poutypisces - Tumblr blog

poutypisces · 7 days ago

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EEEEEEEKKKKKKKKK im literally breathless oh my Goooddd I need him so bad like SOOOOOO. BADLY PELEASEEEEE

𝖌𝖗𝖊𝖊𝖓 𝖗𝖔𝖔𝖒.

𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘵𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘯 (𝘪𝘪) 𝘹 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵: 2,954

𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆: 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗱𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗮 𝘀𝗵𝗼𝘄 𝗵𝗮𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗵𝗶𝗺 𝘆𝗲𝘁, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂’𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿.

𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗲𝘀: i often tend to write the same way that people sketch; for practice. this was meant to be a sketch: to see how i can manage physical scenes. turns out i've been reading a bit too much of a certain kind of genre on tumblr...sorry in advance. i hope you enjoy this foreplay with no plot, disguised in poetic words.

𝘛𝘞: rough kissing / biting / marking (neck, jaw, skin), semi-public setting (green room, risk of being caught), physical restraint (pinning, lifting, bracketing, jaw grip), impact against wall / rough handling, sweat / spit / paint messiness, dirty language / profanity

𝔪𝔞𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔱 !

.𖥔 ݁ ˖

The show wasn't finished in him yet.

Even with the cymbals long gone to silence and the crowd's roar dissolving into the city night, the set still lived in his chest, hammering like a second, unruly heartbeat. The thin drywall of the green room swallowed the noise outside, but nothing could mute the pulse that kept driving through his veins. His hands wouldn't still, skin split and raw over bruised knuckles, streaks of black paint smeared down his wrists like war paint that refused to fade. He paced the cramped length of the room once, twice, the movement jittery, as if the air itself was too weak to hold the charge sparking off his body.

When he finally turned, you were already there-- perched casually on the arm of the couch, jacket sliding carelessly off your shoulders. The fluorescent light overhead was cruel and unforgiving, leeching color from skin, but in his haze of sweat and exhaustion, you stood out sharp, impossible, like a figure carved from something brighter than the room deserved. He should have slowed down, should have let the adrenaline bleed out of his system, but the second his eyes found you, the charge inside him only flared hotter, wild and unmanageable, like he'd just heard the crowd scream his name all over again.

He didn't walk to you -- rather, he closed the space in beats, each step falling like another strike from the set he hadn't finished playing. His chest lifted and dropped in uneven bursts, every breath too loud in the low ceiling of the green room, like the air itself was amplifying his exhaustion. His shoulders stayed locked as if still bracing a rhythm, muscles taut beneath sweat-soaked fabric. The black paint streaked along his throat had blurred into something darker, smeared with salt and heat, while the tendons in his forearms flexed sharply each time his fingers curled, still miming the drumsticks he couldn't quite put down.

When he halted in front of you, it wasn't stillness--it was weight, presence, the kind that rearranged the room without a word. His shadow bisected the fluorescent glare, splitting it across his frame until he seemed too close, too large for the smallness of the space. Heat rolled off him in waves, brushing your knees, seeping through your clothes. He tilted his head, mask slanting low, catching your eyes with a grin so slight it looked carved there, not born -- a grin that held no softness, only the leftover spark of a fire not yet burned out.

The air between you thinned to a live wire. Heat poured off his sweat-damp skin in waves, prickling your own until the space felt too close, too charged. His shoulders twitched like a metronome wound too tight, chest dragging breath in uneven bursts that filled the silence with pulse alone. Beneath the shadow of his mask, his gaze pinned you, dark eyes dragging over your face before flicking down, slow and deliberate, to your mouth. He held there a heartbeat too long -- hovering at the edge of control he usually kept ironclad when the world was watching.

But the stage was still in him, and it didn't allow for restraint.

His hand shot up, trembling with leftover tremors, paint smeared across raw knuckles as his palm closed firm around your jaw. Not careless, not cruel -- just charged, heavy with the momentum of someone who hadn't yet figured out how to still his own body. His other hand planted hard at your hip, anchoring you where you sat as he leaned in, grin cracking wider, edged and breathless. The energy he'd carried through an hour of shattering rhythms had finally found its target, and it was you.

