#'im tender like a cinder block you must know that'

[quevadilla]

if you think about it this song is steddie coded

[jedimasteramell]

Backbeat

M!Ortega X F!Sidestep // Post-Date Night // SFW

Wrote to the Dagny song by the same name on literal repeat. Siona is mine.

If you haven’t played Fallen Hero: Rebirth, I can’t recommend it enough.

----------------------------

There's something about the way he kisses her.

Siona never expected nostalgia to have an actual taste, especially not tasting like Ortega. Burning… longing… a dozen wishes on shooting stars. A thousand promises, and a thousand and one suns to fulfil them. She didn't expect it smell like the cinders of car fires, his mother's tamales, sweat on metal mods, that same damn musky cologne he’s been wearing for decades.

She didn’t expect it to feel like warm blankets and crashing waves, like the first breeze of spring, and the vacuum of air pulled from a falling airplane. With hands tangled in her hair, the reassuring and stirring press of a well-muscled machine sandwiching her to the wall, anchoring her to the rest of the world.

Didn’t expect it to sound like soft acoustic, the rumble of distant traffic and thunder across the sky. How could she have known nostalgia would sound like breathy kisses, low rumbles of affectionate laughter, and Ricardo’s warm breath against her ear calling her lovely in English, Spanish, and every other way he could?

She couldn’t have imagined. Couldn’t have known. And somehow she forgot, until each time he kissed her again.

They broke apart to furiously flushed faces. Ortega’s grin from ear to ear at the sight of her mussed hair.

“What are you smiling at?” She shot at him, hiding her frazzled state and erratic heartbeat behind sass.

“You, obviously.” How was it possible for so much emotion to be stored in the corner of someone's eyes? For his earnestness, Ortega earned a sharp jab to the ribs. His ‘oof’ for her benefit only.

“Idiot.” She grumbled, massaging her knuckles. Next time she wouldn’t aim at the repair work. A sick jerk tugs her navel. Repair work she caused.

His grin remained, it had been far too long since he’d taken any insult of hers seriously. He mistook the wince as one of pain and not guilt, brushing her knuckles against his lips, the barest of static charges between his hands and hers. “Im glad you agreed to our date.”

His expression is too open, too warm, genuine in a way that turns her stomach and heart into gymnasts. “Yeah, well all we've done is made out in this alleyway so its not been much of a date yet.” Heat betrays her flushed cheeks, and the off kilter rhythm of her heart is not something she could ever possibly fake. He just has this way with her, and she just let it happen. Willingly even.

If smirks could be illegal, his most certainly should be. Especially since he shaved. Older face, younger eyes. Kiss-flushed lips cocked in the most infuriating teasing curl. Ricardo looked straight of a dream and he goddamn knew it. Bastard.

By his or her direct, Siona spun back into his arms, fingers splayed across his proud back. He stole her sarcastic retort along with the rest of her breath. She’d have let herself go flying along with it, if the tease of his thumbs, just under the waistband of her leggings hadn’t grounded her. Surprisingly soft, terribly tender, ripe with the memories of the intimacy they shared just days ago.

Ortega must have sensed her shit, the pause for air a polite time for her to disengage, to fiddle with her hem and curse the need for and the lack of contact.

“Let's go dancing.”

He said it with such ease and whimsy it took Siona a moment before she processed that he was indeed serious. Balking at him, she shook her head, only adding to the mess of her hair. “What no, I don’t- I can’t- and in public.”

Heavy comforting hands cupped her cheeks, a lid on the anxious angry flare. “Siona, hey, I know you by now.” No you don’t. “I'm not going to push you out there, not when your comfort matters so much more. I should have specified back home.”

“Home?” She queried speculatively and finally he appeared as abashed as she’d been feeling all night. Rose blush darkening his already bronzed cheeks and the tips of his ears.

“I mean, my place. Guess it just feels right to say home when you're there.” And once more, with that disarming smile he turned that fluster back around on her.

Ricardo Ortega was damn lucky she loved him.

Shit.

That wasn't the intrusive thought she wanted. Nor the hot rush that flooded her tip to toes at the very ludicrous notion she could even feel that.

Ortega’s pull on her was gentle and guiding, a comforting hand on the small of her back. The trip only a few blocks back to his apartment went by in a flutter of butterfly-feelings and far too many smiles. The presence of his hand pushing back the static void of his mind beside hers. They were two joined bodies here, even if not two joined minds. The doorman remembered her, she wished he didn't. Ortega had this way about him that made too many aspects of this, of them, bright, and shining, and grounded, and real.

Thank the devil, he’d left the lights down low. One glance on the couch and Siona’s whole face got five degrees hotter, and Ortega didn’t need any more reasons to be so smug.

Maybe he was the telepath then as he leaned into her, nuzzling into her dark hair. “I'm thinking about the couch too.”

A pout on her round lips, Siona twisted and shoved over-dramatically at the flat plane of his stomach. She couldn't budge him. Figures. “I thought you wanted to dance.”

He had no right to look so doting, no right! “I do.” The sheer magnanimity folded in the creases of his eyes and his smile was truly overwhelming. “As long as you still do.”

“I do...” She muttered, subconsciously leaning towards him as he stepped away to find the insulated remote that controlled his stereo system. A deep-beated R&B song, just fast enough to warrant dancing, filtered out from the speakers. Siona arched a heavy brow. “Your music's changed. What happened to all that club stuff you liked?”

“Tastes change. And I still like some of that ‘stuff’ you know. Just not tonight.” He lifted her arms to drape around his neck, hands finding purchase just above her hips. Goosebumps rose everywhere the faint static charge pulsed.

The song was catchy, or at least of quality artistry by Siona’s limited opinion. Music hadn't really ever been a thing for her. Too much else going on, too many other sounds and places to focus rather than engaging with the rhythms and lyrics of the radio. Her body didn't quite know how to move, every shift awkward and hesitant. “You can go ahead and say it.” She huffed, primarily at herself, mouth pulled to a cornered grimace. “I really suck at dancing.”

Ricardo hummed with a laugh, like it was really that easy. “You just need practice, Siona. It's not that different than a fight. In fact you can honestly just” Oh no, that grin meant he was about to say something exceptionally ridiculous. “sidestep.”

It took several pregnant moments, the song changing in the background, before Siona met his devilish smile with a disbelieving scoff. “You did not just make that joke.”

“I did and whatever are you going to do about it?”

“Smug asshole.” She swore, standing up on her tiptoes, and dragging him down into deep and abiding kiss.

There was something about the way she kisses him.

Ricardo doesn’t expect it to smell like shea and chocolate, like new clothes and hand rolled tobacco. He doesn't expect it to sound like an old favorite song restored to an unheard clarity, like the silence of the air before a great storm, like a prayer-hymn in pre-quake temple. He doesn't expect it to feel like melancholy, impatience, hope. Like fluttery stomachs, the wind while on his old bike, like taking off his costume for a well deserved shower and an ache so profound he’s not sure he could bear it. An ache and a love and a promise.

He couldn’t have imagined. Couldn’t have in his wildest, most heart-wrenching dreams. And yet, somehow, he forgot, until each time she kissed him again.