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annwrites · 4 months

Text

forever

— pairing: billy hargrove x fem!reader

— type: part of a series

— summary: you & billy go to a vegas casino. the next day, you have a scare & make a commitment.

— tags: ♡

— tw: gambling

— word count: 7,412

— a/n: while i am very proud of this entire series so far, there's just something more about this post for me. I actually cried while writing this one. i hope you all enjoy!

GIF by 62737462718star

The next day, you and Billy stay snuggled up in bed, watching TV—him, at first, changing the channel every few minutes as soon as you got interested in something just to drive you nuts—napping, eating, talking, and every once in awhile getting on each other’s nerves just for fun.

But, as you laid with your head on his chest and his fingers in your hair, you were completely content to fall back asleep listening to his steady breathing. The beat of his heart.

You wake in the middle of the night to Billy tossing and turning beside you, muttering unintelligibly. His brows are furrowed, body slick with sweat.

You cup his cheek in your hand, shooshing him, telling him to wake up.

And when his eyes do open, they're full of fear. He looks to you at his side and his face crumples. "Oh, baby doll," he says, burying his face between your breasts, wrapping his arms around you.

You twine your fingers in his hair, holding him to you. "It was just a nightmare. It's okay."

"I lost you," he whispers. "You...fuck, you stopped breathing. I-"

"Shh, it wasn't real. I'm right here. Shh."

You let him cry softly against your chest until you eventually coax him back to sleep by reassuring him over and over again that you're all better now. You're still here.

"I love you. Just try and go back to sleep. I'll be right here when you wake up, okay?"

He nods, pulling you closer. "I love you, too."

While still a tad under the weather, you feel far better the next day. And are honestly itching to get out of the motel room, even if it's just to go sit outside or ride shotgun while Billy drives around, letting you sight-see.

You're just coming out of the bathroom, dressed and ready to go, when Billy comes back into the room carrying breakfast with him.

He kicks the door closed with his boot—a brown paper bag held between his teeth, to-go cups in one arm, a couple more bags in the other.

He looks up to you with a raised brow as he begins setting everything down. He nods toward the bed. "Take all that off and get back into bed."

You come over to him. "I feel better today. I'm tired of being stuck in this room, Billy. It's been days now. Can we please go do something?"

You bat your lashes at him, pressing up against him and he groans as you slip a hand in his pocket. "Pretty please?"

Before he can tell you, yet again, to get back into bed, you swiftly remove your hand, his keys dangling from your fingers.

He sighs, holding out his hand. "Yeah, you're hilarious. C'mon, give 'em."

You back up a step, hiding them behind your back. "As soon as you promise to let me out of here."

He studies you for a moment. "Maybe in another day or-"

"No, today."

He crosses his arms, jaw flexing. "I said no. And that's final."

You step closer to him, reaching out for his hand, which he snatches away.

"No. Do...do you have any idea what you put me through? I thought..." He shakes his head. "Don't ever fucking do that again, alright?"

Your lip twitches. "I will do my utmost to never get sick again. I promise."

You press yourself against his chest then. "Now let me outside."

He sighs. "Only once you've had breakfast."

You snuggle closer. "Deal."

"If you so much as sneeze, I'm taking your ass back."

You roll your eyes. He'd been like this since before you stepped out the door. He'd even forced a thermometer under your tongue before letting you go out, which had read at a perfect 98.7°—a temperature that should've pleased him, but he'd instead frowned.

You'd tried making a joke about him just wanting to keep you all to himself for another day, but had known it was because he was terrified of you going back outside and getting sick again.

You turn in your seat to face him and run your fingers through his hair.

He fights against his lip twitching at the tender gesture. He sighs then. "Alright, where to? Unless you want me to pick?"

He looks at you then, a smirk now on his face. "We are in Sin City. Could always hit a sex shop, then head back and create our own entertainment for the day."

You lean over, kissing him deeply and when you pull away, he has a brow raised, thinking he's talked you into it.

"Nice try."

He leans back, rolling his eyes as he turns the car over.

"Billy, stop, we can't go in. This is ridiculous. They're never going to buy your fake; I'm sure they see them everyday."

Billy was currently pulling you alongside him...into Caesar's Palace. He'd gotten the idea to go gambling in his head, and not even offering to go to a sex shop to try on skimpy lingerie had managed to talk him out of it. You'd even threw in that he could finally cuff you to whatever he wanted and have his way with you if he just turned back around, but he'd not listened to a word.

You'd tried tugging unsuccessfully against his hand, unable to pull him back an inch in the other direction. He'd instead led you further inside. And, just when he'd thought—ignorantly—as he passed the hotel lobby, headed in the direction of the casino floor, he was about to get away with it, a large man dressed in a suit, who was probably twice the size of Billy, stepped in his way.

Billy didn't shrink away from his authoritative presence, but you might've hidden yourself just the least bit behind him as you glanced up shyly to the security guard.

"Somewhere you're headed?" He asks, voice a deep baritone tune.

Billy looks up at him with a bored expression, nodding behind him. "Got a few greenbacks that're just burnin' a hole in my pocket."

He goes to step past him, but the man side-steps, once again blocking him.

"ID card, pal."

Billy retrieves his wallet, handing him the requested piece of information.

He studies it with a raised brow, then looks at Billy. "Billy Squier? You really thought someone would buy that?" He tosses it back to him. "Go on, get out of here."

Billy shrugs, tucking his wallet back away. "Like I can help that we share the same name." He smirks, flashing him a dazzling smile. "The Stroke is a damn good song, though, ain't it?"

He glances to you, then back to the security guard.

The man chooses to ignore Billy then, honing in on you. "You got a fake for me, too? Let me guess: Stevie Nicks? No. Cindy Lauper."

You hold Billy's hand more tightly. "I-"

Billy interrupts you. "She left hers in the car." He lets go of your hand then. "Listen, man, what's it going to take? My money's good, ain't it?" He pulls out a wad of rolled up cash, counts out a few bills, then reaches forward, feigning shaking his hand, the bills disappearing in the other man's grip. "Just trying to show my girl a good time. What, you've never been young and in love before?"

"You ever been employed before, kid?" He shoves the money back against Billy's chest. "Go on, before I have to use force."

Billy gives him a glare before turning back around, wrapping his arm around your waist. "C'mon, baby, we'll go blow a grand at Circus Circus instead."

Somehow, you and Billy get lucky at the next casino. You show up just when the security guards are changing shifts and sneak right in. Your heart had been pounding, and you couldn't tell whether it was your palm or his that was sweaty, but you eventually come to wrap your arms around one of his as he weaves between slot machines and craps tables.

You glance around, lights twinkling in your wide eyes in the dim lighting, the room illuminated by colorful overhead chandeliers, and neon slot machines. There's even a section of the room that's modeled after a carousel.

You look up to Billy then, walking alongside him. "Can I play a slot machine?" You ask sweetly.

"Once I win at blackjack."

You frown. "Do you even know how?"

He stop, turning back to you. "Baby, I've got skills you've never seen."

You hook your finger on his black half-unbuttoned shirt. "That's likely."

He shakes his head. "Keep it up."

