#it's a lil bit longer than it should be

[flapper248]

[cepheusart]

i QUIT.

[ID. Two portraits of Quinn, a boy with a wide face and hair parted in orange and yellow, tied in a small bun, and Ezra, a boy with proeminent cheekbones, very dark skin, long curly black hair tied in a ponytail and blue round glasses. Quinn is labelled Disaster Nerd and Ezra is labelled Loser. End ID.]

I was gonna do some funky meme ab how "every friendgroup has these guys: the disaster nerd, the loser & the comphet" which was going to be really funny but i can NOT draw these bithces bc i dont have designs for them.

Have those guys insgead! Aiden didn't came out. That pun was not intended

Art taglist: @for-the-love-of-angst @thewhumpywitch

[poisoned-pearls]

okay I now can elaborate on the thoughts I was talking abt in the tags of my last post-

Jamil has always hated being touched, and physical contact in general. He was raised around kalim, he's had enough hugs for a lifetime, thank you.

well, that is until he started dating Azul.

Azul is very clingy. Physically, at least. He is an octopus, after all. He finds comfort in just, having any kind of contact with someone. It keeps him grounded and focused. So once he has permission, he can and will hang off of Jamil every chance he gets. Jamil doesn't like holding hands (because his training has instilled the need to constantly have them free just in case) so Azul hangs off of his elbow. If they're in class, Azul either has his hand on top of his arm or his hand. 

and Jamil realizes... he doesn't mind it. In fact, he enjoys it. Way more than he thinks he should in fact. It relaxes him so much that it almost unnerves him (the first time he found himself dozing off while Azul laid in his lap doing god knows what he quite literally shoved him off in shock.)

belatedly, he figures out that he is in fact, VERY touch starved, he is just very particular about how someone touches him.

it's silence. He likes silence. Azul rarely ever talks when he's laying with him, usually doing other work or something for the Monstro lounge. When kalim would run up and hug him, he knew it just meant he was about to be bombarded with questions and ideas and statements and work. He never gets to relax with Kalim. It always came with noise, with chaos. While being around Azul was like lying on the beach, with nothing but the soft crashes of the waves to bother him.

(Of course, this wasn't every time. Azul was still a schemer and quite annoying, but he quickly learned that if Jamil wasn't in the mood to entertain his ramblings or schemes, he'd simply shove him off of his lap. It always made Azul quite disgruntled, but he'd take the hint and shut up.)

This also lead into another thing: Their forms of nonverbal communication. Azul and Jamil could easily have a whole conversation from opposite sides of a room when they got along. Jamil knew all of Azul’s little ticks (like whenever he fucking clicks, something he learned was an octopus thing (which begged the question of how the fuck he made that noise in his human form-) or when he randomly slaps Jamil or the twins, who then immediately told him it was a sign of affection and he should be immensely flattered over (apparently it was something he only ever did lightly with friends, which he has concerningly little of. But Jamil doesn’t know if he has much room to talk on that front.) and Azul knew Jamil’s. Azul almost knew his too well, in fact, but every time Jamil tried to ask him about it he was simply met with some comment about how ‘he simply couldn’t keep his eyes off of him.’

Jamil still didn’t like people touching him.

Azul was an exception though. And he was quite happy about that.

[islenskihesturinn]

This is a picture from half a year ago, but it occurred to me yesterday while I was keeping Lilja’s head in place during her second treatment that these animals really have to trust us a hecking lot to just let us do these things to them.

She’s been drugged to stay calm and feel a bit less as her teeth get filed down from being like a staircase to nearly straight (it was bad, now it’s almost good). Machines that make loud noises and vibrate get put in her mouth and there’s weird smelling dust everywhere. Meanwhile her human is gently patting her hair and praising her for staying put, and half an hour later she’s back with Fjara and eating hay like nothing happened.

Same goes for the other 3 (namely Týra, Solita and Ieniemini), who just come walking up to you after all that, asking for a treat (and a brush bc it’s shedding season and they’re all itchy ladies).

I don’t really think about it often, but sometimes it’ll hit me how much they trust that we have their best interests at heart and they know this in their own way.

[stabbystiletto]

💐💐💐🎶🎶🎶💐💐💐

🎵Salice d'amor delizia!

Ombra pietosa appresta,

di mie sciagure immemore🎵

[all-of-your-mercy]

already spoke about this on twitter but. the biggest feared thing for transmen (other than hairyness) is such a. thing i never even like realized until i did like a more proper physical checkup. aaaaah bottom growth!!!! and then when it literally happens its. oh. its there. that's literally it.

[seekingthestars]

got my hair cut today (haven't had it cut since early april) and it always looks good when a stylist blow drys it but it's always sorta a toss up of if it'll look good with my normal styling (which is basically nothing lol) so the jury's out until tomorrow BUT

right now i really like it 🥺 i got a bunch cut off and i feel so much better 🥺

[arolesbianism]

There's a well 🎉

[cutiefulism]

caleb >.< lads

imagining him keeping a lil photo of u in his wallet and on his person at all times.

it's one you would call ugly, too. your mouth is open in a wide smile, eyes crinkled and cheeks flushed with mirth. the sun, as if it was your personal ring light, catches in your eyes, making them glisten even through the wrinkled, worn paper.

caleb hasn't stopped staring at it since he got it.

it captures your essence perfectly (as perfect as a replica can, anyway. it shrivels in comparison to the real thing.), and every morning before he's called in for duty, he presses his lips to it, hoping that, one day, he'll get to find out how you really taste.

but some days, that's not enough. when his subordinates have irked his nerves or when shit has hit the fan during an expedition, that morning kiss to you doesn't calm the frustration, the anger brewing in his gut.

and caleb is just a man.

"mmph, fuck—"

his thumb glides over the little slit of his tip, catching a bead of pre and smearing it down his shaft. his fist continues to pump, that gorgeous, aged photo of you somehow still delicately held in his opposite hand.

you'd be ashamed. disgusted, even.

what you don't know can't hurt you, however, and he has no intentions of letting you know what he does with this picture. not unless you ask.

then he'll have to answer, because who is he to deny his pretty girl?

your lips are so pretty when you smile, but they'd be even prettier wrapped around his cock, tongue swirling and cheeks hollowing as you struggle to take all of him. he'll help you, of course — whisper praises, sink his fingers into your hair and guide your head further, down to the hilt.

then you'd gag, big, sad tears welling up on your waterline, and he'd brush them away with his thumb.

he'd say, "'s okay, princess. you like it, right? 'm not gonna let you get hurt."

a bit of drool escapes the corner of his open mouth as his heavy balls tighten at the imaginary sound of you gagging on his dick.

caleb spits the rest of the saliva that's flooded his mouth onto his cock. it's foolish and likely biologically impossible, but he's sure yours would lubricate better.

your pussy would lubricate better, too, and that thought has caleb squeezing the head and groaning like he's in heat.

he knows these are not the kinds of thoughts a childhood best friend should have, but caleb has never thought normally. he's yearned for you, craved you, even when you forgot him.

this is nothing new to him. hell, he's fantasized with you in the next room over before.

you and those flimsy pajamas, big shirts with tiny shorts that do nothing, absolutely nothing to hide the delicious curve of your ass.

if he chopped off all the fingers and toes of his fleet members and counted them, that still wouldn't be accurate to how many times he's wanted to grope or smack, how many times he's wanted to kiss and bite.

"hah, ngh, c'mon baby..."

caleb slowly drags his hand down all seven inches before he speeds up his pumping again, faster than before, and his metal fingers just barely crinkle the photo.

you'd be so tight. your mouth, your pussy, your ass. all of it. he'd have it all, and you'd take it because you're a good girl, his good girl, and oh, fuck—

his hand is a blur as his balls draw up and his teeth sink into his lips. a long, whiny moan of your name leaves his lips, both a prayer and a curse as ropes of white stain his abs and sheets.

his cock continues to twitch, and he's but a slave to his orgasm as his head lolls back, eyes sliding shut as he strokes himself through it, milking more out of him like he knows you would do.

you're a tease, after all.

it takes him a hot minute to come down, dick jolting faintly before going limp, and caleb swallows down gasps of air.

every orgasm hits harder the longer he's away from you.

he opens one eye, his free, sticky hand fumbling for a handful of tissues. he wipes himself down, throws the soiled tissues into his garbage, and covers it with paper.

his subordinates are nosy little shits.

caleb tucks his dick back into his briefs, and he sighs, eyes wandering back to the photo of you.

his pretty baby.

he brings the yellowed paper to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to your face.

"i'll make it back home to you. i swear it."

first fic heh... kinda nervous ^_^;

[satorusluver]

Random Gojo and Geto nsfw headcanons because we all want them both carnally. Minors DNI.

-Gojo is a little bigger than Geto in both length and girth but Geto is more precise and controlled in his movements, overall has more self-control, and can last longer.

-Gojo doesn't last as long as Geto but he can go more rounds which makes up for it. He's also a munch who loves to overstim you with his tongue while he's waiting to get back to full mast.

-Gojo is either an obnoxiously cocky power bottom when you ride him or he's a whiny lil bitch of a sub depending on his mood.

-They both probably do that thing when you're going down on them where they grab the back of your head and choke you with their cock. Sometimes just a little bit to tease you or harder just to watch you gag and sputter because there is nothing prettier than your eyes when they're teary (in the fun way).

-Geto always has to remind Gojo not to completely break you before Geto can get a turn with you (because otherwise he definitely will, he's not called the strongest for nothing).

-Geto is as a whole generally less rough than Gojo (especially non-villain au Geto) but at the same time he can be kinda sadistic. More likely to torment you with orgasm denial, whereas Gojo usually makes it his personal mission to make you cum on his cock until you lose count...unless you've pissed him off, in which case he will make you beg for it.

-Alternatively, Geto likes getting off to watching Gojo fuck you senseless more than he'd probably like to admit. He scolds Satoru about not being so greedy with you, but it's hard to believe he's really that bothered by it when he's fisting his cock so hard to the sight you two going at it.

-And god, you should see the look on his face when he cums - his head slightly tilted back, his black hair falling in his flushed face, the deep guttural groan that falls from his lips, watching you with half-lidded eyes that are struggling to stay open as he spills himself all over his hand and chest. But he has to keep them open, he doesn't wanna miss a second of your simultaneous orgasm being pulled from your trembling form by Gojo's rough thrusts. The way your mouth falls open and your pretty eyes roll back, Geto is convinced your o-face is the hottest he's ever seen and it gets him off like nothing else (but don't tell Gojo, he'll get a lil jealous).

UhHhh pls god make them real. 😩

[simonbrain]

to the person who wanted a continuation of soapgaz from this, here you go <3

truthfully, you weren't that mad at johnny.

yes, it hurt, but could you fully blame him? he looked like he was getting his brain fucked out of his head, having no choice but to take the cruel thrusts his lieutenant was laying on him. you swear he slurred out a few apologies before simon stuck his fingers in the poor man's open, drooling mouth, and then you couldn't process anything other than your tears and the overwhelming urge to kick simon's head in.

but just because you weren't too pissed at johnny, that didn't mean the other two members of the team were okay with it. after all, this was his punishment just as much as simon's. what good would it be if he got away with every little thing he did?

"take good care of him, will ya?" price hums, patting kyle's back. the latter nods obediently and mutters a hoarse yessir, already eager to get his hands on the bastard and ruin him.

—

johnny doesn't know how long they've been at it; he only remembers kyle giving him a very brief, sweet kiss before he was pushed down on the bed and his pants were being tugged off, long forgotten on the floor of kyle's room.

"garrick, fuck—" he wheezes, fighting against the urge to roll his hips up. he received a slap to his cock along with a harsh hair pull when he first tried that and had no choice but to take kyle's snarled warning to heart. fuck, he's sweating so much, globs of pre-cum and lube creating a filthy, sticky mess all over his lap and the bed as kyle works his hands over his weeping cock.

"can't keep it in your pants, eh? jus' had to let this cock o'yours think for you," kyle teases, drinking in the way it twitches and spills in his hands. "and you upset the poor bird—sweet thing was all dewy-eyed. that what you were going for, tavish?"

before johnny can deny his words, the fist that holds his cock in an iron grip begins gliding up and down, and he just about chokes at the feeling of kyle's palm sliding over his sensitive tip.

"c— cannae take it, garrick, please—"

"i asked you a question."

"nae, for fucks sake!" johnny cries, letting out a pitiful little whine when the latter squeezes tight, almost too painful for him to handle. he whimpers out a soft sorry and grits his teeth when kyle clicks his tongue, shaking his head.

"behave. should be thankful 's me and not the cap, or even ghost." kyle huffs, loosening his grip just a little. "better hope he's nice to you at training tomorrow after his lil meeting with the captain."

tears clump johnny's eyelashes together as he's denied yet another orgasm, thighs shaking and chest heaving when kyle removes his hands right before he can peak, cock twitching uncontrollably on his belly. "'m sorry, kyle, jus' wanna cum," he groans, loud and unabashed. his hands itch to grab onto the other, but he's not allowed to touch, so he settles for putting on a pathetic display of rolling his hips, poor cock bouncing against him. the movement feels good, but it's not enough, and he swears he'll get himself off if kyle denies him again.

"you solid?" kyle's sweet voice melts away the heavy feelings swirling in johnny's chest, and he nods, forcing his hips to still. "need words, mactavish."

"i'm fine." johnny musters up what he hopes is an acceptable answer, not keen on being edged any longer.

kyle hums, sliding his hand over johnny's thighs, eyes trailing down appreciatively at the mess they've made. "i could let you cum, but..." he sucks in a breath—at the same time, johnny lets out a soft groan, warm hands working his cock again. "i'm a bit offended, soap. was i not good enough last time we shagged? is that why you went after ghost?"

"yer wrong, gaz, it isnae my fault—"

"shut it," kyle snaps, squeezing a fist around the head, fluids coating his hand as johnny thrashes against the bed. "i thought i was a good lay, apparently not. or are you that much of a slag?" kyle croons condescendingly, chuckling lowly at the sounds tearing through the other's throat and the desperate shakes of his head, denying it.

his poor cock's not helping his case, though. it throbs intensely at the dirty words and drips all over kyle's pretty hands, balls aching for release.

"is that it, johnny?" he purrs lowly, sliding up next to johnny on the bed, hand still wrapped tightly around his cock. he leans down to kiss him, swallowing all the sweet little sounds spilling out johnny's mouth. his hand moves a little faster, granting the smallest amount of relief, but it's just not enough.

when they break apart, johnny grits out his denial. he knew that simon had a sweet thing at home, but he was told that she was okay with it. he's not totally at fault; it's all simon.

gaz just tuts when he attempts to explain.

(johnny does feel guilty, though; he didn't stop his lieutenant from ravaging him right in front of you or shy away from your gaze. in fact, he became even more shameless, shoving his hips back and whining out barely coherent apologies. he hopes you'll let him make it up to you properly some day. preferably between your legs.)

"nah, i think you're jus' greedy. is it cause i'm not taken? that why you said yes to ghost?" kyle huffs, cruelly twisting his fist around the head of johnny's cock. the pretty smile on his face sharpens into something mean at the broken sob he gets in return.

johnny doesn't know anything anymore; he can't even decipher left from right. all he can process is kyle lifting his hand off a second too late and the unsatisfying feeling of a ruined orgasm rolling over him in ferocious waves, not nearly enough to satiate him for even a moment.

kyle shushes his heavy sobs, whispers promises that he'll let him cum next time as he slides down the bed, and picks his sensitive cock back up. this time, kyle actually puts his mouth on him, searing hot and so soft, and johnny's seeing white.

[ticklishfiend]

Distracted

Lee!Viktor x Ler!Jayce

Word Count : 4761

Summary : Jayce can’t stop thinking about what it’d be like to tickle Viktor. When they get tipsy together one night, he doesn’t have to imagine anymore.

a/n : i love them. sm. also, two things: 1) this is lowkey an out of character fic but i realized that it’s kinda hard to write a tkl fic with lee!viktor and it not be a lil ooc so bear with me LMAO, and 2) i said i was working on a lee!jayce fic, and i still am, but it’s a little longer and more thought out than this one so again. BEAR WITH ME! okok love yall hope u enjoy

this is a tickle fic! not nsfw, but don’t like don’t read 😝

…

It’d be so easy. Almost too easy. Viktor would kill him for it, probably yell at him for 45 minutes for breaking his concentration with something so stupid and childish. But it would be worth it just to hear the cute sound Viktor would make when Jayce finally dug his fingers in sides, crawling up to his ribs and playing them like a piano, maybe even drill his thumbs into his hips just to hear him cry–

“What about this one?”

Viktor’s voice broke through his concentration, and Jayce nearly jumped. The slim man looked over his shoulder at Jayce, bringing his arm down from the top of the black board. Viktor has been writing near the top of it for a few minutes now, working on an equation as he mumbled under his breath. His arm had been outstretched over his head so he could reach, and with his whole side exposed like that, his ribs and underarms were on beautiful display for Jayce to stare and daydream.

It was nothing short of a miracle that Jayce had only been thinking those thoughts instead of acting on them, with the way his fingers itched and curled into the leg of his pants just looking at Viktor like that.

Shit, he should probably focus now. Jayce did a quick once over of the equation, making sure he’d have something of substance to say in response. “Uh, yeah it–it looks fine.” Ah yes, a very substantial addition, Jayce Talis. ‘Idiot.’

Viktor quirked a brow. “Just…fine?”

“Yeah I mean it’s…” Jayce cleared his throat, looking over it once again and finally taking in what Viktor was actually doing. “I don’t see anything wrong with it. And once we get it fitted into our earlier calculations, it should be ready to rock-and-roll.” Jayce cringed internally, ‘Oh my god shut up.’

Viktor still looked suspicious, as Jayce rarely seemed caught off guard like that. He turned back to the blackboard, “Well I think it could still use some touch-ups. You should come and help me, my brain is frying from staring at it for too long.”

Jayce swallowed. Dammit. He’d been perfectly content to watch from behind, it was easier to hide his self-made fluster at that angle. But…right fucking next to him? Where it’d be even easier to reach out, pinch a bottom rib, make Viktor squirm and laugh and—

“Jayce. Any day now would be preferable,” Viktor deadpanned, not even sparing a glance as he continued to look at his equation. 

“Right, right,” Jayce hopped to Viktor’s side, really trying not to be any sort of distraction in his state. Now next to Viktor, watching through his peripheral, he saw Viktor once again reach up and make a few scribbles with chalk. Above his head. Exposed.

Jayce bit the inside of his cheek, snatching a piece of chalk himself just to have something to hold onto. Why was this hitting him so hard right now? Usually, moods like this were so much easier to suppress, easier to forget about when he finally got himself lost in their work. But right now, their work was more mundane, small touch-ups on calculations they’d been meaning to get to for ages. It had been a very dull day in terms of their work, but inside Jayce’s head, a boring work day meant more time to think about Viktor. 

