#i have a Long way to go before i Look strong enough for that but | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jasonsmirrorball · 3 days

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keep me here (with your skin on mine again) [17.6k]

summary: it's been a long time coming. he's the bane of your existence, but there's no denying it. your roommate is hot.

cw: gn!reader, afab!reader, smut, jealousy, friends with benefits arrangement, original characters, stephanie brown cameo, intoxication, blowjobs, spit, fingering, handjobs, piv sex, minor voyeurism, references to past voyeurism, masturbation, slight dubcon re multiple orgasms as there isn't a discussion but it's consensual, references to reader's clothing – they wear clothes described as 'short' and 'tight', and 'slutty' at one point (not degradingly), mention of reader wearing a hair towel, presumably after a shower, use of 'cunt', arguments, miscommunication + reader and jason are both petty and imperfect !! minors, blank and ageless blogs do not interact, you will be blocked

Jason just about falls over himself laughing when you open the door and immediately you scowl. He doesn’t say a word, teal eyes taking in your outfit before his beautiful face screws up, a loud guffaw punching out of him. The force of his amusement is strong enough that he sinks to his knees, clutching the door-frame to steady himself.

“Oh–” you scoff, and he has to yank his fingers away before the door slams on them. “You’re so insufferable!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” You hear a pause before he dissolves into laughter again, and you resist the urge to stamp your foot.

“No you aren’t. What the fuck do you want?”

“I can’t talk to you through the door, can you open up?”

You pout. “No.”

“Please? I swear I won’t laugh.”

You make a face at that, disbelieving. “You’re full of shit.”

Another muffled snort through the door. “Okay, I swear I’ll try not to laugh,” Jason amends.

You open the door and he struggles to keep a straight face. You know what you must look like, the hair towel, the pair of pink, heart patterned, fluffy pyjama pants and your bed socks.

“I’ll close this door again,” you remind him when you catch him eyeing the print on your socks, crossing your arms impatiently and he nods, biting his lip to compose himself.

“I thought you were going out.” Jason voices this out loud and you cut an unimpressed look his way when his voice wobbles with the weight of keeping his amusement at bay.

“I am.”

“Oh. Is that the look for tonight?”

You sneer at him. “Is this what you came to ask me?”

“It’s all I wanna talk about now,” he admits, shrugging. He points at your pants and you bat his hand away, hissing. “Where on earth did you get these from?”

“They’re comfortable–”

“I’ll say.”

“–and I got them from my parents, ass hat,” you finish pointedly, hands on your hips.

“Do they hate you?” he drops his voice into a conspiratorial whisper, eyes widening into faux sympathy and you roll your eyes.

“Whatever, man. What do you want? You’re interrupting my getting ready time.”

He lets out a breath obnoxiously, leaning into the door frame.

“Yeah, for bed, it seems.” You stare at him blankly, fighting the urge to strangle him with your bare hands. “Anyway, do you have my charger? Think I left it in here last night.”

Briefly, you consider telling him that you haven’t actually, despite knowing exactly where it is, having been plugged into the outlet between your bed and the wall during your marathon of Gilmore Girls last night. You end up opening the door, waving a hand dismissively at him to check for himself before you move further into your room, returning to your walk-in to contemplate your outfit for the night.

Jason enters the room and you see him move around in your periphery as you push the hangers around. He lingers in your room after he finds the charger, twisting the cable around his fingers absentmindedly.

“You should stick with that outfit,” he remarks, taking a seat on your bed. You look over your shoulder and he elaborates, helpfully, “I think it’ll be a real hit at the club.”

“I’m sure,” you say dryly. “The men’ll be falling all over me.”

He cracks a delighted smirk, nodding. “Exactly.”

“You’re not as funny as you think you are,” you inform him, emerging from the wardrobe and tilting your head to the door. “C’mon, you found your charger. I need to get ready.”

He boos you but stands up anyway and you push him out, palms pressing into his shoulder blades. Jason, ever resistant to making anything easy for you, ever, leans his weight into you, slowing down to a crawl. “So mean. You don’t wanna hang out? You’re breaking my heart, here. I thought we were best friends forever.”

“We’ll be best friends forever if you get out,” you retort, shoving him over the threshold and he cackles.

He’s still laughing long after the door slams behind him.

Jason becomes your roommate on a Wednesday morning. You remember this because you have a full day of classes on Wednesdays, and you’d spent the night before anxiously cleaning in preparation for his arrival. He moves in while you’re in class, and sends you a text as you’re getting out at 5 that he’s getting takeout and did you want anything from the Korean restaurant a few blocks away?

You get home to the smell of tteokbokki, fried chicken and japchae on the counter. Your return home, usually greeted by the sound of silence, is met with quite possibly the most attractive man you’ve ever met in your life in your kitchen, looking up from his phone and nodding a casual ‘hey’.

It isn’t as though you aren’t expecting this. You’d met him several times before, at gatherings and mutual friends’ birthday parties. Still, Jason’s beauty manages to leave you reeling every single time. You stare for a moment, startled, before rushing out a jerky, “Hi!”

He’s silent for a moment before he parts his lips. You track the motion, feeling your throat dry at the awkward, lopsided grin he shoots you.

“Wasn’t sure if you wanted to eat together, or...”

Your eyes widen and you take a few steps forward. “Oh! I’m so sorry, I should’ve told you to start without me, I didn’t think I’d take this long, there was construction on the road and we had to go a different way–”

“You took the bus?” he questions, eyebrows creasing and you nod.

“It’s easier, there’s a stop a block away and it drops me off five minutes from campus,” you tell him, and he nods slowly. “Anyway, I’m sorry, you’re probably hungry, you didn’t have to wait for me.”

He shakes his head, disappointed. “You know, our relationship’s already off to a terrible start, Roomie. I really don’t know how you’ll come back from this.”

You stare for a moment before it hits you: he’s making a joke. You let out a laugh, moving further into the apartment. “You’ll survive a few more minutes, I’m sure.”

“I’m withering away as we speak,” he calls out after you.

You break in your newfound coexistence over rice cakes and stir fried noodles, sweet and sour sauce staining your fingers, sitting at the coffee table while Jason goes through the things he needs to get done, reruns of an old show playing on the TV that neither of you pay much attention to.

“We can go together,” you suggest, when he mumbles something about picking up his groceries, typing out a list on his phone. He looks up in surprise, as though he hadn’t expected the offer.

“You sure?”

You shrug, spearing a rice cake onto your fork. “If you want. I need to get a few things anyway.”

He considers it a moment longer, before nodding. “Okay.”

It takes some getting used to, having this man in your apartment. A week in, you nearly scream when you walk into the kitchen half asleep to find him at the stove – the lack of a shirt is no help in calming your racing heart. But the weeks pass by, and Jason becomes less of the attractive man you share a living space with, morphing into something else entirely as he gets comfortable. By the time you hit the three month mark, his looks are the least of your concern – he’s the bane of your fucking existence.

Kind of.

The two of you settle into your routine and you find out that Jason has a mouth on him. He delights in riling you up, tourmaline eyes flashing with barely constrained glee when you react in kind – bitching at him for coming into the kitchen when it’s your turn to make dinner and offering unbidden suggestions, or squabbling over who got it wrong when you forget to tell him to take a turn on your way to go grocery shopping. You maintain the last one is his fault. How can you forget the route to the store when we’ve gone nearly a hundred times by now?

He somehow manages to draw it out of you, the bitchiness you’ve been carrying with you since middle school and have tried to bury down–nobody likes a smart mouth, after all. But he doesn’t flinch from it.

If you didn’t know any better, you might even say he liked it.

– You do know better, though.

(That one night spent with your hands under the blankets and thoughts of ultramarine eyes is nobody’s business but yours.)

You meet his family. He meets your friends – the ones he doesn’t already know. You somehow end up watching a show together. His sweater lays at the foot of your bed. You’ve slept in his bed and vice versa. You’re sure he’s one of the closest friends you have. He irritates you to no end.

Bit by bit, Jason worms his way into your life and settles comfortably there.

It’s probably why your girlfriends feel so comfortable calling him on your night out and how the ensuing mess occurs.

Jason gets the call around 2 in the morning, the ringtone blaring through his skull just as he’s about to fall asleep. He jerks up, glaring groggily at his phone. He contemplates leaving it to ring, but he spies your friend’s name on the screen and he sighs, wiping a hand down his face.

They’re playing loud rap music when he gets inside, descending the stairs into the dark club. He passes girls supporting their drunken friends on their way out and gently shoulders his way through a group lingering by the double doors leading to the actual club. More than once, he feels an appreciative stare on the back of his neck but he’s preoccupied.

It takes him a moment to spot you over the crowd, squinting his eyes to make out your form through the dim lights. When he does, his throat dries.

He hadn’t seen you after he’d been shepherded out of your room, pulled into a phone call with his younger brother who’d decided that nearing midnight was the perfect time to complain at length about their father. Damian hadn’t let him go until long after you’d left the house, your voice echoing through the walls with a “I’m going! Bye!” that he’d distractedly replied to in between making the appropriate listening noises to his increasingly agitated brother.

You’re holding your friend’s hand at the bar, smiling dreamily and swaying in place when the song abruptly switches to something slower. The clothes you wear leave little to the imagination, short, tight, sinful. He bites his cheek hard, swallowing roughly as he makes his way over. Something green curls in his vision when someone gravitates closer to you, yelling something in your ear. The guy is all leery smiles and appreciative eyes, gaze lingering on the dip of your neckline.

Much to Jason’s displeasure, you don’t back away in disgust, only frowning in confusion and tapping your ear – I didn’t hear you. He repeats himself and Jason watches you process whatever it is that he’s said before a smile breaks out and you laugh, shaking your head. Your eyes glitter, and jealousy burns low in his gut. You don’t seem to realise you’ve ensnared the other man in your orbit, staring up at him over the rim of your drink.

Jason breaks through the crowd and calls your name. Miraculously, it isn’t lost to the crowd and you look away. He finds smug pleasure in the way you startle in surprise, the shape of his name on your lips. He ignores the other guy, leaning an arm against the bar and between the both of you, effectively blocking you off. God, if Dick could see him now. Just the other week, his brother had been giving him shit for the apparent territoriality over you, and he’d gone blue in the face denying it, despite the knowing look on Dick’s face.

“What are you doing here?” you reach up on your tiptoes to ask him.

“Here to take you guys home,” he shouts, leaning in to get his words across. And he doesn’t need to, but he rests his hand on your waist as he does, and you press closer, tilting your face up to pout at him.

“What?” you protest. “Nooo, it’s still early!”

He grins at you unsympathetically. “It’s nearly 3 am, baby, c’mon. You look like you’re going to fall over.”

He only realises he’s made a slip up when your eyebrows crease but you say nothing, only staring up at him with moony eyes before smiling and placing your drink down to put a hand in his, mouthing an ‘okay’. He signals to your friend behind you, who’d called him earlier and watches the exchange with interest. She turns and shouts something over her shoulder, waiting for the third of your party to finish her drink before tugging her along. The three of you hold hands and follow him through the club in single file, a sight that he’s robbed of finding any amusement because he’s trying much harder not to pop a blood vessel at having to stop every few moments. The cause is, of course, you: each time he looks over his shoulder, another man has stopped you to flirt with you. He sends up a prayer for patience, hopes anyone is listening, and continues to pull you along.

The third time, he whirls around to tug you firmly into his side, barking out a harsh, “Fuck off.” at the guy and cutting a scolding look your way for answering his advances. It’s a waste of time, because you’re just grinning up at him in amusement, giggling. He sighs, steering you in front of him and nodding for your friend to take the lead. By the time he ascends the stairs to the exit, he’s sure his blood pressure is through the roof.

“Get in the car,” he sighs and you unlatch yourself from his side – a consequence of simultaneously risking twisting your ankle a block back and falling into oncoming traffic. He’d near grabbed you by the scruff of your neck in pulling you away from the kerbside and further onto the pavement, keeping an arm around your shoulder tightly.

“Okay.” You draw out the word playfully but sink into the passenger seat obediently, your friends following suit.

He shuts your car door, and sighs once more.

The door to your apartment opens quietly closer to 5 in the morning than he’d like, and he’s glad he’s not working the next day as he trudges through the threshold with you in tow, cradling a bag of takeout carefully as you toe off your shoes.

He throws his keys carelessly onto the counter, where he knows you’ll find them when you wake up and move them to the bowl in the entryway – where your keys are meant to go, a fact you’ve reminded him of unhelpfully when he’s running late and his keys aren’t where he left them. Between now and then, he’ll forget this fact, he always somehow does.

Now, you place the paper bag next to his keys and wander away – he looks over his shoulder and finds you shoving your feet into his house slippers, a shaking hand pressed against the wall to steady yourself as you put them on. The sight sends a bolt of affection through him and he turns away, focusing on washing his hands. He calls your name once he’s done, jerks his head to the tap. You don’t protest, only leaning into his side and sticking your hands under the stream of water.

He doesn’t know why he’s not moving away. Your vantage point makes it a little awkward to wash your hands, and it’d be easier if you switched places. Still, he stays, privately, guiltily admitting that the weight of you is nice against his side. Your bare arm is soft against his, and he can smell the perfume you’d used tonight, faint but sweet. If he looks out of the corner of his eye, he can see the glitter of your necklace, thin chains resting against your collarbones and décolletage.

You bump your head against his shoulder, and he blinks, drawn suddenly from his thoughts. Your stare is unnerving, and he almost wonders for a moment whether you can read the shameful attraction in his eyes.

“Come eat.”

He hopes you don’t notice the relief in his sigh as he follows you to the table. The two of you eat in silence for the most part, Jason picking at the edges of the burger he no longer wants and you stealing his fries in between bites of your wrap.

He gets up to go pour you some water – he isn’t sure how much you drank tonight, but he’ll sleep better once you’ve finished a few glasses – when you suddenly break the silence.

“I kissed a guy tonight.” Jason pauses his rummaging through the cupboard for a glass, and hears you muse to yourself, “It wasn’t very good, but I kissed him anyway.”

“Did you.” He keeps his back to you, fingers closing around the glass gently before he takes a breath and turns around. Mechanically, he pours you a glass of water, watching the liquid fill the cup as you stand from the table to pad over to him. He can feel you at his back and when he turns to face you, he thrusts the glass at you.

“Drink.” You take the glass, and he watches you down it. When you’ve finished, he pours you another and nods at you in instruction.

“You okay?” you ask, once he’s satisfied. His gaze catches on the sheen of water on your bottom lip.

“’M fine,” he bites out, forcing himself to relax when you reach out to touch his shoulder, but he only ends up curling his fingers into fists, pressing them into the laminate counter behind him. Your hand flattens against his shoulder, palm resting just above his heart. He can hear it beat in his ears, picking up further when you move into his space. Your chest brushes against his, and he remains still, backed against the counter.

He could move you right now, he knows he could. You’re off-kilter, and he’s much larger than you. He’s picked you up before, for a laugh. It’d be easy to move out from under you. But there he remains, with you drawing closer.

“You’re drunk,” he breathes out against your lips when you’re a hair’s breadth away, moving to press forward. Your lips are parted slightly, and he tracks your tongue as it darts out to wet your lips, flicks his gaze back up your pupils, dark and blown out.

“Not really,” you whisper, shaking your head. “Not as much. I’m just tipsy.”

A breathless sound punches out of him, and Jason feels his lips twitch. Somehow, his hands have migrated to settle against your waist. He runs his finger over the edge of your top, feeling your warmth sear through it. It’s a flimsy thing, thin and slutty – meant for darkened corners and wandering hands. No wonder you’d garnered the amount of stares you had tonight. He flicks his gaze down, and his fingertips have skimmed underneath its hemming, pressing lightly into your sides.

Had the guy you’d kissed tonight held you like this? Jason, envious, swipes his thumbs over your skin and delights in the shiver that rolls down your spine. Your eyelids flutter, and in the dark your eyes are covered in a sheen of liquid moonlight, the universe bottled and staring back at him. He bites back a swear, feeling his jeans tighten.

“You should get to bed.” It takes an effort to force the words out, and they come out hoarse. You stare at him for a few moments longer, unknowing that with each passing second, the thread of his restraint is steadily fraying. Alcohol and drunken desire weigh your eyelids down, and he grits his teeth at your lingering touch before you step away, turning on your heel in the direction of your room.

A single, solitary light in the hallway remains to keep him company in the kitchen, rooted to spot as he hears a muffled sigh of frustration through the walls. Then, the sounds of a zipper, and the rustle of your bed sheets. He curses his keen sense of hearing then, blood turning molten when, a few moments later, you whimper.

He knows the sound. It’s burned into his memory, the day he’d come home early and inadvertently overheard you touching yourself. Hearing it again has him dizzy and unable to move, clutching the counter tops as you try, pitifully, to muffle your moans.

Several minutes pass by. You fall silent after that. Jason thinks he must’ve done something awful in another life, and that this must be his penance, to have you so close yet be unable to do anything about it. He remains in the living room until he’s certain you’ve fallen asleep. Only when all movement in the next room ceases does he move.

You wake up a little past ten in the morning, to your surprise. The light pours in through the open blinds and you squint, rolling over to bury your face in your pillow. Your entire body cracks and you groan at the sensation, stretching across the expanse of your mattress. There’s grit in your eyes from the mascara you’d put on last night, you can feel the coarse flecks of it clumping your lashes together, and your face feels gross.

When you get up, you don’t bother to pull on a pair of pants – you’d discarded your bottoms last night before falling into bed – but switch the top for something looser, a t-shirt of Jason’s you think must’ve gotten mixed up in the laundry.

Your mind stutters over this name when you step into your shared bathroom, and you pause, hovering over the sink with your facial cleanser in hand.

Jason.

The memory of last night makes your face warm, recalling the sharp look he’d pinned you with, marbled features burning from the inside out as he’d let you draw closer and closer, eyes blazing. The ghost of his touch on your skin throbs, something like a live-wire threading itself alongside your every nerve.

You wash your face with careful movements, watching the makeup from last night swirl down the drain. Little else exists in your mind, save for the lingering desire of last night – and all the nights before that had led to it.

Where do you go from here?

You step into the shower, wondering if the two of you will pretend it never happened and continue as normal. You resolve to do as Jason does, nodding to yourself as you smooth your moisturiser into your skin. Judging by the sounds in the kitchen as you step out, you figure he has no intention of avoiding you. That, at least, reassures you and you walk out half an hour later with less hesitance.

“Morning,” you yawn and he looks over his shoulder, eyebrows furrowing, bemused.

“How the fuck are you awake?”

“What do you mean?” You take a seat at the counter, propping yourself up on an elbow. There’s a slice of toast on a plate, covered in melting butter and unabashedly, you reach for it.

“Just that you knocked out at like, 6 – that’s mine, you thief,” Jason explains, looking over his shoulder before sputtering when he catches sight of his toast in your mouth. You mumble an apology around the bread and he grumbles, turning back to the stove. “Yeah, you sound real sorry. You couldn’t wait a few more minutes to make your own?”

You grin to yourself, dusting your hands off and leaning forward on the counter. “Aren’t you making me breakfast? I thought that’s what this was. You know, feeding your poor, hungover roommate who you love so much?”

He shoots a flat stare at you and you know you’re right – there’s twice the amount of hash-browns in the pan that he would make for himself, and there’s a carton of juice on the counter waiting to be poured, a plate waiting by the toaster near him.

“You keep that up and I’m giving your share to the neighbor’s cat,” he says mildly and you pout, settling back into your seat.

“Whatever,” you murmur. “Why are you awake, if you fell asleep after me?”

“Because the universe hates me.”

“Bruce called?” you guess and he shakes his head, plating your hash-browns and toast and turning to place it in front of you.

“Dick. Wanted to catch up. Why he chose at 8 in the morning is beyond me, but what the fuck ever,” he mutters, handing you a fork and taking a seat next to you. The proximity makes you shiver when his shoulder brushes against yours and you catch a whiff of his cologne. You cross your legs beneath the counter and hope he doesn’t notice, leaning in to take a bite of your food.

“You hungover?” he mutters and you shake your head. “You drank a lot last night, didn’t you?”

You hum in affirmation, letting him steal a bite of your toast. “Don’t think so. I’m a bit achy, but that’s it.”

He makes a noise in his throat. “Lucky you.”

The way he’d tugged you into his side last night flashes in your mind and you duck your head, warm all of a sudden. “Yeah.”

You stand up to put your plate away, and only when you’re at the sink and Jason makes a choked noise do you realise what you’ve wandered out in. You stiffen.

“The fuck are you wearing?”

You blink, not expecting him to be so incensed. You set the plate down in the sink and turn, looking down at the shirt you wear– the shirt you’re only wearing – and back up at him. It hangs off your frame, somewhat, but you can admit it’s a little on the shorter side as far as oversized shirts go, just skimming below the tops of your thighs. Still, it doesn’t explain why Jason’s expression has gone taut.

“A shirt?” you offer, tentatively.

“Are you serious?” You pause when he gets short with you, eyes narrowing.

“Yes?” You don’t know what to say. “I’m sorry I forgot to put pants on. Why are you mad?”

He shakes his head. “I’m not mad.”

“You are.”

“Whatever.” He wrinkles his nose, and you can see his leg jumping as he taps his foot, agitated. “You should go put some clothes on.”

Your mouth tugs down into an unimpressed frown. “So you are mad about my clothes,” you say flatly. “You’ve never had a problem with what I wear around the house before.”

And you know that he knows it’s true. You’ve accidentally come out in your pyjamas when he’s had his friends over, not seeing the text he’d sent to give you a heads up and he’s only ever laughed it off. You know he’s seen you like this before, too. You’ve grown so used to Jason it no longer occurs to you to cover up – it’s only Jason. He’s used to it.

But then you look at the agitation on his face. You’re beginning to think that maybe he isn’t.

“Maybe I just didn’t want to say anything about it,” he says. “In the interest of keeping the peace.”

You shoot him a withering stare. He’s so full of shit. “So you’re not interested in keeping the peace anymore. Why are you saying something now?”

He lifts a shoulder, churlish. “Maybe I think it’s time. It’s not really appropriate, is it?”

If you weren’t growing madder by the second, you’d laugh in his face at the twitch of his eye as he says that, as though the words coming out of his mouth are pain to get out.

“I pay half the rent,” you tell him hotly. “There’s no one around and you know what, I don’t think you even care about what I wear.”

He looks startled when you say that and you know you’ve hit the nail on the head. You continue.

“All I’m hearing right now is a lot of ‘maybe’ and I’m not buying it. You’re a shit liar, Jason. What the fuck is your problem? The truth this time.”

He blinks, momentarily stunned. Anger like the tide, it washes away to make room for the truth before rushing back in. He stands up, breakfast abandoned, and your heart thrums in anticipation as the chair screeches backwards.

“My problem is you,” he says finally, and your mouth drops open.

“Me?” you squawk, indignant and he nods.

“Yeah, you.”

“What did I do?”

You wrack your brain, trying to come up with a reason he might be picking a fight with you. You hadn’t forgotten to take your clothes from the bathroom after you’d showered in a while, you’d been pretty good about replacing the liner in the bins when you noticed it was full – had you left your dishes in the sink yesterday before you’d gone out? Still, it didn’t warrant this level of a fight. This was beyond petty roommate squabbles – neither of you hesitated to get snippy about pulling your weight, and you forgave each other just as fast, too.

Jason was genuinely pissed off with you. You couldn’t for the life of you figure out why.

“Is this some sort of game to you?” he asks you, instead of elaborating and you’re left more confused.

“I’m not playing any games with you – what are you talking about?” you demand, exasperatedly and he rounds the counter, stepping close to you. Absently, you’re reminded of last night. (The beat of his heart under your fingers, angry thrumming that echoed the rush of your own in your ears.)

Blue-green eyes narrow at you and he scoffs. “You know how many guys I nearly got into it with last night because I had to come get your drunk ass? The entire time, you’re just smiling–I don’t think you even knew where you were at that point.”

“I knew where I was!” you argue but he continues.

“Then I finally get you home and you decide that wasn’t enough, you have to tell me you kissed some guy, try to put the moves on me, and then pretend like nothing’s happened this morning which – whatever, fine, but then you walk around in this? And I’m not supposed to think you’re playing games?”

You stare at him, heartbeat thundering in your ears.

“You are so stupid,” you breathe out. “What are you, jealous?”

“Yeah,” he huffs out, and you freeze. “Yeah, maybe I am.”

“What?” you mutter, barely audible.

He crowds you into the sink, until you can feel the edge of it pressed against your back. “You flirt with me, and I’m not supposed to do anything about it, because we live together. I have to watch you walk out of the house when you go out in your little outfits, and I’m not supposed to do anything about that either.”

He leans down and you’re nose to nose. “You accidentally send me something meant for someone else, and I’m not supposed to do anything about that, except all I can think about is how it’s meant for not me. Isn’t that a little unfair? How am I supposed to just move on from that? But I did. I made peace with the fact that you’re here, that you’re close enough for me to touch but I’m not supposed to.”

You go hot when you remember that, remembering the horror when in the heat of the moment you’d accidentally sent a photo meant for a hookup to Jason’s contact instead. It did little to comfort you when in response to your harried, apologetic explanation, Jason had simply sent you:

don’t worry i deleted it seriously it’s fine

He hadn’t acted in any way the next day to suggest that you’d ruined things or made it awkward, but you’d been mortified. The way he looks down at you now, you think he must be better at hiding it than you thought. Barely concealed lust darkens his eyes, pupils blown wide. It coaxes your own want out of you, your hands beginning to shake as you rest them on the counter behind you. Water flecks your palms but you’re uncaring, staring back at your roommate.