His thumb skimmed along your jaw, the scrape of callus rougher than you expected, leaving a faint sting that echoed the crack of sticks on your skin. Heat poured from his palm, slick with sweat, smudging streaks of black onto your cheek as if he were stamping the moment into you without even realizing. At your hip, his fingers flexed, one restless pulse of movement, but it carried the weight of all the pent-up energy crammed too tightly inside him -- an urgency he couldn't hide, no matter how small the shift.

He hovered so close the air thickened with him -- salt from his sweat slicing through the flat chemical bite of stale cleaner. His breath grazed your cheek, damp heat fanning with every uneven exhale. You saw the twitch in his jaw, the ripple of restraint straining against the need to keep from crashing into you full-force. Every line of his body shouted motion, screamed urgency, yet he still held, balancing on the razor edge of permission, waiting for the smallest signal that he could finally let himself go.

The answer slipped out of you before you even realized -- less a nod than a subtle tilt, the barest lean of your chin pressing into his palm. It was almost nothing, so slight it might have gone unseen by anyone else, but he caught it instantly, eyes snapping sharp beneath the mask. In that flicker of movement, something in him released, the tight lock of his jaw unhinging as though you had just cut the chain keeping him in check.

He seized the opening without hesitation.

The kiss slammed into you hot and unsteady, his mouth carrying the same wild force that had sent cymbals shaking and skins breaking under his hands an hour ago. There was nothing careful in it -- only raw urgency. His grip on your jaw tightened, thumb locked steady beneath your cheekbone, while the other hand dragged you closer until you tipped forward into the solid heat of him. His chest heaved against yours, every beat of his heart drumming loud through the contact, and when his breath broke across your lips, it was thick with sweat and adrenaline, tasting like the encore still hadn't ended.

You hardly managed a breath before he came back harder, as if that first crash of his mouth had only sharpened the ache he'd been burying all night. His lips dragged rough over yours, every pass hungrier, edged with recklessness; his teeth caught your lower lip, not cruel but sharp enough to leave your nerves buzzing electric. The hand at your hip clamped down, tugging you flush against him, chest crushed to chest, until the hammer of his pulse thundered through the damp fabric of his hoodie, too frantic to belong to anyone calm.

He kissed the way he played -- relentless, driving, every press heavier, more demanding than the last. The hand braced at your jaw angled you deeper, forcing your mouth to take every ounce of his urgency, while his other hand slid firm to your waist, anchoring you like he had no intention of ever letting you slip away. Salt and heat clung to your tongue, the raw taste of sweat and breath mixing until each shift of his mouth felt like both an exorcism and a transfer, as though he were trying to bleed the stage out of his body and flood it directly into yours.

All hesitation had burned away. He kissed you with the urgency of a man gasping for oxygen, frantic movements edged sharp, every press still chasing the tempo that hadn't left his body. The hand at your waist slid lower, dragging heat with it until every inch of space between you was obliterated. Sweat-soaked fabric clung and stuck, your bodies sealing together in damp heat that made the air itself spin. His grip on your jaw hardened just enough to hold you steady against the force pouring through him, not punishing but unyielding, demanding you absorb every drop he gave.

Every exhale tore out of him harsh and broken, teeth scraping your lip before his mouth crashed back, deeper, hungrier, as if stopping for breath was more dangerous than suffocation. It was a beautiful -- paint smearing dark across your skin, salt sharp on your tongue, stubble sparking heat along your jaw -- but none of it careless. It was desperation, raw and molten, a blaze searching for somewhere to burn after being fed to thousands of screaming voices. And now he was pouring it into you, kiss after bruising kiss, chest dragging tight against yours like if he paused for even a moment, the silence would smother him whole.

The rush hit him sudden, fierce as an encore crashing down all over again. His body jolted alive, muscles flaring, nerves sparking in a chain reaction that left no space for stillness, only the demand for release. He tore his mouth from yours just long enough to drag in a ragged breath, forehead braced to yours, chest heaving like he'd played another set in seconds. Then he was moving again, no pause, no stutter, driven by the same relentless urgency that owned him behind the kit.

