spreadyovrwings

[spreadyovrwings]

It's my 13 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

blimey

[spreadyovrwings]

busy woman

pairing: johnny storm x assistant!reader

summary: you’re way too busy at your new job to even remember to eat sometimes. but you could spare a minute or two to pretend not to like it when johnny would flirt with you. inspired by busy woman by sabrina carpenter!

word count: 3.9k+

note: help wanted part 2 is here! thank you for all the love on part 1 🫶🏻 i’ve been working on this for like three months and she’s finally here 🥹 i’m definitely planning more stuff for these two but i may need to see the movie before more parts come out lmao who knows! enjoy !!!

< prev part

“Excuse me. Sorry.” You weaved and dodged the hoard of busy employees rushing in different directions. With the looming deadline on the horizon, the facility resembled an ant colony more than an office. Each person had a single goal and that was to get that rocket up in space.

While you couldn’t solve a complicated equation or weld metal, you quickly learned that you were pretty good at being an assistant. You had already built a system and connections with other departments that made it easier for you to do your job. Sue seemed to like you, at least you hoped she did cause it’s only been a month and you realized that you really liked working here.

Currently, you were on your way to deliver the stack of folders in your arms. Across the floor, you spotted the long chalkboard filled with various symbols and numbers that you would probably never understand. Dr. Reed Richards stood at one end, a piece of chalk hovered over the board. You approached him.

“Dr. Richards?” He flinched a little as if you pulled him out of a number-induced trance. “Sorry to disturb you.”

“Ah, you didn’t. You saved me, actually. I needed a break. This equation’s been racking my brain for weeks now.” Dr. Richards crossed out a string of numbers and letters.

“It does look pretty tricky.”

“Tricky’s one way to describe it.” He rubbed his stubbled jaw while he stared at the board in thought.

“I don’t wanna keep you for too long. Sue wanted you to have these documents.” You handed him the stack of files. The corners of his mouth turned up slightly at the mention of his wife.

“Thank you.” He flipped through them and picked out a single folder. “Has she mentioned anything about tonight?” He glanced at you expectantly.

“She’s very excited for your date.” You grinned. Over the past few weeks, you’ve been a firsthand witness of Sue and Reed’s relationship. The sweet nothings they would mumble to each other when they thought you were out of earshot, the extra slip of paper slipped in between stacks of folders, the way they seemed drawn to each other in a crowd.

Definitely didn’t make you feel more single than you already were.

Nope.

“Great.” Dr. Richards smiled shyly. You tried to ignore how red his face had gotten. “You tell her I’ll be done in a few hours and that I promise to be on time.”

“I will.”

“You’re the best.” Dr. Richards turned back to his board and immediately started scribbling. You took that as your sign to go back to your desk. Again, you weaved and dodged the crowd to get back to your desk and get started on yet another task. You were listing down to-dos in your head when you spotted a man by your desk. You sighed and braced yourself for impact.

“Hey, sweetheart.” Jonathan Storm called out as he saw you approaching. He was leaning on the front of your desk. One leg crossed over the other, arms bracing his weight behind him. Big, handsome grin on his face.

“Johnny.” Your voice clipped as you walked around him. You started typing on your computer, trying to ignore him in hopes that he would leave you alone before he could see how flustered he had made you with two words and a smile.

“Busy?” He turned and put his forearms on the edge of your desk, eyes burning a hole in the side of your head.

“Kinda.”

“Gunning for employee of the month?” Johnny picked up a pencil from your cup and started tapping it against the side of your monitor.

“Maybe.” You spared a glance at him. “Do you need anything from Sue?” You tried to divert the attention away from you.

“No, I don’t need anything from my dear sister today.” Johnny sighed and plopped down on the seat you kept in front of your desk for any visitors.

“Then what are you doing here?” You stopped your typing and you fully faced him.

“Wanted to see my favorite assistant.” He shrugged.

“I’m not your assistant.” You scoffed.

“No? Then I just wanted to see you.” A sly grin spread across his lips like the Cheshire cat. You blinked at him for a second, two. Allowing yourself to indulge in his attention until you remembered who he was, who you were, where you are.

You pulled your eyes away from his and looked down at your desk.

“Johnny… You can't say things like that to me.” You strained.

“Why not?” He asked you.

“Cause you work here.” You threw your hands up in exasperation. Could he really be this dense? “And I work here. For your sister, might I remind you.“

“What does that have to do with anything?"

“You can’t…you know.” You moved your hands in the air awkwardly.

“What?” He was goading you now, big brown eyes boring into yours.

“Flirt with me.” You said through your teeth.

“But I want to.”

“But you can’t.”

“You don’t want me to?”

“I-“

He had you cornered. Damn him.

“How about this? I’ll try my absolute best not to flirt with you.” You glared at him but he never wavered. He continued to blind you with that signature Storm smile. “And you can pretend not to like it. Deal?”

“Johnny.”

“Seems like a pretty sweet deal to me.” Johnny put his arms out as if to say ‘See?’. “Just as pretty as you are.” He added with a wink.

“Johnny!” You exclaimed. You couldn’t stop the flush that spread over your body even if you wanted to. Before you could tell him off again, you heard Sue’s voice calling you from inside her office. “This isn’t over.” You pointed a finger at him and narrowed your eyes.

“Oh, I hope not.” Johnny simply smirked and slid down on the chair as if he were lounging on the beach.

The keyboard clicked and clacked away as you typed out a report. The office had gotten quiet, people started leaving a couple of hours ago. Even Sue had passed by your desk and told you not to stay that late. You promised you wouldn’t. You just had a couple more things to do and you could call it a day.

But you thought about how you would save so much time tomorrow if you got a few more things done today. So here you were, neck aching and hands cramping, checking off yet another one of your to-dos.

You rolled your neck around to relieve some of the ache. You really needed to be more conscious of your posture.

“If you keep staying here this late, I think they’re gonna start charging you rent.” A voice echoed through your empty office, making you jump. Your relief turned into annoyance when you saw who it was.

“Johnny, you scared me!” You put a hand to your pounding chest.

“You’re working in a dark office all alone and you get scared by little old me?” Johnny dropped down in the seat in front of you again. “But, don’t you worry. Johnny’s here now and he’s gonna keep all the scary monsters away.”

“My hero.” You said dryly but a smile tugged on your lips. “Nothing better to do tonight?”

“Just keeping you company.” He shrugged. “And making sure you don’t stay here overnight. Do you realize how late it is? You shook your head and checked your watch.

“It’s already 10pm?” You gasped. The nearest window to you was a couple of desks away so you didn’t realize just how late it had gotten. You swore you weren’t working that long.

“Didn’t see the sun setting?”

“Not really.” You mumbled sheepishly.

“Did you leave this desk at all today?” Johnny raised a brow at you.

“Yeah, Sue had me pick up some reports from her earlier.” To which you took to your desk, sat down, and typed out reports for.

“And?”

You rattled your brain. “And… I used the ladies’ room a couple of times.”

Johnny made a ‘tsk’ sound and plopped a brown paper bag on your desk. “Eat up, busy bee.”

“What is this?”

“Food.” He reached inside and tossed something your way. You awkwardly caught it and saw that it was a burger wrapped in parchment paper. “I'm pretty sure you haven't had anything to eat the whole day.”

“How’d you know that?” You said, voice barely over a whisper. Your stomach grumbled as if it remembered what hunger was. Meanwhile, Johnny was already digging into his own burger.

“Well, I’ve been watching you for a couple of weeks now. I know you get so focused on your work that you skip meals.” He picked up a fry from the bag and popped it into his mouth. “And when I saw your car in the parking lot, I figured you'd be in here for another hour or so, so I went and picked up some burgers for us. Lo and behold, here you are. Glued to your desk.”

You were quiet for a second. Since you started here, Johnny had been pestering you. He was nice, of course but he had a knack for catching you at your busiest and talking your ear off. He annoyed you most days, made you smile on others.

Today. Today, he made you smile. Johnny noticed that you were working late and brought you food. You could cry but you weren’t sure if it was because you were touched or hungry.

“You've been watching me? Stalker.” You unwrapped your burger and took a bite. He rolled his eyes at you.

“That's all you got? No ‘I love you, Johnny! You saved me from starving to death!’?”

“Thank you, Johnny. You saved me from starving to death.” You continued to eat your burger and looked Johnny dead in the eye.

“I think you got that first part wrong.” Johnny lifted his brows, expectantly. He wanted to hear the words ‘I love you, Johnny’ come out of your mouth. Fat chance.

“Mm,” You moaned exaggeratedly around your burger, making Johnny shift in his seat. “This is so good. It wiped my memory. Who are you again?”

Johnny chuckled. “Yeah, yeah. Go eat your burger.”

A-choo!

You sneezed into a wad of tissue that you’d crumpled into your hand. You wiped your nose and stuffed it into your skirt pocket. There was a bug going around and you did everything in your power to keep it away from you. You took your vitamins, overloaded yourself with fruits and vegetables, stayed far away from anyone who tried to clear their throat.

And yet. It got you.

You sniffled miserably and went back to taking notes on the engine test Sue asked for. It was hard to focus when you had a pounding headache and a round of coughs threatening to spill out. Shake it off.

“You feeling okay, hon?” A gruff voice asked. You turned and saw the kind, worried eyes of Benjamin Grimm.

“I’m fine, Ben.” Your voice was hoarse.

“That runny nose and wad of tissues sticking out of your pocket says otherwise.” He pointed a finger down.

“That’s nothing.” You shoved your hand in your pocket and pushed everything down.

“If you say so.” He nudged your arm with his elbow. “Take it easy at least.”

You smiled gratefully. Ben looked rough and mean on the outside, piercing blue eyes and a mouth of a sailor to match. You were pretty intimidated by him when you were first introduced but you quickly learned that he was just a big sweetheart once you got to know him.

The two of you continued your work. Ben was helping you make sense of all the technical jargon. After a couple of minutes of note taking, your vision started to get hazy and you wobbled on your heels.

“Okay, let’s take a break.” Ben stated. He gripped your arm and gently pulled you down to a nearby chair. You wanted to protest but he cut you off. “No, no. Sit down. I’ll get you some water.”

You tried to call out to him but that round of coughs you were suppressing finally made itself known. When you were done, you sunk down in your chair. I hate this. You thought. God, you missed the days when your nose wasn’t clogged.

“Hey, so I stayed in last night. Crazy, I know. Who am I?” You groaned. Johnny was gonna rip you a new one. You sat up and put on the most “I’m not sick!” expression you could muster, even slapped your cheeks a few times to get some color back in them. Johnny strolled up, carefree as always. “Anyways, I watched that movie you were talking about last week and- whoa, wait.” He stopped in front of you. Johnny scanned your face with an intense gaze.

“Hi, Johnny.” You said, sweetly, but he just narrowed his eyes at you.

“What’s wrong?” He questioned.

“Nothing’s wrong. How was the movie?” You tried to distract him.

“No, no, no. You look pale.” Johnny put one hand on the back of your chair and bent down to be closer to you. Your face was heating up. You were going to chalk that up to the fever you were probably developing…and not because of his face so close to yours. “Did you forget to eat again?”

“I had lunch.”

“She’s sick!” You looked over Johnny’s shoulder and saw Ben coming back with a glass of water in hand.

“Ben!” You groaned.

“Sick?” Johnny immediately grabbed your face with both hands. “You’re burning up, sweetheart.” Johnny’s voice was soft. His thumb brushed your cheek with a featherlight touch. You leaned into his palm for a fraction of a second. Blame it on your flu-ridden brain.

“Johnny, it’s okay.” You matched his tone.

“What the hell are you doing here? Go home.” He gave you an incredulous look. He took one of his hands away from your face and reached back for the glass of water from Ben. “Drink.”

You took big gulps. You didn’t realize how dehydrated you’d become. “I’m not going home.”

“I’m taking you home.” Johnny put his hands on your forearms and pulled you up gently but firmly.

“You don’t know where I live, Johnny. And I’m not leaving.” You shook your head which was a big mistake. You felt light-headed again and wobbled. Johnny gripped you even tighter while glaring at you.

“Sue!” Ugh. You heard your boss’ heels clack behind you. You turned your head much slower this time. “Your assistant has the plague and refuses to go home.”

“The plague?” Sue raised a brow.

“He’s being dramatic.” You corrected him. Sue put the back of her hand to your forehead and tsk-ed.

“Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve given you the day off.” She crossed her arms.

“We have so much to do.” Your argument was getting weaker every time.

“It can wait til tomorrow. Today, all I want you to do is to rest until you feel better.” She pointed at you.

“But-“

“No buts.”

Fight’s over.

“Fine.” You conceded with a pout.

“I’ll drive her home.” Johnny put an arm around your shoulder and guided you to a walking pace.

“Feel better, hon!” Ben called out to you. You waved back to him.

“Did you like the movie though?” You asked Johnny.

“Loved it.”

The copy machine was slower than usual today and you were getting impatient. You had a pile of 30-page reports that needed 4 copies by tomorrow morning and you were only at number 3. It didn’t help that you picked the wrong pair of heels today and they were pinching your toes. Never, ever wear pointy heels at work.

You fed another piece of paper through the machine and put your weight against it while you tried to alleviate some of the pain on your feet. You rolled your ankles a few times on each side while grabbing the warm piece of paper and placed it with the rest of the copies. That was the last of copy 3. You pulled out the original pages and started the process one last time.

Sighing, you put the first page in. You looked around the office. It was pretty empty at this time, but there were a few stragglers that you knew would start packing up soon. The machine whirred while you took a headcount of who was still here. John, William, Shelley, Johnny….

Wait.

Your eyes snapped back to your desk where a certain blonde was in his usual seat. A smile tugged on your lips and you may or may not have started speeding up your copying. Once the final page shot out onto the tray, you gathered all of your papers and walked back to your desk.

Johnny was mindlessly fiddling with the pens you kept in a mug on your desk. He had his back to you so you would be able to surprise him for once.

“I think people are starting to notice that you spend more time at my desk than you do at yours.” You giggled when he flinched.

“Well, the view here is much better than mine.” He recovered quickly and shot you an easy smile. You shook your head, letting the flirty comment wash over you.

You pulled out the puncher and punched holes through the reports. You opened your box of paper fasteners and started to arrange your copies into their respective folders. Sparing a glance at Johnny, you saw that he was tapping a beat on your desk with a pensive expression on his face.

“Is everything alright?” You asked.

“Why wouldn't it be?” Johnny tried to keep it light but you heard the edge in his voice.

“You're just…” You dragged, trying to find the right words. “Quieter than usual.”

“‘s been a long day.” He let out a long breath. Johnny’s brows furrowed and the corner of his lips turned downwards.

“I heard you went out into the field today.” You fastened the last report into its folder and gave Johnny your full attention.

“Keeping tabs on me?” A ghost of a smirk graced his lips.

“Part of the job.” You shrugged. “Did something happen?”

“I’m grounded.” Johnny said after a beat.

“What?”

“I’m not allowed to fly for a month.” He stopped his drumming and placed his palm flat on the wood.

“Why would they do that?” Johnny was one of the most competent pilots in the program. It made no sense to suspend him like this.

“You know that the new jets came in this week, right?” You nodded to answer his question. “Well, they asked me to test those bad boys. See how fast they’d go. And that’s what I did.”

“That doesn’t explain why they’d ground you though.” You tilted your head in confusion.

“Well, they only wanted me to go up to a certain speed but I knew they could go faster. I could go faster.”

“Did you?”

Johnny smiled, the first genuine one of the day. “I did. Going that fast. Nothing better than that. You just feel so…free.”

“That sounds amazing.” You couldn’t help but smile with him.

“It was. Until I landed.”

“What did they do?”

“Insubordination. That’s what they called it. The jet was fine, by the way. It was built to go that fast. The admiral just has a stick up his ass. I let him know that too.” Johnny said through gritted teeth, hand curling into a tight fist. You could see a flush of red on his cheeks and his breaths getting shallower.

“How long ‘till you can fly again?” You wanted to reach out and touch his hand but you held yourself back.

“A month.” He scoffed.

“Okay.” You sighed in relief. “You’ll still be able to join the launch.”

“Ha, they can try to replace me.” Johnny jabbed a finger on his chest. “They won’t find someone else.”

“Oh, I know. The team wouldn’t let that happen.” You paused. “Neither would I.”

Johnny’s eyes crinkled. “Going soft on me now, sweetheart?”

“Just cause you’re all mopey today.” You teased. “I am sorry, Johnny.”

“Ah, it‘s not your fault.” He waved a hand at you. You frowned.

“But you’re upset and you’re my friend so still. I’m sorry.” You rambled.

“I’m your friend?” He asked, sounding way too happy about it.

“I think so. Do you think we are?” Your voice got quiet, feeling shy all of a sudden.

“I do.” Johnny nodded.

A warm, fuzzy feeling came over you. You didn't know when it happened, but Johnny had become a staple in your life. It was so easy to talk to him. You found yourself drawn to him in a crowd, saving seats for each other every time there was an office-wide meeting. Then of course, you found yourself here on most days. Sitting at your desk, talking about everything and nothing. Some days, Johnny would just sit there and wait for you to finish working. He’d talk your ear off but you realized it was just to get you to stop working and go home.

Johnny was a friend. And a pretty good one at that.

“Do you wanna go get something to eat? I think we both need to get out of this place.” You logged off your computer and shut it down.

“Asking me out?”

“As a friend.” You gave him a pointed look.

“Uh-huh, sure.” He played along, nodding sarcastically. “Unfortunately, I’ve got plans tonight so I’m gonna need a raincheck on that.” A part of you was disappointed but you brushed it off.

“That’s okay. Next time?” You slung your bag over your shoulder.

“Next time. But, thank you.” Johnny locked eyes with you. “For listening.”

“Any time.” You smiled at him. “Ready to go?”

“You go ahead. I forgot something in my locker.”

“Okay, I’ll see you Monday?”

“Drive safe.”

You navigated out of the building and pushed the doors open. Fresh air filled your lungs, something you often take for granted after being in a stuffy office all day. The parking lot was fairly empty. You could see your own car a few rows down and spotted Johnny’s fire red convertible parked close to the door.

What you didn’t expect to see was the woman leaning against it.

You recognized her. She worked here too but in a different department. She didn’t pay you mind when you walked past, too caught up with finding something in her bag. You looked away before she could catch you staring but your brain was going a hundred miles an hour.

Did she know Johnny? Of course, she knows Johnny. Everyone knows him. What was she doing by his car? And most importantly…

Why was this bothering you so much?

Eventually, you made it to your car and started the engine. As you were pulling out of the driveway, you caught a glimpse of Johnny coming out of the building. In the rearview mirror, you watched him walk up to the woman, kiss her cheek, and open the passenger door for her.

You pulled your eyes away and focused on the road ahead. An uncomfortable feeling settled in your gut. You felt a little nauseous but you ignored it, just like you ignored the green-eyed monster that was slowly making itself known.

Whatever.

You were too busy to have a crush on anyone, anyways.

Much less on someone like Jonathan Storm.

[spreadyovrwings]

Would you consider writing more for Rimmer?

you know i’ve been writing fanfiction for - i won’t tell you how long but it’s over a decade - and if you told me my most popular fic would be for that idiot i never ever would have believed you lmao

i do miss him :( he’s fun to write about, so’s that whole world, and i do have a plan for another fic but a different series, so maybe in the future :’)

i’m amazed and very pleased that you liked the last one though!!!

