#is a struggle. for real. and it takes a long time. and i wanna try different styles and sketches and things like that. i hope it's okay

[crimsonwolf715]

Parting Words of Regret

(Alternately, Jason left Damian with the LoA to start getting revenge on Bruce and the others who wronged him in Gotham. He reunited with his little brother upon returning to his family, but things aren’t the same.)

Damian’s studying in his room. 

“Hey, buddy,” Jason says from behind him. 

“Hello,” Damian replies, turning to face Jason. “Why do you look guilty? Did you spike Ommi’s coffee again?” 

Jason smiles. “No, nothing like that. I just have something I wanna talk to you about.” 

“What is it?” 

“I have to go.” 

“Go where?” 

“Going to do some training before I go back to Gotham.” 

“So you’re not coming back?” 

“I am coming back, just once I’ve dealt with Bruce.” 

Damian’s face gets hard. “So you’re not coming back. You and I both know that if Grandfather couldn’t beat him, then you can’t.” 

“I know him better than Ra’s does.” 

“Don’t go.” 

“You know I have to. I’m sorry that I have to leave you.” 

“No, you’re not. Go.” 

“Damian…” 

“Go deal with your strife and we can talk once it’s done.” 

Jason pulls Damian into a hug, which Damian barely accepts. “I’ll see you soon.” 

“Don’t make that promise.” 

Two years Later

It’s been a long three months. Three months since Jason joined back into the Wayne family. Damian made no sign that he recognized Jason, so Jason’s been pretending that he doesn’t recognize his little brother. Jason’s reading in the living room of the manor because he’s waiting on Bruce to show up so he can try to talk him out of making him get a GED. Damian storms into the house and goes straight for Jason. He almost gets to Jason when he stops. He gets this angry kitten look, then turns and storms upstairs. Jason feels a pang of sadness and shifts uncomfortably. 

Bruce walks in. “Where did Damian go?” 

Jason points to the stairs. 

“He got suspended for fighting.” 

“That’s what he was taught to do when he has a problem, but I find it unlikely that he started a fight.” 

“Why? I mean, I know he didn’t start the fight, but what makes you think that?” 

“Common sense,” Jason answers, dodging the real answer as best he can. 

Bruce heads up the stairs and Jason decides that it isn’t worth having this fight today. Jason heads into the kitchen and starts making a sandwich. Tim comes down. 

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” Jason asks. 

“Shouldn’t you be at school?” Tim replies. 

“Fair. Do you want a sandwich?” 

“No, I ate lunch at a normal time, not two o’clock in the afternoon.” 

“Lucky you, I guess.” 

“I do have a meeting to go to, so I’ll be back.” 

“Bye, Tim.” 

Tim heads out and Jason ends up spending the rest of the day in his room, skipping dinner. All the little things are really getting to him concerning Damian. He’s used to his little brother running over to very aggressively tell him that they have to spar or he’ll commit a murder. Or that he’s just been struggling with his grandfather’s impossible standards for him. Damian would tell him everything. He ends up falling asleep without coming to a consensus on what he’s gonna do considering he hasn’t slept much the last week. 

The explosion buries Jason in debris. He can’t breathe, he struggles to get out from under the rubble. He feels himself losing consciousness and he cries out for his dad one time before losing consciousness. 

Jason wakes up in a cold sweat, breathing heavily. He sees a small pair of eyes at his door. 

“Dami?” 

“Are you alright?” Damian asks. 

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Jason answers between breaths. 

“Alright, goodnight.” 

Jason’s door shut and footsteps retreating. Tears spring up in Jason’s eyes and he aggressively tries to rub them away.

I deserve that. I left a little kid.  

Jason lays back down and tries to fall asleep again. Instead, he spends the rest of the night wide awake. He’s exhausted, but he can’t seem to fall asleep. 

“Jason, breakfast!” Dick shouts. 

Jason groans, then gets up and heads downstairs. 

“You look…” Dick starts, but Jason cuts him off. 

“Comment on it, and I’m going to take out your knees.” 

Jason sits down at the breakfast table and everyone’s there. Jason glances at his watch and remembers that it’s a Saturday. Breakfast is rowdy, but Jason avoids talking to anyone. Dick keeps trying to make conversation with him, but he shuts it down with one to three word answers. He gets up and heads down to the Batcave to blow off steam and hopefully tire himself out enough to sleep. He doesn’t tire himself out enough and he spends the day mostly like a zombie. 

That night on patrol, a major villain attacks, bringing all hands on deck for damage control. Jason’s dealing with civilians when he sees Damian running. Damian trips and falls, and he looks terrified. 

“Damian!” Jason runs towards his younger brother and scoops him up quickly. 

Damian blinks slowly. “Jay?” 

“Yeah, I’m here. You’re safe.” 

Damian grabs his jacket and puts his head on Jason’s chest. “Don’t leave me again, please.” 

“Is Robin okay?” Tim asks. “He got hit with a gas and he made a run for it immediately.” 

“I’ve got Robin, he’s alright,” Jason says. “I’m gonna take him home.” 

“Do that,” Bruce replies. “I don’t want him in harm's way if he’s been gassed. Run blood tests when you get back. If he needs it, get him to Leslie.” 

“I will.” 

Jason takes Damian back to the Batcave and easily distracts Damian so he can get his blood. 

“That’s it,” Jason says. “That was easy.” 

“What was easy?” Dick asks. “How is he?” 

“Still fine, and getting blood.” 

It gets quiet on comms. Jason ignores it and starts running tests, keeping Damian held against his chest. 

“How did you do that easily?” Dick asks. “I need you to teach me that.” 

“Maybe later,” Jason replies. “His blood’s got some drugs, but none that will do any lasting damage.” 

“That’s good,” Tim says. 

“Keep an eye on him, Hood,” Bruce says. “At least till I get back.” 

“Will do, boss. Signing off.” 

Jason pulls his comm out. “Do you wanna change?” 

Damian nods, so Jason puts him down. The two change, then Jason picks Damian back up. He carries him upstairs and they settle down on the couch. Damian falls asleep not long after getting settled. Jason runs his hand through Damian’s hair, careful not to make contact with the healing injury near the front of his scalp. He makes sure to keep up on where Damian’s injuries are. 

“I’m sorry I left you, buddy,” Jason whispers. 

Damian makes a soft noise and turns a bit, but doesn’t wake up. Jason’s chest feels tight and he forces back tears. He pulls Damian a little closer and puts his cheek against Damian’s head. 

“I love you.” 

Jason ends up falling asleep too. He wakes up hearing the door slam shut. The sun is out, so he slept for a while. 

“I’m here!” Dick calls out. 

Jason looks and Damian’s still asleep. 

“Shut up, Dickie,” Jason hisses. 

Dick pokes his head into the room and his face lights up like a Christmas tree. 

“Don’t you even…” 

“Awww. Look at you two.” 

Jason glares at him until he raises his hands. 

“I’m gonna go find Dad. Love you, Jay.” 

“Get out.” 

Dick goes upstairs, so Jason returns his attention to Damian. He gently picks his younger brother up and takes him up to his room. Once he’s covered up and still soundly sleeping, Jason heads to his room. He spends an hour in the shower, then heads down to the Batcave. He starts wrapping up his hands so he can punch the punching bag. Damian comes down and goes right over to Jason. 

“Hey,” Jason says. 

“May I speak with you privately?” Damian asks Jason. 

Jason stops mid-taping up his hands. “You mean without cameras? Because we’d have to take a walk.” 

“That is fine with me.” 

“M’kay, let me finish this up and we can go,” Jason replies, continuing to tap up his hands. 

Damian walks over and holds out his hand. Jason hands him the tape without hesitation. Damian starts taping up his hands quicker than Jason was doing it, but just as carefully. Jason smiles a little as his brother finishes taping up his hands. 

“You’re slow. Let’s go.” 

Jason gets up and follows Damian upstairs to the living room. Damian grabs a jacket and offers Jason his. 

Jason takes it. “Thank you.” 

Once they’re out of the house, Damian sighs. “I don’t want to do this anymore.” 

“Don’t want to do what anymore?” Jason asks. 

“Pretending that we didn’t know each other before. You seem to want to, but I don’t want to keep this up.” 

“Hey, I just did it because you didn’t act like you recognized me when I got back.” 

Damian cuts his eyes at Jason. “I did it when you first came back. Like to Gotham.” 

“Oh. Well, I feel stupid. I never want you to do something you don’t want to do, buddy. Except eat your vegetables.” 

“It’s just cauliflower and it tastes horrible,” Damian replies. “You can’t make me eat it.” 

Jason smiles and puts a hand on Damian’s shoulder. “I was just thinking about how I couldn’t keep this up.” 

“Because of yesterday?” 

“Straw that broke the camel's back.” 

“So we’re going to stop this weird act?” Damian asks. 

Jason nods. 

“Good, I’m far past sick of it. Mother’s been wanting to talk to you since you came.” 

“Oh yeah, not dealing with that right now. I’m still too tired for that. Tell her I’ll call her when I’m up for it.” 

“Sure, that’ll blow over well.” 

“What is she gonna do?” 

Damian shrugs, even though his face says he does know the answer. “We should get back before someone comes looking.” 

“Yeah, come on. You gotta hold my hand while we cross the street.” 

“I will kill you.” 

“I love you too, buddy.” 

“Love you.” 

They head back to the manor, Jason holding Damian’s hand.

[watercolor-hearts]

Simi with Seb taking Kimi's hand in the paddock for the shipper drawing? Ferrari Simi? 🥺♥️

“One last walk?”

“It won't be the last.”

“Only as teammates.”

[newhcroes]

Hi

Love your colorings<3

I was kinda wondering if you could maybe give a little tips or guidance on how you color the manga panels and what app/software you use? Totally understand if you don't wanna

hi love!! thank you so much that really means a lot!! 🖤 as for what i can offer, this isn't going to be the best bcos i'm not the greatest at summarising or any sort of step by step stuff ( little too adhd brained ! ) but i learned how to colour from my best friend with this tutorial https://faeriiess.tumblr.com/post/650187102693343232/as-has-been-requested-by-people-here-is-a-tutorial ( which might be a little old now but it's still a good start off ! ) and then started to sort of figure out what worked for me and didn't. i use firealpaca and honestly only like three main brushes which would be pen, watercolour and textured / blending watercolour. i'm honestly still working out a lot, figuring out what i like and don't like when i colour, but that tutorial is a very good start up guide!

i think my biggest tips are just don't be afraid to use a lot of layers. sometimes doing the background first is good for picking colours in the main colouring. pinterest is great for colour palettes and highly recommend creating a folder for those palettes. edit it first in photoshop or photopea if you want to tone down any of the grey areas in a colouring ( use the levels function and mess around with it ! )

my biggest tip though. the most important one.... don't be like me and have 50 wip at the same time that never get done.. it's really an awful way of doing it and why i only get one colouring out a month i swear o.o

i hope this at least helps somewhat!! x

[slippery-minghus]

ough. just more or less laid a boundary with my best friend and it feels really bittersweet. good because i did it instead of taking the passive route that would make me uncomfortable, but bad because i don't want to hurt their feelings... but good again bc maybe if i start having better boundaries with them, they'll realize there's some stakes to continuing the shit they're doing..?

[tsukius]

Cute moments with your bllk bf

featuring: isagi yoichi, nagi seishiro, bachira meguru, kunigami rensuke, chigiri hyoma, kaiser michael

author’s note: first post, kind of nervous eheh. I hope y’all like it, and feel free to leave ideas to write.

_________________________________

Y. ISAGI

"thanks for taking a break from training to hang out, yoichi," you said, smiling at your boyfriend.

it was rare you two got to go on real dates since the blue lock program kept him busy.

"of course. I wanna spend time with you," he said shyly, scratching his head.

isagi was always determined on the field, like a compltetely different person, but got embarrassed or flustered easily in normal life or just around you.

both of you wandered the shopping district, window shopping and chatting. a moment later, you spotted a cute sundress on display.

“ooh, i wanna try that on!” you requested, already pulling him by the arm.

oh, but isagi never complained, he found you adorable.

in the fitting room, you slipped on the floaty yellow dress. it had tiny white flowers and felt so summery. taking a breath, you pushed back the curtain.

“well? what do you think?”

isagi’s eyes went wide as saucers, cheeks flushed crimson. he stared at you with his mouth gaping open like a fish.

“yoichi? you ok?” you asked, giggling, doing a little twirl.

he shook his head vigorously.

“y-you look beautiful. like the prettiest girl i’ve ever seen.”

he really was the sweetest, and you swore you could melt under his affectionate gaze. posing playfully, you questioned him again.

“you sure? i don’t look weird?”

“not at all, you look..perfect,” he insisted.

isagi might've been an egoist on the field, but was reduced to a lovesick mess around you.

grinning, you turned around to watch him in the mirror. “i’ll take it then, thanks for your input.”

and when you went to pay, isagi grabbed the dress from your hands. “i’ll buy it, don't worry.”

you kissed his cheek, thanking him. “my hero. now come on, let's get ice cream.”

your football star sure was a softie at heart.

S. NAGI

it was a nice sunny day, so you and nagi decided to hang out walking around downtown.

but your boyfriend was way taller, so even with his lazy stride, you were struggling to keep up with his long legs.

you two wandered in a peaceful silence, just enjoying each other's company. but after awhile, you were getting out of breath from jogging every few steps. and nagi never seemed to notice you kept falling behind.

rounding a corner, he suddenly turned with a puzzled look.

"why you breathing so heavy? we didn't run or nothing."

you chuckled, panting a little. "it’s fine, it’s just you have longer legs, so i'm working hard just to walk beside you."

he tilted his head thoughtfully, like he never considered your height difference before. "huh. sorry ‘bout that."

you grinned, catching your breath.

"don’t worry about it, i don't mind the exercise."

he simply shrugged, hesitantly reaching out to gently ruffle your hair. then to your surprise, nagi noticeably slowed down so you could match his pace with ease.

it was really a sweet gesture, even if he'd never admit he was being considerate.

you smiled and slipped your arm through his as you continued on together, no longer feeling out of breath. your lazy boyfriend might act like he doesn't care, but little things like this proved he pays attention in his own quiet way.

M. BACHIRA

you and bachira were lounging on his bed after school, relaxing together in his room.

you knew your boyfriend loved telling dumb jokes, even when no one understood them.

"hey hey, i got a good one!" he said with a mischievous glint, always that bright smile on his face.

you braced myself, used to his nonsensical humor by now.

"okay, okay. why can't a bicycle stand on its own? because it's two tired!" bachira bursted into contagious giggles at his own joke.

normally, his silliness went straight over your head. but the way his eyes shined with pure joy, you couldn't help but laugh along too.

his happiness was so infectious.

"i don't get it, but you're cute so i give you that." you chuckled.

bachira's face lit up at the sound of you laughter. before you knew it, he launched himself at you with a flying tackle.

"gotcha!" he shouted, peppering your cheeks with messy kisses between giggles. you tried to fend him off halfheartedly as his attacks tickled.

"meguru stop ! that tickles!" but he was relentless in smothering you with affection.

having bachira as a boyfriend was sometimes hard to keep up with, but it was just his way of saying i love you.

finally he paused to beam down at you, out of breath. "i love making you laugh! you have the best laugh ever."

you smiled, pecking his silly nose. this boy brought you so much joy, even if he didn't always make sense. And you loved him for it.

R. KUNIGAMI

the sun was low in the sky when you saw kunigami exit the gym, his training session finally over. leaning against a lamp post, you gave him a little wave when he spotted you.

his serious face broke into a soft smile, eyes lighting up at the sight. in a few long strides, kunigami reached you and wrapped his muscular arms around your smaller frame.

"hi baby." you giggled.

he brushed gentle kisses across your cheeks and nose, his stubble tickling your skin.

"what are you doing waiting out here? it’s freezing."his husky voice was laced with concern.

you smiled up at him, glad to see his reddened cheeks meant he worked hard.

"i figured my big strong boyfriend might appreciate some company walking home. did i guess right?"

Rensuke didn't deny it, simply pulling you into his side where you fit perfectly.

your fingers laced together as you two started down the empty sidewalk in comfortable silence. he gave your hand a squeeze, letting out a sigh.

he then smiled serenely, the stress of the day washing away as you enjoyed each other's company.

sometimes it was the little things that said everything, like this football boy letting you care for his tired heart after pushing his body to the limits.

H. CHIGIRI

sundays were always hair care days for you and chigiri since you both liked keeping your hair soft and shiny. after washing and conditioning, you two snuggled up in his cozy bed.

you leaned back against the fluffy pillows as chigiri rested his head on your lap.

your hands slowly stroked through his damp hair, detangling the silky strands. he made cute content hums, barely audible but enough to show he liked it.

"you know, i've never told anyone this before," he murmured, eyes closed in bliss.

you knew chigiri didn't share personal things easily so your ears perked up.

"but i think you might be the only one who would understand...i use an extra leave-in conditioner after washing. keeps the frizzies away," he confessed playfully.

you couldn’t help but chuckle.

“don’t worry babe, your secret's safe with me." you teased, kissing his head.

you loved that he felt comfortable enough to share even silly little details.

his pink locks really were like silk between your fingers. chigiri grinned up at you, a rare true smile on his lips.

"only you get to do this, you know. touching my precious hair."

you smiled back, heart swelling to be trusted so fully by this boy. you both stayed cuddling as the daylight faded, bonded by more than just great hair care but the closeness you found in each other.

M. KAISER

it was getting chilly in the apartment as evening fell. kaiser and you were curled up on the couch, him intently watching an old soccer game on his ipad while I read quietly beside him, your legs resting on his lap.

you could feel his azure eyes staring at you rather than the screen but pretended not to notice at first.

finally glancing over, sure enough kaiser was gazing at you with an unreadable expression.

"what?" you questioned with a playful smirk.

as usual, michael's eyes seemed to pierce right through you, assessing and calculating.

you let him look his fill, used to his analytical nature by now. you two understood each other without many words.

after a long moment, he just shrugged and returned to his match like nothing happened. but i'd seen a flash of uncertainty in his ocean-deep gaze, almost like worry.

your smile softened as you understood what was bothering him, sitting correctly and wrapping an arm around his, pulling you two closer on the couch.

you knew kaiser's childhood made him paranoid anyone who claimed to love him would disappear.

he just wanted to be loved, after all.

leaning your head on his shoulder contentedly, you peered at his face to see the subtle tension leave his features as your eyes met once more. in your steady gaze, he found reassurance that you will always be right here.

michael's answering smile was tiny but genuine as he relaxed into your embrace. some things could never be put into words for someone like him, like the emperor.

luckily, your silent understanding ran deeper than that.

[imagining-in-the-margins]

CM Friends-with-Benefits Challenge

The following are prompts including friends with benefits/situationships!

This event is over (Masterlist here!), but you are welcome to use any of these prompts. If you would like to be added to the existing Masterlist of entries, please check out the Rules below!

🥰 Song Prompts 🥰

"Sex" by The 1975

"Too Sweet" by Hozier

"dress" by Taylor Swift

"august" by Taylor Swift

"Casual" by Chappell Roan

"Dinner & Diatribes" by Hozier

"Close to You" by Gracie Abrams

“Stuck in the Middle” by Tai Verdes

"Good Luck, Babe!" by Chappell Roan

"I Wanna Be Yours" by Arctic Monkeys

“Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?” by Arctic Monkeys

💌 Dialogue Prompts 💌

“I’m just in it for the snacks.”

“No wonder you’re single…” (joking?)

“So... what’s the stance on cuddling?”

"You deserve something real. I want us to be real.”

“We’re just friends with benefits.” // “Right, and the benefit is being madly in love.” (sarcasm?)

“We’re… friends. With benefits.” // “Without sex? What’s the benefit?” // “My delightful company, asshole.”

"I'm your boyfriend without the benefits." // "Do you want the benefits?" // "Yes—No... I'm your fluffer!" ('New Girl')

“What is up with those two lately?” // “They’re sleeping together.” // “Yeah, right. Imagine… wait, seriously?”

General & NSFW Prompts Below!

🌹 General Prompts 🌹

Someone figures out the situation. A and B try to figure out how.

A is blindsided by jealousy when someone shows an interest in B.

A and B try to be normal so no one knows. Literally everyone knows.

A is so worried about B falling for them that A fails to realize A already fell for B.

A realizes they are happier with B than any actual significant other they’ve had.

A is totally B’s type, which has never worked out before. As a result, A keeps sabotaging things.

A agrees to a situationship with B because they think it's the only way they'll be able to have them.

A reaches out to B for a hookup but gets rejected, and they each struggle with their disappointment.