When he turns away, you smack his ass and he laughs.

You stand behind Billy, actually impressed. He'd not been lying about knowing how to play cards. While nearly every other person sitting at the table had eventually folded, or busted more times than they were comfortable with, and thus left with bruised egos, Billy's chips were just piling up.

You didn't like the way some people were eyeing his winnings, however.

You lean down close to his ear as he holds his cards close to his chest. "Billy, I think that's enough-"

"After this hand."

You sigh, frowning. "You said that twenty minutes ago."

He taps two fingers against the table and the dealer slides another card his way.

"Like I can help that I'm on a roll." He looks up at you, smirking. "Think you might be my little good-luck charm."

You shift on your feet. "You have way more than you came in with now. Can I please just go try a slot machine?"

He glances to the dealer and watches as he turns over a card and a smile breaks out across Billy's face as he throws his own cards down, slamming his fists against the table. "Woo! Winner winner, baby!"

He pulls more chips in his direction, which you grab in your fists, heading in another direction with them. You hear him curse from behind you, but quickly gathers the remaining ones on the table before following you to go cash in.

After finishing up with the casino’s teller, Billy securely pockets away a few hundred dollars, practically beaming from his winnings. He then hands you a five and nods toward the slot machines. “Go nuts.”

You narrow your eyes at him. “Only five dollars?”

He leans down close to you. “You want more, guess you’ll have to blow me.”

Your expression then morphs into a scowl. “You’re so-”

“Y’know, my dice, when I play craps later?”

You turn your back to him, heading toward a slot machine. “That is so not what you meant.”

“Not my fault that my cock is all you can think about.”

After losing once, you’d been ready to burn the entire building down. But after a few times? You were seething. You yank on the arm one last time and it then demands more money.

“Oh, that is such bull. It took all my money!”

Billy glances to those few others who are seated at nearby machines and a muscle in his jaw feathers when he sees them looking your way as you continue to make a scene.

“I didn’t win once. This game is rigged. I want a different machine!”

He can’t believe you’re getting this upset over losing five dollars that hadn’t even been yours to begin with, anyway.

“Honey-”

“Don’t honey me, I want another five,” you state, holding out your hand.

He crosses his arms. “I think someone might have a bit of a gambling problem.”

The vein in the middle of your forehead makes an appearance—he’s never seen that trick before. “I wanted cherries. I kept getting fucking bananas and-”

He steps closer to you, needing to calm you before someone calls security. “Sweetheart, I will give you all the banana you want when we get back to the motel. But right now-”

“I said cherries! See, you’re not even listening to me.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. Good Lord, you’re acting like a little kid. And he typically relied on you to be the mature one. Seeing you so pissed was funny at first, but now you were getting a bit scary.

“Alright, fine, I will pop your cherry when-”

You lean your head back, groaning. “Too late for that now, isn’t it?” You look at him again.

He finally reaches up, squeezing your cheeks until your lips are puckered. “You want to get us kicked out?”

“No,” you mutter through fish lips.

He smirks. You look adorable like this. So tiny and angry and your face all squished in his strong grip. Like a pissed off kitten. “If I give you another five, will you promise—if you lose—to control your temper, and behave yourself, and not be a sore loser?”

“Yes.”

He releases you, giving you the promised amount of cash.

“Motherfu-”

He yanks you up from the stool by your upper arm before you can finish that expletive. “Alright, time to go. You’ve had enough.”

“Just give me another-”

“Nope, you’ve had enough.”

“But-”

“No buts. C’mon. You’d leave us high and dry if I let you have your way.”

“You are so not getting lucky tonight.”

“Already did. Sounds like you’re the one who didn’t.”

“Oh, you son of a-”

Once the two of you are back at the motel, you’d thankfully calmed down. Billy was almost afraid to leave not just his money, but the keys to the Camaro anywhere you could get to them, lest you return to the casino for a second round. Third, really.

But, once you were in a bubble bath and softly humming to yourself as you washed up, he figured that you seemed well-enough over it.

After bathing, you stand over your bag of toiletries with shaking hands and wide eyes, your heart hammering in your chest as you stare down at a tampon that’d been hidden at the bottom of the bag.

You were late. Very late, by your standards. Your period had always been like clockwork. If it was ever ‘late’, it was by no more than a day. Ever. And even that was rare. Far and few between.

But today made five. The two of you had used protection every time. But…what if there had been a hole in one of the condoms? Or some of his semen had somehow leaked out or… That night on top of the Camaro. But he’d finished on your stomach. Not inside of you. No. This wasn’t happening. You were not-

“You about done in there? I need to take a piss.”

You jolt, dropping the plastic tube on the floor, staring at the closed door, unable to form a single word on your tongue. Until you manage to choke out, “Just a sec.”

“Gettin’ all dolled up for me just to go to bed?”

Your eyes sting with unshed tears. God, you want him to just leave you be for a few more minutes so you can collect yourself. Because right now? You felt on the verge of a hysterical breakdown.

You stare at yourself in the mirror. Your face had gone pale, all blood drained from your lips, your eyes wide and terrified. And you were shaking like a leaf.

You begin taking deep breaths, trying to calm yourself. Oh God, you felt like you were about to pass out.

It was nothing.

You’d been under a lot of stress lately, that was all. Yes, that made perfect sense. From the moment you’d left Hawkins, you’d been on a non-stop rollercoaster of emotions. All the traveling, the fighting, worrying about money, worrying about each other, worrying about the future, you getting sick—it was a perfect recipe for a late period.

And it was only five days. Just because it was always on time before didn’t mean it couldn’t be late now. Sometimes bodies were weird. They didn’t always operate how they were supposed to. Obviously, or so many diseases and disabilities wouldn’t exist. And stress could wreak havoc on the healthiest of people. So, you had nothing to worry about. Right?

“Sweetheart?”

You quickly gather your things, your stomach now in knots, shoulders tense, jaw locked tight.

You swing open the door and stare up at Billy. “All yours,” you say stepping past him.

A moment later, you hear him relieving himself. You let out a breath of relief that he hadn’t noticed you were upset.

You’d barely touched your dinner. Billy had noticed, but you’d used the excuse that you ‘weren’t all that hungry’. He’d stared at you for a moment before stealing one of your shrimp, telling you that he’d eat them if you weren’t going to. He hadn’t noticed your palm pressed against your stomach.

Once the two of you were in bed, you’d turned your back to him, trying to fight back tears. If…if you were…what would happen to the two of you? You’d felt so sure that you’d found the one now. But this… A baby would ruin everything. He’d leave you. This much he wouldn’t stand for, you were sure of it.

You were both eighteen. Kids yourselves. What the hell did either of you know about being parents? You wouldn’t have any idea of how to be a proper mother, you’d not been given an example of one yourself. And Billy had his history with his father.

You hadn’t had that talk yet: what you wanted when it came to kids. You don’t even know what it is that he wants. You don’t know what you want, either.

Just as your terror begins to grow, you feel his hand sliding along your hip, erection pressed against your back. You feel sick at the sensation of it. That part of him had destroyed your entire life. And now you would be the one forced to deal with the consequences. The fallout.

