#they could never make me hate you jayce talis | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

valaruakars · 2 years ago

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Let's Get Physical (Part 7)

Viktor/F!Reader || 6.3k || Modern!AU + Gym!AU || SFW

Bitches hate you for your overzealous approach to supporting your friends and deeply anxious behavior. Viktor is not bitches.

A/N: Omg. We're here. We're back on our bullshit. Thank you to everyone who beta'd and/or provided me free therapy about this for that past um... seven months. Oops. Thank you to everyone who reached out over the (unintentional) hiatus with encouraging comments and asks. I hope you'll understand why I took so long to handle this with care and unpack some of my own issues. Very cathartic. Would recommend.

Part 1 → Part 2 → Part 3 → Part 4 → Part 5 → Part 5.2 (nsfw) → Part 6 → Part 7 (Ao3 Link)

Before you know it, two weeks and a day have passed. They make no palpable difference.

Except maybe in your quadriceps.

The same weights you’ve been using feel almost effortless, too easy. You don’t fatigue as quickly into heavy breathing and the urge to cheat yourself a rep or two—not lunging with the dumbbell gripped at one of its wide ends, not squatting while it’s clutched close to your chest. It’s suddenly not enough.

Nobody’s around to see it, but progress is progress. Turns out, you’ve finally graduated to heavier weights on this lonely leg day you’ve committed to.

That’s a bit of a misnomer, though. The day is mostly past you now. It’s evening—crisp and wispy, sky like striated fire outside the garage—and as the sun sets, you’re reminded of the late start you’re up against. All because you forgot something.

A good attitude is optional. A scrunchie you can live without. But your shoes? Leave them forgettably kicked off in two different directions on your bedroom floor and you’re fucked. It’s a small miracle you’re here, dragging around weight plates, setting up a barbell. There was a very real danger of tripping and falling into bed—totally by accident, never to get up again—when you drove home and stomped upstairs to grab them.

But whether or not he knows it, likely the latter, Viktor keeps you accountable when no one else can. It’s because the only running you truly love is the risk of seeing him, which still requires proper footwear. And for you to leave the house.

Though by the time you whipped into the driveway and thrust the gear shift into park, it’s empty. He’d left already; you didn’t get to see him off on his reluctant shuffle through the garage. But lucky you—he tends to come straight home after physical therapy. Call it friendly concern that you’re paying attention.

It’s probably an odd way to think about a friend. You need to work on that.

Your phone vibrates dully on the padded bench beside you. Nearly knocking your water over in the process, you grab it to find a text from Jayce—the usual culprit. You slide it open, accidentally brushing the top of the screen with shaky fingers. It catapults you to the beginning of your most recent messages before you can read the new one.

Mon, Oct 10

[Jayce Talis, 5:56am]: Did you leave the back door unlocked last night? [Jayce Talis, 5:57am]: And the pool lights on? [Jayce Talis, 5:57am]: Was Viktor in the pool?

[7:32am]: Holy shit. Good morning. [7:33am]: No, no, and why do you think I know these things??

[Jayce Talis, 7:45am]: Sorry, it’s all good. He’s alive.

[7:46am]: ???????

[Jayce Talis, 7:49am]: You guys didn’t hang out after I left?

[7:57am]: Idk if you would consider it that. [8:02am]: But has anyone invited him to cards on Saturday??

[Jayce Talis, 8:17am]: He already said no. [Jayce Talis, 8:18am]: Although… [Jayce Talis, 8:19am]: You could try telling him it’s strip poker. Haha :)

[8:20am]: Blocked. Reported. Banned. NOT DOING THAT.

[Jayce Talis, 8:21am]: No wait! I was kidding. He’s not a creep :(

Tue, Oct 11

[Jayce Talis, 3:38pm]: Wait did you actually block me?

[3:50pm]: Yes.

Sun, Oct 16

[Tayce Jalis, 8:00am]: Can I have my t-shirt back today?

[8:31am]: Oh the really old anime one? I left it with some stuff to be washed, ask Viktor. [8:32am]: Maybe the dryer did you a favor and ate it.

[Tayce Jalis, 8:34am]: Hey! Naruto is timeless.

Today

Tayce Jalis unsent a message

Not fast enough to scroll back down, caught revisiting those unremarkable little messages, and now you’ll never know what Jayce’s butt managed to text you this time. Oh well. Keep your secrets.

You toss your phone down behind you with a leathery slap. Back to working on the whole stop pining after Viktor thing.

Right, and your legs.

The barbell bites into your hips as you roll it into your lap and adjust it, the bench presses into your shoulder blades. It’s heavier and harder to manage, but you do, driving down into your heels to get your ass off the ground, hefting yourself into a nice, solid bridge. From there it’s as easy as dipping your hips, which isn’t quite easy at all. No, it’s brutal.

It burns from your core down to your thighs; has you clenching your jaw, gritting your teeth with the strain. Even your biceps are active, lifting some of the steel-hard pressure off your hip bones.

You’re so zoned in—no thoughts, head empty except for the number six over and over until it’s seven—that you only hear the hiss of your breath in and out, the hammering rush of blood behind your ears. You don’t hear Viktor come home.

Not until he’s standing above you.

He had the heinous metal on metal sound in his old beige car fixed—that grinding, grating death knell in its engine. One of several potentially life threatening reasons the check engine light was always on—maybe still is. And though you much prefer him living, it’s harder to hear him coming over the steady music without paying attention.

Bad timing for Miss Carly Rae Jepsen on your Upbeat Workout Jams playlist, considering you do really, really, really like him. Him and how he stands at the end of the bench, staring down; how he fixes you with that sliver thin smile, a manila folder tucked under the arm of his long cardigan.

You seize with embarrassment, frozen on the upswing of your hips. “Hi,” whispers out on the end of an exhale, caught ragged in your throat.

You can’t do pelvic thrusts in front of him.

You just can’t.

It’s bad enough that you’re sweaty in every skin to skin crevice and certainly flushed, t-shirt sticky and legs trembling as they hold your awkward position, but then there’s him.

He wears that same look much better. On him, it’s healthy color across the cut lines of his cheeks; it’s still-damp curls at the nape of his neck and the jump of his lean throat when he swallows, dry when he must’ve forgotten a water bottle again. It’s suggestive. It’s hot.

And it’s the endorphins that make you feel that way, surely, more than any affinity for men in gray sweatpants that are far more revealing than they must realize.

You clear your throat, finding your own parched voice. “Watch your feet,” you warn, on the side of caution, dropping butt and barbell to the ground with a metallic thud. You let your head drop back against the bench pad, staring up at him with the dazed satisfaction of calling it quits. Only for the moment, of course, as you blindly feel around for your phone to turn the music down.

And good fucking god is what you see unholy. Viktor shifts his weight before you can look away, and the ache in your core redoubles—different, deeper than any lactic acid buildup. Did his pants shrink in the wash or is it really that m—?

Nope! Absolutely not!

You can tread no further with that thought because, really, there’s no such thing as having a platonic appreciation for your friend’s dick. Not when the friend is Viktor.

“You’re not finished yet?” he asks. Innocent. Oblivious to your mental struggle out of the gutter.

Typically you would be by now. Equipment racked, the citrus scent of disinfectant on your hands, picking at innocuous conversation while you walk inside together. How was your day? Did you hear they’re demolishing the old physics building? There’s a guest lecture next month that might interest you.

“About another thirty minutes,” you breathe, “and then I’ll be done. I’m running behind.”

“Ah, interesting. That looks to me more like sitting,” he says, which is terrible enough to earn an eye roll, and snarky enough that your lips wobble and break into an insurmountable smile.

“It’s called resting, thanks. This would go faster if you stopped distracting me,” you huff, muscles loose, lips looser.

The little spark of mirth in his eyes, so bright and awake, makes your stomach clench vice tight. “Mm. There’s no rush,” he shrugs, “but… Rio might enjoy a visit.”

Your smile is skeptical as he pulls the file folder from beneath his arm. “Oh really?” It widens as he starts to fan you from above—chilly in the garage, but you’re still sweating buckets. It’s futile, although he’s sweet to try and help.

He nods, gravely serious, “She told me herself.”

You crane your neck unconsciously to let it cool the sweat that lingers there, sighing as little wisps of loose hair billow feather light and tickle your feverish skin.

He isn’t holding it right, though. His grip is too loose on the edge.

At once, a flurry of white comes raining down on you. It’s instinct that your eyes clamp shut against the onslaught.

“No, no, no,” he hisses as if begging could stop gravity.

It doesn’t, of course.

His papers flutter and scrape across the floor. An unlucky one sticks to the sweat on your scrunched up cheek. He’s quick to dip forward and snatch it back first, the easiest to reach.

You blink off the surprise and snicker, “Oh, how the tables have turned. Who’s the clumsy one now?” Rolling the barbell away over your outstretched legs, there’s nothing in its path to be crumpled beneath the weight.

But Viktor doesn’t answer with a crooked smile or a quiet laugh, no dry wit to be found. His dark, heavy brows furrow and he insists, “No, just—just let me,” while he crouches to the ground, distributing his weight between his cane and the end of the bench.

“It’s okay,” you insist, reaching to gather what’s scattered between you, “I’ve got it. No big deal.”

“To you,” he mutters, snatching two away before you can turn them over. Makes him lose balance. He narrowly catches himself before he can veer face first into your spandex lap,, blunt, bony fingers digging into your thigh at the hem of those skin tight biker shorts. It crushes the papers all the same.

“Top secret nuclear codes?” you tease, drowning his muttered apologies. It sounds stupid and obvious that you’re trying to distract from the fumbling tension when his hand stays put for moments too long. Yours, too, on his shoulder to brace him.

Just until he’s able to sit himself solidly on the ground beside you.

He purses his lips, “My work is with reactor cores, not weapons.”

It’s only been a week since you got an impromptu lecture about nuclear fusion in the kitchen. It’s not like you’d forget so quickly. “I know—”

Impatient, Viktor reaches over your lap, too close for comfort. Whatever you were about to say is struck from your train of thought.

His cardigan drags soft and pilled with wear across your beat up knees. Beneath it, his sweat smells sharp and strangely appealing. It’s fascinating, that draw to something so base and human. It’s unsettling, the way your heart responds like it beats between your legs.

You follow his hand, unabashedly curious, and watch him pick up another overturned paper. Below it, the next sheet is stuck face up to the floor with what you cringe to assume is a drop of your sweat, bleeding the ink of a diagram. Multiple diagrams, actually.

Of stretches.

The familiarity sparks excitement.

By the time he peels up the corner of the page with his fingernail, you’re sure of what you’re looking at. It’s common ground, of a sort; the excuse to end all excuses.

“These are from the physical therapist?”

He sighs, sitting back in an awkward fold of spindly legs. Looks wearier, now, with his shoulders collapsed like the exhaustion of going has finally caught up. “Yes,” he admits, because you’re smart and he’s smart, and any other answer would be an obvious lie.

You’re doing it again—digging your fingers into a soft spot that feels as ripe as it does intrusive. We do not talk about it much, he once said, but it’s hard to stop once you’ve started. You just have to know: “Do you do them?”

His eyes cut down to the papers in his hands. “When time permits.”

“How often does it permit?”

“Occasionally,” says Viktor, which might mean somewhere between rarely and never.

Early mornings, late nights; classes to teach, lab hours to log, projects, papers, and a dissertation that looks done to you, but he laughs bitterly when you suggest it. Still has to find time to eat and shower and sleep, but his eyes are always restless purple and there are wrappers from meal replacement bars scattered around the house, too high calorie for Jayce to be the culprit.

You wonder what will happen when it all catches up with him. Worse, you worry.

Beseechingly, you reach out. Your grip is gentle as you take hold of the printouts at their edge. “Can I see?” you ask, not grabbing or pulling or taking, just there and ready.

His lips form a tight, considering line. “If that is the last of your questions,” he slowly replies. Prickly, but relenting, he lets go before you can ever agree.

So you don’t.

His eyes are on you as you flip through the stack—you can feel it as a strange, shy tension like bated breath, watching and waiting.

Page by page, it’s nothing you haven’t seen before. Some you’ve even done yourself, but with simple modifications. Hell, bridges are just hip thrusts performed flat on the floor, without the weight. Nothing he’d need help with, which is ideal when you’re not qualified to do anything but make space for him; to emphasize that he’s welcome and wanted, maybe offer up a sweaty-palmed high five if you’re feeling spunky.

You peel your legs off the floor and resituate, tucking them as your turn to face him, direct in every sense. “You could come do these with us on Sunday mornings after we run, before you get started on work. It would make Jayce happy, and Vi has a really funny way of being encouraging—”

He pulls a face—a nose scrunched up, barely concealed, abso-fucking-loutely not sort of scowl.

“Or…” you’re quick to try, “Just with me, when I’m here. It’ll take, what—fifteen? Twenty minutes?”

“It’s a poor use of time,” he says. It’s as avoidant as it is clumsy, with a dismissive edge still dull enough to bruise.

And that’s because: “You stop and talk to me for longer than that sometimes,” you remind him flatly.

He sighs sharply, toying absently with the cane laid across his lap. “That is different.” He says it like it’s obvious; like it’s frustrating that you don’t know how obvious it is.

“Well, what if we could do both at the same time?” you propose. After all, he’s got such a hard-on for efficiency, if that’s what’s stopping him. “I know you’re a good multitasker…”

His jaw works, trapping his thoughts behind imperfect teeth.

“And we probably keep this floor cleaner than the carpet…” you prod, because the silence of a man who can and has talked your ear off is disquieting; because you don’t always know when to stop; because this feels like a negotiation.

“My bedroom suits my purposes just fine,” he says, eventually.

But you never said which carpet. The thought of him sequestered in there, even for this, is fucking depressing. Arguably disgusting when you’ve walked across that rug and felt the grit of dirt, crumbs, and debris that the pattern hides through your socks. And worse: It’s a choice, so why is he making it?

Abruptly, the rubber tipped end of his cane meets like against the rubber tiled floor. He pulls himself up on it with difficulty you can’t ignore, but shakes his head when you move to help. The only thing you do is hand him up the battered stack of papers, tucked back into the folder from which they came, when he stands up fully. You won’t hold them hostage, even if part of you wants to. It wouldn’t keep him from leaving, his back to you such a familiar sight.

You just want to understand, though, if nothing else. To crack him like a cipher.

Softer, you try: “I wouldn’t judge you.” It’s the last, desperate little thing you can think of. They’re like magic words to you.

