#this film has been in the back of my mind since he put it in wiqy ... i wanna see it SOOOO bad | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nereidprinc3ss · 5 months ago

Text

hourglass

in which spencer disappears from fem!reader's life entirely for three months, right as it seems they were finally about to make things official. when he comes back they reunite, all the while knowing things can't be the same as they were.

18+ (smut, angst) warnings/tags: oh god so many. NOT canon compliant in the slightest, i make shit up, softdom!spence, nipple stuff prob, fingering, oral f receiving, piv sex, unprotected sex, pet names, tara mentioned, depression, mentions of trauma cause its the prison arc duh, passing mentions of alcohol, mentions of spencer losing weight, reader mistakenly thinks spencer tried to kill himself BUT ONLY FOR A SECOND, where is diana reid, nobody knows or cares, probably filming glee, optimistic ending a/n: haven't posted smut in forever but this wip required it and the angst was so angsty i just had to finish it. it was started in jan or feb and subsequently added to and changed months apart and then edited so the writing quality varies from section to section which i apologize for. originally based on good guy by julia jacklin... also the odyssey by homer? can't really explain that one you'll just have to see for yourself anyway byeeee ilysm!!! PLS tell me if you liked it! or if you hated it! but preferably if you liked it! MWAH! wc <12k

It’s been about three months since you last saw Spencer Reid.

About three months since you had an early Valentine’s Day celebration (even though you weren’t a couple) complete with champagne (even though he doesn’t usually drink) and slow dancing (even though you swore you’d be terrible and he spent the first ten minutes laughing at you as you stepped on his toes.)

About three months since you finally settled your head on his shoulder and let the warbling vinyl carry you somewhere distant as the two of you danced slow circles on the parquet floor for what felt like hours.

You’d have liked him to stay later that night. You’d have liked him to stay all night if you were being honest with yourself, but at 11:45 he gently pulled away and told you he had to go.

“Curfew?” you joked, the corner of your mouth lifting a little and you hoped you were hiding your disappointment well.

“Actually, I’m going down to Texas for a few days to speak with one of the leading doctors in experimental Alzheimer's and dementia treatment. I’m going to see if he can get my mom into a clinical trial. I leave early tomorrow morning.”

“Oh my god, that’s amazing, Spencer! What are you doing still here? You should be at home getting ready to go!”

A rosy blush stains his cheeks and he looks down at the ground, laughing that little self-deprecating laugh of his. It makes your heart dance to see him so happy, makes you want to wrap your arms around him and never let him go so that he knows how much you absolutely adore him—but you settle for an affectionate squeeze where your hands have come to rest on his biceps.

“I wanted to see you tonight because I won’t be here for Valentine’s Day... but I still really wanted to spend it with you,” he admits meekly.

If before your heart was dancing, it is now melting.

The dreaded ‘what are we’ talk has been lurking in the dark corners of every conversation you have with each other lately—at least, in your mind it has. What you have with Spencer is not easily defined, and near impossible to explain to your friends—you act like a couple, you go out on dates, he introduces you to his team like you’re his girlfriend without ever putting it into so many words—but this validation that your pseudo-relationship might be evolving is better than any flowers he could have gotten you (although the peonies he brought will look very nice on your bedside table.)

“Four whole days... what will I do without you?” you whisper, brushing a hand along his face, and your chest aches with the heavy truth of it—despite the fact that he often is gone for stretches about that length. They don’t ever start to feel shorter.

“Well, you can start by reading that copy of The Odyssey I annotated for you.”

“Depressing,” you admit. “And a little ominous, considering you’re about to embark on a hero’s journey.”

“I think you’ll like this one,” he smiles.

You chew on your bottom lip, looking up at him as you think.

“Give me something to look forward to,” you say, earnestly.

“I—well, honestly, I just really want to kiss you and I’ve wanted to for a long time now and, you know, if that’s something you’re maybe also interested in then we could, uh, figure out a time to—”

“You want to kiss me?”

“Wh—you couldn’t tell?” Spencer says, like he can’t believe it.

As if on reflex, you lunge up and capture his lips with your own. It obviously catches him by surprise, but when you lower from your tiptoes he follows you, pulling you in closer and holding your face in his hands.

It’s too natural, too right, to be exhilarating. There’s no rush of adrenaline—it's more like stepping into a hot bath or warming your freezing hands at a fire. Like pieces clicking into place. It’s a relief.

You breathe into it, letting more and more of yourself melt against him. He keeps coming back to you deeper and deeper like a rising tide, and you want more than anything to keep getting closer to him—but then he stops. He stays close enough for you to breathe his air, but dodges your kiss gently before supplanting it with a gentle one to the corner of your mouth.

“I really have to go,” he breathes, before moving away from your mouth to kiss your forehead and speak softly against your skin. “If I don’t leave now I’ll be here all night.”

Which is exactly what you want, and the implication does little to make you want him less. But you care about him too much to be so selfish.

At some point, his hands found their way into your hair, and you gently grab his wrists.

“Incentive for you to come home.”

Nearly three months since that night.

At first when he stopped answering texts, you’d assumed he just had too much going on down in Texas. Which you could understand—you knew how stressful this situation with his mother was.

Even when four days came and went without even an alert from him that he was back in town, you thought, okay, maybe he’s been called away on a case. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s disappeared because of his work. But even then, he’d at least text you enough information so that you would know he was alive. Now, radio silence.

So you tried not to be clingy. You tried to act like an adult, to focus on school and your life outside of Spencer, but when Tara Lewis cancelled your weekly meeting due to an “unforeseen work-related emergency”you called her immediately. Tara was something of a mentor, and it was she who had connected you and Spencer to begin with. You had met the other members of his team by that point, yes, but none who you knew as well as Tara.

When she had informed you that Spencer had been arrested in Mexico and was now facing prison time for murder, you laughed.

Laughed until you realized her end of the line was silent.

Realized it was not at all a joke.

In a catatonic state of tranquility, you asked her for more details. Beyond assuring you of his innocence, she couldn’t (or more likely, wouldn’t) provide them. Asked where he was now. Asked all the right things that made sense to ask.

Then you hung up and had a panic attack because Tara said something about 25 years and you saw Spencer evaporate from your future like an apparition.

Slowly, you felt him evaporating from your past, too. Those memories from the night he left, became visions of you swaying with a ghost. Holding nothing but light between your hands as you kissed the peony air of your apartment.

He doesn’t want to see you, she had said into the phone one night, her tinny voice cutting in and out. You’re not on his list of approved visitors.

“You asked him about me?” you had whispered, curled up on top of your made bed in the dark.

I tried. I’m sorry. I’ll call you when I know more.

All your days melded together like a muddied smear of paint. Suddenly you felt you had nothing to look forward to. No anchor, no goal. Yes, a PhD... and then what?

The only thing that punctuated one 24 hour period from the next was the time you spent crying because Spencer was in prison and he didn’t want to see you and by the looks of things you may never see him again. When you weren’t crying, you were thinking about how your life was a big cosmic joke. An unfortunate statistical anomaly that didn’t mean anything to anyone else, and that you couldn’t do anything about.

That copy of The Odyssey, which wasn’t even bound and instead was a thick stack of printer paper organized by a single black clip, became something of a manifesto for you—a tome that your poured over, reading and re-reading each note in the margins, each word beautiful and imbued with meaning because you knew Spencer had selected every single one specifically for you. You traced the letters reverently, because in a way this was the last thing he had said to you—about Lattimore’s faith to the original text, Merrill’s strict use of dactylic hexameter, the stylings of Wilson and Lombardo, and how he thought you would enjoy Hammond’s prose just as much as he did.

Day by day it was becoming more prophetic than fictional, and you allowed yourself to sink into madness. You would rather be a deluded zealot than be nothing at all.

He didn’t want to see you.

He might as well have been dead, for all that you were grieving him. And you started to hate him, because he wasn’t dead, but wouldn’t do you the kindness of proving it. Like a festering wound, scratched open day after day so as not to ever heal, you had to live knowing he was less than an hour away. So no, you weren’t exactly over it. You lived day by day, waiting for the occasional call from Tara to keep you updated on Spencer, but either she didn’t want to share much about how he was doing, or he had specifically barred her from doing so, because she was always sparse on the personal side of things. That thought actually lifted your spirits, because it meant he was at least acknowledging your existence in some tiny way.

But your routine was becoming more regular, and so you staid on top of your classes and your non-Reid related meetings with Tara once a week, and you learned to dip your toes into existential dread and the oily black pool of depression every night without ever fully submerging yourself. You learned hope, because it was pretty much all you had, and the BAU had confidence that they would get Spencer out one way or another so you did too.

So you didn’t really think about it when you missed a couple of calls from Tara some evening in May. You were preparing for finals and had way too much on your plate academically to think about anything else which was a welcome relief so you fully embraced it. I’ll call her back tomorrow, you think, as you clean up from dinner before going back to the living room where your textbooks and papers are completely covering every available surface. Maybe I have no idea what I’m going to do with my life after school, but I’ll be damned if I don’t even make it that far.

Hours later, well into the night, you’d all but forgotten about the calls. A knock at the door takes you a bit by surprise, and you frown as you stand again, tugging your Georgetown sweatshirt down over your shorts as you shuffle to the entrance of your apartment. You’re not expecting anyone, so you crack the door, peering around the edge of it.

And you couldn’t even consider trying to hide that shaky inhalation of dead air when you see Spencer standing on the other side.

Surely you’re hallucinating.

Surely this man in front of you who looks like he just got back from a day of work didn’t spend three months in prison pretending you didn’t exist.

He looks the same. Hair a bit longer, maybe—and gaunter even more than is normal for him.

But it's him.

You can’t think about the apprehensive look on his face—you can’t think about the impossibility of him being here. You can’t think at all. Without your explicit permission, your body surges forward into his, and he’s real, and alive, and warm, and he is an anachronism in the hallway as he accepts everything you pour into the embrace, doesn’t flinch when you move your arms from around his waist to loop around his neck and back to his waist again with crushing force because you just can’t get him close enough.

“I’m sorry,” Spencer mutters into your hair, I’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’msorry, he keeps saying, rubbing your back as you try to find a solid grip on the sleek material of his suit—try to gather all the pieces of him, already afraid he might fall apart and float away again.

“You—dis—disappeared,” you hiccup after an eternity, pulling away enough to look up at his pretty face. Tears blur your vision and darken the front of his jacket, bending the florescent lights so they form a kind of halo above his head.

Through the surreal haze you can see his throat bob.

“I know.”

He knows?

You scoff.

“You have no fucking idea, Spencer. What the fuck is wrong with you? I—I'm—”

The hot anger is such a relief for a second, boiling the oceans of your despair into a wrathful, scorching fog, but as soon as you try to tell him how you feel, the barbed wire cuts into your throat again. You shove him away, skin burning where his hands had been.

“I’m sorry,” he croaks, hands hanging uselessly at his side. There’s that kicked puppy look about him—and it’s familiar, but now there’s more damage. You don’t know anything about his time in prison, you haven’t heard a damn thing, but beneath the glassy desperation in his eyes there is an unfathomable void that seems to be preventing him from being fully present—and you realize for the first time that he is different.

It chills you.

Before, you and Spencer shared everything. There wasn’t one part of his internal machinations that you didn’t understand, nothing you kept from each other. But as you study him now from a few feet away, you realize there might as well be a yawning chasm between the two of you.

He is so different.

Those eyes look deeper. No gears turning just behind the slashes of gold and brown anymore—only an endless dark corridor that goes places you will never go.

Gone is the perpetual boyish up-turn at the corner of his lips that always made him look slightly vacant in a way that you found incredibly amusing. Something you had been so fond of, even if you teased him.

He seems to have aged ten years—if not physically, then in demeanor. And now you feel like a little kid throwing a tantrum.

You cross your arms, suddenly unable to meet his eyes.

You’re embarrassed. And pissed. And relieved. Everything is worse and better. You want to fall back into his arms, but you have been jarred by the revelation that this might not be the same Spencer. It might not be the same relationship. You have no idea where you stand.

He says your name gently, with so much familiarity you’re briefly jerked into the past. It makes you wish you could look up to find him as he was three months ago. Wish this was just a bad dream. But that’s not fair to him.

“Sorry,” you mutter, studying the grey carpet fibers instead of looking at him.

“Don’t apologize,” Spencer says immediately, “you’re right. I don’t—” he clears his throat— “I’m being incredibly selfish. I shouldn’t have just shown up, I’ll just—I'll leave. I’m sorry.”

A silent moment passes.

You don’t look up as he turns and swiftly begins to move down the hall toward the stairway, leaving as quickly and silently as he had come, like a few bars of a song sighed in and away on a fleeting breeze.

Your bare feet are concretely planted, imagining him jogging down the steps and speed-walking away from your building—

And suddenly you’re sprinting after him, feeling like you might puke because Spencer was just here and you let him go again—and even though you’re still so mad and confused and hurt, the realization that he is leaving again makes the entire building spin and lurch.

“Wait!” You yell, almost wiping out as you run down the stairs and whip around corners in your slippery fucking socks. “Please, wait!”

The lobby is already empty as you spill out into it, and cold dread tightens around your neck like a fist as you shoulder your way through the double doors and right into Spencer.

“Please don’t leave again, you just—I'm sorry, I really need you to not go—” you blabber, lachrymose once more, gripping onto his forearms for dear life.

“I’m not going,” he breathes shakily. “I tried to leave because I think you were right and maybe I should and maybe it would be better for you but I can’t.”

“You can’t,” you agree, more sob than spoken word. He cups your jaw, then your cheeks, wiping tears and brushing away hair like he can’t figure out how to hold enough of you between his hands. The wild kaleidoscope of his eyes, bright and alive and real as he scans you desperately captures your attention enough to slow the tears to a trickle. He notices this and stares back, entranced.

A silent agreement is made, or maybe an inevitable fate is accepted—either way, something was set in motion three months ago and it matters to see it through. Spencer kisses you and you’re ready for it. You don’t need slow or tender. You need to feel how he feels. You need to know what he knows.

You sling your arms around his neck and he pulls you closer until you almost tip backward, chasing the bruising kiss even as you regain your footing. You want to drink him in and you do your best, breathing deeply as he kisses you deeper, backing you inside and toward the elevator.

“Is this okay?” he manages, only after blindly reaching for and mashing the up button on the wall panel.

Ideally it wouldn’t happen like this, but the world you live in obviously isn’t ideal and your personal situations as they coincide are far from ideal, so this is how it has to happen. But it’s hard to explain, and you’d rather not admit that this is so far from what you wanted for both of you and follow up with the fact that despite that you need him like you need water. So you don’t say a word as the metal doors slide open promptly. Instead you pull him in and let him press you to the chrome wall as he hits your floor button, and that very hand comes back to grab your ass like you didn’t think Spencer Reid capable of. It almost aches as his fingers dig into the flesh, but it’s a good ache because it means he’s real and he’s there.

You gasp as he hitches your leg up, arching into him. The shorts that you’re wearing leave very little to the imagination to begin with, but they become downright indecent like this.

Quickly the elevator stops and the doors hiss open. You don’t hesitate to pull Spencer by the hand down the hall. When you notice you left your door wide open, you don’t even care. Neither does he, apparently—once you’re inside he slams it shut, flipping the deadbolt while his eyes are glued to you like you’re already naked. Now Spencer is shameless in the way he drags his eyes over every curve, every place your clothes and hair are disheveled from his touch and eye-fucks you so obviously it makes your face warm. Three months ago Spencer would have at least been bashful about it when he met your eyes again, but this Spencer is far from apologetic as he pins you with his burning gaze once more. His hand stays stuck to the door like he’s holding himself back.

“Is this what you want?”

There’s an undercurrent of sorrow below the gravely arousal, like this isn’t what he wanted for the two of you either. But you’re both at the mercy of fate. This is all you have, and it might be all you can do for each other anymore. So you don’t need to say that, because he understands.

“Yeah. Yes, this is what I want.”

For just a second more he watches you from his place by the door, and there’s an unexpected softness to it. He looks at you the way he would have looked at you before. Like as long as he stays there he can entertain the idea of being that person again.

Need wins out quickly, though, and he surges forward. Immediately you’re caught in the riptide of him, helpless as he kisses you all the way to your bedroom.

He’s never been in here before. You find yourself glad it’s relatively clean—one of the pastimes you’d picked up in his absence was keeping everything tidy. It was something you could control.

A lamp glows at your bedside. You lean against the footboard of your bed, hands timidly behind your back and suddenly shy to have in him in your intimate space. Both of you set aside the heaving desperation long enough to catch your breaths, and for him to scan the room like he too is being forced to reconcile with the innate and unexpected intimacy of the moment. He cuts a harsh, dark gash in your sweetly decorated bedroom, radiating something wild and powerful and unsure of himself like a chained bull as he takes in the soft, pale bedding, the paintings and photos taped to the walls, the woven rug and the sheer drapery. His breathing slows as he studies it all—eyes eventually catching on something behind you. Looking is unnecessary. You’re sure he’s spotted the dried peonies in their ceramic vase. Or maybe the now worn stack of papers that is his Odyssey, marked up and soft around the edges from constant flipping-through.

Then Spencer looks at you, and that softness seeps in again. Along with something like... fear? Grief?

In some other universe your first time with Spencer is sweet and giggly and kind and he smiles at the decor in your room and looks around with wonder because it’s another way he gets to know you. It’s a different way to learn you from the inside.

You sense that he’s caught in between universes right now as well, painfully aware of what he would have given you that he can’t anymore.

He breathes your name like an apology, and foolishly you let a second go by in which you think he might offer you one. But he doesn’t. Not with his words, anyway. His eyes tell a different story.

“It’s fine,” you say unprompted on a whispered exhale, then a little louder as you push off the footboard, crossing the space until your hands are on his chest. You focus on his tie, not making eye contact as you rush to undo it. “It’s fine.”

He lets you do this for a few seconds before finally covering your trembling hands with his own. You still can’t meet his eyes.

“We don’t have to do—”

“No! No, please. I want to. I need—I need us to be okay.”

“Hey,” he murmurs, catching your chin and forcing you to look at him. “We are okay. Me and you are fine.”

It’s a pretty thought, but it’s not true. In fact, it’s a hideous and abject affront to the truth. Sure, maybe you’re fine in comparison to last week. Maybe anything feels fine compared to an eight by six cell. But it would be impossible for you and Spencer, for your relationship, whatever that relationship may be, to be fine. It’s especially impossible for him to make that claim, after all he did or rather didn’t do while he was gone. What you need is for him to stay anyway. What you need is to find a way to be with him, to exist with him, even when you are so clearly not fine.

“I just need you to stay,” you whisper, and he’s already nodding, wide-eyed like he’d do anything for you. You ignore all the bitter venom rising in your throat. You pretend this isn’t all happening after he cut you out of his life with a dirty switchblade. Instead you focus on his hands on yours, the familiar smell of him, which invites you to let go of each and every thought and worry. He must’ve showered before coming here, you realize. How long has he been out? What happened?

“Okay. Okay, I can stay. What else can I do? How do I make it better?”

You sniffle and look back down.

“You can untie that for me.”

He hesitates, then nods some more, fingers working under yours to undo the tie around his neck.

“Okay.”

A moment goes by and after that final whispered word, the tension begins to build again. Spencer senses it in the way your fingertips linger on his chest and you step even closer, dragging them down to his belt. The metallic sound of it unbuckling, despite being your own doing, still manages to flip your stomach. How many times have you pictured this? When was the first time you realized you wanted it? You’re sure you haven’t stopped wanting it even once since then.

Spencer tosses the tie away and is shrugging off his jacket now, then before you see it coming he’s kissing you again, ducking down to do it. He feels taller this close up, and especially in your bedroom, where he just seems rather out of place. But you want him here. God, you want him here.

You break the kiss, forced to look down as you fumble with his belt.

“Sorry,” you gasp, embarrassed by your lack of dexterity. The light is barely sufficient to see what you’re doing, especially when he’s wearing black on black and your eyes are still bleary.

“You’re okay,” he assures you, and it’s so Spencer a fresh round of nerves electrifies the tips of your fingers. That thing is happening—the thing you’d hoped to avoid if you hadn’t lost momentum partway through, where you’re allowing your actual feelings for him to get in the way rather than getting swept up in the pathos of the moment and letting everything be easy and mindless. “Here, can I help you?”

But he doesn’t actually wait for an answer before he’s finishing off the belt for you, tugging it loose from his hips till it’s a leather coil in his hands. Your fingers brush the material and he lets you take it as if it were your prize. It’s heavier than you thought it’d be, and you just feel the weight of it in your hands for a moment, your dropped head brushing his chest.

You have a terrible feeling that if you do this now, it doesn’t mean everything will be alright. Because it can’t just go back to normal. Spencer has told you nothing of what must be an enormous trauma, and you haven’t spoken about it at all, but you sincerely doubt that after this he’s going to be ready to just jump into that committed relationship the two of you had been toying with for months before his absence. You’re almost... scared of him, now. Scared of where he’s been and what he’s endured—things you’re sure you couldn’t have taken. What that does to a person, you can’t imagine. He seems so solid and real in front of you now—but you know that’s not always enough. Maybe you’re just scared that somehow whatever he’s been through will have made him care for you less. That you were too far removed from the whole ordeal, and now you’ll never understand. If you could understand, maybe you could fix it for him. Maybe he’d stick around.

Still—even if you do end up pushing him further away in the long run—won't it have been worth it to have had him so completely, even just once?

You toss the belt to the ground, compressing all of these very complicated thoughts and feelings into a few seconds so short he can’t ask you any questions about them. Instead you find his top button, and just as you manage to undo it with relative ease he’s gently grabbing your wrists. You look up at him, immediately surrendering.

“If we’re going to do this I need you to relax a little bit.”

Gears grind in your chest. You feel need and anxiety comingling in every square inch of your body. It’s a sick buzz—a high on an empty stomach.

“I can’t,” you admit.

“Yeah, you can,” Spencer gently disagrees, slowly lowering your hands. When he’s sure you’re not going to try ripping his clothes off again, he releases, and his eyes lower to the zipper of your hoodie. His fingers follow, warm against the soft triangle of revealed skin at your chest as he grips the small piece of metal between barely shaking fingers. “You can.”

You match his eyeline, breathing shallowly and watching as he slowly drags the zipper down. You wonder if that sound has haunted his fantasies the way the sound of his belt has haunted yours. If he’s seen this hoodie on you and wondered what’s underneath, staring at you and daydreaming during movie night with you none the wiser.

Both of you have your eyes glued to the span of skin as the zipper parts. Spencer stalls with the zipper at your sternum, just below the band of your bra.

Right. No shirt.

You look up and find his eyes already on you, tinged with a curious kind of humor.

“I wasn’t expecting guests.”

The words come out shy. Spencer’s chuckle has its own nervous airy quality as he resumes tugging on your zipper, leaning down until your noses bump.

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

Then he kisses you again, a little sweeter now. Sweet enough to give you butterflies and for them to flutter right out of your stomach and spill from your lips in a little whimper against his.

It comes as a surprise when he pushes the fabric from your shoulders without looking or asking. Not that you’d have said no—you're just underprepared for how assertive he is in this foreign context.

Left just in your flimsy shorts and your thin bra, you feel quite exposed—but Spencer’s hands are as demanding and hungry as his mouth. They skim up your sensitive sides and sweep lower, suggesting less proper placement over your ass and pulling at your bottoms until you gently put a stop to their wandering.

“Wait. We’re... we’re uneven.”

It’s a struggle to get any words out at all when he keeps chasing your lips, nipping at you like he physically can’t stand not kissing you, but they catch his attention and he laughs airily, pulling back to let his gaze pour over your less clothed form. It lingers and catches and lights you up everywhere it touches, drops of heat soaking into your skin and making you feel all fuzzy and needy.

“We are,” he acknowledges, tone low and colored with the faintest smile. “You’re a lot prettier without your clothes on than I am.”

“I don’t believe you.”

The challenge comes immediately and thoughtlessly. Spencer’s golden eyes flash up to yours. He’s breathing a little harder than usual.

“You want me to show you what I mean?”

If that means getting him naked, then yes, absolutely.

You nod, but rather than immediately stripping, he takes your hand and holds his own open next to it. A thick pink scar bisects some pretty significant palmistry lines, but you don’t mention that. Instead you swallow—your thoughts, your words, your nausea.

“That’s new.”

You wonder how you hadn’t noticed it earlier.

He nods.

“A lot is new.”

It sounds almost like he’s challenging you—there's a kind of tremulous force in his voice, despite the perpetual softness there, like he’s inviting you to say it’s ugly. And you realize he’s referring to more than just the glowing scar cutting an asteroid trail against the flesh of him palm. The scars he obtained in prison must form a constellation over his body.

