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supernaturalistthings · 7 months

Text

Jealousy

Dean Winchester x Female!Reader

Warnings: +18 contains smut

Summary: One night in a run down bar Dean Winchester has no choice but to reveal his true feelings

You could feel an intense gaze on you from across the bar as the influence of alcohol starts moving your hips for you. The bass of the music moves through you as you dance to the song booming through the bar. Your hands floating over your body as you move to the beat flawlessly thanks to the drinks you already had in your system. You feel the gazes mounting and thankfully so as you look up and see a small blonde next to Dean desperately trying to pull him into conversation and pull his eyes away from the girl of his dreams.

In that moment it was an impossible feat, all Dean could focus on was the sway of your hips, how your hands roamed over your clothed curves gathering the attention of anyone with a pulse and eyes. His hands clenched his beer while the tone of the blonde standing next to him gets blurred into the music and he starts to notice how many eyes are on you. The girl dancing, his girl dancing. He excuses himself without even looking in the direction of the blonde next to him and starts to shimmy his way through people to get to you.

His breath is caught in his chest as he finally reaches you holding out a hand to stall you in your place from dancing to the song booming throughout the bar. He looks cold into your eyes and firmly says

“Lets go”

“Where?” you reply

“Anywhere but here”

“Thought you were busy” You say scanning over the bar looking for the girl that was previously trying to get Dean's attention, as Dean grabs your arm and starts dragging you towards the exit.

“Busy trying to get your attention, but clearly plan A failed. B it is i guess.” He says gruffly and without a glance, as the cold air of the night spreads over you and the bar door slams shut behind the both of you. Dean is still dragging you along the way. However his hand moves from your forearm to your hand. He's gripping you tight as you start to walk upon the 67 Chevy impala.

He flings open the passenger door and guides you in with an air of annoyance. You watch as he walks back to the driver side through the windshield, he flings his door open and slides in. The silence is tense and can be cut with a knife as the engine roars to life and he speedily pulls out of the bar parking lot.

“You started this” you say finally cutting the tension without taking your eyes off the road speeding beneath the car

He shoots a glare over and readjusts his grip on the steering wheel

“Yeah well I'm finishing it too..” He shoots back without tearing his eyes from the road. “I'm tired of this game… you're mine, I'm going to give you a reason to start acting like it.” His knuckles tighten on the wheel, and the gas slightly accelerates.

Your mouth goes slightly aghast as you take in his side profile. As you take in him. Dean claimed that you both not being officially together was something created for your own safety. That he couldn't chance losing you but right now that didn't matter. You could tell by the grip he had on the steering wheel and the shade of green his eyes were. You belonged together, and in this moment more than ever.

The car slows to a stall and the engine abruptly shuts off when you’re finally broken from your thoughts and feel your door open. You turn and see Dean waiting with his hand out for you to take. The annoyance has mostly left his face and all that is left is desperation. You slowly reach for his hand and he lifts you out of your seat and shuts the car door behind you as you both walk hand in hand to his motel room. No dragging, no annoyance, all of that was left at the bar.

He messes with the key for a second and the door opens and you both step inside and the instant it's closed and you can feel the hardness of it pressed against your back. Dean has his hands firmly on your shoulders holding you against it. Your breathless staring into eachothers eyes as he hesitantly leans forward and presses his lips to yours in a way you haven't felt before. It was passionate, tender, dare you say loving. His hands slide up the sides of your neck and tangle in your hair as the room is filled with soft moans and the slight sound of your hips moving back and forth from the door as you press against him.

He reaches for your thighs and pulls you up to straddle his waist. One hand stays on your thigh after you lock your legs around him and one travels around your waist, holding you as he crosses the room to the bed. He holds you as he leans over and gently lays you on the bed. The kiss never breaking. His arms cage you as he kisses you from above and it feels heavenly. He pulls back and his eyes flutter open and breathlessly whispers

“You're mine…and I'm yours, and that's just the way it's going to be from now on” he softly brushes his fingers along your cheek and into your hair looking deeply into your eyes. The way he looked at you spoke everything you had been dying to hear. You cross your arms around his neck and bring him in for another kiss and then stopping again to answer

“Sounds good to me”

He smiles brightly and seals the space between the two of you once again. He reaches for the hem of your shirt and you lift yourself slightly so he can pull it over your head. He tosses it to the floor and runs his hand down your torso cupping and pulling at your bra while stabilizing himself with his other hand.

You run your hands over his bare chest and stomach before toying with the waistband of his jeans. He takes over and slides them down and kicks them off somewhere. You're both breathless and desperate to feel every inch of each other. The kiss is feverish. Intoxicating.

He rolls you both over so you're on top, he pulls at every curve on your body. He leaves wet kisses all over your collarbone and chest while he easily undos your bra and it joins the rest of your clothes on the floor. His hands are everywhere, over your chest, around your thighs. He slips his hands into your pants and cups your ass and rocks your hips against his. You grab the waist band and roll them off of you having to stop straddling him to do so and the second they are stripped from your body you're pulled right back into his strong arms. You're wearing nothing but your underwear when he breathlessly breaks the kiss when he says,

“You're so beautiful”

It’s whispered so delicately against your lips, and you savor every syllable. Your eyes flutter closed and your lips reconnect as he lays you down with himself between your legs. He runs his hand between the small space between your bodies and to where you need him most. He can feel a slight wetness seeping through your panties and says

“You're still wearing to many clothes”

He rubs small circles over your clothed clit. You're a mess with your head thrown back and moaning like crazy. Deans watching your face contort in pleasure and he can't help but feel proud of himself knowing he can make you feel better than any other man. He finally slides your panties down your legs and playfully throws them as far as he can. He's smirking and his thoughts are swimming when he reconnects your lips with his. He is full of passion and hoping that any fraction of what he's feeling is being conveyed through his kiss and his touch.

His hands are running down your body and so is his mouth, leaving a trail of wet kisses and soft marks behind. You're his now. He places his mouth over your wetness and makes love with his tongue. Licking and kissing until one of your hands is running through his hair and the other is gripping the sheets for dear life. His name drops like hymns from your lips and it only fuels him to get you to the brink.

“You taste amazing" he looks up and says. He fully takes in your state. How desperate you are for him and it hits him even harder that he is the only man he ever wants you to look at like that.

He crawls up the length of your body and deeply looks into your eyes before leaning in and kissing you. You’re breathless and you take him into your hands and start pumping. You’re moaning into eachothers mouths. Dean feels euphoric. Between his feelings and the way you actually feel, he’s high. He takes himself from you and teases your entrance before fully inserting himself inside you. Both of your foreheads connect and his eyes are squeezed shut from the tightness. He kisses you softly and pulls away for fear he might not be able to breathe.

You're looking into eachothers eyes, the only illumination being the lights from outside seeping through the cracks in the motel curtain. He's never looked so beautiful.

“You're gorgeous” you say, it being the only thing you can conjure at the moment.

He smiles softly still maintaining eye contact and even in the dark you can see color tinge his cheeks. He couldn't comprehend this was real. He starts moving slowly in response. Thrusting in and out. The heat and sweat is mounting between the two of you. You're both moaning messes. Each other's names falling from both your lips in praise.

Your back is arched and you're leaving marks on his shoulder from how hard you're gripping him. His thrusts become sloppy from just how amazing he feels, how you're making him feel.

The tension in your stomach is building and you don't know how much longer you can take it when suddenly you cant anymore. You cum hard around him, squeezing every inch of him as he thrusts in and out. His own undoing building. He's thrusting deep and grunting hard when you then feel him spilling out of you. You're both moaning and looking deeply into eachothers eyes. He slows his pace to almost nothing and you're lost in eachothers eyes for good you must think, and don't mind either. He cuts the silence by saying,

“I guess I should've done that sooner” still above you and caging you in with his strong arms. He lifts one to start soothing your messy hair and it results in a giggle from you.

“Better late than never” you say in a more serious tone and lean up to give him a peck on the lips. You feel him smile into the kiss and your mind is swimming knowing there will be plenty more to come in the future.

#dean winchester #dean winchester headcannons #dean winchester imagine #dean winchester moodboard #dean winchester x reader #dean x reader #dean x you #supernatural #supernatural headcanon #supernatural imagine #dean winchester smut #dean winchester headcanon #spn #dean winchester x female!reader #dean winchester x you #dean #supernatural x reader #supernatural x you #dean winchester one shot

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hardly-an-escape · 6 months

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what's in a name? | Dream/Hob | 9300 words | rated E

this is my submission for @designtheendless's 3K commission giveaway: a Dreamling fic based on their fanart above!

tags: alternate universe - human, photographer Hob Gadling, artist Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, model Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, strangers to lovers, snowed in, only one bed, light dom/sub, oral sex, face fucking, anal fingering, anal sex, anonymous sex, Dream of the Endless is a horny little weasel, and Hob is no less of a horny little weasel, brief Princess Bride references, alcohol consumption, impulsive decision making, callous disregard for the geography of northern California, they go from 0-60 because they’re both nuts, neither of them are in a great place but they do make each other better rather than worse

Hob is on an ill-fated road trip through California. He’s making his way slowly down the coast toward Los Angeles when, trapped by a snowstorm in a small town near Mount Shasta, he meets a mysterious stranger in a diner. They share a night of anonymous passion – but when the sun rises, Hob finds that he can’t just leave the stranger behind…

this story developed partially from Picture Perfect, one of my Fluffbruary 2024 fills. I also incorporated some of designtheendless's other suggested image prompts, so do make sure you check their original post! and thank you so much for extending the deadline, it meant I had time to get my CHBB fic submitted before pivoting to finish this... and even so I'm still barely getting it done in time just because of who I am as a person :D

Hob leans forward over the steering wheel, brows furrowed as he peers through the driving snow at the street ahead. The windshield wipers are going like mad; he’s seen a plow or two out, but they seem to barely be making a dent, so traffic has slowed to a crawl. Which is, frankly, for the best, since the weather is bad enough that only a true nutter would be out in it at all.

Well… nobody’s ever accused Hob of being sane.