But the problem is: They don’t work on everyone.

To his credit, his tone isn’t harsh. It’s indifferent, like stating a sterile fact. “This has nothing to do with you,” he says. “I haven’t skipped an appointment recently, and that should be enough.”

Indigence might suit you in those moments you grow a seedling backbone, but it doesn’t suit this. You can’t help it though. His frustration has bled into you, caught like kindling. “Is it?”

“You and I do not share the same sense of priorities,” he replies, but it’s not an answer. Not really.

The urge to turn him upside down and shake him until something definitive comes out is overwhelming—so straightforward until he just… isn’t. “If you’re not going to say yes or no, can’t you just lie and say you’ll think about it?”

He looks you over inscrutably, sitting there in his shadow. “Why would you assume it’s a lie?”

“Oh, I don’t know…” you huff. But you do. Experience and a certain friend who actually bothers to text you back have given you the answer. “Jayce says you’re stubborn and I’m starting to think he’s right.”

Viktor nods conclusively, but doesn’t care to share what’s going through his head. As evasive as ever when he cares to be, just murmurs,“You should finish this.”

And then, for a reason that is simply beyond you, says: “I will see you later.”

But for once, you’re not sure if you want to.

—

You rap your knuckles against his open door.

Seriously—who were you kidding, thinking for even a second that you wouldn’t be here, doing this?

Yes, it’s well after eight now and you’re pitifully hungry, but it wouldn’t feel right to leave without saying anything. In writing a note or sending a text, you’d simply be spelling out, ‘I’m a coward!’ in far more words. It’s best, you decide, to be polite and mature and just say goodnight despite the awkward taste in your mouth that is very reminiscent of your own foot.

And you get to say it to his back, which should be easy.

But then there’s Rio on his desk like a pissed off paperweight, swimming the foggy side of her holding tank—sorry, prison—without any hope of escape. They’re the angriest, most pathetic wiggles you’ve ever seen. Habitual, given how tongue-smudged and abraded the plastic has become.

“You see?” he says, gesturing to the sound of her scrabbling in his bright rubber kitchen gloves. “It’s just as I said.”

“I think it’s more about you ignoring her.” Rio pauses, slipping down the side. Her little face conveys it perfectly: “Father is cruel? Father is… unyielding? Father hates Rio?”

“No, no… Although, eh, yes, I suppose she does sound like that…” he muses, nodding. “I think she must wonder those things about you, actually.”

Your shoulder hits the door frame, shrugging against it where you lean. “I probably don’t matter much to her.”

There’s a heavy pause, enough for him to breathe in and hold it. Breathe out, softly: “You do.”

And suddenly, you can’t find it in you to leave. Did you ever truly have the will?

The truth is there on your feet—those perpetually mismatched socks. You’d hoped for this, secretly, else you wouldn’t have left your shoes off at the door.

It’s warm when you walk in. A space heater that’s been running too long glows electric orange on the floor near his desk. Makes the smell of churned earth and vinegar cleaner that much stronger. And while the clutter is clearly endemic, it seems the fuzzy, stagnant mugs are not. They’re all gone from his desk and the bedside table, replaced by sticky notes, pill bottles, and an avalanche of papers.

You come up and give Rio’s tiny, clawed foot a high-five through the plastic. “Has she been doing this all night?” you ask, looking over.

Knee on the desk chair for leverage, he’s elbows deep in her tank, rooting those waxen, fake plants back into the substrate with unnatural posture. It’s that stiffness you’ve always noticed—ramrod straight from the mid-spine up. It’s easier to see in profile, in a thin shirt that clings to his back, that there’s nothing visibly forcing it.

“On and off. She tires quickly now,” he says, arranging a broad-leafed plant near her favorite rocky shelter—scrubbed clean, still damp. “When she was younger, it would go on much longer while I did this.”

“How old is she exactly?”

His sigh is almost lost beneath the hum of the space heater. He answers, “Fifteen,” in the soft, subdued way of someone who hates to be reminded.

There’s many things you’re too afraid to ask him. Such hits as: Why did you dig yourself a hole this deep, does Jayce text everyone about you, and would I even stand a chance if things were different? But right now, most of all, it’s how long do geckos live?

You don’t think you’re going to like the answer.

Viktor clears his throat. “She’s very, eh… spritely for her age,” he adds, fondly this time.

You hum a soft sound in agreement, too shaky through the legs to squat down to eye level with her. When you bend your knees to try, you realize you’ll probably never get up again.

He glances over as you straighten up. “You can sit,” he offers without really saying where. It’s obvious, though. The only option—his rumpled bed, never made, with all its mismatched pillows. One has definitely been stolen from the couch, three are yellowed and missing pillowcases which is… ew.

But you’re not going to refuse. You’d like to hold Rio, after all.

You swallow hesitation and tuck yourself onto the end of his mattress, balancing on the firm edge. At least the intrusive thoughts are fleeting. Only briefly do you wonder what he thinks about at night. What he does. What he wants for.

Not you. That’s for sure.

Your elbows lock out where you grip the ridged edge of the bed. The weight of things gone unsaid, of things left unresolved bears down; it prickles warm at the back of your neck and you can’t stand the waiting silence.

“So…” you drawl, letting your voice fill the void.

“Hm?”

“Are you going to hand her to me now, or…?”

“Ah, no, I’m finished,” he says over his shoulder. “She needs to go back in the tank.”

“Then why am I sitting here?”

“Because I have something to ask you.”

Straightforward. Right. You forgot just how terrifying that can be.

“That sounds just as bad as saying we need to talk,” you mutter, heart twisting into a suffocating, arterial knot.

“We do, though,” he says, too literal, too preoccupied with placing Rio back in her clean terrarium to notice your soul leave your body—preemptively abandoning ship.

But he’s merciful, at least. He doesn’t keep you in suspense.

“I just want to understand at what point you developed such a vested interest in, eh… fixing me, I suppose,” he asks, like wondering what the weather will be tomorrow or what the dining hall might serve for lunch. Conversationally. “Did Jayce put you up to this?”

Your eyes narrow in thought. “No…?” you reply. It comes out too shifty as you toy with the serged edge of his blanket. Jayce put you up to something alright, though that hardly matters anymore. But, in a way, does this count? Would Viktor think that this counts?

“A sure answer, please.”

Fuck.

“It’s just that I would lump that in as part of being friends with you—except I’d call it, y’know, caring?” You draw your leg up onto the bed, closer, tucking your foot beneath your thigh. “That’s all I’m trying to do.”

Viktor flips the grate down with a finality that lights your nerves like a beacon to flee. “So he asked you to do what, exactly?”

“Nothing,” you squirm.

He pivots, solidly on two feet. Doesn’t sit down in the desk chair quite yet. “It wouldn’t be the first time for this behavior, and, with you, I’m sure it was not the last. Do you know that he once provided Caitlyn with a written list of topics not to bring up to me?”

You shrug, “He’s a good friend...”

Now you’re staring down the barrel of being just the opposite—of throwing Jayce under the bus.

“What did he ask?” Viktor presses.

And you break. Made brittle by your desire to put him first, of course you do.

“All he wanted was for me to give you a chance, which was pretty reasonable after you called me annoying—” that word comes out with a bite to it you didn’t intend; sensitive, sore, “—but I never told him about that. He’s just… worried about you in his own way, I guess.”

Viktor quietly raises an eyebrow, and that’s all it takes to snap you into fours next. It practically falls out of your mouth: “He keeps texting me to make sure you’re still alive. Sometimes I think he’s joking, but then one time he told me he had a nightmare that you drowned in the pool, so part of me actually thinks he’s being serious.”

“He is.”

“Wait, really—?”

“Is that why you come so often now?”

Wednesday. Friday. Sunday. Monday too, sometimes, if the day before hasn’t left you sufficiently sore enough. The pain means progress. It must.

“Well, no,” you blink, “that’s mainly because I have a lot to work on.”

“Do you?”

You gesture to yourself. All of you. The way your stomach folds and rolls and fucking exists unappealingly beneath your sweatshirt when you slouch—it could be better. The way your thighs pancake out, smushed against the bed—not getting better, but discipline and toning might shape them into something near desirable. “Yeah, obviously.”

He treads lightly. “I… would not say it’s obvious.” But his eyes are cast down as he carefully removes his rubber gloves and discards them in a bucket of cleaning supplies. He’s not rude enough to agree, but you worry, in all those moments you can feel him looking at you, that he’s thinking it. After all, he’s willowy, sharp and elegant in a way you’ll never be. Soft and fleshy. Never quite right.

“And that’s because you’re, what, zero percent body fat?” you sigh, gesturing to him incredulously. “I’m not implying that’s healthy or ideal—honestly, I’d share some if I could—but…” Your hands curl to your chest, clasped tightly in one another when there is no one else to hold them through the indignity of admitting, “I’m the one that needs fixing. Not you.”

He was right, though, when he said it earlier. This isn’t about you. “Where did you come up with that, anyways?” you ask.

The lines on his face, those deep, concerned creases between his brows, spell out what the fuck. You don’t understand what’s so hard about that question—what he can’t figure out, why the confusion lingers in his eyes. “This… This is the second time you’ve offered to help me.”

“I was trying to be supportive. Encouraging, even—that’s also a good word for it.”

“It all feels the same,” he tells you, taking his turn to sigh. “Which is to say patronizing, sometimes.”

And that was not what you intended. “I’m sorry, I’m not trying to be a saint or anything. That’s not entirely it.” You fight the turtle-like urge to retract into your sweatshirt, which would arguably be more stupidly embarrassing than admitting: “I was just looking for… common ground, I guess. Ways to hang out without dragging you out with us.”

“Are we not doing that right now?”

“Sure, but I feel bad about it.” There’s the silvery peek of his computer, buried on the desk. “I’m keeping you from more important things.”

“You’re not,” he says—no, placates, but the disbelieving press of your lips makes him reconsider. “Well, eh, perhaps, but I can manage. I’ve dealt with Heimerdinger’s high expectations and, mm, sadistic deadlines for years. The weekends work well to make up for lost time, and there is all night after this too.”

“You should sleep.”

“I can’t. Not well.”

You give a creaky little bounce—not much of one, no spring to it—to demonstrate: “Maybe because your mattress feels about as hard as sleeping on the ground.”

“One problem of many, yes.”

You count yourself among them, in one way or another. You’ve been leaking these awful insecurities all night.

Is it any wonder that another slips?

“It’s just—the last thing I want is to bother you. Everyone, really, but especially you.”

“Is that because of me?” he asks quietly. “Because of what I said?”

Oh, you’ve carried this around since day one. Let it color his tone and his words and his actions. Let it haunt you trying to reach for others, the freshest nick in a line of scars that was never stitched properly. That’s what you get for letting all those little anxieties run wild with knives in their hands. That’s what you get for forgiving him before he ever asked for it, as if that would make things easier. For you. For him. For everyone.

It hasn’t.

Viktor crosses the three steps between you on bare, nobby feet. His weight dips the bed beside you ever slightly, like he’s hardly there. But he is, by the way his leg bumps your knee, and you scoot over to give him space.

He doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, grasping at some distant thread. They’re as awkward as he is in saying, “I can’t recall what I meant at the time, but it… it wasn’t that. It would’ve been fine if you thought less of me for it, but not of yourself.”

You shake your head. “It’s—don’t worry, it’s not all you,” you say, softening his guilt, perhaps at your own expense. “I have a lot of anxiety, and that’s a long running thing, okay? It’s mostly… me.”

“That’s… good to know. About you, I mean. Not that it’s—it’s good. Just, eh, helpful to know.”

“I guess that’s generally the benefit of being upfront about things,” you shrug as if it comes easy.

“I would prefer that, I think.”

It doesn’t, but the light, fizzy feeling of relief makes you want to try, if only to have more of it. Maybe more of his shy little smiles too. This time with more intention, and less leaky word vomit.

“Okay…” You shift to face him fully, mirroring his posture in leaning back on your hand for support. “Then in no uncertain terms, I want you to know that I’m not trying to fix you.” Been there, done that, got the shitty dunce hat. People don’t change unless they want to. You know that. “I just wish you were kinder to yourself, but that’s on you. So if you ever decide you want better, whatever that means, I’ll be there. Only if you want me to and only on your own terms—no physical activity required.”

“I might want to consider it, you know…” His voice lowers, softer and softer with hesitation, to the point that you find yourself leaning in. Noticing, as he seems to have noticed, that your hands are a hair’s breadth apart. “As a future prospect, if anything. But you have to understand, I don’t enjoy being watched.”

“I get that.”

“Mm, no, I imagine people stare at you for very different reasons,” he mutters. “Not pity. Envy, perhaps.”

“I promise, most people don’t want these thunder thighs,” you huff, resisting the urge to slap them like a used car salesman. These babies can fit so much soul-crushing insecurity, which is a terrible pitch, really. The occasional bouts of self-loathing are not your strongest selling point.

He lets out the strangest bark of a laugh, so dry it’s almost ugly, as if he can read your mind.

But you didn’t mean to derail. “Sorry, continue.”

“Right…” Viktor draws in a long breath, quiet for a moment before he figures out how to word it. “It’s as simple as that I would rather go unseen. It’s very, ah, personal. And painful, sometimes.”

You think of the age old adage: If it hurts, don’t do it. “Um, not a doctor, but I don’t think it’s supposed to be?”

“So they say,” he nods pensively, eyes ticking over some distant thought, maybe a memory. “It wasn’t like this before. The discomfort wasn’t… serious. That’s how I was able to ignore it for so long.”

“Ignore what?”

Not the brutal slam of the garage door across the house, for one thing. The pictures on the wall must be hanging crooked now.

Viktor sits straighter—if that’s even possible—and calls out: “Jayce?”

Footsteps—softer, distant.

His eyes snap back to yours. “It’s been a week since he’s come home,” he tells you in a quick whisper. “Mm, well, in the evening. He’s here in the morning—”

“To work out at the ass crack of dawn? I know.”

“You were invited?”

“He knows better than to think I’ll get up that early. I saw on his Instagram.”

Footsteps—louder now.

Viktor nods sagely. “Ah, yes, the stories. By my count, he has written, eh, ‘rise and grind’ forty three times since the first of the year.”

“That’s…” Your math isn’t great but, “More than once a week,” you whisper back, on the cusp of giggles as Viktor nods. And then, it hits you. “Wait—”

But the footsteps have stopped.