“I don’t care. I wanna see you.”

Spencer swallows, cupping your face with the scarred hand once more. You can’t feel it against your cheek but you know it hasn’t gone away.

“I’m sure you think you do,” he permits, and that’s where the conversation ends for the moment—with his hand on your face and his lips back on yours. “For now why don’t you let me worry about you?”

Obediently, you breathe, “okay.”

This is, for whatever reason, amusing to him. The brief levity dies as quick as it comes like a snuffed-out brush fire as soon as he lets his hands fall back down to your hips.

“I want... I want to give you slow. But...”

But slow is for people who didn’t lose three months of their life. Slow is for people who don’t know what it’s like to be starving. Slow is not for the desperate.

You understand the feeling.

“I don’t need slow.”

You’ll let him use you up like quick-burning fuel if that’s what he needs. You’ll go as fast and as bright and as hot as he tells you.

“But you want slow,” he murmurs, a secret acknowledged into your own waiting mouth. You’d keep it there forever. You could be the object he hides his soul in. “I know you do. You deserve to get what you want.”

“I can go fast. I want whatever you can give me.”

Spencer’s shuddering exhale is like a drug, dizzying as you inhale it and your eyes flutter at the high, pressed head-to-head with him. For so long you’ve needed him so badly. It’s overwhelming to have him now, all over you. If only your walls could breathe him in the way you are, if this room could remember what it feels like to hold him the way you will, if any inanimate object could bear witness to how you’ll give yourself, any part of yourself, over to him, so willingly.

“I’m going to try.” Spencer’s voice is hoarse as he walks backward to the bed, taking you by the hips as he goes. “I want to do it right. I want to do this the way I... the way I imagined it, before...”

Now he’s sitting, and you’re standing between his legs as he finds the clasp of your bra and undoes it, his fingers a comforting pressure where they ghost down the slope of your back. Your heart is pounding at the confession, at the way his tongue darts over his bottom lip and his fingertips journey back up to your straps, looking up at you with haloed irises as if he’d find anything other than the most dangerous kind of smoldering devotion in your eyes—the kind cult-leaders seek and spend years nurturing, and he’d earned with a mere brush over your bare skin.

The fabric slides down your arms, and as it falls to the floor, you watch something like despair flash-flood his eyes. It is a deep, distinctly human grief. The ineffable kind where something is almost too beautiful; so perfect it offends the mortal senses because it should be permanent, but nothing is, and the clash of divine beauty with unstoppable time which oxidizes copper and covers marble with vine is almost as grotesque as metal rending delicate flesh. It is the grief that drove the first poet to write and the first parents to press their baby’s painted hands to the walls of a cave. It is the desire to do the impossible—to capture ephemeral perfection and make it eternal, and the knowledge that it is hopeless. You recognize it because you’ve felt it for him.

“I thought about you all the time,” he whispers, doesn’t bother calling you beautiful but you don’t mind because he’s telling you with his hands and his eyes and the waver of his voice. “When I was gone, I thought about you—”

You’re just as quiet, just as soft.

“Don’t, Spencer.”

He doesn’t get to tell you about when he was gone. Not now. Not after he acted like you didn’t exist.

“Okay.” He swallows the things he’d wanted to tell you like you choked on the things you needed to tell him for three months. “I’m sorry.”

But his hands—his hands are perfect over your waist and his lips are perfect where they kiss your ribs like they’re his homeland. You could forgive a thousand wrongs for each kiss he puts to your skin. Light from the full moon stretches over the room like a blessing from the cosmos, and you have every intention of making the most of that gift, how the silver gilds the planes of his face and highlights curls like they were carved, and invites you to search for something in each shadow.

Some of his kisses land over the sensitive skin of your breasts though you doubt he has much intention or that there is any sort of end-goal with the trail he blazes—in fact, you have to root your hand in his hair and pull gently back when he doesn’t seem to realize that he’s making you wait again. His eyes are glassy and cheeks slightly pinkened—you weren’t expecting this wave of fondness to knock you on your ass but here you are, falling all over again.

“You don’t have to go that slow.”

A slow smile splits the heart of his mouth at your bashful tone and he’s emboldened to bring his hands higher for a moment, thumbs brushing particularly delicate though not downright indecent spots. Nonetheless, your breath catches.

“Impatient girl,” he scolds, and though it’s lighthearted it still inspires heat to dance across your face. Oh, I think I’ve been plenty patient, you itch to say, but you bite it back because it’s only sad and true and unkind.

Still, he gives you the beginning of what you want, really only the tip of the enormous iceberg that is your desire for him, by slipping his thumbs into the waistband of your shorts and tugging them down. His hands slide up the fronts of your thighs, tracing the trim of your underwear, and you’d swear he’s not even breathing. The moment one of his hand loops behind your knee and pulls forward until it’s pressed to the mattress and you’re half-kneeling, half standing, desire begins to truly cloud your mind. Manhandling never seemed like Spencer’s style, but when paired with how softly he reveals your hip, pulling gently down on the fabric of your underwear just to admire you up close, you don’t mind it.

More kisses are littered over your stomach, and he takes you by surprise a second time with a quick maneuver landing you on your back and him on top of you.

“I wasn’t doing you justice with my imagination,” he murmurs against your mouth. “I couldn’t have known.”

“Couldn’t have known what?” you pant as he shamelessly digs his fingers into the plush of your ass. You almost hope it bruises.

“How pretty you would be,” he coos like he means it, and you dissolve, slipping through his fingers like sand in an hourglass. “You were holding out on me.”

It’s a tease, not at all serious, but you manage to hit him with a, “Was not, asshole,” and he chuckles, placating your little hurt with another sticky kiss, and you get another disorienting glimpse of some other timeline where you’re both a little less damaged. Where it’s a little easier.

But in this timeline, his touch becomes starving and ragged and urgent, and you accept the drag of his thumb up your thigh and between your legs, gasping when he runs his knuckles up the center of you. This touch is metal on screeching metal. It does not pretend to be anything more than what it is—brute, powerful, executed to elicit sensation. You get the sense that Spencer’s never touched anyone this honestly, and while you do envy the girls who got to have him gentler, you’ll take this as the compliment that it is. A kind of vulnerability that is nearing primal.

His lips, though—always his lips—are kind when they brush and land on your skin guided by some invisible map. A dip down your neck and chest and then a plunge, his tongue dragging over your hips, chasing the fabric of your underwear as he almost pulls it off and then reroutes, making room for himself between your legs and pushing lace aside to mark the hinge of your inner and upper-most thigh. Your chest heaves and you don’t dare move for fear he’ll stop leaving signs of himself on your body and you won’t be able to reassure yourself that it was real and he was here and it was not another dream.

Because something in you knows, if only consciously recognizing it for the first time now, that he will disappear again. That this may be your only chance.

The desire to make the ephemeral eternal. An impossibility.

He’s clearly losing himself to something, eyes shutting blissfully. You wonder when the last time he let his guard down even a little was. You’re okay with being the thing he gets lost in, even if you’re not exactly okay with him—something you are becoming more acutely aware of as each touch makes a part of you want to cry. Maybe you still have some things in common. A strange pain that doesn’t quite feel like it belongs to you, for one thing.

You slam back into your body as his nose nudges against you through fabric, and his lips catch on cotton as he drags himself up, eventually settling a kiss against the little bow at the waist of your underwear. There he stays, eyes closed, mouth pressed to you.

“Is this okay?”

You swallow, buzzing. Is this really what he wants? After everything?

“You don’t have to...”

“But is it okay with you?”

Nothing more than an airy whisper, you reply, “Yes, if that’s what you want.”

Being emotional at this point seems wrong, but it’s difficult to ignore the fact that you have thought about this before and it’s finally happening but it’s not exactly as you’d imagined it. There is an indelible sadness to it, to the way he’s so hungry for you because he’s been deprived, to the desperation with which he touches you because he’s had everything taken from him.

For a moment, before he tugs your underwear down, he pauses, and you wonder if he’s freezing one moment in time, this moment, and grieving all the other ways it could’ve been, and accepting that this is the way it is going to be. You are.

These higher realms of thought abandon you as he finally pulls the last barrier down your legs and encourages you to spread them further. You don’t have time or energy to be embarrassed, not even by his staring, or the way his eyes dart up to yours and back down again, wide and shining, as if to say, have you seen yourself? Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?

All you feel is the lack of him on you, the pull to have him closer so strong it’s almost sickening because he could be gone at any second. Maybe he understands that because he doesn’t waste anymore time before he’s kissing the most sensitive part of you. The drag of his tongue has you loosing a shuddering cry.

His mouth wanders, making connections you wouldn’t have realized the value of until you feel them on your skin. Your hips buck as he traces you and you’re unable to stop yourself from tangling your hands in his hair. Speech fails you—hell, you can hardly breathe as you watch his with a furrowed brow and parted lips, only expelling air from your lungs in the form of little cries and gasps and failing to hold your hips down to the bed.

The tip of his tongue teases around your entrance and he catches your leg as your foot rises off the bed, slinging it over his shoulder and consuming you more fervently until you have no choice but to moan though you’ve never been one for theatrics. Nobody has done this for you like he’s doing it for you. Locks of hair fall in front of his face and you hold them back for him, shuddering as he shifts his weight and presses the tip of his finger to your cunt.

“Ah—please,” you manage, your first words since he started. Spencer groans against you and the sound is so wonderfully unexpected, so much better than in your dreams. You cant your hips up in further invitation, chirping as he takes it, pushing two fingers into you at once. Your eyes screw shut and you bite back a whine at the slight stretch, unconsciously writhing your hips either to get further away or take him deeper, you’re not sure.

Spencer pulls back, kissing your hips and thighs and pumping his fingers very slowly as you adjust.

“’M sorry,” you pant, “it’s been awhile, I...”

“Don’t apologize,” Spencer says like it’s simple, his own breath coming quicker. “How’re you feeling? Need me to stop?”

“No! No, it feels really good, I feel good.”

He holds your burning gaze, matching it with his own, and his hair is tousled and his cheeks are flushed as he continues to move his hand.

“Yeah?”

“...Yeah.”

This little show of obedience, of call and response, has him smiling before he occupies his mouth with something else once more. It’s a different smile than you’re used to from him, but you decide you don’t at all mind it.

Like that, with his tongue and fingers working tirelessly, your orgasm comes on quickly. The feeling is rare but not entirely foreign, and in that brief moment of utter disconnect between your brain and reality, of sheer white-hot pleasure, you don’t feel you’re missing out on anything at all. How could you be, when you are here and Spencer is here and for a moment all your neurons are lighting up and flashing neon? How could there be anything more to life than the searing feeling of him slowly withdrawing his fingers from you, than your hips between his hands like he’s cradling the world, and his lips, indiscriminate with where they kiss because every part of you is worthy of attention?

You’re reeling, and your legs are gelatinous as he so affectionately sucks the darkest mark yet onto your inner thigh like a parting gift, like he’s signing his trembling work. If you could clamp your legs shut around the almost painful aftershocks you would, but he’s climbing back up your body, so all you can do is wriggle against him and release delayed, stunted little moans. He stops to kiss your neck before he makes it to your mouth and drinks down all your sounds until you’re gentle and pliant for him like you haven’t been yet.

His voice is soft and sympathetic when he speaks. “Better?”

Wordlessly you nod, both comforted and unsettled by how well he knows you. What, exactly, has been made better, you’re not sure. Not trust. You don’t trust him anymore. Something cheaper, but temporarily effective. A sense of permanence, maybe, however fleeting it may be. You’ve completed something with him now, and he’s still here, still sweet.

He looks into your eyes, then, for a moment—and there is just enough light in the room for you to tell yourself that the shadows dancing there as he looks at you are love.

They morph as you watch into haunting, wild hunger. Pained even now.

He sits up abruptly and so do you, scooting back against your headboard and pulling your knees to your chest to protect your pounding heart as Spencer takes you in with darting eyes and quick breaths. His fingers find the collar of his shirt and he begins to unbutton.

“I need you to remember it’s all going to heal.”

He swallows, and you hardly have the wherewithal to study the way he unbuttons his shirt, a way he exists in the world that you had previously not been privy to. The words are too distracting.

“What?”

Sometimes he reminds you of a deer, with those big brown eyes that can’t help betraying anxiety. Moreso in those old pictures he’d shown you from his early days at the BAU—but it shines through occasionally even now. It’s reassuring to know that something inside of his has remained soft.

“Just...” his fingers don’t stop at their task, and you come to the disturbing realization that his knuckles are bruised. “Please don’t freak out, alright?”

Your mouth goes dry, eyes glued to the lengthening span of revealed skin.

And before he even has his shirt fully undone, something isn’t right.

He’s like a Pollack of bruises—starbursts and watercolor blots of discoloration blooming over his side and stomach.

You’re glad the light is off for two reasons: one, being that you don’t think you could handle the bruising in all its glory, and two, you hope the look of horror painted on your face is at least partially obscured from Spencer.

But you can’t. You simply don’t have the gas in the tank to freak out, as he’d said—at least not externally. Those bruises shouldn’t be there, but 96 days is a long time to be gone.

You drag your eyes back to his—nervous, deeply insecure and mistrustful. A deer. Just like those pictures of a 24 year old Spencer in an FBI jacket that was too big for him.

It’s enough to have you scooting on your knees across the mattress to him. Those big eyes stay glued to you as you draw near, falling as you carefully push open his shirt, cautious not to bump any tender spots as it falls to the bed. A flash of white gauze wrapped around his forearm that makes your stomach flip. How? You want to ask. Why?

He doesn’t seem to know what you’re going to do, and neither do you, until you’re grabbing his hands, bruised knuckles and all, and just... holding them for a minute.

“I lost weight,” he says quietly, as if that’s the most shocking thing about his current appearance, though it is noticeable.

“You’re still pretty.”

He smiles at this—a true Spencer Reid smile. Flattened lips, eyes tinged silver with sadness, voice quiet and anxious and wavering.

“I didn’t have a lot to spare.”

A moment goes by.

“I’m not going to ask you about them,” you promise, though you care so much and you want to know but you already understand that he won’t want to tell you.

Another moment. It doesn't surprise you to watch the shiny vulnerability in his eyes to freeze over completely. But he squeezes your hands once in thanks, and you know it’s still the same Spencer.

“Lie down.”

Oh. Right.

This.

You do as he says, taking a deep breath to try and exhale the concern twisting your stomach like a poison. Somehow your room feels so unfamiliar, so new with him in it. Even the whorls on your ceiling look different as you study them, trying to time the pattern of your breathing with the pattern of the paint and plaster and not let the sound of Spencer further undressing quicken your heartrate too much.

Soon he’s coaxing your legs apart again, reverently, and kneeling between them, studying every part of you—lingering not on the parts you’d expect. He traces the scar on your knee with his thumb, follows a line down your thigh to the freckle on your hip. The scrutiny is unnerving and warms you everywhere. Perhaps he senses the microscopic clench of your thighs as you imagine pushing them together, if he weren’t in the way.

“You alright?” He asks, still stroking your hip. Tender again. It’s so hard to keep up.

“I...”

Suddenly your heart beat is a deafening echo in your own ears. The tide of your breathing is too powerful, too in and out and whooshing, leaving you always too empty or too full but never comfortable.

Maybe he’s changed, and he’s harder to know now, but he is the same Spencer. He is the Spencer you’d fallen in love with. The hard part is knowing that now you may never get a chance to tell him that. You don’t know if he’d be able to hear it.

There are things you can’t have with him anymore. Not now, at least. Maybe not ever. But you can have this. It will be different, but you’d rather him be different and here than the same and only in your memory.

You swallow.

“I’m good.”

Tangling your hand in his hair once more, you pull him down into a kiss. It’s hesitant, at first—maybe he can taste your thoughts, where they’d been balancing just on the tip of your tongue. But the uncertainty fades and he kisses you deeper, harder, in a way that is hard to keep up with. You like the messy overwhelm of his lips, teeth, tongue. That’s the only way he knows how to want you.

When you go to wrap your leg around his waist he catches it, running his hands over the soft plush of your thigh. The hard line of him presses against you like memory foam and you gasp and he breathes it in deeply as your brain short-circuits, as you realize this is really going to happen, that you’re going to have him like you’ve never had him before and in ways you’ve only imagined and immediately felt ashamed for.

“Spencer,” you whisper. He ducks to leave open-mouthed kisses along your neck and your eyes flutter shut, craning your neck but not losing sight of your objective as you reach down blindly. When you find what you’re looking for he freezes, groans against your neck at the same time as you breathe the tiniest whimper. Just in your hand he feels impossible, hot and imposing and hard. Your heart palpitates.

Without thinking, you angle your hips up and encourage him closer, until the tip of him is smearing through your folds, and you both go utterly silent like the breath had been stolen right from your lungs. The moment crystallizes, time around you hardening like preserved amber to keep you frozen there forever.

And then he rolls his hips, catching the underside of his cock on the crux of you, and then he does it again, and you choke out a moan and so does he, and it’s beyond perfect—it's nirvana, more than you could ever have conceived of, with his weight pressing you into the mattress, arms caging you in, his heavy breaths hot against your neck and vice versa as you twine together like serpents on a rod, your foot floating in the air as you widen your legs to make more room for him.

And you’re not even fucking yet.

“Oh my god,” you whine, just for him, barely audible under the heavy cloak of night, the thickened air in your bedroom and the sound of panting and fabric shifting. It’s like your heart is trying to reach through your chest to his own where they’re pressed together—that is how hard it’s beating.

Spencer only breathes a long, low curse and shifts so he can grasp himself. Your fingers drift down the shaft of him as he slots himself at your entrance, notching half an inch in and you hold your breath, and you brace yourself—and then he’s kissing you again, but gentler this time. Reassuring. You soften, you can’t not, releasing all your air in a soft gust through your nose, and then he’s pushing in.

Your lips part at the stretch as it fuzzes your mind, but he stays right there, nose pressed to your nose, lips ghosting over your own. He’s not going anywhere, you think, and you’re glad for it, when it burns ever so slightly, and the tiniest whine escapes your open mouth.

“Shh,” he soothes immediately, low and soft, only fractionally louder than you had been. “You’re okay.”

Spencer. Your Spencer.

For a moment, you’re living in that alternate universe. The kinder one. The flash of pain you feel then has nothing to do with the way he’s opening you up.

This is the closest you have ever been, and in some strange way, the furthest apart.

Together, fingers brushing, you guide him until he settles at not quite your deepest point. You can feel that he’s not giving you everything yet, but you’re okay with that, as you adjust to the full feeling. Spencer again senses your desire to close your legs against the deep intrusion, and gives you the best he can by encouraging you to wrap your legs around him.

“Good girl,” he whispers tenderly, nudging at your jaw with his nose and dragging kisses along the ridge of it. Your stomach flips at the moniker and your brain turns to warm sludge as your eyes flutter shut. It makes you feel all light-headed and you flutter around him. Spencer chuckles into the junction of your neck and shoulder and the vibrations send a chill down your arching spine. “I thought you might like that one.”

“Mhm.”

“Mhm. How are you? You okay?”

“’M ready.”

“You’re ready?” His tone is dripping sarcasm and faux-disbelief as he pulls back the slightest bit only to push right back in deeper, this time. Your toes curl, one thigh sliding higher up his waist as you cling to him.

“Fuck,” you manage, a pitiful, high pitched curse tossed to the wind. He echoes the sentiment.

“Oh, my god,” he groans, continuing with that slow pace, “you feel so good, angel.”

You grapple at his back, searching for purchase as your brow knits. “Faster.”

This inspires another breathy chuckle, but he obliges, and you cry out softly. It’s almost unreal, your head buried against his neck, drunk on his scent and the drag of him like a shock felt in the far reaches of your body, again and again.

There’s nothing you can say that will accurately demonstrate what you’re feeling, so you elect not to speak, to remain silent and try to get a grip on this cacophony of sensation and emotion. But it’s too much to be alone with. You feel you have to get it out, to seek understanding. You can’t do it alone.

“Spencer.”

“Hm?”

“I don’t know...” the sentence trails off into a gentle keen. He moves to kiss you, speaking against your lips.

“You don’t know?”

Shyly you shake your head. Spencer sighs wistfully.

“Do you know how much I missed you?”

It’s like he can sense your need for comfort. For something grounding.

And while this topic was off-limits earlier—you're softer now. The stone walls that form your boundaries have been chipped away and lowered.

Spencer continues unprompted.

“I thought about you every day. Every night while I was falling asleep. You were always on my mind, angel girl.”

You whine. Whether it’s pleasure or distress is anyone’s guess—including your own.

“You were gone so long,” you whisper, eyes shut.

At this, Spencer slows again, and the tension that was building settles back to a simmer.

“I know. I wish I could—I wish I could change that. But I’m here, okay? I’m right here with you.”

Then he makes sure you feel every last inch, and it takes your breath away. If your thoughts were any more coherent, they’d be something along the lines of: but for how long? How long until you leave again?

“You’re here.”

You say it like a mantra, once out loud, and then again and again in your head, timed with every clash of your hips. With each repetition he becomes more real. Every little ache, every tingling, head-emptying brush against that most sensitive spot inside proves to you that he could not be any closer. This can’t be faked. It can’t be another dream to wake up in tears from.

“You’re here,” you gasp as it hits you, as it truly sinks in.

“I’m here,” he breathes.

There’s so much you want to say—three months of words you need him to hear, of things you need to talk to him about, things you need to yell at him for and things you can only say crying in his arms and things you can only say laughing or whispering or drunk or half-asleep—and in this moment you can’t manage any of it. Every word condenses into one drop of salt water, drifting away from your eye and down your cheek. Spencer doesn’t tell you to stop crying. He only kisses the tear away, and murmurs I’m here I’m here I’m here over and over again against your skin until he’s not even speaking it out loud anymore. But you feel it. With every brush of his lips, every breath, every movement, you feel it.

Soon he’s adjusting his angle, gradually picking up the pace but retaining that unforgiving depth, and your nails bite into the skin of his back as your jaw drops. Spencer hisses, pressing impossibly closer.

“I’m sorry!” you squeak.

“Do it again.”

“Wh—what?”

“Please,” he begs, low and hot against your jaw, just beneath your ear. “Do it again, honey.”

Honey.

You’d do anything for him if it meant he calls you that again.

When he shifts his weight to one arm and reaches down between your bodies to play with your aching clit in exactly the right way, you don’t really have a choice. You arch and moan wantonly enough to feel embarrassed as your nails scratch down his back. At the same time he’s making noises of his own, and you almost feel guilty for marking him up like this only you think he likes it. The most perfect and troubling tension is building in your core, so taut you almost fear the inevitable rebound when it snaps. But you’re driven to be exactly what Spencer needs right now, and to let him try and be what you need. Even if it scares you. Even if you’re not sure how.

Spencer groans, head tucked to the bend of your shoulder. “I’m not gonna last.”

Any response you might’ve been about to muster is annihilated by a sudden, deep bolt of pleasure.

“’M gonna cum,” you mewl like it’s a secret.

“Are you?” he asks, coming up breathless. If your eyes were open, you’re sure you’d see him above you.

“Mhm.”

“Look at me. Look at me.”

It is unmistakably a command—one you fight to follow.

You cry out as you meet the intensity of his gaze, those shadowy corridors suddenly ablaze and alive. They are not unending, like you’d thought. They are a door thrown open to let the light in, or maybe to let the fire out. They’re open in this moment for you.

No more words are spoken after that—you cum hard, gasping as you fall and spin. Spencer follows very shortly after, like he was holding it together just for you, and your eyes are still locked though everything is a bit bleary.

“Fuck,” you whine as he continues to fuck you for as long as he can, despite your writhing hips, but you’re entranced by him, unable to look away now that you’re hooked. Until he slows to a halt, glances down at your mouth, and you just have time to pray that he’ll kiss you before he does. You whimper against his lips—a plea for understanding. A plea for him to stay, even though this is over. He kisses back so soft and sweet it’s like he can read your mind. Echoes of I’m here I’m here I’m here still buzz across your skin. His eyelashes tickle your cheek. Your heart stops beating quite so quickly, melting and warm like the rest of your body.

Soon the kissing ceases and you’re just breathing together, trapped and faced with the knowledge that it must end just the same as you had waited for it to start.

Eventually the air between you becomes mostly carbon dioxide and you let your head fall to the side, dizzy and giggling breathlessly as you nearly avoid asphyxiation. Spencer laughs too, letting his head fall to your shoulder once more, and you finally let your eyes flutter closed. To do something as simple as laugh with him again is its own small euphoria. It’s unexpected, and a soft landing once all that tension breaks underneath your combined weight.