Jason stares down at you, waiting.

Well. You had resigned to doing as he did.

You tilt your head, scrutinising him with narrowed eyes. The edges of your mouth twitch in an effort to stifle the urge to smirk.

“Maybe you should do something about that,” you challenge, leaning in until you can feel the warmth of his breath against your cheek. From here, you can count every eyelash that frames his eyes, can notice the scar just beneath his eyebrow, barely a quarter of an inch, a nick he must’ve gotten in his childhood. You add in a steady, derisive tone, tamping down the excitement that’s already begun to itch underneath your skin in anticipation, “instead of being quiet about it, like a coward. At least those guys had the nerve to try.”

His eyes flash and the breath he lets out is the only warning you get before you’re being kissed to within an inch of your life.

Your first thought is: why the fuck hadn’t you egged him on sooner?

Jason kisses like he might die if he doesn’t get to. You go boneless under the grip of his hands when they settle around your waist, tugging you into him urgently until your chest is pressed tight against his. You scramble for purchase, reaching to tug at his hair while his tongue swipes at your bottom lip and neither of you expect the breathless groan he lets out, but it goes straight to your gut, desire pooling low and driving you to tug again. Your noses bump and he lets out a wrecked laugh into your mouth.

“You’re seriously ruining it,” you mutter between kisses and he pulls away, much to your displeasure. You’re madder still at the way you chase his mouth, leaning in before blinking up at him.

“Yeah, what would you rather I do?”

Insufferable, even after having his tongue in your mouth. You tug his collar and pull him back down. He meets your height with a self satisfied smirk, laughter in his eyes. You’re not so amused.

“I’d rather,” you tell him, “you not laugh in my face while making out with me. It’s really making me reconsider letting you take this off me. I’m not wearing anything under this, you know.”

You want to laugh at how quickly his smirk drops at that but you’re too busy slipping out from the tight space, darting to the mouth of the hallway where you pause grin at him teasingly, tilting your head questioningly. Well? Are you coming or not?

He lunges forward and you squeal, taking off to your room with him hot on your heels. You’re just shy of your door when you’re flung over his shoulder, the world abruptly tipping as he grabs you. He laughs, victorious, and then a moment later he’s inside, you’re being thrown onto your bed. He stands at the foot of your bed for a moment, just staring and you feel a prickle of nervousness roll over your skin, ensnared in his gaze and the anticipation only made worse by the waiting.

And then he’s moving, a knee pressing into the bed as he climbs on, but you stop him, a hand flying to his shoulder. He goes still under your touch.

“Wait, can you–” you pause, feeling your face grow warm. “Can you close the blinds? I don’t want the neighbours to get a free show or something.”

He blinks, eyelashes fluttering before he snorts, shaking his head. “Yeah, okay, sure.” He looks back at you as he pulls them firmly shut, throwing the room sharply into dimness but not before you catch sight of that teasing grin. “And here I was thinking you were so bold.”

“Not that bold,” you mutter, before you grin. “Not yet, anyway.”

“Not with me,” he mutters, climbing back onto the bed. He doesn’t waste any time in putting his mouth to your neck, teeth barely grazing against the skin. You inhale sharply, eyes fluttering under the touch. Jealousy colours his words when he says, “Don’t want anyone else seeing you like that.”

“N-no?” you barely manage to eke out, fingers digging into your sheets. You don’t want to admit his tone sends a thrill down your spine. You’re lucky he’s preoccupied, arching into his touch when his fingers find your sides again, rucking your shirt up your thighs.

“No,” he says firmly, before kissing you again.

When he pulls away you’re a little dizzy, breaths coming out heavy. It takes you a moment to realise your shirt lays over your stomach now, pushed up – showing off the underwear you’d lied about not wearing. He raises an eyebrow at you, unimpressed and you shrug, unrepentant. A finger skims over the band on your hip, hooking underneath it to snap it against your skin. It makes you gasp, and his lips twitch.

“Not wearing anything under this, huh,” he mocks.

“How else was I gonna get you to take it off faster?” you provide by way of explanation, grinning and he shakes his head, looking quite as though he doesn’t know what to do with you. When he pauses, staring, you roll your eyes, pushing up to pull your shirt off. His eyes widen as you settle back into your pillows, and you tell him archly, “There. Now you still get to take off only one thing.”

You watch him swallow you with his gaze, blue-green lingering on every inch of skin bared to him, breathing out heavily. Knelt between your legs, his hands remain hovering by your hips and you push them up, shifting until you brush against him. Impatience makes you petulant, slinging a leg over his hip and reaching out to coax his hand to fucking touch you.

“Do you want to do this?” you ask, when he only brushes a hand over your hip once more, and he frowns.

“Why’re you asking me that? Do you want to stop?”

“No!” you protest. “It’s just – you’ve got me naked and you’re not doing anything about it. It kind of feels like you don’t want to.”

He grins then, incredulously. “God. You’re so whiny. Is this how you are with all your hookups?”

You scowl at him. “You really wanna talk about my hookups? Now?”

His nose wrinkles in disdain and he leans in. “No. I’m gonna make you forget about them, though.”

You don’t know what it is about Jason that draws it out of you – you speak without thinking, dryly telling him, “Yeah, we’ll see about that.”

He shuts you up with a glare and lowers himself down, settling on his stomach between your legs. You swallow nervously when his breath skims over the seat of your underwear, the lace already damp. Jason grins to himself when he nudges against the crease of your thigh with his nose and you tremble, biting down a gasp when his fingers hook into the lace and instead of pulling them off entirely, he only tugs them to the side.

He sighs, eyes flicking up to where you stare at him. “So fucking pretty.” He reaches a hand up to press to your mouth and you blink, letting your roommate part your lips with his fingers, pressing them flat against your tongue. It makes your head spin, and you drool over his fingers, wrapping your lips around them and sucking. You delight in the way he watches you do it and emboldened, you reach a shaking hand to encircle his wrist, keeping it in place.

Eventually he pulls himself out of your mouth, but not without shifting against the mattress, and you give him a smile, spit smearing down your chin. He curses under his breath, and you grin when you hear the words, “Fucking brat.”

Thoroughly soaked, he takes his fingers to your cunt and your eyes roll back when he spits onto your clit before attaching his mouth to you. Very quickly, Jason makes a mess of you under his fingers and tongue, pressing inside with ease and curling his fingers to hit the spot you can never quite reach yourself. You see stars, squealing when he bands his free arm over your stomach, pressing down and only intensifying the scale of your pleasure.

Sinking into the mattress, you lose sense of all else but the slick sounds of your sex and Jason’s ministrations, eyes fluttering closed as you whimper. He steadily increases his pace and you’re curling your fingers into the sheets, feeling the knot in your stomach twist and tighten. One twist of his fingers, the tug of his mouth on you, and you’re coming apart with a gasp of his name, hips straining upwards against his arm to ride out your high.

“Fuck,” you breathe out, stunned and staring at the ceiling and he laughs, laving your cunt with another look before he pulls away, delight on his face at the whimper you let out.

“You still wanna talk shit?” he questions, pushing himself up to come into your line of vision. You blink blearily at him.

“Give me a minute. Then, maybe,” you mumble and he snickers.

“Don’t tell me you’re tapping out now. All that attitude, and you didn’t even last ten minutes.”

You frown at him, sitting up and he falls back on his haunches to give you room. “I’m not tapping out, you asshole. When did I say that?”

He holds up his hands. “My bad, sweetheart. Must’ve misread that look on your face.”

“You’re insufferable,” is all you can say back to him, rolling your eyes.

“Maybe,” he admits, before a shit-eating grin curves his mouth upwards. “But you want to fuck me anyway.”

God help you, you really do.

You look down at him instead, and tug on the hem of his t-shirt. “Take this off.”

“Bossy,” he intones playfully, but pulls it off anyway, revealing the torso you’re guilty of having admired on several occasions, all powerful muscle and tanned skin. A thick pattern of hair trails down from his belly button into where his pyjama pants hang low on his hips, and you think maybe you’ve come on the spot again just at the sight of it, pressing your legs tight together.

He snorts above you, but says nothing, letting you push yourself up onto your knees, pressing a hand to his chest. He’s warm under you and just like last night, the beat of his heart is fast. You do what you’d longed to last night, sliding your hand up from his chest to his neck, tugging him down to press your lips against his. He inhales sharply through his nose, as if surprised, and you smile against his lips. You remain like that for a few moments, mouths slanted against each other and panting.

When you pull away, it’s with a fire burning in your gut, flames high and setting your skin alight.

“Those too,” you breathe out, nodding to his pants and not a moment wasted, they join your shirt on the floor. The both of you left in your underwear, you pout at him, brushing a hand over where he strains against the confines of it.

“I want you in me,” you tell him and he swears, screwing his eyes shut. You lower yourself back down, kneeling, to mouth over his hipbone. Tilting your chin up, you watch him shudder when your fingers ghost over the band of his underwear. “Can I?”

“Fuck. Yeah – yeah you can,” he grits out and you grin, pulling them down greedily. You move backwards as he kicks them off, and your mouth dries when you take in the size of him.

He’s bigger than any of your hookups, and your lust is dashed by the worry that suddenly overtakes you.

“Jason,” you say nervously and he hums. “I don’t think that’s going to fit.”

You try to appreciate that he attempts to muffle his laugh but immediately you’re looking back up at him, indignant. “Don’t laugh at me, I’m being serious.”

“Sweetheart, it’ll fit,” he reassures, smoothing a hand over your cheek, uncharacteristically tender. You find yourself leaning into it, a silent you promise? in your eyes. You believe him, though, you realise. “C’mon, let me take that off you.”

You sink back down into the sheets, pushing up your hips as he finally pulls off your underwear. And even though he’d been nose deep between your lips only a few minutes ago, he lets out a low breath at the sight of you, fully bared to him, a curse that skitters over your skin, stomach tightening as he shuffles closer.

He tightens a fist over his cock, smearing his pre over it as he gives it a few strokes before settling in the cradle of your hips. You shiver when he rests himself against you, sliding his cock over your cunt. Your mess clings to him, and the both of you groan when the tip of him catches against you, taking a sharp breath when he bumps against your clit.

“Don’t tease,” you murmur, reaching out to tug him down. He meets your mouth in a messy kiss, supporting himself on an elbow beside you, his free hand pushing your leg apart before guiding himself to your entrance.

You tense at the intrusion before he mutters at you to fucking breathe, baby. Inch by inch, with a thumb guiding tight circles over your clit, Jason pushes inside. The stretch of him is one you’ve not ever experienced, and you feel winded when he bottoms out, fully seating himself within you.

“Fuck,” you whisper. He grins, leaning down to kiss your jaw.

“Told you it’d fit,” he muses smugly, and you let out a dazed breath, pinching his arm. “Ow!”

“Don’t be a dick with your dick in me,” you mutter crossly and he lets out a laugh.

“Sorry. You okay?”

You blink a few times, wiggling your hips – Jason lets out a hiss – before nodding. His fingers haven’t stopped on your clit and slowly, the stretch has begun to feel a little pleasurable. When he pulls out a little before thrusting, you sigh, bringing your arms up to loop around his neck.

“Feels good?” he asks and you hum. Pleased, he begins to move.

Your senses dissolve quickly. The room slips into a cacophony of moans, the air thickening with urgency with every second that passes. Jason had kissed you like it was life or death; it had only been a precursor. Every nerve in your body feels like a live-wire, thrumming with electricity and so utterly sensitive to his every thrust, and touch, and kiss. His hands are bruising on your waist, your hips, your thigh, when he lifts your leg to sling it around his hip. His mouth seeks yours, all teeth and tongue, exchanging panted breaths and moans, mumbled swears spilling from his lips like a broken dam –

So fucking perfect.

Been waiting so – fuck, so long.

So good for me.

Yeah, just like that.

You can’t keep up with it, sinking your head back into the pillows beneath you. He takes advantage to lave his tongue against the exposed skin there, too, teeth working at you until you’re sure he’s left a mark to accompany the others.

Time passes thickly, your sense of it obscured by the man over you. He fucks you right through your first – technically second – orgasm, and works you up all over again, coaxing you through the next one with breathy laughs and a mean smile when you shake your head, tears budding at the corners of your eyes. You fall apart though, you couldn’t not, with the way he touches you as he angles his hips. Absently, you think, if your sheets weren’t already ruined from your makeup last night, they will be now.

“Thought you couldn’t,” he goads you, rolling the both of you over so you’re slumped on his chest and pushing back in you. You curl your nails into his chest and he gasps, “–Fuck!”

Jason doesn’t seem to mind that he’s worn you out too much to do anything beyond lay on his chest. He holds you easily, thrusting upwards. The change in position makes you cry out, tightening around him once more.

He lets out a startled laugh. “You have one more in you, sweetheart?”

You shake your head once more and he pouts, a hand taking your chin and directing your gaze to him. He’s pouting mockingly at you. “No? Are you sure?”

“You’re–” you stumble out, face screwing up under the weight of your building orgasm, “such a bastard.”

He just grins at you, but it’s strained, too, starting to slip around the edges. He tips his throat back, and you can feel his thrusts beginning to stutter. You take the chance to lean down and latch your mouth to his neck, tired hips rolling against his as you return his favour. His hands tighten around your hips and he groans. “Fuck, baby, ‘m gonna come, where do you want me?”

And because he’s stolen away with him your ability to reason, you whine out needily, “Inside. Need you, fuck, please, I need it inside.”

He swears loudly, hips bucking frantically. You keen as you feel your fourth orgasm of the morning roll over you, and not a moment later Jason follows suit. You feel the warmth of it slide down your thigh and his grip around you tightens as he rides out his high, face buried in your hair. His breathing is ragged, and you close your eyes for a moment against his neck, resting. The room falls silent for several moments, only your breathing to be heard as it evens out.

“Gonna have to get you the pill,” Jason mumbles into your neck and you hum. “Fuck, I should’ve gone to the store or something.”

You hug him a little tighter, shaking your head. “It was perfect.”

He laughs wearily, but his arms tighten around you briefly, too. “Not gonna be so perfect if I accidentally knock you up, baby. ‘M smarter about this, usually.”

You grumble, biting his neck gently. “I don’t wanna talk about your hookups with your dick still in me.”

“Should I pull out, so we can discuss them?” he offers, laughing when you try to pinch him.

“You’re so not funny,” you tell him, and he scrunches his nose playfully.

“Yeah, but you need me so bad,” he repeats, leaning in to steal a kiss before you can snap at him. It doesn’t save him; once you recover, you’re reaching to squish his face between your palms.

“You’re the biggest dweeb on the planet, I really hope you know that,” you tell him matter-of-fact-ly. To your annoyance, he doesn’t seem too chastised, beaming up at you when you let him go. You slump back down onto his chest, sighing loudly. “I’m so tired. How do you have that much energy? You slept less than me.”

He shrugs underneath you, a hand settling on your back and trailing up and down. The movement is soothing, and you find your eyelids growing heavier. “Think I’m kind of used to running on no sleep.”

“Freak,” you mumble, and he snickers. “You know, I really wasn’t teasing you when I came out.”

“Hm?”

“No pants. Just forgot,” you slur.

“Go to sleep,” is all he says, but you’re sure you hear a muffled laugh before sleep overtakes you.

You don’t know what you expect to happen from sleeping with Jason. When you wake up, you find that he’d dozed off around the same time as you, but not before cleaning you up and pulling your blanket over the both of you. It makes something in your heart twinge, and you have to avert your eyes when he wakes up not longer after you do. The both of you order an early dinner, having slept through most of the morning and afternoon – “Work tomorrow, too,” Jason had grumbled when you drew the blinds open to a late afternoon sun hanging low in the sky.

“Classes tomorrow,” you pout, as you strip the sheets in your bed. “And I slept through the whole day.”

“Your fault for not sleeping in this morning,” Jason mutters, still in your bed with his face pressed unhelpfully into a pillow. You swat his leg and when he lifts it to shoot you a beleaguered scowl, you gesture to the pillow. He grumbles, sitting up and taking off the pillowcase, throwing it at you. It unfolds halfway through and the both of you stare as it sadly flutters on top of the duvet between you.

“Sad,” you tell him. When the bed’s been stripped, you make him take it down to the laundry – “You have better luck with the machines, they’re always full when I go.”

“That’s such bullshit,” he grumbles, but he takes the basket anyway and heads downstairs to the laundry unit in your apartment building. He’s back five minutes later and unwilling to admit that you’d been right, mumbling a whatever when you let him in because he’d forgotten his keys.

“You wanna watch something tonight?” you ask him as he’s wrangling a fitted sheet over your mattress. The pillowcases and duvet cover replaced, you sit on a chair waiting for your sheet to be changed.

Jason mumbles out a, “Yeah, sure.” and you nod decisively.

Neither of you end up being able to choose a movie. The both of you take turns showering and by the time the clothes have been washed and the food comes, you can’t think of anything you want to watch. You resign to put on a few episodes of your show and call it a night. Though, you worry over your noodles – are you meant to sleep in his bed tonight? Is he going to sleep in yours?

Jason saves you the awkwardness by standing up at the end of your Gilmore Girls episode and heading to his bedroom. There’s no difference in his departure either. He doesn’t kiss you, or hug you or do anything out of the ordinary – he knocks the side of your head with his knuckle and heads off, calling over his shoulder, “Night.”

You’re left there to ponder over it.

You’ve made a disastrous mistake by sleeping with Jason.

You decide this upon waking the next morning and shuffling out into the kitchen to make yourself something to eat before your classes and finding a box of pastries waiting on the counter. You hadn’t expected to have much for breakfast – you were due to go grocery shopping with Jason soon, the fridge growing ever emptier by the day. The sight of it makes you stop short, and you feel that twinge in your heart again, only it’s immediately followed by horror – because you know what it is.

You like him.

You have no time to contemplate this bitter pill, forced to swallow it alongside a few bites of the unforgivably good pastries before getting ready to leave the house – you curse that he’d chosen your favourites, too. You like your roommate. The world goes on. You sit on the bus feeling shell-shocked, sure it must show on your face that you’ve come to terms with a life-changing revelation.

How long have you felt this way, how long have these feelings been blooming inside you, you wonder – feelings that go beyond the basic attraction you’re sure Jason is used to dealing with in his every day life. This isn’t lust, you realise miserably. That would be much too easy.

You like him. You want to strangle him most days, but you like Jason. You like his company, like his stupid sense of humour and despite your better judgement, like his attention. You like that he nags you about pulling your weight, like that he doesn’t care when you mouth off to him, like that he likes you with no pretenses.

Fuck.

There is nothing to suggest in Jason’s behaviour that what’s happened between the both of you actually happened. You feel like a bit of a creep for watching him the way you do, sneaking glances at him over the counter when it’s his turn to make dinner and reading into every syllable of every word he says to you – it begins to feel like you’ve slowly started to go mad. There’s no sign of anything.

Stephanie looks at you oddly when a few days later you both meet up with your mutual friends, pushing a few tables together and ordering nearly everything off the menu – it’s on her, tonight, thanks to the promotion you’re all getting together to celebrate. She drags you into the bathroom before your food arrives and you find yourself spilling the details to her, unable to keep it a secret any longer and almost regretting it when her face screws up into disgust.

“I mean, I knew it was bound to happen but gross,” she squeals, pretending to gag and you glare at her.

“What do you mean? You knew?”

She tucks a blonde curl behind her ear and leans against the bathroom counter, giving you a pointed look. “Are you serious? You had to have known. It was so obvious.”

What you suspect to be an incoming rant is interrupted by the swing of the bathroom door and the call of your names – “The guys told me to come get you before everything’s gone.”

The apparent inevitability of your getting together with your roommate is filed away for later as you exit the bathroom. No sooner than you approach the table do you notice your seat has been claimed, and you look over at Steph when the culprit – a friend she’d brought– smiles at you and apologises, gesturing between her and Jason.

“Do you mind switching with me?” she asks and you blink at her. She tilts her head and you can’t help but notice the shine of her hair, water-like in its movements as it sways. Next to her, Jason eyes you curiously and you smile tightly.

Logic reasons that you have no reason to say no. Jealousy sinks your fingernails into your palm behind your back as you shove your hands into your back pockets.

“Sure,” you tell her, and shove yourself into the seat next to Steph, waving a hand at Roy when he returns from the pool table across the bar and complains about you stealing his seat.

“I don’t see your name on it,” you tell him archly and turn firmly back to the conversation at hand – something about a coworker and someone’s boss that you’re guilty of not paying any attention to. Try as you might, you can’t focus on anything but the laughs from across the table, Steph’s friend leaning in and joking around with Jason.

Stephanie looks over at one point and pinches you under the table, ignoring your hiss to lean in and whisper, “What’s wrong with you?”

You pinch her back, but she simply raises her eyebrows, waiting. You glance over at your roommate, catching his eye before you mutter into her ear – and really, you’re thankful for the ruckus that your table and the dinner crowd provides, otherwise you’d never hear the end of it for ‘keeping secrets’–

“Why’d you invite her?”

She looks back and forth between the two before she raises an eyebrow at you. “You’re seriously pissy because you’re jealous? If you wanted to sit next to him, you should’ve just said.”

You frown at her. “Why would I do that? We haven’t even talked about it, I can’t just tell her to fuck off. He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Do you want him to be?” she asks, reaching for the untouched slice of pizza on your plate.

You sneak a look at Jason, who’s bringing a glass of beer to his mouth, smiling over the rim at not you. The answer is too humiliating to say out loud.

Envy clings to you long after everyone parts ways, waiting on the sidewalk and staring down hard at a piece of gum that’s lodged itself between the cracks in the pavement while Jason says goodbye. You don’t like how thankful you are that neither of them exchange numbers – or the possibility that it will come later.

The routine after a night out is usually like this – Jason tends to linger close by as you wash your face and get changed, sitting over the ledge of the closed toilet lid while you run through the events of the night. Normally, you don’t mind it so much. You’ve even found yourself mirroring him when it’s his turn to come home after a night out, standing outside his bedroom door while he changes and talking through the wall. You like the company, and the mutual dissection of your shared gatherings. It feels domestic.

Tonight, you close the bathroom door on him once you both get home and you can tell from the surprised sputter that he hadn’t been expecting it. But the drive home has given your jealousy time to fester, your blood running hot at the thought of all the shared glances and attention paid to someone that wasn’t you. It’s irrational, and mean, and completely crazy, but you find yourself angry with him for letting it happen and angrier still at yourself for feeling this way.

Jason, unaware that he’s back on your shit list, knocks on the door, demanding to be let in. You liken him to a cat, yowling at your doorstep. There’s a shit eating grin on his face when you open the door that drops the moment he catches sight of the look on your face.

“What.”

“Are you mad at me?” he asks, voice lilting in uncertainty and you huff.

“No, I just want to go to bed. I’m tired.” Lying through your teeth, you look away from where he’s trying to meet your eyes.

“Did something happen tonight?”

You hate the way his voice turns a little soft, truly, earnestly worried. His hands come up, hovering by your sides as if to turn you over and make sure you haven’t been hurt. It should make you melt, but all it does it make you madder.

“Nothing happened, don’t worry about it,” you tell him curtly, and his brow furrows for a moment, thoughtful.

“Is this about Steph’s friend?” he says and your face grows hotter when he says her name.

“No,” you say baldly, turning around and reaching for your cleanser. You work it between your palms with more force than necessary and the words come out of your mouth before you can stop them. “But you know what? I hate her. You shouldn’t talk to her.”

There’s a silence before he replies, and you hate the way he’s somehow found amusement in all of this. Amused, always amused when it comes to you. You wonder if he ever takes anything you say seriously. “You can’t tell me who I can talk to.”

You come up from the sink, water dripping from your lashes and chin and he pauses, meeting your eyes in the mirror.

“Fine, whatever. Go talk to little miss–” Your jaw closes with a clack and you purse your lips, reaching for your face towel. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

He stops you from reaching for the next product in your long routine, a hand circling around your wrist and tugging you a little closer. When you refuse to look up, his other hand tilts your chin up, and you hate him once more for ducking his head to meet your eyes.

“You mad ‘cos I didn’t sit next to you?” he asks, quiet and you scoff, pushing him away.

“No, have you lost your mind? Why would you think that?”

He doesn’t let you go very far, hands settling on your hips and holding you in place. You lift your chin stubbornly, glaring at the cracks in the tile over his shoulder. At the edges of your vision, Jason shuffles closer, bending his head to press his nose into your cheek.

“You know you can’t lie to me, right?” he murmurs, affection colouring his words. Then, voice dipping, he says softly, “You’re cute when you’re jealous.”

“I’m not jealous,” you protest weakly but his resounding laugh skitters over the line of your neck and you sag against the counter.

“Yeah you are,” he says brightly, and you’re surprised when his lips press chastely into the swell of your cheek. “It’s okay.”

The frustration that’s been simmering in your veins all night boils over when he tilts his head to kiss your jaw. You reach for Jason, guiding his mouth to yours.

He kisses you sweetly tonight, and you squeeze your eyes tightly shut as his lips slide against yours, knuckles bumping against your jaw. There’s this feeling in your chest, champagne fizz-like, a cacophony of bursts, ever rising and rendering you giddy in his arms. It lasts only for a second before you’re pressing further into him, fingers tangling into the thick of his hair and tugging him closer, harried.

