#daniel is a neck kisser for sure

[chisfics]

how it started vs. how its going

[allegra-writes]

"And They Were Roommates" Part III

Armand x Daniel Molloy; Louis x Lestat

General Audiences

Warnings: General horniness, Daniel discovering the blue and pink light of bisexuality, graphic karaoke action, Lestat not beating the allegations of nepo baby-ism, Lestat probably singing about himself, cheesy 80s songs.

Another chapter by the incredible @faerywhimsy so please don't doubt about showing her some well deserved love.

Chapter 3: Karaoke Night

This wasn't the first time Daniel had hung out with Louis and Lestat. Hell, they'd been over at his place just the other night. He knew—and liked—Armand's friends plenty. Lestat was an utter riot. He was so over the top that it had made Alice's ultimatum look mild in comparison. Okay, no, that was still too soon. Louis, though, was quieter as well as the warmer of the two. Armand had made it pretty clear Louis had flirted with him once, when they'd first met, though Daniel hadn't registered it at the time.

"Do I need to be worried, now, that you and Louis are still such good friends?" Daniel had only thought to ask of Armand after the long, loooong make out session and more that had happened after Alice left him.

Thought hadn't been super high on Daniel's priority list before that. Learning the way Armand felt underneath his hands when it wasn't just a casual embrace, or leaning each other for movie night, that had been the most important thing. Licking his way clear along Armand's clavicle, which had been somehow driving Daniel's subconscious wild for at least a month, that had been a more important thing.

From the moment Armand had stalked across their living room and grabbed him by the collar of his polo, a lot of things from the past couple of weeks had suddenly become abundantly, inescapably clear.

For all that, Daniel didn't wanna be stepping on any other guy's toes, just because he didn't really get being bisexual yet. It... hadn't really felt good to him when Alice's voice had reached that pitch and she'd demanded of him something he hadn't been able to give. Armand was still his best friend. The absolute last thing Daniel wanted was to put Armand into any kind of situation like the one he'd just been in. The one Armand had basically stepped up and protected him from.

Armand, in response, had just given him and his question a cool, distant look.

Which prompted Daniel to say more words. "Look, I don't... I just don't wanna make you have to choose between us. Him or me, kinda like..."

Armand had only stepped forward then to press a finger against Daniel's lips. A finger he'd then replaced with his mouth.

Only when Armand was good and done with kissing him did Armand pull away. Daniel was in a daze. How long, he wondered, was it gonna be until his best friend-turned-best kisser in the actual world stopped pulling the carpet straight out from under him every time they touched?

What were movie nights on the couch even gonna feel like now?

"You don't need to worry about Louis," Armand had said, bringing Daniel's thoughts back to the present.

"Good." Daniel gave a little chuckle, even as he'd rubbed a hand over the back of his neck self consciously. "Cause I think Lestat is probably the jealous type."

There was a look on Armand's face then that Daniel didn't even begin to know how to read, let alone ask about.

Karaoke night. Daniel arrived with Armand, getting there later than Louis and Lestat who were already in the usual booth. It was a private booth with a pole near the edge of the stage, one of those spinny ones Daniel didn't have the least inclination or awareness on how to use. He was there to sing, not make an utter tit of himself by trying and failing to defy gravity.

He had seen Lestat eying it up a few times. That had been what might have inspired him to start a bit of a running bet with Louis as to how many weeks it would take before Lestat could be seen swinging around that pole. If it was tonight, it would sure take the sudden hyperfocus off Daniel and Armand's new relationship status.

Boyfriends. More than roommates. Daniel had never had a boyfriend before. Just the other day, he still thought he was straight.

Tonight, Armand had a proprietary arm draped over Daniel's shoulders in a flagrant sign of ownership. He'd been a little bit this way the night Louis and Lestat had come around to their place, but Daniel had mistakenly thought that demonstration had probably been just because it was still only so new. This was the first time they'd gone out together like this, and Daniel wasn't quite sure he would have been so comfortable with Armand's continuing outward display of physical affection if they'd been coming out tonight to see anyone other than Louis and Lestat.

"Hey guys." Daniel gave a wave because his hand was free, even if the movement of it was just a little curbed by the heaviness of Armand's arm. He was gonna play this cool. Totally cool.

Lestat was already looking over song choices, but Louis looked up to greet them from the booth and a ready jug of beer surrounded by four glasses. His smile was warm as he met first Armand's eyes, then Daniel's. Again, Daniel kinda wondered whether he had anything to worry about there. But Armand's arm never moved from across his shoulders, and Daniel trusted him. He really did.

"Hey Daniel. Armand." Louis. He patted the seating of the booth beside him, towards the back in the U-shape of the chair. Armand didn't move for a moment but, when he did, he led the way so that he would be sitting closest to Louis, which would leave Daniel closest to the edge, opposite Lestat.

"Ooh, I have the first one!" Lestat announced by way of greeting. There was a neon light in the room that lit up Lestat's locks like it was no one's business. With Daniel's dark hair and both Armand and Louis' skin, Lestat was far and away the brightest thing in the room, and that was before he grinned pointedly. "Do we want to know why you two are late?"

The waggling of his eyebrows that joined this query definitely suggested the follow up question, Sex before Karaoke, or after?

"You're early," Armand rejoined easily, not feeding into Lestat's tone at all.

Which, Daniel thought, looking over at Louis, was probably good. Louis had rolled his eyes and looked away from both his current- and his ex-boyfriends as though there was something very interesting about the damask wallpaper print on the back wall.

Lestat huffed out a breath, then made a show of looking down at a wrist watch that was likely more than the last three of Daniel's paychecks combined. Damn, Lestat was the lead singer in a band that was aspiring. The Vampire Lestat had hardly made headlines anywhere yet, so where did all his damn money come from? Vampires were so over anyway. Who did Lestat think he was? Anne Rice, or something?

"Perhaps," Lestat allowed eventually, in what was one of the least gracious acknowledgements of someone else being right Daniel thought he'd ever seen.

But he didn't say anything about that, because he was here to make a good impression tonight. As Armand's boyfriend.

"What's the song you picked?" Daniel asked gamely, because it was certainly a safer topic than anything else Lestat had started.

Louis shot him a look across the booth that was definitely grateful. Armand reached over and took Daniel's hand. And Lestat smiled widely at him. Daniel figured he'd made a pretty fair start to tonight.

"Well," Lestat said, and the opening chords to Nick Cave’s Red Right Hand began to play around them as Lestat all but skipped to the stage. He held the microphone stand with an experienced flourish, sending it forward towards the booth before pulling it back by the electrical cord.

It wasn’t the first time Daniel had seen Lestat in his element this way. What wasn’t really fair was the way he always claimed the first song. Daniel… didn't have the confidence Lestat did. Louis didn’t even sing most of the times they were here, so Lestat took twice the number of songs. Whose idea had it been to pick karaoke as the main regular catch up of this group? Daniel hardly had to guess. He just wondered what made Armand and Louis both agree to it.

None of that mattered right then, though. Because while Armand perused the song list, Daniel grew incredibly distracted by the way Armand had stared stroking little patterns across his palm.

He shuddered, only half paying attention to Lestat’s first performance, if even that much.

Lestat’s French accent was as subsumed as was more or less normal when he sang, but he gave he song particular inflections that were all his own. Nick Cave’s lyrics rolled from Lestat’s tongue as though they'd been written for him. He strutted back and forth during the instrumental sections. Lestat was a good looking man. Daniel was pretty sure he was allowed to think that kinda thing now. It all would have probably been very interesting, if not for Armand.

Yet, every time Daniel looked next to him to meet Armand's gaze, his boyfriend's brown eyes were still tilted down towards the song list. He didn't, not even once, look up to meet Daniel's eyes. And yet the tips of those clever fingers told Daniel that Armand's attention was never far from him.

The feeling was entirely mutual. It was definitely... very warm in here. Had they forgotten to put on the air conditioners tonight? Maybe Daniel needed to go see someone about this.

And yet, he could all too easily imagine Armand's fingers spreading to take his whole wrist within them if Daniel tried to move. So he stayed very, very still.

Daniel hazarded a glance towards Louis to see if he was aware of the growing hardness secretly happening in his pants, and with so little reason! But Louis only seemed to have eyes for Lestat as he rounded towards the end of Red Right Hand. Thank god for small mercies!

The next song was already beginning to play as Lestat came down from the stage. Daniel was still distracted but Armand, it seemed, had ended up picking something.

The country twang of the opening notes got Daniel's attention immediately. Hang on, what?

None of the four of them were on the stage. Lestat's eyebrows rose. "Who is singing this?" he demanded. It did not sound like a compliment.

Daniel glanced towards Armand. Unexpectedly, this time Armand actually was staring straight back at him. Daniel coughed out a laugh.

"Oh, you're on!" he crowed.

Daniel had recognised it immediately from those opening chords. Of course he had. This was the song that had been Armand’s ring tone on his phone for weeks.

Snorting, Daniel pushed himself up. If the song was playing anyway, Daniel had a point he wanted to make.

He was in this with Armand. Stupidly. Hornily. Completely.

The cheeky grin felt like it covered his whole face as he cupped the microphone in one hand. Armand hadn’t even tried to get out from the booth after him. That worked for Daniel. He'd sing this thing just for him.

Daniel picked it up seamlessly halfway through the first chorus, which were of course a repeat of the first half.

"I want you to want me. I need you to need me..."

He was thankful only that he'd chosen sturdy denim jeans for the night that would hide a host of sins under the lights he suddenly stood under. Between the song choice and the casual under table touching, Daniel felt horridly dishevelled. If he'd ever felt this way with Alice, he didn't remember it.

For half of the lyrics, Daniel wasn’t even in tune. But what he lacked in musical talent, he made up for with swagger. Just dancing back and forth. Shoulders moving up and down in time with the words, even more so every time the chorus came back.

“Didn’t I, didn’t I, didn’t I see you crying? Feelin' all alone without a friend, you know you feel like dying...”

By the time he came back to sit next to Armand, his dark hair was damp over his brow and he was convinced he’d just done his best performance ever on that stage.

His phone buzzed in his pocket before he sat down, and Daniel looked at it real quick.

A message from Armand. Who was sitting right in front of him now. I need you to need me 😘

Daniel leaned over. He was flushed and the whole world seemed amazing. “I do,” he whispered into Armand’s ear even as he fell back into the booth. Well, spoke the words normally rather than speaking over the music anyway.

Because Lestat was already back up on stage. And Daniel realised, oh, he loved this song! it was one of Lestat's own. How the fuck had Lestat managed to bribe the owners here to add it to the list? Did he really come here often enough for that? It was such a vanity project moment, and yet Lestat's cheeks and jawline were as pronounced as Daniel had ever seen them as he hummed out those opening notes. He was so involved in performing his own song here and like this that it didn't even seem to matter what the rest of them might be thinking.

For his part, Daniel knew Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene well enough from all the hours he'd spent listening to it on Myspace after he'd first heard it via Armand. Lestat didn't know this, but Daniel loved this song. He must have started mouthing along with the lyrics because, at some point, he noticed Lestat was pointing back at him. Daniel started, then pointed to his own self doubtfully. Lestat nodded, turning his hand around and crooking a finger back towards himself. The expression on his face while he sung seemed suggestive as hell.

No. Lestat couldn’t he serious. Daniel wasn’t just gonna go up there and join Lestat on singing his own damn song!

Except, karaoke was about fun. And Lestat looked like he was having a lot of fun up there. More than that, he wanted Daniel to join him.

There was still a light sheen of sweat against Daniel’s brow from the last song. Armand wasn't even touching him again yet, so this was a good time to go if he was gonna. His hard on had definitely calmed down during his time on stage. He found himself slowly sliding towards the end of the booth, only looking back at Armand only once. Armand nodded his head encouragingly.

Ah fuck it. He knew these lyrics back to front and wouldn’t even need to look at the prompter. Maybe Daniel could learn something about Lestat’s showmanship while he was up there.

Daniel downed the last of his beer before wholly committing to stepping out of the booth. Lestat had finished off the second chorus as Daniel leaned into the mic. He was surprised to find, as he begin the second verse, that Lestat didn’t sing it with him. Raising his eyebrows up to Lestat, he saw only that Lestat had taken half a step back and minimising his performance just to clicking both hands every other beat.

Oh, that wouldn’t do.

From somewhere in TV as a child, Daniel pulled out the finger waggle. Combined it with some steps he’d picked up from too many watches of Grease over the years. If they were doing this, they were doing it.

Lestat’s blond eyebrows lifted high, but he easily joined Daniel in the dance moves. The chorus was upon them before Daniel knew it and he and Lestat belted it out alongside each other.

“-straw blond hair, his arms hard and lean, he's the angel of small death and the codeine scene-”

It was hard to stand this close to Lestat without seeing the physical resemblance of him to the lyrics they sung.

At some point, Daniel looked out to Armand and Louis and saw Armand had pulled out the the small handheld camcorder he brought with him everywhere for ‘just in case’ moments.

By the last chorus, Lestat decided Daniel’s “moves” wouldn’t suffice any longer. Instead, dredged out some pop moves from the 80s and 90s and Daniel could help but laugh as he recognised them and followed through with him.

If he’s been sweaty after the last song, it was nothing compared to how he felt now. Daniel had come up here to have fun, and had worked out to have the time of his life. He was laughing and whistling at Lestat as they both came down from the stage, Lestat simply clapping in his direction and laughing as though he couldn’t contain it any better than Daniel.

The only downside was that, in their absence, Louis and Armand had finished off the jug of beer between them. And Daniel had finished what he'd had left of his own glass before he'd stepped up on that stage.

“Guess it’s my shout,” Daniel said, grimacing.

But, of course, Armand wouldn’t have that. He pulled a note out of his shirt pocket and handed it to Daniel. Cause of course he did. He'd been doing this far longer than they'd been boyfriends. Daniel didn't even see a point in arguing the topic with his fancy law intern boyfriend before he caught it between two forefingers then lifted it in a salute.

[doomh3ad]

slashers + kissing them in panic before they kill you (short fic) [including michael myers, bo sinclair, candyman/daniel robitaille, brahms heelshire]

part 2

Michael Myers

He's got you by the throat, your back against the wall, eye sockets of the mask staring coldly and blankly into your wide, panicked eyes. You're not entirely sure what you hope to accomplish when you press a swift kiss to his cheek, straining against his grip on your neck. For a moment, you think you've fucked up tremendously and he'll kill you painfully and slowly for it, and his curious head tilt doesn't soothe your worries. It's only when his grip loosens, but doesn't fully relent, that you breathe a sigh of relief.

However, you're not entirely free to go. His significantly lighter grip is still like iron, and the message is clear when you try to walk away and it tightens to the point of being painful.

You're coming with him.

Bo Sinclair

"Just lie still, alright, now," he says and shushes you, opening the glue. "Shame to shut these pretty lips of yours, but-"

You're thinking on your feet, it's a split second decision. He's already shown his attraction to you, and his hand is poised to use the glue and you're so scared that you'll do anything to stop him. Even if it doesn't work, it couldn't hurt to try, he already may kill you, what's the worst that could happen?

You lean forward as much as your restraints allow and kiss him deeply, trying to minimise your shaking and obvious panic. He is a good kisser, which helps. Something between you becomes electric and he drops the glue, using his now free hand to tilt your chin and deepen the kiss, your passion met with the equal force of his own. Eventually, you feel confident enough to gently break away to meet his eyes, and wonder if the lust in his eyes is a mirror to your own.

A grin breaks out across that devastatingly handsome face as he gazes at you fondly. "Well now...s'pose it would be a tragedy to let someone like you go to waste. You could be all mine if you promise you'll be quiet, yeah?"

Your slow nod seals your fate.

Candyman / Daniel Robitaille

You're not even sure why you did it.

Whispering into the mirror, five times. Maybe you're reckless, maybe you were just so infinitely bored of life that potentially losing it didn't seem so bad.

You called. He came. Now you're facing the consequences, only one thing comes to mind that you'd like to do. Your final act.

The hook is unbelievably gentle, running across your cheek, and his tender hold around your waist is almost like a lover's. You're entranced with the strangely romantic tone he speaks to you in, and as he goes in for the kill you do what you've been wanting to.

He's entirely caught off guard, and as you kiss him he senses something else in you. A desire to right your wrongs, a purer soul than he thought at first glance.

No, you will not be his victim, he decided once your lips met his. You will be his honeybee, the only tie he'll allow himself to have to this plane of existence. You captivate him in a way no others have.

He fades from your vision, with a promise to return.

Brahms Heelshire

Confusion and horror battle to be the main emotion driving your frantic escape attempt from the man that has just emerged from the walls. You only signed up to take care of a doll. A doll of a dead little boy, yet his actual, much older counterpart blocks your path to the door with his frighteningly strong frame.

"Brahms?" You question, tears now spilling from your eyes. You search for answers in the eyes behind his mask that you know you will never receive, certainly not if he kills you like you he's about to.

His arm is tensed around your neck now, seemingly ready to snap it at any second.

"You didn't follow the rules," comes the voice of a young boy, strained with the high pitch and apparent disuse. "You have to follow them."

The rules? The ones you were given when you started? What haven't you done? You're mentally running through the list, checking and double checking as his grip gets tighter, then you hit on it.

Kiss goodnight.

As you become more lightheaded and your eyes close, you use your last vestige of strength to kiss the lips of the mask.

You don't have time to savour the fresh air as he rips off the mask and you actually get to kiss him. But the pressure around your neck is gone, and you might actually get out of this alive.

If you follow the rules, that is.

[pierrelapsac]

Lestappen boarding School #13 (18+)

Read the whole thing on my AO3...

21st September 2019

Charles and Max were late for dinner in the end. When Isa and Charlotte left, Max had assumed Charles would follow but he stayed and the two of them had finished their personal statements together. Though Max for the most part had been confirming Charles’ translations sounded smooth. Charles was actually very serious about the Ferrari business, though not without his own touch of nepotism that Max teased him for in turn. They went to dinner separately of course but the whole afternoon had been …civil. 

Max was starting to feel a little proud of himself. Even Alex, after hearing from Isa that Max and Charles had been working together yesterday and had said something like “finally the rest of us normal people can get a break from trying to study with either of you.” They still mostly avoided each other during the day. Max had brushed off Alex's hopes they were going to be friends again and it seemed Charles agreed that things would be easier if they kept things as normal as possible. 

25th September 2019

Leclerc 

Did you finish the last question in Maths?

I want to go over it, I don’t like these stats problems.

13:02

Me

Yeah I’m okay on stats.

Come to my room after dinner?

13:05

Leclerc

Fuck before or after?

I’ve got something I want to try.

13:06

Max deleted the second message. He’d been sort of expecting something like this. It wasn’t a secret that Charles had slept with other people before. He’d had a girlfriend at school a few years ago and when he’d come out to him and Daniel back when they’d briefly been friends he’d told them that he’d messed around with a guy in Monaco before. Max didn’t have the same, he wasn’t even sure if Charles knew he’d been his first proper kiss. So far all he’d done to Charles was a hand job which can’t even have been much of an excitement to Charles. It would have been easier if he didn’t have the desire to keep him interested.

Daniel used to tell him all he needed was to look confident when trying to pep talk Max in 5th year. Which Max had thought was easy to say coming from Daniel who seemed to be happy to do anything very genuinely as opposed to Max who had only recently mastered not throwing a strop when the other team scored during games. Max finished his dinner quickly anyway, the fear not quite overcoming the freshly embraced teenage horniness. Charles caught his eyes as he was leaving the dining room and he figured he wouldn’t be waiting long to find out anyway. 

Max left his door open and a few minutes later Charles slipped inside and sat without invitation on the end of Max’s bed. 

“You never answered my text?” Charles said.

“Fuck first.”

“Such a gentleman.” Charles teased but pulled Charles in to kiss him anyway. It was so casual it took Max a little by surprise. Charles was a good kisser, he always took control, leading the pace they went at, guiding Max’s hands where he wanted them on his body and making these little moaning noises to let Max know whenever Max did something that he liked. Charles' hands felt good on him too. Max liked it the best when Charles' hands grabbed him rougher and especially when Charles kissed his neck. This time Max tried doing the same, kissing up and down Charles' neck and got his little moans in return.

“You’ve got such pretty lips.” Charles whimpered. Stroking his hands through Max’s hair. 

Charles tugged his hair pulling Max up to face him and kissed his lips again. 

“Max?” Charles said, breaking the kiss. “Do you want to blow me?” 

‘Yes’ Max thought but he didn’t say anything. He liked making Charles feel good and he knew how good Charles' mouth felt on him. Max so badly wanted to return the feeling, taking Charles in his mouth winning all the pretty sounds Charles made. What if he was awful, scraped his teeth all over Charles pretty cock. Charles would compare it to his pretty ex-girlfriend or the older boy from france. 

“I know you’d make me feel so good,” Charles said leaning forward to whisper the words into Max’s neck, dropping little kisses in between.

“I’ve not…” Max started.

Charles kept kissing. “I know, I’ll talk you through it, I just keep thinking about you on your knees for me. I know you’d like it, you're such a pleaser and I can pull your hair the way you like too.” 

Max was glad Charles’ face was buried in his neck because he didn’t like the Idea that Charles could see how much he was blushing now. 

“I’ll talk you through it, I promise.” 

“Okay” Max agreed. 

Charles pulled back from him smiling and then kissed Max one more time quickly on the lips. He took one of Max’s pillows from the bed and put it on the floor in front of him. For his knees. Max got off the bed and lowered himself onto it. He felt unreasonably stupid, as if Charles would just laugh at Max for thinking he’d want to put his dick anywhere near him. Max looked up at Charles who wasn’t laughing at all though instead staring very directly at him with his hands shoved down his trousers like Max was exactly where he wanted his dick to go. 

“You look so good.” Charles said one hand touching Max’s jaw so he was looking right up at Charles as he rushed to get his trousers off with the other hand. Max, despite not really believing him, blushed more at the praise. Charles sat back to the bed just in front of him, his cock now out and fully hard. Max sort of moved forward to kiss it but Charles held his head still. Instead Charles dragged his fingers over Max’s lips for a moment before gently pushing his mouth open.

“Get them wet.”

Max relaxed his jaw, letting Charles; fingers sit in his mouth as he pushed his tongue up against them gently. Charles’ other hand found his hair again but he didn’t pull yet just stroked. Max hated how much it felt like teasing. He got confident with his tongue licking around and in between Charles’ fingers trying to keep his teeth away from them.

“Like that, good.” 

Max just started to lean forward to take more in when Charles pulled his hand back. He wrapped his wet fingers around his cock jerking it a little as he shuffled forwards getting so much closer to Max’s mouth.

“Open your mouth for me.” 