His hands abandoned their grips in a rush -- one sliding down your side in a quick, rough path, skimming ribs before clamping firm at your waist, the other shooting up to catch the back of your neck, yanking you forward into him. He surged until your spine thudded into the wall, his body crowding over yours, weight and heat pressing in with no thought spared for restraint. The kiss turned savage, all teeth and tongue, charged with the wild energy still blazing through him, as though you were the only vessel left to absorb the fire spilling out of his veins.

The room might have been empty, but it was far from safe -- you both knew that. At any moment, the door could burst open, bandmates and crew spilling in with the trailing hum of laughter, the stench of beer, and the static of backstage chaos. Yet for this thin, stolen sliver of time, it was only the two of you, bodies pinned tight against the trembling walls, the air still buzzing faintly with the memory of the stage. That risk should have slowed him, should have doused the fire with caution -- but instead it honed his urgency sharper, every second ticking louder, every kiss pressed harder, as if to carve this moment indelible before it could be stolen.

A sound tore out of him -- half growl, half ragged breath -- as his hands slid low, locking beneath you before you could even think to brace. In one brutal sweep he hoisted you up, arms steady despite the hour he'd already spent pounding himself raw on stage. Your legs cinched around his waist, instinct clamping you tighter as your back slammed the wall again, harder, plaster shuddering with the impact. His mouth crushed back onto yours, hungry, unyielding, every thrust of his body steeped in the adrenaline still raging unchecked inside him. The kiss turned savage and chaotic, nothing like the precise rhythms he commanded behind the kit -- here, his body had found a new instrument, and he meant to play it until the fire in him finally burned down to ash.

The wall groaned, plaster creaking beneath the strain of both your bodies locked together. His grip adjusted at your hips, hauling you higher until your thighs clamped tighter, squeezing around his waist like a vice, forcing your body into his as if you'd always belonged there. His mouth dragged over yours in rough, burning strokes -- each kiss hotter, sharper, teeth scraping your lip before his tongue took you again with a demand that left you gasping. His chest slammed tight to yours, heartbeat thundering so violently it blurred into percussion, as if the kit itself had relocated into his ribcage.

His hands roamed without order or patience -- gripping, pulling, dragging, every motion tracing your body like a map to memorize in the heat of a single breath. It was desperate cartography, as if each patch of skin might siphon off the adrenaline still scorching through him. His breath tore ragged against your lips, then your throat as he broke away to smear heat along your jaw, stubble scraping raw lines while streaks of black paint bled from his skin onto yours, marking you indelibly. The urgency rolling off him was wild, feral, and it had you clinging tighter, thighs locking around his waist as though you were riding the pounding rhythm of him alone.

Pinned hard to the wall, your legs locked around his hips, he felt less like a man and more like a storm barely contained -- alive with rhythm he couldn't silence, energy rattling through him until it spilled out into the pressure of his body against yours. His mouth dragged searing paths along your jaw, lips catching on bone and skin, stubble sparking rough as static, like the buzz of an amp left screaming after the last chord. He couldn't slow, wouldn't -- every movement hit like an echo of the set still burning through his veins, each slam of his chest, each grinding push of his hips a beat pounded out of muscle and blood instead of wood and skins.

"Fuuuckkk-" The word ripped out of him, ragged and low, as his teeth sank into your throat. The bite wasn't clean, wasn't delicate -- it landed hard enough to knock your head back against plaster with a dull thud. His breath scorched the mark a moment later, tongue dragging slow and messy across the sting, painting you with sweat, spit, and the smear of black streaks until your skin felt branded like a canvas. Your spine arched against the wall, body straining into him while his grip cinched tight under your thighs, hauling you higher, closer, grinding the thick, swollen press of him into the raw ache blooming hot between your legs.

The friction turned savage -- denim grinding on denim, both pairs soaked through until each drag was a wet, punishing rub that clenched your stomach and stuttered your breath. His hips rocked with a rhythm only he seemed to hear, some phantom metronome driving him deeper, harder, until you could feel the thick shape of him straining through fabric, dragging relentlessly against your heat. The sound that tore from you broke sharply into his mouth, swallowed instantly as he crashed back in, kissing like he meant to steal the breath from your lungs, lips bruising, tongue forcing its way past yours, messy and hot and utterly unstoppable.

