ll stay out here. On the couch,” he offers softly. “Just… in case you need anything.”
A pang cuts through you at the thought of him stretched out on the couch, his legs too long, his shoulders folded in to fit the cramped space. But the idea of sharing a bed right now feels impossible.
You reach down, holding out the ring towards him.
“No,” he says firmly, gently pushing your hand away. “Don’t do that. This… it doesn’t mean we’re giving up. It just means we need time. That’s all.”
You’re not sure if your mind will change in the morning. The ring presses into your skin, but finally, you close your hand around it, nodding faintly before you peel away from him.
The tears start the moment the bedroom door clicks shut behind you. It spills over in a jagged, helpless cry that sounds nothing like you imagined heartbreak might sound. It’s messy, a kind of aching grief that feels too big for your chest, clawing its way out with no grace at all. You can practically hear how pathetic you sound, and yet you can’t seem to stop.
Even when the hem of your dress trails across the floor. Even when you finally collapse onto his side of the bed. There’s no stopping you. With the ring sitting cold in your hand, your tears keep coming, soaking into the pillow as you cling to the last trace of him woven into the sheets.
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joelsdagger · 2 months ago
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that’s the way road dogs do it || one
joel miller x f!reader
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a/n: this one is a little wild; part two is already shaping up to be even more wild. many smooches to my beloveds: @pedrospatch for all the reassurance and support and for beta’ing this bad boy for me, and to @dinandwhiskey for screaming with me about this idea many many moons ago <33
pairing: ex-boyfriend’s dad!joel x f!reader summary: on a night out with friends, you run into someone from your past. warnings: [no-outbreak au], big girthy age gap [reader is in her 20’s, joel is 50’s], alcohol consumption, allusions to cheating [not by joel or reader], no sarah or ellie but joel has a son, joel has tattoos and is a biker, pet names [darlin’, baby, kiddo], sexualization of the term kiddo [from the deepest darkest pits of my soul…idfc], a little bit of humiliation, panty sniffing, a teensy bit of fingering, a little manhandling, pervy!joel [he’s also a little fucked up and really unhinged but so am i so whateva], pussy pronouns, dirty talk [umm it gets weird lol], daddy kink, degradation, semi-public sex, rough unprotected p in v sex, mirror sex, hair pulling, dubcon [joel takes pictures of her that she doesn’t verbally consent to], smidgen of angst [ofc bc it’s me], creampie, body marking/writing [use of a pen], soft!joel, reader wears a skirt, has hair, wears makeup, and has two tattoos that are described within the story word count: 8.6k
masterlist || ao3 || follow @joelsdaggerupdates for fic updates!
Bad Habits is the bar where you spend every Friday night after work with your friends. It’s always too loud and too bright for your liking. But they serve good booze for a reasonable price and it’s on the way back from your office. Your Friday night usual; stopping at the bar with some friends from work before you bore yourself to sleep by looking over briefings and finalizing notes you need to send over to your boss in time for Monday’s nine am meeting.
You excuse yourself from the booth and head for the bar, plopping yourself on the velvet cushion of a creaky bar stool as you set your purse on the sticky bartop, ordering yourself another drink. Your phone chimes, and you sigh as you pull it out of your purse along with a pen and notepad, knowing it’s an email with a list of requests from your boss. He did tell you he’d send it to you before the end of the night. 
It’s when one of your hands is pressed to your temple, the other scribbling down your boss’ requests on paper when you hear it — a low, gravelly Southern drawl, a voice laced with honey — that you thought you’d never hear again. 
“This seat taken?”
Your pen freezes for a moment; you could pick that voice out of a suspect line-up. It never left you. But you willingly ignore him and decide you’re going to have a little fun of your own with him, so you continue finalizing your thoughts on paper as he situates himself beside you and orders a glass of whiskey while he’s at it. 
“What’s a pretty girl like you doin’ sittin’ in a place like this all by herself?” 
“I’m not alone. My friends are over there,” you throw your thumb, pen in hand, over your shoulder, jutting to your booth. “Just needed another drink,” you say, your eyes never leaving the notepad. 
“Why won’t you let me see your face, darlin?” he asks, head tilting to the side, assessing you. 
You snort. “Why. So you can decide whether or not my face is pretty enough to fuck — Mr. Miller?” Your voice drops an octave at the end of the sentence. 
You finally turn your head so you’re face to face with the man beside you, the father of your ex-boyfriend. 
Surprise flashes across his face; his mouth hangs agape briefly before he shuts it tightly. You watch as the Adam’s apple bops slowly in his throat. For once, the father of your shit-eating, cheating ex-boyfriend doesn’t have a comeback. He clears his throat as he attempts to recover. 
“Didn’t realize it was you, darlin’,” he says gruffly, a hand coming up to scratch his beard. 
You chuckle to yourself a little. “Of course you didn’t. The last time we saw each other was what? A year ago? Maybe more?” you quip. 
“You look different,” he says matter-of-factly, eyes glossing over your figure so quick you almost miss it. 
You raise an eyebrow at him; the corner of your mouth kicks up as you tilt the rim of your glass to your lips, hiding your smirk behind a sip.
“Good. I mean — you look good,” he tips his glass on its heel, eyeing it as he toys with it. 
You tilt your head in a shrug, “I needed a change.”
After Joel Miller’s son cheated on you and broke your heart, after you let the hurt linger for a few weeks and told your sob story to your friends who happily listened, you took their advice. 
You need something new, something fresh, babe. 
It really does help.
You’ll feel like a whole new person. 
Trust me, it’ll be good for you. 
