#love the idea of hatesex as much as the next guy

[julesnichols]

Okay okay we all know how God tier the idea of Mark Scout/Helena hatesex is, but hear me out:

What about Mark Scout wanting to be rough with Helena, but being incapable of it? What about him becoming increasingly frustrated with himself because he can only be gentle with someone whose company ruined his life, as far as he's concerned?

[dont-offend-the-bees]

Charles/ the cat king and your 22nd song please

Song 22: Six Days in June by The Fratellis Look. This is FIRST wrapped song fic request I got, anon. And it was such a GOOD song, and I wrote the first section, and the first section was so good I got scared the rest of the fic wouldn't live up to it. I know this is a short and weird rarepair hatesex to non-hate sex unrequited love song-inspired one shot but it's also lowkey my magnum opus. So THANK YOU. Don't worry too much about the background, this is set very loosely in canon-verse, in some prospective alternate reality season 2/3 where Edwin is having his hot boy summer and discovering himself and Charles is trying to figure out his own feelings in probably a not super well thought out way. CW for mild but non-explicit sexual content/themes. 2.5k, unrequited love, background endgame Payneland, angst. Enjoy 💛 Also on Ao3

“You think you're all that, yeah?”

“Oh, sweetheart, I know I am. You want my references? Or did you want me to prove it some other way?”

You're playing a dangerous game, batting at that loaded pistol in his ribs. You don't know him well (yet, yet), but you know a man who loves with his whole chest when you see one. It's in the knuckles; bloody from holding on.

His jaw tics. “Go on, then.” He squares up. “Show us what you've got.”

Your smile cuts. “Alright.” You brace for impact. “Let’s dance.”

The first time, is… well. Let's just say it isn't your finest work. Finesse is not what this guy's coming to you for, after all. He's here to prove a point. Prove to you — or himself — that you're full of shit. That you're all talk. That you don't deserve to touch his little BFF with a ten foot pole (or a ten inch di— y’know what? No. Too easy).

And it may not be your best, but by god, you do not give him the satisfaction of being right on that count.

Weeeellllll, he's inexperienced. You can blow his mind with, what? Forty percent effort? Sixty, tops.

He's just the cutest shade of pink when he leaves, shrugging angrily back into his little retro jacket, all ruffled and indignant.

“Satisfied with my credentials, yet, officer?” you drawl.

His ear tips are dark, his collar jerked up around his blushing throat as he stalks away. “Shut up.”

Your laughter follows him out of the cannery, echoing off the high warehouse walls. “Call me!”

It's a joke, obviously. This was a fun little tumble, a chance to knock Mr. Righteous Protector down a peg and have some pretty passable sex in the process. Nothing more or less than that.

Except obviously the joke sailed right over his head, because he turns up like a bad penny a few days later with some more poor judgment to spend on you.

Fortunately for him, you’re not short on that, either.

“So has my score improved, or…?”

He huffs, hunting around for his left loafer where it skittered under the bed. “Piss off, cat. Was just… checking.”

“Checking, riiiiight. Y’know, if you need a second opinion, you could always invite Ed—”

The right loafer flies through the air and kicks you in the face.

“See you next time, then.”

“Not gonna be a next time.”

“Mm-hmm…”

“...Zip it, Whiskers.”

“Charming as ever. Won’t you come on in.”

Since three times is a pattern, that’s about when you stop doubting he’ll show up again, and again, and again. And that you’ll let him in every damn time; or at least when you’ve got nothing better to do.

Terrible idea, honestly. You give it a week.

You never see him for more than an hour or so.

You never see him in any mood besides pissed the fuck off.

And above all, you never see what the hell it is Edwin sees. The boy with the easy smile, the loyal knight in shining loafers. The best friend, the right hand man, the big, soppy puppy heart that a nice boy like Edwin couldn't help but fall for. No, no you don't get that.

You just get what's left over. The claws he never hones because he’d sooner sink them into his own stomach than leave his mark on anyone else. The parts he's too ashamed to show to anyone he gives a damn about; a category you most assuredly do not fall into. But hey, that's fine. A person like you can't be too careful about who you start fucking.

You can't go around screwing anyone who's nice to you — god only knows what ideas you'll come away with!

(That's not to say he isn't nice, of course.)

(Unfortunately he is, despite his best efforts. God, it can never be just a hatefuck with some people — it has to be worried eyes, trembling hands, little gruff check-ins on your wellbeing when you're trying to get fucking railed.)

(You try and focus on it for the boner-killer it is; and not for the sweet, unconscious thoughtfulness of a guy who holds the heart of the man you love precisely because he couldn’t handle it roughly if he tried. No, no, you shove that thought as far away as you can push it.)

(Dangerous thought to entertain, for a guy like you; a guy with his heart on a hair trigger.)

He shows up when he likes; or when he needs. When his skin is too tight and he needs an outlet for that electricity in his ectoplasm. He kisses you like it’s a contest; and you're nothing if not competitive.

He’s not running the show, though. Nuh-uh. You only kiss him back when you like. Or when you need.

The fact you haven’t turned him down once yet is purely coincidental.

He's got you on your back — and you've got him on your hips. Pretty standard. You’ve done this dance enough to have a few favourite positions locked in; and this one gives you a hell of a view.

He’s looking pretty comfy up there — eyes closed, head thrown back, riding it out — and you like to keep him on his toes, so you give him a little shake, bucking like a bronco, laughing at his surprised face when he falls forward, when he catches himself on your chest and stares down at you with wide eyes and that little annoyed scrunch forming in his brow.

Then the line smooths, he squints, laughs — smiles. At point blank fucking range.