A is treating the arrangement like a formal business deal. B gets tired of it and shuts them up with a kiss.

A and B used to be friends with benefits. When they meet again later, the arrangement is still appealing.

A has to leave town for a long time. They have one last night with B but don’t tell them. They’re gone in the morning and leave B wondering what they wanted to say the night before.

Anything else you can think of!

💋 NSFW Prompts 💋

A completely defies B’s expectations of what they’re like in bed.

A and B decide to hook up one last time (or maybe not the last...)

A agreed to take B’s virginity as long as B didn’t catch feelings. It seems like B didn’t. A did, though.

A and B's no-judgment rule means they're finally comfortable to ask for what they've always wanted to try in bed.

A is annoyed with B, so they start loudly complaining/joking about their situationship. Angry/playful sex ensues.

A and B have never felt truly satisfied in bed until there were no strings attached... it definitely wasn't because of finding the right partner.

Happy Writing!

[luvrodite]

keep me here (with your skin on mine again) [17.6k]

summary: it's been a long time coming. he's the bane of your existence, but there's no denying it. your roommate is hot.

cw: gn!reader, afab!reader, smut, jealousy, friends with benefits arrangement, original characters, stephanie brown cameo, intoxication, blowjobs, spit, fingering, handjobs, piv sex, minor voyeurism, references to past voyeurism, masturbation, slight dubcon re multiple orgasms as there isn't a discussion but it's consensual, references to reader's clothing – they wear clothes described as 'short' and 'tight', and 'slutty' at one point (not degradingly), mention of reader wearing a hair towel, presumably after a shower, use of 'cunt', arguments, miscommunication + reader and jason are both petty and imperfect !! minors, blank and ageless blogs do not interact, you will be blocked

Jason just about falls over himself laughing when you open the door and immediately you scowl. He doesn’t say a word, teal eyes taking in your outfit before his beautiful face screws up, a loud guffaw punching out of him. The force of his amusement is strong enough that he sinks to his knees, clutching the door-frame to steady himself.

“Oh–” you scoff, and he has to yank his fingers away before the door slams on them. “You’re so insufferable!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” You hear a pause before he dissolves into laughter again, and you resist the urge to stamp your foot.

“No you aren’t. What the fuck do you want?”

“I can’t talk to you through the door, can you open up?”

You pout. “No.”

“Please? I swear I won’t laugh.”

You make a face at that, disbelieving. “You’re full of shit.”

Another muffled snort through the door. “Okay, I swear I’ll try not to laugh,” Jason amends.

You open the door and he struggles to keep a straight face. You know what you must look like, the hair towel, the pair of pink, heart patterned, fluffy pyjama pants and your bed socks.

“I’ll close this door again,” you remind him when you catch him eyeing the print on your socks, crossing your arms impatiently and he nods, biting his lip to compose himself.

“I thought you were going out.” Jason voices this out loud and you cut an unimpressed look his way when his voice wobbles with the weight of keeping his amusement at bay.

“I am.”

“Oh. Is that the look for tonight?”

You sneer at him. “Is this what you came to ask me?”

“It’s all I wanna talk about now,” he admits, shrugging. He points at your pants and you bat his hand away, hissing. “Where on earth did you get these from?”

“They’re comfortable–”

“I’ll say.”

“–and I got them from my parents, ass hat,” you finish pointedly, hands on your hips.

“Do they hate you?” he drops his voice into a conspiratorial whisper, eyes widening into faux sympathy and you roll your eyes.

“Whatever, man. What do you want? You’re interrupting my getting ready time.”

He lets out a breath obnoxiously, leaning into the door frame.

“Yeah, for bed, it seems.” You stare at him blankly, fighting the urge to strangle him with your bare hands. “Anyway, do you have my charger? Think I left it in here last night.”

Briefly, you consider telling him that you haven’t actually, despite knowing exactly where it is, having been plugged into the outlet between your bed and the wall during your marathon of Gilmore Girls last night. You end up opening the door, waving a hand dismissively at him to check for himself before you move further into your room, returning to your walk-in to contemplate your outfit for the night.

Jason enters the room and you see him move around in your periphery as you push the hangers around. He lingers in your room after he finds the charger, twisting the cable around his fingers absentmindedly.

“You should stick with that outfit,” he remarks, taking a seat on your bed. You look over your shoulder and he elaborates, helpfully, “I think it’ll be a real hit at the club.”

“I’m sure,” you say dryly. “The men’ll be falling all over me.”

He cracks a delighted smirk, nodding. “Exactly.”

“You’re not as funny as you think you are,” you inform him, emerging from the wardrobe and tilting your head to the door. “C’mon, you found your charger. I need to get ready.”

He boos you but stands up anyway and you push him out, palms pressing into his shoulder blades. Jason, ever resistant to making anything easy for you, ever, leans his weight into you, slowing down to a crawl. “So mean. You don’t wanna hang out? You’re breaking my heart, here. I thought we were best friends forever.”

“We’ll be best friends forever if you get out,” you retort, shoving him over the threshold and he cackles.

He’s still laughing long after the door slams behind him.

Jason becomes your roommate on a Wednesday morning. You remember this because you have a full day of classes on Wednesdays, and you’d spent the night before anxiously cleaning in preparation for his arrival. He moves in while you’re in class, and sends you a text as you’re getting out at 5 that he’s getting takeout and did you want anything from the Korean restaurant a few blocks away?

You get home to the smell of tteokbokki, fried chicken and japchae on the counter. Your return home, usually greeted by the sound of silence, is met with quite possibly the most attractive man you’ve ever met in your life in your kitchen, looking up from his phone and nodding a casual ‘hey’.

It isn’t as though you aren’t expecting this. You’d met him several times before, at gatherings and mutual friends’ birthday parties. Still, Jason’s beauty manages to leave you reeling every single time. You stare for a moment, startled, before rushing out a jerky, “Hi!”

He’s silent for a moment before he parts his lips. You track the motion, feeling your throat dry at the awkward, lopsided grin he shoots you.

“Wasn’t sure if you wanted to eat together, or...”

Your eyes widen and you take a few steps forward. “Oh! I’m so sorry, I should’ve told you to start without me, I didn’t think I’d take this long, there was construction on the road and we had to go a different way–”

“You took the bus?” he questions, eyebrows creasing and you nod.

“It’s easier, there’s a stop a block away and it drops me off five minutes from campus,” you tell him, and he nods slowly. “Anyway, I’m sorry, you’re probably hungry, you didn’t have to wait for me.”

He shakes his head, disappointed. “You know, our relationship’s already off to a terrible start, Roomie. I really don’t know how you’ll come back from this.”

You stare for a moment before it hits you: he’s making a joke. You let out a laugh, moving further into the apartment. “You’ll survive a few more minutes, I’m sure.”

“I’m withering away as we speak,” he calls out after you.

You break in your newfound coexistence over rice cakes and stir fried noodles, sweet and sour sauce staining your fingers, sitting at the coffee table while Jason goes through the things he needs to get done, reruns of an old show playing on the TV that neither of you pay much attention to.

“We can go together,” you suggest, when he mumbles something about picking up his groceries, typing out a list on his phone. He looks up in surprise, as though he hadn’t expected the offer.

“You sure?”

You shrug, spearing a rice cake onto your fork. “If you want. I need to get a few things anyway.”

He considers it a moment longer, before nodding. “Okay.”

It takes some getting used to, having this man in your apartment. A week in, you nearly scream when you walk into the kitchen half asleep to find him at the stove – the lack of a shirt is no help in calming your racing heart. But the weeks pass by, and Jason becomes less of the attractive man you share a living space with, morphing into something else entirely as he gets comfortable. By the time you hit the three month mark, his looks are the least of your concern – he’s the bane of your fucking existence.

Kind of.

The two of you settle into your routine and you find out that Jason has a mouth on him. He delights in riling you up, tourmaline eyes flashing with barely constrained glee when you react in kind – bitching at him for coming into the kitchen when it’s your turn to make dinner and offering unbidden suggestions, or squabbling over who got it wrong when you forget to tell him to take a turn on your way to go grocery shopping. You maintain the last one is his fault. How can you forget the route to the store when we’ve gone nearly a hundred times by now?

He somehow manages to draw it out of you, the bitchiness you’ve been carrying with you since middle school and have tried to bury down–nobody likes a smart mouth, after all. But he doesn’t flinch from it.

If you didn’t know any better, you might even say he liked it.

– You do know better, though.

(That one night spent with your hands under the blankets and thoughts of ultramarine eyes is nobody’s business but yours.)

You meet his family. He meets your friends – the ones he doesn’t already know. You somehow end up watching a show together. His sweater lays at the foot of your bed. You’ve slept in his bed and vice versa. You’re sure he’s one of the closest friends you have. He irritates you to no end.

Bit by bit, Jason worms his way into your life and settles comfortably there.

It’s probably why your girlfriends feel so comfortable calling him on your night out and how the ensuing mess occurs.

Jason gets the call around 2 in the morning, the ringtone blaring through his skull just as he’s about to fall asleep. He jerks up, glaring groggily at his phone. He contemplates leaving it to ring, but he spies your friend’s name on the screen and he sighs, wiping a hand down his face.

They’re playing loud rap music when he gets inside, descending the stairs into the dark club. He passes girls supporting their drunken friends on their way out and gently shoulders his way through a group lingering by the double doors leading to the actual club. More than once, he feels an appreciative stare on the back of his neck but he’s preoccupied.

It takes him a moment to spot you over the crowd, squinting his eyes to make out your form through the dim lights. When he does, his throat dries.

He hadn’t seen you after he’d been shepherded out of your room, pulled into a phone call with his younger brother who’d decided that nearing midnight was the perfect time to complain at length about their father. Damian hadn’t let him go until long after you’d left the house, your voice echoing through the walls with a “I’m going! Bye!” that he’d distractedly replied to in between making the appropriate listening noises to his increasingly agitated brother.

You’re holding your friend’s hand at the bar, smiling dreamily and swaying in place when the song abruptly switches to something slower. The clothes you wear leave little to the imagination, short, tight, sinful. He bites his cheek hard, swallowing roughly as he makes his way over. Something green curls in his vision when someone gravitates closer to you, yelling something in your ear. The guy is all leery smiles and appreciative eyes, gaze lingering on the dip of your neckline.

Much to Jason’s displeasure, you don’t back away in disgust, only frowning in confusion and tapping your ear – I didn’t hear you. He repeats himself and Jason watches you process whatever it is that he’s said before a smile breaks out and you laugh, shaking your head. Your eyes glitter, and jealousy burns low in his gut. You don’t seem to realise you’ve ensnared the other man in your orbit, staring up at him over the rim of your drink.

Jason breaks through the crowd and calls your name. Miraculously, it isn’t lost to the crowd and you look away. He finds smug pleasure in the way you startle in surprise, the shape of his name on your lips. He ignores the other guy, leaning an arm against the bar and between the both of you, effectively blocking you off. God, if Dick could see him now. Just the other week, his brother had been giving him shit for the apparent territoriality over you, and he’d gone blue in the face denying it, despite the knowing look on Dick’s face.

“What are you doing here?” you reach up on your tiptoes to ask him.

“Here to take you guys home,” he shouts, leaning in to get his words across. And he doesn’t need to, but he rests his hand on your waist as he does, and you press closer, tilting your face up to pout at him.

“What?” you protest. “Nooo, it’s still early!”

He grins at you unsympathetically. “It’s nearly 3 am, baby, c’mon. You look like you’re going to fall over.”

He only realises he’s made a slip up when your eyebrows crease but you say nothing, only staring up at him with moony eyes before smiling and placing your drink down to put a hand in his, mouthing an ‘okay’. He signals to your friend behind you, who’d called him earlier and watches the exchange with interest. She turns and shouts something over her shoulder, waiting for the third of your party to finish her drink before tugging her along. The three of you hold hands and follow him through the club in single file, a sight that he’s robbed of finding any amusement because he’s trying much harder not to pop a blood vessel at having to stop every few moments. The cause is, of course, you: each time he looks over his shoulder, another man has stopped you to flirt with you. He sends up a prayer for patience, hopes anyone is listening, and continues to pull you along.

The third time, he whirls around to tug you firmly into his side, barking out a harsh, “Fuck off.” at the guy and cutting a scolding look your way for answering his advances. It’s a waste of time, because you’re just grinning up at him in amusement, giggling. He sighs, steering you in front of him and nodding for your friend to take the lead. By the time he ascends the stairs to the exit, he’s sure his blood pressure is through the roof.

“Get in the car,” he sighs and you unlatch yourself from his side – a consequence of simultaneously risking twisting your ankle a block back and falling into oncoming traffic. He’d near grabbed you by the scruff of your neck in pulling you away from the kerbside and further onto the pavement, keeping an arm around your shoulder tightly.

“Okay.” You draw out the word playfully but sink into the passenger seat obediently, your friends following suit.

He shuts your car door, and sighs once more.

The door to your apartment opens quietly closer to 5 in the morning than he’d like, and he’s glad he’s not working the next day as he trudges through the threshold with you in tow, cradling a bag of takeout carefully as you toe off your shoes.

He throws his keys carelessly onto the counter, where he knows you’ll find them when you wake up and move them to the bowl in the entryway – where your keys are meant to go, a fact you’ve reminded him of unhelpfully when he’s running late and his keys aren’t where he left them. Between now and then, he’ll forget this fact, he always somehow does.

Now, you place the paper bag next to his keys and wander away – he looks over his shoulder and finds you shoving your feet into his house slippers, a shaking hand pressed against the wall to steady yourself as you put them on. The sight sends a bolt of affection through him and he turns away, focusing on washing his hands. He calls your name once he’s done, jerks his head to the tap. You don’t protest, only leaning into his side and sticking your hands under the stream of water.

He doesn’t know why he’s not moving away. Your vantage point makes it a little awkward to wash your hands, and it’d be easier if you switched places. Still, he stays, privately, guiltily admitting that the weight of you is nice against his side. Your bare arm is soft against his, and he can smell the perfume you’d used tonight, faint but sweet. If he looks out of the corner of his eye, he can see the glitter of your necklace, thin chains resting against your collarbones and décolletage.

You bump your head against his shoulder, and he blinks, drawn suddenly from his thoughts. Your stare is unnerving, and he almost wonders for a moment whether you can read the shameful attraction in his eyes.

“Come eat.”

He hopes you don’t notice the relief in his sigh as he follows you to the table. The two of you eat in silence for the most part, Jason picking at the edges of the burger he no longer wants and you stealing his fries in between bites of your wrap.

He gets up to go pour you some water – he isn’t sure how much you drank tonight, but he’ll sleep better once you’ve finished a few glasses – when you suddenly break the silence.

“I kissed a guy tonight.” Jason pauses his rummaging through the cupboard for a glass, and hears you muse to yourself, “It wasn’t very good, but I kissed him anyway.”

“Did you.” He keeps his back to you, fingers closing around the glass gently before he takes a breath and turns around. Mechanically, he pours you a glass of water, watching the liquid fill the cup as you stand from the table to pad over to him. He can feel you at his back and when he turns to face you, he thrusts the glass at you.

“Drink.” You take the glass, and he watches you down it. When you’ve finished, he pours you another and nods at you in instruction.

“You okay?” you ask, once he’s satisfied. His gaze catches on the sheen of water on your bottom lip.

“’M fine,” he bites out, forcing himself to relax when you reach out to touch his shoulder, but he only ends up curling his fingers into fists, pressing them into the laminate counter behind him. Your hand flattens against his shoulder, palm resting just above his heart. He can hear it beat in his ears, picking up further when you move into his space. Your chest brushes against his, and he remains still, backed against the counter.

He could move you right now, he knows he could. You’re off-kilter, and he’s much larger than you. He’s picked you up before, for a laugh. It’d be easy to move out from under you. But there he remains, with you drawing closer.

“You’re drunk,” he breathes out against your lips when you’re a hair’s breadth away, moving to press forward. Your lips are parted slightly, and he tracks your tongue as it darts out to wet your lips, flicks his gaze back up your pupils, dark and blown out.

“Not really,” you whisper, shaking your head. “Not as much. I’m just tipsy.”

A breathless sound punches out of him, and Jason feels his lips twitch. Somehow, his hands have migrated to settle against your waist. He runs his finger over the edge of your top, feeling your warmth sear through it. It’s a flimsy thing, thin and slutty – meant for darkened corners and wandering hands. No wonder you’d garnered the amount of stares you had tonight. He flicks his gaze down, and his fingertips have skimmed underneath its hemming, pressing lightly into your sides.

Had the guy you’d kissed tonight held you like this? Jason, envious, swipes his thumbs over your skin and delights in the shiver that rolls down your spine. Your eyelids flutter, and in the dark your eyes are covered in a sheen of liquid moonlight, the universe bottled and staring back at him. He bites back a swear, feeling his jeans tighten.

“You should get to bed.” It takes an effort to force the words out, and they come out hoarse. You stare at him for a few moments longer, unknowing that with each passing second, the thread of his restraint is steadily fraying. Alcohol and drunken desire weigh your eyelids down, and he grits his teeth at your lingering touch before you step away, turning on your heel in the direction of your room.

A single, solitary light in the hallway remains to keep him company in the kitchen, rooted to spot as he hears a muffled sigh of frustration through the walls. Then, the sounds of a zipper, and the rustle of your bed sheets. He curses his keen sense of hearing then, blood turning molten when, a few moments later, you whimper.

He knows the sound. It’s burned into his memory, the day he’d come home early and inadvertently overheard you touching yourself. Hearing it again has him dizzy and unable to move, clutching the counter tops as you try, pitifully, to muffle your moans.

Several minutes pass by. You fall silent after that. Jason thinks he must’ve done something awful in another life, and that this must be his penance, to have you so close yet be unable to do anything about it. He remains in the living room until he’s certain you’ve fallen asleep. Only when all movement in the next room ceases does he move.

You wake up a little past ten in the morning, to your surprise. The light pours in through the open blinds and you squint, rolling over to bury your face in your pillow. Your entire body cracks and you groan at the sensation, stretching across the expanse of your mattress. There’s grit in your eyes from the mascara you’d put on last night, you can feel the coarse flecks of it clumping your lashes together, and your face feels gross.

When you get up, you don’t bother to pull on a pair of pants – you’d discarded your bottoms last night before falling into bed – but switch the top for something looser, a t-shirt of Jason’s you think must’ve gotten mixed up in the laundry.

Your mind stutters over this name when you step into your shared bathroom, and you pause, hovering over the sink with your facial cleanser in hand.

Jason.

The memory of last night makes your face warm, recalling the sharp look he’d pinned you with, marbled features burning from the inside out as he’d let you draw closer and closer, eyes blazing. The ghost of his touch on your skin throbs, something like a live-wire threading itself alongside your every nerve.

You wash your face with careful movements, watching the makeup from last night swirl down the drain. Little else exists in your mind, save for the lingering desire of last night – and all the nights before that had led to it.

Where do you go from here?

You step into the shower, wondering if the two of you will pretend it never happened and continue as normal. You resolve to do as Jason does, nodding to yourself as you smooth your moisturiser into your skin. Judging by the sounds in the kitchen as you step out, you figure he has no intention of avoiding you. That, at least, reassures you and you walk out half an hour later with less hesitance.

“Morning,” you yawn and he looks over his shoulder, eyebrows furrowing, bemused.

“How the fuck are you awake?”

“What do you mean?” You take a seat at the counter, propping yourself up on an elbow. There’s a slice of toast on a plate, covered in melting butter and unabashedly, you reach for it.

“Just that you knocked out at like, 6 – that’s mine, you thief,” Jason explains, looking over his shoulder before sputtering when he catches sight of his toast in your mouth. You mumble an apology around the bread and he grumbles, turning back to the stove. “Yeah, you sound real sorry. You couldn’t wait a few more minutes to make your own?”

You grin to yourself, dusting your hands off and leaning forward on the counter. “Aren’t you making me breakfast? I thought that’s what this was. You know, feeding your poor, hungover roommate who you love so much?”

He shoots a flat stare at you and you know you’re right – there’s twice the amount of hash-browns in the pan that he would make for himself, and there’s a carton of juice on the counter waiting to be poured, a plate waiting by the toaster near him.

“You keep that up and I’m giving your share to the neighbor’s cat,” he says mildly and you pout, settling back into your seat.

“Whatever,” you murmur. “Why are you awake, if you fell asleep after me?”

“Because the universe hates me.”

“Bruce called?” you guess and he shakes his head, plating your hash-browns and toast and turning to place it in front of you.