His hand tore from your waist and slid beneath your jacket, spreading wide as it climbed your ribs, thumb skimming just under the swell of your breast. The instant he felt the give of flesh beneath his palm, a guttural groan ripped from him -- raw, chest-deep, vibrating through your sternum when his mouth crushed over yours again. "God--need---fuck, I need you---" The words stumbled broken into the kiss, fragmented and strangled, swallowed almost whole by the way he couldn't stop consuming your mouth, tongue driving hard against yours as if the words weren't enough to contain what was breaking loose inside him.

The wall thudded with each pounding thrust of his body, plaster rattling like it might give way beneath the force. Every grind slammed you higher, harder, brutal enough to send the couch across the room scraping faintly on its legs. His hoodie clung black and heavy to his back, sweat streaming down his temples until it smeared across your cheek, where he pressed in so close. His mouth slid down your jaw, heat and stubble rough against skin, and the sound that broke from him wasn't just a groan -- it was a growl, primal, vibrating against your pulse before his teeth caught deep again. He bit, sucked, marking you until the cry ripped from your throat was sharp and breathless.

Your thighs locked tighter around his waist at the sound of your own voice, dragging him deeper between your legs until the grind of his cock hit perfectly, pressing hard against the swollen ache of need between your legs. The jolt rocked through him, breath hitching sharp as his whole body shuddered with it.

"Ssshhhiit--fuck, yeah, like that," He hissed, teeth scraping your neck as his hips drove harder, faster, rhythm unraveling into something ragged, messy, more raw need than controlled beat. His hand climbed higher, fingers rough and wide as they finally spread over your chest, seizing one breast in his grip until his thumb flicked across your nipple. The shock of it dragged another gasp out of you, nails raking down through the soaked fabric clinging to his shoulders.

He couldn't stop, not even for a heartbeat. His hips snapped up into you again and again, sharp, punishing thrusts that rattled through your bones, each one dragging a ragged burst of breath from his chest against your collarbone. Every exhale scalded, damp heat clinging to your skin as his jaw scraped across it, smearing sweat and black paint until your body felt marked, streaked, blurred into his like the two of you had become one filthy impression against the wall. His voice broke raw in your ear, guttural, the sound of a man splitting open under the weight of what he needed: "I swear to fuck, I'm losing it--need you--need you now--"

His hand tore away from your chest only to drop low, fumbling at your waistband with fingers that shook from adrenaline, knuckles scraping raw as he yanked and clawed, desperate to rip past the last barrier of fabric keeping him from where he needed you. The rest of the world didn't exist -- not the corridor, not the footsteps, not the laughter waiting to spill in from the hall. All of it had dissolved, swallowed whole by the relentless crash of his heartbeat and the brutal slam of your bodies grinding closer, faster, frantic and wild as though the show hadn't ended at all, only shifted to this raw, secret stage.

#do i have to beg…#i totally will #god i love this #FUCK

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poutypisces · 8 days ago

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OH MY GOD!!,,&.&,&/@. i’m literally laying in bed kicking my feet and giggling i LOVEEEEEE ii!!! something about the way you have written him has made fall in love. i NEED MORE.

𝐛𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬

𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘵𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘯 (𝘪𝘪) 𝘹 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵: 3,634

𝘀𝘂𝗺𝗺𝗮𝗿𝘆: 𝗶𝗶 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄𝘀 𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗹𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘁𝘀, 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗺𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗺. 𝘆𝗼𝘂, 𝗵𝗼𝘄𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿, 𝗰𝗮𝗻'𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗲𝗲 𝗵𝗶𝗺 𝗵𝘂𝗿𝘁.

𝘛𝘞: blood/wound care, subtextual tension, kneeling imagery, mild spice/suggestive undertones, physical touch.

𝔪𝔞𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔱 !

.𖥔 ݁ ˖

The sound followed him everywhere.

Even when the set was long finished, the stage stripped bare and the crowd's voices fading into memory, it clung to him -- haunting the twitch of his fingers, the restless tap of his heel, it clung to him -- haunting the twitch of his fingers, the restless tap of his heel, the steady pulse that echoed somewhere deep in his chest. Rhythm didn't end when the lights went out. It seeped into the bones, lodged itself in the muscles, a quiet possession that refused to let him go. He carried it with him like an extra heartbeat.