It can’t last forever, you know that well. But the slow fade of it makes the next parts a little easier.

Spencer presses a kiss to your neck. “Is your bathroom through that door?”

You hum a confirmation and are only slightly disheartened when he pulls out and rolls off of you. You’re further disturbed when you see there’s gauze around his thigh, matching what’s around his arm, and you wonder how you missed that. Spencer scoops up his clothing and disappears into the adjoining restroom, assuring you he’ll be right back and leaving you alone with your thoughts and the whorls on the ceiling which have seemingly shifted into entirely new constellations.

He leaves the door cracked which is oddly reassuring—the sliver of warm light and the sound of the sink running. Only a few moments pass before he’s returning clad in boxers once more to sit on the edge of the bed, pushing away the sheet you’d just pulled over your chest and pulling one of your legs over his lap. Your face warms as he brings a washcloth between your thighs. As soon as he glances up at you and catches your eye you’re looking back to the ceiling.

“I should’ve asked first,” he says quietly as he cleans up the mess he’d made of you.

You speak just as softly, like you’re both afraid of disturbing some peace, of waking some sleeping giant. “It’s okay. I would’ve told you if I didn’t want it.”

His reticence, his unreadable face, make you nervous.

When he’s done, he rises to toss the dirtied cloth in the laundry bin, and with his back to you (as scratched up as it might be) you feel braver.

“Are you gonna, like... hate me now?”

It was a mistake. That’s clear by the way he turns around, brow knit deeply and grimacing slightly like even the suggestion offends him.

“Am I going to hate you?”

Again you pull the sheet up, and again you look away, studying the pattern of moonlight stretching out over the floor and scooting to make room for him when he steps in it.

“Not hate, I just...” the bed dips beside you and you are indescribably glad he’s not immediately running out the door. “I’m not dumb. I know what this was.”

He pulls you into him and you settle against his chest. It feels good. “I never thought you were dumb.”

This is your first real conversation since he’s gotten back, you realize. And how quickly you’re falling into familiar patterns, familiar syntactical beats. You know when to speak. You know when to bite your tongue and keep him talking.

The silence goes on longer than you’re used to. Maybe he got good at not speaking while he was away.

Eventually your eyes wander, falling to the white strip over his thigh where it is parallel to yours on the bed, only over the sheets.

“What happened?”

You said you wouldn’t ask, but that was then, and you’re upset again. You almost want to hurt him. To piss him off. You don’t know.

But it doesn’t work.

“Do you really want to know?” There’s a note of something heavy in his voice, and you look up at him. It’s a privilege to have him this close—his beauty is a constant surprise that you’d become unaccustomed to over the months. You say nothing, and he takes that as the yes that it is. “I... I did it to myself.”

He may as well have reached down your throat and grabbed for fucking heart for all its clenching. Tears well almost immediately, though they’ve been waiting in the wings all night.

“What? Did you—were you trying to—”

His eyes widen.

“No! No, honey, no.” You wilt as he gathers you closer, a deeply confused frown still contorting your features, too heartbroken even to cling to him, or to appreciate the ease with which honey slips past his lips again. “No. I was—it's complicated. I didn’t—I wasn’t trying to hurt myself, but I had to—I had to do it before someone else did something worse.”

The bruises covering his abdomen.

You sniffle and pull back enough to look up at him tearfully. “Why would they want to hurt you?”

Mist fills his eyes even as he’s looking down at you, a layer of separation, as if he’s two places at once. Even as he goes to brush your hair behind your ear, to stroke your cheek.

“I’m... not... the same, as I was.” It’s not an answer to your question—but it’s the beginning of the answer to a question you’d been too afraid to put into words.

“Don’t say that,” you beg, because you know where this is going. He keeps smoothing your hair like it’ll make this easier.

“But it’s true,” Spencer says gently, the slightest waver betraying his own emotion.

“You’re just going to leave again.”

And you’re losing to the tears.

“I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

“But you will,” you insist, like a child crying to a parent come to comfort them after a bad dream.

“Not right now. Right now I’m here.”

I’ll stay until you fall asleep again.

For now, maybe that has to be enough.

You cry on his shoulder. He kisses your head and doesn’t tell you to stop.

Eventually, you sniff and wipe your eyes.

“We were so close. Before you… we were almost there.”

You’re sure of it. You’re sure that if he hadn’t gone when he did you would’ve been a real couple. You would’ve told him you loved him.

“We’ll get there again,” he promises, rubbing your arm. “I just… I need a little bit of time. I think you do too. But we’re going to get there again.”

Maybe it will never be like it was.

But as so often is the case—Spencer is right. Difference doesn’t mean it won’t ever be good again.

You have to believe that, just as you had to believe you’d see him again.

You look to The Odyssey on your bedside table.

The sun has been obliterated from the sky, and an unlucky darkness invades the world.

But the sun has a habit of rising, time and time again, after the longest nights, after the darkest storms.

You feel the beginnings of its rise, see the golden tips of it lighting the room as he holds you. Even now.

#spencer reid smut #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid fic #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid #criminal minds #criminal minds x you #criminal minds smut #criminal minds fic #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid angst

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paarksunghoon · 4 months ago

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Okay okay hear me out cuz I haven't stopped thinking about this. Sitting on boyfriend heeseung's lap and playing with his neck chain, giggling to yourself, telling him that you really like when he wears it. When he asks why, you shyly tell him that you imagine it dangling on your face while he's on top of you. And he loses his goddamn mind. ARGH

It’s kinda my dream for this to happen to me. bye

***

Neither you nor Heeseung are paying attention to the shitty movie playing on Netflix. You’re too preoccupied with chasing his lips and he’s too busy squeezing your hips to care that the film is halfway over.

It’s been like this for the past few minutes or so with your boyfriend, who you had been crushing on since the beginning of the year and him just a few months shy of that. It’s new, maybe only a week or so into this new relationship, but the newfound romance sparks curiosity within you.

His silver necklace has a small pendant in the middle and the chain against his skin makes him look like walking sex. Heeseung is far more experienced than you are, having gone through a phase in college where all he wanted to do was get his dick wet and make as many girls cum on his mouth, fingers, and cock before finally realizing all he wanted to do was settle down with one person.

His kisses are always so deliberate and calculated like he’s trying to prove something to you. His hands don’t wander for the fear of making you uncomfortable because he knows you aren’t as forward with your romantic past. Sex positivity and all of that; neither of you really care about how many or how little people you’ve collectively hooked up with because none of that matters when you have each other.

Still, thinking about how you paint yourself as some kind of saint makes Heeseung want to test your limits and it makes his dick jump every time he thinks about it.

The farthest you’ve gone was dry humping in his dorm room when his roommate was gone for the weekend. Again, this whole relationship is new and neither of you care to rush yourselves into it because you were friends before you became a couple. But even so, he has needs and so do you. It’s just a matter of pursuing sex when it feels right.

Heeseung feels your fingertips playing with the chain against the back of his neck. He smiles into the kiss and soothes your skin with his thumb, pulling back only slightly until his lips rest against yours.

“You like my necklace, baby?” he asks in a soft whisper, enjoying your plump lips against his. A giggle bubbles out of you and you can’t stop it. The sound reverberates against his mouth and Heeseung smiles wider, pushing his lips against yours. “What’s so funny?”

You shake your head and peck him once. “Nothing. You look pretty with it on.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.” Your fingers caress the metal and his skin at the same time. “I really like it when you wear it.”

“Why’s that, baby?”

“I dunno.” You lean back and look at him, shrugging your shoulders like you want to say something more but don’t. “I just do.”

“C’mon. There must be a reason.” Heeseung squeezes your hips and smiles at you lazily. He watches you bite your lip and avert his eyes. So fucking cute.

“I’m too shy to say it.”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” Heeseung promises, leaning forward to kiss your cheek tenderly. He waits for you to look at him and encourages you to talk to him by nodding. That heat creeps up your neck.

“I-I imagine it dangling over me sometimes.”

Heeseung’s hands freeze and grip your hips. “What do you mean?” You look behind him before he beckons you to look at him again.

“I…think about you on top of me with your necklace in my face.”

He gulps. “What are we doing?”

“Having sex.”

You say it so quietly. It’s barely a whisper but the way you say it makes you sound like being fucked is something you think about often. The gears in his head turn and he’s thinking about all of the mental images he’s conjured up in his head when he touches himself to avoid putting you on the spot whenever he gets horny.

But now it’s as if the gates are open. His mind is flooded with different scenarios but he can’t stop picturing what you’d look like underneath him, specifically with his necklace dangling over your tits as he pushes his cock into you for the first time.

“Heeseung?” you ask tentatively, afraid that you might’ve taken things too far.

Your boyfriend catches you by surprise. He bucks his already semi-hard dick up into your clothed lap and a groan emits from the back of his throat.

“Fuck.”

He scoops you up in his arms and ignores your yelp in favor of carrying you to the bedroom with your legs wrapped securely around him. Neither of you care that the TV is still on. Heeseung can only think about what you’d look like with his pendant right next to your mouth.

“I need to fuck you right now,” Heeseung moans when he places you onto the mattress and pushes his clothed dick against your core. “Need to see that right now.”

You don’t complain.

***

comments and reblogs are appreciated! x

#enhypen smut #enha smut #heeseung smut #lee heeseung smut #enhypen x reader #enha hard thoughts #enhypen hard thoughts #enha hard hours #enhypen hard hours #enha x reader #heeseung x reader #my writing*#hard thought*#heeseung

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svnflowerkae · 16 days ago

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How LADS boys reacts to Caleb's return

So...first time ever doing this type of thing and since I can't sleep and my mind keeps me on thinking about this...here we go! Also sorry if thare are typos/errors.

tw: MC can be read as reader, gn!reader, angsty, comfort, they boys are MAD (esp Zayne), mention of death, grieving, time skip (based on the story events).

Sylus has been worried all day about you. He knew something off but he never insisted on letting you talk before you were sure. You've been pacing in his living room for awhile, your phone in your hands. You couldn't believe that the Official Linkon City Hall contacted you to confirm that Grandma and Caleb were officially dead. You whole life was falling about again, right in front of you, again.

As you put stop to go in circles, Sylus carefully approached you. He didn't want to make things harder than they were already were but he couldn't bear seeing you suffering. As he hugged you, you started to sob uncontrollably, trembling in his arms. Sylus kissed your head, swaying the two of you, trying to calm you.

"It's okay, sweetie. I'm here, let it all out". His hand caressing your check. His thumb taking away a few of your tears. You were so shocked that even if you wanted to talk, tell everything to Sylus, you couldn't. It's like your voice disappeared.

Sylus continue to kiss your head, caressing your face and giving you lots and lots of comfort. After a while you fell asleep on his chest.

Sylus didn't really knew Caleb and he just knew, from you, that you two were very close friends. He knew though that something was off and he was going to investigate it. If this Caleb was really going to be back he would make sure he never hunted you again.

Rafayel the day he was aware of the possible of Caleb was on the defensive side. You talked about him a few times and Rafayel saw how you grieved about his death. Countless nights and days passed by before you could get yourself together, even a little bit to be a functioning human again. And countless were the nights and days were Rafayel spent his time beside you, even if that meant not painting at all. You were is first and for most priority and, at that time, he certainly couldn't leave you all alone.

At the news, Rafayel made sure you were always by his side. His protective side coming off and scaring everyone who was approaching you. He barely showed this side of him, but in this case? In this case he couldn't let a stupid, foolish human to be near you again, not after what he saw.

"Miss bodyguard, what about I paint something for you?" Rafayel asked, his cheerful self trying to make you smile. Your eyes were watching the distant sea, completely lost in your thoughts. But Rafayel didn't have to wait for an answer. Posing his head on your thighs he looked at the most precious thing in his life: you. Caressing your thighs and hands, Rafayel never stopped to stare at you and when you turn your gaze to him a smile was on your face. Your hands messed up Rafayel'a hair. A playful pout on his face.

But for Rafayel that was enough to know you acknowledge he was there for you.

Xavier and you were cuddling on the couch, watching a film they were making on TV. Not to lie, it was a bit boring and Xavier was about to sleep when he heard a small sob coming from you. At first he was confused but then saw you with your telephone in hands, reading a message.

If weeks prior the Linkon City Hall had texted you that Grandma and Caleb were officially deceased, now, there was a possibility that, at least Caleb, was alive. You hoped for that dearly, your heart aching at the possibility of seeing your best friend. Xavier saw you were blocked on that screen for a long time, tears streaming down your face as your body subtly twitched.

Xavier hugged you, his head on the crook of your neck. He wasn't very good with words and he knew little to nothing about this Caleb and your relationship with him. You barely talked about the accident, too hurtful for you. Xavier kissed your cheeck many times, even biting it lovingly to make you calm down. He wanted to make sure you knew he was there with you and for you.

Whoever this Caleb was, Xavier would do anything to protect you. At the end, he was your Lumiere.

Zayne knew this moment was coming, it was inevitable but after seeing you destroyed after the bomb accident he couldn't let him hurt you again. How could Zayne forget how you barely eat and sleep? How could he bear the sight of his loved one suffer again?

You been quiet for days, always going to the Hospital Zayne worked for. He knew you did this especially when something was not right. Zayne shift ended a few minutes ago and he let you into his studios. You two were in complete silence, the only sound in the room were you and Zayne chewing on your food.

Zayne felt so sorry but at the same time he was controlling himself. Seeing your face calmed him down a bit.

"How are you feeling?" He asked. He wasn't one to show easily his emotion, but he too, knew you since when you too were little. He didn't gain an answer from you, but, that was an answer for him. He tried to talk to you, comforting you but you seemed in another space. Getting up, Zayne sited on the chair next you. His hands now were taking yours, leaving kisses here and there. You sniffed and, after a long time, you finally looked at him. A small smile appeared on your face. Zayne smiled back.

If it was true that Caleb's was really alive, he would make sure that he could never be near you again.

#love and deepspace #lads #sylus lads #rafayel lads #xavier lads #zayne lads #sylus love and deepspace #rafayel love and deepspace #xavier love and deepspace #zayne love and deepspace #l&ds sylus #l&ds rafayel #l&ds xavier #l&ds zayne #sylus x reader #rafayel x reader #xavier x reader #zayne x reader

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breezymichelle99 · 3 months ago

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Viral Soft Launch | LN

Handsomer by Russ (remix)

Summary: Lando and you had always had a very private relationship, always keeping to yourself until a fun little tik tok trend helps you soft launch your relationship.

Warnings: Pretty much none. All fluff. Some sexual innuendo, dirty song lyrics, private relationship, sweet cute bf Lando.

You and Formula one driver, Lando Norris have been dating each other privately for about a year now, there have been rumors but nothing has been confirmed about you two at this time, and to be honest you and Lando liked it that way.. You had been begging him for weeks now to do this silly little Tik Tok trend with you that you had seen other couples doing, even if you didn’t post it to your respective social media accounts you still wanted to make a fun memory with him.

Finally you got him to agree. “Alright Alright, If this is what you want? Tell me what I have to do.” he says with a smirk looking down at you pouting up at him, his thumb running across your bottom lip. “You are the best Lan, I love you so much.” your eyes sparkle at him. You hear him chuckle. “I love you too, Y|N.” his green eyes shining with so much love and admiration for his silly girlfriend. “Okay I'm going to need you to memorize these lyrics.” you say handing him a piece of paper with your handwriting on it. The lyrics to The Remix of Russ’s “Handsomer.” written across it. He looks over at you shaking his head with a laugh. “It's a good thing I love you.” he says, placing a kiss to the top of your head as he leaves you in the living room to practice your part.

After a few hours Lando joins you back in the living room. “I think I’m ready.” he says with a smirk as he watches you practicing your part along with some choreography he feared he would have to learn. You look up at him giving him a wink. “Perfect, me too.” you say pulling him to you and standing on your tippy toes to kiss his perfect little nose. “Here's what I'd like to do.” you say directing him. He lets you drag him around the living room trying to find the best lighting. “Perfection.” you say looking over at Lando glowing in the sunlight of your shared living room. “I want to do each of our parts and then merge them together.” you say. “I’ll do you, you do me.” you say making Lando laugh. “Cut it out Norris.” you laugh playfully shoving him away from you. His dirty mind always getting him into trouble. “Alright alright, sorry serious business, my bad.” he still can’t keep himself from chuckling. You roll your eyes at him. “Since you can’t be serious apparently. You’re going first.” you say pointing for him to return to the designated filming spot. “Bossy much.” he jokes sticking his tongue out at you but doing what he’s told of course. You return the favor sticking out your tongue back at him. Lando raises his eyebrow and opens his mouth to make a comment about putting that tongue to much better use but he decides to keep his mouth shut and do what he’s told.

“Please feel free to have fun with it.” you say winking at him. “So I shouldn’t just stand here like a lump and mumble the lyrics? Rats, that was my whole plan.” he teases you once more. “You know what, never mind.” you sigh walking away, giving up on his continuous bullying and this cute idea you wanted to do with him. “No, no baby come back, I’m sorry I’ll be more serious I swear.” he begs not wanting to see the disappointment on your adorable face any longer. You give him a long side eye. “Ok.” you whisper returning to your filming spot. “Ready when you are princess.” he says with a wink. “On the count of three, okay baby?” you say he nods. “One..Two..Three.” you say pressing Play.

Much to your surprise Lando had really taken his part seriously. “I know I’m fine, but the money makes me handsomer. Walk around, smellin’ like a come-up, and the answer for her problems, but I’m not him, I don’t mind it though. You don’t like me how you think you do, I like it though.” he finishes his part in a fit of laughter. “I'm sorry but this is ridiculous.” he says running his hands through his curls as he rewatches his rap, with both of you laughing hysterically by the end. “Alright missy no more stalling your turn.” he says taking your phone from you. He had no clue what your part was going to be so he was in for a little treat. You take your spot ready whenever he is. You nod. “On the count of three angel face.” he winks. You nod again, locking in. “One..Two..Three.” he says.

“I won’t lie, that extra coin don’t hurt But I gets money baby, I just rather spend yours first. I know for sure the pussy worth more than an Hermes purse.” Lando bites his bottom lip keeping in his gasp as he watches you in pure awe. “I got the best on earth, so that dick better come with some perks. Yeah you fine, and the money caught my eye too but there's a big difference between you and my side dude. You be all up in between them thighs, he’s who I lie to.” you pause winking at him licking your lips. An almost moan leaves Lando’s lips. Damn you were sexy. “You get my titties in your face, he getting side-boob.” you stop laughing hysterically falling into his arms.. You rewatch it laughing hysterically, you both try it a few more times finally deciding to just do it together instead of making separate videos, before you are fully satisfied, each time ending with the pair of you in a fit of uncontrollable laughter. the final take has you both laughing hysterically, lando kissing you softly the pair of you looking at each other completely in love. “That’s it, that's the one.” you say with a soft sweet smile on your face, as you edit the final cut and save it to your phone. Playing it back for Lando.

“This turned out so cute and fun, thanks for convincing me to do it with you.” he laughs, pulling you into his arms. “Thank you for agreeing to do it with me.” you say kissing his cheek gently. You see Lando smirk. “What?” you ask him caressing his cheek with your soft fingertips. “There's no side dude looking at your side boob? Right??” he asks with a laugh. You smack him playfully. “Seriously? Of course not you should know better than that.. You are my one and only Lan.” you smirk. The pair of you stare at each other for a moment before you sigh.

“I know how we like to keep ourselves private so I don’t think we should share it.” you say. Lando can see the sadness in your eyes as the words leave your lips. You knew why you kept things private but sometimes you just really wanted to be able to share the love and joy you had for your sweet boyfriend. He kisses your lips softly. “Whatever you think is best princess, at least we have the moment for us.” he says . There is something mischievous in his eyes. You let out a sigh. “It's probably for the best.” you say setting your phone down on the table, kissing Lando on the cheek and heading into the kitchen to grab a drink. Lando smirks. He had a plan.

He takes your phone and sends the video to himself. He knows the reason why you two had remained private about your relationship but he thought it was about time he shared the love he had for the most beautiful sweet girl he had ever known. You walk back into the living room to grab your phone, so you can put on some music while you cook for the two of you. He knew this was the perfect opportunity. He heard you digging around in the cupboard pulling out pots and pans, the soft hum of Martin Garrix coming from where you were. He smirks as he takes to his instagram to post the video of you two. “You are the answer to all my problems.” he captioned the video after a popular lyric in the song, tagging you and hitting share.. He hears everything in the kitchen stop. He smiles as the video had finally uploaded to his instagram.

“Lando?” he hears you call to him. He can’t help but smirk. “Yeah babe.” he says as you meet him in the hall, phone in hand. You eye him. “You just couldn’t help yourself could you?” you laugh at your idiot boyfriend. He pulls you close. “I couldn’t help it, we looked so cute and had so much fun, I couldn’t let that go to waste, plus you worked so hard to get me to do it with you, and looked so disappointed when we decided not to share it.” he says. “What about our privacy?” you ask him, as he brushes a strand of your hair from your face and tucks it behind your ear. “We’ll deal with it as it comes my love, there isn’t a single thing we can’t handle together.” he says kissing your lips reassuring you that everything was going to be alright. At this time you were sure the internet was probably going wild with your relationship finally confirmed.

You decide to follow Lando’s lead and share his post to your story. “#SoftLaunch I love you 😘 Thanks for being silly with me babe. You are my everything 🥰” you were so happy you finally got to share this love you had with everyone. Lando’s fans were going crazy, loving you two finally going public. There had been so many rumors since you’d been in the paddock so much but you two had always been careful about putting your relationship into the public eye but it was kind of refreshing to finally be out in the open sharing your love for each other and being able to announce your relationship in such a fun way, which fans were absolutely loving. You couldn’t wait to be able to get him to do the next Tik Tok trend with you.

The End.

#lando norris #mclaren #f1 x reader #lando norris x reader #lando norris x y/n #moodboard pics allll from Pinterest

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soulmatesclub · 2 years ago

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dan worked with this director on WIQY and also the documentary on his london marathon journey (that was never released and i am still desperate to watch someday) 👀🫶🏻

dan just followed a london based film director and a film sound producer…is wad film imminent

#doop #this film has been in the back of my mind since he put it in wiqy ... i wanna see it SOOOO bad

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2tarbell · 5 months ago

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can i just say that i love you?! you write trailerpark!rafe so well and i’ve waited so long to find a writer that created a work solely based on him! my obsession with trailerpark!rafe literally came from that short film drew did with rudy 😭😭

anyways i saw that you were looking for blurb ideas and honestly i can’t get trailerpark!rafe and reader doing cute domestic things together like going to the grocery store, washing the truck together, and maybe us seeing how rafe asked reader to move in with him and seeing his reaction to her adding her sweet touches to the place and making the trailer more homey for them.

thank u my love :C ur so sweet and i appreciate the message!!!! wrote something a little small just detailing rafe’s feelings about domestic stuff 💝 ENJOY!!!!

TRAILERPARK!RAFE who loves how reader has become his life.

he had watched her grow up beside him, neither family abundantly rich. but her chalk drawings of butterflies and hearts stretched along the path of her family home — the colors and softness always enraptured rafe, as well as the furrow of her brow when she yelled at him for killing some little bug. then she turned from a little girl with dirt on her cheeks into a mature woman with curves and determination she definitely didn’t have before.

he was sixteen when he fell in with love her, with her soul.

so he asked her to move in with him on their six month anniversary, all bashful and unsure in the way only she could make him. he was nervous about asking her to just come over, yet alone move in with him in such a shitty little trailer; void of decoration and love. he had always wanted to be more for her, for them. this precious woman that wormed her way into his heart since the moment they met at twelve.

it was cute, the way he was avoiding looking as he drove. she could see his ears turning a bit red, his knuckles turning white on the steering wheel. he’d been on edge the entire evening — shifty eyes and shaky hands so unlike the man she had come to know and love so dearly.

it all made sense when he spoke lowly, eyes still on the road ahead:

“so, uh... whaddaya— ahem… was thinkin’ ‘bout you maybe — uh — movin’ in?”

“you— you want me to?”

rafe couldn’t imagine anything better. so he nodded. and so did she.

the drive continued with her head on his shoulder, both biting back cheesy smiles at the next step they’d decided to take. rafe brought her hand to lips, pressing a long kiss to her knuckles — his fears of being not enough were washed away as his place eventually became their place.

there she was that very weekend, all tender and sweet and telling him where to put her stuff amongst his. he sees her in the furniture they picked, the flowers on the kitchen table, the pictures of them on the walls, in the very foundation of the trailer.