“Dick. Wanted to catch up. Why he chose at 8 in the morning is beyond me, but what the fuck ever,” he mutters, handing you a fork and taking a seat next to you. The proximity makes you shiver when his shoulder brushes against yours and you catch a whiff of his cologne. You cross your legs beneath the counter and hope he doesn’t notice, leaning in to take a bite of your food.

“You hungover?” he mutters and you shake your head. “You drank a lot last night, didn’t you?”

You hum in affirmation, letting him steal a bite of your toast. “Don’t think so. I’m a bit achy, but that’s it.”

He makes a noise in his throat. “Lucky you.”

The way he’d tugged you into his side last night flashes in your mind and you duck your head, warm all of a sudden. “Yeah.”

You stand up to put your plate away, and only when you’re at the sink and Jason makes a choked noise do you realise what you’ve wandered out in. You stiffen.

“The fuck are you wearing?”

You blink, not expecting him to be so incensed. You set the plate down in the sink and turn, looking down at the shirt you wear– the shirt you’re only wearing – and back up at him. It hangs off your frame, somewhat, but you can admit it’s a little on the shorter side as far as oversized shirts go, just skimming below the tops of your thighs. Still, it doesn’t explain why Jason’s expression has gone taut.

“A shirt?” you offer, tentatively.

“Are you serious?” You pause when he gets short with you, eyes narrowing.

“Yes?” You don’t know what to say. “I’m sorry I forgot to put pants on. Why are you mad?”

He shakes his head. “I’m not mad.”

“You are.”

“Whatever.” He wrinkles his nose, and you can see his leg jumping as he taps his foot, agitated. “You should go put some clothes on.”

Your mouth tugs down into an unimpressed frown. “So you are mad about my clothes,” you say flatly. “You’ve never had a problem with what I wear around the house before.”

And you know that he knows it’s true. You’ve accidentally come out in your pyjamas when he’s had his friends over, not seeing the text he’d sent to give you a heads up and he’s only ever laughed it off. You know he’s seen you like this before, too. You’ve grown so used to Jason it no longer occurs to you to cover up – it’s only Jason. He’s used to it.

But then you look at the agitation on his face. You’re beginning to think that maybe he isn’t.

“Maybe I just didn’t want to say anything about it,” he says. “In the interest of keeping the peace.”

You shoot him a withering stare. He’s so full of shit. “So you’re not interested in keeping the peace anymore. Why are you saying something now?”

He lifts a shoulder, churlish. “Maybe I think it’s time. It’s not really appropriate, is it?”

If you weren’t growing madder by the second, you’d laugh in his face at the twitch of his eye as he says that, as though the words coming out of his mouth are pain to get out.

“I pay half the rent,” you tell him hotly. “There’s no one around and you know what, I don’t think you even care about what I wear.”

He looks startled when you say that and you know you’ve hit the nail on the head. You continue.

“All I’m hearing right now is a lot of ‘maybe’ and I’m not buying it. You’re a shit liar, Jason. What the fuck is your problem? The truth this time.”

He blinks, momentarily stunned. Anger like the tide, it washes away to make room for the truth before rushing back in. He stands up, breakfast abandoned, and your heart thrums in anticipation as the chair screeches backwards.

“My problem is you,” he says finally, and your mouth drops open.

“Me?” you squawk, indignant and he nods.

“Yeah, you.”

“What did I do?”

You wrack your brain, trying to come up with a reason he might be picking a fight with you. You hadn’t forgotten to take your clothes from the bathroom after you’d showered in a while, you’d been pretty good about replacing the liner in the bins when you noticed it was full – had you left your dishes in the sink yesterday before you’d gone out? Still, it didn’t warrant this level of a fight. This was beyond petty roommate squabbles – neither of you hesitated to get snippy about pulling your weight, and you forgave each other just as fast, too.

Jason was genuinely pissed off with you. You couldn’t for the life of you figure out why.

“Is this some sort of game to you?” he asks you, instead of elaborating and you’re left more confused.

“I’m not playing any games with you – what are you talking about?” you demand, exasperatedly and he rounds the counter, stepping close to you. Absently, you’re reminded of last night. (The beat of his heart under your fingers, angry thrumming that echoed the rush of your own in your ears.)

Blue-green eyes narrow at you and he scoffs. “You know how many guys I nearly got into it with last night because I had to come get your drunk ass? The entire time, you’re just smiling–I don’t think you even knew where you were at that point.”

“I knew where I was!” you argue but he continues.

“Then I finally get you home and you decide that wasn’t enough, you have to tell me you kissed some guy, try to put the moves on me, and then pretend like nothing’s happened this morning which – whatever, fine, but then you walk around in this? And I’m not supposed to think you’re playing games?”

You stare at him, heartbeat thundering in your ears.

“You are so stupid,” you breathe out. “What are you, jealous?”

“Yeah,” he huffs out, and you freeze. “Yeah, maybe I am.”

“What?” you mutter, barely audible.

He crowds you into the sink, until you can feel the edge of it pressed against your back. “You flirt with me, and I’m not supposed to do anything about it, because we live together. I have to watch you walk out of the house when you go out in your little outfits, and I’m not supposed to do anything about that either.”

He leans down and you’re nose to nose. “You accidentally send me something meant for someone else, and I’m not supposed to do anything about that, except all I can think about is how it’s meant for not me. Isn’t that a little unfair? How am I supposed to just move on from that? But I did. I made peace with the fact that you’re here, that you’re close enough for me to touch but I’m not supposed to.”

You go hot when you remember that, remembering the horror when in the heat of the moment you’d accidentally sent a photo meant for a hookup to Jason’s contact instead. It did little to comfort you when in response to your harried, apologetic explanation, Jason had simply sent you:

don’t worry i deleted it seriously it’s fine

He hadn’t acted in any way the next day to suggest that you’d ruined things or made it awkward, but you’d  been mortified. The way he looks down at you now, you think he must be better at hiding it than you thought. Barely concealed lust darkens his eyes, pupils blown wide. It coaxes your own want out of you, your hands beginning to shake as you rest them on the counter behind you. Water flecks your palms but you’re uncaring, staring back at your roommate.

Jason stares down at you, waiting.

Well. You had resigned to doing as he did.

You tilt your head, scrutinising him with narrowed eyes. The edges of your mouth twitch in an effort to stifle the urge to smirk.

“Maybe you should do something about that,” you challenge, leaning in until you can feel the warmth of his breath against your cheek. From here, you can count every eyelash that frames his eyes, can notice the scar just beneath his eyebrow, barely a quarter of an inch, a nick he must’ve gotten in his childhood. You add in a steady, derisive tone, tamping down the excitement that’s already begun to itch underneath your skin in anticipation, “instead of being quiet about it, like a coward. At least those guys had the nerve to try.”

His eyes flash and the breath he lets out is the only warning you get before you’re being kissed to within an inch of your life.

Your first thought is: why the fuck hadn’t you egged him on sooner?

Jason kisses like he might die if he doesn’t get to. You go boneless under the grip of his hands when they settle around your waist, tugging you into him urgently until your chest is pressed tight against his. You scramble for purchase, reaching to tug at his hair while his tongue swipes at your bottom lip and neither of you expect the breathless groan he lets out, but it goes straight to your gut, desire pooling low and driving you to tug again. Your noses bump and he lets out a wrecked laugh into your mouth.

“You’re seriously ruining it,” you mutter between kisses and he pulls away, much to your displeasure. You’re madder still at the way you chase his mouth, leaning in before blinking up at him.

“Yeah, what would you rather I do?”

Insufferable, even after having his tongue in your mouth. You tug his collar and pull him back down. He meets your height with a self satisfied smirk, laughter in his eyes. You’re not so amused.

“I’d rather,” you tell him, “you not laugh in my face while making out with me. It’s really making me reconsider letting you take this off me. I’m not wearing anything under this, you know.”

You want to laugh at how quickly his smirk drops at that but you’re too busy slipping out from the tight space, darting to the mouth of the hallway where you pause grin at him teasingly, tilting your head questioningly. Well? Are you coming or not?

He lunges forward and you squeal, taking off to your room with him hot on your heels. You’re just shy of your door when you’re flung over his shoulder, the world abruptly tipping as he grabs you. He laughs, victorious, and then a moment later he’s inside, you’re being thrown onto your bed. He stands at the foot of your bed for a moment, just staring and you feel a prickle of nervousness roll over your skin, ensnared in his gaze and the anticipation only made worse by the waiting.

And then he’s moving, a knee pressing into the bed as he climbs on, but you stop him, a hand flying to his shoulder. He goes still under your touch.

“Wait, can you–” you pause, feeling your face grow warm. “Can you close the blinds? I don’t want the neighbours to get a free show or something.”

He blinks, eyelashes fluttering before he snorts, shaking his head. “Yeah, okay, sure.” He looks back at you as he pulls them firmly shut, throwing the room sharply into dimness but not before you catch sight of that teasing grin. “And here I was thinking you were so bold.”

“Not that bold,” you mutter, before you grin. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Not with me,” he mutters, climbing back onto the bed. He doesn’t waste any time in putting his mouth to your neck, teeth barely grazing against the skin. You inhale sharply, eyes fluttering under the touch. Jealousy colours his words when he says, “Don’t want anyone else seeing you like that.”

“N-no?” you barely manage to eke out, fingers digging into your sheets. You don’t want to admit his tone sends a thrill down your spine. You’re lucky he’s preoccupied, arching into his touch when his fingers find your sides again, rucking your shirt up your thighs.

“No,” he says firmly, before kissing you again.

When he pulls away you’re a little dizzy, breaths coming out heavy. It takes you a moment to realise your shirt lays over your stomach now, pushed up – showing off the underwear you’d lied about not wearing. He raises an eyebrow at you, unimpressed and you shrug, unrepentant. A finger skims over the band on your hip, hooking underneath it to snap it against your skin. It makes you gasp, and his lips twitch.

“Not wearing anything under this, huh,” he mocks.

“How else was I gonna get you to take it off faster?” you provide by way of explanation, grinning and he shakes his head, looking quite as though he doesn’t know what to do with you. When he pauses, staring, you roll your eyes, pushing up to pull your shirt off. His eyes widen as you settle back into your pillows, and you tell him archly, “There. Now you still get to take off only one thing.”

You watch him swallow you with his gaze, blue-green lingering on every inch of skin bared to him, breathing out heavily. Knelt between your legs, his hands remain hovering by your hips and you push them up, shifting until you brush against him. Impatience makes you petulant, slinging a leg over his hip and reaching out to coax his hand to fucking touch you.

“Do you want to do this?” you ask, when he only brushes a hand over your hip once more, and he frowns.

“Why’re you asking me that? Do you want to stop?”

“No!” you protest. “It’s just – you’ve got me naked and you’re not doing anything about it. It kind of feels like you don’t want to.”

He grins then, incredulously. “God. You’re so whiny. Is this how you are with all your hookups?”

You scowl at him. “You really wanna talk about my hookups? Now?”

His nose wrinkles in disdain and he leans in. “No. I’m gonna make you forget about them, though.”

You don’t know what it is about Jason that draws it out of you – you speak without thinking, dryly telling him, “Yeah, we’ll see about that.”

He shuts you up with a glare and lowers himself down, settling on his stomach between your legs. You swallow nervously when his breath skims over the seat of your underwear, the lace already damp. Jason grins to himself when he nudges against the crease of your thigh with his nose and you tremble, biting down a gasp when his fingers hook into the lace and instead of pulling them off entirely, he only tugs them to the side.

He sighs, eyes flicking up to where you stare at him. “So fucking pretty.” He reaches a hand up to press to your mouth and you blink, letting your roommate part your lips with his fingers, pressing them flat against your tongue. It makes your head spin, and you drool over his fingers, wrapping your lips around them and sucking. You delight in the way he watches you do it and emboldened, you reach a shaking hand to encircle his wrist, keeping it in place.

Eventually he pulls himself out of your mouth, but not without shifting against the mattress, and you give him a smile, spit smearing down your chin. He curses under his breath, and you grin when you hear the words, “Fucking brat.”

Thoroughly soaked, he takes his fingers to your cunt and your eyes roll back when he spits onto your clit before attaching his mouth to you. Very quickly, Jason makes a mess of you under his fingers and tongue, pressing inside with ease and curling his fingers to hit the spot you can never quite reach yourself. You see stars, squealing when he bands his free arm over your stomach, pressing down and only intensifying the scale of your pleasure.

Sinking into the mattress, you lose sense of all else but the slick sounds of your sex and Jason’s ministrations, eyes fluttering closed as you whimper. He steadily increases his pace and you’re curling your fingers into the sheets, feeling the knot in your stomach twist and tighten. One twist of his fingers, the tug of his mouth on you, and you’re coming apart with a gasp of his name, hips straining upwards against his arm to ride out your high.

 “Fuck,” you breathe out, stunned and staring at the ceiling and he laughs, laving your cunt with another look before he pulls away, delight on his face at the whimper you let out.

“You still wanna talk shit?” he questions, pushing himself up to come into your line of vision. You blink blearily at him.

“Give me a minute. Then, maybe,” you mumble and he snickers.

“Don’t tell me you’re tapping out now. All that attitude, and you didn’t even last ten minutes.”

You frown at him, sitting up and he falls back on his haunches to give you room. “I’m not tapping out, you asshole. When did I say that?”

He holds up his hands. “My bad, sweetheart. Must’ve misread that look on your face.”

“You’re insufferable,” is all you can say back to him, rolling your eyes.

“Maybe,” he admits, before a shit-eating grin curves his mouth upwards. “But you want to fuck me anyway.”

God help you, you really do.

You look down at him instead, and tug on the hem of his t-shirt. “Take this off.”

“Bossy,” he intones playfully, but pulls it off anyway, revealing the torso you’re guilty of having admired on several occasions, all powerful muscle and tanned skin. A thick pattern of hair trails down from his belly button into where his pyjama pants hang low on his hips, and you think maybe you’ve come on the spot again just at the sight of it, pressing your legs tight together.

He snorts above you, but says nothing, letting you push yourself up onto your knees, pressing a hand to his chest. He’s warm under you and just like last night, the beat of his heart is fast. You do what you’d longed to last night, sliding your hand up from his chest to his neck, tugging him down to press your lips against his. He inhales sharply through his nose, as if surprised, and you smile against his lips. You remain like that for a few moments, mouths slanted against each other and panting.

When you pull away, it’s with a fire burning in your gut, flames high and setting your skin alight.

“Those too,” you breathe out, nodding to his pants and not a moment wasted, they join your shirt on the floor. The both of you left in your underwear, you pout at him, brushing a hand over where he strains against the confines of it.

“I want you in me,” you tell him and he swears, screwing his eyes shut. You lower yourself back down, kneeling, to mouth over his hipbone. Tilting your chin up, you watch him shudder when your fingers ghost over the band of his underwear. “Can I?”

“Fuck. Yeah – yeah you can,” he grits out and you grin, pulling them down greedily. You move backwards as he kicks them off, and your mouth dries when you take in the size of him.

He’s bigger than any of your hookups, and your lust is dashed by the worry that suddenly overtakes you.

“Jason,” you say nervously and he hums. “I don’t think that’s going to fit.”

You try to appreciate that he attempts to muffle his laugh but immediately you’re looking back up at him, indignant. “Don’t laugh at me, I’m being serious.”

“Sweetheart, it’ll fit,” he reassures, smoothing a hand over your cheek, uncharacteristically tender. You find yourself leaning into it, a silent you promise? in your eyes. You believe him, though, you realise. “C’mon, let me take that off you.”

You sink back down into the sheets, pushing up your hips as he finally pulls off your underwear. And even though he’d been nose deep between your lips only a few minutes ago, he lets out a low breath at the sight of you, fully bared to him, a curse that skitters over your skin, stomach tightening as he shuffles closer.

He tightens a fist over his cock, smearing his pre over it as he gives it a few strokes before settling in the cradle of your hips. You shiver when he rests himself against you, sliding his cock over your cunt. Your mess clings to him, and the both of you groan when the tip of him catches against you, taking a sharp breath when he bumps against your clit.

“Don’t tease,” you murmur, reaching out to tug him down. He meets your mouth in a messy kiss, supporting himself on an elbow beside you, his free hand pushing your leg apart before guiding himself to your entrance.

You tense at the intrusion before he mutters at you to fucking breathe, baby. Inch by inch, with a thumb guiding tight circles over your clit, Jason pushes inside. The stretch of him is one you’ve not ever experienced, and you feel winded when he bottoms out, fully seating himself within you.

“Fuck,” you whisper. He grins, leaning down to kiss your jaw.

“Told you it’d fit,” he muses smugly, and you let out a dazed breath, pinching his arm. “Ow!”

“Don’t be a dick with your dick in me,” you mutter crossly and he lets out a laugh.

“Sorry. You okay?”

You blink a few times, wiggling your hips – Jason lets out a hiss – before nodding. His fingers haven’t stopped on your clit and slowly, the stretch has begun to feel a little pleasurable. When he pulls out a little before thrusting, you sigh, bringing your arms up to loop around his neck.

“Feels good?” he asks and you hum. Pleased, he begins to move.

Your senses dissolve quickly. The room slips into a cacophony of moans, the air thickening with urgency with every second that passes. Jason had kissed you like it was life or death; it had only been a precursor. Every nerve in your body feels like a live-wire, thrumming with electricity and so utterly sensitive to his every thrust, and touch, and kiss. His hands are bruising on your waist, your hips, your thigh, when he lifts your leg to sling it around his hip. His mouth seeks yours, all teeth and tongue, exchanging panted breaths and moans, mumbled swears spilling from his lips like a broken dam –

So fucking perfect.

Been waiting so – fuck, so long.

So good for me.

Yeah, just like that.

You can’t keep up with it, sinking your head back into the pillows beneath you. He takes advantage to lave his tongue against the exposed skin there, too, teeth working at you until you’re sure he’s left a mark to accompany the others.

Time passes thickly, your sense of it obscured by the man over you. He fucks you right through your first – technically second – orgasm, and works you up all over again, coaxing you through the next one with breathy laughs and a mean smile when you shake your head, tears budding at the corners of your eyes. You fall apart though, you couldn’t not, with the way he touches you as he angles his hips. Absently, you think, if your sheets weren’t already ruined from your makeup last night, they will be now.

“Thought you couldn’t,” he goads you, rolling the both of you over so you’re slumped on his chest and pushing back in you. You curl your nails into his chest and he gasps, “–Fuck!”

Jason doesn’t seem to mind that he’s worn you out too much to do anything beyond lay on his chest. He holds you easily, thrusting upwards. The change in position makes you cry out, tightening around him once more.

He lets out a startled laugh. “You have one more in you, sweetheart?”

You shake your head once more and he pouts, a hand taking your chin and directing your gaze to him. He’s pouting mockingly at you. “No? Are you sure?”

“You’re–” you stumble out, face screwing up under the weight of your building orgasm, “such a bastard.”

He just grins at you, but it’s strained, too, starting to slip around the edges. He tips his throat back, and you can feel his thrusts beginning to stutter. You take the chance to lean down and latch your mouth to his neck, tired hips rolling against his as you return his favour. His hands tighten around your hips and he groans. “Fuck, baby, ‘m gonna come, where do you want me?”

And because he’s stolen away with him your ability to reason, you whine out needily, “Inside. Need you, fuck, please, I need it inside.”

He swears loudly, hips bucking frantically. You keen as you feel your fourth orgasm of the morning roll over you, and not a moment later Jason follows suit. You feel the warmth of it slide down your thigh and his grip around you tightens as he rides out his high, face buried in your hair. His breathing is ragged, and you close your eyes for a moment against his neck, resting. The room falls silent for several moments, only your breathing to be heard as it evens out.

“Gonna have to get you the pill,” Jason mumbles into your neck and you hum. “Fuck, I should’ve gone to the store or something.”

You hug him a little tighter, shaking your head. “It was perfect.”

He laughs wearily, but his arms tighten around you briefly, too. “Not gonna be so perfect if I accidentally knock you up, baby. ‘M smarter about this, usually.”

You grumble, biting his neck gently. “I don’t wanna talk about your hookups with your dick still in me.”

“Should I pull out, so we can discuss them?” he offers, laughing when you try to pinch him.

“You’re so not funny,” you tell him, and he scrunches his nose playfully.

“Yeah, but you need me so bad,” he repeats, leaning in to steal a kiss before you can snap at him. It doesn’t save him; once you recover, you’re reaching to squish his face between your palms.

“You’re the biggest dweeb on the planet, I really hope you know that,” you tell him matter-of-fact-ly. To your annoyance, he doesn’t seem too chastised, beaming up at you when you let him go. You slump back down onto his chest, sighing loudly. “I’m so tired. How do you have that much energy? You slept less than me.”