You’d been right to be abstinent before. This was his fault. He’d not stopped until he’d buried himself inside your head. Had pushed and pulled, pushed and pulled until you didn’t know where else to run but into his arms.

No. You can’t think like that. He loves you. He’d made some mistakes, but you understood why. Had chosen to forgive him. You loved him, too. And what if you were just getting yourself all worked up over nothing? What if you weren’t indeed pregnant, and causing yourself further stressed just delayed your period further?

Billy presses his lips to your neck, reaching under his t-shirt, which you’re wearing, cupping your breast. “Want me to help you get undressed, honey?”

You bite your lip until you taste blood, fighting back tears. “I’m really tired. Maybe not tonight.” You say it so quietly that he barely hears you.

He presses a soft kiss to the back of your head. “Told you that you should’ve stayed in bed. But no one ever listens to Billy.”

You don’t respond. You just take his hand, wrapping his arm around your waist, praying to God he doesn’t notice that your own is shaking.

You toss and turn most of the night, at one point locking yourself in the bathroom to cry while Billy sleeps, clutching your stomach, praying to God that you’re not what you think you are. If you were, and he did leave you, what would you do? Where would you go? Everything would fall out from under your feet then. You’d have nothing. No one. He was your entire world. Everything. He was everything. Your everything. You’d come to lean so heavily on him. To rely on him at every turn.

If he left you behind… You want to die at the thought.

The next morning, you’re exhausted. And Billy quickly takes notice over breakfast. Which you barely touch.

He brushes his foot against yours, reaching for your hand, concerned with the lost-in-thought look on your face. Were you getting sick again?

“Baby?”

You look up at him. “Hm?”

“You alright, angel?” He reaches up, pressing his palm to your forehead. You don’t feel feverish…

You nod slightly, looking back down to your cereal, which is now just a bowl of mush, stirring it.

“I think you’re still just getting over that cold. I should’ve made you stay in yesterday. How about you go lie back down and get some rest. We’ll just hang out here for the rest of the day. Alright?”

You nod, getting up, stripping, lying back down. You quickly fall asleep.

When you wake, the TV is on, the volume low, and Billy is sitting up, one arm around you, holding you close to his leg. You stare at the closed curtains, wondering what time it is, but don’t want to ask, because you don’t want to talk. Don’t want him to notice that something more is wrong than you just ‘being under the weather’, even if you knew you felt completely back to normal now. You don’t want him to keep digging until you’re finally forced to cave and tell him what’s really going on.

So, you close your eyes instead, forcing yourself back into a dreamless slumber.

Billy had let you sleep through lunch, but he now stands at the foot of the bed, frowning, considering whether to wake you for dinner. He’d gotten you a cheeseburger—one of your favorites—so he’s sure you’ll eat it.

He tucks some hair behind your ear, then gently shakes you awake.

“Dinner’s here, beautiful. Time to get up. Once you’ve eaten, you can go back to bed.”

You moan against the pillow, wishing he’d just left you be. You didn’t want to eat, because the moment you opened your eyes, your stomach was twisting into knots again. But you fight the feeling of nausea down, telling yourself to, at the very least, act fine. Pretend like you feel as much.

You sit up, smiling slightly at him.

He presses a kiss to your forehead. “How’re you feeling?”

You wrap your arms around his neck, hiding your face from his view. “Better.”

He sighs. “Good. That’s good.”

He leads you over to the table and you force every bite down.

Billy makes another sexual advance that night, shortly after laying down. He slips his hands between your legs. “I can do all the work tonight, if you want?”

You’d simply pressed yourself into his chest. “Could you just hold me instead? Maybe…maybe tomorrow.”

He’d remained silent as he slid his strong arms around you, holding you close, whispering that he loved you and to get some more rest. That he was sure you’d feel better in the morning.

You do not, in fact, feel better in the morning. More rested than the day previous, yes, but your nerves are fried.

You’d raced to the bathroom to…expel your bowels from nerves at least twice in the night, and now your stomach was truly on empty. But just the thought of eating made you feel sick.

Currently, it’s morning and you’re lying in bed awake, even if you’d rather not be, listening to Billy quietly snore beside you. You sit up, staring down at him, trying to memorize every line and facet of his face. His body.

Before you loose him for good.

Tears sting your eyes at the thought of being alone again. Though, you won’t be totally alone, you suppose. If you are…that…will it look like you or him? Will it have his eyes? His beautiful head of hair? You don’t think you can bear it: having to look upon a perfect reflection—reminder—of him every day, knowing he’s never coming back.

How could you have let this happen? What if you got rid of it instead? Somehow, that thought makes you feel worse. A little bundle that’s equal parts you and him…gone. Just as a tear slips down your cheek, he begins to wake.

You quickly wipe it away, smiling as he opens his eyes, looking up at you, stretching.

He reaches a hand up to your cheek, cupping it. “Morning, sweetheart.”

“Hi.”

“You been up long?”

You shake your head. “I just woke up a couple minutes before you did.”

“Admiring your sleeping beauty then, huh?”

You smile at the sarcastic comment. “Most certainly.”

He slides his other hand up your thigh, stopping close to your heat. “You want to?”

You shift under his touch. How to tell him no yet again? You’d not been intimate in days, and you worry that continuing to reject him will only serve to hurt him, if not make him suspicious. But the thought of him buried inside of you right now… You simply can’t.

He notices your silence and his smile fades. “Guess not.” He removes his hand, getting up from bed, nervously running his hand through his hair. “I’m gonna go take a leak,” he says, padding over to the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.

Your chin wobbles, knowing you did it anyway: hurt his feelings.

Billy lays on the horn, waiting for traffic to move. He glances to you then, who is busy staring out your open window. He knows something is wrong. But you won’t tell him what.

He reaches over, sliding his hand up your leg and his ego takes a hit when you recoil at his touch. He sighs, resting his hand back on the shifter. “Come the fuck on, man!” He shouts at the line of cars in front of him.

He then looks back to you. “What? Are you still sick?”

You clasp your hands. “No. I’m just…tired.”

He leans his head back, rolling his eyes. “Heard that a lot the last couple days. Don’t know how. It’s not like we’ve screwed much recently.”

In all honesty, he didn’t really care about that. He was fine with waiting on you. It was the fact you were keeping something from him that was starting to really get under his skin.

You begin to shake from anger then. “After everything, and that’s still all you think about. Not like I should be surprised. Since we met that’s all you’ve thought with is what’s in your pants.”

He jerks his head in your direction. The two of you hadn’t fought like this in a minute. “Excuse me?”

“You want to get laid? We’re in Vegas. Go pick up some hooker on the strip. You should have enough for it after the other night at the casino, I’m sure.”

He grips the wheel tighter. “The fuck is your problem? Huh? You got somethin’ you want to say to me?”

You look at him and his expression softens when he sees the tears gathering in your eyes. “I’m sorry,” you say, voice breaking, burying your head in your hands.

He unbuckles, reaching over, wrapping his arms around your trembling frame. “Shh. Baby, please tell me what the fuck is going on. Did…did I do something?”

How to say yes and no?