And instead, there’s Jayce’s stoop-shouldered figure braced in the doorway. He sniffles loudly.

He’s still dressed in the khakis and blue button down he wears to work—rumpled, sleeve cuffs smeared darker. His eyes have that red, raw, burning swell of someone who's tried very hard not to cry, and failed spectacularly.

Viktor finds the words you’re looking for with immediate precision. “Has something happened?” he asks, voice tight, hand tighter on your shoulder as he leans around you to look his roommate over. “Jayce?”

They spend a lot of time apart. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that they’re best friends too.

He swipes at his nose as it runs into the raw little divot above his lip. Beyond sadness, there’s a guilty cast to his dark, hazel eyes, turned down to the floorboards, but you can’t find your voice to tell him that this isn’t what it looks like.

“Are you… injured?” Viktor tries again.

Jayce shakes his head. No.

“Is your mother alright?”

“She’s fine,” he rasps. “Um… Can I just—?” he asks, gesturing weakly to the two of you.

Which you think must translate to: “You want to come sit?”

“Yeah.”

Viktor’s of course comes without apprehension, without judgment. Only with the apparent surprise that he even needed to ask.

But Jayce, in several long legged strides, doesn’t come sit. No, he collapses face first onto the bed behind you, all broad, shaking shoulders and quiet sniffles seeping out from behind his arms. They hide his face and nothing else. Hands curling, clenching into his shirtsleeve, there’s the thick band of a tan line striped across his middle finger.

You turn yourself around, scooching closer, folding up cross-legged to face him.

You’ve never seen him like this—laid so low. A sweat stain blooms dark at the small of his back, up between his shoulder blades, but sweat is sweat and Jayce is Jayce. You reach out to rub his back despite it. “It’s alright…” you whisper. Feels like putting band-aids on a bleeding heart, but it’s all you have.

Soft cotton weave catches the peeling skin of old blisters as you soothe your hand in circles. His shirt leaches the vetiver smell of cologne, but somewhere beneath it, there’s an elegant, cloying perfume still lingers. It’s no secret where he spends most of his time these days.

You meet Viktor’s searching eyes and mouth: Mel.

He nods gravely as if to say he drew the same conclusion.

Say something—that’s your next silent suggestion, canting your head toward Jayce.

But instead, Jayce takes a deep, wet, shuddering breath and asks, muffled into the mattress, “Can… Can we go to Taco Bell?”

“Sure…” you murmur. He could’ve asked you to drive him two states over to bury a body and you would’ve agreed just as thoughtlessly. Anything he needs. “We’ll take you.”

He doesn’t move. Just sniffles at a prompting little scritch to the nape of his neck, where his hair fades out to shadowy, peach-flesh fuzz.

So you ask, “Do you want to go change, and then I can drive us?”

“Can I just have a minute? Please?”

“Why?” demands a perplexed Viktor, still soft spoken. Desperate for an answer that isn’t made of cobbled assumptions; blunt in its pursuit.

And worried. You can tell that he’s worried.

As if you’d been the one to ask, the personification of wet, doleful misery lifts his head and looks up at you. His face is a ruin of dark, clumpy lashes and tear-tracked skin. His lip wobbles, the pressure of withholding little sobs building, building, building. But speaking it aloud makes it real. Speaking it aloud breaks the levee.

“I think we just broke up,” he finally whispers.

And cries face-down for another hour after that.

#arcane #viktor #viktor arcane #viktor x reader #reader insert #arcane x reader #my writing #literally beating tumblr with a stick i've been formatting this for fOURTY FUCKING MINUTES #GOD.#negl crying like a little bitch from the relief of finally posting this #pour one out for heraldeez who has to listen to me #just like jayce fr fr

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weltraum-vaquero · 1 year ago

Text

You could have it all (my empire of dirt)

3. when the last light warms the rocks (and the rattlesnakes unfold)

[Chapter 1] ↠ [Chapter 2] ↠ [Chapter 3] ↠ [Chapter 4] ↠ [Chapter 5] (coming soon)

[AO3 link]

Western AU

18+

Jayce Talis x GN AFAB Reader

Word count: 17.5k+

Synopsis: Jayce’s relationship with you changes — for the better, and for the worse.

Tags/warnings: cowboys in love, anal fingering, Jayce being head over heels but also an anxious mess, angst, crying after sex, reader being emotionally constipated

Notes: Hi. This is what I've been pouring my heart and soul into for the past 6 months. Rest assured that we've still got a long way to go, and that this is NOT the final chapter of this fic. We're only about halfway there. Strap in, strap on, and get ready for porn town, and also pain town. As always, a huge thanks to @valaruakars and @heraldeez for helping me polish this bad boy. It wouldn't be here without you :].

“What has got you smiling through the meatloaf you usually despise so deeply, Jayce?”

Swallowing an unchewed bite of the meatloaf he usually despises so deeply, Jayce straightens up in his chair, glancing Cassandra’s way. The sound his throat makes when he swallows is almost cartoonish — he wants to curl in on himself then and there. Instead, he clears his throat, his smile now long gone.

She watches him intently, like a cat on the prowl, while she awaits her prey — his reply.

“I wasn’t—“ Jayce manages a nervous, dumb little laugh. He’s screwed. “I mean… was I? I don’t think I was.”

“I think you mean who’s got him smiling,” Cait chimes in. As she shifts in her seat, Jayce realizes she’s tucked her legs under her chair specifically so that they’d be far out of his kicking range.

God, he hates when she does this.

“Oh?” Cassandra’s brows raise with interest, and she sets her fork down on the fine china gracefully before her gaze rests on him, icy blue and downright relentless. “Is that so?”

His stomach seems to physically sink while he scrambles for words and finds none. Bounty hunter, protector, hardened outdoorsman, and yet both of the Kiramman women can outdo him in a handful of sentences or less.

Tobias gives him a sympathetic smile, like he pities him already, and like he knows what he’s about to go through all too well.

Being at the mercy of Kiramman women does evoke a certain sense of camaraderie.

“I, uh–” Jayce clears his throat to stall for time; he reaches for the wine glass he hadn’t touched throughout the whole dinner so far. “Sort of.”

“It would be wonderful to meet them sometime,” Cassandra says.

Jayce has never taken a bigger gulp of anything in his whole life than this godawful wine. Caitlyn muffles a laugh into her napkin.

It tastes horrendous. He still fails to understand what exactly Cassandra loves about this expensive, bitter vintage and hates about the sweet cheap bottles he buys at the general store. He swallows it down even though it scratches at his throat and weighs heavy on his tongue. He realizes that all his stalling counted for nothing, because he still has no idea what to say.

“I’m not, uhm–”

“Look at him, he’s redder than a steamed lobster. Let the poor boy be,” Mr Kiramman interrupts. He tops up his wife’s wine glass — a peace offering of sorts, before he claps his hand on Jayce’s shoulder. “I’m happy for you, Jayce ”

“We all are.” Cassandra pauses briefly, and though her voice has gone soft, Jayce can feel her scrutiny weighing down on him. She’d love to know more, he can tell, but much like her daughter, she knows that information takes patience to obtain. Unfortunately for him, she has it in spades. “As a matter of fact, Tobias and I were starting to wonder how much longer bounty hunting and tinkering with guns would keep you busy.”

“Oh.” Jayce swallows thickly. “I-I’m still… very much focused on my job. This is, really, it’s nothing… serious,” he lies.

Because it is, now.

Has been for longer than he’d like to admit. He’s been hung up and restless and devoted, even while he was still waiting for you to return to Piltover for your tent.

(And for him, god, hopefully for him too.)

He’d ridden up to that spot under that weeping willow, and spent the afternoon waiting and wondering and ignoring the leaden feeling in his stomach that maybe you wouldn't show. What’s an outlaw’s promise worth, after all?

But you had.

He’d spotted you, possibly before you’d even spotted him from under the drooping branches. Your hand had clutched tight at the strap of your rifle, ready to unshoulder it, while you’d been cautiously approaching the riverside.

It was only then he’d realized how much of your previously held power you’d relinquished simply by returning.

There were ways he could have used this against you — ways he could’ve set up an ambush. A few of Marcus’ men tucked under the ridge you’d pushed him off of, another one perched up on a tree in the not so distant forest with a scoping rifle, and you’d have been done for.

And Jayce had wondered how naïve, how trusting and gullible and utterly unaware he had to be, to not have had that thought cross his mind even once until now.

But that lasted just until you spotted him, and your hand had fallen loosely from the strap of your rifle to your hip.

You’d still approached slowly, not skittish in any way, but merely cautious. You’d tried to be subtle when you had briefly glanced towardthe riverbank (in the search of footprints that didn’t belong to him, Jayce could only assume), then met his gaze with sinking shoulders and an unclenching jaw.

He’d not been sure if he should’ve felt insulted that you’d thought he’d have used this opportunity to catch you, or flattered at the fact that you’d still taken a chance on him and returned anyway.

There wasn’t much to see much of your face, not until you’d raised your chin and met his gaze, one brow quirked expectantly, an amused little smile growing ever wider as you’d watched and waited. Waited for him, he’d realized, nearly choking on his spit. All the words inside his head had seemed to form a sticky, stupid mass he hadn’t been able pluck anything coherent out of.

“I, uh, hello.” Jayce had swallowed thickly, awkwardly, before he realized he’d curled in on himself, and rushed to straighten out his posture. If your growing smile had been anything to go by, you’d noticed. But you had the decency to not point it out — or maybe you were saving it for later.

“Howdy.” You’d cleared your throat, and though the way you’d set your hand on your hip could have seemed relaxed, practiced, Jayce could tell you were practically gripping it with how the leather of your black glove creased deep with the pressure. Your posture had seemed unusually… stiff.

“I, uh…brought your tent.” Jayce had gestured to the gear tucked under his arm, before mentally cursing himself for being such a conversationalist.

“Thank you kindly,” you’d replied, significantly less suave than you’d been the last night he’d seen you, yet significantly suaver than anything he could ever muster up. Reluctantly, you’d shifted your weight off one foot onto the other before you’d looked at him with a small, but still oh-so-winning smile and told him: “I’ve brought you something, too.”

Jayce had found the amorphous mass of words to have tangled and turned even stickier, just like his throat, tight with surprise, anticipation and anxiety.

You’d brought him something?

You’d thought of him, in the weeks you’d spent apart, you’d picked something out for him, you’d–

You’d likely done this just to get him into your bed. Well, sleeping bag, probably, but there had been no other plausible explanation, had there? You’d never seemed the kind of person to pay mind to such… sentimental matters, unless there was something to gain.

If Caitlyn would’ve been there with him, she would’ve told him to give you your gear and leave. And perhaps he should’ve brought her, to keep him from doing something as stupid as accepting a gift from an outlaw, but he hadn’t.

“Here,” you’d encouraged, stepping closer and holding it out to him. “I hope it suits you just as much as I thought it would.”

And how could he have said no to that?

Jayce’s hands had almost been shaking when he’d taken it from you, driven only by willful ignorance and curiosity as he slowly cupped his hands around the fabric you’d dropped in them, swallowing though his mouth had gone dry the moment the weight pressed against his palms.

He’d risked a glance back at you and had found not malicious expectancy, didn’t find you looking at him like he was prey about to fall into your trap, but with genuine excitement.

So Jayce had pushed the foreboding feelings to the back of his head and then pushed the fabric in his hands apart with his thumbs to peek at what was wrapped within.

A pendant. Dark golden gemstone, no bigger than the tip of his index, wrapped in delicate wire to hang onto a leather cord just long enough to reach around his neck.

“The woman that sold me this,” you’d told him, “didn’t speak a word of English. But I saw this pretty little thing with the rest of her wares, I knew I had to have it. All golden and pretty, it looked just like your eyes shining by the campfire that last night I saw you. And when I pointed at it and asked what it was, do you know what she told me?”

Jayce had taken it from the fabric to inspect it in a shaky hand, half-confident in what he could still remember from all the books on gemstones he’d consumed in his youth.

And it had looked… like citrine, most likely. It was common enough to be readily available and not cost too much, and he knew for a fact it couldn’t be amber after he pressed his fingernail against it and found it to be rigid.

Jayce’s heart plunged all the way into his stomach then bounced back up into his throat with excitement when he realized — could this be Topaz?

No. Considering its price range, absolutely not. It was not cheap or even readily available gemstone, especially not in a shade this dark. It had to be citrine. Most definitely.

“Topacio,” you’d answered, like you’d followed every step of his thought process and were eager to turn it all belly-up with just one word.

“I, wh— Topaz?” Jayce had blurted, feeling very much like you’d cracked his skull open and peeked at his thoughts. The prospect of having been gifted something so rare and expensive — it… well, he had liked to consider himself a man above materialism, to believe himself not so easily swayed by an expensive little gift, because it wasn’t like he lacked the money to buy himself pretty gemstones, it was just…

Different when you did it.

“What do you think?”

He hadn’t dared saying it, but he’d remembered that first night at the saloon, when you’d set your eyes on him and figured out everything he needed and wanted to hear with just one glance.

Didn’t dare telling you it had felt like you’d been there, when his mother had put her knobby, laundry-soap-cracked hands over his and thunked the heavy mineralogy book shut and told him that there were other things, more important things, that needed his focus. That this useless passion was not something he could indulge in right now, with his father gone so soon. Not with so many new responsibilities waiting to lay heavy on the shoulders of the new man of the house.

He hadn’t let go right away. Had still fallen asleep on his books after a day spent shoveling shit and herding cattle and unearthing vegetables and shooting practice. But it had become increasingly obvious over the years that all his gemstones and books best belonged under his bed in his childhood home.

You’d found and pulled them out — though metaphorically — without the slightest idea they even existed in the first place.

Jayce had been downright terrified of how little you knew about him, and yet how much you’d already seemed to understand.

“I can’t accept this,” he’d said, though he wanted nothing more than to stroke his thumb over the uneven ridges of the gemstone in his hand over and over until they were etched into his fingertips. “I— this must’ve cost quite a pretty penny.”

You’d winked.

“Not nearly as pretty as you.” Hadn’t given him the chance to insist before you changed the subject. “‘S your stallion’s name, too, ain’t it?”

And Jayce hadn’t quite fathomed that such a detail mattered to you enough to not only recall, but bring up.

“Yes,” Jayce had confirmed, overwhelmed with a passion he’d long buried and forgotten because it just wasn’t something he could afford to indulge in, now reawakened by you. “I didn’t… Didn’t think you’d remember. It’s been a few weeks.”