He shrugs underneath you, a hand settling on your back and trailing up and down. The movement is soothing, and you find your eyelids growing heavier. “Think I’m kind of used to running on no sleep.”

“Freak,” you mumble, and he snickers. “You know, I really wasn’t teasing you when I came out.”

“Hm?”

“No pants. Just forgot,” you slur.

“Go to sleep,” is all he says, but you’re sure you hear a muffled laugh before sleep overtakes you.

You don’t know what you expect to happen from sleeping with Jason. When you wake up, you find that he’d dozed off around the same time as you, but not before cleaning you up and pulling your blanket over the both of you. It makes something in your heart twinge, and you have to avert your eyes when he wakes up not longer after you do. The both of you order an early dinner, having slept through most of the morning and afternoon – “Work tomorrow, too,” Jason had grumbled when you drew the blinds open to a late afternoon sun hanging low in the sky.

“Classes tomorrow,” you pout, as you strip the sheets in your bed. “And I slept through the whole day.”

“Your fault for not sleeping in this morning,” Jason mutters, still in your bed with his face pressed unhelpfully into a pillow. You swat his leg and when he lifts it to shoot you a beleaguered scowl, you gesture to the pillow. He grumbles, sitting up and taking off the pillowcase, throwing it at you. It unfolds halfway through and the both of you stare as it sadly flutters on top of the duvet between you.

“Sad,” you tell him. When the bed’s been stripped, you make him take it down to the laundry – “You have better luck with the machines, they’re always full when I go.”

“That’s such bullshit,” he grumbles, but he takes the basket anyway and heads downstairs to the laundry unit in your apartment building. He’s back five minutes later and unwilling to admit that you’d been right, mumbling a whatever when you let him in because he’d forgotten his keys.

“You wanna watch something tonight?” you ask him as he’s wrangling a fitted sheet over your mattress. The pillowcases and duvet cover replaced, you sit on a chair waiting for your sheet to be changed.

Jason mumbles out a, “Yeah, sure.” and you nod decisively.

Neither of you end up being able to choose a movie. The both of you take turns showering and by the time the clothes have been washed and the food comes, you can’t think of anything you want to watch. You resign to put on a few episodes of your show and call it a night. Though, you worry over your noodles – are you meant to sleep in his bed tonight? Is he going to sleep in yours?

Jason saves you the awkwardness by standing up at the end of your Gilmore Girls episode and heading to his bedroom. There’s no difference in his departure either. He doesn’t kiss you, or hug you or do anything out of the ordinary – he knocks the side of your head with his knuckle and heads off, calling over his shoulder, “Night.”

You’re left there to ponder over it.

You’ve made a disastrous mistake by sleeping with Jason.

You decide this upon waking the next morning and shuffling out into the kitchen to make yourself something to eat before your classes and finding a box of pastries waiting on the counter. You hadn’t expected to have much for breakfast – you were due to go grocery shopping with Jason soon, the fridge growing ever emptier by the day. The sight of it makes you stop short, and you feel that twinge in your heart again, only it’s immediately followed by horror – because you know what it is.

You like him.

You have no time to contemplate this bitter pill, forced to swallow it alongside a few bites of the unforgivably good pastries before getting ready to leave the house – you curse that he’d chosen your favourites, too. You like your roommate. The world goes on. You sit on the bus feeling shell-shocked, sure it must show on your face that you’ve come to terms with a life-changing revelation.

How long have you felt this way, how long have these feelings been blooming inside you, you wonder – feelings that go beyond the basic attraction you’re sure Jason is used to dealing with in his every day life. This isn’t lust, you realise miserably. That would be much too easy.

You like him. You want to strangle him most days, but you like Jason. You like his company, like his stupid sense of humour and despite your better judgement, like his attention. You like that he nags you about pulling your weight, like that he doesn’t care when you mouth off to him, like that he likes you with no pretenses.

Fuck.

There is nothing to suggest in Jason’s behaviour that what’s happened between the both of you actually happened. You feel like a bit of a creep for watching him the way you do, sneaking glances at him over the counter when it’s his turn to make dinner and reading into every syllable of every word he says to you – it begins to feel like you’ve slowly started to go mad. There’s no sign of anything.

Stephanie looks at you oddly when a few days later you both meet up with your mutual friends, pushing a few tables together and ordering nearly everything off the menu – it’s on her, tonight, thanks to the promotion you’re all getting together to celebrate. She drags you into the bathroom before your food arrives and you find yourself spilling the details to her, unable to keep it a secret any longer and almost regretting it when her face screws up into disgust.

“I mean, I knew it was bound to happen but gross,” she squeals, pretending to gag and you glare at her.

“What do you mean? You knew?”

She tucks a blonde curl behind her ear and leans against the bathroom counter, giving you a pointed look. “Are you serious? You had to have known. It was so obvious.”

What you suspect to be an incoming rant is interrupted by the swing of the bathroom door and the call of your names – “The guys told me to come get you before everything’s gone.”

The apparent inevitability of your getting together with your roommate is filed away for later as you exit the bathroom. No sooner than you approach the table do you notice your seat has been claimed, and you look over at Steph when the culprit – a friend she’d brought– smiles at you and apologises, gesturing between her and Jason.

“Do you mind switching with me?” she asks and you blink at her. She tilts her head and you can’t help but notice the shine of her hair, water-like in its movements as it sways. Next to her, Jason eyes you curiously and you smile tightly.

Logic reasons that you have no reason to say no. Jealousy sinks your fingernails into your palm behind your back as you shove your hands into your back pockets.

“Sure,” you tell her, and shove yourself into the seat next to Steph, waving a hand at Roy when he returns from the pool table across the bar and complains about you stealing his seat.

“I don’t see your name on it,” you tell him archly and turn firmly back to the conversation at hand – something about a coworker and someone’s boss that you’re guilty of not paying any attention to. Try as you might, you can’t focus on anything but the laughs from across the table, Steph’s friend leaning in and joking around with Jason.

Stephanie looks over at one point and pinches you under the table, ignoring your hiss to lean in and whisper, “What’s wrong with you?”

You pinch her back, but she simply raises her eyebrows, waiting. You glance over at your roommate, catching his eye before you mutter into her ear – and really, you’re thankful for the ruckus that your table and the dinner crowd provides, otherwise you’d never hear the end of it for ‘keeping secrets’–

“Why’d you invite her?”

She looks back and forth between the two before she raises an eyebrow at you. “You’re seriously pissy because you’re jealous? If you wanted to sit next to him, you should’ve just said.”

You frown at her. “Why would I do that? We haven’t even talked about it, I can’t just tell her to fuck off. He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Do you want him to be?” she asks, reaching for the untouched slice of pizza on your plate.

You sneak a look at Jason, who’s bringing a glass of beer to his mouth, smiling over the rim at not you. The answer is too humiliating to say out loud.

Envy clings to you long after everyone parts ways, waiting on the sidewalk and staring down hard at a piece of gum that’s lodged itself between the cracks in the pavement while Jason says goodbye. You don’t like how thankful you are that neither of them exchange numbers – or the possibility that it will come later.

The routine after a night out is usually like this – Jason tends to linger close by as you wash your face and get changed, sitting over the ledge of the closed toilet lid while you run through the events of the night. Normally, you don’t mind it so much. You’ve even found yourself mirroring him when it’s his turn to come home after a night out, standing outside his bedroom door while he changes and talking through the wall. You like the company, and the mutual dissection of your shared gatherings. It feels domestic.

Tonight, you close the bathroom door on him once you both get home and you can tell from the surprised sputter that he hadn’t been expecting it. But the drive home has given your jealousy time to fester, your blood running hot at the thought of all the shared glances and attention paid to someone that wasn’t you. It’s irrational, and mean, and completely crazy, but you find yourself angry with him for letting it happen and angrier still at yourself for feeling this way.

Jason, unaware that he’s back on your shit list, knocks on the door, demanding to be let in. You liken him to a cat, yowling at your doorstep. There’s a shit eating grin on his face when you open the door that drops the moment he catches sight of the look on your face.

“What.”

“Are you mad at me?” he asks, voice lilting in uncertainty and you huff.

“No, I just want to go to bed. I’m tired.” Lying through your teeth, you look away from where he’s trying to meet your eyes.

“Did something happen tonight?”

You hate the way his voice turns a little soft, truly, earnestly worried. His hands come up, hovering by your sides as if to turn you over and make sure you haven’t been hurt. It should make you melt, but all it does it make you madder.

“Nothing happened, don’t worry about it,” you tell him curtly, and his brow furrows for a moment, thoughtful.

“Is this about Steph’s friend?” he says and your face grows hotter when he says her name.

“No,” you say baldly, turning around and reaching for your cleanser. You work it between your palms with more force than necessary and the words come out of your mouth before you can stop them. “But you know what? I hate her. You shouldn’t talk to her.”

There’s a silence before he replies, and you hate the way he’s somehow found amusement in all of this. Amused, always amused when it comes to you. You wonder if he ever takes anything you say seriously. “You can’t tell me who I can talk to.”

You come up from the sink, water dripping from your lashes and chin and he pauses, meeting your eyes in the mirror.

“Fine, whatever. Go talk to little miss–” Your jaw closes with a clack and you purse your lips, reaching for your face towel. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

He stops you from reaching for the next product in your long routine, a hand circling around your wrist and tugging you a little closer. When you refuse to look up, his other hand tilts your chin up, and you hate him once more for ducking his head to meet your eyes.

“You mad ‘cos I didn’t sit next to you?” he asks, quiet and you scoff, pushing him away.

“No, have you lost your mind? Why would you think that?”

He doesn’t let you go very far, hands settling on your hips and holding you in place. You lift your chin stubbornly, glaring at the cracks in the tile over his shoulder. At the edges of your vision, Jason shuffles closer, bending his head to press his nose into your cheek.

“You know you can’t lie to me, right?” he murmurs, affection colouring his words. Then, voice dipping, he says softly, “You’re cute when you’re jealous.”

“I’m not jealous,” you protest weakly but his resounding laugh skitters over the line of your neck and you sag against the counter.

“Yeah you are,” he says brightly, and you’re surprised when his lips press chastely into the swell of your cheek. “It’s okay.”

The frustration that’s been simmering in your veins all night boils over when he tilts his head to kiss your jaw. You reach for Jason, guiding his mouth to yours.

He kisses you sweetly tonight, and you squeeze your eyes tightly shut as his lips slide against yours, knuckles bumping against your jaw. There’s this feeling in your chest, champagne fizz-like, a cacophony of bursts, ever rising and rendering you giddy in his arms. It lasts only for a second before you’re pressing further into him, fingers tangling into the thick of his hair and tugging him closer, harried.

The sound of surprise he lets out is muffled, settling against your tongue and swallowed greedily while you press your hips into his. Jason quickly sets you against the edge of the counter, half-hard in his jeans where he stands between your parted legs. Desperation and anger line your movements, pressing closer, closer, impossibly closer to him until every inch of you is near flush against him, separated only by layers of clothing. There’s an urgency to your actions, mapping out his mouth and squeezing your legs around his hips in a bid to relieve the growing pressure.

He pants against your mouth, the hands at your waist kneading your skin through the fabric of your top, fisting it tight and rocking you closer against him.

“Want you,” you demand, breathy and shameless and he groans, eyes screwing shut before he’s nodding fervently, moving away slightly to help you tug your pants off until you’re left only in your underwear. Your hands reach for his belt as his slide down your waistband, spit-slicked fingers sliding against you with ease. You keen under his touch, fingers closing around his length and pulling him out.

You lean over, spitting onto his cock and the curse he bites out echoes in the bathroom. He’s warm in your hand and you delight in the moan he lets out when you pass your fist over his length, echoing it not a moment later when he circles your clit.

Half-dressed and pawing at each other, you rock against his fingers with one hand gripping his shoulder for dear life and the other passing broad, firm strokes over his cock. His hips buck into your fist and you catch his laboured breaths in a messy kiss once more, feeling pleasure coil tighter and tighter in your stomach. A well timed twist of his fingers draws a high-pitched gasp out of you.

“I’m–” you cry and he nods, face twisting.

“Me too.”

Only a few more strokes and the two of you cry out in unison, moans muffled in each other’s mouths as you come. Jason spills over your wrist, his own slowing to a stop beneath the band of your underwear as you let out a ragged breath, pressing your sweaty forehead to his.

His eyelashes flutter against your cheek and you let out a breath through your nose at the tickling sensation. Blue-green eyes meet yours, so close you think you can count the stars in his pupils, and Jason grins, leaning in to kiss the corner of your mouth.

Moments pass as he slowly dots kisses to your face, trailing over the corners of your mouth to your jaw and chin, sweet once more. You sigh, letting your eyes shut under his touch and leaning into press of his mouth, your limbs loosening under every baby-soft touch until you’re pliant in his arms.

“C’mon,” he tells you quietly, nosing at your jaw. “We gotta clean up.”

You tip your head tiredly, letting him maneuver you around to wash your hands in the sink while he takes care of himself. By the time he comes up behind you again, you’re watching the soap bubbles wash away down the drain.

“You still mad at me?” he mutters into your temple, and you look up to meet his eyes in the mirror. His arm hangs loosely around your shoulder, drawing you back into his chest. He’s shucked his jeans, left in only his t-shirt and underwear. You can feel the press of his skin against the back of your bare legs, the heat of him through his t-shirt.

You shrug, feeling oddly vulnerable. His lips seem to turn down for the slightest moment before he’s turning you to face him, a hand coming to rest against your jaw.

“Tell me,” he asks. The bite of tiramisu he’d had at dinner still lingers on your tongue and you can smell the lingering notes of his cologne. You press up on your toes to kiss him once more, a gentle brush of lips that carries with it the weight of your entire heart before you’re pulling away.

“Don’t talk to her,” you say quietly, too cowardly to say what you really feel. He regards you with a stare that feels too scrutinising for your liking, before he finally nods.

“Okay.” His thumbs sweeps across your cheek. “I won’t.”

You bite the inside of your cheek, averting your gaze as you nod. “Okay. Good.”

You fear you might have revealed more of yourself than you’d intended when, following the events of that night, Jason softens a little. Only infinitesimally, but you notice it – the way he begins to seek you out a little more, the ease with which he settles by your side in the kitchen when it’s your turn to make dinner, taking advantage of the proximity to steal bites of the food from the pan over your shoulder. Still, amongst the feelings that that particular thought evokes, you don’t find regret.

You dare to think that maybe, even, it was for the better when, twenty minutes into a gathering for one of your friend’s birthdays, Jason drags you out to the car under the pretense of going on an ice run and you find yourself making out with him at a red light, his thigh squeezing at the flesh of your thigh as he whispers filthy promises into your mouth. When you return, it’s with a bruise sucked into the hollow of your throat, hidden in the shadowed collar of your hoodie and kiss swollen lips that you can only hope goes unnoticed.

It gives you something of a thrill, kissing in darkened corners and returning to your friends with the taste of each other on your tongue, a secret shared only between you and Jason. You find yourself biting back grins when he meets your eye from across a room, tamping down the excitement of following him into the bathroom and letting him coax you into just one more kiss.

At home, the air is charged with an undercurrent of electricity, thick with the weight of all that has, and could happen. Your movie nights hang on a razor’s edge, the threat of devolving into something else looming between you at all times. Tonight, you give in, sinking to your knees twenty minutes into the movie and taking Jason’s length in your mouth.

He sinks his head back into the couch as you suck his cock, a hand wrapped around the back of your neck. You hum around him, half lidded eyes gazing up at him.

“Fuck...”

His voice is hoarse, a husky groan spilling from reddened lips, and he runs his other hand through his already messy hair, tousled from where you’d run your fingers through it only moments ago.

“Just like that,” he moans, head tipping back down to look at you, blue-green eyes swallowed by the dark of his pupils. “So fucking good, baby.”

You drag a fist up the end of his length, spit and pre-cum smearing over your fingers. It’s messy, quickened movements and wrecked sighs, Jason’s hips taut as he tries not to buck into your mouth. His grasp on his control slips a little when you dig your fingernails into the skin of his hip, nails scratching over where you know him to be sensitive. Startled, he lifts off the couch, hitting the back of your throat and drawing tears to your eyes.

“Shit,” he says, a half moan as he runs a hand down your face. “Sorry, you okay?”

You blink up at him, tears sticking your lashes together, and hum. The concern in his expression bleeds into realisation and he shakes his head, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth to stifle a smirk.

“Fuck,” he breathes out, dropping back into the couch cushions. “You’re gonna be the death of me.”

You pull off him to give him a smile, letting out a little laugh. “Yeah? Feels good?”

The hand on your face presses into your cheeks in warning when he lifts his head to glare at you tiredly, and you snicker once more before wrapping your lips around him.

He comes soon afterwards, pulling out of your mouth and making a mess on your face, spend smearing over your lips and chin. You squeeze your eyes shut as he finishes, the sound of his ragged breathing and the salt on your lips coaxing out your own need, wetness quickly growing between your legs. You think it must be obvious on your face. Jason, after carefully wiping your face, pulls you onto his lap, settling a muscled thigh between your legs and gazing up at you with blazing eyes as if to say, well? Your turn now.

The movie remains long forgotten.

“You okay?”

You purse your lips, fiddling with the straw in your drink. The cafe you’ve met at for lunch is one of your favourites, but you find it hard to focus on your food when you keep meeting someone’s eyes over Jason’s shoulder. The man grins at you when you look back, and your frown deepens.

Sat in front of you, Jason taps your foot under the table. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

“There’s some guy behind you that keeps looking over here.”

His brows furrow and he leans in over the small table. “You don’t know him?”

You shake your head. “He doesn’t look familiar.”

He considers your answer and nods, before rising from the table. Startled, your hand flies out to clutch his sleeve, already imagining the blood on his knuckles. “What are you doing? Sit down!”

He looks at you like you’re crazy, and you feel your face grow hot. “Would you chill? I was going to tell you to switch seats with me.”

Your rehearsal of the explanation you’re going to have to give to his older brother that you were partially the reason Jason was in a police station comes to a screeching halt. “Oh.”

Flustered, you awkwardly slide out of your seat and into his. Jason passes your things over as he settles into your previous seat comfortably, and you watch his eyes scan over your shoulder, lingering only once, briefly, on something before he’s meeting your gaze with a small grin. His face doesn’t betray his annoyance, features set in a pleasant, neutral expression – except for the minute tightening of the skin around his eyes.

You squirm in your seat, still feeling the phantom sensation of eyes on the back of your head. “Is he still looking?”

He doesn’t take his eyes off you, shaking his head before, as casually as he would if he were brushing a leaf out of your hair, he extends a hand to curl around the back of your neck and pull you into a kiss over the table. Your sound of surprise is lost to his mouth, and Jason lets out a quiet laugh against your lips. When he pulls away, he lingers for a moment, a hair’s breadth away and bright eyed. “If he was still staring, he won’t be anymore.”

“Oh. Okay,” you murmur, dazed, settling back into the metal of your chair. The feel of his lips on yours lingers for the rest of lunch, and long after you part ways, you for your next class and Jason to work.

“See you at home,” you tell him quietly, as the crossing light turns green at the corner where you’re due to part. He grins down at you, reaching out to pinch your cheek. You half-heartedly bat his hand away, and he laughs, dropping it back to his side. You have the urge then, looking up at him, to hug him, but the seconds are counting down and bravery evades you, still.

“Yeah. See you.”

You wait there at the intersection, long after he’s crossed the street and disappeared around another corner. You aren’t quite sure what you’re waiting for. You aren’t sure how to explain your resulting tardiness to your teacher, either.

How do you explain the twist of your heart when you think of tourmaline eyes, the phantom brush of tender fingers over your cheek? You can only smile apologetically and hurry to your seat, face warming in both embarrassment and longing.

Jason lingers even when he isn’t there, the ghost of him stood in the doorway of your mind, a constant companion to your thoughts. You’d often thought of love as hues of rose, but you feel as though your vision has been wrapped in a sea-glass film, the world around you now cast in glittering jewel tones.

He draws out a different part of you now, you find. Still teasing, he’s the same Jason he’s ever been. And yet...

There’s a softness to your interactions that you wonder if you only see because you want it to be there. Silence between you now settles with a weight behind it, but it feels like the comfort of a down blanket, soft, and grounding, it feels like contentment. There’s a quality to his voice, to the way his mouth forms your name, something wrapped around every letter that makes you burn, hope flickering dangerously in your heart. You dare to let yourself wonder in the darkness of your room, hidden under the blanket – could he?