You dyed your hair a few times, until you found a shade that felt more you. You got yourself a whole new wardrobe, something a little less fucking prudish and a little more slutty, and despite the cliché of it all, their suggestions did help to leave that shy, agreeable girl in the dust. The breakup was the last push you needed to leave it all behind. 
And now here you are, a little over a year later, sitting beside your ex’s father, whom you once hated to admit to yourself — no, you never really admitted it to yourself, but you found him attractive. Fuck. Who were you kidding? You didn’t just find Joel Miller, the father of your ex-boyfriend, attractive; you found yourself wanting to open your legs for him more than you did for his son, whom you had been dating for eight months. 
His eyes fall to your chest, trailing down the low cut of your top, and fixating on the peaks of your nipples beneath the tight fabric, and your heart stutters. “Quite the change,” a hint of a glint swimming in his hazel eyes. 
You can’t say the same for him.
You take him in now; he looks almost exactly the same, apart from a few more wrinkles on his forehead and around his eyes. Still, he’s somehow more handsome. 
His tousled salt-and-pepper hair still sits messily on his head, though his beard is lined with more silver than you remember. 
Fuck. 
You pull your bottom lip between your teeth as your eyes trail down his body, thick shoulders and thick arms deliciously clad in his black leather jacket, and beneath that, his white t-shirt pulls taut across his broad chest.  
 And oh. 
Joel’s head turns, peering over his shoulder at the sound of glass breaking. Your eyes flick back up and catch a curl of black ink on the tanned skin beneath his collar. That’s new. 
When he turns back, he raises the glass to his lips with a scoff, clouding the inside of it, and the dim light from above the bar catches on the square face of a gold band on his marked pinkie finger. That’s also new. Your eyes don’t miss that his fourth finger still remains devoid of a wedding ring. 
“I have your son to thank for that." You drop your phone, pen, and notepad into your purse, giving him your full attention.
A muscle in Joel’s jaw ticks. Flicks his tongue across his bottom lip before he bites it. Is it a show of anger? Disappointment? You’re not quite sure.
But there is one thing that you are sure of: Joel Miller liked having you around. You knew it. You were aware that his eyes lingered whenever he saw you. You caught it from the very first time. When you showed up at his house, in jeans that clung to you like skin, how you bent at the waist to fish your keys out of his sofa cushion, and in your periphery, caught the subtle tilt of his head to get a better look at how the denim hugged your ass just right, feeling his eyes boring into you, your skin sizzling with heat.
If you’re being honest, you didn’t care. You didn’t feel guilty or shameful for how Joel looked at you. You basked in how he made you feel; you certainly weren’t getting that kind of attention from his son. He had his eyes (and his dick) on someone else. 
You liked how that very last night you spent at Joel Miller’s house — a fortnight before you broke up with his son — you padded down the hallway to the bathroom in an old skirt that you had outgrown (wearing it only because it was the last of clean bottoms before laundry day), and you overheard Joel Miller in his bedroom, fucking his fist and coming with a gruff groan of your name on his lips.  
You just weren’t sure if he knew that you knew.  
His body twists, props a leg up on the footrest of your bar stool. “What happened between you two? He never talked about it,” he inquires. 
You scoff. “He gets that from you, you know, not talking about things. Think he knows it too.” 
Confusion floods his features. 
Your eyes drop to the inside of your glass. “Your divorce. Jason complained all the time about how neither of you talked about it.”
“There was nothin’ to talk about. She left,” he quips. 
“She cheated on you,” you retort. 
“How did–” 
“He knew, and he watched when you didn’t fight it. Think that’s why he did the same to me.” 
“That kid. Always fucking trouble,” he huffs, then takes a short sip. 
 “Hey, you raised him,” you joke. 
“I didn’t raise him to be a piece of shit,” he bites, shakes his head instantly, eyes meeting yours, and there’s something behind them that you can’t quite place yet.
“I’m not saying it’s your fault, I just—" You sigh exasperatedly, “I think seeing how you didn’t fight for your marriage, for your wife, messed with him. And as much as I hate him for getting his dick wet in another girl, I think... well, now I know why he did it." Right shoulder tips in a slight shrug. 
Joel’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. 
“What?” you ask. 
 “Nothin'—I didn’t expect I’d ever hear you say that.”
 You look at him pointedly. 
 “Gettin’ his dick wet,” he repeats. “I’m not used to hearing you say things like that s’all,” he says with a breathless laugh, shaking his head a little. 
You sigh. “Told you, heartbreak is a hell of a thing.” 
“You didn’t deserve that darlin’, M’sorry,” he soothes. He leans towards you, a heavy hand dropping to your bare thigh, fingers wrapping tightly around it. It takes everything in you not to squeeze your thighs shut at his touch. 
You avert your eyes, scanning the crowd in the bar, your eyes eventually landing on your friends all crammed in the booth before looking back at Joel. “Everything happens for a reason, I guess.” 
His head dips, eyebrows go up in surprise, his expression a slight mixture of shock and guilt. “You really believe that?” 
You flash him a soft smile. You’re not sure that you do, but selfishly, it’s easier than the truth, and whatever it was, you’re not concerned about it anymore. “It’s fine, Mr. Miller, honestly," you clarify. 
His calloused thumb rubs small circles on your thigh; heat radiates there. “How many times, I gotta tell you, it’s Joel,” he insists.
Your eyes roll, “alright. Joel, it’s fine. I’m much happier now.”
“Oh yeah?" His hand releases your thigh; your body feels like it’ll wilt without the heat of his touch. His arms cross over as he leans forward on the bartop. The cuff of his left sleeve raises, revealing ink curling around his wrist. Did he complete his sleeve? You swallow thickly, your eyes lingering. 