[spreadyovrwings]

haii :33 I love ur fics! when will u update? I can't wait to read the last chapter of 64 Oslo Square :D

thank you so much!! i’m gonna make @spacefactsandpunksongs force to me to knuckle down, she’s the ultimate writing partner haha

[spreadyovrwings]

hello,when will you update?

soon! :’) it’s always on my mind haha it’s just finding the time atm but i am always thinking of ideas. i’m not sure when lmao but soon :’)

[spreadyovrwings]

Heya I just wanted to say I just read scruff on the sidewalk THAT SHIT BROKE ME 😭😭 hit a little too close to home so thank you it was beautifully written. Also currently reading 64 Oslo square and I’m in love with it, the way you write dialog DAMN 😍 keep at it 🫶

ah mate thank you so much!! i really appreciate that!! thank you so much for reading, they’re both long ones hahaha and scuff up the sidewalk is so old now i can’t believe people still read it!! i’m very happy you liked them :’) thanks again xx

[spreadyovrwings]

Honey, I Can Feel Your Pain

A second, slightly more successful heart-to-heart since the world didn’t end. Or, two idiots try to talk about their feelings but they're both demons and not very good at it: part two.

Pairing: Alastor x Reader

Warnings: some descriptions of injury/blood etc./my writing/me trying to navigate a complicated character and write a part two which i never really do

A/N: heyyy idk if you remember me, i’m the one who wrote a one shot and said there would be a part two if anyone wanted it and some very sweet people DID want it and it’s been… six months… anyway i hope it’s okay!!

You can read part one here!

//

Chapter Two

The tarmac hurtled up to greet you. Instinctively, you shot out your hands to break your fall and grunted upon impact.

“Shit…”

You rolled over, clutching your smarting wrists to your chest as you craned your neck back, trying to get a lock on the angel that had just sent you sprawling.

You heard your makeshift weapon skitter across the ground, a poker you’d grabbed in a panic from the hotel’s hearth just before battle commenced. Out of reach, it seemed even more useless now than it did before.

The ground beneath you shook as the angel landed just a few feet from you, its heeled boots fracturing the stained concrete. Blank and unseeing, its black mask remained impassive as it leaned over you.

With one twist of its wrist, the angel span its blood-soaked sword and tucked the point under your chin, lifting your head up.

The coppery taste of adrenaline filled your mouth but you didn’t dare swallow, you didn’t even dare to breathe, not when there was less than an inch between your throat and the steel bite of the angel’s sword.

Something, some ancient instinct, told you to get up and fight, but your body felt heavy as marble, and the concept of moving even a single muscle felt impossible and nebulous.

The angel tilted its head to the side, as if inspecting you, evaluating you, then narrowed its sharp eyes. It leaned forward, pushing the tip of the blade into your jugular until you had nowhere left to go. You shrank back against the tarmac, completely at its mercy, a total goner.

It smiled, then pulled the sword back and lifted it high above its horned helmet.

“At least make it difficult for me,” it muttered.

It seemed you were just as much a disappointment in this life as you had been in your first. The angels been looking forward to this for months, you supposed. You weren’t much of a threat. And this was how it ended, your brief second chance. Frightened and alone and with yet more unfinished business. You hoped whatever life came after this, if any, was more merciful than this one.

“My, didn’t you choose unwisely.”

Alastor’s voice cut through the steadily blurring world, sharpening it again with just a few words.

Both you and the angel looked round, shocked, though the latter wasn’t given any time to register his presence.

One of Alastor’s inky shadows shot out and drove itself straight through the angel’s hollow chest.

You watched as Alastor swept it up and flung its lifeless body far off into the distance, where it probably landed in a messy, crumpled heap.

Then red was all you could see. You weren’t sure what was Alastor and what was the blood dribbling down from a brutal cut across your forehead, but you’d never been so pleased to see someone in all your afterlife.

“Alastor…”

He knelt down in front of you. You wanted to stop him, he was so particular about his clothes and the ground was disgusting, but words failed you.

Alastor’s clawed hand hovering awkwardly by your shoulders for a moment before finally finding a home.

“Are you alright? Look at me. Look at me, darling.”

He wrapped his fingers around your upper arms and squeezed harder than was comfortable but it barely brushed at the edges of your consciousness.

“Did they hurt you? Who did this? What were you thinking, you stupid- I told you to stay away.”

He kept fussing but you hardly heard him. You were too distracted by how close his face suddenly was to yours as he searched for more injuries, and by the softness of his voice, edged with something dangerous and spiteful.

“No, no, I’m okay. I’m okay, really, Alastor, I just-”

You didn’t even get to finish your lie. Alastor’s hand slipped up your arm and found the exact spot where another angel’s sword had sliced through your sleeve and torn the skin. You hissed and jolted back, cursing under your breath.

Alastor immediately moved his hand away and stared at the smear of blood visible through your shredded sleeve. Suddenly, he wasn’t so chatty. Suddenly, scolding you felt brutish and wrong.

The wound wasn’t that bad, it didn’t even really hurt anymore, but it did make swinging your weapon more difficult. You’d almost forgotten it was there before Alastor’s talented hands unearthed it. For some reason, seeing your own blood in the harsh light of day made you feel like someone had pushed your head under ice cold water.

Words failed you, and Alastor’s inscrutable yet obviously disturbed expression made you feel sick, so you put your hand over his. You weren’t sure who you were trying to comfort more.

“It’s okay. I’m okay.”

Startled, Alastor’s sharp gaze switched to your entwined hands, as if noticing what he’d done for the first time. You so rarely touched, when it did happen, it felt like the world had stopped turning.

His long fingers were wrapped so tightly around your arm, you could feel the warmth of him through your sleeve, burning marks onto your skin you hoped would linger until you got a chance to admire them.

Alastor bared his teeth.

“You ridiculous… You’re so stupid sometimes. So careless. You have no idea-”

His grip tightened around your arm. You had to bite back a moan.

Not a cold, austere demon, then. Not entirely. Not always. There was still a warm-blooded human beneath that stitched-on smile, and for a moment, his mortal heart had flickered when he thought you might be in danger.

Alastor’s eyes narrowed to slits, like a cat catching sight of an unsuspecting mouse. He straightened up to his full, impressive height, letting his hand slip out from under yours with obvious reluctance.

“Time to put a stop to this, I think,” Alastor said, almost to himself. “That’s quite enough now.”

For an awful moment, you thought he might mean something else, something that cut you to your core.

Enough of you, enough lingering touches, enough whispered words when no one else was around, enough stepping around each other in this awkward, heart-squeezing dance that neither of you knew all the steps to but couldn’t bring yourselves to stop.

But Alastor stared at the blood streaked across his palm, then curled his hand into a fist, as if keeping it safely caged within his jagged claws.

“If not for your own sake then for mine, find somewhere safe to hide, would you?” he said. “I’d be unhappy if you were seriously hurt, chère.”

You just ignored him. Sweet as it was for him to worry, you weren’t going anywhere, not when your friends were still defending the hotel with their lives.

He didn’t wait around to listen to you argue, a rebuttal he saw coming a mile off. Instead, Alastor waved his cane and dissolved into the shadows, reappearing on the top of a nearby building to survey the scene.

Still flat on your ass on the ground, you cupped your hands around your mouth and shouted up to him,

“Be careful, please!”

You thought you saw one of his large ears twitch in your direction but Alastor just laughed and shouted back,

“I can’t hear you, darling, sorry!”

He definitely could, but he sank into the shadows again before you had a chance to squabble with him.

You huffed and leaned back on your elbows. Tilting your head towards the churning sky, you chewed up the argument sitting in your throat, working it around your mouth before swallowing it down. You’d have to shout at him later instead.

“Asshole,” you muttered, only just realising he’d left you sitting on the ground.

No sooner had the thought entered your mind when a dark shape swept across the street, hurtling towards you at such a rate of knots that you almost scrambled backwards away from it. But then you recognised the figure.

Alastor’s faithful shadow slipped behind you and hooked its clawed hands under your arms.

“Oh!”

Your shoes scrabbled uselessly against the ground as the shadow carefully lifted you and, with surprising gentleness, set you back on your feet again.

It had never been entirely clear if Alastor’s right-hand man was an extension of himself, something that had clung to him like limpet when he first arrived in Hell, or a weight someone had shackled to him. His shadow tended to express what he didn’t, or couldn’t, and you’d never had much interaction with it before, least of all without Alastor being present.

“Thanks,” you said, and managed a small, amazed laugh despite your grazed knees and smarting arm.

To your surprise, the shadow slipped its hands over your shoulders, just as Alastor had, but it wasn’t so quick to pull away, and its touch was warmer, firmer, perhaps even less self-conscious than that of its master.

Its wide smile stretched and arched into a jagged grin, and then it was gone, oozing across the ground and up the side of the hotel after Alastor.

You watched it go. A part of you hoped it might change its mind and stay with you instead. You would feel much more at ease with something of Alastor’s beside you, even if he couldn’t be with you himself, but he needed all the help he could get.

Somewhere in the distance, you heard Husk call your name, telling you to get your ass in gear and your head back in the battle.

When you found your poker, you attempted to spin it around your fingers as Alastor had with his cane but it got stuck halfway and you almost dropped it into the gutter.

Wherever he was, you hoped he was being safe. He was smart, more powerful than you dared to think about most days, but prone to showing off. You just hoped he didn’t do anything stupid.

/

Alastor did something unbelievably stupid.

It was so completely moronic, you almost couldn’t believe what you were hearing when Angel relayed the whole story to you later. There were a few details missing here and there, Angel had been a little busy at the time, but he’d seen Alastor square up with Adam and get his ass handed to him.

The general consensus seemed to be that Alastor was missing in action. It made sense, he was always so pleased with himself over the smallest things, he’d probably assume that valour in battle would earn him a damn parade. You knew that if he was okay, if he was safe, then Alastor would brag to anyone who would listen that he’d gone toe-to-toe with one of the most powerful angels and lived to tell the tale. But he was gone.

No one seemed eager to search for him. Alastor didn’t have many friends and there was a lot of clean-up to do. Your friends were sure that, like a stray cat, Alastor would just turn up when he was bored. If he didn’t, then he really was gone. But you weren’t so convinced.

Limping on exhausted legs, you slowly but surely made your way through the battle-worn streets, climbing over the seemingly endless piles of rubble until you found what remained of the radio tower.

It had fallen at an odd angle, leaving the hatch just low enough for you to climb through. You raised your hand to knock, but found the door already open, just like it always was for you.

At first, you thought the tower was empty. The sun was low but you could see that all the Radio Demon’s meticulously maintained equipment had been blown to pieces. All the windows had shattered in the fall, so now broken glass crunched under your feet as you carefully picked your way through the debris.

You almost called out his name, but then you heard it, laboured, shaky breathing in the corner of the room.

You found Alastor sitting on the floor with his back up against the wall, as if that was all that was keeping him propped up. His long legs were spread out in front of him, like he’d just collapsed in a heap, and his jaws hung open as he laboured for breath.

“Oh, Al…”

You spoke quietly, but the room was so still that your voice tore through the silence. If you didn’t know him any better, you’d have sworn you saw Alastor jump at the sound.

His expression brightened with recognition when he saw you but he did not smile. Even the plastered-on grin he always wore was muted, and his usually warm, olive skin appeared sallow and pale.

“I thought I’d find you up here. What’s wrong? Why did you disappear?”

“Ma chère,” he said, drawing out the name with his usual drawl, though now his voice seemed hollow and flat. “I’m so glad to see you survived.”

You smiled. He couldn’t be seriously hurt, not if he was making jokes at your expense.

“Thanks, Alastor.”

You moved closer, raising your foot high so that you could step over a dark tangle of wires, but stopped when you saw Alastor flinch.

Something was wrong. He was exhausted, that was to be expected, but you never thought you’d live to see the day where Alastor chose to sit on the floor, least of all one covered in glass and-

Despite the gloom, you caught sight of a dark patch on the floor, glinting in the last of the sunlight. Little puddles of blood led a messy trail to where Alastor was sitting, clutching his chest. His bright eyes were dull as they looked everywhere but at you.

“Come now, chère, there must be a hundred parties in the city tonight. You should join the celebrations. Don’t let me keep you, go on now.”

He tried to wave a dismissive hand but Alastor only got as far as raising his arm. His eye twitched, his smile growing a little more strained. He didn’t try to move again, he just clutched his chest tighter.

You hesitated, halfway to the door and halfway to Alastor, weighing your options.

You weren’t stupid. Just because you cared about him didn’t mean that he would be any more lenient with you than he would with anyone else. He appeared fond of you, but Alastor was like any caged, injured animal, likely to lash out. Self-preservation was his strongest weapon, and even if he did seem to care about you too, he could just as easily end your second chance at life as he could swat a fly.

That was what Angel and Husk were always trying to remind you, as if it was something you weren’t aware of. You knew Alastor, you understood him as much as it was possible to understand a man like him, and you weren’t frightened. Or rather, your fear was never stronger than your love.

Alastor’s sharp eyes watched you intently as you knelt down beside him, as he had beside you just hours before, in the heat of battle. That smile didn’t waver but his brows creased and folded inwards, his nose pinched in confusion. You weren’t sure what it was that confounded him more, the fact that you’d stayed or the idea of someone disobeying him.

With trembling hands, you reached out and took hold of the edges of his crimson coat, hooking your thumbs around the hem so that your knuckles just pressed into his ribs.

“Let me take care of you,” you murmured.

It was so quiet in the room, you could hear the unstable metal creaking beneath your two bodies. A slight wind whistled between the shards of glass still in the window frames, and the fizz of static echoing from somewhere in Alastor’s body filled your ears.

When you parted his coat, his ears flattened to his head and Alastor’s grip on his chest tightened. You were half afraid he’d sink his claws into himself, then you, so you covered his hand with yours.

“Hey, it’s okay. Trust me.”

Your reassuring smile fell flat but Alastor’s hand did eventually relax beneath yours, and you went back to moving his coat aside.

With your eyes down, you felt as if you were putting your head between the wide open jaws of a crocodile, but Alastor stayed completely still as you carefully opened one of his shirt buttons. The only sign that he was still alive was the shaky rise and fall of his chest, growing steadily more uneven as you unhooked a second button.

The wound across his chest was narrow but deep, splitting his chest into two neat halves. You gritted your teeth, pushed a wave of fear and sickness back down. You were by no means a nurse, but it was bad, far worse than you had feared and beyond your abilities. Cuts and scrapes you could handle but this was surgical. Still, you weren’t deterred.

“I need-”

“I can do it.”

Alastor’s voice was calm as he gently pushed your hands away and laid his palm flat across his bare chest. His hand was so much larger than yours, it covered almost the entirety of the wound. An eerie green glow began to seep from between his closed fingers, and you realised he was healing himself.

You looked up to find Alastor already watching you curiously. As strange as it was for you to be this close to him, to touch him in completely new ways and see him so quiet and still, you thought it must be a thousand times more odd for Alastor to realise that he was allowing you to.

With his hand pressed to his chest, Alastor let his body settle back against the wall until he’d completely relaxed, like someone was cutting all his strings one by one. Still he watched you but almost lazily now, his bright gleaming eyes focused but soft.

Unsure how to help, you leaned forward and undid another of his shirt buttons so that he could position his hand better. It earned you a slight raised eyebrow but Alastor didn’t comment. Perhaps he simply didn’t have the energy.

It was far too quiet, so you said,

“I thought I’d lost you, you know.”

Alastor’s gaze slipped, almost lazily, from his torn chest to you.

Face burning, you returned your attention to undoing the buttons of his shirt, slowly unpicking them for him so that he could breathe a little easier.

“Just for a moment. I… I couldn’t find you. And then I remembered hearing Adam gloating about- I don’t even know what - and then Angel said...”

You pressed your lips together, slamming the door on the pitiful sob that sat in your throat. Whether Alastor noticed the slight crack in your voice or not, you weren’t sure, but his eyes softened even if his expression remained stoic.

He held out his free hand and you took it without hesitation. It should have struck you just how easily you fell into his waiting jaws, but you were just so glad to see that he was alright, if a little worse for wear.

Alastor carefully guided you so that you could kneel between his open legs, keeping you safely enclosed by his body. He widened his gait, allowing you to sit more comfortably and even shuffle closer, and all the while his hand stayed in yours.

It ought to have felt intimate. You hadn’t been in this kind of position with another person in so long, even touching this much seemed foreign and overwhelming now. But it just felt right. Being near to Alastor was like kneeling on the hearth before a blazing fire, warming and instinctual, but painful, you often feared, if you got too close.

Alastor’s gaze followed you, steady and sincere but guarded, as if he half expected you to pull away. You could’ve scoffed at the thought. Like that could ever be a possibility, not after today.

“My apologies, darling,” he said quietly. “A hasty retreat was necessary. He packed a bigger punch than I anticipated. I had to… Collect myself.”

He turned your hand over so that it rested in his palm. He followed the lines in your skin like a fortune teller, and you wondered what he was looking for, and what he might do with it when he found it.

In your chest, your heart was thudding like a piston. This wasn’t the right time, this wasn’t the right place. You were both exhausted, injured, your patience wearing thin and your emotions all over the place. But this was all you had, this, here, right now, and for some reason, telling Alastor all you’d ever wanted to say to him suddenly felt as easy and as natural as inhaling.

“Do you remember that feeling we talked about? A sharp tug here…”

You pressed one hand against your brimming chest.

“And here…”

You dragged the same hand down to the pit of your stomach.

Alastor watched the motion as he always watched everything you did, with acute fascination, curiosity, and hunger.

“Yes,” he said, and looked down at his own, open, wounded body.

Hardly daring to breathe, you reached out and slipped your fingers under his angular jaw. Alastor often dragged a hand down the small of your back or put an arm around your shoulders, but you never really returned the favour. You just didn’t think he would enjoy it, but he seemed to need it now.

You lifted his head so that he had to meet your gaze.

“My chest felt like it had been torn in two when I thought he’d killed you,” you said, hoping he’d be able to locate the anger in your meaning as well as the love.

Don’t ever do that to me again. Don’t you dare.

Alastor’s gaze drifted between your eyes, your mouth, your heaving chest. The smile that haunted your dreams turned down, just a fraction, at the corners. That was a good enough apology for you.

“Did it go away?” you asked. “Like you thought it might?”

Alastor hesitated, then went to shake his head. He stopped when he realised it might dislodge your hand from his jaw, the last thing that either of you wanted, so he changed his mind and twisted his mouth instead.

“No. It did not,” he said. “If anything, it actually feels worse.”

His eyes were soft as he let his free hand drop to your waist. He ever so slightly pulled you closer, dipping his fingertips into you.

“After the battle? Or right now.”

Alastor didn’t answer for a moment. He seemed distracted by your hand under his jaw. He closed his bright, burning eyes, and with a sigh, let his head rest in your hand.

Biting back a smile, you turned your wrist so that you could cup his cheek properly in your palm. His hum of approval made your heart skip.

“Alastor?”

With his eyes still closed, he waved an airy hand. His wince of pain when it stretched his torn skin caught your attention, but then his hand found your waist again, as if he’d done it a thousand times.

“Oh, a little of column A, a little of column B.”

When he didn’t say anything more, you slipped your thumb across his cheek, smoothing it back and forth against his skin until Alastor sighed again.

His warm breath swept along the skin of your upturned wrist, a lightning bolt of a reminder of how close you were right now. You were holding the face of one of Hell’s most powerful overlords. He’d melted into your touch, eyes closed, heart literally open. Alastor couldn’t have been more vulnerable or exposed, and it was all for you.