The sound of surprise he lets out is muffled, settling against your tongue and swallowed greedily while you press your hips into his. Jason quickly sets you against the edge of the counter, half-hard in his jeans where he stands between your parted legs. Desperation and anger line your movements, pressing closer, closer, impossibly closer to him until every inch of you is near flush against him, separated only by layers of clothing. There’s an urgency to your actions, mapping out his mouth and squeezing your legs around his hips in a bid to relieve the growing pressure.

He pants against your mouth, the hands at your waist kneading your skin through the fabric of your top, fisting it tight and rocking you closer against him.

“Want you,” you demand, breathy and shameless and he groans, eyes screwing shut before he’s nodding fervently, moving away slightly to help you tug your pants off until you’re left only in your underwear. Your hands reach for his belt as his slide down your waistband, spit-slicked fingers sliding against you with ease. You keen under his touch, fingers closing around his length and pulling him out.

You lean over, spitting onto his cock and the curse he bites out echoes in the bathroom. He’s warm in your hand and you delight in the moan he lets out when you pass your fist over his length, echoing it not a moment later when he circles your clit.

Half-dressed and pawing at each other, you rock against his fingers with one hand gripping his shoulder for dear life and the other passing broad, firm strokes over his cock. His hips buck into your fist and you catch his laboured breaths in a messy kiss once more, feeling pleasure coil tighter and tighter in your stomach. A well timed twist of his fingers draws a high-pitched gasp out of you.

“I’m–” you cry and he nods, face twisting.

“Me too.”

Only a few more strokes and the two of you cry out in unison, moans muffled in each other’s mouths as you come. Jason spills over your wrist, his own slowing to a stop beneath the band of your underwear as you let out a ragged breath, pressing your sweaty forehead to his.

His eyelashes flutter against your cheek and you let out a breath through your nose at the tickling sensation. Blue-green eyes meet yours, so close you think you can count the stars in his pupils, and Jason grins, leaning in to kiss the corner of your mouth.

Moments pass as he slowly dots kisses to your face, trailing over the corners of your mouth to your jaw and chin, sweet once more. You sigh, letting your eyes shut under his touch and leaning into press of his mouth, your limbs loosening under every baby-soft touch until you’re pliant in his arms.

“C’mon,” he tells you quietly, nosing at your jaw. “We gotta clean up.”

You tip your head tiredly, letting him maneuver you around to wash your hands in the sink while he takes care of himself. By the time he comes up behind you again, you’re watching the soap bubbles wash away down the drain.

“You still mad at me?” he mutters into your temple, and you look up to meet his eyes in the mirror. His arm hangs loosely around your shoulder, drawing you back into his chest. He’s shucked his jeans, left in only his t-shirt and underwear. You can feel the press of his skin against the back of your bare legs, the heat of him through his t-shirt.

You shrug, feeling oddly vulnerable. His lips seem to turn down for the slightest moment before he’s turning you to face him, a hand coming to rest against your jaw.

“Tell me,” he asks. The bite of tiramisu he’d had at dinner still lingers on your tongue and you can smell the lingering notes of his cologne. You press up on your toes to kiss him once more, a gentle brush of lips that carries with it the weight of your entire heart before you’re pulling away.

“Don’t talk to her,” you say quietly, too cowardly to say what you really feel. He regards you with a stare that feels too scrutinising for your liking, before he finally nods.

“Okay.” His thumbs sweeps across your cheek. “I won’t.”

You bite the inside of your cheek, averting your gaze as you nod. “Okay. Good.”

You fear you might have revealed more of yourself than you’d intended when, following the events of that night, Jason softens a little. Only infinitesimally, but you notice it – the way he begins to seek you out a little more, the ease with which he settles by your side in the kitchen when it’s your turn to make dinner, taking advantage of the proximity to steal bites of the food from the pan over your shoulder. Still, amongst the feelings that that particular thought evokes, you don’t find regret.

You dare to think that maybe, even, it was for the better when, twenty minutes into a gathering for one of your friend’s birthdays, Jason drags you out to the car under the pretense of going on an ice run and you find yourself making out with him at a red light, his thigh squeezing at the flesh of your thigh as he whispers filthy promises into your mouth. When you return, it’s with a bruise sucked into the hollow of your throat, hidden in the shadowed collar of your hoodie and kiss swollen lips that you can only hope goes unnoticed.

It gives you something of a thrill, kissing in darkened corners and returning to your friends with the taste of each other on your tongue, a secret shared only between you and Jason. You find yourself biting back grins when he meets your eye from across a room, tamping down the excitement of following him into the bathroom and letting him coax you into just one more kiss.

At home, the air is charged with an undercurrent of electricity, thick with the weight of all that has, and could happen. Your movie nights hang on a razor’s edge, the threat of devolving into something else looming between you at all times. Tonight, you give in, sinking to your knees twenty minutes into the movie and taking Jason’s length in your mouth.

He sinks his head back into the couch as you suck his cock, a hand wrapped around the back of your neck. You hum around him, half lidded eyes gazing up at him.

“Fuck...”

His voice is hoarse, a husky groan spilling from reddened lips, and he runs his other hand through his already messy hair, tousled from where you’d run your fingers through it only moments ago.

“Just like that,” he moans, head tipping back down to look at you, blue-green eyes swallowed by the dark of his pupils. “So fucking good, baby.”

You drag a fist up the end of his length, spit and pre-cum smearing over your fingers. It’s messy, quickened movements and wrecked sighs, Jason’s hips taut as he tries not to buck into your mouth. His grasp on his control slips a little when you dig your fingernails into the skin of his hip, nails scratching over where you know him to be sensitive. Startled, he lifts off the couch, hitting the back of your throat and drawing tears to your eyes.

“Shit,” he says, a half moan as he runs a hand down your face. “Sorry, you okay?”

You blink up at him, tears sticking your lashes together, and hum. The concern in his expression bleeds into realisation and he shakes his head, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth to stifle a smirk.

“Fuck,” he breathes out, dropping back into the couch cushions. “You’re gonna be the death of me.”

You pull off him to give him a smile, letting out a little laugh. “Yeah? Feels good?”

The hand on your face presses into your cheeks in warning when he lifts his head to glare at you tiredly, and you snicker once more before wrapping your lips around him.

He comes soon afterwards, pulling out of your mouth and making a mess on your face, spend smearing over your lips and chin. You squeeze your eyes shut as he finishes, the sound of his ragged breathing and the salt on your lips coaxing out your own need, wetness quickly growing between your legs. You think it must be obvious on your face. Jason, after carefully wiping your face, pulls you onto his lap, settling a muscled thigh between your legs and gazing up at you with blazing eyes as if to say, well? Your turn now.

The movie remains long forgotten.

“You okay?”

You purse your lips, fiddling with the straw in your drink. The cafe you’ve met at for lunch is one of your favourites, but you find it hard to focus on your food when you keep meeting someone’s eyes over Jason’s shoulder. The man grins at you when you look back, and your frown deepens.

Sat in front of you, Jason taps your foot under the table. “Hey. What’s wrong?”

“There’s some guy behind you that keeps looking over here.”

His brows furrow and he leans in over the small table. “You don’t know him?”

You shake your head. “He doesn’t look familiar.”

He considers your answer and nods, before rising from the table. Startled, your hand flies out to clutch his sleeve, already imagining the blood on his knuckles. “What are you doing? Sit down!”

He looks at you like you’re crazy, and you feel your face grow hot. “Would you chill? I was going to tell you to switch seats with me.”

Your rehearsal of the explanation you’re going to have to give to his older brother that you were partially the reason Jason was in a police station comes to a screeching halt. “Oh.”

Flustered, you awkwardly slide out of your seat and into his. Jason passes your things over as he settles into your previous seat comfortably, and you watch his eyes scan over your shoulder, lingering only once, briefly, on something before he’s meeting your gaze with a small grin. His face doesn’t betray his annoyance, features set in a pleasant, neutral expression – except for the minute tightening of the skin around his eyes.

You squirm in your seat, still feeling the phantom sensation of eyes on the back of your head. “Is he still looking?”

He doesn’t take his eyes off you, shaking his head before, as casually as he would if he were brushing a leaf out of your hair, he extends a hand to curl around the back of your neck and pull you into a kiss over the table. Your sound of surprise is lost to his mouth, and Jason lets out a quiet laugh against your lips. When he pulls away, he lingers for a moment, a hair’s breadth away and bright eyed. “If he was still staring, he won’t be anymore.”

“Oh. Okay,” you murmur, dazed, settling back into the metal of your chair. The feel of his lips on yours lingers for the rest of lunch, and long after you part ways, you for your next class and Jason to work.

“See you at home,” you tell him quietly, as the crossing light turns green at the corner where you’re due to part. He grins down at you, reaching out to pinch your cheek. You half-heartedly bat his hand away, and he laughs, dropping it back to his side. You have the urge then, looking up at him, to hug him, but the seconds are counting down and bravery evades you, still.

“Yeah. See you.”

You wait there at the intersection, long after he’s crossed the street and disappeared around another corner. You aren’t quite sure what you’re waiting for. You aren’t sure how to explain your resulting tardiness to your teacher, either.

How do you explain the twist of your heart when you think of tourmaline eyes, the phantom brush of tender fingers over your cheek? You can only smile apologetically and hurry to your seat, face warming in both embarrassment and longing.

Jason lingers even when he isn’t there, the ghost of him stood in the doorway of your mind, a constant companion to your thoughts. You’d often thought of love as hues of rose, but you feel as though your vision has been wrapped in a sea-glass film, the world around you now cast in glittering jewel tones.

He draws out a different part of you now, you find. Still teasing, he’s the same Jason he’s ever been. And yet...

There’s a softness to your interactions that you wonder if you only see because you want it to be there. Silence between you now settles with a weight behind it, but it feels like the comfort of a down blanket, soft, and grounding, it feels like contentment. There’s a quality to his voice, to the way his mouth forms your name, something wrapped around every letter that makes you burn, hope flickering dangerously in your heart. You dare to let yourself wonder in the darkness of your room, hidden under the blanket – could he?

Hope, dangerous hope. It does away with any sense you have left. Hope turns you sweeter, displays your love-sickness for all to see across your face, eyes always searching for his in a room, smiles turned shyer. You don’t know who you’ve become, gentle and yearning, the cutting remarks you reserve for him now dulled. Hope pulls the words from your lips when you’re watching Jason make to rise from your bed, moonlight spilling across the floor of your bed through a crack in the blinds.

“Do you -” you falter, and he looks back.

“What?”

Your fingers twist in the bed sheets, nervous and you feel a little sick as you say, “Do you want to just sleep here, tonight?”

And you think you’re going to die, then, when he says nothing for a very long moment. It stretches out into the vast nothingness, and you feel shame heat your face, the weight of what you’ve just asked pressing down on your chest. You wish it would be quicker about finishing you off, you wish you could turn back time, you wish –

“Are you -” he falters. “Really?”

It isn’t a no. “Only if you want to,” you say quietly and the silence returns, before you hear the rustle of your sheets.

“Okay,” Jason whispers, and in the dark you think you hear him exhale shakily but you’re too relieved to pay attention, hope’s flickering flame roaring brightly once more.

It isn’t the first time you’ve slept in the same bed. You’ve fallen asleep next to each other on movie nights, and when you’d been too stubborn to call it a night while nodding off watching your show. You know the softness of Jason’s bed, know the warmth of his shoulder against yours. And still, your heart races when he returns from the bathroom and climbs into bed beside you.

This isn’t a first. And yet it feels entirely novel.

His arm finds you in the darkness and he draws you closer to his chest, but he pauses. “Is – is this okay?”

He’s warm, heat bleeding through the thin shirt you’d pulled on. You settle a shaky hand over the one on your stomach, squeezing it briefly. Your throat feels dry as you rasp out, “Yeah. Yeah it’s okay.”

“Okay.” A silence, and you feel the ghost of a kiss being pressed into your hair. “Night.”

“Night.”

You wake first in the morning, turning over and blinking open bleary eyes to the sight of him still in your bed. Your heart stutters at the sight of him, and you feel shame wrap you in its grasp once more as you take him in.

He’s beautiful, you think mournfully. There’s a white hair hidden in the depths of his temple, you notice, and a freckle below his left eye, thick lashes fanning over it. You trace the line of the scar in his eyebrow once more, the subtle cleft in his chin, the shape of his mouth.

He shifts a little in his sleep and it makes you tense, but all he does is curl closer to you, the arm beneath your head flexing as he presses his nose to your temple. His other arm comes to sling over your hip. Affection comes in thick waves to you then, rising in your throat like the tide and threatening to drag you beneath its depths forever. Overwhelmed and in love, you press your face to his chest and hope he doesn’t feel the tear that slips down the side of your face, sliding against the skin of his wrist.

Jason wakes not long after you do, mouth curving into a tired grin when he opens his eyes and Hope, dangerous and fickle thing that it is, burns bright through the morning.

Your name makes you look up from the covert game of not-quite-footsie you’ve been playing with Jason on the couch, trying to keep your giggles to a minimum as you kick his feet away from yours while the others linger in the kitchen, arguing about pizza toppings. Jia bounds over to the adjacent armchair and you get one last kick in before you straighten your expression.

“I haven’t seen you in ages!”

You grin at that, pointing teasingly at her. “That’s because you’ve been flaking on us! When was the last time I saw you?”

Her mouth pulls up into a grin and you’re drawn into a conversation with her, but it’s difficult to pay her your full attention. The press of Jason’s thigh against yours makes your head spin a little, even though he’s busying himself with something on his phone.

Hope has left the both of you teetering on the precipice of something the last week or so, and you’ve started to wonder whether it isn’t entirely implausible that you’re not reading into it. Jason had kept his arm around your shoulder when you’d gone grocery shopping the other day, snickering and leaning in over the console in his car to steal a kiss before you carried the shopping in. He’s been stealing bites of your food off the plate you’d balanced on your knees only a few minutes ago, now empty and set on the coffee table, your drink in his hand as he texts back his brother.

It takes only a few words from Jia for you to lose your footing. You feel Jason stiffen next to you and you pause, registering her words.

“How’s that guy you were seeing? Are you guys still together?”

“What?” you ask and she grins at you, oblivious.

“C’mon, you remember. It wasn’t that long ago. I thought you liked him.”

The precipice of something does not overlook what you had thought it had – you fall, fall, fall, and hope, delicate thing that it is, gutters out before your eyes. You feel Jason draw away from you in the seconds it takes you to reply, only shifting in his seat and already an abyss yawns between the both of you.

Jia, ignorant to the upheaval her words have caused, directs her attention to Jason.

“Did they not tell you?” she laughs, and you want to shake her, but you’re silent. “Oh my gosh, didn’t he show up after your class with flowers?”

Jason looks at you in surprise and you can tell he’s remembering the flowers you’d brought home months ago, bright and red, they’d taken up a spot on your dining table for a week before they’d wilted. You hadn’t bought any flowers home since then – it’d been months ago. Months before you’d ever even come close to touching him, an age before you’d reached whatever weird middle you two were in, playing house like you’d been. Months ago. You want to scream at Jia for even bringing it up but you know she doesn’t mean any harm and really – more than anything, you’re mad at yourself.

It’s your fault, you think, grief and panic curling tight in your chest as Jason mumbles an excuse about having to use the bathroom and rises from the couch. You’re the one who hasn’t made it clear to him, cowardly and comfortable in the in between. All the things you should’ve said slam against the roof of your mouth. You like him, he’s the only one you want to cuddle with on the couch and bring flowers.

The smile on your face feels like a painted grimace for the rest of the night, and you don’t ever seem to get within a few feet of Jason before something comes up and he’s whisked away into conversation. You’ve never seen him so social.

“Oh, by the way, man-” Alex says, when you’re gathered in the living room, swallowing a mouthful of the cruiser that only he can stand to drink. “Steph’s friend, what’s her name – she asked me for your number.”

You can’t help yourself from turning your head, stomach twisting itself into knots, and you meet Jason’s gaze for the briefest moments as he looks over, biting the inside of his cheek contemplatively before nodding his head. “Yeah, whatever. That’s fine, I guess.”

Well.

You remain rooted in your seat for what feels like the longest five minutes of your life, watching the movie with unseeing eyes before getting up with a half-hearted excuse to Jia.

“I’m gonna head home,” you whisper, pulling up a ride app. She turns to you with a pout.

“What? Noo.”

“I just remembered I’ve got a paper I have to turn in,” you grimace at her. “I’ll see you later.”

You whisper a bye to the host, crouching to your knees beside their chair and squeezing their arm with a promise to catch up later before you retreat, toeing your shoes on hastily and shutting the door behind you as softly as you can before rushing to the elevator.

In the car on the way home, you listen to the radio with the blood roaring in your ears. There’s a different kind of burning in your chest now, and by the time you reach your apartment, it threatens to leave only ash in its wake.

You lock your bedroom door when you storm inside, slumping onto your bed face down dramatically until it becomes hard to breathe, at which point you roll over. Staring at the ceiling, you feel the tears you’ve been holding back all night crowd your eyes, angry and leaving burning trails in their wake. You slam a fist against your mattress, letting out an aggravated sigh.

“Whatever,” you muse out loud stubbornly, ignoring the tremble in your voice, the lump in your throat that makes it difficult to swallow. “What the fuck ever. I don’t care.”

It’s a difficult thing to convince yourself of. When you hear the sound of the front door, nearing an hour or so later, your chest tightens in anxiety – far from uncaring, you sit up and watch the shadows in the hall move.

Footsteps pass outside your door, pausing only for a moment before you hear Jason’s door open and close. Your eyes burn once more.

You find it uncomfortable how quickly things turn grey in your home. There are no movie nights after that, no Jason peeking his head through the door of your room to ask you if you want to come with him to run errands, or to try the sauce he’s making for dinner, or if you have any clothes you need to throw in the wash because he’s got room in his basket and he needs to do a round. There isn’t much of anything, actually. Silence, thick and tense, hangs over the apartment and makes every noise all the louder.

You make your own meals, and Jason doesn’t look at you when you take your plate into your room. The groceries dwindle down and you go to the store after your class, only to come home and find bread already in the pantry when you go to put it away. The sight of it makes you grit your teeth, but you have no time to stare at it when you hear the click of Jason’s door opening, hurriedly stuffing the bread away before storming to your room.

There are times when you think Jason might break first on the cold war between the both of you out of pure frustration. It comes in the form of disapproving frowns when you return home late from classes, taking the bus instead of calling him – spite keeps you warm enough to make the short walk home as the weather cools – or leaving your dishes in the sink for the morning because you know he’s too stubborn to break first to yell at you about it. Still, he remains silent as you pass him in the hall.

“You guys need to kiss and make up about it,” is all that Steph has to say about it when you tell her, wrinkling her nose at the thought. “Seriously. He’s been so insufferable, I’m begging you. When he gets in a mood, I have to listen to Tim complain about it and I just don’t have the time to listen to him right now.”

“He can do whatever he wants,” you tell her frankly, curling into the corner of her couch. You pull at the sleeves of your hoodie, scowling at a thread that’s come loose. “I don’t care. He’s the one being childish.”

“Wrong.” She shakes her head, making a buzzing noise, as though the subject of your failed love life is as serious as a game show.

“He is,” you insist, nudging her thigh with a foot.

She shrugs, rolling her eyes skyward. “I never said he wasn’t. I just said you were wrong.”

It clicks for you, then, and you frown. “I’m not being childish, I’m just returning his energy.”

Steph’s face contorts into an expression of disbelief and you falter. “Why would you ever do that? Have you ever considered that just ‘cause he’s book smart doesn’t mean he’s love smart?”

It doesn’t make sense to you. Jason is whip-smart – it’s how he landed his job after graduation in the first place. You didn’t get to work at a leading firm without the credentials, and you’d been to his childhood home enough times to see the various certificates and medals filling a trophy case. Half the space in his room and your living room was taken up by the sheer amount of books in his collection, the spines worn and aged, spanning from romance to philosophy. You think he might be the smartest person you know – it doesn’t occur to you that he’s capable of occasionally making a mistake.

You tell Steph as much and she looks weary as she gears up to explain it once more to you.

“Does it feel right that things are like this between you?” You open your mouth to reply and she shoots you a piercing glare. “Be honest.”

Your shoulders slump. “No,” you admit, meekly.

“Then it doesn’t matter how he’s dealt with this,” she says, slapping her hands over your shoulders to give you a little shake. “You might as well try to fix it. And soon, please. I don’t think I can deal with the fallout from your lover’s spat again in this lifetime let alone this week.”

You apologise mentally to Steph when, going on a week later, you haven’t found the courage to approach Jason. Your temper wavers, constantly, as if unable to make its mind up. You go from shyness, hesitant to even leave your room for fear of bumping into him outside, to indignant, your pride demanding that he be the one to lay his armour down first. He’d accepted the other girl’s number to spite you.

Jealousy curls around your throat, tight, unforgiving, and fills your mind with thoughts of Jason, taking her out, looking at her in the way you want to steal all for yourself, eyes half-lidded and sweet; you imagine his fingers curling around hers, his shoulder brushing against hers on the couch. It makes you feel like you’re going insane, pressing your face into your pillow to let out silent screams, thrashing around on your mattress in the world’s quietest temper tantrum.

Spite drives you to sit in the living room on your day off and put on Gilmore Girls after Jason leaves for work, parking yourself on the couch and starting from the beginning of the series. You reason, despite the kernel of guilt that sits in the pit of your stomach, that even if you were watching the show without him, you a) had watched the show long before the two of you ever had officially started watching it together and b) hadn’t continued without him. The excuses feel pale to you, but you’re stubborn and it’s a harmless slight – one he won’t even know about.

Except, as it happens, you fall asleep in the afternoon and Jason happens to return home just as a new episode begins. You blame it on the tension of the last few days – you’d never slept better than when the two of you had been toeing the line of something more, but fighting with Jason steals sleep from you and you find it difficult to close your eyes without being met with the urge to stand at his door and make him hear you out. Pride and shame war within you at night in place of dreams, and you leave for your classes poorly rested.

You wake at the slam of the front door – you really need to speak to your landlord about replacing it, too heavy to close normally, but you’ve got your hands full being mad – and come face to face with a fuming Jason. He looks between you and the T.V, mouth dropping open.

“Are you serious?” he spits. It’s the first words he’s spoken to you in a week and you draw yourself to your full height, rising off the couch and planting your hands on your hips. His tone lights a fire within you, and you’re itching to let him have it.

“Excuse me?”

He narrows his eyes at you, scoffing. “You’re so...”

“I’m so what,” you sneer and he blusters for a moment, almost apoplectic.

“You’re so childish. What, we don’t talk for a few days and you’re gonna watch it without me?”

You stare at him, incredulous. “You’re the one that started ignoring me!”

“I didn’t see you trying to talk to me, either,” he retorts and your lip curls in anger.

“Why would I talk to -”

“Oh, I knew you would-” Jason cuts you off, but you’re unwilling to back down, raising your voice higher until the both of you are arguing over each other.

“Yeah, because you know everything – you’re so annoying -”

“I’m annoying-” he sputters, lifting a hand to point at the dishes. “I’m not the one leaving my dirty dishes in the sink. You’re disgusting.”

“Whatever, I don’t care. You wash them if they bother you so much! I’m not the one who forgets to wipe the counter in the bathroom after I use it!”

“That’s because you’re too busy leaving your clothes everywhere!”

On and on it goes, every petty grievance met with a complaint in turn. You argue until you’re heaving breaths and Jason is blue in the face, but none of it means a single thing to you, carrying the anger of a far bigger, unvoiced slight. And then, you don’t know how or why, but in a matter of seconds it is no longer unsaid. You’ve spilled it into the air between the both of you and Jason’s staring at you with a glint in his eye as if to say, finally.

“I can’t believe you took her number!”

And you hate the way your voice hitches on the last word, throat constricting as you stare at him reproachfully. You don’t let him reply, stepping closer angrily with your nails pressing into the palms of your hands, upset and hurt. “I told you not to talk to her and you just took it like-”

“Like what?” he challenges, and you can feel your eyes beginning to sting, humiliation washing hot over you. “Tell me.”

But you don’t know what to tell him. All you can do is stare, chest heaving and eyes wet. A muscle in his jaw jumps, and he nods.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.” He lets out a breath, wiping a hand over his face wearily. “Whatever, I’ll talk. Do you have any idea how stupid I felt, playing like I’m your boyfriend and thinking maybe that’s what you want too–”

Your mouth opens helplessly, heart gripped in a tight vice at the hurt in his voice, his nose screwing up in upset.

“–and then I get the biggest reality check of my life, because I guess it isn’t what you want, but I just figured–” his voice cuts off then, and his eyes are ultramarine as he stares at you. “I just thought you’d be straight up with me.”

Panic engulfs you then, at the resignation in his face and you see it then, the profile of his back as he leaves, the packed boxes and the silence of an apartment too big for just one, the emptiness of the room next door, an ever clear mirror – you’re lurching forward before you can lose him.

“It is what I want!”

He doesn’t leave – yet. Your fingers grasp the sleeve of his hoodie tightly, and you can feel a few errant tears in the hollow beneath your eyes, marking a trail down the curve of your cheek as you stare at him.