You take the hit. Right between the eyes.

You never stood a chance.

You’ll look back on that as the day he snuck his hand through your ribs and clicked the safety off.

He shows up when he likes. When he needs. Sometimes, increasingly, when he’s bored.

“How can you be bored again?” you grouse, fingers attacking his belt. “Don’t you have like a cute mystery-solving husband to bother?”

He scowls. He’s been doing that less and less lately — you’d forgotten how out of place it looks on his lips. “He’s not my… Edwin’s out,” he says, flatly.

“Out where?”

Oof, now that’s a chilly little silence. And a very, very loud one.

“Let me guess,” you drawl, dragging his zipper down tooth by tooth. “You’re not the only one gettin’ some tonight.”

He grabs your face and kisses you, hard.

More reliable than telling you to shut your big mouth.

“See you next time.”

It’s an old familiar exchange, an automatic call-and-response. You wait, palm metaphorically outstretched for the return, the denial, the brush-off.

He slips through the mirror without giving it to you.

You laugh. “Brat.”

Always leave ‘em wanting more.

He kisses words out of your mouth. He crashes into you like a wrecking ball. He throws it all down like a gauntlet, the fucking, the being fucked. He grasps and grinds, scratches and squeezes, lets those little claws out of their casings.

And those big brown eyes find your face every goddamn time. Like he’s watching you, like he sees you; like somewhere along this stupid, fucked-up little journey, he started caring. Caring what you like, caring what makes you snarl and scream, caring about how deep he can sink his claws before the blood wells.

(No, it can never be just a hatefuck with some people.)

(God fucking dammit.)

You’ve got him on his back, this time; and he’s got you on his fucking nerves, right where you like to be.

“Look, leave off, yeah?” he snaps.

“You sure?” You roll your body, feeling the electric tickle of those ghostly hands where they press into the dip of your spine, pinning you close. “Kinda getting mixed signals.”

“Y’know what I mean,” he grumbles, jaw twitching, avoiding your eyes.

You sigh, and fold your arms on his chest. Relaxed, non-confrontational. Idle hands, idle motions. Like you’re just sunning yourself and not, y’know, in flagrante delicto, as Edwin might charmingly put it.

Ah, there he is, again.

Damn ghosts. Always lurking in the corner.

“Look, I am not here to be your therapist,” you drawl, waving your spoon in a lackadaisical manner. “I’m just saying, from experience, little friendly advice: dick isn’t gonna solve all your problems. Not even my dick.”

He sits there, shirtless, cross-armed and endearingly grumpy (god, when did he start hanging around, instead of dipping before the sweat can cool?), his nose wrinkled up at your can of tuna. You roll your eyes.

“You can’t even smell,” you snidely remind him.

“Still mingin’. Wouldn’t kick you out of bed for eatin’ crisps, but this…” He shakes his head — and catches up to what you were saying. “And I don’t need your friendly advice.”

There was a very brusque, British-y compliment in there, somewhere, and you pause to pick it up and admire it. You’re a bit of a collector.

“Coulda fooled me.” You suck the spoon into your mouth, with relish, enjoying the way he grimaces and squirms as you withdraw it with a slow, exuberant pop. “Mm. Now, that’s the good stuff.”

“Does this have a point, or what?”

“The point, you little pest, is that I know what I want, and I go for it.” The compass of your spoon wavers, rocks. “And what I want is, oh, nothing extravagant. Good food. Good sleep. Good sex. Maybe someone around to help handle that last one, someone, oh, I don’t know… someone tall. Handsome. Cute smile, cute accent. Pulse optional.”

You let the ever-present spectre of Edwin Payne fill in the shape you paint; while the spoon settles on the true north right between Charles shitting-goddamn-fucking Rowland’s eyes.

He scoffs; mulishly, adorably oblivious. “You decided you loved him in, what, a week?”

You snatch the spoon back upright, and flick it like a tennis racquet. “And how long’d it take you?”

He shuts his mouth after that.

Maybe, one of these goddamn centuries, you’ll learn how to shut yours.

It ebbs and flows, the shape of your arrangement.

In the wake of that conversation it gets a little spiky for a while, just like the good old days; baring teeth and raising welts.

Then you get back to yourselves, a bit — the new versions that actually, against all the odds, have fun together. The Charles that laughs with you, who scrunches his entire face into uncontrollable giggles when you tickle his skinny little waist with your claws. The Charles who asks if you’re alright when he’s bending you in half, and sticks around for lazy kisses and a little light bickering in the afterglow; who turns up staring at his feet when he’s about to ask you for something he doesn’t think he ought to want. The version that’s so easy to love, it’s all too easy to see why Edwin does.

And then it gets… quiet.

Too quiet.

“C’mon,” he says, with a little hiccup — guy can not hold his enchanted liquor. “Let’s — let’s play something. That’s what you’re s’posed to do, yeah?”

You laugh, swiping the bottle. It’s pricy stuff. Wasted on this kid, really. “Uh, yeah, if you’re twelve.”

“C’mon — missed out on uni, didn’t I? Mm, let’s play… what’s the one… the two truths one. Two truths and a lie, yeah?”

“Jesus Christ.”

“You first. Go on, pusscat!”

You hum, hoarding his silly little pet name for your collection as you make a show of inspecting the bottle. “Alright… two truths. I took a vacation in the eighties and spent it as one of Freddie Mercury’s cats,” you count off on your fingers, that’s one. “Esther Finch owes me two hundred and seventy dollars, eighty-six cents, and my virginity,” that’s two. “Annnnnd…”

Your third finger hesitates, half-extended; your thumb teasing the loosening corner of the wine label. You affect the sarcastic tone like a warding spell.