Whether Viktor was…sensitive. Ticklish. What kind of laugh he’d have. Would he giggle? Voice light and breathy, gently squirming and batting at Jayce’s hands while his face flushed at the feeling. Or would he cackle? His body shaking through the force of his laughter, having to clutch onto his own stomach like his reactions were being ripped from him. Maybe he’d beg Jayce to stop, maybe he’d be laughing so hard he’d be unable to even form words around his giggling, maybe he’d wail—

“Jayce, are you quite alright?” Viktor asked, his brow pinched in suspicion as he gave Jayce the one-over. “You’ve been…very distracted today. Not that I don’t appreciate the reprieve from your usual yapping, but your behavior does seem a bit unusual this evening.”

Viktor had taken to leaning against the board instead now, which was a lot easier on Jayce’s overwhelmed mind to take in. 

“Sorry, sorry. Just got a lot on my mind, I guess,” Jayce gave his nothing-answer and turned back to the board to make a few marks, hoping Viktor would brush it off like he normally does. Or at least, like he used to do. 

He’d been more inquisitive of Jayce lately, actually asking personal questions and even answering some of Jayce’s own. They’d gotten to know each other a lot better because of it, which was great, but it was also coming to bite Jayce in the ass right now since Viktor was able to notice that something was so off with him.

Viktor turned toward the lab’s window, his gaze on the moon shining bright through the glass. There was no telling when it had gotten dark outside, they both tended to very purposefully not look at the clock when they were at work. 

Jayce heard him sigh. “It’s late,” Viktor droned, rubbing a tired hand down his face. “I wouldn’t mind taking a break if you’re also interested?”

Jayce’s brows raised in surprise, a little smirk curling at the corner of his mouth. “You’re asking me if we can take a break? Where’s my partner and what have you done with him?”

Viktor gave a small blink-and-you-miss-it grin, “He’s off drowning himself in a river. His brain turned to mush after staring at one equation for nearly 3 hours.” He grabbed his cane that had been leaning against the board, before pointing a finger at himself, “New Viktor, however, just remembered the alcohol he stored in the kitchen months ago for dull days like this. And he’s inviting you to share a drink.” Viktor poked Jayce in the chest, before turning toward the kitchen.

Jayce smiled brightly. “New Viktor’s got some good ideas.”

—

They ended up drinking just a bit more than either had expected to. They weren’t drunk, per se, but their combined buzz had them talking a lot more open than usual. Their conversations felt so easy tonight, and Jayce was starting to wonder why they didn’t drink together more often.

“And the next thing I knew, I had a kitten stuffed down my shirt and a crazy lady passed out on the floor behind me,” Viktor chuckled around the rim of his glass, taking a small sip before continuing, “Little moments like that make me glad I got out of the Undercity when I did.”

Jayce snickered openly, clutching at his glass through the laughter. “I don’t know Vik, that sounds like a great time to me.”

“That’s just because you're a Piltie with minimal Undercity experience. Trust me, a kitten down my shirt was the least of my worries.”

Jayce’s laughter simmered, but his grin never left. He gestured with his glass, “So, what’d you do with it? The kitten.”

Viktor shrugged. “I carried it in my shirt all the way home. I didn’t feel comfortable leaving it with that woman, even at my young age,” He said, before giving a little chuckle at the new memory. “Actually, it was hell getting it back home. I didn’t take it out of the shirt because, before she collapsed, she said she had guys that’d be after me for it. I was naive to believe anyone would recognize the kitten on my walk, but I was young so I’ll give myself that grace.”

Viktor shook his head through a smile, taking another small sip. “But my god, if that thing didn’t tickle me the entire walk home. I must’ve looked insane. Some–hehe–some crippled kid with a lump in his chest, giggling to himself, ” Viktor couldn’t hold back his own snickers at the thought, but of course still scolded Jayce nonetheless. “Stop laughing, this was serious to me at the time.”

When that word, that one word he’d been thinking of all day, rolled out of Viktors mouth, Jayce felt his heart leap. His skin nearly prickled. And now he’s tipsy, and there was no way he could hold back on making sure they stayed on that topic for as long as he could hold it. “So what I’m hearing is, Boy Genius is too ticklish to handle a little kitten in his shirt.”

Viktor rolled his eyes. “I was a child. And I doubt you’d fare any better in that circumstance, even at your grown age.”

Jayce held his hands in surrender. “I never said I’d do any better. But it sounds like you think you aren’t ticklish anymore, which I think is total bullshit.” Jayce couldn’t hold back his smirk if he tried. “Actually, now that I think about it, you’ve just given me a way to get whatever I want in the lab. Maybe I should thank you?”

Viktor pointed at Jayce with the hand he held his glass, a small bit spilling onto the couch between them. “If you dare try something like that, I’ll go back and convince the counselors to have you arrested again.”

Jayce laughed, “Arrested for what? Tickling you?”

The corner of Viktor’s mouth twitched upward, “For a hate crime. You can’t just take advantage of a cripple like that and get away with it.” Viktor claimed teasingly, before growing suspicious of Jayce’s wandering glare. He was staring hard at the glass Viktor held between them, a little smirk on his face. “What? What are you looking at?”

Jayce clicked his tongue, “Hold on, can I just—” He interrupted himself reaching his hand towards the glass, and Viktor was so caught off guard by the action (and a little slower to thinking now, thanks to their couple of drinks) that he let Jayce take the glass from him without any protest.

Jayce took one long swig of the drink, sighing hard as he set it down on the table next to them. 

Viktor’s brow furrowed hard. “What the hell was that?!”

“That was me getting your glass out of the way,” Jayce’s smile was wide and his eyes alight with mischief, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “So I could test out a little theory.”

Viktor’s mind was working slow, but not that slow.

“Oh nonono , Jayce—Jayce, whatever you are thinking, stop thinking it.”

“Why?” Jayce wiggled his fingers as he scooted closer to Viktor, who cornered himself against the arm of the couch. “Nervous you’ll get caught lying?”

“Absolutely not,” Viktor said, “But I cannot promise you won’t get hit.”

“Ohoh that is a price I am more than willing to pay,” Jayce chuckled, before darting a hand out to sneak a quick pinch to Viktor’s side. The reaction was immediate. His partner choked on a sound in the back of his throat as he arched away from the fingers.

“Jayce I swear on everything—”

“C’mon, I never get to see you laugh. If it hurts, I’ll stop?” Jayce offered, and Viktor would appreciate the kind thoughtfulness of that statement had he not been too busy trying to push Jayce’s hands away from his torso. Unfortunately, the nervous smile on Viktor’s face during the entire tussle really took away any bite he tried to muster in his words.

“If it hurts, I’ll k-kill you,” Viktor’s voice wavered on the word as Jayce pushed a hand through and pinched his rib, latching on tight but not yet actually tickling. He just…held it there.

Viktor gripped onto the wrist at his ribs, pushing and pulling and trying everything to avoid his own humiliating downfall. He was already struggling to keep anticipatory giggles at bay, and Jayce was beaming at the reaction.

“You ready?”

“No, nonono, Jayce—”

“Three.”

“I’ll throw all your patents into the river!”

“Twoooooo.”

“Consider all your hard work a gross, soggy mush!”

“One!”

“Jayce, no-! aUgchk—n-nohohoho!”

Jayce finally put his fingers to work, gently pinching at that bottom rib incessantly. Viktor did exactly what Jayce thought he would. He giggled hard, arching in a way that curled his body around Jayce’s hand, and slapped at his wrist like it’d do anything to push him off.

“Y-You—You idiohohot-!” Viktor’s words faded seamlessly into another bout of laughter as Jayce brought his other hand around to squeeze nicely at Viktor’s side. Viktor squirmed in his hold, and Jayce thought he was going to melt.

Viktor looked so cute like this. Flushed from alcohol and laughter, smiling wide and desperate, squirming in Jayce’s hold like his every touch was causing a new reaction. Just cute cute cute.

“Nohot cute you freheak!” Viktor said around his giggles, making Jayce flush himself. Did I say that out loud? 

Well. Might as well double down, right? “Only thing to make this any cuter would be a kitten popping outta your shirt, huh?”

Viktor visibly blushed a tinge darker, “Okahay okahay! Stohop! I cahaha-ahahah!” He couldn’t even finish his sentences. Jayce was hooked.

But he was also merciful. At his command, Jayce declawed from Viktor’s ribcage and hovered above as he watched Viktor pant and come down from his giggle fit. When Viktor caught his eye (and that doting look he got when Viktor did just about anything these days), he shoved Jayce’s face away playfully with an all too smiley groan. “I hope you got what you needed from that study, because you are never gonna try that again.”

Jayce snickered, leaning back to his spot on the couch. “Oh yeah? Says who?”

“Says the guy who’ll stick a cane up your ass if you try it,” Viktor leaned against his own respective arm of the couch. 

Jayce grinned back. “Yeah, we’ll see about that.”

—

Hooked couldn’t begin to describe the feeling. Jayce was enthralled. Enamoured. He couldn’t stop thinking about that night, brief as it may have been. He didn’t want to go overboard with Viktor, of course, the man was weird about touch as it is. Jayce was lucky he’d been able to get his hands on him at all. But that hardly mattered. Because Jayce got to hear what Viktor sounded like when he felt ticklish, and now that he knows that sound, it might as well be on a record scratch repeat in his brain at all times.

Jayce’s leg shook anxiously under the desk. He wasn’t nervous, more just…unfocused, at the moment. Yes, partly from all of that, but mainly from the chaos of notes and blueprints and paperwork littered in front of him. That boring night must’ve just been the calm before the storm, because once they were able to get all those equations pieced together, the workload became fucking endless.

And of course Jayce loves their work, all the passion and hours they both devote to creating what is essentially their whole future. It’s a beautiful thing what happens in their lab. Astonishing. Awe-inspiring.

…and also ridiculously stressful. 

Jayce must’ve been working for nearly 24 hours at this point. His legs felt like lead, and his shoulders ached from the past few hours of leaning over this desk and working working working. He couldn’t count the amount of times he’s had to stretch his hand out from all the notes he’s written. 

He’s fucking exhausted.

And what’s worse? Jayce knows that Viktor’s somehow been awake for even longer than him.

Jayce cleared his throat. “So uh…it’s gettin’ late, Vik. Wanna call it a night?”

Viktor was hunched over his own desk, goggles on as he meticulously worked over their project. Jayce knew if those goggles were off, he’d be able to see Viktor’s eyes trying their damndest not to slip shut from exhaustion. “Not now. This needs a few touch-ups.”

“And it can’t wait til tomorrow because…?”

“Because if I break my concentration, I may forget where I was in my progress by tomorrow,” Viktor said, before waving Jayce off. “Go, get some rest. You deserve it.”

“And you don’t?” Jayce could hear his voice get defensive, on Viktor’s behalf no less. The guy never gave himself a break, it was nothing short of a miracle that he’d been the one to suggest their break just two weeks ago. Jayce sighed, “I miss ‘New Viktor.’”

At that, Viktor paused. Lifting his goggles to his forehead and throwing Jayce an incredulous look. “Seriously, Jayce?”

Jayce pouted with a shrug, leaning against the back of his chair. “Yeah. New Viktor would’ve had a drink with me hours ago and then gone to bed at an appropriate time,” Jayce grinned. He gave an exaggerated, almost theatre-like sigh, “I guess this Viktor just isn’t as fun.”

Viktor pursed his lips at Jayce, clearly holding back a little smile at the banter. “I’m plenty of fun. This is fun,” he pointed to the contraption on his desk he’d been fiddling with.

But Jayce stayed with the bit, humming dreamily. “Ohh, New Viktor, how I miss him. He drank with me. We shared funny stories and laughed together,” Jayce smirked, getting a fun little idea. “Yeah, I remember him laughing a lot that night, actually. And it wasn’t just from the jokes he was telling.”

Viktor scoffed a half-laugh, shaking his head. “You sound sleep-deprived.”

“Noooo, my head’s pretty clear right now, actually. I remember it so clearly. Gah, New Viktor was such a riot,” Jayce sat his elbow against the desk and propped his head against his hand, giving Viktor the cheekiest grin. “He even let me tickle him. Can you believe that?”

“I did not let you do anything, don’t go twisting the narrative,” Viktor pointed at Jayce, his face losing the battle against the smile he’s been fighting. “You probably have 100 pounds on me, you practically assaulted a disabled man against his will.”

Jayce ignored him. “If I remember correctly–”

“You don’t remember a thing.”

“-he was very ticklish, even though he tried denying it at first. How silly is that? If you deny it, you know someone’s just gonna try it out and prove you wrong anyway,” Jayce said, before humming in fake contemplation, squinting and tilting his head. “Huh. Are you ticklish, Viktor?”

Viktor tapped his finger against the desk in a steady rhythm, now avoiding eye contact with Jayce. “You are ridiculous. We are grown, and I need to work.”

“Actually, you need to stop working and go to bed,” Jayce stood from his seat and walked to Viktor’s desk (who still refused to meet his gaze), leaning an arm against the top and towering over Viktor. From the new angle, he could see a little blush over Viktor’s face and ears, how he was biting the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling anymore. Cute. “You gonna do that, or am I gonna have to answer my own question since you avoided it.”

Viktor glanced at Jayce with a side-eye. “You know the answer. And you’re being childish. If I wish to work, you cannot force me to stop.”

“Actually,” Jayce grinned, before hooking his fingers under Viktor’s arms (which were so conveniently sat atop the desk, leaving his underarms open and exposed) and digging in, getting an immediate reaction from Viktor who flung his back against the chair and choked down a laugh with the funniest sound. “I think I totally can.”

Viktor squirmed, his good leg digging its heel into the ground as his arms shook against their spot glued tight to his sides. His head was ducked down to hide his face, but he kept making these choked off little sounds like he was trying his hardest not to laugh (even though they both knew how ticklish he was, it was such a useless battle that Jayce’s heart burned in adoration).

“Viktorrrrr,” Jayce sung, his fingertips travelling just a tinge lower to Viktor’s upper ribs, and that’s what did the scientist in. Viktor let out a laugh that sounded like it surprised even himself, before tittering helplessly and falling into a giggle fit he couldn’t fight if he tried. 

“Nohoho! Not again, Jahahayce–!” Viktor shook his head against his laughter, slapping at Jayce’s arm as deeper belly laughs started escaping him. Jayce could almost hear in Viktor’s laughter how he started to feel the helplessness take over, how he couldn’t get out of this if he tried. “Why?!”

“Because I care about you. You need sleep even more than I do, Vik, and you aren’t gonna do it unless I make you,” Jayce said, like he wasn’t tearing Viktor apart beneath him, like Viktor wasn’t coming undone under his fingers and squirming like a worm on a hook. 

Viktor laughed harder at his words, “Cruel!”

Jayce couldn’t help but snicker himself. “Cruel? I’m helping you here. Just tell me you’re gonna go to bed and this is all over!” 

Viktor shook his head, “Let me work! Evil fucking–ggahahaha shihit!” He lost his words as Jayce found his lower ribs right above his sides, Viktor’s hands grasping onto Jayce’s wrists like a lifeline. 

“You are so stubborn,” Jayce chuckled. “I can go all night, y’know. You aren’t winning this.”

“Jdi do píči!” Viktor cursed in his native tongue around his giggles, and Jayce felt himself blush at the sound. Oh, Viktor’s gonna be the death of him.

“Gonna assume none of those words were ‘Yes, Jayce! Of course I’ll go get some well-deserved rest, thank you for helping me!’ Would I be right?”

Viktor didn’t respond, only laughing harder as Jayce slipped his fingers back up into his armpits. His head was thrown back now, and Jayce could see his Adam's apple bobbing through this laughter. His cheeks were flushed, eyes shut tight from the smile searing his face, and god the crinkles his eyes were making just made Jayce’s brain glitch. “C’mon, Vik. I know this is tiring you out.”

“You don’t know shit!” Viktor cackled, clearly confident he could withstand this. Well, at least before Jayce slipped one hand out and started tickling the side of Viktor’s neck and ear. Viktor seemed to stumble over his own laughter, his brain fuzzing around the new sensation as he slipped in and out of belly-laughter and high-pitched giggling. The side of his head slammed against his shoulder to block the sensation, but Jayce’s fingers were already at work, scribbling and scraping against those horribly sensitive spots that Viktor clearly couldn’t stand, if his incessant cursing in another language wasn’t enough to prove it.

“Oh? This a good spot?” Jayce teased, now bringing his other hand into the mix on Viktor’s other side. Viktor’s shoulders completely hunched up, his body so overwhelmed he didn’t know what to do with himself. He doubled over, clutching one arm over his aching belly while the other continued its useless slapping at Jayce’s arm. Jayce chuckled, “What? Does this tickle or something?”

“F-Fucker!” Viktor’s voice wavered, high-pitched and bubbly, before he finally resigned to his fate. “Okay! Okahahay! Bed–! I'll sleheheep!”

“Okaaay, I’ll trust you this time,” Jayce grinned. He stopped the wiggling of his fingers, but poised the tips of his indexes right at the curve of Viktor’s ear. It was a threat, and one that made Viktor titter and squirm and pull at Jayce’s wrists uselessly. “But next time I catch you without sleep for nearly two days like this, I’m not going easy on you.”

Finally, Jayce pulled his hands away, and Viktor slumped against the back of the chair with an exhausted sigh. “Have I ever told you how much I don’t like you.”

Jayce snickered, “Yeah. And I didn’t believe you then either.”

Viktor grinned, wiping a hand down his face. “I knew you’d do that eventually. I couldn’t expect you to find out something like that and not use it against me at some point,” He stood up on wobbly knees, and Jayce quickly handed him the cane that had fallen on the ground during Viktor’s squirming. “Just didn’t expect you to be so cruel about it.”

“Hey I wasn’t cruel–”

“Oh? You weren’t? Torturing a disabled man when he’s running off no sleep for over 48 hours isn’t what you’d call cruel?” Viktor teased, gathering things off his desk to bring home in his bag. 

“Torture?” Jayce’s voice tilted up his grin. “You never even told me to stop.”

Viktor’s hands fumbled and he dropped a few pens. Jayce laughed as he bent down to retrieve them, their hands brushing as he gave them back. Viktor looked like a pouty cat, lips thin in a tight line with squinted eyes. Best of all, his ears were burning.

“It's a little hard to speak when you’re being forced to laugh.”

“But not hard enough you can’t slip in a few curses, right?”

Viktor had no rebuttal to that, merely scoffing like he had no clue what Jayce was talking about as he tossed his bag over his shoulder. “Goodnight, Jayce.”

Jayce watched as Viktor walked toward the door, completely satisfied with himself. He did it. And…it didn’t seem like Viktor even minded that much. In fact…hm. Maybe he’s reading too much into it. There’s no way Viktor liked it as much as Jayce. That’d be crazy.

“And um…” Viktor had the lab door pushed halfway open, stopping himself with his back turned to Jayce as he spoke. “Thank you.”