You’d offered up a smile unlike your usual ones. It was warmer, more genuine, but didn’t lack an ounce of your usual smugness.

“I did say I would be missing you fondly, didn’t I?”

You say it like it’s plain and simple. Like Jayce could’ve easily anticipated you buying this for him, regardless of the price — because topaz is by miles pricier than citrine — all because it had reminded you of his eyes.

Over the past weeks, he’d held and stared at and touched each and every curved letter in the note you’d left him, like it meant touching you, seeing you. But he’d be lying if he said it hadn’t crossed his mind that you might’ve lied when you said you would be missing him just to get another fuck out of him when you’d be returning.

(He’d be lying if he said he didn’t think about letting you.)

“I just–” You’d shrugged, suddenly stumbling in the sweet talk that used to come so enviously easily to you. Not that it had been obvious. It never was, not when it came to you; he’d suspected you’d long outgrown anything more insecure than faltering in your words. “I knew it had to be yours. Do you like it?”

To have you looking for reassurance had made his face run hot and his chest run hotter. His throat had started to close and — oh, those were tears clouding his vision, of course they were. He’d rushed to push them down with a thorough exhale, but of course his throat had started whistling with its growing tightness. Perfect.

“Yes,” Jayce had spoken through the tears he hadn’t yet managed to swallow wholly. “Yes. Will— help me put it on?”

“Of course.”

You’d rushed to, literally. Had closed what little space there was between the two of you in the blink of an eye, hands coming up to tie both strings behind his neck, forearms resting against his shoulders in something that desperately wanted to be a hug, but didn’t dare to.

And you’d been quick to finish, too. Nimble hands had tied a sturdy knot before you’d retreated, hands lingering on his shoulders, running down his arms, barely ghosting over his palms before you stepped back.

The gemstone had laid heavy and cold against his collarbone, like a promise.

“I can’t thank you enough,” Jayce had said. “It’s— it’s wonderful.”

Possibly the most wonderful gift he’d ever gotten.

And how much sadder that thought would’ve sounded had it left the confines of his brain. The most meaningful gift he’d ever received — coming from an outlaw who’d fucked and tricked him not once but twice. Laughable, pathetic, but most of all simply sad.

He’d spent the rest of the night worrying when you’d demand something in return for your gift, because he’d been well aware keeping and returning a tent could not compare to a gemstone so pricey.

But you hadn’t. You’d left it at that. Had spent the rest of the night simply talking to him, telling him of little things that had happened to you in your weeks away, and he’d clung onto every word, had offered some of his own, which had been revered equally.

That was that. You hadn’t kissed him, hadn’t touched more than what you had when you’d put the necklace on him. Once dawn had broken through the clouds and he’d caught himself yawning through his sentences, you’d dragged yourself up to your feet. And you’d told him that you’d best get going, you had places to be by next week, places he hadn’t dared asking about. If this was going to be the last time he’d see you, Jayce had figured you might as well linger in his memory fondly, and that he’d rather not worry about who you’d rob and where you’d strike next.

This — you bathed in the early morning light — would have been a much nicer way to remember you. The outlaw who fucked him once, fooled him twice, and treated him fairly, gently at the very end in spite of it all.

But you’d said, right after you’d swung your leg over your stallion’s back and Jayce had started staring at the tips of his boots to hide budding tears, that you would be passing through Piltover again in a few weeks' time. Had told him you’d be here, shall he want to see you.

And then you’d left.

He’d spent the whole night and the following week holding back tears whenever he’d remembered the pendant – which had been often, given how unfamiliar it felt, hanging above his collarbone, steadily soaking up his body’s ecstatic heat. A new part of him now, a constant reminder of you.

And that you’d be coming back.

By the third time you’d stopped by to see him – and Jayce had started suspecting you were taking unnecessary detours specifically to pass through Piltover – you’d started sending letters. Small things – just a few affectionate words, pressed leaves or petals (or sea glass, when you’d spent some weeks in Bilgewater). But you hadn’t kissed him for months on end. Not once in all the times you’d come to visit him.

He’d had to ask for it.

Even though your nose had been nudging his after he’d leaned in with laughter from a particularly corny joke of yours, Jayce had to close his eyes to gather his courage and swallow his beating heart before he could get out the words, just a mere whisper: “Please kiss me.”

They’d weighed so heavy for a moment; he’d wondered why he’d had to ask in the first place, when you’d been so brazen when you first met him. Did you not want to anymore, or had you just been waiting for him to ask?

You’d confirmed the latter when you’d dived into it like you’d restrained yourself for months. You’d licked into his mouth, starved, had sucked on his lips and charted out the taste and texture of his tongue like it was something to be savored. Like you’d been aching to rediscover it – rediscover him, but do it properly this time.

Which you had.

One thing had lead to another, touches had lingered, kisses had dipped lower, teeth had scraped sensitive skin, lips had followed suit to soothe. And your lips always soothed, always known where to latch on and how to coax him right where you wanted him – panting and spent and boneless and wrung absolutely dry–

Jayce startles when Cassandra clears her throat and leans in her seat with a knowing smile.

“Well, if it does get… serious, I simply hope that special someone won’t distract you from your duties – you’re still in your prime, you know. Retiring now would be a shame.” She smiles over the rim of her wine glass.

Jayce can only nod, although the seed has been planted.

“It would be,” he agrees, but the thought of settling down with you lingers in his mind from then on, and grows stronger every time he wakes up next to you, knowing you will have to bid your goodbyes come noon.

It’s during one of those late mornings after a long night spent with you that it dawns on him. He wants to taste your kiss – still bitter from sleep and coffee – every single morning for the rest of his life. He wants to hold you every night before he drifts off to sleep, wants to cook every meal with two people in mind, and wants your scents to mingle until they become indistinguishable, present in every room of the house, unidentifiable to either of you.

He wants to spend his life with you.

And he’s downright terrified of asking for that.

–

“This better be worth it, darlin’.”

“Have I ever let you down before?” He says it in a light tone, like he knows the answer to it without needing to hear it, and yet he finds his own shoulders slouching and gaze dropping to the tips of his boots and the tree roots below them.

It’s a question he’d rather not know the genuine answer to. It worries him more than he’d like to admit that one day, without warning, you will stop returning to Piltover. Stop replying to his letters. That he won’t even know where to send them, because you never stay in one place for too long, and you always have to tell him which post office to send them to before you go, or in a letter you send his way first.

He shouldn’t be having those thoughts, not when you’ve been accommodating him these past months, with the number of your visits steadily increasing, and your letters becoming more frequent. There is nothing to worry about, there should be nothing to worry about, especially not right now.

He chooses to draw in a steadying breath and chase those thoughts from his mind, which is made easy when you catch up to him and brush your gloved hand against his.

“Never,” you reply. He wants to believe that.

“Besides,” Jayce changes the subject, “if you could endure the ride from Bandle City all the way back here, you can endure a short hike, can’t you?”

“How short are we talkin’?” you ask. Your pinky threads around his index, and when you lean in, your voice is warm, leaves him shivering with the first brush of your cheek against his own. Your breath is humid and warm at his earlobe and your voice reverberates in the nerves of his spine, leaving his brain a pliant mush. “Because I’ve got something of my own planned for you, too.”

You’re sporting a grin that’s practically dripping with desire to consume when you pull away; reminiscent, although only briefly, of the first night you’d spent together all those months ago. He knows you’re not that same person anymore – not towards him, at least. He doesn’t know how you make a living outside of Piltover these days, and frankly he’d rather not think about it.

It shouldn’t matter. You’re— you’re not harming him, or the Kirammans, or anyone else in Piltover, for that matter, and that’s as far as his duty extends anyway. It should be easy to ignore that part of you when you’re here, with him. What you do and who you are outside of your relationship should be packed into a box and shoved away like his embarrassing rock collection from when he was fourteen. Out of sight, out of mind.

Except for when he’s listening to the sounds of the night and staring at the high ceiling of his room in the Kiramman estate or at the inside of his tent and wondering whose blood you might have on your hands at that moment. When he kisses and sucks on the fingers of those same hands, when he shivers at their touch, Jayce wonders how much of that blood has rubbed off on him.

And yet all that blood becomes trivial when your hand, metaphorically bloodied as it is, squeezes his own, and he finds himself quite content with the warmth.

“Oh, ain’t this the place that pretty little Pilt offshoot flows through?” You ask, focused little frown on your face. Once Jayce manages to stop listening to his beating heart (and self-doubt), he realizes you must have picked up on the faint sound of the river nearby.

“It is,” and it hits him now that there’s a good chance his surprise might fall flat if— “you’ve been here before?”

You shake your head. Thank god.

“Much further upstream,” you clarify, “though it’s perfect. We’ll need to take a quick dip tonight.”

“We will?” Jayce questions, head tilting with confusion. Oh, god, he doesn’t— sure, he’s been working up a slight sweat riding out and about through the morning and noon heat, sure, but he bathed just last night, it can’t be that bad.

“To properly enjoy my present for you, we’ll probably have to, yes.”

Oh.

Which opens up about another ten questions and piques his curiosity with a confusing mix of anxiety and anticipation. Your expression is as impenetrably smug as always; a practiced poker face he’s more than envious of. Jayce settles for finding out the answers later, and gives your hand a squeeze instead.

You reply with a squeeze of your own, walking with him in silence until you stop in your tracks, eyes wide, and he realizes that his plan for this rendezvous did not fail him.

You’re bolting like a freshly shot bullet, hand gripping his wrist tight as you drag him with you until he regains his footing and keeps pace.

You don’t stop until you make it to the edge of the forest, field of bluebells is laid out in front of you, as far as the eye can see, blue as the late afternoon sky, dense enough to blur the line of the horizon and make it seem like there is no limit between the very ground you’re standing on and the vastness above. Just as he remembers.

Now, for the second doubt he’d had about tonight — will it disappoint?

“Is this what you wanted to show me?” You ask, and for a moment he tries to sniff out any kind of concealed let-down between your words, although he knows he’s vastly untrained for that.

“Yeah,” he says, cautious. Careful. Resists the urge to ask if you like it here, or if you think it’s boring. In retrospect, he should’ve come up with something better. Maybe he should’ve brought his six-string to play you a song, or his gramophone to teach you another high society dance for you to make fun of, maybe he should’ve just bit the bullet and rented a boat for a ride down Pilt.

In retrospect, the idea of taking you — seasoned outlaw, well-traveled saddle tramp — on a picnic to a flower field is just bound to fall flat.

You notice. Jayce is not one for monosyllabic replies unless he’s anxious.

“It’s gorgeous, sweetheart,” you assure, because you know he has an affinity for that word by now.

Oh. Maybe he’d been too quick to jump to conclusions.

The tension fades from his shoulders, and Jayce gently twists his wrist out of your grip, until his hand slides into yours and you intertwine your fingers. You crouch down to pick one of the blue flowers at your feet, inspecting it for a moment, before your face turns smug. Not the teasing kind; rather the kind that seeks to diffuse and reassure through humor. “Aw, did you bring me here to make me flip bluebells with you?”

“I— uh… no.” Jayce frowns, though his curiosity is piqued. “Why would we do that?”

“Oh, come on, there ain’t no way you didn’t do that with other kids way back when you was little.”

Jayce resists the urge to tell you that there were not a lot of friends to speak of, in his childhood (or even now, really. It’s not like that department has seen a vast improvement once he’s hit adulthood, all things considered). An unfortunate combination between the remoteness of his childhood home and the simple fact that he’d just been awkward as hell.

Still is, Jayce realizes when you stare at him expectantly, a little confused with his prolonged silence.

“Uh, show me,” he says instead.

“Well,” you begin, plucking a bluebell off the stem of the flower, “it’s simple. Not so different from loves me, loves me not, really. You just flip a bluebell inside out, like so. If it don’t rip, it’s supposed to mean you’ll, uh, what was it? Win the one you love over, I believe.”

Jayce huffs as he glances down at the flipped flower in your hands, which you proudly present a moment later.

He can’t hold back a smile before he looks back up to you, and recognizes the hunger you’re watching him with instantly. Ravenous, just waiting for approval. An approval he’s itching to give. “I’d say that’s gone pretty well.”

You slide your index under his chin as you lean in, and tuck what remains of the flower behind his ear with the other. Your lips brush his own with your words, dripping down his spine and clinging at his lower belly sweet and warm like molten honey.

“I’d say so, too.”

—

“Lower your head for me.”

Jayce eagerly complies, closes his eyes while you wrap the string of braided flowers around the crown of his head, and find that it’s still too short.

“One more should do it,” you mumble. “Maybe two.”

“Take your time, we’ve got plenty of it.” And maybe that’s only half the truth; the other being the fact that there is something he just loves about watching you work — intense, focused, silent. To emphasize his point, he leans back on his elbows, briefly regretful about all the flowers he’s crushed under his forearms. When you don’t offer up a reply, he glances back to you, questioning. “Don’t we?”

There’s been times when you’d promised you’d stay, only to leave after one night or less. And it’s been months since that’s last happened, sure, but he can’t help the uncertainty.

“We do. But you’d wish I wouldn’t take my time if you knew what I had in store for you.” You glance up at him from under the rim of your hat, wink at him so briefly he wonders if he’s imagined it, before you switch your focus back to your work in progress.

Tease.

Curious, Jayce turns to flop on his stomach to be granted a better glimpse of your expression, but finds it as mischievously indecipherable as ever. So he does what he’s realized he does best: glances up at you with a convincing little smile and makes sure to bat his lashes the way you like.

“Can I at least get a little hint?”

Your mean smile answers before you do.

“Nah. Patience, sweetheart,” you coo, in all your teasing hypocrisy. Your hand finds the back of his head a moment later, scratches gently at his nape before easing his head to rest on your thigh. And Jayce can’t find it in him to refute, not when he gets to rub his clean shaven cheek against the coarse material of your jeans and bask in your scent like a cat in the afternoon sun. He’s quite content to simply watch your hands work away and your frown return when the flowers don’t cooperate with what you have in mind.

Your handiwork is sloppy, stems braided together messily, but when you flip the chain right side up, there’s just the smallest hint at the mess below. The twined, tangled stems hide well enough behind the blue flowers. Not that it matters — he’d wear it even if it were horrendously ugly, just because you’d made it. Because you’d told him less than ten minutes ago that there was something about his skin and his eyes that simply harmonized with the vivid blue you’d tucked behind his ear, and you’d asked him if he knew how to make a flower crown, and if he could show you.