“It is what I want,” you repeat yourself. Jason exhales shakily, but doesn’t make to remove your hand.

“Then – the guy?”

“I’m not seeing him,” you tell him, shaking your head fervently. “I haven’t -” Face warming, you duck your head. “For a long time...It’s only been you.”

He blinks slowly, lashes heavy as they flutter, eyes rimmed red. The tip of his nose is pink, too, you notice. Jason sniffs, looking away for a moment.

“Then why didn’t you say anything?” his voice is rough, and you take a step closer. Your heart hangs heavy in your chest, and you blink back your grief.

“I don’t know,” you admit. “I was scared. I guess I thought maybe I’d explain at home, but then...”

You trail off and above you, you can hear him kiss his teeth, face contorting into a grimace.

“I–” he blows out a breath. “I shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry. I should’ve asked you, ‘stead of assuming.”

“Yeah, you should’ve,” you tell him sullenly. He grimaces, and you sigh, squeezing his wrist gently. “I should’ve told you, earlier, though – I was too chicken to talk to you, I didn’t wanna ruin it.”

“You should’ve,” he echoes you, lightly, a hesitant grin on his lips. “It wouldn’t have ruined it.”

“I know that now. I thought..” you trail off, embarrassed. He turns his wrist over in yours, your palms kissing, and squeezes your hand encouragingly.

“What?”

“I thought you just wanted no-strings, I thought maybe I was just reading too much into it. You never said anything, either, I thought I’d just be wrecking it if I brought it up,” you admit, averting your eyes. When you chance a look back at him, he looks dismayed.

“I did want it,” he says, lips curving downwards into a frown. “I thought you wanted no-strings, ‘n I was the one being selfish, wanting you to myself.”

The both of you stay there like that, in the middle of your living room, hands linked and an abject feeling of disappointment weighing your hearts down.

“It’s not what I want,” you whisper, desperation lining your voice. “I – I feel crazy, that’s how much it isn’t what I want.”

“What do you want?” he asks, a tremor in his voice.

There’s that feeling again, that choking fear that closes your throat up and roots you to the floor. There’s terror at the thought of being known – but stronger still is the fear of walking away from him at the end of this and it being forever. You struggle, forcing the words out.

“You.” You feel your eyes water once more. “I want you. For me, only. I want you to look at me and steal food from my plate and want me and – and be mine. I don’t care that you nag me about the dishes and I don’t care that you never put your shoes away properly–”

At this, he lets out a choked laugh.

“– and I know we argue all the time, I know I get on your nerves, but I want you to be mine. I want to be yours. Properly, with all the strings attached,” you finish, letting out a shaky breath.

Seconds pass.

“Say something,” you whisper, hand still in his.

Jason offers you a wobbly smile. “I want you to be mine, too,” he says, voice wrought with longing. “It’s all I ever wanted. God, I thought I was going to lose it when Jia started talking about that guy, I kept thinking about him getting to see that side of you, make you smile – bringing you flowers, I want to be the one to do that.”

“You’re the only one I want that from,” you murmur and his lips curve downwards into a rueful smile.

“We’re both pretty stupid, huh?” he remarks. Then, looking away, he clears his throat. “Look, I’m not – I don’t like her like that. I told Alex later not to, uh, y’know. I don’t – I didn’t get her number. I shouldn’t have done it in the first place, but – yeah.”

You stare at him, feeling pressure behind your eyes. Your voice comes out wobbly when you reply, a congested, “Good.” that has his face dropping, moving to curl his arms around you.

“I’m sorry,” he sighs, and you shake your head, pressing your face into his chest. The smell of coffee clings to his shirt, and you breathe it in, comforted by the feeling of his arms holding you tightly to his chest. You cling to him, unwilling to part too soon after the ugliness of the last week, and it’s only when he laughs your name against your temple, curling inwards to meet your height, tall as he is, do you pull away to look up at him.

“Can you-” your face grows warm. “Will you..kiss me?”

The expression on his face is immeasurably soft. You think, a week ago, if you had asked him this way, he might’ve laughed at the tone of your voice, needled you a bit about being so shy. You understand his gentleness now, though, as he murmurs a,

“Yeah, sweetheart. Come here.”

Your wounds remain tender, and Jason kisses you as though you’re something delicate, something to be treasured, lips slanting over yours, feather light, before he presses closer. He’s syrupy sweet, kissing you slow. There’s a newness in every touch, every shared breath and sigh. Hands that have trailed your waist and hips so many times before now squeeze your palms, fingers intertwined like a promise. He breathes your name against your lips, nose pressing into your cheek, still sticky with tears.

“I love you,” you tell him, and he kisses you once more.

In the middle of your living room, you begin anew.

fin.

author's note: holy fuck. here is 17.6k words of what i thought was going to be 80% smut 20% emotion and ended up being whatever this is. i said i wasn't going to start a longfic during the semester and then this would NOT stop bothering me so. here we are...that content warning looks like an ingredients list for real.

anyway i'll post an author's note on ao3 that doesn't sound like brainrot. probably. idk this fic isn't that deep. reader and jason r extremely unserious and also probably a little shitty but it's okay. it's the roomie verse! we didn't come here for innocent angel characters. let's be serious! also i tried to fit in every single roomieverse hc that i could sorry they r something like easter eggs to me. swifties have t@ylor swift you have ME! i was gonna say something about that woman but let me not speak ab her too much with a folklore inspired username LMAO

#divider by ithemes #jasonsmirrorball #roommate!jason #jason todd x reader #jay my heart #jason todd imagine #jason todd fanfiction #jason todd x you #x reader #jason todd fic #jason todd smut

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batterygarden · 3 days

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blessed (satoru x fem & afab! reader)

contents: breeding cursed technique fic, dead dove do not eat! (reader's technique is basically for conceiving strong babies), arranged marriage, stockholm syndrome, he's your second cousin so incest, explicit nasty smut & breeding, pregnancy, misogynistic society, crybaby reader, satoru is sweet ultimately, ominous but happy ending, weird montage of sex scenes + the past + the present, 3.8 k words

18+ pls MDNI!

Divine fertility.

It’s gross—somewhere inside your brain (in a locked filing cabinet, underneath a false drawer and written in invisible ink), you’re conscious of the fact that it’s gross.

Your technique, its consequences, your life; everything you’ve been born unto is filth cloaked in blessings, but, on principle, you don’t allow yourself to look at things objectively. Disgust would only make things miserable and you’re designed to be happy.

Blessed with a cursed technique to conceive, you’ve always had a role and it’s never been disputable—one of producing heirs. Your life was planned from the moment you were born, a whole future tied in a neat little bow—you’re lucky. That’s what everyone’s always promised.

You’ve been told how happy you are so much that the words have seeped into your skull—you’ve long since found peace with Divine Fertility and what it means.

More than that.

You want to be bred so badly it aches.

You can’t go huge lengths of time untouched. You grow volatile when you’re empty too long, a weakness that chains you to your betrothed’s bed. But you’re most useful that way anyways. Hormonal and needy, but certain to pass your partner’s techniques—actually you’re more than useful as a clan member, you’re honored. Enough to marry the strongest man alive—your second cousin in your own clan.

Whether you’ve always known it or not, you’ve always lived for Gojo Satoru.

“Do not come in Ijichi—fuck! Not…not right now.”

Gojo stands a foot away from his bed when he says this, clothes half on while you kneel at his feet, sucking him absolutely dry. That’s as far as he was able to get this morning before you were trying to lure him back to you, looking up at him with giant, glassy eyes while you tugged the waistband of his boxers. He wasn’t about to turn you down.

“Ngh your mouth feels so perfect. Wanna fuck it…”

You pull back with a gasp, catching air wherever you can get it with your fiancé’s suffocating girth, nodding while you pump him in your hands. Your lips are spread for him then so he can thrust through them himself, staring down at your teary eyes while he sets a rhythm down your throat.

You’re quickly gagging, he’s thick but also long and he’ll choke you if you’re not careful. But the relief he brings is worth it. Your craving for him didn't let up this morning even after a creampie and some cockwarming—this is just what you needed.

He throws his head back when he’s getting close, fingers gripping at your hair but careful not to tug, and he does this cute little whine that has your pussy throbbing. So you touch yourself, too—some fingers to your clit in little circles have you toppling over the edge just in time to match your fiancé, swallowing his milky cum while his last batch leaks down your thighs, mixed with your own release.

He’s panting when you pull away, eyes open but unfocused while the fog in his brain clears, his hand stroking your head absentmindedly. When he finally comes back to earth, he finds you’ve pulled his boxers up for him but remain clinging to his leg, squishing a cheek against his hip while fingers trace his inner thigh.

He breathes out a little hooo.

“Did so good for me, pretty. Okay. Now I really gotta go.”

He tries to take a step but you don’t budge, so he bends to see you better, making an expression of dumbfounded horror when he sees you’re crying.

“Hey, hey—I’ll be back! What’s with the tears!”

You sniffle while his big hands wipe at your face, frantic as he tries to make you better. Ijichi’s pacing footsteps are heard outside the door.

“I don’t know, it just feels so—sniff—bad when you leave sometimes! I still want more of you!”

Gojo frowns at that, rubbing your head some more. There’s a knock at the door which he ignores.

“Baby… I want more of you too, but you know I gotta go. No days off when you’re the strongest. Can you be my tough girl, just a few hours?”

You nod, your breaths calming. What is getting into you? Apparently your separation anxiety can’t even let your fiancé go to work without a break down. It takes you a minute to connect the dots and realize you’re likely ovulating—your hormones can make you a little crazy sometimes.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

“My pretty baby wants to be a mommy so bad, huh?”

“I do! I really do, Satoru!” Your voice is a sob. Satoru has been going at it since the moment he came home today—told the maids to leave him alone, locked his door and folded you into the mattress.

“Gonna make me a daddy?” You clench automatically—just like Satoru knew you would.

“Ye—ah! Wanna have your babies, need to give you babies so bad, daddy!”

Your neck is craned as far back into the pillows as it can go, your entire body curling in ecstasy from your cousin’s heavy thrusting. Your words have his movements turning frantic, your legs folded up by his shoulders so your silver anklet with his name on it can jingle by his ear. Satoru lifts you then, utilizing his ridiculous strength and huge hands to pull your hips higher where his cock can split you easier. He starts hitting so deep you see stars.

Your head tends to scramble and slow when he fucks you like this, eyes barely open, blindly clinging to the man you were born to cling to while he makes a home for himself near your womb. It’s hard to focus on him like you want to, but if you did you’d see eyes drunk on lust and power…

Satoru Gojo can be a greedy man. Spoiled, too—He usually already owns what he covets and never waits long for things he doesn’t. But even the world at his fingertips, you at his fingertips, doesn’t fully sait that want like most would expect. For example, as much as Satoru owns you, he doesn’t feel he really has you until your body’s fucked out of commission in his grip, eyes blank and stupid while your cunt spasms around him, milking his cock for everything he has.

This is when he’s got you, he thinks. This is when you’re his, like putty in his fingers, warmed up and malleable. This is when everything’s how it’s really supposed to be.

The two of you don’t come out of satoru’s room the entire rest of the night, except when Satoru darts his hands out of his doorway to grab trays of food the servants dropped by. It’s exhausting the way you’re used, body split and bent and bruised so that satoru’s seed can take root, but it’s also addicting. You beg for more of him, latch any remaining strength onto his limbs while you cry out his name. Satoru’s cock is addictive in a natural way—stronger than any drugs. Your betrothed’s cock is addicting like food and water and air… sometimes it’s the only thing that makes you feel alive.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

Today marks the day you’re officially seven months pregnant.

Despite the fact that your technique has you strong and glowing (this is what you were made for, everyone continues to insist), you spend much of your time in mild discomfort. You get the feeling satoru’s passed his ridiculously long legs to his baby, who’s adamant in kicking you constantly, plus your lower back is often sore.

Still, you go about your daily life as normal—lounging, eating, making infinite baby preparations and, of course, waiting for satoru to come home so he can fuck you.

Lately your husband is the ultimate harbinger of gifts and treats—your pregnancy has been the opposite of helpful towards satoru’s impulse spending habits, not that it’s too great a concern with the family’s bottomless wealth. He rarely comes home empty handed. Today, he’s brought a teensy yellow beanie he apparently stumbled upon at a shop and some artisan ikigai strawberries—a favorite of yours amidst pregnancy cravings—satoru’s encouraging his child’s expensive taste that’s for sure.

You’re currently spooning in bed to enjoy them, watching a cheesy hallmark movie while satoru feeds you bites—he’s focusing much more on you than the movie.

Honestly, he doesn’t seem to focus on much else when he’s home at all… he finds pregnant you to be more than captivating. It’s like he could watch you day and night, doing the most mundane tasks to nothing at all—in his own words he’s fascinated by how precious you manage to be. Eyes following you like you’re the most engrossing little thing, cooing to himself when you’re particularly cute. It reminds you of how you used to treat your pet cat growing up.

You’ve gotten used to the excessive attention and coddling—it’s not like you’d ever mind a little clinging, nor was satoru’s babying completely foreign in the first place. So you let him feed you without comment, enjoy his hands wandering over your belly and curves without fanfare.

This process quickly gets messy though; red juice keeps dripping from the corner of your mouth towards your pillow only to be saved in the nick of time by satoru’s quick fingers, reaching around to wipe at your cheek again and again, having you lick his fingers clean for him each time he does. Things get even messier once he gets the bright idea to split each berry, biting before offering you the other half.

“I like sharing with you, this way neither of us miss the best ones.” He says with his mouth partially full, reaching down to pop part of a berry into your mouth. You hum, mostly engrossed in your film, managing not to drool this time.

But the next bite of berry he performs directly over your neck, dripping juice directly onto your skin when he does.

“Hey!” You start to turn but he holds you in place on your side, darting down to lick up the spill with his tongue.

You whine when he does, sensitive skin set ablaze by your lover’s mouth.

The movie is forgotten when things easily pick up from there—things easily pick up between the two of you, period. It’s not even your first time having sex today, you took his cock first thing in the morning after a particularly needy grinding display.

But this time it’s extra slow, extra attentive—like Gojo’s savoring you to the fullest extent. The berries are an added component, dripping sweet juice on your skin once gojo fully undresses you, only for him to lick and suck and kiss you clean. Your pussy has his attention then for what feels like eternity, your husband’s soft lips kissing and kissing and kissing like he needs to clean your juices there too. You cum so easily—you always have, but pregnant and sensitive like this your rate is almost ridiculous. Satoru, adoring as he’s been lately, doesn’t even tease, just savors. Dotes and flexes his cuteness aggression through his careful arms. He’s cautious with that—his urge to squeeze you—thinks he ought to get a medal for the self control he has to be soft. He caresses and pets like you’re a newborn yourself, fucking you just as thoughtfully.

You’d only been alive ten short months the day the earth shifted upon Satoru’s birth. Of course you don’t remember it, but you know intimately well the way your own path was no exception to his influence. You were already confirmed to have a fertility technique, almost as rare as the six eyes themselves, when the strongest sorcerer of your time was born—the match up was obvious. You were groomed for it until his parents said yes, and then only more intensely once they did.

And as much as you love Satoru, as much as you’d live for him and die for him and anything in between—it was sometimes hard. You had to grow to love him, to accept his power over you.

Because among the list of cons to a lifetime betrothal—a lifetime of devotion in your case—was that Satoru always knew you were his. You had an owner at the ripe age of seven, aged six and a half.

And, unbelievable as it may be in hindsight, at times he was a tyrant.

Tugging and clinging and pushing—at first he had as much respect for you as a child might for a cheap toy (the kind their well-off parents taught them were replaceable).

And there wasn’t much you could do about it besides grieve and sulk—your parents didn’t let you talk back how you wanted, and Satoru wasn’t above tattling.

You didn’t dare wish for a different husband—what with how lucky everyone insisted you were, but at times you’d wonder. What would it be like to be assigned someone polite and thoughtful, like satoru’s friend he brought around the estate from time to time…

Suguru never really got to know you enough to form an opinion on your character. It was rare he visited the extravagant Gojo estate in the first place, and when he did, Satoru often gave the impression that he wanted to keep you private. It was clear you were a permanent fixture on those grounds—just another layer to Satoru’s mystifying lifestyle. You were a complete contrast to Suguru’s friend, all reserved and polite; the only thing you really inspired Geto to feel was pity.

Gojo was a little shit as a kid—still is in many ways—and sometimes even Geto himself couldn’t stand him. But Suguru’s always had a backbone. There was a reason he was capable of maintaining best friend status with the strongest sorcerer alive while others couldn’t (or wouldn’t) get close—and it’s that Geto knew how to tell Satoru off. He could see through Gojo’s dramatics and put him in his place—something you clearly had not mastered.

Geto saw your lenience first hand the first day Satoru tried to have the three of you hangout, watching in fascination as you protested, gave in, and then were immediately reprimanded for sneaking into a forbidden wing of the Gojo estate. Satoru got a mild scolding, a barely-there stern edge to the maid’s voice who caught the three of you—telling him that he knew better and that he had to think about his future wife’s safety as well as his own. You got a cold glare when the maid set sights on you, a tug of your wrist to your room where it was clear you’d go on to get a firm lesson on obedience.

Once you were gone, Suguru spoke to Satoru in a hushed tone. “I feel kinda bad your girlfriend’s getting locked up now. Aren’t you gonna do something?”

“She’s not my girlfriend, asshole!”

“You’re getting married someday. Same thing.”

“It’s totally different. But whatever, yeah, I feel a little bad too. Probably I’ll break her out of her room later,” Geto watched Gojo absentmindedly pick a fuzz off his shirt—not a care in the world before he perked up to add, “Right now let’s play tekken.”

And they did, but soon Geto brought you up again. This was the first time he’d met you, and really begun conceptualizing the situation Gojo was in—he couldn’t imagine being tied to someone like that at his ripe and girlfriend-less age of thirteen. The idea fascinated him.

“What’s it like, living with ___?”

“It’s fine,” Satoru sighed, going back and forth between different characters to try. “She’s annoying—got some needy physical touch technique so she’s always clinging to me in my sleep, it’s honestly creepy. But it’s fine.”

This took Geto moment to process…

“You sleep in the same bed?!” He put his controller down at that point, fully engrossed.

“Yeah, ‘cause of her technique she’s like, unable to sleep alone basically. It’s weird. But other than that she’s fine I guess—a little slow. Her parents won’t even put her in school.”

Suguru could think of so many questions he didn’t even know where to start.

But what stood out most was how Satoru remained calm about the whole thing, at peace even.

“Have you tried fighting it? Didn’t you say your mom does whatever you want? Tell her no.”

Satoru waved a lazy hand at Suguru before he even finished talking.

“That wouldn’t work, ___ would just get betrothed to someone else, then. Her parents really want that for her. ‘Sides, she’s mine, Y’know? Even if she’s a weirdo it’s not like I’d give her away.”

It’s been years now since Suguru Geto has seen you last—he hasn’t been back to the Gojo estate since before his enrollment in jujutsu tech. He’s changed a lot since his starry-eyed youth, and he vaguely wonders what it will be like to see you again, if you’ve changed as well; over the years he’s found that his friend prefers to bring you up as little as possible, so he hasn’t had many updates. Though his primary focus is on the man he’s escorting, a dizzy and bleeding Gojo Satoru who managed to get hit by a scorpion curse while they were messing around on their mission. Gojo insisted on heading home after, despite shoko’s offer to provide more thorough reversed technique than his own, frowning but easily relenting when Suguru insisted on at least helping him get there.

It’s late, not even staff around to notice as Suguru tugs Gojo along, supporting half the man’s weight through the threshold and fumbling to find light switches as he enters new rooms. But then you emerge, and Suguru can’t pick his jaw up off the ground when you do, this heavily pregnant girl in a frilly nightgown and bare feet, storming in with tears absolutely pouring down her face. After one heartfelt “Satoru!” you can’t manage to get out a single sentence you’re crying so hard, and Suguru watches the most mystifying thing: Satoru comforts you. His unserious asshole of a best friend (he thinks with fondness in his heart), a man who’s long since lost the will to show vulnerability in even the most gut-wrenching moments—Suguru watches as he meets you with this sympathetic, earnest frown on his face, crouching to let you hold him and mumbling little sorry’s.

Suguru isn’t sure what they’re for, but he does know that Satoru has never seriously apologized to him for anything in his life. He’s expressed regret, learned from some mistakes, sure. But the word sorry, as far as Suguru knew, wasn’t in Gojo’s vocabulary.

He says it a lot now, with this cooing voice that Suguru also finds foreign. He learns through some mumbled words you manage that your tears are from worry, that gojo promised he’d be home earlier and that he wasn’t answering his phone. Then your wails turn fresh when you notice gojo is bleeding.

“Baby this is literally nothing—“ Geto, who saw Gojo’s initial wound and can actually see the man swaying on his feet, almost chuckles. He saves it with a cough.

“—I basically already healed myself. You know nothing could ever happen to me.”

This makes you mad, Suguru can practically feel how your anger tinges the air.

“Satoru Gojo I do not know that and—hic—you’d do better to answer your phone next time!”

“Ahh yes ma’am, yes ma’am.”

That secret filing cabinet in your mind rattles from time to time when you reach your ninth month pregnant. You’ve somehow managed to stave off any ill second thoughts towards your fate till now, letting it hit you last minute like something you’ve been putting off. It’s not that you’re unready for motherhood—you’ve reached acceptance of what’s to come—but you’ve developed a slight fear of your own personal eternity being reached. Slight because you’re excellent at burying and vaulting—slight because you love satoru and your baby so deeply.

But around your nine month marker, sore and barely even able to fuck properly, your husband makes an off-handed remark. You’d just taken him on all fours, cumming so easily despite satoru’s unusually tame treatment, and were laying in the aftershocks with sticky thighs while satoru fetched you a warm washcloth. The bath water was also running loudly, so he had to speak up while he said, “I’m gonna look to see how soon an in-ground pool could be installed, bet it’d be good for your poor hips next time you’re pregnant.” He speaks while he opens up your legs, casually wiping your shared mess clean with a soft damp towel, like he has a million times.

Maybe you’re tired, maybe it’s his casual tone paired with such a ludicrous sentence, but the idea of buying a pool because of what should be temporary pregnancy ailments and the implication that you’ll have them again and again… it sends you in a spiral.

It’s not unusual for you to burst into tears with your wacky hormones—satoru’s seen your puffy crying face, especially while pregnant, more times than he could count. So he isn’t particularly alarmed when he sees the silent drops rolling down your cheeks when he returns from the laundry shoot a moment later. But he is concerned, crawling up the bed till he’s hovering to kiss your shoulder, scooting behind you to spoon your lightly shaking frame.

He doesn’t talk for a moment, trying to decide the best course of action. He’s familiar with the tears, sure, but he knows he’s not an expert on them, sometimes he tries to talk to them when he shouldn’t and vice versa.

Eventually he settles on a little “I got you,” for comfort, his warm hands rubbing over your arms then your belly in what he hopes is a soothing rhythm.

You think about telling him your issues, your deepest secrets, but you deliberate too long. Soon he’s kissing you again, pressing lips in a slow trail up your shoulder and neck before switching directions.

“I love you,” he adds.

You won’t tell him. You love him, too. The uck and grime of it all gets buried once again, shoved in the section of your head that stays locked up with high security. You turn around and, instead of answering, capture his lips in a salty kiss, the kind that starts out soft and clumsy—sweet. It doesn’t take long for your lips to get needy though, for the sweetness to be replaced with aching. The kind that always spreads between your thighs.

Thanks for reading eeeek! feedback and rbs appreciated! ˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

#gojo x reader #gojo smut #jjk x reader #jjk smut #gojo satoru x reader #tw.pregnancy #gojo satoru smut #tw.breeding #tw.incest #satoru x reader #gojo x you #gojo fic #🐞 writes

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bitchlessdino · 3 days

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Imagine Chubby!reader and best friend!Chan chooses a movie for the night and this one just happened to have a sex scene, several in fact. Chan can do nothing but hide his furiously red cheeks in his palms as he watches, while you quietly observe as the female lead jumps from the ground, wrapping her legs around the male lead before they initiating intimacy while standing. “That looks…interesting.”

“Interesting?” Chan repeats in a weighted breath. “Is that something you’re interested in?”

“Maybe.” You go on a mini tangent of not sure when you’d ever have that moment being self aware of your fuller stature. You don’t think much of it, but you admit that one day if it came to the right person, it wouldn’t feel so bad to be manhandled like that.

Chan’s blush grows deeper and his mind wanders, thinking about the day you’ll finally find someone strong enough to hold you the way the actor did, and that it wouldn’t be Chan.

So he decided to get stronger, build muscle, lift weights, and prove that he could be that person, and fighting all his internal voices. He thinks to himself if anyone’s gonna do it, it should be him. For a while he shows great potential.

The day you notice is the day Chan is the most confident. You caress his toned form, feel the pulse beneath his taut biceps and firm chest. You gaze in awe, not recognizing him so much from the man he was more than a couple weeks ago. “Wow, you’re taking the pre workout seriously, I see.”

He is beaming, flexing his fingers to loosen them up. “Yeah, so I could do this.”

He lowers himself lightly to push up from your thighs and lift you around him, gushing at you stumbling to regain balance. Your eyes shooting back at him like saucers, unsure now if he is going to drop you to the ground like a sack of potatoes. “Lee Chan!”