You'd noticed it the very night you joined the crew. Sitting in the green room after loadout, nerves still tight from being the new hire, your attention snagged on the faint drumming of his fingertips against his thigh. Precise. Unyielding. Barely audible beneath the laughter and chatter of everyone else, and yet somehow cutting through all of it like a thread you couldn't stop tugging. Since then, it hadn't stopped. Table edges. Empty bottles. His own arms. Always, always moving. like something inside him would fracture if he let himself sit still.

And maybe that was what drew your eyes more often than you cared to admit. That endless motion, that quiet refusal to rest. It should have been distracting, but instead it hooked into you, turned every twitch of his fingers into something you noticed too much, remembered too long.

Sometimes you told yourself it was professional -- that paying attention to detail was a part of the job. That you noticed the way his hands kept moving because you were supposed to notice, because someone had to track the crew, the gear, the rhythm of the night.

But professionalism didn't explain the way your chest tightened when you saw the skin split across his knuckles after a show, or how heat crept up into your throat when his forearm flexed against his leg. It didn't explain why you remembered the exact tempo he tapped out on the edge of the catering table last week, hours after the stage had gone dark.

It wasn't just rhythm anymore. It was him.

Tonight, it was worse.

From side-stage, you'd watched him turn into something unrecognizable. The drumming wasn't just sound -- it was assault, storm, demolition. Every strike landed with the precision of a blade but the violence of a hammer, wood snapping against skin and steel in a blur too fast to track.

The glare of the lights caught every bead of sweat that flew from him, every strike that landed like a body blow. He played as if he meant to break the kit apart, as if keeping time meant punishing it into submission. Sticks cracked and splintered in his grip, fresh welts rising angry and red across his skin, but still he didn't stop. He couldn't. Not until the last note crashed into silence and the stage went black.

It was relentless, punishing, and yet he never faltered. Not once. He played like the entire night would collapse if he slowed, and in a way, it had. He was the axis the whole thing turned on.

But now the lights were gone, the noise collapsed into memory, and all that remained was the cost. His hands.

Now, backstage, the storm had burned itself out but hadn't left him. His chest still rose too quickly, breath struggling to level itself out. The sweat dampened his shirt in uneven patches, darker here, lighter there, as though the fabric itself had carried part of the fight for him. His hands trembled faintly, the aftershocks of the set running through tendon and bone. He sank into the chair with the kind of weight that said he'd given everything, shoulders bowed, head tipped back toward the ceiling as if the cold cinderblocks might steady him.

You should have looked away. Instead, you found yourself studying the curve of his throat above the mask, the hollow of it catching the light. The pull in your chest wasn't just sympathy, wasn't just admiration -- it was something softer, heavier. You ached with it, and you didn't know how to set it down.

His hands gave him away.

Even as he sat in stillness, shoulders heavy, head tipped back, his fingers wouldn't rest. They twitched faintly against his thighs. a phantom beat playing itself out on worn denim. Tremor or rhythm -- you couldn't tell which. The sight of it caught in your chest, sharp enough to sting. He'd battered those hands against steel and skin for hours, split them in service of the sound, and still they begged to move, as if silence itself would devour him if he gave in to it.

Under the harsh fluorescent light, the damage was impossible to ignore. The black paint clung to him in broken smears, streaked down the lines of his fingers, pooling in the hollows between tendons. Sweat had cracked it open in places, splitting to reveal the raw red of welts and blisters underneath, every injury thrown into sharper relief by the dark that framed it. A smear of paint and blood blurred together near his thumb, stark and obscene in its intimacy. When he lifted his arm to wipe his jaw, the motion left a shadow of black-grey across his throat, right at the hollow where sweat gleamed.

It should have made him look ruined. Instead, it made him look untouchable. Dangerous. Like something carved out of shadow and violence, too much for the room around him to hold. And yet you hated the way heat curled low in your stomach at the sight -- hated how badly you wanted to trace every streak, every crack, until you were stained by it too.