Jayce knows that sort of… tenderness doesn’t come easily to you. So he treasures it when it does come his way — even like this, in crumbs. He clings to them, because without those, he has nothing of substance.

You’re yet to say those three words he’s all too eager to blurt with every opportunity and has to bite down on before they leave his mouth. He’s said them before, three times. Right after you’d made him cum for the first time since… well, since things had become serious. Another time, in a letter. And a third, with his head on your lap while you’d hummed songs from your home region to him.

You’d never said it back. Had always rushed to distract him with a kiss or saccharine words, neither as sweet as reciprocation, and he’d made do with just that at the time.

When you flip the crown to check the other side, one of the blooms drops to your lap, so close to Jayce’s face he sees it doubled. He carefully plucks it off your jeans with two fingers, gives his gentlest attempt at flipping over.

And tries to ignore how it rips.

Swallowing an unwanted and unwarranted knot in his throat, he flicks it into the grass.

Whatever. Whatever.

“This should do.” Jayce turns to look your way instead of depressively where the ripped bloom disappeared in a sea of blue and green. “Sit up?”

Frankly, he’d rather keep seeking comfort in the warmth positively radiating off of you, but above all that, Jayce wants to please. So he raises his head up off your lap, but doesn’t turn over to sit, just leans on his elbows, pressing his hips into the ground to raise his head to a comfortable height for you.

You’re quick to tie the flower crown around his head securely. Before Jayce gets to ask how it looks, he finds two hands cupping his face on either side, raising it until your lips brush his.

He hums with delight at the taste of your tongue, but doesn’t get the chance to revel in how you suckle at his bottom lip, because you move on dizzyingly fast. To the corner of lips, to the apple of his cheek, to his closed eyelids, and finally, to the spot between his brows.

“Gorgeous,” you whisper, and he finds himself pressing his face into your hands, into your lips, desperate for more. More warmth, more praise, more love. The next of your words are squished against his forehead, but not lost on him regardless. “My pretty flower princess.”

Choking on his own heart and surprise, he pulls back just enough to glance up at you. The word’s still ringing in his head, new and strange, and before he knows it, he’s blurting it out as if to taste it.

“Princess?” Jayce’s voice pitches up embarrassingly high with uncertainty at the end of his question. There’s the impulse to hide his blush beneath your palms, still cradling his cheeks, but judging by how your thumb rubs at them suddenly, you’ve picked up on the heat already.

“Yeah.” You laugh is the kind that diffuses and soothes, and when you ask, you do so genuinely: “Too much?”

And Jayce finds he feels the opposite.

“I wouldn’t… mind hearing it again.”

Your expression goes from uncertain to devious stomach-flippingly fast. “You will,” you promise, sealing it with one final kiss that lingers and nibbles at his bottom lip. Not enough to leave him dazed, more than enough to leave him wanting. “I believe my surprise might help with that.”

Your surprise. He’d pushed that notion to the back of his head to avoid dying of curiosity, but it becomes irresistible when you dangle it in front of him like that.

“How?”

The look you shoot him tells him he’ll have to bite through a lot more impatience before he gets the sweet relief of knowledge.

At this rate, he’s going to explode. God, he’s going to explode.

“We should bathe first,” you decide, hands running down his face, his neck, stopping at his shoulders, where they give a pat-and-squeeze at his deltoid. Though Jayce still burns with curiosity, there’s no part of him that minds stepping into a cold river with you and being forced to rub against you for warmth while you wash his back. “Did you bring your city boy soap, or are we using mine today?”

Jayce frowns. “What’s wrong with my lavender soap?”

“Nothing wrong with it, city boy.”

—

He hasn’t got the slightest clue how, but Jayce’s skin is set on fire with anticipation in spite of being dripping goddamn wet while he watches you sort through your satchel.

How you can make even that painfully erotic (though, you are naked and sopping wet yourself, so there’s a definitive advantage) is beyond him, but he’s not about to complain if he gets to watch your hardened nipples and perfect ass and what’s left of the water you’d left minutes ago still dripping down between your muscles. He’s holding his hat atop his slowly hardening cock — which might’ve gone harder even sooner, if it hadn’t been for the positively freezing river and the chilly summer night wind.

Waiting, he shifts his weight from one foot on the other, making an awkward step to the side when his balls stick to the inside of his left thigh. Which is the wrong move, apparently, because next thing he knows there’s the edge of a rock under his foot, making his entire frame wobble with it. He winces, barely remembering to not drop the hat, then looks your way to check if you’ve noticed – and you have. You look at him briefly, questioningly, but he waves you off, so you continue pawing through your bag, and he goes back to waiting dutifully.

“Come here.” Your voice is overflowing with barely masked excitement as you’re slowly pulling something out of your bag. Jayce nearly makes a run for it.

Whatever surprise you’ve brought him will not disappoint — not only because he will love almost anything you’d give him, but because you have him figured out more thoroughly than he has himself figured out. He trusts your choice, whatever it is.

Even if it’s…

“Leather… straps?”

You nod, glance up at him through your wet lashes, before you take them — four leather hoops bound together by one triangular piece, adorned with some kind of… ring.

Jayce feels stupid for briefly assuming it might be some sort of strange belt.

“Not just any kind of straps,” you say, spreading the hoops with your hands. Almost giddy with excitement, you demonstratively hold his… gift over your hips. Visual aid aside, he still cannot, for the life of him, figure out what it’s supposed to be.

“These,” you say, pointing at the first set of leather straps, “would go over here,” your index traces above the notch of your pelvic bone. “And these, down here,” you point at the second set, then around your thighs, under the swell of your ass.

And Jayce still has no idea what the hell that’s supposed to do. But his cock twitches with interest, so he can’t help but feel like he’ll definitely be into whatever that is.

“And, uh, what…” He clears his throat, desperately trying to understand what this sort of…harness is supposed to even do. The center piece seems like it would settle right above his cock, which, frankly, seems uncomfortable.

Maybe that’s the point?

Or maybe he’s just being a sad, horny pervert because this is the first time you’ve come to see him this month, and just minutes ago, your naked bodies were smushed against each other while he tried to not be desperate and focus on lathering himself in soap, had tried to focus on not grinding himself off on your thigh like a stupid mutt when your fingers had dipped between his asscheeks and rubbed at his hole—

Holy shit.

As if you’d figured out that the cogs in his head had finally, finally turned enough to generate one coherent thought, you grin up at him, set the leather straps down, before you pick up a piece of linen that is obviously wrapped around… something.

“They hold this in place.” You’re eager when you unwrap it, stepping closer to sate his curiosity as he leans in to peek at what’s in your hands.

Wood, most certainly, but it’s shaped… like a cock. Has roughly the size of it, too, while it seems to be smooth and lacquered, flaring at the base.

A glance back to the harness — to the circle on the main piece, to the smaller, daintier straps he realizes are obviously meant to secure the circle into place, it… it has to be—

“Go ahead,” you encourage, holding out the leather for him to take.

So he does, gingerly lifts it from your hands, and finds that the leather is soft, malleable, but undoubtedly sturdy — of very good quality. The smaller loops that hold the circle flush to the triangular plate of leather come undone with a little bit of fidgeting, and Jayce looks to the cock one last time, to confirm his burning suspicion (and hopes). The ring was definitely made to hold the cock in place. But what for? He has— it’s not like he has any need to wear this. Sure, he knows his size is not the most impressive there is, but, surely, this isn’t… it has to be… for you.

“Will you… be the one wearing this?”

You nod.

“Unless there’s anyone else you’d like to fuck you full of wooden dick, yes.”

Jayce is not proud of how he chokes on his spit.

Or of how you have to pat the space between his shoulder blades while he tries to calm himself down and straighten himself back up, before he realizes it’s quite difficult to hold your gaze now.

“How did you know?”

Your smile grows wide now, cracks into a self-satisfied little grin. Damn you. Goddamn you; you have him figured out down to his barest, most depraved thoughts. Have had him figured out since you’d first set eyes on him, in that saloon.

“When… I was touching you one night a few weeks ago, you said you would like it if I… were the one who fucked you. You told me you wanted me to take you. Do you remember?”

There’s nobody on this big, green earth who gets him the way you do. Jayce wonders if he’s dreaming, because there’s no—

There’s no way a thing like this even exists. This has to be some conjuring up of his imagination, a product of his naked, shameful, deluded desire. There just isn’t any way that someone not only made a cock you could fuck him with, but that you’d found and bought it.

You grab his shaky hand, bring it up next to the one that’s still clutching the linen around the wooden cock. “This — along with that harness I just showed you — would let me do that. If you still wanted me to.”

If he still wanted to? Like he hadn’t fantasized about… your fingers massaging at his insides, about you doing to him what only he can do to you, like he hadn’t spent months suppressing those thoughts and only had one slip through, once. Like he hadn’t rushed to sweep it under a rug of shame, even then, when you’d looked at him with invigorated interest. And yet you’d caught onto it, you’d found and bought this thing which he had never fathomed could even exist. And you’re asking him if he wants to, like the answer isn’t fucking obvious.

“Would you?” You ask again, in a rare moment of uncertainty caused by his prolonged, panicked, delighted, disbelieving silence. “Want me to? We don’t have to, Jayce, if it’s not—”

“I would— yes.” He realizes he sounds uncertain. Which he’s— he’s not. He wants this, god, he still has to wrap his head around the fact that it’s even possible. But there is not a chance he’s turning down you fucking him. “I would love… for you to be inside me. I’ve wanted you to for… so long, now.” He says, glancing down at the wooden cock with reluctant eyes.

He lifts his hand, but he lacks the courage to just… reach out and take it. So his hand awkwardly hovers between your chests, fingers clenching and unclenching like he’s preparing himself to touch the hot end of a branding iron and not a piece of wood.

“Go on,” you encourage, and he realizes there is no challenge to brave through. But there are discoveries to be made, and he does not shy away from those.

Slowly, he wraps his hand around the linen, fingers dipping the give of it until they prod at the hardness of the wood.

It’s not heavy. And when he strokes his thumb over the lacquered part that peeks out from the fabric, he realizes it’s smooth to the touch in a silky way, that it doesn't catch on his skin. Like it was made to feel pleasant — which it is.

“It’s just— god. How did you even— where did you find— how—“

You laugh, but it’s not mocking. It’s delighted, the sweet and light kind of giggle that used to be rare from you, but which has grown so abundant over these past few months that it makes his heart full.

“I’m glad you like it.” You say, lean in to kiss his cheek, and along with his brain, his heart seems to burst, too. “It was a bit of a hassle to find a well-made one. I wanted something proper. Well-sanded wood, quality lacquer, comfortable leather. I did have to do some shopping around, but…” You shrug like you’re stating a simple truth. “Only the best for you.”

How is he supposed to not swoon at that? How is he supposed to not sit in a puddle of his own overjoyed tears while he sobs about how much he loves you?

“Here,” you thankfully interrupt his thoughts — and his oncoming tears.

Jayce gulps when you slide the wood out of the linen, realizing that it’s— well, it’s not necessarily an intimidating size in and of itself, but… it is intimidating for a first attempt.

You must’ve caught on, because your hand is at the hollow of his cheek, stroking slowly, gently.

“I remember you told me you hadn’t done this before,” you don’t say it like it’s a fact or an observation, but rather, reassurance. “Way back then, when you’d mentioned wanting me to fuck you that night. Have you, since then?”

Jayce shakes his head, shaken with the question. He wonders how you ask it so easily, like he’d let just about anyone touch him the way you do.

“You know there’s no one else I’d—“

“I know,” you interrupt. “I meant, by yourself. Have you… fingered yourself, since then?”

Ah. Of course that’s what you’d meant.

Jayce swallows thickly. “I wanted to,” he admits. “Often. But I— I always wanted to let you… do it to me, first.”

The way you stop breathing briefly, then rush to fill your lungs with a shaky inhale through your nose tells him all he needs to know.

“I would love to be the first one to do this to you,” you say, and though your words are paced, your voice comes out dry, elated. “Even if it’s just with my fingers. We don’t have to use the cock tonight.”

And he’s not sure what to say, because on one hand, he wants you to fuck him into the dirt right here and now, but on the other, he’d be lying if he said the prospect of it didn’t scare him a bit.

“We should start slow, work you up to it,” you add, seemingly having read his mind, “until you feel ready — be that tonight or in a month.”

“Okay,” he says, sucking in a tense breath. That sounds good. Just a taste for now, more to look forward to later. He’s sold. Has been already, if he’s honest, but your reassurance seals the deal. “Okay. I’d like that.”

“Now?”

“Now. Please.”

You grin, sliding a hand over the back of his head to pull him close, closer than before, to press an ecstatic kiss at the corner of his lips. “God, you’re more excited for this than I’d ever dreamt you’d be. Fucking perfect, that’s what you are.”

Jayce bites back on the urge to say he loves you — he doesn’t want to risk ruining anything with it, not right now. It’d be stupid to spoil this moment, just because he can’t swallow his feelings and because you’re probably going to resort to some method of not reciprocating them the way he wants them to be reciprocated. It’s fine. It doesn’t matter.

He resorts to letting you settle him down on the bedroll, and briefly prays it won’t rain tonight. Neither of you have bothered setting up a tent.

Your other hand slides up his leg, to the middle of his thigh, where it pushes gently. Though he hasn’t felt this tense since the first time you’d stripped him naked all those months ago, it comes more easily to follow your commands, silent as they are now.

You must’ve figured your words would be much better spent on coos of reassurance or smug purrs; and you’d been right. Right now, though, there is no room for the latter, and you can tell. He knows, which is why he lets his legs fall open for you to crawl between them, even though he’s so nervous he can feel his heart pounding all the way up to the bottom of his Adam’s apple with every anxious beat.

“Easy, princess,” you repeat the nickname half-jokingly; though it does tremendous things for his confidence. And for his dick. “I just wanna make you feel good.”

It’s not that Jayce needs reminding that the person settling between his legs and petting his thighs is the very same one who hugs him in cold rivers and braids him flower crowns. But it still helps.

“Yeah, I know,” he says, burying his nose in your hair and inhaling the familiar scent of you. Jayce only realizes his legs have fallen open further apart when you give a little laugh. He doesn’t get to bask in it, not when you muffle it against the side of his neck, where his pulse hammers hard, quick, and icy-hot.