His GPS instructs him to take the next right and informs him that his destination will then be on his right. He can just make out the neon sign through the thick flakes: Townhouse Motel. “Vacancy,” it says below the old-timey script, blinking on and off. In the distance, the sun is just beginning to settle behind some mountains that he’s sure would be beautiful if they weren’t hidden behind such inclement weather.

He pulls in the driveway. The lot is nearly empty, so he parks right next to the office door and jams his winter cap on his head before hurrying through the flurries.

The bored teenager behind the front desk barely looks up from the reality show playing on her tablet as she runs Hob’s credit card and gives him his door key – an actual, physical key. Room 1389. He decides it’s not worth it to ask why the room number has four digits when the motel has maybe a dozen rooms total.

He does ask if there’s somewhere nearby to get a bite to eat and a drink.

“There’s a diner across the street and down a block,” the teenager says, “but they don’t serve booze.” Then, finally looking up, perhaps seeing the bags under his eyes and his generally downtrodden demeanor, she relents. “There’s a liquor store about two blocks past that. You can bring stuff back to your room, I guess. It’s not like anybody is going to ask questions around here.”

That, Hob thinks as he heads back outside and moves his rental car a little closer to his door, is obvious. There’s a general air of neglect clinging to the motel, and indeed to the whole street, from what he can see: the buildings are a little more weatherbeaten than can be plausibly explained by a cute vintage aesthetic, and at least one storefront seems to be permanently boarded up. The recession has clearly hit Northern California just as hard as it has the rest of the United States.

What a time to be playing tourist. What a time to be – well, he won’t think about that right now.

His room is clean, at least. Someone, at some point in time, has made a half-hearted attempt to decorate it with a seaside theme. The bedlinens are various shades of blue, rather than your typical beigey-white. There’s an unfortunate painting of a mermaid hanging over the outdated television, and a slightly less unfortunate painting of a lighthouse above the bed. The bathroom wallpaper has little seashells on it.

Hob leaves his camera bag on the desk and his duffel on the end of the bed, grabs his wallet, turns his collar up against the cold, and heads back out into the snowy evening.

The diner is, as promised, only a short walk down the street, but Hob is shivering by the time he gets there. The wind cuts right through him – silly British man that he is, he thought California would be warm, even in winter. He hadn’t really reckoned with unpredictable mountain weather, or with the cold front that was chasing him down through the southern end of the Cascades. The weatherman on the radio had been calling it “freakish.”

A little bell tinkles merrily when he pushes open the door. A waitress calls out a greeting, tells him to sit wherever he likes and she’ll be right with him. There’s only one other person in the diner, a slender man dressed all in black who is hunched over a cup of coffee at the counter. He glances up and immediately back down as Hob stomps the snow off his boots and takes an empty booth far enough away from the front door that he won’t feel the rush of cold air if anyone else comes in.

The waitress bustles over, bringing him a cup of coffee without even asking. Hob wraps his fingers around it gratefully. He doesn’t normally drink coffee this late, but it’s been the kind of day that calls for it: so cold, so uncomfortable and distressing, that the sturdy ceramic mug is exactly what he wants. The bitter note of slightly burnt coffee is tempered by the cheap, artificially flavored vanilla creamer he only ever uses at this kind of greasy spoon diner. He breathes deep and feels something inside him start to thaw.

When the waitress comes back with a menu, he warms up even more. She is middle-aged and comfortable, nice and no-nonsense, the sort of person with an indeterminate American accent who could have come from anywhere: Illinois, or Florida, or five minutes down the road. She recommends the olive burger with fries, and a side of fried pickles, because they’re the best in the county, and then her excitement simply bubbles over.

“I’m just so darn tickled to have two Brits here in the same night!” she enthuses. “Oh gosh, is that okay? Can I call you Brits or is that rude?”

“No, no, it’s fine!” Hob laughs. “Two of us, eh? That is a coincidence.”

“I know, right? Okay hon, lemme just get your order in and I’ll be back to warm up your coffee in a sec.”

She bustles away again, and Hob looks curiously at the man at the counter. He must have heard her comment, but he hasn’t turned around, or indeed acknowledged Hob in any way since he came in. He shrugs mentally and turns away to look out the window at the thickly swirling snow. It’s dark enough now that streetlights have come on, casting cones of light in which the flakes dance like a very slow sodium-tinted tornado.

He wishes he had a book. Or a crossword puzzle, or one of those packets of crayons they give to kids at restaurants. Something to keep his hands occupied and his mind off of everything that was threatening to consume it, off of the last few days, off of her –

Then the man from the counter slides into the booth across from him.

“Hello,” Hob says.

“Hello,” the stranger says. His voice is surprisingly deep and resonant, coming from his slim frame, and he looks to be in his late twenties, perhaps a few years younger than Hob. He is very pale. His dark hair is sticking up rather wildly and his eyes are a cold, clear blue that reminds Hob of the way the sky had looked this morning, before the clouds had descended.

“Who are you, then? Aside from a fellow Brit?” asks Hob.

“No one of consequence.” He’s lugging around a small backpack, which now rests on the bench beside him.

“I must know,” Hob says in a very bad Inigo Montoya accent.

“Get used to disappointment,” the stranger says with a smirk, and Hob laughs.

“Oh, we’re going to get along just fine,” he says, holding his hand out across the table. “My name’s Hob, yes that’s my real name, and yes, it is a long story.”

The stranger shakes his hand briefly. His palm is warm from cupping his coffee cup, but the tips of his fingers are cold. “Pleased to meet you, Hob.”

“And do you have a name, stranger?”

“I do. Several, in fact.”

“Any of them for public consumption?”

The stranger shrugs. “Will you forgive me if I maintain a certain level of mystery?”

Hob shrugs too. “That’s your lookout, mate. No skin off my nose.”

They chat. About the weather, and how odd it is, and how different to England. About books – the stranger appears to be a voracious reader, and Hob had loaded up an old iPod with audiobooks in preparation for a lot of driving, which sparks a lively debate on the merits of printed books vs reading aloud. In the midst of this, Hob’s food arrives, and he is derailed momentarily from the conversation by an overwhelming need to unhinge his jaw and stuff as many chips into his gob as humanly possible. The stranger watches in amusement.

“Hungry?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Hob says, muffled by his burger. “Been driving pretty much all day and I didn’t really want to stop, so…”

He’s suddenly self-conscious, very aware that the man sitting across from him is slender and willowy and dressed all in black, and that he himself is very much… not that. Dressed for comfort and warmth in slightly baggy jeans and a flannel shirt and his puffy jacket balled up on the bench beside him. But the stranger seems unbothered, simply smiling slightly and snagging a fried pickle off the plate between them, which Hob had invited him to share moments after it had arrived.

They are good; crispy and salty and uniquely American. Hob is certainly prepared to believe they’re the best in the county.

“So are you staying here in town, or is that shrouded in mystery as well?” he asks, once he’s slowed down a bit.

“I’ve been staying in a cabin up the mountain, a little way out of town. With my family.” He said the word family as though it is faintly dirty. “One of my siblings thought it would be good for us to get away together. But I have found it… trying.”

“Up the mountain, eh? Are you going to be able to get back in this?”

Hob tips his head toward the window. It is very dark now, and the snow is falling more thickly and wildly than ever. A crease appears between the stranger’s eyebrows.

“To be honest, I had not thought that far ahead.”

“Do you have much experience driving in the snow?”

To Hob’s surprise, the stranger actually blushes, just a gentle stain of pink across his cheekbones. “I… walked.”

“You walked?”

The waitress, stopping by the table to warm up their coffees, echos Hob’s surprise.

“Oh, honey,” she says. “In this? How are you fixing to get home?”

“I was planning to walk back,” the stranger says with some asperity. “But I admit I was not anticipating this kind of weather.”

“Let me check on the roads for you,” the waitress says kindly. “Which cabin did you say you’re at? My brother-in-law lives up that way, I’ll give him a call. I’m sure we can find you a ride.”

She goes back behind the counter and picks up the phone.

“I’m happy to give you a ride,” Hob says quietly. “If she thinks it’s safe.”

“You do not have to do that.”

“‘S okay. I want to.”

“Bill? It’s Jan. I have a question for you,” says the waitress.

Hob realizes, suddenly and with some surprise, that it is quite true, that he is not just being polite: he does want to help this mysterious stranger, who talks like a 19th-century Byronic hero and dresses like a college goth. His stomach is doing the tiniest little swoop every time they make eye contact, and he doesn’t want it to stop.

The waitress calls over to him.

“You got four wheel drive, hon?”

Hob thinks about the little Honda Civic in the motel parking lot. Thinks about mountain roads and snow. Shakes his head no.

Scraps of the waitress’s conversation float across the diner and Hob takes another bite of his burger.

“– well they’re foreign, Bill, they don’t –”

He snickers just a little; can’t help himself, really, because the waitress is just so kind and helpful and also clearly more than a little bit befuddled by their presence in her diner. These two Brits, total strangers, so unalike one another – and yet here they are, sharing a booth and a plate of fried pickles, five thousand miles and change away from home. He exchanges a look of camaraderie with the stranger and eats some more chips. They’re good too.

“– and tomorrow? What’s the overnight –”

After another minute or two the waitress thanks her brother-in-law and hangs up the phone. Her face is serious when she comes back to their table.

“Well, boys,” she says, “I don’t think anyone is going anywhere tonight. Bill says it’s pretty bad up there, and only getting worse. The plows aren’t even going out yet on account of the snow’s still coming down so hard, it doesn’t make sense to try and clear anything. You going to be able to find a place to stay?” she asks the stranger.

He looks at Hob. “Did you mention a motel?”

“Yeah, the Townhouse?” Hob says, and the waitress nods along. “I don’t know for sure if there are rooms available, but it didn’t look like the parking was full.”

“Probably not, this time of year,” interjects the waitress. “It’s a fine place, and Paulie can certainly use the business. I’ll bring your checks by in a minute, guys.”

She leaves them again. Her sensible sneakers squeak against the floor tiles as she walks.

“Thank you again for your offer of a ride,” the stranger says quietly. “That was very kind of you.”

“Course. I’m just sorry you won’t be able to get home tonight,” Hob says.

“It is my own fault. I should not have behaved so impulsively. But my siblings…” The man frowns. “As I said, they can be difficult. I would have done something regrettable, had I remained in the house.”