Chan held you with certainty, caressing your side, your legs crushing around him, feeling your heart pound to the beat of his. He grins as if he’s finally won his prize and now he gets to take it home. “Now let’s get you all comfortable.”

His move to act suave falls short when he takes a misstep and crashes you both into the couch. Panic in his eyes as he asks you if you’re hurt and swears on his life he didn’t mean for it to happen.

You can’t help but laugh, eyes creasing in comforting bliss before pull Chan by his chin and drawing a long and overdue kiss. “Let’s try that again. And you don’t have to carry me this time.”

His hands grip your waist, fiery determination in his eyes. “Don’t worry, I can and I will.”

#dino smut #seventeen smut #seventeen #Lee Chan smut #lee Chan imagines #Dino imagines #seventeen imagines #dino #Lee Chan #seventeen Dino #dino x reader #dino x you #dino x y/n

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aquaquadrant · 2 days

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from eden, part X

Word count: 10,825 Warnings: Language, violence, blood/injury, victim blaming, self-deprecation, fictional racism, discussion of past abuse, temporary death Summary: After an unwise decision, Tango and Jimmy find themselves in Hels, at odds, and up against an old foe seeking revenge. But as everything comes to a boil, Tango realizes he must finally confront his past if he has any hope of saving his future.

A/N: Hey y’all, thanks so much for ur patience. Didn’t mean for this to take so long, I’ve been dealing w some health issues, but I’m doing way better now and on break from school so here we are. I hope u enjoy, please reblog/comment if u do! - Aqua

~*~

from eden, part X - no ‘who cares,’ no vacant stares, no time for me

~*~

Somewhere in Hels, a player stares at his soulmate in shock.

Tango could’ve sworn Jimmy was asleep. He checked, he checked multiple times to make sure Jimmy was well and truly unconscious before slipping out of bed. And he’d been so careful about it, moving so slowly and quietly to ensure Jimmy wasn’t woken up. All he’d needed was for Jimmy to keep sleeping for not even five minutes- just long enough for Tango to sneak downstairs, grab the supplies he’d secretly prepared earlier, go through the portal, and break it from the other side.

Yet here they are.

The abrupt silence after their mutual outburst is blanching. There’s almost a static feeling to it, like electricity gathering in the air before a lightning strike. All of Tango’s previous thoughts have flown clean out of his brain. He can only stare at Jimmy, forehead stinging, mouth slightly parted as he struggles to make sense of what he’s seeing.

Jimmy looks similarly disoriented. He sits in a heap in front of the portal, bathed in the green-yellow-red light, his wings splayed out around him. His nose is scrunched up- still wincing from the pain of Tango’s forehead smacking into his chin, most likely. The recently-obtained scar across the newly-formed bump on the bridge of his nose stands out in sharp contrast against his other, more familiar, features. He said it didn’t bother him, but Tango feels a stab of guilt every time he looks at it. Even now, it’s a reminder of the pain Tango’s brought him. Of how Tango’s failed him.

Jimmy recovers first.

“What am I- what are you doin’ here?!” he cries, rising to his feet.

Realization dawns on Tango as he finally grasps the reality of this impossible scenario he’s found himself in.

Jimmy’s here. In Hels. Jimmy is in Hels. Jimmy is in Hels. Oh. Oh no, oh that’s the opposite of what Tango wants. This is bad. This is really, really bad. This is a whole heap of bad with extra badness on top. Jimmy can’t be in Hels, he should never be in Hels.

“Tango,” Jimmy presses, taking a step forward, “are you listenin’ to me?”

Tango jumps to his feet, heart pounding. He quickly scans their surroundings- still no players to be seen, though some of those magma cubes in the distance are getting close. He knows they’re on borrowed time; there’s at least two players in this world who are bound to notice his arrival in chat, and the clock’s ticking.

“Tango?” Jimmy says again, uncertainty leaking into his voice. “You alright?”

Adrenaline floods Tango’s body. He feels hyper aware, like all his senses are in overdrive- his skin is prickling with heat, and if it weren’t for the wither rose collar, he’s certain his blaze rods would be swirling around in a defensive inferno.

He needs to get Jimmy out of here.

Despite their difference in height, Tango’s strong enough that he could probably push Jimmy back into the portal. He’d have the element of surprise, initially. But Jimmy’s build isn’t just for show- Tango would have a hard time keeping him in the portal for the few crucial seconds required to teleport. He might even get teleported back, himself.

So instead of attempting brute force, Tango stalks forward- though not close enough to be grabbed- flattens his ears, bares his teeth, and hisses.

“Go home,” Tango hisses lowly. “Right. Now.”

That seems to take Jimmy aback. He raises his eyebrows, incredulous. “Ex-cuse me?” he demands, putting his hands on his hips. “Now, hang on-”

“You shouldn’t be here!” Tango interrupts, his voice catching somewhere between anger and desperation. “This is-”

“You shouldn’t be here! What-”

“You’re not safe here-”

“- tryin’ to- well, neither are you!”

“- and you need to go back!”

“I’m not goin’ back without you!” Jimmy gives up on trying to keep his voice down, wings flaring out in agitation. “I thought we were in this together! I- god, Tango, we want to help you, we all just wanna help-”

“It’s not your problem!” Tango snaps, his temper rising. “Alright? It was my mistake that brought Bravo and Hels Tek to our door, you- why should you have to deal with it? What, just ‘cause we got randomly assigned to be soulmates? You didn’t sign up for all this!”

Jimmy’s expression darkens. “Yes, I did, that’s what it means to be a partner.” He reaches for Tango’s arm. “Tango, I love you-”

“I know!” Tango jerks away. “I know that, okay? But you- did it ever occur to you that maybe I love you, too? Maybe I don’t want you to put yourself at risk fighting my battles for me? Because I love you?” He rakes his claws through his hair, a mirthless laugh escaping him. “Is that- did that happen to cross your mind? That maybe for once I- I did something ‘cause I love you and not ‘cause I hate myself? Maybe I could do the selfless act of love every now and then? I mean, is that- is that so hard to believe?”

Jimmy stares at him for a moment, brown eyes blown wide. Even in the absence of their soulbond, Tango can tell he’s hurt.

“That’s not what I meant,” Jimmy says finally, voice quiet. “I know you love me. Of course I know you love me. But Tango, honestly- can you honestly tell me that this decision wasn’t- that- that it had absolutely nothing to do with feelin’ like you deserve to be here?” he asks desperately. “No influence on your decision at all? Not a- a single part of you that thinks it’d be okay if you got trapped here again, suffering forever? Not even the slightest bit?”

Shit.

Tango sets his jaw. “That doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t matter?” Jimmy repeats, disbelieving. “Of course it does-”

“No, I don’t- you need to leave!”

“I’m not leavin’ you, I mean it!”

“I already told you, I don’t want-”

“Tango, please.” Jimmy holds out his hand. He looks close to tears. “Let’s go home. We’ll figure this out, alright?”

Tango swallows back a frustrated whine; he doesn’t have time for this. Atlas has no doubt already noticed his arrival, and he still needs to find Bravo. And the longer they stand here loudly arguing in front of an active portal, the greater the risk of discovery. It’s already a miraculous stroke of luck that the portal spawned in an uninhabited area.

Jimmy can’t force Tango back through the portal any more than Tango can force him. Besides, starting a physical fight with Jimmy would probably be his breaking point. This is hard enough already. He spends a precious second to take in Jimmy’s face; the thin line his mouth has pressed into, the tears brimming in his eyes, the scar across his crooked nose.

Then Tango turns on his heel and sprints away.

It’s a last-ditch effort kind of gambit. He’s hoping that if he loses Jimmy in the basalt delta, Jimmy won’t know what else to do but go back through the portal for help. And once he does, Tango can swoop in and break it. Problem solved.

There’s a surprised shout behind him. Wing beats fill the air as Jimmy takes flight. But Tango’s head start has already allowed him to reach the first outcropping of basalt, pock-marked with pools of lava. Without breaking stride, he leaps up onto the ledge of stone-

Only for his foot to catch on a tripwire.

Pistons go off while he’s still mid-jump. The ground opens up into a black pit beneath him. His claws scrape uselessly against the lip of basalt and suddenly he’s falling, stomach lurching, too shocked to even call out as wind whistles by his ears and he plummets into the darkness below, Jimmy’s voice screaming after him.

“Tango!”

Traps. He forgot to look for traps.

Weightless, Tango struggles to right himself. The hole is pitch black and it’s disorienting, wavering light from his dim blaze rods flickering against the walls. His mind races frantically. Even if he could pull a block from his inventory and place it down under him- and he’s not sure that he could, at the speed he’s falling- the damage would kill him anyways. No, better to see how this ends. If he’s dumb enough to fall for a trap, he should at least give it the satisfaction of killing him as intended.

Although, Tango’s been falling for more than a couple seconds and he hasn’t hit anything yet. That’s unusual. Few trappers care to dig holes this deep when a shallow pit of lava will have the same result. Maybe death isn’t the goal here. Maybe-

Light, somewhere down below. As it gets closer, Tango thinks he can see the walls of the hole open up into a larger room. But the bottom still goes down- into a pit of cobwebs. So that’s it. The trap was designed to capture players, not kill them. But why-

“Tango!”

Jimmy’s voice echoes wildly in the tunnel. Tango glances back over his shoulder to see Jimmy diving towards him, arms stretched forward and wings flattened, body straight as an arrow.

Tango doesn’t currently have the breath to call out to him. If he did, it’d probably be something along the lines of, ‘No no no no no, why did you follow me, you idiot!’ and that wouldn’t be very constructive.

Jimmy hooks his arms underneath Tango’s, snaps his wings out, and takes them sailing out through the gap in the tunnel.

The abrupt swerve makes Tango’s stomach drop. Jimmy barely manages to avoid taking them directly into a wall, wings flaring, wind whipping around them. They tumble into an ungraceful- but not deadly- landing, tangled up in a pile of limbs.

The room they’ve flown into is large but rather crude, carved out of the netherrack and deepslate that make up the deepest levels of Hels- more of a cavern, really. A few scattered torches along the walls provide the room’s only lighting, and they’ve landed among a collection of haphazardly-placed chests- a chest monster to rival Scar’s. The center of the room is occupied by the hole at the bottom of the dropchute. Beyond it is something that makes Tango’s blood run cold.

Half of the room is covered in elaborate redstone circuitry, feeding into an empty portal frame. It’s an eerily similar setup to their own portal, and Tango is at once certain he knows who this base belongs to.

He processes this all in the couple seconds it takes him to get on his feet. Jimmy’s still crumpled beside him, uninjured but disoriented. Shit. He hadn’t planned to have Jimmy with him for this confrontation and it has him on edge, his skin crawling. The room’s empty right now, but he can’t see another way out except back up through the dropchute- it’s a precarious place to be in. He doesn’t like what being backed into a corner does to him.

“Ugh,” Jimmy groans softly, pushing himself upright. “Not one’a my better landin’s…”

“Shh,” Tango hisses.

Jimmy frowns at him, rising to his feet. “Tango, can you just-”

“Quiet!” Tango urges, gaze flicking around the room. Their sudden presence doesn’t seem to have set off any alarms, but there’s no telling what the trap was hooked up to-

Ca-clunk.

Tango’s ears prick at the sound of more pistons. He whirls around, hackles rising, to see part of the adjacent wall open up.

“Well,” Bravo says, stepping into the room, “isn’t this convenient?”

Tango had been mentally preparing himself to see his doppelgänger again, but he’s still taken aback at the state Bravo’s in. His hair and clothes are wild and unkempt, the stains on his shirt indistinguishable between redstone and blood. There’s a weariness about him, like he hasn’t slept in days, yet every muscle in his body is tense, his bruised knuckles gripping a netherite sword. Most striking, however, is his face; his green eyes are so bloodshot they’re almost red, and heavily lined with dark circles that- in a bizarre way- resemble wither stains.

So for a moment, it’s like Tango’s looking in a mirror.

It passes quickly. Tango forces the tension from his body, holding up his hands. “Take it easy, alright, I just wanna talk.”

“I?” Bravo tilts his head to the side, taking another step forward as the wall closes up behind him. “Uh, it looks like- looks to me like there’s two of you, pal.” His gaze cuts over to Jimmy, and his mouth quirks into a grin- hard and humorless. “Good to see ya, Jimmy.”

Tango bristles. “Leave him out of this,” he says lowly, stepping in front of Jimmy. “He wasn’t supposed to come.”

Jimmy makes a noise of protest. “Hang on-”

“Ohh, oh okay,” Bravo says, nodding slowly, “I- I see what this is. This is- hah, wow, this is kinda perfect.” He begins to pace in front of them, idly twirling his sword in his hand; there’s an unsettling air about him. “Lemme guess, you uh- you intended to come here alone, but your soulmate had other ideas?”

He spits the word like an insult. Tango feels his lip curl. “None of your business.”

“Oh? It’s not?” Bravo barks out a laugh- a sharp contrast to the enraged look in his eyes. “Well, you’re in my fucking house, so, you know. Forgive my curiosity.”

Anger flares inside Tango; he pushes it down. “Look, I know we didn’t exactly get off on the right foot-”

“You fucking think?”

“Enough!” Jimmy shouts, wings flaring as he throws an arm out in front of Tango. “Bravo, listen to me. I don’t like you, alright, but we aren’t here to fight.”

“Obviously.” Bravo actually rolls his eyes. “I can- I can piece it together well enough, okay. You figured that you could come rescue me from Hels, and then I- everything will be peachy-keen, right? I mean, if- if you wanted me to stay here, you wouldn’t have opened a portal. Except this one,” he stops his pacing, leveling his sword at Tango, “got it in his thick head that it was somethin’ he needed ‘to do alone.’ So he snuck off by himself, on a solo mission of noble, stupid self-sacrifice, in the hopes that it’d make up for what he did-”

“Shut up,” Tango growls.

“- and that it’d keep you safe. Right?” Bravo’s voice drips with malice. “Except poor Jimmy’s too good to let you take the fall alone so he followed you here, right into my trap.”

“So what?” Tango demands with a bravado he doesn’t feel. Truthfully, Bravo’s words have opened a pit in his stomach; he hates that Bravo has seen through him so clearly. “What, I mean- you want a trophy for figuring it out? And- and why set a trap for us if your plan was clearly to get out through a portal of your own?”

Bravo scowls. “That trap wasn’t for you, actually. It’s for the damn mercenaries that’ve been comin’ after us since I split from Hels Tek.”

Jimmy frowns. “Us?”

Bravo’s face twitches. “Wh- me. Whatever.”

“You split from Hels Tek?” Tango asks, furrowing his brows. He knew Atlas and Bravo had fought back on Double Life, but he wasn’t sure if that’d be enough to make Bravo willingly take on Hels by himself.

Bravo snorts. “Yeah, I- I uh, I don’t take kindly to bein’ stabbed in the back, but Atlas still wanted a portal and wasn’t gonna take no for an answer, so.”

Tango would laugh at the irony, if he didn’t feel so sick to his stomach. “Wow,” he drawls, still unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, “so it turned out Atlas only cared about you as far as he could exploit you? Imagine that.”

Clearly, he’s touched a nerve. “Shut up,” Bravo snaps.

“Watch it,” Jimmy snaps back.

Unbothered, Tango glances around the cavern. “So wait, you- it’s only been like, what, a- a couple weeks since you respawned here, how- where did you get all these supplies?”

“Eh, found a new sponsor.” Bravo shrugs. “You know, I was probably only a few more days away from gettin’ my portal up and running ‘til you guys showed up. But it worked out nice this way, right?” There’s a manic light in his eyes. “I- I was gonna get my vengeance on you once I got back to the overworld, but instead, we can do it right now.”

That’s all the warning he gives before he attacks.

He’s fast, faster than Tango’s expecting. It’s all he can do to shove Jimmy out of the way, diving into a roll that brings him quickly back to his feet. He only brought one sword; he pulls it from his inventory and throws it to Jimmy without a second thought, because he doubts Jimmy prepared at all before coming through the portal and swords have always felt clumsy in his hands. There’s a reason traditional PVP has never been his strong suit.

The sword has barely left his grasp before Bravo’s springing at him again.

Screech!

Tango brings his claws up in time to catch Bravo’s blade between them. The force of the blow shudders through his arms. Bravo’s strong, too- stronger than Tango would think for a non-hybrid version of himself.

“Stop it!” Tango huffs. “We don’t wanna fight you!”

“Too bad!” Bravo sneers.

Well, if that’s what he wants. Tango ducks under the sword and brings a hand up to slash at Bravo’s face. Bravo disengages, darting backwards, out of reach- he readjusts his grip for another swing.

“Hey, lay off!”

Jimmy charges into the fray; Bravo pivots mid-swing to block Jimmy’s blade, the clang of metal reverberating through the cavern. He leans into the movement, bringing his leg up to deliver a swift kick to Jimmy’s side.

With a pained grunt, Jimmy stumbles, off-balance. Bravo raises his sword to slash again- but Tango rushes him, forcing him back. Claws swipe through empty air.

“Gotta do better than that,” Bravo tuts, flicking his sword out to nick Tango’s cheek.

The sharp pain and sudden scent of blood is disorienting. Tango lunges forward almost blindly, a snarl catching in the back of his throat. Rage bubbles inside him, and he can feel his fire trying to respond- but with the wither rose in his system, it’s like throwing a match into a well.

Bravo deftly steps around him. “There’s that famous Tango temper again!” he taunts. “Go on, show us exactly how much of a monster you are.”

The words sober Tango instantly. He swallows back his rage; the last thing he wants to do is lose control like he did back at the ranch, especially when Jimmy could get hurt. His fire may be dampened, but that doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous.

Then his ears twitch at a furious shout- Jimmy surges into the air, wings beating, and swoops down at Bravo. “Don’t you dare call him that!”

In the same moment, Tango moves to block Bravo’s escape route, aiming for his hands in an attempt to disarm him.

But Bravo’s ready for them both.

He ducks beneath Tango’s claws and side-steps Jimmy’s attack, jabbing the pommel of his sword into Tango’s gut as a parting blow. Wings flailing, Jimmy pulls up short to avoid slamming into Tango- and yelps as Bravo’s sword cleaves a handful of feathers into the air.

“Come on!” Bravo goads them. “That the best you can do?”

Tango hadn’t gotten much of a chance to actually observe Bravo fight during the Hels Tek invasion, and he’s sorely regretting it now. It’s clear Bravo’s got more experience with PVP than either of them. And not the type of casual sparring between friends, but genuine life-or-death fighting- fast, messy, and brutal. Even being two against one isn’t helping them much; Bravo keeps on the move, twisting through and around them with a practiced ease that leaves them struggling not to accidentally hit each other.

A detached part of Tango’s mind runs through their options. Being killed and ending up at the world spawn would be the worst-case scenario; they’d basically be gift-wrapped for Atlas to come snatch up. But he doesn’t think joining through a hacked portal would reset their spawns; after all, the Hels Tek invaders wound up back in Hels after they were killed. Of course, he’d rather not find out for certain. And if he ends up respawning back to Double Life, his entire goal in coming here alone goes up in smoke. He won’t get another chance at this- the other Double Lifers will insist on putting themselves in danger to help him, ‘cause they’re annoyingly kind like that, and everything will turn into a big flaming ball of disaster.

So it’s really in his best interest not to get killed right now.

Except, he can’t help but notice that Bravo actually doesn’t seem to be trying to kill them. Most of what he’s aiming for are non-vital structures- arms, legs, Jimmy’s wings. When he does land an attack above the belt, it almost seems like he’s holding back, leaving only shallow gashes or a blunt hit with a skillfully thrown fist, knee, or elbow.

And despite clearly being the superior fighter, he’s mainly staying on the defensive. He isn’t taking nearly as many swings as he could. It’s an endurance game, Tango realizes- he’s trying to tire them out. But why? He’s on his own, it’s not like he’s stalling for reinforcements. There’s nowhere for them to go. That is, nowhere except-

Tango’s gaze falls on the pit at the bottom of the dropchute.

Oh. Oh, that’s-

Wham!

Pain explodes through Tango’s skull.

Bravo’s taken advantage of Tango’s brief lapse in concentration, landing a solid punch on the side of his face. It’s enough to make him black out for a moment, every thought in his brain screeching to a halt. When he comes back to himself, his cheek is pressed against the floor, made warm and sticky with his pooling blood. There’s a faint ringing in his ears- above it, he can barely make out the sound of swords clashing somewhere in front of him.

Tango manages to lift his head, blinking spots from his vision.

Bravo is driving Jimmy back- back towards the center of the room where the pit is. Tango opens his mouth to scream a warning, but he’s too late. As they near the edge of the pit, Bravo suddenly steps under Jimmy’s guard, hooking a leg behind Jimmy’s foot as one hand comes up to twist his sword out of his grip. Bravo’s other arm slams against Jimmy’s chest, knocking him off-balance.

Jimmy falls backwards with a shout, into the pit of cobwebs. He doesn’t fall very deep, of course- that’s not how cobwebs work. But he is immediately stuck, wings and limbs straining as he slowly begins to sink.

“Jimmy!” Tango cries, his heart jolting.

Oh, this is bad. Getting out of cobwebs without a sword, while slowly falling through them, will be almost impossible. Especially since Jimmy’s feathers are particularly prone to sticking to that stuff and every movement will cause him pain as he pulls on them.

“There.” Satisfied, Bravo stows Jimmy’s sword in his inventory before turning back to Tango. “Now we can finally finish this.”

“No!” Jimmy pleads desperately from the pit, already disappearing from view. “Leave ‘em alone!”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not gonna kill him,” Bravo tuts as he approaches Tango. “That- I mean, that’d just send you back home, right? Hacked portals don’t do the whole spawn reset-ification thing, as it turns out.” He shakes his head. “No, I- what I’m gonna do is arrange a little meeting with our old buddy Atlas to come pick you up, okay, and- and then I’ll finally get him off my back and be able to leave this fucking place for good.”

Terror shoots through Tango. If Atlas comes here, with Jimmy trapped like this…

Head pounding, Tango struggles to get to his feet. “Y- you don’t have to do this,” he says weakly. “I know I messed up, a- and I’m sorry, okay? But Jimmy had nothin’ to do with it, he- you have to let him go, please.”

Bravo’s lip curls. “I’m not gonna let Atlas get him. Believe it or not, I meant it when I said I wouldn’t let another overworlder get trapped here.”

Despite the severity of the situation, the offended disdain in his tone makes Tango snort. “Oh, sorry, uh- excuse me for thinkin’ you’d ever do such a terrible thing,” he rasps. “I- I mean, you can’t blame me, right? You- it’s not like you’ve made a great impression.”

Bravo’s eyes darken with anger, and then his fist is in Tango’s stomach. The punch makes Tango double over, gasping for breath- then a well-placed kick throws him back against the wall, pain crashing through his ribs.

“What’re you doin’?!” Jimmy’s panicked voice sounds from the pit- he’s sunken far enough down that he can’t see them anymore. “Don’t hurt him!”

Bravo ignores him, stalking forward to grab Tango by the front of his shirt. “You’re one to talk, you piece of shit,” he hisses in Tango’s face, reeling back for another hit.

Crack.

This one lands the hilt of his sword against Tango’s jaw. Bravo drops him to the ground in a crumpled heap.

“Tango!” Jimmy’s scream sounds far away.

Everything is pain. With no small amount of effort, Tango pushes himself upright, breathing raggedly through his nose. He can feel blood trickling down his chin from his split lip, can taste it stained against his teeth. His head aches. His body is shaking. There’s a cold pit of dread in his stomach, and he knows that he’s lost this fight.

But more than that, deep down, there’s the realization that maybe… he always expected to.

(It’s not like coming here without Jimmy would’ve changed the outcome. No matter what Tango said or did, Bravo was always going to react this way- why would Tango think anything different? Despite his intention to extend the olive branch, he knows Bravo wouldn’t have been satisfied to just let bygones be bygones.

Truthfully, Tango had been prepared for this the moment he saw that red light fill their portal. Bravo had nailed it right at the start; this was always going to be a mission of self-sacrifice. If giving himself up meant placating Bravo and Hels Tek, if it meant that the people he cared about would be safe, then Tango had been willing to accept it. Even if it meant going back to the farm for the rest of his life.

He’s already had ten years in the sun. That’s more than anyone else in Hels got.)

Bravo looms over him, a mad, triumphant grin spreading across his face. “You’re gonna spend the rest of your days in that farm where you belong,” he says lowly, “and out of the life you stole from me. You’re nothin’ but an evil monster, and it’s what you deserve.”

A strange feeling settles over Tango.

It’s like déjà vu, to sit here and listen to his doppelgänger repeat all the horrible things Tango’s believed about himself almost his entire life, all the things he’s told himself in the mirror time and time again. It’s his words spoken in his voice out of an eerily similar face, as if all his deepest insecurities have taken form.

It’s achingly, hauntingly familiar. Like a knife tracing over old scars.

And yet, there’s something odd about hearing it from another person. To hear such hatred and conviction in that voice, to see it so plainly in his eyes. Tango’s well aware that there are plenty of players who feel the same way- not just about him, but other hostile mob hybrids, too. He’s no stranger to prejudice; he’s noticed the wary looks and distrustful glares he’s gotten on public multiplayer worlds before.