Max let his mouth fall open and Charles guided his head down so the head of his cock pushed past his lips. Sometimes Charles could seem almost like a girl but now with the taste of his precum leaking into Max’s mouth - Max couldn’t have predicted how much he would like this. He tried licking his tongue just under the head and Charles shivered a little. Rocking forward into Max’s mouth. He was holding back, just thrusting shallowly letting Max get used to it but Max wanted to do more. He wanted to take almost the whole thing like Charles had done, get Charles’ control to crack a little. 

Max took control of the pace again, working slowly down the length until he could feel Charles pushing at the back of his mouth. There was still almost half left. Max swallowed and tried to adjust himself and managed a little more but not without effort. Charles started to wove again, he was so much deeper now, there was no room for Max’s tongue to move anymore. 

“Fuck Max, that’s it.” Charles moaned, “So good.” 

Max keened at the praise, at the way he was so obviously making Charles feel good. He tried to push deeper again, but instead all he did was make himself splutter and gag and now Charles pulled out all the way so just the head of his cock rested on Max’s lips.

“Don’t need to go that deep.” Charles chided but Max wanted to try again. Charles could do it and Max was bigger anyway. He went slower this time, adjusting his breathing, the angle of his neck, focusing on relaxing his throat when Charles reached the back of his mouth. He got further this time as well, felt Charles push past the back of his throat. It made Charles gasp so beautifully and Max managed to hold him there for a few seconds too before he gagged again and Charles pulled him back off by his hair.

“You’re insane, it’s fucking hot.” Charles croaked above him, “Here, use your hand too.” 

Charles brought Max’s hand up to wrap around the bottom of his cock. Then slowly with his hand pulling at Max’s hair he started to push him up and down Max trying to keep his hand moving in time. This way he had less cock in his mouth but he could move his tongue again, try and find other ways to make Charles shiver. Charles sped up as he felt Max get move comfortable, he got rougher with Max’s hair too which almost made Max moan as much as Charles was.

“Your mouth feels so good.”

“So pretty, so good.”

Charles kept praising and praising. Max felt like he was melting, like he could have stayed like this for the rest of time, even with his jaw starting to ache. But more than that he wanted to make Charles cum, taste it. Everything was so debauched, it was like he was in a painting, his mind couldn’t touch any of the reasons he knew he had not to be here, right now everything only felt right. Max moaned more and more picking up on the way that was making Charles hips buck and his hand move them faster. Charles was panting now, he must be getting close. Max needed to tell him that he wanted him to come in his mouth. It felt so important he pulled back of Charles but kept his hand moving.

“Come in my mouth, please.” Max asked. 

Charles nodded frantically but they didn’t make it as soon as Max asked Charles came all over his lips and down his neck. Charles collapsed back onto the bed panting.

“Sorry.” Charles croaked and propped himself up on his elbows agan looking at Max, still kneeling on the pillow, Charles cum dripping down his chin. Max licked his lips a little just to try, it was bitter and salty but he didn’t mind it at all next time he would swallow it. He took the tissues Charles offered him and wiped himself up a little bit. Everything in his mind was being so quiet. 

“Max.” Charles said. “You okay there?”

“Yeah, was that okay?”

“You’re joking.” 

Max shrugged, feeling a little more confident now. Charles did look thoroughly worn out and that gave him a lot of pride. Max stood up and sat down on the bed next to Charles who seemed to be watching him very intently.

“What do you want to do?” Charles asked, still looking.

“The Maths.” Max replied, kicking his school bag a little. 

“I meant like a hand job but whatever gets you off, you little deviant.” Charles laughed and Max shifted his leg to kick Charles instead.

[kythed]

“teenage wasteland.” kuroo tetsurou x reader

4:08pm.

“yo,” kuroo says, opening the door quickly after you ring the bell, “you finally made it.” 

“what do you mean, finally?” you complain, kicking off your shoes and slipping inside. the dry heat of his family home’s living room assaults your bare face, a sharp contrast to the december frigidity outside. “you texted me like ten minutes ago.”

“felt like longer,” kuroo says with a crooked grin. “you want something to drink?” 

“water?”

“I kinda meant something stronger, but sure, water,” kuroo says, filling a glass at the kitchen sink. you furrow your brows.

“something stronger? I’m sorry, but last time I checked we were still underage,” you say, and kuroo laughs breathily — it’s almost a giggle, actually. for the first time since arriving, you notice an odd flush in his cheeks. “oh my god. are you drunk?”

“drunk?” kuroo gasps. “no, no. tipsy, yes. drunk, no.” 

“tetsurou,” you scold, reluctantly letting him pull you towards the hallway. “all those big, bad college boys can’t have been a very good influence on you.”

“I’ve had a stash of jack daniels hidden beneath my bed since sophomore year,” kuroo whispers conspiratorially. “those ‘big, bad college boys’ have nothing to do with it. speaking of which — you want some?” 

you shake your head vehemently and dig your heels into the carpet, realizing he’s trying to drag you into his bedroom. despite being kuroo tetsurou’s official best friend of a decade, you’ve never been inside his room before. you’ve never been inside any boy’s room before, actually — you’ve never been much of a rule breaker. 

(you suppose that’s why you and kuroo get along. you’re forever the straight-laced goody goody, and he’s forever the secretly bad, outwardly good honor roll kid.)

“I don’t drink,” you insist, and kuroo loops his arms around your neck. you stiffen. “and stop being so touchy. it’s freaking me out.”

“what?” kuroo says, feigning offense. “you don’t like my hugs?” 

“no!” you say, and he shoots you an exaggerated eye roll. “you’re being weird. I can probably count the number of times you’ve voluntarily hugged me on one hand.” 

kuroo ignores you, choosing to instead pick you up and toss you over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold. 

“kuroo tetsurou, you’d better quit it before I call your mother!” you pound on his back, a little taken aback to feel his shoulder muscles rippling under your palms as he staunchly marches you into his room. “I do not want to enter your disgusting cave of a room, you teenage garbage troll!”

“getting real creative with the insults there,” kuroo laughs, setting you down and backing up against the door to block you from running out. “come onnnnn. I thought we could play a game of monopoly or something. listen to the radio. finish the bottle before my mom comes home and whips my hide.”

you sigh and perch your hands on your hips. “so that’s why you invited me over.”

“no, no,” kuroo protests, crouching to pull a clear bottle of amber colored liquid out from beneath his bed. “I also just vastly enjoy your company.”

“why not just throw it out?” you ask, gingerly sitting on the edge of the bed. 

kuroo’s room is a lot neater than you imagined it would be — navy bedspread tightly tucked in at the corners, vinyl floor completely clear save for a small rug. his desk is probably the messiest part of the entire room, holding an old, chunky desktop that’s covered in post-its with smudged, scribbled notes, ranging from “email prof. miyazawa about missing grade” to “buy mom flowers to apologize for broken mug.” 

there are a couple posters on the wall, too, one for the japanese national volleyball team, and one for some punk-looking band dressed in an overabundance of leather, ripped denim, and hair feathers. 

“this shit was expensive,” kuroo says, gesturing to the bottle before screwing the cap off and taking a long draught. your eyes widen as he drinks down a quarter of the remaining liquid, his adam’s apple bobbing with each swallow. “I can’t let it go to waste.”

“I think you’ve probably had enough of that,” you say, gently twisting it from his hands. kuroo smiles angelically before coming to tower over you. 

“if you’re not gonna drink it, I will,” he says, reaching out to grasp the bottle’s neck. you hold onto it stubbornly.

“you’re clearly wasted, tetsu,” you say. “just let me throw it away.” 

“I may have a small drinking problem,” kuroo says, “but I’m sober enough to know I’m not about to throw away the fifty bucks I spent on that. give it.” 

“no!” 

“yes.”

“nooooo!”

“yes!” 

kuroo tries to wrench the bottle from you, and you spend a solid thirty seconds wiggling in his grasp before finally pulling it away. in an impulsive attempt to keep kuroo from getting even drunker, you bring the rim of the bottle to your lips and chug the rest of the whiskey.

kuroo’s eyes widen, and he guffaws loudly. “that was a lot of alcohol just now.”

you nod, wincing at the acrid taste, unwilling to swallow — the liquid is still swishing in your cheeks. you move to go spit it out in kuroo’s sink, but he grabs your arm.

“do not spit that out,” he warns. “that’s over two hours’ worth of minimum wage salary. I don’t work twenty hours a week in the wendy’s drive-thru just for you to flush it down the drain.” 

“mmmm,” you protest, breathing through your nose. “hrghhhh mmm mm mhm.”

“I have no idea what you’re trying to say,” kuroo says, obviously trying to stifle his laughter. 

you gesture wildly to your face, and then to the empty bottle, and then back to your face. 

for a moment, kuroo wrinkles his nose, and then slowly smoothes out his expression. a small smile stretches across his lips, and he steps close to you. you’re acutely aware of your personal bubble being popped, as well of the fact that he smells strongly of old spice and mango body wash. 

“I’ll do it then.”

“mm?” you squeak in confusion when he takes your chin in one hand and guides your face close to his. you’re not sure if you’re smelling the alcohol on his breath or tasting it on our own tongue. you’ve never been this physically close to your best friend in your life, and you can firmly say you’re absolutely petrified. you shake your head vehemently as he slowly leans down, tilting his head. 

“calm down,” he says quietly, and in spite of yourself, you do. “I’m just taking a drink.” 

then he presses his mouth to yours, and you freeze. oh, shit. 

kuroo wedges his tongue between your lips, forcing them open, and then he sucks the whiskey from your mouth, one hand keeping your jaw open while the other snakes around your waist. your eyes widen just as his close, almost as if he’s enjoying the kiss. slowly, you close yours too, letting yourself melt into him as he keeps kissing you even after swallowing the liquid. 

it lasts for a good ten seconds before you reluctantly pull away, letting your hands rest on his shoulders. he’s smiling, evidently very pleased with himself. 

“what the hell was that?” you say breathlessly, searching his face. 

“I was thirsty,” kuroo says nonchalantly. “and a little drunk. and you’re very pretty, as far as best friends go.” 

you feel like you should be offended, yet you can’t quite bring yourself to be. you’re definitely flustered, though, and a little embarrassed. (okay, a lot embarrassed.)

“I think, um, I think I should go,” you say, breaking eye contact. kuroo raises a hand to stop you, but you brush him off, bounding out of the room to grab your bag and keys from the kitchen counter. “we can talk about this later, okay? you need to go take a nap or something.”

“no, hey, wait —”

but you’re already out the door and in the car, jamming the key into ignition. you just kissed your best friend. or did you? does that count as a kiss? or was that just kuroo being stupid? your mind spins with useless speculations on the drive home, and as you sprawl out on your bed for an hour afterwards. it’s not until later that evening that you check your phone, greeted by a handful of social media notifications… and a text from kuroo.

with shaking hands, you swipe it open, face immediately splitting into a grin.

kuroo: sorry about that

kuroo: ok, not really

kuroo: I’m not that sorry

kuroo: cuz you’re a good kisser

kuroo: a really good kisser

you: you too

you wait for a moment as the three little dots on kuroo’s side pop up.

kuroo: thanks

kuroo: I was still kind of stupid tho

kuroo: my b

you: you regret it?

your fingers shake in suspense as you await his answer, feeling all the world like a lovestruck fifteen year old. you’re a little disgusted to find yourself suddenly crushing on kuroo tetsurou of all people, but what can you say? maybe falling for your best friend is a little cliche. maybe it’s a little overdone. maybe the fact that you kissed him with a mouthful of whiskey belongs in a cheesy teen movie, but you can’t help but find yourself delighted that it happened. 

kuroo: nope. not at all.

kuroo: not at all.

[queenshelby]

Birthday Girl (One Shot)

Pairing: Cillian Murphy x Reader

Warning: Fluff and Smut

Words: 3,156

Notes: This one shot is dedicated to @being-worthy…Happy Birthday Love!

********

It was your birthday today and your best friend Sarah had bought concert tickets for the two of you and set you up on a double date, to which you only agreed reluctantly when you found out.

As you stood in the middle of your bedroom staring at the flowered blouse laid across your bed the voice of your best friend Sarah echoed from the doorway.

"Please tell me you're not wearing that to the concert!" said Sarah with a raised eyebrow.

"What's wrong with it?" you asked innocently.

"It's a rock concert and your supposed to be my wing woman. Can't you wear something a bit more alluring?" Sarah asked and you nodded reluctantly.

Sarah strolled over to your closet and began to fish through your outfits as you looked on with a bit of consternation. You were still feeling a bit nervous about having agreed to this outing. You had been through a painful breakup a few months earlier and you were desperately ready to put it behind you and get back into the dating game but you were scared to try on your own so Sarah had arranged a double date for the two of you.

"How about this?" said Sarah finally pulling a dress from the back of the closet.

The garment she had chosen was one of the few rather racy ones you owned and you had never actually worn it before.

"I couldn't possibly wear that” you said but Sarah nodded eagerly.

“Yes, you can. You will look sexy in it and my cousin will love it” Sarah said.

“Your cousin?” you then asked somewhat shocked as you reluctantly grabbed the dress which is when Sarah confirmed that you were meeting her cousin and his best friend tonight at the concert.

“Please tell me you aren’t talking about your cousin Cillian” you huffed out but Sarah nodded eagerly.

“He broke up with his girlfriend a few months ago and I think he has taken a liking in you Y/N” she said eagerly and you couldn’t believe it. You had a crush on this man for almost a year now and there was no way he would be interested in you, you thought.

You finished putting the dress on and tied it behind your neck with a pair of strings. You turned to look in the mirror, this was certainly a daring look for you with your breasts plainly on display and the skirt barely reaching the middle of your thighs.

"Jesus Sarah, I don't know," started you.

"Absolutely stunning, let’s go” Sarah said.

**********

The concert venue wasn't far and you arrived after a short drive. It was an outdoor amphitheater vaguely bowl shaped with a long lawn that ramped up to a high wall at the back, a crowd was moving inside and you fell in with the rest. The opening act was already taking the stage and you stopped to get beers before you made to stand on the lawn. The first band ran through a quick set of maybe eight songs and by the time they were done, Sarah received a text message from her cousin Cillian, seeing where you both were.

Within ten minutes, him and his friend Daniel had found you and you were surprised when Cillian greeted you with a friendly kiss on the cheek before introducing you both to his friend and wishing you a happy birthday.

Daniel nodded perfunctorily toward you and then immediately turned his attention to Sarah. The two of them got talking immediately which left you with Cillian who looked rather amused when he saw his cousin get flirtatious.

“That was easy” Cillian chuckled and you stood talking for a while.

Daniel seemed very reserved while Cillian was quite warm and funny and to your consternation you found yourself enjoying his company and were no longer nervous about meeting him again as he made you laugh with quick witted repartee.

When the sounds of music began to come from the stage, you realised that the concert was starting up again.

"Looks like things are firing up we best get seats," Daniel commented.

"Let's grab some drinks first” Cillian said and you took the drink Cillian offered you but nearly choked on it, as it possessed way more alcohol than you were used to.

"Yeah, you might want to drink slowly, they can be a little harsh” Cillian chuckled.

"No kidding!" you laughed in response.

Darkness was falling as you made their way back to the lawn and, for the next hour, you enjoyed the music and each other’s company and you found yourself growing closer to Cillian while Sarah and Daniel were already hitting it off.

“Well, that is going better than I had anticipated” Cillian chuckled as he watched them make out with blushing cheeks.

“Yeah, hmm…” you said nervously as you felt Cillian move closer towards you.

“Although I think that, since it is your birthday, you should probably get some attention too” Cillian then said with a warm smile.

“Cillian, that’s a nice offer but I don’t need you to take pity on me” you said, thinking that it was what he was doing.

“Pity on you? What would make you say that Y/N? I’ve been having a crush on you for years and it’s only now that we are both single” Cillian explained.

“Well, I suppose you can give me a little attention then” you smiled nervously, blushing as you did.

Cillian grinned down at you as he wrapped his around your middle pulling you tight to his chest. You were caught off guard both by the move and the fact that it actually felt really nice to be held like this.

“You are beautiful Y/N..." Cillian whispered in your ear and you blushed at the complement just as the band started to play a few slower paced songs.

You glanced over and were surprised at the sight of Sarah looking like she was trying to swallow Daniel's tongue as they locked in a hot embrace not two feet from you. Yet things were about to get even more off kilter for you as you felt Cillian turning you with one hand so that you were facing him.

"I hope this is okay, I don't think I could forgive myself if I didn't kiss you right now," Cillian said.

Whether it was the little bit of alcohol slowing your senses or maybe the attraction you had towards him, you wouldn't have wanted to admit to yourself that you found you could not react to stop what was happening as Cillian leaned down and pressed his warm firm lips to yours in a soft kiss.

For a moment, you did not react but then your body seemed to take on a mind of its own as you slowly slid your arms up around his neck and started to rub your soft pink lips back against his. The kiss lingered for quite a bit of time and you found yourself falling deeper and deeper into it until you even opened your lips slightly and let Cillian slide his tongue just into your mouth adding a bit of sexiness to the contact.

You seemed to feel like you were floating as you and Cillian kissed on the grassy hill and your body started to react even more. Your nipples were hardening inside your dress as blood rushed into your chest and a bit of dampness started to spread between your legs as your arousal grew. For just a moment you felt yourself giving in even further pressing your tongue back against Cillian's and opening your mouth even wider as you started to kiss him with fire and passion until, suddenly, you pulled away.

Going so fast so soon was unlike you and, whilst you liked him for a while, things were moving too quick.  

“Are you alright?” Cillian asked.

"Sure...I just...got a little overheated that's all” you responded.

"Yeah, me too” Cillian replied with a seductive smile and you trembled slightly at the obvious look of interest in his eyes.

********

Whilst you knew it was too fast and to soon, you resumed where you left off and, when the concert was finished, Cillian, who was the only one who barely had anything to drink, drove Sarah and Daniel and you home.

After he dropped Sarah and Daniel at Sarah’s house, which wasn’t a surprise to you, you arrived at yours.

"I'm glad I met you again tonight Y/N, and I meant it when I said, you're very beautiful..." he whispered and leaned in for another kiss.

You granted him the kiss and this is when the words you never thought you would say left your mouth.

“Uhm, would you like to come up to my place for another drink?” you asked and Cillian immediately grinned.

“I would love to” he said as he put the car into park and, without loosing any time, he followed you upstairs.

As soon as the door to your apartment opened, you saw what was coming and found your mouth covered by his before you got the chance to make a peep. Just like before you had to admit he was a very good kisser and whether it was the alcohol or something else, you found yourself giving into the kiss, letting him gently slide his warm full lips across your soft pink ones.

As time went on, Cillian started to kiss you with greater hunger, his tongue sliding into your mouth as his arms wrapped around your back. With a low moan you opened your lips wider to accept his tongue pressing yours back against his as you French kissed each other.

Your thoughts were in turmoil as Cillian kissed you deep and long sending a wave of pleasure crashing through you. You were getting turned on very rapidly, your nipples hardening into knots on your chest, blood pouring into your aroused breasts as your pussy grew quickly damp if not downright wet between your legs.

You couldn't remember ever getting aroused this fast around a guy before and it left you breathless and the heat seemed to be growing in leaps and bounds between you as Cillian started to move his arms up your back. You could feel his fingertips near your neck and at first you were confused at what he was doing but a second later realisation dawned as you felt him loosening the knots holding your dress on.

"Oh my God...he's trying to undress me...he wants me...oh Jesus!" you thought nervously but, before you could something, you felt your dress sliding down as Cillian pulled the strings free. With no bra to halt the slide it slipped easily you’re your body leaving you half-naked in his arms, your breast free to the night air.

"God you...you're so beautiful...I've wanted you since I first saw you” Cillian breathed and with a quick dipping of his head you felt his mouth wrapping around the soft warm flesh of your right breast.

Your nipples were so aroused that they had darkened from a light pink to a brick red, your silver dollar sized areolas shrunk to roughly the size of a quarter while your rock hard nipples stood well up off your breasts.

You gasped and let out a low groan as Cillian's tongue rolled across your hard nipple and he licked your soft areola before he sucked part of your breast into his mouth pressing your nipple into the roof of it with his tongue and sucking hard on your pale soft flesh.

You felt as if you were caught in a tidal wave of sexual desire, pulled along and helpless to fight as Cillian was sucking your nipples and squeezing them in his hands as he licked, kissed and bit your hard nipples and you were enjoying every second.

Now you were grabbing the back of his head and guiding him from one breast to the other as he worked your flesh. Your whole body was trembling and you were so turned on that your pussy was absolutely soaking, the fluid running down the inside of your thigh.

Between the alcohol and her arousal, you had never wanted to fuck so bad in your whole life and you finally pulled Cillian's mouth back to yours, kissing him hot and hard as he continued to squeeze your breasts.

Cillian seemed to sense your need and he lifted you suddenly in his strong arms and carried you like a child to the couch placing you gently on the cushions. He quickly started to kiss his way down your naked body as you watched in wonder enjoying the feeling of his hot mouth on your chest, your stomach, against the inside of your thighs.

Finally, he reached the wet, warm spot between your legs and he started to roll your panties down exposing the glistening pink flesh of your pussy and giving evidence to just how turned on you really were by what was happening.

You reached up and squeezing your own breasts and pinching your nipples as you stared down at Cillian's handsome face poised just above your wet womanhood. As you watched, he smiled and leaned down running his tongue up your wet slit before pressing into you, into your aroused flesh. The feel of his tongue entering you tore a loud groan from your lips as he proceeded to eat your soaking wet pussy.

"Oh God that feels so good... " you moaned and a part of you couldn't believe you were doing this.

"Your pussy tastes so good...but I want so much more...I want you..." Cillian whispered quietly.

As you watched, your face flushed with fevered lust and Cillian stood and pulled his t-shirt off throwing it on the floor. His well-chiseled body showed not an ounce of fat as he reached down, unbuckled his pants, and let them fall to the floor, he was wearing a pair of grey CK briefs with an obvious bulge and he slowly lowered them to the ground.

You let out a soft breath of astonishment as your eyes fell on Cillian's manhood, he was much bigger than you had anticipated. Fascinated you sat up on the couch bringing your face closer to his girth. Tentatively you reached out and slowly wrapped your small hand around his penis. It felt iron hard in your grip and, as you stroked the thick veiny flesh up and down, you heard Cillian sigh as you jacked his hard cock and you looked up at his smiling face.

"Jesus Cillian...you're so hard already” you managed to choke out.

"That’s just how much you turn me on Y/N” he said.

You leaned forward and gently ran your tongue over his cock head, tasting a bit of the pre-cum leaking from his hole as your tongue slid across the soft yet firm flesh. You gave a low moan as you shifted forward letting the head slide past your lips filling the roof of your mouth as you let your saliva slicken his flesh.

You sucked him in and out of your mouth and he started to moan and groan quietly as you ran your mouth and hand up and down its length. It tasted amazingly good and you found yourself getting even more turned on, almost desperate to feel Cillian inside you. As you sucked his cock you suddenly felt him pressing his finger against your wet slit. You spread your legs and Cillian began to slide two fingers inside you, thrusting in and out of your soaking wet pussy. You licked and sucked his cock and soon you were moving in unison, Cillian fingering your pussy in rhythm to your bobbing head on his pole.