Hope, dangerous hope. It does away with any sense you have left. Hope turns you sweeter, displays your love-sickness for all to see across your face, eyes always searching for his in a room, smiles turned shyer. You don’t know who you’ve become, gentle and yearning, the cutting remarks you reserve for him now dulled. Hope pulls the words from your lips when you’re watching Jason make to rise from your bed, moonlight spilling across the floor of your bed through a crack in the blinds.

“Do you -” you falter, and he looks back.

“What?”

Your fingers twist in the bed sheets, nervous and you feel a little sick as you say, “Do you want to just sleep here, tonight?”

And you think you’re going to die, then, when he says nothing for a very long moment. It stretches out into the vast nothingness, and you feel shame heat your face, the weight of what you’ve just asked pressing down on your chest. You wish it would be quicker about finishing you off, you wish you could turn back time, you wish –

“Are you -” he falters. “Really?”

It isn’t a no. “Only if you want to,” you say quietly and the silence returns, before you hear the rustle of your sheets.

“Okay,” Jason whispers, and in the dark you think you hear him exhale shakily but you’re too relieved to pay attention, hope’s flickering flame roaring brightly once more.

It isn’t the first time you’ve slept in the same bed. You’ve fallen asleep next to each other on movie nights, and when you’d been too stubborn to call it a night while nodding off watching your show. You know the softness of Jason’s bed, know the warmth of his shoulder against yours. And still, your heart races when he returns from the bathroom and climbs into bed beside you.

This isn’t a first. And yet it feels entirely novel.

His arm finds you in the darkness and he draws you closer to his chest, but he pauses. “Is – is this okay?”

He’s warm, heat bleeding through the thin shirt you’d pulled on. You settle a shaky hand over the one on your stomach, squeezing it briefly. Your throat feels dry as you rasp out, “Yeah. Yeah it’s okay.”

“Okay.” A silence, and you feel the ghost of a kiss being pressed into your hair. “Night.”

“Night.”

You wake first in the morning, turning over and blinking open bleary eyes to the sight of him still in your bed. Your heart stutters at the sight of him, and you feel shame wrap you in its grasp once more as you take him in.

He’s beautiful, you think mournfully. There’s a white hair hidden in the depths of his temple, you notice, and a freckle below his left eye, thick lashes fanning over it. You trace the line of the scar in his eyebrow once more, the subtle cleft in his chin, the shape of his mouth.

He shifts a little in his sleep and it makes you tense, but all he does is curl closer to you, the arm beneath your head flexing as he presses his nose to your temple. His other arm comes to sling over your hip. Affection comes in thick waves to you then, rising in your throat like the tide and threatening to drag you beneath its depths forever. Overwhelmed and in love, you press your face to his chest and hope he doesn’t feel the tear that slips down the side of your face, sliding against the skin of his wrist.

Jason wakes not long after you do, mouth curving into a tired grin when he opens his eyes and Hope, dangerous and fickle thing that it is, burns bright through the morning.

Your name makes you look up from the covert game of not-quite-footsie you’ve been playing with Jason on the couch, trying to keep your giggles to a minimum as you kick his feet away from yours while the others linger in the kitchen, arguing about pizza toppings. Jia bounds over to the adjacent armchair and you get one last kick in before you straighten your expression.

“I haven’t seen you in ages!”

You grin at that, pointing teasingly at her. “That’s because you’ve been flaking on us! When was the last time I saw you?”

Her mouth pulls up into a grin and you’re drawn into a conversation with her, but it’s difficult to pay her your full attention. The press of Jason’s thigh against yours makes your head spin a little, even though he’s busying himself with something on his phone.

Hope has left the both of you teetering on the precipice of something the last week or so, and you’ve started to wonder whether it isn’t entirely implausible that you’re not reading into it. Jason had kept his arm around your shoulder when you’d gone grocery shopping the other day, snickering and leaning in over the console in his car to steal a kiss before you carried the shopping in. He’s been stealing bites of your food off the plate you’d balanced on your knees only a few minutes ago, now empty and set on the coffee table, your drink in his hand as he texts back his brother.

It takes only a few words from Jia for you to lose your footing. You feel Jason stiffen next to you and you pause, registering her words.

“How’s that guy you were seeing? Are you guys still together?”

“What?” you ask and she grins at you, oblivious.

“C’mon, you remember. It wasn’t that long ago. I thought you liked him.”

The precipice of something does not overlook what you had thought it had – you fall, fall, fall, and hope, delicate thing that it is, gutters out before your eyes. You feel Jason draw away from you in the seconds it takes you to reply, only shifting in his seat and already an abyss yawns between the both of you.

Jia, ignorant to the upheaval her words have caused, directs her attention to Jason.

“Did they not tell you?” she laughs, and you want to shake her, but you’re silent. “Oh my gosh, didn’t he show up after your class with flowers?”

Jason looks at you in surprise and you can tell he’s remembering the flowers you’d brought home months ago, bright and red, they’d taken up a spot on your dining table for a week before they’d wilted. You hadn’t bought any flowers home since then – it’d been months ago. Months before you’d ever even come close to touching him, an age before you’d reached whatever weird middle you two were in, playing house like you’d been. Months ago. You want to scream at Jia for even bringing it up but you know she doesn’t mean any harm and really – more than anything, you’re mad at yourself.

It’s your fault, you think, grief and panic curling tight in your chest as Jason mumbles an excuse about having to use the bathroom and rises from the couch. You’re the one who hasn’t made it clear to him, cowardly and comfortable in the in between. All the things you should’ve said slam against the roof of your mouth. You like him, he’s the only one you want to cuddle with on the couch and bring flowers.

The smile on your face feels like a painted grimace for the rest of the night, and you don’t ever seem to get within a few feet of Jason before something comes up and he’s whisked away into conversation. You’ve never seen him so social.

“Oh, by the way, man-” Alex says, when you’re gathered in the living room, swallowing a mouthful of the cruiser that only he can stand to drink. “Steph’s friend, what’s her name – she asked me for your number.”

You can’t help yourself from turning your head, stomach twisting itself into knots, and you meet Jason’s gaze for the briefest moments as he looks over, biting the inside of his cheek contemplatively before nodding his head. “Yeah, whatever. That’s fine, I guess.”

Well.

You remain rooted in your seat for what feels like the longest five minutes of your life, watching the movie with unseeing eyes before getting up with a half-hearted excuse to Jia.

“I’m gonna head home,” you whisper, pulling up a ride app. She turns to you with a pout.

“What? Noo.”

“I just remembered I’ve got a paper I have to turn in,” you grimace at her. “I’ll see you later.”

You whisper a bye to the host, crouching to your knees beside their chair and squeezing their arm with a promise to catch up later before you retreat, toeing your shoes on hastily and shutting the door behind you as softly as you can before rushing to the elevator.

In the car on the way home, you listen to the radio with the blood roaring in your ears. There’s a different kind of burning in your chest now, and by the time you reach your apartment, it threatens to leave only ash in its wake.

You lock your bedroom door when you storm inside, slumping onto your bed face down dramatically until it becomes hard to breathe, at which point you roll over. Staring at the ceiling, you feel the tears you’ve been holding back all night crowd your eyes, angry and leaving burning trails in their wake. You slam a fist against your mattress, letting out an aggravated sigh.

“Whatever,” you muse out loud stubbornly, ignoring the tremble in your voice, the lump in your throat that makes it difficult to swallow. “What the fuck ever. I don’t care.”

It’s a difficult thing to convince yourself of. When you hear the sound of the front door, nearing an hour or so later, your chest tightens in anxiety – far from uncaring, you sit up and watch the shadows in the hall move.

Footsteps pass outside your door, pausing only for a moment before you hear Jason’s door open and close. Your eyes burn once more.

You find it uncomfortable how quickly things turn grey in your home. There are no movie nights after that, no Jason peeking his head through the door of your room to ask you if you want to come with him to run errands, or to try the sauce he’s making for dinner, or if you have any clothes you need to throw in the wash because he’s got room in his basket and he needs to do a round. There isn’t much of anything, actually. Silence, thick and tense, hangs over the apartment and makes every noise all the louder.

You make your own meals, and Jason doesn’t look at you when you take your plate into your room. The groceries dwindle down and you go to the store after your class, only to come home and find bread already in the pantry when you go to put it away. The sight of it makes you grit your teeth, but you have no time to stare at it when you hear the click of Jason’s door opening, hurriedly stuffing the bread away before storming to your room.

There are times when you think Jason might break first on the cold war between the both of you out of pure frustration. It comes in the form of disapproving frowns when you return home late from classes, taking the bus instead of calling him – spite keeps you warm enough to make the short walk home as the weather cools – or leaving your dishes in the sink for the morning because you know he’s too stubborn to break first to yell at you about it. Still, he remains silent as you pass him in the hall.

“You guys need to kiss and make up about it,” is all that Steph has to say about it when you tell her, wrinkling her nose at the thought. “Seriously. He’s been so insufferable, I’m begging you. When he gets in a mood, I have to listen to Tim complain about it and I just don’t have the time to listen to him right now.”

“He can do whatever he wants,” you tell her frankly, curling into the corner of her couch. You pull at the sleeves of your hoodie, scowling at a thread that’s come loose. “I don’t care. He’s the one being childish.”

“Wrong.” She shakes her head, making a buzzing noise, as though the subject of your failed love life is as serious as a game show.

“He is,” you insist, nudging her thigh with a foot.

She shrugs, rolling her eyes skyward. “I never said he wasn’t. I just said you were wrong.”

It clicks for you, then, and you frown. “I’m not being childish, I’m just returning his energy.”

Steph’s face contorts into an expression of disbelief and you falter. “Why would you ever do that? Have you ever considered that just ‘cause he’s book smart doesn’t mean he’s love smart?”

It doesn’t make sense to you. Jason is whip-smart – it’s how he landed his job after graduation in the first place. You didn’t get to work at a leading firm without the credentials, and you’d been to his childhood home enough times to see the various certificates and medals filling a trophy case. Half the space in his room and your living room was taken up by the sheer amount of books in his collection, the spines worn and aged, spanning from romance to philosophy. You think he might be the smartest person you know – it doesn’t occur to you that he’s capable of occasionally making a mistake.

You tell Steph as much and she looks weary as she gears up to explain it once more to you.

“Does it feel right that things are like this between you?” You open your mouth to reply and she shoots you a piercing glare. “Be honest.”

Your shoulders slump. “No,” you admit, meekly.

“Then it doesn’t matter how he’s dealt with this,” she says, slapping her hands over your shoulders to give you a little shake. “You might as well try to fix it. And soon, please. I don’t think I can deal with the fallout from your lover’s spat again in this lifetime let alone this week.”

You apologise mentally to Steph when, going on a week later, you haven’t found the courage to approach Jason. Your temper wavers, constantly, as if unable to make its mind up. You go from shyness, hesitant to even leave your room for fear of bumping into him outside, to indignant, your pride demanding that he be the one to lay his armour down first. He’d accepted the other girl’s number to spite you.

Jealousy curls around your throat, tight, unforgiving, and fills your mind with thoughts of Jason, taking her out, looking at her in the way you want to steal all for yourself, eyes half-lidded and sweet; you imagine his fingers curling around hers, his shoulder brushing against hers on the couch. It makes you feel like you’re going insane, pressing your face into your pillow to let out silent screams, thrashing around on your mattress in the world’s quietest temper tantrum.

Spite drives you to sit in the living room on your day off and put on Gilmore Girls after Jason leaves for work, parking yourself on the couch and starting from the beginning of the series. You reason, despite the kernel of guilt that sits in the pit of your stomach, that even if you were watching the show without him, you a) had watched the show long before the two of you ever had officially started watching it together and b) hadn’t continued without him. The excuses feel pale to you, but you’re stubborn and it’s a harmless slight – one he won’t even know about.

Except, as it happens, you fall asleep in the afternoon and Jason happens to return home just as a new episode begins. You blame it on the tension of the last few days – you’d never slept better than when the two of you had been toeing the line of something more, but fighting with Jason steals sleep from you and you find it difficult to close your eyes without being met with the urge to stand at his door and make him hear you out. Pride and shame war within you at night in place of dreams, and you leave for your classes poorly rested.

You wake at the slam of the front door – you really need to speak to your landlord about replacing it, too heavy to close normally, but you’ve got your hands full being mad – and come face to face with a fuming Jason. He looks between you and the T.V, mouth dropping open.

“Are you serious?” he spits. It’s the first words he’s spoken to you in a week and you draw yourself to your full height, rising off the couch and planting your hands on your hips. His tone lights a fire within you, and you’re itching to let him have it.

“Excuse me?”

He narrows his eyes at you, scoffing. “You’re so...”

“I’m so what,” you sneer and he blusters for a moment, almost apoplectic.

“You’re so childish. What, we don’t talk for a few days and you’re gonna watch it without me?”

You stare at him, incredulous. “You’re the one that started ignoring me!”

“I didn’t see you trying to talk to me, either,” he retorts and your lip curls in anger.

“Why would I talk to -”

“Oh, I knew you would-” Jason cuts you off, but you’re unwilling to back down, raising your voice higher until the both of you are arguing over each other.

“Yeah, because you know everything – you’re so annoying -”

“I’m annoying-” he sputters, lifting a hand to point at the dishes. “I’m not the one leaving my dirty dishes in the sink. You’re disgusting.”

“Whatever, I don’t care. You wash them if they bother you so much! I’m not the one who forgets to wipe the counter in the bathroom after I use it!”

“That’s because you’re too busy leaving your clothes everywhere!”

On and on it goes, every petty grievance met with a complaint in turn. You argue until you’re heaving breaths and Jason is blue in the face, but none of it means a single thing to you, carrying the anger of a far bigger, unvoiced slight. And then, you don’t know how or why, but in a matter of seconds it is no longer unsaid. You’ve spilled it into the air between the both of you and Jason’s staring at you with a glint in his eye as if to say, finally.

“I can’t believe you took her number!”

And you hate the way your voice hitches on the last word, throat constricting as you stare at him reproachfully. You don’t let him reply, stepping closer angrily with your nails pressing into the palms of your hands, upset and hurt. “I told you not to talk to her and you just took it like-”

“Like what?” he challenges, and you can feel your eyes beginning to sting, humiliation washing hot over you. “Tell me.”

But you don’t know what to tell him. All you can do is stare, chest heaving and eyes wet. A muscle in his jaw jumps, and he nods.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.” He lets out a breath, wiping a hand over his face wearily. “Whatever, I’ll talk. Do you have any idea how stupid I felt, playing like I’m your boyfriend and thinking maybe that’s what you want too–”

Your mouth opens helplessly, heart gripped in a tight vice at the hurt in his voice, his nose screwing up in upset.

“–and then I get the biggest reality check of my life, because I guess it isn’t what you want, but I just figured–” his voice cuts off then, and his eyes are ultramarine as he stares at you. “I just thought you’d be straight up with me.”

Panic engulfs you then, at the resignation in his face and you see it then, the profile of his back as he leaves, the packed boxes and the silence of an apartment too big for just one, the emptiness of the room next door, an ever clear mirror – you’re lurching forward before you can lose him.

“It is what I want!”

He doesn’t leave – yet. Your fingers grasp the sleeve of his hoodie tightly, and you can feel a few errant tears in the hollow beneath your eyes, marking a trail down the curve of your cheek as you stare at him.

“It is what I want,” you repeat yourself. Jason exhales shakily, but doesn’t make to remove your hand.

“Then – the guy?”

“I’m not seeing him,” you tell him, shaking your head fervently. “I haven’t -” Face warming, you duck your head. “For a long time...It’s only been you.”

He blinks slowly, lashes heavy as they flutter, eyes rimmed red. The tip of his nose is pink, too, you notice. Jason sniffs, looking away for a moment.

“Then why didn’t you say anything?” his voice is rough, and you take a step closer. Your heart hangs heavy in your chest, and you blink back your grief.

“I don’t know,” you admit. “I was scared. I guess I thought maybe I’d explain at home, but then...”

You trail off and above you, you can hear him kiss his teeth, face contorting into a grimace.

“I–” he blows out a breath. “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry. I should’ve asked you, ‘stead of assuming.”

“Yeah, you should’ve,” you tell him sullenly. He grimaces, and you sigh, squeezing his wrist gently. “I should’ve told you, earlier, though – I was too chicken to talk to you, I didn’t wanna ruin it.”

“You should’ve,” he echoes you, lightly, a hesitant grin on his lips. “It wouldn’t have ruined it.”

“I know that now. I thought..” you trail off, embarrassed. He turns his wrist over in yours, your palms kissing, and squeezes your hand encouragingly.

“What?”

“I thought you just wanted no-strings, I thought maybe I was just reading too much into it. You never said anything, either, I thought I’d just be wrecking it if I brought it up,” you admit, averting your eyes. When you chance a look back at him, he looks dismayed.

“I did want it,” he says, lips curving downwards into a frown. “I thought you wanted no-strings, ‘n I was the one being selfish, wanting you to myself.”

The both of you stay there like that, in the middle of your living room, hands linked and an abject feeling of disappointment weighing your hearts down.

“It’s not what I want,” you whisper, desperation lining your voice. “I – I feel crazy, that’s how much it isn’t what I want.”

“What do you want?” he asks, a tremor in his voice.

There’s that feeling again, that choking fear that closes your throat up and roots you to the floor. There’s terror at the thought of being known – but stronger still is the fear of walking away from him at the end of this and it being forever. You struggle, forcing the words out.

“You.” You feel your eyes water once more. “I want you. For me, only. I want you to look at me and steal food from my plate and want me and – and be mine. I don’t care that you nag me about the dishes and I don’t care that you never put your shoes away properly–”

At this, he lets out a choked laugh.

“– and I know we argue all the time, I know I get on your nerves, but I want you to be mine. I want to be yours. Properly, with all the strings attached,” you finish, letting out a shaky breath.

Seconds pass.

“Say something,” you whisper, hand still in his.

Jason offers you a wobbly smile. “I want you to be mine, too,” he says, voice wrought with longing. “It’s all I ever wanted. God, I thought I was going to lose it when Jia started talking about that guy, I kept thinking about him getting to see that side of you, make you smile – bringing you flowers, I want to be the one to do that.”

“You’re the only one I want that from,” you murmur and his lips curve downwards into a rueful smile.

“We’re both pretty stupid, huh?” he remarks. Then, looking away, he clears his throat. “Look, I’m not – I don’t like her like that. I told Alex later not to, uh, y’know. I don’t – I didn’t get her number. I shouldn’t have done it in the first place, but – yeah.”

You stare at him, feeling pressure behind your eyes. Your voice comes out wobbly when you reply, a congested, “Good.” that has his face dropping, moving to curl his arms around you.

“I’m sorry,” he sighs, and you shake your head, pressing your face into his chest. The smell of coffee clings to his shirt, and you breathe it in, comforted by the feeling of his arms holding you tightly to his chest. You cling to him, unwilling to part too soon after the ugliness of the last week, and it’s only when he laughs your name against your temple, curling inwards to meet your height, tall as he is, do you pull away to look up at him.

“Can you-” your face grows warm. “Will you..kiss me?”

The expression on his face is immeasurably soft. You think, a week ago, if you had asked him this way, he might’ve laughed at the tone of your voice, needled you a bit about being so shy. You understand his gentleness now, though, as he murmurs a,

“Yeah, sweetheart. Come here.”

Your wounds remain tender, and Jason kisses you as though you’re something delicate, something to be treasured, lips slanting over yours, feather light, before he presses closer. He’s syrupy sweet, kissing you slow. There’s a newness in every touch, every shared breath and sigh. Hands that have trailed your waist and hips so many times before now squeeze your palms, fingers intertwined like a promise. He breathes your name against your lips, nose pressing into your cheek, still sticky with tears.

“I love you,” you tell him, and he kisses you once more.

In the middle of your living room, you begin anew.

fin.

author's note: holy fuck. here is 17.6k words of what i thought was going to be 80% smut 20% emotion and ended up being whatever this is. i said i wasn't going to start a longfic during the semester and then this would NOT stop bothering me so. here we are...that content warning looks like an ingredients list for real.

anyway i'll post an author's note on ao3 that doesn't sound like brainrot. probably. idk this fic isn't that deep. reader and jason r extremely unserious and also probably a little shitty but it's okay. it's the roomie verse! we didn't come here for innocent angel characters. let's be serious! also i tried to fit in every single roomieverse hc that i could sorry they r something like easter eggs to me. swifties have t@ylor swift you have ME! i was gonna say something about that woman but let me not speak ab her too much with a folklore inspired username LMAO

[moonstruckme]

Hi!! Could you do a Bodyguard!James Potter x reader where he is guarding her during a high profile event and something happens? With a bit of angst to fluff? If you’re comfortable of course! I hope you have a wonderful day, i’m new to your page and ADORED your bodyguard james. <3

Thanks for requesting lovely <3

cw: guns, shooting

bodyguard!James x fem!reader ♡ 1k words

You shift your stance a bit and have to bite down on a whimper. 