“I didn’t think you liked being touched.”

You didn’t mean to whisper. The first word caught in your throat and sounded so harsh as it broke through the stillness that you immediately dropped your voice. Still your thumb smoothed across Alastor’s cheek, and still he sank deeper and deeper into your touch, almost like he was falling asleep.

“It’s alright when it’s you,” he said, and for the first time that day, the radio static was gone from his voice.

“Have you figured out what it is yet?”

“Hm?”

“The feeling we talked about. You didn’t seem sure before.”

“I think I might have. I’m not sure what to do about it, though.”

“Who says you have to do anything? I’m quite happy as we are.”

Alastor cracked an eye open.

You regretted saying anything but to your relief, he didn’t lift his head.

“You are?” he asked.

“Are you?”

Alastor did lift his head then, though with obvious reluctance. You tried not to look too disappointed.

He did something funny with his mouth. He couldn’t stop smiling but the corners turned down again, just a little, as he almost pouted in thought.

At his chest, the ghoulish green glow was still strong and steady. You itched to pull his hand away and take a look but you didn’t want to interrupt the healing process. Alastor knew what he was doing, though you didn’t think he’d ever been struck down quite so violently before. You’d have to keep an eye on him.

“I suppose,” he said, as if you were discussing a business deal or something as simple as the weather. “I had thought of trying something, though. Just to be sure.”

“What’s that?”

Alastor hesitated, then slowly lifted his shoulders, straightening up so that his back left the support of the wall.

“No, don’t…”

Immediately, your hands flew to his shoulders and gently pressed him back into the position he’d been in, but now you were so close that Alastor was able to incline his head and press a soft kiss to your cheek.

You froze, stunned. Then the world sped up again until your head span.

You reached out for something stable and strong to clutch onto and found Alastor. You wrapped your fingers around the edges of his coat again, unintentionally pulling him forward those last few inches, and now his chest was pressed against yours.

You were so dumbstruck, you couldn't even bring yourself to blink for several moments, and when you finally managed to speak, your voice was small and breathless.

“Oh.”

Alastor tilted his head as he looked down at you. You felt the tip of his nose brush past your cheek, then his forehead was pressed against yours. He was warm, inviting. You couldn’t imagine ever wanting to be apart from him again.

“My apologies,” Alastor said. “I couldn’t resist any longer.”

“No, no, don’t be… Sorry…”

You could’ve laughed at the bizarreness of it all, but all you could think about was Alastor’s large hand on your waist, his warm chest against yours, and the way he was looking at you. He wasn’t nervous, no, it wasn’t that. While Alastor waited patiently for your verdict, a wave of peace washed over his face. You realised it was the first time you’d seen him truly, candidly happy.

"I think..."

Your fingers tightened around the edges of his coat as you shuffled forwards on your knees, leaning into him so that Alastor could have no doubt of your intentions.

“I think we can do better than that.”

“Oh?”

“Can I?”

Alastor nodded, his gaze already dropping to your lips. It sent a shiver over your skin, the thought of this awful, terrible, wonderful man handing you the reins, allowing you to touch him in ways he’d never felt before, to speak to him in ways no one had ever dared.

Your mouths barely touched at first, your lips just grazing his, but it was enough to set your heart racing. Then Alastor’s hand slipped round to your back and pressed in, pulling you tighter against him, and your breath caught in your throat.

You kissed him gently, with no sense of urgency, like you had all the time in the world and nowhere else to be but right here. As Alastor’s mouth moved against yours, slowly, tentatively, you found yourself forgetting about the world outside. All that mattered was Alastor, just you and Alastor, everything else was meaningless.

Suddenly, he pulled back, hissing sharply between his closed teeth. You’d leaned against his hand, the one still pressed to his chest. Somehow he still had the wherewithal to focus on healing himself while kissing you senseless. He really was a marvel, you could barely remember how to breathe.

“Oh, God, Al. I’m sorry, did I hurt you?”

“No, no…”

You were so close that you were murmuring into each other's mouths, sharing one breath, one heartbeat.

Alastor hummed and kissed your cheeks softly, one then the other, then the tip of your nose. It was surprisingly sweet of him, something that was yours to see and yours alone.

“Quite the opposite.”

//

Master List

[spreadyovrwings]

HII! I really REALLY looove your stories,your writing is so good I'm in love with it! When will you post the 13 part of 64 Oslo Square? And maybe a new Roger fic too? I love him so much<3

hi omg!! thank you so much!! i try really hard lmao and have crippling self doubt so that means a lot

you’re in luck … i am in a sudden new phase where i’m trying to tie up all the loose ends of the fics i’ve started and never finished because i have a problem with letting things end hahaha

so i have a part two of another fic i’m gonna post soon and then i’m gonna start writing the epilogue for 64 Oslo Square :’) in all honestly i’ve written everything i wanted to write for it so it may be quite short? unless anyone has any questions that need answering still or any scenes they’d like to see :’) but i will be posting it soon and it will be sweet and i will be brave and actually finish something lol

thanks again for reading!!! xx

[spreadyovrwings]

help wanted!

pairing: johnny storm x assistant!reader

summary: it’s your first day at your new job and a certain cocky blonde helps you out.

word count: 2.2k+

note: not me getting attracted to a blonde man 😔 the f4 trailer kickstarted my mcu hyperfixation again so i had to get this out of my system. might be the start of a lil series of one shots based on this pairing 🤭 also i ignore the fact that joseph wears blue contacts for this. i simply do not accept baby cow eye erasure 🙂‍↔️

“You got this. You got this.” You whispered to yourself in the comfort of your car.

Job hunting was going poorly and you were getting desperate when you saw the ad on the paper. An assistant job. That didn’t seem too hard. Get some coffees, organize files, schedule meetings. You could do that.

What you couldn’t do was freaking rocket science. You could just imagine the look on your face when your potential new boss told you that you’d be working with her at the space center. Why didn’t you read the fine print before going to this interview? She was kind enough not to laugh in your face when you explained that you didn’t have any experience in that field. She just gave you a kind smile and moved onto the next question.

You thought that was it. You blew it. But a few days later, you received a call to let you know that you got the job and that they'd be sending you an information packet soon. You might’ve squealed into the poor receiver’s ear.

Now, here you were in your car, bouncing your leg anxiously and staring at the giant facility that housed rocket ships. You sighed and flicked through the folder in your lap.

After going through everything for the fourth time this morning, your watch read 20 to 9. That seemed early enough to look competent, but not too eager. Another deep breath and you stepped out of your car. You slung your bag over your shoulder and clutched your folder to your chest like a lifeline.

A loud screech made you jump. Your head snapped towards the sound and saw a bright red convertible pulling into the parking lot. A cloud of dust trailed behind it as it pulled into the spot across you. Your curiosity was piqued.

Only the back of the driver’s blonde head faced you so you couldn't make out his face. He adjusted the rear-view mirror and looked at his reflection through a stylish pair of sunglasses. The stranger ran his hand through his hair, and it fell perfectly back in place.

You knew you should get inside but you couldn’t help but stare a little longer. That backfired on you when he peered over the tops of his glasses and you saw big brown eyes looking straight at you, corners crinkled in amusement. The driver killed the engine and you held your breath. He opened the door and long legs stretched out of the flashy car.

He wore nice shoes, khaki trousers, and a well-fitting blue dress shirt. You trailed your eyes further up and saw that he took off the glasses, placing them on top of his perfect hair.

He was handsome.

“Hi.” He called out and looked you over, lingering on your legs. Your fingers reached down to the hem of your skirt and pulled it down ever slightly.

“H-hello.” You stammered and scurried off towards the building. Mentally, you were hitting yourself for stuttering.

“Hey, wait!” You didn’t stop. Gravel cracked behind you and you made the mistake of turning around. You saw him running after you, catching up immediately. “You new here?”

You nodded. “First day.”

“Figured.” He sped up a little until he was a couple of steps ahead of you. He started walking backwards so you could see the devilish smile he put on. “Would’ve definitely remembered you.”

You nearly tripped over your heels.

And he clearly noticed.

“I’m Johnny.” He stopped and held a hand out for you. You hesitated before slipping your hand in his. You gave him your name and tried not to notice how nice his calloused hand fit in yours. “Pretty.”

A warm flush came over your body. You had to get inside quick. “It was nice to meet you, but I have to get going.”

“Which department are you in? Maybe I can give you a tour.”

“That’s very kind but, I know where to go.” You waved your folder in front of him. You didn’t know where you were going but you had a feeling that the longer you spent around him, the more you’d embarrass yourself. The door handle was just inches away from your grip but Johnny beat you to it.

“Sure, but I’m much better to look at than a boring piece of paper. More fun too.” He shrugged, putting his weight on the handle. You tried not to notice how the muscles under his shirt shifted.

“I'll take my chances with the paper.” You scoffed.

Johnny pouted and put a hand to his chest. “You wound me, sweetheart.”

You rolled your eyes and managed to squeeze your hand in the space between Johnny’s arm. Just barely able to grip the cool metal, you pushed the door open and he pretended to fall inside. You couldn’t even try to hide the silly smile on your lips when you walked past him. The lady behind the front desk looked up at you with an annoyed expression. You faltered in your step.

“Be brave.” Johnny whispered in your ear. You glared at him and he gave you a wink in return.

“Good morning.” You said with a bright smile. The receptionist didn't greet you back. She just gave you another withering stare. “It's my first day and I was told to get my badge here.” You continued.

“Name?” She snapped. You told her, a little taken aback by her tone. She slammed a piece of plastic on the counter and slid it towards you. “You know where to go?”

“Uh-“

She sighed, exasperatedly. “Take the elevator to the right down to basement 3. Turn right down the hallway, take two rights, one left, and it’s the 5th door on your left. Got that?”

“I-“

“I’ve got her, Marge.” Johnny popped up beside you, a thousand-watt smile on yet again. “You have a day as beautiful as you.”

‘Marge’ made a disgruntled sound, looking less than pleased. She gave him a withering look and went back to her work. You shuffled after Johnny to escape Marge's wrath.

“Bet you wish you took up my offer now, huh?” Johnny hit the button to call the elevator.

“Is she always like that?” You kept your voice low in case she could still hear you.

“Yup, haven’t managed to crack her yet but, trust me, it’ll happen one day.” He held up a finger and looked far away, dramatically. Silly. You thought. The elevator dinged and the doors opened. Johnny put a hand on the frame and gestured for you to go in. “Come on, I’ll show you the way.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that.”

“Do you remember how many turns you have to take?” He raised a brow. You paused for a second too long. He chuckled at your hesitation. “I’m going that way anyways. It’s no problem.”

You wanted to turn him down again but you knew you would just get lost and be late on your first day. Having someone who knew this place to show you the way would be the most logical decision.

Plus, you were slowly learning that you liked brown eyes.

“Okay.” You went inside first and Johnny followed. He pressed ‘B3’ and the doors closed. Your nerves settled in again once the elevator rumbled as it descended down. You tapped a finger against the folder. Out of the corner of your eye, you could feel Johnny’s gaze burning in the side of your head. You turned and saw him leaning against the wall, studying you. “What?”

“You nervous?” He nodded towards your finger.

“Who wouldn’t be?”

“Me.” Johnny cocked his head. You shook your head incredulously. “You know who you’re gonna be working for?”

“Susan Storm.”

His eyes widened. “Really?”

“Yeah.” You narrowed your eyes. “You know her?”

“I do.” He crossed his arms. “What are you gonna do for her?”

“I’m her new assistant. I don’t really know what to expect.” You sighed.

“You’ll be fine. She’s nice, really.” The elevator stopped and the doors opened. Johnny held the door open for you again and let you go out first.

“Are you sure? I only met her once during the interview.” You followed Johnny’s lead as he took you through the maze of your new office.

“Positive. She’s a bit of a hard ass sometimes but she’s one of the smartest people I know so she has a right to be. Don’t tell her I said that. She’d never let me live it down.” Johnny’s hand hovered over your upper back to guide you to turn right when you were about to turn left. “So if she chose you, you must be someone special. I wouldn’t worry.”

“That actually makes me feel a bit better.” Johnny gave you a reassuring smile and you noticed your fingers weren’t fidgeting anymore. “What do you do here?”

“I’m a pilot.” He said, nonchalantly, but you noticed his chest puffed out just a tad.

Your eyebrows shot up. “A pilot?”

“Impressed?” Johnny’s smile turned into a smirk.

“Trying not to be.” You teased but you genuinely were.

“Once you see my skills, you won’t be able to resist.” Innuendo dripped off his words and he looked way too pleased with himself. Johnny led you through two more turns and presented you with an unlabeled door. “Et voila, your new home.”

“Thank you, Johnny.” You said, genuinely. “There’s no way I would’ve found this on my own.”

“No worries.” He leaned against the door and gave you that smile again. The same one that had you tripping over yourself. “But… if you ever wanted to repay your knight in shining armor, maybe you could join me for dinner sometime?”

Your mouth opened and closed like a fish, not knowing how to respond.

“Johnny!” A voice saved you from your own embarrassment. You looked over Johnny’s shoulder and saw Susan Storm walking towards the two of you. She had a stern look on her face as she stared at the man in front of you. “No flirting with my assistant.”

“I wasn’t doing anything of the sort.” He winked at you.

Susan put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him behind her, standing in between the two of you. Her bright blue eyes turned to you and gave you a warm smile. “Hi, it’s so nice to see you again.” You shook hands.

“It’s nice to see you again too, Ms. Storm.” Her eyes crinkled as her smile reached her eyes.

“Oh, please, call me Sue.” She put her other hand on top of yours and squeezed. Now, you felt stupid for being so nervous. “I see you've met my brother, Jonathan.”

“B-brother?” You looked at Johnny and back at Sue, finally noticing the similarities between the two. Blonde hair, same noses, similar jawlines. Fuck. Were you flirting with your boss’ brother on the first day?

“Younger brother.” Johnny supplied.

“Ah.” You nodded. He was clearly trying not to laugh.

“Hope he wasn’t too much of a bother.” Sue squeezed your hand one last time before letting go.

“He was very helpful actually.” She tilted her head at you and looked back at Johnny, who just shrugged.

“See? I’m helpful.” Johnny told his sister.

“Then go be helpful inside. Ben’s looking for you.” Sue cocked her head in the direction of the room. Johnny rolled his eyes and moved towards the door.

“Fine.” Johnny turned those brown eyes to you again. Something in your stomach fluttered when you locked eyes. “I’ll see you around, sweetheart.”

“Johnny, what did I say!” Sue hit his shoulder.

“Ow!” He rubbed his shoulder and stumbled through the door.

“Sorry about that. If he ever makes you uncomfortable, let me know and I’ll hit him again for you. Now, let me show you around.” Sue gestured for you to follow her.

You followed your boss through the door and your jaw dropped as soon as you saw what was inside. Behind the nondescript door was a big hangar. There were computers everywhere and various metal parts in every corner. But the piece de resistance was the rocket ship in the middle of the room. It was as shiny as it was tall. You’d never felt so small in your life.

“Whoa.” Was all you could get out. You craned your neck back to see the pointed tip of the ship.

“Ain’t she a beauty.” Sue sounded proud. “That’s the Marvel-1. Our baby. We’re taking her up to space soon.”

“You are?” You walked further in and saw workers walking around, carrying different parts towards the rocket. Banging and clanging sounds echoed through the big space.

“Mhm. It’ll be a small team. Just me, my husband, Reed, our friend, Ben, and Johnny.”

You couldn’t help but scan the people’s faces, trying to get a glimpse of the blonde again but no dice. Is it weird that you were disappointed?

“That’s amazing.” You looked back up at the rocket. “I’ve never seen a rocket in person before.

“You’ll be seeing a lot of them now.” Sue put a hand on your shoulder. “Now, we have a lot of work to do before that thing is ready to launch and I’ll need your help.”

“You can count on me.” You stood up straight.

“I know I can. That’s why I chose you.” Sue smiled at you. You wanted to prove her right. And most importantly, prove to yourself that you could do this. “Ready to take on your first task?”

You nodded, eagerly.

You got this.

[spreadyovrwings]

I’ve been rereading your Roger fics so much after discovering them a week ago, they are truly so amazing 😭 particularly scuff up the sidewalk, it makes me so giddy and brings so much comfort! You capture him so well and tap into his edgier side without making him the brooding bad boy so many people write him as, and the way he treats the reader always has me smiling at my phone. I don’t usually comment on fics but your writing is so beautiful I had to express it 💀 I hope you write more for him in the future, but even if you don’t thank you for the fics that you have given us!

- a very grateful Roger Taylor fan ❤️

oh wow!! thank you so much!!! i’m staggered, that’s such a sweet thing to say!!

i do really love writing for him, i find him the easiest for some reason, he’s just so expressive and fun. i think i wrote scuff up the sidewalk 4 or 5 years ago now which is crazy to think about so i’m amazed and so grateful that people still like and read it, so thank you!!!

i do miss writing about him :’) maybe i’ll have another crack at it soon once my other hyperfixation have died down lmao thank you so much!!! xxx

[spreadyovrwings]

64 Oslo Square

"Companion' Middle English. From Old French 'compaignon', literally 'one who breaks bread with another.

Strapped for cash, John gets a job at a bakery as their new delivery boy. Juggling school and Queen and work is exhausting, but it's more than worth it. It's worth it because of you.

Warnings for this chapter: smut! soft sub/dom dynamics, pegging, a vague understanding of electronics, more smut, this is a sordid chapter lads

A/N: and here we have the penultimate chapter! have fun! let me know what you think!

//

Chapter 12

“I knew I liked you for a reason.”

John looked up.

“Mm? What’s that?”

He’d been sitting in the middle of your living room floor for hours now, cross-legged on a cushion, halfway between the sofa and the telly.

John’s work was spread out across your coffee table, a metal jigsaw puzzle that only he knew how to solve. There was a small wooden box, speaker cones, and a brick-sized 9 volt battery that you’d almost mistaken for an actual brick when you came in.

Not so long ago, this would have been a novel sight, but John was now as much a fixture of your home as the furniture. He spent most nights at yours now, and neither of you could’ve been any happier.

Smiling to yourself, you turned the page of your book, letting the fine edge of the paper slide against the pad of your thumb so that it creaked gently.

“Yeah. You’re a cheap date.”

“There’s nothing cheap about me, sweetheart.”

“‘ow long ‘ave you owned that shirt?”

“Since I was-”

“Yeah?”

“Since I was fifteen.”

“There it is.”

John had come up earlier than you, while you were still closing up. He offered to help, like he always did, but you just smiled and waved him on to your flat with a tired smile and the promise that you’d be up soon.

When you got in, just twenty minutes later, John was kneeling on the carpet, pulling what looked like the guts of a car or a computer from his bag. How he’d managed to get it all in the ridiculous basket on the front of his borrowed bike, you’d never know.

Now he was rearranging these frayed wires and twisted scraps of metal into a specific shape, one he’d made a thousand times before.

John’s hands moved with certainty, his gaze focused and keen. He clearly knew what he was doing, even though you couldn’t even begin to interpret these abstract shapes into something solid and real.

“So the dumpster divin’, that’s a regular thing?”

You’d caught him at it the other day. You’d gone out into the alley to meet the delivery driver and found John with his head in the skip, his long legs kicking into the air, just minutes before his shift began.

When you called his name, John lost his balance and he had to shoot out a hand to grab the side of the skip. When he finally lifted his head your way, he grinned and triumphantly held up a bunch of wires attached to a circuit board, like he was lifting the World Cup.