You didn't move. Couldn't.

Every instinct pushed you forward -- the urge to reach out for him, to ground the twitch of his hands, to steady the way his chest still rose too fast -- but something in you locked tight. A line you weren't sure you were supposed to cross. You'd only been here a few weeks. He was untouchable on stage, unreadable off it, and stepping into his orbit this way felt like inviting gravity to tear you apart.

So you stayed where you were, rooted a few feet away, letting your eyes betray you instead. Watching the paint -- cracked and shining on his skin-- the way his pulse still throbbed at his throat, the restless flex of his fingers against his thighs. Every detail pulled at you like a thread you weren't meant to tug, and you still couldn't look away.

You weren't subtle. You knew it, even as your eyes traced over him like a map you had no right to memorize. Every crack of paint, every twitch of muscle, every breath pulled sharp against the damp cling of his shirt. You were staring.

And he noticed.

Slowly, his head tipped down from the ceiling, the mask hiding his face, but not enough to hide the glint of his eyes beneath it. He didn't speak -- he didn't have to. The weight of his gaze was enough, pinning you where you stood. It wasn't accusatory, but it wasn't passive either.

Your throat went dry. The air felt thinner between you.

You should have looked away.

His eyes caught yours and held, softened just enough to sting. Not a warning, not a wall -- but something quieter, heavier. As if he knew exactly what was unraveling inside you and wasn't about to look away first.

The silence pressed, taut as a drumskin. You swallowed against it, legs moving before your head could catch up. One step. Then another. Until you were close enough to feel the heat radiating off him, close enough to see the paint smeared on his skin.

Your voice cracked before it even cleared your throat. "Y-You're...you're hurt."

The words landed clumsy, smaller than you meant them to, and heat rushed up your neck the moment they left your mouth. Of all the things you could have said -- all the ways you could have played it off, made it sound casual, professional -- that was what you led with.

His head tilted, just slightly, like he was weighing your tone as much as your words. A beat passed, long enough to make your stomach sink, and then he answered, steady as stone.

"I've been worse."

The way he said it wasn't cruel. It wasn't dismissive. Just measured, like everything else about him. And somehow that made it worse, because the longer he looked at you, the more you felt caught.

Your mouth opened, closed. For a second you considered shutting up entirely, pretending you hadn't spoken at all. But the silence between you was too heavy, too knowing, and you couldn't leave it there.

"I just--" Your tongue stumbled over the words, each one catching like it wasn't ready to be spoken aloud. "I just meant...it's my job to fix these things...you know?"

It sounded clumsy even to your own ears, too thin to hide how your stomach was tying itself in knots. You hadn’t really spoken to him before — not beyond the brushed introductions, the quick thanks when he’d lifted a heavy case you couldn’t, the fleeting glances exchanged in passing. He was a shadow at the edge of your orbit, and now here you were, filling silence with excuses because the truth felt too sharp.

His head tilted, a small, precise movement. His gaze didn’t waver, but the weight of it shifted — less like scrutiny, more like consideration. A pause stretched between you, long enough that you almost regretted speaking at all, and then he answered in a voice low and even.

"...Do you want to?"

His words weren't sharp, not a challenge. Just steady, as if he needed to hear it plain before he let you any closer.

Your throat tightened. You should've hesitated, weighed your answer, but the truth left you before you could dress it in anything safer.

"Yes," you said, quiet but certain. The first strong word you could manage. "If you'll let me."

The air shifted between you -- not dramatically, but enough that it felt different in your chest, like the room itself had exhaled. His gaze held yours for a beat longer, unreadable, and then his hands uncurled from his thighs, resting upon his lap. An offering.

You exhaled slowly, steadying yourself, and sank down before you could second-guess the choice. The carpet bit faintly into your knees, its rough weave scratching through the thin fabric of your pants. You leaned forward just enough to take his hand into yours, the air shifting with the closeness. He hadn't moved -- just sat back in the chair, broad shoulders filling the frame of it, gaze hooded and fixed on you in a way that made the air between you buzz.