“And this is the most rare, most expensive wine I got; I brought it out to keep you here longer because I’ve been missing you sooooo much.”

He snorts, and buys what you’re selling. “Yeah, right. Mate, you know you’re not s’posed to make it obvious which one the lie is, yeah?”

You’re probably not supposed to play when you’re a being who can’t fucking lie, either.

But hey, there’s always a workaround.

He shows up less. He fucks you less. You masterfully pretend you don’t give a shit either way.

He shows up once or twice a month and loiters, and chatters. He makes jokes and menaces your cats with penlights and tries to be so annoying that you won’t notice the cogs turning in that pretty little head. Maybe, if there’s enough frustration in the air, one of you’s lucky enough to get their dick sucked.

He hangs around, and you bite your tongue against the urge to tell him to pull. The fucking. Trigger.

(You could pull the trigger. You know you could. In fact, you probably should; call time on this grubby little charade and put both of you out of your misery.)

(But you’re a selfish old creature. Greedy, grasping. And you always want what you can’t have.)

(And you can’t have him. You never could.)

“See you next time.”

He pauses. Glances back.

“Yeah,” he mumbles. “Next time.”

He leaves.

You pour yourself a stiff drink.

“Well,” you say to the empty room. “It was fun while it lasted.”

Thanks, mate. For everything. Think I’ve figured it out.

Take care of yourself, yeah?

-C

Of course you send a couple spies. Just to check it out.

What? You never claimed not to be a nosy bitch.

They return with drooping whiskers, pitying voices that raise your hackles. They return with news of your ‘boys’ smiling, laughing. Holding hands.

They don’t describe the kiss in detail. Why would they? You wonder who initiated. Wonder if Edwin leaned in, all neat and prim and knowing like that time he kissed your cheek. Wonder if Charles did that thing he does sometimes where he bends and sways in like a too-tall tree in a breeze.

You shouldn’t ask.

You ask anyway.

Curiosity killed the fucking cat.

You punch a wall that night. You get mad at yourself.

You realise it’s something he would do. You get even madder.

You fall asleep with blood on your open knuckles and it doesn’t do jack shit to distract from the smoking crater in your chest. You didn’t think it would.

If there’s one bright side to all this — and honestly, you’ll take what you can get — it’s that you did, technically beat out your initial expectations.

You lasted longer than a week.

If you take it all together, anyway, all the time in-between, snatch every last hour, stack ‘em up. If you count the ‘off-season’. If you let the days you spent apart exist as days where he implicitly wanted you enough to string you along, to keep you as an option.

Count those days, and you made it half a year. A Christmas fucking miracle.

If you take out the empty days, well. Then you lasted barely six of them.

[notasapleasure]

For the trope meme: characters find fanfic of themselves.

RIGHT! :D

I’ve been saving this ask because it’s awesome and I wanted to devote full attention to it…

Warning, discussion of RPF and bad tropes, fandom stereotyping and squicks. If it seems like I know too much about band-based RPF it’s because I used to write Libertines RPF. There we go. You can all shun and unfollow me now…

Sorry, it got long.

So yep. In the Band AU universe, there is definitely RPF for Lymond and all his associates. It’s inevitable, really, from the kids fanning over their ‘zines and the letters to the Melody Maker about the dreams they’ve had and the Significant Looks they’ve identified in music videos and live performances, to the Usenet gremlins with their 200k slowburn enemies to lovers Lost Boys AU BDSM Gabriel/Francis fics (hey, not a judgement, I’d read it).

As has always been the way, interviewers will try and gross out their interviewees and shame fans by asking them about this stuff. And though the term ‘squick’ wasn’t yet in common use (and my god, its original use was…specific, and I really hope doesn’t apply to any Band RPF), Francis is poised and generous enough to respond much in the way Neil Gaiman has when asked bout this stuff: he knows it exists, he’s cool with it, but he’d really rather not read it or have it read out to him thankyouverymuch.

As tends to be the case with large fandoms (and hey, Lymond is a big deal! He gets a large and enthusiastic fandom), the overwhelming majority of fics ignore the existence of women in the band and ship Lymond and various male bandmates. Yeah you know where this is going.

This is basically a call-out post to myself.

There is no Ao3 in these days, but if there were, the top five pairings would be:

Lymond/Jerott: This is as it is because of their tendency to share a microphone in a Pete and Carl sort of way (link to example). Because in interviews Jerott doesn’t half stare when Francis is talking, because the fans love the idea that they’ve been friends for years and the fact that Jerott is so aggressively Not Into Guys if an interviewer even dares suggest it. Catnip to fans.

Lymond/Will: This has more of the Richey and Nicky kind of feeling: tall and adorkable but mouthy boy-next-door needs to protect smol and self-destructively, over-thinkingly angsty friend. This is where the hurt/comfort and fluff are at. Probably a lot of fics about Will running away from his family to Be With Francis on the road again, or Francis having to choose between music and Will. 

Lymond/Gabriel: I mean. Obviously. So many Highlander AUs (surely people shipped the Kurgan and Mcleod?). There’s not actually much content for the fans to work with because they rarely performed publicly together, but there’s A LOT of reading into the lyrics of the album Lymond is forced to record at the ashram (made more alluring by the fact he’s rumoured to destroy every copy he gets his hands on and refuses to discuss it in interviews). Darkfic, Stockholm syndrome, the cutest it probably gets is hatesex disguised as a conjugal visit while Gabriel’s in jail.