“People throw away tons of good stuff. You never know what you might find, if you know where to look.”

“And that’s good stuff, is it?”

“I know it doesn’t look like much now but these are actually pretty good finds. Parts can be expensive. If someone throws away an old radio or a good size battery, you can do tons with it.”

You cocked your head to the side, frowning at the mess on your table.

“And you’re makin’… Modern art?”

John smiled.

“I’m making an amp.”

“For fun or to use?”

“Both. It’s just to practise with when I’m away from the studio but if it sounds good enough, I might bring it to rehearsals. I can’t really afford to buy one right now.”

“So you decided to make one.” You reached forward and cupped his cheek, tilting his face up to yours so that you could kiss his forehead. “You’re so clever, John.”

John hummed, his eyes sliding closed as you kissed his nose, then the corner of his mouth, your thumb sweeping across his cheek.

“Yeah, well, don’t ask me where any countries are.”

He tilted his head back further, asking for a proper kiss, and grinned when he got his wish.

John scooped up his project and shuffled nearer so that you could see what he was working on.

“Here, look.”

It was only small, completely portable and light enough to be carried with one hand, though he kept both on the little box to keep it safe. John had retro-fitted the circuit board and wiring he’d foraged into a tiny cabinet, then installed two speakers, a quarter-inch input jack and a volume knob.

“I think I’m gonna take that off though,” John grinned. “It sounds better turned all the way up.”

The amp brought out his two sides: the studious, meticulous engineer, and the long-haired rocker looking for a good time. You loved them both, you loved all of him.

“It's very cool, John. Have you always been this good with your ‘ands? Bet the girls were all clamouring over you at school.”

You’d meant it as a joke but John blew out a long breath like a punctured tire.

“God, no. No, never been very clever there either. Didn’t think I’d ever work up the courage to ask you out.”

You snorted.

“Neither did I. Thought I was seeing signs that weren’t there after a while. Half the time, I was sure it was just me.”

John’s hands stilled. He looked up from his work, his expression dawn into such a look of amazement and bewilderment that you had to laugh.

“What!”

“You’re joking. The amount of times I almost died because I thought I’d said something daft or put you off or embarrassed myself in front of you, love, I- I liked you so much. I was an idiot around you.”

“You weren’t!”

“I am! You make me feel…”

He couldn’t seem to find the words. Instead, John put down his project and moved to kneel on the floor between your parted legs.

Cheeks burning, you fought to keep your gaze steady as John took your hand and slipped it up his chest. His rings were cold against your skin, a reminder of your last night together, when you’d felt them pressed against a more sensitive part of you before John thought to pull them off with his teeth.

He pressed his palm against the back of your hand, flattening it over his pounding heart. Steady and reliable, just like the rest of him.

You let the rest of your noisy, ever-changing world melt away and honed in on the firm, strong thump thump thump of John’s heart, feeling it beat just for you.

“Why didn’t you say something sooner?” you asked softly, not wanting to break the sudden fragile stillness.

John shrugged.

“I didn’t know if you liked me too.”

“Oh, give over. I know Mickey told you. And Gladys.”

“And Sandra.”

“Sandra? From next door, Sandra?”

“Yeah.”

“What does she know about anythin’?”

“She popped her head out the door the morning after I had dinner at yours. Apparently, you asked her a million questions. Were you worried about what to make me?”

“No…”

You poked his cheek, trying in vain to make his self-satisfied smile disappear. But John just kept on beaming.

“You were nervous, weren’t you. You wanted to impress me so badly.”

“The point is,” you went on, pressing your hand flat over John’s mouth to hide his smirk. “If you knew I’d say yes, why didn’t you ask me out?”

John rolled his eyes. He tucked his fingers over yours and gently moved them away from his mouth so that he had room to reply, though not far. His lips brushed the pads of your fingers as he spoke.

“I don’t know…”

“John?”

He sighed.

“I don’t have much. I mean, I’m- I’m working on it. I will have- Right now, I’ve got nothing. And you have this place and friends and goals and dreams, and you’re so sure of yourself and I just… I didn’t think I had a lot to offer you.”

Slowly, you began to smile. Oh, he knew how to make you melt. This sweet, smart boy, always thinking ten steps ahead. He didn’t want to even entertain the idea of dating you until he had a life to share with you.

Unable to resist, you slipped your hand around until you held his jaw between your fingers and leaned down.

“Well,” you said, speaking inches from his mouth. “I wouldn’t say you ‘ave nothin’.”

You caught the edge of John’s smile out of the corner of your eye before you kissed him, hoping he’d be able to feel how much you adored him in every moment. He was more than enough. He always had been. He was everything.

John hummed, discontented, when you pulled away. The tip of his nose nudged yours, quietly demanding another kiss, and you happily obliged.

Soon you lifted his head, your fingers still wrapped around his angular jaw, and led him up onto the sofa with you, one of his bony knees pressing into your hip, the other separating your thighs.

Groaning softly, John drew his tongue across your bottom lip, just as you slipped a hand into his hair.

Something shifted.

John pressed more firmly against you. The hand that he wasn’t using to prop himself up against the back of the sofa slipped round your waist, kneading at you persistently.

“Bed?”

“Bed.”

John took your hands and helped you to your feet, though your legs felt bandy and useless as he pulled you towards the bedroom.

You were on your back before you could think to be shy, your clothes gone and your smile wide.

John pulled off his shirt, his grey eyes focused and steady and fixed on you.

You held out your hand and he took it immediately, his smile bright with excitement as you guided him down on top of you.

“Have you been practising?” you asked between breathless, messy kisses. “Like I showed you?”

John nodded, his cheeks flushed.

“Mm, in the shower.”

“You wanna try tonight?”

“I…” John glanced away. “Yeah, okay.”

Smiling, you hooked your hands around his middle and ran your fingertips up and down John’s back, seeking out the angles of his shoulder blades and the soft depression of his spine. His body was second-nature to you no, every part of him was branded onto your memory. You’d know him with your eyes closed, with your hands tied behind your back.

“We don’t have to, love.”

“No, I’d like to!” John pressed a sweet kiss to the corner of your mouth, right on your warm smile. “I want to. But I’d like to make you feel good first, if that’s alright. I think it’ll help me relax to see you… Well, you.”

It was perhaps the fourth or fifth time that he’d initiated intimacy, and your heart began to race just as fast as it did that very first night. He was so sweet, so attentive and keen, you couldn’t recall a boy ever looking at you with such intent, or with such a wicked, excited gleam in his eye at the thought of touching you.

John kissed you slowly, purposefully, as his fingers wrapped around the zip of your trousers and dragged it down.

It made your tongue feel heavy in your mouth but thankfully, you wouldn’t need to do much talking.

“Can I..?”

All you could do was nod, your throat too tight to speak, and watch his fingers slip beneath the band of your underwear to stroke tentatively between your legs. You sighed softly, letting yourself sink into the bed, your hands finding a comfortable resting place on his shoulders.

John boldly dipped two fingers into you, and you tensed at how embarrassingly wet you sounded.

He moaned softly, turning his head and pressing his lips to your shoulder.

“God, love…”

“Sorry,” You buried your face in the crook of his neck, feeling oddly shy all of a sudden. “You’re just so pretty.”

“Don’t be sorry, why on earth would you be- C’mere.”

He didn’t waste any time. John’s long hair swept along his shoulders as he settled down between your legs. His stomach had barely touched the bed when he began to press slow, open-mouthed kisses to the inside of your thigh.

Heat pooled in your underwear instantly, and you had to resist the urge to push your fingers into his hair and pull his mouth to where you needed it.

John had the audacity to graze his mouth along your thigh, then look up at you with his teeth poised to sink into you, tugging his lips back in a grin.

“Any of those idiots you used to date get to see you like this?”

You laughed softly, shaking your head.

“No, they- Ah!”

He made good on his threat and sank his teeth into your inner thigh, still smiling.

“They liked to, er, stay up north,” you admitted, your face heating up.

John frowned. He pressed his nose into your skin, then stamped another kiss to your inner thigh, this time far closer to where you wanted him. You had to sink your teeth into your lip to avoid making any noise.

“Well,” he murmured. “I came down south for a reason.”

It was a dumb joke but it made you laugh. You felt yourself relax, all your nerves melting away with one quick, silly smile from John.

“You’re so daft,” you said fondly.

John practically purred as you ran your fingers through his hair, his eyes sliding shut with a soft sigh.

“Daft about youuu.”

His breath fanned across the inside of your legs, so close to where you wanted him, and you barely stopped your hips from rocking towards him. You shuddered as he nipped at the delicate skin of your inner thigh, balancing bites and kisses, pain and pleasure.

“John…”

Without warning, John sealed his mouth over the damp patch on your underwear, sweeping the flat of his tongue over the wet fabric, and an embarrassingly high-pitched keen tore from your throat before you could stop it.

“Can I-”

“Yesyesyes.”

You lifted your hips so that John could curl his clever fingers into your underwear, slide them down your legs and off your ankles. He barely spared them a glance before chucking them somewhere over his shoulder with the rest of your clothes, his attention fixed on you.

John pressed a single, sweet kiss against your swollen, aching clit, the gentlest, simplest thing but you nearly sobbed at how good it felt to be seen and touched by the boy you loved.

“Oh, fuck…”

Your hips arched instinctively into John’s touch, wanting more and not caring how needy you sounded.

He wrapped one hand around the underside of your thigh, pinning your other leg down with his elbow, smiling and smiling as your body reacted to him.

“God, love,” John smiled up at you between your legs, eyebrows arched with amusement. “If I’d known you’d sound like that, I would’ve asked you out a lot sooner.”

“You were worth the wait.”

Breathless, you briefly considered pushing your fingers back into his hair and pulling him down to fix the mess he’d made, but John raised himself up and out of reach.

“D’you want my fingers or my mouth?”

“Either. Both. I don’t care, John, please jus’ touch me.”

He didn’t need much more encouragement than that, but just when you thought you were finally going to get things started, John sat up on his elbows again.

“Tell me something,”

“John…”

You could have hit him, you really could have. Would anyone blame you? There he was, resting between your spread thighs, his big hands pinning you to the bed, his mouth just inches from you, and he wanted to chat.

“That first night,” he said. “When you gave me your bike. Did you know then that we’d end up here?”

You could feel his breath on your slick heat, he was so close, but he spoke so casually, you would think you were catching up over coffee.

“You had my attention.”

“When then?”

“Eh?”

“When did you know?”

Your patience was spread so thin, it was practically translucent. You sighed and sat up on your elbows.

John’s big grin told one story, the light in his eyes another. This was important to him. Before you went any further tonight, he wanted to know this about you.

You wondered how long he’d been wanting to ask. You wondered why he was asking you now. Most of all, you wondered if you even had an answer for him.

You searched yourself, rifling through the rolodex of your memory, and instead of finding one absolute, you came across a hundred moments where you’d fallen just a little bit in love with John.

“You kept askin’ to help in the kitchen.” You cleared your throat, your voice hoarse from moans caused by his touch, “You wan’ed to learn and you listened to me. You knew why Gladys called us 64 Oslo Square. You let me boss you around and tease you and you never show off about bein’ clever. There wasn’t one moment. You were just there one day and everything got be’er.”

John smiled and sweetly kissed the inside of your knee, pressing his face there for a moment before turning his head and resting his cheek against the inside of your thigh so he could look up at you.

“I’ll take that.”

“What about you?” You didn’t want to keep him talking, not when John’s tongue was inches from being buried inside you, but he’d sparked your curiosity. “When did you know?”

He looked at you like it was obvious.

“I said. That first night, when you gave me your bike.”

“Shu’ uuup.”

“It’s true!”

“I don’ believe you.”

“Not my problem, gorgeous,” John purred the words against your core, making you whimper and bunch the duvet up in your fists.

“John…”

“Sorry, sorry…”

John’s sharp grey eyes locked onto yours as he lowered his head between your thighs. You weren’t certain, but you thought you heard him murmur ‘thank you, love’, but then he dragged his tongue against you and you lost all sense of time and space.

“Oh, God, John…”

He shuffled up the bed, socked feet scrabbling against your sheets, wanting to get as close to you as he could as he licked and flicked at you with his tongue, moaning softly against you when you ground against him in response.

Whimpering softly under your breath, you threw back your head and tried to relax, but it was too much. John’s fingers wrapped around your ankle and gently placed your foot further across the bed, spreading your legs even wider so he could bury his face in you.

“Is this alright?”

His voice was muffled but you just about caught his question through your own haze.

“‘s perfect, John, please don’t stop.”

John groaned in response, shaking his head so that his nose bumped your clit while he enthusiastically ate you out, and whether it was intentional or not, it made your hips jump off the bed.

“Don’t worry, love, I won’t. Wanna make you cum like this.”

Pleasure licked down your spine at his words. John’s rough, low voice, the tight press of his fingertips into the soft flesh of your thighs, his warm tongue, the slight graze of his teeth, it was all-consuming, it was all you could think and see and hear, and you never, ever wanted it to end.

“Fuck,” You couldn’t stop yourself moaning, even if you wanted to. You squeezed your eyes shut, reaching out for his hand. “Fuck, John-”

John slipped his fingers through yours, groaning softly when you gripped him tightly. His eyes rolled closed, and he had to grind his hips against the bed to try and relieve some of the pressure.

His jaw was beginning to ache but he didn’t care, the taste of you on his tongue was enough to push him onward, and when you hooked one leg over his shoulder, your heel digging in between his shoulder blades to pull him closer, he thought he’d died and gone to heaven.

“God, I love you,” John moaned into you.

Your breath caught in your throat as your entire body seized, your grip on John’s fingers so painfully tight, you were probably hurting him, but you lost focus on reality before you could think to do anything about it.

He didn’t let up long after you stopped coming, dragging his tongue slowly over and over through your folds and up against your clit until you eventually had to tug at his hair, whispering for him to stop until John raised his head.

He beamed at you, lips shining, as he clambered over you, almost as breathless as you were.

While you savoured the waves of pleasure still thrumming through you, John carefully settled on top of you, warming your trembling body with the weight of his own. He sweetly touched the tip of his nose to yours and murmured under his breath, asking if you were alright.

Eyes still closed, you pulled John down into a deep kiss, moaning at the taste of yourself on his tongue as your legs locked around his narrow waist.

That was all the answer he needed.

John whimpered into your mouth as you ground against him. Smiling, you realised you could feel a damp spot on the front of his underwear.

John gripped you tight, flushed and needy and at the end of his tether.

“Can I… Please…”

Still smiling, still dazed and practically humming with pleasure, you pulled him in for another deep kiss. You pressed your heels into the bottom of his spine, urging him forward, and unabashedly moaned into his mouth,

“Be a good boy and get on your back.”

Something glinted in John’s eyes as he pulled away. It wasn’t quite a light, it wasn’t a gleam, it was pure electricity.

He held out his hand. You took it, slipping your fingers round his so that he could pull you up. Your body still trembling, you carefully moved around each other, never once parting, even as John took your place on the bed and you slipped between his knees.

“Oh, sweet boy…”

You moved over him, planting your hands either side of his slim shoulders so that you could gaze down at him, your hair falling around your face and framing John’s open, awed expression.

“It’s that easy, is it?”

John gave you a shaky grin as you lowered yourself and drew your lips across where his pulse raced in his neck.

“You’ve no idea how easy I am for you, love.”

You bared your teeth against his skin. He knew just what you wanted to hear. He knew just how to please you. Had he been practising that too? Or had John always been destined to end up here, spread out on your bed, his pretty hair pooling around his head like a meadow, his grin wide and a look in his eyes that said ‘do whatever you want to me’.

“You act so sweet and innocent. You’re a needy li’le thing aren’t you, John?”

As you spoke, you reached for the bedside drawer.

John’s eyes followed your hand, his bottom lip caught between his teeth in anticipation.

You pulled out the harness, then the attachment, and carefully rose so that you could kneel. Cheeks burning under his steady, curious gaze, you stood and stepped into the harness, shimmying it up over your hips and tightening the straps with shaking fingers.

“I could listen to you whine all day…”

John’s face tensed into a scowl, his eyes still locked on your hands as you fixed the strap to the harness and reached for the drawer again.

“I don’t whine.”

“Oh, yes you do.” You grinned, upturning the bottle of lube and pouring some into the centre of your palm. “You’re always so noisy for me, honey. ‘specially when I touch you here…”

John’s back straightened like he’d been electrocuted as you wrapped a hand around him. He gasped, his eyes squeezing shut, his mouth falling open, and whispered your name like a prayer.

Beaming, you slipped your hands round to grip the undersides of John’s thighs, pulling his legs up so that his knees were by your sides. You dug your nails into his skin, not enough to hurt but it had its desired effect.

John groaned, his aching cock pressed tight against his stomach. He’d started to leak all over himself.

You kept your eyes on his, even though your heart was hammering in your chest and the way he was starting to roll his body into yours was almost dizzyingly hot.

“This is…” John huffed, shaking his head. “This is so mental.”

You laughed softly, gently, looking down at him with a quiet fondness.

“We can stop if you like? It’s never too late, y’know.”

“No, no! Don’t stop, it’s just- It’s mental.”

John laughed, shaking his head and making his hair fall around his shoulders so prettily, it was enough to drag your gaze away from his pink, parted lips. He was teasing you, his wicked smile told you so, but John’s voice was edged with trepidation.

“Good mental?” you asked nervously.

“Well, we’ll have to see, won’t we?” John’s smile turned a little more reassuring. “I want this, love. I want you.”

“Oh, I know…” The words dripped from your tongue like honeyed gold, easy and relaxed despite your racing heart. “You’ve almost made a mess of the bed and we’ve barely even star’ed.”

The creases bracketing John’s smile vanished. Wordlessly, he nodded up at you.

You smiled when you felt his fingers dip into your hair and immediately start to tangle themselves at the back of your head. It was something he often did when you were cuddled up on the sofa, watching telly, or when he slung an easy arm around your shoulder at work, not caring who saw how soppy he could be sometimes.

“Can I keep goin’, pretty boy?”

As you spoke, you began to work your hand up and down his length, so delicate and slow that John’s dark eyes appeared to gloss over. When his cock bumped against the strap, he hissed softly, half shy, half too turned on to care.

“Please…” John closed his eyes with a sigh. “Please don’t stop touching me like that. Please.”

You took in his flushed cheeks, his bright eyes, the lovely slope of his nose and the way he sucked his bottom lip into his mouth, catching it between his teeth to stopper the moan sitting in his throat. He really was the prettiest boy you’d ever seen.

You leaned down and kissed his cheek, his jaw, your free hand coming up to cradle his face as you helped him relax.

“You’re so gorgeous, John. Just wanna make you feel so good.”

“I told you ages ago, love. You can do whatever you want with me. I’m yours. You own me.”

He mumbled the words against your skin, his lips, his breath, his slightly slurred speech all hot as he dragged his mouth along your shoulder.

“All mine. And I’m all yours, honey.”

John groaned when you pulled him into a messy kiss, your fingers pressing into his hollowed cheeks as you held his lips against yours.

You dipped your tongue into his mouth, taking what was rightfully yours, and all the while you stroked him, pulling moan after needy moan from his constricted throat.

Once you thought he’d had enough, you moved down John’s body, pressing wet, open-mouthed kisses to his heaving chest.

His rings were cool against your neck. His skin, in contrast, was shockingly warm against yours as you buried your face in his stomach for a moment before continuing your journey downwards.

He was tense at first, as were you, but it didn’t take long for John to relax, not when you were scissoring your fingers inside him with one hand and stroking him with the other.