Jayce just could not help himself. “For tickling you?”

Viktor laughed at Jayce’s gall, “For making me get rest, you bastard,” He glanced over his shoulder to Jayce, who looked over the moon at Viktor’s honesty. “I know I need this, despite how I fight against it. So…though your methods are horrible, and undignified, and childish and stupid, and really show how odd your personality is—”

“Let’s get to thanks, yeah?”

Viktor smiled as he turned back around from Jayce. “...Thank you for looking out for me. I do appreciate the care.”

Jayce wanted to hug Viktor so tight their bodies melded together. Instead, he said, “Anytime. You know that.”

—

Viktor fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. Jayce was right, as much as he hated to admit it. He’d lied when he said it was only two days without sleep. It was probably closer to four. Jayce just didn’t know that because the last time Viktor went home, he’d taken some of their projects and papers with him to work on in his own personal study.

So yes. His rest was needed, or whatever. And he did sleep really, really good. Almost 14 hours completely uninterrupted as he snoozed warm and cozy under the covers.

Only problem was…his mind ran a little rampant in his sleep that night. The events of the night before, with Jayce, and Jayce’s hands, and Jayce’s fingers, and Jayce teasing him so close to his ear he could feel his skin prickle with Jayce’s breath on his neck. All those thoughts that made his belly warm and fluttery were what he fell asleep to that night.

Which led to some…interesting dreams to think about when he woke up that morning.

“Does it tickle worse here? Orrrr here?” 

“Jahahayce! No plehehease!”

“Answer the question, Vik. Your thighs or your hips?”

Jayce’s fingers were pressed deep into both spots, one hand tickling deep into his thigh first, before pausing so his other hand could wreak a similar havoc against Viktor’s hip. The feeling was overwhelming, and Viktor squirmed hard against the weight of Jayce pressed on top of him on the lab couch. Viktor was fully pinned under Jayce, unable to move and only allowed to squirm because Jayce thought it looked pretty when he did it.

“Hihips! Jayce, hips, plehehease!” Viktor wailed, and when Jayce paused, Viktor inhaled like he hadn’t had a good breath in years. His breath was labored, shaky, laced with leftover giggling from Jayce’s attack. 

And Jayce just looked down at him like Viktor hung the moon that lit their lab through the window.

“I love your laugh.”

Viktor squirmed at the praise, shoving Jayce’s face. “Stop.”

“That’s the first time you told me to stop. What, am I embarrassing you?”

“Stop!” Viktor whined, shoving both hands over Jayce’s eyes so he couldn’t look at him in this flustered state. 

But Jayce only chuckled, grabbing Viktor’s wrists and hoisting them up over his head to pin them against the arm of the couch.

“But you like it, don’t you?”

Viktor woke up with a jolt, his eyes wide and breath uneven. 

Shit. Was he actually into this? What the fuck did Jayce do to him.

...

hope u enjoyed! pls consider reblogging if you did <3

[lumosou]

୨୧ — The Harry Potter boys and their Love Languages ( ˆ͈̑꒳ˆ͈̑ )੭ ; 𖦹 + ♡

ꕤ — Characters ; Harry J Potter. Ron Weasley. Fred Weasley. George Weasley. Neville Longbottom. Draco Malfoy. Cedric Diggory.

ꕤ — Discretion ; none!! just fluff and love.

ꕤ — A/n ; eee i’m so sorry for disappearing for a bit ☹️. but i appreciate alll the support u guys have been showing me on all my works!! ily guys!! so here’s a fun lil treat :3 thank u endlessly 🫶🏻

; masterlist.

୨୧ — Harry J. Potter & Acts Of Service.

Harry isn’t good with words—not the ones that matter, anyway. He stumbles, stammers, gets stuck trying to say how he feels. But when it comes to showing you, there’s no hesitation. His love is found in the way he waits outside the library to walk you back to the common room, how he memorizes your favorite tea and makes sure there’s always enough sugar. It’s the way he notices when you’re too tired to finish an essay and stays up scribbling notes for you even though he’s just as exhausted.

He’s the boy who gives pieces of himself quietly, always watching, always finding the small gaps in your day where he can slip in and help without you asking. Because that’s what he needs—to feel like he’s protecting you, even from the smallest inconveniences.

Harry doesn’t say I love you in grand speeches. He says it in the way he fixes your broken quill without telling you, how he gives you the better seat at dinner, how he’d gladly carry your burdens if you let him. To him, love is action—every unspoken I’ll take care of this wrapped in the quiet hope that you’ll understand.

୨୧ — Ron Weasley & Quality Time.

Ron doesn’t need extravagant displays of affection; he just wants you. To be near you, to sit next to you, to share the little pieces of his world that make him who he is. He thrives in your presence, whether it’s laughing over a ridiculous chess match, walking the long way to class just to keep the conversation going, or sitting quietly by the fire while the hours slip by unnoticed.

Time with you is how Ron shows he cares. It’s in the way he always makes room for you—on the couch, in his day, in his life. He’ll wait for you after lessons, save you a seat at every meal, and offer you the last Chocolate Frog without hesitation. He’s happiest when you’re there, no matter what you’re doing, because your company makes everything better.

For Ron, love is in the small, stolen moments. It’s in the way he notices the things you like, the way he teases you just enough to see you smile. He doesn’t need to say it out loud—not when every minute he spends with you is his way of saying, You matter to me.

୨୧ — Fred Weasley & Physical Touch.

Fred speaks in touches—quick, fleeting, and full of mischief. A hand on your shoulder as he sneaks up behind you, a playful nudge of his elbow to make you laugh, the way his arm always ends up slung around your shoulders like it belongs there. He’s tactile in a way that feels effortless, like he can’t help himself when it comes to you.

But then there are the other touches, the ones that mean more than he ever says out loud. His hand brushing yours under the table, his fingers ghosting over your back when you’re standing close, the way he pulls you into a hug that lasts just a second longer than it should. He’s all warmth, all ease, all Fred.

With him, touch is a language of its own. It’s how he shows he’s paying attention, how he steadies you when the world feels too loud, how he reminds you that he’s there—always, without fail. He’ll twirl a strand of your hair around his finger while you’re trying to focus, just to see you roll your eyes, but his thumb will stroke gently over your knuckles when you’re quiet, reminding you that he sees more than you think.

Fred’s love is in the way he’s never far, his presence a constant, reassuring hum. Every touch, whether playful or tender, says what he won’t always put into words: I’m here. I’ve got you. You’re mine.

୨୧ — George Weasley & Acts Of Service.

George loves quietly, but he loves deeply. His affection isn’t loud or flashy—it’s in the little things, the unnoticed gestures that leave no room for doubt. He’ll stay up late helping you finish that essay, even though he’s got his own work waiting for him. He’ll charm the Gryffindor common room fire to burn just a little brighter when you’re cold, or tuck a sweet you love into your bag without a word.

With George, it’s all about thoughtfulness. He pays attention—really pays attention—to the things that make you happy. He knows your favorite snack, your favorite quill, the way you like your tea. He notices when you’ve had a rough day before you even say a word, and his first instinct is to fix it. A joke, a small gift, a ridiculous gesture—it’s all his way of saying, I’m here for you.

But his acts of service aren’t just practical—they’re personal. He’s always finding ways to make your life brighter, softer, more manageable. If you’re overwhelmed, he’ll take something off your plate without you asking. If you’re sad, he’ll make you laugh, even if it means making a fool of himself. And when you ask why he does it, he’ll shrug, his ears pink, and say, “Because I can.”

George’s love is subtle but unwavering. It’s in every thoughtful detail, every small action, every quiet I’ll take care of it that he hopes you’ll notice but never expects you to. It’s the kind of love that doesn’t demand attention—it just is.

୨୧ — Neville Longbottom & Words Of Affirmation.

Neville’s love is soft, steady, and full of reassurance. He’s the boy who sees the best in you, even when you can’t see it yourself. His words are careful, heartfelt, and impossibly earnest—he’ll tell you how brilliant you are after every small success, remind you how brave you are when you’re doubting yourself, and whisper how beautiful you look when you catch him staring.

But Neville’s words aren’t just sweet; they’re intentional. He notices the things you’re insecure about—the things you try to hide—and makes it his mission to remind you of your worth. When you’re frustrated or overwhelmed, he’s the one who tells you, It’s okay. You’ve got this. You’re stronger than you think. He believes in you wholeheartedly, and he’ll never let you forget it.

His love is in the way he writes you little notes when he’s too shy to say things out loud, the way he always manages to find the perfect compliment at the perfect moment. Neville’s words aren’t about flattery—they’re about truth. He means every single one.

With Neville, you never have to wonder how he feels. His words wrap around you like a warm hug, a constant reminder that you’re loved, cherished, and seen. To him, every You’re amazing is another way of saying, I’m so lucky to have you.

୨୧ — Draco Malfoy & Gift Giving.

Draco shows his love in the way he gives—not just things, but pieces of himself. His gifts are thoughtful, deliberate, and so carefully chosen that you can’t help but feel how much he pays attention. A rare book he tracked down because you mentioned it once, your favorite sweets neatly wrapped and waiting for you after a hard day, or an heirloom quill with a note that simply says, It reminded me of you.

It’s never about the price, though he pretends it is. He’ll roll his eyes and call it no big deal, but the way he watches your reaction gives him away every time. Because it isn’t just a gift—it’s his way of saying, I see you. I notice what makes you happy. I care.

But it’s not all material. Draco gives his time, his attention, his loyalty. He’s there when you need him, even if he doesn’t know what to say. He shows up with a coffee you didn’t ask for or slips a note into your bag that reads, Don’t forget how brilliant you are. It’s in the way he lends you his scarf when you’re cold or makes sure your favorite seat by the fire is saved.

Draco’s love is in the details, the way he always finds the perfect thing to remind you how much you mean to him. He doesn’t say I love you easily, but his gifts? They say it for him. Quietly, fiercely, and completely.

୨୧ — Cedric Diggory & Physical Touch.

Cedric’s love is quiet, steady, and impossibly warm, and it shows in the way he touches you. It’s never demanding, always gentle—a hand at the small of your back as you walk through the halls, his fingers brushing yours under the table, or the way his arm wraps around your shoulders without hesitation when you’re cold. With Cedric, touch isn’t just comfort; it’s a promise: I’m here, I’ve got you.

He’s affectionate in ways that feel effortless. He’ll press a kiss to your temple when no one’s looking, or pull you into a hug so tight it feels like he’s shielding you from the world. When you’re upset, his thumb traces slow circles over the back of your hand, grounding you. And when words fail, it’s his touch that reassures you—light, familiar, unshakable.

But it’s the little moments that matter most. The way he reaches for you instinctively, his fingers intertwining with yours like they belong there. The way his forehead leans against yours in quiet moments, his breath mingling with yours in a silent exchange of you’re everything to me. Cedric doesn’t just touch you; he anchors you.

To him, love is closeness. It’s the warmth of his body against yours, the feel of his hand in yours, and the way he’s always, always pulling you closer—because with you, he’s home.

﹙@ 𝗹𝘂𝗺𝗼𝘀𝗼𝘂 ﹚

[ladybirdswritings]

SWEET THING, DBF — joel miller x reader.

DESCRIPTION: your life is a storm—an overbearing father, a shitty boyfriend, and the ache of growing up. everything becomes more tangled when you find yourself drawn to your father’s best friend, joel. NOTES - finally, part two. leave me all your thoughts and opinions. i love them <33 | prev part ; next part

two;

“Put your seatbelt on, Y/N.”

His voice was gruff—tired from overuse, nearly ready to silence entirely. A rich, southern rasp that sent chills down anyone’s spine, yours included. You obeyed without hesitation.

“Thank you for this…” was all you managed in a whisper while locking the metal into place—trapped.

You didn’t know your daddy’s friend too well, but you knew enough. Most people avoided him, whether it was the constant scowl etched on his face or those dark eyes that seemed to scream threats his quiet mouth never voiced. Everything about him made people stiffen, their bodies rigid as old boards.

He only hummed, his eyes fixed on the road, his jaw ticking as he navigated toward the party nearby.

“A left here,” you offered, leaning forward and pointing just past his line of sight.

When he breathed, the scent of honey and jasmine flowers on your skin clung to the air between you. His jaw locked tighter.

You knew you looked every bit the spoiled, overprotected little princess your daddy raised you to be. Skipping Jackson’s town dance to attend some trashy house party hosted by your boyfriend wasn’t exactly subtle rebellion, but you didn’t care.

Where your father insisted on preserving the innocence of your youth, you argued you’d only get to be young once. Only get to date questionable men, drink questionable drinks, and laugh about it later one time in your whole life.

Naive? Sure. But you didn’t know that.

Joel didn’t wait for you to notice he’d parked before snaking a firm arm across the console. His calloused fingers brushed the hem of your denim-clad thigh. Your heart stuttered, your eyes widening as his glare burned into you.

So close.

And then, the seatbelt clicked.

You exhaled shakily, a smile tugging at your lips as you reached for the door. But before you could escape, his rough fingers caught your chin, tugging your face back until you were forced to meet his eyes.

Dark, chocolate eyes.

“You’re real lucky tonight, sweetpea. Now don’t go in there and make me look like a fool to yer’ daddy. You drink responsibly, and you don’t touch a blunt in sight—understand?”

You gulped, cheeks burning tomato red. Wide-eyed and frozen, you nodded. You were nothing more than a fish caught in the hands of a cold fisherman, your pretty face cradled between his calloused palms.

“What, you think I’m stupid? Think I don’t know what’s gonna go on the second you walk that purtie lil’ ass inside?”

His voice was sharp, and you stammered, blinking up at him as your breath hitched. He knew. Of course, he knew. He was young once, too.

“I’ll be responsible, Mr. Miller—sir,” you lied through your teeth, the sweetness in your voice a thin disguise.

A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, and a deep, gravelly laugh escaped him.

“Oh, sure you will, sweetpea.”

Satisfied he’d issued a proper warning, he released you. But before you could scramble away, he added, “Go on and behave, and I might just convince your daddy to let you live a little more often.”

Hope bloomed in your chest like wisteria tangling with your rapid heart. If Joel vouched for you, maybe daddy would ease up.

A plan solidified in your head. All you had to do was be good.

You could do that! Easy, just be good.

Step one? Sweeten him up.

“You’re a peach, Mr. Miller,” you chirped, leaning forward to press a kiss to his stubbled cheek.

You lingered a moment longer than you should have.

Where Jesse smelled of beer, snow, and fresh spices, Joel smelled of whiskey, cedar, and leather. Of hard work and blood-stained hands.

Joel noticed the pause, and slowly, his head turned. Just an inch closer, and his lips could press right against yours.

The thought made your eyes widen.

What was wrong with you? He was doing you a favor, and here you were imagining how his scowling lips might feel against yours. How his tongue—experienced, confident—might tease the roof of your mouth, trail down your neck…

He peered at you through bourbon lashes.

“That business doesn’t work on me, sweetpea…” he started, freeing a hand so to tuck a stray ringlet of your untamed waves behind your ear. You inhaled sharply.

“You gon’ be good?” His voice was low, a tickling whisper that sent warmth flooding through your body.

“I am,” you promised, your teeth betraying the truth behind your pretty smile.

He nodded once. “Go on, then. I’ll be parked out front. Holler if you need me.”

His knuckles whitened on the steering wheel as you slipped out, your heart racing with every intrusive thought lingering in your head.

Maybe you were ovulating. Or maybe you were a basket case.

You shook your head. Jesse. Jesse. Jesse. Your boyfriend—Jesse.

With that, you slammed the Chevy door and hurried toward the party.

•••

Big. Fucking. Mistake.

As soon as the scent of weed and tequila hit your senses, you grinned. A tiny buzz wouldn’t be too hard to hide from Joel.

One shot here. Another there. You inched closer to Jesse, ready to surprise him.

And you did.

“Y/N!”

There he was, wide-eyed and guilty, his lips swollen from Abby’s kiss.

Tight, toned Abby.

They were tucked in a corner, her lips lazily trailing his throat. The sight made your knees wobble. When Jesse saw you, he jerked away, but the damage was done.

Abby’s hands shot up as though she were innocent, and it took all your strength not to lunge for the bitch.

“Baby—” Jesse started, but your throat tightened, hot tears threatening to spill.

You remembered how he admired your strength back in high school. When you were nerdy and unimportant — only glanced at after the tragic death of your mother. Everyone else pitied you. Jesse was different. He’d whispered sweet words to you after your mother passed, he’d made you less… stuck-up; convinced you that tequila could numb the pain. God, it did.

“Y’know, you’re a real tough girl to show up every day with your head high after everything that’s happened…”

“Sip this— baby. all those thoughts about your mom will go away…” he’d whispered once, tipping vodka onto your tongue. He had lost his mom, too. He knew how to stop the agony.

And now? He was the one causing it.

“Fuck you, Jesse. We’re done,” you snapped, your voice cracking despite your best efforts to sound strong.

You turned to leave, but Abby’s smug voice stopped you cold.

“Don’t know why you’re so pressed, princess. I dig chicks too. You could’ve joined us.”

You saw red.

Before you knew it, your ringed fist collided with her chiseled jaw.

Gasps echoed as she stumbled back into the crowd, her wide eyes meeting yours. Jesse grabbed your wrists, but you yanked them free.

“Stay the fuck away from me!”

And just like that, you stormed out, leaving the crowd and your dignity behind.

This wasn’t how your night was supposed to go.

But instead of sulking to Joel’s truck, you vowed to drown your sorrows in tequila until the world stopped spinning.

Oh yeah, that’s exactly what you intended to do.

[hyukascampfire]

𝑯EART 𝑊ORM ⸺ hueningkai ℘˒´ˎ˗

  ⨾𓍢ִ໋ ˒˒ 𝚑𝔢art𝚠𝔬rm

[𝑛]. a relationship or friendship that you can't get out of your head, which you thought had faded long ago but is still somehow alive and unfinished, like an abandoned campsite whose smoldering embers still have the power to start a forest fire.

⸺ listen to the playlist .ᐟ ‧˚

〝﹙ 📼 ﹚“I was just... wondering,” you say, blood roaring. "Well, Yeonjun wants me to come over to his place this weekend, and... I’ve never...” Sucking in a quick breath, you just spit it out to get it over with, “Would you be my first kiss, Kai?”  ˛ ､､

wc ➛ 17.9k

𝔭airings childhood bsf!kai x reader (lowkey soulmates?) ⤷ ft. asshole!yeonjun x reader

𝒢 ‎; smut ˒ angst ˒ some fantasy

𝔴arnings angst, family issues, fingering, jealousy (i’m sorry i just love ts), yeonjun really is an asshole, orgasm denial, thigh fucking, unprotected sex (they're stupid!), strength kink a lil bit, breeding kink, possessiveness, creampie, choking... i think that's all, lmk if i missed any

✎୭ ashlynn's note omg. this was such a fun palate cleanser to write. this wasn't supposed to be as big as it is, but it just kept getting bigger and bigger, and i got super into the story. this kai is SOOOO!! yeah. i’m so nervous posting this because i’ve only ever posted TSFAWC, but…. here you areee (^^;; this is not proofread, so if you see a mistake... give me a sec. i'll get to it. hehe

Though you fan your hand furiously over your face, the little breezes washing over your clammy skin are not enough. The air is thick and heavy with summer’s heat. So thick that you almost feel it each time you swallow. It’s better than just letting yourself melt away, though. The cushion at your back doesn’t help much. It holds your warmth and returns it to you the longer you sit slumped back into it. You suffer it though—you’ve gone too sluggish to move.  