Hell, Atlas is attempting to build an empire on the very concept of oppressing hybrids, and he’s had plenty of help to do it. Not just his fellow redstone scientists, but sponsors and buyers, too. Lots of players have reason to want Tango in a farm, to exploit and degrade him. But only because they would profit from it- otherwise they wouldn’t bother wasting so much time and energy on him. Sure, Atlas probably hates him to some degree, and is indifferent at best to all the pain he’s been caused. But Tango’s also certain that if he weren’t useful, then Atlas wouldn’t give him a second thought. If he couldn’t be farmed, Atlas would never have come after him in the first place. It’s all about ambition with Atlas; he wouldn’t waste time on petty revenge schemes.

Bravo, on the other hand, stands to gain absolutely nothing from this except the satisfaction of knowing Tango is suffering. How strange, that the only player to ever really demonstrate that desire isn’t even from Hels.

And with that thought, everything falls into place.

Tango wheezes out a laugh, though he immediately regrets it- fuck, his ribs. “So that’s where I get my sadism from! Good to know, good to know.”

The smirk drops off Bravo’s face. “What the fuck are you talkin’ about?”

Tango wipes the blood from his face. “I mean, I- we- we’ve established that I’m just a uh, a physical manifestation of all the evil parts of you, yeah? That’s what Hels are? Well, if that’s true, then every bad thing about me is somethin’ I got from you.” He grins, despite the pain of his split lip. “Can’t pour from an empty bottle, right?”

Bravo balks at him. “No, that’s not- it’s different,” he argues. “It’s- this is justified, you took everything from me-”

“So now you’re gonna do the same?” Tango raises his eyebrows. Bracing a hand against the wall, he slowly rises to his feet. “Funny, I- I thought that you were supposed to be a better person than me.”

“I am!” Bravo insists angrily.

Tango shrugs. “Well, you sure ain’t actin’ like it, skippy.”

That seems to take Bravo aback. “I- I don’t-” He rakes a hand through his hair, his breathing quickening. “It’s- it’s you, it’s this fucking place, it’s- I don’t know, it’s every-fucking-thing that’s happened in the last ten years! I- I didn’t deserve this, I didn’t do anything to deserve getting sent here!”

“Hold on, what makes you think I did anything to deserve gettin’ sent here?” Tango asks, genuinely curious. “I was spawned here as a child, I mean, what- what could a child possibly do to ‘deserve’ spawning here? What could any of us have done to deserve this?”

Ooh, Bravo doesn’t like that question. “I don’t know,” he splutters, “I didn’t make you spawn here! That was the universe, it- it must know that you- all you Hels- you’re just destined to be bad.”

Tango tilts his head. “Yeah? If that’s the case, then uh, why did the universe send you here?”

Bravo makes a sound like he’s been punched. “What?”

“I didn’t make that portal. You didn’t make that portal. We all know that the universe makes portals to Hermitcraft so why-”

“Stop it! It was a mistake! A glitch! I- I was never meant to come to Hels, you-”

“Then how has every other Hermit joined without having the same problem? Huh? Why you? Why us?”

“Shut up!” Bravo cries, almost desperate. “I’m the one in the right, here!”

“Says who?” Tango asks.

“I just- I have to be in the right!” Bravo protests, throwing an arm out. “I- I’m not like you, I’m not a Hels, I’m supposed to be the good one. If I’m mad, if I wanna hurt someone, it has to be justified, ‘cause I’m not- I’m not cruel.”

Tango just looks at him.

Bravo seems to recognize the irony in his words. It hits him almost like a physical attack; he staggers, eyes widening, face twisting with rage. “Don’t you dare fucking judge me!” he shouts as he raises his sword accusingly at Tango, voice echoing off the cavern walls. “I’m just- I did what I had to do to survive, and- and it ruined me. This world ruined me, and it’s all your fault, you bastard!”

They’re hollow accusations, built from hurt and deflected blame. But it doesn’t occur to Tango to defend himself against them. He couldn’t if he wanted to; all he can do is watch Bravo in stunned silence.

Even without the ability to set himself ablaze, Bravo’s rage is a terrible thing to behold. Tears stream down his reddened face; a mixture of fury and despair, raw and ugly. “It’s not fair!” he wails, almost a breathless scream. “Why did you get to be saved? Why did I have to take your place? What- what did I do?”

He takes another step closer, drawing his sword back, and Tango is suddenly struck by the very real possibility that Bravo is about to kill him.

“You did this to me!” Bravo snarls, wild-eyed and heaving for breath. “You and e- everyone else in th- this fucking hellscape, you- you did this, you-!”

Bravo lifts his sword for the killing blow-

And then he pauses. He stares at Tango, and Tango stares back.

“... fuck. What am I doing?”

Bravo stumbles back from Tango, lowering his sword. He clutches his head with his free hand, a few stray tears streaking down his face as he struggles to control his breathing. His anger seems to have extinguished, finally letting the pain seep through- an expression that Tango knows as intimately as his own reflection.

Tango blinks.

It’s a complicated rush of emotions. Bravo represents the worst part of Tango’s life coming back to haunt him; his skeleton in the closet. Fueled by prejudice and misplaced blame, he fought tooth and nail to destroy the life Tango had built for himself, brought pain and hardship to a world of strangers who’d done nothing to deserve it. He made a deal with a devil to get what he wanted and didn’t care who got caught up in the crossfire. Most of all, despite having a viable way to escape Hels peacefully, he doggedly pursued revenge out of nothing but spite and a twisted sense of justice.

Logically, Tango should hate Bravo as much as Bravo hates him.

But for the first time, Tango tries to imagine what it must’ve been like to be trapped in Hels for ten years and not knowing why.

What Bravo went through is exactly what Tango’s always feared since he escaped; that one day his luck would run out, and he’d lose everything. His peaceful life in the overworld. His freedom. His friends, and the love he found with Jimmy- maybe Bravo had people he cared about before, too. Worst of all, Bravo had already experienced the wonders of the wider universe before having it abruptly taken from him.

Tango had been spawned into cruelty and suffering. He hadn’t known anything different, hadn’t known there was anything beyond Hels that he was missing out on. But Bravo did. Bravo knew what it was to travel between worlds, to explore untainted horizons, to live under the warmth of the sun. He knew cooperation and goodwill between players, the comfort and safety of solo worlds. And then suddenly, he’d been deprived of it all, with no way of knowing if he’d ever get it back.

So if Atlas told him that it wasn’t his fault, that he could blame it all on some mysterious, evil doppelgänger… Tango understands why he’d cling to the notion so fiercely.

It’s an easy thing to blame someone else. Accepting that Tango isn’t to blame for what he’s become means accepting that maybe his understanding of Hels players is flawed, and that he might not have been as good of a player as he thought to begin with. Accepting that Tango wasn’t to blame for stranding him in Hels in the first place would mean accepting that maybe… there wasn’t a reason at all. And that kind of acceptance is paramount to altering his entire worldview.

Tango’s been through that himself, once. It wasn’t a fun process. So right now, watching Bravo fall apart in front of him, he finds that all he can feel is sympathy.

So Tango summons enough strength to step forward and wrap Bravo in a hug.

Bravo recoils at first; the kind of instinctive flinch that Tango knows all too well. A noise catches in his throat- part alarm, part disgust. “What’re you-” He tries to push away, but Tango holds fast.

“I’m sorry,” Tango whispers. “You didn’t deserve it.”

Bravo freezes.

The air is still and silent around them, filled with nothing but the faint flickering of torches and Bravo’s shrill breathing. He’s as rigid as stone in Tango’s embrace- his muscles are so tense, it feels like they’re going to snap. After a few moments, he inhales sharply, and Tango is almost certain he’s about to receive a sword in the gut but he doesn’t let go, because he remembers what it’s like to live in this world and if he can’t even show his own doppelgänger kindness then he really hasn’t learned anything at all-

The sword clatters to the ground. And Bravo breaks.

He folds into the embrace and begins to sob. He sobs hard, shaking and gasping for breath in between, clinging to Tango like his life depends on it. Tears quickly dampen the collar of Tango’s shirt. It’s different from his earlier furious cries- this is absolute devastation, heart-wrenching and all-consuming. It’s a flood ten years in the making, finally spilling over all the careful walls that Bravo’s built around himself. And now that it’s here, there’s no stopping it.

Tango doesn’t speak. He simply eases them down to sit on the floor- he can’t support both his and Bravo’s weight right now. Bravo practically collapses, body limp, legs curled awkwardly beneath him but he doesn’t seem to notice or care. He sags against Tango and cries, and Tango lets him.

It’s slightly bizarre, holding his doppelgänger while he cries. Especially when he was attacking Tango not even two minutes ago. In many ways, it’s a disturbing echo of his own past breakdowns- he can hear himself so clearly in Bravo’s voice, the raw ache of it.

But he’s glad for it. New growth can only happen once the old is torn down. It’s a messy, unpleasant process. It won’t be quick or easy. Bravo has only just taken the first step- he’s still got a long, difficult journey ahead of him. But Tango knows how beautiful it’ll be, to come out through the other side.

And he thinks maybe he needed this, too.

Tango isn’t sure how much time they spend like that. Only when Bravo has finally grown silent, just the occasional sniffle or shaky breath, does Tango sit back enough to meet Bravo’s teary gaze.

“And neither did I,” he continues quietly. “And neither did anyone else who’s ever spawned here, that- that’s the point.”

Bravo sniffs, wiping his face on his sleeve. “But… the universe has to spawn you here for a reason,” he insists, his voice small and confused. Like a child.

Tango’s mildly surprised to find he feels no anger- just pity. “Maybe the universe is wrong.”

Distress flashes across Bravo’s face; clearly, he’s never considered that before. He pulls away from Tango but he doesn’t go far, tucking his knees to his chest. “So then... all this pain, all this struggle... was for nothing,” he says miserably. “Everything I went through... a- and everything I did... I- I was so sure there had to be a reason, that I was different from the players here, that I didn’t belong here. But I- I’m fucked up. I used to be a nice person, but…”

“Nice isn’t the same thing as good,” Tango says simply. “And I would know.”

Bravo swallows. “… how did you do it?” he asks hoarsely. “You’re a Hels, why… how come this world didn’t ruin you, too? How did you end up being the good one?”

It’s an exceedingly vulnerable question, without a hint of reproach. Tango hums, leaning back on his arms. “Y’know, I spent a long time in this world. I- I grew up where it’s kill or be killed, murder first ask questions later, everyone’ll sell you out for a piece of rotten flesh. That was just normal. That was expected. If you’d known me back then, I- I would’ve been no different from any other Hels. I set horrible traps for fun. I cost random players, people I didn’t even know, their resources and their lives in an already harsh world, I mean- it wasn’t pretty. But I was a kid.” He glances sidelong at Bravo. “I was just a teenager when Atlas took me in, did you- did he ever tell you that?”

Bravo’s surprised expression is all the answer Tango needs.

“Nah, I guess he wouldn’t,” Tango sighs ruefully. “But the first person I thought was different- the first person who I thought saw more in me than the capacity for chaos, who offered me a home, a sense of belonging, a purpose... it turned out to be a trick. All of it, a lie. Just to get me into a horrible farm for the rest of my life, suffering constant withering and being harvested for my resources, like- like I was nothin’ more than a mob.” He gives Bravo a half-hearted grin. “You’d think that’d seal it, right? Like, that would just totally destroy any remaining faith I had in playerkind. And uh, it came pretty close, actually. But then I got out.”

He tips his head back to stare at the ceiling. “The universe created a portal, and I escaped to a world where players were kind. And generous, and… gave you the benefit of the doubt. They didn’t assume the worst, they didn’t judge you based on what you looked like. It was… completely foreign. I took advantage of it at first, I mean, I- I was a total jerk. I’m just lucky they thought it was all in good fun, jokes and pranks and stuff- or, or uh, maybe they did know, and still chose to show me grace, I dunno. What I do know is that after enough time had passed… I changed. My wants, my goals, my- my entire outlook on life changed. Suddenly I wanted to be good, I- I tried so hard to be good. And that only happened ‘cause I got the chance.”

He meets Bravo’s gaze, raising his eyebrows. “And- and I was an adult at that point, I’d grown up in Hels. I mean, imagine what I might’ve been like if I’d spawned on a normal world, grown up in the normal way. Hell, imagine if any other Hels kid got that chance. Maybe there wouldn’t be so many differences between us. Like, maybe even someone like Atlas could’ve been better.” He shrugs. “And maybe he wouldn’t have. Maybe he always would’ve grown up to be an asshole. Either way, there’s no way of knowing if they never have the chance.”

Bravo looks pensive, his brows knitted together. “I guess I… never thought of that.”

Tango dares to reach out and put a hand on Bravo’s arm. “I’m sorry you got sent here. If I’d known about it when it happened... well, I- I probably still wouldn’t have said anything, if I’m honest,” he admits. “Like you said, I did what I had to do to survive. But I’m sorry for what you went through, and for what my role in that was. If I’d been brave enough to speak up, maybe we could’a helped you sooner, I dunno.”

Bravo glances away. “I… understand,” he says haltingly. “It, uh… it doesn’t excuse the way I’ve been actin’, so. You know.”

Tango makes a noncommittal noise. “For what it’s worth, I- I don’t think ‘being good’ is somethin’ that’s like… intrinsically handed to us, just by virtue of where we spawn. I think good is a choice that we make, every second of every day of our lives. And y’know, deciding not to choose good in one moment doesn’t mean we can never choose good again.” He huffs a soft laugh. “I mean, if you ask me, that’s way more important than the world we spawn in.”

Bravo looks at him for a moment. His expression is impossible to read. Then determination settles over him, his eyes hardening, before he abruptly gets to his feet. Without a word, he marches over to one of the chests on the floor and rummages through it. Before Tango can say anything, Bravo pulls out an item and tosses it over to him.

Tango catches it, mostly on reflex; it’s a potion of instant health.

“You take that,” Bravo says briskly, stooping over to pick his sword off the ground, “while I go help Jimmy out of there.”

Then he jumps into the pit, slashing through cobwebs on his way down.

Tango blinks. Well, then. Guess that’s decided. He downs the potion quickly, grimacing at the sweet aftertaste of glistering melon, and rises to his feet. It hasn’t fully restored him, but it’s taken the edge off his fresh injuries and given him enough strength to be a functional player again, and he’s quite satisfied with that for now.

Putting away the empty bottle, he wanders over to the edge of the pit, catching the tail end of Jimmy snapping at Bravo as he approaches.

“- where you’re swingin’ that thing!”

“I’m tryin’ to help! Just hold still-”

“Don’t you tell me to- ouch!”

“You’re makin’ it worse! Hang on…”

Tango’s only just leaned over to look when Jimmy flies out of the pit. His wings are ruffled and there are a few places where it’s obvious that some feathers were pulled out, a few stray bits of cobweb still clinging here and there. But aside from the scrapes and bruises he received during their fight with Bravo, he looks none the worse for wear. He’s been gracious enough to carry Bravo out with him, though he’s quick to dump Bravo back on the ground once they’re clear of the pit.

“Tango!” Jimmy swoops over and nearly knocks Tango over, wrapping him in a tight hug. “Oh my gosh, I- I was so worried, are you alright?”

Despite the ache in his bones, Tango hugs him back just as fiercely. “Yeah, yeah, I’m alright, hun,” he reassures Jimmy, voice muffled in the crook of his shoulder.

Right now, he wants nothing more than to curl up in Jimmy’s embrace and fall asleep. Between the fight and his unexpected heart-to-heart with Bravo, he’s physically and emotionally worn out. But even though the immediate threat has been nullified, he knows they aren’t done yet.

Tango pulls back just enough to meet Jimmy’s gaze. “I’m sorry for all this,” he murmurs, reaching a hand up to cup Jimmy’s face. “I thought… if I came here by myself, I’d be protecting you- protecting everyone- from suffering the consequences of my mistake.”

Jimmy covers Tango’s hand with his own. “Did you… did you come here with the intent of givin’ yourself up?” he asks quietly.

Tango winces. “Well, I didn’t- that wasn’t my main goal, no, but uh- I- I knew it was a possibility,” he confesses. “I mean, ideally I would’ve patched things up with Bravo and- and somehow gotten the key from Atlas on my own, but… I was prepared to fail, yeah. I’d accepted it.”

Jimmy looks sad, but not surprised. “Y’know,” he starts softly, “you- you always talk about, uh… not wantin’ to hurt us, not wantin’ us to suffer for your mistakes. But I don’t think you realize that for us, the thought of losin’ you is far worse than whatever else might happen. I mean, I- I’d go through that battle with Hels Tek a hundred times over if it meant not losin’ you. And I know the others feel the same way.”

“Oh.” Tango’s throat tightens. “I… hadn’t thought of that.”

“I know.” A bittersweet smile spreads across Jimmy’s face. “I know it’s hard for you to believe sometimes, alright, but you- we’re rather fond of you, mate. So, um… d’you think you could give the self-sacrificial nonsense a rest?”

Despite everything, Tango feels himself grin. “I can try, yeah,” he says, leaning up to give Jimmy a kiss.

(On the inside, Tango is still terrified at how this might turn out. Hels is a dangerous world, and tangling with Atlas and the rest of Hels Tek is no small order. A horrible painful death is the least of his concerns- if Jimmy or any of the other Double Lifers ended up in a farm, Tango would never forgive himself.

But if today taught him anything, it’s that the people he cares about are just as stubborn as he is. No matter what he says or does, they’re going to be determined to help him, because that’s just the kind of players they are. And he could continue to try and fight it, to try and go it alone, but he’s sure they’ll still somehow put themselves in harm’s way.

So rather than fight it, maybe he can accept that they’re able to make their own decisions and take their own risks. And that working with them, rather than against them, might give them all the best chance of having a favorable outcome. They’ll certainly have an easier time dealing with Atlas if they don’t have to worry about Tango pulling another dirty, reckless move like this.)

Behind them, Bravo coughs into his fist. “Uh, hey, are you two done…?”

Jimmy breaks away with a huff of annoyance. “What?” he demands, keeping an arm around Tango’s waist.

“Just thinkin’ out loud here,” Bravo says, holding his hands up, “but uh, you- there’s no way you two are gonna be able to take on Hels Tek alone. I mean, you’ve already lost the element of surprise, I- he’s probably noticed your arrival in chat by now. And Hels Tek is several days away on foot, how- what, are you just- are you just gonna walk there? You’d barely make it a hundred blocks before gettin’ killed, what with your abysmal PVP skills.”

Jimmy scowls at the slight against them, but Tango frowns. “You’re right,” he amends. “I uh, I honestly didn’t have much of a plan besides ‘winging it’ when I came through, I- I was on a bit of a time crunch.”

“So what do you propose we do?” Jimmy asks Bravo pointedly.

Bravo rolls his eyes. “I mean, I just wanna get the fuck out of here. But if you guys are tryin’ to get the key to that collar skadoodler from Atlas, you’re gonna need help.”

“From you?” Jimmy’s distrust is evident in his voice. “Why?”

Bravo crosses his arms, shoulders hunched defensively. “I dunno, I- maybe I feel bad about the part I played in all this and feel like I owe you guys one?”

Jimmy scoffs. “Doubtful.”

Bravo opens his mouth to retort, but Tango intervenes. “Hey, I know you probably couldn’t hear everything from the bottom of that pit,” he tells Jimmy, “but uh, I- I really think we’ve worked it out, now.” He glances over at Bravo, smiling. “I think we can trust him.”

Shock flares in Bravo’s eyes, his expression sobering. He gives a slight nod.

Jimmy purses his lips. “Fine, but I still don’t like it-”

Ca-clunk.

Pistons activate, making all three of them whirl around to face the wall. Tango’s mind is already racing through the different possibilities- maybe Bravo was actually just stalling until backup came, or maybe Atlas was able to track them down on his own, or maybe it’s even a completely random player who stumbled across the base- but that all comes screeching to a halt as soon as he sees the player who steps out into the room.

Because that’s Jimmy.

Or- well- not exactly. It’s obviously not Jimmy because he’s still standing next to Tango. But it’s immediately apparent that, despite the several major differences between them, this is Jimmy’s doppelgänger, his Hels counterpart.

It seems impossible. Or at least, highly improbable, that Jimmy’s doppelgänger would be here, of all places, and now, of all times, when Hels is a massive, infinite world full of nearly infinite players.

But there’s no one else he could be.

“Bravo!” the player calls in Jimmy’s voice. “Did you- oh.” He draws up short when he sees them, seeming just as thrown by this turn of events as they are.

The first thing that jumps out at Tango is how skinny the player is. He’s practically emaciated; despite his tall frame, his limbs are no thicker than Tango’s, his big, watery eyes sunken into a hollow face- a face that, aside from the lack of a crooked nose, is almost identical to Jimmy’s. The large wings that trail behind him are black in color and poorly kept. He’s a lot paler than Jimmy is, too, almost a sickly sort of complexion. His ratty hair is a dull black, and- based on the sharp angles of the ends- was cut short very recently.

Now Tango knows how Jimmy must’ve been feeling this whole time. It’s fucking weird.

Beside him, Jimmy’s breath catches. He takes a single, tentative step forward- though Tango is quick to throw an arm out in front of him. The player doesn’t look very threatening. He’s barefoot and dressed in rags, carrying no weapon or armor. But Tango’s still on guard. This is an unknown Hels player, after all.

The player stares at Jimmy, entranced. “Oh,” he breathes, a trembling hand coming up to tug on a strand of hair. A jumble of emotions flash across his face, too fast to read. “I see… you must be Jimmy.”

“And you’re Timmy,” Jimmy says softly, dawning realization settling over his features. “Aren’t you? Gosh…”

Tango recognizes the tone of their voices; they’re experiencing the same strange sensation he did, the first time he laid eyes on Bravo. That abrupt and absolute recognition of the self in the other. Despite meeting for the first time, there hadn’t been a doubt in Tango’s mind that Bravo was his doppelgänger. He’d known it as surely as his own name. It was something instinctual, almost primal- grounding and disorienting all at once.

Timmy. That’s the nickname that Grian and some of the other guys call Jimmy. A practical joke played on them by the universe, no doubt, to have spawned with the names they did.

Bravo finally unfreezes. “Timmy! I told you to wait for me to come get you!” he hisses, but Tango can see the guilt and shame on his face.

“Sorry…” Timmy murmurs distantly, still fixated on Jimmy. “I was just… gosh, I- everythin’ makes sense now…” He finally turns to look at Bravo, and the faint, knowing smile on his face is devastatingly sad. “I… get why I wasn’t good enough.”

Bravo flinches. “No, no I- I didn’t mean-”

“Ey,” Jimmy cuts in, voice gentle but firm as he moves past Tango to approach Timmy. “C’mere, mate, it’s alright. Ignore him a second, hey?” He fans out a wing to block Bravo from view, nonverbally conveying that he’d like a private moment with his doppelgänger.

“Yeah, come on.” Tango takes the cue to grab Bravo by the arm, leading him to the other side of the room. “You- you wanna explain him?” he asks lowly, putting his hands on his hips. “I mean, how- where did you even find him?”

Bravo exhales heavily. “At spawn. Actually, I- we met the first time I ended up at world spawn, all those years ago. Go figure. He- he’d been livin’ there for god knows how long, just… starving to death, over and over again, ‘cause he was too scared to leave.”

Damn.

“Huh.” Tango nods slowly. “So… what were you sayin’ about all Hels being evil monsters…?”

Bravo tenses. “Shut up. He’s different.” He glances over his shoulder at the pair of avians. “I… after I was killed on your world, and- and escaped from Hels Tek, I ended up at spawn. He was still there, and this time… he agreed to come with me, so he could leave Hels with me once I got my portal working.”

“Mhmm.” Tango’s voice is terse, even to his own ears. “You, uh... didn’t happen to keep him around just ‘cause he’s my soulmate’s doppelgänger, did you?”

Bravo winces. “... maybe at first,” he admits. “But then- I dunno, I- I didn’t- things changed, alright?”

Tango folds his arms. “That’s pretty fucked up, to use him as a- a replacement Jimmy.”

“I know, okay?” Bravo hisses, but it’s lacking its usual venom. “I- I’ve had a lotta realizations in the last few minutes, alright? Gimme a break.”

Tango snorts but says nothing else, looking over to check on Jimmy.

He’s speaking to Timmy in low tones, eyes shining with concern. His demeanor is reserved, gentle, nonthreatening- he’s matching Timmy’s curled-in posture, just with less of the anxiety, more reassuring. And it seems to be working; even from this distance, it’s apparent Timmy’s slowly growing more comfortable, less afraid.

Sudden warmth swells in Tango’s chest. It’s overwhelming, meeting your doppelgänger, but Jimmy’s put all those complicated feelings aside to help a player who seems to sorely need it. His experience with Hels players thus far has been nothing but flat-out terrible, and yet it didn’t even occur to him to be wary of Timmy. Some might view that as foolish naivety or ignorance, maybe even stupidity. But to Tango, it’s a testament to Jimmy’s incredible kindness.

He couldn’t be more proud of his soulmate.

Eventually, Jimmy waves them over. “Hey, so uh, you got somethin’ to say to Timmy?” he asks Bravo, one hand resting protectively on Timmy’s bony shoulder.

Taken back, Bravo looks at Tango, who simply raises an eyebrow.

Bravo swallows. “Look,” he starts hesitantly, “I- I uh, I’m sorry for the way I’ve been treating you, alright? It… wasn’t fair for me to compare you to Jimmy.”