"Got yourself a new boyfriend?’” He asks. 
You finally peel your eyes away, arching your brow. “What makes you say that?” 
His boot brushes against your bare ankle as he turns towards you; electricity sparks up your leg and up the base of your spine, awakening a long-dormant need. “Nothin’, just reckon that a pretty thing like yourself has a new stupid college fella.”
You chuckle. “I don’t date, it's not worth my time anymore.” You take a swig of your drink, swallow the tang down, and it mixes with the lick of heat, slowly spreading its way into your veins. You’re trying to tame the surge of energy zipping through your body, but it’s so damn hot beneath the lights lining the bar. And the chatter buzzing around the room, coupled with the weight of Joel’s gaze, isn’t fucking helping. It’s overwhelming, the nerves and arousal taking over, lacing with the alcohol in your system.
“That so?” His voice is a low rumble, dangerous. The corners of his lips twitch; your eyes dart down to them. 
You set your glass down on the dark wood with a clink, and your fingers begin tracing the rim of the glass. “And you?” Your body is warm and humming, something churning deep in your core.
His hazel eyes slowly rake down your body, a hint of hunger in them as they pause at the hem of your skirt, barely covering the place where you need him most; your skin is on fire under the heat of his gaze, and for a moment you have to resist the urge not to pounce on him right there in a bar full of people.
His voice cuts through your reverie as he answers. “Not in the cards for me, darlin’,” his eyes crease before he tips the glass to his lips.
“Guess we got one thing in common,” you sigh and mirror him. 
His eyes never leave yours as he takes a sip, and your chest blooms. Black takes up the hazel hues in his eyes, full of lust, and you think back to all the times you’ve had his attention; only now it’s worse because you can act on it. And maybe it’s the liquid courage in your blood. Maybe it’s some stroke of desire for revenge. Maybe it’s just that — desire. Maybe it’s because you know him. Know by all those times you racked up in your brain of longing stares and fleeting tugs of every nerve of your body.
So you think, with the very obvious throbbing in your core, with desire turning molten and pooling between your thighs that you can no longer ignore, that now is your chance; you’ve got nothing holding either of you back this time.
“You want to get out of here?” Your eyes fall down his body and bite your lip as you take in his broad form again. 
He chuckles darkly. “Can’t leave my crew, sweetheart,” he juts his chin towards an area behind you. Your body twists, and laughter threatens to bubble in your chest when you spot them. Three men, all silver-haired and scruffy beards that cover surly faces, all clad in tethered leather jackets, sit in a corner towards the back of the bar. 
You turn back to Joel with a hint of smirk on your lips. “Aren’t you getting a little old to still be biking around? Shouldn't fossils be encased or padded up or something? You know as they age they don't hold up very well,” you tease. 
He bares his teeth with a crooked grin; the corners of his eyes crease. “Careful, kiddo,” voice a low warning, but there’s a hint of playfulness behind it.
You knock back the rest of your drink swiftly, ignoring how it burns the back of your throat. “Well, that’s too bad,” you start. Driven by the alcohol coursing through your burning veins and the painful ache at the apex of your thighs, your left hand grabs his, rested beneath the bar, and guides it under your skirt and towards your dripping sex. He stiffens, inhaling sharply through his nose as he feels the way the wet fabric clings to the lips of your pussy. You bring your lips to the shell of his ear and drop your voice to make it more deep and velvety — more enticing. “She’s already wet.”
You drop his hand and hop off the barstool and onto wobbly legs, your right hand looping your crossbody over your shoulder, and before your leg even brushes past his, his hand snaps out and wraps around your wrist, dwarfing it in his grasp. 
Without another word, he tugs you behind him, past your table of friends, all too loud and too drunk celebrating the end of another work week to notice the two of you sauntering by. He drags you down the dimly lit hall, and you’re biting your bottom lip, containing the smile that threatens to spread across your face as he shoves you into the bathroom. 
Within seconds, he’s on you, pressing into you so your back slams into the tethered wooden door. Your hands find his hair, tangling your fingers in the strands streaked with gray.
And with his mouth flush with yours, the taste of whiskey and cheap cigars is warm on your tastebuds, and you cannot get enough of it. You've dreamt of what he'd taste like for so long, and it's everything you've ever wanted. His tongue is heavy and hot as he pushes it into your mouth, swirling it around and cutting across your gums, leaving no inch of your mouth uncharted. It’s all rushed and sloppy and hungry, and very quickly does it become clear to you that he’s wanted this — wanted you, just as much as you had from the very beginning. 
Somewhere in the heady haze, you manage to remove your left hand from his dark curls, drifting it south behind your back to slide the greasy lock shut behind you, sealing your fate. 
The sound of the lock clicking in place has Joel maneuvering you towards the sink, your heels scraping against the tile as the both of you drift backwards, tongues still intertwined. 
Your hands fumble with his belt, and at the same time, your mouth skates down his neck, tongue darting out and lapping at the inked skin there. You hum at the taste of warm, salty sweat. As you try to drag the leather out from his silver buckle, you move to drop to your knees. You don’t even get halfway before he’s reaching for your wrists, pulling you back up to stand. “‘S much as I’d like that kiddo, I've been waitin’ too long to get inside this cunt,” he says bluntly, and then he’s taking a step forward, trapping you against the cold ceramic. “If m’gonna come, s'gonna be inside o' her.” 
Your stomach flips at his words, and you can’t deny that the use of that word again makes you want to drop to your knees for him twofold. Instead, Joel drops to one of his, grunting as his denim-clad knee hits the cold tile, and it’s what he does next that manages to shatter all essence of confidence you had tonight.