Flat on his back, his long legs spread, he looked almost sinful as he begged for more and more, until you had three fingers inside him. Even when John raised his head from the pillows and caught you grinning like the Cheshire Cat, he couldn’t stop whimpering and rolling his hips against your hand.

You talked to him sweetly, encouraging him and pressing soft kisses around his bare hips, while your fingers curled inside him.

You were just starting to get tired and almost suggested switching positions, when you happened to drag your fingertips in just the right way and John yelped, his entire body tensing up.

You paused, making sure you hadn’t hurt him, but John immediately began to gabble, begging you not to stop, to please do that again. So you moved your fingers again, brushing against just the right spot, and John melted into the bed like candle wax.

“Oh, God. Oh, fuck…”

You smiled to yourself, self-satisfied and smug, and began to nip at the pale skin of his hips, watching John’s face contort in pleasure as you massaged the area with your fingertips.

“Mm, God, fuck me…” John’s mouth fell open, his long fingers gripping the mattress. “Fuck, I can’t- We need to stop, sweetheart, or you’re gonna make me cum like this.”

You paused with your lips wrapped around the head of his cock, looking up at him daringly, before pulling away with a noise that made John whimper pathetically. That didn’t sound like the worst idea right now. But you were here for a reason.

You took one of his knees, bringing it over your hip, and braced yourself on the bed.

“You ready, handsome? I wanna make you feel so good, love.”

John’s legs were wiry and slim, and as you ran your hand up and down his bare thigh, you could feel his muscles tensed in anticipation.

“We’ll go nice and slow, okay? We’ve got all the time in the world, baby boy.”

Colour rose in John’s cheeks at the nickname. Something coiled in the pit of his stomach, warm and familiar. He could do anything, he decided, if you kept talking to him like that.

You gave him what you hoped was a reassuring smile, but after watching him moan and arch his back for you, the throbbing between your thighs was too much to ignore.

You took the strap in your free hand and pushed in slowly, watching John’s face for any minute change of expression. He’d always been a tough one to read, you didn’t want to miss anything and risk hurting him or make him freeze up.

You needn’t have worried. John’s usually neutral expression tightened, his eyebrows pushing together and his lips parting. He gave a little huff, his eyes squeezed shut, though it was hard to tell if it was out of surprise, discomfort, or pleasure.

“You doin’ okay, sweet boy?”

You squeezed his hip, being careful not to move around too much so as not to jog him.

“I’m good. I’m okay.”

“It doesn’t hurt? You’re nice and comfy?”

“I feel…” John gave his hips an experimental roll, choked, and threw his head back. “Ohhh fuuuck...”

Your hand rose to brush his lovely hair back from his face but you didn’t want to distract him, so you settled for squeezing his hip instead.

“You’re perfect, baby boy. Doing so well for me.”

He gave you a shaky smile, then seemed to take a moment to centre himself. You watched John pull in a long breath, then let it go again, measured and calm.

“That’s it, honey, that’s it.” You rubbed his thighs, moaning softly when John gave a pitiful whine in the back of his throat. “Just like that, pretty boy, you’re doin’ so well for me.”

John was panting, his fingertips pressing into your shoulders every time you moved in just the right way.

Gritting your teeth, you kept going, thighs trembling with the effort. You couldn’t take your eyes off him, the way his pretty face scrunched up in concentration, the way his tongue darted out to wet his parted lips, the way his stomach tensed and relaxed as he rocked more and more on your strap.

You were just about to ask if he needed a break when John’s mouth fell open.

"Ah, Christ."

"Good?"

"Yes- God, yes, good, very good-"

John hissed and bit his lip as he lifted his hips off the strap just a little, his fingers pressing into your sides, then sank back down again.

Your eyes were wide as you watched him repeat the motion again and again, slowly but surely, until John was bouncing on you. This was definitely one of your better ideas.

“Oh God, John, fuck.” Breathless, you kissed his hot cheek. “You look fuckin’ amazin’.”

Despite himself, John smiled. His cheeks were pink and his hair was starting to stick to his forehead. He looked like a dream.

“Is it as good as you imagined, sweetheart? You happy now?”

You matched his grin as you picked up speed. Your other hand slipped around his cock and began to stroke him in time with your thrusts.

“Oh, very happy, honey.”

John whimpered, his hips jerking up into your hand. He arched his back, one hand clinging to your waist for dear life while the other scrabbled at the bed sheets, clawing for grip and not finding a purchase. He swore under his breath, dragging himself up and down the strap, and all the while you watched him with a delighted smile.

“You’re such a good boy, John. Can’ believe how good you look takin’ me, baby boy, I’m absolutely soaked.”

He smiled feebly up at you, pleased with the praise, but then you must have hit some spot inside him because his face fell, his mouth forming a perfect ‘O’ as he froze.

“Oh, God,” he whispered.

John slowly circled his hips, fucking himself deep and slow and deliberate, moaning so obscenely, it actually made you blush.

You stopped stroking him, so in awe you simply forgot. Your hips stuttered, your focus slipping as you watched him groan and shake.

“God, John, look at you. How does it feel?”

He shook his head desperately, almost like it was too much to put into words, and to try and focus on verbalising how he was feeling would distract from the pleasure surging through his veins

“So good, sweetheart,” John managed to get out, his voice tight and hoarse. “You’re so good, it’s so good…”

You hummed, unimpressed, and slowed your thrusts. John gave a meek cry of protest but you didn’t cave. He could do better than that.

“How does it feel havin’ my strap inside you? Fuckin’ y’self for me like this?”

John hissed and bit his lip, circling his hips for any kind of friction, chasing the feeling.

“So fucking good. I can’t- It’s so much, sweetheart.”

You thumbed at his head, then twisted your hand, making John’s hips stutter.

“You look fuckin’ amazin’, Johnny. Look so good with my strap in that pretty little arse.”

His bright eyes met yours. John looked at you like he couldn’t believe you’d just said that. Then he laughed and moaned all at once, like he couldn’t believe how much he loved it.

“Fucking hell, love.”

Grinning, you picked up speed again, moving your hips deeper than before, aiming for that spot that made John see stars.

He tried to move with you until he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer. He groaned and whimpered, letting out a sweet little ah! ah! ah! sounds that made you feel dizzy.

“Such a good boy for me,” you murmured, mostly to yourself, then dipped your head so that you could press a kiss to the centre of his narrow chest.

John groaned, his free hand coming up to tangle in your hair again.

“Keep talking like that, I’m not gonna last much longer.”

His words were staccato, cut short by little pants and breathy whines that grew steadily higher and higher as you snapped your hips against his.

“Good,” You kiss his throat, shining with a thin sheen of sweat, and grinned when John whimpered again. “I want you to cum for me, sweet boy. You’re not gonna last long at all, are you?”

“Fuck- No, not gonna last.”

“You never do, do you, love?”

“Wh-” John flushed, the colour spreading all the way down to his navel as he shook his head. “You’re just so good, sweetheart. Can’t help it. I- Oh.”

He stilled suddenly, then the hand at your waist squeezed hard, his fingertips sure to leave bruises.

“I think I’m gonna- Oh, God, this is- I didn’t think it would be so- I mean I knew it would be- Oh, God, I’m gonna cum, love, can I please?”

You laughed softly, always so enamoured by how chatty John got when he was close. You rubbed his thigh sweetly, smiling down at him with pride.

“That’s my good boy. Cum for me, John. You always look so pretty like this, honey. Wanna watch you cum all over yourself, sweet boy.”

“Fuck-”

John’s eyes screwed shut, his mouth hanging open as moan after obscene moan fell from him. He kept bouncing on you until, suddenly, he froze and his grip tightened on your waist.

“Oh, God, love-”

Breathless, you thrust your hips forward and stole a kiss just as John bucked his hips a final time, whining your name. He folded in the middle, and with two more strokes of your hand, he came, hard, all over his concave stomach. You gasped for air, your arms trembling, while John moaned so loud, you were sure your neighbours would hear him.

The hand that still clung to your waist pulled you closer until you collapsed on top of him, your bodies burning and heaving together. He was so sensitive, even the slightest movement seemed to make his whole body jolt, so you stayed as still as you could, whispering praise by his ear and stroking his hair until John finally came back down to earth.

When he raised his head, he seemed to see through you for a second, but then his glazed eyes cleared and he blinked at you dreamily. His pretty mouth stayed open as he panted, his warm breath brushing your cheeks.

“Y’okay?” you asked.

John nodded.

“I’m very okay,” he agreed. “Very okay. Forgot who I was for a second. C’mere.”

He pulled you into a kiss that was half sweet and grateful, and half provoking. His tongue slid over yours, then he caught your bottom lip between his teeth.

“So? Thoughts?”

You squeezed John’s hips, trying to ignore how slick and wet your thighs were. This was about him, about making your boyfriend feel good, you could have another turn soon.

“Few and far between at the moment, love, I’ll be honest,” John smiled, tired and sweaty but sated. “But that was amazing. You’re amazing.”

You beamed, but your loving reply was cut short when you tried to sit up and John tensed, both his hands flying to your waist to slow your movements.

Apologising with a soft kiss, you carefully untangled yourself then laid down beside John. He immediately gathered you up in his arms, pressing a sweet kiss to the top of your head, his big hands splayed against your back.

“I’m supposed to be taking you out for dinner, aren’t I?” he mumbled into your hair.

You huffed, turning and burying your face in his clammy chest.

“Tomorrow. Right now, I don’t wanna move from this bed.”

“Thank God, me neither.” John pressed another kiss to your temple, smiling. “I’ll cook though. I think I owe you one after that.”

“You’re going to give me food poisoning to thank for me for making you cum harder than you ever ‘ave in all y’life?”

“I’ll have you know I make fantastic beans on toast.”

“Stop it.”

“I know.”

“You spoil me.”

“Well, you deserve it.”

You reached round and pressed your fingertips into his side, strategically poking at his ribs to make John jolt, his hands pinning you down harder against his chest to stop you doing it again while you both laughed softly.

But there was still something nagging at the back of your mind. Something you’d tucked away for another time. Words you weren’t sure if you should address, but you knew you’d be analysing and agonising and obsessing over them till you had your answer.

“I might be wrong…”

John huffed.

“Oh dear.”

You poked at his side again, beaming when it still made him jump. You could look at him like this all day, relaxed and comfortable, completely bare for you and only you. You wondered if anyone else in the world got to see that smile, that pointed, broad grin that meant John was completely at ease, or if it was only ever just for you.

“Did you say- Just now, I mean… I thought I heard you say that you loved me.”

“Ah.” John looked sheepish. “I was hoping you wouldn’t remember that.”

“Well, you were doin’ a good job of distractin’ me. Why, did you not mean it? It’s okay if you didn’t, I don’t want you to feel like you have to-”

John slipped his fingers under your chin and lifted your head so that he could press his lips to yours. He kissed you slowly, carefully, gently, until you’d almost forgotten what you’d been about to say.

When he pulled away, he cradled your face in his hand, sweeping his thumb across your cheek, back and forth, back and forth, while his gaze traced the shape of your lips, your nose, your eyes.

“I meant it,” he said. “I just didn’t mean to say it then. I was hoping to tell you in a… More romantic way.”

You shrugged, grinning against his palm.

“Worked for me.”

“Well, you didn’t say anything back, so I thought…”

“Well, I wasn’t sure you’d actually said it, y’know, I didn’t wanna embarrass m’self.”

“Right, right.”

John gazed at you, his eyes steady and still. Then his mouth twitched, right in the very corner.

You rolled your eyes.

“Well, I can’t say it now!”

“Why not!”

“You’re looking at me! I feel on the spot!”

“Well,” John sighed and carefully unwrapped his arms from around you. “There are other ways of making you talk.”

“Oh!” You laughed as he clambered over you, his big hands slipping under your back so that you were laying more comfortably. “Wait, let me take this thing off.”

You moved to sit up but John stopped you with a kiss. His hands covered yours, resting together where you’d begun to unbuckle the strap.

“Leave it on,” he murmured against your lips. “Just for a bit? Please?”

“Ohhh,” You grinned as John moved back down your body and carefully parted your thighs. “Good boy.”

/

Master List

[spreadyovrwings]

THANK YOU FOR THIS CHAPTER!!!!!

THANK YOU FOR READING IT!!!!!!!!

[spreadyovrwings]

64 Oslo Square

"Companion' Middle English. From Old French 'compaignon', literally 'one who breaks bread with another.

Strapped for cash, John gets a job at a bakery as their new delivery boy. Juggling school and Queen and work is exhausting, but it's more than worth it. It's worth it because of you.

Warnings for this chapter: smut! slight sub/dom dynamics, i guess, i'm never sure, i just like being bossy. john gets topped, and i do mean topped!

A/N: i'm so sorry! i’ve been gone for ages! i've just got a million hyperfixations and they all take up a lot of energy you know how it is but but but hopefully this makes up for it

//

Chapter 11

Sweat beaded your skin, clammy and tight. Every breath you drew in was lukewarm and fetid, half someone else’s. Your feet hurt and your head was pounding and the floor was sticky beneath your new shoes, but you hardly noticed any of it.

John was pressed tight against you, and it was all you could think about, all you could bring yourself to focus on. His narrow body felt angular and hot; you could feel the heat coming off of him through his clothes.

It was Saturday night. The bakery had been yours for exactly six days. John had been yours for even longer. Now, pressed up against each other in a tiny Camden club, you could finally celebrate both.

The music was so loud, it had risen to a dull hum, pop music you were faintly aware of but didn’t know the words or the steps to. You weren’t being modest when you said you weren’t much of a dancer, but John didn’t seem to mind. In fact, his hands hadn’t left your body since he pulled you onto the dance floor, and he had enough moves for the both of you.

It had been an exhausting week, but the kind of exhausting that left your muscles glowing and your chest full at the end of the day.

Universities had finally broken up for the summer, so John had a lot more free time, and he’d spent most of it hunched over Gladys’ desk, running through 64 Oslo Square's accounts. He’d made it his solemn duty to uncover exactly what kind of impact Alastair had had on the bakery.

John was right, that night he walked you home and off-handedly wondered how the bakery could possibly be struggling considering it never lacked customers and the area was so affluent.

It turned out Alastair had been funnelling money out of the business for months, ever since he met Gladys. He had sought her out, plucked her from the vine, and pressed her between thumb and forefinger, squeezing her for all she was worth with a vicious smile.

Now he was gone, the bakery had come to life again. John found money ferreted away in all sorts of places, stored away for hard times, or just in case things went south for Alastair. Luckily, John’s astute head for numbers and figures got there first, returning what had always been yours back to you, like transposing music for one instrument to another.

Before too long, 64 Oslo Square could raise its head again. You didn’t have to beg for new kitchen equipment. You didn’t have to pray for a pay-rise. The scarlet front door could be painted for the first time in years, Mickey didn’t have to worry about taking care of his young family, and Gladys could hire more help, allowing you your first night out in almost a decade.

You met after work. John went home to shower and get changed, giving you time to figure out what on earth to wear on your first proper date with the boy you’d fallen in love with months ago. You kept having to remind yourself that you hadn’t actually told him yet; something about John’s pretty green-grey eyes made you lose all track of time.

When he picked you up, John looked less than pleased. Laughing softly at his turned-down mouth, you slipped a hand over his shoulder and pulled him down to your height so that you could press a kiss to his cheek.

“Alright, New Boy?”

“Hi, love.” John sighed. “Look, I’m really sorry.”

Frowning, you ushered him into your flat.

“Already? We haven’t even made it out the door yet.”

You smiled, hoping to reassure him, and it seemed to work. But John still looked troubled despite the little smile he summoned in return.

“C’mon, then. What’re you sorry for?”

With another, frankly dramatic sigh, John flopped down onto your couch like a sack of potatoes. He stretched his long legs out in front of him, splayed outwards in a ‘V’, his platform heels digging into the carpet.

It had been a while since he’d been in your flat. John looked so funny, collapsed on your couch. He was so tall and gangly, he made all your furniture look smaller, and tonight he was dressed up to the nines, his hair perfect, huffing and puffing on your second-hand sofa.

“I was telling Roger about tonight, you know, asking where we should go because he- And now-”

“He’s coming too?”

“And Freddie.”

John looked so despairing, you had to laugh. He looked like a teenager who’d been told he had to bring his little brother along to a party.

“I’m really sorry. I did try to tell them this was our first proper date but they’d already started planning what they were gonna wear, and you know what they’re like, I- We can just make this a night out, this doesn’t have to be-”

“John,” You spoke his name softly, gently, settling down on the couch beside him with an easy smile. “It’s alright. I really don’t mind.”

“You sure? We could always go to a different club or something. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t notice.”

“Honestly, it’s fine. I like your mates. And hey, you know, we can always lose them in the crowd.”

Brushing your fingers along the seam of his black satin shirt, you pushed your fingertips in, just below his shoulder, squeezing gently, reassuringly, insinuatingly.

“You said you’ve got moves,” you murmured, your fingers dropping to play with his hair. “You gonna put on a show for me tonight?”

John’s ever-steady gaze never wavered, even as you curled his pretty hair around your fingers.

“Maybe I’ll treat you.”

His voice cracked when you “accidentally” tugged on his hair.

“Ohhh,” You grinned. “Lucky me.”

And now here you were, moving against each other in the dark.

John really did know how to move. It just came naturally to him. The music flowed through his veins, his heart beating in time with the pounding bass, and all you could do was watch him and admire the nice boy who’d so softly changed your life.

He bought you a drink, then another, politely refusing your offer to get the next round in.

As predicted, you lost track of his friends almost immediately. You’d almost forgotten you weren’t there alone until John leaned down and murmured by your ear,

“D’you wanna get some air?”

There was no mistaking the intent behind his words, the way they wrapped around you, the spark they lit in his dark eyes despite the low club lights. Your pulse raced, your body reacting to every touch, every look, just the proximity of him, the promise of his presence.

What he meant was, do you want to go home? And you did. You couldn’t imagine wanting anything more in all your life.

/

John’s back hit the bakery door with a dull thunk. Giggling softly against his mouth, you apologised over and over, half muffled as he tried to kiss you between laughs, reassuring you that it was fine while his big hands pawed at your hips.

He tasted so good, you couldn’t bear the thought of moving away from him for even a second, so you fished around in your bag for the door keys without once breaking the kiss.

After several shaky attempts (thanks to John tugging your bottom lip between his teeth) you managed to turn the key, and together, you fell into the shop.

Stumbling backwards in his stupid platforms, John clung to your hips for support as you guided him through to the kitchen.

The thought of getting the next door open seemed too mammoth a task to even attempt at that moment, so instead you backed John up against it, pressing your body as close to his as you could, until you had almost been consumed by one another.

The protruding angles and flat planes of his narrow body felt sharp and unfamiliar as you sank into each other. Your mind swam with the endless possibilities; running your hands over his slim chest, kissing across his stomach, your hands keeping him pinned down with the slightest squeeze at his hips.

Every niggling worry you’d ever had about being good enough for John, about being with someone for the first time in years, about trusting someone with all of you, it had all washed away. All that remained was a chest fit to burst with love, and a desire so strong, it was all you could do to stop yourself asking if you could just have him right there and then.

John could obviously sense where your mind was wandering to, even as he moaned softly into your mouth. He squeezed your waist, then your hips, kissing you so deeply, your knees threatened to give way.

“We can’t do this here,” he managed to gasp out between kisses. “Not in the bakery.”