You let a leg dangle over the arm of a chair, watching a hopeful moth dance in the light of the buzzing porch light overhead. It flutters frantically in it, making a grand fight to reach that false moonlight, only to drop away when it realizes that it’s being burnt. You watch it rinse and repeat, relentless and sure, for who knows how long. It’s no special moth—no luna moth or the ones with the pretty pink wings—but the light falls down on it and colors it a pleasant stardust silver.  

You delight in letting your conscious brain turn off to watch it. It lets you forget the sweltering under your skin, and also that Kai had drug you out here. His dad gives him shit when he plays inside, but it’s way too hot to be out here. Isn’t it supposed to cool off after the sun goes down? It doesn’t feel like it. The deep acoustics are drowned out each time a car whirrs by. Playing outside should be the best option, but you and Kai live right on a busy road.  

When the roar of some car going ten miles over the speed limit doesn’t obscure his playing, though, you admire the intricacy of it. His fingers work up and down the neck, jumping frets that you imagine would be impossible to anybody without those long fingers of his. You had always been a loud supporter of his playing, even way back when the most he could play were simple chords, but you became especially so when a few years back he put a guitar in your hands and tried teaching you. Even with his fingers guiding yours, it was quick to learn that the effortlessness with which Kai handles the instrument is hard earned.  

He practices on the acoustic guitar, but that’s not his domain. With houses just a dash across the street from each other, Kai had grown up at your home more than he had at his own. So vividly, you remember the stars in his eyes when he’d listen to your dad’s music. Metallica, The Smashing Pumpkins, Linkin Park, any of it. He had fallen in love with it a long time ago. Your whole life you knew that it was only a matter of time before he was in his own band, chasing his dreams with a boundless mind and an indelible vision of himself on stage. How had that time come so soon, though? You don’t know if the notebooks full of inky lyrics that live wherever he deems inspiration might hit him make you proud or nervous. He’s making good on his dazzling aspirations, and you? 

You speak finally into the air, cutting through heat waves and his music and the night. “Isn’t it weird that we’re not going back to school after this summer?” 

He doesn’t have to even stop playing to answer you. Playing comes to him as a second nature. “Kinda,” he answers, brown eyes flitting up to you. “But it’s not like you won’t be back to it in September. College is the same shit.” 

The leg you’d been dangling and bouncing pauses. That’s right; you’re supposed to be going to that college you’d chosen because it was only a three-hour drive away from here. You pluck at the seat’s threadbare fabric, and the moth, still there, becomes oh-so-interesting once again. When his playing stops, you drop your head back with a cushioned thud and a groan that you wrangle in your throat. 

“Why are you acting like that?” he says, voice gone sharp like accusation. He doesn’t even know the truth, but he’s known you too long.

Can’t you just keep secrets for yourself, sometimes?

Kai, arms clad in a well-loved hoodie even in this dreadful weather, lays the guitar down. You maintain your silence. “Seriously, what?” 

Some secrets have timers, though. This one could only last you until about September, or even August when he realizes that you’re not preparing to return to school. A controlled sigh from your chest isn’t enough to soothe the nerves that sparks. “Nothing.” 

“Secrets, huh?” Kai says. When you do finally look to him, black spikes of hair frame his eyes and the accusation in them. 

It’s a simple poke, but it gets under your skin as sharp as any thorn might. It’s not like you don’t keep secrets from him, and you’re sure he keeps some from you too. But those are the little kinds, the inconsequential ones—like I ate already when asked why you’re not eating or like Yeah, I’m fine when it’s been a bad day. You don’t hide this kind of stuff from each other. Usually, you’d run over to his place to tell him whatever’s bothering you. Why not, when he’s known even the worst details of your life for almost the entirety of it? You’ve been holding this one close to your chest since somewhere around the end of senior year, though. The longer you let it fester, the worse your nervousness snowballs. “C’mon, Kai. Let’s not do this. Can you keep playing?” 

He doesn’t like that, of course. But you watch recognition dawn over his chocolate brown eyes, helpless to stop it. “You’re not going,” he says. It’s not a question nor a suspicion, it’s a bone-dry fact.  

Well. There that goes. You want to tear every hair on your head right out. Why had you even thought you’d keep him in the dark about it? When he’s not out in some garage making music, you two are together. The conversation was going to stroll by at some point; this was only inevitable. His disappointment radiates off him in waves and blisters you. He hasn’t even said anything yet, but you know exactly what he thinks of it. It’s why you kept it from him in the first place.  

Your silence is enough confirmation for him. “Why?” he says. “I thought you were excited to move out.” 

Wincing, you nod slowly. You were. Even went through the whole application process, along with most other kids your age. Ultimately, you never went through with declaring a college. You don’t exactly know why, but somewhere weaseled down in the shadowy recesses of your soul, you know. Taking those steps, the massive and terrifying ones from adolescence into adulthood, meant agreeing that this form of your life was over. It meant that at some point, you’d be moving away from here to where living your days away in Kai’s room would not be a choice. Everybody has to do it eventually, you know that. Kai’s music gig could take off any day, too. He’s going to make it happen. And then what? All this stalling and wishing on just a bit more time would mean nothing, he’d be off and chasing that dream. As excited as you are for it to finally become reality for him, there’s a nasty bitterness that’s budded in your chest, infecting your person.  

Can’t things just stay like this? 

“I was,” you say. It comes out of your mouth heavy.  

“Then why aren’t you going?” he says. Crickets, never seen but always heard, sing their song into the night’s darkness. “You didn’t get rejected. You’re too smart for that.” 

An ache sits heavily somewhere near the center of your chest, maybe over your heart. All those good grades, nights spent bent over a desk and AP paperwork—you’re wasting it. You shake your head. “No... just...” It’s an effort to dress your thoughts in a way that might appease him. A quiet moment stretches with your thinking before you continue, “I don’t know what I want to do.” 

He doesn’t like that, the yellow wash of the overhead light dancing over his taut lips and hard eyes. “Don’t know what you want to do?” he says, bringing his legs up onto the seat to crisscross them. He wears his favorite jeans. They’re heel-bitten and baggy enough over his legs that he can wear them around the house without any bother. “You’ve wanted to be an artist your whole life. You know exactly what you want to do.” 

Your chest only seems to ache harder. When the both of you were only young and hopeful, you both had big dreams. Kai was going to be the face of a metal band, and you were going to be an artist. A painter, potter, sculptor, even doing animation for those big companies like Dreamworks and Disney. You wanted any of it, just as long as you were doing art. You’d even promised him that you’d do the cover art for his albums with interlocked pinkies and flushed, hopeful cheeks. That passion and love wasn’t gone from you, it blazed strong in your veins. This blaze wasn’t the kind that kept you warm and excited to push forward into life, though. It had morphed into something that scalded you when you got too close or started imagining yourself pursuing its call. It’s a taunting silvery glow, no longer a guiding north star. Taunting words of family members stamped down on that hope hard. When you were little, it was said lighthearted and in passing. The older you got, though, the more serious their faces became. They wouldn’t say it outright perhaps, but you hear what they think well enough. Art is a dead-end career.  

Shifting in your seat, you tell him, “I don’t know.” 

“What do you mean?” Kai says. “There are good colleges for that.” 

“I just... don’t know.” 

Shaking his head, he tells you, “But you love it.” 

You do. In its every form, you love creating. But loving it doesn’t mean that it’s right for you, or that you should trust your future in its hands. “I think I can do it in my own time,” you say, finally pushing yourself upright from the cushion. “Don’t wanna kill the passion by doing it for a living, you know?” 

He thinks on that for a moment. “If you love it, you should do it,” he says. 

An awful frustration bubbles in your chest. Kai has always had a clear life path, the steps ahead of him set in stone and waiting for him to follow in them. It’s hard for him to see why you might not want to do the same. There’s nothing that makes you as happy as the fact that he has it all figured out, that he knows just where he’s going and that he’s so incredible at it that he doesn’t have to worry about meeting the requirements, but your path seems obscured and untrodden. Punctuating a deep, resonant sigh, you say, “It’s not that easy, Kai.” 

“If you’re not doing that, then what are you going to do? Are you just going to settle for a nine-to-five?” he says full of accusation, the tapping on his knees gone still.  

A dry laugh, you say, “Maybe I’ll marry a super rich guy and just do my art for a living. No nine-to-five.” 

His face flashes. He’d always been a bit reserved, especially around others, but he bared his emotions freely around you. You hold them dearly to your chest and made sure to do your best to make good on that trust. He says, “You’re more than some guy’s housewife.” 

Cheeks radiating in the heat, you snort. “I know, dork. I’m a rockstar’s best friend. It’s my personal favorite achievement.”  

His face sours when you reach out and pinch hard at his cheek, but he doesn’t pull away or brush you off. The skin there is warmed and clammy. Really, the two of you should go meet the cool AC inside before you suffer heat stroke. But this moment feels so nice—your shoulders feel tons lighter without something to hide. If you had it your way, things would stay like this forever. Just the two of you, sat here like you have so many times before, just taking for granted the time you’ve got together.  

His mouth opens to banter, probably something about how he’s not a rockstar yet or to get you back for calling him a dork. Wingbeat and sterling dashes about your face send the image into a blur, though. You’re a quick mess of limbs and a whipping head, as if it’ll chase the thing away from you. 

“Seriously?” Kai says. You’d climbed halfway over him, elbows digging into him and knee doing a number on his thigh. “It’s a moth. You’re not scared of moths.” 

Lingering for a few moments later to ensure the flying thing was nowhere on you or around you, you hold back a laugh before you climb off him and fix your hair with undignified tucks behind your ears. “He was in my face,” you say around a laugh, because you know it was a bit too much. Nobody likes wings in their ears and spindly legs in their face, though, and you’re in no control of what you do when anything with six legs tries and get too friendly. Even moths.  

“You just wanted me to protect you,” he says. A sarcastic, shit-eating smile tugs at the corners of his mouth.  

“Oh,” you scoff, batting your eyelashes and clasping your hands together all saccharine-sweet. “Yes, Romeo, won’t you kill that bug for me? This girl’s heart just can’t take it!” 

Kai’s nose crinkles, and the playful light twists into a glare. “Nasty.” 

“That’s how you sounded,” you say. “I only reacted accordingly.” Laughing, you kick your legs out over his lap and sprawl back out. He takes the guitar back into his hands. 

As much as you want to escape the mugginess, you’ll survive it for just a little while longer—if only with the force of an indulgent heart. The eternal moments are those you allow to linger.  

⚝⭒ 

Some things, you forget when you’re older. Maybe it’s time’s hand, eroding memories down and stuffing more in the longer you live to experience them. But also maybe because they’re the sort of things you can’t say in the adult world without a laugh in the face and a look from down their noses.  

This memory is one of those forgotten things. It’s moth-bitten and dusty, something you one day folded up in a moving box and decided to never revisit. 

You’d been down at the creek. Kai and you had spent so many summer days there. It wasn’t too far from home, just past the filbert trees and into the shallow neck of the backwoods, but there you were out of sight and free to get up to nothing good. It was a wonder your mom ever let you do it. Kai’s dad didn’t care too much where he went or what he did, but your mom dug her claws in deep. You like to think that she imagined you two would have each other, if anything ever happened. 

Usually, you’d be there holding your jeans up from the stream and Kai would be letting his jeans go dark with it. The bite of water was nice as it washed over warm skin. Fun was a simple thing to find, then. You dug your fingers into the mudbanks and tossed stones way too big to be throwing at each other, just because you two remembered how much the adults hated it when you did. Then, you’d drag tired limbs home avoiding sweetgum tree spikes that had fallen to the ground and dug splinters out from your feet.  

This day, you had been in the blackberry bushes. It was maybe late July or early August, and they’d gotten heavy on their branches. You’d waited until the smell of them, summer-warmed, was sweet and cloying in the air to pick them. With buckets in your hands, you plucked only the fattest berries from their bunches. Your fingers were stained a delightful purple and perhaps a bit thorn raw, but you didn’t mind much then. You plucked for hours, and it was dusk before you could catch it. Dinner was no doubt waiting for you back home. 

“There’s a bunch over here,” Kai had said. He reached a long boyish arm, still awkward and lanky with puberty, up high for ripe bush. You finished off picking before climbing around thick branches sticking out to take a peek. A bunch, there was. 

When you went to drop a handful of them into your bucket, Kai hissed. He’d been snagged by a vicious looking branch, those ones as thick as a finger with thorns to match and you’d warn each other tongue-in-cheek to watch out for that one. He’d worn those ridiculous shorts that day, the ones that looked half pants half shorts with how long and baggy they were, and the claws of the bush had jumped at the opportunity. At first the scrapes were white, but then red blood crawled out and down his leg.  

“Kai,” you said, some parts chiding and some parts just wondering how he’d managed that. You surveyed his leg for a bit, and then determined that he should wash his leg off in the stream. He walked there strong, but of course you noticed the hobble beneath his acting. When you squatted down into the dry grass and cupped water to wash off his leg, you laughed. 

“What?” he had said, holding the shorts up. You covered your laugh with a hand, but it erupted past your palm. You remember the glare on his face very well.  

You still laughed. “You’re stupid,” you had told him. 

“I didn’t see it,” he said. “I tripped over it because it was sticking out.” 

That time when you brought your hands to catch some water, there was a twinkle in its surface. You didn’t notice it for a second. The creek moved fast and you could see a lot of things in its reflection. When it lingered, that’s when your brows furrowed. It seemed to twirl, dancing around like alive over the stones. 

The sound of Kai’s voice remains with you. “Hey,” he had said, strong to call your attention but also wavered with uncertainty. 

When you looked up, there was silver dust dancing around you. 

It was fluffy and whorling, fine silver stardust. It’d moved weightless in the air, as though it barely existed. In the center of it were a few moths. They seemed to be made of sterling powder just as the dust was, and they glowed against dusk’s backdrop. If your memory serves you right, there had been a sweet hymn of coos from them. They beckoned you. Summer’s heat felt lighter, and so did your chest. You wondered where they had wanted you to go. 

Almost afraid that if you spoke they might have fluttered away, you whispered soft and low to Kai. “What is that?” He was stood frozen there, pant leg still scrunched up in his fist. Stardust glowed soft in his brown eyes while he took it all in, you remember. It wasn’t a scared frozen. You weren’t scared, either—rather, it was as if that lightness had found its way into the core of your being and brushed over it with mending hands. 

He whispered back, “I don’t know.” How could he have known? It was absurd. 

Those whisps had beckoned you, flowing toward the deeper woods. The soft moths, their murmuring brushing up against your ears, seemed to wait for you to follow. You remember a pull, soft tendrils wrapping themselves around your heart and the yearning it planted there.  

But there was also this reluctance, a bone-deep answering that had told you: No. You’re not ready. 

“Kai, I wanna go,” you told him. 

You didn’t even need to tell him twice. Berry buckets forgotten; the journey home was a stranger one. When your dad asked why you returned from berry picking emptier handed than you had left the house, Kai and you only shared a look. You pair kept that evening at the creek hidden so well that it became more forgotten than shared secret.  

⚝⭒ 

Once, you had been the type of girl that loved being around family. Some of your favorite days of your life were spent in this living room, T.V. roaring over bouncing conversation. Some of those nights ended in rosy cheeks and laughs, and some ended with words thrown angry like fireworks. You never knew which you’d be getting, but you endured the fear of not knowing because it was a simple love—the basic kind built with biology into you the moment your infant skin touched your mother’s. You endured it because eventually, sleep washed away the bad taste left in your mouth and you forgave them quick, sometimes quicker than you ought to, and things would go on as if it hadn’t even happened. You endured it because you could handle its burden, if only to feel the warmth you feel when it’s a good day.  

Kai was always there—his dad was hardly home, so he found family in yours. When you were younger, you’d been embarrassed he was there for caustic, spitted words and intimate fights. Now, you’re just grateful for his shoulder.  

So, yes. Once, you had loved being around your family. But things feel tenser now, nights spent all together less frequent and when they do happen, they’re tainted by a strange air. You think that this strangeness is new, but an awful worry also makes you think that it’d always been there, that you only feel it now because you’ve grown into your adult mind. A hollow ache stakes its claim in your chest, declaring that it won’t leave until you find that youthful ignorance and joy once more. You think that it might stay there forever. 

Bare feet bounding down the stairs, you make a rare appearance downstairs. The cupboard is only half open to make way for a snack raid before your mom’s voice cuts through the air. You know quickly just by the look on her face that you should’ve stayed upstairs. 

“Hey,” she says, gathering laundry into a basket. “You’ve been applying to jobs?” 

With an anxious belly, you tell her, “Yeah. A few. They’re not really, like, ideal, but I sent applications.” You don’t remember when it got hard to look into your mother’s eyes, but you can’t bring yourself to do so now.  

“Not ideal?” she says. “It’s not like you can be picky. Mcdonalds or wherever, I don’t care, you’re going to need to get a job if you’re staying here.” 

“I know. I applied,” you reiterate around a mumble. You close the cabinets, not so interested in a snack anymore. “I just... I don’t know, ma. I don’t want to do that for a living, going between those sorts of jobs.” 

Face hard and abrasive against the truth you bare, she does that awful taunting smile that makes you feel small. Stupid. “You’re not going to college, so that’s what it’s gonna be. You can’t sit up there and draw for a living. You’ve gotta get into the real world, get some real experience.”  

There’s a burst of hurt in your chest, dazzling and gnawing. She’s getting closer to saying how she really feels about your dreams out loud every day. Your face burns and so do your eyes, knot thick in your throat. “Yeah, okay. Got it,” you say, nodding. You’re at the front door before you even know it, slipping on shoes and fighting the greatest internal battle to will back tears. She’d use those against you, no doubt about it. “I’m going to Kai’s,” you throw over your shoulder.  

Whatever she barks back at you, you’re glad you don’t hear. Bells on some old Christmas decoration hung on the door that had yet to be taken down, even into summer, jingle and wash it away for you. 

Kai’s brows shoot up when he opens the door to your face crumpling. You’d done so well at damming it up, but the wall cracks and the water crashes through once you see him. If it were anybody else, you’d feel icky and attention seeking, but you’d held Kai to your chest through gut-wrenching sobs as much as he’s done it for you. Without question, he takes you into his arms, warm hand running up and down your back. The warm soothing is so familiar. You melt right into it.  