(then of course they fucked on every surface available, ‘christening’ the space.)

her hands soothing and gentle on his arms when he comes home to her. rafe never was good at being gentle like she is — he thinks loveliness lives in her bones as she kisses his cheek and mumbles something about dinner that she made him.

but it was the first night after they moved in together, he saw her in the bathroom preparing for bed and felt all air leave him. he can’t imagine a life without her in it. doesn’t want to even entertain the idea. the thought of a place without her burns in his mind — searing and almost painful. he can’t believe there was a time when she wasn’t his.

#tp!reader #trailerpark!rafe #rafe cameron #rafe cameron imagine #rafe cameron x reader #rafe outer banks #fanfic #outer banks #rafe cameron smut #drew starkey #drew starkey x reader

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jj-one · 10 months ago

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HOW JUNGKOOK WOULD TREAT HIS BIMBO GF 🍥

pairing: established relationship, bf!Jungkook x bimbo!fem!reader genre/tags: smut, dumbification, degradation, praise kink, breeding kink, piv, unprotected sex, an*l, oral (m receiving), t*tty f*cking, drooling, use of the word daddy (only once)

**old repost from my deleted blog (05/24/23)

- Having a drop dead gorgeous girlfriend was a given for Jungkook, he loved the fact that y’all were both smoking hot and turn heads everywhere you go

- The stark contrast between your appearances drove him insane

- His aesthetic was more dark and mystique, is also heavily tattooed while you always wore pink and pastels, having bare skin

- Is so enamored with the idea of you being the total opposite of him, he always feels like he’s corrupting your sweet innocence

- Kinda treats you like you’re his eye candy anywhere he goes, has you wrapped up on his arm like it’s a leash

- He’s been debating getting an actual leash for you since you constantly trip and fall whenever you’re out with him

- You were just so ditzy and clumsy… it was your character flaw yet Jungkook saw it as an endearing quality

- Also loved that you were an airhead, clingy, and always wanting his attention ;( makes the joy of him coming home to you all the more thrilling <33

- Always buying you pink and girly thingsss

- Whenever he sees something hello kitty or barbie related he instantly thinks of you and buys it

- CONSTANTLY wants to spoil you, omg this man would spend every dime he could on you just to make you happy

- He looooves taking you out shopping because that’s your favorite activity !!

- He splurged on you the other day, buying you any color of that Dior lip oil that you were obsessed with, it was worth it since he’d be the one taking it off your lips afterwards

- Jungkook enjoys watching you try on skimpy outfits for him, the shorter the skirt the better— don’t get him started on the way your hardened nipples peek out the fabric of your shirts…

- Likes to play dress up with you like you’re his personal doll

- He’ll put you in a pink lace slip dress one night and the next he’ll have you wear white see-through lingerie for him; that is only when you two are in private of course

- Frequently teaches you new things so you keep up to date with current news and other events, he knows you aren’t the brightest but you have a heart of gold and do your best to comprehend everything he tells you !

- When watching movies you often pause to ask questions about the film because you don’t get it

- Jungkook made you watch ‘Inception’ with him one time and it absolutely rotted your brain

- He enjoys explaining the movie to you in a babying way, dumbing it down for you to understand it as your mind is blown away by all the knowledge he drops on you

- Laughs at your inability to comprehend the plot and pats your head while teasing you

- “Awww, you poor little thing…can’t even understand the simple concept of a movie.”

- It really really really turns him on when you wear high heels, the higher the heels the higher the tent in his pants grew

- You wore the sexiest 6-inch stripper heels for him and he fucked you out completely while you had them on, he thinks he might have a heel fetish or something

- Absolutely adores your bright & bubbly personality !! Will praise you any time he hears you say something smart

- “Did you know that Sloths can hold their breath longer than Dolphins???” You would ask him randomly.

- “No I didn’t, but thanks for the fun fact babe. You sound so cute when you talk about things you’ve discovered.”

- “It was on the back of my Snapple cap, how cool is that?! See look!!”

- He will never not be impressed by your lack of awareness, you lived in your own little bubble and he wanted to shield you from all harm and scary things

- Is sooo completely obsessed with your body

- Your bouncy tits, your curvaceous hips, and your cute plump butt was the perfect sight to send the blood rushing to his cock

- Loves. To. Fuck. You. So. Dumb.

- Uses your hole like it’s a fleshlight and loves cumming inside you repeatedly

- Dumping all his cum into your little bimbo cunt was the only thing he needed in his life

- Often catches you drooling at him, when you do this he scoops it up with his finger and puts it back in your mouth

- His favorite part of sex with you is seeing your fucked out face

- The stare you give him while you deepthroat his cock was enough to make him combust

- “Look so pretty with my cock stuffed in your mouth, such a pretty little slut for me..”

- The way he would degrade you but praise you in the same breath confused you in many ways yet you enjoyed every minute of it

- Your makeup would be all smeared, mascara would be runny, the Dior lip gloss he bought you fully transferred to his cock now

- Can never choose between if he likes doggystyle or cowgirl more since both positions he gets to look at your assets with a nice view

- Lots of titty fucking, loves having your big round tits around his cock, making a mess all over your chest once you milk him clean

- He owns all your holes, he likes to use your tight little ass from time to time

- After lubing it up nice and gently, he would go to town on your ass just pounding into your fuck hole viciously

- “What a fucking whore you are, gonna keep fucking your tiny hole until I pump every last bit of my seed in you.”

- Turns him on so fucking much when you start babbling and unable to speak proper sentences

- You’d whimper and hiccup with frustration from the way his cock made you feel

- His love language will always be making you feel so low. So small compared to him that you don’t even feel worthy of his presence at times

- “Can’t stop drooling all over yourself? Already too dumb and fucked out to continue, hmm?? Oh never mind, you’re already dumb…just shut up and take daddy’s cock like the good little slut you are, you were made for taking cock anyway.”

#jungkook headcanons #jungkook smut #jeon jungkook smut #jungkook x reader #jungkook x female reader #jungkook fluff #bts smut #bts x reader #bts x fem!reader #jungkook scenarios #jungkook imagine #jungkook drabbles #jeon jungkook x reader #jungkook imagines

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celestie0 · 11 months ago

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gojo satoru x reader | college au [18+]

kickoff ch.8 a little cottage on the countryside

ᰔ pairing. college au - soccer player! gojo x film major! reader

ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is the most popular guy on your college campus. he's tall, funny, hot, not to mention he's the most talented soccer forward the school has seen in years. but he's also a frat dude, which puts him in a world very different from your own, as he spends most of his nights partying & drinking while you spend most of yours working on your annoying film major assignments. but when he reaches out to you for a favor, you realize that helping him out might have something in it for you too.

ᰔ warnings/tags. 18+, fem reader, fluff, angst, smut, college au, fraternities, sororities, partying, drinking/alcohol, mentions of weed, romance, jealousy, pining, slow burn, opposites to lovers, friends to lovers, she falls first he falls harder, gojo being an idiot

ᰔ chapter. 8/x (probably 12)

ᰔ words. 13.5k (...i'm gonna go take a nap lol)

a/n. hello hellooo my dear kickoff readers, hope you're having a nice day so far! this is the longest chapter yet, so i hope you enjoy <3 it's also got one of my favorite tropes everrr hehehehe you could probs guess what it is halfway through. see you at the bottom and happy reading! sorry if there are typos i didn't proofread this one as much as the others haha

nav. masterlist

☾·̩͙꙳ moodboard no.1

♬.*ﾟplaylist

You don’t cry much these days, but when you do, it’s usually out of nowhere.

Like now, as you stand in the school’s photo lab, developing the shots that you took for UTokyo’s game against Osaka last week, and you have to swipe at the tears on your cheek threatening to fall all over the captured images of grass, benches, nets, banners, stands, and him.

One of the photographs catches your eye, and you pick it up from the table. It’s a candid moment you took of Gojo on the field right before you confessed to him. You had spotted him first while the team was doing their warm-up, and you thought he looked nice from the way he had that concentrated look on his face that you’ve learned to love. But right before you clicked the shutter, he had turned away, chasing after the ball, and so all you could capture was his back facing you as he looked off ahead into the distance. You wondered if that was how it’s always been this whole time–with you looking at him while he’s looking off at something else. It was a depressing thought, but your mind had a tendency for sadness since that day.

The sound of the photo lab door opening jolts you back to reality, and you quickly straighten your posture and wipe your cheek with your sleeve, trying to sniffle as discreetly as possible, then set the picture down. Your fellow film major greets you quietly, asking if you’re still using the developer liquid, to which you say no, then hand it over to them. You stuff your photographs into a folder and head out the door.

You make it across campus to the Film & Media Studies building, then up to the third floor where your professor's office is. His door was ajar, but you still knocked before entering.

He looks up from the photographs he was grading. “Oh, y/n, hello. How are you?”

“I’m well, thank you, yourself?” you ask, taking a seat on the chair that was fixed to face his desk. You pull your tote bag into your lap.

“Great, thanks. How can I help you?”

You slide the folder to him over the scraped, worn burgundy wood of his desk. “I still had to turn in my photos for the assignment due last week. I appreciate the extension.”

“Ah, right,” he says, taking the folder from you. “I’ll get around to grading them. I’m curious, what did you end up choosing for your subject matter?” He tucks the folder underneath the pile that was to his side.

“I took photos of the soccer team’s game against Osaka Uni on Thursday last week,” you tell him.

He frowns at you. “Film cameras don’t have that level of zoom, though. I do hope you followed the rubric guidelines for central object to frame ratio, otherwise I’ll have to take off points.”

“Oh– I did. I took the photos from the sidelines,” you tell him, panicking already.

His eyes widened. “From the sidelines? On the field?”

You nod at him, fidgeting with your bag in your lap.

“Wow, I can’t say I’ve ever had a student take photos like that before. That’s pretty challenging to pull off, though,” he says, sitting up straighter, “...you mind if I take a look at them right now?”

You shake your head. “Oh, no. Not at all.”

He pulls your folder out from the bottom of the pile, then gently slips the photos out of them, rearranging them all across his desk. He leans down closer to study some of them, tilting his head curiously at others, furrowing his brow in concentration to a select few. “These are incredible.”

You take in a deep breath. “Thank you, professor.”

He nods at you with acknowledgement, and you watch him as he studies the images quietly for another minute, then looks up at you. “Is there anything else I can help you with?” he asks when he notices you’re still seated.

“Ah…yes, there was something I wanted to ask you.”

“What is it?” He taps his pen on the desk.

“I was wondering if you could write me a letter of recommendation for the film graduate program.”

He nods, like he was expecting the question. “Yeah, of course. Just send me your resume and portfolio.” He taps eagerly on one of your images. “Please send me digitals for these, too.”

You let out a relieved exhale. “Yes, I will. Thank you so much, professor, I really appreciate it.”

You left the building feeling extremely relieved about your professor agreeing to write your recommendation, but also feeling sad because you couldn’t tell Gojo about it, since this was the full-circle moment for the little arrangement the two of you had. There’s a thought that considers texting him, and you take out your phone then go to his name, but your thumbs just can’t bring yourself to send him a message.

The days of the week go by in a blur, and between every single little moment in life, your mind always wanders to him. It’s hard to get over someone when you’re surrounded by them. Like late at night while you’re editing the digitals of the game last week to send to your professor, and you find yourself staring at the pictures you’ve taken of him. It’s hard to get over him when the school worships the soccer team and you’re forced to see promotional banners and posters all over campus with his stupidly beautiful face in them. You didn’t have the heart to block him on Instagram, because you remember that time he teased you about how you didn’t follow him back, and you wonder if it would make him sad if you blocked him, so you just resorted to deleting the app instead. And although you were the one that asked for space from him, you were growing increasingly annoyed at how good he seemed to be at keeping it.

The library wasn’t even much of a safe space either, since you overheard a group of girls the other day at a table arguing about which of the players on the team is the hottest, and so you find yourself doing your homework on a lovely Wednesday morning at your apartment instead.

You lean back in your chair and look up at the ceiling, and then jump when you hear your phone ring, quickly turning it over to read the caller ID. Nobara. You accept the call, placing her on speaker, then set your phone back down on your desk.

“Hey, Nobie, what’s up?”

“Hey, nothing much. Just wanted to ask if you wanted to hang out,” she says.

“Oh, I would love to, but I’m working on homework right now. It’s due in a couple of hours,” you sigh.

“Boo, you whore. For what class?”

“My stats 130 elective,” you say. “I’m a film major, why do I need to know statistics?” You tap your pen to your chin. “Actually, it might be valid.”

“Is that the class with the creepy professor?” she asks. “The one that got caught with a PornHub tab open while he was presenting his lecture slides.”

“Yeah.”

“I took his class last semester! I still have all my homework for it,” she exclaims on the other end, “do you want me to send it over?”

“Yes, omg, I could kiss you right now,” you groan, resting your head on your arm sprawled across your desk in exhaustion.

“So definite no to hang out?”

“Sorry, I’ll reach out later though,” you sigh, “also, my car is still in repair…apparently something came up with the engine. So we can’t go far unless we invite Mina.”

“That’s fine, I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to come if we invite her just to chauffeur,” she says sarcastically. “By the way, how’d the pictures come along? For the newsletter?”

You lift your head up off of the desk in a panic. Shit. You were so focused on turning in your digitals of the game to your professor that you totally forgot you were supposed to send them to Utahime as well. “Oh my god, I forgot. When do they finalize the release again?”

“Isn’t it today at noon? I sent over film club’s photos this morning,” she says.

You glance at the time. 11:56am.

“Nobara, I’ve gotta go. I need to call Utahime, sorry,” you say. She acknowledges you, telling you to hurry, and then you hang up.

You call Utahime and scribble down on a sticky note to paste on your wall as a reminder to buy her a loving gift basket one of these days because of course she extends the release deadline just for you. You finish touching up the digitals and then send them to her via email, and after you finish your statistics homework, she calls you again to meet up somewhere nearby.

“Thanks so much for coming here,” Utahime says as she sits across from you at one of the local cafes you frequent. “Also, this chai latte is so good, I’m honestly surprised.”

You nod at her. “This place has great drinks.” You slide a folder across the table to her and she sets her drink down to accept it.

“Sorry if it was a hassle, but I just had to ask for physicals of these photos,” she sighs as she pulls them out. “They’re amazing, seriously, I gasped when I saw them. I’m used to sifting through a lot of professional sports photos for the newsletter, for all of the teams on campus, but I’ve never seen photos as charming as these. It could be the film photography aspect, since most of the ones I see are digital, but I’m seriously shocked you could capture shots like this at a rowdy men’s soccer match.”

You’re shaking your head at her. “Please don’t compliment me so much, I’ll cry. And it’s no issue, I had a spare set of physicals from when I developed them. You can keep them.”

She smiles at you. “Okay, well then, I think it goes without saying that I’ll definitely be including them for the sports recap this week. I’ll send you the money soon, too.”

You clap your hands together and interlock your fingers. “I’m. So. Grateful. For. You.”

She laughs across from you and takes another sip of her latte before sitting back slightly, glancing at the photos spread across the table. “Hm…how busy are you for the rest of the semester?”

You tilt your head at her and bring your coffee to your lips, taking a sip before setting it back down. “Not terribly busy, I quit my job last month so I’m just taking my assignments as they come and go.”

Utahime nods at you, a thoughtful expression on her face, and she smooths down the fabric of her shirt. “Okay, well, I got an email from the school this morning that one of the newsletter photographers for the men’s soccer team is moving to a different city, so they’re looking to fill in the position as soon as possible and they asked if I knew anyone,” she mentions, resting her elbow on the table and then placing her hand on her cheek. “They usually only hire professionals, but if I put a word in for you, they’d probably offer it to you.”

Your eyes widen at her from across the table, heart beating a bit faster in your chest.

“They pay really well for a part-time job. It’s essentially full-time pay for part-time hours,” she continues, “but it’s probably because you’ll have to travel with the team to their away games, including unofficial matches and conferences. If you’re not that busy for the next two months, then I think it’d be a good opportunity for you to build experience.”

You purse your lips together, considering her words. Although it’s a bit different from your long-term career plans, it was still a great way to get experience before graduate school. And besides, you needed the money, considering you quit your job last month and your savings were starting to run thin–never mind the fact that your car repair bill went from a few thousand yen to somewhere in the tens-of-thousands. And you would prefer to still be able to afford rent. Oh, and eat. Possibly still pay for Netflix.

But then there was the fact that having that kind of job meant that you would be spending a lot of time with the soccer team, and therefore increases the chances of running into Gojo. And you’re supposed to be staying away from him to get over your feelings.

“It sounds like an amazing opportunity, really,” you start, “...but I can’t.”

Utahime frowns at you and sits up straight. “Really? I thought you’d be excited. Why not?”

You sigh. “It’s complicated.”

“y/n…” Utahime starts, “I don’t really know what’s going on in your head right now, but isn’t this your dream? For your work to reach people? I know it’s only a stepping stone, believe me I know very well the path to becoming any sort of artist is an uphill battle of hell, but I’ve known you for a while now. And I know how much your dreams mean to you, and how hard you’re willing to work for them.”

Your heart swells in our chest at Utahime’s words. She was right, and you were starting to get really sick of letting your fears hold you back from what you really wanted in life. “...you’re right, I’m sorry. I’d love to be considered for the position, if you could recommend me.”

She smiles and nods at you. “Will do.”

–

The email for the job offer comes surprisingly fast, and you quickly read through it before accepting. It wasn’t a horrible time commitment, given you’d only have to take pictures during active play during matches, give or take a couple hours before, and the photographers rotate between who takes up each of the conferences so the work was split up. You were able to meet a few of the newsletter photographers & journalists during the game last week, so you already knew some of them. The offer letter came attached with a full calendar of the soccer team’s practice schedule, official match schedule, unofficial match schedule, conference schedule, and other publicity schedule, and you’re shocked at how busy all the players must be. The fact that they still have time to be students–and for most of them, active participants in fraternities–was honestly beyond you.

It seemed like they only had four more official matches left, two being away matches, along with a couple of unofficial matches that they may or may not participate in depending on how the season goes for them.

Their next game was on Friday against Kyoto university, and you were scheduled to shoot for their sports conference the day following as well. So you find yourself on a train embarked for the countryside, and you peer out of the window with a nervous feeling in your stomach. The sparkling skyscrapers and bustling crowds of Tokyo gradually started to give way into sights of expansive lush greenery, picturesque and charming towns, and winding rivers surrounded by trees. The closer you got to Kyoto, the sky became more gray until a steady drizzle began to fall against the train window. When you reached the final station, the rain had dissipated, and the taxi ride to the hotel was only about fifteen minutes. The journey felt exhausting, and you were so incredibly ready to pass out in a comfy bed.

You stood underneath a small sidewalk roof near the vending machines lining the outside of the hotel, trying to keep your bag and suitcase with all your equipment in it dry from the remnant soft mist of rain still lingering in the air.

“Hey, Utahime, sorry to bother you so late,” you say, holding your phone between your shoulder and ear, ��but is it the Hilton on 3rd street? Or on Main? Because if it’s the one on Main, then I may have messed up-”

You stop speaking when you hear a masculine voice down the road towards the left, echoing off of the lined up small shops along the sidewalk, and your heart could have recognized the sound anywhere. You’re swift to turn and face that direction, almost dropping your phone in the process, and you see him– the object of all your suffering lately.

Gojo stood there, wide-eyed and stopped completely in his tracks as the recognition of you under the dim street lighting flashes across his face. He’s in pajamas– a red long-sleeve cotton shirt that looks so stupidly soft and comfortable it almost makes you emotional, with some matching checkered red pants. It was the most casual clothing you’ve ever seen him in. His hair appears damp, slightly tousled, from what you could assume was an effort to dry it off fast. And he had crocs on. In sports mode. You make a mental note to ask him about his charms and if he’s willing to trade any of them with you. But maybe some other day. When it doesn’t hurt to think about him.

“y/n?” he calls your name out, astonished. He’s looking at you like he’s just seen a ghost but in the best way possible.

You blink at him, heart skipping a beat just from the mere sight of him, and when you hear Utahime’s voice on the line you’re shaken out of your trance. “Oh, sorry, I’m still here. I…I think I just had my question answered. Thank you, have a good night.” You pull your phone down, gaze lingering on your screen for way too long because you can’t brave yourself to look over at the man to your left, and you end the call.

There’s the sound of remnant puddles of water splashing as he takes a few steps closer to you, and you can see his reflection in the water of the one in front of you. The expression on his face matches the one that was there when you last saw him outside of the UTokyo stadium at the west side exit. It’s an expression you could still see every time you close your eyes.

Finally turning to face him, you purse your lips together. “Hi.”

“Hey, what are you doing here?” he asks, voice laced with confusion and you see him take in your appearance with eager flicks of his gaze all around, like he couldn’t believe you were standing in front of him right now.

“Satoru!” another familiar voice calls out. “Did you get the orange-flavored ones too? Choso’s a fucking idiot and got the grape ones instead. I hate those. They taste like medicine. And ass. Not that I would know what–” You see Geto emerge from the darkness to Gojo’s side, and now he’s looking at you with a surprised look too. “Oh, it’s y/n. What are you doing here?”

“Hey, you two,” you chirp, trying to act as if an entire world of awkwardness wasn’t being exchanged between you and Gojo right now, for the sake of hoping that Geto wasn’t a very good judge of energy. “I’m here to take pictures of the soccer team.”

Your eyes flicker to Gojo, who is still looking at you like he’s never seen a person before.

“Oh, is it for another one of your assignments?” Geto asks.

“No, it’s not. It’s for the newsletter,” you explain to him, “I guess it’s my job now.”

There are a few more distant footsteps that follow behind the two of them, with the crinkling noises of plastic bags hitting against thighs echoing through the streets, and eventually they catch up. You see Nanami and the UTokyo team’s goalie, you believe his name is Choso, arrive at this little gathering that was taking place outside of the hotel.

“That’s awesome!” Geto exclaims. “I’m sure the newsletter will lead to a lot of exposure.”

“Who reads the newsletter?” Choso asks.

Geto nudges him with his elbow. “Dude.”

“What?”

He then fills Choso in on the conversation, “Oh, my bad.”

“Don’t worry, y/n, I read the newsletter,” Geto says, “I read it like the morning paper.”

“It only comes out once a week, but nice try,” you respond, giving him a weary look.

Nanami crosses his arms. “I actually do happen to read it,” he says, “although I refrain from the soccer section. Feels rather egotistic to read it. I find the campus politics section to be enjoyable, though.”

The rest of you exchange annoyed glances at that.

“Satoru reads the soccer section,” Geto says, slinging an arm around him, “‘cause he’s full of himself.”

For a moment, Gojo remains silent, while his teammates, who had been observing him with amused expressions, gradually shift to awkward blinking, like they were expecting him to complain, or say something sarcastic, or joke around by now.

“I do read it,” he says, eyes locked on yours. “I saw the release from yesterday. Your pictures were stunning.”

You’re flustered from the way he’s looking at you. “Thanks.”

Choso opens the plastic bag he was holding, peering down into it. “Shit. Ice cream’s melting, guys.”

“Yeah, we should probably head back to the rooms,” Geto looks at you, “do you want any snacks?”

“Oh, no. I’m good. I was just about to go check-in,” you say to them.

The boys politely say bye to you, and Gojo mentions something about staying back for a bit and hands Nanami the plastic bag he was carrying before they head back into the hotel. And then the two of you are alone under this roof, drops of water falling from it in between the two of you. He takes a step towards you, and you instantly stiffen. He seems to notice because he sighs and then walks past you to the vending machine that was next to you, pulling out some spare change from his pocket and inputting it into the machine.

“Do you want anything to drink?” The machine feeds him something, and he crouches down to pick it up before standing up again.

“No, I’m good, thanks,” you say, hand clutching the handle of your suitcase.

He cracks the can of his soda open. “So, you’re going to be traveling with us for the newsletter now?” he asks, so concisely, like he felt that every word comes with a tax.

“Yeah.”

“We don’t have to act like we’re strangers.”

You turn to face him. “What should we act like then?”

There’s a hesitant look in his expression as he looks down at his feet and then back up at you. “Can’t we at least be friends?”

The question softens you at your core, the tone of his voice sounding genuine. Being friends with him sounds so nice, and you kind of wish that’s what you two always were. Just friends. Maybe it would have avoided all of this heartache. But deep inside you knew that just being friends with him wasn’t an option anymore, at least not for now. “No, sorry. That’s just a recipe for disaster. I have to go check-in now.”

You grab your tote bag from the bench, grip tight onto your suitcase handle and make your way splashing across the shallow puddles then through the hotel’s automatic doors into the warmth of the lobby.