Lymond/Adam: Adam is of course, adorable and tragic when he joins the band in 1984 and becomes more adorable and more tragic after whatever happens in Russia. These fics are for the sensitive souls, all full of poetry and tender song-writing sessions. They’re for the fans who are too edgy and unique to ship Francis/Jerott, who see Adam as a more complex, tortured soul to match Francis, and who make a great deal out of the shared experience of Russia and the things that no one who wasn’t in Russia could possibly understand.

Lymond/Baida: Russian-language fandom took off in the ‘90s, we’ve got a nice competitive element here, fish-out-of-water, enemies to lovers…surprisingly popular, but probably full of ‘Dead Dove Do Not Eat’.

There are small and very self-righteous fandoms for O’Liamroe/Francis, Jerott/Adam and Danny/various people.

Danny is the instigator in all the orgy fics. Danny is frequently accused of writing the tropiest Jerott/Francis fics just to stir things up – Danny also likes to stir things up by reading out the summaries and asking if Jerott wrote them.

Joleta tries to torment Philippa in a similar way, and definitely reads some of the fics about Francis, but she utterly freaks out about the Gabriel stuff and never brings it up again.

Jerott is not going to know how to respond to the existence of this stuff beyond: ANGERY. He probably spends one guilty weekend reading it and growing increasingly flustered and being horrified and fascinated - then refuses ever to acknowledge to himself he did that. He’s kind of jealous of the confidence of his fictional persona, too, and the way he seems to be able to get Francis to open up...

Adam finds it all bizarre in a completely different way, largely because he does not recognise himself at all in the characterisation in the fics.

There’s one fan who really stans Archie. They ship him with everyone. It’s consistently wholesome and lovely. 

One night at St Mary’s, when recording is going slowly, Danny, Philippa, Adam, Archie and Fergie sit up and collaboratively write an epic road trip AU. Danny posts it on Usenet but it’s received really poorly – fandom says it’s OOC.

There’s the rabid conspiracy theory side of fandom that thinks Philippa is bad for Francis and forcing him to deny his ‘true sexuality’ or some bullshit like that. But some of the best written works are nevertheless the tiny clutch of really sweet Francis/Philippa ficlets.

Marthe thinks the whole thing is demeaning and degrading and she’s also mad at the internalised misogyny of it all (and the minute amount of f/f, and the fact that all the f/f is Jane Dormer/Philippa), but generally she prefers not to waste her energy thinking about it.

Any reunion concert or collaboration is instantly pounced upon for new material. Tabloids are scoured for information, the names of Güzel and Margaret Douglas are only ever spoken with a curse.

There’s probably a short print run of a novel that is clearly loosely-adapted fanfiction about Francis being oh so tragically tragic. By the end he probably succeeds in dying and ‘Jerott’ finds he’s been left custody of ‘Francis’s’ legacy and has to mournfully be the keeper of memories and regret all the things he never said.

If anyone is bold enough to try and get Francis to sign their fanart or print-offs of fics Philippa is on-hand to be diplomatic and does her best to gently avert awkwardness.

I...don’t know how to stop? Feel free to add headcanons/write your own meta-fic :D

[geniusorinsanity]

our permanent address

for @nurseyweek, day 5: tomorrow

“tomorrow is our permanent address and there they’ll scarcely find us (if they do, we’ll move away still further: into now”

- e.e. cummings, all ignorance toboggans into know

(nsfw as heck under the cut)

Nursey knows he needs to tell Dex the truth.

Not because he feels obligated, exactly. His moms brought him up believing that his heart and mind were sacred spaces. “Tu refugio, ¿no?” his mama would murmur, on the days he’d come from school home frustrated and trembling with too many feelings, held in close all day. She would press a notebook into his hands and a kiss to his forehead, to his chest. “Haz algo que te ayude, quapito.”

He’d take the thoughts and feelings from his heart to the page, and if they never needed to touch his lips, so much the better. He shared things with his moms, sometimes; with his sister, more often. Most often, with no one at all. It’s easier that way. Keeps him out of trouble.

But this feels important.

He thinks that he’d want to know if his friend-with-benefits, sometimes-hatesex fuckbuddy had fallen stupid in love with him.

“Hey,” Dex says, his voice hot against Nursey’s skin. “Is your neck still sore from that Yale game?”

Nursey shivers himself back to the present. “Huh?” He flexes his hands at the waistband of Dex’s jeans, and Dex scrapes his teeth against the stubble on his jaw. “I--fuck. No, it’s not. Why?”

“No reason,” Dex says dryly. He curves a hand around Nursey’s chin, then uses his grip to turn Nursey’s head firmly, exposing the line of his neck and setting his mouth against it, all hot, wet lips and tongue on the spot that never fails to turn Nursey’s knees to liquid.

He goes a little weak-legged now. He closes his eyes. “Right,” he says. “No reason at all.”

Dex chuckles, low.

Nursey tightens his grip on Dex’s hips.

He’ll tell him, he promises himself, tomorrow.

…

He doesn’t tell him.

He closes Dex’s door with his foot and walks him backwards, feels Dex’s huff of laughter against his mouth. “Fuckin’ eager, Nurse?”

“IDK, Poindexter, were you playing footsie with my fucking dick at team dinner?” Nursey gets the first two buttons of Dex’s flannel open and tugs it aside, bites the last two words into Dex’s collarbone.

Dex snorts. “I guess I should be glad you let me wait long enough to put my fuckin’ shoe back on.”

“Should’ve made you fuckin’ leave it.” Nursey finishes the last of the buttons and pushes the shirt off Dex’s shoulders, then pushes him onto the bed. Dex lands with a rough exhale and a laugh, sitting up to reach for Nursey’s belt. Nursey pulls his shirt over his head, stepping out of his shoes as Dex gets his belt undone and shoves his jeans off his hips. “Would’ve served you right.”