You put your weight into seaming your body against his, focusing not on his pulsing half-hard cock tucked between the two of you, but on covering as much of his skin with your own as your anatomy allows. Jayce lets you use your weight to guide him until he’s pressed into the bedroll, delightfully crushed between you and the ground below.

At your mercy is a wonderful place to be.

“That's it, lay all the way back for me,” you breathe into the skin below his jaw. Jayce suppresses a shiver, badly. The hand you dont brace beside his head for support comes brushing at his naked back, like you’re trying to soothe him, while your tongue does the very opposite — drawing circles into his pulse point that shoot down his spine like electricity.

Your hand slips further down his spine to cup at his ass, then under his thigh, the callused skin of your fingers catching against his own, dry with the thoroughness of the soap you’d used. And Jayce realizes there might be a problem. A big one.

“I, uh—“ he swallows nervously, squirms under your weight and hand. “There’s no— don’t you, I mean, shouldn’t we use… oil?”

He can feel your grin at his neck, sharp teeth pricking his pulse point.

“Did you really think I’d flip Runeterra upside down to find a cock to fuck you with but forget to bring oil, Jayce?”

Oh.

Jayce can’t help a smile, winding one thick arm around your shoulders. He doesn’t know why he’s ever doubted you. You, always so thoughtful of his wants, always so thorough when it comes to him, to his pleasure, so gentle and passionate and perfect—

He can’t help it, that you pull away so fast it leaves him dazed and confused and empty, and that his knee jerk reaction is to whine about it. But once Jayce cracks his eyes open and sees you’ve tucked your hand into your satchel with a searching expression, he understands.

You notice, though, how he suffers for the momentary loss.

“I’m not going anywhere,” you say, even though it’s obvious. And it helps, even though it’s obvious.

You uncork the bottle of oil differently than how you uncork bottles of moonshine. You don’t thumb at the wood til it’s sent flying; you pluck at it carefully, set it somewhere to the side, before you position your hand above his cock and pour.

Whatever oil comes dripping off your palm trickles down onto his dick, and though he twitches for it and for more, you choose not to comment on it. He has to resist grabbing his cock and fucking into his fist just from this – from being ignored. Something, Jayce thinks, is most definitely wrong with him.

You set the bottle somewhere near where you’d put the cork, then slide your dry hand under his knee, easing it up onto your shoulder. Pliant, soft, Jayce simply lets you, his breath catching with excitement.

He’s never felt more spread open and vulnerable than now, and mind you, you’ve spread his legs quite a few times now. He’s felt the cold air, has felt your tongue lapping at his taint, has felt your hands, squeezing at his thighs and forcing them apart after he’d come once already and was writhing with the post orgasm pleasure-pain. But knowing what’s to come now — it’s different, new, has him tensing.

You notice.

“I’m just gonna touch you for now.” Your voice comes out less methodical, more soft when you speak again, breath tickling the curls on his inner thigh. A kind kiss pressed to the meat of it follows your reassurance, reinforces it enough for Jayce to rush to obey your following command. “Relax. You know I’d never hurt you, sweetheart.”

Attempting to sync his breath to your own, Jayce finds himself at a lack of air when your fingers prod at his taint, smearing it with oil. You work off the pleasurable and familiar, circling his perineum in a way that draws out sparks — the kind that burns into an easy, comfortable heat in his stomach. Jayce finds his hips tilting up to meet more of your touch.

“There you are, good boy, so eager for me,” you breathe. Thumb still rubbing circles at his taint, your other slick fingers dip lower, lower, until Jayce chokes on his own breath because he has to focus on not kicking out the leg on your shoulder with surprise.

“Hey, look at me,” you breathe, not a command but a gentle instruction. He does, and you meet his gaze with reverence, the kind that tells him he’s in good hands — in your hands. “Keep looking. I want to see your face, sweetheart, want to hear you when I touch you.”

Jayce nods, hands clutching at the bedroll while your fingers slide back down again. You rub in slow, careful circles at his rim, cooing with delight when he makes a barely-contained little noise. He’s fantasized about your touch… there. Had maybe let one of his hands drift there, sometimes, while he rubbed himself into completion, but he’d lacked the courage to… well, to do what you’re about to do.

“How does it feel?” You ask.

“Mm-hm,” he stammers stupidly. “Yes, good. Mh-more, please.”

The heel of your palm grinds against his taint while your middle and index finger rub at his slick hole, and Jayce’s hips tilt for it. Whatever touching he’d attempted there, he’d done shyly, just barely, hadn’t– hadn’t focused on it like you do now, and it’s different. It’s not the thing he does to himself when he’s teetering over the edge to push himself into completion, not the usual spark of electric warmth up his spine, no, it’s ebbing with tension in his tummy, the unfamiliar but pleasant kind that has him squeezing his eyes shut and muscles clenching. Your expression shifts from focus to interest, and your smile is wicked with your new discovery. “Aw, you like that, don’t you?”

“Y-yes,” he replies, “feels— s-so good when you touch me, baby.”

And to encourage you to do so, Jayce grabs the leg that isn’t on your shoulder and hugs it tight against his chest.

The way your breath catches, your eyes go wide, fixated on him – you look like you’re about to faint. Only for a second, because the next, you’re moaning and biting his thigh hard enough to leave the red imprints of your teeth, all the way back to your molars, like you want to devour him. When you’re pulling away from his saliva-matted fuzzy thighs with a string of spit, you lick your lips hungrily.

“God, you’re so perfect, princess,” you groan, “so delicate and pretty, presenting your hole like you’re begging me to fuckin’… ruin you.”

It makes him shiver, your words reverberate up his spine, in his brain, then shoot all the way down to his cock again. Jayce feels himself dripping, doesn’t even need to look down at himself to feel the tingle of a drop of precum dripping off his cockhead and onto his tummy.

You do, though, mesmerized and utterly fucking ravenous.

“You’ve been aching to hear that, haven’t you?”

Damn you for reading him so well. For knowing exactly what he needs to be told.

“Yes. Please do it, please fuck me… full,” he says, like his body hasn’t been screaming it at you. Almost as if to bask in his words, in how he yearns for you, you stop, breathing him in, before you speak.

“I will, baby, you’re so fucking leaky for it, leaky for me.” Your fingers don't grant reprieve, tips circling at his hole and palm rubbing at his perineum. “I can’t believe this is all it takes. What’ll you do when I finally fuck you open on my fingers, sweetheart? Are you gonna cum then and there?”

As you say it, your index dips just so, tip hooking into his hole to rub at the inside of his rim, massaging him open. He finds his body acting on its own accord, pulsing around what little you’ve fed into him as if to say more, please. You don’t give it to him yet.

Jayce sucks in a shallow breath that comes out shaky, slow.

“I can feel you clenching,” you say, and it’s obvious how your gentleness is slipping, replaced with ecstatic obsession, “like it’s trying to pull my fingers inside, holy fuck. Tell me when I can fill you up—”

“More oil,” Jayce rasps, even though he doesn’t necessarily feel the need for it; just in case. As much as he wants this, he also just wants to avoid any unnecessary pain – at least for now. You comply, gently pulling at his rim with your fingertip, and pour the oil straight into him and—

He finds himself clenching his eyes shut and wincing, trying not to focus on how weird it feels, cold and slippery and just seeping up into what feels like his guts.

Definitely not his favorite part.

Your finger retracts, slick hand resting on his asscheek and squeezing absentmindedly. Worried, almost, you focus on his face, and Jayce swears he can feel himself melting under the attention a little bit. “Everythin’ alright?”

“Yeah. Just felt a little weird — uh, cold. Sorry. You can— you can go ahead.”

He must not have sounded very convincing, because your frown deepens. “We can always stop for a bit — or altogether. Jayce, you know that.”

And he does, by now, truly, but— “That’s the last thing I wanna do right now.”

You go silent for a moment, awe-struck.

Then there’s a near painful stretch at the back of his thighs as you lean over him aggressively, pressing both his knees to his pecs. You brace one hand beside his head on the ground, while the other, now tucked between your bodies, still works his slick rim slowly, gently.

Your lips press at his collarbone feverishly, your breath comes out hot against his neck, like he’s struck something inside of you that made your restraint crack. You inhale at his neck, shivering with a moan that makes him feel much like a delightful meal about to be devoured.

“I want to make you cum until you go dry,” your voice comes out wrecked, breathless, “until there’s nothing you can give me anymore.”

Jayce feels his entire spine rattle with your words. All he manages is a punched out whine, and he wishes he could hug you, if it weren’t for his thighs being in the way. He settles for clenching around your fingertip, tilting his hips into your palm, swallowing a mouthful of saliva before he speaks, heated and raspy.

“Please, please.”

“Tell me,” you say, voice shaky with adoration and excitement, “if it hurts, or you need me to go slower, or— anything. Anything.”

And, well, since you said anything…

“Kiss me.”

It’s near terrifying, how voraciously you dive for it, not quite hitting the mark with your rabid enthusiasm; kissing and licking at the corner of his lips before Jayce turns his head to accommodate you. You take his demand seriously, deliver what you’ve denied so far. And you deliver it tenfold, tongue tracing over his teeth, sucking at his lips, before Jayce remembers he can do more than just breathlessly sit and take what you’re giving and smooths his tongue against yours, earning himself a salacious moan.

“Mmf, you taste so good,” you mumble against his lips, and though he angles his head to chase another kiss, you’re long gone, nipping at his jaw and neck while you talk. “Can’t wait to open you up on both ends, stuff you… stuff you fuckin’ full of everything I can give you. Fingers, tongue, cock, anything, sweetheart, anything you want.”

Jayce briefly wonders what the fuck is wrong with him when he finds himself wanting that — being full of you — along with being suffocated by you. He wants you everywhere; inside, outside, taking, stifling, enveloping, swallowing. You, all of you—

“Need all of it,” he says, because he’s afraid of even trying to verbalize the rest of his blurry, foggy thoughts.

“Yeah?” Your index and middle finger both dip into just his rim — he finds himself clenching around the intrusion, shivering when you scissor them apart and tug him open. “Now?”

He nods. Begs for it, too.

“Okay,” you say, almost as if to calm yourself down, too. You breathe in, deep, before your weight lifts off him, and he finds you sitting back on your knees, both his thighs resting on either of your shoulders loosely, boneless. Jayce tries not to be disappointed with the loss of contact, with how cold and plain the air he breathes in suddenly feels without your scent thickening in every inhale, without you pressed against his body.

The other hand, the one you’d used to brace yourself against the ground before, now grabs a firm handful of his asscheek and spreads.

The way you positively purr with delight has him squirming.

“Oh, look at you, so pink and pretty,” you croon, eyes lidded and fixated on where his rim flutters around your warm fingers. “I’m gonna start pushing in, yeah? If it hurts, tell me.”

You don’t start until Jayce gives an affirmative hum, and even then, it takes him a second to realize that you’ve started pushing in. Your fingers don’t relent in massaging at his walls, and it’s enjoyable enough to be distracting until they must have sunk in down to maybe the first half.

Although you go slow, painstakingly slow, the intrusion is palpable now. Jayce finds himself clenching around it, gripping your slick fingers, while he comes to grips with the new sensation of something inside him. He knows it’s small, realistically, it is just two fingers, after all, but he can’t shake the feeling of it feeling like it’s much deeper, almost touching at the back of his bellybutton, which is– it’s stupid. He’s just being paranoid, he knows he is.

That’s when it pinches, just barely, an amount of pain that Jayce would shrug off, normally, but now it’s… inside him and it’s different and he finds himself wanting to close his legs and tilting his hips away and—

“Hey, hey, breathe.” You inhale audibly, demonstratively, and Jayce instinctively follows you, your pace, slow and deep. That helps; the thoroughness of the inhale, the fact that all he has to do is focus on your lead and let his lungs go full, then empty. The pain subsides, but the unfamiliar sensation of having something inside him doesn’t, and he hates that it overpowers the pleasure he’d so been looking forward to. “Good,” you assure. “Don’t forget to breathe, sweetheart. How does it feel?”

You haven’t pushed in all the way, Jayce can tell, because your palm hasn’t settled against his taint yet. Your fingers don’t move — not into him, not out of him, not apart. You seem content to just wait, and when Jayce opens his eyes to glance your way, he finds you looking at his face already. Focused, but gentle, present, and waiting for an answer.

“Weird. Uuh, not… not the bad kind, but,” he swallows, uncertain, shrugs in the most unsuccessful attempt at nonchalance he’s managed in a long time. “It’s just new.”

“That’s alright, sweetheart.” Soft lips brush at the inside of his thigh with a kiss. “Take your time, ‘n let me know when I can move.”

“Okay.”

There’s a brief moment of silence, and you occupy it by petting at his fuzzy stomach with your free hand, nuzzling his thighs with delighted little hums.

He wishes there could be… more of that. More of you, touching him all over, than just inside him.

“I would—“ he swallows, looking away once he realizes he’s already started saying what’s on his mind. But you cock your head attentively, squeeze at the pudge right above his hips as if to say I’m listening. So he continues. “I would like it if you could… hold me.”

You go silent for a beat, gears visibly turning in your head while you chew on the inside of your cheek. It’s obvious when you do figure out how you want to go about it, and he already burns with the anticipation for more contact, more of you.

“We can arrange that. I’m gonna pull out, okay?” Your warning is appreciated, though Jayce is not exactly sure how to prepare for it — when you do it feels weird, and he doesn’t know how to keep himself from squeezing your fingers on their entire way out. It’s a sensation that tingles all the way up his body, neither pleasant nor unpleasant, but intense and strange enough to leave him squirmy.

Too caught up in the unfamiliarity of it, Jayce doesn’t even notice you settle down next to him, not until your chest is pressed firmly to his shoulder, and your arm slips under the back of his neck, cradling his head.

Fingernails scratch at his scalp, and Jayce can’t do much but watch through dreamy, lidded eyes as you lean over to kiss his hairline.

He’s never felt safer than now. More cherished than now.

“Better, princess?” Your words come out smushed against his hair. Jayce nods gently, as to not knock his skull against your teeth, and suddenly finds himself smiling so hard it hurts his cheeks a little.

“Yes,” he sighs, tucking his face against your neck. There you are. If he could’ve smelled your warmth and scent throughout all of this, he doubts he would’ve needed a reminder to breathe. “Thank you.”