The lighting inside was warm and there were moderately high ceilings adorned with vintage-looking chandeliers. Around the perimeter, there were amenities including a cozy lounge with a fireplace, a small bar serving cocktails, as well as a business lounge with booths and multiple TVs mounted to the walls playing the local news. It made you feel like you were on vacation, and getting to a hotel at this hour while on vacation always meant that you were about ready to pass out on some freshly washed and tucked white linen sheets after taking a nice warm shower with a lavender-scented mini soap bar.

Making your way through the maze of plush seating areas, you get to the concierge desk to check-in. There was a professionally-dressed woman with a slicked-back bun standing there behind the counter, her eyes scanning the computer screen in front of her, and a big, burly man that stood behind her wearing all black that appeared to be security.

“Hello, I’m here to check-in,” you say, placing your forearm on the cold black counter.

The lady doesn’t look up from the computer screen. You clear your throat.

“Oh, hello. Name on the reservation?” she asks you.

You take a look down at your phone screen. The reservation was still under the name of the person that had recently quit the job. “Yui Ishikawa.”

The lady behind the counter hums to herself, obnoxiously tapping at the keyboard with only one of her index fingers. She was chewing gum. “Hm. Don’t see that name here.”

“What?” You squint at your phone and refresh the page, then turn it to face her. “But it’s on your official booking site. There was email confirmation too.”

She glances at your phone screen then taps at the keyboard again, still obnoxiously loud, but she uses her other index finger this time. “Yeah, still nothing.”

“This has to be some kind of mistake,” you say to her.

She looks up at you with an annoyed expression. “Do you want to take a look at the screen? See for yourself.” She turns the monitor to face you.

You don’t even work here, but you could see clear as day on their interface software that there was a reservation for this Yui Ishikawa woman at this time tonight. You point at it. “It’s right there. The reservation is literally right there.”

She turns the screen back to herself and squints at it. “Oh. Well, unfortunately, we already gave that room to someone else. Since it wasn’t there on our system a half hour ago.”

“What? How is that fair?” You were starting to get seriously annoyed. That refreshing shower you were dreaming of was starting to sound more of a need than a want with every passing minute. “Can you give me another room?”

“No, sorry, we’re all booked for tonight,” she tells you, without offering any additional help.

You look at her baffled. The big burly man behind her has now taken an interest in the conversation as well. “Okay…can you tell me if there are any hotels nearby that I could stay at?”

“Look. This is the countryside, ma’am, there are only a handful of hotels in this area that aren’t tourist accommodations. It’s also the night before a men’s college soccer match, and there seems to be some business seminar taking place nearby too. You can call and check, but the closest hotel this large is about an hour away,” she tells you.

“What? An hour away? I can’t afford a cab ride like that,” you tell her.

“Unfortunately, that isn’t really my problem,” she says.

You blink at her. “Are you being serious? This is ridiculous.”

“Ma’am, we’re going to have to ask you to leave if you can’t comply with our booking rules,” she declares.

“Leave?! You’re the ones that messed up the booking!” You’re yelling now, a few heads turning from the bar at the back. Exhaustion was pulsing through your veins and your filter was slipping. “Do you have any idea how to do your damn job?”

The woman guffaws at you. “Alright, that’s it.” She snaps her fingers, and you watch as the big, burly man walks around the counter of the concierge desk to make his way to you.

You take a step back, watching in horror as he towers over you and grabs onto your arm. “Let’s leave without any issues, miss,” he says in a deep voice.

“What?! But– hey, that’s my suitcase! Don’t– wait–”

“Woah, woah, woah,” you hear a familiar voice call out from the left. “What’s going on here?”

The three of you turn your heads in the direction of the voice, and you see Gojo, still clad in those ridiculously soft-looking pajamas, doing a light jog up to the counter.

The woman at the reception desk straightens herself up immediately, and she pets down on her dress and fixes her hair at the mere sight of him. You resist the urge to roll your eyes. “Nothing to see here, sir! Just a crazy woman that can’t comprehend hotel establishment rules.”

“That crazy woman just so happens to be my wife,” he says, pulling the big burly man’s hand off of your arm.

All three of you look at him dumbfounded.

“Y-Your wife?” the woman asks, sounding equally surprised and disappointed. “But she’s complaining about the fact that she doesn’t have a room.”

“I know, she does that all the time,” he sighs, “she’s got–...early-onset…dementia. Sweetheart, what did I tell you about packing up all your things and leaving the room when I’m not watching you?”

You give him a what the fuck look. He scowls at you to just play along.

“So…she’s with you?” the woman asks.

Gojo nods. “She always forgets that we’ve already booked a room together. Just a silly little sickly lady. Isn’t that right, honey?” He’s holding your shoulders and making you face the concierge woman.

“Y-Yes…” you say awkwardly, trying to put on a smile.

“So, if you could forgive her behavior,” he says with a super pleading voice, pulling you into him so your back is flush against his front side. “I’ll keep her in check from now on.”

The woman lets out a scoff in disbelief. “Alright…just don’t let her out again.” You send her a nasty look. The big burly man lets out a hmph and steps away from you.

“Sure thing. Let’s go, honey,” Gojo says, grabbing the handle of your suitcase in one hand and your upper arm in his other, dragging you with him across the lobby to the elevators. It isn’t until he’s pressed the up button and you finally gain your footing again after stumbling a few steps that you yank away from his grip.

“What are you doing?” you hiss at him, feeling embarrassed.

He looks down at you with a raise of his eyebrow. “Saving you from getting kicked out of the only decent hotel within a thirty-mile radius?”

“I didn’t need your help, I had the situation under control,” you mumble, smoothing out the layers of your clothing.

“Yes. That’s exactly what that looked like,” he muses as the elevator door opens and he steps inside, taking your suitcase with him as hostage. You panic at the sight and step inside with him, the door closing behind you.

“Where are we going?” you ask.

“To my room,” he says, pressing a button on the control pad, “you couldn’t get one, right?”

Your eyes widen. “No…I couldn’t.”

Gojo’s room is on the fourth floor, eleven units down to the right, and you follow him with dragging feet all the way down. Once he makes it in front of the door and takes the keycard out of his pocket, he pauses and looks over at you. “Waiting for you to thank me.”

You narrow your eyes at him. “For what?”

He’s waving the card in the air tauntingly. “You look exhausted as hell right now. I’m the one with the access to a nice hotel vanity and a soft, warm bed,” he practically purrs the words.

You’re instantly folding. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, honey,” he chimes, pressing the card to the reader.

“Stop calling me that,” you grumble as he opens the door for you.

You step into the room, rolling your suitcase inside with you, and take a look around. There was a single bed with the headboard up against the left-side wall, a nightstand on both sides and a desk where you noticed Gojo had his laptop open and a few books out. The bathroom was to the right, and there was a long table that had a coffee machine as well as the TV on top of it.

You place your suitcase against the wall then turn around, standing only a few feet from the entrance of the room, to find Gojo still standing outside in the hallway.

“Do you have to go somewhere?” you ask him. “Why are you just standing there?”

“Oh, I don’t need any of my other stuff,” he says to you, tapping at his pocket where you can see the imprint of his wallet, “room’s all yours.”

Your eyes widen at him. “Wait…are you going to sleep somewhere else?”

He tilts his head at you, as if that was obvious. “Yeah, I was going to go crash on the couch in Suguru’s room or something.”

“But–” you start, stopping yourself.

He’s waiting for you to speak, but you can’t.

“Well…good night, then,” he says and he turns to the side, about to walk down the hall, when you reach out and grab the sleeve of his shirt, stopping him in his tracks.

This was a bad idea. You’re supposed to be putting distance between the two of you right now, so that you can get over him. This was a man that very clearly said he didn’t have feelings for you. But honestly, you missed him. You missed him so damn much this past week, and you can only be strong for so long.

“You have an important match tomorrow,” you say quietly, “you should be getting a good night’s rest. We’ll share the bed.”

He turns to face you, looking down at where you were pinching the fabric of his shirt, which was just as soft as you had imagined, and he glances up to meet your gaze once again. “I’m…really confused right now.”

“What if you guys lose and are booted from the competition, and I have to spend the rest of my life regretting the fact that the reason the school lost a 12-year championship streak is all because I made you sleep on a couch?” you ask him.

He takes a step towards you. “You really want me to stay?” His voice was low.

“Yes,” you say. “We’re mature adults. Despite everything, we can just…share a bed for one night, right?”

He’s silent for a moment. “I think you trust me a little too much.”

Your face felt hot. “Are you telling me that I shouldn’t?”

“I’m telling you that you should really think this through,” he says.

“Just stay. Please.” The tone to your voice came off much more desperate than you would’ve liked.

He looks at you like the last thing in the world he could say right now was no. “You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“Positive?”

“Satoru.”

“Okay,” he says, walking past you into the room, like he wasn’t really in the mood to argue about it anymore.

You sigh, sulking your shoulders a little bit, and watch as he takes a seat at the desk and continues to click through things on his laptop, occasionally sipping on the cup of coffee he had made for himself, as if your presence here was no unnatural thing.

This all felt so domestic for you. This feels like the most intimate the two of you have been with one another, despite the fact he’s literally made you cum with his tongue before.

“Who drinks coffee at this hour?” you ask, crouching down to unzip your suitcase, opening it up to find your cosmetics bag and a fresh pair of clothes to change into.

“Caffeine doesn’t really affect me anymore.” His eyes were still stuck on his laptop screen.

“You sound dead inside,” you comment, standing back up straight. You step over your suitcase that was on the floor and head into the bathroom, about to close the door but you open it enough to peer over at him from inside. “I’m going to take a shower,” you announce.

You see him poke his tongue to his cheek, leg bouncing up and down underneath the desk, and he squints at his laptop screen like there’s something so damn important that he must concentrate on or else the entire universe would collapse inside of a black hole. “Cool. Have fun.”

“I will.”

“I’m glad.”

“No peeping.”

“There’s a lock on the bathroom door. Feel free to use it.”

“That’s rich, coming from you.” And then you’re shutting the door.

It felt nice to freshen up, especially after that long journey, and then you’re doing your skincare in the mirror while you’re wrapped in a towel, trying to forget the fact that the man you quite seriously have immense feelings for is somewhere outside that door just a few feet away in this small hotel room. You spray a spritz of your perfume onto your skin, something there’s literally no point in doing before bedtime, but you still do it…for no particular reason at all, obviously.

When you step back out into the room, Gojo’s eyes are instantly on you from where he stood near the closet. He takes in your appearance and lets out a laugh, looking at you with amusement.

“What?” you ask.

“You look so cute,” he says, “with your little sloth pajamas.”

You’re fully blushing as you make your way over to the armchair in the room to set your cosmetics bag down on it to sort through the mess you’ve just made of it. “Don’t call me cute,” you scold, searching for your lip balm.

You could feel his frown from behind you. “You don’t like it?”

“No. I love it.”

“I’m not following.”

You turn around to face him. “Satoru. You promised me you wouldn’t lead me on anymore. That includes teasing me or complimenting me.”

He looks at you incredulously. “What? I can’t even call you cute? This fucking sucks.”

“Your problem,” you say.

“So you’re cool with sharing a bed, but you’re not cool with me complimenting you,” he lays it out.

“We’re sharing this bed out of the kindness of my own heart,” you say to him, “because I care oh-so-very-much about your soccer career, and understand how important good sleep is for an athlete’s performance. I’m just that considerate of a person.” You point a strict finger at him. “But for your information, if you touch me while we’re in bed, I’ll kill you.”

“Hm. Not sure if I feel threatened or turned on right now,” he says.

You roll your eyes and finally zip up your cosmetics bag, set it on the table then make your way to the left side of the bed. When you glance at the nightstand, you notice Gojo has his wallet, his phone and his charger all situated there.

“Why’s your stuff here?” you ask him.

“Huh? Oh, I was going to sleep on that side,” he says to you.

“I usually sleep on the left side,” you tell him.

“But I usually sleep on the left side.”

You blink at him.

“I–…I’ll sleep on the right side,” he suggests, shoulders tense and on edge.

“Okay,” you shrug, and move his stuff.

Gojo spends some time freshening up in the bathroom too, and when he comes out he looks like he’s actually tired, and you feel like it’s the first time you’ve seen him look as worn out as he probably should be for someone as busy as him. You’re already settled under the sheets, the duvet pulled all the way up to your chin as you lay on your back. He comes up to the right side of the bed, checking his phone for a few minutes while standing and rubbing at the back of his neck, then plugs his phone into the charger. He grabs the sheets, about to pull them back, when he pauses and looks at you.

“Are you su-”

“If you ask me if I’m sure about this one more time, I will no longer feel sorry for you, and will make you go sleep on the love-stained couch,” you threaten him.

He grimaces at your choice of words and pulls the sheets back, slipping himself into bed. “Why do you have to put it like that? You’re gross. Also, I’m pretty sure this bed has seen less-than-holy things too.”

The only lighting in the room came from the warm, dim bulb of the night lamp at Gojo’s nightstand. An incredibly awkward silence settles between the two of you. Or maybe it’s just awkward for you, because he seems fine. He’s on his back too, looking up at the ceiling, practically motionless but there’s the faintest sound of his breathing every once in a while and it’s a sound you’ve never heard in such detail before.

He turns his head to you, but you don’t meet his gaze just yet. You shuffle a little bit, hip bumping against his side, elbow hitting his arm. He’s masculine next to you, shoulders hard, muscles heavy, but when you finally turn your head to glance at him and see the expression on his face, you realize that everything about him was rigid—except for the way he was looking at you.

“When did you sneak it in?” he asks.

“Sneak what in?”

“The can of strawberry vanilla soda. Into my bag.”

You swear your heart stills a little in your chest.

“Before,” is all you say to him.

He sighs. “y/n…”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to feel bad for me. I wanted you to have it, regardless of how I thought my confession would go,” you assure.

It’s hard to read his expression from the side while he’s looking up at the ceiling, but it’s softer than it was a second ago. The need to change the subject consumes you.

“Why do you have calluses on your fingertips?” you ask him. “You’re a soccer player, you don’t use your hands for anything.”

“I play the guitar,” he replies simply.

You perch yourself up on an elbow, looking down at him with interest. His eyes flicker to your face. “Really?”

“No. I was just kidding. Hate the way you got excited though. I might have to pick up a guitar now.”

“Can you just answer me?” you sigh, flopping down onto your back again.

He laughs a little, a sound you feel like you could get drunk on at this point. He lifts his head up off the pillow enough to tuck his right hand underneath it, then rests it back down. You wish there was a mirror on the ceiling so you could see the flex of his arm. “Coach has us do the rock climbing wall at the gym at least once a week for practice. He thinks it’s a good workout. Causes a hell of a lot of skin tear though.”

“That’s it? That’s the reason?”

“Mhm.”

You shake your head, “You should learn how to play the guitar, because that’s a lame reason to have calluses.”

He lifts his head up off the pillow again and brings the hand that was tucked under his nape to in front of his face and he just looks at it. You look at it too. “Why are you so obsessed with the state of my hands?"

“A girl can’t be curious?” you ask.

“They’re not that bad.” You wonder if you’ve made him self-conscious.

You watch the way he flexes his fingers open and then closed. He turns it around, and you can see the veins trailing down from the valleys of his knuckles, disappearing into the fabric of his long sleeve. You remember that party, the two of you in that bathroom, when his hands were all over you, and it’s suddenly a little hard to breathe. He turns his hand again so the palm faces him, but now it’s also slightly turned towards you too.

“They’re bad here,” you say, pointing to his ring finger where you see slight peeling at the tip. The padded skin of your finger touches his skin. “A little bad here, too.” You point to his index finger, careless enough to allow all of your fingers to brush against his this time.

He watches you. “Your hands are really small,” he comments, like it was a marvel to him.

You look over at him briefly, and there’s not a single sign of tension in his face as he observes the image of your hand next to his hand in the air above him. He looked like he was at peace.

“Yours are just big,” you tell him.

He knows he’s not supposed to, and you really shouldn’t have let him, but he interlocks his fingers with yours regardless, holding onto your hand. You feel the roughness of those calluses all across your soft skin. His thumb runs over the curve of your knuckle, almost in a soothing way, like he was trying to apologize to you for something. And this was the only way he knew how.

Something sobers him up, because he suddenly pulls his fingers from yours and drops his hand to the duvet. Your hand lingers in the air for a few seconds before you do the same. And now you’re both awkwardly staring up at the ceiling again.

“Sorry,” he says, barely above a whisper.

“It’s okay,” you whisper too.

The silence settles for longer.

He sighs. “It’s not you, it’s me,” he says out of nowhere.

“Huh?” you turned your body a little to face him, and he was looking up at the ceiling as if there was something across the texture that he was trying to decipher.

“I don’t want you thinking that the reason I can’t-,” he pauses, to think carefully about his words, “...that the reason I can’t return your feelings is because of you, or anything you’ve done. It’s been a while since I’ve liked anyone to be honest, and I’m just really not looking to date right now.”

You’re hurt by his words. Because even if he didn’t want to date anyone, you thought that he would’ve at least tried to for you. You thought that he had at least some feelings that the two of you could’ve worked off of. “Why don’t you want to date anyone?”

“Reasons.”

“Obviously. What reasons?” you prod. When he doesn’t respond, you sigh. “If it’s something traumatic, I get it. My hamster died in the fourth grade,” you say, “I’ve never known peace since.”

He turns onto his side to face you with a soft and amused smile on his face. “Sorry to hear that. What was your hamster’s name?”

You try not to feel hot from the burn of his gaze and you turn onto your back to look up at the ceiling again. “Mr. Guilmon,” you say.

“Like…guilmon from digimon?

“Mhm.”

“You like digimon?”

“Oh yeah, I used to watch it all the time when I was a kid. My mom wanted to name my hamster ‘Scout’ but I refused,” you tell him, blinking a few times as the memories from your childhood come back to you. A small smile makes its way onto your face.

“I love digimon,” he says, fast, like he couldn’t contain it.

“Really?” you give him a sidewards glance, a little surprised.

He hesitates slightly before sighing, turning over in the opposite direction to reach for his wallet on his nightstand. You feel the fabric of the duvet stretch across you from the movement, and you remember just how intimate this all felt. He’s laying on his back again, holding his wallet up in the air with both hands as he flips it open, then slides his credit card up out of the slot, and shows it to you. Digimon themed. You have to purse your lips together to hold back your laughter.

He turns his head to look at you when you can’t help but let a little noise escape your mouth, and you can see through the laughter-induced sheen of tears in your eyes that he’s frowning.

“Hey–”

“I’m sorry–” you're fully laughing at this point, hand over your mouth to try to contain yourself, “it’s just– oh my god— you’re the last person I would’ve expected to have been such a nerd.”

“I’m not a nerd–” he tries to argue but you snatch the card out of his hand to study it closer, and also to memorize the numbers on the back.

“Popular soccer boy Gojo Satoru,” you’re giggling, “has a custom Digimon credit card.”

When he tries to reach for it, you stretch your arm off to the left. His weight leans on you, chest pressing against the curve of your shoulder, arm extending across you as he tries to grab his card back. “Quit it,” he mutters.

“No,” you say, holding it further to your left, weakly trying to push him away from you.

“Quit it,” he repeats, face scowling now with what looks like embarrassment, and he holds his upper body up by the elbow, leaning over you even more to reclaim it, “or else.”

“Or else, what?” you say through wheezes, and it seems like something in him snaps because suddenly he grabs your wrist, hard, pinning it down onto the mattress, holding it there next to your head, and his entire upper body is towering over you. Shocked, you’re breathing fast, your eyes darting across his face, and he’s looking at you with a furrowed brow and a tense jaw.

“Or else I won’t keep my promise,” he says through a harsh breath, his voice low and rough.

You’re stunned underneath him. “What promise?” you ask, breathlessly.

He leans down closer, to the point where the fringe of his hair brushes against your forehead. “My promise to hold myself back from you.”

You swallow hard, chest heaving. You feel the heat of his hand on your wrist burning through to your veins. You try to squirm slightly in his grip, but he just presses your wrist down further into the mattress.

He glances at your lips, eyes dilated and stern, and leans down even closer to you. “Do you have any idea how bad I’ve been wanting to punish you for leaving me in that bathroom by myself?” he says in a voice so husky you feel the arousal build at your center the second your head registers it.

You can’t find your words. He keeps his eyes locked on yours, as if to make sure yours stay on his too, and you’re docile under him until he’s distracted you enough to pinch his credit card between two of his fingers and discretely pull it out from your grip. He then lets go of your wrist and disappears out of your line of sight when he flops back down onto the mattress next to you, tucking his card back into his wallet.

“But I won’t. Because I’m a nice person, and will respect your space. Or whatever.”

You don’t know what to say, your hand finding a place over your heart as you try to take deep breaths to calm yourself down.

“We should probably go to sleep,” he sighs after a minute, tossing his wallet back onto the nightstand and reaching over to turn off the light.

It’s dark now in the room, the only light coming from through the layered fabrics of the curtains. It's a cold light, possibly from the moon and maybe some dim neighboring white street lights, but it’s enough to where you could still see the slight texture of the ceiling, and maybe his face.

You both spend a few minutes trying to get comfortable. You try not to bump your butt against him, or brush your chest against his arm, but it happens a couple times anyway, and you mentally curse yourself for it. The rise of the duvet fabric from his chest becomes shallow with his breathing, and you think he’s fallen asleep, but then the two of you turn over at the exact same time, facing each other, eyes flying open and gazes meeting. It startles the both of you, but neither of you look away or say a word. The two of you just sit in the moment for what feels like hours, and very could’ve easily been.

You’re the first to break the silence. “You know, there was a time where I thought that you weren’t even real.” You’re speaking hushed, like you’re afraid someone will hear, even though there’s only two souls in this room right now.

“What?” he asks, a slight raise to his eyebrow. “...why.”

“I don’t know. You’re like this urban legend around campus. You probably don’t know it, since you’re in it, but the world you’re in is very different from the world the rest of us students are in.”

He’s silent for a moment, his face being briefly illuminated by the reflection of a car’s headlights on the windows of the surrounding building. “I think I know what you mean.”

You blink at him. “I thought you would have a few more follow-up questions to that, but I guess you’re surprisingly self-aware.”

He hums to himself. “I think I can just put it into perspective.”

“Perspective?” you ask. You’re hanging onto every single one of his words tonight. You don’t want a single one of them slipping through you, not understood.

“Yeah,” he says, “there are moments where I feel like I’m not in that world anymore. And it feels nice. To get out of it.”

You want to ask him when those moments are, but he’s quick to speak again.

“I guess that means I’m aware of the moments where I am in it, so I know that it exists, if that makes sense? I don’t know.” He looks down at your pajamas, at the dancing sloth at the front, and the crease to his brow relaxes slightly.

“Mhm, makes sense.”

His eyes are back on you, studying. There’s a strange look on his face that you can’t really comprehend. “I want to know about your world,” he says.

You breathe in deep, and exhale shallow. “My world is simple. I want to be a filmmaker and then live in a little cottage.”

He smiles at you. “A little cottage?”

“Yeah,” you say, “maybe in the countryside. The Italian countryside. With my own garden in the backyard so I can use fresh zucchini in my salads.”

“Any animals? Pets?” he asks, like he’s envisioning it all in his head too.

“Maybe some chickens,” you say, “I promised Mr. Guilmon I’d name another one of my pets after him someday. I have to keep my promise.”

He nods. “You do.”

There’s another silence, but it doesn’t feel awkward this time.

“Did you turn your photos in to your professor?” he asks.

“Yeah, I did,” you tell him. “Earlier this week.”

“Nice. What about your reference for grad school?”

“I asked him for it.”

“Oh?” His eyebrows raise. “How’d it go?”

“Mm…I was really nervous, but it went well. He said he’d do it.”

There’s such a tenderness to his expression that you feel so compelled to kiss him right now. “That’s awesome. I’m proud of you. That’s one step closer to your dream.”

You purse your lips together from his words, sitting with the warm feeling in your chest. You want to thank him again, but instead all you say is “we’re even now.”

He lets out a small chuckle. It comes from his throat. “You’ve said that so many times.”

“I know.” Because you can’t believe it’s all over. This little arrangement between the two of you. You don’t want it to be over. “I can’t remember when the first time I said it was.”

“That night,” he answers you fast and with certainty, like it was at the forefront of his mind, “when you drove over rocks. And we sat together on the curb. And I realized how badly you take care of your car. You don’t need thousands of chain restaurant napkins in your glovebox, by the way. No matter how much you might think you do.”

“Wow. I was almost romanced by you for a second, but you ruined it,” you mumble.

You’re instantly taken back to that night. You remember the gentle quality in his eyes as he stared up at the stars, and you can still see the reflection of that sky in his eyes right now with the way he’s looking at you.