He pushes Dex back onto the sheets, and gets gets another laugh as he kicks his jeans and underwear off and sits down. With practiced timing, he pulls Dex’s shoes and socks off, just as Dex pushes his pants and boxers into his hands.

This is how they work now. Seamless, perfect. It used to just be on the ice, this easy symmetry. He doesn’t even remember when it left the ice, started bleeding into everything else.

Dex tugs at him, a firm hand curved over the back of his neck, and Nursey goes--immediate, unquestioning, aching. “Now who’s eager,” he teases, draping himself over Dex’s chest, settling his hips between Dex’s legs.

“Fucking right,” Dex says roughly. “Think I would’ve fingered myself open in the shower after the game if I wasn’t?”

Nursey’s hand slips on Dex’s sheet, and he manages to catch himself on his forearm without elbowing Dex in the eye. “What the fuck,” he says. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Dex gives him an extremely unimpressed look and lifts one eyebrow, lip curling. Nursey narrows his eyes and runs a hand down between them, slips it lower. The slip in is slick and easy, he doesn’t even have to push, and Dex licks his lower lip, those honey-brown eyes bright. Nursey wants to kiss him till they darken to a whiskeyed gold, wants to drink in the color til he’s drunk on it. “Shit,” he says. “Fuck, c’mere.”

He climbs off Dex’s hips and nudges him til he sits up, then rolls onto his back, pulling Dex to straddle him. “Like this,” he says. “Just like this.”

“Yeah,” Dex agrees, the flush on his chest spreading lower. He fishes in his desk drawer for a condom, rolls it down over Nursey with parted lips and a firm hand. A last slick of lube and a flash of his grin and he’s sinking down onto Nursey’s cock with a low groan, head tipped back, the curve of his throat exposed.

He’s beautiful, and Nursey wants to stare at him forever.

Instead, he wraps an arm around Dex’s waist to hold him in place and sits up, dragging Dex’s hips against his and pulling Dex back into his lap. It shoves him deeper and gets him a guttural gasp from Dex, a scramble of nails against his back. “Fuck,” Dex hisses, and drops his forehead down into the crook of Derek’s neck and shoulder, already shaking, damp with sweat. “Nursey, fuck me, fuck.”

Fuck if Nursey doesn’t want to give him everything he wants.

He’ll tell him, he promises himself, adjusting the sprawl of his legs for better leverage, tomorrow.

…

He doesn’t tell him.

He lets Dex drag him upstairs at the next kegster, his grip branded heat around Nursey’s wrist. The music is so loud Nursey can feel it through the floor, heavy bass so deep it seems like the Haus is vibrating with it--or maybe that’s his own pulse throbbing in his veins.

Dex pushes him into the hall bathroom and locks the door behind them, turning them until he can shove Nursey up against it. Nursey exhales hard as his back hits the wood a little harder than Dex probably intended, but then, knowing Dex, it’s hard to tell. “Fuck,” he says. “A little warning?”

“Where’s the fun in that,” Dex says. He cups Nursey’s face and leans in, kissing him deep and wet and sloppy. Nursey wraps his arms around him and pulls him closer, kissing back. He tastes like tub juice and beer. Intoxicating. Nursey’s head spins, and not from the shots he’s taken tonight.

Dex’s teeth sink into his lip, then, hard enough that Nursey tastes copper, and he yelps, pulling away. “Ouch!” He runs his tongue over the salty place on the inside of his lip. Dex has a tendency to get rough, but not usually that rough. “What the fuck, dude?”

“Who was that guy,” Dex says. He’s already dropped down, pressing the words against Nursey’s neck.

Nursey tilts his head, gives Dex more room. “What guy?”

Dex huffs. “The one you were dancing with.”

“I don’t know.” Dex makes a sound that borders dangerously on a growl and drags his mouth lower along Nursey’s throat, all teeth. He’s going to leave marks. Nursey’s wearing a tank top tonight--he’s not getting out of here without getting chirped to shit. “Just a guy.” He slips his hands under Dex’s shirt. “You were doing your wallflower routine. I wanted to dance.”

“He had his hands all over you.”

There’s a possessive edge to Dex’s voice, and it sends a wicked thrill dancing along Nursey’s nerves. “And?”

Dex bites him again, hard enough that Nursey has to clamp his lips shut to keep from crying out, and yeah, that’s definitely going to leave a mark, like Dex is staking a claim. And that’s not--usual. It goes against the rules of this thing they have.

Not that there are rules, really, beyond keep it casual, beyond just friends, y’know?, beyond we should blow off some steam, when shit gets stressful. Beyond the rules that Nursey’s already broken. It makes him shudder anyway. “And?” he says again, pushing. “What? You saying I can’t dance now?”

“You can do whatever the fuck you want,” Dex says, and drops to his knees, makes quick work of Nursey’s belt. Just like that, Nursey’s hard, sucking in a quick, sharp breath. “But you'll do it when I’m done with you.”

“Fuck, Will.”

He hates saying his name--is always afraid he’ll give himself away. But Dex pulls his zipper down and pulls his boxer briefs aside, and Nursey only has half a second to suck in a breath before Dex sucks the head of his dick into his mouth. “Shit,” he says, and pushes his hands into Dex’s hair.

Dex makes a sound around him that might be a laugh, digs his hands into the flesh of Nursey’s hips so hard he knows he’ll have bruises tomorrow.