Joel flicks up your skirt with one large hand while the other grips the back of one of your thighs, and one of your hands finds one of his shoulders, fingers already clinging onto him for dear life as you try to anchor yourself. You’re throbbing for him as his hand drifts north to cup your sex through your damp panties; he tears his gaze away to peer up at you. “How many dicks has this pussy taken since my son?” 
His words strike you hard, and your blood runs as cold as ice. Your breath kicks out of your lungs. That was the last thing you expected him to say. Despite the fact Joel’s eyes often lingered and his breath often wavered in your presence, he always managed to compose himself. You never imagined he'd act on those impulses.
“I–I don’t–” you blink a few times, your brain malfunctioning, trying to find the words. 
“How many,” he taunts, his fingers prod at your lace-covered slit, his thumb applying pressure to your clit through your underwear. 
“I– I don’t know. I can’t remember,” you whisper.
Joel sniggers. “I figured. She’s just a little pocket pussy for us, ain’t she?” A shiver runs up your spine, and he watches you, hazel eyes glimmering in the soft yellow glow of the bathroom, gauging your reaction for a tell, a tick, something, that’ll give him a reason to stop. When you don’t, his head dips down between your thighs, and his strong nose presses up against the damp stain on the front of your skimpy black thong, which was doing a rather poor job of covering your cunt. His eyes close slowly, and he inhales. Long and hard, so hard you can feel his nostrils contracting against you as he breathes in your scent. And it’s not your fault a measly whimper spills from your lips when he does so. 
“This all for me now?” He coaxes, his fingers strumming up and down your slit through the lace. Words fail you as you look down and find his eyes already on yours. You nod once for him. 
“Words, darlin’,” his voice dark, thick fingers shifting your panties aside, exposing you to the cold air and spreading your soft folds apart, toying with your wetness. 
Oh fuck, sneaks past your lips in a whisper, and one of your arms snaps out behind you, hand wrapping around the edge of the sink.  
He tilts his head up, and your eyes fixate on his middle finger that reads, clutch, as the tip pokes into your aching hole. "S’this what you wanted? You oughta ask for it, pretty girl.”
“I want you. Fuck– I want you to fuck me, Joel.” You choke out. 
“Attagirl,” he starts, knees cracking as he stands. “Bend over ‘n let me see her up close this time,” he says with a smirk. 
You obey, and turn to drop your purse beside the sink before placing your hands on the wet countertop. But your eyes don’t find your own reflection in the mirror. Instead, they fall on Joel’s movements behind you and gulp down the near-pathetic excitement and nerves sizzling over you. Joel’s too entranced by the sight before him to pick up how your breath hitches in your throat when his calloused hands push your skirt over the curve of your ass and up to your waist. His sly smirk kicks into a low chuckle as he catches sight of your tattoo on your left ass cheek that reads, daddy’s girl.
You go perfectly still, and a firm hand between your shoulders pushes you forward, your upper body now parallel to the dark countertop. Your heartbeat thrums loudly in your ears, but you can still hear the low whistle he sings from behind you. And then–
“Jesus,” he breathes as he pauses and marvels at you, his gaze shifting up and down your form, goosebumps erupting across your skin as the knuckle of his index finger traces down the small of your back, cold metal from the ring on his pinkie grazes the meat of your ass by happenstance. “Pretty little thing, ain’t ya?” 
And it’s almost like he can’t believe he’s here — with you, thirty years his junior, and his son’s ex-girlfriend, in a bar bathroom, about to ruin not only you but every other woman for himself for the rest of his life.
The liquid courage must’ve kicked into overdrive because you don’t know what compels you to do it, but before you can stop yourself, you call out his name–
“Joel.”
His dark eyes flit upwards to meet yours in the mirror. 
“You gonna stand there and stare all night, or you gonna fill her up?” But the tone of your voice doesn’t make it sound at all like a question, and you don’t mean it to be. 
That seems to pull him back. He huffs a laugh, shaking his head. “Fuckin’ Christ, I didn’t think you’d be this filthy.”
His reaction manages to bring back your confidence, and your lips curl in turn. 
Joel doesn’t waste anymore time. You feel the rough drag of denim against the back of your thighs and hear the metallic clang of his belt and the buzz of his zipper as he frees himself from the confines of his jeans. When he hooks a thick finger underneath your panties, tugging them to the side and over one cheek, you can’t help but clench, and Joel definitely doesn’t miss it. 
He tuts. “Needy little thing too,” he grips his length, thick and heavy in his hand, and lines up the blunt cockhead with your throbbing hole; it winks at him. “Tiny hole’s begging for me to fuck her, ain’t she? Look at her flirtin’ with me,” Joel gloats. 
And the sane part of you wants to cringe at that, but your cunt betrays you and clenches around terrible emptiness again. Joel doesn’t wait for you to respond; his eyes flicker back down to your hole, pushing the wide head of his cock inside, and that spark from earlier ignites. 
“Oh, Christ,” he exhales, his jaw falling loose and eyes going hooded as he enters your warm, wet cunt. You gasp as your own eyes fall shut at the stretch, your face twisting upwards at the sharp sting. You didn’t get to look at it before, but you can feel him. He’s big. Bigger than anything you’ve ever had, and for a second you’re not quite sure he’ll be able to fit. But Joel being Joel means he’s a stubborn bastard. He makes it fit. He pushes himself in, in, in, and you whine, and he groans as your pussy wraps perfectly around every inch of his thick length, sinking in like a dream.