When you huffed a little laugh, your warm breath fanned across his cheek and he couldn’t resist the shiver that slipped down his spine.

You smiled against his mouth, pointed and pleased with yourself.

“My bakery now.”

John groaned roughly at your soft, low voice, and again as your tongue pressed against his. He opened himself up to you, letting you take his mouth as you pleased, his breathing growing heavy.

He couldn’t decide where he wanted his hands, they were everywhere, in your hair, pressing into your back to keep you close, tugging at your hips, his touches waking up your body and making your head spin.

“It’s always been yours.” John’s dark gaze met yours. “And so have I.”

You laughed, airy and quick, hoping to disguise just how much that meant to you, but John knew, John always knew. The last thread keeping your doubt and your fear yolked finally snapped.

Taking your keys from your hand, John half-turned to open the door, his free hand still palming and squeezing at your hip.

You tripped up the stairs together, giggling and breathless in your eagerness.

“You have too many doors,” John muttered when you reached your flat. “It’s like a bloody funhouse in here.”

“That’s a bit dramatic, John.”

He pressed the keys into your hand then tucked himself behind you so that you had room to unlock the door. Or so you thought. A shiver ran over your skin when you felt John’s breath on your bare shoulder, then his lips against your neck.

As he mouthed at your hot skin and grazed you with his teeth, you shakily jammed the key into the lock, finally managing to wiggle it open just as John dragged his tongue over a spot that made you want to completely unravel.

There was no time to savour the ritual of undressing each other, neither you nor John had the patience for it right now. Instead, you practically tore his pretty satin shirt open, dragging the sleeves down his arms as you backed him up towards the bed, never once breaking the kiss.

“Oh God,” John laughed softly against your mouth when the cuff of one of his sleeves got caught on his watch. “Hang on, love. I’m not going anywhere, you know.”

“I know, but I’ve been wanting to do this to you for months. You can’t blame a girl for being impatient.”

“‘To me’?” John grinned as he shook off his shirt. “You mean ‘with me’?”

You just smiled and pulled him back down to kiss you.

Head still spinning from the nightclub, the rum in your blood, John’s aftershave, John’s everything, you hardly noticed him slipping his long fingers under the hem of your dress and pulling up and up and up, until you begrudgingly had to stop kissing him to let John pull it over your head.

“Oh, wow.”

It was all you allowed John before you planted both hands against his chest and pushed him into sitting on the edge of the bed.

You kicked off your uncomfortable shoes and got rid of your bra, and all the while John watched you with warm, full eyes, his mouth hanging open.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, and for the first time in your life, you believed a boy looking at you.

“Yeah?”

Your movements slowed under his heavy gaze. Something about the look on John’s face made you want to take a breath.

When he raised his hands, you moved closer without a word, standing between John’s knees while he looked up at you in awe.

“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he murmured as he dipped his head to press a kiss to your sternum.

When his fingers pressed into your bare skin, you tensed, sucking in a sharp breath.

John looked up at you curiously, his clever grey-green eyes so clear and bright.

“Sorry,” You smiled. “Not used to- It’s been a while. Not used to being touched there. Feels a bit…”

“What?”

John punctuated his question with a soft kiss pressed sweetly to the swell of your right breast. His other hand came up to cup the other gently, his thumb sweeping across you, circling and circling, his sharp eyes never leaving yours.

“The last boy…”

“The idiot?”

You smiled.

“Yeah, that one. He didn’t really like the way I looked.”

“What’s not to like?”

John frowned.

It wasn’t really question but you felt the need to explain.

“Kept trying to “help” me. Used to piss me off no end. Eventually, he stopped touching me. Wasn’t seeing him for very long but he was the last person…”

John shook his head, his brow furrowed, his funny mouth all turned down at the corners.

“I can’t believe you gave him the time of day.”

“Well, he had his own car...”

“Fair enough.”

John briefly smiled, then he shook his head again, as if he couldn’t even joke about it.

“I’m glad you’re shot of him. Means I get you all to myself. And to me, you feel soft…”

He pressed an open-mouthed kiss to the middle of your belly, taking his time, dragging his teeth, his eyes closed to savour the feeling.

“And warm…”

Another kiss, this one to the left of your navel, while his fingers pressed into your hips and tugged you closer, until the tip of his nose was buried in your stomach.

”And inviting…”

Cheeks burning, you slipped your fingers into his hair, grazing your nails across his scalp.

“John…”

John’s stare met yours as his hands slipped round to squeeze your arse, pulling you closer still. His open mouth split into a grin before he bent his head to drag his tongue across your skin.

“You’re perfect. You’re so beautiful, love.”

It wasn’t often you were left speechless, but if anyone was going to manage it, it would be John Deacon.

You bit your lip, shaking your head to yourself, as you quietly watched him press more and more kisses down the centre of your stomach.

“Been wanting to touch you like this since the first time I saw you.”

John had spent so long thinking about kissing you like this, imagining how you would feel, how you’d taste, the lovely sounds you’d make, how your body would feel against his, and now he’d got his answers, he never wanted to stop.

You laughed as you closed your eyes, letting your head fall back against your shoulders, giving yourself up to him. It was hard to focus, so you just let him press little kisses all over your body, round your hips, across your belly, down your thighs, until his fingers slipped between your legs and you gasped, electricity shooting through your veins.

Biting back a smile, you wrapped your fingers around his wrist and pulled it up between you, like you’d caught him stealing. The excited smile was wiped from John’s face when you leaned in close and murmured against his neck,

“You’re getting ahead of yourself, sweetheart.”

“‘s funny,” John stretched his long fingers out, splaying then relaxing them again, testing the strength and limit of your grip on his wrist. “I thought I was exactly where I needed to be.”

“‘Needed’?”

“Mm hm.”

“Not ‘wanted’?”

“The two get sort of mixed up when I look at you. You’re very- You make them, erm, homonyms.”

“I think you mean ‘synonyms’.”

“It’s hard to concentrate with your tits in my face.”

“Fair enough.” You smiled. “We’re getting off topic.”

“Are we?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve been talking?”

“John!”

He laughed when you batted his shoulder.

“Love, I can barely remember my own name right now.”

“You were getting ahead of yourself.”

“Actually, I do remember disputing that.”

“Of course you do.”

“What’s your point, love?”

“My point is,” You carefully placed your knee on the mattress beside John’s hip. “I didn’t say you could touch me there.”

John’s eyes switched excitedly across your face, but his easy smile faded as you straddled his thighs, settling in his lap.

You sighed and looped your arms around his neck, curling your fingers into his thick, dark hair.

“I didn’t realise-” John swallowed when your bare chest pressed against his. “I had to ask permission.”

Feigning confusion, you frowned quizzically, and all the while, you slowly grazed your nails across John’s scalp. He shivered against you, his muscles shifting beneath his pale skin.

“We’ve known each other for almost a year, John. Have I ever given you the impression that you’d be calling the shots here?”

There was a point in his neck, neatly positioned between his shoulder and his protruding collarbone. You could see the steady, perfect bass line of his heartbeat pulsing under his skin. It jumped when you rolled your body into his.

“Couldn’t help myself,” John let his heavy eyelids close, focusing on keeping his breathing even. “Did I mention you’re beautiful?”

You tilted his head back and kissed him, your tongue rolling over his, too riled up to wait for permission. You kept his chin up with your hand against his throat, the pad of your thumb pressing into his thready pulse.

Kissing John was unlike anything you’d ever known. Other boys grabbed at you, pressed selfishly into you, taking what they wanted and not caring how it felt for you. They were too rough, unimaginative, or simply just looking for a way to stave off boredom. But John…

As John’s lips moved against yours, it felt as if you were speaking the same language as someone for the first time in your life.

Skilled hands smoothed up and down your back, finding every part you wanted him to find, every part you wanted him to warm, as if he could read your mind. His lovely nose bumped yours whenever he turned his head and you could feel his smile every time you made an appreciative sound.

He was attentive, thoughtful, just like you knew he would be, just like he was when he played. He might look like his mind was elsewhere, but John was honed in on every note. He knew them all, he knew you too.

You must’ve shifted just where he needed you, must’ve slotted your body against his in just the right way, because John suddenly broke the kiss with a wet sound that made you swear under your breath.

He cut you off with a low, sonorous moan, his soft lips parting so you could see his pretty, pink, antagonising tongue.

“Just like-” He groaned again and this time his big hands found your hips, moving you so that you rocked against him just like he needed again. “That feels good. Shit-”

You could feel the hard outline of him through his stupid tight cord trousers. The friction alone was enough to send thrums of electricity through your body.

You hummed, pleased with yourself. You were admittedly a little rusty. Before tonight, you had half a mind to warn John just how long it had been since you’d been intimate with anyone, but it appeared you hadn’t lost the knack. Either that, or John was extremely receptive.

Beneath you, he moaned and let his head fall forward until his face was buried in your chest, his voice vibrating through you. All you were doing was rocking your hips into his, tugging on his hair, grazing your lips by his jaw. Yes, very receptive. You couldn’t wait to get your hands on him properly.

Then again, you had never dared to ask how long it had been for him either. You weren’t stupid, John had been with girls before you, at home, at uni. He’d never mentioned anyone. Maybe there was no one worth talking about. Anyway, everyone in your life seemed to agree that when quiet, thoughtful, reticent John finally did speak, the only thing he wanted to talk about was you.

You kissed him again, twice, three times, then squeezed his shoulder.

“Get comfy. I’ll stick some music on.”

You wobbled to the record player on unsteady legs and put on something soft and slow, warm and romantic.

When you came back, John had shuffled up the bed until his back was against the headboard. He looked so silly, sat there shirtless, his trousers and heels still on.

His sharp eyes followed you as you moved around the bed, but John wore an enormous grin, his face flushed, his slim chest heaving. He was the prettiest thing you’d ever seen.

“Did you mean to say that out loud?” John asked, his smile growing.

In an effort to mask your embarrassment, you wrapped your hand around one of his ankles and gently tugged him round until his legs were hanging off the side of the bed.

Giggling together, you hefted his leg up to your waist and pushed up his trouser leg.

“I love these shoes,” you murmured, admiring his black and white patent heels. “You’re such a bloody tease, Deacon.”

Sitting up on his elbows now, John raised his eyebrows as you started to unlace one of his platforms for him.

“You like them?”

“Like them? I’m trying to decide whether I should make you leave them on.”

You took off one shoe, then the other, dropping them to the floor so you could kick them under the bed. His trousers came off next, leaving you both in just your underwear.

You said it yourself, you’d known each other for almost a year now. That was a long time to wait to touch each other. John seemed to agree.

As you settled back in his lap, his hands immediately found your hips, pulling you down so that you could feel exactly what you did to him, and the infinitesimal strands holding the last of your reservations together finally snapped.

“You’re so pretty.” You murmured the words against his lips this time, so he knew you meant it. “I love your mouth so much.”

Curiosity sparked behind John’s eyes, and you wondered if anyone had ever said anything even remotely similar to him before.

With one hand resting on his narrow shoulder for balance, you took the other and dragged the pad of your thumb across John’s bottom lip, taking your time. They were a little chapped, he was always worrying them between his teeth, and a shade darker than usual tonight, bruised by your own.

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve been wanting to play with this pretty little mouth of yours?”

John’s eyes widened, his lips falling open as a soft moan escaped him, one you were sure was completely involuntary.

Beaming, you reached down between you and wrapped your other hand around him through his straining underwear.

Those eyes again, they gave away so much. John’s expression hardly twitched, but his eyes grew glossy and heavy as you worked him, purposefully slow, until he had completely melted into you.

“Goddd, feels so good…” His eyes rolled closed, his jaw slack. “Please don’t stop.”

“I won’t, sweetheart. Don’t worry.”

With the tip of your index finger, you grazed his bottom lip, then dipped in a little. John cracked his eyes open, you could feel him watching you with interest. Breathing shakily, you kept going, parting his lips to gently push your finger against his tongue.

“What do we say?”

John’s brow furrowed, summoning up a crease between his eyebrows that you couldn’t resist kissing away.

“Please,” he gasped out.

Your finger slipped into his warm mouth with ease. John immediately swirled his tongue around it, whimpering and moaning as he sucked gently, so needy for you that his hips bucked up into your hand

“Oh, dear…” you practically purred. “Someone’s eager.”

John groaned around your finger, his eyes widening when you added another. He squeezed your hips in time with every stroke of your hand, silently urging you to keep going while his mouth was occupied.

Once he’d got them nice and wet, you pulled back your fingers and drew your index along his bottom lip.

“Good boy,” you whispered, then popped your fingers into your own mouth to taste him with a moan. “You’re even sweeter than you look, my darlin’.”

John thought he must’ve died and gone to heaven. That was the only explanation for it. How else could he be here, with you, your lips against his and your hands anywhere you wanted them?

You kissed both his pink cheeks, then the corner of his lovely mouth, and all the while, you palmed him through his stupid tight pants.

John looked up at you like it pained him to not have your mouth on his properly, but your hand pressing firmly down on his hard length pulled his expression from agony to ecstasy.

“Love, if you don’t do something soon, I swear, I’m gonna-“

“What?”

You removed your hand, eyebrows raised.

John bit his lip, trying heroically to hold back, but he couldn’t help it. He let out a disappointed whine.

“Love…”

He bucked his hips, trying to press himself into your hand.

Satisfied, you carefully clambered off him.

“Mm, that’s what I thought.”

“Wait…”

John tried to pull you back into him but you distracted him with a deep, searing kiss, keeping his brain occupied so your hands could work.

Though he missed you being close to him, John couldn’t keep the grin from his face as you pushed him down flat on the bed, his head safely nestled against the pillows.

In his chest, his heart was pounding like a bass drum. He wanted to shout so your neighbours could hear. He wanted to run to the windows and declare to the whole city that this was the greatest night of his life. He wanted to tell the world that he was the happiest he’d ever been and he was in bed with the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. But he settled for gazing up at you and thanking his lucky stars.

Kneeling beside him now, you took a moment for yourself to just enjoy the scene before you. It was selfish really but you thought John could stand to wait a few seconds while you took him in.

His long hair was spread out across the pillow, dark curls that took hours to set just right. You smiled to yourself.

He was a walking contradiction. He was such a low maintenance boy, so happy to do whatever you wanted to do. No fancy clothes, no ridiculous car, no expensive bad habits. But John cared about how we looked. He cared about doing well at uni. He understood music better than most and cared about Queen’s future. He just never made it anyone else’s problem.

It was only in the last few months that you’d really seen him open up. You couldn’t wait to discover the rest of him. ‘Easy Deacon’, they used to call him. Everything just came so naturally to John. You knew that wasn’t exactly true, but the thought of having a good, kind, lucky, sensible boy in your life, in your bed, might just be the most wonderful thing that ever happened to you.

“Can’t tell you how long I’ve been thinking about this,” you said.

John swallowed thickly when you pressed a kiss to the hollow of his throat, then his sternum.

”Oh, yeah?”

He was still so slim, even after all your best effort. You could pick out each of his ribs as John sucked in a deep breath.

Kissing your way down his chest, you paused to rest your chin over his heart, trying to feel for it.

John’s head was thrown back, his jaw high and his neck exposed, so he didn’t see your fond smile, or the pang of emotion behind your eyes as you turned your head, aching to hear the rounded, powerful, thump thump thump of his heart.

It pounded harder than you expected. You could almost feel it pulsing against your cheek, strong and full and just for you.

“You’re having palpitations, Johnny.” You raised your head and caught his eyes. “You wanna stop and catch your breath?”

John exhaled sharply, not quite a laugh, there was no humour in it. He obviously didn’t think that was funny.

“If you stop now, I think I’ll pass out.”

“Well, can’t have that.”

You kissed your way down his chest, taking your time, savouring the feeling of his hot, flushed skin against your lips.

You took note of every muscle twitch, your ears pricking at every sharp intake of breath. Learning what made the famously stoic and impassive John Deacon moan and squirm was going to be fun.

You peppered more kisses down his chest, taking the time to flick your tongue across both nipples, just to make John’s hips stutter. Face flushed, he groaned almost in protest, but didn’t move to stop you at all.

You pushed further, kissing your way down his stomach, until John was half giggling, half whimpering. He bit down hard on his lip, his long fingers reaching out and finding a home in your hair, where he tugged ever so gently, like he was trying to spur you on but didn’t want to risk making you stop again.

“Love, that…” John hissed through his teeth as you licked a stripe up his belly. “That tickles.”

You laughed softly.

“Does it? Sorry.”

“No, don’t b- Ohn…”

You looked up at John, the skin just below his navel still caught between your teeth. You let it go slowly, dragging at his skin, and all the while you watched his pretty face contort and soften, his teeth practically embedded in his bottom lip.

“Sorry, what was that?”

John huffed, his fingers tightening in your hair as you kissed down the front of his underwear, slow and hot, teasing him on purpose, drifting so close to where he desperately wanted to be touched, but never quite there.

Enough torture. You hooked your fingers under the waistband of his pants and slowly dragged them down his pale thighs, pausing only to place kisses on either side of his bony hips, and the contrasting softness of his inner thighs.

“Just relax, Johnny. It’s only me.”

You smiled against his skin, watching his face contort and shift as you tugged the waistband of his underwear down against him, a mean trick but worth it for the soft little noises he gave in response.

“I’ve got you, love. Just relax. Let me take care of you.”

John whimpered, his chest rising and falling fast. His eyes stayed fixed on yours as you pulled his pants all the way down, until his aching cock was pressed against his stomach.

“Oh, hello,” You laughed, disguising just how embarrassingly turned on you were with a quirked eyebrow and a wobbly smile. “It’s always the quiet ones.”

Despite his nerves, John huffed a little laugh too.

It had been a while since anyone had seen him like this. Somehow, it felt like the first time. You were the most important thing in his life, the most beautiful, wonderful person he’d ever known, it mattered what you thought, it mattered that you liked how he looked.

He watched you take him in, watched your pretty eyes cross his body, and for once, didn’t feel self-conscious under someone else’s gaze. John knew you wouldn’t care what he looked like but he couldn’t help blooming with pride, his cheeks prickling at the pleased look on your face.

John sucked in a sharp breath as your hand wrapped around him, moving up and down his length slowly, almost absent-mindedly, while you soaked up every new detail exposed to you, every new valley and slope, memorising every detail of his body until you could see him behind your closed eyes.

Then you squeezed him, testing the boundaries of his patience, and John lost all sense of bravado and decorum. He groaned, letting his head drop back against the pillow, panting now.

“Fuck, sweetheart, please…”

You tilted your head to the side, feigning obliviousness.

“Please what, love?”

“Just, please…” John moaned again, his hips pressing up into your hand, searching desperately for more pressure, friction, anything. “Please touch me. Feel like I’m gonna…”

You didn’t get to hear the rest, John’s eyes suddenly widened and he put his much larger hand over yours.

“Wait, this isn’t right. I should be- I should take care of you first.”

“What? Because it’s the gentlemanly thing to do?”

“No! Well, no- No, that’s not why I’m asking. I want to make you feel good. I should get you off first.”

Somehow, even though you had his dick in your hand, hearing John talk about ‘getting you off’ made you go all bashful.

“Why should you?”

“Well,” Looking oddly relaxed for someone in his position, John sat up on his elbows. “It’s just maths, innit.”

“Don’t say ‘innit’, you’re from Oadby.”

“I’m finally picking up the lingo. My point is, it’s maths.”

“Is it now?”

You smiled and sat back on your knees.