Hob waves a hand. “Ah, it happens to the best of us. Especially around family. You should hear some of the fights I’ve had with my sister, we can scream the paint off the walls when we get going.”

“Indeed,” the man says darkly.

“I’m glad you did come to town, though. It’s been kind of nice,” Hob says tentatively. “Having someone to talk to tonight.”

“Indeed,” his stranger repeats. But this time one corner of his mouth lifts in a tiny smile. “It seems to have worked out in my favor.”

Hob smiles back. “So, are you really not going to tell me your name?”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“Fun, eh?” Hob glances down at his own hands, folded on the table, back at the stranger. “Is that what this is?”

The stranger smirks. He leans forward and plucks another fried pickle from the plate. He opens his mouth, sticking out his tongue just a little bit farther than necessary to pop the slice into his mouth. He chews, and smirks some more, and gives Hob an unmistakable up-and-down appraising glance, and underneath the table he presses one ankle against Hob’s instep.

Oh. Hob feels a surprising but not unfamiliar spike of arousal in his gut. So that’s where this is heading – has been heading, since he pushed open the door and the stranger had glanced up at him. Had he blushed, when his eyes met Hob’s? Or is he applying more detail to that brief interaction after the fact, now that he thinks he knows what his stranger is thinking?

And when had the man become his stranger?

“I see,” he says, and presses back against the bony ankle under the table.

Ten minutes later, they’ve settled their bills – his stranger had apparently eaten a club sandwich before Hob had arrived, and he’s weirdly relieved that the man has consumed something more substantial than coffee this evening – and are gearing up to head back into the cold. Hob is zipping up his coat when he realizes the other man appears to have only a thick black hoodie and a knit beanie (also black, of course). He glances out the window, where it’s still snowing pretty hard, and raises an eyebrow.

“You going to be okay in just that?”

“You said it is only a couple of blocks? I will be fine. I tend not to feel the cold. And,” he adds defensively, “when I originally walked down the weather was not quite so… inclement.”

“If you say so,” Hob says as he opens the door. The waitress calls out a good night and he waves to her over his stranger’s shoulder. Wonders, just for a moment, what she thinks of the fact that they’re leaving together, or if she will ever think of them again at all. They step out into the snowy evening. “The girl at the motel said there’s a liquor store down the street. Mind detouring there? I was thinking of picking up some whiskey, or something. Something to keep a man warm.”

The man chuckles and they head down the street. It’s not until they’re away from the diner windows that he takes Hob by the elbow and gently draws him just outside the circle of a street lamp.

“Surely,” he says, voice low, stepping into Hob’s space, “there are many ways for a man to… keep warm.”

And he kisses him.

His lips are warm and dry, a little chapped. It’s a simple kiss, a chaste one, just their lips touching and the barest pressure of the stranger’s belly and chest pressed against Hob’s, swathed in layers of winter gear. It lasts for a heartbeat, two, and then the man steps back with a hum of satisfaction.

“Oh?” says Hob, giddily. “It’s like that, is it?”

“Obviously,” responds his stranger.

“Well, I don’t know, mate,” says Hob as they make their way down the street. He resists the urge to link their arms together. “Maybe you play footsie with every guy you meet in random diners in Northern California.”

“Perhaps.”

The liquor store is a brief respite from the wind and the snow. Hob selects a mid-range bottle of whiskey and they trudge back to his motel room. The snowflakes and the streetlights and the swirling wind make everything feel more than a little bit surreal, like something out of a dream or a fairy tale. The two of them could be adventurers, explorers, wading through an arctic wasteland in search of shelter. The mountain looms behind them, dark and mysterious, like a great castle or some monstrous beast.

“Do you mind if I take a shower?” asks his stranger, kicking off his boots dropping his backpack by the desk. “I’m afraid I did get rather sweaty, hiking down earlier. I wouldn’t mind cleaning up.” His gaze, beneath his long eyelashes, feels heavy and significant.

“Go right ahead.” Hob gestures toward the bathroom. “I’m just going to nip down to the lobby and get a bit of ice.” He retrieves the ice bucket from the desk, brushing close to his stranger as he does. The brief contact jolts him back to the real world. They’re not in the arctic waste; this handsome, ethereal man is here, in his motel room. He is pulling off his somewhat sodden hoodie and draping it over the back of the chair, and sniffing dubiously at the sweater he wears underneath it. He is real.

Hob waits until he hears the shower turn on to slip out the door.

Although he has his moments of cluelessness, Hob is not a stupid man. He knows where this is going. He recognizes the signs, the coy little dance they’ve been doing around each other for the past two hours, and no, he’s not a stupid man, but if he were a better one he might be able to resist the temptation of falling into bed with a beautiful stranger who won’t even share his name.

But there’s something about this man. Hob wants him. Already can’t resist him. Wants to wrap him up and keep him warm and kiss his collarbones and, yes, wants to fuck him, wants to feel him shudder and moan and wants to watch his cheeks flush and his head fall back in ecstasy. He hasn’t felt like this for a long, long time, and now it’s come out of nowhere to slam into him and hook into his gut, this wanting.

He throws a few scoops of ice from the machine in the motel lobby into the bucket and goes back to the room.

He’s kicked off his boots, unwrapped one of the shitty plastic cups, and poured himself a couple fingers of whiskey by the time he hears the shower shut off. There’s the usual shuffling noise of towels, a brief blast of the cheap hair dryer mounted to the wall. Then the door opens and the stranger emerges, and Hob is slammed from the real world right back into a surreal dream.

The man is even more beautiful without his clothes on: Hob would compare him to an elf or a fairy prince, but he’s too busy choking slightly on the spit that’s suddenly flooding his mouth at the sight of long, slim limbs, a narrow waist, and a temptingly well-defined Adonis belt that disappears under the cheap motel towel wound around his hips.

There’s a long moment of silent eye contact. Hob’s leaning up against the desk, cup cradled in one hand. His face heats as he watches his stranger’s eyes travel slowly down the length of his body and back up, pursing his lips slightly. His mouth is very pink, with the kind of full bottom lip that’s made for nibbling on, and the rest of his skin is as pale and smooth as… well, as snow, with just a touch of redness from the heat of the shower spreading across his chest.

Hob downs half of his whiskey without even thinking about it. He can’t look away. He can’t think, can’t even blink. He’s afraid that if he does, this vision will disappear and it’ll just be him, alone, a saddish man alone in a motel room with a bottle of booze and a bag of expensive camera equipment, and then who knows what will happen?

His stranger gives him one of those tiny half-smiles, suggestive, not quite a leer, and stalks across the room toward him.

He widens his legs and his stranger steps in to stand between his feet. He takes Hob’s drink out of his hand and tosses back the last swallow of whiskey before setting the plastic cup aside. Then he hooks one finger into the collar of Hob’s flannel shirt and pulls him into a kiss. His mouth is a study in contrasts: warm from the whiskey and cool from the ice, soft tongue and sharp teeth. They sink briefly, gently, into Hob’s bottom lip, and Hob pulls the man close against his chest and returns the favor.

The kiss is turning wet and messy when the man pulls back far enough to start fumbling with Hob’s shirt buttons. He’s pulled the tails of the shirt out of Hob’s jeans and has it about halfway unbuttoned when a phone starts ringing.

It’s not the room phone – it’s coming from a pocket of the man’s backpack.

“Ignore it,” he mumbles into Hob’s neck. “We are busy.”

The phone rings three times; four times. The stranger has finished with Hob’s shirt and is pulling the tee beneath it out of the waistband of his jeans by the time it finally stops.

His fingers are toying with Hob’s belt buckle and ghosting over the seam of his fly when it rings again.

The stranger groans audibly.

“Do you think,” Hob says with the carefully deliberate cadence of the very turned on, “that your family might be worried about you?”

“I do not care,” his stranger grumbles, and sinks gracefully to his knees.

Eventually the phone stops ringing again.

He’s worked Hob’s belt and fly open and is nuzzling into the opening of his jeans, nosing at the base of Hob’s cock through his underwear and Hob is panting, his stranger’s hot breath so close to where Hob wants him most – when the phone rings a third time.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” snarls the stranger, and stands.

He fishes a slightly battered-looking BlackBerry out of an outside pocket of his backpack and stabs at the call answer button.

“What.”

He turns away, so all Hob can see is the furious, stiff line of his stranger’s back. He can’t hear the other half of the conversation, and he doesn’t think he wants to; every fibre of the man’s body radiates anger and discomfort and perhaps a little bit of shame. Hob adjusts himself discreetly, rezips his jeans, and tiptoes over to sit down on the edge of the bed.

“Obviously I am alive. I am fine.” A pause. “I took a walk.” Another pause. “Yes. Yes, I know what time it is. No, I am assured that the roads were too bad to make it back to the cabin. I am in a motel room in…” He looks over to Hob. “What is the name of this place?”

Hob supplies the name of the motel, and that of the town as well, just for good measure. The man relays the information into the phone. There is another long pause.

“That is none of your business. Shut up. You have no idea what you’re talking about. And if you speak to me like that again I will hang up the phone.”

There is another, longer pause, during which the stranger’s face grows progressively redder. He is very deliberately not looking at Hob.

“No. I said no. I will arrange for my own transportation in the morning. I –”

The person on the other end of the phone must say something truly outrageous, because his strangers eyes bug out in a way that looks almost uncomfortable.

“Do the entirety of the known universe a favor and crawl back into whatever slime hole you emerged from and leave me alone,” he hisses. “Goodbye.”

Hob can’t quite muffle a snort at this crowning line. Siblings.

His stranger hangs up the phone with a vicious jab of a button and slams it down on the desk; then seems to reconsider, retrieves it, and shuts it off entirely before throwing it into his backpack. He sighs, a surprisingly tired sound.

“I will have another drink, if you don’t mind,” he says. “And then I would like it very much if you would fuck me. Please.”

Hob’s cock, which had been feeling distinctly neglected, gives a twitch.

“I think that can be arranged,” he says. “Are you –”

The stranger waves a dismissive hand. “I am quite sober enough to have sex with you. And I could easily afford my own room, if that’s a concern. I am here because I want to be.”