He bottoms out inside your cunt, his tip kissing your cervix, and you’re gripping the edge of the sink so tight that if it weren’t for Joel fucking you, you’d be worried if your knuckles would break the skin. “Fuck, that’s good,” he breathes, ragged and hard. 
And it is. He feels so good. Stretching your cunt out and carving a place for himself after all this time. All the wanting and pining. Shared glances and stolen moments that you believed to be over the moment you broke up with that bastard of a son have finally led you here with him. 
“Daddy,” pours from your lips involuntarily. Your eyes snap wide open, and you freeze. Joel draws his hips back, cock pulling out from your gaping hole and catching onto it’s head, and before you can scramble your brain for a pathetic excuse of an apology, his lips curl into a snarl, and he slams his hips forward, cock ramming into you full throttle. The force of his thrust so hard, your body jolts forward, and your pelvis collides with the sink.
He doesn’t give you time to recover; Joel sets a fast, unforgiving pace, and with every strong, expert roll of his hips, the edges of your vision begin to blur. And it doesn’t matter how fast he bucks into you; the size of his cock never fails to fill you up to the hilt on every long, punishing stroke. He’s fucking loving it. And so are you. Letting him use you and yanking you back onto his cock by the thin material of your thong, hips snapping back into his like a rubber band. The air quickly fills with delicious wet sounds of your skin slapping against his, your moans and his, and the sharp clink, clink, clink, of metal rattling against you as the movement of your bodies colliding increases. 
“Dirty fuckin’ girl,” he says, voice rough with arousal. “Been dreamin’ of this pussy since the first time I laid eyes on ya,” he pants, eyes never leaving where the two of you are connected.
Desperate whimpers and breathy moans spill from your lips, his left hand bruising on your hip. “Caught a glimpse of that pretty young pussy under your skirt. Couldn’t get it out of my damn head. I thought about you n’ fucked my fist every night to that image of you in your slutty little skirt. Too fuckin’ short to cover anything.” Your cunt drools with slick with every word that spills from him; you can feel it on the tops of your inner thighs. The wet suction of your cunt around his cock getting louder and louder and louder. It’s borderline pornographic. 
His voice cuts through the lewd sounds. “Some nights I heard those sweet sounds you made–fucked my fist then too. Were you fakin’ it, baby? Huh. Were you fakin’ it with him? My son ever fuck you this good?” He rambles, grip smarting your flesh. 
Your stomach jolts. Scratch that. That’s the last thing you expected him to say. If your ex-boyfriend’s father fucking you wasn’t going to send you spiraling, then him bringing up his own son while he fucks you dumb certainly will. 
Your mind is abuzz; your brain has gone completely blank. There’s no way you could form a proper word in response, even if you tried. There isn’t a single thought inside your head. It’s too much. Too many things are happening at once. For one, he’s never been this talkative; you were lucky if you got two sentences out of him a year ago. And now he’s asking you if his son fucks as good as he does. 
You don’t answer. You can’t. And he’s not expecting you to. All you can do is whimper and moan while he fucks you with abandon, the way you should have been fucked all those times by his son.
“You don’t gotta answer. I know he didn’t. That boy didn’t know what was good for him if it hit him til he was blue in the face.” And you moan in agreement, still not able to think of a response while his tip jabs at your most sensitive spot. 
“S’okay, you were made to take my cock,” he grits, his ringed finger digging into your skin by the unrelenting grip on your waist. “Made to take mine, not his. Tell me, my cock bigger than his?” 
“Daddy–” you gasp, your cunt flutters around him, and Joel laughs a little at you, a low mocking sound that fuels the fire roiling low in your belly. 
“Course it is,” he murmurs. “You were made for me. So fuckin’ pretty n’ perfect n’  – fuck – so goddamn tight. Tighter than a fleshlight, baby.” He hisses in between sharp thrusts.
“N-” you choke on your words, fresh tears pricking your eyes by the force of him fucking you so hard. 
He clicks his tongue. “You don’t like that, baby? You tellin’ me if I say it again, she won’t fuckin’ squeeze the hell outta me?”
Your cunt answers for you, giving him exactly what he wants and fluttering around him in response.
“S’okay, you can like it. You oughta. This sloppy cunt’s gonna be my new cocksleeve. Gonna blow my load in ya, pump you so full o’me.” 
You squeeze painfully tight around him again and bite your bottom lip to muffle the obscene, broken moan that escapes you. You can’t help but picture what Joel looks like thrusting himself into the toy. Was he using it that night? When you heard him coming with a groan of your name, was he pretending to paint your cunt instead of the inside of faux flesh? Or did he pull out and imagine covering your face in his cum? Your back arches as you push yourself up by the heels of your palms on the ceramic, your head topples back onto your neck, eyes rolling back into your skull, the walls of your cunt tensing at the thought. 
His fingers unhook themselves from your panties and his hand finds the back of your skull, and with a firm grip, he angles your head, so you are face to face with your own depraved reflection. “Look how fuckin’ sexy you look takin’ me,” he growls.
And you do; your vision refocuses on the wrecked girl in the mirror: hair wild yet pulled back by Joel’s tight fist, lipstick stained around your swollen lips, mascara smudged by wet tears at the corners of your eyes, temples glistening with beads of sweat as you’re split wide open, perfectly filled to the brim by your ex-boyfriend’s father’s cock. 
Joel’s fist tightens on your makeshift ponytail, pulling you back into him, and with your back now pressed flush to his chest, he brings his lips to your ear, his breath hot against your skin, eyes watching each other in the mirror. “You’ve got a velvet cunt, kiddo, s’damn shame my son didn’t know what to do with it.” 