John’s eyes followed your hands as they left his body to drag across the mattress. Being cheeky had been a risky move and he’d miscalculated, you weren’t touching him anymore. He’d have to make sure it was worth it.

“I’m a bloke. You can cum again and again and again, but I get one shot at this. Two if I’m lucky… Three would probably kill me.”

“It’s tempting right now.”

“I’m just saying,” John’s grin was toothy and silly. He looked about the most relaxed you’d ever seen him. “I’d like to get a few in before I, you know, close up shop.”

“Well…”

You carefully placed your hands on either side of his body so that you could move over him. Placing your knee between his thighs, you leaned in close to murmur against his lips.

“How’s about I take care of you, properly. Like I’ve been thinking and dreaming about doing for… Hm, when did you start at the bakery?”

“30th January.”

“Right. Six whole months, John.”

“Almost seven.”

“Almost seven! Yes! Y’see!”

You kissed the tip of his nose, then his cheek, while John laughed softly, nuzzling his face against yours.

“How about… I take care of you. And then you can - what was it you said? - make me cum again…”

You kissed him.

“And again…”

Another soft kiss that made John’s whole body light up.

“And again…”

The rough pads of his bass-bitten fingers grazed your scalp as John slipped a hand back into your hair, keeping your mouth fixed to his, as if letting you move away would be allowing you, the night, that moment, to disappear.

Moaning softly into your mouth, John ran his tongue over yours, his eyebrows drawn together.

“You’re very persuasive.”

You grinned, feeling silly and happy and safe.

“‘s just maths, innit.”

“Mm,” John nodded and kissed you again, then pressed his nose to yours. “Sounds much better coming from you.”

“What was that about ‘coming?’”

“Oh-hoh, you’re on fire tonight.”

“Well, let’s see, shall we?”

You wrapped your hand around him and swallowed his surprised groan with a deep, slow kiss, matching the movement of your hand with your lips.

John shuddered beneath you, gripping you tight as your thumb absentmindedly swiped over the head of his cock.

Completely lacking all composure now, John’s hips jerked up into your hand, chasing a high you couldn’t wait to give him.

“You’re so fucking pretty, John.”

Cheeks tinged pink, he turned and buried his face in your forearm.

“Don’t say that.”

“Why not?”

“It’ll-” He choked, his hips jumping into your hand. “You’re gonna make me cum.”

Smiling, you leaned down to kiss him slowly.

“That’s kind of the point, pretty boy.”

The only sign that he’d heard and understood you was a keening moan.

John shut his eyes, his brow furrowed like he was concentrating, the same sweet little frown he got when he played the bass.

Your cheeks were starting to ache, you were so smiling so broadly. With one knee, you gently nudged his legs further apart, then hooked your hand under one of his knees so that his foot was firmly planted on the bed.

John opened his eyes but there was nothing behind them. He blinked at you, his mouth open, his pale, slim chest heaving. He had just enough wherewithal to ask,

“What..?”

Still smiling, you swapped hands, getting him off with one while you slipped the fingers of your dominant hand into your mouth.

John’s pretty eyes dropped to follow your hand as it fell between his thighs.

“Trust me?”

He bit his lip, eyes wide, when you circled his entrance, massaging it. You could feel his whole body seize up immediately, like you’d electrocuted him. Then, just when you thought he might ask you to stop, he said,

“Yes.”

It was only a whisper, so you made him repeat himself, just to make sure.

John nodded furiously, repeating ‘yes yes yes’ over and over as you pushed your finger against him.

John’s legs instinctively rose to hook around your lower body, his ankles crossing almost delicately behind you while he gasped and huffed, kneading at your hips to keep himself grounded as you gently worked him open with one finger.

You swallowed his hiccuping moan with another kiss, keeping him distracted, getting him used to the unfamiliar feeling.

“Relax, sweetheart,” you said, dropping your other hand to soothingly rub his thigh. “Just wanna make you feel good. Can you take over, sweetheart, while I..?”

Without loosing a beat, John’s fingers brushed yours as he wrapped them around his cock. You gave him one final squeeze before you let go.

You could wiggle your finger around now, and you worked a second in, twisting and scissoring, dropping little words of praise and encouragement when John began to grind down on your hand.

“Ohhnfuuck…” he moaned, his head flung back to expose his neck.

You watched his Adam’s apple bob in his throat, watched his pulse jump under his jaw, and felt a swell of affection when John moaned your name. His tried to speak but his voice cracked, punctuated by sharp gasps whenever you pushed that little bit further.

“That’s it, pretty boy. That’s it. Just like that, sweetheart.”

Keeping your fingers moving steadily, you bent your head and nipped at his belly, then his pelvis, making your way down until you could nudge his hand away with your nose.

John seemed to begrudge the thought of letting go but you kissed his fingertips, then the base of his cock, and he released himself with a frustrated whine.

“Love, I’m-”

You stopped him complaining by dragging your tongue up the underside of him. John completely melted under your touch, his voice wobbling uncontrollably as you swirled your tongue around his head.

“Sweetheart, please, please, please-”

“Please what, Johnny?”

“Please don’t stop, please please please don’t stop, feels so fucking good when you- Ah!”

Though your muscles ached, you couldn’t imagine stopping now, not with John begging like that, so you shifted the position of your hand.

“When I what, honey?”

The new angle made John tense up again, his wispy little fringe now sticking to his forehead. But then you took him in your mouth, licking him clean and sucking at his swollen tip, and his whole body went slack.

“Ohhhn, when you fuck me like that.”

You couldn’t help it, you moaned around his cock, long and half feral, the vibrations making John’s eyes roll back.

Still your fingers fucked into him, stretching and pushing towards a pleasure that John wouldn’t have believed was possible, and then you hit a sweet spot inside him that made his back arch off the bed.

“Right there,” he gasped out, eyes squeezed shut, his body trembling. “Right there, that’s it, right there, right there. Don’t stop, don’t stop, please.”

”I won’t, I won’t. I’ve got you, sweet boy.”

He took himself in his hand again, squeezing and tugging. You couldn’t take your eyes off him. Seeing John like this, completely at your mercy, his mind completely disconnected from his body, it made your belly twist. He was completely yours, this was all just for you.

John cried out, begging you to go faster, so you did, and his hand sped up to match your thrusts. He squirmed against you, rocking his hips so he was practically bouncing on your fingers now.

“Ohhh, love,” You beamed against his bony hip. “You gonna cum like this, baby boy? With my fingers inside you?”

John half moaned, half laughed, almost in disbelief.

“God, I fucking am. Love, I’m-”

You leaned over him to brush his hair back from his damp forehead and kissed him softly, only slowing your thrusting fingers so that you could crook them inside him.

“C’mon, love. C’mon, Johnny, cum for me.”

Always so eager to please. Your only warning was one last sharp jerk of his hips before he suddenly came with another broken moan. It sent a jolt of white-hot desire curling in the pit of your stomach.

John’s grip on your hips was so tight, he was sure to have left bruises, and all the while he whimpered and called your name, his face flushed and pink.

Feeling just as breathless, you kissed and kissed him until John’s body slowly collapsed under you. You carefully drew back your fingers, just barely biting back a moan when John weakly protested.

He pulled you close, but it wasn’t enough, so - still gasping and buzzing with pleasure - John carefully guided your arms out from under you so that you had to lay on top of him, your bodies completely intertwined.

“You’re-” John kissed you lazily, his mind still somewhere out past Saturn. “That was amazing. You’re so beautiful. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

He barely knew what he was saying, he just had to let you know that you’d made him feel more than he ever thought possible. He couldn’t imagine ever wanting to be anywhere else other than right here, right now.

Content and warm, you buried your face in his neck, catching your breath as John dragged his hands up and down your back.

“You were so good, John. Thank you for letting me take care of you.”

He smiled. He couldn’t believe you were thanking him. He couldn’t believe how lucky he was. He couldn’t believe crossing the road to see about a job had led him to this. In bed with you, just before dawn, sweaty and sticky and exhausted and gasping for breath, John felt like he’d finally found the home he’d been looking for all his life.

“Yeah, well, it’s your turn next, sweetheart. Give me two minutes and I’ll do the same for you.”

“Just two? Look at you.”

“You’re very inspiring, what can I say.”

You smiled against his skin, pressing your thighs together at the thought.

You considered getting up to open the window and let in some fresh, cooling air. You wanted to help John get cleaned up before the next round. More than that, you wanted to lay back and let him kiss down your body, till he’d seen to the mess he’d made.

You kissed him again, slow and languid. There was no need to rush. You had all the time in the world.

/

The bakery was alive again.

Like a pot set to boil slowly, incrementally over time, you hadn’t realised how anaemic the place had become until it was too late. Almost too late. With Alastair gone and the summer at its peak, 64 Oslo Square was back to its former glory, a shining jewel at the far end of Kensington High Street.

You kneaded dough with motions you knew by heart. There was a rhyme and rhythm to it, a particular push of your hands, a drag of your fingers, a dig with the heels of your palms.

You rolled the dough between your hands, forming and shaping it like a potter at their wheel, until it was the perfect consistency to divide and drop into proofing baskets.

There was music in the air. Mickey’s old radio oozed out Diana Ross, Tony Orlando, Free and Bowie, and he sang along to every word. How he knew them all by heart, you’d never know, but he never skipped a beat.

Equally vocal was John. He was leaning against the kitchen island, where he was supposed to be making butter cream. Instead, he had his head in the book he’d just bought, a textbook he’d need for his second year. He’d been reading out passages he thought were particularly interesting, and you and Mickey had been trying your best to humour him.

John recited a particularly convoluted paragraph, and Mickey actually laughed at how ridiculously complex it sounded.

“Hang on, say that one more time?”

You brushed off the flour from your hands, watching it cascade through the air like gold dust in the morning sunlight.

“Yeah, no, sorry, sweetheart. You’ve lost us.”

John turned the book around and held it up so that you could see the page he was reading from.

“Here, have a look!”

“My love, that might as well be written in Greek for all the sense it makes to me.”

“Well, some of it is Greek. It’s Physics.”

Behind you, meticulously icing fruit tarts, Mickey snorted.

You shot John a wry look.

“Well, I walked into that one.”

John turned the book back to face him.

You watched him with a fond smile, then pushed the loaves you’d made into the oven.

He got this look on his face when he was talking about his studies. John was completely in his element. All the nervousness and shyness dissipated when there was simple, honest, unconditional science to talk about.

He shrugged, shutting the thick book with a heavy snap.

“I know it’s boring-”

“It’s not boring, John, I just think it’s wasted on us.”

“Don’t be daft, you’re the smartest person I know.”

“Ta!” Mickey chimed in.

You ignored him, though it was nice to see Mickey so cheery. The last few months had been hard for all of you, but he had a family to worry about, a newborn, a mortgage. Now Alastair’s heavy chains had dropped from your ankles, the bakery was making enough for you all to live a little more easily, and Mickey had started to whistle again, bright and cheery and carefree.

While the bread proved, you set about preparing tomorrow’s croissants.

“The smartest person you know besides you, you mean,” you said to John, picking up the conversation again while you went to grab the right ingredients.

“Well, what else am I here for? Aren’t I the brains?” John smiled. “I’m not just a pretty face, you know.”

Grinning now, you tapped his thigh as you passed by.

“Don’t forget the legs.”

“I thought that was you?”

“Ohh, someone woke up in a good mood.”

“Wonder why.”

John reached out and tried to pinch your hip but you just slipped out of reach.

Plunking flour, eggs and sugar down on the metal counter, you took a deep breath before falling into the pattern of a lifetime. It was all second nature by now, like the steps of a dance or the words to a favourite song. You’d never forget the moves for as long as you lived, you could probably make them blindfolded, with one arm tied behind your back. It was good to be back.

“C’mon then,” You nodded to the textbook in John’s hands. “What else you got? Anything that’ll get you mixing faster?”

John huffed, lifting himself up to perch on the edge of the counter.

“It’s thanks to this book that you even have a mixer.”

“Oi, watch it, New Boy. I’m your boss, remember.”

John grinned at you across the island. It was an almost challenging look. Come shut me up. Come kiss me. I know you want to.

“Can bosses get the sack for fraternising with the staff?”

Startled, you looked over your shoulder at Mickey. You’d almost forgotten you weren’t alone in the kitchen with John.

Mickey tugged a cigarette down from where it had been tucked behind his ear and flicked it up, catching it in his mouth just to show off. He raised his eyebrows at you, then at John.

“I only ask cos I got an earful this morning I’m not gonna forget in an ‘urry. It’d do me a favour if you were legally obligated to never, ever do that again. At least while I’m in earshot.”

Cheeks burning, you refused to look at John.

Images of that morning flashed through your mind.

You had to be up early to get the bakery warmed up, and John needed to get on his stupid bike and make his rounds. You’d flung out a sleep-heavy arm to silence your alarm, and in the time it took you to draw it back under the warmth and safety of the covers, John had moved on top of you.

Between soft, slow, drowsy kisses, he lazily slipped inside you, dragging his hips back and forward against yours as you gasped into his mouth.

You came clinging to his back, your ankles hooked around his hips, his tongue in your mouth and your name in his throat.

When you came downstairs together. Mickey had already started warming up the ovens. You had paused, momentarily startled. Mickey was early for once. But you brushed your surprise away and slipped on an easy smile. There was no way he would've been able to hear you, and there were a hundred perfectly innocent reasons why John could’ve been upstairs with you.

Idiot.

“Oh,” You pulled a face, aiming for apologetic and ending up at awkward. “Sorry, Mickey.”

He just laughed and headed out into the alley for his smoke break.

Turning to John, you grimaced.

“Whoops.”

Looking about as embarrassed as you felt, he held out his hand to you. John guided you around the counter until you were standing between his knees, his hands immediately resting on your hips like it was second nature.

“Alright, so your walls are thinner than we thought. Lesson learnt.”

“Maybe if you weren’t so noisy.”

“Me!” John laughed. “Can I take you out tonight?”

“Depends. Where you taking me?”

“Thought we could go to the pictures? Get some dinner?”

“Sounds perfect.” You kissed the tip of his nose. “And your electric stuff is very cool, John. I was only teasing you.”

Smiling like a cat curled up in front of the fire, John squeezed your hips reassuringly.

“I know.”

“Not just a pretty face, eh?”

John looked sheepish.

“Well, you know, you’re always saying-”

You kissed him once, twice, then his nose again.

“You’re very pretty.”

“No…”

John barely put up a fight. It was hard enough arguing with you at the best of times, he could barely concentrate when you were so close, your floury hands cupping his face, your lips so close to his.

“Yes! Twice as pretty as Roger.”

John let his head grow heavy, relaxing completely until all that supported him were your hands under his jaw. While you giggled at his exhausted expression, John shook his head

“Now you’re just being silly.”

Your heart felt so full, it threatened to spill over.

There had been a small worry, so small it barely warranted entertaining, right in the back of your mind. It liked to remind you that the dynamics of your relationship with John had forever shifted.

What if things felt different now? Under these new parameters, there would be no more longing looks across the bakery, no dancing and stumbling around each other, no more tension and uncertainty. What if the sudden expectations and roles made things awkward?

A smaller, even stupider part of your brain had even been afraid that John would wake up and - in the cold, harsh light of the morning - decide he'd changed his mind.

That particular worry was extinguished almost as quickly as it sprang into life. When John hooked one long, slim leg through yours and moaned into your mouth that you were absolutely perfect, you could have laughed at yourself for ever worrying if your mouth hadn’t been full of his name, then his tongue.

But no, here, alone in the kitchen where you came to know each other, looking and smiling at each other like you were the only two people in the world, you knew nothing good had changed. It made you wonder just how long you’d belonged to each other without knowing it.

“I mean it!” You laughed softly when you brushed your hand over his cheek and John pretended to nip at your fingertips. “You’ve got pretty eyes…”

You kissed a spot under both of his eyes, right on the apple of John’s cheeks. His smile pressed into your palms

“And pretty hair…”

“You’re so odd, love.”

“And nice eyebrows…”

John laughed, making the corners of his eyes crinkle.

“My eyebrows are nice?”

“And you’ve got a great nose…” You kissed it to prove a point, then grazed your fingertip along the outline of his bottom lip. “I love your funny little mouth.”

John raised his eyebrows.

“What’s so funny about my mouth?”

“Nothing!”

“My mouth works just fine, thank you.”

You grinned.

“I’m well aware.”

Shaking his head slightly, his cheeks tinged pink, John asked,

“You really think I’m pretty?”

“I really do, John.”

“I think you’re pretty too. I think you’re beautiful.”

John smiled softly as you leaned in to kiss him, and you could still feel him smiling against your mouth as you tilted his head back with one finger under his jaw.

He pulled you closer, his hands on the backs of your thighs at first, before they slid up and bunched up your apron.

You had half a mind to pull away and check over your shoulder, just to make sure Mickey wasn’t about to walk in on you. You could hear Gladys a mile away, so you didn’t have to worry about her catching you, but you’d never live it down if Mickey had to bleach his eyes as well as his ears.

John brushed his nose against yours sweetly, his eyes half-lidded and heavy. He was so handsome when he was like this, all relaxed and confident and putty in your hands.

“That thing you did,” he said quietly. “Last night.”

You hummed, only half listening as you leaned down to kiss him again.

“Think you’re going to have to be more specific.”

“I don’t think I do.”

John raised his eyebrows and you bit back a smile, feeling somehow simultaneously sheepish and proud of yourself.

You’d been waiting for him to bring it up, but when he didn’t say anything last night or this morning, you wondered if maybe he didn’t like it. His body certainly reacted positively, but sometimes there was a disconnect, a barrier, between what was felt physically and what was felt emotionally.

“Is that something you’ve done before?”

“Maybe.” Though your cheeks burned, you kept up your grin, never wanting to give away just how much John flustered you. “Or maybe I just saw you there, all wet and desperate, and couldn’t help myself.”

John’s eyes widened a fraction, like he couldn’t believe you would dare to say something so outrageous within a few feet of your colleagues and countless hungry customers.

Bending his head, he let his forehead rest against your chest, his hands tense on your hips.

“You’re terrible,” he grumbled, the sound muffled against your apron.

You couldn’t resist, you slipped your fingers into his thick hair, combing it through and playing with the odd curl.

He really was so wonderful, a ridiculous mix of pretty boy and handsome mechanic. There wasn’t anything John Deacon couldn’t do. He played every part so well without ever not being himself, and he was all yours.

“Did you like it?” you asked, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

John quietly huffed.

“I think that was fairly obvious.”

“Because we could do it again. And more, if you like.”

John raised his head.

“More?”

You kept your hand in his hair, grazing and tugging his curls around your fingers. It kept you grounded, kept you from pulling back and changing the subject and apologising for even asking. It wasn’t exactly embarrassing, just a lot to say out loud, especially with John looking at you like that.

“Yeah, you know…” You shrugged, fighting back a smile and losing. “I could use more than just my fingers.”

“Oh.” John’s eyes widened a fraction but that was all he gave away. “Would you… Want to?”

“Yes. Would you like that?”

“Yes.”

The tension between you was building again, a push me, pull you of daring looks and lingering touches, toeing the line a little more with every word passed between you.

“I…” John opened his mouth, closed it again, then said, “I trust you with me.”

There was a flicker of nervousness in his grey eyes but no hesitancy, no uncertainty.

Even just thinking about it left your mouth feeling dry, and from the way John’s fingers tightened on the backs of your thighs, threatening to slip up under your dress and beyond, he was thinking about it too.

“Still can’t really believe it,” he said softly.