"Fuck Y/N...this feels so good baby...shit!" Cillian cried out.

"I need you inside me Cillian” you huffed out eventually as you looked up from his rigid penis, your tongue still softly running across the swollen purple head. Cillian took his cock from your grasp stroking its slick wet length as he looked down at your naked body. He pushed your flat with his other hand as he moved between your legs still stroking himself.

"I want you...but...I don't have condom, is that okay?” he asked huskily.

In the back of your mind you knew that you should say no, but you wanted him worse than maybe you had ever wanted anyone, your pussy felt as if it was on fire.

"I want to feel you inside me, your bare cock...inside me" you replied.

Cillian moved forward, a second later you felt his cock spreading your pussy lips open and sliding into you as you cried out in pleasure.

“Oh god” you cried out as Cillian pressed forward and, finally, with a last gasp his cock slid fully into you as your flesh gave way. You could barely contain your cries of pleasure as he started to fuck you in earnest, slamming every inch into your tight pussy as you dug your nails into his back and wrapped your legs around his tight ass. You had fucked a few men in the past, but you had to admit it had never been like this with anyone before, this was easily the hottest sex you had ever had and you knew you would not last long as Cillian pounded you deep and hard.

“Oh my god you feel so good…fuck Cillian” you almost screamed as Cillian made hot passionate love to your trembling body.

You pulled Cillian even tighter to you, his chest pressed to your rock hard nipples as you found his mouth and buried your tongue in it kissing him with hot fire as the trembling in your pussy threatened to turn into an explosion. Suddenly like a crashing wave, your orgasm broke loose your pussy spasming hard on Cillian's pounding cock as you lost it.

"Oh god, fuck, I am cuming…Cillian!" yelled you as you arched your back off the couch and creamed every inch of Cillian's cock with your pussy. Cillian was quick to respond in kind as you felt a sudden rush of warmth inside you and Cillian’s cries told you what you already felt, that he was shooting his cum into you, deep into your pussy as his bare cock swelled and jerked.

They quickly collapsed together as Cillian's cock continued to throb inside you and you fought to catch your breath after the hardest orgasm you had ever had.

"Damn you that was so good" Cillian whispered as he kissed your sweet lips again.

"Yeah, it was amazing...we should do this again” you chuckled and Cillian was certainly in agreement with your suggestion.

“Give me ten minutes Love and I am ready to fuck you all over again” Cillian smirked and you couldn’t believe how lucky you had gotten tonight, on your birthday.

 Tag List:

@lilymurphy03@deefigs @theflamecrystal @desperate-and-broken @weepingstudentfishhorse @livinginfantaxy @rosey1981 @atomicsoulcollecto @peakyboyslover @nerdy4itall@elenavampire21 @hanster1998@mariapaiva13 @fairypitou @harry-is-your-sunflower @zozeebo @lauren-raines-x @kasaikawa @littlewierdalien @sad-huffle-nerd @theflamecrystal @peakymalfoyscullymulder @themissthang@0ghostwriter0 @stylescanbeatmyback @1-800-peakyblinders @datewithgianni @momoneymolife @ntmynouis @lilymurphy03 @mcntsee@cloudofdisney@missymurphy1985 @peakymalfoyscullymulder @otterly-fey @janelongxox @uchihacumdump @basiclassy @being-worthy @chaotic-bean-of-smolness @margoo0 @chocolatehalo @vhscillian @ysmmsy @littlewierdalien @crazymar15  @stickyknightflowerbailiff @im-constantly-fangirling @goldensunflowe-r  @tellingyouastory  @captivatedbycillianmurphy​  @namelesslosers​  @littlewhiterose​  @ttzamara​  @ttzamara @cilleveryone  ​

@peaky-cillian​

@severewobblerlightdragon​  @ysmmsy​  

[dameronology]

tea & whiskey {jack daniels x reader} - 4

summary: it’s the morning after the night before. time for a very awkward conversation.

warnings: warnings, very very brief alluding to smut but rly only if u squint 

song for this chapter is best friend by rex orange county! also the series masterlist can be found through the link to my main masterlist in my bio :) enjoy!

- jazz

You were’t sure what you needed more the next day: painkillers, to help your hangover or another round of drinks, to help you forget what you’d done night before. 

Or should I say - who you had done the night before. 

You didn’t sleep with your co-workers, much less your boss. God, it was almost as bad as if you’d slept with Merl - no, you couldn’t even let your brain go there. You’d already thrown up twice that morning (once into Jack’s toilet and then once into the subway tracks) and you didn’t need to make yourself do it again. Your stomach was churning and it felt as though the Blue Man Group were rehearsing their drum set in your frontal lobe. You’d tried to nurse it with a large block coffee and a half a packet of painkillers but alas, to no success. 

Somehow, though, your physical pains were the least of your worries. The fact you’d snuck out of Jack’s apartment and left without a word was playing over and over again in your head - so much so, that you almost didn’t come into work. Almost. Not even this situation was enough to make you take a day off. 

‘Is there a reason you’ve been stood outside the office for fifteen minutes, agent?’ You jumped at the sound of Champ’s voice. He glanced between the Starbucks coffee in his hand and the bruise around your left eye (fuck, you’d forgotten about that), quirking an eyebrow. ‘Rough night?’

‘No.’ You quickly answered. ‘Sir.’

‘So you what...walked into a door?’

Got drunk, tried to square up to a guy, got punched and then fucked my boss - thanks for asking. 

‘Yeah.’ You nodded. ‘I’m not normally clumsy but I forget that doors in America...go the other way? You know, drive on the other side of the road, use a different weight system, doors that go-’

‘- you can stop now, Percival.’ Champ cut you off. ‘Make sure you look after yourself.’

‘Right.’ You nodded. ‘Thank you.’

With the agent staring you at expectantly, you had no choice but to go into the office. You forced a smile, using your weight to budge open the door and step inside. 

The sound of your heels against the floor announced your entrance; the faint smell of Jack’s aftershave wasn’t normally that noticeable, but that morning, it wasn’t doing you any favours. You stood in the door way for a moment, letting it shut behind you as your eyes landed on the cowboy. 

He didn’t even look at you. Why wasn’t he looking at you? Fuck, had you upset him-

‘Nice of you to make an appearance, Percy.’ He suddenly spoke, flashing you a smile as he tore his eyes away from his computer screen. ‘How’s the shiner? Your buddy sure did pack a punch, huh?’

‘Uh, yeah.’ You blinked in surprise. ‘It’s fine, a little sore.’

‘You should pop down the lab on your break. Ginger will sort it out in no time.’ He leant back in his chair. 

‘Are we just not gonna talk about the fact we slept together last night?’ 

Jack suddenly jumped in surprise, eyes widening. Right, clearly not. 

‘I was trying to find a way to bring up such a sensitive subject.’ He replied. ‘But I guess I don’t gotta worry.’

You sighed as you walked over to your desk, placing your bag down and taking a seat. Fuck, your head was killing. You rubbed your eyes and cleared your throat, forcing yourself to continue the difficult conversation you’d just unwittingly started. You got the vibe that people in the South probably didn’t talk about sex so crudely. Twenty-something years of hanging around Eggsy Unwin had de-sensitised you to the idea of it being a taboo subject. 

‘I’m sorry I left this morning without saying anything.’ You sheepishly murmured. ‘When I do stuff like that, it’s usually with random guys I found in a bar.’

The biggest question that kept playing over and over in your head was why? 

Why Jack? You’d rebuffed Tequila’s advances before he could even finish the damn sentence and yet you’d slipped into bed with Jack with ease. It was probably to do with the fact he’d been such a good kisser, and the rest did not disappoint. It had been good. Really good. Possibly the best you’d ever had, actually. He’d said at the beginning of the night that he was going to help you kick back and chill out and...yeah, he’d done a pretty good job. 

‘It doesn’t affect me, sugar.’ Jack shrugged. ‘I don’t see why it has to change anything between us.’

Of course. Had you forgotten who you were talking to? This was Whiskey, the biggest flirt at the fucking agency. He’d probably had a different girl the night before you, and he was probably going to have somebody else tonight. He hadn’t said or done anything that could have lead you to believe it meant something more. Sure, you’d become friends and saw each other day and yeah, he drove you home sometimes because he didn’t want you to walk home in the dark and he had invited you out to help you de-stress when you needed it most. 

Did you like Jack? Did you want it to be something more? Did the last few weeks all....add up to something? Then again, maybe he was just being nice. Maybe he was just looking out for you, because you were a young woman, alone in the city. Perhaps last night had just been...a fluke. A glitch in the system. A wobble in what was otherwise a completely professional relationship.

‘No, you’re right.’ You nodded, scratching the back of your neck. It really felt like you should have said something more, because it felt like something more. ‘It didn’t mean anything.’

He quirked a brow at you. ‘So we’re good?’

You forced a smile. ‘Better than ever, Whiskey.’ 

You’d had one night stands before. They were standard, really - but it was rare you found yourself thinking about them the next day. Something between you just worked. You couldn’t put your finger on it, in the same way you couldn’t spell out the sudden urge to kiss him last night, but some things just couldn’t be explained. Your attraction to him certainly couldn’t be - he was older, used the worst nicknames and spoke to you entirely in Southern metaphors. But, as aforementioned, he’d also looked after you.

Maybe that was what you needed. Maybe it was what you wanted-

- You stopped yourself there. No time to unpack all of that, especially when you were this hungover and spent most of your waking hours spitting fire about how independent you were. You’d had Tequila pinned to the wall less than twelve hours ago for trying to make move on you.  It was probably something to save for therapy (which was on your to-do list). 

The tension in the room felt a little more reflective of a fight between a couple than it did of two friends who had casually slept together the night before. Normally, the room was just calm, filled with the only sounds of you two occasionally cracking jokes or your fingers desperately tapping away at your respective computers. Now? It was tense. Suffocatingly so, as though it could have swallowed you whole. 

‘I’m gonna get more coffee.’ You announced, abruptly. ‘And I guess I’ll pay Ginger a visit to sort out this annoying fucking bruise. You want anything from Starbucks?’

‘Didn’t you just go?’ He observed. 

‘Yeah, but I want some fresh air.’

As you passed Jack’s desk on the way out, he reached out and grabbed your hand, quickly tangling your fingers in his. He peered up at you, brow furrowed - you were off. He knew you were off. He’d proven time and time again over the last month that he could read you like a fucking book. You were a clown for thinking that he wouldn’t notice the fact you’d completely retracted into yourself, or that you’d suddenly from from Jack to Whiskey. 

‘You’re annoyed at me.’ He observed.

‘I’m not annoyed at you.’ You didn’t try to pull your hand back. ‘I’m annoyed at...myself, I guess.’

‘Why?’ 

‘Because I let last night happen.’ You explained. ‘I shouldn’t have made a move on you, I shouldn’t have broken every professional boundary between us for one night of meaningless-’

‘- what if it wasn’t meaningless?’

You froze, suddenly snatching your hand back. What were you meant to say to that? You couldn’t work out if you wanted it to mean something. There was so much to untangle but your main concern was sorting out your sore nose and banging head ache. 

‘Jack...’ you murmured. ‘I can’t talk about this right now. My head is on fire and my nose is fucking purple.’

He stood up, reaching for his jacket. ‘C’mon then, I’ll take you down the lab.’

‘I can get there myself, really.’

‘D’you know where it is, sugar?’

‘I can work it out.’ You shot back. ‘I’m smart-’

Before you could finish your sentence, he had a hand on the small of your back and was guiding you out the room and down the hall. That was new; he hadn’t really shown you any signs of physical touch - excluding last night, obviously - but the progression felt...natural. Heck, Jack hadn’t even realised he was doing it, and you didn’t feel the urge to complain or push him off.

That was probably saying something. 

--

‘There we go.’ Ginger murmured, slowly dabbing at the bruise with...something. ‘Good as new.’

You felt as good as new. After putting a weird paste on your nose and forcing some fancy, top-of-the-range painkillers down your throat, your hangover was gone and your nose was no longer stinging. You’d been out here thinking that Kingsman had been far ahead with their medical technology, but this place made it look Victorian. You were tempted to ask if they had an amnesia-inducing medication that could make you and Jack forget the events of last night, but then you realised something.

You didn’t want to forget.

‘Thank you, Ginger.’ You smiled. ‘I really appreciate it.’

‘What did you do to end up with a busted nose and black eye, anyways?’ Ginger raised her eyebrows. 

‘Our girl tried to deck a man twice her size because she thought he was following a woman into the bathroom.’ Jack replied, gently rubbing your shoulder. That’s fine. That was totally fine. You were fine. 

‘I had the right intentions.’ You muttered. ‘Anyways - Calahan isn’t gonna catch himself, so I gotta get back to work. Thank you again, G.’

That was code for Jack and I are about to have a very awkward conversation. To be frank, you would have begrudgingly left at the whole ‘it didn’t mean anything’ point, but he’d been the one to push it, to float out the idea that it could mean something. You’d thought it, but he’d been the one to say it. That was the huge difference between the two of you. You could compartmentalise your feelings when they proved to be an inconvenience. Jack Daniels, however, was...brash. When he felt something, he had to say it. It was a blessing and a curse. 

You both walked back to your office in silence, once again with Jack’s hand resting on the small of your back. He knew you didn’t need looking after - hell, you’d proved that ten times over - but it almost like he was keeping an eye on you. He’d seen you square up to two different men in the last twenty four hours. It was for your safety, really. 

The minute the door had shut behind you both, that tension immediately returned. This time, however, there was a little hint of excitement. Anticipation, maybe. 

‘So...’ you trailed off, leaning against your desk. Awkwardly playing with your hands, you peered over at him. ‘Let’s recap: we slept together, I snuck out, we said it didn’t mean anything and then two seconds later, you retracted that statement.’

‘I didn’t retract it.’ Jack insisted. ‘I was just reading your signals - which are confusing as fuck, by the way, sweetheart - because you were the one who walked out.’

‘My signals?’ You scoffed. ‘You were the one who invited me out the in first place! And the one who drives me home every damn night so I don’t have to walk alone!’

‘You’re the one who’s being as skitterish as a calf at a goddamn smoke out-’

‘- as a what at a what?!’ You spluttered. ‘You’re the one calls me sweetheart all the time!’

‘Yeah, well, you’re the one who kissed me first-’

‘- just shut up a second!’ You held your finger out to him. He silenced immediately. 'I feel like we’re overcomplicating this.’

He quirked an eyebrow. ‘We are?’

‘Whi - Jack.’ You took a deep breath. ‘I am going to ask you this once, and once only. If you say no, I’ll move on and we can act like this never happened. If you say yes...we can discuss it, okay?’

‘Okay.’ He nodded. ‘Go for it.’

‘Did last night mean anything to you?’ You asked the question slowly, in the same tone you might ask a child what small object they had in their mouth. 

‘Not at first.’ Jack replied. ‘I didn’t go into it with the intention of it meaning something.’

You frowned. ‘Do go on.’

‘I was gonna come in this morning and pretend like it never happened. Then I saw you, with that stupid bruise and stupid smile and I realised that you’re brash and dumb and fucking gorgeous and ...shit, you’re spiteful as hell and I’m a little terrified of you but damn, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t fucking obsessed with you.’

‘Well, shit.’ You murmured. It was the answer you’d wanted just...in a lot more words. 

For a long time, your head strong nature and inability to tolerate ninety-nine percent of the human race was something people had used a reason not to like you. But Jack? Oh, no. Not him. He saw it as a challenge, maybe. He had an urge to cut through the thorny outside and trying to see what you held on the inside. He’d see little bits of it here and there - your smile when you spoke about Eggsy, or the way you’d gone out your way to try and protect that woman - but he was determined to find more. He wanted to find more. You were an enigma, a vortex of swear words and brash decisions, and hell, you were sucking him right in.

‘You gonna say anything more than shit?’ He urged. 

You’d never been all that good with words. Didn’t actions speak louder? That’s what your mum had always said, and it had proven true in your line of work too. Punching the daylights out of someone was always a clearer threat than a concerning phone call. Pulling your weight on every mission was more proof of hard work than gloating to your uppers about your achievements.

And kissing your boss was a much clearer sign of telling him that you liked him too rather than just verbalising it.

Jack almost veered backwards when you lunged at him, just about catching you in his arms. Your lips crashed together - it was a little more desperate than last night, but then again, so was the whole situation. His arms caught you at the waist, holding you against his chest as he kissed you right back.

After a few moments, you pulled back for air. Neither of you said anything, instead choosing to just stare at each other with disbelief.

‘That was very unprofessional of me.’ You admitted. ‘But I do like you Jack and I’m worried it’s going to be a problem-’

‘- since when has mutual attraction ever been a problem?’ Jack practically snorted at the idea. ‘I like you. You like me. I don’t get what’s so complicated about that, sugar.’

‘Because it’s unprofessional! You’re my boss and I’m here to work.’ You suddenly took a step back, complex feelings finally colliding. ‘To prove myself and get a promotion!’

‘And you’re doing that just fine!’ He shot back. ‘Better than fine! You work your ass off ten times harder than any agent I’ve ever met. I don’t know how those uppity goddamn suit-makers haven’t realised what an asset you are.’

‘Are you saying that because you like me or because you mean it?’

‘Ouch.’ He murmured. ‘Even if I couldn’t stand you, I would still recognise the fact you’re one of the best agents I’ve ever seen.’

‘Wouldn’t that be an ideal world.’ You snorted. 

‘How about this?’ Jack reached forward, taking your hands in his. ‘It’s clear that whatever happens now, we probably can’t go back to how things were. I can try, but I promise you it won’t happen.’

You nodded in agreement. 

‘So, you can back track on everything we’ve just said and let it affect how we work together, or we can just lean into this whole stupid thing.’ He continued. ‘We’ll work together and play together. Two birds one stone, just until you go back to London.’ 

This was something of a rare opportunity: mutual attraction. Aside from the occasional one night stand in London, you barely had the chance to have fun. After years of hard work, maybe you deserved it. It was just...fooling around. You’d both admitted you liked one another but it was hardly a grand declaration at love. There were some feelings at stake, but not enough for you to be worried. 

‘We need ground rules.’ You replied. ‘I like you and you like me but we have to put the brakes on it there. You have to promise not to fall in love with me. Obsession only, okay?’

Jack tilted his head to the side, as if to say fair enough. ‘Sure thing. Anything else?’

‘The minute this starts to interfere with my work, I’m cutting you out.’ Your tone was a little sterner. ‘Heck, the second it happens, this stops. It’s...an addition to my work, not a replacement.’

‘As your superior...’ he said the words teasingly. You hated that you loved it. ‘I will make that doesn’t happpen.’

‘Good.’ You gave him a curt nod. ‘Then it’s settled.’

You stuck your hand out for him to shake. Jack peered down at it, almost waiting for you to retract it and break into a grin. But that didn’t happen. You were completely serious. Could he put it down to British weirdness? Probably. 

‘You drive me fucking insane.’ The cowboy grabbed your hand, yanking you towards him and capturing you in another kiss. 

tags: @demigod-dragonrider-schoolidol​ @imananxiousdriver​ @phoenixhalliwell​ @66wookies​ @paintballkid711​ @waatermelon-sugaar​ @hepburnwritess​ @haileyybird​ @xjaywritesx​ @jabbajambler​ @the-mandalorian-clone-lover​ @likeshootingstarsinthenightsky​ @welcometothepedroverse​ @wickedmuse​ (message me if you wanna be added!) 

[novelconcepts]

fic: learning a lot (about being alive)

So much of the story is the same. Dani. The kids. The lake. So much of the story is exactly the same--only, this time, there is no gardener working at Bly Manor.

The young woman is tired. Exhausted, if she’s truly honest with herself. She feels as though there must be an endpoint to running, a marker down the road that says a person has gone as far as they are able. Rest now, she imagines that marker saying in a cheerily-bold script. Fall down now. Let go. 

She isn’t there yet, she’s pretty sure. Not quite. She doesn’t know how much a person can be expected to carry, or for how long, but at least...at least she has a little left in the tank, yet. Enough to get her affairs in order, if nothing else. Enough to try a little longer to find solid ground. 

***

It was a matter of escaping home, to start with. A matter of escaping old ghosts and older expectations, and that Dani Clayton found all too quickly how easily ghosts can follow a person across miles and miles of world was...unfortunate. It had been naive, maybe, to think she’d leave Eddie behind with the simple act of crossing an ocean. One of those you never know before you try things.

Try, she did. Succeed, she did not. Not at first.

Still, there were bright spots. Travel hadn’t been a large part of her life back home; Edmund was a homebody, her mother always had opinions to offer when Dani mentioned family trips, and there were the kids at school to consider. Reliability had been her middle name, if not by choice, at least by necessity. She’d been twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-seven years old, and all she’d seen of the world was small-town Iowa. 

And then, unexpectedly: the thread of courage that had pushed her to break things off with Eddie.

And then, even worse: the screech of tires, the scream tearing from her own throat, the awful gurgling sounds Eddie had made as he lay spread-eagled on the blacktop. 

And then, the worst thing of all: glasses, gleaming bright with no sign of Eddie’s laughing eyes behind them, flashing at her from every mirrored surface in the room.

It had been too much. Too much for anyone to bear, Dani was sure. Who could blame her, for running away? Who could blame her, for needing a little space?

Her mother, for one. Eddie’s mother, for another. Even so, she had gone. Packed three bags, bought a guidebook to Europe, jumped a plane for the first time in her life. Bravest thing she’d ever done--or stupidest--and it had been a week before she’d stopped waking up trembling with adrenaline. 

She had some money--enough to get by on cheap hostels and simple foods--but she’d kept her eyes on the listings in every paper all the same. One in particular seemed to burn a little brighter within the newsprint. A charming manor in the countryside. Two children. Live-in au pair required. 

A good, solid job. Money in her pocket, and a path forward through a world that maybe wouldn’t demand Danielle of her any longer. She’d stretched for it, closed her fist tight around the opportunity. 

Those kids had been wonderful. Strange, at times, but what children freshly mourning their parents aren’t strange? The other adults at Bly Manor, too, had been charming and kind--Owen, with his bad puns and his delicious dishes, and Hannah, who had taken Dani by the arm with motherly affection almost before Dani had even introduced herself. They were good people. For a few weeks, she’d felt more at home than she had ever been with people who had known her since childhood. 

Still, there had been shadows cast over the summer. Miles, aggressive without provocation. Flora, sleepwalking. Owen, unexpectedly losing his mother. Hannah, growing more and more distant. 

And, finally, the night everything comes apart. A lake. A spectral form with a too-solid grip around Dani’s throat. A child, screaming in terror. A phrase, falling from her lips before Dani can even process the words. 