He keeps you there for a long moment. Then, his chest rumbles as he tells you, “Come on.” The walk through the AC to his bedroom is nice. Having a house like Kai’s to come to where it can just be you is nice, too. You step around the mess of clothes and scattered belongings on his floor like you have a muscle-memory roadmap of his room. Boxsprings creak and hard mattress welcome you back home. His room is dark as always, a night-dweller you call him. The array of peeling band posters plastered over walls you two had painted blue some years ago, when it’d been his favorite color, don’t help to lighten it up. He keeps a low lamplight on.  

“She never listens to me,” you say, crying gone to occasional sniffles from your chest. You rest your cheek on your bent knee. 

“I know,” he says. “But at least she cares about you. Pays attention to you.” His voice is soft and deep and right next to you. Always right next to you, there for you even when you might not appreciate it as you should.  

His dad cares too little what he does, and yours care too much. The grass is always greener on the other side, you know it. Still, you hold a fantasy where you’re able to do teenager stuff. Where you’d allow yourself to do bad things, because you weren’t so intent on painting yourself with their will. You two hold eyes for a long moment, your twinkling ones caught in that steady brown. “I just want to get away. Be my own person.” Your words are muffled in the softness of your skin. 

“You had the chance to do it,” Kai says, hand playing with your fingers. “But you didn’t.” 

Holding your legs closer, you lick your lips. What do you say to that? Would it ever be the time to tell him that you did it because you think that your soul is pathetically intertwined with his, and that it might snuff your lifeforce out to even try pursuing life without him? Without this? How do you tell him that you’re so frozen and unwilling to pursue any sort of future because it means accepting that this chapter is over? You clutch childhood to your chest like a wild animal guarding scarce food; you refuse. You refuse to acknowledge its end.  

“Kai,” is all you say, trembled and thick. It’s not just your mother’s words that dig at you and tear to shreds the last bits of what dreaming you had left in you, but so many other reality checks too. This isn’t the first time you’ve heard those sorts of words, urging you forward. You can only dig your heel into the ground for so long before you’re swept away in time’s ruthless, endless moving.  

He understands. Lifting your face with warm fingers against your cheeks, he says, “Hey. How about we go get ice cream, or something?” 

Ice cream does sound nice. “Dairy Queen?” 

Smirk tugged over his mouth, he says, “Yes, Dairy Queen. A blizzard. C’mon, let’s go.” Sliding off the bed, he offers you an urging hand up. 

But you falter. “I don’t know if we can. She’s mad at me. I don’t think she’ll let me go.” 

“Let you go?” he says, eyes narrowed. “She doesn’t have to let you go. You’re an adult now, you go if you want to.” He offers his hand to you again. 

It’s so him, freely going wherever he ordain it. The bullheadedness is very him, as well. Always the devil on your shoulder, he was the root of any rebellious thing you’ve ever done. He could never understand your apprehension, or why getting in trouble was such an awful thing to you. “I have to ask to get money.” 

Brows pinching, he says, “You think I’m not gonna pay for you? You don’t need them to give you money, I’ll pay. I’ll take care of it.” He drags you up from the bed this time. “Live a little. Do you want to go?” 

It was never the punishments or the getting in trouble that you were scared of, though. Disappointment was a scarier word than grounded. Sneaking out and those sorts of things, it’s not like you had angel wings at your back and never considered them. It’s that you are deeply, utterly terrified of changing how they look at you. You begin to tell him, “I do, but—” 

He cuts you off, adamant. “Then do it. Let’s go. If you want to go, then go,” he says. “At some point, your life needs to become your own. It’s not sneaking out when you’re graduated and eighteen years old, it’s going wherever the hell you want. You’ve... You’re gonna end up stuck here, in this town, forever. You don’t deserve that.” 

That sounds like both the best and the worst thing you’ve ever heard. You take his hand.  

⚝⭒ 

Your frozen fingers nurse your ice cream. The cup itself is cold, but the Dairy Queen on your side of town is always thirty degrees below what it should be. It’d always been that way. Even way back when you two couldn’t drive, you’d get dropped off here to escape the melting weather and get a frozen treat with a handful of dollars. Each time, you’d start off sagging with the relief of summer’s weight off your shoulders and left the place shivering and sugar-mouthed.  

It’s really only you two in here. You crinkle your nose when he takes a spoonful. “Out of all the flavors...” 

Unbothered and no doubt expecting you to say it, he offers you a flat, “You get your flavor, I get mine.” He makes a point of taking an extra-long bite. His lips linger around the red plastic of the spoon and his brows rest high in silent challenge.  

The corners of your lips twitch up. “Hmm. Well. I just have a hard time believing that Oreo... or, like, brownie fudge, is right there, and you actually want M&M. I don’t get how M&M your favorite.” A familiar banter falls over your tongues. Your heart buzzes and your cheeks radiate. This is the first you’ve done this all summer, and it’ll be weaning off into fall soon. Any other summer, you would’ve been here on all the hottest days. You hate that Kai’s been so busy with his music; you hate that you can hear the resounding ticks of the clock counting down your time. You also hate that the stubborn depths of you still believe that if you freeze yourself here in stasis that the world will relent and stop along with you. 

You look over the sharp lines of Kai’s jawline as it feathers with his chewing, and the broadness of his shoulders where his jacket stretches around it, and the starkness of his collarbones against his chest and the bobbing of his adam’s apple when he swallows. No, time doesn’t stop. Some of him remains the same, though. In it, you see the boy that had love creeping up on you so long ago, with all its aching and all its hope. That freckle on the column of his neck, the bump in his nose leading down to the button tip that beckons your lips to steal a quick kiss.  

And, those lips. They’re as soft as ever around the discontented grimace he pulls. “M&M isn’t my favorite.” 

With a pursed mouth and patronizing brows arched over your eyes, you say, “Oh, huh. That’s funny, because if my memory serves me right, it’s the only flavor you’ve ordered for the past... six years.”  

Kai husks a laugh at that. “That’s because they haven’t had my favorite for years,” he tells you, scooping up the final bit and then pushing it off to the side. “It was a blizzard of the month that they discontinued. The blackberry cheesecake one. I made peace with it, though. It lives on in my heart.” He grins, arms crossed over his chest and his back settled into the booth seat to let you finish your cup.  

“Blackberry cheesecake,” you say, voice made taunting. Your nod is slow and taunting, too. “Well, forget M&Ms. Why would blackberry cheesecake be your favorite? Ever?” 

His face falters, a moment where something flows over his eyes as if reliving a memory in a few short seconds. Then, he shrugs. “It just is.” 

You roll your eyes. “Whatever,” you laugh. “Maybe my palate is unrefined.” Imagining the tarte fruit in purple swirls of ice cream, you’re taken back to a humid July day and the scent of churned mud.  

The strange memory unfolds itself quick. As if it were waiting for you to find wherever it’d hidden itself away. With a sharp gasp, you say, “Oh my god, Kai. Do you remember that one day? That weird stuff we saw down at the creek?” 

He nods. “Yeah. I was just thinking of that the other day, actually...” 

Less interested in finishing your cup now, you let the spoon rest. “What?” you say, the word peaking in the middle. That day hadn’t crossed your mind once since it’d happened. “How weird is that?” 

Scoffing a laugh, he says, “Weird, yeah. Just as strange as two kids high on fermented berries.” 

That draws a breathy laugh from you. “Is that what you think it was?” you ask him with knitted brows. The berries had been fresh, and you two had popped plenty into your mouth. But no doubt, you’d have spat them right back out if they were that ripe. “I mean, we saw the same thing.” 

“It happens to animals all the time. Squirrells, and stuff.” He lends you a gallic shrug. “We just freaked ourselves out. Like that one time you said you saw the shape of something in the dark and we freaked out. And it was clothes.”  

Well, hallucinating, in tandem, a glowing mist because you two by chance ate fermented berries is a very long shot. However nonchalant he acts about it, he seems to have thought long and hard about it. Enough to reason it away with some far cry explanation. Would you have even been able to get drunk off a handful of fermented berries? And, god, you’re really sure that you’d have noticed. That taste isn’t really one you just don’t notice.  

Whatever. Maybe you were just drunk idiots. That’s a lot easier to swallow, anyway. 

“Okay, but you saw that. Did it not look sinister?” you say. With your spoon back in your hand, you punctuate the sentence pointing it at him. “You freaked out with me, too.”  

An unsatisfied scowl on his lips, he steals a spoonful of your dessert. You don’t even swat him away—your phone buzzes in your pocket. 

Catching sight of who’s calling, you share a long look with Kai. It’s funny, how fast those three white letters scramble you up. When you hesitate to answer, Kai tells you, “Answer.” 

You hope she can’t tell you’re not at Kai’s by the refrigerators’ dull buzzing. It’s an effort to tussle that invasive worry back. You’re at Dairy Queen. Getting ice cream with the boy she’s known since childhood. She should clutch her hands and thank the sky that you’re here, not out in some nasty frat house like you could be. You thumb the green button. 

Her voice comes through the speaker crackled and asking you to run over to do a quick dish load. For a heartbeat you consider telling her that you will and then start rushing home. Instead, you fork out the truth through resistant lips. 

The hangup tone sits heavy on the air between you and Kai. Having listened to the whole thing on speaker, he says, “What was so hard about that? The world didn’t end, did it?” 

The plush of your lip takes a hard gnawing. No, it hadn’t. “I know she’s not going to get mad at me for just going here,” you say as you rest your elbows onto the table. “It’s that they’re supporting me right now. I still live under their roof. The more I go around and insist I can do whatever I want, they’ll start reminding me of it.” 

His face drawn, he lets his mouth twitch to one side. “Yeah,” he muses. “I never thought yours would be the type to kick you out.” 

Kai’s dad had started threating him with getting kicked out years ago, when he first started telling him that he wanted to do music. How many times had he let reluctant tears flow into your shoulder over it? Because music wasn’t a real job? Back then, you’d whispered in his ears that he’d become everything he’d dreamed of and more as your fingers carded through shaggy locks of hair.  

“I don’t know,” you say, humming it out noncommittally. “Is your dad still... y’know?” 

Nodding slowly, his eyes tell. “Yeah. Always.” 

“Because you’re taking the band seriously, now?” you ask.  

“Probably. I don’t give a shit what he thinks about it. If I’m just his goddamn problem, I’ll give him what he wants soon enough.” His eyes blaze with promise of it.  

It takes a bit out of you to not wince. Kai living anywhere but in the house across from yours is wrong. “I don’t think he necessarily wants that, Kai...” You take his hand in your icy ones, the urge to reach out to him thinly veiled under the guise of searching out warmth. He’d always run warmer than you—your personal heater. “It’s probably because he can see that you’re doing it for real. Not just saying it anymore.” 

“Yeah, well,” he spits, “I can’t fucking wait to see what he’ll say to me when I make it. That piece of shit, though, he wouldn’t even care. It’s not like he ever gave a shit about me enough for it to matter.” 

But, it matters to you, you want to tell him. You understand his need to throw it all in his face, though. “Is that one label going to sign you? The one you were talking about?” 

His tongue darts out to wet dry lips. “They haven’t yet. I don’t know. But I don’t need that money to get out of here, I’ve been working on it.” 

“They will,” you say. “But, where would you go? Not too far?” You try and keep it light and playful, even as your heart aches. 

“Come with me,” he says. It’s painfully blunt, as if it were that simple. “Let’s go get and apartment; you and me.” 

“Kai...” you say. “You don’t have to drag me along because you feel bad.” 

The idea doesn’t sound half bad, though.  

“What?” His face tightens, as if somewhere under the surface your words had scraped somewhere tender. “You don’t have to stay here forever. Please. I want... I want you to come with me. You wouldn’t have to even tell them; just bring all your stuff and go together. We could do it together. Like we said we would.”  

“We were like, five. Everybody tries to pretend running away at five,” you deadpan. It’s a washy attempt at lightening things back up. 

Living with him, moving out together, should feel like everything you’ve ever wanted. And, maybe it is. But, he’s not asking you to live with him the way you want him to. Not in the way that your aching heart wishes he would.  

Kai doesn’t share the laugh you give him. “Yeah, okay,” he says, leaning into the table.  

Perhaps you should consider the potent disappointment he’s terribly masking with a face of indifference, though. 

⚝⭒ 

Slowly, the knots in your belly have worked themselves out. When Kai had dropped you off, they’d been so awful that you felt borderline sick. You sat the whole ride there in his old beat-up truck picking at your nails and rambling to him. He listened to you the whole time. And then when it was time to walk in, it had least felt a little easier to do so with his eyes on you, watching to make sure you made it in safely. 

You’d gotten a job. It’s not too bad, folding clothes out on display. It would be nice if they kept the lights a bit brighter, but you’ll get used it eventually, you hope. 

Most of your coworkers are around your age, but the one showing you the ropes... your heart had fluttered. 

“You’ll get it,” Yeonjun says. The smile you find on his lips once he straightens up from placing product on a display is smooth and smug. Sleek strands of black hair fall over his eyes. You fluster under his gaze.  

With arms crossed over your chest you say, “Yeah, probably.” You reach into the cardboard box for stock to practice on. 

“Where’d you work before this?” he asks, leaning back into a wall to watch you. Suddenly, you make sloppier work of your folding. “Your first retail job?” 

Some obnoxious pop song falls down from the speakers over the store. Nobody’s in here yet, thankfully; you’ve got some time to try and get a handle on everything. “No, this is my first job. I was so nervous walking in.” 

Interest catches in his eyes. It encourages that smooth smile on his lips further. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ll show you the reins.” 

Your mind stalls. The suggestive, sly flicker to it—are you looking too much into it? Maybe that’s just how guys like Yeonjun act. It’s hard to pretend that you don’t see how he’s looking at you, though. It has your belly twisted up in fluttery knots. It’s not like you hadn’t had your share of his type. But, for some reason you’d rather not address, he’s got your heart thumping in your chest. 

He laughs at your fifth attempt to fold up the shirt. When he takes it from you to help, he smells of musk and vetiver. “You going to college near here?” he continues.  

“Nah, just doing this, I guess,” you answer, watching him fold it up to try and soak it up.  

“Really? Why not?” he hums, crossing his arms about his chest. “You seem like a smart girl.” 

Buffering, your blood buzzes in your veins and your cheeks burn. “Dunno. Not really sure what to do. Are you in college?” 

“Nah. I’m trying to figure things out, too.” 

The both of you pop your heads up when the bell rings to announce the arrival of a customer.  

“Yeah,” you say, eyeing him. He’s a few years older than you, no doubt, and yet his life hasn’t fallen apart because he’s not done anything grand yet.  

Time’s hand around your neck loosens. Just a little bit.  

⚝⭒ 

You sit crisscrossed on top of Kai’s bedsheets. He’d thrown the windows open because the AC died, but it’s no help. The hot air wafting about the room sits heavy on your skin. You’d dressed in as little material as possible to let it breathe, bare thighs clad in a pair of loose shorts and a thin tank top, but it’s still miserable. 

Perhaps you two should be going over to yours, but you haven’t had time alone with him for a few weeks now. You hate this busier life, where you struggle to make room for this. 

Your new job isn’t so awful, though. Especially with Yeonjun there. A bout of nerves flows up through your stomach. That reminds you. 

Sitting up a bit straighter, you consider not doing it. In fact, you really shouldn’t. But your mouth moves before you can put a stopper on it. 

“Hey, Kai,” you say. The thickness in your throat makes you believe that your heart’s jumped up into it, caught. God, what are you doing? The unsure waver in your words has you regretting. 

His eyes flicker up to yours. He hums out a, “Huh?” 

No, this is wrong. You mess with the thin cotton strap of your tank top where it’d slipped down. “Never mind,” you tell him, trying to shrug it off.  

That piques his interest. “No, what?” His brow pinches.  

You lick your lips and shake your head. “Nothing, never mind. Really.” 

His eyes search you from where he sits up against the wall. “Tell me,” he demands. 

Really, you shouldn’t have said it in the first place. It was a ridiculous idea. But now you know he’s not going to let it go. And, ridiculously, you say it. “I was just... wondering,” you say, blood roaring. "Well, Yeonjun wants me to come over to his place this weekend, and... I’ve never...” Sucking in a quick breath, you just spit it out to get it over with, “Would you be my first kiss, Kai?” 

Insects buzz outside as he looks at you, frozen in spot. You reject the urge to dart away or throw up. You’re honestly just as shaken as him. But really, who else could you trust with something like that? You don’t want Yeonjun to be disappointed if he kisses you, or to seem inexperienced to him. 

And, perhaps, the hopelessly in love part of you hopes to at least feel his lips on yours at least once. If you’re going to be alone forever in your longing, you just wish that you can have this. 

“What?” Kai says. He looks rattled.  

Of course, he’s shocked. You shift. “Forget I said that,” you tell him, unable to meet his gaze.  

String-roughened fingers wrap around your upper arm. “I didn’t say anything,” he says, voice strained and face less shock-fallen and more darkened. “But... I mean, you want me to teach you to kiss for some other guy.” He spits out the last bit as if bitter in his mouth.  

“You don’t have to do it,” you say. “I just... thought that I might ask you to do it. I don’t know, I’m sorry I said it. I’ll just wing it or something.” His room’s grown ten degrees hotter, if that was possible. Especially where you feel his eyes on your face.  

Almost imperceptibly, his hand tightens around you. He swallows hard. “You want to learn how to kiss?” he says. “Fine. I’ll teach you.” 

In a heart-stopping moment, your eyes snap to his. Brown and familiar, they hold you with an intensity that turns your limbs into jelly. The air is stifling. “What... do I do?” you ask when the silence becomes too heavy.  

A muscle feathers in his jaw, reflected in the low light of his room. It’s quick and so easy to miss, but it tells you everything you need to know about how this is making him feel. How much disbelief he’s in. “Come here,” he says, stilted around the absolute absurdity of it. He pats on his lap. 

You make a hesitant crawl across the bed toward him. It seems as though your elbows might buckle beneath your weight, but you make it despite the odds. A fog settles over your brain when you rest your hands on his shoulders and bring your legs to straddle his lap. 

But you shove it back; you want to live and breathe every last second of this. No matter how unbelievable or blistering it is.  

Breaths fan out over your face. It’s seizing your mind like undiluted liquor. “Where do I put my hands?” you ask him. It’s breathless, the air stolen right from your lungs though your mouths haven’t even touched.  

“There is fine,” he says. His words sound breathless, too. The weight of his touch on you as he runs his own up to support your back is unsure. “And then...” he says. It falls out on your mouth slowly, and then he’s taking your lips onto his. 

The walls melt away, sound does too. All that is real is the taste of his lips and how they move against you. Your lips start tentative, but you try his mouth movements yourself. It feels like a timid dance—it feels like deep, deep down, finally everything is right. That mist, thick and blinding, falls back over you. 