“Glad to hear it, but that actually isn’t what I was going to ask,” Hob says mildly.

“Oh,” the man says. A faint blush rises on his cheekbones. He scoops up the whiskey bottle and uncorks it, taking an unceremonious swig. The towel hangs dangerously low around his hips. “What were you going to ask?”

His stranger pauses with the whiskey bottle against his lips. Hob watches the long line of his neck work once, twice, as he swallows, and figures he may as well put his cards on the table.

“I was going to ask if latex condoms are okay. For when I fuck you into the mattress in a minute here.”

The man clears his throat. “Oh,” he says again. “Yes. Latex is fine.”

“Good. Anything you don’t like? Hard boundaries?”

He pauses. “I do not enjoy being choked. Or having my hands restrained in any way. But I like… I like it a little bit rough. It feels good. To be used.”

Hob leans back on one elbow. “Is that what you want me to do? Use you?”

“Yes.”

The word drops into the quiet room like a handful of snow might drop off a tree branch – soft and muffled and sending the same delicious shiver down Hob’s spine.

“I can do that.” Oh, yes. Hob can use this beautiful man, if he is offering himself up to be used. “C’mere, then.”

His stranger walks slowly across the room to where Hob is half-reclining on the bed, feet still planted on the floor. He kneels between Hob’s legs and runs his hands slowly up and down his thighs from knee to hip. “And you?” he asks. “Your boundaries?”

Hob considers. “I’m with you on choking, not a fan,” he says. “I’m not big on pain, generally, but I can give it to other people, if they need it.”

“Alright.” His hands are still rubbing up and down Hob’s thighs, a slow, hypnotizing rhythm. When he speaks again his voice is thick. “Would you consider the preliminary negotiations to be concluded now?”

“Don’t you have anything better to do with your mouth than spout off like a horny nineteenth century robber baron?” Hob counters.

His stranger smiles, a proper smile that crinkles the corners of his blue eyes, and unzips the fly of Hob’s jeans.

In short order he’s pulled them open and pushed Hob’s boxers down just enough that he can get his cock out. He’s not quite hard, not yet, but he gets there quickly between his stranger’s gentle, surprisingly soft hands and the way he immediately buries his nose in Hob’s pubic hair and breathes deeply as he looks up through his eyelashes.

Then he opens his mouth, and wraps his tongue around the head of Hob’s cock, and Hob’s brain makes a noise like radio static.

Oh, he is good at this. Unfairly good. Supernaturally good. He teases Hob for long, long minutes, working up and down his shaft with light touches of just his lips and tongue, ducking down now and then to mouth gently at his balls, until Hob is twitching and swearing and straining, perched on the edge of the bed. When he finally has mercy and takes Hob’s cock fully into his mouth, it is barely a relief. He is so wet, so hot, and he sinks down on Hob with no resistance, no trace of a gag reflex. Before he can stop himself, Hob’s hips jerk forward that final fraction, and suddenly his stranger’s nose is brushing his pubic bone and his throat is contracting around the head of Hob’s cock.

He’s expecting the man to pull back, to splutter in indignation, but instead he makes an encouraging noise and squeezes Hob’s thigh before folding his hands almost primly in his lap.

“Fuck,” Hob mutters. He makes an experimental shallow thrust into the tight, wet heat of his stranger’s mouth. “Really?”

His stranger can’t nod, not with Hob’s prick in his mouth, but he moans. Hob feels it vibrate all along the length of his shaft and has to stifle a whimper of his own. He sinks one hand into the soft riot of the man’s hair, still a little damp from the shower, and cradles the back of his skull. The bone feels sweet and finely formed in his hand.

“You want me to fuck your pretty face?” he asks, soft and just a tiny bit mean. “Yeah? That’s what your mouth is good for, isn’t it?”

He thrusts again, in and out, and the stranger’s eyes roll back a little in his head, so he does it again, and again. Soon he really is fucking his face, not too hard but deep, fingers tightening in his stranger’s hair as his eyes fall nearly shut, narrowing to crystalline blue crescents.

Hob pulls back briefly to let his stranger breathe. Runs his thumb along his bottom lip, dripping with spit, before he pushes back in. He doesn’t stop until he can feel the first tendrils of orgasm beckoning to him; but as tempting as it is to keep going, to empty himself into this perfect mouth, he’s made a promise. And Hob is a man of his word, so he pulls the man off his cock by the scruff of his neck. He makes an obscene noise as he goes, and another thing string of saliva dribbles from his puffy mouth. His eyes are slightly glassy as he looks up at Hob.

“Get up on the bed, baby,” Hob orders gently.

When the man stands up the towel is just barely clinging to his narrow hips, and his erection is stiff and straining against the terrycloth. He’s so hard, Hob thinks wonderingly, just from having Hob’s cock in his mouth for a few minutes, and his own prick throbs in sympathy.

“Hands and knees,” Hob says, and the man crawls up on the bed. The towel falls away as he goes, languid but obedient, so that he’s entirely naked when Hob positions himself behind him. The contrast between Hob’s clothes and the other man’s nudity is delicious – Hob’s rough denim against the man’s soft thighs, Hob’s hairy wrists poking out from worn flannel as he runs his fingernails along sharply elegant shoulder blades.

He allows himself one long, gentle caress, from the nape of his stranger’s neck down to the shallow dimples in the small of his back, before he grabs at the man’s buttocks and unceremoniously spreads him open.

His hole looks surprisingly loose and relaxed already. Hob runs the pad of one thumb over it.

“Were you prepping yourself in the shower?” he asks, delighted. He presses gently and the furl of muscle gives, just a little, pink and fluttering.

“Hng,” says his stranger, shuddering. “Yes. I thought – I thought about your hands. Oh. I liked the thought that you were just outside the door. While I had my fingers inside myself.”

“Impatient little minx,” Hob says fondly. He kisses one of the lovely knobs of his stranger’s spine and pinches his backside for good measure before pulling away. “Stay here.”

He has to dig down to the bottom of his duffel bag in order to find the box of condoms and the little travel sized bottle of lube. He’d felt a little self-conscious when he’d packed them back in his flat in London – like he was presuming something – but then again he had been preparing for a supposedly romantic road trip with his girlfriend.

He’s glad, now, that he has them.

His stranger has remained on his knees, pitched forward to rest on his elbows, face pressed into a pillow and cock hanging heavy between his legs.

“Good boy,” Hob praises, and runs his hand along the man’s flank. “Beautiful. Oh, darling, I’m going to make you feel so good. And then you’re going to make me feel so good, aren’t you? You already have,” Hob coos, drizzling lube directly onto his arsehole. “And I know you’re going to keep being a good boy for me, aren’t you?”

Before the man can answer, Hob slips a finger inside him, right up to the first knuckle. He’s rewarded with a whimper and the feeling of his stranger pushing back against him, silently begging for more.

And then not so silently. “More,” moans the stranger. “Fuck. More, please.”

Hob strokes his finger in and out, petting the velvet inside his stranger.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “You’ll get more.”

He tries to spend as much time torturing his stranger with his fingers as his stranger had spent torturing him with his mouth, but by the second finger he finds his resolve dissolving like so many snowflakes on warm skin. The man is making such wanton sounds, and his knees skid wider and wider on the slippery motel bedspread, opening him inexorably to Hob’s hungry eyes and questing hands.

“Oh. Oh,” he says. “Oh, yes, fuck,” he moans. No more well-crafted phrases or erudite words; the only thing dropping from that perfect mouth are noises, guttural and breathy by turns, only half-muffled by the pillow his face is smashed into.

“Please,” he begs, “please, in me, I – please, I need –”

Hob obliges.

He’s pretty sure he’s never been harder in his life as he shoves his jeans down around his thighs and rolls the condom on. He has to do it one-handed, clumsily, because some frantic corner of his brain is convinced that if he lets go of the stranger’s hip then the man will disappear, between one blink and the next, and this whole night will turn out to have been some snowblind fever dream.

But his stranger stays where Hob has put him, desperate and writhing, begging for Hob’s cock, and when he finally pins the man down to the mattress and pushes into him, that first hard thrust is enough to silence both of them.

The room is utterly still for a heartbeat, and then another, and then one more, until Hob pulls out in order to thrust in again and his stranger wails and then Hob is fucking into him in earnest, fucking him hard, until the sound of their skin slapping together almost drowns out the sounds his stranger is making beneath him.

Almost.

His stranger moans and pants, and Hob answers him, thrust for thrust and moan for moan, Yes and Ah and Christ and Fuck, fuck me, use me, yes. He grips his stranger by the hips, so hard that his fingers leave little white divots behind when he shifts his grip, so hard that he worries he might leave bruises, and still the man pushes back against him and begs for more.

He comes, when he finally comes, untouched, rutting gracelessly against the mattress. Hob stills, grits his teeth, not wanting to overwhelm the other man as he seizes in pleasure, but his stranger continues to move against him, if anything even more desperate, even in the throes of orgasm.

“Don’t stop,” he gasps, “don’t, oh God, fuck me through it, don’t stop –”

So Hob hauls him up and pushes him down, one hand on his waist and one shoving his chest down into the mattress as the man’s hands scrabble at the sheets and he sobs and Hob pistons into him until he empties himself, until his prick is oversensitive and his stranger is twitching around and beneath him, and the room is finally quiet.

Then Hob takes the condom off, knots it and tosses it towards the wastebasket. He rolls them both away from the wet spot with only middling success, but he’s too tired to care. He shucks the rest of his clothes off. He is boneless and spent, and his stranger is inserting himself relentlessly into Hob’s personal space. They lie there for a long, long moment, sweaty and panting, until their breathing starts to even out and the desperate closeness has receded into normal cuddling. Hob presses a kiss to his stranger’s sweaty temple and marvels at his luck.

“I realize I neglected to ask you why you find yourself in Northern California,” his stranger says, tucked against Hob’s side, voice drowsy and hoarse. “Do you care to share?”

“It’s a long story,” Hob says. “I was – well, I am – on a road trip. With my, ah. With my girlfriend. Well. Ex-girlfriend, now. Actually.”