“I really liked you that night,” you whisper, “I wish you were like that all the time.”

“Am I not like that all the time?” he asks, voice soft to match yours.

“No,” you say, “sometimes you’re mean.”

His eyes on you are gentle, somewhat careful. “I’m sorry for being mean.”

You wonder if you can change his mind. If you can will him to like you back, if you can will him into wanting a relationship with you. You want to be his exception, not his rule.

“It’s okay. I’m mean sometimes, too,” you say, “mean to myself for sharing a bed with a guy that doesn’t like me.” He’s looking at your lips as you speak. “I’m bad like that.”

“You’re not bad,” is all he says.

“I am,” you say, and you inch closer to him, until there’s hardly any space between the two of you. You look up at him, faces inches away. You feel so safe with him, and yet you also feel scared, because you like him so much that you would let him ruin you if he wanted to. You press a flat palm to his shirt, searching for his heart, and you find that it’s beating fast in his chest. “I’m a bad woman, Satoru.”

“y/n,” he says, like a warning.

“I mean it,” you whisper.

“You said you’d kill me if I touch you,” he reminds you, sounding a little breathless.

“I can’t kill you, you’re way stronger than me,” you whisper, “so touch me.” Your hand is gripping onto the fabric of his shirt now, tight, with desire. He’s looking at you with a whole lot of desire too, but there was something else there as well. “Please.”

He wraps his hand around your wrist–the heat of his touch that you so badly wanted, craved, finally on you–but it’s to pull you away from him. Your grasp on his shirt releases and he brings your hand to the front of your chest, laying it down gently before letting it go. Your wrist lays limp there, missing his touch. Limp in front of your beating heart.

“Let’s just go to sleep, okay?” he says softly.

Your eyes widen when you look at him, and you couldn’t even hide the hurt that settled across your face if you tried. Gaze dropping to his chest, you see the way it was rising with every breath he took, and for the second time in this life, you’ve felt so utterly rejected by him. You give him a compliant nod, and scootch back away from him before turning away. He stays as he is, watching your back, and you can feel his gaze on the nape of your neck.

Counting the minutes to fall asleep felt exhausting, but the last thing you remember before you closed your eyes was the feeling of a tear trickling down onto your pillow, wet and cold against your cheek.

–

You wake up the next morning to an empty bed, and an even emptier feeling heart. There’s also this weird feeling of disappointment within you, and you don’t really know why.

Grabbing your phone on the nightstand, you quickly search for the email with the men’s soccer team practice schedule, and you see that they had a sharp 8am practice this morning before the game in the afternoon. The time reads 6:37am, and you’re wondering where Gojo went so early in the morning before heading off to the practice field.

You went back to sleep for a couple hours, and then woke up again. By the time you took a shower, got dressed, and went downstairs to the hotel lobby to eat breakfast, it was already 10:00am and it was time to make it to the field so you could set up and calibrate your camera prior to taking photos for the match. Following Utahime’s gameday instructions, you took a cab to the location with all of your gear.

The Kyoto soccer stadium was less of a stadium and more of an extremely large and open expanse of grass that had enormous silver metal stands stretching across the perimeter. It was something you would expect of an area in the countryside, but security was still somehow tight across the fenced off area.

It was still a couple hours before the game, so the field was bustling with pre-game set-ups and the stands were empty. There were a few sports canopies being put up, as well as a small truck with workers that were working to stock up the hydration stations. A few men in suits were seated at tables with notepads and clipboards, looking busy in conversation and on what sounded like business calls. As you walk down the sidelines, you notice a few other people checking the distances between the goals and the chalk markings across the field. The stands were extremely close to all of the action, and when you look to the right, you see a couple of familiar faces there.

“Ah, y/n! We’re over here.”

You approach the group of three people, all seated on the lowest metal bench of one of the spectator sections. There were a bunch of tripods, cameras, cases, and laptops sprawled across in front of them. You recognize Hana and Minato, but you don’t recognize the other man sitting with them. You had met Hana and Minato at the game against Osaka last week, they were both professional photographers for the newsletter.

Hana hops off the bench and comes up to you. “It’s seriously so cool you’re here with us and that Utahime got you this gig,” she says to you with a smile. “Make sure your schedule is free on nights after matches, all us photographers usually get dinner together afterwards. You’re the baby out of us, so we’ll pay for you.”

You return her smile with one of your own. “That’s sweet, and sure I’ll try to.”

You glance at the man whose name you didn’t know, your gaze meeting his, and soon enough he’s jumping up onto his feet too and making his way over to you.

“Ah, this is Kaito. Kai for short,” Hana says, gesturing to the man, and then to you.

Kai extends his hand out for you to shake. He’s tall and a bit lean. His style is really boyish—totally nailing the street photographer outfit with the white shirt underneath a flannel one, and some Carhartt pants paired with some Vans. You reach out to shake his hand, and he holds onto it for a second longer than you would’ve expected.

“Hi,” you greet him and tell him your name.

“That’s a nice name,” he says with a smile.

Hana claps her hands together. “Okay! We all know each other now, that’s great. We should get started prepping before the players get here, I believe they’re scheduled to be here in an hour.” She walks over to the benches and picks up her digital camera. Minato grabs his as well as his tripod, then walks over to Hana’s side. “The way we usually do it is to split the field into corners, and each of us works that perimeter. The videographers are here too, so just make sure you don’t accidentally knock over or stand in front of one of their cameras.”

All three of you nod at her and you unzip your case to take your film camera out. Kai is next to you, looking at the device in your hands curiously.

“Kai, you can work with y/n for today since it’s her first day. Split up those two corners over there,” Hana says, pointing to the other end of the field. You and Kai look in that direction. “Minato and I will take the other short end.”

With a few more discussions and detailed instructions, the four of you disperse to your assigned locations. You’re a step ahead of Kai, although he should really be the one leading your stride since you’re the new one here, but he soon enough catches up to you.

“Is that a Canon AE-1?” he asks you, pointing to your camera.

You look at him a little surprised. “Yeah, it is. As vintage as they get.”

“Sweet, I used to shoot on film too. Second-hand?”

“No, third. Still cost me an arm and a leg, though,” you sigh.

He laughs. “They’re not that expensive.”

“I’m a broke college student. I sometimes have to choose between paying rent and eating food,” you say to him.

He kicks at a random can on the grass, sending it flying forward, instead of picking it up. “Yeah, definitely don’t miss those days.”

“When did you graduate?” you ask.

“From UTokyo two years ago,” he says.

You bend over to pick up the can he kicked and jog a little to the trashcan nearby, tossing it in, then jog back to him. “That’s nice. You’ve been doing this for two years?”

“Yup,” he says to you as the two of you reach the corner of the field outlined by freshly drawn chalk. He kneels down on the grass, sets his camera case down, and opens it up. Your jaw drops.

“Is that a—Leica camera?” you ask him, shocked.

He smirks up at you. “Sure is.”

“Oh, so you’re just rich, then,” you sit down on the grass to look at it with interest, marveling at its condition.

“Nope. I’ll bet I got it for cheaper than your Canon there,” he points to the camera hung at your neck.

You meet his gaze. “No way.”

“Way,” he says, pulling out the attachable lens before wiping at it with a microfiber cloth, “I know a guy. He sells used cameras. The only issue is you’ve gotta refurbish them yourself.”

You sigh. “Wonderful. Because I would know how to do that.”

He lets out a half-laugh, and you glance up briefly to look at his expression. He was amused. “It’s pretty easy, just gotta do it once. And then you’ll have a used Leica that works brand-new, all for just under a hundred-thousand yen.”

You’re looking at him with surprise again. “That cheap?”

“Yup.”

“Wow…” Your finger plays with the lens cap on your camera.

“If you want, I can send you his info. But if you want to meet up with him, it’ll probably have to be facilitated through me,” Kai says, “He takes clients by recommendation. No use in selling a used camera to an idiot that doesn’t know how to refurbish it. He’s looking for niche photographers that have the interest.”

You press your lips together, considering it. “Sure.”

He hands his phone to you. “Alright, gimme your number.”

You hesitate for a second before typing your number into his contacts then hand it back and watch as he saves it in his phone. “Canon girl. Won’t forget ya.”

The two of you make work for a second, eyeing the field and mapping out angles of where to get the best shots during play. Kai gives you some pointers and you’re marveling at how good they are.

“Not really used to shooting on film anymore,” he mumbles, peering through the hole on your camera when you handed it over to him, “but usually a one over five-hundred shutter speed works well for sports. I’d switch between that and over two-fifty though, to avoid a blurry finish.”

“Thanks,” you say to him, wanting to write all this down to not forget it. “Wish I knew this last week.”

“Why shoot on film?” he asks out of nowhere, handing your camera back to you. “Why not digital?”

“Oh, it’s a personal interest,” you say to him, adjusting your shutter speed as he suggested, “I think there’s a charm to it. I want to be a movie maker, and shoot on film medium.”

He frowns at you. “How are you going to do that?”

You tilt your head at him, shuffling on the grass. “I’m going to apply to the film graduate program at UTokyo to start.”

He laughs at that from where he’s seated across from you. “Really? That’s a waste of your time.”

Your heart sinks a little in your chest from his tone. “Why would it be a waste of my time?”

He turns to face you more directly. “y/n, trust me, I know this career path. Been there, done that. Millions of film majors like yourself always have these big-ass dreams like ‘I want to become a director, I want to do screenplay’ etc., but only one or two of them actually succeed.”

Your shoulders sulk. It’s not the first time you’ve heard those words from someone—your own parents practically recited them word-for-word before you headed off to college—but you had been doing really well all of senior year to ignore that nagging little voice in your head. It was honestly quite triggering to hear it all again right now. “Well, I think I can do it.”

He lets out a short scoff. “You sound real convincing there.” When he catches sight of your upset expression, he straightens his back a little. “My bad. Just trying to look out for you. I’m your senior in this industry. I know my way around these things. Trust me.”

You nod slowly. “I know. Thanks.” Part of you wonders if he’s just projecting.

“Well anyway,” he shrugs, “I think you should just focus on photography for now. It’s the safest career option for you to do.”

“I guess you’re right,” you say, wanting to diffuse the conversation.

The two of you disperse to your assigned corners once the stands start to fill with spectators. Shortly after, the players make their introductions onto the field, and you can see Gojo across the field. He’s too far to read his expression, but for some reason when you look at him, that disappointed feeling from this morning comes back to you. You try to push it down and just focus on your task at hand.

UTokyo does well during the match, and Gojo seems to be playing much better than the Osaka game last week, scoring two goals within the first half. There were a couple of times where there were throw-ins near your corner, and you made eye contact with him as he’s breathing heavily, wiping the sweat off his face with his jersey, and every time you look at him, that melancholic feeling washes over you again. UTokyo wins 3-2, the crowd evidently disappointed as they were rooting for their home team, and by the time the disgruntled fans started to clear the stands, the sun was setting over the horizon and the sky was a golden color.

The referees on the field begin to oversee the post-match proceedings with the players. Kai comes around to meet you at your corner, and Hana and Minato arrive there too.

“Hey team! How’d it go?” Hana asks, a little out of breath from her journey over here.

“Went fine,” Kai responds.

“It was a little tricky,” you comment, “but I think my photos came out well.”

Hana nods. “Alright, sounds good. Are we still on for dinner tonight?”

Kai and Minato nod, and then all three sets of eyes are on you. You hesitate for a moment, and look off past them to where you see the group of soccer players in conversations with the coaches and referees. You see Gojo standing there, his hands on his hips as he peered across the field, tilting his neck to the side repeatedly, and you realize he had been doing that all match long. That unsettling feeling within you starts to brew once again. “Uh, I’m really sorry, but I’m not feeling very well. I think I might just head back to the hotel.”

Hana and Minato nod at you with a concerned expression, while Kai just looks disappointed.

“Okay, well, I hope you feel better,” she says.

You end up taking an Uber back to the hotel in haste, not wanting to run into Gojo or any of the other soccer players after their match, and make it to the room, using the key card that Gojo gave you to get inside. You take a shower to freshen up, and by the time it’s 7pm, you’re starving. You put on a simple outfit and make it downstairs into the lobby of the hotel, about to go peruse the nearby dining options, but right when you step out of the elevator, you run into Gojo.

There’s a look of pleasant surprise on his face and you take in his appearance. He was still wearing his soccer jersey, covered in grass and dirt stains, and his face was slightly flushed from exertion. You figured he just came back from the field.

“Hey,” he says, “sorry, I was just about to head over there.” He jerks his head off towards the lobby, and you glance in that direction. There was a group of maybe thirty people gathered around the lounging areas and high-tables over at the business suite, and you recognize them as UTokyo’s soccer players, along with Coach Yaga and other team staff. The players were still all clad in their uniforms, carrying all their stuff, and there were plays of today’s game rerunning across the TV screens. You realize they’re probably prepping for interview questions for tomorrow’s conference.

“Oh, please, go ahead,” you say to him.

He tilts his head at you. “Are you doing alright?”

You were aware that things might feel awkward after last night, and that your cheeks would probably feel hot like they do now the next time you had to talk to him. Your mind takes you back to the memories, when you think about how badly you wanted him to stay with you in the room because of that hollow feeling in your chest from missing him, despite how you knew it was bad for you. Because this man standing in front of you doesn’t like you in the way that you like him.

And then it clicks. The reason for that feeling of disappointment you’ve had since the moment you woke up today.

When you glance up at Gojo this time, you see him differently than you had from a second ago. You finally notice the slight dark circles under his eyes, and figure out that the reason he’s been tilting his neck to the side all day was because he was trying to stretch out a kink. You vaguely recall that moment you woke up in the middle of the night, and your sleepy brain registered that there was no longer the dip of him in the mattress next to you.

“When did you leave the room?” you ask him. You know your voice is quiet when he has to lean down a bit to hear you.

He takes his time answering, indulging in a few breaths. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean,” you say, starting to sound hostile, “you left during the night, didn’t you?”

He doesn’t deny it.

“You left once I fell asleep,” you say, eyes widening with realization.

He sighs. “Yes.”

“Where did you go to sleep?” you ask, trying to keep your tone level.

“Suguru’s room had an extra couch. I pushed them together.”

You felt sick and sad, feeling something worse than rejection right now. There was a part of you that still thought that all of this from him was just a joke. A prank. That he was finally going to say just kidding, I like you too. The reason you’ve been so disappointed since the minute you woke up today was because there was a part of you that thought you were going to wake up this morning with his arms wrapped around you, back pressed tight to his chest while he whispers sweet nothings in your ear of how much he likes you, of how much he wants you, of how much he wants to be with you.

“Why? Even after I said I didn’t want you to have bad sleep?” Your voice was laced with hurt. You didn’t even know how to explain to him why it upset you, because deep down you’re scared it isn’t even valid.

“It’s fine,” he says, “I played fine today. And we won.”

“You could’ve stayed. Do you really hate me that much?” Your words are shooting to kill now. “So I’m good enough to finger in a bathroom at a frat party, but not good enough to sleep next to?”

He furrows his brow. “I don’t understand why we’re arguing about this,” he says, tone starting to match yours, “you’re the one that wanted space. I was just trying to respect that.”

“If you really wanted to respect my space, you wouldn’t have agreed to share the bed with me in the first place.”

“y/n,” he says, “that’s not fair.”

“You should’ve known better.” You’re breathing fast, tone searingly accusive. “You know that I’m trying to get over you, and that I’m vulnerable, and that I’m probably confused about a lot of things right now.”

“I ask if we could at least be friends, you say no because it’d be some recipe for disaster, then you practically beg me to stay with you and tell me to touch you while we’re laying down together. You don’t think that’s confusing for me too?” he counters.

Your cheeks flush with embarrassment at the memory of your desperate actions last night, and he instantly looks apologetic. You feel like you’re being unfair, but you feel like he’s being unfair too.

“I’m the one with feelings,” is all you say in your defense.

He swipes at his chin roughly with the back of his hand, smudging the dirt up to his cheek, and then closes his eyes for a second, like the weight of today has finally hit him all at once. He looks exhausted. “Right,” he says, softly, “I’m sorry.”

“Yo, Satoru!” one of his teammates yells from the center of the lobby. “Coach needs you, man.”

He rubs a hand down his tired face then throws a haphazard glance over his shoulder. “Yeah, I’ll be there in a sec,” he calls out and then looks back at you. You can’t make eye contact with him, and just stare at the print on his jersey instead. “I’ll sleep in Suguru’s again tonight. The room is yours.”

There’s a lump in your throat and you feel like you’re about to cry. “Okay.”

He reaches into his shorts pocket and gives you a room card. “Here’s the spare. I don’t need to come grab my stuff for the night, so don’t worry.”

“Okay.”

He sounds like he wants to say more, and you see him take a small step towards you, hand reaching out for you, but this time Coach Yaga’s stern voice is calling out to him too. He sighs. “Good night.”

“Mhm. Thanks.”

He hesitates before he turns on his heel and you watch his back, with that signature #10 stretched across the fabric of his uniforn, as he jogs through the hotel lobby to his teammates.

The walk back to the hotel room is depressing, and you find yourself dragging your feet all the way there. Once you make your way inside, you look around at the room and see some of Gojo’s belongings scattered around, but it didn’t seem like there were any of his essentials. You look down at the spare key card in your hand–a promise from him that he won’t try to upset you anymore tonight–and that lump in your throat from earlier comes back.

You hated fighting with him. You hated being away from him. Those feelings that you thought would go away just as fast as they came still sat so stubbornly within your heart, and it was becoming impossible to bear.

You wonder if meeting him was all just some horrible, twisted mistake.

Before you have time to dwell on that sad sentiment, your phone screen lights up with a message.

|| 7:52pm unknown number: kinda sucks you’re not here with us. was looking forward to showing you more of my camera

|| 7:53pm unknown number: this is kai by the way

The features of your face feel heavy as you look down at your phone screen. You don’t even notice your eyes are teary until you realize the blur of your vision makes it hard to see the letters as you type out a response.

You just wanted a distraction from all this pain.

|| 7:54pm you: can you send me the address? i wanna be there

a/n. grrrr i love a one-bed trope so much grrrrrrrrr it's gonna do it for me every damn time lol. thanks a bunch for reading!! there's still so much that i've got planned for the series haha i think the second half is gonna be a lot crazier than the first. super excited to write it though.

➸ take me to chapter nine!

taglist: @who-can-touch-my-boob @therealestpussyeater @lost-resonance @hojoslutoru @foulprincesscycle @luniunia @alekssashka7 @bsdicinindirdim @tsukikourito @getitsatoru @slut-4-gojo @cactisjuice @kissofife @tiredflame132 @cliosunshine @ethereally-lyann @btszn @prince-wyiilder @semra4 @gojosimp26 @drthymby @ninitoru @bbyxxm @fvsm4x @sadmonke @zoinks1010 @bakuhoethotski @horisdope @sykostyles @aquaberrydolphin @colouringfrogssittinginleaves @ri-sa20 @purplehallow11 @mwtsxri @ritsatoru @bxddiebloss @chwesuh-imnida @mo0nforme @viware @still-fking-single @megumisthirdog @gintokhi @karvokr @cierocanteat @imjustaweirdnerd (hope i didn't miss anyone thank u all sm!!)

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joelscurls · 1 year ago

Text

stalemate

pairing: Frankie Morales x f!reader

words: 7.2k

summary: Frankie Morales is your best friend — until a drunken hookup tears you apart.

warnings: 18+ minors dni; friends -> enemies -> lovers, TF characters without the TF plot, no Tom (in this house we hate Tom), alcohol consumption, smoking, angst, jealousy, pining, Frankie & reader being idiots in love, explicit smut, size kink, brief mentions of drunk sex, bad / regretful sex (between reader & OC), oral (f!receiving), unprotected piv, creampie, multiple orgasms, use of pet names (bebita, querida, baby, etc.), grilled cheese as a love language, happy ending, I think that's it but let me know if I missed anything!

a/n: thank you so much to @javisashtray & @pedgito for beta-reading this for me <3 this is for all my frankie lovers out there (aka bitches with good taste). dividers are by cafekitsune. follow @joelscurlsupdates for fic notifications! enjoy :)

Frankie Morales makes the best grilled cheese you’ve ever had. Perfectly golden bread; gooey, melty cheese — just the thought of it makes you drool. He says he has a secret ingredient. Won’t let you in the kitchen while he cooks for you, lest you find out.

Sometimes, upon entering his apartment, you can already smell melted butter. He’ll have started on one without even asking if you want it. He knows you always do.

Sit, he’ll shout from the other room. I’ll be right there. Feel free to put something on — but please, not 13 Going on 30. You’ll thank him and question his distaste for Mark Ruffalo in the same breath: you’re the best, but it’s not my fault Matty is the dream man.

He’ll bring you the wafting plate along with a Corona, and insist that you eat before it goes cold while he makes one for himself. Ever the gentleman, ever the friend — at least he was.

Because the two of you haven’t spoken in a month; not since the drunken hookup that you’re both pretending didn’t happen.

You’d laughed the entire cab ride home from the bar. That last round of tequila shots had left you feeling good, all warm and giggly, and Frankie mirrored you in the backseat with his drunken grin. Eyes glassy, lips pulled wide, he’d smacked you lightly on the shoulder as you recalled Santiago’s pitiful loss in that third game of pool. “When he pocketed the eight-ball…” he trailed off into another fit of laughter.

“And then—“ you attempted, voice caught in your throat as another giggle barreled out. “—the cue hitting his drink!” Your entire body folded over, hands braced on Frankie’s thighs as the two of you struggled to regain composure. Through labored breaths, you squealed. “He’s never going to live that down!”

After a few particularly stressful months at work, you lived for these nights out with your friends. You’d met Frankie through your best friend Mal, who was dating his friend Benny, and your circles had eventually meshed into one. Sometimes it felt like it had always been that way, like you’d known the guys your entire life.

Especially Frankie.

Your friendship was a special one — punctuated by frequent trips to the movies to watch the latest horrible slasher film; by nights spent yapping on the phone about nothing in particular. He’d become a constant in your life. Never, in your right mind, would you even dream of doing anything to jeopardize that—

“You look really hot tonight, by the way.”

He shouldn’t have said that. He shouldn’t have. But then it was you who leaned in closer, you who rested your hand on his hip and plucked the Standard Heating Oil cap off his head, placing it atop your own.

It was you who kissed him first.

He deepened it though — that was all him — large, restless hands grasping at your sides, your back, your face; tongue pushing past the seam of your lips to press against yours. He’d groaned into your mouth when the cab stopped at the curb in front of your building. Cursed under his breath when you pulled away.

And then, your voice ragged and breathless, you’d asked, “do you want to come in for a bit?”

It was a mistake. A horrible, blissful mistake. Waking up with sticky thighs and Frankie’s thumbprint bruised into your hip, you’d found his side of the bed cold; your inbox empty. He hadn’t called, hadn’t texted. Still hasn’t.

The aftermath is cursory glances. Half-assed greetings and pleasantries murmured across the bar. Which you don’t mind, really. You don’t want to speak to him. He’d probably just feed you some lie about losing track of time, not remembering what happened that night.

You wish you could forget it.

The visual is fuzzy; fleeting. But his voice — god, his voice — it still rings in your ears, drips at the nape of your neck like a leaking tap: fuck, baby, knew you’d take my cock; feel so good wrapped around me.

Your friends don’t know. They can’t; they wouldn’t let you live it down. Benny has made plenty of offhand comments already about you and Frankie being perfect for each other, having the same stubborn disposition. Mal does nothing to shut him up. Instead, she encourages him. Tells him he’s so right.

You’re pretty sure your eyeballs are going to fall out someday from glaring too hard.

Because you’re not perfect for each other — far from it, actually. Fuck, you can’t even communicate effectively. How could you ever be in a real relationship?

Not that you want that. Frankie is…well, Frankie. Sure, he’d felt undeniably incredible on top of you, inside of you — but he isn’t the type to settle down. In fact, you don’t think you’ve ever heard Frankie talk about dating.

Besides, he’s clearly not interested in being anyone’s anything right now. Not even your friend.

It hurts; cuts deeper than you care to admit. Just weeks ago, you’d spent an entire weekend at his place, marathoning the X Files and gorging on cold pizza. Now, he won’t even look your way for more than a few seconds.

Won’t make you a fucking grilled cheese.

It’s a Friday night, which means you’re meeting your friends at Sid’s. The glow of neon seeping through the windows of the old dive bar is warm and inviting as you step out of your rideshare and make your way toward the doors.