Something changes. Something in it, where you two meet, changes. He becomes hungry. Softly locked lips turn biting and nipping, shaky breaths exhaled slow through your nose. His hands on your back become surer, and one even ventures off to grab your chin. The other holds you to his chest, melded together despite the intense smoke and flame rolling off your bodies. You wonder if he can feel your heart beating a mess there. 

Reluctance paints you both when you pull back. You’re panting deep drinks of air. It’s hard to think; your mind’s run off and sits just out of reach. Licking your messy lips, stained with illicitness, you can only manage to brush your fingers against it to form words. “How... was that?” you say, searching his eyes. You find his pupils blown so wide that they consume the warm brown. You’re ready to jump out of your skin with that look pointed at you.  

Kai doesn’t answer, though. He slams your mouths back together as if starved by just the brief moment you’d parted for air. Nips on your bottom lip and emboldened hands—he moves like roaring water through a dam. A dam that he’d worked hard to fortify, and yet, at a crack it’s all falling down. Fingertips digging through the fabric of your shorts down to your soft hips, his chest rumbles. You feel it reflected in your core, electricity charging there and shooting up your spine and down your thighs. 

You kiss him for all the times you wish you would’ve, but didn’t. The slight rolls of your hips down onto him come easy. You love how it has him making a sound into your mouth and taking the fat beneath his fingers harder into his hands. He helps you. 

He drops his head into your neck. Your head swims for air and he has you shuddering with just the brushing of his nose against the column of your neck. The walls of his room spin around you. “Kai,” you whine, every bit of friction his jeans provide, even clothed as you are, just enough to rile you but not to give you what you need. 

“God,” he growls, thumbs hooking under your waistband. “You always fucking run around dressed in nothing,” he says, letting his fingers linger like a suggestion of undressing you. “Did you do it on purpose? Expect to make me crazy, knowing I couldn’t touch you?” 

And, in those words, it seems that he steals every last bit of breath from you. How often had you gone braless or worn something like this around him? Laid here, in his bed, like that? 

Grown tired of your fruitless grinding, he brings a hand down to support your lower back and says, “Turn around.” 

Though you explode with the prospect of what he might be intending to do or what’s next, if you’re really going to do this, you do so in a flash of eager limbs. His chest is solid against your back, you melt against the feeling of it. He’d become such a man lately, filled out, and you watched it happen. It was hard for your eyes not to catch on muscle-corded forearms while he picked at strings or to not appreciate the timbred rumble of his voice when you’d feel it come from his chest. How could it not do things to you? Now, he’s dragging your shorts down your legs and you’re in disbelief.  

“Fuck,” he breaths out. His fingers find your panties soaked through. “So, you’re the type to get dripping wet.” 

An embarrassed blush decorates your cheeks. Kai drags his index finger in circles around your clit through the fabric as if enamored with how much of a mess you’d made of it. Your hips twitch every time he rolls right over it. It’s strange how he’s got your body acting on its own volition with his touches. Even stranger that it’s your best friend doing it. “Sorry,” you tell him, wavering.  

He continues those terribly slow circles. “Sorry?” he says, chin on your shoulder. He’s got you wrapped up in him, with nowhere to go but to melt back into him and let his fingers work. Free hand on one of your inner thighs digging divots into the plushness there to hold it still, he tells you, “It’s nothing to be sorry about. It’s hot as fuck. You’re so excited for me to touch you, huh?” 

The words wreak havoc on you, feeding the flame that has your belly twisted up tight and the ignition point between your thighs pounding. To hear them coming from him, reserved Kai, has you digging your fingers into his forearm to prove that it’s real. You’d never have imagined him being so... filthy. You imagine him behind falsely nonchalant eyes, devouring you with a perverted mind all the times you’d spent innocently sitting together in this room.  

Your cheeks squish beneath his fingers as he takes your face and turns it to him. He wants to make sure you’re look at him as he asks you, “Do you want me to finger you?” 

Like a record, your brain skips. Between the blunt, lewd question and his hand on you, it’s in overload. How could he ask something like that so simply? Stunned as you are, of course you want him to. You want him to do anything to you. You nod.  

Every last nerve and neuron in your system, just below the skin, cry out when his fingers slow down to nothing. “Hmm?” he says, ignoring the chasing of your hips and the opening of your thighs to invite him into paying your poor pussy the attention he’d ripped from it. He wants to hear you say it.  

About ten minutes ago, you lost your mind. It does not return to you now. “I want you to,” you say, chest beating in tandem with your cunt. 

“You want me to, right? Not some dumbass you met a week ago, huh?” he says. “Because you know that this is what it’s meant to be. Me, doing these things to you. Not some twenty-five-year-old piece of shit. He doesn’t deserve you, baby. Understand?” 

His fingers slider under your panties. Dumb brained and cognition gone muddled, you nod. All you can really think about is the moment his fingers slide over you. Fire licks up your lower belly and your insides as he brushes calloused finger tips finally right against your clit. 

Puffed breaths of a scoff raise goosebumps over your skin. “Teach you to kiss so that you can go over there and get his hands on you,” he says, middle two fingertips prodding at your entrance. “As if you were ever anybody’s but mine. You’d come crawling back to me, baby, because it was always meant to be us. He could never satisfy you.” 

His words might alarm you or have you asking questions if he hadn’t pushed his fingers into you and begun curling them with strong, pointed presses, pulling soft mewls and hums from you until he finds a spot that twists up your insides. Even through the palm you press over your mouth, your moans come out more like wavering grunts and croaks. Your thighs quiver and twitch, threatening to snap closed against your own will with each. Only your feet stay planted to the mattress. Like a cone of soft serve under the sun’s blistering attention, you melt down him. Just his frame keeps you upright. 

“Right there, huh?” he says. The smirk on his mouth filters his words into something taunting. “That’s where you like it.” It’s like he’s learning your body step by step, fulfilling all the questions he’d been forced to only guess at before this.  

“Uh-huh.” It comes out whiny and cracks in the middle, but you can’t find even an ounce of you to care right now. If this moment had been a long spiral, a fall from grace, down into a dark pit of forgotten inhibitions, you’ve just hit the bottom. Cheeks blazing cherry blossom pink and with your fingers curling into his pant leg, you don’t doubt that you are a picturesque mess. The kind of mess that’s beautiful because it’s dirty. Your teeth are not gentle on your plush bottom lip. It stings, tugged back and bitten and still a bit swollen with kisses. Perhaps you taste the tang of metal on it, but you pay it no mind. 

Kai redoubles his efforts. Now that he knows exactly how to play you, he’s fucking you on his fingers without mercy. The sounds coming from your cunt were wet, but now they’re different— nasty squelching. The only noises coupling with your pathetic keening. Forget anchoring yourself on his thigh, forget muffling your sounds. Instead, your hands fly to encircle his flexing forearm. Under your nails, angry red crescents dig into the muscle there. What had been a languid, building pleasure suddenly becomes everything. Your breaths run away from you, and you chase them frantically. Deep down in your core, the muscles spasm and rage against his fingers. “H—oh god,” you groan. Even the muscles in your thighs and tummy tighten up. 

“So whiny...” Kai mumbles, voice taut with the effort of eroding you down into pure, blinding-white pleasure. 

And then, in a swoop of mercy, your belly tightens. You hover here, on the precipice of something so consuming and voracious that your muscles and bones reject it, and yet your heart sings. Your eyes and cheeks and lungs and belly burn, the flame charring the edges of you in a beckon. You answer its call. Kai doesn’t mind the snapping of your legs shut around his arm, nor does your bucking or shaking deter him. He just holds you through it, arm like a metal bar around your waist. He’s everywhere, in this moment—the smell of him, leather and utterly familiar, his mouth dusting hot kisses over your skin, his fingers guiding you through orgasm. Where you’d gone silent in the initial crash of it, you devolve into mewls and grunts as you come down.  

He holds you even as you slump against him boneless. Afterglow simmers in your veins and has your brain all lethargic and lazy. Neither of you speak for a while, your pulse thumping a rhythm. His breaths rise and fall against you; it grounds you in this moment where you feel all spacey and gone. You become aware again of how disgustingly sweltering it is in his room, your skin sheened. 

That brainless bliss only lasts you for so long, though. When rational mind returns to you, no matter how you wish it wouldn’t, you’re hit in the chest with regret so hard it knocks the wind out of you. 

How will anything ever be the same after what you’d just done? Stricken still by the thought, you barely register him pulling his fingers out of you. After all your worrying about making sure no wedge comes between you two, look what you’ve gone and done. No; nothing ever will be the same again.  

⚝⭒ 

A couple of weeks ago, you ruined the one friendship you were supposed to have forever. It presses down heavy one you while you sit sprawled out on Yeonjun’s couch, his arm around your shoulder. His phone casts a glow over his features with all the lights out. 

It doesn’t smell like home. He, pressed against your side, doesn’t smell like home.  

Some stupid movie that he’d picked out, yet somehow you’ve ended up the only one still watching it, weaves a hum into the quiet of his apartment. Tangy hurt wells up in your throat. Even the moments when you and Kai would sit in mutual silence on your phones never felt like this. This is different.  

You haven’t seen Kai since that night. He’s been busy getting ready to move out, and you’ve been here most days. How fast all of it had changed. You wish you’d feel whiplashed, left empty, by the drifting that you’d been so terrified of. But you don’t. It’s just been you, locked on land, watching him being taken away by the ocean’s tide with no way to change its course. You tried and screamed to call him back, but now your voice has gone hoarse.  

And instead of watching him go, you choose to look elsewhere. It’s all you can do to protect yourself from the hurt. 

“Hey,” Yeonjun says, finally addressing you rather than whoever’s he’s got in his phone. “Did you bring anything to change into?”  

“I brought stuff to sleep in,” you say, eyeing him. You know that’s not why he’s asking. If it came down to it, you could just steal something from him and pull it on. He means going out clothes. Your jaw tightens. “But nothing nice. Why?” 

He stretches his arms behind his head in a flaunt of long arms and tanned muscle. Hours spent at the gym lent him those; you appreciate the look of it with a watering mouth. Kai had earned his build by hours spent outside with your dad, because his own could care less, helping him fix up cars and vehicles of all ridiculous sorts. You remember when Kai had first gotten his truck—junk on wheels, honestly—he’d spent so much of summer out there getting it running. And, well... the sun-kissed bronze of his skin and frame that came with it, you had no qualms with. 

But those memories only sit heavy in your chest as you’re sat here beside Yeonjun. You banish them elsewhere; you need to let him drift off. If you can’t have each other, and your feelings won’t permit just being friends, then you have to. You want him to do amazing things, and you fear that it’s your presence in his life that will interrupt that. As much as your feelings are real, they are selfish. You, your unsure direction and all your dead weight, should let him go. Because you love him. 

“The guys want to come over,” he tells you, pushing off from the couch. “You should probably into change into something less showy.” 

Less showy. Your mouth drops into a scoff of disbelief, looking down. A pair of shorts and a shirt, showy? You have to laugh, or else you’ll succumb to the strange embarrassment crawling at the back of your skull. What’s he trying to say? Is that what he thinks of you? “What’s that supposed to mean?” you say, face tilted up to him in a twist of distaste. “I’m wearing something comfy.” 

He shrugs, hands shoved into the pockets of his black sweats. “Don’t want to give them the wrong idea about you, that’s all, baby. They’re guys; I just want to protect you.” 

“No,” you say, the word falling out in a barked laugh. “Why would you even be bringing over dudes that you think will look at me like that? Why are you even friends with people that you think are gonna make moves on your girlfriend?” He holds a hand out to you, but your hands stay right where they are: crossed solidly over your chest. 

Throwing that hand up in audacious exasperation, he gives you a look that makes you feel small and petulant—like you’re throwing an overblown fit. And, maybe you are. You should probably just do it; him seeing you as some overbearing or high maintenance girl has that embarrassment flaring like wildfire that’s found dry brush. “C’mon, baby,” he says, a lazy smile on his mouth that gets under your skin. “Let’s just have an easy night. Don’t make it a big deal.” 

Let’s just have an easy night. As if you’re the one ruining the night. Something snarky tries to seize your tongue, but you hold it down. “I thought it would be just us. We wanted to watch the movie together, Yeonjun. Can’t you wait to hang out with your friends? Let’s enjoy our time together; you’ve got your shift tomorrow.” 

“My fucking god,” he groans, running a hand through his hair furiously. “You’re needy, you know that? The neediest I’ve ever had to put up with. I don’t put up with needy, baby. Can’t you just chill out a little? My last didn’t mind when I’d have friends over.” 

Your eyes burn. Your cheeks burn. He’d been with plenty of other girls before you; that, you’re well aware of. It’s been a corrosive source of self-doubt for you. You don’t want that title: the neediest he’s ever had. Don’t want him to think of you as some prude that won’t let him have fun. Just... hearing him bring up the other girls he’d been with before you stings and leaves welts no different from a slap in the face. Feelings of inadequacy shackle you and have you saying, “Fine. I’m gonna borrow some of your clothes.” 

Heavy resentment blooms on your skin where he bends down and presses kisses to your cheek, and then mouth, and then down your neck. “Thank you, baby.” 

And, where those ugly, wilted flowers of it bloom, you hear echoes of something. Something that tells you that Kai wouldn’t treat you like this. But you’ve made your bed, decided to do it yourself, and now you’ve got to lay on it. 

⚝⭒ 

The frat parties are the worst kind of social outing that Yeonjun insists upon. The smaller kinds, more intimate gathering with just his closer friends, you tolerate much easier. You’re not fond of the circles he chooses. Breathing in thick, smoked-out air surrounded by alcohol-coated breaths is not your type of fun night. Somehow, you end up doing that more than date nights. But that’s better than being here. The base rumbles up through your feet and makes your stomach sick, and it reeks of grinding bodies and body odor, and condensation coats your fingers from the red solo cup as full as when you’d first gotten it. 

But, still, you come along. Not every time, but when you don’t, you lay in his bed sickening yourself with images of what he might be doing here. How pathetic is it to attend parties with your boyfriend because you fear that otherwise, he might stick his tongue down the throats of other girls? 

You’re looking for him right now, awkward and left alone. He’d promised to stick around; you had begged him to. That was pathetic, too. You know that you put up with too much. If he loved you, or honestly even liked you, you two would be in the thick of the throngs dancing or off somewhere talking with others. Together. The frantic skimming and weeding of your eyes through the blur of faces is not right. That’s not how he should make you feel. It’s not how Kai would make you feel. 

Well, Kai would never have you here in the first place. 

Venturing out from your little corner, you sift between the bodies of people have a hell of a lot better time than you. Drunken, some you bounce off of like bumper carts. You press your palm over the round face of your cup to spare the floor from spillage threatening to pour over the lip. It’s not like a splash from yours would matter much, though. The linoleum has already been made a fetor mess of dirt off shoes and the sticky sugar of liquor. Your shoes peel from it as you walk. God, what would your parents think of you being here? 

You peek around corners and eye big groups. He’s not in the kitchen when you look there, either. Your stomach feels sick in a knowing way—a gut feeling that doesn’t justify anger or tears just yet, but you know. Right in the center of your chest, you know. 

It’s in some room that you find him. Sat on the floor along with a few faces you don’t know, he pulls from his bottle. And on his shoulder, he lets a girl with shining curls and pink cheeks rest her head. At your busting in on the intimate gathering, Yeonjun’s eyes slide to you. Recognition flashes over them and wars with bleary drunkenness. 

“Hey, baby,” he says. Their gazes all fall on you, but you can hardly see them through blurry eyes. 

The girl lifts her head from his shoulder. She’d caught the memo. 

“I think I’m gonna go.” You make it sound resigned, try to not let them see your shame, but your voice betrays you and crackles. Maybe it’s better to pretend it doesn’t feel like you’ve just been kicked in the stomach and left to reel against the force, but you can’t. You’re nowhere near shocked, nowhere near blindsided, but still you hurt. 

He follows you down the hall. “What’s your problem?” he says, the few, plain words mending and waving into a slurring. 

You’ve got one goal: get to the front door, away from the shitty music and him. His words, sharpened, fall off your skin despite his efforts. What good would fighting do you, anyway? It was always going to end up this way. This is just who he is, and he doesn’t give two shits enough about you to want to change that. 

“Baby, seriously? That made you this mad? I didn’t even fucking do anything. Stop being insecure,” he says. At the gritting of your teeth, he sees an opportunity and pounces on it. “You don’t need to be jealous. I don’t do jealous shit. We can dance, or something. Shit, I don’t know what you want! Just stop throwing a fit.” 

Didn’t do anything? You have to laugh. Maybe you didn’t walk in on him fucking someone else, but that’s not what this is about. Not even a little bit. You’ve checked out, and the fact that he thinks he can make you believe that it’s your fault this time only drives the killing stake in harder. 

Maybe you’re bitter. It claws at your insides—turns your face hot and screams in your face that you’ve been used. But beside it sits a sadness. Not the slow kind, but the quick sadness of hurt. Why hadn’t you been good enough for him to love you? To like you? You’d left behind Kai and rested your new life on Yeonjun’s shoulders. You’d wanted so badly for his approval, or for him to want you. You did your best to try and make this work out because you needed it to. You needed so desperately proof that you could fall in love with somebody else. But your best was not what Yeonjun was interested in.  

Pins and needles prick your skin as you step outside, like jumping into an ice bath. It shocks you out of dizziness. Words surge up and out in a flash flood like hard reality. You spin on him. “Jealous?” you say, choking out a scathing laugh. “The last thing I’d ever let myself suffer over you is jealousy. Get over yourself. I’m going, stay here if you want. I don’t care.” 

“How are you gonna do that, huh?” he says. The flickering yellow of the porchlight paints his features. The shadow of something fluttering around it cuts dark spots in the light, and then a small little moth comes down and jumps around in his face. He waves it off. “Gonna have bitch boy come pick you up? You can’t leech off him forever; he’s gonna get sick of picking up another man’s girlfriend.” It seems like you walking in on that had sobered him up, but his breath still curls out onto your face with the reek of alcohol. “It’s not a big deal. You’re making this a bigger deal than it has to be. Do you not trust me?”  

“You are such a piece of shit,” you grit out. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Ever. I don’t know how I let this go on for so long.” You don’t like him having Kai in his mouth, don’t like him trying to act like you’re conflating things, and especially don’t like that face he’s making. As if you’re acting crazy and overblown. “No, I don’t trust you. You didn’t fuck her, but come on, Yeonjun. Seriously? You think I’m stupid, and I’m sick of it. You thought this would be easy because I didn’t have the experience you have, but I’m sorry. I don’t like being walked over.” 

“If you’re gonna be so goddamn jealous, then maybe we aren’t gonna work,” he says. 

That moth, floating light in the air, is right back in his face. Yeonjun takes two hands and smashes it between a clap of his hands. He shakes its flattened, broken body off his hand. Looking down at it laying there on top of dirt-caked concrete, you get this... feeling. A tickling around your person.  