Something inside him thrills at the idea of that, of Dex’s fingertips etched into his skin, and he bites his lip again to keep from pleading. Dex had been a little sloppy at this when they started, but he's gotten so, so good, and God, Nursey never wants him to stop. He touches Dex’s cheekbone with shaking fingers, and Dex looks up at him through his eyelashes, drags his tongue along the underside of Nursey’s dick.

“Shit,” Nursey says again, shakily. Dex pulls off him, and sucks a mark into the sensitive skin of his hipbone. Nursey digs his fingers into Dex’s hair. “Jesus,” he groans. “You trying to make some kind of point?”

Dex laughs, a hot rush of air over his wet skin, and Nursey shudders, his dick twitching in Dex’s fist. “Got a problem with that?”

No, Nursey wants to say. No. Mark me up, let me feel your hands on me after you’re gone, I’m yours, I’m yours, I’m yours.

“Nah,” he says. Easy, lazy, casual. Tips up a corner of his mouth in a grin like it’s nothing. “Do what you want, babe.”

Dex smirks up at him. He strokes his hand over Nursey’s cock, sliding easy through spit and pre-cum, and then slides his mouth down again. Nursey groans.

He’ll tell him, he promises himself, leaning back against the door, tomorrow.

…

He doesn’t tell him.

He spreads Dex out on his back on his bed, all long, lanky limbs. His bare skin seems to glow against the dark blue of Nursey’s sheets, and Nursey traces his fingertips over his sides, follows the path of his fingers with his lips, watches Dex’s pale skin ripple into goosebumps.

“Nursey,” Dex says, a little breathless. “You’re fucking teasing.”

“Got somewhere to be?” Nursey sucks a patch of skin at the base of Dex’s pec into his mouth and bites.

Dex hisses. He digs his fingers into Nursey’s shoulder blade and starts to move them up, then stops at the nape of his neck. “Wanna put my hands in your hair,” he says roughly. “That cool?”

Something clenches in Nursey’s chest, a sweet sense of being heard that hums through him so deep it prickles into the corners of his eyes. “Yeah.”

Long fingers thread into the longer curls on the top of his head and then push at his head. Not enough to hurt his neck, but a firm down. Nursey gets the hint and snorts a laugh against Dex’s chest, dropping wet kisses down over Dex’s abs as he makes his way down to his dick. He licks the head once, just to clean off the precum that’s gathered there and to hear Dex’s soft moan, the stroke of his fingers against his scalp.

And then he dips lower, shoving one of Dex’s legs over his shoulder, then the other. Dex makes a startled sound.

“Nursey,” he says. The word comes out a little surprised, especially when Nursey licks a line down below his balls, his hands dipping between Dex’s cheeks to spread him open. “Nursey, I--fuck.”

Nursey slides his tongue over Dex’s hole and then lifts his head. “You don’t want it?”

Dex’s lips part, and he traces his tongue over the bottom one. Nursey wants to catch it in his, feel it get red and swollen between his teeth. “I’m not, uh,” Dex says, because they don’t do this often, and Dex always falls apart when they do, turns needy and desperate in all the ways he usually doesn’t, even when Nursey’s fucking him into the mattress. “Like, I didn’t plan for--”

Nursey bites him, high on his thigh, and Dex’s groan is music. “I don’t care,” he says, and he doesn’t, which thrills through him in a guilty, dirty sort of way, like he should care, like he’s being reckless. “You want it, or not?”

Dex lips his lips again. His throat works as he swallows. “I want it.”

That is music. Nursey closes his eyes, exhales a soft moan against Dex’s inner thigh. “Turn for me.” Dex rolls over onto his hands and knees and Nursey slides up, runs his hands over Dex’s hips, spreads Dex’s legs wider.

Just to hear Dex moan, he scrapes the stubble on his cheek over the sensitive skin at the back of his balls before he leans in to lick him open. Dex groans, long and loud, and Nursey feels the shudder that goes through his body, feels his stance change as he reaches for a pillow, pulls it closer and buries his face in it.

Nursey laughs, half-drunk off the tremors and clenches around his tongue, in the sour-sweet taste of him, and Dex groans again. Nursey hears the sound of his own name muffled in the pillow. He presses deeper.

Dex shoves the pillow away, reaches back to grab Nursey’s hair again. “Fuck,” he says, rough and desperate. “Fuck, Derek, babe, baby baby, please--”

Like I could ever make you beg, Nursey thinks. He closes his eyes, spreads Dex wider with his thumbs, uses his lips and tongue to trace I love you, I love you, I love you into Dex’s hole.

He’ll tell him, he promises himself, committing every one of Dex’s whimpering gasps to memory, tomorrow.

…

He doesn’t tell him.

He falls back onto Dex’s bed, Dex’s hand curled around the back of his head to keep him from hitting the headboard. “Gotcha,” Dex says, breathless, grinning. “You clumsy motherfucker.”

It’s teasing and fond, and Nursey laughs, a little tipsy. He slings his arms around Dex’s neck, his legs around his waist, tugs him down on top of him, Dex’s bare chest against his, warm and flushed. “Did it on purpose,” he lies, just to see Dex snort out a laugh, resettling his weight between Nursey’s legs. “Got you right where I want you.”

“Do you,” Dex says. Not a question, really. He grinds his hips down, and Nursey arches up with a pleased groan. Hamdullah, Dex has ditched the baggier jeans he wore at the beginning of the year, and the tighter cuts he wears now make the jut of his erection obvious and warm. Nursey rolls up against it, and gets a rough laugh against his jaw. “I think you’re full of shit.”

“Not full of anything,” Nursey says. And then, because he’s shameless, he says, “Could be, though,” and winks.

Dex’s laugh sounds almost startled, and he lifts his head from Nursey’s neck, his eyes dancing. “You are so fucking ridiculous.”