You look up at him then, tears streaming down your cheeks. “I’m late.”

His brows furrow. “Late? Late for wha-”

His face falls, all color draining from it and quickly, leaving him lightheaded. He remains calm, as calm as he can manage—for the moment. “How late?” He asks, deathly serious.

“F-five days.”

“And the latest you’ve ever been is?”

“A day. And rarely, at that.”

He stares at you for a moment, then swerves onto the shoulder, parking, and quickly getting out, slamming the door behind him. “Fuck! Motherfuck! Why does this shit keep happening to me? It’s going great one minute, then it all just turns to shit!”

You turn away from the window then, refusing to listen to anymore as you begin to sob, clutching your stomach. You reach forward, toward the dash, now hyperventilating, trying to catch your breath, your ears ringing.

A moment later, Billy gets back in the car, forcing his way back into traffic. “We’re not going to freak out until you’ve taken a piss test and we know for sure.”

Both of you stand in the family-planning aisle of a CVS, staring at their plethora of a selection of pregnancy tests. Billy reaches forward with a shaking hand, grabbing a two-pack in a pink box.

“Should…do you want this one?” He asks, looking at you.

You shrug, lower lip trembling.

He puts it back, grabbing a blue box next. “This one sounds like it should be fairly accurate. Ninety-eight percent.” He tosses it back onto the shelf. “Why the fuck are there so many? What’s the goddamn difference? I mean, Jesus, it’s like buying condoms. I mean, the things are supposed to be fuckin’ fool-proof, right? Why make shit that leaves you guessing in a situation like this? It’s ridiculous.”

You stay quiet, knowing he’s talking more to himself than he is you.

He picks the blue box back up, grabbing your hand in his other, leading you up front to the register.

Billy tosses the test onto the counter and the older woman behind it eyes up the two of you as she scans the box, telling Billy his total.

You just stare at the floor as he pulls out a bill, telling her to keep the change. Then, “You all have a public restroom?”

Billy waits outside the door as you go, silent tears slipping down your cheeks as you place the cap back on the test and set it on the sink, waiting.

It’s maybe two minutes later before his patience has worn through and he pounds on the door, making you jump. “What’s takin’ so long?”

You walk over, cracking the door open, staring up at him. “It takes fifteen minutes.”

His brows raise. “Are you fuckin’ kidding me?” He barges in, shutting the door behind him. “Why the hell don’t they put that on the goddamn box?”

“They did,” you reply quietly, showing it to him—right on the front. “See?”

He snatches it away from you, staring at it like it’s his own worst enemy, then tossing it in the trash.

He begins to pace back and forth in the small space, hands on his hips. You stand silently against the wall, watching him.

“I can’t believe this is fucking happening. This—coming out here—getting to California. It was supposed to be a new fucking start and now… I’m eighteen-goddamn-years-old. I can’t be a dad yet. I’m not ready. I mean, Jesus, I don’t know that I want kids ever. I can’t stand ‘em now. Annoying little shits. And they’re expensive as hell. Even if you think you’re ready, you’re fuckin’ not. We don’t even have a place to live. What? Am I gonna stick a crib in the fucking backseat of the Camaro? Fuck!”

When he looks at you, his heart drops.

You’re standing against the wall, shaking, tears streaming down your face, biting your lip, both hands clutched over your stomach, your face pale. “I’ll get rid of it,” you whisper.

Then you continue, “Oh God, what’s happening to me? I can’t…I can’t do this alone. What am I supposed to do? How…how am I going to live? What will happen to my baby?” You hang your head, truly sobbing then.

You thought he was going to leave you? Alone? To this?

He steps over, quickly wrapping his arms around you. “I’m sorry. Baby, I’m right here. Sweetheart, look at me.”

He takes your face in his hands. “Angel, I’m not going anywhere. If you are…it’s not like I didn’t play a part in it. You should know by now that I’m in this for the long haul. That you’re it for me. I know you deserve better than me. You always will. But I’ll try my best, alright? To be a good dad. I had a shitty fuckin’ example, but maybe I can learn from his mistakes. I’ll take care of you.”

He presses a palm to your stomach then. “Both of you. We’ll…we’ll get married. I’ll be better than he was. I have to be. You deserve that.”

You blink up at him, speechless. Had…had he just proposed? “You…want to get married?”

He smiles, kissing your forehead. “It’s the right thing to do. But I’m not getting’ down on one knee, if that’s what you’re expecting. Not in this nasty fuckin’ restroom, anyway.”

You glance to the test. “I think it’s been enough time now.”

You walk over to it and fill with relief—joy—when you see the minus sign. You double over the sink, laughing lightly. All that stress and for nothing. Nothing at all. “Oh, thank God!” You laugh some more, feeling like all is right with the world again. “I’m not pregnant. We don’t have to get married now! We can just-”

You stop talking when you turn around and see Billy isn’t nearly as elated as you are. Not even smiling. Nor is he looking at you. Instead, his hands are gripping the metal support beam behind him, eyes trained on the floor.

“I-”

He quickly brushes past you then, wrenching the door open. “Let’s go.”

Once the two of you have returned to the motel, he still hasn’t spoken another word to you. He’d gone in the bathroom, slamming the door behind him, even going so far as to lock as it while he showered.

You’d pressed your ear up against the door, listening, trying to ensure he was okay, but could hear nothing over the sound of water.

So, you’d sat on the edge of the bed, patiently waiting, thinking of how best to apologize for what you’d said. You’d just been so sure that he would be relieved as well. He’d said it himself: that he wasn’t ready for a baby yet. Then you wonder…had it been your comment about marriage that had upset him?

Was…was he ready for that? Were you? But when you think of it: wearing a ring he’s chosen for you, taking his last name, vowing to spend your life next to him—it doesn’t fill you with fear or doubt or unease. It fills you with love. Joy. A feeling of security.

When Billy emerges quite some time later, he tries to hide it, but you see it: his eyes are bloodshot.

Your heart breaks, now knowing what’d taken him so long.

He had been crying.

You pad over to him, wrapping your arms around his middle as he chooses a t-shirt for bed. He doesn’t do that, though—wear pajamas to lie down next to you. And now he suddenly feels the need to shield himself from you?

You press your cheek to his bare back. “Did you mean what you said about getting mar-”

“Just fuckin’ drop it, alright? You’re not knocked up, so now we don’t have to get hitched. Let’s just go to bed.”

“But-”

“Like you’d want to anyway.”

“I do.”

He freezes. Suddenly imagining you saying those words in a different context. He slowly turns back around to you. “What?”

You stand on tiptoes, wrapping your arms around his neck, running your fingers through his damp curls. “I want to if you do.”

He tucks a lock of hair behind your ear. “Really?”

You smile, nodding. “I’m sorry for what I said. I wasn’t thinking. I was just relieved that I wasn’t pregnant. I…I’m already yours in every other way. Why not this one, too? Billy, no one else is ever going to love me the way you have—do. Just like you, I don’t want anyone else. You’re what I want. I can’t imagine having to start over with someone else after…after all of this. The thought of losing you…it was tearing me apart. Having to think of living a life without you in it…”

You trail off for a moment, swallowing the lump that’s forming in your throat. “I’ll marry you.”