His stranger tenses slightly, and Hob doesn’t blame him; he knows how it must sound. “It sounds like there is a story there?” the man says, almost tentative.

“Yeah, we… we came over together, about two weeks ago. We flew into Seattle, were planning this whole big trip, right down the coast and all the way to Los Angeles. See the redwoods, do some wine tastings, the whole bit. I’m a photographer, I was thinking I could turn the whole trip into a photo essay, maybe even a book.” He sighs. “Then she heard about this yoga retreat, ashram sort of place. Bit culty, I don’t really go in for all that, but she absolutely had to check it out, so we did. Two days later, out of the blue, she tells me our chakras are misaligned and gives me the boot. Turns out Guru Todd Thingummy, who ran the retreat center, was very aligned with her chakras. As well as other, less… metaphysical things.”

There’s a sound from the vicinity of Hob’s armpit that he realizes with delight is a snort. The snort blossoms into a chuckle, and then his stranger is laughing, a frankly horrible honking sort of laugh, shaking in Hob’s arms with it, and Hob laughs along.

“I’m sorry,” his stranger gasps. “I shouldn’t – I shouldn’t laugh at you. It’s just… Guru Todd.”

“I know!” Hob snickers. “You can picture him, right? White boy dreadlocks and a fucking… shell necklace. Utter tosser.”

“I feel like I’ve probably met someone almost exactly like him, truly.” Eventually his stranger’s horrible laugh subsides. He shifts against Hob, playing idly with his chest hair, curling it around one finger. “In a way, I am also escaping a recent ex. She was the first person I dated after some… difficult experiences I had about a year ago. But in the end I was far more invested in the relationship than she, and she became. Uncomfortable. With my ardor.”

“She’s a bloody idiot then,” Hob says automatically, and his stranger looks up, startled.

“Do you think so?”

Hob briefly considers backpedaling. Don’t come off like a madman, he thinks to himself. Not when he’s finally talking to you. But there’s no hope for him. “Well, yeah. I mean, I’d say your ardor is my favorite thing about you so far.” He lets one hand drift down and gives his stranger’s arse a cheeky squeeze, and is rewarded with a squeak and another snort.

“You are kind to say so,” the man says, and interrupts himself with a yawn.

“It’s true. I… I’m really glad I met you,” Hob says honestly. Too honestly. He can’t help himself; the man is just so beautiful, mouth kissed red and limbs loose, fucked out and soft everywhere he’d been hard and prickly before.

Hob still doesn’t know his name.

“I’m glad I met you, too,” the man says softly.

Hob snuggles them both down into the lumpy motel pillows and pulls the blanket up firmly around their shoulders. The wind blows outside, he reaches up to switch off the lamp, and they fall asleep.

He wakes in the night and stumbles to the bathroom to take a piss. When he comes back, his stranger has starfished out and is taking up a full two-thirds of the bed, sleeping like a stone. Hob manages to reinsert himself into the remaining third and then simply lies there for a long few minutes, looking at the other man.

The skies must have cleared, at least a little, because there’s a few strips of moonlight filtering through the blinds. The pale light turns his stranger into marble, a work of art; he practically glows against the blue sheets. Hob’s fingers itch for his camera.

“You’re going to fuck me up,” he whispers. “I’m going to wake up next to you and never want to leave, and it’s going to fuck me up so bad.”

The sleeping man does not respond, of course; doesn’t even stir. Hob lies there, and gazes at him, until he slips back into sleep himself.

When he wakes again it’s fully morning. The sun is that peculiar thin shade of blue that you get on very cold mornings, but when Hob peeks out the window, the sky is clear and the snowplows have clearly been out making the rounds. He tries to tamp down a sudden feeling of disappointment.

He gets a drink of water, and when he returns to bed his stranger is stirring. First one blue eye opens, then the other.

“Morning,” Hob says.

The man hums and stretches luxuriously, rolling from his belly to his back. The sheets fall down around his hips, revealing one elegant hipbone and a tempting glimpse of dark curls. His pale skin practically glows against the blue sheets in the morning light.

“Enjoying the view?” his stranger asks, and his voice is rough with sleep and slightly hoarse.

“You could say that,” Hob says. He puts one knee on the bed, reaches out to run a hand lightly down the long, lean line of the man’s thigh. “God, you’re… you are so beautiful.”

“Come here to me,” the man says, beckoning to Hob.

Hob ducks his head and kisses up the ladder of the man’s ribs, takes one pert nipple gently between his teeth.

“Can I take your picture?” he says suddenly. “Not in a creepy way. I can even keep your face out of it if you like, I just… there’s something about you, in this light.”

“I don’t mind,” the man says.

Hob’s heart leaps.

A few minutes later, he’s gotten his camera out and adjusted. The room is so quiet, so still, that each click of the shutter sounds almost sacrilegious. He shoots in black and white. He thinks the sheets will show dark, almost black, and the man’s skin will show light and luminous against them. His stranger poses like a dream, languid and biddable, moving here and there on the bed, wherever Hob arranges him.

“You’ve done this before,” Hob accuses. He’s kneeling above the other man, shooting straight down, and his stranger has one arm thrown over his face so only one eye is visible. “Posed, I mean. You know how to move for a camera.”

“I have,” the stranger admits. “Mostly for life drawing classes, though I imagine the principle is more or less the same.”

“Incredible. Are you an artist, then?”

“I suppose.”

Hob tugs the sheet a little lower, so that it’s just barely covering the stranger’s prick, which has plumped up a little – whether from the attention of Hob himself or of the camera, he’s not sure, but it’s one of the sexiest things Hob’s ever seen. The neat patch of dark hair blending into the dark sheet. The gentle swell beneath it. His mouth waters.

“You suppose?”

“I find it difficult to call myself an artist. To claim that title. But I make art. If that is the same thing.”

“Hmm. I reckon so.”

Hob pulls the sheet another fraction of an inch lower. He can feel himself getting distracted. The itch he’d felt to photograph the beautiful stranger, now mostly satisfied, has transformed into an altogether different kind of impulse. He takes one more shot, barely paying attention to the framing. Catches himself licking his lips.

“Hob.”

“Yeah?”

“Put the camera down.”

He hastens to obey.

He’d pulled his boxers back on at some point last night, but they do little to hide his arousal as he slides under the sheets and slots himself in behind his stranger, rubbing his nose in the riotous bedhead and kissing his neck as the man tilts his head to one side to give him better access.

“I like how you say my name,” Hob murmurs. He grinds against his stranger’s narrow arse and reaches around to make a loose fist around his hardening cock. “You’re really not going to tell me yours, are you?”

“Mine?”

“Your name.”

“I –” The man’s breath hitches as Hob tightens his grip, stroking slowly up and down. “I haven’t – decided yet.”

“Well,” Hob says against the smooth skin between his ear and his shoulder. “Let me know what you decide.”

They writhe together under the sheets for a few minutes, until they’re both fully hard, until Hob’s chest is slightly tacky with sweat where it’s rubbing against the stranger’s sharp shoulder blades. He’s grunting, underwear pulled down, making quick little thrusts in the crease of the other man’s thigh, sticky and warm and so good.

“Fuck me again,” his stranger says. “Please.”

“Don’t be a madman,” Hob chides. “You’ll be so sore.”

But he doesn’t say no. And he slides a finger between the man’s arse cheeks and pets over his hole, still a little loose from the night before.

The stranger twists his neck around to look Hob in the eye. “I don’t care. I want you,” he says. “I want to feel it.”

And Hob tries his best to be a good person, he really does, but when confronted with this bald-faced desire he is only, after all, a man. So he mumbles Fuck, okay, yeah, okay against his stranger’s shoulder, and tears himself away to retrieve the lube and a condom. He fingers him open, as slowly and as carefully as he can bring himself to do it, and rolls the condom on, and he fucks him again. Face to face, this time; one knee hooked over his elbow, and long arms clinging to him like a drowning man, and panting, open-mouthed kisses that are as much simply breathing the other’s breath as they are real kisses.

The stranger comes first, his beautiful face screwed up in ecstasy, and Hob follows him over the edge mere seconds later.

The other man falls back into a doze almost immediately, drifting off as soon as Hob has disposed of the condom and wiped them down with a handful of tissues, but Hob is buzzing with too much energy to lie back down. He cleans himself up, splashing water on his face and brushing his teeth quickly, before dressing quietly and creeping down to the motel lobby to look for breakfast.

There’s a coffee machine, a few muffins – prepackaged, not fresh – and a rather sad fruit bowl with some mealy-looking apples. He assembles what he can and shoves some creamers and sugar packets in his jacket pocket. He asks the bored teenager at the front desk (a different one than the night before, although bearing a distinct family resemblance) about the weather report, and learns that although it’s supposed to stay cold, no more precipitation is in the forecast. Then he goes back to the room.

His stranger stirs again at the rush of cold air when Hob lets himself back into the room.

“I come bearing provisions,” he says, setting the coffees on the bedside table and dropping the rest of his meager bounty in the man’s lap.

“Foraging for our survival?” he asks dryly.

“Something like that. It’s slim pickings out there, I’m afraid. But hey –” he picks up a muffin and wiggles it “– chocolate chip!”

His stranger snorts and mutters something about being spoiled.

Hob is very careful not to say anything about how he’d like to spoil this man very much, actually, for the foreseeable future and possibly beyond that, because Hob has so longed for someone to care for, and because this man so obviously needs it. Hob eats his muffin, and very carefully does not say anything reckless or emotional.

They finish their motel snacks, and drink their coffees (Hob’s with a little creamer and one sugar; the stranger’s with no cream and an absurd amount of sugar). And eventually Hob broaches the subject that’s obviously hovering between them.

“So,” he says. “What do you want to do now? I’m still up to give you a ride to your cabin, if that’s what you want. The roads are supposed to be cleared by now.”

“I suppose I should,” the stranger says, fiddling with his styrofoam cup, not meeting Hob’s eyes. “I did tell my sibling that I would return in the morning.”

“Okay.” Hob clears his throat. “Alright then. Whenever you’re ready.”

It takes them another hour to leave the room. Hob showers, and then his stranger decides he needs to rinse off as well, and then there’s a frustrating search for car keys that turn out to have been kicked or dropped halfway under a bedside table at some point the night before.