You squeak, your body jostling and rolling with pleasure on every shift forward, the edge of the countertop bruising your hip bones. You’re blissfully unaware of the spit drooling from your lips and dripping all over the sink faucet until Joel points it out.
“Look at you, wanted it so bad you’re fuckin’ droolin’ f’me, naughty girl,” he pants, hips snapping forward with renewed vigor. “Wanted me to use you like this, huh?”
“Mmm,” you mewl in response, everything beneath your navel tenses while his cock grazes the opening of your cervix on each harsh thrust.
He tuts. “Aww, poor baby, you were all talk before. But you can’t talk back now, huh? You all cock dumb, s’that it? Daddy, fuckin’ ya stupid?” 
"So – good – Daddy,” you force a choked moan. Your cunt clamps down around him, and it burns, flames running wild, scratching away at your nerves as the fat head of his cock brushes against your g-spot again. As if he can feel it too, the snap of his hips grows more desperate. Faster. Harder. Deeper. 
“Keep doin’ that, doin’ so good for me, kiddo. Just a little more, give it to me, come on daddy’s cock, c’mon,” he rasps. Your stomach twists and your chest tightens, his cock hitting you so deep each time his hips swing, and the weight of his balls slapping wetly against your clit has you hurtling full speed towards your release. 
“Daddy – oh f– fuck,” your voice all broken and hoarse. Your entire body goes painfully tight, thighs quivering, and something deep within you snaps. Your eyes screw shut as the energy thrums through your blood. Your mind is a dizzying blur, white light streaking behind your eyelids, and there’s a low ringing in your ears as your orgasm fully engulfs you. 
"Yeah, that’s it. That’s it, kiddo, there you go, let her soak me,” Joel praises as he fucks you through your high, cunt throbbing while your hips move lazily back and forth on him. 
As your orgasm settles, your body goes limp, and your head begins to dip, but Joel tightens his grip on you, shifting your body like a ragdoll until you’re on your tiptoes, the perfect angle for him as he fucks relentlessly into you. 
And with the blissed-out daze of the afterglow and the roaring music from the otherside of the bathroom door getting louder, you can just barely make out Joel’s low rambles of obscenities — almost like he’s mumbling to himself — and the quick, wet, smack, smack, smack of his hips against the plush of your ass as he pummels your cunt, desperate for release — as if his life depends on coming inside you. 
He grunts and through bleary eyes, you watch him through the mirror. He looks wrecked as he chases after his high. He must feel your eyes on him because then his eyes lock with yours in the mirror, and your cunt squeezes him unconsciously. That sends him overboard. His movements become sloppy, and you feel him twitch inside you. His jaw slackens, his eyes pinching shut while his head lulls back, and a breathless chant of, oh shit, fuck that’s it, fuck, escapes him as he comes undone.
His hands clamp, hips finally stuttering, a deep groan slipping past his lips, and then you feel the heat spreading inside you as thick spurts of his seed spill deep inside your cunt. His body falls forward over yours, his sweaty forehead falls into your shoulders, and you let him stay there as his cock continues to pulse, hips lazily rutting into you and pumping you full of his load. Your spent cunt spasms around his throbbing cock, and your wet and his, gathers at the base of his girth and trickles down his balls. 
His hips finally come to a stop, but he doesn’t pull out. Instead, his hand drops from your hair and begins rummaging through your purse. It only takes him a few seconds to find what he’s looking for. Your pen. You watch through watery lashes as he pops the cap with his thumb and brings the tip to the small of your back; your body flinches at the feeling of the cold tip. 
As the ball of the pen drags and tugs across at your skin, for a brief moment you try to surmise what he’s writing, but it takes him too long, and the intensity of your orgasm finally catches up with you. You drop your head on your hand and wait for him to finish whatever the hell he’s drawing on your skin. 
You feel his body shift behind you again, but it’s not until you hear the familiar sound of a low click that has you snapping your head up to the mirror. 
Joel Miller has his phone in his hands. 
And he’s not just doing anything with it. He’s not scrolling through it. He’s not opening up the contacts app. He’s not typing on it.
You catch a bright white flash in the mirror. He’s taking pictures of you. But not just of you. He’s taking pictures of your wasted cunt still plugged full of his cock. 
And for some reason — you don’t move. You don’t stop him. You don’t turn around and snatch the phone from his grasp and call him a dirty old dog. You stay perfectly still, and you let him do what he wants. Letting him take a series of pictures.
But it’s the last few that have his lips curling into a smirk, and he begins mumbling under his breath, gawking at the mess he made of you. 
With his phone poised in his right hand, his left drops to your left ass cheek, his fingers splay across your flesh, pulling your cheek back, and the shutter sound goes off. "Fuck, she’s so pretty like this.” 
Heat blooms in your chest. No one’s ever made you feel like this. But there’s no room for shame when he makes you feel this warm and beautiful... and so fucking sexy. 
And then it hits you. 
No one’s ever made you feel like this. There’s a sudden pang in your heart, tears stinging in your eyes. You’ve always known it. But you never admitted it because it never mattered. How could it? When you’ve never had someone who made you feel worth their time. How could you know what you were missing out on if you’ve never had it to begin with? 
Your head tips back between your shoulders, forcing the tears back into your skull, and to keep them at bay, you redirect your attention on Joel; watch him as he presses his hips flush to your ass so he’s filled you to the hilt. With your body still trembling, you wince and close your eyes in overstimulation. Your body sags forward on the cold surface, melting into submission.