Dani says them like a spell. Dani says like them a promise. Dani says them, and blinks, and Flora is in her arms, squeezing so tight around her bruised neck, she thinks she might pass out. 

She almost tips over in cold, dirty lake water, but someone is splashing toward them. Henry. Henry Wingrave, still dressed for the office, bug-eyed and grasping for his niece with panicky hands. Dani gives her over gladly, feeling as though all the strength has been wrung out of her body. 

None of this makes sense. A summer spent at this house, making a warm little hole in the world for her to crawl into, only to culminate in this? In Owen shouting for Hannah, in Miles shaking all over, in Flora weeping and Henry trying to look as though he isn't about to start doing the same?

She can’t handle it. Suddenly can’t stay here. There’s...something happening beneath her skin, something cold and sharp and terribly foreign, and no one is looking at her. No one is seeing the way her hands convulse as she forces them into fists. 

She hears herself say, “I have to...have to go...” and knows no one is listening. Owen’s gone, sprinting off toward the chapel. Henry and the kids are a mess of hugging, shaking, crying bodies. 

A quick stop in the house, a quick stop upstairs to shuck off sodden sweater and mud-encrusted pants, and then she’s climbing through Henry’s still-open car door. Backing down the endless drive. Leaving the manor and all its eccentric shadows in her wake. 

***

Dani Clayton can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can’t drive, either, not really, but she’s made it this far. A few miles down the road, to a little village where most everyone is likely to already be asleep. 

There’s a pub next door to an inn, and she thinks, Nobody will care if I stay the night. Just one night. 

She has no idea what comes after. Is sort of afraid to think about it much. Tonight hasn’t made a lot of sense--her brain is still buzzing with it’s you, it’s me, it’s us, with Flora’s screams and her own gargling panic as an impossible hand tightened around her throat--and maybe that’s fine, for now. Maybe one night of not making sense is an acceptable loss. She’ll just walk into this little pub in this little village that doesn’t know her name, and maybe she’ll feel better after a drink. Or two. 

Or seven.

She’s not much for hard liquor, and her tolerance ought to be negligible, but there’s just something about this night that has unbound her. Alcohol is doing very little to take the edge off this gut-wrenching feeling that she isn’t...right. Isn’t quite who she was two hours ago. Isn’t...alone.

No, she thinks with firm certainty, no, that’s the crazy talking. The crazy I thought I fixed after Owen’s mother’s funeral, but maybe not, maybe it’s still...

She tips back her glass, polishing off a scotch she’d never have thought to order yesterday. Her face contorts; it hurts to swallow, even without the burn. She should probably give up, probably head next door and book a room to sleep this off.

“All right there?”

Her eyes snap to the owner of the voice, which is both thickly accented and alluringly curious. A woman--small, brown hair mussed, eyes watching Dani like she sort of expects Dani to start trouble right here in the smallest pub in England--is leaning against a neighboring table. Dani lets her empty glass drop with a thud against oak scored with initials and curse words. 

“Fine,” she answers shortly. The woman’s brows raise. 

“Only,” she says in a voice much more level than Dani’s own, “you don’t look fine. Look a bit like you’ve had the worst night of your life, in fact.”

Why should she care? Dani wonders. She licks her lips. “That,” she says, “would be an understatement.”

She’s too aware that she doesn’t belong in a place like this--smoke hazing the air, men laughing too loudly near the bar--and that a woman like the one watching her through guarded eyes does. Too aware that her pastel sweater and scrunchie probably label her as an outlier even faster than her American accent.

This woman, on the other hand, has the look of someone who spends most nights in pubs like this one. Her face is pretty--very pretty, Dani realizes with the belated interest of one just opening her eyes--but there’s something of a shield around her smile. Her clothes are clean, but not particularly fashion-forward: a pair of jeans, a ratty t-shirt, thin suspenders. She doesn’t look like anyone who has ever wasted a breath on Dani Clayton. 

But she’s raising her glass in a small salute. Dani raises her empty one right back, glancing at it with mild distaste. 

“Another?” the woman asks, still in that attention-grabbing, almost familiar tone. Dani starts to shake her head--she doesn’t accept drinks from strangers, as a rule, particularly strange women who look at her in ways that make her stomach clench--and changes her mind at the last second. Another. Sure. What harm could it possibly do?

***

Jamie’s back strikes the wall of the women’s bathroom with such force, she almost bites her own lip. Might have done, in fact, if not for the other woman’s lips in the way. 

She didn’t get a name, and figures that’s probably for the best. Bad enough she’s going down this road at all on a first glance--Bly isn’t big, and word travels impossibly fast. Jamie’s spent years keeping her head down, avoiding just these such entanglements. 

But the woman has incredible eyes--one bright blue, one a shocking brown--and accepted a free drink with the air of one who desperately needs a good time under her belt. When Jamie slid seamlessly from her own table to the stranger’s, the woman only smiled. When Jamie let her hand rest lightly on the pocked wood, fingertips grazing the woman’s wrist, she’d taken her lower lip between even teeth in a manner Jamie will probably think about for the rest of her life. 

Bathroom, then. Locked door. Bad choice, but one Jamie’s comfortable enough with so long as this woman is kissing her. 

She’s a damn fine kisser, and seems to have no qualms about showing Jamie as much. Her hands are fleeting, desperate, grabbing anywhere she can reach--Jamie’s collar is the current target, gripped so tight, it’s a wonder the thin material doesn’t tear--and she’s kissing Jamie like this is the most natural thing in the world. Like Jamie’s hand sifting through her ponytail, grabbing hold and tugging to urge her closer, is more welcome than that drink had been. Like Jamie, lips parting to accept a seeking tongue, is more welcome than--

Just a girl, Jamie reminds herself. Just a girl without a name, even. American. Probably won’t see her again, so might as well just enjoy what I get now. 

And what she’s getting is good, certainly. The woman has pressed a thigh between her legs, is riding against her with a panting ferocity that makes Jamie woozy. Her mouth slides from the woman’s kiss, searching for more skin to taste, her nose bumping against gold hoop earring as she licks a spot just below the woman’s jaw. A soft groan is her reward, and she grins against the woman’s skin, grazing with gentle teeth as she dips lower--

“Jesus,” she breathes, leaning back. Her fingers brush the woman’s neck below the collar of her sweater. “Hey, are you--”

“Fine,” the woman says, dragging Jamie’s bottom lip between her teeth and biting down hard enough for Jamie to hiss. 

“These,” she says, pulling slickly away again, “look like bruises--”

The woman is staring at her with a hard expression she can’t quite deconstruct. There’s something feverish about the way she looks at Jamie, something hunted and more than a little disconcerting. 

“I’m fine,” she says again, stiffly. “Do you want...?”

She almost sounds nervous, and Jamie realizes the opportunity for a pleasant evening is rapidly diminishing. Push now, push too hard, and this woman is going to turn on her heel and march out of this bathroom. Maybe out of Bly altogether. 

“If you do,” she answers, like this is nothing more than two bodies searching for something to hang on to. She leans back in, half-expecting the woman to shrink away, the moment already in its grave. Instead, she finds herself making an incredibly undignified noise as the woman slides her tongue into her mouth and a hand up the front of her shirt in the same motion. 

It feels both teenage and foolish, arching into a strange woman’s hand in a pub bathroom. Fascinatingly unwise, letting this woman scramble excited fingers against the seam of her jeans. Truly, just idiotic, sinking to her knees and pulling the woman’s trousers down just enough to seek out hot, wet skin with her tongue. 

Any other place, any other time, any other woman, and Jamie would know better. 

It’s just once, she reminds herself, groaning as the woman bucks into her mouth, slick and desperate, her hands tangled hard enough in Jamie’s hair to hurt. One stupid night with one stupidly attractive American. Life’s short. It’ll never come up again. 

***

Dani is pretty sure her head was removed last night and screwed back on the wrong way. 

She wakes in a heap in an unfamiliar bed, still in last night’s clothes. Her hair is a bedraggled mess around her face, her brain slamming itself repeatedly against her skull like a tiny, terribly angry man trapped in a very small room. Her mouth feels like she forgot to close it all night, her lips feel swollen, and her calves feel...weirdly sore. Like she’d spent the night clenching every muscle in her legs. Like she...

Oh, she thinks, quite unable to convince herself to open her eyes. Right. Like she’d spent the evening with a strange woman in a pub bathroom. A strange woman who had...with her mouth...and a wellspring of eager talent...

“Shit,” Dani says in a very small voice. 

If she doesn’t open her eyes, she thinks, there can be no proving she made choices last night the old Dani Clayton would never make. No proving how many scotches she’d downed. Certainly no proof of the woman whose thrusting tongue had caused Dani to...

She cracks one eye open, relieved when she finds herself in an empty and incredibly boring room that can only belong to some kind of motel. The inn, she realizes, sitting up with a wince. She’d made it to the inn, with its twin bed and its single lamp and its sad little flower print on the far wall.

By the looks of things, she made it to the inn alone. 

That makes it better and worse at the same time, somehow.

She’s far too tired and far too hungover--far too something else, too, something that has not at all diminished with the rising of the sun, and she will not look at it, will not think about it, will not--to care how she looks. Staggering downstairs, hair scraped back from her forehead, clothes rumpled, she gives the innkeeper her best approximation of a smile.

“Excuse me, do you serve--”

“Breakfast next door,” the man says dully, jabbing a pen toward the exit. Dani’s mouth twitches, an old anger pressing itself against her ribs. If there's one thing she can’t tolerate on a hangover and an empty stomach, it’s a man speaking to her like she’s not even there.

Forget it, she thinks with some effort. One perk, she supposes, of having dragged herself in at who-the-hell-knew what hour last night is the lack of packing up to do this morning. No bags. No sign she was ever even up there. She’ll just go next door, get a cup of coffee and maybe a little toast, and...

Ah. I stole Henry’s car last night. She heaves a sigh. 

“No breakfast after all?” the man adds as she stands in the doorway, peering out in search of wherever she parked a much-too-expensive vehicle without Henry’s consent. She considers flipping him the bird. Decides no version of Dani Clayton is quite that crass. 

Even one who spent last night riding some strange woman’s--

“No,” she says primly. “No, I should be getting back.”

***

Henry, to her extreme relief, has not even noticed her absence. Things have been a bit hectic, she gathers. The children are all right--as all right as they can be, anyway; they’re still in bed when she sneaks into the house--but they’re the only ones. Henry, seated at the kitchen table with a mug of cold tea between his palms, looks bruised around the eyes. 

“Long night,” he says, though Dani hasn’t asked. “Are you...?”

“Fine,” she says, as bright and cheerful as she can muster with her skull throbbing. “Where’s Hannah?”

Henry looks at her like she’s just buried a kitchen knife between his ribs. Her mouth goes dry. 

Hannah was not, as it turns out, in the chapel last night. Hannah was not anywhere at all. Not the part of her that counts.

“I can’t explain it,” Henry says in a low, urgently exhausted voice. “If I hadn’t...if it had been any other way, I’d have said I hallucinated the whole thing.”

It’s impossible, and yet, Dani can’t discount the story. Something about this house and its grounds, its atmosphere (its lake, she thinks and pinches a torn bit of cuticle to distract from the word), has her believing in things she’d have said were children’s fairytales a year ago. Ghosts aren’t real; anyone with any amount of sanity knows it. And yet...

You. Me. Us. She shudders. 

They’d gone out to the old well first thing, Henry tells her. He and Owen, walking in silence, both knowing what they’d find and knowing just as well that it was an unacceptable discovery. 

“I offered to go along,” he says hollowly. “When the authorities arrived. He wouldn’t hear it. Must have been an accident, they said, a terrible fall...”

How, Dani wonders, does a woman like Hannah Grose fall into a well?

As if that’s really the question. As if the true question isn't how does a woman like Hannah Gross fall into a well, and just continue about her life for the next few weeks without pause?

Ghosts aren’t real. Can’t be, in a sane reality. And yet, the coroners told Henry there were signs of decomposition going back many days. Hannah, who had been talking and laughing at this table just yesterday night, had been down there alone for so long. 

Can’t stay, Dani thinks with sudden venom. Can’t stay here anymore. Isn’t home anymore. 

It’s the same thought she had in that little blue house across the pond, staring at things that had been Edmund’s--had been, for better or worse, theirs--and understanding some changes are permanent. Some places, once haunted by certain kinds of grief, cannot remain your own. 

As if reading her mind, Henry pushes back from the table. “I’d like very much to thank you for your services this summer, Miss Clayton. I truly don’t know what the children--what any of us--would have done without you.”

She tries to smile. The bones of her face ache. Everything about her is a single rabid pulse of pain, except maybe the smallest corner of her mind, the smallest corner of memory where she is back in a dirty pub bathroom, watching a woman sink to her knees, feeling her eyes roll back as that woman touches--

“It was my pleasure,” she says, and isn’t lying, exactly. She’d do it again, she thinks. All of it. The job. The little family she found so unexpectedly. Rescuing Flora from something she can’t, even now, process. She’d do it all again if asked, and do it exactly the same. 

It hurts no less, for that. 

***

“You’re sure?” Henry asks yet again. He’s out of the car, holding her bags out, his face that of a worried father. Dani thinks he’ll make a good one to those kids, in his own way. “You could stay a little longer. I’d never ask you to--”

“I know,” she reassures him, slinging the backpack over her shoulder. “But honestly, it’s better this way. The kids don’t need me hanging around, and I...”

Can feel her, she doesn’t say. Can feel her moving around, way down where I can’t even catch a glimpse of how or why. If I stay there, if I let it, that house will call to her like a magnet again. Like gravity.

“It’s time for a new adventure,” she says instead, smiling. He believes this smile, she knows. Anyone would. She’s gotten so good at faking it. 

He hugs her once, quickly. It is appropriately awkward, and she even laughs a little. Flora, hanging out of the backseat window almost far enough to fall, looks miserable. 

“You’re really leaving?”

“I am.” Bent at the waist, Dani looks the girl in the eye. Flora’s face is uncharacteristically solemn. “But I promise I’ll write. Call, too, if your uncle gives me the number.”

“Where are you going?” Flora presses. Behind her, Miles lays a clumsy hand of reproach on her shoulder. Dani favors him with a small, comprehending smile. Miles has gone through things none of them can fathom, things he may never be able to talk about. She aches for the too-adult cast about his eyes. 

“I don’t exactly know yet,” Dani tells them both. “Like I said, it’s an adventure. Might end up anywhere.”

“But happy,” Flora says uncertainly. “Right?”

“I’m sure,” Dani says, dropping a final kiss to the top of her head, “it will be perfectly splendid.”

She keeps the smile on her face as Henry ushers Flora back through the window and into her seatbelt, as they pull away from the curb and down the curve of Bly’s main intersection. When they turn the corner, disappearing from view, she lets the expression drop with a sigh. 

A week. A week since the lake, since finding Hannah’s body, since the impossible set up shop in her head. A week of Henry learning to parent in a slapdash rush, of Owen’s face more serious than she’d ever seen it, of yet another funeral. Hannah’s had been a quiet affair, properly spiritual as she’d have liked, and Dani had spent the entire thing trying not to think about the last funeral she’d attended. 

And now, a week later, she’s here. Standing in front of Bly’s one and only little pub once more. It’s barely afternoon; she figures this is as good a place as any to sit for a few hours with a beer and her thoughts, until she figures out what comes next. 

Nothing comes next, she finds herself thinking. You’re carrying a time bomb. You can’t understand it, can’t get rid of it, and there’s no one left to hold your hand as you wait for it to go off. 

Defeatist thinking. Stupid, hopeless, miserable thinking. She’s tired, but she isn’t out of the game just yet. 

Make a plan, she tells herself, slipping through the pub’s front entrance and taking a seat at the bar. Get a drink, make a plan. There’s always a next step. 

Except, this time, she doesn’t know if she believes it. Not really. Not knowing things she isn’t comfortable knowing. Ghosts exist, and ghosts can hurt--not just your grasp on the world, not just your sanity, but you. They can throttle. They can manipulate. They can steal the life out from under you, if only you invite them in.

Not that she can say any of this aloud, not ever, not to anyone. 

Get a drink. Make a plan. Something that doesn’t involve Mom, or Iowa, or Danielle. 

She drops the backpack between her knees, slides the other bags under her seat where she can keep an eye on them. She’s sure she looks exhausted in a hooded sweatshirt, a denim jacket, the skin around her eyes nearly purple with sleepless nights. Pub at noon on a Thursday--maybe no one will notice. 

Not that there’s anyone she’s trying to impress.

“Just a beer,” she says when a shape appears in her periphery. “Please.”

“Sandwich as well?”

Her head comes up so fast, something in her neck cramps. The bartender, back to her, is filling a tall glass. Cloth over one shoulder. Brown hair a messy tangle of curls. 

“It’s--it’s you.”

The woman meets her gaze with a smirk Dani is simply not equipped at noon on a Thursday to cope with. 

“Last I checked,” she says calmly, setting the full glass in front of Dani and wiping her hands on the cloth. “Ought to be, too, seeing as how this is my pub.”

***

Oh, this is rich. This is rich, and this is wonderful, and this is fucking bad.

Jamie, who has been watching this woman loiter outside the pub for the better part of ten minutes, has had exactly this long to come to terms with her own misfortune. Ten minutes, to recognize the world is a shallow, cruel prankster. Ten minutes, to recognize this does nothing at all to stop a woman she’s been dreaming of for a week from walking back through her door. 

I know what you look like when you come, she thinks with a recklessness she truly thought she’s outgrown. And now I'm meant to serve you ale like we’re complete fuckin’ strangers. 

For all her nerves, watching the woman hug an older man, lean into a car to speak to some very small children, Jamie thinks she’s still the better off of their twosome. After all, she gets to decide how she’s going to stand--off the side of the bar, furthest from the door, buying time--and when she’s going to make her entrance. This woman?

Well, judging by her wide Bambi eyes, this woman could have done with a little preparation herself. 

“White or rye?” Jamie asks when the woman continues to gape at her. “Or we can get you a fish and chips plate, if it suits you.”

“I don’t understand,” the woman says. Her hand is clenched around her glass like she’s dimly considering tossing it like a grenade and bolting for the door. Jamie hopes she’ll restrain that impulse. Glass would be a bitch to clear up during the impending lunch rush.

“Well,” Jamie says, leaning her elbows against the bar in a show of carelessness. “When you order the fish and chips, see, they come wrapped in a little newsprint. And the grease makes for--”

“I know,” the woman snaps, “what fish and chips are. I just. I...” She lowers her voice, looking around like anyone’s in the mood to eavesdrop. “Do you...remember me?”

For a split second, Jamie is back in the bathroom, biting at soft thighs, loving the way this woman leaves scratches down the back of her neck. 

“Yes,” she says placidly. “I remember.”

“Okay,” the woman says, leaning towards her so far, she almost topples off her stool. “Okay, listen, I don’t--I mean--I didn’t--”

“Mean to do it,” Jamie suggests wryly. She’s heard this song more times than she can count. “Tripped and fell onto my lips, did you?”

“No,” the woman hisses. “I just--don’t normally do that.”

“Women,” Jamie says. It’s sort of nice, how empty the place is. Gives her plenty of time to sarcastically shift away from caring about how this woman is gazing at her. 

“No--I mean, I haven’t. Before. But I’ve wanted--doesn’t matter.” She’s practically playing jump rope with her own tongue, this poor beautiful woman. Jamie takes pity on her. 

“You mean you don’t normally stride into a small-town pub, put away more booze than the meanest local miner, and drag a stranger back to, ah. Improve your evening?”

“Yes.” The woman slumps against the bar, relief shining like starlight in her mismatched eyes. “Yes, exactly.”

“Was an accident, then,” Jamie says with studied calm. The woman shakes her head. Looks like it hurts, frankly, she’s putting so much behind it. 

“Not an accident. Just. Was a really strange night.”

And this, Jamie thinks, is a very strange conversation. The most she’s ever talked to a woman after sex, in fact. Stranger still, she feels like it was always going to happen, eventually. Like this woman was always bound to stroll back through her door. 

“Well,” she says, giving the bar a decisive rap with her knuckles. “I can be an adult about this, if you can. Agree to behave as though I haven’t, ah--”

The woman raises a single finger in warning, her face flushed. “Don’t.”

Jamie laughs. “Right. Anyway.” She extends a hand, takes the one the woman is jabbing in her direction. “Jamie. Bartender, terminally afflicted by the poor decision to settle in Bly.”

“Dani,” the woman says, squeezing her hand with surprising strength. “Teacher. Au pair. Unemployed.”

“All of the above, or one at a time?” Jamie grins. Dani releases her hand, touches her forehead lightly as if warding off a headache. 

“Honestly, I’m not even sure it matters.”

Strange woman, Jamie thinks. “You’re heading out of town, then? Only, I saw your taxi service come and go...”

If she says yes, that’s all this business taken care of before Jamie can bring herself to think on it too hard. It’d be best, she thinks. Best to let this too-beautiful woman swan right back out of her life, let her become little more than a jarringly-electric memory sneaking up on Jamie at odd moments. Jamie’s got a nice little life here in Bly--boring, but simple. She really doesn’t need anything upending that for her. 

“I don’t know,” Dani sighs. “I don’t exactly have a job anymore. Or a place to stay.”

“But?” Jamie turns her attention toward cleaning glasses, if only to keep from staring at this woman. She looks like it’s been days since last she slept, but there’s something about her eyes Jamie can’t seem to stop glancing at. 

“You’ll laugh.”

“I won’t,” Jamie says. Dani’s mouth twists, a crooked little grin that doesn’t sit quite right on her face. 

“Won’t believe me, then.”

Jamie says nothing. Some people don’t take kindly to being told to trust. Some people need more to put their faith behind. She can’t begrudge it of this woman, or anyone. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Dani says, pausing to take a hearty sip from her glass. Her neck looks better, Jamie notes--the finger-shaped bruises have faded to near invisibility. Not that she’s thinking about Dani’s neck. Not that she’s remembering the way Dani sighed and clutched at her back as she kissed--

“I just don’t want to go back,” Dani says, oblivious. Jamie nearly fumbles the glass in her hand, sets it carefully down on the rack. 

“To your old job?”

“Home.” A surprising amount of venom fits into that single syllable, rolling off of Dani’s tongue. Jamie can certainly understand that. 

“So, don’t.” She turns her back, barely able to believe what’s about to come out of her own mouth. It’s foolish. It’s foolish and dumb and silly, and still: “Stay here.”

Dani’s mouth makes a rather funny sound, falling open. Jamie keeps her eyes on the bar mirror, watching surreptitiously for signs of revulsion in the other woman’s face. 

“Could use a waitress,” she goes on, as if this is the most normal conversation in the world. “Just for a few weeks, mind. Through the fall, maybe. Boss man’ll be back by then.”

“Boss?” Dani repeats. Jamie flashes her a quick grin over her shoulder. 