Then the stranger stops Hob in the doorway with a hand on his elbow and kisses him, long and slow and wordless, before they step out into the brilliant snowy sparkle of the late morning.

The drive is very quiet. The stranger directs Hob out of town and along a rather steep road that winds up the thickly forested mountainside. It’s certainly not a road that Hob would have wanted to drive in last night’s weather, and even with clear skies and plowed roads he takes it slow, acutely aware of the grip of the rental car’s tires on the snowy highway.

Only one time does the stranger wince and shift uncomfortably when Hob cannot avoid a bump in the road. Hob smiles, and swallows his smile, and deliberately wrenches his mind away from the vivid memories of just why his stranger might be wincing and shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

His stranger is silent, except for when he briefly tells Hob when and where to turn. The farther they drive up the mountain, the stiffer he becomes, until he’s gripping the seat with white knuckles and his mouth is one firm line.

Hob doesn’t think it’s the wintry roads that are making him so tense.

They pull over, eventually, at the base of a long driveway. Through the trees Hob can see a large house – not really a cabin by any stretch of the imagination, but built of logs, and with a wisp of woodsmoke floating up from a picturesque brick chimney. They both gaze up at it through the trees. Hob puts the car in park but doesn’t turn it off.

“Well, here we are,” he says.

“Indeed,” his stranger says, and his voice sounds tense and slightly strangled. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”

Hob waits for him to open the door and walk away.

The man does not move.

A minute stretches by, and another, and another, and still his stranger has not opened the car door.

Hob dares to hope.

“Come with me,” he says suddenly.

His stranger looks up, startled.

“I mean it. Come with me. Go get your stuff and we’ll just. Drive away. Go down the coast, find somewhere it’s actually warm. Or don’t even get your stuff,” he adds hurriedly, aware that his voice is sounding increasingly unhinged. “Say the word and I’ll just turn the car around. We’ll go. Anywhere you want, just… come with me.”

The man looks at Hob with an unreadable expression for a long moment. “You know nothing about me,” he says finally.

“I know I like you. A lot,” Hob says. “I know last night was one of the best nights I’ve had in a long time, maybe one of the best nights of my whole life. I know I’d regret it if I didn’t at least ask. So, I’m asking. Come with me.”

“I haven’t even told you my name,” says his stranger. “I could be a serial killer.”

“You could be, yeah. But I don’t think you are. I think… I think you just want someone to want you.” Hob reaches across the gear shift and briefly touches his stranger on the cheek. The man’s eyes flutter closed and Hob doesn’t think he’s imagining the way he leans ever-so-slightly into the gentle touch before he looks down. “I want you.”

There’s another long silence, punctuated only by an occasional call from the chickadees flitting through the trees.

“My name is Morpheus,” he says to his hands, clenched in his lap. “But some people call me Dream. People – people close to me. Call me Dream.”

Hob smiles. “Can I call you Dream, then?”

Dream nods. “Let’s go,” he says. Hob’s smile widens.

“Want to get anything from inside?” he asks.

“No. I think not,” Dream says. All of a sudden it’s like the tight strings of his body are loosened: he leans back in his seat, crosses his ankles, looking relaxed for the first time since they’d gotten out of bed. He lolls his head to one side and peeks at Hob and his face looks fey and happy in the afternoon light. “I believe I have everything I need for now.”

Happiness wells up in Hob’s chest, a rushing feeling like a mountain spring swollen by melting snow. He puts the car in gear and reaches over to take Dream’s hand.

“Right then,” he says. “Let’s go.”

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#dreamling #the sandman #my writing #designtheendless

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honorarysimp · 2 months

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Chapter 2: Mount Everest

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The drive to Charlie’s place is painfully silent, the radio is turned down low and the only thing that can be heard is the sound of the pavement beneath the tires and the engine rumbling.

The tension is still thick in the air. Mabel’s mind is racing, thinking of a million different things she wants to say, and probably a million things that she shouldn’t say. She just watches as the familiar streets pass by, feeling like there’s a storm brewing inside of her mind until finally, the car comes to a stop in front of Charlie’s house.

You shift the car into park, staring out the windshield with an unreadable expression. White knuckle grip on the steering wheel yet again, taking a deep breath.

The neighborhood seems lifeless, even with the houses worth millions lined down the street, it puts a bitter taste in your mouth. You hate this part of town, how much money these kinds of people have, how people like you have to get their hands dirty to even get a quarter of what these people are handed.

Mabel can feel your irritation. It’s like a hot, stifling heat that’s radiating off of you in waves. Mabel can’t blame you, these people are completely unlike you, with their big houses, flashy cars, and never having to worry about whether they’ll survive the month.

Mabel lets a small sigh leave her mouth, and she finally turns her head to look over at you. Her voice is soft when she finally breaks the silence.

“Are we just going to keep ignore all of this?”

“You’ve got more important things to worry about” you say without looking at her, one hand releasing the wheel to run through your hair, exhaling a slow breath in an attempt to ease the swirl of emotions in your chest.

Mabel’s eyes don’t leave you as her lips form a thin, tense line when you say that. An almost angry fire rises up in her chest that makes her feel like she’s slowly burning from the inside out. Her hands curl into tight fists and she turns more towards you in her seat, her gaze hardening as she responds.

“That’s a shitty answer and you know it”.

“Yeah well, you live and you die”, you don’t have to look to see the familiar figure come out of the house just a bit up the way, you know he saw your car pull up. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know he’s coming to check on her, coax her from your car, and things will go right back to radio silence as they had been for months.

“Your boy is coming”.

Mabel’s chest tightens when you say that and her body straightens out. Her eyes automatically dart towards the house, watching as Charlie steps off the porch. The thought of having to deal with him right now on top of your bullshit makes her feel a pang of irritation and frustration. Mabel turns to give you one last glance.

"I hate you right now, I need you to know that".

That makes a small smile tug at your lips, your eyes cutting over to find hers.

“I think I miss hearing you say that” you mutter quietly, just as Charlie reaches the car and knocks on the glass of the passenger window.

Mabel’s chest clenches when she hears you say that and her eyes go momentarily soft when they find yours. Her gaze quickly hardens and her eyes narrow as her sort of boyfriend knocks on the window again. Mabel pushes the door open and slips out, offering him a smile to let him know she’s okay.

“Hey, how’d it go? What did Weeks say?” Charlie asks Mabel just as you roll down the front windows, pulling yourself up to sit on the frame of the drivers side one. Arms resting crossed on the roof of your car, watching the two of them over the top of it.

Mabel sighs and runs a hand through her tousled hair, her mouth forming a small frown “he gave us a few days, roughly, which is better than nothing”.

Charlie nods and wraps his arms around her waist, pulling her into him. Mabel lets herself melt into his touch, but she’s still somewhat tense from the conversation in the car. She feels your eyes burning a hole into them as she’s engulfed in his embrace.

“Right. I’m gonna go now, goodluck… or whatever” you mutter as you make a sour face, slipping back into the vehicle and dropping into the drivers seat.

Mabel looks up as you speak, her eyes connecting with yours, feeling a pang of something run through her body as she hears the bitterness in your voice. It hurts. Mabel wants to say something, but she can’t, so she just gives you a small, almost grateful smile as she watches you sink back into your car.

“You should consider yourself lucky he heard you out, the guy is a psycho” Charlie calls to you as you start up the engine. You pause, turning your just enough to meet his gaze through the rolled down passenger window.

“What was that?” you say with a half smile, eyes narrowed with that familiar gleam in your eyes.

Mabel rolls her eyes, but the corners of her lips twitch, struggling to maintain a neutral expression. Because of course that has to be his choice of words.

“I said you should consider yourself lucky” Charlie says again, not quite getting why you’re asking him to repeat himself.

You smile wide at that, shifting the car into drive, “so you have heard of me, good to know”.

And with that you slam the gas, speeding off down the road, leaving the two of them to deal with the problem at hand.

Mabel stares after the receding car with wide eyes, her heart feeling like it’s in her throat as the vehicle disappears into the distance.

Charlie makes a scoff and shakes his head, turning to look at her “you have a weird taste in friends”.

Charlie has no idea the history the two of you share, he probably just thinks you’re some brash lowlife who can’t control your temper.

Better that than the alternative, which is the truth.

Mabel just rolls her eyes at his words, slipping out from under his arm, crossing her own over her chest in a defensive stance. Her voice is harsh when she responds.

“It’s complicated, leave it alone”.

Charlie makes a frustrated noise and starts leading her back towards the house. “You say that a lot” he complains.

Mabel gives Charlie a withering look, walking right beside him as he leads the way. Her eyes narrow as she responds to his observation, muttering it more so to herself.

“It’s a fucking wonder why”.

She doesn’t expect him to understand, and to be frank, Mabel isn’t sure she wants him to.

____________________________________________

Mabel feels like her head is going to explode.

Weeks is riding her ass and she’s not making any progress because the guys have done little to none.

Then she heard about Costa, how Weeks and his men showed up at his house threatening him and Anne Marie, who’d gone into labor from all the stress.

It’s not looking good, to say the least, and Weeks patience is running thin. That much is for sure, considering he shot Costa in the arm to send a message, according to Charlie.

She’s desperate and at her wit’s end, just the tension and stress of the whole situation is eating away at her. Mabel sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose in frustration.

So, Mabel does the only thing she knows to do even if it’s a last resort: she goes to you.

Mabel drives down the familiar route to reach your house, her head and thoughts racing with the situation that she’s in. She parks her car in front of your house, the sight of which makes Mabel’s chest tense up more and her fingers tighten around the wheel. She doesn’t know why she thinks that coming to you again is a good idea, but she does it anyway.

Mabel cuts the engine and pauses for a moment as the thoughts and memories rush through her mind. It’s only been three days but it feels like an eternity. Her fingers loosen their grip on the wheel, and she can feel her heart rate slowly rise again. She knows that you’ll probably chew her out, say ‘no’. Especially with the way things were left the last time you saw each other.

But Mabel is in desperate need of an immediate solution for this situation, she doesn't have the luxury of time for other ideas to form. She knows that you're the only one she can turn to, the only one who will understand and maybe know what to do. She finally shoves all of the thoughts of doubt and hesitation out of her head and reaches for the car door to push it open.