You hear a series of shutters coupled with Joel’s mutters of, Jesus, look at her, the prettiest little pussy, look at this messy little hole swallowin’ up my cock, while you feel his hand moving along the small of your back, no doubt getting different angles of the place where the two of you become one. 
It feels like hours have passed by when Joel seems to have gotten his fill. One of his hands finds your hip again; you shiver and gasp in unison as he slowly slips himself out with a wet squelch. He pumped you so full of his release that you already feel it beginning to trickle out. You didn’t think there’d be that much of it for a man his age.
When his cockhead fully slides out from your hole, you have to fight the urge to whine at the loss of it — of him. But it’s what he does next that stops you from reveling in that; his hand quickly reaches down between your bodies, and two thick fingers catch the cum dripping out of you and push it back inside. You whimper tiredly. 
You stay bent over the sink, and suddenly, for a very brief moment, you feel the heavy weight of his cock slap wetly against your left ass cheek, and for the last time, the camera shutters. 
He quickly pockets his phone, and then he’s pulling your panties over the ache between your thighs, and his hands tentatively pull the skirt back down over your ass, smoothing out the rumpled fabric. You can hear the low rustling behind you — the buzz of his zipper and the clang of his belt buckle, tucking himself back into his pants.
And then Joel Miller surprises you again. He leans forward over you and places a chaste kiss to your clothed shoulder before his hands are on you, gently tugging your body upright and turning you around to face him as he murmurs a low, Let me look at ya. 
His eyes scan over your face, grinning immensely, like he can’t help being proud of himself for ruining you. And you smile bashfully in tandem as you bring a weak hand up to your face. Joel shoos your hand away and rubs his thumb under your eyes, gently wiping away your tears and smeared mascara, then doing the same to the smudged lipstick at the corners of your mouth. 
He’s always been rather soft with you, but it’s a stark contrast in comparison to his earlier behavior; it almost gives you whiplash thinking about it. How he fucked you so full you could feel him in your chest, the stream of profanities he cursed under his breath, moaning the dirtiest things  — comparing himself to his son while inside you, taking filthy pictures as evidence of what the two of you have done together, then cleaning you up like it’s second nature to him. All of it was filthy. He’s filthy. But there was always a softness to him, and there’s no doubt about it in this moment.
You take the opportunity to mirror him and caress away the lipstick that stained his lips from your kiss, you smile and he sighs at the contact. His thumb swiftly pads over your bottom lip, his gaze lands on your lips, a sort of hesitance, perhaps deciding if he wants to kiss you again. Then, his thumb catches on your plush bottom lip. Joel’s lips twitch, his eyes go dark as he drags the flesh of your bottom lip down, eyeing something he knows he almost missed. He scoffs slightly and shakes his head in near-disbelief. You smirk knowing exactly what he’s reacting to. 
His entire face blossoms with cherry red as he does another once over on the black ink inside your mouth. 
“Angel, my ass,” he mutters under his breath before wetting his lips. Already hungry for more. 
He tilts your chin upwards and leans forward to kiss you. It’s softer, slower this time, but of course, he still nips gently at your bottom lip, and at the same time, he slips his free hand down between the two of you once more. It moves beneath the hem of your skirt, fingers shoving your panties to the side, the pulp of his middle finger pushing through your puffy folds and into your dripping hole, until the black ink that reads, brake, is entirely sheathed inside your worn cunt, making sure his come stays where it belongs. You whimper against his lips, bucking into his hand.
“Keep that in there, f’me,” he mutters, his hot breath fanning over your lips. “Want you thinkin’ o’me when it drips outta ya tonight.” 
You whine faintly when Joel removes his hand. He brings it up to his face, and his tongue darts out to glide across the tip of his digit, licking his finger clean of your wet and his, all while keeping his eyes on yours the whole time. 
There’s a long beat of silence between you, and then he drops his hand, pulling away. Your heart falls, already missing the warmth emanating from his touch.
“We oughta get back before people start looking for us,” he murmurs as he steps back. You smile softly and nod. You’re not sure you’ll see him again. And you don’t have the heart to ask him, nor do you have the strength to handle it if he rejects your offer. You have nothing else to give. 
You love how he made you feel, but your chest twinges — one that twists deep. And no matter how much you try to quell that deep-seated fear, it never truly leaves you. A little voice in the back of your mind that repeats on a loop like a broken record, telling you: He’ll break your heart. They all do. But he can’t hurt you if you don’t let him. You resist the urge to turn and run. And instead, you turn to glance back in the mirror, sure to tame your disheveled appearance, giving Joel a chance to leave before you, slipping back into someone from your past.
He makes his way to the door, sliding the lock open; his hand curls around the handle but pauses before pulling it open. He turns to face you. “You okay?” he asks. 
It shocks you. It’s more than his son ever did. Certainly means more to you after he’d ask, Was it good, after coming in you before you even got started. Everything Joel did tonight is more than his son ever did; asking you questions all night and listening attentively while you answered them — whether it was with the hope of fucking you or not — doesn't matter. You fought tooth and nail for a sliver of his son’s attention, but with Joel, he just fucking gave it to you. 
You do your best to ignore that gnawing feeling of fear, clawing its way up your chest by the only way you know how; you press your lips to Joel’s, pushing your tongue into his awaiting mouth, and licking along the rim of his teeth. A strong hand curls around your jaw, fighting for dominance over the kiss, but you don’t let him for long, though. Reluctantly, you pry yourself off him, but not before Joel’s teeth softly graze your earlobe, nipping the flesh there.
You flash him a quick smile, looping the strap of your purse over your shoulder. “Perfect.” 
He smiles softly at that, eyes dancing across your face. “Yeah,” he whispers and moves to the side, letting you step out first and following you out. 