Nursey grins. “You love it,” he says. You love me, he doesn’t say, because Dex doesn’t. That’s not what this is. Casual. He tilts his hips up again, rocks the line of his cock against Dex’s. “C’mon.”

“Ridiculous,” Dex repeats, but he’s grinning. He leans down to seal his mouth over Nursey’s, and his hands slide down, unfastening Nursey’s jeans. “Up,” he says against Nursey’s mouth, and Nursey lifts his hips so that Dex can lean back and pull his jeans and underwear off. They’d both abandoned their shoes to the mess of Dex’s room when they’d stumbled in from the party.

His hands are hot on Nursey’s skin, and he closes his eyes, tilting his head back as Dex traces his fingers over his sides, then dips them along his inner thighs. He breathes, tries to just feel, to commit the sensation to memory. He wonders if he can write this into a poem. He doesn’t think a word for this exists in English, the way Dex makes him feel, and he racks his brain to wonder if it exists in any of the other languages he knows.

L’appel du vide, he thinks, a little wildly, suppressing the urge to shudder a laugh. This is what Dex does to him, makes him want to fling himself into the unknown, despite the terror of it.

The snap of Dex’s fingers in front of his face calls him back to his body, and he opens his eyes. “Mm?”

“Lube,” Dex says, his eyes amused, lips curved in a soft smile. “If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t,” Nursey says. He reaches back for Dex’s desk drawer, feels around for the bottle and hands it to him. He grabs a condom, too, and just keeps it in his hand, fingers it idly.

Dex snorts. “You never do,” he says. He flips the cap and slicks his fingers, dipping them down. Nursey bites his lip, but Dex is gentle as he strokes over him, circling his rim until he’s whining before he chuckles and pushes a finger into him.

From there it’s all hot, slick stretching, Dex’s fingers working him open with a teasing slowness while Nursey swears at him, one hand threaded through Dex’s hair, the other tight on his shoulder. Dex’s eyes are dark and focused, his smile wicked; Nursey’s heart is throbbing in his chest.

“Condom,” Dex says, fucking finally, pulling his fingers free, and Nursey sits up enough to roll it on for him. He shudders at the touch of Nursey’s hand on him, and touches Nursey’s cheek with his clean hand, the barest brush of his fingertips, feather-light, tender.

Nursey looks at him, and finds his eyes soft. “Lie back for me,” Dex says. He’s quiet, suddenly. Gentle. Nursey lays back down, and Dex follows him, bending over him to kiss him. Nursey sighs into the kiss. Feels the press of Dex’s cock against him, and tilts his hips up to meet him.

“God,” Dex murmurs, and presses in, a long, slow, easy slide. Nursey trembles through it, shaking like a leaf in a windstorm by the time Dex stops moving and just kisses him, deep and long, like he’s searching for something.

Nursey tucks his arms under Dex’s, curls his hands around his shoulders, rocks up, an unspoken please. Dex gets the hint, starts up a slow, steady pace. The angle is good, is so fucking good. Nursey shudders, breaks away from the kiss, and pushes his face into the crook of Dex’s shoulder to muffle his whimper.

“Yeah?” Dex says. His voice is breathless and tight. Nursey knows that voice. Loves that voice. Loves him.

Fuck. He needs to tell him. He needs to tell him.

“Please,” he says instead, and Dex makes a sound that’s half laugh, half groan, and moves harder.

He’ll tell him, he promises himself, coming with a shudder and a half-muffled cry, feeling Dex stiffen and arch, tomorrow.

…

“I’m gonna fail this fucking test,” Dex says.

Derek glances up from the essay he’s writing about gender fluidity as a recurring theme in Shakespeare’s comedies and frowns at him. “No, you’re not,” he says. “You’ve been studying your ass off.”

Dex shoves his laptop away from him with a sound of disgust. “Doesn’t matter if I study my ass off if I can’t remember shit from my notes,” he says, unhappily.

Nursey presses his lips together. “This is your history class?”

“My obligatory fucking humanities requirement, you mean?” Dex scowls. “Yeah.”

“Rewrite your notes by hand,” Nursey says. “They’ve done studies. You’ll remember them better. You’ve got three more days til your test, right?” Dex nods, looking uncertain. “So you have time. I’ll help, we can go over them together a couple times. Cover all those learning style bases, y’know?”

Surprise flickers over Dex’s features. “Seriously?”

Nursey shrugs, a little confused. “Yeah?”

“I...thanks, man.”

He still looks kind of surprised, and Nursey narrows his eyes. “Why would I not want to help you out with this?” He’s like, fifty percent sure that helping his bro study still falls under casual. That it’s still firmly in the friends category of their friends-with-benefits arrangement.

“No, I mean--yeah, of course.” Dex gives him a small grin, pushing a hand through his hair. “Sorry, I’m just--It’s stressing me out.” He rubs his eyes, then nods at Nursey’s computer, open on his lap where Nursey’s sitting up against Dex’s headboard. “How’s your thing going?”

Nursey looks at his screen. He has about two and a half pages of what needs to be a ten page paper. Not because he doesn’t like his subject, but because the words just aren’t coming. He’s had a tension headache thrumming around his temples for about half an hour. “Eh,” he says. “It’s like…”

He makes a vague gesture that he hopes encompasses blah, and Dex snorts. “Yeah.” He glances at his phone to check the time. “Shit, it got late.”

Nursey shoots a glance at the corner of his screen and winces. It’s after midnight, and they have a six-thirty practice in the morning. “Fuck,” he says. He looks out the window, and winces again. It’s raining. He super doesn’t want to go out there.