“See if I care,” you snap, throat aching against the onslaught of emotion and held back tears.  

⚝⭒ 

Rivulets of raindrops dilute the tears on your cheeks. Your hair plasters to your face and your clothes to your body.  

For a week, you’d went about it all as if it hadn’t happened. And then you came here.  

It’d not been this rainy when you first got down to the creek—just a gentle trickle, really. You hadn’t been crying then, either. But, watching the water work at babbling over stone, you let yourself feel it. Here, where you’d had so many good memories. You’ve gone and tainted it, now. But for whatever reason, you’d just wanted to be here. Arms curled around yourself and fingers digging into drenched sleeves, you don’t wipe away the tears or cover the sounds of your crying. You let the stream hear it; it’ll sweep it right up and down the way. Somewhere far off, where you don’t have to feel it anymore. 

You realize that, usually, you’d be over at Kai’s right now. The fact that his room was not the first place you thought you could go to anymore is a punch to the gut. You drop your face into your hands and cry harder. Really, you’ve got to stop doing that to yourself. Thinking of sad things—putting your hurt under the microscope to see it closer. It’d be easier to just fold it up and tell yourself that it’ll pass, and that relationships end all the time. 

It’s not him that you cry over. Well, maybe some of it is. Rather, it’s that you have absolutely no idea where you’re going. Where you are. Finally, you’d built yourself a raft to get off the shore and go out to sea, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, and it’s breaking apart right beneath you. And, stranded and alone in the water, you’ve got no way to get back to shore to build yourself another raft. You’re stranded, and the scariest bit is that you’re doing it all alone. You weren’t supposed to do this alone. You two made promises back then. 

You suppose that a promise is one of those things you were supposed to leave faith in back on shore. 

The raindrops are heavy over you. The fall of it roars against the ground, a torrent downpour. It’s not coupled with whipping wind or flashes of lightning—just straight, still falling. It’s a somber feeling no different from the gnawing in your chest. 

Like chimes, there’s a distant, gentle sound. Maybe water falling over creek rock, but it’s more like suggestion. A sweet sound that you shouldn’t even be able to hear over the rest of it, it’s as if it’s right in your ear. A whisper.  

You fix your blurry eyes with a wet sleeve. Rain falls right back into its place, but you see it: a silvery, whimsy haze. And the moths. They jump and call you, this time. Their glow bounces off the rainy mist against the grey of night’s arrival. Then, all you can hear is the whispering. Where you stand frozen, your feet beg to move. To follow them. 

So you do. 

Their entourage of moondust trails them where they go, wrapping you up and weaving between raindrop and space. You don’t worry where they’ll take you, or even try to wrap your head around this happening again. You just follow, mind glossed over and entranced with how beautiful it is. When you’d seen them before, it’d made you uneasy. Mostly because it looked so unearthly and unbelievable. But this time you just follow. 

A far-off voice, one oh-so-familiar, peaks through the haze. It’s not enough to stop you, but then you hear it again, louder and closer. 

You blink a few times. Once to break away the fog, and then twice to focus your eyes on Kai stood in front of you. His hair lays in wet spikes over his eyes and beads of rain trace the planes of his face. He’s as soaked as you. 

“Kai?” you say. Looking around you, you’ve ended up somewhere in the field between your houses and the creek. But you’ve got no recollection of walking here. Whatever that mist is, sentient or not, had swept you here.  

His voice is strained, but you appreciate hearing it. “Break up with him,” he tells you. 

In his eyes, as you search them, there’s stardust glowing like reflection. Your face twists up. “What?” you say, breath a puff of smoke ahead of you. Summer had come and gotten away from you so fast, and now it’s gone all cold again. 

“Break up with him,” he echos, face solemn. He looks ruffled. 

“Why?” you ask, “And why are you out here?” 

“Because I’m moving out today, and I think I deserve to at least see you before I go.” His eyes look over you. “And... your dad said you went down to the creek.” 

He’s moving out today, and you had no idea. And really, it’s your fault. You’d driven that wedge between the two of you. “I did break up with him.” 

Downpour fills his quiet for a few moments, his face swirling with emotion like the clouds above you. He nods. “Good.” 

There are a few more long minutes between you; just you two searching each other's faces, antsy to say so much that it bunches up in your chests and stalls. It’s what a summer of longing does to you. Even with Yeonjun, even trying to slowly chip away the stitching that had connected the two of you at the hip, you were helpless to stop the gnawing of the love you bear for him. Even just seeing him now, you feel those threads mending back up. God, why does it have to be so hard? 

He just looks at you. For a few beats, he just looks at you. There are so many questions in his eyes. They flit across and turn over, but all he settles on is, “Why?” 

There’s so much you want to tell him. Words pile up to the top, some threatening to spill over. But you know that if you tell him some of it, just to make up for all the time you’d missed out on together, it’ll all come crashing out. And you don’t think you want him to know just how much you accepted, the way you let yourself get treated. So, you shake your head and say, “It doesn’t matter.” 

Kai looks like he wants to push that issue, but whatever look he finds on your face deters him. “Come with me,” he pleads. “I want you to come with me.” 

Your throat tightens. Curling your arms around yourself harder, the rain only coming down on you harder, you say, “Kai, I want to. I want to. I just... I don’t want to freeload off you, because you’re doing great things, and I’m just...” Your tongue darts out to wet your lips, but they’re already as soaked as the rest of you. “I’m just going nowhere. And I don’t want to be a burden, or ever be the reason that you can’t do what you dream of. If staying here means that you become everything that you’re destined to do, then I’m happy with that, Kai. I am.” 

He shakes his head, stumbling toward you. “No, no you don’t get it,” he says, frantically taking your shoulders into big hands. Under his touch, every taut muscle goes slack. You melt. “You don’t get it. You are the music. Every single song is about you. Every single fucking song is about you. I want you to come with me, please. I love you, I have always loved you, and I will always love you, and I thought you’d loved me too, and I don’t want to do this alone. I can’t do it alone.” 

He loves you. Kai loves you. The enormity of it rumbles the ground where you stand on legs you fear might just give in. You flex your fingers to combat the tears pricking your eyes. It doesn’t work; they brim and well up, spilling down over your cheeks. “What?” you say, voice softly breaking. “Kai, I didn’t...” 

“And just when I thought I finally had you, you left me,” he says, throwing a hand up beside him in a big gesture. “You left me! I woke up thinking you’d be there, and that maybe you loved me too, and you had left me. And then you threw me away for some piece of shit, and you stopped coming around.” His chest heaves for breaths. 

Your face contorts. That night, the one where you two had slipped up, you’d fallen asleep curled up against his chest on undiluted contentment. When you woke up, you had panicked. You thought he’d wake up and pretend it hadn’t happened, or he’d be uncomfortable, or even be disgusted and regretting. You couldn’t handle that, so you slipped out before he woke up. It’d been an attempt to protect your tender heart, but looking at the twitching of his lip now, you begin to think it’s the most selfish thing you’ve ever done. He thinks you used him and left him. Your stomach twists. Voice thick, you say, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left you, Kai. I thought you didn’t... I thought you didn’t see me that way. I was scared. I’m sorry I hurt you.” 

Brows knitted together, he says, “Thought I didn’t love you?” His hand cups your cheek, warm against the soft frozen skin he finds there. “I’ve... I’ve dreamed of you almost every night of my life. In my sleep, I see you, and you’re happy and glowing, and that damn... mist is all around you. I couldn’t get away from you even in my sleep.” 

Darting between his eyes, soft and reflecting your face back to you, it’s hard to breathe. Kai’s dreamt of you; he’s as sickly in love with you as you are him. Thunder claps, and the ground shakes, and the heavens open up above you, the trumpets belt, and you two are in love. Somewhere deep in your center, you feel it—your soul nodding yes. 

The mist. You know exactly what he’s talking about. “I saw it. That stuff, those moths. The stuff we saw back then.” 

“I did too,” he says, wet spikes of hair bouncing with a nod. “Not that long ago. It was the first time I saw it out of a dream since that day.” 

Back then, you two had only budding, innocent love for each other. Things hadn’t become mangled and lost to confused hearts or expectations. When they’d appeared to you, you hadn’t needed it. This time, you’d followed it. And it had led you here—somehow had led you right to the very spot you needed to so that every last piece might fall into place. For this moment to happen. You know why it did. 

“I’ll go with you, Kai. I’ll go wherever you go; I love you. I’ve loved you since forever,” you say, each and every word massive and lovely on your tongue. “I’m sorry I didn’t say it earlier.” 

So unlike the last times your mouth had met, he brings his mouth to yours with a dazzling clarity. No longer is it confused kisses; he locks his lips against yours with the urgency of so many years being unable to. Kai’s hands cradle your wet cheeks, hold you so tenderly into his kiss. His touch grounds you, makes the moment real. You melt into him—your fingers curled into his shirt as if holding him there so that he won’t disappear like something of an incorporeal dream. He sighs through his nose, kissing you harder. Even if it all were fake and this was nothing more than a feverish figment of your imagination, you think you could die happy just knowing this once. 

But it is utterly real, and utterly yours. You kiss him harder, too. 

When your lungs start to burn and plead for breath, you two pull away from each other. Your eyes flutter open to capture his. Warm and brown and the same ones you’ve stared into so many times before, but not like this, you sink into them. He runs his thumb over your cheek as he sinks into yours. His tongue darts out to lick lips painted with you. In the inches between you, space no longer feels heavy or charged with grievances. Every last unsaid thing had been answered. 

“I have my stuff up in the truck,” he says, breaths soft. Brown eyes dart around your face. “I’ll help you add your stuff to it.” 

You shudder out a breath. Add your stuff to it. A nervous energy settles down over you, but it doesn’t seem so bad if you’re doing it with him. Together.  

“Okay,” you whisper, a balmy secret just like the ones you used to share in small, giggly voices so many years ago. “Okay.” 

⚝⭒ 

Shivers seize you like jittering bones, all wrapped up in a blanket. The velour cushion seats beneath you have soaked up water and become damp, but Kai’s got the heater blasting. You wind around back roads, headlights illuminating the way ahead of you. Stray droplets whip in them, but nothing much. Isn’t it funny how the rain had just stopped like that? That’s just how the weather is, out here. You wonder how the weather might act wherever you’re headed. 

Your teeth chatter as if your jaw had its own will. The two of you had the windows down thinking that the wind might dry you off, but all it’s done is lap at your bitten cheeks. You reach down for the handle to crank it up. You’ve got a long drive ahead of you—either you’ll eventually dry off, or you can pull off at a rest area to change in a bathroom. The wet clothes are really not helping. 

With an arm up on the steering wheel, Kai turns his attention on you. You know that smile. “Cold?” he asks, eyes darting between your face and the road. With the hand he’s not got working the steering wheel, he runs fingers over your thigh. Soft, gentle massages, yes. The number it does on your core is absurd. Each mindless digging into your thighs and brush of his thumb, sparks sputter there. You’ve sat here, right in his passenger seat, so many times before. Day trips up to the lake, the one he’d joined your family camping at for so many summers, all the times he’d driven you to school in this truck, and even just a quick run down to a convenience store for a late-night snack. You’d deemed it your seat. But never once had you sat in it like this. Your heart does a flip. All those times you’d wish he’d reach over and do just this—a small gesture that would’ve been so big then. And it’s your reality, now.  

“Freezing,” you say. A brush of his fingers nearer the apex of your thighs sends you pressing them together and shifting in your seat. “But not everybody runs as hot as you, though, so.” 

His eyes catch the movement in just the split second he looked over to you. “Huh,” he says. He turns to look at you, his gaze flickering with something anew. Something that you’d only ever seen once before. “Is that it?” 

It’s hard to swallow. His fingers brush higher, and higher, feather-dustings of calloused fingertips that sends tingles shooting up your spine at the slightest suggestion of where he’s headed. “Yes,” you say, feigning indignance to cover the shiver that threatens to overtake you. When his fingertips dance at the waistband of your bottoms, it does so anyway. “Kai,” you say, blood hot in your veins. “You’re...driving.” 

His eyebrows pinch into a taunting furrow. “I am,” he says, nodding. “Don’t worry about it, baby. I’ve got us.” 

And he does; fingers slipping under the band of both your bottoms and your panties, he doesn’t even tear his eyes off the road. He’d driven these roads so much, you think he might be able to do it asleep. Even drawing a mewl from you with a brush over your clit, he doesn’t look away more than a quick glimpse at your pinkened cheeks. 

Two fingers dragging up your folds, right over the source of the mess. “You get excited so easily, huh?” he hums. “You like it when I play with you.” 

When he presses those fingers at your entrance, you can’t help but be taken back to that night. It echoes and reverberates through you. Long fingers, strong and punctual brushes against the sweet spot—he was criminally good with his fingers. Playing guitar did more for him than just music. He seemed to know exactly how to utilize those roughened fingers and trained flicks. Your muscles flicker as he abandons your hole for more brushes at your bud.  

Those teasing, sly touches turn to something more serious. His fingers roll over your clit, slow but enough to have you sighing and rolling your hips against the seat belt. But last time had gone just like this, him touching you and receiving nothing. He should feel good, too. “Shouldn’t you pull over?” you sigh, muscles taut. Your breaths come out shuddering and half-controlled, interrupted by the tightness that each delicious swirl provokes. The door takes the brunt of your grip, white-knuckling the interior. 

He laughs, a husky sound that is tinder to fire. He knows what you mean. “Maybe,” he says. “But I think I’m enjoying this plenty. I think I want to see you cum on my fingers again.” 

Fingers pinching and flicking faster, you grow breathy and whiny, hips rolling against the seatbelt and back into the seat. Your muscles, all the way down your thighs and deep in your belly, jump and twitch each time his fingers run over your clit in just the right spot—that tender spot that’s so good that it teeters on overwhelming. The kind that makes you hiss and then want more. “Shit, Kai,” you whine. “Right—there, keep going."  

He doesn’t answer with any teasing words. No, he just doubles down right at that angle and pressure, leaned back into his seat and driving as if he wasn’t fingers-deep in your panties right now. His sculpted profile at total ease—it does something for you. A delicious tightness curls its fingers over your center, promising a sugary ecstasy that you can’t help but chase. Bucking into his hands as best you can, you go quiet. Right there—right there, you feel it. The cusp. Your fingers brush over it, clenching around nothing and squeezing your thighs tight around him. Every last drop of blood in your body reaches for it, singing and dancing through your veins and making you dizzy. 

And then he stops. Your mouth drops open, whiplashed and helpless to its slipping away from you. You whittle your gaze into something sharp and turn to him. “What—why?” you complain. The tide slips further and further and further back, but you still taste sea salt on your tongue. Frustration sets in its place as you feel it go. Seriously, you’d been right there. “You’re so mean.” 

He slows and then with the clicking of the turn signal, he’s off the road and pulling the truck into park on a little secluded side road. Where the headlights pierce the pitch black, nothing but gravel and field surrounds you. He doesn’t kill the engine, instead pulling his hand free from you. 

Your heart, still stuttering with your lost orgasm, kicks back to life as he smears your slick over your mouth, dragging it over your lips and then taking his thumb to run it right over the plush of your mouth. “Am I?” he says, fingers taking your chin to meet your eyes with his. Endless hunger, pupils so blown that his eyes look black, pins you. “I don’t think you’ve seen mean yet, baby.” 

Darting your tongue out to clean your lips, you look at him through your eyelashes. “Show it to me, then.” 

Something dark passes over his face. It has your skeleton jumping out of your body. Then, he says, “Is that what you want? You want mean?” 

Brain gone to mush that can only really think about him touching you, a slow nod is all you can manage. 

The engine’s hum prevails for some long, thick seconds. And then, he tilts his head in a gesture. “Get in the back.” 

Holy shit. You want to sit there frozen in an overwhelming sort of excitement, but his seatbelt clicks undone and you’re set into motion. In a flurry of giggles and clumsy limbs, you climb up over the center console and into the backseat. He slips out of the front seat, not bothering to even kill the engine. 

The door beside you opens in a swirl of cold wind. In nothing more than a blink, a strong hand has both your wrists pinned to the cushions and your back flush against it. Nose-to-nose, his breath hot over your face. “I’ve got plenty of ideas as to how I can warm you up.” 

You appreciate each other’s faces for a beat more, you looking up at him big-eyed and waiting. Kai breaks the moment to attack your neck in a procession of bites and kisses. Your mouth falls into a silent sound. 

“You know,” he says, free hand working your pants off. His eyes are trained on you, though. “I thought about doing this to you all summer. Touching you again.” He moves on to your top, pushing the fabric up until your chest is freed, clad in soft cotton. He eats the sight up. You want to reach down and cup the back of his head or feel his hair between your fingers as he presses his mouth against the soft beginning of your cleavage, but he’s got your wrists firmly planted. So much so, that you wonder exactly how he’s got you so secure with just one hand. Kai is strong, but maybe you hadn’t seen just how strong. Your skin aches under the purple bites he decorates you in. The sight of him—face in your chest and marking you up so lazily—has your teeth abusing your bottom lip. Whatever sounds you might make otherwise would be embarrassing. Kai lifts his eyes to you. “And I think you thought of me, too. Didn’t you?” 

“Oh, god, yes,” you say, writhing beneath him. He’s going so slow. You want him all over you. “So much.” 

He likes that. He takes your pebbled nipple into his mouth through the fabric. Soft grazes of teeth and sucks, you’re burning all over. When he pulls back, he’s left you dark wet patches when the bra had only just dried against your body heat. “Good,” he rasps, taking his big hands demanding and hungry over your torso. They swallow your frame up, soothing skin but lighting it aflame all the same. “Good girl.” 

You never thought just words could unravel you, but those did the job. Not a gasp, nor a sucking in of breath—no, you go silent and brainless, fumbling for rational thought. 

The dropping of your jaw has Kai delighted. “You’re so pretty,” he says. In a swift and powerful hoist, he’s tugging you down the cushions toward him with greedy fingers. He’s got your thighs pressed up to your chest. You’re bent right in half. 

Out of breath, you huff out, “You too.” 

A quick laugh falls from his mouth, lips pulled into a smug tilt. He nips at your calf up by his face. “So sweet, it almost makes me feel bad for what I’m about to do to you.” Reaching down for your panties, he pulls back on the suffocating press for only enough time to drag them up your legs. Those get discarded somewhere on the floor. Who cares about that right now, though? All you can register is the metallic clinking of his belt being undone. It’s got your nervous system twisting up. 

And, those words. Electricity shoots bolts of pure, sizzling revery into your core. What I’m about to do to you. You imagine a great deal of things that he might mean, but still, you think that none could hold a candle against the promise his voice held in saying it. 

Kai presses his body to your thighs and hooks your calves over his shoulders, and it all becomes real. The press of his heavy cock to your folds, the digging of his fingers into your outer thighs, his pretty eyes sparkling with something feral. As real as it gets—more real than anything you’ve ever felt in the entirety of your life. Your hands find perch flattened to his broad chest. 