You head straight to the booth where your group of four awaits you, but not before peering over your shoulder and seeing Joel stalk towards his crew. You smile to yourself and tuck a lock of hair behind your ear as you approach your friends. As you shimmy in beside one of them, they ask where you were, and their brows pinch when you mumble, I was feeling a little dizzy. Which isn’t a total lie, but no one presses you for more, and you’re glad they don’t. 
It’s not until your friends start collecting their belongings and announce they want to check out the new bar a few blocks down the street when you feel the weight of tonight’s actions sinking into you. You’re about ready to call it a night; your eyes are heavy, your brain is still fuzzy, and your body still has not recovered from Joel railing you. 
You mull over sitting in the booth until the car you plan to order shows up to take you home. But the thought of waiting around in Joel’s presence makes your chest tighten. You don’t want to find out if he’ll be like the rest of them. Something to scratch an itch, and then wiping you from memory. That urge to flee loops back, and your legs force you to stand.
Collectively, you amble through the bar, still bubbling with energy, and as you make your way to the exit, you can feel the heat of a stare on you. You don’t need to turn to know who it is; his broad form ghosts along the edges of your periphery.
You walk against that pull you feel towards him, ache festering, skin burning, and bones grating with every heavy step, your eyes locked on the door like a missile to a target, not letting your eyes wander over to his booth, trying to keep what’s left of your dignity. Resisting. Resisting. Resisting. 
Lucas steps out first, holding the door open for another group of younger twenty-somethings as they saunter into the bar. While you hang back, you quickly mumble over your shoulder to Nell that you’re thinking of heading home. Worry cuts across her face, and she extends an offer, At least let me drive you home, hun. 
Your answer is cut off by the chime of your phone in your purse. You still and fumble for it and see a message from Mr. Miller. You had forgotten you never deleted his number. 
Holding your phone close to your chest, cautiously away from your friend’s curious eyes, you click on the notification.
He’d sent you two of the pictures he happily took at the top of the hour with a message that reads, Look damn sexy on my cock, kiddo. 
Your mouth falls open in a gasp, and pride swells in your chest as you glance at the first picture: Joel plugging your used cunt full of his length, his graying pubic hairs drenched and the base of his shaft gleaming with a white ring of creamy release. Your eyes flit upwards, and you finally get a chance to read the dark permanent lines he’d written on your skin.
Joel had crossed out the latter half of your tattoo on your ass cheek. It now reads, daddy’s fleshlight, in sloppy penmanship. With his grip porcelain white, the cross on his thumb makes an appearance as his digit digs into your hip at the corner of your tattoo. Your eyes drift further north, and above the globe of your ass, the small of your back reads, mine. 
Your thumb swipes across the screen to the second picture. With his cock poised in his hand, he had pressed the swollen mushroom head, only a hairsbreadth beneath the ink on the plush flesh of your ass — black ink shiny with a pearly film, he had smeared it in your mixed juices. Your cunt clenches at the images — at his absence, missing the warm, thick stretch of him. And suddenly, you feel his cum beginning to dribble out of you and pool into the gusset of your already ruined thong. 
When you don’t answer. The message bubble appears.
A beat, then two, and then—
There’s a place for you here.
You swallow down the twinge, the ache, press your thighs shut around emptiness, and feel another slight trickle escape your lower lips when your pussy releases more of his cum. You lock your phone and look back up at Nell in front of you. You feign nonchalance and wave her off, telling her you can’t go home just yet. Tell her that you received a few more requests from your boss and you, Don’t wanna take work home. 
She asks how you’ll get home, you lie, and swiftly mention that you just saw Mr. Miller across the bar and that he’ll drive you home. Another tiny white lie. Your place is a solid halfway point from the bar to his house. And when she asks if you’re sure you’ll be okay alone, her hand gently squeezing your arm, brows furrowed with worry, bless her heart, your gaze follows that pull like a magnet and lands on Joel. 
He’s already watching you. 
Your eyes lock with his, one hand resting to the side while the other tips the glass he’d been nursing towards you, winking as he takes a short sip of amber liquid. 
And there’s no pang in your chest. No urge to flee. Just the warmth of his gaze that in any second now will radiate through his touch, turning your bones to ash. 
You flash Nell a smile. Yeah…You’ll be fine.
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haveihitanerve · 20 days ago
Text
Tim casually dropping bits of his traumatizing childhood lore on Red Hood(he knows its Jason, but Jason doesn’t know that yet)
but plays it off/alludes to it being Bruce and Dick that are treating him this way. And Jason believes him bc Tim sneaks off to see Jason all the time- which obvi makes the two of them very panicked when they realize he’s with the fucking Red Hood and thats their baby boy, which leads to get-your-ass-over-here-i-was-so-worried-you're-grounded yanks from bruce/dick, and that makes Jason think they’re like… awful+ he has pit madness so he’s not thinking straight and remembering the good parts of living with bruce and how he would never but anyway-
this eventually leads to Jason marching into the cave on Tim’s behalf… only to find, Bruce and Dick actually adore???? This tiny gremlin child??? Would literally die for him??? Are sooooooo fucking happy to learn its Jason, are like, really welcoming??? Love him??? Mourned him?????
And Jason is looking at Tim in confusion, and Tim is in the corner with his tablet and goes “haha. Nice. Horrified you back into the family, uwu” 
Anyway Tim is a chaos gremlin who deserves to force jason back into the family by making him truly horrified and want to raise tim on his own, which tim is not willing to do, so instead he has to co-parent him with bruce, which leads to reconciliation etc etc…
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