Timmy’s avoiding his gaze, fidgeting with his hands, but there’s a hopeful light in his eyes. “Thanks,” he says softly.

Satisfied for the moment, Jimmy turns to Tango. “We can’t leave him here,” he says, completely resolute. “I- I think we should head back through the portal for now, regroup with the others and come up with a- with an actual plan? So long as we don’t break the portal, we’ll still be able to come back through. Even if he,” he nods at Bravo, “is with us.”

Tango rubs the back of his neck, sheepish. “Right, right, yeah. I’m- the others are bound to notice we’re gone soon, so we should probably-”

“Oh!” Timmy gasps suddenly, smacking his forehead. “The others, right! Right, sorry, I uh- the reason I came to find you, Bravo, is that a- a whole buncha players just joined the world.” He cringes, apologetic. “I- I think it’s those guys you were tellin’ me about.”

“What?!” Bravo demands, sounding alarmed.

Tango whips out his communicator, eyes widening at the chat.

The entire Double Life server has joined Hels. Which means they’re probably up by the portal right now, wandering around and looking for him in a dangerous world they’re entirely unfamiliar with, full of hostile mobs, hidden traps, and certain ruthless scientists who’d love to add a few hybrids to their collection.

Shit.

~*~

Somewhere in Hels, a player types furiously on a communicator.

“No,” Atlas calls over his shoulder distractedly, “they won’t be at world spawn. Get me the last coordinates searched by Alisker’s mercenaries, we’ll start from there.”

“Yes, sir,” the scientist says quickly before rushing off.

It’s only been a few minutes since Atlas was alerted to Tango’s arrival in chat- him and one other player. The avian, he thinks. Obviously, this development necessitated that they drop everything and immediately pivot towards an effort to recapture Tango. Amidst giving orders to prepare the flying machines and gather weapons and armor, he’s been frantically trying to reach Alisker via whispers- without looking like he’s too desperate, of course, but he knows that having Alisker’s support in this endeavor will be critical to its success.

All the while, part of his mind is dedicated to puzzling out Tango’s motive.

He had a feeling they’d return to Hels eventually, to try and get the key for Tango’s collar from him. No doubt Tango’s finding its properties rather disruptive to normal life. The only question was whether or not Alisker��s mercenaries would find Bravo before then, allowing them to open a new portal and strike first. The latter option would’ve certainly been ideal, but ultimately, it doesn’t matter. He’s confident they’ll succeed this way, too.

(Failure isn’t an option. Not again.)

What’s most confusing, however, is that Tango seems to have come without any real backup. The other players from his world were quite formidable as a group; Tango must know that leaving them behind will considerably lower his chances of success. So perhaps he doesn’t intend to confront Atlas at all, and is simply content to live with the collar. After all, he’s still wearing the cuffs, all these years later.

The only way to open a portal to Hels- that they know of, at least- is by using a player’s data to lock onto their counterpart’s coordinates. So Tango must’ve opened a portal to Bravo. Perhaps that’s all his goal is- an attempt to make amends with his doppelgänger and provide an escape from Hels. If that’s the case, then they’re working with a limited time frame.

Because if Bravo leaves Hels with Tango, then Atlas is truly out of viable options. All he’ll be able to do is open random portals to any of Hels Tek’s counterparts in the overworld, giving them access to random worlds that Tango is highly unlikely to inhabit. That won’t satisfy Alisker, and Atlas is already on thin ice as it is. No, they need to move now if they have any chance of-

Chat is suddenly jumping with join messages, and some very familiar usernames.

Ah, there’s the rest of them.

Atlas’s runaway train of thought screeches to a halt. If the other members of that world are here now, then it seems like they’ll be going for the key, after all. Which means he can breathe again. They’ve got a difficult conflict ahead of them, sure, but he rather likes their chances here in Hels. And he’s got a much better idea of what they’re up against this time- they won’t be defeated again so easily.

Oh, and Alisker’s finally returned his message. Yes, things are shaping up quite nicely, indeed.

Atlas quickly makes the arrangements, rising from his chair and heading out of his office. The halls of Hels Tek are bustling with activity as everyone scrambles to get ready. Anticipation bubbles in Atlas’s chest. This is his last chance to be victorious; he won’t rest until Tango is locked back in that farm. And, if he plays this right, he’ll have several new additions to his hybrid-farming initiative as well. Already his mind is racing with ideas..

The minutes pass in a blur. Atlas is standing before the flying machines and barking orders, his voice echoing off the garage’s high ceiling, when his communicator beeps again. He glances down, expecting to see another message from Alisker, and draws up short.

Grian tried to swim in lava.

PearlescentMoon tried to swim in lava.

InTheLittleWood tried to swim in lava.

impulseSV tried to swim in lava.

Smajor1995 tried to swim in lava.

Etho tried to swim in lava.

ZombieCleo tried to swim in lava.

bigbst4tz2 tried to swim in lava.

Smallishbeans tried to swim in lava.

GoodTimeWithScar tried to swim in lava.

BdoubleO100 tried to swim in lava.

Renthedog tried to swim in lava.

Atlas blinks in surprise. The messages are almost simultaneous; a massive die-off like this can’t be anything other than a trap. How curious... he knows Bravo is rather fond of setting traps, as Alisker’s mercenaries have discovered firsthand. And if the portal they came through was spawned near Bravo’s location… perhaps this was accidental friendly fire?

Another message flashes.

SolidarityGaming was slain by Bravo.

Oh. Nevermind.

Atlas watches chat with bated breath. It hasn’t escaped his notice that, as of right now, Tango is still alive. And if his hunch is correct…

<Bravo whispered to you> hey. I’ve got an offer for you.

Atlas grins.

~*~

#hermitcraft #life series smp #double life smp #hermitshipping #trafficshipping #hels to pay AU #HTP fic #my writing

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sidekick-hero · 9 hours

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On top of the world

Written for the @steddieholidaydrabbles, prompt 'graduation' | 616 words | tags: fix it, Steve is a sweetheart and takes care of Eddie, first kiss

Before March 21st, Eddie would have said not graduating again was the worst thing that could happen to him. Now, Eddie knows better.

Nothing like almost dying to put things into perspective, right?

He misses the days when his biggest worry was convincing old witch O'Donnell to give him a "D" and let him leave Hawkins High. Now that he knows what a real hellhole looks like, he thinks he could survive another year under Higgins' thumb.

Still, he doesn't exactly mind when Nancy comes over to his and Wayne's new house—part of the government deal the kids cut for him while he was in a coma—to tell him that he's going to graduate with his class.

He doesn't question it either, just whoops enthusiastically enough to almost pull his stitches, which hurts but has the added bonus of Steve putting his big hands all over him to check his numerous healing wounds.

A week on the run and fighting interdimensional monsters with the guy has changed Eddie's perspective on what’s the best thing that could happen to him as well.

On graduation day, he walks across the stage with a cane for support, something he hadn’t thought possible. It was Steve who had made that happen, even if he refused to accept Eddie's praise. The moment Eddie had muttered under his breath after Nancy had left, ‘But how am I supposed to walk the fucking stage if I can't even go to the bathroom without taking a break?' Steve was a man on a mission.

They practiced every day, before or after Steve's work helping out at the hospital. They needed every helping hand they could get after the damage Vecna and the Upside Down monsters had caused. Eddie could attest to how wonderful Steve's hands were at helping. In fact, he could write songs about it once his hands stopped shaking whenever he held a pencil (or anything, really) for too long.

Eddie wondered if every one of Steve's patients was as in love with him as he was.

As Eddie snags his diploma from Higgins, who looks like he bit into a particularly bitter lemon, Eddie marvels that flipping him the bird isn’t as exhilarating as expected.

Maybe that’s because of last night and the way Steve’s lips felt on his. Every moment since then simply pales in comparison.

Steve had come over after another shift at the hospital, probably sore and exhausted, but giving Eddie one of his dazzling smiles that always made him weak in the knees. Which was kind of counterproductive, considering what they were trying to accomplish here.

They were both trying so hard but Eddie’s legs just wouldn’t cooperate. No matter what Steve tried, they buckled after a few steps, forcing Eddie to sit down or fall down. He had made progress, the muscles in his legs slowly coming back, but three weeks had been too short.

Or so he thought.

Eddie doesn’t know how or why, but this time, Steve had simply positioned himself as far away from Eddie as possible and spread his arms as wide as his smile. “I got you, Eds. I’ll never let you fall. If you can’t trust in yourself just yet, trust in me.”

He had, believing that those strong arms would wrap around him if he stumbled.

He didn’t stumble, didn’t fall, but wrap around him they did anyway. Steve had picked him up and twirled him around, and then he’d kissed him, grinning mouth to grinning mouth.

Eddie might not have graduated top of his class, but he sure feels like he’s on top of the world when he catches Steve’s eye among the cheering group of his friends.

#steddie #steddie drabble #steddie fic #stranger things fanfiction #steve harrington #eddie munson #my writing

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dronebiscuitbat · 2 days

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Oil is Thicker Then Blood (Part 7)

The one thing Uzi did not mind about her transformation was her ability to fly alongside N during scavenging missions. He often had to slow down (thrusters will always be faster than manual flying), but it didn't seem to bother him in the least, especially when she was sharing her favorite songs with him over short-range.

And no, it didn't all consist of Nightcore thank you very much. She was sharing the ones she thought he would like.

Of course, N liked all of them, so she probably could blare Nightcore at full volume and he'd like it, but she was still keeping it mostly mainstream, mostly because he seemed to like singing lyrics if he knew them, which was fun!

Because he was good at it.

He nailed nearly every note so long as he was familiar with the song, and it was gorgeous, his voice smooth as butter and just high enough to reach the minor keys without sounding off.

And yes, it did make her core flutter like it was full of a million butterflies, but that was besides the point.

“Hang on, lemme give you this one.” She sent another over to him, her wings flapping above her as they both glided comfortably.

“How many do you have?!” N asked excitedly, although it was definitely in the sense that he was eager to hear all of them and not that he wanted her to stop.

“Years worth of emotional repression leads to years worth of saved angst, what can I say?” She replied, poking a little fun at herself, she pushed ahead as he opened the audio file, scanning the ground for any parts she needed.

This one was a little angry sounding, but the guitar was nice, and there was a woman singing in the background that he wished didn't sound so sad, but it was pretty, at the very least.

“Do you want me to just give you my playlist? I've kinda just been sending you singles from it this whole time.” She fell back in line with him, wings beating above her, wow, he never realized how strong they looked before.

“Yes!” He beamed, being ecstatic to listen to more, it was leagues better than anything he'd ever heard play at the manor, plus he felt as if he was learning quite a bit about her just through her saved songs.

He noted the complete lack of love songs, there were plenty of breakup songs, but it didn't seem that Uzi had either never felt that way about anyone or she may have just not liked the sappiness of them. He wasn't sure, he was kinda hoping for the latter, she deserved someone to make her happy, surely?

“Here. But we can't spend all night doing this, it not really what we're here for…” She sent him a massive folder that was going to take a bit to install, in the meantime. They both flew upwards, trying to spot things from higher up.

“No worries, what are we looking for?” He asked, just replaying the same songs he'd already listened to on repeat, just at a lower volume.

“A hardware store preferably, that explosion melted all my railguns internals… stupid J… pain in my ass even in death.” She added, sounding bitter. He didn't argue.

“Hmm, I think I saw one last night. I can send you the map data?” He offered, not noticing how closely they were flying, he could feel each beat of her wings. The urge to wrap his tail around her hit him suddenly. She wasn't in danger. What was this about?

“Sweet! Yes!” She gave him a thumbs up, and so he sent the map data to her, and she went silent looking it over intently.

And here he was admiring how she could intently focus of his map data while also flying near perfectly again, if he ever needed to revist a location he had to stop flying lest he hit something. Not her though, her mind was so lightening fast. Not just in this, but in everything.

Man his best freind was so cool. And pretty.

She… was pretty. But that was random.

“Yeah, you did pass one, this way!” She did pause in the air for a moment, but only to turn to him and make sure he was following, he nodded, letting her lead him.

Her tail swirled behind her as she kept herself aloft, it was graceful in it's own way, since she had to think more about consciously flying then he did, and so she ended up doing more spins and tricks in the air just by flying normally. It was almost like watching a dance, albeit a bat-like one.

“We're here.” He heard her shout before diving, and he followed without question, landing beside her with a metallic thud in contrast with her graceful perfect landing.

Okay, what the heck was going on with him today?

“Anything specific?” He asked, dusting the snow off himself before it melted and refroze to his chassis. Ignoring the random intrusive thoughts that seemed to be increasing in frequency and intensity.

“Small screws, wiring, oh! And capacitors! Lots and lots of capacitors.” He knew at least what two of those things were at what they looked like, so he nodded and followed her into the blasted out store after beating the snow out of his cap.

Her tail whipped around into a flashlight, pointing it at the rotten shelves and the icesicles hanging above them, a skeleton was at the counter, still in uniform, and still in the position of looking bored.

“Split up? I'll look for the capacitors, you get the screws and wiring?” She turned to him, with the absence of others she always seemed to smile, he gave her a thumbs up and beamed her one right back, before turning and wandering to the nearest shelf, leaving them both alone with their thoughts.

Uzi was already searching deep in the electronic section, trying to find capacitors that weren't completely broken or frozen, with a task at hand her mind was blessedly empty for once, enough that she was humming absent-mindedly whatever song had gotten trapped in her head.

She didn't sing, she didn't like her voice and thought it was too deep for most songs, but humming was fine, if it wasn't done in front of other people. Robo-God forbid someone hear her not being aggro for ten seconds. But here she was alone, and N was on the other side of the store, he couldn't hear her.

And even if he could, it was N. He wouldn't ever make fun of her for anything.

She smiled. At this point trying to deny her feelings was pointless, he made her feel so special, so wonderful. And he was so happy to spend any time with her, whether it be listening to her music or watching a movie or agreeing to visit a baby with her. He was always down, loving every second.

It rubbed off on her, she found herself smiling more, liking her life more, liking herself more. She was beginning to feel less like a freak and more like a person, all thanks to the lovable goofball she called her best freind.

And she wanted to call him more, connect with him more, but… she couldn't be certain he felt the same way. He was always so loving but he was like that with everyone, he cared, and that's just who he was.

So nothing he did proved he liked her like that. Romanticly. Never in a million years did she ever think she would be longing for someone, or even have a crush in the first place, but here she was, admitting to herself that… she was in love. Ew

But at the same time, the way he had been looking at her in the nursery, with a small smile on his face and his eyes digitally half-lidded. He looked… almost like he wanted to kiss her.

But that had to have been her imagination, he'd asked if she felt better right before, maybe he'd just been concerned.

With a victorious gasp she found a whole box of preserved capacitors and quickly stashed them in her bag before going off and trying to find the boy in question, core full of butterflies but also very very heavy.

N had finally finished downloading Uzi's monster of a playlist and was skimming through it while picking up his second box of screws, he doubted she needed this many, but being an overachiever never got him in trouble before.

He fingered the wiring he had in his pocket, feeling satisfied that he'd completed his task and yet still felt anything but.

He was… confused.

Uzi was his friend, his best friend. And yet the more he thought about her the lighter his core got, in a way that was new to him. Well no, that was it wasn't it? It wasn't new.

It was just attached to a new person.

But… he didn't have a crush on Uzi did he? He could form sentences just fine around her, he wasn't nervous or artificially sweaty. He just wanted to be close, to protect her. To be there when she needed him. That wasn't romantic. It was protective! Like all friends should be!

And yet he still felt unsatisfied, like he was missing something.

“Hey! Did you find what we needed?” He heard her before he saw her, bounding up to him with a crooked smirk, her tail twitching behind her and her wings folded against her back. She was cute…

He shook off his thoughts again.

“Yeah! Here!” He he presented the screws and the wire to her with a smile, his tail twitching as her hand grazed his as she took them, no that wasn't a spark you're imagining things.

“Thanks!” You ready to head back? It's going to be morning soon.” She asked, punching his shoulder playfully, a small laugh left his mouth.

“Yeah! And we can listen to music together on the way back!”

“Sure buddy.”

And with that they took off, commenting on songs and cracking jokes about the stupid ones, flying high to get home faster. With each minute he felt himself relax, whatever confusing mess his thoughts were causing right now didn't matter, they were laughing, and she was smiling. He would figure it out later.

“Is… is this song about a potato?” He asked slowly, causing her to snort before devolving into a fit of laughter.

“Y-yeah? I thought it was funny, and I rigged the teachers lounge to play it on repeat once.”

N didn't want to ask why, but he felt that it was a very Uzi thing to do.

“Hey, I might need to crash at your place tonight. Charge is low and I don't wanna pass out on the way home.” As she said that, a little low battery symbol appeared at the top right corner of her visor, showing she wasn't lying.

“Sleepover!” He shouted, making her smile again, he really liked her smile…

“Yeah, whatever.” She rolled her eyes, but her words lacked any sort of bite. There was a brief comfortable silence before;

“Oh… this one's kinda sad.” His face fell at little as he listened. An orchestral swell being out of place in the rest of the playlist.

I am tired of this dream….

Will it ever end for me?

“Sorry, I don't have a lot of happy ones that aren't also sarcastic…” She admitted sheepishly, she probably should find happier songs now that she was thinking about it. She felt happier now, what was the harm? So long that it was only her and N that would ever hear them.

I don't have the will to know…

Can you help me see?

“Oh! Duet!” He hummed happily, that fact alone seemingly making him feel better about it.

Let my body keep you warm…

Let my essence be your breeze.

Oh. This was a love song, and a rather longing one. He looked over Uzi's playlist, this one was added only recently. About three months ago, huh that was around when prom happened.

Can you hear me calling?

Please look out for meeee…

“N! Look!” Uzi shouted and he looked up, the gas giant was being eclipsed by Copper-9s barren moon, causing the entire night sky to be lit up in a burnt umber red. But he'd be lying if he said that was what caught his attention.

Can you set me free?

Will you take my soul away?

Uzi was silhouetted in the light perfectly, sending warm oranges and reds bouncing off her features like she was gazing at a roaring fire, she was hung in the air, snowflakes falling slowly around her, the light turning them to embers dancing in the air. She was smiling, her hands reaching out to touch one of the dancing flames.

Casting me in cold

Bury me in bones

Rest eternallyyyyyy…

He felt all the moisture in his mouth evaporate on the spot, and any further thought through his processors die. If flying wasn't an automatic process, he would have fallen from the sky in shock.

She looked beautiful.

Will you take me home?

Can we see the moon again?

Dancing in the dark

Till we fall apart

I can't end this dream...

#biscuitbites #murder drones #murder drones n #murder drones nuzi #murder drones uzi #nuzi #md n #md nuzi #md uzi #n and uzi #uzi doorman #serial designation n #uzi fell first #N fell harder #songfic i guess #N is still clueless #but now he has FEELINGS

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heyidkyay · 2 days

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And I'm petrified of being alone, now |

Part Twenty-Five (The End)

Summary: She’s just trying to get by, really. What with being a single parent to her four year old son whilst simultaneously trying to kick start a successful career as a radio presenter. She’s got everything she’s ever wanted though, friends close by, a mum who’s merely a phone call away, and of course her baby boy. What else is there to wish for? But then, it’s not long before her relatively normal life gets upended and turned on its head, and she’s suddenly forced to deal with situations she’s never even thought to imagine.

What happens when one mention of a certain controversial singer on her show sends a flood of unexpected challenges her way?

Authors note: The ending! The final chapter of Matty and Mouse's story, my heart is actually breaking. Honestly loved writing these two, as well as baby Teds, and I hope you lot loved them too because all the love this series has gotten means so much, it feels surreal. Hopefully I can write a few blurbs of them or something in the future but this is it for now. So thank you for all the support!

Warnings: EMOTIONS, Matty and Mouse way of thinking, little bit of angst, referencing to past hurts (such as not making it to a certain age), smut, unprotected sex, self-conscious characters?

> Last update: look back here if you'd like!

Masterlist

Matty wouldn’t have been able to say what the time must have been if anyone had dared ask. He’d been propped up against the headboard, still in his t-shirt and jeans, his hand never having fallen from the top of her head even after she’d finally worn herself out and drifted to sleep.

His stomach churned pitifully at the reminder, at how hard she had cried. Gasping and sobbing into that fucking pillow she still held onto, all whilst clinging to the skin of his wrist with an unforeseen strength. As though she’d been pleading in her grip of him, asking him not to go just yet.

That hold had diminished a tad during the night, she’d always been a fitful sleeper– had kneed him one too many times between the legs for him to not know that fact– but this time around… She’d been almost deathly still, aside from the frowning expressions that clouded her face whilst she’d dreamt.

He continued to sit there though, watching on as the moon sunk so that the sun could slowly climb its way into the irradiating sky, giving way to that first hint of morning.

He hadn’t slept a wink, not really. Nodded off for a second or two once or twice before he’d found himself jerking awake again. Couldn’t seem to stay down for much longer than that.

And why would he? When he’d all but destroyed the woman laying beside him. This proud, strong and resilient woman that he’d been so idolised by, so enraptured with. The one person in his fucking forsaken life that had appeared so utterly invincible.

She was a survivor. A mother. A friend.

And she was kind. Funny. Resilient.

Then she’d gone and met him, hadn’t she?

And he’d ruined her like he did everything else.

Practically broken her.

Torn the last pieces of her further apart.

The thought alone made him feel sick to his stomach. Aching with this unbound need to grovel and cry at her very feet, to make her see enough sense so that she could understand just how much she didn’t need someone like him. That she was strong enough to do it all alone. That she didn’t need to cling to him as she had, like rust to a buoy long lost at sea.

Guilt.

That was what that sticky feeling growing in his gut was. That overwhelming malady that was eating him up from the inside out, making him feel so utterly sick.

He had come over to see her. So that they might be able to talk things out. He’d come to apologise. To make things right between them. But instead, what had he done?

Pushed.

He’d pushed and fucking pushed, forcing her hand enough so that she had cracked and he’d been able to slip past those high guarded walls of hers.

And now here they were.

He couldn’t bring himself to regret it though– not all of it at least.

To have held her again… It had calmed some sick twisted part of him.

To have just seen her and heard her voice, no matter how pained and angry it had been. It was like the world around him had softened for a split second. Become all grainy.

Matty glanced back over to her sleeping form, to the way she had bundled the duvet high up over her head so that the tip of her nose could bury itself in the slight curve it made, her chin tucked away.

His hand was still lost somewhere in her hair, thumb cascading out over her temple every now and then, but he didn’t dare pull away. Not until he had no other choice in the matter.

So he carried on, staying there and lying awake. Thinking over the night before. Thinking back to her devastated expression, to the wary look her eyes had held. To the way she hadn’t spoken a word. To how she had simply forced her cries into silent sobs.

Suddenly, he was stuck on the very realisation that she hadn’t been reacting to it all, to everything she’d been feeling, to what had happened, but rather retreating. Hiding away whilst, somehow, still allowing him to be near. To stay. To watch over her.

A soft sniff had him blinking, regaining composure quick enough so that he could catch the scene play out before him.

…

I was embarrassed by the previous night's events. By the fact that I had been so determined to keep Matty at arms length and then failed entirely. That he had seen me so weak and well– broken.

But it had all come to a head, I supposed.

I’d been keeping up appearances ever since everything had fallen out, putting on a brave face and a smile for anyone and everyone who could see. It was only ironic, I guessed, for Matty to have been the one to shatter that image completely.

Still, I swallowed at the sight of him still sitting there beside me the next morning, seeming as though he hadn’t moved an inch throughout the whole night, and shoved all that shame back down.

“Thought you’d be gone by now.” I heard myself say as I flipped over onto my back so that I could stare up at the ceiling and at the sun drawn lines that stretched out across it.

I listened to his quiet laugh, to the way he shuffled slightly on the mattress, though I didn’t dare look back at him. It was too early and I already felt as though he’d seen enough of me. “Was just hoping for a chance at one of your brews, is all.”

Something in me shifted at his easy words. At the fact that he’d chosen to try and make me smile, instead of calling me out on all my messy bullshit.

“And if I’ve got no milk?” I replied, just because this was easier than arguing anymore.

I felt him shift, probably shrugging if I knew him as well as I thought I did. “Shops open soon enough.”

The corner of my mouth twitched, although I continued my staring contest with the blank space sat high above us.

“Who says I’ll let you back in?”

He did laugh then, a deep rumble of a chuckle that was rough from disuse and a lack of sleep. Matty sniffed, “Just gonna have to try my luck then, I ‘spose.��

It was only in that next second that I realised something, something that had me inhaling sharply as Matty’s fingers dragged their way through my hair to tuck a frizzy strand behind my ear, before then pulling away entirely.

My eyes slipped closed at the sudden loss and my hands curled into tight fists beneath the duvet at the very thought of him having stayed that way throughout the night. Of having held me in the only way he’d been able to, as though he believed it might have kept some small part of me together. Only pulling away now that he could see that I wasn’t going to crack beneath the weight of everything I still held.

The bed shifted and the sound of his feet hit the floor.

From the corner of my eye, I watched him as he stood.

Matty moved throughout my bedroom with an ease I didn’t even own, picking up the hoodie he’d thrown over my desk chair all those days ago, the same one I hadn’t allowed myself to touch, let alone wear.

I almost told him not to take it, but withheld. Only just managing to bite down on my tongue as I watched him shrug it on. It was his afterall.