His lip twitches and his eyes grow glassy. He then crushes you to his chest, holding you close, cradling the back of your head. “Okay.”

You and Billy are currently browsing through selections of gently-used clothing at a local thrift store, trying to pick out outfits to wear to the Little White Chapel. But every white dress you come across has something wrong with it: holes, tears, rips, yellowing, or it’s just a tad outdated or way too frilly.

Until you find a hanger buried behind numerous other items. As you look the dress over, you begin to smile.

You then wander over to Billy, who’s looking through men’s dress clothes and poke him in the back.

When he turns, a grin forms on his face. He grips the soft material, looking to you. A white babydoll dress, silver sparkles dancing against the overhead fluorescent lights. There’s even a matching veil.

“It kind of smells like mothballs,” you say.

He smirks. “Don’t worry, baby, you won’t be wearing it long.”

Once Billy had picked out a pair of dress slacks that he felt were a tad too tight—until you’d been unable to remove your eyes from his rear, and then he’d said they fit just perfect after all—as well as a white button-up shirt, he’d gone over to the lingerie and gotten lucky when he’d found you a garter.

The two of you then went up and you stood by his side, smiling up at him, as he paid for your purchases, then asked about changing in-store.

Once the two of you emerged from the changing rooms, even he was blushing. So, you’d taken his hand in yours, and headed back out to the car together.

“Can we stop at a pawn shop first?”

He glances to you. “For?”

You reach in the backseat, grabbing a shoulder bag, then pulling your dad’s Rolex out. “I want to trade this. For a ring. For you.”

He nods then, sniffling. “Course, baby.”

“What about that one?”

Billy shakes his head. “It’s fuckin’ hideous.”

You raise a brow. He was worse than a woman when it came to jewelry, apparently.

You squint, looking into the late-night pawn shop’s display case, then kneeling in front of it, practically pressing your face up against the glass. You smile, pointing, looking up to the middle-aged shop-keep behind it. “Can I see that one?”

He nods, unlocking the display from his side, grabbing the ring you’d indicated, handing it to you.

You grab Billy’s left hand, sliding it onto his ring finger. And it’s a perfect fit. A simple gold band.

You stare up at him.

He looks to the man. “Will the Rolex cover this?”

“More than.”

Billy looks back to you. “We’ll take it.”

Once the two of you are sitting in the parking lot of the small chapel, it’s only then that you notice Billy is shaking.

You reach toward him, but he quickly exits the car, making his way around to your side, opening your door.

He doesn’t look at you.

You then reach up, cupping his cheek, taking one of his hands in yours. “Are you okay? We…we don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. If you want to wait, I’m okay with that. As long as we’re together- ”

He shakes his head, his hand trembling in yours. “What if…what if I fuck this up? I’ve already done it enough times already. I nearly lost you back in Oklahoma and then again in Texas. What if I turn out to be just like him and I hurt you, or-”

You brush your thumb over his lips, quieting him. “And I always came back. Or you came for me. Billy, neither of us is perfect. No one alive is. But…that’s the point, right? Of falling in love? Loving someone despite their flaws. Or…helping them through them. Not just giving up when things get hard. I know what—who—I want. We’ve both said it: that we belong together.” You press yourself against his chest and he wraps his arms around you, kissing the crown of your head. “So let’s go make it official. No one is ever going to love me like you do.”

He rests his cheek against your veil. “Okay.”

You pull back, looking up at him with hopeful eyes, full of love.

“Let’s go get married.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“And do you, Billy Hargrove, take this little lady to be your lawfully wedded bride? To have and hold tender and sweet, to love and cherish, in sickness and in health, for riches—God willin’—or poorer, for better or worse, ‘till death do ya part?”

Being married by an Elvis impersonator was most-certainly going to be a story to remember.

Billy tucks a lock of hair behind your ear, his thumb tracing your jaw line, his other hand holding your right one. “I do.”

He reaches into his pocket, and when he pulls out his hand, a silver ring is held between his thumb and index finger.

Your brows furrow. He’d told you back at the pawn shop that he had your ring already covered, but refused to elaborate on how, until you were standing before one another exchanging vows.

He swallows thickly. “It was my mom’s,” he states, glancing to you, before sliding it onto your finger.

Unshed tears threaten to spill forth on both your parts.

“And do you, lil’ mama—Y/N—take this young stud, to be your hubby? To have and hold tender and sweet, to love and cherish, in sickness and in health, for riches or poorer, for better or worse, ‘till death do ya part?”

Your lip trembles as you stare up, into Billy’s beautiful, warm eyes. “I do.”

You slide the gold band you’d purchased less than half-an-hour ago onto his finger once again.

“Then, by the power vested in me by the great state of Nevada and the Lord Almighty, I do so pronounce you husband and bride. Now, my good man, kiss your lady.”

Billy leans down, cupping the back of your head, and crushing his lips to yours.

A woman who also works at the chapel snaps a few pictures of the two of you kissing, holding one another, and beaming up at each other and at the cheap disposable camera she holds in her hands.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

After the two of you exited the chapel holding hands, laughing, even crying a little, you’d gotten back into the car and Billy had driven you to a bar, insisting on having some form of a reception, even if it was just the two of you. In reality, he deeply wanted to have his first dance with you.

You stand in the middle of the room—the place near-empty; it was a tad dingy and small—waiting for Billy to select a song from the jukebox over in the corner. You know he’s found whatever he’s looking for when a small smile comes across his lips.

He comes back over to you, taking one of your hands in his, leaning his forehead down against yours just as Bob Dylan begins to hum the beginning of Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door, resting his other hand against the small of your back, pulling you in close.

You close your eyes, reaching up, tangling the fingers of your other hand in his hair, swaying back and forth with him to the slow song.

He presses a soft kiss to your forehead. “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

You open your eyes, tears slipping down your flushed cheeks as you press your lips to his own. “I love you.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

When the two of you return to the motel, Billy leaves the door to the room open, blaring the song Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey from the car’s stereo outside, tugging you up on the bed with him and the two of you begin to jump up and down on the mattress, holding onto one another, smiling, laughing, happier than either of you ever thought you could be. Would ever be.

He crushes his lips to yours, holding your face in his hands. He pulls back. “Promise me that you’re mine for forever.”

You wrap your arms around his neck. “Forever.”

#fic: stranger things (billy hargrove x reader)#billy hargrove x female reader #billy hargrove x y/n #billy hargrove x you #billy hargrove imagine #billy hargrove x reader #stranger things x y/n #stranger things x reader #stranger things x you

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peterparkersnose · 2 years

Text

You Over Anyone

pairing: Din Djarin x reader

word count: 2.6k

warnings: jealousy, angst, relationship awkwardness, assault (physical), reader gets cut by a knife, description of assault and defense, blood, din takes care of you, allusions to sex

a/n 97 days until the mandalorian returns !!!! somewhat angsty. there isnt quite enough angst on tumblr that doesnt end up with sex. dont get me wrong, i love a good smut, but sometimes i just need some yelling and frustration. longer fic woohoo!!! wrote it in one night too. i missed din djarin.

bonus at the end for you guys :)

summary Y/N gets upset when another girl comes around and questions where her relationship stands with Din

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read time: 9 mins 29 seconds

3 days, 12 hours, and 30 ish minutes. That was the last time Din kissed you, but you totally weren’t counting. How long has it been since he’s touched you? Hugged you? Acknowledged you for anything other than the bare minimum? Your anxious thoughts flew through your mind as you tied up your boots. He had become more and more distant each day since you had found Natalie.