“I don’t actually own the place. What on earth would I do, ownin’ a goddamned pub in Bly?”

***

She doesn’t mean to say yes. It’s complicated, saying yes to Jamie. Knowing what happened between them, and knowing it happened on a night she can’t explain, is bad enough. Knowing all of that and taking a job working alongside the woman every evening?

It’s a bad idea, and, somehow, that’s the only reason she does it.

She can’t explain it, the recklessness living inside her chest. Doesn’t like the feel of it, curled up against her good sense as though it will, at any moment, open its jaws and consume her best judgement. All she knows is there is something waiting for her to trip up. Something waiting for her to give up. Something that may take her at any time, no matter how she feels about it. 

Without something to hang on to--without something to close her fists around, something to focus all of her attention on--she’s going to give in to it. Sooner than she’d like. 

She doesn’t want to go. 

So, she stays in Bly, of all the places to start an adventure. Small, quiet, boring Bly. With...Jamie.

Not with Jamie, she thinks briskly. Not with Jamie-with Jamie. Just. Alongside Jamie. As a co-worker. A normal, casual, my-tongue-has-not-been-in-her-mouth relationship.

She’s been telling herself this for three days. Three days spent learning the ins and outs of the pub, learning how to navigate the unfriendly, untrusting stares of Bly locals as Jamie hovers just off her periphery. It has been...an experience, to say the least. 

“You’re doing great,” Jamie says at the end of the third night. They’ve just ushered the last of the patrons out into the brisk moonlight, and Jamie is in the process of moving chairs on top of each table Dani wipes down. They’re a good team, Dani thinks, a better team than a week of knowing one another has any right to produce. 

“I spilled a drink in a man’s lap,” she says, to distract from this not-entirely-unwelcome thought. Jamie leans conspiratorially close, shoulder brushing Dani’s as she drops her voice to a whisper.

“You only spilled it ‘cuz he bumped you trying to get a look at your ass. Served him right, I’d say.”

Heat climbs her neck, taking root in her cheeks. She hadn’t noticed. “Really?”

Jamie shrugs. “Does that to every girl who walks through that door. Not our most pleasant customer, to be sure, but he orders enough to keep our doors open, so...”

She makes conversation so easily, Jamie. Like Dani’s been here for years, bustling awkwardly between close-set tables, making small talk around drink orders. She makes conversation so easily, and Dani finds herself responding in kind. Nights here, at the pub, wearing a black apron and a smile that gets a little less plastic every time Jamie leans close and whispers a barb about some customer or another, leave her feeling the most stable she’s been in days.

“How’re they treating you next door?” Jamie asks, sliding her half of the tips across the bar. Dani pockets the money without really thinking about it. 

“Good. It’s quiet. I’m...not used to it, yet.”

She doesn’t say the rest--that she misses those kids, misses the way Owen and Hannah would peck at one another like no one could tell how deep their love ran. That she misses small feet tearing up and down a huge staircase. That she misses having someone who needs her waiting just around the corner. 

Can’t say the other part, either. The part where the room is quiet, and the walls seem not to exhale like they did at the manor, and everything is perfectly still...except for the little spot at the back of her head. That spot where she senses something waiting. Something she doesn’t understand, something that is so unbearably silent...and so incredibly furious. 

“Hey--Poppins. Still with me?” Jamie’s hand touches hers lightly, a bare flourish of fingertips across her knuckles. Dani jumps. 

“Poppins?” she repeats, smiling despite herself. Jamie shrugs.

“Said you were a nanny, didn’t you? For those, ah, rich beasties up the way.”

She had said as much, yes--last night, when Jamie asked what brought her out to England in the first place. “You’re as American as they fucking come,” Jamie had said with a grin that made Dani’s stomach feel like it was falling. “What on earth could have led you to Bly?”

Don’t, a tiny part of her had warned. Don’t tell her. There’s so much story, and so much of it is truly crazy. But Jamie had been leaning her hip against the bar, watching her with gentle interest, and Dani hadn’t been able to resist giving some of that story anyway. The simplest version: had to get away from home, wanted to do good in the world, best skills are with kids. Took the job because it was everything she’d thought she’d needed.

“And?” Jamie pressed gently, when Dani had faltered there. “Was it? Everything you needed?”

You. Me. Us. She’d closed her eyes, felt the world swim around her for one excruciating second. When she’d opened them again, Jamie’s hand was on her elbow, steadying.

“I don’t know,” she says now, as she did then. Jamie’s mouth quirks a little to the side, like she wants to smile solely as a reassurance. 

“Long night.”

It was--every night since the lake has been longer than Dani knows what to do with--and she’s not sure she can stand the idea of spending it alone in her room. The inn is warm, well-lit, and makes her feel like a tinderbox seconds from going up. Restless energy, is all--she’d felt it at the manor, too, that pent-up need to leap from her bed and roam the halls each night--but for some reason, it scares her.

Jamie is watching her still, and Dani is struck with the wild notion that she could ask for Jamie’s company. Could ask not to be left alone tonight. Jamie would probably say yes to anything she asks for, and they’d have a good time together. It would be a campfire in the woods, maybe, just a little light to break up the shadows, but it would be better than nothing.

Not fair, she tells herself. Not fair to her. Not with whatever it is I’m carrying now. 

“Thank you,” she says aloud, touching Jamie’s hand quickly, her thumb swiping across Jamie’s skin in a manner so brisk, it might as well not have happened at all. “You probably want to get to bed.”

Something she can’t--won’t--look at too closely in Jamie’s eyes. Something that makes her whole body clench with a need she isn’t capable of dealing with just now.

“Yeah,” Jamie says softly. “G’night, Poppins.”

***

Dani is better at this than she thinks, Jamie sees right away. Not just the serving gig, either; doesn’t take a mastermind, to take drink orders and drop off plates of bad chips to drunk townies. She’s good at the real heart of the job, the reason people like the citizens of Bly flock to the village’s one and only pub. 

She catches sight of her doing this very thing, probably without even realizing, on a Friday night. The room is packed with bodies, sweaty and laughing and half-gone on half-priced ale, and Jamie’s been looking for her for ten minutes. When she locates her at last, Dani is standing in the very back of the pub, hands on her hips, smiling at the oldest woman in the world. 

Jamie moves just near enough to pick up the gist. The woman, a fixture of Bly in her late eighties, still making her weekly venture to the pub, is regaling Dani with what very well might be her life story. And Dani, rather than looking impatient, rather than letting her eyes slide away in search of something else to do, has her head tipped to the side. Her posture is easy, the first time Jamie’s seen it as such, her focus absolute. 

Just listening. Just listening to this ancient woman like there’s nothing going on around her. 

“That was something,” Jamie says in her ear when Dani finally extricates herself from the one-sided conversation and makes her way back. 

“What was?”

Jamie inclines her head toward the old woman. Dani looks embarrassed. 

“I know, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ignore the other tables, I--”

“Easy,” Jamie says, neatly stepping in the way of Dani’s breakneck sprint toward a panic attack. “You aren't in any trouble, I just can’t recall the last time I saw someone chat her up.”

She watches Dani relax, charmed by the way Dani smiles almost sheepishly.

“She said she’s been here her whole life. Can you imagine that? Staying in one place for almost ninety years?”

“Can’t imagine being anywhere for ninety years,” Jamie says without thinking. Dani’s brows go up, a comedic little arch that pulls at her heart. She hastens to add, “Only mean it’s been...a life. Not always lived with the best of intentions.”

Dani looks interested, and for a terrifying moment, Jamie thinks not only is she going to push, but that Jamie is actually going to tell her. Everything. Home life, foster care, prison term. Everything that stacks up behind her walls to remind her of why she built them in the first place. 

But Dani, thank fuck, only says, “We all have our baggage, right?” There’s something sad about the way she says it, the way she smiles with what Jamie is coming to think of as a half-light. There’s something going on behind a smile like that, and Jamie knows it isn’t safe to even wonder. Isn’t simple, to even consider caring. 

But you do, something whispers. Don’t you? Even knowing she’ll be gone in a couple of weeks, you do. 

“It’s funny,” Jamie says, a quick-change that doesn’t quite cover the heat she feels has cropped up between them. “That she’d come talk your ear off. She’s not much for words most nights. Thought she’d have gotten her fill at old Mrs. Sharma’s funeral last month.”

There goes Dani’s face again, forming that expression of pure surprise. “Wait. She knew Owen’s mother?”

“Who didn’t?” Owen Sharma, Bly’s kindest, least eligible bachelor. If Jamie had a dollar for every beautiful woman who made moon eyes over the man, she’d be up at least the price of a nice meal. 

Shame about his mother, really. Margaret had been at least as kind as her son, prone to slipping Jamie a wink and a chuckle while Owen blatantly missed all flirtation sent his way. It had hurt, seeing her grip on her own mind slip away. Had hurt worse, knowing Owen was up at that big old house only because it was the nearest he could get to Margaret’s deterioration. 

“Good woman,” Jamie says gruffly. “Kind woman. Hated seeing her go, but if I’m honest, maybe it’s easier on Owen this way.”

“He didn’t seem to think it was easier,” Dani says, but there’s a bit of hesitation in her voice. Like she knows what Jamie was trying to say, and maybe she doesn’t like it, but can’t entirely discount the idea, either. 

“Hang on,” Jamie says, jumping back a few steps. “If you know Owen--”

“Worked with him,” Dani agrees. “At the house. He was our cook.”

Of fucking course. How could I have missed this. “If you know Owen,” Jamie repeats, feeling very certain and very warm all of a sudden, “then you were at the funeral, too.”

The funeral. A surprisingly sunny affair, where the weather was concerned, and utterly miserable in every other way. Jamie, in honor of a woman who once made her feel more welcome in this tiny village than just about everyone her own age, had dressed carefully. Her only black dress. A fine jacket. Neat silver earrings. No one to impress but ghosts.

And she’d felt...incomplete, somehow, standing over the grave. Incomplete and terribly small, as Owen tried to make sense of his mother’s death under the cold stares of fifty strangers. This, they seemed to say with their eyes alone, this is the boy who thought he could get out. Thought he could escape. But Bly calls everyone home, in the end, doesn’t it, Owen?

She’d hated seeing him up there, tears leaking down an uncharacteristically solemn face. Hated the way their eyes followed him as he bowed his head over Margaret’s grave. Owen’s a bit of a prat, a little disconnected, totally unaware of the grip he has on the women of Bly, but he deserved so much better than this. So much better than judging eyes and whispers. 

But, then, who was Jamie to fight his battles for him? This man who might have been a friend, in another life, who is really little more than an occasional customer. She’d shaken her head, tapping a cigarette out of a crumpled pack, and set off a ways for a break from it all. 

And there, behind a tree, had been a woman. 

Jamie hadn’t seen her face. Had, in fact, stood intentionally back a few steps to give the woman a spot of privacy, because the sounds she was making did not invite onlookers. She seemed to have her hands over her mouth, dragging in great hitching sobs that made it sound as though all the air had gone out of the world. 

“All right?” Jamie had asked. Such a stupid, silly thing to say. But the woman had frozen. 

“Yeah.” Voice choked with obvious tears she was just as obviously trying to hide. Jamie had settled the cigarette between her teeth, flicked a lighter, cupped her hands around the infant ember. 

“Funerals,” she’d said, a bit stupidly. No idea why, even. No one in Bly needs her to play nice with their panic attacks. “Truly the worst.”

“Yeah,” the woman agreed, breathless. Jamie could just make out a layer of black dress, cut higher and less conservatively than the village prefers for its more somber events. A bit of black dress, a swatch of blonde hair. Not much else. 

Not my business to look, she’d thought, taking a long drag. Shifted her weight from one boot to the other. Hesitated. 

“S’all right,” she’d said at last. Voice smoke-roughened and more than a little embarrassed by her own forwardness. “I cry three, four times a day, even when there’s no fresh body in the ground.”

“Mmhmm,” the woman replied in a tight voice. Jamie sighed. 

“Only, no one would judge. Or,” she added, thinking of those pinched faces following Owen’s every broken step, “no one who hasn’t earned a punch on the nose for the trouble.”

To her surprise, the woman laughed. Not a big laugh. Just a snort, really, swallowed again just as quickly. Jamie, raising the cigarette back to her lips, fought down a grin. 

“You owe ‘em nothing,” she’d said, with a finality she didn't quite understand. Then, when the woman didn’t answer, a second time: “You owe ‘em nothing.”

Now, with the world of patron and alcohol abuzz around her, she peers into Dani’s face. “You,” she says quietly. “It was you.”

***

What are the odds? That the woman who had talked her down from a small mental breakdown at the funeral had been Jamie. That the woman who had, in fact, sparked something Dani couldn’t explain even to herself had been Jamie. That the woman who, in saying those four tiny words--you owe ‘em nothing--had lit the match she’d used to burn Eddie’s ghost out of her had been Jamie.

“Look a little pale,” Jamie observes. Her hand is loose around Dani’s upper arm, and Dani realizes she is swaying in place. Her heart is a jackrabbit, her head spinning. 

How? How could I not have noticed?

She’d thought Jamie had sounded familiar, hadn’t she? Right at the start, with Jamie raising her glass in a flirtatious little salute. She’d thought that voice rang a bell, and chalked it up to alcohol, to the pounding in her head, to the adrenaline high. 

“Have you ever,” she hears herself say dizzily, “met someone and felt right away you should have known them all along?”

It is an insane thing to say. Jamie ought to bolt for the door, words like that. Instead, brow creased with concern, she leads Dani behind the bar and sets her down on a stool. 

“Stay here a minute,” she commands. Dani drops her head into her hands. 

That night, after the funeral. Hadn’t she been thinking of this woman’s words when she’d taken a bottle of wine and Eddie’s glasses out to the fire? Hadn’t those words been vibrating between her teeth as she’d stared him down, this shadow of the man she’d once loved in all the wrong ways, for the last time?

I owe you nothing anymore, Eddie. I’m sorry. I’m sorry you’re gone, and I’m sorry I was the--I’m sorry you felt you had to run from the truth. But I can’t live like this. Not anymore. 

Drunk words. Sober reality. She’d woken the next morning feeling for the first time in almost a year like each inhalation actually inflated her lungs. 

“Here.” Jamie, reappearing like a magic trick at her side with a glass of ice water and a damp rag. “You’re off the rest of the night, Poppins. Can’t have you fainting on me.”

“Don’t want to go,” Dani begins blearily. Jamie presses the glass into her hands. 

“Not kicking you out,” she promises. “Just. Stay posted up here a while, yeah? I’ll be back.”

It’s an oath she keeps faithfully for the next several hours, performing a perfect balancing act between serving drinks and checking in with Dani. She ought to be embarrassed, Dani thinks, watching Jamie smile and fill glasses and glance back at her every so often to make sure she’s still where Jamie left her. This ought to be mortifying. 

Why isn’t it mortifying?

She watches Jamie, the natural way she glides from joke to joke, order to order, all steady hand and quick smile, and it’s like...like watching a movie you haven’t seen since you were a kid. A movie you used to put on in the background when you were sick, or sad, or lonely. She feels certain that she still knows all the words, the music cues, the parts where she always had to close her eyes against tears she didn’t yet understand. 

In a month of truly strange events, a month littered with ghosts and terrible heavy silences, this is the strangest yet. Looking at Jamie just in time to catch a wink that makes her hands slip against the glass. Looking at Jamie and thinking, I owe her nothing--and that’s the way it ought to be. 

“Feeling better?” Jamie asks when the doors are locked and there is only wood and glass listening in. Dani nods, clutching the now-empty glass and trying to find an expression for her face that will betray none of what she’s been thinking. 

“I’m sorry. It’s been a strange...” She shakes her head. There are words you can only say so many times before they begin to crumble on your tongue. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Seems as though it does,” Jamie says. She hoists herself up onto the bar, legs swinging, looking very young all of a sudden. Dani smiles. 

“It’s a long story.”

“Got time,” Jamie replies, and though it’s two in the morning, and Dani’s body is heavy with exhaustion, she can’t help leaning a bit closer. With Jamie seated this way, she’s a little taller than Dani for the first time, her eyes searching Dani’s face for clues as to...what? How she came to Bly, really? How she came to this pub, really?

How she came to carry whatever it is she can feel watching her every move, matching her step for step, really?

“You’ll think...” She swallows hard. Closes her eyes. Waits for Jamie to say I won’t, or try me anyway, or think what? Jamie doesn’t. Jamie remains quiet, and when she chances another glance, the expression on Jamie’s face almost undoes the small amount of calm she’s been collecting over the last few hours. She’s never seen anyone just...look at her like this. Like they really do have all the time in the world. 

“You’ll think I’m crazy,” she finishes at last, smiling such a hard smile, it feels as though it might snap right off her face. Jamie leans forward, elbows resting on the knees of her overalls. 

“I think you are,” she says, “one of the sanest people ever to walk through this shitty little town.”

And then, without quite knowing why, Dani is talking. About all of it. Dani is spilling things she can’t explain, can’t quantify: about Eddie, about deciding no longer to allow him ownership of her life even in death; about Hannah and the well, the way the woman had been so lovely and so strong and so not there at all, in the end; about the children and their unexpected passengers, about how Rebecca Jessel had tried to the last to rescue Flora from a fate Dani can’t imagine, even now. 

And she tells her about the Lady. 

She tells her about the specter with its hand like a claw, who had picked her up like a squirming sack of flour and dragged her through that house. About how Flora had saved her life in the way only a child can think to try. About how she’d saved Flora in return, even if she can’t explain it. 

Jamie listens. To all of it. Eyes serious, mouth drawn in a gentle frown. She’s nodding, Dani realizes. Nodding, and watching Dani’s eyes the whole time. 

“See?” Dani says at last, and realizes she’s crying. The silent tracks of tears are warm on her cheeks, skidding off her chin and into her lap. She’s crying, and she’s breathing through it, and somewhere deep inside, she thinks she hears the crash of waves. “Crazy. Think I’m crazy. Think I’m going--”

Jamie, so gracefully, she almost doesn’t see the change, pushes off the bar and crouches beside the stool. Her hands find Dani’s, a gentle grip that makes the world stop swaying for a moment. 

“Think you are,” she says in the most determined voice Dani has ever heard, “surprisingly sane. All things considered. And I want you to know, you don’t have to--”

Dani’s got her by the shoulders. Dani’s dragging her upright, surging right off her seat, pressing her back against the bar. Dani, who understands on a level that is conscious and legitimate and wise that this is her co-worker now, and finds she does not particularly care, kisses her with such desperation, she nearly moans into Jamie’s mouth. 

Jamie should push her off. Jamie should be gentle and solid and certain in her dismissal. This is a bad idea. This is a bad--

“I have a flat,” Jamie breathes against her lips. Dani realizes Jamie’s hands are in her hair, Jamie’s mouth is flushed pink, Jamie is looking at her eyes. “I have a flat upstairs.”

***

“I want you to know,” Dani pants against her neck, “I’m not doing this because I’m--”

She hesitates, apparently not quite invested enough in what they’re doing on Jamie’s couch to use the word haunted. Jamie catches one hand, brings it to her lips, kisses each finger slowly. Taking her time, letting her tongue drift from index to middle to ring, watching Dani’s eyelids flicker. 

“Want you to know,” Jamie replies, when she feels certain the welling panic in Dani’s eyes has been effectively banished once more, “you don’t have to explain. And you don’t have to do this, either. If you don’t want to.”

Dani, sitting in her lap, shifting her weight so her torso presses against Jamie’s, gives her a truly hilarious look. “Does this feel like I don’t want to?”

Jamie grins. There’s just something about being in this situation that is funnier than she knows what to do with--Dani, having just told her the kind of life story better suited to a horror film, in her flat, on her couch, kissing her neck. It feels like the wrong genre, somehow. Like the wires of the world have been crossed, and Jamie would give anything to leave them this way. 

Fact is, she hasn’t liked the way anything feels the way she likes this. Hasn’t liked the presence of anyone in her world--her town, her pub, her home--like she likes Dani. 

Known her five minutes, the intelligent, ever-shrinking part of her brain protests, even as she lets Dani coax her head back on the arm of the couch, even as she lets Dani suck gently at the skin just below her ear. 

Kinda knew it after one, she thinks, hands flexing on the back of Dani’s sweater. 

This isn’t like before, she recognizes. Last time, there was a hunger in Dani bordering on feral, like she was running so hard from something Jamie didn’t even know existed that only Jamie’s body had stopped her running right off the edge. Tonight, Dani looks at her and Jamie is confident--confident in a way she’s never been with anyone in her life--Dani is actually seeing her. Actually choosing her. 

“You said,” she hears herself say, even as she’s gripping Dani’s waist. Dani has moved to straddle one thigh now, is rocking slowly back and forth, making soft whimpering noises into every kiss she leaves on Jamie’s skin. “You said there are people you meet...”

Dani groans, and Jamie pulls at her hips faster, harder, liking the way Dani is panting against her shoulder. “You feel you should have known all along,” she finishes, turning her head to kiss Jamie’s lips. “Yeah. Yeah.”

“Me too,” Jamie says, her own body straining to get closer. There are way too many clothes between them, she has decided, but it’s up to Dani to take them further. Up to Dani to decide what she’s okay with. After everything she just told Jamie downstairs, it’s the least Jamie can offer by way of comfort. 

When Dani pushes up enough to take Jamie with her, shoving the straps of her overalls down and dragging her t-shirt over her head, she figures she made the right call. 

“You too,” Dani says, looking at her--at her; Jamie feels quite certain this is what it feels like to jump and find yourself flying--as though she never again wants to look at anything else. Jamie nods, pressing their foreheads together, trying to catch her breath even as Dani is sliding curious hands down her chest. 

“Minute I met you. Minute I saw you. So, who’s crazy now?”

Dani laughs, and it’s the sweetest sound Jamie’s ever heard. This is different, she understands, so different from a quick fuck in a bathroom. This is going somewhere, even if neither of them have a map. 

She brings Dani to bed, wanting on some level deeper than decision to do this properly. It feels right, to guide Dani back onto clean sheets and cheap pillows, to help Dani out of her clothes in small, measured movements. It feels, she thinks with the clearest head in the world, like Dani was always supposed to be here. That no matter how the story unfolds, no matter how many roads it takes to get them here, this is the endpoint. Dani, gazing up at her, hair messy, smile angling against Jamie’s mouth. Dani, arching under her hand, saying her name in a sharp, heady way Jamie suddenly can’t do without. Dani, who says she’s crazy, who doesn’t say she’s haunted, clenching tight around Jamie like she was always supposed to be here. 

“Please,” Dani sighs, “Jamie.” And Jamie thinks, Whatever it is, yes. Whatever you need, yes. 

Five minutes, that nearly-banished whisper repeats. 

Knew after one, she thinks again, curling two fingers and watching Dani spiral. 