“I’m going to have to throw these shoes out after this,” you mutter to James. “I’m pretty sure there’s blood pooling around my toes.” 

“You wanna take them off?” he murmurs back, lips barely moving as he keeps his face in a mask of businesslike impassivity. 

You sigh. “I wish.” 

“You could. Just step out of them, no one’s looking over here.” 

It’s true. Every camera in the chamber is pointed to where your mom stands on the podium, her right hand raised as she takes her oath. As much as you hate coming to these things, you can’t ignore the kernel of pride shining behind your sternum. She’s waited so long for this day, dealt with so much opposition, and now she’s finally going to be able to enact some real change. You can keep up appearances for her. 

“I’d better not risk it,” you tell James. “With my luck, the second I do—” 

You’re on the ground before you even register the sound of glass shattering. James’ grip on your shoulder is harsh, almost painful, but the noise that follows has enough adrenaline spiking your bloodstream to forget about that. The loud, rapid popping of gunfire fills the chamber. 

James’ hand moves to clasp around your elbow, but you tear away from him, headed in the opposite direction. The podium is empty. Where’s your mom? Did they get her already? Is she hurt? Did she—

You’re not fast enough to outpace James, definitely not limping around in your heels, and he gets an arm around your waist, hauling you away from the center aisle. You can’t tell where the gunfire is coming from—who has the guns?—but he pushes your head down before you can look. A low buzzing burrows into your ears. You try again to go to where you last saw your mom, but James yanks you back to his side, a cutting “Stop” hissing past his lips. Any other time, a tone like that would have you stilling like a frightened bunny, but you know he’s not the danger here. 

When you don’t listen, he lifts you off the ground. The crowd is swarming, frantic and disorganized, but James maneuvers through it expertly, running down the hall until he finds an unlocked door. The bathroom door swings open for you, and James sets you down quickly, locking it before you have a second to recover. 

You lunge for the door anyway, only for twin bands to wrap around your middle. They pin your arms to your sides and press you securely to James’ front. 

“Stop. Stop it.” His tone is as hard as his grip, dispassionate to your struggling. “You cannot fight me when you’re in danger, understand?” 

“They’re not here for me,” you plead. Your voice is scratchy with desperation. 

“No, but I am. I’m here for you.” His hold tightens, but now it’s less a restraint than a comfort. You can feel his heavy breaths tickling past your ear. “Your mom has her own detail, okay? She made it out before we did, they probably have her somewhere safe.” 

Now you can hear your breathing too. Short, stilted pants that wheeze in and out of you. You think you might be shaking. 

“That’s enough,” James says gently, starting to lower you both to the ground. Your knees give easily, relinquishing your weight to his hold until he settles you both on the tiled floor. “That’s enough, alright? Can I let you go now?” 

You’re not sure you want him to anymore, but you nod. He slips out from behind you, checking the lock on the bathroom door and then removing his gun from the holster at his hip. The sight of it makes your trembling worsen. He checks something with it while murmuring to the people on the other end of his earpiece, convoluted jargon you’ve long since ceased paying attention to. 

“She’s fine,” he says after a minute. “Your mom. They got her into an office, and now we’re all just waiting for security to clear the building before we can go.” 

You drop your head to your knees, relief like a tidal wave washing over you. You hear James’ footsteps move back toward you before his big hand lands on your head. It smooths down your hair as he squats next to you. When you glance at his gun balanced on his knee, he catches the look. 

“I have to keep this out for now,” he says, looking you in your eyes like he’s making a promise, “but the safety’s staying on unless someone tries to come in here. Okay?” 

“Yeah.” You nod, still trying to get your breathing under control. 

James strokes your head again, his touch weighty and reassuring. The noise outside of the bathroom seems to be lessening, but you’re not sure how much sound is blocked by the door. There could be shooting still happening just past it, people hurt or dying in the halls. 

“I’m sorry for fighting you so hard,” you say quietly. 

James blows out a breath. “I get it,” he admits. “In those situations, it’s natural to freak out and head toward the person you want to keep safe.” He flashes you a little smile. “I’m lucky it’s already my job to do that.” You grimace back, but his expression grows serious again when he says, “You just have to keep your head, though, you know? The whole reason you and your mom have protection is to make sure someone else is already looking out for you. You don’t need to worry about her, you just need to trust me.” 

You look at him. His body is still taut, ready for a fight if one comes to him, but his expression is gentle. It’s easy to forget it’s his job to take care of you when he seems to do it so naturally. Caring emanates from James like it’s the core component of his soul. 

“I do trust you,” you tell him. 

His mouth slants, expression unbearably fond. “I know, sweetheart. We’ll work on those instincts, okay? I get that it’s not an easy adjustment to make.” 

“Have you ever had to do that? Run away from the person you cared about the most?” 

He shakes his head. “Like I said, I’m lucky. I always get to run towards you.”

[abimee]

hi i can no longer act coy or hope that a job will come in time so im coming to everyone really embarassingly with my issues

in June I attempted to get fired from/left my job after having a really embarassing public meltdown due to having Rapid-Cycling Mixed Bipolar and the unending stress of that job of 3+ years. I've been struggling to get a job afterwards due to being in CA without a vehicle, and i'm currently working on an overdue commission so could not open up any more.

Soon after, my mother's car imploded, and a series of incidents related to a used engine and taking out a loan with a friend has left her both needing to pay back the loan and still needing to get a new car, putting her thousands in the hole.

my mother has allowed me to not worry about paying rent while unemployed, but now the person living with us is moving out, so it will be on me and my mother to pay rent, upping mine from $300 to $500 a month. I am currently job hunting with good prospects, but I am still in need of some assistance.

I DO NOT WANT TO ASK FOR DONATIONS WITHOUT GIVING SOMETHING IN RETURN, I have a very bad time taking help from people without doing something in return because I do not want people to feel like they Have to give me money or help me, I want to Offer something in return for that money, even in a situation like this, because I want everyone to come out on the other end feeling fulfilled, so I'm offering some (slow) cheaper commissions I can work on in between the bigger comm I owe.

My kofi is always open for donation sketches ---- you can donate the minimum amount (or whatever you prefer) and get a drawing like this of anything as long as you put it into the donation message!

i cant currently take on big commissions as I have one i owe and the commissioner is a very generous person who has been waiting a good few months for me to finish one during this hectic time, but if you're interested in getting something a little higher quality for a donation, a $30-50 USD donation can get you a ''simple commission'' styled drawing --- that is, you give me a prompt and character refferences (ocs or fanart, up to 2-3 characters depending on complexity), and I draw them like below (color complexity depends on price, the higher the amount the more the color).

You wont have access to revisions to make this as fast as possible, so i HIGHLY reccomend only getting fanart comms of these and to make sure you really like my style!!

this is one of those situations where I DEEPLY reccomend people do not donate unless they want something in return, if you dont wanna ask for a drawing or anything i reccomend going to people in more dire circumstances and helping them out with your donation!!!

but if you want to help me help my mother get out of a bad financial situation and get a little drawing in return, you can do a small dono and att a message of what you want doodled, or you can email me at cyrdrawings@gmail.com your $30-50 donation reciept and what you would like me to draw, and ill try to get them as soon as I can

thank you so much for checking this post out and keep it real old school!!!!! i promise once this is over and i get a job we'll be back to your regularly scheduled art posting

[EDIT: PLEASE DO NOT REBLOG THIS VERSION. I AM NO LONGER TAKING THE SIMPLE COMMISSION TIER. REBLOG THE ADDITION TO THIS POST GIVING AN UPDATE]

[gor3-hound]

promise i'm working on content right now but here's a drabble because uhh... it came to me x

corrupt cop leon !! 18+ content

tw: non-con, lil mysogyny and filming. fem!reader

Leon thinks you're cute. Real cute. He'd happily take you out to dinner and treat you real nice if Irons wasn't working his ass to the bone. He barely has enough time to eat or sleep as of late, let alone take the time out of his day to take a pretty girl to a fancy dinner. Not that he could afford to on his payroll, even if he wanted to. City life sure wasn't cheap, something he had to learn the hard way.

He's not a scary cop, not on the surface. He can see the way you instantly relax as you see his face after he pulls up next to you. He's still all baby-faced and bright-eyed, his gaze shining as he looks over you.

"Late night for a pretty girl like you to be out," he had said, shooting you a disarming smile. He'd gotten you to talk for a while, nodding and acting all interested until he got your guard down enough. He didn't have to sweet talk you, but he was nice enough to at least try and get the girl compliant enough to go along with him.

Didn't last long, though. You really started to kick up a fuss as he got a little too touchy with you. All girls like you were so stuck-up. How many dates did a guy have to splurge on to get into some panties? What ever happened to a good old-fashioned backseat blowie? The Internet really fucking ruined women. They all thought they were 'too good' for a quick fuck. Like that'd stop him.

He has you pushed over the hood of his car in a few seconds flat. Cop training came in handy, made him real good at restraining the pretty girls he wanted to stick his dick into. Had you cuffed with his hand cupping your mouth before you could even think about screaming, fumbling with his belt for about 30 seconds before he's hiking your skirt up and tugging your panties to the side.

He thrusts into you with one quick snap of his hips, groaning loudly as your tight heat wraps around his cock. You're not really wet, but the warmth and snugness makes up for your lack of arousal. It makes his cock twitch as you cry out into his hand, the feeling of tears gathering against the skin as they trickle down your cheeks making him grin. He always loved it when they cried, made him feel like his cock was really doing some damage.

"Can you do me a favour, sweetheart?" He murmurs, pressing wet kisses down your neck as he thrusts into you, his balls slapping against your clit repeatedly. Still not enough to get you dripping for him. Jeez, you were a picky one, huh? He had a pretty cock, most girls at least had the decency to get wet after a while. You're lucky you're just his type, or he would've dumped you on the side of the road by now.

"See that light right there?" He breathes out after a beat, his free hand tapping the window right where his dashboard camera sits, recording his every move. He grins against your neck, pretty blues peeking through his lashes as he stares at the camera. "Look at it for me, baby. Wanna be able to watch your pretty face on video when I fill you up."

His words seem to make you panic a little, your cunt clenching around his dick as you start to sob, your chest heaving as you struggle to breathe against his palm. You're drooling all over him, and he's starting to wish he decided to fuck that pretty throat of yours rather than your cunt, cause that's the only thing on you that seems to know how to get wet. Oh, well. He's too close now to bother pulling out.

It only takes him a few more thrusts before he spills his seed deep inside of you with a whimper, his eyes squeezing shut as he buries his face into the crook of your neck. He pulls out a minute later, tucking himself back into his pants, leaving your trembling body bent over his patrol car. Takes him a moment to catch his breath, then he unlocks your cuffs and rubs your wrists - all sweet and gentle.

"Up you get, sweetheart." He pats your ass before helping you up, straightening out your skirt with a sweet smile on his face - like his cum wasn't dripping down the inside of your thighs. He pulls out a wad of cash, stuffing it down your top just to get an excuse to peek at the tits he never got around to touching.

"Money for a taxi, cutie. There's some really nasty men lurking around this time of night."

[drewsprincessy]

loving you was hard.

warnings: angst, anxiety, anger, comfort, arguing, crying, lmk if i missed any

summary: rafe and reader are in love, but rafe struggles to accept it, he doesnt believe in love.

part one

rafe cameron x female reader.

you had fallen for rafe, hard. it started off with stealing glances at each other every so often, then it escalated to him asking for your number. you two talked every night, dusk til dawn until you couldn't keep your eyes open anymore. you were the only person he was gentle with, the only one he would give affection to, and even crack a smile with.

he caught himself re-reading your texts and smiling at them, going through your insta posts, checking your following, checking your location, and checking when you were last online.

he thought he just needed a quick hookup, and that was all. but no. the way you smile at him and your dimple pokes through your cheek, or maybe its the way your eyes light up when your excited about something.

he doesnt know what it is, but he cant fall in love. your not important, its just all in his head.

he was sitting on the edge of his bed, his head in his hands as he thinks, he regains his composure, shaking his head to try and get rid of the thought. he lets out a long breath, and he stands up. he goes to smoke some weed.

he stops answering your calls, and even stops responding all together. he cant fall in love, he's not fit for a relationship. right?

your a mess. you'd be lying if you said it didn't hurt the way that he ghosted you out of nowhere. but i mean you cant be mad, because your still just a hookup for him. right?

i mean you thought it'd be different because hes never met up with a girl more than once, you guys have even been on real dates. not just the ones where you have sex and not talk for another 2 weeks. you two had gotten to really know each other.

you were just confused, and hurt. you decided you were gonna try to let it go. try and move on, because theres always other men out there.

~

2 weeks pass

you were at home laying in your bed, you just had on a comfy tee shirt, and some yoga shorts.

you had been scrolling thru your phone, giggling at a video you seen on tiktok. you clicked on the comments and scrolled thru them, and you were giggling until a message popped up at the top of your screen. from rafe; your smile faintly drops as you click on the message

-

imessage:

rafe: been thinking about you. um, im really sorry for ditchin you n' shit. i just been going thru stuff and didnt wanna take it out on you. im sorry alright?

y/n: its okay rafe, i understand. call if you need anything. okay?

you were so understanding, and forgiving. even with the half ass apology he gave you, you still forgave him.

-

over the next few weeks, you and rafe start going out again, he fell more and more in love with you, and you felt the same about him. he had enough of it. he couldnt be falling for you.

he was high off drugs, and his breath reeked of alcohol. he was stumbling and could barely walk. there were crowds of people around him at the party he attended to.

you had also been there with rafe, but went off somewhere with kiara and sarah. you decided the topic of conversation was boring, and excused yourself with a "ill be right back." and went to find him.

he had went off into a room with some random chick, they were making out and her clothes were half off. you had almost stumbled on your feet when you walked in, your eyes had immediately began brimming with tears. to save yourself the embarrassment you walk off, quickly as possible. trying to get the hell out of there.

rafe comes outside to where you had walked off to, he immediately catches up to you since his legs were longer, and grabs your arm "whats your problem..why are you crying?" he says, trying not to slur his words

you decide, fuck it. he doesnt care anyway. "your my problem rafe. i fucking love you, i have for a long time. and you lead me on and act like you love me the same way, but then i find you about to hookup with some random girl, that you dont even know! like i dont even exist rafe, and im gonna be honest. that shit HURTS! im so sick of this, im sick of you, and your bullshit excuses, your half ass apologies. FUCK YOU!"

rafe feels a pang of guilt in his chest, even thru the alcohol and drugs. he still manages to muster up some excuse, hes trying to hide the way he feels. "i mean..y/n. what did you expect? i told you what the hell u were gettin into. i dont gain.. feelings. so quit being a damn crybaby"

it starts to rain, and you storm off, even when he yells your name, telling u to come back you dont listen. you kick your heels off, and walk all the way home in the pouring rain.

once u get home, you delete his number, and cry yourself to sleep.

he tries to act as if he doesnt care, he drinks until he passes out.

~

𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓮𝓷𝓭

[c0eu4]

OP81 | Spider | Blurb

oscarpiastri x fem!reader

Summary: You just wanted to take a shower, but you're disturbed by a horrible spider.

Warning: spider description!!!

A/n: I struggle to write that because spiders are my number one phobia and just thinking about it is killing me.

MASTERLIST requests are close

The heat of Australia knocks you down a little more each day and the nights are real hell. Between Oscar sticking to you, because he's used to it, and the mosquitoes who are attacking you, you thought you were at the end of your rope.

You step into the bathroom, ready to take a cold shower, in a hope to cool yourself down. You tie your hair into a horrible bun and look at yourself in the mirror for a few seconds. Your skin is much tanner, but still not used to the harsh sun of the southern equator. You run your hand over your face and notice how oily and rough it is. You remove your clothes, careful not to touch the areas where your skin is red, burning. You leave them on the ground, near those that Oscar left the day before, and you turn towards the shower.

As you were about to go inside, your whole body froze. So this hell will never end? You take a long look at the horrible black and hairy creature that is at the bottom of the bathtub. Its eight legs are frozen to the ground and its eyes are fixed on you. Neither you nor the spider dare to move. Your heart beats fast and you feel your legs start to shake. You open your mouth but nothing comes out, as if your voice is blocked. Then, finally, as the spider begins to walk towards you, a shrill cry finally escapes from your throat.

You walk backwards desperately, until your back meets the wall. Your eyes never leave the spider as you feel this horrible feeling of a spider walking all over your body.

''OSCAAAAR'' You scream a second time, hoping your boyfriend can hear you across the big house. In less than a minute, someone opens the door in a big 'boum' and Oscar takes you in his arms to move you away.

''Y/n! You're ok!?'' He places both hands on your cheeks and turns your head to either side, as if to check if you have any injury. ''Why did you scream? Are you in pain? Did you fall?'' He debited his words, as if the end of the world has fallen on you.

''Spider..'' Is all you manage to say, still in shock from the big hairy bug you just saw.

''Spider?'' Repeat Oscar, with a once of worries in his eyes.

Oscar isn't really afraid of spiders. He is accustomed. But just knowing it's a spider doesn't help much. It can be a black widow or a small house spider.

He wraps your towel around you, to prevent you from catching a cold (even if the heat in the room definitely prevents you from it.) and heads towards the bathtub.

He starts giggling when he sees the 'little' spider at the bottom of the bathtub, desperately trying to get out.

''What are you doing there...'' He starts talking to the spider while grabbing it by its two back legs.

''WHAT THE HELL OSCAR!?'' You scream as he shows you the spider with a smirk. ''It's a Huntsman. They are harmless.''

''AH HUNTSMAN!? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?'' The horrible creature starts moving in all directions and tries to get out of the grip of Oscar's fingers but can do nothing.

The Australian uses his other hand to open the bathroom window and places the spider on the sill. It takes the opportunity to run and hide in the bushes below.

''Welcome in Australia, honey.'' He giggled again and leaned to hug her but she walked back.

''Wash your hand before touching me, I don't wanna have baby spiders on my skin.'' Oscar rolls his eyes and quickly runs his hands under the water before forcing you into a hug. You struggle slightly but eventually let yourself go and he kisses your forehead.

''Go take that shower, my mum and sis want to show you Sidney.'' You groan slightly but he finally lets go of you and leaves the bathroom to give you your moment of privacy alone.

Tagg: @millinorrizz

[synamartia]

“ Need A Hand … ? „

“ Let's make your thoughts a reality … „

synopsis ┊ ◜ For the weeks following your one-night stand, Alastor was beside himself with a desire still fairly new to him - his mind constantly occupied with thoughts of you and your shared evening. Night after night, he would watch you from the shadows, a familiar ache in the pits of his belly winding tighter and tighter as you tried to recreate the very same event in your mind's eye with your silicone toy. Eventually, having had enough of your failed attempts at self-gratification, Alastor takes pity on your tortured soul and decides to offer his assistance . . . ◞ wc ┊ ◜ 4,130 ◞ warnings ┊ ◜ Alastor x Reader ✧ Afab!Reader ✧ Non-sex repulsed Alastor ✧ No pronouns or Y/N used ✧ Explicit / 18+ Only / MDNI ✧ Sexual situations ✧ Slight Stalker!Alastor ✧ Shower masturbation (Reader) ✧ Mutual masturbation ✧ Vaginal fingering ✧ Tentacles ✧ Hand job ◞ notes ┊ ◜ Can't believe we're already two weeks down! Time sure does fly when you're having fun, huh? Go check out last week's work linked down below on the Coven's Kinktober 2024 masterlist, and don't forget to give some likes, a few reblogs, and a follow to my darling wives~! Heaven and hell knows they deserve it! And to all my Haunted fans: this was a scene I had planned out for Haunted, but decided to cut it after writing 4+ chapters of pure smut. I wanna try to focus on the plot real soon! But don't worry, there will be more sexy times in that series! So for now, enjoy this little snippet~! ◞ links ┊ ◜ syn's masterlist ✧ coven kinktober 2024 ◞

It was only supposed to be a one-night stand; a friend helping out another friend; a one-off occurrence contingent entirely upon your careless mistakes and Alastor's prowess as a deal-making sinner. Weeks had gone by, and you hadn't uttered a single word to one another about it, dancing around the subject almost as if you were afraid to speak of it. As if talking about it outside the safe confines of Alastor's bedroom would make the heated memories disappear and any unspoken thoughts or desires evaporate into thin air, along with the few scraps that remained of your now tattered business relationship and friendship.