About a week ago you were in the forest looking for a frog to sneak to Grogu. He had listened to you all day and deserved a treat for being a good boy. That is when you came upon a girl, no older than 20. She was almost nude, shivering, and covered in dirt. And drop dead gorgeous.

Against your better judgement you took her back to the crest. Din had basically done the same for you when he found you, why not return the favor?

Natalie showed up in the middle of an awkward time in you and Din’s relationship. Sure, flirty banter has been there ever since you’ve known him. But the last few months you two have been together- sort of. It was confirmed by mutual feelings but never said out loud. You two were everything but girlfriend and boyfriend. I mean, you could have sworn Grogu said ‘mama’ last week. You were raising a child as well as taking the risk of making a new one. He had shown you his face. You had to be something. There was no way you weren’t- right?

Shaking your head and grabbing your weapon, you followed the sound of giggling from outside.

“He does tricks?” Natalie asked, head cocked perfectly in Din’s direction. Her ponytail flew perfectly in the breeze.

“Well, sometimes. Grogu- where’s your ball? Did you leave it on the crest?” Din playfully asked his son, tickling his stomach. All he got and expected as a response was a ‘coo’ from the child.

Taking in the sight of your… Din and Grogu and her made you sick. I mean, she was even wearing your clothes. How much more sick could this get?

“Ready?” you asked, approaching the two hanging your blaster from your belt.

“Actually, I think Natalie and I are going to stay back. I promised her I would teach her how to shoot and…” Din said, the tone in his voice weary.

He saw the way your face dropped, but it flew completely over his head. Your mouth was slightly agape. You stared at him. Then her. Then him.

“Y/N?” Din coughed, breaking you from your haze. “Yeah sure. I’ll take Grogu into town with me.” you said flatly. Without hesitating, you reached for Grogu sitting in his pouch on Din’s waist (god that tiny waste drove you nuts) and secured him in your scarves.

Walking to the speeder, you watched as Din brought Natalie over to the hill the crest was parked on, letting her aim his blaster. His blaster, the one you were forbidden to touch. The pit in your stomach kept growing larger and larger and falling deeper and deeper.

Grogu cooed, noticing his mother was upset. “I’m alright, kid.” you said, smiling putting on a strong face for him. Of course, he could sense everything that was wrong and your phony smile couldn’t fool him. A sad sigh exhaled from the child as he placed his forehead and a tiny green hand on your chest where he sat tightly.

At least someone still wanted you.

Jiggling through the lanyard that was attached to your waist looking for the speeder key, you heard a shout from behind you.

“Y/N!” Din yelled, waving his hand with a slight run towards you.

Your face perked up. A slight smile came on your lips. He was coming back to give you a goodbye kiss, you just knew it.

“Hey,” he said, slightly out of breathe as he reached the speeder. You were ready. Leaning over the speeder towards him, your eyes met through his viser.

“Don’t forget those to buy those special nuts I like. The ones with dragon berry? Remember?”

Your perfect moment was crushed.

“Yup,” is all you could manage out. Your hand had grasped the right key and you sped off, leaving a trail of dust behind you.

***

It was now midday. The hot sun beat down on the two of you. Your scarves were draped over your head, shielding the sun from your eyes.

You felt a tiny scratch on your chest. “Yes, yes. Calm down, we’re going to the Cantina for some food.”

One more sale and it was lunch. The bag of credits in your sleeve pocket was still heavy. You were skimming the blaster modifications when you heard a squeal.

“Is that her, Din?” you heard Natalie say from feet away. “Shh!” he hushed her.

He told her his name. Not Mando anymore. Din.

“Y/N!” Natalie yelled from across the market. You grinded your teeth and took a deep breathe, abandoning any interest in the parts.

“Hi!” you said with the fakest smile you had ever had on your face. “How did you two get here without a speeder?” you asked, a pissed tone silently rode off your lips as your eyes stabbed into his beskar helmet.

“We walked! It was such a nice time in the forest. An hour goes by really fast when your having fun.” Natalie smiled aimlessly at you.

As you couldn’t see, Din was behind his mask with the most tired eyes and annoyed face known to man.

You swallowed.

“I’m starving. Could you get me some food Din?” she said again using his name. “Mando.” he corrected her. “Oh right. We’re using our made up names.” she whispered, giggling heading towards the Cantina.

He stood there for a second, looking you up and down. You knew him well enough behind the mask to notice what he was doing. “Don’t fucking even,” you scoffed, following the bubbly girl into the Cantina. “Don’t what?” he asked, following you confused into the loud bar.

You felt the tears begin to well up in your eyes. Making your way to the bathroom, you shook Din’s hand off of yours trying to gain your attention. “Please,” you yelled a little too loudly, yanking your hand away and making a bee line towards the restroom.

You slammed the stall door shut and waited for the heavy beskar boots to follow you in. He wasn’t the type to leave you. Ever. You waited.

And waited.

And waited. And they never came.

Sitting on the toilet sobbing, you barely remembered Grogu was there. Another scratch on your chest reminded you that he was hungry.

“I know, I know. I’m sorry.” you sniffled, wiping your eyes and attempting to clean up your red face.

Staring at yourself in the bathroom mirror felt stupid. You had so much pity for yourself. Your braid has become more loose than it was this morning. Strands of loose hair rested next to your face. Your boots had mud on them. Now was not the time to be critiquing yourself but you couldn’t help it. How could you not? Natalie was beautiful, more pretty than you’d ever be. Right?

This time Grogu let out a small growl and you gave in. Turning the corner, you were grabbed near the exit and thrown back into the bathroom.

Laying on the floor confused, you looked up at your attacker. A giant creature with blue horns stared down at you with a smirk on his face.

“I saw that pretty bag of coins on your wrist, ma’am.” he scowled, pointing his long knife down at you. “I would appreciate if we did this the easy way.” he said cracking his neck in both directions.

The blade rested on the middle of your chest. Grogu, being the curious creature he is poked his head out of your swaddle you had made him.

“Well well well, what is this?” he asked, moving the knife to bump the scarf you had around your chest. “I think I will be taking both.” he smiled, revealing his yellow crooked teeth.

Panic flashed your mind as you rolled over, shielding Grogu from his grasp. He let out a loud yell in anger and didn’t hesitate to swipe his dagger at your shoulder, leaving a pretty nasty cut.

“Fuck!” you yelled out in pain, holding the open wound.

Grogu being the good boy he is (he deserves another frog) rolled out of your grasp and waved his tiny hand in the air. The dagger flew from the attackers hand and right into your grasp.

“Good boy,” you whispered as you didn’t hesitate to stab the man near his groin. He cried out in pain as you twisted the knife, then pulled it out. It was covered in purple blood.