Mabel slips out of the driver's seat and makes her way up to the front door of the house, her footsteps heavy on the walkway. She raises a hand to knock and hesitates for a moment, her heart racing. She wonders if you’ll even open the door for her, but she shoves that thought aside and raps on the door anyway.

She waits for a moment, holding her breath as she listens for the sound of footsteps coming up to the door. There’s a slight flutter of nervous anticipation in her chest, making her fidget in place maybe she should’ve told Charlie she was coming here. Will he be mad? No, he doesn’t know your history so he has no reason to, probably best to keep it that way.

The sound of the door clicking open snaps Mabel out of her thoughts. She looks up to find you standing in the doorway, your eyes connecting with hers. Mabel’s breath gets stuck in her throat as she takes in the sight of you, your face illuminated by light of the setting sun just off in the distance.

“Hey sunshine, didn’t expect to see you here again” you say softly, much more gentle than the last time you two spoke, your eyes scanning her face with a hint of concern. You know. Of course you know, why else would Mabel be here three days after seeing you last?

The use of the old pet name and the soft tone of your voice instantly washes over Mabel. Her chest aches at the sound of it. She missed it, but she can’t. Mabel won’t let herself, not after everything. Her fingers start to fidget at her sides again, searching for something to do.

“Yeah, well… I need your help”.

Your gaze wanders off to the side, watching the sun dipping below the horizon, a beautiful combination of colors painted the sky in a stunning display. The warm hues of orange, yellow, and red blended together in a beautiful palette, casting an almost ethereal glow across the landscape.

You nudge the door open more as if to invite her inside. But when Mabel doesn’t move, you resettle yourself against the doorframe, leaning against it.

“Weeks?”

Mabel swallows, hard. The look in your eyes is all too knowing, and it causes her heart to skip just a few beats. She’s never been able to hide anything from you, not really. Mabel gives a small nod and her fingers start fidgeting even more as her nervousness rises.

“He shot Costa, at his house just earlier-“

You instantly go into a panic, darting inside to quickly gather your things, which she expected. You’d gotten close to the guys when you two were together, Mabel only knows them through Skeemo. But that doesn’t mean you don’t care, she knows you well enough to know you do.

“That fucking liar! Why didn’t you start with that!? Is Anne Marie okay? Is his boy alright, is he-“

Mabel panics a bit when your reaction goes further than she expected it to go. It only makes the tension bubbling in her chest even more intense. She steps inside of the house and raises a hand, trying to stop you in your tracks.

“No, no, stop-“

You have your keys dangling from your mouth, hooked between your teeth as you hastily pull your boots on. “Is he alive or not, Mabel?!” you say as you reach up and pull the key ring free from your mouth, chest heaving with panic.

Mabel feels her chest tighten further at your words. She steps forward, reaching out and pressing her hands to your chest in an attempt to keep you from taking another step further.

“He’s alive, okay? He’s fine, the guys were all there when it happened, but that’s not the problem right now”.

Your eyes flicker between hers, confusion etched in your brow as you shake your head slightly “then what is? I don’t-“

Mabel swallows hard, the words in her throat refusing to come out. She knows you’re already pissed at her for being in this situation in the first place, and yet here she was, turning to you for help again. The thought and knowledge of this only adds to the mixture of anxiety and anticipation bubbling in her chest from being so close to you again.

Mabel takes in a deep breath, steadying herself before speaking, staring up at you with a mixture of nerves and guilt. Her next words are quiet, almost mumbled.

“Weeks is pissed because the guys haven’t made any progress on the product, he shot Costa because he’s getting impatient. We’ve got two days to get it back”.

You are eerily silent, your eyes glazed over slightly as you stare off at nothing specific. Mabel knows that look, she made herself learn how to spot it a long time ago, because that exact look is the telltale sign you’re about to do something completely reckless and idiotic.

And when you start moving again, stepping around her to get to the door, your mind has been made.

Mabel’s heart stops, her blood going cold at your silence. That look, she’s seen it many times before, and she knows where it leads. Mabel grabs your wrist and spins you back around to face her, her eyes burning into yours as she says your name.

“Stop Lucky, don’t”.

You turn, that fiery burn in your eyes, it use to send a shiver down her spine. The adrenaline junkie in her use to get high off it, that sliver in her is still drawn to that look, but that was then and this is now. Mabel feels something in her stirring, but she doesn’t want to feel it, especially after everything that’s happened.

“Whatever you’re thinking about doing, don’t”.

“You came to me for help, didn’t you?” you say slowly, the muscle in your jaw flexing as your eyes flicker between her dark brown ones.

“Tell me what the fuck you expected”.

Mabel bristles at your biting words. Her grip tightens on your wrist as every muscle in her body tenses. She clenches her jaw, and her eyes take on a steely gaze, meeting yours equally.

“I sure as hell don’t need you to jump into something dangerous, like you always fucking do!”

“Let me handle it, it’s why you came to me. Hmm?” You say pointedly, tugging your wrist free from her grasp, but then your eyes soften just the slightest as you take in how she’s trying with everything she’s got to not show how worried she is.

“Let me handle it” you repeat softly.

Mabel’s breath hitches in her throat as your words sink in. She wants more than anything to protest, to deny your offer. But she knows that your mind is made up, and that you’ll end up doing it whether she wants you to or not. She hates you for being right, she hates you for knowing her so damn well.

Mabel swallows the protest sitting on the tip of her tongue and nods.

Mabel’s eyes stay on you as a mixture of emotions flutter through her head. One of the most prominent being irritation, both towards you and herself. She wants nothing more than to punch you in the face for your smartassery, but she also wants nothing more than to ask you to take her with you. If anything, so that you’ll possibly be less reckless with her present. Mabel swallows the mix of urges and words bubbling in her chest.

Instead, she rolls her eyes, hoping in some universe, that gets her point across. The hint of a smile tugs at her lips, she can’t help it.

"At least reconsider before you get yourself killed," Mabel deadpans.

“Feel free to stick around if you want, unless you have other places you wanna be” you say with a more knowing look, purposefully poking at old wounds and acting as if that were even an option for her.

Mabel’s expression falters, the guilt and hurt bubbling in her chest again as your words make it all come rushing back up to the surface. A pang echoes in her stomach when you mention other places, making her chest tighten.

She then steels herself, head tilting daringly as she gives your chest a hard shove, making you stumble back into the screen door. “I’ll be at my boyfriend’s if you decide to grow the fuck up, but we both know that’s unlikely”.

You grunt as you topple back, steadying yourself by catching the doorframe. You grin ear to ear and push through the door after her, getting the smallest prickle of deja vú within the depths of your mind.

“Yeah I’m sure he’d love it if I pulled up to his place to pick you up this time instead of drop you off” you call after her, taking the porch steps down two at a time.

Mabel clenches her jaw, the anger and hurt bubbling over as she whirls around to face you. She stomps up to you, standing in front of the hood of her car and pointing a finger in your face.

"You are an insensitive ass, you know that?"

You shove your hands into the pockets of your jeans, a wide charming smile plastered across your face as you gaze down at her.

“Anything else that’s obvious you’d like to point out?” You hum, narrowing your eyes as you press your lips into a thin mocking line.

Mabel bristles, her fists shaking at her side. She is not in the mood to deal with your bullshit, not that mischievous glint in your eyes, the infuriatingly charming smirk, the mocking tone in your words.

Without thinking, she shoves you hard again and steps closer, her eyes burning with anger and something you can’t quite read. “Actually, yes. You’re pissing me off you selfish mother-“

“Good. Now go home to your rich bitch boyfriend, he’s the one on the clock, not me anymore” you say strongly, gesturing towards her car as your entire exterior shifts into something a bit more pressuring.

Mabel nearly sputters as you speak, the mention of Charlie in that way making her blood boil even more. She is about to open her mouth to give a biting response, but the harshness in your voice causes her to snap it shut. Her fists are clenched at her sides, her eyes burning as she glares up at you, standing her ground and standing a little too close for comfort.

Mabel wants desperately to yell at you, to shove you again, to strangle you. She wants to scream in your face until her lungs are empty and her voice is hoarse.

That fire is burning in her chest, but the way you’re looking at her, the pressure in your voice and the tone of your words only stokes the heat higher and tighter in her chest. So instead, she turns and heads to her car without another word.

“Wow look at that, you do know how to fucking listen” you call after her, flashing her a double thumbs up, but it’s not genuine. Not with that stupid fucking look on your face.

Mabel grips the handle of the car door, but your mocking voice stops her in her tracks. All the anger that’s bubbling and churning in her chest suddenly rushes up to the surface. Her gaze snaps away from the door, her head whipping back towards yours and her eyes practically burning into yours.

“Go fuck yourself”, and with a middle finger in your direction, she slips into her car.

Mabel starts up her car, the sound of the engine rumbling to life breaking some of the tension. She grips the steering wheel tightly, her knuckles turning white. A large portion of her wants to run you over, another just wants to stay sitting here, and an even smaller part of her wants you to chase after her.

She puts the car in drive, forcing that last thought from her mind as she peels off the gravel and heads home, determined to keep you out of her mind for the rest of the night.

It’s only until about half way back to town when realization dawns on her, having had enough time to sit and replay the entire interaction over in her head. How she’d shown up for your help, told you want happened, how angry and protective you got. How she tried to talk you out of it and then suddenly you two were fighting-

Oh my god, that sneaky little shit played her.

Mabel grits her teeth and stomps on the brake, whipping the car in a full three sixty at the intersection. As she speeds back down the road towards your house, she feels twice as foolish than she did before.

She can’t believe that she fell for it so easily. She should’ve known. She should’ve been able to see through your plan. But of course, she hadn’t. Mabel blames it on being out of practice with your manipulation.

“You stupid motherfucker” Mabel mutters to herself, “if you’re gonna do what I think you’re about to do, I’ll kill you myself”.

____________________________________________

The sleek muscle car tears down the backroad, engine roaring as it cuts through the darkness of night.

The trees that flank the sides of the road blur together into masses of shadows, with only the beams from the car's head lights cutting through the void and illuminating the winding path.