But you still found your mind wandering back to that night, struggling to hide the way your cheeks would flush a bright red at the memories flooding your brain; how your voice would crack with both nervousness and excitement when speaking to him about an issue with the hotel or a resident; or how you would rub your thighs together for the smallest bit of friction when he would enter the room and flash you that wide grin of his, the knowledge of your endeavors dancing behind carmine irises.

And in the late hours of the night, after everyone in the hotel had long since gone to bed, you would desperately try to recreate your experience in your mind's eye as your fingers drew fast circles on your clit, your silicone toy plunging deeper and deeper into your needy cunt - Alastor's voice at the forefront of your mind, coaxing you closer and closer, just as he did back then. But you failed every single time; your imagination was simply not enough to get you there, your fingers and toy nothing but a cheap imitation.

It had become a nightly ritual of sorts; when it wasn't done properly, Alastor felt more restless than usual - unable to read more than a single paragraph of his favorite book or properly hunt the deer scampering through his bayou pocket dimension without it. At the end of the day, after all of Charlie's redemption exercises and your basic duties as an employee, you would immediately slink off to your room under the false pretense of exhaustion from a long day's work.

Although you were none the wiser, Alastor was never far behind, slipping into the shadows as you stripped yourself of the hotel's uniform the second you heard the lock on your door click into place. A rush of pride would wash over the Radio Demon when he noticed that you were wearing the new undergarments he'd gifted you, to replace the ones he'd made a mess of so many nights ago - followed by a sense of possession when he eyed the faint bruises and scratch marks on your thighs and breasts that had yet to fully heal.

Once completely nude, your discarded clothing laying in a heap at the foot of your bed, you would saunter off to the connected bathroom, turning the knobs of your shower until steam filled the small space, obscuring your view of anything more than five feet away. He'd listen quietly as you washed off the day's dirt and grime, the hot water relaxing your tense muscles and lulling you into a false sense of security and solitude, the now all too familiar scent of your shampoo wafting through the air and clouding his senses. And he would wait patiently for that tell-tale sigh; the same one you made when he touched you, signaling that his new favorite broadcast was about to start.

The steam was thick, making it so that your silhouette was all Alastor could see as you removed the detachable shower head from its hook, tracing the steel object down your front until you felt it against your heated core. Excitement coursed through his veins as he imagined the expressions you were making, hands gripping tight his microphone as his own muscles flexed beneath his now much too restricting clothes. Eventually, you would begin to moan quietly as the pleasure began to build, raising your leg high enough to rest your foot on the grab bar, using your free hand to spread your folds apart and turning the head until the warm water sprayed directly on your clit.

And when he caught a faint whisper of his name as it fell from your lips, he would sink his teeth into the inside of his cheek to keep himself silent. It was a grand symphony, the sounds you made, and the last thing Alastor wanted to do was interrupt such a beautiful performance before its crescendo and climactic end. He waited with bated breath as your moans rose in volume, your hips moving involuntarily as you chased that elusive high, but like so many nights before, it wasn't enough. Your body felt tense once more as you teetered on the edge of release, unable to push yourself off that cliff despite your intense desire for the freefall into ecstasy.

Soon, the pleasure died down, your orgasm eluding you once again and you eventually gave up on the shower head, a frustrated groan slipping from your throat as you moved to shut off the water. Alastor dissolved into the shadows just before you stepped out of the tub, reaching for a towel folded neatly on a nearby shelf and wrapping it around your body. Careful not to enter your line of vision, he manifested nearby and admired your skin, beads of water rolling down your body to be absorbed by the plush fabric wrapped around your torso and upper thighs, or the bath rug beneath your feet.

For a split second, Alastor had gotten distracted by a faint bite mark behind your left ear made by him during your escapades, and barely avoided being caught in the mirror when you wiped away the thick layer of steam and condensation blocking your view.

Blissfully unaware of your company, you went about your usual nighttime routine, starting with your dental hygiene, then your skin care, then your hair. By the time you finished gently raking your brush through your damp tangles, your skin had dried almost completely despite the humidity of the steamy bathroom, and you discarded your used towel in the hamper near the door as you reentered the main room of your suite. Your frustration was clear by your stiff movements as you made your way to your wardrobe for a fresh set of undergarments and pajamas.

He almost felt bad enough to end your nightly routine in that moment, to help you reach your end that you had been chasing after so desperately night after night. But the promise of an even greater, more illustrious second act in an already superlative performance helped him to steel his resolve and remain hidden from your eyes. And just as he had watched you do so many times before, you closed the doors after picking out something to sleep in and turned on the balls of your feet, walking over to the side of your bed and tossing the clothes on top of the duvet.

Alastor had memorized this scene, eyeing your naked form as you grazed one hand over your abdomen, letting it drift up to your left breast and cradling its weight, slender fingers pinching the sensitive bud between your thumb and forefinger. With a light tug followed by an experimental twist, you sighed as you squeezed the squishy mound, your other hand coming up to mirror its twin. Another sigh, followed by your eyes closing shut and your head lolling back, and then another frustrated groan after a few seconds of teasing your own nipples.

"I should just go to bed..." you would whisper to yourself, your hands dropping back down as you reached for your panties and slid them up your legs. He eyed the way the lace bit into your flesh where the elastic wasn't as stretchy, baring his teeth as he fought back the urge to reveal himself and tear the offensive fabric from your body. Then you reached for the oversized tshirt, pulling it over your head and slipping your arms through, pulling it down until it covered the panties hugging you close.

Alastor wasn't sure why you bothered with clothes - you would end up removing them later on during your efforts. But who was he to question the mind and the methods of an artist as talented as you?

You stood there for a few minutes, looking between your bed and the table beside it, contemplating if you should even make an attempt tonight. You were almost positive that you would fail, just as you had the night before, and the one before that. Maybe if you tried a visual aid, that might help?

With another groan, you didn't waste any more time thinking about it and turned to the night table by your bedside, reaching into the bottom drawer for the obscene toy that had worked wonders for your tense muscles and stressed mind before he ruined your vivid imagination. Tossing it onto the bed, you slid your panties back off before climbing onto the soft mattress, crawling to the center and lying flat on your back. Spreading your legs open, Alastor inhaled sharply when he saw the glistening sheen of your slicked hole, his fingertips overlapping the shaft of his microphone and digging into his palm.

You sighed again, placing one hand on your clothed breast and giving a gentle squeeze, trailing it downwards until you touched bare skin. Grabbing hold of your toy, silicone heavy in your hand, you lowered it to your aching cunt and rubbed the tip between your folds.

Alastor's brows furrowed together in confusion when he realized you had skipped a step, not teasing yourself with your fingers like you had so many nights before. You seemed to be in a bit of a hurry, which was odd but not entirely out of place for your behavior throughout the day. You skipped breakfast that morning, rushed through your work, barely ate any food during the communal dinner Charlie forced everyone to attend, and you had excused yourself much earlier than usual - now you were skipping steps in your nightly endeavors? Something was wrong. Perhaps he had waited too long to initiate a second encounter, and you were beginning to lose interest? Or perhaps you had fallen ill.

"Alastor..." you whispered, rubbing the length of your silicone toy against your clit for a moment or two, then lowered it until it was lined up with your entrance. Part of you wanted to give up before you even tried, knowing full well how this would end from past experience. Closing your eyes, you pushed the toy inside, wincing at the painful sting caused by the stretch, silently cursing yourself for not preparing before this step. But you thought, maybe switching it up might help in the long run, even if it was painful at first.

Alastor watched you from the shadowy corner of your dimly lit room, shamelessly palming himself through his slacks as you took your time in sliding the toy deeper into your aching heat. Part of him wanted to wait longer, to see how long it would take you to come to him, to ask for his assistance. But several weeks had already gone by, and he was beginning to lose what little sleep he was able to get just watching you try and fail over and over again. As much as he wanted to hold out, his impatience was getting the better of him.

"Need a hand?"

"H-huh-?!" you yelped, eyes shooting open and head snapping to your left at the sound of Alastor's static filtered voice. At first you thought you had imagined it, expecting there to be nothing there when you turned your head. "Oh my god!" you screeched when your eyes locked with Alastor's, your entire face turning a brighter shade of red than his hair. He was laying there on his side, head propped up on his elbow and eyes teasing, reveling in your scared reaction.

"Not even close, dear."

In a panic, you pulled the toy from your core and threw it to the side in an attempt to hide it, your legs slamming shut as you moved to sit up. But Alastor stopped you with a single hand to your chest, pressing you back down into the bed as he cradled his own with his free hand. "A-Alastor, what the hell are you-?!" you started, but he only pressed a single clawed digit to your lips, the corners of his mouth pulling up even further than usual. He waited until you were completely silent, then trailed his finger down your chin to your neck until he reached the collar of your t-shirt, tugging on the hem as his eyes traveled further south.

Humming to himself, Alastor looked back up at your face and raised a single brow at the confusion he saw in your eyes. Were you actually confused, or were you just pretending to be shy and embarrassed to get a rise out of him? "Let's not beat around the bush, darling. I know what you've been doing every night since our last encounter," Alastor told you, causing your face to flush an even brighter red, looking away from him as you fidgeted beneath his gaze. "I don't... how?" you asked, only to have him raise a brow at the question, as if he were asking you, 'really'?

Grinning wider, Alastor let his gaze travel back down along with his hand, slipping between your thighs effortlessly and grazing two fingers over your slick entrance. He didn't miss the gasp of surprise tumbling from your lips followed by that same delectable little sigh he'd come to enjoy so much - the same one that had him crossing his legs during Charlie's redemption exercises or pressing himself into the side of the island countertop to hide his growing arousal when you would taste test his dishes.

Dipping his fingers inside your quivering hole, Alastor gave a few shallow pumps before retracting his hand altogether, raising it up just enough for you to see your own slick glistening on his fingers. "Would you like me to help you?" he asked you as calmly as he could possibly manage, enunciating each word as he patiently waited for the consent he just knew you would give.

Releasing a shaky sigh, you didn't hesitate in making your decision, a rush of exhilaration you hadn't felt since the last time you were together coursing through your veins. "Yes," you whispered, staring at his face as something carnal took over, wanting nothing more than to feel his hands on you again, to have his lips pressed against yours, to feel the burning stretch of his cock inside your needy cunt as he pounded into you with reckless abandon.

"Very well, dear. But first," Alastor responded, letting his hand slide between your legs again. "My price."

Of course. You knew Alastor was going to want something in return, which was why you didn't go to him after your first week of struggling to reach orgasm - there was no telling what he would ask of you, and seeing as his motives for even being at the hotel in the first place were still very much so a mystery to everyone, you were being overly cautious. And then there was the whole deal-making sinner Overlord thing. But something else that was plaguing your mind: why did he have to say it like he was taking pointers from your resident porn star? "Okay, Angel. What do you want?" you asked, unable to resist teasing him a bit by emphasizing the name.

"Ha! Funny," Alastor said, and suddenly his hand was gone from between your legs and your cheeks were being squished together between his clawed digits as he gripped your chin tight. "I want you to tell me all the naughty little things you thought about each night while you were fucking yourself with that toy," he spat the last word, almost as if he were offended that you chose a piece of plastic over him. And for a while, he was - which is one of many reasons why he waited so long to initiate a second encounter. He wanted you to suffer the burning ache of a lost orgasm every time you decided to use that thing instead of coming to him and asking for his assistance.

Alastor wanted you to be completely dependent on him for your pleasure, and until you learned to swallow that silly little pride of yours, he had planned to let you suffer every single night - plagued by the blissful memories he'd given you, unable to recreate them no matter how hard you tried.

But oh, best laid plans and all that, right?

"S-seriously?" you squeaked, your face somehow becoming an even deeper crimson as Alastor stared into your eyes, face unchanging as he rubbed his index finger against your bottom lip. "Deadly," he responded, pupils changing to radio dials for a split second, pushing his finger past your lips and against your tongue to let you taste yourself. A black tendril out of your line-of-sight slithered between your legs, prodding at your wet entrance unexpectedly. "Ah! Huh-?!" you gasped, looking down between your legs at the sudden contact.

It was only a second, but it was enough to have him gripping your chin once more and forcing you to look back at his face. "You know better than to look away, my dear," he chided your simple mistake, pushing a second finger into your mouth and pressing both of them flat against your tongue. When the tendril pushed past the first ring of muscle into your dripping cunt, you whimpered around his fingers, sucking gently at your fluids that still coated them.

Fuck, he's barely touched you and you're already so much closer to an orgasm than you had ever gotten by yourself.

Reaching up to grab hold of his wrist, you pulled his fingers from your mouth so that you could speak. "Alastor..." you started, a soft moan interrupting your speech as the tentacle pushed deeper into your core, a squelching sound filling your ears as it pumped slowly, your juices coating its black surface.

"Tell me, did you think about me?" Alastor asked, urging you on as he moved to wrap his hand around your neck, squeezing gently when you nodded your head. "Yes," you admitted, your walls clenching around the tentacle when it began to pick up speed. He hummed at your response, his hand moving further south to the bottom hem of your shirt and sneaking under it. "Did you think about me touching you like... this?" he asked, his fingers pinching the hardened nub of your breast, making you inhale sharply at the pain followed by the pleasure of him kneading the soft mound.

"Yes," you answered, your moans progressively becoming louder as the tendril began to move with more force, now pumping in and out of you at a steady pace. "Y-yes, Alastor... I thought about you," you breathed, digging your fingers into the duvet you were laying on. "About the way your voice sounded when you would praise me," you continued, inching your mouth closer to his as he released your sensitive bud, pulling it from beneath your shirt entirely, much to your dismay.

"Is that all?" Alastor asked you, to which you shook your head no, taking a moment as you searched for the confidence to continue with this debauchery.

"I thought about... how your lips felt on mine, and your tongue on my skin," you whispered, hearing the sound of his belt buckle being undone, but you dare not look away as the pleasure began to build higher and higher with each pump of his black tendril.

"And...?" he urged you on, his own face inching closer to yours as he pushed his trousers and briefs down far enough to free his leaking cock from their confines.

"And I thought- ... fuck-! Hahhh..." you moaned, fighting the urge to look down as you felt his hand take hold of yours. You were so, so close! The last thing you wanted to do was irritate him in any way, potentially risking him edging you even further than you had edged yourself night after night. "... I thought about the way you fucked me with your hand, and your tongue," you moaned when you felt a second tendril bump against your clit, rubbing up and down on the sensitive little bud.

"Keep going," Alastor told you, guiding your hand to his hard length and wrapping your slender digits around it, urging you to pump him - slowly, at first. But as your pleasure built higher and higher, your moans becoming more frequent and louder in volume, he gradually gained speed, wanting to match the pace of the tendrils as they pushed in and out of your squelching cunt. The sounds you made were divine, so much more beautiful than the ones you made with that thing now laying on the floor, completely forgotten by you.

Faster and faster, they moved, and soon it became difficult for you to form a coherent thought, focused solely on the way the tentacle stretched you open wide and the other applied the most delicious amount of pressure to your throbbing clit. "I thought... I thought," you tried to speak, jaw falling slack as you were right on the cusp of release, your walls quivering and thighs shaking as the knot wound tighter and tighter in the pits of your belly. "... I-I thought... about your cock in me," you gasped, your hips rising from the bed just barely and grinding down against the tentacles involuntarily, desperate for that blissful release.

"Don't stop..." Alastor whispered as he lowered his head, his lips mere centimeters from yours as he began to buck into your hand, his own orgasm not far off as he forced you to tighten your grip on his aching cock. Taking a little initiative, you angled your wrist and pressed your thumb to his leaking slit, smearing his precum and using it as lube to pump his cock faster. With the way that he gasped and how his hips jerked forward, you knew he was close to his own release.

"I thought about how you..." you swallowed hard, it was becoming difficult to keep your thoughts straight, to follow his no-looking-away rule, to keep jerking your hand up and down his hardened length as your muscles contracted almost painfully the closer you got to your end. "I thought- ... oh fuck, I'm gonna cum, Alastor-!" you gasped, eyes barely open as you reached with your other hand to lace your fingers in his hair, nails raking over the backs of his ears.

"Say it! Say it, and I'll let you cum," Alastor promised, his breath hitching in his throat as his cock twitched painfully in your hand, a third tentacle joining the first inside your wet walls and pounding into you roughly now, coaxing you closer and closer. Your eyes began to water as you felt the first tether snap, signaling your end as you opened your mouth to do as he obliged.

"I thought about the way you filled me up, and how you made me yours," you said, arching your back as you inhaled deeply, pulling his head further down until your foreheads were pressed together. "A-and about how you made me cum on your cock, over and over aga- ahhn, fuuuck!" you cried when, finally, the coil snapped, and your release crashed over you, your walls clamping down on the tentacles and your vision going white.

"Marvelous..." Alastor praised you as his hips bucked wildly into your hand, his own wrapped around yours and forcing you to maintain your tight grip through your orgasm, chasing his own as you rode yours out. It wasn't long before he was spilling his seed all over your hand and duvet, some of it landing on your bare hip as his own stuttered through each spurt.

"Fuck, fuck..." you mumbled, trying to regain your senses as you tried to come down from your high. You couldn't make sense of the world around you yet, barely taking notice of the tentacles retracting from your pulsing heat and his body from your own. When your vision finally cleared, you looked around for Alastor, soon finding him sitting on his knees between your legs. One clawed hand was stroking his half hard cock until it stood at full attention again, the other pressing against your overly sensitive mound, drawing lazy circles into your clit and sending jolts of pain and pleasure through your whole body.

"Let's make your thoughts a reality, my dear..."

story ┊ ◜ synamartia ◞ header ┊ ◜ synamartia ◞ dividers ┊ ◜ kodaswrld ✧ strangergraphics ◞ summoning ┊ ◜ @hazelfoureyes ✧ @minkdelovely ✧ @sugoi-writes ✧ @fraugwinska ✧ @macabr3-barbi3 ◞

Please do not copy or repost as your own! Thank you!

[ltash]

Rain Down On Me

Sitting in the base’s cafeteria, Simon's eyes fixed on a half-empty tray of food in front of him, though he wasn’t paying it any real attention. The room around him buzzed with the usual hum of soldiers chatting and clattering silverware, but it was all a distant noise to him. His mind was elsewhere. It had been for days now. Maybe even weeks.

You.

You were all he thought about lately, living in his head rent-free, taking up every spare moment of his attention. He didn’t understand how it had happened, how you had managed to slip past the walls he’d built so carefully over the years. He had never let anyone get that close. He didn’t know how. Yet, here he was, constantly replaying your smile, your laugh, the way you’d glance at him when you thought he wasn’t looking.

And it terrified him.

"For so long I’ve waited, so long that I almost became just a stoic statue fit for nobody…”

The words of Sleep Token’s Rain echoed in his mind, the lyrics almost a perfect reflection of his own internal struggle. He had waited so long, so long that he wasn’t sure if he was even capable of feeling what he used to, if he could still let someone in. All these years of isolation, of keeping people at a distance, had made him like stone. A statue. Unmoving. Detached. And wasn’t that easier? Wasn’t that safer?

He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face, trying to shake the thoughts. He was good at running and had always been good at it. Running from emotions, from connections, from anything that made him feel vulnerable. But with you, it was different. You were different.

And that scared him more than anything.

"I don’t wanna get in your way," he muttered under his breath, barely audible even to himself. He had spent so long staying out of people’s lives, staying in the shadows, that he didn’t know how to be a part of something real. And what if he did get in your way? What if letting you in meant dragging you into the darkness he carried with him? Could he really do that to you?

He was afraid. Afraid to admit it. Afraid of what it meant to feel again.

But the problem was, no matter how much he tried to run from it, you were always there.

You entered the cafeteria, your usual uniform hugging your frame, blending you into the sea of soldiers, yet somehow, you stood out more than anyone else in the room. To Simon "Ghost" Riley, you were more than just another soldier. You were the most beautiful human being he had ever come across in his life. He wasn’t just looking at you; he was memorizing every detail, every curve, every nuance of how you moved.

He swallowed hard, keeping his face composed despite the turmoil raging inside him.

"But I finally think I could say," he thought, his mind syncing with the soft lyrics of the song drifting through the speakers, "that the vicious cycle was over."

It had been. Before you came into his life, he had been trapped in a loop, cold, distant, emotionally detached. It was how he survived, how he managed to make it through the years without letting anyone get close enough to hurt him. But now, as he watched you glide through the room, something inside him shifted.

You turned, your eyes scanning the room until they landed on him. And when your gaze met his, time seemed to stop. His heart skipped a beat, and for the briefest moment, everything else faded away, the noise of the cafeteria, the responsibilities, the weight of his past. It was just you and him.