Frankie is sitting at the bar with Santiago when you enter. Hunched shoulders, narrowed eyes trained on his bottle of Corona, he appears detached from whatever Santi is saying to him. He doesn’t acknowledge you when you stroll up to them — not until his friend’s hand lands hard on his back, pulling his attention away from the beer. He offers a half-assed hello and an even more half-assed half-hug, and then he’s sliding back onto his barstool.

Ever-oblivious, Santiago doesn’t seem to notice the way Frankie curls in on himself; the way your back is up like an agitated cat’s.

Mal and Benny turn up minutes later, immediately ordering a round of shots for the group. You down the liquor eagerly, not bothering to lean on salt and lime to numb the sting. You want to feel it. You order another before joining Mal and the guys at a pool table in the back, letting the acid slide down your throat with no more than a wince as Santi racks the balls.

“Alright Fish, you’re up,” he says. “Me and you. Whoever loses buys the next round.”

You watch as Frankie quirks a brow at him. Takes a swig of his beer. “You sure you want to make that bet, Pope?”

Santi grins; nods confidently. “Hell yeah, I do.” The rest of you don’t bother to suppress your laughter. You catch a glimpse of Frankie, head thrown back, his broad, glistening neck exposed, and you have to fight to ignore the sudden panging in your chest.

When Santi inevitably loses, you order a vodka soda. You’re already feeling a bit tipsy after two shots in less than twenty minutes, so the drink goes down smooth; quick. There’s a rush to your head as you settle back at the bar and fiddle with the wrapper to your straw, letting the slightly soggy paper roll between two fingers.

You barely notice when Frankie slots in a few seats down, your attention drawn only when you hear his voice. It’s deep — sounds just like it did when he had his chest pressed to your back in the dim light of your bedroom — and his intonation nearly gives you whiplash.

When you snap your head up to look at him, you find he’s speaking to a woman. Her back is turned to you, long, dark hair tossed over her shoulder and her elbow resting casually on the bartop, but you imagine she must be beautiful by the way Frankie is visibly fawning over her. You’re staring, you hear her tease. Can’t help it, comes his reply.

Something like discomfort builds in your throat. Rises up up up. You take a long sip of your drink, letting vodka and sugar push it down.

You’ve never seen Frankie flirt with anyone, apart from you. It’s strangely unsettling, listening to him smooth-talk her. I’m a pilot, you know, he brags; could take you up in the sky someday if you wanted. Her giddy squeal comes seconds later; really? You’d do that for me?

You feel bad for her. She doesn’t know yet that all he’ll do is disappoint her.

He feeds her lines as you sip on your drink, citrus and grain burning only when he tells her: yeah, I came with friends; they’re all over there. Gestures toward Benny, Mal and Santi standing around the pool table in the back.

Scoffing, you stand from your seat at the bar and retreat to the patio. You don’t bother to check if Frankie is looking.

It’s cooler here, a sobering breeze carrying salt air with it as it wafts by. A few patrons have spilled outside, most smoking on faintly glowing cigarettes as they talk and laugh boisterously among themselves. You’d planned to sit alone, to plant yourself on a bench and enjoy your drink in solitude. But then a stranger is approaching you — a man, cigarette grasped between two of his fingers — and he’s asking you for a light.

He’s in his mid thirties, if you had to guess. Curly, dark hair sprouts every which way from his scalp; rounded, green eyes studying you as he awaits a response. He’s tall, though not as tall as Frankie. His shoulders aren’t nearly as broad and his chest isn’t quite as wide. His t-shirt hangs loose around his torso, swallowing his narrow frame — dissimilar to the way Frankie’s button-down clings to him.

Then again — why are you even comparing? Maybe the opposite of Frankie is exactly what you need.

You’ll have to seduce this stranger first, though. Not that it seems like it’ll be very difficult. His eyes are already raking over you, lips turned up at the corner as you take a casual sip of your drink.

“I don’t smoke,” you admit apologetically.

“Ah — that’s alright.”

He has an accent; midwestern, maybe? You don’t bother to ask. You don’t care, really. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is—

“You here all by yourself?”

“Yeah,” he laughs at your lack of subtlety. “Are you?”

“No,” you say. “My friends are inside.” Lowering your voice, you add, “but I was thinking about leaving soon.”

“Why’s that? Early morning tomorrow?”

You shake your head. Rub at your neck as if working out a knot, a contented hum pushing past your lips at the press of fingers into skin. Your stranger’s eyes trail rather conspicuously downward.

“Just over it,” you sigh exasperatedly. “I’d much rather be home…in bed…out of these clothes.”

You pull gently at the strap of your dress, as if you can’t bear the sensation of it against your shoulder any longer.

Your stranger’s gaze darkens, and the grip on his box of cigarettes grows tighter.

“You uh — want some company — once I find a light?”

Too fucking easy.

“Sure,” you giggle.

He slips away only for a minute or two, giving you just enough time to second-guess yourself. You know nothing about this man, not even his name; only that he smokes American Spirits and smells like tobacco. Should you really go home with him?

But then you think of Frankie inside — talking up a woman at the bar, pretending that you don’t exist — and that just about makes up your mind for you.

Your stranger reappears, now-lit cigarette dangling from his lips. The tip of it rages red and angry, and you think you know how that feels.

He smirks at you as he stuffs the pack into the front pocket of his jeans. An unceremonious silence hangs in the air as he sucks on the filter and puffs out a string of smoke. You wait patiently for him, quietly.

He snuffs the butt of his cigarette out in a nearby ashtray. Takes your empty cup and discards that too.

Can’t wait to get you home, he whispers in your ear then. You feign arousal, peering up at him and batting your eyelashes. Me neither, you mewl. Let’s go.

You lead him back through the bar, finding Mal and letting her know that you’ll be going. She seems a little perplexed, quirking a brow at you as you grip tightly onto your stranger’s arm, but she tells you to have fun anyway. Text me, she mouths as you make your way to the exit.

You only get a few feet, though, before you’re intercepted.

Frankie is blocking the door, arms crossed, a panic-stricken look on his face that you can’t quite comprehend. “Hey,” he says, “can I talk to you real quick?”

Your stranger backs off. Lets go of your arm and starts out the door. “I’ll wait outside,” he says, slipping away with a wink before you can protest.

The bar is bustling with noise, people in every corner drinking and laughing and dancing. Strangely, though, you’ve never felt so alone. So vulnerable. And you hate that Frankie has this power over you, the innate ability to make you feel so fucking small. It’s infuriating, it’s—

“Are you sure you want to leave with him?”

“Excuse me?” you scoff.

Frankie stares you down, face red, eyes inky-black. “You don’t know this guy, do you? What if he’s a murderer or something? Or like — a pervert?”

He’s grasping at straws, you know it. It’s why you laugh; roll your eyes.

“What are you, my keeper?”

“No, it’s just — I’m just concerned for your safety, okay?”

You’re briefly stunned. After weeks of ignoring you, he cares about your wellbeing? How can he be so hypocritical?

“I’m fine,” you bite back. “Why don’t you go back to your girl at the bar? Worry about getting yourself some instead?”

He’s wounded, if only slightly. His lips part like he might retaliate, but he’s silent. Dejected. Satisfied, you brush past him. March out the door without so much as a parting glance.

Finding your stranger leaning against the bar’s brick exterior, you force a smile. He outstretches a hand and you take it, reluctantly. “Ready to go?” he asks.

You’re not so sure anymore, but you nod anyway. Squeeze your stranger’s bicep and preen under his lustful gaze when he tenses in your grip. “Yeah,” you purr. “I’m ready.”

Cold air bites at your toes the following morning. It wakes you from a deep slumber; bitterly pulls you into consciousness. Confused, you yank at the covers. But a mysterious weight holds them in place, and only then do you remember then that you’re not alone.

Eyes sliding open reluctantly, you scan the room. Your dress from the night before is draped over the chair in the corner, your stranger’s clothes piled up on the floor nearby. He snores next to you, an arm raising to hang above his head, and you shift. Slip out of bed and pull a t-shirt on before padding into the bathroom.

Early morning light spills across tile, bounces off the mirror above the sink. You squint, shuffling over to the window and yanking the blinds closed. Then you check for damage in your reflection. Your makeup from the night before has stained your cheeks and your eyes look as tired as you feel, but otherwise there appears to be no physical evidence of your rock bottom.

The sex wasn’t great — not even good, really. Your stranger had lasted all of three minutes, had fanned his hot breath across the shell of your ear as he came, and then collapsed on top of you. Rolled over and drifted to sleep. He’d started snoring before you could even process what had just happened.

Cold water splashed across your cheeks does nothing to cool the burn of regret that scorches your skin. You feel uncomfortable, almost as if your body is tainted, now, remnants of your stranger leaking from between your thighs as you steady yourself at the edge of the sink.

He must’ve heard the tap, or maybe the pounding in your chest, because he emerges seconds later. He yawns and stretches, feline-like, in the doorway. “Hey,” he mutters. “How’d you sleep?”

“Pretty good,” you say, eyes twitching slightly as you will them to stay put above his waistline.

“You always up this early?”

You nod. It’s a lie, but he doesn’t need to know that you’d nearly jumped out of bed at the sight of him still there. He doesn’t need to know that for a split second, you’d almost hoped it was Frankie.

He asks if you want to get breakfast. You shake your head in faux-sympathy. “Sorry, can’t. I was hoping to get some cleaning done.”

“I could stick around and help,” he offers.

Jesus Christ. Just take the fucking hint.

“That’s so nice of you; I’m just more efficient by myself,” you lie again.

If Frankie were here, he’d grab the cleaning rags out of the closet just off the kitchen. He knows where they’re kept: second shelf, on the left. He’d wipe down the counters and the coffee table while you’d work on clearing dishes, disposing of pizza scraps. And he’d probably put on his dad-rock playlist — against your wishes — though you’d inevitably find yourself dancing to Foo Fighters and giggling when he’d sing along and mess up the words.

It begins to sink in then, as you shoo your stranger, now dressed, out the door, that your attempt to use sex as a way to get Frankie out of your head was useless. He’s still there, refusing quite adamantly to budge, all mussed curls and big eyes and deep voice. There’s no evidence that he’ll be leaving any time soon.

The revelation renders you nauseous. You spend the rest of the day with a hangover that you’re sure has not been induced by alcohol. And by the time night falls, darkness descending over your bedroom like a fog, you still feel sick.

A week later, you drag yourself to Benny and Mal’s for their monthly game night. You’d tried to get out of it, told Mal you haven’t been feeling great — which isn't a total lie — but she’d begged you until you broke.

Will is coming, and it’ll be the first time we’ve all gotten together in over a year, she’d whined through the receiver.

And then-

I know things were weird between you and Frankie last time at the bar, but you can’t let that stop us from seeing each other.

How do you know that, you’d asked, chewing on your bottom lip, the phone tucked between your ear and your shoulder.

He basically moped around the rest of the night after you left. Kept bitching about you leaving with that guy. He seemed really…agitated. You don’t have to tell me what happened, just please don’t bail.

So you’re here, steeling yourself as you climb the steps to the front door, hoping that if nothing else, you can make it through the night without strangling Frankie for his lack of discretion.

You enter the house with baited breath.

Your eyes immediately catch Frankie, tucked into the corner of the sectional, fingers wrapped tightly around his beer. He meets your gaze briefly before letting it slip to the floor by his feet, as if he’s trying to pretend he hasn’t seen you at all.

“Hi,” you try.

He looks back up at you, or rather past you. Taps his fingers along the bottle for a long moment. “Hey,” he says finally, to the wall behind your head.

“How have you been?” the words come out forced, almost foreign. You shift your weight awkwardly and he sighs.

“Fine. I’m fine.”

“Right,” you mutter. More silence. “Me too, in case you were wondering.”

“Good,” he says, voice cold. “That’s good.”

You’re not sure whether you want to slap him or kiss him. Because as infuriating as he’s being right now, he looks gorgeous, denim shirt hugging his biceps, his shoulders; stray curls peaking out from under that stupid Standard Heating Oil hat. You yearn to rip it off his head, run your fingers through his hair, nip along the sharp line of his jaw; the broad expanse of his neck.

You long to feel something other than the prominent ache that’s permeated your body for weeks, now. And you fear that he’s the only one who’d be able to alleviate it.

Your mouth opens again just as Benny emerges from the kitchen. Whatever words you were about to utter are lost in the ether as he pulls you into a suffocating hug and thanks you for coming.

“Mal’s in the kitchen,” he says. Grabs a handful of Lays from a bowl on the coffee table and shovels them into his mouth. Still chewing, he adds, “we got those wine coolers you like; they’re in the fridge.”

With a hurried thanks, you slip away unscathed.

You find Mal crouched in front of the open fridge, rustling through a produce drawer stocked with beer cans.

“Hey,” you announce.

She seems almost surprised to see you when she cranes her neck toward your voice, despite your promise to show. Eyebrows raised, mouth slightly agape, it’s as if she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. She pulls another drawer open. Fishes out a wine cooler and passes it to you with an outstretched arm.

You take it in one hand. Help her up with the other.

“You’re here,” she says, and it sounds like more of a question than a statement.

“Yeah. I said I would be.”

“I know, I know. It’s just — I wasn’t sure. The whole Frankie thing…”

“It’s nothing; I promise,” you lie. “Water under the bridge. We’re fine.”

She quirks a brow at you, disbelief coloring her features, but she lets it go. Closes the fridge with a thunk and adjusts her sweater at the hem. “Good,” she says. “I don’t want you two ruining game night.”

It’s half a joke, but you know deep down she means it. She takes this all very seriously. Back in college, she’d forced you and your suitemates to play Cards Against Humanity with her every weekend. None of you had the heart to tell her when it started to grow monotonous, and so the tradition carried on well past graduation, eventually evolving into a new tradition with new friends.

Games bring people together, she’d said once over a round of Monopoly that had stretched well into the night, resulting in delirious laughter and a warm, fuzzy feeling in your chest.

You’d believed her at the time. Now, you’re not so sure that it’s foolproof.

The two of you rejoin the guys in the living room, Santiago and Will having shown up in your absence. You greet them as Benny pulls out a stack of game boxes. Settle on the couch, as far away from Frankie as you can manage.

It starts during the second round of Charades.

The first round had gone fine — good, even. Teamed up with Santi and Will, you’d avoided eye contact with Frankie for the whole of it. Focused only on guessing Santi’s horribly-mimed clues in between handfuls of trail mix and sips of watermelon-flavored bubbles.

It’d felt a bit like old times, all of you in one room again. Mal snuggling into Benny on the loveseat; Will catching his brother up on time spent touring the country, giving motivational speeches to recently discharged veterans. He’d asked you how you’ve been as Santi studied his next word, and you’d remembered then that everything was very much not how it once was.

And you hadn’t missed Frankie’s discomfort at the question; the way he set his beer bottle down on the table with a bit too much force, glass clanging against wood. Though if Will noticed too, he hadn’t said anything. Just moved into a story about some woman he met on the road that reminded him of you.

Santi’s turn had ended with a whopping zero points for your team, and now Frankie is standing at the front of the room, unfolding the scrap of paper in his hand and reading it to himself. In the lull, you find yourself staring at him, eyes near glazing over at the sight of the tiny paper pinched between long, thick fingers. Fingers you remember the reach of, the weight of.

He crumples the paper and stuffs it into his pocket, signaling that he’s ready to go. Mal flips over the sand timer on the table. And you almost don’t notice at first when he starts, mind occupied by equal parts lust and annoyance, that he’s fucking mouthing the phrase.

You watch, enraged, as Benny squints to read his lips. He raises his hand excitedly and jumps to his feet; yells out the answer with a sureness that Frankie affirms with a nod.

“That’s right. It’s the Empire State Building.”

“That’s fucking cheating!” you shout, a bit angrier than the situation calls for, and the room grows quiet. Fury coursing through you, you add, “are you fucking serious, Frankie?”

You feel the eyes on you; the awkward sheen you’ve cast over the room. Mal shifts across from you, glaring when you turn to face her, and you laugh defensively.

“What, nobody else thinks that’s unfair?”

“Please,” Frankie sneers.

“No, she’s right,” Santi tries — ever the peacemaker. “We’ll just add a rule going forward; no mouthing the words.”

“Fuck that,” you hiss. “I want their point taken away.”

Frankie scoffs from the other side of the room. “Bullshit! We earned that before the rule was added.”

You’re fuming now, standing to get a bit closer to his height; though he still towers over you. Mal is right on your heels, placing a hand on your shoulder in an attempt to placate you. You brush her off. Take another stride toward Frankie.

“There shouldn’t need to be an official rule against it, Frankie. It’s common fucking sense — which clearly, you have none of.”

Visibly offended, he says nothing. Just tenses his jaw.

“Why did you come tonight?” you continue, voice more level now; direct.

You hear your name uttered behind you, tone pleading, warning. You ignore it.

“Seriously, why?”

He’s quiet for a long, drawn-out moment, eyes pointed at the floor again.

“What are you talking about?” he spits, finally.

You laugh, amused and irritated, and these things somehow feel one in the same. “I mean, clearly you don’t want to be in my presence or even acknowledge my existence — unless it’s to cockblock me — so why are you here?”

His brows furrow; lips twist. For a second, you think he might actually leave. He adjusts his cap, jangles the car key in his pocket — but Benny stops him before he can take a step.

“Just — cut it out, okay? Both of you.”

“He’s the one-“

“I don’t care,” Benny interjects. Scanning the room, you catch sight of Santi and Will and Mal, all visibly agitated, and you sigh.

Guilt washes over you, then. The twisting of Santi’s face, Mal’s doleful stare, the wordless look exchanged between Benny and Will. All confirm your fear that you’ve effectively ruined their night.

“I’m sorry,” you mumble.

Frankie echoes your apology. Still, the others aren’t impressed.

“I don’t know what’s been going on lately with you two, but you need to figure this shit out,” Benny says. He sounds like a parent: stern and slightly disappointed. “Can you please just — go in the other room and talk through it?”

Though you haven’t much cared for Frankie’s opinion as of late, you still turn to him to gauge his reaction. He appears just as hesitant as you are, just as guilt-stricken. But something more lurks behind his eyes — something like fear, anxiety. Why, you aren’t sure.

You raise a brow at him, a wordless question. He answers with a sigh.

“Fine,” you both say at once.

“Thank goodness,” Mal chimes. Herding you two like cattle with a hand on each of your backs, she leads you out of the living room and into the adjoining hallway.

Her voice drones behind you as you make your way toward the third door on the right. Shall we continue the game?

The guest room is primly kept. It appears almost untouched at first glance, though you know that to be untrue. You’ve stayed here before, after blurry nights spent drinking shitty gin and singing karaoke. That must’ve been years ago now, though, after Mal and Benny first bought this house, and you begin to wonder if your tumultuous friendship with Frankie only made you neglect your friendship with her. And that only adds to the anger stirring inside of you — because what was it all worth, if it’s ended up like this?

Frankie closes the door behind him with a click, and the air in the room feels exponentially thicker.

“What the fuck was that?” you hiss.

He scoffs. “Me? You’re the one who freaked out and started an argument over nothing!”

“It wasn’t nothing. You were cheating.”

“Please.” He rolls his eyes. Takes two steps toward you. “That’s not what this is about and you know it.”

“Oh,” you laugh, “so you are aware that you’ve been an asshole?”

He says your name, voice suddenly lower, softer. Your entire body tenses as you struggle to keep strong, to not think about how it sounded in your ear in the midst of pleasure.

“I wasn’t trying to be-”

You throw a hand up; silence him. “Well you have been,” you groan. “You’ve been a huge fucking asshole. You hurt me, Frankie. You were my best friend, and then you just… stopped returning my texts. You won’t even look at me when we’re in the same room together. Did you regret it that much?”

The room goes still. You watch as Frankie’s chest rises and falls arduously, his eyes settling on you. They’re dark, pupils blown wide, squeezing shut as he exhales long and hard.

“No.”

You quirk a brow at him, confused.

“No?”

“No,” he repeats, averting his gaze. “And that’s the problem — I didn’t regret it at all.” His eyes lift slowly, finding you again, voice more sure when he adds, “I’ve wanted it for a long time”

You can barely comprehend what he’s saying, your heart climbing its way out of your ribcage and up your throat. You gulp, feeling the shape of it there as saliva slowly slides past.

He takes another two steps forward, mere inches from you now, and your breath hitches.

“Do you know how difficult it’s been to look at you without getting fucking hard?” he whispers. “How many times I’ve fucked my fist in the past month imagining it was you?”

Your mouth falls open, stunned. “That girl at the bar-”

He shakes his head. “I thought maybe if I fucked someone else, it would help.”

“And did it?”

“I didn’t — I didn’t go home with her,” he admits, a little bashfully. “I couldn’t do it.”

His hand lifts, then, cautious and shaky. It finds its way to your face, grazes your jaw so softly you’d think you imagined it if you couldn’t see.

“Why not?” you squeak.

He nods, as if he’s finally accepting something he’s known to be true, admitting it to himself before he does so out loud.

“Because she wasn’t you.”

It feels as if your entire world has spun on its axis.

Without thinking, you wrap your hand around Frankie’s neck and pull him toward you, crashing your lips into his with a groan. He’s quick to respond, desperately tangling his fingers in your hair and winding his tongue around yours, a broken moan slipping from his throat.

For a long moment, that’s all it is. It’s clashing teeth and restless hands; the draw of blood and the taste of it, earthy and metallic on your tongue. It’s the two of you, reconciling for lost time and unshared feelings and the overlooked need for each other through tangled bodies.

And when you finally pull apart, his lips are swollen and his eyes are glazed over, and you’re sure you don’t look much different.

“Frankie,” you whine as his mouth latches to your neck, warm and wet. He doesn’t retreat; just hums against you.

“Need you,” you say breathlessly. “Need you to touch me.”

His large hand skates down your front, under the waistband of your leggings. He presses two fingers against your clothed clit, and your knees buckle. You lean into him, bracing yourself with a hand on his chest as he begins rubbing small, deliberate circles into cotton.

Lips trailing up to your ear, he nibbles at the lobe. Presses his tongue just behind the shell of it and sighs. “Been wanting this since that night. Want to make you feel good. Want to do it right.”

You mewl in response, high-pitched and too loud, and you have to bite into his shoulder to keep from crying out again. He’s still working you toward the brink, pace relentless, beseeching you every time you buck into his hand.

There you go baby, that’s it; I got you.

You know he does, can feel the support of his unoccupied hand at the small of your back, holding you to his strong body. And god, how you’ve missed the feeling of it pressed to yours. You think that that alone could make you come.

You feel yourself slipping as your orgasm approaches, legs slumping underneath you more and more with every pass of his fingers. “Frankie,” you warn, teeth still anchored in his skin. “I’m going to-“

The words are muffled, but he gets it. Presses down harder and works his fingers faster. “Come on baby,” he growls in your ear, “come on.”

Your orgasm hits you so hard that you collapse, your body dead weight in Frankie’s grip as you writhe. He grasps onto you tightly, working you through it with his unyielding touch, swiping back and forth, back and forth as the final waves crest.

You’re panting when it ends, and still when Frankie helps you to the edge of the bed. Perched there, staring up at him with glassy eyes, you realize you’ve never felt so sated and so needy at the same time.

“Frankie?”

“Yeah, baby?”

“Please fuck me.”

He should probably say no. After all, you’re in your friends’ guest room, people just a few hundred feet on the other side of the door. But then again, he’s already made you come.

You watch him consider it, eyes flickering to the door and back to you, dark and deep and pooling with want.

In the end, he can’t help himself.

“Can you be quiet, querida?”

You nod, though you’re sure that even if you said no, he wouldn’t care. He’d do just as he’s doing now: pressing your shoulder, encouraging you to lay down on the bed; helping you pull your sneakers off, then your leggings, then your shirt; stepping back to marvel at your half-naked form before him.

“Fucking beautiful,” he murmurs, and your entire body heats from the inside out. You feel like you’re on fire, his stare keeping you alight as he undresses down to his boxers.

He climbs over you with a hand on either side of your head, pressed into the mattress. The lip of his hat bumps you, and you immediately rip it off of him, tossing it aside and tangling your fingers in dark curls.

You tug at them, dragging him down until his face is hovering just above yours, and he responds with a strangled moan. His body pressed to yours now, you can feel the weight of his hard cock against your clothed pussy. Your mouth finds his again in a languid kiss — slow and deep. You feed each other sighs and moans, taste each other’s longing. His hips roll into yours with every exhale, teasing you — reminding you, and you feel like you’re steadily going insane.

He pulls back, panting. Rests his forehead on yours.

“Can I take this off?” he asks, plucking at the strap of your bra. You nod furiously. Lift the upper half of your body so that he can undo the clasps.