“I’ve got you.” Your still slick hand trails down between his legs again, doesn’t stop to rub at his half-hard cock (though he kind of wishes you would) and instead, prods at his hole once again, rubbing at the rim. “I’m gonna put them back in, okay?”

“Please.”

It’s different this time. The entry is marginally smoother, and when your finger slips back in, just one, then two, the positioning is… better. Jayce can’t figure out what exactly it is that does it for him this time — your warmth, the kisses you press to the side of his face, the heel of your palm pressing to his taint, or your fingers slowly sinking into him, waiting, before you start to draw them out. But you don’t do it all the way this time, you do it purposefully, searchingly, almost. They curl towards his tummy, fingerpads pressing, rubbing, circling—

“Ah-hnn!”

With the first brush of your fingers at some certain spot he had no idea even existed, sparks erupt, and though Jayce doesn’t know where, they prickle all the way across his entire body, licking with heat at his spine and brainstem and stomach and holy fucking shit, you’re doing it again. And again and again and again and you want him gone, you must want him broken and useless and dead if you keep going. How his body is capable of producing, and of holding so, so much… pleasure is beyond him. Beyond his brain, rendered a mess of goo and broken synapses.

“Gh-god, fuck, ah-mmh,” he mewls, mouth falling open the next second. You don’t miss a beat, you never do, licking at the inside of his open mouth while his eyes roll into the back of his head.

“There it is,” you purr, like you aren’t making his brain melt and disintegrate and break and boil just with— with the steady, unrelenting circling of your fingertips. “I’ve got you, sweetheart,” you say, and he believes you. You’ve got him, you always have, always so considerate, everything he’s ever wanted and yearned for in this world is you, and you’re inside him, and it’s too much. “Just let me make you feel good.”

It’s going to break him. He’s sure of it now, the closer you get to rubbing him into completion, and he’s getting closer, closer steadily, he thinks it’ll be the last thing he’ll be feeling. Exploding ecstasy, so vehement that all that’s left of him will be shaky, soulless, brainless, whimpering, useless. He’s terrified and he wants it so, so very badly.

“Don’t— don’t stop,” he sobs, “please don’t stop.”

“I won’t, sweetheart,” you promise, and you could tell him anything right now in that saccharine tone and he’d believe it, he’d take it as gospel. Jayce realizes what he’s saying only after he’s been repeating it over and over and over for god knows how long and holding onto you while he mutters it like they’re the only two words he knows.

Thank you.

Except that they’re not, there’s two more, but by some miracle he has the presence of mind not to blurt them out now.

“You’re gorgeous, princess,” you whisper, kissing at his forehead, then at his shut eyelids once he can’t be bothered to keep them open anymore. The hand that had been scratching at his scalp comes up to cradle his head, keeps him still enough to kiss further — down the bridge of his nose, over his cupid’s bow, before you smooth your mouth over his and swallow his moans like they’re feeding you. Like you want to keep each and every one of them somewhere inside your lungs to cherish forever.

When you pull back, it’s with a wet, pleasant sound. You lick your lips like you’ve savored each and every one of his mewls, before you lean in close to his ear, and shush him.

The mere sound of it floods him with warmth and goosebumps; you’re shushing him. You hold him like he’s fragile, Jayce clings to you like you’re the only thing that’s ever mattered — and you are, you are, and he loves you. He loves you, he loves you, he loves you.

“I— hah, nnnh… I love—“

You lips are back on his in an instant, eating up the only words he wishes you wouldn’t, or at least wishes you could spit them back into his mouth once you’re done chewing on them, wishes you would accept them.

You don’t; but when you pull back and look at him so reverently, Jayce settles for it. It’s enough, it’s entirely enough that you’re doing all this for him, that you’re spoiling him like this, that you’re holding him and kissing him and sucking the tear that pearls down his cheek between your lips. That you’re taking care of him.

It’s enough.

It has to be enough.

“Almost there, sweetheart, ain’t you?”

Jayce nods, wants to tell you so, but finds that he’s entirely incapable of it without moaning like a well-fucked whore.

“I can tell.” Meaningfully, you glance down at his tummy, where he realizes his red, swollen cock has drooled, holy fuck, what looks like an entire puddle of something clearer, runnier than his own cum into the groove of his bellybutton. “Look at you, getting so wet and messy for me.”

Something about the mere fact that his body had reacted like this for you, that you’ve made him leaky, it does something tremendous for his fucked-out brain. It flips a switch that has his dick visibly convulsing, feeling like it’s going to explode with an orgasm that’s built up so high but can’t, won’t tip over in spite of how dangerously it teeters.

The ridge at the underside of his cockhead aches for the slightest touch. Just a brush of something, anything, please, would probably do him in.

But Jayce is nothing, if not obedient, even as his fists clench into the meat of his thighs.

“C-can I— let me touch m-my cock— please. Please.”

You hum, as if deep in thought, though Jayce knows the answer without even looking at you, just based on the mean and playful tone of your sound. You decide, cruelly: “No.”

Jayce gasps for breath, just about ready to debase himself any way you’d want him to, just to reach that unattainable, terrifying high.

“I want you to cum from my fingers inside you, sweetheart.” But you’re gentle. And you love him, you have to, because your tone softens, spoken encouragingly right against his temple, and his skull rattles with your words in spite of their gentleness. “Just a little longer. Try for me, focus on my fingers, focus on how it feels.”

Your hand stops thrusting for a moment, simply rubs at where his prostate swells. “Clench,” you instruct, so he does.

Your grin nips at the corner of his lips while you practically purr at him with delight. “Yeah, that’s exactly it, so warm and soft, pulling me in… you needed this, didn’t you?” Jayce nods, desperately, and thank god, you’re pounding his prostate again, pounding it so hard it fucks all the way up into his emtpy, dumb brain. “Needed to be fucked full. ‘M gonna give you… gonna give you everything you can take, gonna use my fingers and then my cock on you until you shoot nothin’ but blanks for me.”

Jayce’s abdomen goes concave at the very thought of that — of being wrung so dry there’s nothing in him left, of being ruined so thoroughly. Ruined by you.

The pressure behind his cock becomes unbearable; he fears, briefly, that he’s gonna explode with it. But there’s no place for fear when you start fucking him with your fingers in earnest now, pummeling that spot inside with every push, palm settling against his slick taint with wet slaps, over and over and over. All there’s left — all his body can even carry anymore — is pure fucking extasy. The overwhelming kind that renders him so stupid he can’t even moan anymore, simply whining out little ah’s with every hit at his prostate.

It starts at the edges, in spite of what he’s used to. His orgasm was something localized, heat gathered in his tummy, his cock, his balls, but this is something else. It’s not in waves — it’s one big wave, growing, fizzling at his extremities, inching closer and closer to his core, at first just warmth, then heat, then pressure. It overpowers his eardrums with the rush of his own blood, makes the backs of his eyes spot with white even though they’re clenched shut, drowns out the world until there’s nothing left in it but you.

You, kissing him senseless, you, fucking him into oblivion with nothing but your fingers, you, cradling his head. He buries his face against you, doesn’t manage to find a spot that allows it, that isn’t in that awkward, hard place between your collarbone, chest and shoulder, but then your hand is at his face, coaxing him away, and you’re cooing at him.

“No, no, don’t hide from me.” Your breath brushes warm and humid against his cupid’s bow, the tip of your nose grazes his own, your forehead settled against his. “I wanna see you. Let me see you.”

It’s with great difficulty that Jayce manages to open his eyes, and once they’re open that he finds himself gazing deep into your eyes, sharing your mouthful, tasting your breath. You half purr, half gasp with just the sight of him, and it makes his heart full.

“There you are.” Reverent, your palm cups his cheek like you’re holding the only thing that’s ever mattered — him. Tears glisten at your waterline before you swallow them back down, as if the sight of him is too precious to be soiled with their fog. “There you are, oh, gorgeous. Look at me, wanna see you when you cum, Jayce.”

“Y-yes,” he gasps, trying to lick at your lips through his moans, succeeding at just grazing the tip of his tongue over the sharp edge of your upper teeth. Your pace increases, knocks against his prostate with every shove of your wrist. Jayce fights against letting his lashes flutter or his eyes roll back, stares at you with determination while he writhes and mewls and takes everything you’re giving him. “Yes, I— ah, I will, baby, I will, I promise.”

You’ve always loved him, from the moment you’d first set your eyes on him and decided you were going to devour him, you’ve loved him with every letter, loved him with every flower you’d braided into his long forgotten crown, loved him with every push and pull of pleasure you’d spoiled him with. You’re holding and fucking and kissing and cherishing him, you love him, he knows it, in how your lips ghost over his cheeks and in how you whisper lovesick nothings to him, you love him, you love him, you love him.

Just the thought of it, reinforced by the way you hold him, the way you make his body bend to your will like he’s glowing hot glass molding into whatever you want, hot iron being hammered into what you need, he’s always been yours, just waiting to he claimed, remade into what he was meant to be.

He loves you.

The sound he makes is embarrassingly high, feminine almost, though he finds himself quite content with it, rather than ashamed. You kiss the front of his throat like you’re thankful for it.

“I think I’m-mh…”

“I know, baby boy, I know.” And he believes you. How could anyone else know how ruined he is, except for the one person tearing him apart. He feels himself go taut like a bowstring, feels the muscles at the root of his cock flex and twitch until they’re painfully rigid. “Let go.”

So he does.

And it’s like diving underwater. There’s not much he remembers — except for the pleasure that swallows him and seems to chew through him like he’s nothing but meat, that spits him out reborn. He remembers the pressure, blooming behind his eyelids, exploding in the rest of him, remembers the soreness in his throat, but doesn’t remember his sounds, doesn’t remember how he ends up holding onto your arm for dear life, doesn’t remember when hot tears started spilling down his cheeks.

He remembers your chuckle — the first thing he hears once his muscles go limp and useless and his hearing returns. He swallows a mouthful of thick saliva, but breathing doesn’t feel any easier. Jayce wonders if it ever will again, when the reminder of how good it felt to go breathless for you is soaked in his lungs now. Why would he ever want to breathe comfortably anymore, when he could let you wring it out of him instead until he’s left gasping for it?

“Oh, look at you.” Jayce finds that’s the last thing he wants to do, when he could be looking at you instead. He inhales another cold lungful, forcing his eyes open even though they’re heavier than anything he’s had to carry in a long time. “My pretty boy. The prettiest.”

He squeezes your hand, wants to say something, anything, but with his brain drained of thoughts and his vocal chords used and raw like his prostate, there’s little he can say.

“That was so good, Jayce, so very good. I knew you could cum for me, but… this is more than I could have asked for.” Your thumb (of the hand you’d used to support his head) comes to swipe at his chin. “You messy little thing,” you joke, bringing your finger, now slick, up to your lips to suck it clean. “Shot your load all the way up to here. Not to mention you’ve been leaking for me all over yourself, you’re unbelievable.”

So that’s where his brain went.

“Wha… huh, I…I did?”

In disbelief, he looks down at himself, and can’t believe the sight below. Cum streaks his collarbone, his chest, pools of it across his stomach, matted into his dark body hair. The first thing — the only thing — he can do is laugh in disbelief.

“I’ve never… not this much,” he confesses with a raspy voice, “not even in two loads. Jesus. Jesus Christ.”

“Tends to happen with this kind of… stimulation,” you assure, drinking in the sight of him before you continue. “God, you look good enough to eat, all covered in it.” You gently knock your fingers against his prostate, and his entire being both sings and recoils with it, and you’re gigglimg when he writhes and shivers and his cock drools out even more, somehow. It feels good just as much as it feels ruining. Jayce considers asking for more before you say, “I’m gonna take ‘em out, alright?”

He’s not so sure how to feel about the prospect of emptiness, now that he’s realized just how good being full can be. But he doesn’t get to worry about it long. Slow, reverent, you pull out your fingers, ghost them up his perineum, smearing his cum over himself, watching the swirls of your own fingers raptly. “Beautiful. If I could keep you like this forever, all to myself, I would.”

He shivers with your words. “I’d let you.”

“I know,” you purr, licking up his torso, lapping up his cum. He watches you intently, mouth already watering at the prospect of what he already knows you’ll do – either spit his spend into his mouth, or feed it to him with a kiss.

It’s with delight that he accepts the latter as you brace one hand beside his head, licking at the seam of his lips just halfway before he eagerly parts them, and lets you lick into his mouth with a groan. One wobbly, orgasm-numb arm raises to wrap around your shoulders, pulling you close like he needs it. And he does, especially now, after the new experience, Jayce finds comfort in the familiar. He lets you massage your tongue against his until he’s somehow even more lightheaded, drunk off the lack of oxygen, and follows your kiss even as you pull back.

“I’ll be right back,” you whisper against his mouth, cupping at his cheek to ease him away.

Still, you press one last peck to his lips before you stand, taking a rag with you, trotting down to the riverside. Jayce is content to simply watch you crouch beside the water, smile when he sees you wobbling and wincing when you step on the gravel at the riverside.

And it’s only now that your warmth is gone that Jayce realizes just how cold the night is, now that you’re not whispering to him when he realizes how loud the crickets are. And it’s now that you’re not at his side when he realizes how drained he is, in every sense of the word. It’s the good kind of exhausted, though. The kind that’ll knock him out quick and easy the moment you get back beside him.

He closes his eyes and savors it, boneless and happy. The crickets chirping away, the rush of the river, the gravel under your steps, getting louder, closer.

“This’ll be a little cold,” you warn once you’ve reached his side, kneeling beside him on the bedroll. It doesn’t really help – Jayce still flinches and sucks in a breath with the first contact, feels all the content exhaustion practically jump out of his muscles.

“Aw, sorry, princess.” You grin as you run the rag down his heated, sticky tits, down his tummy. “Let me kiss it better?”

Jayce hums, and, a moment’s consideration later, pushes himself up on his elbows and presents himself in the hopes of egging you on. With a laugh, he wiggles his eyebrows at you. The laugh he earns is priceless. “If you insist.”

You spend minutes like that. Indulging in the cold wetness of his now clean skin, the fluttering of his muscles under your lips. Sucking at licking at his nipples, lavishing his tummy and sensitive hips with attention until you’ve had your fill.

And then you settle beside him, brushing your hand through his damp hair, over the scar at his cheekbone, as if he himself is something utterly delectable to look at, to touch, to love.

“You were wonderful,” you tell him. “I wish you could’ve seen yourself when you came, sweetheart. So bright, I coulda sworn the stars paled for you.”