You scooped up Grogu and made your way back into the crowded Cantina. You spotted Din with his elbow resting comfortably on the counter talking to Natalie.

“… and then Greef started to complain about-”

“We need to go.” you said in a low voice, grabbing his hand and pulling in the opposite direction. “What?” he asked. “What’s that?” Natalie asked loudly, pointing at the dripping dagger in your hand.

“Shut it for once, won’t you?” you yelled at her. A wave of concern flew over Natalie’s face. “Hey!” Din yelled, sticking his finger in your face. You had to ignore the intrusive thought to bite it.

A large roar came from the Cantina bathroom exit. Everyone’s eyes turned to the creature. “You little bitch!” the man yelled, meeting your eyes in the crowd.

“We need to go.” you ordered, slipping out of the entrance. Looking behind you and gripping Grogu close, you ran to the speeder. Din quickly followed without Natalie on his tail.

You straddled the speeder as you heard your attacker’s yells from behind you. He was a few feet behind Din. At that point, Natalie began to stumble out of the Cantina.

Din held up his hand, signaling for you to start the speeder. The wound on your arm throbbed. With one hand cradling a sleeping Grogu and the other on the speeder handle, you prepared for the worst.

Din made it just in time. “Go go!” he yelled, grabbing your waist tightly as you sped off. That man and Natalie were left in the dust.

The speeder tumbled as you reached the crest. You meant to get fuel on your way back, but that obviously didn’t get to happen.

As the two of you finally stopped, you sat for a moment in silence.

Finally, you flipped around. You handed Din a sleeping Grogu and turned to go back in the crest. Your face was stone cold.

“Are you okay?” Din asked wearily. He was most definitely not getting a response. You walked through the hatch and made it to the medical cabinet. It was funny, you had forgot you had put on a white shirt today and not a crimson one.

“Is that blood?” he asked, removing his helmet and setting Grogu inside of it. He liked to nap there sometimes, it was warm and smelt of his father.

“Why do you care? I’m surprised your not back on your speeder going to find Natalie.” you hissed, cutting your sleeve off to reveal the wound.

“Fuck!” you yelled as the bloody sleeve rolled down your arm. “What? Cy’are what happened?” Din asked, rushing to your aid. “Get away from me.” you hissed back at him, struggling to see straight. “Let me help.” he demanded. “Go ffffucking find her.” you slurred.

Blood was definitely lost.

“Sit for gods sake.” he yelled, pulling up a chair behind you. He pulled out the bacta cream and bandages. “You b-better not fucking touch me Din Djarin,” you yawned.

Ignoring you, he wiped the blood away from the wound. It wouldn’t need stitches, but it would leave a nasty scar. He applied the cream and wrapped your arm up. “Too tight?” he asked, his eyes peering into yours.

“I don’t know why your so worried about me when we left Natalie out there.” you bitched. “Seriously Y/N, too tight or not.” he said ignoring your comment.

“You told her your name?” you slurred, the blood loss just beginning to regenerate.

“What? No. She heard you call me it last night.”

“Oh.”

“Why were you all over her? You could barely even speak to me. It’s obvious that you were just going to leave me somewhere and take her instead.” you mumbled, staring at your muddy and now bloodied boots.

“What?” Din asked, astonished. “What are you talking about, Cy’are?”

He bent down in front of you, his hands on both of your thighs. “Don’t lie,” you said, turning your head away from his. Tears began forming in your eyes.

“Your in love with her Din.”

Din wrapped his arms around your waist and rested his head on your thighs. “You are dreaming, my love.”

“Then why did you-”

“I stayed with her because I thought you couldn’t stand her. I thought I was doing you a favor.” he explained.

I mean he wasn’t wrong.

“But what about-”

“Shh,” he shushed you. “I’m horrible but I’m glad we left her at the Cantina. I didn’t know how much longer I could have gone with her constantly at my hip. I couldn’t be with you, I was starting to loose my mind.”

You carefully grabbed a handful of his brown curly hair. You always forgot how soft it was, never being able to touch it under all that beskar.

“Really?” you sniffled, using your other hand to wipe the tear away.

“We have about another 45 minutes to get off this planet.” he hummed into your jeans, kissing your thigh before returning upright.

“I can’t believe you thought I liked her better,” Din scoffed, now towering over you.

“You let her use your blaster?” you questioned. “She grabbed it.” he sighed, laughing at your question. “So am I allowed to touch it now?” “Absolutely not.”

“But why did you ignore me then? Not even anything. No good morning kiss or sleeping in the same bed or…” “Oh.” he sighed. “I thought you wanted to keep it quiet? Not let her know. I’m sorry,”

“I’d let the whole galaxy see you touch me,” you mumbled. A smile rose to Din’s lips.

His hand turned to your cheek, cupping it ever so lightly. His thumb brushed over your lips. He bent down, giving you a soft kiss on your tear stained lips.

“You over anyone, cy’arika. How I’ve missed you.”

•

yes don’t worry grogu was fed he is well taken care of don’t call cps trust me he got all the frogs and eggs he wanted after that day

tag list: @dani5216 @uwiuwi @alohastyles-x @samanthacookieone @maddieinnit0 @alexxavicry @salliebley @peeta-is-useless @bubsonnobx @kirsteng42

bonus:

You lay in his warm grasp for the first time in over a week. His warm skin rested on yours. The hum of the open galaxy surrounding the ship filled your ears. Din’s messy hair sat on him well. His arms ran across your bare chest, holding you with ever such ease. His breaths became more shallow with each second.

“Hey,” he whispered groggily in your ear, pulling you closer. “Mhm,” you replied, pushing yourself into his embrace. You were expecting an ‘I love you’ or ‘I missed your body’ or something romantic.

“Did you remember my nuts? The dragon berry ones?”

“God dammit Din,” you sighed, closing your eyes.

“Did you remember?” he asked, sitting up in bed and peering down at you with a raised eyebrow.

“No Din. I forgot your fucking nuts.”

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hardly-an-escape · 6 months

Text

what's in a name? | Dream/Hob | 9300 words | rated E

this is my submission for @designtheendless's 3K commission giveaway: a Dreamling fic based on their fanart above!

tags: alternate universe - human, photographer Hob Gadling, artist Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, model Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, strangers to lovers, snowed in, only one bed, light dom/sub, oral sex, face fucking, anal fingering, anal sex, anonymous sex, Dream of the Endless is a horny little weasel, and Hob is no less of a horny little weasel, brief Princess Bride references, alcohol consumption, impulsive decision making, callous disregard for the geography of northern California, they go from 0-60 because they’re both nuts, neither of them are in a great place but they do make each other better rather than worse

Hob is on an ill-fated road trip through California. He’s making his way slowly down the coast toward Los Angeles when, trapped by a snowstorm in a small town near Mount Shasta, he meets a mysterious stranger in a diner. They share a night of anonymous passion – but when the sun rises, Hob finds that he can’t just leave the stranger behind…

this story developed partially from Picture Perfect, one of my Fluffbruary 2024 fills. I also incorporated some of designtheendless's other suggested image prompts, so do make sure you check their original post! and thank you so much for extending the deadline, it meant I had time to get my CHBB fic submitted before pivoting to finish this... and even so I'm still barely getting it done in time just because of who I am as a person :D

Hob leans forward over the steering wheel, brows furrowed as he peers through the driving snow at the street ahead. The windshield wipers are going like mad; he’s seen a plow or two out, but they seem to barely be making a dent, so traffic has slowed to a crawl. Which is, frankly, for the best, since the weather is bad enough that only a true nutter would be out in it at all.