Breasts suddenly exposed, you feel your nipples begin to harden. Frankie groans at the sight of them, so pert and needing. Wordlessly, he dips his head, buries his face in your chest. His tongue wraps around one of your nipples and you cry out, hand flying to your mouth in an instant.

“Oh fuck,” you moan into your palm.

“Feel good?” he asks, knowing smirk playing on his lips as he shifts his focus to the other nipple. You feel so sensitive everywhere, the heft of his tongue going straight to your clit, and you can barely answer him. A shaky yes tumbles from your mouth — the best you can do. He hums, so low the vibrations burrow under your skin and barrel through you, and you keen at the sensation.

“God, you sound so pretty,” he sighs as he rolls one of your stiff peaks between two fingers. His other hand drifts down your body, dips between the two of you and pulls your panties aside.

“Fuck,” he curses, fingertip brushing over your seam just barely. “You’re soaked, bebita. That all for me?”

“Mhm,” you whine. “All for you Frankie; fuck-“

He’s shifts down your body, hooks both arms under your legs and drags you toward him in one swift motion, leaving you no time to process before his tongue is on your pussy. “Have to taste you,” he babbles drunkenly, plunging into your leaking cunt and lapping at you.

“Oh, oh shit,” you moan as he drags his tongue up to your clit. “Please baby, please.”

“I know; I got you,” he soothes. Then he begins to lave your clit with the soft flat of his tongue, warm muscle encircling the throbbing nub. Wide eyes staring up at you, he observes intently. Responds to every sound, every tell with a switch in direction or an increase in pressure. He’s so attentive, so desperate to make you come on his mouth, and it sends you into a sort of delirium.

Your second orgasm hits you out of nowhere, slams through your body with so much intensity, you don’t even have the strength to warn Frankie before your release is gushing all over his face and, undoubtedly, the bed below.

He growls against your cunt. Comes up for air and kisses you hard, letting you taste yourself on his tongue as he tugs his boxers down and frees his aching cock. Notches at your entrance without detaching his lips from yours.

It’s a stretch — you recall it being so last time too — though the alcohol had done wonders to loosen your body. Now, you feel every devastating inch of him as he pushes in. He’s gentle. Tells you how good you’re doing as he feeds you more and more of his cock. There you go, that’s my girl, taking it so well for me. And for some reason, him calling you his nearly makes you come again.

He notices the way you preen in response. Thumbs across the slope of your jaw as he settles inside you. “You like that, baby? Like me calling you mine?”

“Yes, Frankie — fuck. Want it.”

You don’t specify whether you mean him or his cock. You’re not entirely sure. Not that it matters. You know he’ll give you both, give you anything. Can feel it in the way he gazes at you through heart-shaped eyes as he lets you adjust to him.

“So fucking beautiful, you know that?”

Your eyes roll back and saliva pools in your mouth. “God,” you breathe.

“I’m serious,” he says, finally beginning to move. The slow drag of his cock brushes your g-spot and you gasp. “Was so stupid before, fucking you drunk. Wanna remember every second, every noise you make, every inch of your perfect fucking body.”

“Jesus, Frankie.”

He pushes back in with one deep thrust. Sets a pace that, while not rough, definitely isn’t gentle. You begin to babble and writhe under him. Hook your legs around him so he can get even deeper.

He groans. “Tell me how it feels, baby.”

“It’s so fucking good,” you cry. “Feels like fucking heaven, Frankie.”

“Nah, that’s you.” He lets his head fall on your shoulder, drives into you faster. Pants into the crook of your neck. “Perfect fucking pussy.”

It ends all too quickly — with your fingernails dug into his back and his sweaty curls sticking to your forehead. Your cunt clenching around his cock, pulling his orgasm out of him just as yours begins to roll through you. You free fall from the cliff’s edge together, breathless moans spilling between your slotted mouths, his warmth flooding you and leaking from the place you’re still connected.

As the room around you slowly comes back into focus, you hear the sound of distant laughter. Benny’s boisterous chuckle and Mal’s much softer one. Clearly distracted, they’re likely blissfully unaware of what’s just happened. You giggle, covering your face as Frankie pulls out.

“What’s so funny?” he asks, prying your hands away.

“We’re gonna have to get them a new bedspread. We just defiled this one.”

He stands, then, pulling you upright with him. You squeal as blood rushes to your head and your vision goes staticky.

“Worth it,” he smirks. Gives you a chaste kiss. “Got my girl back.”

You dress and rejoin the group as inconspicuously as possible. Pray they don’t notice the way you’re wobbling on your feet, or the sheen of sweat that’s coated your skin.

“You sort everything out?” Santi smirks knowingly as you reassume your place on the couch, Frankie settling back into the corner.

“Yeah,” he mutters, refusing to make eye contact.

“It’s about time,” Benny shouts from the kitchen. Frankie’s head shoots up, pivots toward his voice.

“What do you mean?”

He emerges in the doorway with a shit-eating grin. Mal stifles a laugh from the loveseat.

“Just saying it’s about time,” he shrugs. “That’s all.”

Shit; apparently you hadn’t been as quiet as you thought.

The others chuckle as you and Frankie exchange a mortified look. The embarrassment is short lived though, Will clapping his hands together, asking what game you all want to play next.

An hour later, after a couple rounds of Codenames and another wine cooler, you head out the door with Frankie right beside you. It feels odd, not hiding anymore. But more so, it feels right.

He leans you against your SUV under silver moonlight. Kisses you with plush, soft lips against yours; restless hands roving up your sides. Pulls back with a suspiciously large grin.

You cock an eyebrow at him. “What?”

“Nothing,” he says. “Just glad I stopped being an idiot.”

“I don’t know about that,” you tease, and he smacks you gently on the arm.

“Come over?” he asks, his hand draped over your waist.

You think on it for only a second. Nod. “Yeah. As long as you make me a grilled cheese.”

“That can be arranged.”

end notes: thank you so much for reading! if you enjoyed, please consider commenting and/or reblogging :)

#Frankie Morales #Frankie Morales x reader #Frankie Morales x f!reader #Frankie Morales x female reader #Frankie Morales fic #Frankie Morales smut #Frankie Morales fanfiction #Triple Frontier #Triple Frontier fic #Triple Frontier fanfiction #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal fic #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal smut

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kingkatsuki · 1 year ago

Text

— kiss chase

Do you remember the game kiss chase when you were a kid?

Just more silly little Bakugou thoughts SIGH.

“I wish our first kiss was that romantic.” You smile at him from the other side of the couch as you rest your legs across his lap. His fingers absentmindedly stroking patterns against your skin as he sits with his chin buried inside his hoodie as he watches the movie you’ve put on, rolling his eyes at your words.

“Ain’t my fault it wasn’t romantic— you were cryin’ before it.”

“No I wasn’t!” You laughed as Bakugou rubbed his head over his hoodie, tousling his hair beneath it, “You wiped off our first kiss, I’ll never forget.”

“The fuck I did?” Completely abandoning the film with his attention now completely on you, “It was at that ice rink, after you were cryin’ cause I didn’t catch your ass when you fell.”

“Firstly, I didn’t cry because of that, I was crying because it hurt,” You reach over to smack his arm, no malice in your actions as your lips curl up into a smile, “And that was not our first kiss.”

“So when was it?” He frowns, furrowing his brows.

“What? You don’t even remember?” You pout, furrowing your brows as Bakugou has to stop himself from leaning over and kissing you right now.

“Remember when we played kiss chase in school?”

“When you played kiss chase, I didn’t play that dumb shit.”

“I’m pretty sure I remember you chasing me.” You grinned, replaying the memory in your mind.

You both went to the same school, practically growing up together as you’ve been joined at the hip ever since. But you never used to spend much time together out on the playground, preferring to do your own things as you stuck with your young girl friends. Playing those silly childhood games like hide and seek, hopscotch and kiss chase.

Remembering when it was your turn to start, and your eyes roamed the playground, trying to decide what boy to chase after as you stood in the middle.

And all the other kids are taunting you, because there’s no way in hell any of the girls would even attempt to run up to Bakugou, nevermind try to kiss him. And you’re just standing there watching him from across the playground, watching as he moves his legs apart in a mock fighting stance as he holds his palms out in front of him. Quirk usage was banned throughout the school, so he was pretending to shoot his explosions out. Making the ‘boom’ noises himself as he held his hands in the air.

And the girls around you are squealing when you start to jog towards Bakugou, who’s none the wiser. The poor kid happily playing by himself as the other boys in the playground stop to watch you as you make your way over to the blond boy. He doesn’t even notice you until you’re right beside him, reaching out to grab him by the shoulders as you close your eyes and plant a wet smack against his lips.

A universal ‘eww’ rings out around the playground, which you assume is from your choice being Bakugou, and not the act of kissing since most of the girls were more than happy to kiss Midoriya.

And Bakugou is just stood there, crimson eyes blinking in surprise as he lifts his arm up to aggressively wipe his mouth with the back of his hand, scrunching his nose in disgust.

“What was that for?!” He groans, as though you’d just punched him in the face.

“Tag, you’re it.” You grin, and before he has a chance to respond you’re off running back across the playground.

And instead of trying to find another girl to kiss in order to continue the chain, he keeps his pursuit on you.

“Of course I was gonna chase you, I didn’t wanna kiss those other girls—”

“Oh, so you wanted to kiss me?” You smile across the couch at him as he squeezes your ankle playfully.

“I always wanna kiss you,” He smirks, tightening his grip around your ankle as he tugs hard. Pulling your body across the couch towards him as you squeal in surprise, adjusting you until your thighs were either side of his hips. His hips hovering over yours as he cupped his hands on the curve of your ass.

“I can’t believe you didn’t remember our first kiss.” You pout, leaning back playfully as Bakugou tries to press his lips to yours, making him groan in irritation.

“Even after all these fuckin’ years you’re still makin’ me chase you, sweetheart.”

#soft bakugou #Bakugou x reader

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romanreignseater · 6 months ago

Text

Cinematography. (This Is Cinema ~ Roman’s Part)

Roman Reigns x Black Female Reader

Rating: 18+

Warning: Smut; Rough sex, p0rngraphy, oral (m&f receiving), slight spit kink, and other nausty (ikyk) thingsssss..

“Already having made an absolute masterpiece with Mr. Jey Uso, you didn’t think you’d be stepping to the so called “Tribal Chief” so soon. But he put himself next in line and you weren’t mad at it.

A/N: This has been the most requested in my inbox and I have been dying to continue this story/series for you all. Here’s the first part of this series. Thanks for the support on my last Roman fic, what a warm welcome back 🥰🥰. More coming soon, I got a lot of ideas brewing up. AND MY HUSBAND IS BACK, TURN UP BITCHHHHHH 😝😝!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

GIF: @jeysuso

It has been about two weeks since your last adult video dropped and it was the talk of the town. Scratch that, it’s talk of the whole world at this point. You filmed with a member of the hottest porn group there is, Mr. Jey Uso, and he most definitely rocked your world. As that video did your bank account.

The video reached 1 million views in just an hour and over the course of two weeks it was at 205 million views. Those numbers meant shopping sprees and palm trees. But, also trips to the masseuse, cause Jey did not play no games with you. He wore you out to the point where your management thought it was best to put you on an “injury reserve” list.

Yeah… it was that bad and honestly unnecessary.

But, good at the same time. Jey made you feel things you haven’t felt in a long time. What you didn’t know was a storm was brewing and headed straight for Casa Y/N.

As you stood in your kitchen making yourself some shrimp alfredo pasta with your teacup poodle, Rex, by your side being your little sous chef. The doorbell rang. Rex instantly began barking and running to the front door, trying his best to be your guard dog.

“Rex, calm your little ass down.” You yelled as turned the stove off and moved the pan of pasta to the side, wiped your hands and headed to the front door. You had no clue as to who was at the door, you weren’t expecting any company. Maybe it was a package, as your online spending habits always seem to leave your mind the second you purchased something. Or maybe fan mail, as you tend to get a lot of those from random men wanting to marry you.

“Rex back up from this door and stop all that barking please.” Rex sat quietly and tilted his head curiously to the side as you opened the huge door. You were surprised to see manager, Vanessa, standing at the door with a big grin on her face. As you opened the door even more, your breath completely stopped and your heart skipped a beat. Stood next to Vanessa was a 6’ 3, tatted, tan, and muscular Samoan with the face of a Greek god.

Your mouth stood agape as you admired his innate beauty, glaring at you with that smirk… that smirk that possessed all the women he’d ever worked with. Made them shrivel in their panties, made them wet for days, and made them absolutely numb to his body and his body only.

Roman Motherfuckin’ Reigns.

The leader of this adult film group aka “The Bloodline”, stood at your front door, with your manager. You couldn’t believe it!! Roman only had 8 videos up… 8 videos!! He’s only ever worked with 5 women in his entire pornstar career and they were quite the professionals. But now he stands at your door, which you could only guess what that means.

“Earth to Y/N, yoohoo. Y/N!!” You snapped back into reality as Vanessa began clapping her hands in your face. “Vanessa, where I’m from clapping your hands in someone’s face means you wanna fight. So, let’s not do that again. Got it?!” Vanessa looked taken aback as Roman just laughed with that dreamy chuckle of his.

“She is really feisty Nessa, just like you said, I like that.. a lot.” Roman whispered that last part into your ear so sensually that it made you want to take your phone and make this tape right here at the front door. But you remained professional as you knew Roman didn’t mess with little fan girls. He only worked with confident women who are professional and know what they want out of him.

And boy oh boy, you knew exactly what you wanted from him.

“Well let’s not waste any time with the long introductions. Y/N, Roman. Roman, Y/N. Shake hands and let’s get this party started.” Vanessa waltzed her way right into your home and picking up Rex in the process as she then said, “Ooo, is that alfredo I smell girl?!” You both watched as Nessa helped herself into the kitchen to feast on the meal you prepared for yourself.

“Your manager is really something, but she’s definitely a smart one and knows what she’s doing with you.” You faced Roman as you just gazed into his chocolate brown eyes as he did to yours. “Yeah that’s my girl. Why don’t you come in and have a seat?!” Roman removes your hand from the door, lets himself in and shut the door behind him. He then immediately picks you up and flings you over his shoulder. You gasped and begin giggling uncontrollably.

He gives a firm smack to your ass and heads his way into the kitchen.

“Oh, imma have fun with you baby.”

You bit your lip as you let Roman navigate his way through your home by following the smell of the pasta which would lead to where Vanessa stood chowing down per usual.

“Okay Groot, put my girl down. She’s on the injury reserve list and I can’t afford to have her down for another week.” You mentally curse out Nessa for mentioning this stupid injury reserve thing in front of Roman. He sets you down and takes a seat on the barstool across from Vanessa on the kitchen island.

“How did you get injured?!” He stares at you with curiosity in his eyes as you weren’t bandaged up, nor needing any sort of crutches or wheelchair. You played with your nails as you looked around the room trying to avoid eye contact with him. “Welllll… it’s kind of a long story. See what-.”

“Oh my god, she’s taking too long. Her last porno with your cousin, Jey. Messed. Her. Up. She’s been done up ever since.” Roman’s eyes moved from Vanessa’s to yours. You shut them not even daring to look back at him.

“Oh please, when I’m done with her she’ll be on that list for months. Why do you think I’ve only worked with 5 women my whole career?! Cause I broke em’ down, claiming they could take it but always proved me wrong. With you though… I know it’ll be different.”

Roman said that as he stood behind you massaging your ass with one hand and massaging your neck with the other. Roman’s massive hand travels from the back of your neck to the front of it as he choked you out. His hand on your lower half took the same route to your front, rubbing your pussy through your shorts. His pillow soft lips laid kisses all over your face, but grazing your lips every time you thought he was gonna go in for a kiss.

You completely crumbled. Cupping your entire clothed mound in his hand, massaging and torturing you. Making you squirm for his viewing pleasure. You lose your breath and awareness of your surroundings as he begins rubbing you out harder and enforcing a rougher choke around your neck.

“Ummmm, get your hands off my girl. You ain’t sign this contract yet.” Vanessa said with a mouthful of pasta, throwing the contract down in front of you both.

“Yeah you’re right. Can’t fuck the shit out of her without this little deal we curated.” Roman released you from the shackles of his hands and you felt like you could finally breathe again.

“Wait, what deal?!” You stared at your manager trying to regain your breath, as she continued to slurp down the pasta.

“Wellll… you see, what had happened wasss.” You looked at Vanessa in utter disbelief as she was out her making “deals” without your approval.

“Ah she’s taking too long.” Roman began to speak on Vanessa’s behalf. “We have curated a little deal princess, where we will have a committed “porn” relationship. Basically committing to film with each other, and each other only for a period of time. But as of right now, we’re doing a little tester. Seeing if we have the chemistry before we go lighting any sparks here.”

You stood giggling not minding the sound of this little “deal”. But you can’t help but notice that Roman’s come flocking after your tape with Jey and you’ve heard about the slight competition between the both of them.

“Okayyyy, and why now?! Is it because I filmed with your little cousin and you’re nervous he’s doing bigger numbers and has bigger things than you honey?!” You continued your uncontrollable giggles as you looked to Vanessa who stopped in her tracks.

Roman shut his eyes and let out a deep sigh. Those words deeply triggered him. Him and Jey were always in competition with one another. Since they were in little league football to now slanging that dick for all of America to see. Despite Jey being a twin, they were more of an inseparable duo rather than frenemies.

Of course Roman had immense amounts of love for his family, he helped bring them into the industry and helped change all of their lives for the better. But he was a firm believer of not letting the people you allowed in to over throw you. He stood at the Head of the Table and he wasn’t gonna allow little cousin Jey to take that from him.

“Vanessa… call the camera crew.”

——————————————————————————

You didn’t even sign the contract and a camera crew was at your home setting up for what you could only assume was gonna be an absolute movie.

Roman didn’t speak to you after asking Nessa to invite the camera crew over. He must’ve not liked to hear you compare him to Jey, but it was all harmless fun… well to you at least.

You find Roman and Nessa in your bedroom with the camera crew setting up angles all around your bed. You slowly walked up from behind your bedroom door and Roman and Nessa looked up towards you. “Well don’t you look all cutesy girl. I haven’t seen you this dressed up since your first ever video..”

You visibly cringed at Nessa constant embarrassment of you as Roman chuckled his life away. “At least she’s all dressed up for a good reason. A great one at that." You dressed in your best lingerie. Red, tight, and riddled with lace.

Just how you liked it and assuming that’s how Roman liked it as well by the way he was eyeing you down.

“How about we get started, why don’t we?!” Roman sat on your Queen sized bed and waited patiently for you sit next to him. You slowly walked to the bed, as if you were unfamiliar with it. “This is your house, your bed sweetheart. Why you being all shy?! I don’t bite, well I might not bite right now.”

You blush and take a seat next to Roman on your bed. You look at Roman as he tells the main camera man where to stand.

“Sooo… there’s no game plan?! Just jumping straight into it?!” Most stars you’ve worked with have a certain setup for how their videos began and Roman seemingly didn’t have one. Most of his films sort of jumped straight into the last minutes of foreplay, then cut right to the sex.

“Sweetheart, this is my show and I’m running it. Just follow my lead and follow like a good girl, alright?!” Roman’s deep voice put you into a trance and hearing him call you a good girl nearly made you drool.

“Oh-okay.”

Roman pats my thigh and smiles at me.

“Good girl.”

He then signals the cameraman, which prompted him to start a countdown.

“In 5…

4…

3…

2…

1…”

He signals his finger towards us meaning that the camera is rolling. Staring directly into the lens, you were completely frozen. Your nerves began to get the best of you and those jitters you had when you first became an adult film star all came back.

You could feel the warmth of Roman peer closer to you. He places one of his large hands on your thigh and the other on your face, making you look him dead in his eyes.

“Don’t be nervous alright. Daddy’s got you.”

Before you could respond, Roman blesses your lips with a passionate kiss. Our lips smacking together in sensual harmony. His tongue swirled on the inside of your mouth, exploring every part of it.

Then the kiss became even slower. Your tongues fighting in a brute of passion, trying to figure out who asserted the most dominance. And of course… the Head of the Table won.

He moves from his spot next to you on the bed and stands in front of at the edge of the bed. He begins to massage your taut breasts through your lingerie, before removing it completely.

“Fuck baby, you look amazing.”

His comment only added to your nervousness, but his heavenly kiss brought you back to down to Earth.

He catches you by surprise as he yanks your hips to the edge of the bed and rips your soaked panties clean off. He spread your legs wide causing the glory of wetness to be revealed to him and the camera.

“You real wet huh mama?! Want Daddy to eat you out??”

You could only nod as his breath nearing your pussy could only cause you to shiver. He smirks and lowers his head down into your heat.

He begins eats you out messily, tossing your knees over his shoulders, and circling your clit until you soak his beard. He then sucked on each individual fold, licking and slurping covering it in saliva. You became a whimpering mess as he shook his head ferociously against your clit, with eyes rolling back, hands tangled in his luxurious hair and legs shaking and closing around his head.

“I’m gonna cum Dadddyyyyy.”

“Let it go mama.”

Your legs enclosed Roman’s head as they shook with maximum strength. Your back arched off the bed and Roman’s fingers gripped your thighs harshly, definitely leaving marks later.

You pant heavily, trying to regain your breath from the insane climax Roman just gave you. Without wasting anytime, he took his tank top off as well as his sweatpants and boxers.

His body a legit masterpiece. Sculpted by the gods.

Shocking you once again, he grasps the back of your knees, forcing them together and then crushing them into your tits. The head of his cock glides against your cunt, still convulsing from the feeling of that climax.

Roman slams into you, not giving you any time to adjust. He just pounds you into the mattress. The room was filled with sounds, only sounds. The grunts and the wet slaps of his pelvis smacking against yours over and over again with his hand between your legs, rubbing your wet cunt and the place where it stretched around him.

“You like that mama?!”

“You feel it in your stomach, huh?!”

“Daddy’s going in real deep huh?!”

Your entire bed shook, the headboard slammed into the wall to the point where you believed the drywall began to crumble and holes will most definitely appear later on. You begin taking mental notes to tell Vanessa to send Roman a bill for your damaged wall.

His moans made you even wetter than you were before. It almost sounded like he was whimpering over your pussy.

Was the big man really whimpering over how good your pussy is?!

Before you could even relish in the sounds of his moans more, you legs shook once again as you felt your climax approaching and it was approaching fast.

Roman caught on to your short gasps and convulsing legs, he then began beating up your sweet cunt. Throwing your knees to the side of your head, making them touch your silk sheets. Pounding into you harshly, not missing a beat until you squirted all over his lower half and the sheets underneath you.

“Oh my goodness.” You let out an exasperated laugh as you closed your legs together to staph off that feeling. You winced as Roman let out a sharp smack to your ass. You opened your eyes as you watched him pleasure himself in front of you.

“Come suck this dick mama.”

Say no more.

You followed as Roman laid down and you took the position in between his legs, sniper style.

You grabbed at his flesh pole and it felt so hot and heavy in your hands. He most certainly was big. Like BIG. Although you didn’t want to compare lengths, Roman was massive compared to his cousin Jey. Maybe he liked to call him lil cuz for a reason.

“Whatchu you keep staring at?! Get to it princess.”

You innocently brought your mouth down and sucked the head. Moaning with his cock in your mouth and hands massaging at this balls. You slobbered down his length, bobbing your up and down head slowly. You peer your eyes up as you listened to the moaning and groaning Roman made from the moment you made contact with his member. His legs shook as you continued the pleasure.

His eyes rolled back and he grabbed the back of your head, bobbing your head up and down. Your eyes watered and you gagged as he stalled his hips in your mouth.

His cum coated the entirety of your throat. He groaned as you swallowed his cum while he was still in your mouth. His strong arms brought you up as he gave you a long kiss. Intaking all his cum and yours from earlier in each other’s mouths. A string of saliva hung from your lips to his. You both smile at each other, looking each other in the eyes.

“And… CUT!!”

You slightly jumped as you completely forgot about the tape you guys were filming. “That was absolutely perfect guys. Roman, Y/N… you both got a money maker on your hands right here.”

The camera crew began to clean up and take down the lights and mics. Roman tried to help you up off the bed, but you were so weak in the knees you couldn’t stand.

“I think we’ll keep on that list sweetie.”

You rolled your eyes at his comment and he began to chuckle. “Whatever Roman, just let me sit for a little.”

He smiled at you once more before he lowered himself to your ear. “Definitely better than Lil’ Jey huh?!”

This man is a problemmmm…

A good one though.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THE END.

HOPE YOU ALL ENJOYED 💕💕!! Probably my fave Roman fic to date!!

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