The position leaving you two no option but to look right into each other, he holds your gaze and begins slow drags of his hot length up and down your slit. Tantalizing, awful, awful drags. When his tip nudges your eager clit, you jolt. And then he does it again. And again. 

“Kai,” you mewl. A press against your hole has you hopeful, and he lingers there for a moment, but doesn’t give it to you. Can’t he just fuck you? You’ve never been more pitifully in need of something in your life. 

“Shh.” His ruts get more daring, smearing your slick up onto your belly. “Take it.” 

You wiggle your toes in the air and make passes at arching yourself into him in search of better friction. He’s got you pressed so suffocatingly into the seat that it does absolutely nothing for you. In fact, he holds your harder and changes tack so that your thighs press together. At the very apex of them, his weeping cock slips through the seam. 

Pressing his cheek into your calf, he watches you. Every gasp and shaky inhale, he watches. It spurs his rutting on, sticky sounds and pants eating up the air. Your nails claw at his hands as, finally, a knot tightens in your core. 

“Yes, please,” you breathe. He fucks your thighs harder. Faster. Every nudge at your clit and hole becomes euphoric. “Kai, baby—I’m gonna—” 

Just as furiously easy as last time, he rips it all away from you. The rushing away of the buzzing and promise of shaking thighs—he takes it from you again. It brings prickling tears to your eyes. “Kai?” you hiss. “Again?” 

His eyes aren’t playful. He pulls your calves back over his shoulders, handling your hips into a better position to press his cock right at your entrance as if you weigh nothing. Face utterly straight, he says, “I don’t think you deserve it, do you? Not after what you did with Yeonjun.” 

A swallow goes down your throat hard. He presses himself just a bit harder into you. Not in yet, but right there. 

When he does begin sliding in, the stretch of it... You cling to him and squirm between him and the warm cushions behind you. Each inch is a heady feeling, all the way up to the hilt of him. He shudders a controlled breath. “You’re so fucking tight, though,” he grits out. “Did he not fuck you right?” 

Slaps of skin bounce off the car interior and between your bodies. He starts off at a brutal pace; you know it’s meant to make your brain go foggy. Squeezing your eyes closed, you manage, “I... didn’t fuck him.” It comes out strangled, voice bouncing as he fucks you into the car seat. 

Thumb tugging your bottom lip down and then dipping into your mouth, he watches the show of your ecstasy down to every last detail. “Yeah?” he says, voice shaking and almost desperate. “Always thinking of me, huh? Such a good little princess. You know exactly where your heart belongs.”  

You want to answer him, even just with a whine or moan. You try to. But with his thumb pressing down on your tongue, enough to pin it to the floor of your mouth, it’s not gonna happen. He tastes salty in your mouth. 

His truck consists of his grunts and whines, and your taut groans for some moments that seem to stretch forever. The planes of his groin grind against your clit when he delivers occasional pointed rolls, but mostly it’s just an animalistic, feverish dancing of your two sweaty bodies, holds growing more frantic the closer you get.  

Thumb wet with saliva; he frees your mouth. The hand trails slowly down your face and your chin, brushing feather touches, until he finds your neck. 

Your eyes fly open, wide. He pressed his fingers into your neck—no real pressure yet, he looks at you through damp strands of dangling hair and says, “Want my fingers around your neck?” His thumb brushes over the buzzing pulse point there. 

“Yes,” you grit out, body bouncing and back raw with friction against the coarse cushion’s surface. Your breath stutters, your mind stutters. Even your blinks stutter, eyelids too lazy to keep up. “Please.” 

The pressure of his fingers there—it frightens you and has you tightening around him at the same time. But you would trust nobody more with your life than Kai. 

He presses his cheek to your calf to indulge in the sight of you like this: underneath him, folded in two, nowhere to go but to take his pistoning hips, cheeks blazing, and his fingers pressed into your windpipe. If the way he becomes sloppier and more desperate in his tempo has anything to say for it, it does something for him. 

“Gonna be my pretty little girlfriend, huh?” he says. His voice is tight—so is your belly. You’re both so close. Hopefully, this time he’ll let you cum. “Take you to every show; show you off to everybody. Fuck.” 

Brain like static and swimming with a pinched flow of oxygen, you slur your words. “You’re—hah—gonna have other girls all over you.” 

The taunting, split-second raise of his brows flips your belly. You tighten around him again. If he keeps hitting that spot, tip ramming into the soft spot deep inside you that he’d taken such delicate care of finding last time, you’re going to burst into sparkling flame and firework. He growls, “Well, I’ll just have to knock you up so that they know I’m yours, huh?” 

Holy shit. You like the sound of that. Your nails dig into his wrist around your neck, but you cry out a pitchy, “Yes!” 

“Oh, you like that?” Kai releases your throat to take both your hips. You gulp for air, finding nothing but the thick air of sex and humid breaths, at the opportunity. He’s ramming into you like he’s found a purpose. “Isn’t this the perfect position to do it? Get you pregnant?” 

With every last bit of brain power you’ve got, teetering on the edge excruciatingly close to salvation, you groan a long, hoarse sound. “Fuck, yes! Please, Kai, inside—” A hot trail of tears roll down your temples. 

It’s all he’s got to hear to still inside you. His growl rumbles deep in his chest, holding you in place and filling you with his hot cum deep in your cunt. That feeling, coupled with his short grinds against your clit as he fucks his seed deeper, takes your soul by sinful claws and crumbles it down into nothing. You burst into a shaking, whimpering peak, sucking your lips into your mouth to bare through the sheer twisting of your insides and the flame that consumes up your thighs and cunt. 

He falls on you heavy, face in your neck. Warm kisses against your clammy skin meld with your slow floating down, the two of you a beautiful, nasty picture of fucked out. He stays right inside you—the absolute stillness of him, you think he has no plans of pulling out any time soon. His long fingers card through your sweaty locks of hair. 

Finally, he presses himself off you. You get a glimpse of the window behind him—fogged up and filthy with your affairs. Anybody to see the truck from the outside would know exactly what went on inside, but right now, you don’t care. Not one bit. Your panted breaths drag in nothing but musk and thick, hot air. The drumbeat in your chest tells you that, despite how you feel ripped straight from your body, you are very much still alive. More alive than ever. 

“Warm?” he says, pushing sticky hair off his forehead. He’s a mess, too. His hair is ruffled with your touch, his clothes rumpled the same, beads of sweat rolling down the planes of his cheeks and neck, and his eyes a lazy smolder. As much as he looks like sex personified, a soft smile twitches at his lips. 

You snort. You can’t help but feel giddy, here with him. You’re with him. Nothing has ever felt more right. Unplugged when he pulls out of you, your mess trickles down onto the seat below you. “Yeah,” you say. “Very.” 

Warm is not enough to begin to describe how you feel. In your ears, you hear whisperings. Soft and gentle. Perhaps it was divine intervention, or the fates lending you their word, or maybe just rational thought. It says: 

Home. You are home. 

✎୭ ashlynn's note how do we feel about this pair? i really didn't mean for this to get so long, but i ended up RLLY liking their chemistry. i had to do their story justice. also, i finished this with kai as a guitarist and then his drummer performance came out... hmm.

﹙🏷️ ﹚@lvrs-street2mmorrow , @soohashits , @f4iryfever , @arcturus444 , @linqed , @serenityism00 , @immelissaaa , @luv4cheol , @lickingan0rchid , @20-cms , @hhoneylix , @beestvng , @hyucktapes , @bewitchless , @prince-jjae , @blankliving , @yaoizee , @stormy1408 , @missychief1404 , if your tag isn't working, check the mentions part of your settings!

[nhlclover]

PLEASE TAKE ME HOME QUINN HUGHES

pairing: bsf!fem!reader x quinn hughes

summary: after a crushing loss, quinn seeks comfort from you, leading to him finding support and solace in a way he didn't expect.

warnings: quinn being self-critical + kind of being existential, a lil kiss, cuddling

wc: 2.4k

notes: love me some best friends to lovers content!!

Quinn sat in his stall, hunched over with his elbows on his knees, and his head heavy in his hands. The locker room was quiet, almost unbearably so, with only the muted rustling of his teammates shedding their gear, each one lost in their own thoughts. The chill of sweat against his skin, the echoing silence, and the sting of the 7-3 ass whooping they’d just received at the hands of the Oilers gnawed at him. He ran his hands over his face, wishing the exhaustion could just be scrubbed away like a smudge of dirt, but it clung, deeper than fatigue.

Tocchet’s words still hung heavy in the air. His tone wasn’t biting or enraged, just… disappointed. Somehow, that made it worse. The sharpness of anger would’ve been easier to deflect, easier to set aside, but this, this gnawing sense of having let someone down, that was harder to shake. As captain, the weight of each loss bore down on Quinn with a fierce gravity, like an invisible pull he could never fully shrug off. He wore every defeat like an extra layer under his skin, something that followed him home, creeping into the quiet spaces of his life that should have been a refuge.

But tonight, even the thought of his empty apartment was unbearable, the silence there too vast, the dark windows only offering his own tired reflection in return. The last thing he wanted was to be alone with his thoughts, with the image of his own disappointment staring back at him.

He reached for his phone, thumb hovering uncertainly over your name. He knew he should probably wait until he’d collected himself, until he could find something to say that didn’t carry the weight of the evening’s defeat. But in that moment, the thought of a connection, of hearing from someone who could pull him out of his head, outweighed his hesitation. Before he could overthink it, he pressed send.

Quinn's message was simple, just asking if you were home. He wasn’t even sure what he wanted — to talk, to sit in silence, to have someone tell him that tonight wasn’t the end of the world. He just knew that you’d understand, that you’d get it without him having to explain.

There was a comfort between you and Quinn that had been there almost from the start. As he settled into life with the team, through rookie struggles and the relentless grind of the season, he had a way of just being around that seemed natural, easy. Somehow, even as his responsibilities grew, and the demands of his role pulled him in every direction, he kept finding his way back to you. And you, too, found yourself drawn to his quiet, unassuming strength. He wasn’t loud about it, wasn’t looking for anyone’s approval — just steady and dependable, with a rare kind of sincerity you didn’t encounter often.

And lately, maybe without realizing it, that connection felt like it had deepened into something neither of you had put a name to. Moments hung between you two, ones that felt heavier than friendship but never quite crossed the line into something more. An extra beat in his gaze, the way you’d linger just a bit longer than necessary after a game, the silence between you comfortable and somehow charged all at once.

When your reply came, just a quick “I’m here, come over,” Quinn didn’t waste any time. He left the locker room without the usual goodbyes, without waiting for the sting of his teammates’ sympathetic glances or their vague attempts at consolation. Tonight, he needed to get out of that space, out of his own head, and into a place where things felt real again.

Rogers Arena was quiet as he made his way out, the late-night staff offering tired nods as he passed. The cold night air outside cut through him, biting against his damp skin, but he welcomed the jolt, the way it woke him up a bit. He barely remembered the drive, just that he kept glancing at the clock, willing time to move faster, each stoplight feeling like a barrier between him and something he desperately needed.

Finally, he was standing outside your door, hands stuffed in his pockets, nervous energy buzzing through him. He barely managed a steady knock, his heart feeling oddly tight as he waited. The lock clicked, and when you opened the door, he felt his breath catch.

You stood there in his oversized hoodie, sleeves brushing your fingers, and a pair of sleep boxers. Your hair was pulled into a messy updo, and even though it was just a lounging outfit, you looked effortlessly good. The sight of you felt like a balm against everything heavy he’d been carrying, a reminder of warmth and familiarity that he hadn’t realized he was craving.

“Hey,” you said softly, a gentle smile spreading on your lips as you took him in.

“Hey.” His voice came out rougher than he intended, but he didn’t try to cover it up. There was no point in hiding here. He took a step inside, feeling the warmth of your apartment surround him, smelling faint traces of your perfume mixed with the lingering scent of dinner.

You closed the door behind him, leaning back against it for a moment as you watched him kick off his shoes and shed his jacket. There was a quiet understanding between you, no questions asked, no need for explanations.

Quinn barely made it to the couch before his legs seemed to give out, and he sank down, letting out a long, defeated sigh as he fell back against the cushions. He rubbed his temples, trying to will away the exhaustion, but it clung to him like a second skin. You moved to the kitchen, grabbing the pizza box and setting it on the coffee table in front of him.

“Leftover pizza,” you offered with a smile, lifting the lid to reveal a few slices from earlier that night. “It’s cold, though. I can nuke it for you if you want.”

Quinn raised a hand, a small smile ghosting across his lips as he shook his head. “Nah, it’s better cold,” he replied, reaching forward to grab a slice.

You gave him a mock grimace. “Criminal. Criminal behaviour.”

He chuckled softly, the sound a small relief against the weight he carried. “You are the only person in the world who doesn’t like cold pizza,” he commented, taking a bite without another word, the simple act of eating grounding him a little, offering a comfort he hadn’t realized he needed.

The sudden voice of P.K. Subban echoed through the apartment, ESPN returning from a commercial break. The panel began dissecting their recent loss with a precision that felt almost cruel. Not wanting Quinn to relive the events of the game, you grabbed the remote and quickly hit the mute button, casting a quick look at Quinn, who was staring at the screen. His face was unreadable, a tight mask that betrayed none of the frustration you knew had to be simmering beneath the surface.

“You watched the game?” Quinn asked.

You sat down beside him, folding your legs underneath you. “Of course I did. I watch every game,” you replied, giving him a small smile, hoping he could see that you meant it—that no matter the outcome, you’d be there, watching, supporting.

Quinn looked down at the pizza slice in his hands, the corners of his mouth tugging in what might have been a grateful smile. But it was fleeting, quickly replaced by a frown, as if the memory of the game was sneaking back in, clawing its way into his mind.

Seeing that he was still tense, still haunted by the weight of the night, you knew you had to shift his focus before it consumed him entirely.

“Hey,” you said, nudging his shoulder lightly. “How about we watch something?”

He glanced at you, raising an eyebrow. “Like what?”

You thought for a moment, before thinking of a show that you knew would hopefully take his mind off of hockey entirely. You switch the TV to Disney+, scrolling until you find 9-1-1.

Quinn let out a small, amused huff, shaking his head. “9-1-1? Seriously?” he asked. “I’ll never understand how you like these unrealistic shows. You know real emergency response isn’t like that, right?”

You laughed, nudging his shoulder lightly. “Yeah, I know, Captain Serious. But not everything has to be realistic to be entertaining. Just… relax, okay?”

Quinn sighed, finally letting his shoulders loosen a bit as he settled further into the couch. As the show unfolded with its usual chaos — an explosion followed by impossible rescues, and moments of high drama — you saw the tension in Quinn's shoulders slowly ease. Every now and then, he’d shake his head in disbelief or give a low chuckle at some particularly wild scenario, his reactions a mix of amusement and bemusement. You nudged him playfully during one of the more absurd scenes, catching the way the edges of his lips curled up despite himself.

As the episode continued, Quinn seemed to sink further into the couch, the weight of the night slowly lifting as the ridiculous plotlines distracted him. His arm drifted to the back of the couch, his fingers brushing against your shoulder as he got more comfortable. You noticed how his head was starting to lean closer, almost unconsciously finding a spot near your shoulder, like he was drawn to that gentle connection.

Instinctively, you reached up, letting your fingers thread through his hair, running gently along his scalp. You felt Quinn still for a moment, almost as if he were surprised by the gesture before leaning into you, his eyes drifting closed as he melted into your touch. The tension from the evening faded with each soft stroke, each gentle sweep of your fingers through his hair.

As the episode played on in muted background chaos, you felt Quinn’s breathing even out, his head settling against your shoulder. He sighed, the sound soft and vulnerable in a way that made you ache for him. You knew he needed this — a moment to be just Quinn, not the captain, not the defender, not the one who had to carry the weight of every win and loss. Just Quinn, here with you, without expectations or demands.

You paused the show, shifting slightly to look at him, and Quinn opened his eyes. He looked at you with a mixture of gratitude and weariness, his blue eyes soft in the dim light of the room.

“You know,” you began quietly, “you played so well tonight. No matter the score, you were incredible.”

His shoulders tensed slightly, and he looked down, his lips pressed into a hard line. “Thanks, but…” He hesitated. “I don’t know. It just feels like… I’m losing it lately. Like every mistake is a reminder that maybe I’m just not good enough to lead us right now.”

You reached over for the remote, muting the TV, focusing fully on him. “Hey.” You tilted his face up toward yours, catching his tired eyes. “I’m a little sick of you being so hard on yourself. You’re so good, Quinn,” you whispered, your hand gently tracing along his jaw before you leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to his right cheek.

His eyes closed as if the touch eased him, just for a moment.

“And the guys…they respect you more than you know.” You moved to his left cheek, brushing a light kiss there. You could feel the faint stubble, smell the familiar, comforting scent of his cologne.

“And the fans? The fans think the world of you, Quinn,” you murmured. Before you knew it, you’d leaned in to press a quick, soft kiss to his lips, pulling back almost immediately, your eyes wide with a bit of shock at what you’d just done. A flush rose to your cheeks as you took in the shock on Quinn’s face, his eyes wide and lips slightly parted. For a heartbeat, the room was silent, the air heavy with a newfound tension.

But then, without warning, he leaned forward, capturing your lips in a passionate, unguarded kiss. His hand slipped around to the nape of your neck, his fingers threading through your hair as he pulled you closer. This kiss was different — fierce and sure, a release of all the feelings that had been building between you for so long. The room felt electric, everything else falling away as you lost yourself in him.

When you finally broke apart, your foreheads resting together, Quinn’s gaze was soft, yet intense.

“I’ve… I’ve wanted to do that for so long,” he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper as if he were afraid to break the spell.

Your heart was pounding, a mix of exhilaration and disbelief swirling in your chest. For a moment, the heaviness of the night, the loss, the disappointment—all of it seemed to dissolve in the warmth between you. In the quiet of your apartment, where it was just the two of you, there were no expectations, no pressure.

Quinn pulled back just enough to study your face, his hand still gently holding the back of your neck. His gaze softened as he took you in like he was memorizing every detail. “Being with you like this…” he trailed off, his words faltering before he managed to smile. “It makes everything feel… less heavy.”

You smiled, reaching up to brush a stray lock of hair from his forehead. “You don’t always have to be strong, Quinn. I want to be here to help carry the weight, too.”

A faint glimmer of relief crossed his face, and he nodded, as though accepting your words for the first time. He let out a deep, steadying breath, his thumb coming to your cheek, sweeping gently across the rouge that had formed. Slowly, he eased back onto the couch, pulling you down with him, your head resting against his chest as his arm wrapped securely around you. Together, you drifted into a peaceful quiet, the weight of the night finally slipping away.

The game, the expectations, and the pressure melted into the background. All that remained was this — an anchor, a place to land, the soft beat of his heart steady under your ear. And for the first time in a long while, Quinn felt lighter, not pulled down by the weight of his own expectations.