Jayce doesn’t want to choke on fresh tears. He doesn’t want to be too much, doesn’t want to bury his head in your chest and let you coo at him, doesn’t want to say he loves you. But he aches with it, it’s bubbling out of him.

“Oh, don’t cry, Jayce.”

He sobs, and the only thing he can think of doing is hiding his face against the heat of your chest.

“I’m sorry,” he says. And he is — sorry for the tears he’s wiping on your skin, sorry for the way he’s reacting to your words, sorry for what he’s about to say. “I didn’t mean to.”

“You sweet thing. Don’t be.” Your hand cups at the back of his head, pulls him impossibly closer, while you kiss the top of his head. “There is nothing in this world you oughta be sorry for.”

He wants to believe you’ve read his mind. Wants to believe you know what he means, because you always do, you know him so intimately he sometimes wonder if you don’t crack his skull open to peek inside every so often. And maybe you mean it, maybe you do mean it, that he shouldn’t be sorry he loves you so vehemently when you’re not there yet.

Maybe now you will be.

“I love you,” he mutters, a fourth in all these months he’s been seeing you, but no less truthful than the three previous times. You kiss at the top of his head again, squeeze him tight.

But you’re wordless.

Fuck, you’re wordless, and he’s been too much again, when things had been just right so shortly before.

All in due time, he rationalizes, swallowing his disappointment like bitter medicine. You’ve waited on him, too, in other ways. Waited for him to decide when and if you would ever get to kiss or touch him like this again, waited for him to grow comfortable with you, waited until your touch was associated with comfort just as much as it was with excitement. Maybe it was only fair that he had to do some waiting now, too, Jayce thinks while he lets you lick between his lips and brush his tongue with your own.

He pulls back soon enough, doesn’t quite feel like letting you kiss him after… that.

“Do you, um,” he swallows his disappointment, tries to mimic your characteristic, gentle smoothness. “Do you want me to do something for you, too?”

You shake your head. “Trust me, sweetheart, getting to be the first one to fuck your ass is enough to think about for the rest of my days. I could die happily now, but—“ you glance to where the wooden cock and strap lay, forgotten for tonight, “we have more to look forward to. Don’t we?”

And that’s enough to stifle the pit in his chest, for now. Jayce grins, pulls you into another kiss, one that he eases out of once his breath comes out short, letting his head fall against your chest. You’re right. You do. And you’re not going anywhere.

“How much longer will you be staying?” He asks, trying to make a mental estimate of how much… getting used to this it’d take him until you can actually use the cock you’ve bought.

The way you go tense, not visibly, but palpably, your chest going rigid with a held breath under his cheek—

Oh, no.

Your silence answers for you. He can hear it reverberate in your chest, how you swallow then sigh. He knows what you’re going to say before you even say it — but that doesn’t make it sting any less.

“I’ll have to leave by Wednesday evening. I’m sorry, sweetheart, I am.” You sigh. He thinks you’re going to leave it at that — it’s a silent pact by now, the fact that you don’t talk about your jobs, the fact that he doesn’t talk about his.

It’s obvious that you hesitate, that you dread the silence. You play with his hair nervously now, focused on distracting yourself rather than making it pleasurable for him, unlike the way you usually touch him. Jayce listens to your heartbeat, how it speeds up, before he loses track of it as your voice covers it up so suddenly he almost startles.

“There’s this job — a big one, in Ionia. I have to make it.”

Jayce lifts his head from the safety of your arms, looks to your face, but finds nothing other than the warm underside of your jaw. You’re looking away, he feels your throat bob under his cheekbone when you swallow.

He’s not sure he wants to know, but… you’re letting him in, and that, in and of itself, means more to him than anything else, so he hums, to let you know he’s listening. Even though he wishes he wouldn’t.

You find the resolve to continue.

“If I pull it off right — and I should, because the people I’m working with, they know what they’re doing, I know them, and it’s… it’ll be huge. Jayce, I could live comfortably for months.”

The way you talk about it so longingly, it emboldens him. Stupidly. He’d decided, somewhere in the back of his head, that he wouldn’t bring it up, not tonight. But he can’t, not that he now knows you want it. That you long for the idea of comfort, of not having to spend your days worrying about where you’ll sleep next, what you’ll eat.

Because he can change that for you. He wants to change that for you — and the only missing piece is you.

“I… have a better idea.” His voice is already weak and hushed; the fact that it’s muffled against your skin doesn’t help. Your arms around him slacken just enough so you can pull away, and look at him now, properly.

God, he’s doing this.

Alright. He’s doing this.

“A way you could live comfortably… for years,” Jayce continues. “For as long as you want to.”

First, you laugh in disbelief. A short little snort, like you think he’s made an attempt at a bad joke, but then you glance down at him, intrigued and confused all at once.

“What?”

Oh, god. No backing out now.

As he looks back at you, Jayce wonders, briefly, if what he’s going to ask you has even crossed your mind.

He swallows thickly, can’t stomach to look you in the eye when he blurts out the rest of it. “Before I became a bounty hunter, my parents… we had a cattle farm — a big ranch, it’s not… it’s not too far from here. Just a little further downstream. It’s abandoned now.”

Your brows shoot up, clearly surprised with the implication, before they furrow, confused. You’re either hiding from his implication because it scares you, or because you want to hear him say it. “What about it?”

You want to hear it.

Fine. He can say it.

He’s going to say it. If there’s even a chance at a future with you, even if it involves a gamble (and Jayce has always fucking sucked at poker, if he’s being honest), he’s going all in.

“I’ve been thinking that we could…” Jayce’s voice falters, but he presses on, even though it’s shaking, barely above a whisper. “Over the years I’ve worked for the Kirammans as a bodyguard, and for all the bounties I’ve brought in at the sheriff’s, I’ve saved up… enough to sustain two people for… a decade, probably. Possibly even more, maybe even… the rest of our lives, if I go back to herding cattle, if we… if we grow our own produce. The land there is… very fertile, perfect for it, and it’s desolate, really, we could… if you wanted to…”

You’re silent for a beat. He internally begs for a yes, a nod, even a stinging little ‘I’ll think about it’. Anything but a no.

“What?”

There’s fear, actual, genuine fear that flashes in your eyes before you regain yourself. You’ve even pulled away as he’d been saying it, the hand at the back of his head had fallen to his shoulder, and there’s a slight tremor to it now.

And then you laugh, the meek and nervous kind that he’s only ever really heard from himself, never from you.

“Jayce, I…”

You don’t even look him in the eye.

It’s the desperate thing to do, he knows it is, but he reaches out for your face, slides his index under your chin, as if to beg, please look at me. You grab his wrist before he gets to.

“It’s very remote,” he tries again, like that’s going to change anything, “if that’s what you’re worried about. It’s the last place anyone would expect you to be.”

You shake your head. And he forces your grip, until he does get to touch your face and cup your cheek, but you’re still not looking at him. You’re still not fucking looking at him.

“You’d be… you’d be safe.” His thumb rubs at the dip of your cheekbone as if to remind you, I love you, as if to beg you to give him a chance. Let him make it good for you, please. “I’d make sure of it. You wouldn’t have to run anymore. I could— take care of you. Of us. You could take care of me, we could, we could…”

But it’s all for nothing when you stare off into the distance, cold and wordless and Jayce can feel his windpipe being tied into a deft knot that’s not coming undone anytime soon.

“Please.” He hates how desperate he sounds, how downright fucking pathetic — begging to be loved. Begging you to love him, or to let yourself be loved at the very least. If you won’t give him what he needs, let him at least give you what he’s overflowing with so abundantly.

It feels like fucking forever until you speak again.

“I can’t do that.” Your thumb rubs a circle at his arm, like that’s going to dampen the blow of some of the most hurtful words he’s had to hear. “I’m not made for this kind of life. You know that.”

“I still thought you might try. I thought I was— I thought we were—” He sighs again, but it sounds significantly less like a sigh and more like a whimper as it passes through the knot in his throat and past his quivering vocal chords.

Jayce swallows back tears that still overflow in spite of it all. He looks down as he lets his hand fall from your cheek and instead wipes at the annoying tear that’s rolling down his face.

He understands, then.

You’ve been avoiding his love down for months, and he’d been a fucking idiot to think that would change now. He’d been a fucking idiot to think you would change now, just because he’d let you be the first person to finger him open and just because you’d talked sweet about it.

Had you even meant it?

“Jayce,” you say, in a way that’s both soft — laden with pity, and chastising all at once, like it’s his fault for thinking you’d even want this. “It’s not about trying. You can’t just ask me to leave everything I know behind for, for—“

“For me?”

Jayce freezes with his own question, and realizes that, above all else, he’s scared of your answer.

You don’t deny it. That hurts more than anything you could’ve hurled at him. He’s not enough for you, and you didn’t even need to say it to make it ring in his head loud and clear.

“Jayce, that’s not what this is about…” You try.

Not what this is about his ass. He’s not stupid.

You don’t want him. Not like this. You want him when he’s pliant and stupid and horny, you don’t want him when he’s thinking of more. You don’t want him when he’s in love. You don’t want him when he lays his heart and the rest of what he has at your feet.

“Forget it,” he spits. “It was such a stupid thing to ask. Such a stupid thing to think you’d even want to.”

It aches how it makes him so briefly hopeful, how it’s almost a balm on his pain and still making it hurt tenfold, when your eyes go wide, flashing with the very real fear of losing him.

You do care about him, in some halfhearted way. But just not enough, Jayce realizes. He’d been clinging to just the crumbs of it, the taste of your affection, hoping there’d be more, someday, some way, somehow. But there never was. Never would be.

Are you even capable of something as devoted, as genuine as loving? Were you ever?

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” you try to rectify.

He never thought you’d had the audacity to lie to his face again. But you did.

“It’s just that you don’t love me.” He bites back, hoping so very desperately for a rebuttal. A genuine, tear filled but oh, Jayce, I do, I love you, I could just never work up the courage to tell you, but there’s none of that. There’s none of that. Never was. Everything he’s ever thought there was had been in his head. He’d been aching to be loved so bad he’d conjured it up in his imagination. God, he’s pathetic.

“Jayce, I— When have I said I don’t love you?”

“When have you ever said you do?”

And you can’t argue with that. You can’t say it, not even now, when he looks at you for a beat, clinging to some deluded hope.

Of course you don’t.

God, he’s fucking stupid.

Jayce bows his head, standing abruptly. He kicks pebbles into the campfire, doesn’t look at you even when you call out his name. He picks up his clothes, slipping on his pants, not bothering to button his shirt, slapping on his hat.

You call out his name a few times. He doesn’t register it. Doesn’t want to. The same way you don’t want him, not when he asks for more than sex and a few letters every month, not when he asks for more. He struggles to breathe through his tears without wheezing, and he manages, he manages even as he shoves his feet into his boots, he managed like a fucking champ even while he turns to leave.

But when you call him sweetheart, it bounces around in his brain like a punch straight to the eye socket.

Jayce looks to you for a moment, searching, through the warm fog of his tears, for your face, searching for some truth on it.

Had you ever even meant it, calling him that? Had he ever even been something as precious as a sweetheart to you? Or had it just been another way to keep him under your boot, buttered up with just enough affection to keep him eager and dumb? Just another way to get in his pants?

“Sweetheart,” you try again, because of course you’ve realized it’s worked in making him stall, making him falter, worked in getting through to him, “please.”

Fucking liar.

“Don’t call me that.” He wishes there were less hurt and more venom in his voice. But how could there be anything but hurt as he’s trying to hide his hot, bitter tears under the brim of his hat? When the campfire smoke stings in his eyes, his lungs, or is it his chest aching with the realization that all the love he’d basked in had been his depraved delusion and a part of your toying with him concocted into something dizzying enough to make him think he’d been loved.

God, he’s fucking stupid.

The entirety of his body recoils as you approach, like a spooked animal looking for a way out. And he nearly does it, nearly makes a run for the trees, but then your fingers are wrapping around his wrist, holding firm.

How dare you?

“Please, don’t hide from me. Look at me, Jayce, let me see you. Talk to me.”

How fucking dare you use the echo of the words he’d swallowed up like honey mere minutes ago? It’s a potent weapon, because it nearly has him sobbing then and there, to think where you’d had him less than an hour ago, all vulnerable and eager and yours. And now you have the gall to act like you’re in any position to tell him what to do. Like you have the right to touch him.

His wrist seems to burn, just the way it had the morning after he’d rubbed it raw against the rope in the bed you’d shared, where you’d left him robbed of dignity, robbed of affection.

Just like now.

You’d never changed your intentions. You’d just changed your methods.

“Don’t touch me.” And oh, there it is, the venom that’s been boiling surfacing. It feels so satisfying in some wrong, horrid way, amidst all of the pain, to spit it out at you. He rips his hand from your grasp. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

This is the first time it truly gets to you, the realty of the situation. You’d been scared, yes, but now, the corners of your mouth twitch downward, and that squint — he knows that squint. Not on you, but on himself, the attempt to hold back tears.

“You’re being unfair.”

You’ve never sounded this meek.

It doesn’t suit you.

“I’m being unfair?” Jayce’s blood boils with the accusation. “I’m being unfair, for letting you get away scot free after everything you did, for loving you, for offering you a home, for offering to give up everything so we could— sure, I’m being unfair.”

“That’s not what I meant.” You don’t scream it, you don’t grit it out through tears. You say it like an afterthought, like it doesn’t even matter anymore.

And you’re right, it doesn’t matter anymore.

He would have given you everything. All you had to do was take it, and you couldn’t even do that. It makes him want to scream.

You don’t say anything. Not that Jayce thinks there even would be anything on this green earth you could say that could make him change his mind now. There’s nothing else for him here. Never was, except for a waste of his love, his time, his hope.

He swallows his heartful of tears when he looks you dead in the eye.

“Don’t write me any letters.” He decides, and he means it. The tone he takes on is familiar, he’s used it countless of times on his bounties, but never on you, and that alone makes it fit like a glove that’s one size too small and won’t bend around the fingers. But he uses it regardless, heavyhandedly, hoping it fucking hurts you just as much as it hurts him. “If you come back to Piltover, I am having you arrested, one way or another.”

He hates that he doesn’t even believe himself. But he turns away, because even though leaving you behind is the last thing he wants to do, it’s the one thing he owes himself.

#jayce talis #jayce arcane #arcane jayce #jayce talis x reader #reader insert #my writing #you could have it all (my empire of dirt)#cowboy AU #western AU

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