The night sky above is a blanket of inky black, the only light seen being the small glimmer of stars visible above the treeline.

Your fingers beat a mindless rhythm against the steering wheel, mind racing with a storm of thoughts. The quiet roar of the engine vibrates through the car, filling the air with a low hum.

With the back road devoid of life, the night seems almost eerily silent as you cut down the lonely road. The atmosphere inside the car feels heavy, with a sense of tension hanging over you, knowing what you’re about to do won’t be forgiving.

The thought of Mabel and the history you’ve shared swirls in your mind, and your stomach churns thinking about everything at stake. You try to push it all down, to keep your cool, but the emotions are overwhelming.

The weight of the situation hits you hard, how everything has changed, and how you feel about all of it. Despite your efforts to stay focused, your chest tightens and a lump forms in your throat, making it hard to keep yourself balanced.

You fight it all down regardless, taking a deep breath and forcing yourself to focus on the task at hand. You grip the steering wheel tighter, mashing down on the gas pedal and pushing the engine harder, determined to see this through.

No matter what’s happened in the past, and what’s coming next, you won’t let anything threaten Mabel. Especially not him. Your resolve keeps you focused, knowing you’ll do whatever it takes to protect her.

The familiar sight of the warehouse comes into view, a dark silhouette against the dark of the night. It’s one of many, a smaller one out of all the locations you know of, but it’ll still get the point across. You pull the car to a stop, cutting the engine and climb out, walking to the trunk and lifting a gas container out.

The weight of the container feels heavy in your hands as you close the truck with a little more force than necessary and start walking towards the warehouse.

Muttering to yourself about how it’s time for a “little humbling”, you get to work.

Within ten minutes, the outer parameter of the warehouse is practically doused in gasoline, the smell of the liquid potent in the air. Your mind reels, puzzled by the absence of guards. You'd expect them to have doubled security after the destruction you caused just a year ago. You pause for a moment, your gaze wandering to the main door to the building.

Curiosity outweighs caution, so you adjust your grip on the handle of the container and stride forward.

Entering through the unlocked door, you’re met with an empty warehouse, the vast space devoid of life. Confusion washes over you as you scan the room, the absence of anyone there leaving you dumbfounded.

The warehouse is vast and mostly empty, but its purpose is immediately clear. Rows of shelving units line the walls, holding various analgesics and narcotics, sorted neatly into separate sections and packed away in clear plastic baggies. The entire area reeks of the chemicals, the scent almost dizzying.

You glance up at the rafters and spot the security cameras, recording every move. A small smile creeps across your face as you wave at them, before giving them a defiant middle finger. Your expression turns stoic as you then return to the task at hand: soaking everything in gasoline.

Once you’re satisfied, you take a gander around and nod, a little too proud of your work.

With a mocking salute to the cameras, you toss the gas canister to the side, declaring out loud “this is for Tony and Anne Marie Costa, and everyone else you bully into submission you sadistic piece of shit”.

Taking out a lighter from your pocket as you make your way back to the door- you flick it, igniting a small flame, then you toss it through the back door into the warehouse. The fire immediately catches, and you quickly close the door behind you.

The fire slowly begins to spread inside, the warehouse and all its contents sealed with an unavoidable fate. You take a few steps back, watching the spectacle. The heat from the flames can be felt as they grow, the crackle of the fire mixing with the smell of burning chemicals, filling the night air.

You dust your hands off mockingly with a satisfied smirk, turning to round the burning building, and head back towards your car. You know what the consequences will be, but you don't care.

Let them come, they won't stop you.

A swell of confidence fills your chest, it’s a high knowing you’ve executed overdue justice, it makes you feel on top of the world.

The headlights of your car reflect the glow of the flames dancing behind you. Only as you approach the vehicle, you pause mid-step, noticing a second car, parked discreetly behind yours. Clearly it had been hidden and out of sight until you got closer. Your mind races as you take another few steps closer, realizing someone was here.

Your heart drops as you realize whose red car it is.

Mabel. And she’s not in it.

In that horrible moment, a feeling of dread grips you. Your gaze returns to the burning warehouse, the fire still blazing. That’s when it fully registers: Mabel must be inside.

You bolt towards the front of the building, panic seizing you as you shout her name over and over. The night air is hot and thick with smoke and the dance of the flames.

You cough, eyes watering from the smoke and heat. With a quick jab, you test the door handle– it's warm but not hot enough to burn. Gritting your teeth, you slowly crack open the door, and when the flames don’t rush out immediately, you plunge inwards.

Inside, the heat is intense, the building blaze consuming all in its path. The air is thick and difficult to breathe, your lungs protesting at every gasp. But you push on, searching desperately for any sign of Mabel.

Every step into the warehouse is a struggle. The heat and smoke are overwhelming, your chest tight and lungs protesting for fresh air. You shout for Mabel, the sound of your voice is hoarse, fighting against the flames that grow larger by the minute.

“MABEL!? MABEL!?”

As the fire roars around you, threatening to overcome you. You look up, and the rafters creak and groan, the wood and ceiling around you beginning to give way under the immense heat. The flames continue to spread, and your panic rises – you need to find Mabel, and fast.

You push forward, fighting against the burning waves, frantically searching the warehouse for any sign of her. The fire is closing in, the flames licking at the walls and ceiling. With every second that passes, the danger increases, and time is running out.

In that moment, you hear her voice, faint but distinct. You feel a surge of adrenaline, and with what little energy you have left, you take off towards the sound, ignoring the heat and smoke.

“Mabel!?”

Your lungs burn and your vision swims as you push forward, desperate to reach her as the sound of her voice guides you through the inferno. You make it through the blaze and finally spot her, stumbling as she tries to make her way to you, shirt collar pulled up over her mouth.

You quickly reach her, wrapping one of her arms around your shoulders to help steady her. "I'm here," you assure her, voice hoarse, but determined. "Lean on me. Let's get out of here."

Supporting her, you begin to make your way back towards the exit, the fire still consuming everything in its path. The heat is intense, the smoke thick and disorienting. You can hear the building creak and groan, the beams slowly starting to give under the strain.

You stumble forward, practically carrying Mabel now as her legs give out beneath her. You both collapse to the ground once you're at a safe distance from the fire, the warehouse now completely consumed by the flames, the structure starting to collapse. Both of you are gasping for breath, eyes bloodshot and clothes singed.

You cough and wheeze, inhaling the fresh air as you lie next to Mabel, watching the warehouse completely collapse in on itself. The heat from the fire still radiates over you, but now you're safely removed from the immediate threat, your lungs might live to see another day.

You both sit in silence for a moment, slowly regaining your breath and strength. You watch the warehouse as the fire continues to consume it with an almost fascinated intensity. The night air is still thick with smoke and tension, but there's a strange sense of relief as you sit side by side, safe but shaken.

It doesn’t last long.

Mabel turns to you, her face a mixture of anger and exhaustion. "Are you insane?!” she demands as she shoves you, anger and frustration clearly visible in her eyes, voice unsteady. “What were you thinking, almost getting yourself killed like that? Did you not learn your fucking lesson the first time!?”

You respond defiantly, a hint of irritation in your raspy voice. "And why the hell did you decide it was a good idea to charge into a burning building?!”

She glares at you, her voice harsh and reprimanding. "I knew what you were up to, and I followed you. I got here right before the fire started, and of course, your impulsive ass couldn't wait."

You soften instantly, the anger giving way to worry. Impulsively, you gently take her face into your hands, studying her features closely. Your touch is tender and almost loving as you check her over, your voice filled with concern. "Are you okay? Does anything hurt?" Your eyes scan her face, searching for any sign of injury or harm.

Mabel's own anger melts away at the sight of your vulnerability, replaced with a mixture of exhaustion and worry. "I'm fine," she mutters, her voice a little shaky. "Just a lung full of burnt drugs and the fact I’ll never get the smell of smoke out of my jacket, nothing major." She looks at your face, studying you in return.

Your thumb delicately trace along her cheek, tilting her chin to check for any cuts or burns. "That's hardly minor, Mabel," you respond quietly, your own voice a mixture of relief and fondness. "You shouldn't have followed me in there. It was stupid and dangerous."

She swats your hand away, a stubborn look in her eyes. "Oh, yeah, like setting the fucking building on fire in the first place was some kind of brilliant idea!" Mabel retorts, her voice rising. "That's like saying it's worse for me to try to stop you, than for you to actually light the damn thing ablaze!"

You exhale, the fight gone from your voice. "I had to do something," you mutter, slowly pushing yourself to your feet. "The way things were going, it was only a matter of time before someone died." You offer your hand down to her, a sort of surrender and ceasefire in your gesture.

Mabel hesitates for a moment before taking your hand. Once upright, she whispers to you, her voice low and full of worry. "You know he's not going to be happy about this, right? He won’t be forgiving this time".

You give Mabel one final once over, satisfied that she's physically unharmed. Once assured, you respond with a shrug, a hint of resignation in your tone. "He'll come around eventually, and I’ll take it when it comes" you assure her. "But for now, it should take the heat off of you guys. Or at least buy you some more time."

Mabel studies you intently, her eyes flickering with a mix of worry and something else. "You could've gotten yourself killed," she mutters, her voice a mix of scolding and concern. "You can’t keep doing this, one day you won’t be lucky”.

You laugh weakly, the adrenaline still coursing through your veins. "I’ll always be lucky," you insist, a touch of a smirk on your face. Mabel rolls her eyes, familiar with your penchant for overconfidence.

Your gaze doesn’t leave her as you smile at her. In the light of the flames, her brown eyes seemed to come alive, almost glowing like amber. The fire flickered across her features, making her look wild and untamed. Looking at her in that moment, you felt a surge of adrenaline, like you were invincible.

Mabel meets your gaze, an unspoken communication passing between you both. She speaks up, breaking the silence. "Does this make us even?" The question is pointed and a bit teasing.

A laugh escapes you, the sound a mixture of amusement and truth. You shake your head slightly, the fondness you feel for her teetering on a dangerous edge. "Not even close, sunshine" you reply, your voice laced with both playfulness and honesty.

"All our bullshit aside, I owe you everything."

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