***

Jamie sleeps like she’s never been afraid of anything hiding in the dark. Lips parted, arms tossed without care, she sleeps more deeply than Dani would have guessed. Even when Dani rises, carefully removing the hand she had kept tucked around Jamie’s middle all night, Jamie barely stirs. 

I haven’t slept like that in years, Dani thinks with a rush of fondness. C’ept maybe last night. 

She wants to blame it on the sex, on Jamie working her over once, twice, three times before she’d even been able to reciprocate. Wants to say only good sex can knock a person out, banish nightmares that have been so present for so long, they’re really more like old friends. 

Wasn’t that, though, she thinks, pulling Jamie’s discarded t-shirt on and perching on Jamie’s side of the mattress. Was something else. 

There is a catharsis, maybe, in telling your story to someone who is really listening. A release not found anywhere else. She hadn’t meant to tell Jamie everything--had certainly not expected Jamie to, if not understand, accept it without a word of discouragement. If Dani had been listening to that story, with all its hidden bumps and screams, would she have been able to nod and kiss the storyteller without so much as a chuckle?

Maybe it depends on the storyteller. Or maybe it’s just Jamie. Jamie, who has seen her naked in two very different ways, and has yet to flinch from either. Jamie, who even now is sleepily rolling onto her back, groping along the pillow where Dani ought to be. 

“Dani?”

Her heart lurches, squeezes, the sound of her name as the first thing out of Jamie’s mouth bringing tears to her eyes.

“Here,” she croaks, and Jamie--eyes still shut against the burgeoning sunlight through thin curtains--stretches until her fingers find Dani’s wrist. Her face relaxes, her smile soft. 

“Thought I’d scared you off,” she says, a joke that isn’t a joke at all. Dani bends over her, kissing her cheek. She can still taste Jamie, can still feel the way Jamie gripped the sheets in both hands as she let Dani explore uncharted territory for what had felt like hours. 

“Not going anywhere,” she hears herself say, and though the terrible silence in her head seems to tighten, she feels as though it is true, somehow. For how long, she can’t say. But there is a confidence in the sentiment all the same, an assured little edge to it like a promise. 

“Good,” Jamie mumbles, curling toward her until her face presses against Dani’s hip. The kiss she leaves is clumsy, but Dani feels the heat of it go straight to her core all the same. 

How can I know I want that kiss every day for as long as I’m here? How can I possibly know that?

“You’re worrying,” Jamie says, nuzzling against her skin, eyes still shut. Dani smiles, sifts gentle fingers through tousled curls.

“How can you tell?”

“I am,” Jamie says in a voice like one tumbling back into sleep, “a genius.”

“You are,” Dani laughs, “still asleep.”

“Nope.” To prove her point, Jamie cracks open one eye. “See? Perfectly present, Poppins.”

Dani is, for the first time in a long time, perfectly present herself. It scares her a little--not as much as the beast scares her, not as much as the weight of exhaustion fitting itself around her shoulders and pressing down scares her, but all the same. This is fear, of a kind. And excitement, of another. 

And hope, maybe. Just a little scrap of it, lining the bottom. 

“I should go,” she says, and Jamie opens the other eye, groaning. 

“You should stay,” she suggests, sitting up and pressing close to punctuate the idea. As small as she is in sleep, she feels like she could take up the whole room, now. Dani licks her lips. 

“We open--”

“When I unlock that door,” Jamie finishes for her, something sly and delicious about the way she’s looking Dani over. “S’that my shirt?”

Dani shrugs, liking the way Jamie’s eyes make her feel like she needn’t have bothered with covering up at all. Jamie cups her cheek, kisses her with all the slow careful energy of a woman revving up for something glorious that might take all day. 

“You’re not...I mean...you remember what I said last night?” Dani doesn’t really want to be saying it, doesn’t really want to drag focus away from the way her entire body goes shock-bright when Jamie’s tongue slips into her mouth. Even as the words are coming out of her, her hands are sliding up Jamie’s body, familiarizing themselves once more with sleep-warm skin. 

“The part about feeling crazy?” Jamie breaks just enough to speak, still within kissing distance. Dani steels herself. 

“The part where I don’t understand what’s happening to me. But it is happening, Jamie. Whatever it is.”

Jamie, holding the back of her head, peers into her eyes. Dani holds her breath, waiting for the flinch, waiting for Jamie--no longer sex-addled--to find some sign of the beast behind her gaze. 

“I only see you,” Jamie says, as if reading her mind. She smiles, almost self-conscious. “I only see you, and I’d...like to keep seeing you. If you’ll stay.”

She should say no. Should say it’s unprofessional at best, utterly unwise on a deeper level at worst. Should say Jamie’s better off without her, everyone’s better off without her, who knows how much time she even has before the thing she’s carrying like a disease comes to call--Jamie, you can’t take this on. It isn’t fair. 

Don’t think fairness much comes into it, a voice very like Hannah’s echoes. She squeezes her eyes shut. 

“Hey.” Jamie isn’t trying to kiss her now, is holding one hand anchored to her ribs like she believes it’s the only thing keeping Dani from floating away. “Poppins. I’m not asking for your hand in marriage, all right? Just...I like you. Like you quite a lot, as it turns out. I’d like to see where...where this goes.”

She’s waiting, Dani realizes, for Dani to laugh at her. To say absolutely not. To say there is no chance in hell. How many women have said as much to Jamie before? How many women have shot her down for less?

I’d like to find out, she thinks with surprise. I’d like to find out everything about her. 

“I can’t make promises,” she says. “I don’t know how much--”

“But you have now,” Jamie says, somehow managing to interrupt without stealing the words from Dani’s mouth. “Yeah? You have right now. In this bed, with me. Wearing my shirt better than I ever have,” she adds, plucking at the hem until Dani can’t fight a smile. 

“Yeah, but--”

“So,” Jamie says, shifting gently until Dani is laying beside her, hip sinking into the mattress, eyes barely a breath from Jamie’s. “I promise today. Here. In this bed, with you...probably not wearing my shirt much longer, if I’m honest.”

Dani laughs. She’s moving toward Jamie without meaning to, their legs tangling. Jamie kisses her once, very softly.

“And I promise you this afternoon, if the morning goes all right. And this evening, if you aren’t screaming up the road by then. Tomorrow, we re-evaluate the whole thing. Decide how we feel then.”

Dani is nodding. Can’t seem to stop nodding.

“Each day,” Jamie says, punctuating every word with a long kiss Dani has no desire to see end, “on its own merit, Poppins. One at a time. If they stack up, they stack up.”

Dani, unable to resist, pulls her close. One at a time, she thinks. I can do that.

***

The young woman is tired. Exhausted, if she’s truly honest with herself. She feels as though there must be an endpoint to running, a marker down the road that says a person has gone as far as they are able. Rest now, she imagines that marker saying in a cheerily-bold script. Fall down now. Let go.

She isn’t there yet, she’s certain. As certain as she gets these days, anyway.  She doesn’t know how much a person can be expected to carry, or for how long, but at least there is Jamie. Jamie, who grins at her as they bustle around the pub like clockwork, who takes her to the stockroom under guise of replenishing the peanuts and has her muffling sighs against an open kiss, who looks at the calendar at month’s end and says, “Y’know, Poppins, boss man’ll be back next week. Thinking I could use a break from Bly. What d’you say?”

One day at a time, she thinks, but the idea of a road trip with Jamie is too much, too wonderful, to say no. It’s only an idea until it happens, she reminds herself. Only an idea until they’re in the car, Jamie’s hand covering hers, Jamie pressing down the gas pedal like the whole world is theirs to claim. 

She’s tired. Been tired a terribly long time, if she’s honest with herself. And maybe that’s just the way it goes, for anyone, even those too lucky for ghosts. Maybe the trick really is just finding someone to be tired around, someone who is willing to hold your hand, learn your secrets, kiss away your monsters. 

She might not be okay forever. Might not even be okay much longer. But Jamie’s making happy murmurs about Vermont and wanting to start a garden, and there’s a light in her eyes that makes Dani feel more alive than she has in months. 

A little longer, then. If the days stack up, so be it. It’s enough, just to try a little longer to find solid ground.

[bsaka7]

i would LOVE director's commentary on either the beginning or the end of sheets soaking wet!!! that fic changed my life and i love charles SO much

ah! thank you!! sorry it took me so long...classes start tomorrow 😭😭 ...anyhow "sheets soaking wet" was genuinely SO FUN to write. I really enjoy writing Charles...he's sexy he's dramatic he's lying to himself and everyone around him he's fast he's a little bit terrible...u know how it is. I'm going to do the opening of the fic for u (though it was a tough decision...) - under the cut :)

Charles insists that Daniel fuck him first. [This was like, the first thing I knew about this fic: Charles wants to be first. I think its a desire to be wanted and a desire to win.] He knows Daniel can hardly keep his eyes off Max. He knows that Max is desperate for it in some terrifying way he can’t articulate. Charles knows how Max feels, knows how the want inside of him seems to be never ending in its depth. [The Charles and Max parallels are so perfect they’re sometimes unintentional...but this one was meant to show that Charles isn’t nearly as oblivious and self-absorbed as one might think in a “inviting myself into a threesome with two people who are pining” situation.] Sometimes, he feels the same way. Charles also knows that he’s the one who invited himself to Daniel’s room and the one who made sure Max would be there. What can he say? Charles is a nice guy. He just wants his coworkers to have a nice time. [I thought this was funny lol also like that Charles sort of. knows they will get together and sees this as a sexy act of beneficence.] And he wants them to owe him for life, he wants Max to look at Charles and see him as a threat, in the world championship, on the racetrack, and in his love life. Charles always wants to be first. This isn’t any different. [Charles thinks you can win at sex! This guy is competitive!! And with Max in particular - I think its pretty clear throughout this that Max is who Charles is really concerned with and Daniel is like. bonus sexy guy for maximum emotional damage.]

Now that that’s sorted, Charles pulls off his shirt. [I had no clue how to get them into the sex scene so it’s just *handwave* Charles got em into a bedroom and he’s having his way.] He can feel Max watching him from where he’s perched on the bed. “You can touch,” he tells Daniel who is still standing beside him, and Daniel smiles and quirks an eyebrow, reaching out to run his fingers along Charles’ side. [Charles wants to make Max watch him with Daniel because he knows it will make him jealous and Charles like. Needs to be the center of attention.] Charles suppresses a shiver, and he can feel the huff of Daniel’s breath on his neck. No one needs to see his weaknesses. [Charles is like. I am in control here!!] Daniel’s hand is warm on his side as Charles pulls off his socks, and then his jeans and underwear in one go.

He turns to pull Daniel into a deep, filthy kiss, hand at the nape of Daniel’s neck. Daniel’s a good kisser, he thinks. Not as good as Charles but hardly anyone is as good as Charles. [Charles is just a a self-absorbed little bitch and I love him...yes he’s like. Daniel is not as good at kissing and sex as me...when he’s about to have sex with him...also you could throw this as well into a competitive thing with Max but I don’t think Charles really like. is in love with Max or anything this really is like. sex as about competition and also about Charles refusing to comprehend the fact that he is lonely] His mouth is warm. They’re the same height but Daniel feels taller, somehow. [Daniel has tall vibes idk man] Charles can feel the heat coming off him, even through Daniel’s clothes. He hears Max’s breathing quicken from across the room, the only other sounds in the room the wet noise of Charles and Daniel’s mouths. [Gotta get Max back in here!!! Charles is like. yes I AM attentive to my partners no matter my insane motives]

Charles steps back. He’s the only one naked but he still feels in control. [To an extent, he’s trying to convince himself here. Also, he’s a gorgeous man lol] Neither Daniel or Max can take their eyes off of him. That’s the way it should be. [Attention whore!!! Also he’s like. this is MY threesome after which you will owe me forever.] Max is sitting completely still, feet flat on the floor, his hands fisted in the duvet cover, his dick already straining in his pants. Charles runs his eyes over Max, filthy. He flicks his gaze back to Daniel. [Again, the attention thing. Charles wants to think Max’s reaction is all because of him. He also wants to insert himself into the situation as much as possible because like. They will owe him forever!!! And also I think remember him as he is in this moment.]

“I’m going to finger myself open,” Charles says, matter of fact but playing up his accent in the way that previous partners have told him is hot. “You two should get naked and watch me.” [Charles is playing the game and Max and Daniel are letting him. I think that they are paying rather less attention to him than he thinks...]

Charles moves to the bed, sits down next to Max where he’s still completely still. Charles moves in to kiss him and at first, he thinks Max isn’t going to respond, but then Max is kissing back, ferocious. His hands are still knotted in the covers of the bed. [Max is like. unwilling to ask for what he wants but very willing to engage in it. I don’t think Max is unaffected by Charles here but he definitely is like. a bit out of his depth and also would prefer that it was Daniel he was kissing]

Charles pulls back to whisper in Max’s ear, his lips just barely brushing the shell. Max’s eyes immediately shoot to Daniel, pulling off his shirt to reveal miles of tanned muscle, revealing the tattoos on his arms in their full glory. “I want you to make sure he’s hard for me, okay?” Charles says, and he can feel the way Max’s breath hitch. [Charles knows this too and this is him doing the like. Oh I’m doing you guys a favor I know what you want/need/etc better than you do aren’t I so smart/sexy. Also I’m obsessed with Daniel’s tattoos so.]

“I know what I’m doing,” Max shoots back, but it’s shaky, without the heat he probably wanted behind it. [Max does not know what he is doing.]

Charles lets out a breath of laughter into Max’s hair. “Sure,” he says, in a way he knows that will rile up Max. [I do not think Charles could resist getting a little bit of a jab in.] Charles looks back at Daniel who is struggling to pull off his final sock, somehow so comfortable and so goofy at the same time. [Comparisons!! Charles I think here is often measuring himself against others (better than Max, more important than Daniel) and in this case he is jealous. His image and reactions in this whole situation are controlled or maybe even a little faked or exaggerated in a way that Daniel does not need to do. He’s jealous that even here, both of them are so themselves, even if Charles thinks he looks down on some of those aspects, such as being naturally goofy or like. unsure. Charles would never let them see him like that]

Daniel looks back up at them, throwing the sock behind him. “What are you two looking at?” he says. Daniel has no shame. Charles doesn’t either, but Daniel, naked, seems honest, natural. Charles always feels like he’s playing at something, no matter where he is or what he’s doing. [Charles has no shame but of course he does!! He just has built this persona on top of it that he doesn’t really recognize. What is at the base of it all. He’s playing a role but he also wants something so much he can’t put in words (re: last scene as well...)]

“Nothing,” Max says, even as his eyes are clearly glued to the tattoos on Daniel’s thigh. [They’re hot!!!! What can I say!!!] Charles scoffs and follows his gaze, looks at the rose on the inside of Daniel’s knee. He wants to bite it, leave a mark in something that lasts. [I feel like I write this line in like, ever fic, but like, this is partially Charles like, a little bit petty about the whole. emotions thing and wanting attention and wanting to ruin Max and Daniel’s relationship from the start, ruin something that lasts, but also its just like. hot.]

“Look all you want, baby,” Daniel says, and it should sound stupid, but Max is clearly endeared. [I’m always trying to write better Daniel dialogue and this was something that I thought would be fun, light, and Charles would be like, if you call me baby, my response is completely catered to what I will get out of you.] Charles can’t complain too much either, not when Daniel looks like that. [Charles, despite his Max rivalry, thinks Daniel is hot. Duh!!!!]

[trialround]

[Here’s the beginning]

Philipp Aschenwald/Gregor Schlierenzauer

Zakopane 2020

Everything is fine.

Fine.

I hate that word.

We had the conversation two days ago when we arrived, and maybe it should have been awkward and weird, but it kind of felt like any other conversation we have.

“So.”

“So?”

“So we’re just not going to talk about the kissing?”

“That’s right.”

“Seriously?”

“Shut up.”

And that was it. Short and simple, with Gregor being snappy towards me like he usually is. Gregor went to take the shower after, and I stared at the door for five minutes before I stood up and left the room. I spent the evening with Daniel and Jan and it was fine.

Everything was fine. Yes, the kissing had been great the other week, and yes, maybe I had had dreams of us continuing the kissing in the future, but I knew those were only dreams and the reality was, it probably had been just a game for Gregor. It was fine. Maybe even good that it had turned out that way, because I knew myself, and I knew that kissing, however great, wouldn’t be enough for me. Still it had felt nice to have someone so close to you, if even for a little while. To share that moment of intimacy with someone else. With Gregor.

But I was fine with how things had turned out. Everything was fine.

Everything is fine.

Fine.

I hate that word.

Everything is not fine. Everything is fine with Gregor ignoring me. I was expecting that. I wished it wouldn’t go that way, but it was Gregor and I expected nothing from the older man.

But this. This was not fine. I was innocent. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I had passed by the stupid can on the counter. I had maybe brushed it, the tiniest bit, and of course the can had taken the opportunity and jumped to the floor.

I almost had a heart attack for those two seconds when I watched the can fall, because it would’ve been just my luck to see the can of energy drink explode over all of Gregor’s clothes. But it hadn’t. It had stayed intact, and I did a little victory dance before picking the can up.

That’s when everything went to hell.

The fucking can of Red Bull exploded in my hand, soaked my t-shirt and the floor.

I panic.

Then stop panicking. Because it’s fine. Fine, like everything else in my life.

I curse out loud, take my soggy t-shirt off and use it to wipe the floor. The floor is sticky and it smells – I smell – but otherwise I am able to clean of the mess. I’m still crawling on the floor, making sure I have cleaned off every drop, and that is of course when Gregor walks in.

It’s fine.

Just a man of my dreams staring at me while I crawl shirtless on the floor looking like a mess. Do I always have to be crawling in his presence? Can’t I act like a normal person for once?

Fine.

I probably shouldn’t open my mouth. Opening my mouth usually makes everything worse. But I need to defende myself. So –

“It wasn’t me! I didn’t do anything! It just exploded.”

Gregor looks at me up and down, and I know he doesn’t believe me. I get up from the floor, remind myself of all the dignity I have, and meet Gregor’s eyes. Gregor cocks his head to the side.

“Right.”

“I cleaned it up already. Nothing got near your stuff, don’t worry.”

Gregor sniffs the air. The room reeks of energy drink. Or maybe it’s mostly me. Gregor grimaces, while I try to sneak a peek around the room to make sure Gregor’s camera is far away from the war zone. He’d never speak with me again if I ruined his precious Leica. Thankfully, it lies on his side of the bed, safe from any potential splashes of energy drink.

“Take a shower. You stink.”

“Right. Yes. I’m on it.” I escape to the bathroom with my ruined t-shirt.

Gregor is sitting on the bed, when I come back from the shower with a towel around my waist. He is fiddling with his phone and doesn’t look at me when I dig clean boxers out of my suitcase. That means he’s not mad. Which is great.

Although maybe it would be better if he was mad, because at least then he would look at me, and I’d know for sure that I exist in his world.

Gosh, I’m pathetic.

I crawl to my side of the bed, careful not to cross the line between our sides. I take my own phone and start to scroll the Instagram feed, hoping that the pretty pictures would be enough to get my mind off of everything that happened.

The silence around us is nothing new. We usually go the whole evening without saying anything to each other. That’s how Gregor likes it. This time though, this time the silence lasts only a couple of minutes.

Gregor sniffs twice, turns to me and sniffs again.

“You still stink.”

“I just took a shower,” I huff.

“Did you wash your hair?”

“It got to my hair?” I turn to him, and try to lift my hand to feel if my hair is sticky from the energy drink, but he beats me to it. He lifts his hand, fingers brushing my hair as he leans closer. He’s looking at me, maybe searching my face for something, some sign that his touch wouldn’t be welcome. He finds no such sign.

I blink as he leans over the invisible line between our sides of the bed. I blink as his hand drops from my hair to my neck. I blink as he pulls me closer.

And then we are kissing and I don’t blink anymore, because I have closed my eyes and I’m breathing him in as he is kissing my bottom lip, then licking his way into my mouth, and yes, he was right.

I do still stink. I can smell a faint whiff of Red Bull in the air, and the smell keeps me from forgetting the world around us, and I pull back, and Gregor makes a noise, which almost sounds like a whine.

“We are kissing.” Well, good job, genius. Very attentive.

“We are”, he smiles at me, and I’m blinking again. “You have a problem with that?”

“No.” No, not when he looks at me like that, with that soft smile on his face, the smile I’ve seen only once before, the last time we kissed a week ago.

“Good,” he smiles as he leans closer, and for another moment I’m lost on his lips. It’s definitely not a game for him this time, I think randomly, as he smiles against my lips.

Except.

Except maybe it is. Maybe he’s bored and figured kissing me would be a great way to spend an evening. Which it is, but I don’t want to be just a pastime for him – not for anyone.

“Yes,” I breathe against his lips, and for a second he thinks I’m encouraging him on, because he moves closer, pushes me against my pillow as he pulls our bodies flush together, and it’s like a dream come true, except it isn’t, because I dream of so much more than just a meaningless kiss. It would be so easy to let go and just go with him wherever he wants to take me, but – “Yes, I have a problem with that.”

The effect of my words is instant. He pulls back, back to his side of the bed, the smile fading from his face, and I realize the difference my words made. It’s a mask he keeps on his face, a mask he only ever drops when we are kissing: the mask of indifference.

“Okay.” It’s the only thing he says, grabbing his phone and starting to scroll again. It’s like the past two minutes never happened.

“It’s just that,” I feel like I need to explain myself although I’m not sure if he wants to hear my words. “It’s just that last time you didn’t want to talk about it.”

“That’s right. Still don’t.”

“Right, yes. And see, I kind of do want to talk about it,” I continue.

“Clearly,” Gregor says, and although his voice is neutral, there’s a tiny smile tugging on the corner of his lip, a crack in his mask.

“I mean, just kissing is great, but I’m kind of past the stage where I just want to kiss guys without it meaning anything. Like, don’t get me wrong, you’re a great kisser. Which obviously you know that.” I’m rambling. Someone shut me up before I have time to embarrass myself any further. Of course no one does stop me, because Gregor is the only other person in the room with me and my rambling seems to amuse him. So I continue. “But it just bothers me to kiss you and then not talk about it for a week and I think it’s fair for both of us to be on the same page with that. I don’t know how you have done things in the past. Not that I’m implying that you’ve been sleeping around. Which. I doesn’t matter if you have. Or haven’t. Really, it’s none of my business what you’ve been doing in the past. But it is my business what you do with me. And. Yeah. The kissing and not talking after. That doesn’t work for me.” I stop to take a breath, and I’m fully prepared to babble even more, because that’s what I’m good at, but apparently Gregor takes pity on me, because he interrupts before I can continue.

“So you want me to take you out on a date or what?”

“No,” I laugh. He looks at me, lifting his brow. It’s infuriating. “Yes?”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” I repeat. He turns back to his phone. “Wait? Okay as in okay you’ll take me out or okay this conversation is over?”