And then you smiled.

"The moment you smiled at me..." he thought, his heart clenching in his chest. That smile, so simple yet so full of warmth, hit him harder than anything he had ever faced in the field. It wasn’t just that you were beautiful, though you were. It was that your smile reached a part of him he hadn’t realized was still capable of feeling.

You walked over, tray in hand, your movements graceful yet casual, as though the weight of Ghost’s intense gaze hadn’t affected you at all. But inside, he felt as if the world had tilted slightly off its axis.

"Hey," you greeted softly, sliding into the seat across from him, your voice pulling him back to the present.

Ghost nodded, trying to maintain his usual calm exterior, but his mind was still racing. He had been so used to being numb that this sudden rush of emotion, of feeling, was almost too much to handle. But at the same time, he couldn’t deny how good it felt.

He wasn’t running anymore. Not from you. And that terrified him as much as it thrilled him.

The soft melody of Sleep Token’s Rain floated through the cafeteria, perfectly timed as the next verse spilt into the air.

"And just like the rain, you cast the dust into nothing and washed out the salt from my hands…"

The lyrics hit Simon like a wave, resonating deep inside his chest. He hadn’t realized how much he had been holding on to the weight of his past until now. You were like the rain, coming into his life so unexpectedly, cleansing him of all the grit and grime that had built up over the years, the burdens he had carried, the memories he had buried.

You didn’t just make things easier; you made them feel possible again.

He looked at you, really looked at you, as the words echoed in his mind. There you were, sitting right across from him, smiling as if nothing in the world could weigh you down. How was it that someone like you, someone so full of life, had managed to break through the walls he had spent years building? You hadn’t forced your way in. You hadn’t tried. You just… were. And that was enough.

The moment your eyes met his again, something clicked in his chest. For the first time, he didn’t feel like running. He didn’t feel like hiding. You had this quiet power over him, one that didn’t demand anything but instead gently coaxed him out of the darkness he had grown so accustomed to.

"Simon?" you asked softly, noticing the way he was looking at you.

He blinked, realizing he had been staring a little too long. Clearing his throat, he averted his gaze briefly before meeting your eyes once more. There was no point in pretending anymore. You had already seen through him.

"Thank you," he muttered, the words gruff but sincere.

"For what?" you asked, a small smile tugging at the corners of your lips.

"For… this," he gestured vaguely, as if trying to encompass everything that had shifted in him since you had walked into his life. "For being here. For… you."

You tilted your head slightly, eyes softening as you leaned forward just a little. "I didn’t do anything special, Simon. I’m just here."

"Exactly," he replied, his voice low but steady. "And that’s enough."

The rain outside began to fall harder, drumming against the windows of the base, but inside, all Simon could focus on was you. The song's lyrics played in the background, but they felt like they were made for this moment, for you and him.

He didn’t know how to say what he was feeling. Words had never been his strength. But as he looked at you, he realized he didn’t have to say anything at all. You already knew. You had always known.

And somehow, without even trying, you had washed away the parts of him that he thought were too broken to fix.

"So touch me again, I feel my shadow dissolving, will you cleanse me with pleasure?"

The lyrics seemed to fill the air between you and Simon, as though the song itself was speaking for the feelings he struggled to put into words. The steady beat of the rain outside mingled with the music, creating a rhythm that mirrored the quiet intensity of the moment.

Simon’s hand rested inches from yours on the table, a subtle gesture, but in his world, it was monumental. His fingers twitched slightly, as if he were hesitating, unsure if he should reach out. You glanced down at his hand and felt the tension between you grow. He was so close, yet there was still a small distance left for him to close.

Then, without a word, his hand moved. His rough, calloused fingers brushed against yours, tentatively at first, as though he was afraid of what the touch might mean. But when you didn’t pull away, when you instead turned your hand to meet his, he let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

Your fingers slowly intertwined with his, and the simple contact sent a wave of warmth coursing through him. It was more than just physical touch. It was trust, vulnerability, and a promise that neither of you had spoken aloud yet. He had spent so long keeping everyone at arm’s length, but here he was, letting you in without a second thought.

Simon’s thumb brushed over your knuckles, almost absentmindedly, as if he was trying to memorize the feel of your skin beneath his. His gaze stayed locked on your joined hands, the weight of what was happening sinking in. This, this connection felt so foreign to him, and yet, it was the most real thing he had experienced in years.

You glanced up at him, your breath catching slightly at the intensity in his eyes. He wasn’t Ghost right now, not in this moment. He was Simon. The man behind the mask. The one who had buried himself in darkness for so long he had almost forgotten what the light felt like.

"Simon…" you whispered softly, the weight of his name grounding the moment even more.

His eyes flicked up to meet yours, and there was something raw, almost fragile, in his expression. "I don’t know how to do this," he admitted, his voice barely audible over the rain outside. "But I want to try."

You smiled, squeezing his hand gently. "You don’t have to know everything right now. We’ll figure it out together."

A flicker of relief crossed his face, and for the first time in what felt like forever, Simon allowed himself to relax, just a little. There were no missions, no threats, no masks to wear. Just the two of you, sitting in the quiet of the cafeteria, hands intertwined as the rain fell outside.

"It's that chemical cut that I can get down with, up like the moon and out like the hounds…"

The song continued to play in the background, its lyrics almost matching the intensity that was building between you and Simon. It felt like there was something chemical, something almost dangerous about the connection you shared, a spark that ignited the moment you touched. That tension had been there for weeks, simmering beneath the surface, but now, it was undeniable. There was something about this moment about you that made Simon feel like he was standing on the edge of something both exhilarating and terrifying.

"A dangerous disposition," the lyrics whispered through the speakers, "somehow refracted in light, reflected in sound…"

He wasn’t good with words, and certainly not with feelings, but the song seemed to speak for him, articulating what he could not. You were the light, breaking through the darkness that had been his constant companion for years. It was as though you had cast a new reflection on his world, one that he wasn’t used to seeing but couldn’t look away from.

Simon’s thumb traced over the back of your hand slowly, his eyes lingering on the way your fingers were now intertwined. He didn’t know how something so simple could feel so powerful, so life-altering. You didn’t have to say anything. Your presence alone spoke volumes.

And for the first time, Simon didn’t feel the urge to pull away. He wasn’t running, wasn’t hiding behind his mask. He was here, in this moment, with you.

"You make things feel different," Simon said, his voice low and gruff. His eyes lifted from your joined hands to meet yours, a flicker of vulnerability in his gaze. "Like… it’s not just me against everything anymore."

Your heart swelled at his words, knowing how difficult it must’ve been for him to admit that. You gave his hand a reassuring squeeze, offering him the silent promise that he wasn’t alone. Not anymore.

"I’m coiled up like a venomous serpent, tangled in your tranc, and I’m certain, you’ve got your hooks in me…"

The lyrics wrapped around Simon's thoughts like a reflection of the very thing he was feeling. He felt coiled, wound up tight, his emotions like a venomous serpent inside him, hissing and thrashing in confusion. But you, with just a look, a touch, had tamed that serpent. There was no escaping it now.

He was tangled in your presence, caught in your pull, and for the first time, he didn’t want to break free. He was certain you had your hooks in him. Not in a painful way, but in a way that made him feel anchored, like he had something real to hold onto for once in his life.

Simon looked at you again, and something inside him shifted. It was like watching the last of his defences crack and crumble under the weight of what he felt for you. His pulse quickened, the tension between you thick in the air.

"I can’t… stop thinking about you," he finally admitted, his voice rough, almost strained. "It’s like… I’m caught up in something I don’t know how to handle."

Your breath hitched at his words, knowing that for someone like Simon Riley to say something so vulnerable, it must’ve taken a monumental amount of courage.

"You don’t have to handle it alone, Simon," you whispered, leaning in closer, your face now inches from his. "You can let me in."

His gaze darkened, not with anger, but with intensity, an intensity that made your heart race. "I’m not good at this," he said quietly, his voice barely above a whisper. "But I don’t want to keep running."

He leaned closer, the space between you all but disappearing. The air felt electric, as if every inch of his body was pulled toward you, every nerve alight with need and something deeper, something he hadn’t let himself feel in years.

His hand moved, cupping your cheek with surprising gentleness, his thumb brushing against your skin as he drew even closer. His breath mingled with yours, and for a heartbeat, everything seemed to hang in the balance.

And then, without hesitation, Simon closed the gap, pressing his lips to yours.

The kiss was slow at first, tentative, as if he were testing the waters. But then the intensity built, like a storm breaking free after being held back for too long. His other hand found the back of your neck, pulling you in closer as he deepened the kiss, pouring everything he couldn’t say into that single moment.

You felt it, his fear, his desire, the weight of his emotions, and you kissed him back with the same intensity, your fingers curling around the fabric of his shirt, grounding yourself in the reality of him.

It wasn’t just a kiss. It was an unravelling, a moment where the walls he had built came crashing down, and for the first time, Simon let himself be vulnerable, let himself feel.

When he finally pulled back, breathless, he rested his forehead against yours, his eyes still closed, as if he needed a moment to process what had just happened.

"You’ve got your hooks in me," he whispered, voice hoarse but full of something new, something that felt like hope. "And I’m not letting go."

"Nobody can say for certain, if maybe it’s all just a game,

When I open my eyes to the future, I can hear you say my name..."

The song played on, its haunting melody threading through the silence that lingered between you and Simon after that kiss, the moment still heavy with unspoken words. His breath was warm against your skin, his forehead resting gently against yours, as though he needed the closeness just to believe this was real.

"So rain down on me…"

You pulled back just enough to look into his eyes. In that moment, the entire world seemed to slow down. Simon’s gaze was more open than you had ever seen it, stripped bare of the armour he always carried. It was as if he had been hiding not only from the world but from himself for so long, and now, in this brief, fragile space, he was letting himself be seen.

His eyes, dark and intense, held something deeper than the mask he usually wore. There were thousands of dreams swimming behind them, thousands of hopes that he had buried beneath layers of pain and duty. You could see it, the part of him that longed for more than just survival. The part of him that wanted something real, something worth holding onto. And you wanted to reach it. You wanted to read every unspoken thought, every hidden desire, to understand the man behind the shadows.

"Simon," you whispered, your voice soft, filled with the gravity of everything you felt in that moment. "I see you."

His eyes widened just a fraction, as if those three words had struck deeper than anything else you could have said. You saw him, not Ghost, not the soldier, not the mask, but him. The man who had lived through hell, who had lost so much, who had never allowed anyone to come close enough to truly know him.

For a moment, Simon said nothing, just stared into your eyes as if searching for something, some truth, some reassurance that this wasn’t fleeting, that it wasn’t just a dream. His grip on your hand tightened slightly, and you could feel the tension, the uncertainty still lingering.

"How do you do that?" he finally asked, his voice a low rumble. "How do you… make everything seem so different?"

You smiled softly, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead. "Because you’re not as lost as you think you are."

He exhaled sharply, like your words had hit a raw nerve, but instead of retreating, he stayed. He stayed with you in the moment, allowing himself to be vulnerable in a way that he had never allowed before.

"I don’t know if I can give you what you deserve," Simon said, his voice heavy with doubt, but his eyes never left yours. "But I want to try. With you."

The rain outside began to fall harder, the sound of it mingling with the song still playing in the background. It was as if the world itself was offering its own promise, a cleansing, a renewal.

"So rain down on me..."

You leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to his lips, a reassurance that you were there, that you weren’t going anywhere. When you pulled back, you kept your forehead against his, your eyes locked.

"I’ll take whatever you can give, Simon," you whispered. "As long as it’s real."

And in that moment, it was. Everything was real, his emotions, your connection, the bond that had slowly formed between you over time. It was raw and imperfect, but it was real.

He didn’t have to say anything more. The way his hand gently cupped your cheek, the way his eyes softened as he looked at you, that was enough. You had reached him. You had touched the part of him that no one else had been able to reach, and for the first time, he wasn’t afraid to let you in.

The rain outside continued to fall, washing away everything that had once stood between you. And for the first time, Simon Riley allowed himself to hope.

Pic Credit @chatskaja

[hobiebrownbrowser]

Constant Arguments

I know there is a lot of angst like this going on but for some odd reason it just feels right to make. I feel as if 42 Miles won't be as affectionate then others make him appear to be. NO HATE ON THEM. I love reading them.

I feel like he'll still have a somewhat cold demeanor. I haven't seen many where Y/N doesn't really care that Miles is The Prowler. Just needing him by her side more than anything was a blessing in her honor.

Earth 42 Miles Morales x FEM!Reader

Context: Angst, fluff, sadness, Mild cussing, happy ending

Translations: 'blame google if they aren't correct' 💀

"¿Por qué no puedes decírmelo? = "Why can't you tell me?"

Necesitamos hablar mami. = We need to talk mommy.

"Quítate de mi camino Miles." = Get out of my way Miles.

summary: Y/N doesn't give a shit if Miles is The Prowler.

"¿Por qué no puedes decírmelo? You avoid my calls, my texts, everytime I try to talk to you! You act like I'm not even 'ere!" It felt like a train hit her when Miles didn't respond, Breaking the eye contact they held for so long. Y/N just rolled her eyes, fed up with a relationship that clearly wasn't working.

"When you wanna talk, hit me up Hombre, other than that you can leave." Y/N shook her head, grabbing her book bag off the floor and walking towards their shared room.

She was acting like this because he wanted to disappear for more than a whole ass week. Ignoring her, leaving his own girlfriend on read when she was worried sick for him. Only think he had to say was "he was busy." Apparently it was more important than she'll ever be.

Slamming the door once she got inside just to feel tears swell in her eyes. Everything was frustrating her, constant arguments, school. The girl was overstimulated to say the least. Her back pushed up against the wall as she attempts to calm herself down with shallow deep breaths.

It felt like everything she worked for was against her. The man she loves not giving her the care she needs to pull through with all of this shit. Her family pressuring her to do a good job in school.

She just wanted to settle down on a peaceful path, but that seemed to redeem to much in her life. Having to work two jobs day and night was a struggle and Miles knew that. Yet he still did what he said he wasn't going to do.

Leaving her when she was the most vulnerable. She felt as if she wasn't valuable in his life at all. Wanting to cut off the one thing that used to make her life better.

But oh how she loves Miles. At the same time she wanted to apologize, pull him in a strong embrace. But she knew in the end he'd do the same thing. Disappear on her for decades on end.

The last string she held onto snapping just from his cold words. The silence was preposterous yet it kept her in a safe haven, able to run away from her problems just like now.

Taking a few more deep breaths and finally getting up off the dirty floor. She needed something to occupy her mind with, scrolling through her phone just to look at good memories.

She needed to wind down, Wanting to just drop out of school and cut off anyone she thought she knew well. She needed to breathe in this already suffocating air. The man on the other side probably long gone and out the door.

She was right, his figure not on the couch any longer than it should be. She wiped her face before stepping out. Going into the kitchen and grabbing a tub of ice cream before heading back into her confined space.

"Princesa." She cursed under her breath. Hearing his soft genuine sweet voice call her by her nickname. The real question was why was he still here. Turning around to be met with dead eyes. It was funny. They'd been together for a year, yet he looks at her the same way he looked at others.

She simply ignored him. Grabbing a spoon from a drawer and trying to push past the firm man.

"quítate de mi camino Miles." He didn't budge, doing the complete opposite infact. Blocking the exit with his body, She threatened to climb over the table if he didn't.

"Necesitamos hablar mami." He simply just tilted his head, A serious look plastered on his face.

"Oh now you wanna talk, ain't your job more important than me?" She got him right there. Miles eyes avoiding her's before looking back up, his chest withhelding big sigh. He wasn't gonna lie because he knew it was. She wasn't in his shoes. She wasn't constantly having to kill people for money.

No. He wanted her to sit still and be the most cherishing thing he had left besides his madre and his uncle. He was in a stressful predicament. How the hell was he supposed to tell his future wife that he was 'The Prowler'?

Miles was stomped, Looking the love of his life in her eyes before wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her close. The look of confusion on her face as he told her.

Miles watched as she rubbed her temples, her eyes narrowing down to nothing but disappointment. It all made sense now. Why she'd wake up to an empty bed in the middle of the night. The window sometimes left open on countless nights.

He'd even shown her the exact suit he'd killed in, leading her to a small hidden room she didn't even know they had in the first place. She poked her head in which Miles found a bit cute, Taking it out and putting it on like it was nothing but clothing.

You let out a deep sigh before saying what was on your own mind.

"Miles I don't give a shit that you're The Prowler. I just wanted you to tell me." A sigh of relief left Mile's throat. Apologizing to his chica before pulling her into a tight hug and kissing her soft plump lips.

"I'm sorry for not tellin' you sooner Hermosa."

Part 2 here 💜

[froggibus]

Venture x short fem reader x junkerqueen head cannon

Nsfw is up to you

Dating Junkerqueen & Venture Headcanons

Pairing: Junkerqueen x reader (has a pussy but no pronouns are used) x Venture

Genre: fluff + smut beneath the cut

CW: poly relationship, jealousy, JQ is referred to as Dez/Odessa, manhandling, full nelson, face fucking, size kink, teasing, edging, overstim, strap on, double pen, fingering, threesome, praise/degradtion aftercare ftw * reader is short & can be carried/lifted by Sloan & Dez (tho they are strong as FUCK I think JQ could bench press a car)

hey hi thanks for the request! i really like writing short reader cause i myself am not short :,) but it is nice to pretend...i went a little crazy with the NSFW so hopefully you're into that lol

This post contains NSFW content. Minors read the warnings & please do not read past the NSFW cut.

(have these two actually met in the lore? 😭 I haven’t read their short stories in so long cause none of them interest me)

these two can be a match made in heaven, or something out of hell

Odessa is SUCH a tease and given she’s 7 feet tall she WILL give you a hard time

loves putting stuff in high places just so she can watch you struggle to grab it until you sheepishly ask for her help

Sloan can go either way honestly

sometimes they’ll join Dez in teasing you, sitting there with their arms crossed while you pout and try to grab it

other days they’ll put those big muscles to good use and help you up

both of them think you’re adorable & always manhandle you

Odessa specifically loves hoisting you on her shoulders when you’re watching fights in Junkertown

or throwing you over her shoulder when you’re going to bed

Sloan is more lowkey, but a lot of the time if you’re sleepy or tired they’ll gladly carry you to bed

also BOTH are super protective of you (even if they don’t mean to be)

they both know you can defend yourself but they still wanna let it be known to everyone that they’re looking out for you

Dez is way more upfront about it…anyone who talks badly about you or is a little too aggressive will pay a harsh price

Sloan is more lowkey, maybe they’ll throw a glare or something, but they let Dez take the lead

they occasionally try to talk her down if she’s scaring the hell out of some poor girl that accidentally bumped you

they are a NIGHTMARE in bed to deal with I’m so sorry

Odessa in herself is already a handful…she’s such a tease and with your size, can manhandle you however you want

the two of them could spend HOURS edging you until you’re crying and begging to cum

Sloan feeds off of Odessa’s energy too, so if Dez is in a very dominant mood, oftentimes Sloan is too

I promise they’re nice to you sometimes too (rare)

you’ll be trapped between the two of them, Sloan making out with Dez above your head while they finger you

Dez will be groping you and shoving you further into Sloan’s touch

eventually they’ll grow tired of playing with you and that’s when the real fun begins

Odessa LOVES fucking you with a strap or sitting you on her face

she’ll hold your thighs and pull you down while she absolutely devours you

Sloan usually takes this as an opportunity to use your mouth however they please

the combination of Sloan’s praise and Odessa’s dirty talk is a WHIRLWIND

Dez will be fucking you from behind with her strap, gripping your hips and laughing about what a whore you are

and Sloan will be fucking your face, running their hands over your cheeks and head, murmuring praise

or sometimes Odessa will fuck you full nelson, her strong arms under your thighs and your back to her chest

meanwhile Sloan slowly pushes themselves inside of you next to Odessa, rubbing your clit to help you adjust

the two of them fucking you is a lot

there have been times where they’ll take turns playing with your mouth

Odessa will grab the back of your head and shove it into her cunt, her and Sloan fighting for dominance over who gets to ruin your pretty mouth

aftercare is AMAZING

they’re both a little new to it, but Sloan goes crazy overboard

drinks, snacks, bath—they’ll do it all for you

Odessa is a little awkward in the afterglow, but if you tell her what you need, she’s more than happy to get it for you

masterlist | overwatch masterlist

(if you enjoy content like this, interactions go a long way! comments, likes & rbs are always greatly appreciated ^-^ !!)