“Well, you know, it’s not that uncommon. You’d be surpri-”

“No, I mean,” John laughed softly and pressed a soft kiss to your forehead. “Can’t believe I’m here. With you.”

“Oh!” With a grin you brushed back his hair and tucked it behind his ear for him. “Well, I’m very glad you decided to stick around, New Boy. Well, not so new anymore.”

John hummed and leant his head in your hands again, nuzzling his cheek against your palms.

He’d gone all soft on you. You tried to pinpoint exactly when that could have happened, but came up empty. He’d always been sweet but recently, perhaps over the last few weeks, John had shown a vulnerability that he’d hidden behind clever words and smiles.

When did give himself over to you? Welcoming him into your little family had done wonders for John’s confidence, giving him somewhere that he felt safe and secure, where he had a set role and no doubt that he belonged.

But when had he become yours? When you were one of six people in the crowd to see his band play? When you took him into your home and patched him up, offering him love and comfort and a warm place to sleep? Or maybe it had been immediate, when you sent a stranger home with food just because he looked cold and hungry? Or maybe it was only recently. Maybe seeing how his friends welcomed you into his own odd little family had been the final nail.

Running your fingers through his soft hair, you knew you wouldn’t ever know when this started, when John had solidified himself in your life, but you were oh so very glad that he did.

The bakery door opened. You barely registered it, just a faint chime in the back of your head. You almost, almost ignored it. But something about the sound sent goosebumps shivering up your arms and down your back. Something told you to look up and pay attention.

Through the kitchen doorway, you could hear familiar voices. The same customers came by every day, or weekly, you knew them all by heart. They knew you as you knew them. There was a warmth there, a rare connection for this part of the city.

One voice, cold and discordant, cut through the rest like a bow pulled too sharply across violin strings.

Without taking your eyes off the kitchen doorway, you squeezed John’s hands, then gently let them go.

“Hang on, love.”

Heart thudding, you made it to the doorway just in time to catch Alastair moving round the counter towards Gladys.

Immediately, a coppery taste rose under your tongue, like blood, adrenaline. Your hands balled into fists and you didn’t know if you were afraid or furious or just shocked, but you froze in the doorway, unable to move any part of you apart from your wide eyes.

“Gladys, love,” Alastair smiled like an anglerfish as he drew closer. “You have to give me another chance. I was just trying to do what’s best for you.”

The bakery door closed behind the last customer, you caught the movement out of the corner of your eye. The shop was empty, apart from one woman, seated at a table in the corner, busy fussing over her baby.

“You’re being ridiculous, love. You know I wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt you. I just want to help-”

“Alastair.”

You stopped him with his hand raised in the air, reaching out to Gladys, fingers curled inwards like claws. The big bad wolf.

“What the hell are you doing here.”

Alastair slowly dragged his gaze away from his target. His lip curled in irritation, almost like you bored him. You were just something to scrape off the bottom of his custom-made Italian leather shoes.

The sound of his name caught John’s attention. You felt his chest against your back but he didn’t touch you, just kept close, keeping watch but never interfering. Still, it meant there was now another man in the room, and Alastair’s attitude shifted accordingly.

He straightened his long back, pulled back his hand and tucked it behind him. His mouth shifted into something more friendly but his eyes he had less control over. They stayed cold and steady and fixed on you.

“There you are.” He tried to smile but didn’t understand the mechanics. “Look, we got off on the wrong foot, darling. But now everything’s out in the open, I really think we can come to some kind of agreement. I mean, you’re sitting on a goldmine here, sweetheart.”

Behind you, John scowled.

“Don’t call her that.”

Alastair pretended not to hear him.

“You don’t even know what you have here.”

You caught Gladys’ eye. This place was just as much her home as it was yours, if not more so. She bought a tiny corner of a bomb-stricken street, fixed it up, loved it into living, and filled it with good things to feed her community.

Until recently, until Alastair, she’d never had a day off, she’d never called in sick, she never complained or argued or admitted defeat. The fire that burned in her had been dampened but never snuffed out, and now it was back, roaring and clawing past the bars of its cage. And she’d passed it on to you.

“I do, actually,” you said, and Gladys smiled.

Alastair laughed drily, humourlessly, and there was no doubt that he thought you were beyond stupid, that you were all beneath him, that he understood the world better than any of you ever could.

“Honey, in ten years, this city is going to look completely different.”

He took a step towards you and you felt John tense.

“Twenty, thirty years down the line, this space will be worth triple what she bought it for. More than that. If you give it to me, I can talk to the right people, I can get you a good deal. Sweetheart, I can make you rich.”

“Alastair, I’ve been waitin’ a long time to say this: get the fuck ou’ of my bakery.”

Frantic now, he turned his gaze to John.

“You, you’re the boyfriend, right? Can you talk some sense into your girl? She’ll listen to you. You’re a smart bloke, I can tell. You can see what they can’t, right? C’mon, you and me, we know we can’t leave decisions like this up to- Well, a couple of girls playing business. We both know it’s too much for them.”

“Skip asked you to leave,” John said, terse and stern. ”Much more politely than you deserve.”

When Mickey came to see what was going on, Alastair took a step backwards. A smart move but not nearly quick enough.

Without a word from any of you, Mickey immediately understood what was happening and knew what the situation demanded.

Alastair raised his hands, his warped smile trembling at the corners. He shrank back as Mickey made his way towards him.

“Michael,” He shook his head, his cold eyes darting everywhere. “Michael, you-”

“Oh, mate.” Mickey grabbed Alastair by the scruff of his spotless jacket. “You’ve just made my day.”

Struggling against Mickey’s grip, Alastair cried out to Gladys, his hands wrapped uselessly around the much larger one dragging him out the front door.

Together, you watched Mickey throw Alastair onto the pavement, ruining his nice suit and removing him from your lives forever.

You looked up when you felt John slip his fingers through yours. Drawing in a soothing breath, you squeezed his hand back.

“Well,” Gladys turned to you with a smile. “I think I’ll stick the kettle on. Anyone want a brew?”

//

Master List

[spreadyovrwings]

Honey, I Can Feel Your Pain

A late night heart-to-heart before the end of the world. Or, two idiots try to talk about their feelings but they’re both demons and not very good at it.

Pairing: Alastor x Reader

Warnings: my writing/me trying to navigate a complicated character, i cringe therefore i am

A/N: literally just ignore me lol i wanted to see if i could write Alastor well so this is something of a personal challenge and a warm up for me (and i’m obsessed with him) so hopefully i’ve done him justice. there’ll be a part two if anyone wants one!

//

Chapter One

The door to Alastor’s studio was always locked to everyone but you. You weren’t sure how he did it. He was a complete technophobe, so a hidden camera was out of the question. Perhaps he’d cast some sort of spell or could sense you coming. You weren’t sure. All you knew was that if you needed to see him, and Alastor permitted it, his door was always open.

That night, the radio tower was dark and still, the only sound a slow, jazzy number sent oozing over the city and into people’s homes.

You found Alastor at his sound desk, one long finger poised idly on a bakelite dial, as if debating whether to alter the sound his tower produced. His ever-present smile was fixed in place but his lips were closed, his deep red eyes focused.

You tapped your foot against the floor, once, twice, three times, announcing your presence as gently as you could so as not to disturb him too abruptly. It didn’t matter that Alastor had to let you in in the first place, it always seemed impolite to come barging in.

He didn’t look up as you approached but you could tell you had his attention, and when you put your hand on the back of the chair next to his, a question, he answered with a short nod.

“Are you alright?”

Alastor barely moved, his eyes fixed on the glowing buttons and dials in front of him.

“Fine, fine.”

He spoke faintly, airily, with no hint of static, as if he were lost in thought. You couldn’t help feeling like you’d interrupted a private moment.

“It’s just you’ve been locked away in your room for days now.”

“Hard at work! Nothing more.”

As if to prove a point, Alastor wrapped his long fingers around the dial and adjusted the volume, then slid his fingers along the desk to conjure up the next song.

This tune was a lot more uptempo. It wasn’t like Alastor to be so sloppy, you must really have caught him off-guard.

Alastor seemed to realise his mistake too. He turned to you, leaning back in his chair, exuding a confidence and poise that many envied and few saw through.

“Is there something I can help you with, my dear?”

His attention was yours. Too late to go back now.

“You’ve been quiet ever since Charlie came back from Heaven.”

“Well, I-”

“And you don’t go quiet,” you pressed on, refusing to let him chart the course of your conversion. “So what’s wrong?”

The two halves of his face told two different stories. Alastor’s eyes were fiery and guarded, he didn’t like being questioned but you’d cornered him. Below, his smile stretched his skin. You wondered if it hurt.

“I’ve been reviewing the situation,” he said after a thoughtful pause, every word considered and weighed.

“You’ve missed dinner four nights in a row for that? I made all your favourites to try and entice you down, you know.”

Alastor hummed. He wasn’t listening.

“Do you know, for almost one hundred years, I have lived here quite happily. I’ve carved out a nice little niche for myself. And then the princess started getting bright ideas…”

Alastor’s long fingers danced over the faders again but he didn’t move any of them. It seemed to be the habit of a lifetime. Two lifetimes.

“The angels… Unsettled me. And you’re quite right, I don’t get unsettled. It required meditation.”

“The angels unnerved you?”

“Unsettled. But I suppose there’s not much point arguing over semantics. Either way, the result n’est pas bon, cher.”

“What did they say that unsettled you?”

One of Alastor’s ears flicked in irritation. It was a rare thing for him to give away even that much. It was a particular kind of personal hell, for him to have a body that could betray him so visibly. He could rattle everyone with his big grin, he could even hide pain behind walled eyes, but the attributes given to him, gifted to him, shackled to him, when he fell, weren't so easy to control.

“It’s not quite that simple, my dear. The angels are all bluster and hollow virtues. I care very little about what they have to say, the self-righteous...”

He took a breath.

“But then they halved the time till the next Extermination. It’s of little consequence to me. They’re clever enough to leave me alone most of the time and if any angels do try their luck, well, they’re quietly done away with. Plus, it’s just plain old good sport to watch the show.”

You smiled.

“Might have to disagree with you there, handsome.”

Alastor laughed humourlessly, a dry, sharp sound like a bow pulled roughly against violin strings.

“That’s just it, I might too. The issue is… Now it’s only a few weeks away…”

The song changed. Low, smooth, like sand through an hourglass, a single trumpet groaned into life, filling the room before disintegrating and travelling along the airwaves. Was it a distraction? Was Alastor struggling to hold his focus? Who knew? Maybe not even him.

“Alastor,” You leaned forward in your chair, undeterred by his hesitancy. “What’s wrong?”

His gaze slowly slid to you. The close-mouthed smile was back. It was the closest he ever came, or ever could come, to relaxing his expression completely.

“It usually doesn’t bother me,” Alastor murmured, his words barely audible over crackling static.

You frowned.

“But this time it did?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Alastor’s nose wrinkled.

“Because before, I didn’t have you. It was easier. I’ve never relied on anyone or had anyone relying on me. Now there’s the hotel, its inhabitants…”

You remedied the sting with a vacant smile of your own.

“When you say ‘you’, you mean all our friends?”

Alastor shook his head.

“No. No, I was attempting to obfuscate.”

“Oh.”

Alastor stared at you. You stared back. Then, with a clang, the penny dropped.

“Oh!”

“Mm.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Quite.”

You smiled at his sour expression. Your own face was burning but you bravely ignored it.

Your relationship with Alastor had been a nebulous, vague sort of a thing. He was a terrifying colleague to have at the hotel, and at first, you couldn’t be sure why in Hell he was there. He liked to watch others struggle, suffer, and fail miserably, it was all just good entertainment for him. But that couldn’t be all there was behind his sudden interest.

As soon as you figured out that Alastor served himself and himself only, things became a lot clearer, and it was a lot easier to like him. You didn’t have to worry about trusting him, because you couldn’t. You didn’t have to question his motives, you knew they were ill-intentioned and that you were better off not knowing. He liked to pretend he was oh so mysterious, but Alastor was perhaps the most honest person in the hotel.

Mutual respect grew into friendship, into something more. You often went out with Alastor when he required assistance or just wanted some company, and you were always the first person he came to when he got home.

Slowly, incrementally, that trust bloomed. Alastor began to ask for your opinion. You would sit together in companionable silence, reading by the fire long into the night. He didn’t need to ensnare and trick and manipulate you, because you did things for him happily and without question, though within reason.

He was always honest with you, or at least, as honest as he could be without it endangering his own self-preservation. And you respected that. It was a harsh world, you had to look out for yourself, but slowly, so slowly that neither you nor your friends had noticed until it was too late, Alastor had bound his life to yours.

You hadn’t appreciated the depths of that connection. You’d always known you had a soft spot for him, ill-advised as it was, but never in all that remained of your afterlife could you have anticipated a requited affection.

Alastor interlocked his fingers and rested them in his lap, keeping his composure well considering the situation.

“It pains me to think of you in danger.”

You couldn’t help it, you laughed quietly.

“Steady now, Alastor. You sure know how to sweep someone off their feet.”

He’d never rolled his eyes at you, he was far too refined for that, but Alastor gave his equivalent, waving an airy hand at you and soldiering on.

“We have always been close, you and I. Right from the start.”

“That’s not how I remember it but…” You smiled. “I like to think of us as a little team.”

He brightened, his pained smile morphing into something a little more authentic.

“Exactly! A team! But what was once companionship and, admittedly, amusement-”

“Do you mean we have fun together or do you mean amusement at my expense?”

Alastor waved his hand again.

“A little of column A, a little of column B.”

“Wonderful.”

“What I mean to say is… My feelings have evolved somewhat.”

In all the time you’d spent with him, you’d never known Alastor to be so hesitant. In fact, you couldn’t remember a time when you’d seen him show any sign of apprehension. His stitched-on smile was still intact but his clawed fingers drummed against the sound desk and his gaze had been lost in safer ground, somewhere over your shoulder.

“Evolved into what?”

Though your heart was thudding in your ears, you didn’t hesitate to push him. You thought one of the reasons Alastor had grown to enjoy your company so much was that you liked to talk, as well as listen. He got bored so easily and he’d always been a chatterbox; you were one of the few people in his life who could match him in that without any sign of fear or an ulterior motive.

Alastor’s ear flicked again. This was a hard conversation for him.

“The Extermination meant nothing to me before. But now, the thought of it…”

You watched his eyes grow unfocused as his imagination consumed him. His fingers stopped drumming. The song on the radio rose by a few decibels.

“Alastor, it’s okay-”

“It frightens me. And it’s not about self-preservation this time. When I consider how our companions may fare…”

“They’ll be okay.”

“What if I can’t protect you?”

Sensing you might need to ease off, take a breath, anything, you leaned in closer, reaching out for him but never, ever touching him without asking first. Instead, you rested your hand beside his on the desk.

“I don’t need protection, Alastor.”

“Still, I want to keep you safe, my darling. There’s a… A sharp tug here…”

He pressed one clawed hand against his empty chest.

“And here…”

He dragged the same hand down to the pit of his lean stomach.

“When I think about you in any kind of danger.”

How did he always manage to be so charming, even when he didn’t mean to be?

You barely held back a pleased smile. Like Alastor’s, it tugged at the corners of your mouth, threatening to spill over into a stupid, happy grin.

He didn’t have the language for what he felt, that was fine. You and Alastor had always found a way to communicate, even without words. He’d told you more with one gesture than you ever could have expected him to say aloud.

But it wasn't just unexpected, it was completely astonishing. You couldn’t let him sense that though, it might make him retreat into himself. So instead, you turned it back around on him, letting Alastor choose how much he wanted to give away.

“What do you think that could be?”

“I have an idea. But I dread to think.”

Alastor’s eyes narrowed slightly, and you knew you were on the same page.

It would be difficult for him, far more than it had been for you, to pin down and explore and accept the feelings you had for each other. You hadn’t been able to figure out a better word for whatever it was that fizzled between you, though, like Alastor, you had a sneaking suspicion and it terrified you.

Nothing sounded right. Logically, you knew there were some words that ought to fit, but acknowledging them felt like wearing someone else’s shoes.

You couldn’t imagine how difficult it must be for Alastor to come to terms with it all. So it surprised you when he slid his hand over yours.

It wasn’t the first time you’d touched, he was always holding out his arm for you, patting the top of your head, often even lifting your hand to his lips when he greeted you in the mornings or bade you goodnight. But this wasn’t a fleeting brush of his hand against yours, this was sustained, purposeful contact, and it meant something, to both of you.

Alastor’s gaze still couldn’t meet yours, so he stared at your hands, his close-mouthed smile back in place.

“I’ve grown quite fond of you,” he said quietly, and it was just his voice you could hear, no static, no sound effects, just Alastor.

You smiled.

“I’ve grown quite fond of you too, handsome. I get the same feeling.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, all the time.”

“Oh, well, that’s reassuring, at least.” Alastor finally met your eyes, his head tilted quizzically to one side. “Have you told anyone?”

“What, and admit I’m in love with the Radio Demon? No thanks, I’d never live it down.”

Feedback shot through the room, a grating, warped sound, like someone had held a microphone too close to a speaker. It was hard to tell if the sound emanated from the mixing desk or from Alastor himself, but his scarlet eyes were wide.

His hand tightened over yours, though it was more likely out of surprise than him trying to give you comfort. The tips and edges of his sharp claws dug into your skin, not enough to hurt, but it still made your jaw clench.

Alastor, to his credit, didn’t seem as put off by the admission than you might’ve expected. Maybe he wasn’t surprised by the actual sentiment, just that you’d finally said the words out loud.

You smiled.

With just a week or so left until an Extermination that would surely kill you all, there wasn’t much room left in your damned soul for shyness. It wasn’t an all-out ‘if this is my last chance to say it’ confession. You and Alastor had always appreciated candour, and with so little time left, why not say what you were both thinking?

“Have you spoken about it with anyone?”

Alastor shrugged.

“Well, yes, I’m doing it now.”

“No, I meant someone you can trust. Someone you can talk about your feelings with.”

Alastor watched you blankly.

A second penny dropped.

“Oh.”

You had to resist the urge to shiver under his heavy stare.

“You couldn’t talk to Rosie?”

“I considered it but, bless her heart, my old friend can be a sentimentalist. No, best just to get to the source of the problem.”

“Alastor…”

You huffed, pretending to be insulted, and Alastor’s smile once again looked a little more real. It met his eyes, open, unguarded and calm.

“So, what would you like to do about it?”

“Hmm,” Alastor raised the hand that had covered yours to tap one long finger against his chin. “Any chance you’d let me lock you away in a secret, impenetrable bunker?”

Your smile grew.

“Sorry, honey.”

Alastor tutted.

“I thought as much.”

“Do you have one of those?”

“Hm?”

“A secret, impenetrable bunker.”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out, my dear. You’ll just have to be particularly careful. And perhaps this… Feeling will go away with time.”

You smiled, barely resisting the urge to roll your eyes.

“Perhaps it will.”

“When I’m right, I’m right, my darling.”

”That’s not the expression and you know it.”

//

Master List

[spreadyovrwings]

hiya lads!!

i feel bad, i’ve had a lot on recently, it’s been a very busy few months, but i’m back! (she says hopefully) and chapter eleven of 64 Oslo Square is on its way, thanks for your patience! this one is hopefully idk hopefully it’s good and also what people have been waiting for for like three years lmao

anyway, thanks!

Ro x

[spreadyovrwings]

fun fact today is my birthday

[spreadyovrwings]

It's my 12 year anniversary on Tumblr 🥳

jfc