“Okay,” he says again and refuses to look at me. I blink at him, trying to understand. There’s a smile on his lips, one he’s definitely trying to hide, but he’s not as successful as he probably likes to think he is. Maybe it is still a game for him. Maybe everything is. Who knows.

“You are the most annoying person ever, did you know that?”

“I know.”

[vincess-princess]

just another night

some people are interested, so here it is! i kinda experimented with sound and flow and am a little bit nervous how it turned out. also, do you think i should post it to rockfic too? also it’s kinda long so im putting it under the cut. as always, giant thank you to my lovely beta @polska-tankietka , without you this would be so much more trashy

Fandom: Motley Crue Pairing: Nikki Sixx/Vince Neil Word count: 1547

The bar is stuffy and smelly. Music roars in Nikki’s ears, light flounces before his eyes; red-yellow-white, red-yellow-white. Nikki can’t make out the hair colour of the boy who’s been looking at him for the last twenty minutes. Nikki looks back and taps on the counter. Bartender serves both of them Jack Daniels, and he senses an understanding soul.

The boy has a girlfriend, and at first Nikki wants to throw them the fuck out. After observing them a little, he changes his mind. The boy doesn’t even look at her; she sulks, drinks shot after shot, leans on the counter, finally gets up and totters towards the toilet.

The boy watches her until she closes the door. Then he looks at Nikki. And smiles.

Nikki smiles back.

The boy nods, shows him three fingers, empties his glass and disappears in the crowd. The music is so loud the air seems to be vibrating, Nikki will soon be able to see sounds.

Nikki starts counting seconds. The whiskey messes up his count, and he has to start again. He gets angry, starts straight from fifty.

One hundred seventy eight. One hundred seventy nine. One hundred eighty.

Nikki gets up, throws his jacket on the stool and heads to the men’s toilet.

Here, he can’t see well either, but he makes out that the boy has blonde hair. There’s barely enough room for two, Nikki almost knocks his head on the lamp. He still has to lean forward, the boy pulls him closer, his fingers gripping Nikki’s hair, his breath smelling of whiskey. Nikki closes his eyes and opens his mouth, his world is bitter and wet, tasting like cigarettes and smelling like cheap perfume, and the fingers in his hair are pulling demandingly, almost painfully, almost. Nikki’s tired of bending over, he grabs the boy under his thighs and lifts him up, his back against the wall, he laughs without sound, “what a strong boy”, and Nikki thanks someone silently for bad lighting in the room.

The boy accidentally bites Nikki’s lip and quickly apologizes, Nikki wants to tell him that it doesn’t matter, even the taste of blood won’t dilute the bitterness in their mouths, but he doesn’t want to stop the kiss, not now, please. The boy is a very skilled kisser, but it’s not a contest for Nikki: his hand feels the hotness of the boy’s skin, the part of his back right above the belt of his jeans, and he slides his whole palm under his tee, and he just can’t get enough of him.

“We don’t have much time,” the boy whispers in his ear, and Nikki’s mouth feels so cold and empty without the blonde’s tongue in it. The boy’s hands are cold too, and Nikki shivers a little when these fingers brush his skin right above his jeans. Nikki tries not to look, this is not his first time but he still blushes like a schoolgirl. Instead, he looks at the boy’s hair that is darkened at the roots, tangles his fingers in it and pulls him closer. The boy doesn’t resist - he doesn’t need to see what’s down there to handle it, his breath is hot on Nikki’s neck, his hair tickles his cheek. Only now Nikki notices he’s a head shorter than him.

“Are you even eighteen?” he whispers hoarsely.

“Twenty already,” the boy looks Nikki straight in the eyes, resentfully, almost defiantly. His eyes are dark, brown, maybe. “Do you really care?”

“Don’t wanna go to jail because of such trifle.” Nikki smiles insincerely while everything inside of him screams, stop it, he will leave, he will leave you alone here, do you want it?

“I wouldn’t tell anyone anyway,” the boy says indignantly, and for a second Nikki fears he’s too angry to go on. But they’ve already got so far, and the boy, too, feels this growing tension in his crotch, and he doesn’t want to stop.

Nikki can’t help moaning when the boy’s hand slips under his belt. Nikki strokes his head, he would never think such a non-sexual gesture would work, and the bleached hair under his fingers is stiff, a little bit damaged already, but not in vain, definitely not. The neck under the hair is sun-burnt to dark-red, and Nikki can’t understand whether pain or pleasure is behind the boy’s moans, but he doesn’t try to stop him, so Nikki hopes it’s alright. And those strong fingers down there move faster and faster, and Nikki accidentally bites his partner’s shoulder, but the boy doesn’t listen to his apologies, “let’s talk later, after we’re over”. Nikki puts his hand over his mouth to muffle his screams, there’s another toilet just behind the wall, what if someone will hear him? Yes, a silly concern, the music is too loud, but Nikki doesn’t want to give them out, they really don’t need to be interrupted right now.

And then the world explodes in front of his eyes, and everything goes black and white, and for a few seconds Nikki can’t breathe and only presses his face into the tanned shoulder with a white trace of a strap.

They should have probably brought tissues with them.

The boy smiles, teeth shine like pearls in a brown face. “Was it good?”

“…oh fuck yes.”

Nikki buttons back his jeans. “My turn.”

The boy’s jeans are easy to take off, very useful in a club. “Did you forget underwear on purpose?” They don’t talk – they whisper, soundlessly, the music doesn’t let them hear each other, but it’s ok, Nikki understands almost every word, as though he finally learned to read lips.

“Sure,” the boy blinks in surprise, “why would you need it here?” and Nikki almost laughs, almost, because he’s kind of right.

Nikki got told a lot in the past that he has calloused fingers. He usually shrugged it off - it’s the cost of playing the bass, - but now he’s worried the boy won’t like it. He is wrong. The boy tilts his head back and moans loudly, openly, shamelessly, as though there are no people behind this thin door, but Nikki doesn’t care, not anymore. Let them hear. Let them envy. Something cracks behind the boy’s back, and they clumsily move around to avoid knocking down the fragile sink, and Nikki is not afraid anymore to cling to him, because it’s much harder to knock down the wall, although they probably could do it if they had enough time. Now they have too little of it, but Nikki doesn’t care, he lives in the moment, in their broken breath and desperate moans, in the drops of sweat on a tanned forehead. He holds the boy with one arm while he scratches his shoulders and smears his lipstick on Nikki’s shirt, so submissive, so fragile, and Nikki loves it, and he knows it’s not true, he knows he’s wrong, but one can always dream. They won’t meet again anyway, will they?

The boy whimpers quietly, and Nikki’s palm fills with warm and wet. Nikki holds him so tight it’s almost painful, because if he lets him go, they will both collapse. They stand there panting and don’t look in the other’s eyes and don’t understand why it’s so hard to just release their grips, to just say goodbye. They don’t owe each other anything, right? Seconds are hours, hours are seconds, and time stretches like rubber and sprints like a leopard, and doesn’t obey any known laws. How long it’s been, a minute, an hour, a day?

“It was so cool,” the boy’s whisper breaks the fragile silence. “Are you a guitarist?”

“Bassist.” Shit, so he didn’t like it?

“Even better,” he looks Nikki straight in the eyes and a smile hides in the corners of his mouth. “I love musicians.”

Nikki pulls him into a kiss to not let him notice his blush. They kiss, and Nikki can’t stop thinking that it’s their last one.

“Alright,” the boy breaks the kiss a couple of minutes later. “I gotta go. You have magnificent fingers,” and he slips out of Nikki’s arms and almost turns the doorknob.

”Wait, tell me at least your name.” The last thing to ask in a gay club, but Nikki needs to hold on to something.

“Wharton.” The boy smiles, slyness in his eyes. Definitely lied. “Yours?”

“Frank.” Who could think he would use it again. “It was nice to, uh, meet you.”

“Same. Three minutes, as before?”

Nikki nods, and Wharton leaves. A few seconds that Nikki lingers for, his head still in a haze of his recent orgasm, are enough for Wharton to blend in with the crowd. Nikki looks for him until he’s dizzy from all the music and the lights but it’s all in vain.

He leaves the toilet and plods back to the bar. He wants to get drunk enough to pass out but so much alcohol is beyond his means. He grabs his jacket, and – a piece of paper flies out right under the counter.

It takes him ten minutes, two broken nails and scratched fingers to fish it from under the counter. There are some numbers on it. And a “Call me. W”

Nikki is on his knees, smiling like an idiot.

[shadowsof-thenight]

Had a voice: chapter sixteen

Story summary: For two years you had let him dictate your every move. Dictate your time, your friends, your work. Everything, literally. And for the life of you, you could not understand why you'd done so.

Now, here you were. In a beautiful but still strange city that had never become your own. And you were all alone. It was time to take back your life.

Ship: BuckyXreader

Words: 1489

Warnings: little fluff and angst

A/N: This chapter is bit shorter than usual, but I am hoping to finish the next one in a few days.

“So...” you stood awkwardly in the room, facing Bucky. He still sported a small smile on his face, while you just kept wringing your hands. All courage had left the room, no the building, by now and you had no idea where to begin.

“Yeah” he sighed, the air thick with tension. Bucky seemed to be in no better state, you realised.

You could not help but chuckle and Bucky quickly joined in. This was possibly the most awkward moment since meeting each other. It really wasn't going how you had hoped it would. Then again, you had imagined to have been much braver. And in your imagination Bucky always knew what to say. Apparently, real life had different plans. You realised quickly that you really needed to take Bucky from the pedestal you had placed him on. He was only human after all. A super soldier, sure, but one with all the human emotions and feelings. He could be at a loss for words just as easily, obviously. Glancing up at his face, you met those blue orbs as they stared back at you.

“We're good at this, aren't we” Bucky chuckled once more and you shook your head with a smile.

“That we surely are.” you agreed before sighing deeply and sitting down on the chair near his desk. The chair was hard and the seat therefore not very comfortable. You were struck by the Spartan furniture. There were no personal touches, not lounge chairs or anything for relaxation. Everything in the room was functional. And it was nearly empty.

There was only one picture frame in the room and it stood in a corner, nearly hidden from sight. In it sat a picture of Bucky and Steve. You guessed it was from the forties, since the man standing next to Captain America looked nothing like the man before you. The energy he oozed was entirely different.

Picking it up, you stared at the young face of Bucky. He seemed happy, carefree. Unburdened by life. Such a difference from today. While he seemed happy, he was certainly not carefree or unburdened. The Bucky you knew felt guilt. He had the weight of the world on his shoulders and he carried that weight alone most of the time. Silently Bucky watched as your fingers grazed his face in the picture.

“I wish he could have met you” Bucky said softly. His face wore a pained expression as he said those words and you wanted to wrap your arms around him, kiss it better. The past hurt him much more than he usually let on and you wished you could change that.

“So he could marvel at how screwed up I am?” you snorted and he laughed with you. “You're not screwed up” he softly whispered after the laughing had died, looking at you intensely.

“Maybe. I'm glad to know you though, this version of you.” you said, looking up at him again after placing the picture back on the small cabinet next to the desk, staring at it a moment longer, before turning back to Bucky.

“Yeah?” he wondered and you were surprised by the tone in his voice. All this time Bucky had been taking care of you. Exuding confidence in every step. But that confidence seemed far away now as he uttered that word. How was it possible for one man to seem so confident when in reality he truly wasn't? Turning you body, so you were fully facing him again, you stepped closer. Placing one hand on his chest and the other on his cheek, stepping even closer. Leaning forward on your tiptoes, you kissed his lips softly. Just a peck. Before giving him a convincing yes, I do. There was no lie in those words. The old Bucky would have probably been great too. But could he have eased your fears? Could he have held you close, while panic ran through you? Could he have captured your heart so effortlessly? And perhaps, he could. But would he have? Was he as compassionate as this version of Bucky was? As in tune with his emotions?

Moving back to stand on the soles of your feet, you maintained eye contact as you smiled. He returned the smile and leaned down, his kiss a little less gentle and more demanding. His flesh hand wrapped itself in your hair while the metal hand pulled you into him by the waist.

Pulling back on for a second, his lips ghosting yours, he muttered that he really liked you too. Then he quickly placed his kips firmly on your once more.  You returned the kiss eagerly. One hand moving to his shoulder, as the other remained on his cheek. He really was a good kisser. You could easily forget everything. Be aware of just him, and the way his lips tasted. He was intoxicating, in the best way possible. And as his hands began to roam your body, you could feel your skin tingling everywhere. You felt warm all over and excited. Your senses were on fire as the two of you kept kissing. Standing in the middle of the room, neither one of you wanting moving from this spot, or this moment. His tongue touched your lips and you quickly opened your mouth for him, exploring his mouth as he did yours. The hand you had held on his cheek, now tangled into his hair, as you both tried to get even closer to the other. The kiss was passionate, though never rushed. There was no pressure to move forward, this was good. This was great. And right where you wanted to be.

By the time you both came up for air, it felt like time had stood still, as you looked into his eyes with a smile on your face, perhaps this had gone far better than anything you could have imagined.

He smiled back at you, the glow in his eyes warm as the blue seemed ignited. His hand caressed your cheek as he still held you close to him.

This time you closed the distance between you again. Lips crashing against his, wrapping your arms around his neck. His hands moved to cup your butt and he pulled you up. You wrapped your legs around his waist and tried to get as close to him as you could. Bucky moved towards the bed and sat down, you in his lap. Straddling him, you continued to kiss him, heat spreading through your body as he returned it with just as much want. His hands went to roam your body once more, his metal hand finding the hem of your shirt and he began to pull it up. The cold of the metal made you shiver slightly and he stopped.

His lips stopped moving and he pulled back. The magic seemed lost and you opened your eyes to look at him, wondering what had happened.

Looking down at you, he seemed to have much to say, but his mouth remained closed. Though he looked happy, he seemed to struggle. There was a storm of emotions clear in his eyes and you wondered just what was on his mind.

You really didn't want to end what had been happening, but you knew you should. You had initially come here to talk, and perhaps that was what really needed to be done. The kissing was nice, more than nice. And you really wanted to pick that up again later. But perhaps first, you needed to discuss what you wanted from the other. What you needed this to be, or not to be.

“What are you thinking?” you asked him softly as you looked up quizzically. Hopefully he would tell you, open up to you. Natasha had already told you that he usually played it close to the vest. He didn't let many people in. However, up until now he had let you in and you hoped he would keep doing so.

“Just” he trailed off, looking around the room as his hands dropped from your body and back to his sides. He sighed and you climbed of his lap, sitting next to him on the bed.

“Is this really what you want. What you need?” he asked and looked at his hands. “What do you mean?” this confused you, you thought you'd been pretty obvious. “How long has it been since Daniel?” he asked and you could feel the pang shoot through your heart. It had been a while since Daniel even crossed your mind. However, it had really not been that long since you had ended it. Only a few months, since you packed your bags. And after such a long time together, Bucky was right to question it. He had a right to know, you knew this.

You just didn't really know the answer.

Tags: @slender–spirit @gracelynn318

[potatowithimagination]

Those Red Lips

Summary: Sebastian has weakness for your red lipstick

Warnings: Implied smut

Pairing: Sebastian Stan x Reader

Word Count: 1,5k

A/N: English is not my first language, so I’m really sorry if there’s any grammatical errors. Feedback is always appreciated :)

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

You and Sebastian have been dating for three months now, but both of you agreed to keep your relationship private. Not many of your friends knew about this, only the closest ones. Even some of them, like Chace, knew about your relationship by accident, when he came to Sebastian’s apartment without notice, while you were there, wearing Seb’s comfy shirt.

The perks of keeping your relationship private? You couldn't hang out in public a lot. Like today, for example, Seb would be out with his friends, probably drink a shot or two of tequila, and you couldn’t be there.

‘You sure you don’t want to join us, Y/N?’ Chace, who happened to sit down comfortably in your and Seb’s couch asked, even though he knew what the answer would be.

‘Nah, you guys have fun! I have rehearsal tonight, anyway. Just don’t get him too drunk.’ You said jokingly, leaned your body to your boyfriend’s arm while he caressed your hair. Seb just threw his head back and laughed at your words. Your job as a vocalist in a band required you to do rehearsal and practice from time to time, especially if you were about to go on tour.

When it was the time for you to go to the rehearsal, you got up from the couch, with Seb followed you from behind and walked you to the door. ‘Good luck, Babe. You’re gonna rock this tour, I know it.’ He said while gave you his best smile. Gosh, you felt like you’d melt right here right now. He hugged you tightly and grabbed your chin to kiss your lips softly.

‘Thanks, Babe. Have fun tonight, okay? I’ll grab dinner with my bandmates after we done practice, so you can eat all those boxes of pizza.’ You grinned and captured his lips with yours one more time before walked out of the door.

The rehearsal went well and super fun tonight. You’ve done sorting the song list you would play and set the schedule for the next tour that will happen in a month. You and your bandmates eat some dinner, then decided that the night’s still young, so you went to a bar to hang out. Your friends from other band who happened to be in town for their tour would join and meet you there.

You entered the bar and ordered your drink, about to took it to a booth when you saw a group of people in the table to your right. And there he was. Sebastian and his friends, sat gracefully, while sharing stories and jokes that made them laughed hard. You had no idea if he was about to go to this bar, otherwise you would’ve suggested another place, for the sake of his privacy. Chace saw you first, and nudged his elbow to Sebastian’s side, nodded his head to your direction. Seb’s eyes went wide as he saw you. You waved to him and smiled hesitantly.

His other friends noticed and asked him loudly, ‘Who’s that, Seb?’ followed with ‘She’s cute. Why don’t you introduce her to us.’ Cute, huh? All your life you’ve been called that a lot, probably because of your tiny figure. Sometimes you wanted to be called ‘hot’ instead of ‘cute’, and you knew exactly how to do it.

You decided that it would be fun to tease him a little, so you walked to Seb’s table and his eyes screamed in panic. You hugged him and Chace lightly, and shook the other’s hands. ‘Uh..this is Y/N, guys, she’s uh..a good friend of mine.’ Seb said. You raised your eyebrows when you heard the word friend.

‘Riiiight, I’m his friend.’ You said with a smirk. You weren’t angry, not at all, because you understood what it costs if they knew that you were more than that. But your mood to tease him increased a little. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, my friends are waiting for me in the next table.’

But instead of sitting in your booth, you just put your drink down on the table and went to the ladies room instead. You pulled out your weapon. The one you knew so well could make Sebastian weak, and made you look hot instead of cute. Your deep red lipstick. You put it on and looked at your reflection in the mirror, then stepped out of door with a new confidence.

When you reached your booth, you saw that your other friends have arrived. You gave them a hug and they followed the gesture, added kisses to your cheeks. You glared at Seb’s direction and notice that his eyes went wide once again, but this time filled with lust. At that moment you knew you’ve won. Now Sebastian’s eyes would have a hard time leaving your face, and he hated it. No, not really. He loved it, actually.

You laughed at your friend’s joke and sipped your drink when you felt your phone buzzed. You checked it out and saw a text from the one and only Sebastian Stan. You smirked even before you opened it, knowing that your plan went well.

You really know how to tease me, aren’t you, Doll? It said.

Do you have fun tonight? You replayed, ignored his question completely and put down your phone. You looked at him and notice that he already stared at you intensely while sipping his drink. God, he’s so sexy when he did that.

‘So, Y/N, are you still single now?’ one of your friends asked, forced you to take off your eyes from your boyfriend and looked at them instead.

‘No…not really.’ You answer, sipped you drink again nervously.

‘Wait, you’re back with Daniel?’ he asked with a worry expression in his face. Daniel is your latest ex. He cheated on you with his co-worker and you took it hard. Everybody in your friend cycle knew this fact.

‘Hell no! he’s an asshole, why would I get back with him?’ you answered immediately.

‘Who is it then, Little Vampire?’ You cringed at the nickname they gave you when actually you kinda like it. You just acted like you didn’t. They started using that nickname a long time ago, guess why? Because of your love for red lipstick. They said it looked like you just drank someone’s blood, but you just didn’t care.

‘It won’t be a secret if I tell you, right?’ you answered and winked.

Your friends continued to roast your love live and you just laughed it off. Stole a look at your boyfriend’s direction again, you saw that he looked at you with more intense eyes, if that’s even possible. Apparently he heard your friend’s question and it made him jealous. And both of you knew jealousy and lust was not a good mix. Or was it? It could be, right?

Sebastian’s mind was no longer with his friends. Ask him about the conversation that was going on in his table and he wouldn’t know a damn thing. He thought about one thing and one thing only. You. He typed something in his phone furiously, and then you felt your phone buzzed once again.

Bathroom. Now!

This time it’s your eyes that went wide. When you looked up at him, he’s already got up, walked down the aisle that leads to the bathroom area. You excused yourself after a minute and followed him. You smiled to yourself knowing that this was actually better then what went through your mind when you put on that red lipstick.

When you entered the bathroom, somebody grabbed your waist and pushed your body against the wall. Your body relaxed knowing that it was your boyfriend. He kissed you passionately, one hand stayed on your waist, and the other locked the door. You’re lucky that the bar was not that crowded, so the bathroom was empty.

Sebastian was a good kisser. Hell, he’s a GREAT kisser. You felt so drunk and it had nothing to do with the alcohol you drank earlier. You felt like you could do this all night. You knew you need to do this all night. His hands were still on your waists at first, but then they were everywhere. You pulled his hair and heard his moan. That sound made you wonder how he’s never been crowned as the sexiest man alive.

Sebastian pulled his lips off of yours, and you whimpered by his action. Pouting, you looked at him with confusion. Your expression made him smirk, and said, ‘It’s not fun to be teased, right, Doll?’

He got his hands off your body and you almost screamed in frustration. You decided to take an action, about to grab his body, but he was faster. He took your hand in his and leaned down, whispered to your ear, ‘Put on your red lipstick! I want to hear you scream out my name with those sexy lips.’ Oh if that didn’t turn you on even more. 

You looked at the mirror and realized that your lipstick was already faded a little bit because of the drink you took. ‘So it really is your thing, huh? Red lips?’ you asked with a smirk, looking at him through the mirror.

‘Ssshh, just put it on and save your breath, Darling. You know you’ll need it in a minute.’ He leaned down, grabbed the stool besides both of your sides and caged your body with his.

So you did. You put it on and Seb kissed your neck during the process, made it hard for you to concentrate. His hands found your waists once again.

And let’s say, after you’ve done wearing your lipstick, your friends finally knew who you were dating now. Because, besides the name you screamed a moment before, the red stains on Sebastian’s lips and neck after you left the bathroom said it all.