“Gonna nick your keys,” He told me whilst he shook the hood out around his neck and dragged it up over his tousled curls, “Only be about ten minutes. You can shower or whatever, not worry about letting me back in.”

I could only nod in return and he smiled, pausing in the doorway to look back at me for a second or two before he nodded, almost fretfully, and turned away.

I waited, lying there still enough that I was surprised I didn’t go stiff from how tightly I was wound, until I heard the familiar rattle of keys and then the squeaking hinges of the front door. It closed behind him so quietly that had I not been holding my breath I might not have even heard it.

I was rubbing at my face not a minute later, hauling back tears leftover from last night's show, before I heaved an anguished scream that was more air than actual sound from my lungs.

Forcing myself to calm– and not dissolve into fucking hysterics– I willed myself up, noting that I was still naked as I kicked the covers away. Another thing I’d gone and bared for him, I supposed. As though it wasn’t enough that I had already cried myself to sleep with him just sitting a hand’s stretch away, but that we’d actually gone and slept together. After everything.

My head was warring with my heart as I dragged myself up out of the dirtied sheets, throwing on an old tee so that I could shove them into the washer before he got back. I forced myself into the shower quickly after, letting the hot water roll off my skin.

I must’ve been stood there for a long while, drowning under the heavy spray, because it was the sound of the door that broke me from the faraway place I’d found myself in whilst staring at the tiled walls.

Blinking, I wiped the water from out of my eyes and forced myself to wash, lathering up my hair and going through the motions, before I finally stepped out.

I didn’t dare peer into the mirror, not all too desperate to see the state I’d worked myself into on my way out. Choosing to head back into the bedroom instead, padding over towards the dresser to pull out some clean clothes and only noticing the fresh sheets that had been pulled onto the bed when I’d finally dressed.

The towel I’d been holding to lightly dry my hair slowly dropped to my side at the sight. I opened my mouth to call out and probably ask– But I stopped myself before I could. Ask what? I wondered. Why? Then shook my head at the very idea.

Doing the smart thing by shutting my mouth, I dumped the towel in the hamper and pulled on a pair of socks, taking a deep breath before deciding to venture further out into the flat.

I found him in the kitchen.

He didn’t peer over his shoulder but he must’ve heard me putter in because he greeted me: “I know I said I’d be quick but I passed by that little bakery on my way back– that hidden gem we liked that one time? Anyway, it just smelt fuckin’ devine.” He accentuated that last bit, making me smile slightly, “And I just couldn’t not, you know? Been a while, but they had those danishes you like in the window. Got a couple to share as well as some other bits.” Matty explained, head still halfway in the bag he’d obviously brought back with him, a pint of milk sat alone on the side, “And a sausage roll for Teds– kid was eating them like he was gonna starve a while ago. So I just thought...”

Matty shrugged, as though that in itself was no big deal, him thinking of my son, and turned around to glance my way with a display case of baked-goods now lining my kitchen counter.

I snorted softly at the sight, jerking my chin out towards the lot of them, “Just thought you’d bring back half the shop?” I teased and was all too pleased when he chuckled around the beginnings of a smirk.

He was quick with his quip, “So I’m guessin’ you don’t want one of these danishes then?”

I narrowed my eyes at the sheer nerve. “I never said that.”

Matty’s nose scrunched with his next shrug before he moved to snap one up for himself. “Sort of sounded like it, sweetheart.”

I shook my head, biting down on my growing grin as I slid across the kitchen to grab at one too.

I hummed around the first bite I took and all but moaned at the flavour of it, blinking my eyes back open only to find Matty wearing the most delighted little grin. I rolled my eyes but didn’t grant him the gift of an actual reply, though it didn’t seem to waver him either way.

We seemed to move seamlessly around one another after that; him filling up the kettle whilst I placed two mugs down on the countertop; the clink of a teaspoon being shot into one cup as I moved to grab the tin of tea bags; Matty switching the radio on like it was second nature and me smiling away to myself as I poured the milk.

I chewed on the inside of my cheek once we’d finally settled, he’d chosen to take up room at the table whilst I carefully stored the remaining pastries away for later.

I wanted to talk, to try and hash things out again, because this felt right to me. Him being here. In my dingy little kitchen, small but still so crowded with all sorts of bits and bobs, as well as a plethora of crayon coloured drawings. And he just, well, Matty just fit here. Or maybe that was just me hoping. Ignoring the bigger warning signs so that I wouldn’t have to feel so alone again.

Was he lying to me?

Had he relapsed?

Did he cheat?

It didn’t seem like he’d done any of those things. There was no guilt in his gaze and yesterday… I’d never seen him like that. Even whilst stressed or overwhelmed, Matty had never cried. He’d never looked at me like that either, as though he was slowly breaking before my eyes.

He’d said his piece, he’d promised, and then he’d apologised.

But.

What if I was just making a bigger mug of myself here?

Letting him back in. Giving him my forgiveness. Having him in my bed.

Was I saying that it was okay? Was that the impression I’d be giving? That he could lie and walk all over me and that everything would still be fine.

It left the world feeling a little more tilted than it had been only moments before. It left me questioning everything, once again.

…

“What are we doing, Matty?”

Matty was slow in looking back over at her, fingers tapping aimlessly away on the kitchen table to some song that had been playing on the radio.

“What do you mean?”

She huffed, a quiet chuckle full of disbelief rippling through the air, “I mean, what are we doing here?”

“The fuck if I know.” Matty replied, just as soft as that laughter she’d given him, shrugging at her from across the kitchen. Because what was he meant to say to that?

She just shook her head in turn though, completely unaware to the way he was now watching her. Taking her all in. The way the outline of her body glowed whilst bathed in the morning light that shone in through the windows. Of how her slowly drying hair curled at parts in the easy breeze that crept by. And how endeared he was by the way she never failed to tuck her joggers, or pyjama bottoms, or whatever else she’d decided to throw on whilst at home into her socks. It made her who she was, all these mindless little tidbits that he’d gathered over the last year, that he had observed.

“We can’t just– move on. Carry on like nothing’s happened.” She sounded frustrated. Sad.

“Why not?” It was almost sarcastic, the way he said it, but his voice held a whole lot of truth to it. He wanted this and he wanted her. And he’d be a fucking fool to deny it.

And what would the world make of the two of them anyway? Cause she’d gone and claimed the very same thing last night, hadn’t she?

The pair of them, fools.

“‘Cause everything’s a mess.” She answered back, staring at him now, almost defeated.

Her shoulders were slumped and she wore that sad smile she often favoured when she was at a loss, slowly being eaten away by a horde of thoughts she couldn’t seem to control.

He watched her fidget with the hem of her sleeve, peering down at it.

“Because after everything, Matty,” She breathed, voice soft even in the quiet of the kitchen, “I know that I love you and I don’t want to lose what we have left here. I don’t want that ruined.”

Matty’s mouth worked itself into a small smile as his eyes dragged between her own, trailing over the short scar that crossed the bridge of her nose, remembering the night she’d teared up when he’d reached out to caress it.

“I’d rather be ruined by you than not have you at all, Mouse.”

She blew air from out of her nose in a soundless chuckle, cheeks rounding around an amused grin for the briefest of seconds before her eyes skittered away from him again. “That meant to be all poetic?”

He gave her a curt nod and then just grinned, legs fanned out before him. “In the job description. Musician, remember?”

“Oh, do I.” She quipped back just as sarkily, leaning against the counter as she continued to watch him from under dark lashes. Matty reckoned he’d let her shove him under a microscope if it got her to let him stick around. If only for a while longer.

A silence passed between them.

“I love you.” Matty murmured, so sure of that fact, “That much I know. But I won’t ask you for anything more than I already have, you make the choice. You can hold the cards. And whatever you decide, I’ll accept.”

Her face hardened a fraction, as though she were steeling herself for an argument or something other. Hiding how underprepared she’d been for his words perhaps. Matty only hoped that she’d heard the truth in them.

“No fight? You’ll just accept it and leave?”

Matty didn’t dare blink but dipped his head in slight acknowledgement. “If that’s what you want.”

The woman before him just continued to stare him down and for once, Matty couldn’t read her face. Had no idea what the hell she might’ve been thinking. Or feeling. Or what plans she was currently devising in that clever head of hers.

“Okay.”

It took all of his sheer effort not to react to that one simple word, even though she had practically just gone and ripped his fucking heart out of his chest.

Actually, he supposed that was another lie he’d told. She’d done that months ago, on the day they’d met and went and ruined him for good.

I’d rather be ruined by you.

It’s what he’d said.

He couldn’t go back on it now.

“Okay.” He answered her, voice just barely above a whisper that he wasn’t sure she heard over the squeaking of his chair legs.

And then he was standing in her kitchen for what he supposed would be the last time. He saw her grip the edge of the counter, knuckles whitening, gaze unstraying, but she didn’t say another word.

They stared at one another for what felt like the longest minute on Earth and Matty could practically feel the ground shifting beneath the soles of his feet as he realised that now everything would really change.

His breath caught, the thought hitting him like a shit ton of bricks and he knew then that he had to leave before he broke down and took it all back. Before he was a fucking mess of a man on her kitchen floor.

He turned on his heel and made for the door.

“Where’re you going?”

Matty froze, entirely rooted to the floor.

He continued to stare resolutely ahead, scared to move in case she had changed her mind. In case she was saying what he thought she was.

“Your tea’s gonna go cold… and I thought you could pick Teds up with me later.” She was going for nonchalant, aiming and almost hitting, but she missed the mark by just a hair. “He was with Ads yesterday, you know, and she dropped him off at nursery this morning for me. Just figured.”

Matty pivoted on his heel, slow going and hardly daring to steal a breath as he did, before he was looking straight at her. At the way her teeth had sunk into her lower lip, the careful sheen her eyes had taken on, and then the singular strand of hair which had fallen from behind her ear. He was across the room and on her in a second.

Firm hands held her face, thumbs guarding either cheek as he bored everything he couldn’t seem to say into the next look he gave to her. Wanting her to see it all. To know, or simply understand.

“You’re gonna kill me.”

She laughed.

“Wanna bet…” Her words trailed off into a heavy breath and Matty could feel the strength of his grin as he leaned in close, nose bumping against hers, his eyes flickering over the entirety of her face, attempting to take her in all at once.

There was buzzing under his skin, he could feel it in the tips of his fingers, all the way down to his toes, and heard the way it hummed throughout his chest.

It was then that he realised he couldn’t see an end without her in it.

He wanted everything with this woman.

Everything.

And that should’ve been the most terrifying thought.

Because once he had believed he would never see the end of sixteen, puking into the bushes outside his bedroom window and not having the strength to make it that extra mile. To let mum know that he was alright.

Then it had been nineteen, that first real stint in hospital. He’d been scared to shit and alone, the darkness hiding all the groans and upset of the other patients with real issues.

But nineteen had come and gone, so then he figured twenty-one. Maybe twenty-two? Definitely twenty-five… Had to be.

Twenty-eight had been both the end and the beginning for him.

But even without everything that had been holding him back after that, the drugs, the people, the money. After he’d gotten clean– proper clean– he’d never really thought far enough ahead.

To a point where he might feel settled or want to start building a place for himself in the world. A real place, one amongst family and friends, not just amongst admiration and music– as much as it had helped shape him.

He’d never once pictured this. A person.

Girlfriends? Yeah. Flings and one night stands? Sure. But a person that would be his. Completely. That he could share half of himself with?

No, he couldn’t say that he’d ever seen that coming, that something like this would have one day been in the cards for him.

And Matty wanted so badly to sink his claws in and cling on for as long as he possibly could, for as long as she’d be willing, and then even more so. Until somebody else came along and inevitably unhooked him. But he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t dare. Because this was too perfect to go and destroy like that.

He’d always claimed to be a selfish man, but in this regard, all the love he had worth giving would be spent on her. On the days they’d spend together. On meals and dates. On flowers and apologies for when he eventually messed up again, because he knew himself too well to deny that fact. He’d spend it on giving her security, on rebuilding her trust. He’d spend it on her son. On the little boy he’d become so besotted by.

And if it ruined him, if it killed him? He reckoned he’d be okay with that.

He’d be content. Finally having something to be proud of.

“What are you waiting for?”

Matty eyes tracked the length of her face, fingers tangled in her hair whilst his thumbs pressed into the grooves of her temples. What was he waiting for?

As soon as he thought it, Matty was pressing against her once more, stealing all the breath from her lungs in his haste to answer her.

It was slow, the kiss; soft in the way his lips captured hers for only a few seconds before he was pulling away again, hands shaking where he still cupped her cheeks.

He wanted to make sure that this was what she wanted, but he could see it in her face, that surety, the warmth. And he wouldn’t question that, maybe in some regards he’d be willing to give her anything, but here and now, with this, with wanting her, he would as selfish as he fucking could be. He’d take all that she would give him.

The next kiss was full and deep– urgent.

Matty’s tongue slid into her mouth, hands falling aimlessly away from her face to whatever part of her he could touch, feeling no ounce of remorse over it seeing as she was on the exact same journey, her fingers winding their way up and over every inch of him.

She kissed back with just as much force, colliding with him in a way that almost felt tortured, as though trying to make up for all the time they had wasted. Not just over the past few days, but the weeks and months they’d spent dancing around one another, pushing and pulling. Despairing this game of tug of war they had started.

It ended here.

Matty continued to lean up into her, pressing her into the counter as she clawed at the hoodie he wore. Matty felt her nails catch on the skin of his back, whilst he wrapped his arms around her hips.

“Baby,” He whispered breathlessly and then moaned when her mouth closed around his bottom lip, teeth grazing against the flesh before they then bit down. She rocked into him and Matty swore his eyes rolled into the back of his head.

He reached up a hand to cup the back of her neck so that he could mouth his way across her jaw and down her collar, favouring the skin just beneath her ear. “Need you.”

It was both an admission and a plea.

And then she was grabbing at his face too, forcing his mouth back up to meet hers, breath sweeping over the cut of his jaw. She tangled her fingers in his curls and Matty had the barest second to register that he was actually staying. That she was letting him back in.

His body jolted forward on impulse, arms snaking their way around her waist to splay out over her lower back, pulling her that much closer. Her hold tightened too, hand moving down his neck, thumb pressing lightly against the pulse point there.

Matty stepped nearer and she welcomed him in, legs parting to let him step between them, kiss turning hungrier as she arched her back up and away from the countertop. He wanted all of her.

She let go of his hair to press in harder, pulling back only so that she could lick his mouth back open and drive her tongue inside. She murmured his name against his lips, once, twice. And then Matty’s hand was between the blades of her shoulders and holding fast. He moved, spinning them outwards, over towards the kitchen door.

She let out a sharp sound that was half gasp and half moan, but all love and desire when they knocked into the arm of the sofa in the living-room and fell back against the soft cushions.

When they broke apart it was only out of necessity, the need to catch back the breath that had been forced out of them on their tumble down. They shared an airy chuckle.

Then he watched on as she stretched out further up the settee, fingers caught on his wrist so that she could tug him along with her. Their hips aligned as Matty crowded her again, elbow digging into the chair's arm to hold him up above her. He hovered there, their faces and foreheads pressed together, noses lined up side by side. Matty wished to savour every detail of her.

He kissed her again, slower, softer. His lips moved against hers so gently that it was almost reverent, worship-like, and she matched him toe for toe, pouring her whole soul into it, gifting him all the sweetness that she possibly could.

Matty prayed to whoever might’ve been listening that he could have this.

He supposed someone must’ve heard him because she said, “Stay,” in this careless whisper, in a tone that was more breath than anything else. And his heart stopped.

And then he was nodding. Almost frantically.

He kissed her, the tip of his nose brushing the underneath of hers as he lifted his head to nod one more time. “Long as you’ll let me.”

She whimpered and he groaned, forehead pushing against hers once more as she lifted her hips up to meet his.

Then they were both lunging for clothes in the same instant, nearly laughing at their clumsy eagerness to get undressed, the sofa being of no help.

Matty pushed back to sit up for a moment, luring her up gently with him so that he could slide her shirt off over her head. She returned the favour, letting him trail a finger over the curve of her shoulder and down her arm once they were done before she was on her back once more.

“So beautiful.” He felt the need to whisper, even though there was no one else around to hear it. She glanced away.

Matty wouldn’t have that though, a careful hand coming up to coax her eyes back to him, hoping that she would hear the sincerity in his words. She was the best thing he’d ever seen, no matter the time of day. No matter how horrible she felt. He’d never been so enamoured by another person, or so utterly lost in his desperate need to make it known.

His thumb caught on the corner of her mouth and he smiled. “I meant it.” He assured her and felt her shiver beneath him as his words fanned the skin of her cheek, “Beautiful.”

She swallowed thickly, he saw the bob of her throat before he slid his palms down her sides to unhook her bra, dropping it off to the side so that he could mouth along the length of her torso.

He continued to murmur, tone so full of admiration as he attempted to press the words into her skin, hoping that this way they would somehow sink in.

By the time he reached the hem of her trousers she was writhing beneath him, eyes pleading, so Matty made quick work of ridding them, allowing himself to look her over for just a second. She truly was beautiful.

“Matty,” The sound of his name forced his eyes back up and he was thrown by the dazzling smile she then wore. She took one of his hands in hers, linking their fingers, “I don't have all day, baby.”

He merely shook his head and laughed, figuring that she must’ve seen the many emotions that played out across his face afterwards because she tightened her hold on his hand and motioned him closer so that she could kiss him again.

He took her there on the settee. Worked her over slow and hard, his gaze only ever wavering when they slipped shut or he buried his face alongside the skin of her neck. His hands wandered whilst hers clung tight, leaving him marked and gasping. She murmured the whole while, legs wrapped around his middle to keep him as close as she possibly could, so that he could drive that bit deeper. Matty had never heard her so vocal, just muttering on and on, only ever stopping to cry out or jolt. But even then her words would either come out all warped or in a sharp shout. It only proved to spur him on though, fingers digging in and bruising the soft sides of her hips and thighs.

He could hardly think, listening to her pleads and commands. Such a demanding little thing.

The heels of her feet dug into his flesh as her arms wrapped themselves around his shoulders, holding on, sinking her nails into his skin deep enough to have him hissing. He didn’t dare tell her to let up, just attempted to pick up his pace, hand falling away from the crease of her thigh to drag along her folds, needing her to let go before he could.

“Close?”

He was met with a choked gasp: “Yeah.” Followed by a cascade of assent, breath wetting the cut of his jaw as her hands jumped up to curl themselves along his shoulders.

Matt felt himself nod, but was hardly even aware of it, gaze trained on her face, the watering of her eyes, the pink swell of her lips. “So good for me. Don’t deserve you.”

His words just made her strengthen her already too tight hold and then she was writhing beneath him, tear sliding down the side of her face just as her head tilted far back against the cushions and she moaned.

He wasn’t far behind her, but she continued to work her hips to the best of her ability whilst his thrusts became more and more desperate. He only noticed that he was clenching his teeth when her fingers came up to thread through his hair, slackening the muscles there in his face just as his head fell forward, hovering a centimetre or two above the dip in her collar.

Matty felt lips press against the side of his head, soft but there. “I love you.” She said, and he couldn’t even respond, lost in the sensations that overwhelmed him as he jolted forward, every muscle in his legs tensing as his eyes slammed close.

His breathing was harsh and laboured when he finally managed to pull out, falling into the little space she created for him on the side of the sofa. He draped an arm over her middle, not giving much thought to the damp sheen on their skin or the mess between her thighs. They could have this for a little while longer.

Matty hid a smile, nosing along her shoulder as he better settled into his position before he kissed the sweet skin there. Her back was to him now, him wrapped up around her body, their legs entangled, and he thought back to those few words of hers.

Back to that night she’d first said them.

To when she had last said them.

He started to trail a finger over her side, up and then down before he decided to trace each letter one by one. He heard her huff a laugh when she finally caught on, but he pressed on, writing more.

When she patted his hand and shifted, he frowned, wondering if he’d pushed too far, too quickly, even though she’d been the one to say it first. But she just rolled around to face him and grinned at the face he must’ve worn.

“You’re an idiot.”

His brow pinched but he still felt himself smile, “What?”

She laughed all lovelylike and he blinked at the sweetness of it, wondering when he’d gotten so used to hearing such a pretty fucking sound.

He poked at her side, prodding, “Go on, tell me.”

With a fond roll of her eyes, Matty watched the stretch of her smile soften before he stilled slightly at her slow touch, the drag of her finger which trailed over his stubbled cheek. “Just such a you thing to do.” She teased him quietly, fingertip reaching up to skim over the bridge of his nose and then his eyelids.

Matty shrugged, narrowing his eyes a tad but unable to truly hide the small smirk he was wearing. He moved his hand back to her hip, tracing another word that had her huffing and shaking her head in sudden exasperation. Then another. And another.

Her eyes were wide when he chanced a glance up at her and she swallowed at the earnest expression he gifted her. “I mean it.” He whispered into the tiny slot of space that rested between their heads.

He watched as her stare tracked along his face, flicking from one eye to the other. “How can you be so sure?”

Matty shrugged the shoulder that wasn’t pressed up against the settee, a small smile dancing on his mouth. “Never been sure of much, but I know this.”

She quirked an eyebrow, “This your way of askin’?”

Chuckling lightly, he shook his head in turn. “Nah, gotta think of something good. Big.” He grinned at the snort she gave, but continued on anyway, fingers simply brushing against her hip now, “Figure we need time to get there again, sort through this mess.”

“Again?”

Matty hummed, thinking back to the bout of songs he’d been working on over the last few months, to the days G had smirked and asked about some of the lyrics he’d written down. “Been playing on my mind.”

There was a small curve to her brow now, an almost frown but not, Matty knew her well enough to know that she was just a little thrown by his answer.

“How long?”

Her whispered ask had him thinking, but he couldn’t really give her an exact time span. He’d hardly even realised it himself. “I don’t know, but for a while.”

She breathed out a quiet little laugh, eyes darting between his own once more, “So one day then?”

Matty hummed happily, face breaking into a slow going grin as one of his hands came up to cup her face, thumb soothing her cheek. “One day, Squeaks,” He murmured to her, “I’m gonna marry the shit out of you.”

Her cheek warmed beneath his touch but she laughed, shaking her head ever so slightly whilst her eyes looked down before shooting right back up again. “You’re gonna regret that.”

Wrinkling his nose a tad and curling his upper lip, Matty just shook his head, “Nah, don’t reckon so.”

“You say that,” She all but sang before she was kicking up a storm in his hold, quickly trying to get away from the hand that had come up to run a rhythm down her side, tickling her into shutting that daft mouth of hers.

“Yeah, I do fuckin’ say.” Matty chuckled, grinning madly as he continued to grab at her, teasing her bare skin with his tormenting touch. It was with that in which Mouse went sailing, rolling away from him in an attempt to escape, and dragging Matty with, him still so caught up in her that the pair of them went tumbling to the living-room floor.

Matty felt as though all the air in his lungs had been kicked from his chest once the world had stopped spinning and finally righted itself. He realised all too quickly what had happened, a heap of hair splayed over his face as he spluttered.

“Fuck.” He managed to drag out, forcing a huffy laugh from his chest.

He watched on as she struggled for a second, him having cushioned her fall, and she pushed up onto her palms so that she could glare down at him, not entirely unhappy. Matty snorted and raised his arms in defence.

“Don’t blame me.”

If it was at all possible, her eyes cut sharper. “The fuck I won’t! Why’d you start tickling me?”

“Because you never know when to shut up!” Matty laughed, wheezing a little as he did and bending a knee so that he could plant one foot firmly on the floor, his hand rested on his chest.

She just rolled her eyes though as she battled to sit up, spine curving once she had. Matty reached out to trail the length of it, pulse jumping at the shiver he watched run through her.

“How’d we even go from you being such a sap to us on the floor?” Mouse huffed, reaching up to grab at a throw that had been resting on the nearby armchair. Matty watched through a lazy gaze as she bundled it into an oddly shaped ball of sorts before turning back to him. “Fucking all sticky now too.”

He smiled stupidly, folding his hands behind his head, unashamed as he was, to better protect it from the hardwood floors.

She stood with a roll of her eyes, on unsteady legs mind– something Matty felt all too pleased with– and caught sight of his smirk, and before he could even see it coming the bundled blanket was being thrown at his head. He yelped girlishly and floundered to shield himself from it but it still managed to catch the side of his face with just enough force.

He listened to her hearty laugh as he tossed the thing back at her legs, frowning when it missed and her footsteps began to trail away. “Oi, where do you think you’re goin’?”

“To shower!” She called out from over her shoulder just before she could disappear through the doorway, “Again!”

Matty huffed a small snicker to himself and resorted to simply staring up at the ceiling whilst he waited, but before he could get too comfortable there she was calling out to him again.

“So you coming or what, Healy?”

And fuck if that didn’t have him scrambling up off of the floor to join her. He smiled when she merely laughed at the eager sight of him rounding the hallway and he found himself wondering how the fuck he’d managed this as she turned on the tap and pulled him under the water with her.

He must’ve seemed a little out of it though because she was tilting her head at him when he peered over at her, her hands at his hips. “You good?”

Matty hummed quietly, dipping his head to kiss her once more because he could. “Yeah, just happy.”

And wasn’t that a thought. Him happy.

Mouse grinned at him, eyes lighting up with it as he stepped on closer. Her hold tightened, “Me too.”

Me too.