That’s how it works, though. He saves his document and closes his laptop. “You seen my shoes?”

Dex tilts his desk chair back. “By the door,” he says. There’s a note in his voice Nursey can’t place.

“Cool.” Nursey climbs off the bed, picking up his bag and putting his laptop and books into it. He starts to reach for one of his sneakers, but Dex clears his throat behind him.

“Hey. Uh--” Nursey turns to find Dex looking at him, his expression unreadable. “You could stay, y’know. If you want.”

Nursey blinks. They don’t do that. They’ve never done that. Something small and uncertain and fluttering twitches to life in Nursey’s belly, and he swallows. “What?”

Dex shrugs. “I mean--it’s raining, and it’s late, and we’ve gotta be up in like six hours anyway, so just--You might as well? If you wanted to?”

“I,” Nursey says, because he doesn’t know what’s being offered here, really, and part of his head is screaming leave leave leave, because this is crossing a line, or at least blurring one.

But. But.

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, alright, chill. Thanks, man.” He puts down his bag.

Dex gives him a lazy grin and rolls to his feet.

They walk down to the bathroom together, Dex carrying his toiletry caddy and Nursey tagging along. They wash their faces side-by-side like they do in the locker room. Dex brushes his teeth and Nursey steals some of his mouthwash. Nursey whistles all of happy birthday while Dex washes his hands after he pees, and Dex flicks soapy water at his face.

“Gonna lend me some jammies?” Nursey asks as they head back to Dex’s room.

Dex traces his eyes along Nursey’s body, and then grins. “No.”

Despite the faint headache still clinging to his temples and his lingering stress about his paper, Nursey hears his laugh ring through the hallway.

Door closed behind them, they strip down to boxers, and Dex flips the overhead lights, setting the alarm on his phone. “You want wall side or room side?” he asks.

Nursey shrugs. “Whatever you want,” he says. Which isn’t really true, he’ll probably be a little claustrophobic if he’s pinned between Dex and the wall, but--

“You’re so full of it,” Dex says, rolling his eyes. “I’ll take the wall, c’mon.” He climbs into bed and pulls Nursey after him by his wrist. “Get the lamp?”

Reaching behind him, Nursey feels around on Dex’s desk until he finds the switch of the lamp. He turns it off, and the room plunges into darkness. It’s a little weird to be fumbling around Dex’s desk for something other than lube or a condom.

“Good,” Dex mumbles. He shifts around. “Lift your head up.” Nursey does, and Dex slips his arm  under his neck. “Alright.”

They’re almost nose-to-nose, pressed close in the small bed, both on their sides. The space between them is small. It strikes Nursey as strangely intimate, and he shivers. Dex runs the fingers of his free hand along the bare skin of Nursey’s arm. “You cold?”

“Nah,” Nursey murmurs.

“You sure?” There’s a teasing note in Dex’s voice. His hand slips lower, down to Nursey’s hip. “I could warm you up, if you are.”

Nursey laughs softly. “Fucking corny, Poindexter,” he says.

“That a yes?”

Nursey licks his bottom lip. It’s tempting, it is, but his head still hurts, and he’s tired and a little overwhelmed by what’s happening right now, the newness and blurriness of it. He shakes his head, then remembers it’s dark.

“Not tonight,” he says. “Got a headache, I’m just--I’m not really feeling it. Sorry.” And then, because he’s still a damn gentleman, “You want me to, though?”

He starts to slide a hand over the waistband of Dex’s boxers, but Dex catches his wrist. “Hey, no,” he says. Gently, voice tinged with concern. “Course not, not if you’re feeling shitty.”

Nursey hesitates. “It’s just a headache.”

“Dude, I’m not gonna die if we fall asleep without you giving me an orgasm,” Dex says. Exasperation, touched with amusement. “C’mere.” He uses his grip on Nursey’s wrist to tug him in, rolling onto his back as he goes. Nursey lets himself be pulled, lets Dex situate them until he’s half-sprawled across Dex’s chest, one of Dex’s hands stroking along his back, the fingertips of the other running along his temple.

Nursey closes his eyes. “’s nice,” he mumbles.

“Thought it might help your headache.”

Nursey hums softly in appreciation, and then lifts his face up to kiss him.

He doesn’t realize until Dex makes a sort of startled sound into his mouth that they’ve never really kissed outside of sex or a heavy makeout before. He almost pulls away, but then Dex curls a hand around the back of his neck to hold him in place, a soft, pleased noise lost between their lips.

They kiss for a few minutes, deep and lazy, and then Dex pulls gently away. “I know I said I wasn’t gonna die,” he says, his tone somewhere between deadpan and aroused, tinged with sleepiness around the edges. “But like. We don’t have to test that theory.”

It’s such a Dex thing to say that Nursey laughs. “Sorry.”

“I bet,” Dex says. He pulls Nursey’s head back down to his chest. “Go to sleep.”

“Yeah.” Nursey hesitates, listening to Dex’s heart beat against his ear. It’s in time with his own, even and steady.

“Dex,” he says quietly.

Dex yawns, his hand tracing lazy circles over Nursey’s back. “Yeah?”

Nursey takes a breath. Tries to find the right words. Tries.

“Nursey?”

He breathes out. “It’s nothing,” he says. He puts a hand over Dex’s heart, feels the warmth of his skin. “Never mind.”

There’s a pause. “Alright,” Dex says. He tightens his arm a little more around Nursey’s shoulders. “G’night.”

“Night.”

He closes his eyes.

He’ll tell him, he promises himself, listening to the sound of Dex’s soft, even breathing in the dark.

Tomorrow.

(also here on ao3)