[wannabeone-blog]

Kissing Wanna One

@woojiniee *nudge nudge* winkeu winkeu ( jihoon’s is like unfairly long but like he’s my bias so oh well. i literally had to take breaks writing this and i had to cut myself off while writing 2Parks bc they were getting too long )

Yoon Jisung

his kisses are always soft and slow

loves to shower your face with kisses

likes to keep his hands on your waist so he can pull you closer

doesn't use his tongue very often

loves lazy kisses

like when you're having a lazy afternoon and just cuddling in bed he loves to just plant one on you

because he thinks you're just so pretty in your natural beauty

will neVER kiss you when the boys are around

the babies walked in on you once and it took two hours to get him to leave the room you were in

overall

he's really loving

Ha Sungwoon

have you seen this boy's lips

slow and passionate

loves to kiss you

likes to place his hands on your arms so he can trace little shapes on them

whines whenever you have to pull away

so he'll occupy himself with your jaw or neck

loves when you mess with his hair

he'll literally melt into your touch

and then complains later because he lost control

pecks are a rare thing

he likes to take his time

and loVES to take the lead

it boosts his confidence to see you so needy and helpless bc of something he does

Hwang Minhyun

his kisses are really loving

he always smiles before he kisses you

lowkey loves when you sit on his lap and tug on his hair

but is too embarrassed to say it so when it does happen he'll probably let out slight groans to let you know he enjoys it

if you kiss him in front of the boys

he's probably just going to start laughing awkwardly

likes to have his hands placed on your waist

compliments you shyly in between kisses

loves kissing when you're cuddling or when you're just laying on top of him

loves having you close to him

literally weak if your lips trail down his neck or to his collarbone

overall likes letting you take the lead

Ong Seongwoo

sometimes his kisses are playful or teasing

like he'll kiss along your jaw and on the corners of your mouth and then he'll just get up and leave with a smirk on his face

real arrogant that makes you just want to smack him

"what do you want? i'm confused, come on use your words y/n," he'll tease

other times he can't control himself

really likes having you pinned against the wall

or having you beneath him

he likes having full control so he can mess with you

but will eventually give in and give you what you want

his kisses are real passionate he loves to take his time

runs his free hand up and down your side causing you shiver

and you know that boosts his ego

loves if you tug at his hair or lean into him

Kim Jaehwan

doesn't kiss you a lot tbh

he'll give you little pecks on your face or everyone in a while he'll kiss your hand but other than his lips don't touch you much

he doesn't seem like the type who needs to be kissing you all the time to express his love to you

but if you initiate a kiss he'll follow through

his kisses are soft and sweet but are typically short

he loves to cuddle with you and leave kisses on your temple and cheeks

Kang Daniel

he giggles a lot when he kisses you

like if he pecks your lips he giggles almost immediately after

you'll probably have to initiate it the first time you make out

you lean in to kiss him and move your lips a little and his arm immediately finds a spot around your waist, pulling you closer to him, if not on him

loves if you drag your nails on his skin a little

his voice will "unintentionally" deepen whenever you break for air

compliments you a lot

he's a fan of longer kisses but enjoys leaving little kisses all over your face

Park Jihoon

(this is gonna be hella long this is my bOY right here)

sometimes he likes sweet and soft kisses

and other times he's more passionate a bit aggressive

and you get to experience both frequently

the first time you kissed, you initiated it

when you leaned in jihoon's hand found its way to your back, pulling you close enough to him that your legs were wrapped around his torso before finding it's way under your shirt to draw shapes on your back

while his other hand was running through your hair, occasionally stopping to pull you closer

his lips moved in sync with yours

the tastes of your lip balms mixing was overwhelming

as the kiss dragged on, jihoon's kisses started to get a little more aggressive

he pushed you down onto your bed

he started to bite at your lips and at your skin

after a while the kisses would start to become softer again and he would pull away to lay next you

his face was flushed when he saw what he had done to your lips

you never know what to expect when you kiss him

he's always really blushy when you both pull away bc he's overwhelmed by the feeling of your lips on his and he'll never fully adjust tbh

Park Woojin

this poor boy is too shy to initiate any kisses with you

even though he really wants to

and you both know it

his eyes are on your lips more than they are your eyes tbh

when you kiss him for the first time he's so shy he doesn't know what to do and when he pulls away he covers his face mumbling sorry

"it's okay, let's practice," you say pushing him down slightly

his eyes widened

you lean over him connecting your lips again, giving him the chance to do what he wants

his hand finds a place on the small of your back bringing you as close to him as he could

once he figured out what he was doing he took the opportunity to push you down to the other side of the couch, him above you know

his kisses are urgent bc of lost time

he loves nipping at your lips

when you do pull away both of you are so embarrassed you literally just stare at the ground

he asks for kisses a lot now tho

Bae Jinyoung

his kisses are real sweet n shy

the cutest honestly

bites his lips before he kisses you

sometimes will grab the back of your neck if he wants to kiss you longer but typically likes to hold your hand when you kiss

when he pulls away he likes to look into your eyes for a second before leaning into your neck and giggling

you kissed him once in front of the members and he got so shy but everyone thought it was the cutest thing

will do the cliche hair tucked behind the ear thing

likes to peck your cheeks

and your hand

Lee Daehwi

leaves pecks everywhere

showers your face with kisses when you're cuddling

likes to kiss your neck bc he knows you're ticklish and loves hearing you giggle

but it takes a lot of courage for him to kiss you

you were hanging out one day, when you realized how daehwi was looking at you, he was chewing on his bottom lip while his eyes kept drifting to your lips

you leaned in and connected your lips and daehwi visibly shivered bc you were a better kisser than he thought you'd be

gets super embarrassed when you pull away and covers his face

he'd probably scream the first time

which causes the members to come in and make sure you're okay

sometimes you kiss him in front of his members just to see him get embarrassed

he visibly shudders anytime you get that look in your eye, but assures you that he loves kissing you and that he's just overwhelmed

Lai Guanlin

he's really nervous about kissing you but tries to hide it

and actually does really well

you kissed him first

pecking his lips and telling him he was cute

but he grabbed the back of your neck and kept you there a little longer

he's a little slow on what affect he has on you

so when you pull away and your face a really red he literally has no idea what he did

tends to cup your cheeks when you kiss

and when you pull away he'd just have a giant grin on his face

and then he'd just act like nothing happened

[dangoghz]

sunsweet

(a sequel to chlorine kisses.)

word count: 1.5k

summary: dnp get married! in the maldives! very warm and fluffy, not really much action goin on here except a lot of soft words about how the sun is heating phils cheeks. lol i wrote it really fast and it’s probs bad but enjoy

———————

Dan’s thumbs cradled the bow tie pinned to his suit. He had been adjusting it for two minutes straight. His stomach felt like little tiny ribbons were being rubbed in its crevices—an oddly specific yet very unpleasant feeling. The young man looked up at the mirror in his tropical hotel room, taking a deep, sensitive breath. He nodded at his reflection. It was the day.

It was the day he would marry his dream boy, his other half. He knew it was cheesy but it could be said they were soulmates. Eight years and his heart leaped more every day to see those black locks and glitter blue eyes. The ribbons fumbled and tumbled.

“Mister howell?” An assistant called, “Are you ready? Everyone else is set.”

Dan took another sharp breath. “Yes.” He scratched at his shaved side and opened his hotel room door. The attendee guided him down the hall.

The music was already playing, meaning Phil, his parents, and Dans dad were already making their way down the carpet. Dan had decided to walk with his mom down the aisle. It was a small wedding on the beach they had planned. Just family and a few close friends. But it made him nervous nonetheless.

The employee and Dan walked through the resort until they reached two buildings. The carpet was obscured by palm trees and the walls of the buildings, and it was a curved path, so Dan wouldn’t be able to see where the ceremony would occur until he walked out. He read the name tag on the assistant who had led him there: Aishath. He thanked her as she urged him forward with a pat on the back.

As Dan stepped onto the velvet, he felt sprigs of nervosity intensify in his torso, but he ignored them. He had been waiting for this for years. Like, a decade. There was no going back. No going back from the way Phil cupped his check. No going back from playing Mario Kart for six hours straight while calling each other ‘nasty twat’ fondly. No going back from ogling each other at the top of the Manchester Eye, unaware of how their lives would entangle like a hybrid flower.

Okay. Stop thinking. Just walk.

Dan gulped and stepped. One, two, three. The trees cleared and sunlight streamed into his blushly face, revealing his family and friends. They stared at him, and dan began to wonder if there was something wrong. He felt to make sure the lily flower hadn’t fallen out of his black suit pocket, and it hadn’t-so why were they staring? He was just a guy from Wokingham…and then he remembered! This was his wedding. It was real. It was good. It was everything he had ever wanted.

As Daniel Lester (that’s right!) strided towards the podium, he could see a gleam on his little brother’s face and a timid but proud look on his parent’s. He didn’t dare look at Phil yet, taking in Bryony and Willow and Louise and PJ, who all looked splendid, first.

And then he glanced up at his fiancé. He saw in those big, whirlpool eyes their whole past, like a fairytale book being flipped through. And how the book started.

A twitter request and an accept. Skype calls for eight hours and forty two minutes. October 19th, 2009: the train station, a hug diminishing all other hugs. Pinof 1, the sky bar, the Uma Thurman poster, the Christmas adventures, the laundry visits, the move, the other move, the tour, the book, the other book, the other other move…….

Oh my god. And their tale had just started. Phil smiled lovingly and held his hand out for Dan, helping him step onto the podium. Phil looked like an angel as always, in a white suit with a red, red rose in his pocket.

The priest cleared his throat. Dan didn’t really listen to anything he was saying. A bunch of stuff that amounted to nothing compared to the way that Phil looked at him and the way Dan at Phil. Everyone could tell they were in love, no matter how they hid it. And it was okay—no, more than okay. Glorious.

“Now, the grooms will say their vows.”

Phil went first. “I’m going to make this short. I love you, you bumbling idiot. I love how you smell like teakwood and how you laugh and how you remind me of Winnie the Pooh. You used to be my fan but now you are the love of my life.” A slight breeze blew through the ceremony, as if to add depth.

“I can’t imagine how my morning would be without you there to eat cereal with while watching Adventure Time reruns on the couch as an excuse to cuddle. You are so much more than you think you are. I hope I am always enough for you. Until death. Please don’t have an existential crisis because I said the word ‘death’.” The audience chuckled. “Yeah. Uh. Love you, BRO!” He ended the speech with a punch to Dan’s gut to emphasize their Bro-ness. Very Phil.

Okay. This was it. He took Phils hand in his, inhaling at the warmth of his palm. “Okay, I was going to practice this and perfect it because that’s what I always do when I want something to be perfect, but I decided that this had to be special. It’s not a video script. I’m winging it.

I love you, Philip Michael Lester, and I have only loved you more every day since seeing that toothy grin through a Skype viewfinder as we talked about Muse and Battlestar Galactica and Attack on Titan and everything else because we were and still are nerds. I can’t put into words how you make me feel. I feel safe with you. You’re like a soft blanket. Wait, no, that’s weird. Uh. You make me feel. Warm. No! That sounds wrong! Fuck it. I love you. Marry me, you bitch!”

Louise started howling in laughter, and Cornelia joined in.

The priest barely had time to say “you may kiss” before Dan grappled at Phils hair and knocked him backwards with a smooch. They parted for a second, Phil laughing, and then Phil kissed him back suddenly. They touched foreheads, light bouncing off of their hair and noses and sand-dusted shoes.

The audience applauded and rose to go to the reception.

—— two hours later ——

Dan and Phil, freshly married, had somehow ended up making out in a cubicle of the bathroom of their own wedding hall. They couldn’t help it—dinner was over anyhow, everyone was dancing, and they could spend their wedding however they wanted, right? Or at least, that’s what Dan told himself as he dappled pecks along Phil’s jawline. Phils breath smelled of red wine.

He could hear muffled music coming from the ballroom. Britney Spears…what state was he in when he made that playlist to put her song in? Whatever.

“Hey Dan,” Phil gasped.

“Yes, hubby?” Dan said with an exaggerated smirk. His tipsiness has made him say hubby like ten times in less than an hour.

“You’re such a good kisser. This is what I married you for. My face is in heaven right now.”

“I know it. And I married you for your sweet, sweet smile which imma kiss right! Now!” And with that he pressed a heavy, wine-stained buss with his lips on Phil’s still open mouth, and stuck his tongue in and out, quickly, as a tease.

They stared at each other for a good minute then, panting. The song ended in the other room. “We should probably go back in—“ Dan suggested, opening the door. And then he heard it. The song. He tumbled out of the cubicle, Phil following him. “It’s-“

“Interrupted by Fireworks,” Phil finished for him. “I put it on there. To dance with you.” Their song, a part of their history.

“Oh, dang it. Sorry we aren’t in there to dance to it.”

A curious smile arose on Phil’s lips. “What do you mean?” He swiftly wrapped his arms around Dan’s torso and pulled him close. Smooth as ever, even in a men’s bathroom.

Dan laughed. “Here?”

Phils rose flopped as he nodded.

“Okay,” Dan managed, lacing his own arms on Phils neck. They swayed to the song gently, as if they were still on the beach and not a meter away from a toilet. The chords strummed gently in Dans ears, nostalgia surging through him. It reminded him of everything. Everything.

Phil looked at him tenderly. Everything but Phil and the song faded as if the lights were dimming. Dans eyes welled up. He was married. To Phil. Phil Lester. How could he be so lucky?

Phil cupped his cheek, a tear cascading silently down his own face. He beamed. “It’s okay. You can cry.”

And Dan did. He sobbed, his filling with tiny reservoirs of water. Salt and memories and joy soaked out into the open, out of pure and ethereal joy. How was this happening? Oh my god.

Phil lifted Dan’s chin up with his hand softly. “Want to watch Haikyuu when we go back home?”

Dan rolled his eyes despite the emotion of the previous moments. He could always trust Phil to lighten it up. “Sure.”

[somewhereapart]

Evidence of Things Unseen

For OQ Prompt Party Day 4: #85: Regina tells Robin that she’s infertile. Vegas verse.

They’ve been kissing for… well, for a good long while. She’s not sure how long – a good half hour upstairs before they were interrupted, and they’ve been down here for… long enough that she’s started to thoroughly enjoy the way his hands move over her body. Up and down her spine, gripping occasionally at her hips (usually when he moans quietly), threading through her hair. He’s not the only one touching – she’s made a thoroughly mussed mess of his hair, and his shirt is rumpled from the insistent press and clutch of her hands.

Somehow she’s ended up in his lap entirely, her knees pressed into the cushions on either side of his hips as they kiss, and kiss. They’re not as close as they could be; if she opened her thighs just a little wider, they could get closer, that obvious bulge she’d seen in his pants earlier could be wedged in tight against where she’s slick and slippery and warm.

She hadn’t expected that when she’d suggested this. She’d thought she’d just kiss him until he felt… familiar. Until his touch didn’t make her jump or fidget.

But it turns out he’s very good at this, at making out like a couple of horny teenagers (something she’d probably have been able to anticipate if she could remember their night together in any great detail), and so here they are. Him with a hard-on, and her worrying she’s going to end up with a noticeable damp spot on her jeans if he keeps thumbing the side of her breast the way he is.

It’s chaste enough, no pressure, nowhere near a nipple. Just the occasional teasing brush of his thumb against the outer curve of her breast when their limbs happen to pass in just the right way – but her breasts are sensitive, so sensitive. Her nipples are achingly hard, and when his thumb grazes her again, all she can think of is how amazing it would feel if she just let him slide that thumb in a little further, let it rub over the hard peaks, let him give them gentle squeezes, or, God, suck on them just a little…

The thought alone is enough to draw a moan up out of her, and Regina yanks their lips apart before she does something crazy like actually let him do all the sinful things she wants.

Things they are not doing, things she made him promise they wouldn’t do for the next year.

She scoots back a little for good measure, letting her ass settle comfortably on his knees while she catches her breath and tries to rein in her hormones.

Robin just relaxes into the cushions and smiles at her. He’s a little flushed (she is, too, she can feel the heat in her cheeks), and his hair is sticking up at odd angles, his eyes dark and wanting. But he doesn’t try anything, only lets his hands coast down her sides, over her hips, to settle on her thighs. He rubs them down, and up – safely on the outside, the top, nowhere that could be misconstrued as demanding.

And then he tells her, "You are so beautiful," and her heart does things.

Silly things – fluttery-hummingbird-wings-in-her-chest type things that she blames on all the kissing. At least she knows she won’t have to worry about whether she’ll have to pretend to enjoy the occasional public-friendly PDA.

He’s a very good kisser. Clearly well-practiced, unless he’s just a natural talent.

It’s a thought that makes her frown slightly and ask, "How many women have you been with?"

Robin’s brows lift, his hands pausing mid-rub. "That's an abrupt shift in topic."

“I'd want to know, if this were real,” she tells him with a little shrug, and his hands begin to move again.

His answer is a cagey, “A fair few. How many men?”

Regina smirks, and echoes “A fair few.” Turnabout is fair play, after all. Nerves kick up and skitter in her belly as she asks a question she would absolutely demand the answer to, if this weren’t just a farce: “Are you clean?”

“Yes,” he answers without hesitation; it doesn’t do much to settle the nerves, though. Not when he predictably follows it up with, “You?”

Regina licks her lips and tells him, “Presently,” and then waits for the potential judgement.

Robin only tilts his head curiously. He’d gotten the unspoken message loud and clear, but he’s not pressing the issue, and it’s that modicum of respect for her privacy (and the fact that he didn’t immediately recoil) that has her feeling safe enough to confess, “Leo cheated.”

Robin’s jaw clenches slightly at that, and he mutters a bitter, “Bastard.”

“Yeah,” Regina scoffs, tucking her hair behind her ear and glancing down to avoid Robin’s gaze as she sighs a resentful, “Great parting gift.”

Looking down was maybe not the best idea; she’s now stuck staring straight at his still-very-prominent erection. She shouldn’t find it comforting that the revelation of her former STD hadn’t had him losing his boner immediately, but she does. She’s told herself again and again not to be ashamed of it, that it wasn’t in any way her fault, but the stigma is still there. You never know what kind of a slut you’re going to be called when you tell a guy you had chlamydia, even if you got it from your cheating bastard of a husband.

But Robin is just… Robin about it. Accepting, like he was of everything else. He settles his hands on her hips and just says, “I thought you said there wasn't a lot of sex toward the end.”

“There wasn't.” Her shoulder shifts, not really a shrug, just… a need to move, to… do something. She’s uncomfortable talking about this, she doesn’t ever talk about this. But if they were married, she would, and they are married, so she does. She swallows her discomfort, and explains, “But chlamydia tends to be asymptomatic. He didn't know he had it, and I didn't know I had it. I changed insurance during the divorce, got a new doctor and she did a full work-up. STD panel included.”

And the rest, as they say…

“I bet that was a bit of a shock,” Robin murmurs sympathetically, and oh, he doesn’t know the half of it.

“Yes,” she says, and then, “I'd had it for a while. I…”

Just say it, say it. She’s chosen to trust him with a year of her life, she trusted him with what happened to Daniel and everything that came after. She can trust him with this.  

Regina draws a careful breath, stares hard around his bellybutton, and tells him quietly, “I can't have children.”

Robin’s hands fist at her belt loops, and she glances up to find his jaw clenching again, his eyes angry in a way that makes the hairs stand up on her arms. She knows what angry looks like on a man, and she’s all warning bells and coiling muscles, until he mutters darkly, "If I ever meet your ex-husband, I'm going to punch him right in the face."

Oh. Right. He’s angry at Leo (the logical culprit, but some reactions are hard to unlearn).

Regina smiles, and relaxes. "Good. But it's...it's okay.” It is, it's fine. It's alright. “I probably shouldn't be passing along my mother's genetic material anyway – too much crazy. And there are plenty of kids who need homes."

His gaze turns warm and understanding, his hands unclenching and smoothing over her hips again.

“That’s why you want to adopt.”

Regina nods, admitting, “I don’t really have much in the way of other options. And I like the thought of helping someone – a child – who needs something as simple as a home. Love. I can do that, I can give that.”

“I've no doubt,” he murmurs fondly, his fingers spreading and splaying to reach her spine. It makes her shiver – which makes him grin, and then he's sliding a hand up to cup behind her neck and draw her in for another quick kiss.

It's nice, the easy affection. Regina could get used to this – shouldn't, and she won't let it go past this, but a few pecks here and there, his fingers scratching gently over her scalp… A year of that isn't sounding so bad right about now.

This might actually be okay, this year of marriage. This year of them. This could work.

She doesn't realize she's been staring until he drags his fingers through the hair at her nape and asks, “What's on your mind, darling?”

Shit. Well. She's certainly not telling him the truth about that.

She lies instead, or rather sidesteps and says, “I don’t know why I told you all of that. I don’t tell anyone that.”

“Because if this were true, I’d know?” he suggests, and yes, that was why, but...

“The only people who know are Leo, my parents, our doctors and our divorce lawyers. I have a gag order,” she explains. Because God forbid the public get wind that Leo Blanchard fucked around on the wife he abused, got her sick and left her barren. “I’m not allowed to share that information outside of a marriage. Which, as you know, I haven't been in for a very long time, and never intended to be again.”

Robin's expression shifts slightly at that, his lips drawing into a little pout, his gaze far too sympathetic for her liking. Go too far past sympathy and you get pity, and she doesn't want that.

So when he asks, “You’ve not told anyone since?” she keeps her tone light and dismissive.

“Nope.”

He makes this little grimace that grates at her pride a little, but his tone is more quiet understanding when he says, “That sounds… very lonely. Having to keep a secret like that, for the rest of your life.”

“Technically, I think it’s only for the rest of his life,” she teases, and then she shrugs a little, and sobers, and tries to reassure that, “It’s alright. I’ve made peace with it.”

Robin nods, but he’s still looking at her, his mouth is still pinched, tucking back words he’s not brave enough to say, no doubt. What he does say is, “I’m sorry he did that to you,” and Regina decides she’s done talking about this. Probably shouldn't have brought it up, but it’s just the kind of thing Mother would try to trip him up with if she had any suspicions that things here weren’t as Regina claimed. So. Now it’s out there.

Now it’s out there, but that doesn’t mean they need to dwell on it, so she sighs, “Me too,” and adds a stern, “But I don’t want your pity.”

“You don’t have it,” he assures, giving her a gentle squeeze. “Just my sympathetic rage.”

It makes her laugh softly, has her nodding, and telling him, “That I’ll take. And um…” She bites her lip, gives him a look. “A few more of those kisses along my neck? If I haven’t completely spoiled the mood, that is.”

“You haven’t,” he assures, his own smile blooming as he draws her in close again. He starts at the join of her neck and shoulder, planting a slow line of damp kisses up, up, up, to make her gasp quietly.

She shouldn’t indulge this too much longer, they’ve obviously gotten the job done and cleared the hurdle of casual physical contact. But she doesn’t want to end the night thinking of Leo, of the cost of her poor decisions all those years ago, and the thing Robin just did with his tongue against the edge of her jaw does make her mind go pleasantly blank.

So maybe she’ll be silly and selfish just a little while longer.

(FFnet/Ao3)