His hands were already there between you, open, waiting, streaked with paint and sweat and blood. You treated them like you would anyone else's. Careful, practiced. The way you'd been trained. Your fingers brushed only where they had to as you turned his palm upward, scanning the mess of split calluses, raw blisters, and faint smears of black that had seeped into the creases of his skin. His skin was warm where it met yours, his palms broad enough that they made your own hands look small. Every shift of your fingers against him hummed with more weight than it should have, and the longer you held on, the harder it was to pretend that you didn't feel it.

You reached for the small kit tucked in your bag -- antiseptic wipes, bandages, salve -- the same things you'd used a dozen times before on other crew members after long days of hauling gear. But this wasn't like patching up a scraped elbow. His hands were instruments. Weapons. He gave them over without protest, without flinching, and the trust in that -- quiet, unspoken -- pressed against your ribs harder than anything else had all night.

You steadied one of his hands against your palm, thumb braced lightly to keep it open. With the other hand occupied, you tore the antiseptic wipe packet open with your teeth, careful not to let the cloth brush against your lips. The sound of the rip was too loud in the small room, sharp in a way that made the silence pulse. When you glanced up, just for a second, his eyes were already fixed on your mouth.

You ignored it -- or tried to. You tugged the wipe free and pressed it to his palm, focusing hard on the work, running through the steps like a prayer in your mind. The sting made him twitch once, barely a faint flex of muscle under your fingers, but he didn't pull away. He just watched you, gaze steady over the edge of the mask, following every movement of your hands like he was memorizing them. And you hated that your pulse jumped at the thought, hated more that you couldn't quite convince yourself to care.

"You've done this before," He said at last, voice low.

It wasn't a question, not really. More like an observation. Your hand faltered for a second, the wipe dragging rougher than you intended across a split near the base of his thumb. Black paint smeared deeper into the wound, and the sight made your chest tighten with something you didn't want to name. Not all of these wounds would need a bandage, perhaps just one of them, but it certainly made you feel better to know that they were at least cleaned properly after all that paint and sweat.

"Christ," you muttered, more to yourself than him, irritation creeping into your tone. It had come out sharper than intended, irritation making a better shield than anything else you had tried already. "This paint is getting into everything. If it gets into the open skin, it's going to make things worse."

You scrubbed at it harder than necessary, as though force could smother the heat crawling up your neck. Anything to make it about the mess in his hands instead of the weight of him letting you hold them.

His voice cut through, low and even. "You don't have to be rough."

The words slid out quiet, even, but they hit harder than if he'd snapped. Your hand froze mid-motion, the antiseptic wipe hovering over raw skin, your breath catching before you could swallow it down.

“I—” The protest stumbled on your tongue, caught between explanation and apology. You forced it out anyway, awkward and unsteady. “Sorry. I wasn’t— I didn’t mean— I just don’t want to make it worse, I’m trying to—”

Your throat burned with heat, the kind that had nothing to do with embarrassment and everything to do with being too close, too aware, of him watching you like that. The ramble came out in a rush you couldn't stop, words tripping over each other until you hated how small they sounded in the space between you. You were supposed to be steady, useful, and professional. Not unraveling under the weight of a voice like his.

Through all of it, he stayed silent. Still. Watching you with an unreadable patience that made your cheeks burn hotter.

When he finally spoke, it was soft. Not sharp. Not dismissive. Just simple enough to cut clean through the noise you had wrapped yourself in.

"You won't."

Two words. That was all. But they landed in your chest heavier than any reassurance you'd ever been given.

You blinked, breath wavering, leaving you on a shaky exhale. For a moment, the knot in your throat loosened, and you could almost believe him. Almost. Your eyes fell back to his hand, to the smudges of paint and angry red splits of skin, because it was easier to look there than at the weight behind his words. His hands were his life. You had no clue what you would do with yourself if you had somehow managed to make them unusable.

And yet, even with your gaze down, you felt it -- that steady focus of his, as if he was reading every shift in your breathing, every tremor in your fingers, and letting you know without saying it: I see you.

Your fingers moved again, gentler this time, sweeping the wipe over the curve of his palm until the last of the grime lifted away. But the silence he left you with pressed in, too full, too certain. You hated how much you wanted to trust it.

"You sound so sure of that," You murmured, the words slipping out sharper than you'd meant. Not a challenge, not quite -- more like a question you weren't brave enough to ask outright.

His shoulders lifted once, slow, deliberate. Not a shrug, not indifference. Just the simple gesture of fact, as if to say: I am.

You waited for more, some kind of explanation to catch onto, but nothing came. Just the slow rise and fall of his shoulders, the still weight of his gaze. The silence stretched, not suffocating this time, but full -- as if he'd given you all he intended to, and the rest was yours to make sense of.

So you dropped your eyes and went back to the task. The antiseptic wipe had gone cool in your hand, drying at the edges, but it still did its job. You swept it carefully over the curve of his palm, gentler now, tracing each line until the last of the black smudges lifted away. The raw splits of skin glared red against the pale, and you caught yourself lingering a moment too long before reaching for a bandage.

Because once you let go, that was it. He'd go back to the untouchable orbit he lived in -- rhythm and shadow and distance -- and you'd go back to being just another body backstage. A glance here, a nod there. Background. Replaceable. Forgettable.

And you weren't ready for that. Not yet.

So you pressed the bandage carefully against his skin, smoothing the edges with your thumb like it mattered more than it did, pressing it flat to make sure it stuck. Like this single task was the only thing tethering you to the gravity you'd stumbled into.

He didn't pull back.

He could have -- his hand was bigger, stronger, and there was no reason for him to let you linger this long over something so simple. But he stayed exactly where he was, palm resting against yours, steady in a way that told you he'd noticed the pause and chosen not to break it.

The air between you stretched thin, charged with everything unspoken. Every brush of your thumb against his skin felt amplified, the warmth of him slipping past the careful walls you'd built around yourself the moment this tour had started. And the longer he let you stay there, the harder it was to imagine stepping back into the shadows once these few minutes were over.

The weight of his hand changed -- just slightly, but enough that you felt it. A faint press downward, not to trap yours, not even to test it, but to let you know he was aware. That he could take control of the moment if he wanted to, and that for whatever reason, he hadn't.

Your breath caught at the shift, heat prickling across your skin. You forced yourself back to the task, unwrapping another bandage with careful fingers, smoothing the white strip across a torn knuckle with more precision than was really necessary. Anything to give your hands an excuse to stay on him.

But the silence was different now. Not the heavy quiet of strangers working around each other, but something taut, stretched -- waiting.

Then -- a shift. Not pulling back -- not yet -- but lifting his free hand to rest lightly on the top of your head, a touch so simple it stole your breath.

His palm lingered there for a minute, warm and steady, the faintest pressure against your hair. It wasn't mocking, it wasn't careless. If anything, it felt deliberate -- a quiet acknowledgment, as though he knew exactly how long you'd been holding your breath and decided to give it back to you in one simple touch. The gesture should have been harmless -- silly, even -- but in this position, with you on your knees before him, it was anything but. The weight of his hand blurred the line between comfort and something heavier, something that pulled heat low into your chest before you could stop it.

"Thanks, love," He murmured. The words slipped out low, easy, but they carried a weight that pressed deeper than they had any right to.

Before you could decide what to do with the rush of heat in your chest, his hand slipped away. Just like that -- no hesitation, no second thought. He rose from the chair in one fluid motion, boots thudding softly against the carpet, and the air seemed colder in the space he'd left behind.

You stayed where you were, pulse still unsteady, knees pressing into the rough weave of the carpet as though the ground itself had conspired to keep you there. Your hands hovered uselessly in your lap, fingertips tingling with the memory of his skin, the echo of his hand on your head. It would have been easier if he'd left without a word -- if he'd let the silence close around what had just passed and vanish into it.

But he didn't.

At the door, he paused, one hand on the handle, shoulders set broad against the frame. He turned just enough to glance back, eyes catching yours in the dim light.

"You're not half bad at this," He said, the corner of his mouth twitching under the mask. Amusement threaded itself into the low rasp of his voice. "Might have to keep you around."

#sleep token #oh my god #this was so beautiful and ugh #the tension #the HAND ON THE HEAD PLEASEEEEE #kill me ii #i love U ii

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