Well… nobody’s ever accused Hob of being sane.

His GPS instructs him to take the next right and informs him that his destination will then be on his right. He can just make out the neon sign through the thick flakes: Townhouse Motel. “Vacancy,” it says below the old-timey script, blinking on and off. In the distance, the sun is just beginning to settle behind some mountains that he’s sure would be beautiful if they weren’t hidden behind such inclement weather.

He pulls in the driveway. The lot is nearly empty, so he parks right next to the office door and jams his winter cap on his head before hurrying through the flurries.

The bored teenager behind the front desk barely looks up from the reality show playing on her tablet as she runs Hob’s credit card and gives him his door key – an actual, physical key. Room 1389. He decides it’s not worth it to ask why the room number has four digits when the motel has maybe a dozen rooms total.

He does ask if there’s somewhere nearby to get a bite to eat and a drink.

“There’s a diner across the street and down a block,” the teenager says, “but they don’t serve booze.” Then, finally looking up, perhaps seeing the bags under his eyes and his generally downtrodden demeanor, she relents. “There’s a liquor store about two blocks past that. You can bring stuff back to your room, I guess. It’s not like anybody is going to ask questions around here.”

That, Hob thinks as he heads back outside and moves his rental car a little closer to his door, is obvious. There’s a general air of neglect clinging to the motel, and indeed to the whole street, from what he can see: the buildings are a little more weatherbeaten than can be plausibly explained by a cute vintage aesthetic, and at least one storefront seems to be permanently boarded up. The recession has clearly hit Northern California just as hard as it has the rest of the United States.

What a time to be playing tourist. What a time to be – well, he won’t think about that right now.

His room is clean, at least. Someone, at some point in time, has made a half-hearted attempt to decorate it with a seaside theme. The bedlinens are various shades of blue, rather than your typical beigey-white. There’s an unfortunate painting of a mermaid hanging over the outdated television, and a slightly less unfortunate painting of a lighthouse above the bed. The bathroom wallpaper has little seashells on it.

Hob leaves his camera bag on the desk and his duffel on the end of the bed, grabs his wallet, turns his collar up against the cold, and heads back out into the snowy evening.

The diner is, as promised, only a short walk down the street, but Hob is shivering by the time he gets there. The wind cuts right through him – silly British man that he is, he thought California would be warm, even in winter. He hadn’t really reckoned with unpredictable mountain weather, or with the cold front that was chasing him down through the southern end of the Cascades. The weatherman on the radio had been calling it “freakish.”

A little bell tinkles merrily when he pushes open the door. A waitress calls out a greeting, tells him to sit wherever he likes and she’ll be right with him. There’s only one other person in the diner, a slender man dressed all in black who is hunched over a cup of coffee at the counter. He glances up and immediately back down as Hob stomps the snow off his boots and takes an empty booth far enough away from the front door that he won’t feel the rush of cold air if anyone else comes in.

The waitress bustles over, bringing him a cup of coffee without even asking. Hob wraps his fingers around it gratefully. He doesn’t normally drink coffee this late, but it’s been the kind of day that calls for it: so cold, so uncomfortable and distressing, that the sturdy ceramic mug is exactly what he wants. The bitter note of slightly burnt coffee is tempered by the cheap, artificially flavored vanilla creamer he only ever uses at this kind of greasy spoon diner. He breathes deep and feels something inside him start to thaw.

When the waitress comes back with a menu, he warms up even more. She is middle-aged and comfortable, nice and no-nonsense, the sort of person with an indeterminate American accent who could have come from anywhere: Illinois, or Florida, or five minutes down the road. She recommends the olive burger with fries, and a side of fried pickles, because they’re the best in the county, and then her excitement simply bubbles over.

“I’m just so darn tickled to have two Brits here in the same night!” she enthuses. “Oh gosh, is that okay? Can I call you Brits or is that rude?”

“No, no, it’s fine!” Hob laughs. “Two of us, eh? That is a coincidence.”

“I know, right? Okay hon, lemme just get your order in and I’ll be back to warm up your coffee in a sec.”

She bustles away again, and Hob looks curiously at the man at the counter. He must have heard her comment, but he hasn’t turned around, or indeed acknowledged Hob in any way since he came in. He shrugs mentally and turns away to look out the window at the thickly swirling snow. It’s dark enough now that streetlights have come on, casting cones of light in which the flakes dance like a very slow sodium-tinted tornado.

He wishes he had a book. Or a crossword puzzle, or one of those packets of crayons they give to kids at restaurants. Something to keep his hands occupied and his mind off of everything that was threatening to consume it, off of the last few days, off of her –

Then the man from the counter slides into the booth across from him.

“Hello,” Hob says.

“Hello,” the stranger says. His voice is surprisingly deep and resonant, coming from his slim frame, and he looks to be in his late twenties, perhaps a few years younger than Hob. He is very pale. His dark hair is sticking up rather wildly and his eyes are a cold, clear blue that reminds Hob of the way the sky had looked this morning, before the clouds had descended.

“Who are you, then? Aside from a fellow Brit?” asks Hob.

“No one of consequence.” He’s lugging around a small backpack, which now rests on the bench beside him.

“I must know,” Hob says in a very bad Inigo Montoya accent.

“Get used to disappointment,” the stranger says with a smirk, and Hob laughs.

“Oh, we’re going to get along just fine,” he says, holding his hand out across the table. “My name’s Hob, yes that’s my real name, and yes, it is a long story.”

The stranger shakes his hand briefly. His palm is warm from cupping his coffee cup, but the tips of his fingers are cold. “Pleased to meet you, Hob.”

“And do you have a name, stranger?”

“I do. Several, in fact.”

“Any of them for public consumption?”

The stranger shrugs. “Will you forgive me if I maintain a certain level of mystery?”

Hob shrugs too. “That’s your lookout, mate. No skin off my nose.”

They chat. About the weather, and how odd it is, and how different to England. About books – the stranger appears to be a voracious reader, and Hob had loaded up an old iPod with audiobooks in preparation for a lot of driving, which sparks a lively debate on the merits of printed books vs reading aloud. In the midst of this, Hob’s food arrives, and he is derailed momentarily from the conversation by an overwhelming need to unhinge his jaw and stuff as many chips into his gob as humanly possible. The stranger watches in amusement.

“Hungry?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Hob says, muffled by his burger. “Been driving pretty much all day and I didn’t really want to stop, so…”

He’s suddenly self-conscious, very aware that the man sitting across from him is slender and willowy and dressed all in black, and that he himself is very much… not that. Dressed for comfort and warmth in slightly baggy jeans and a flannel shirt and his puffy jacket balled up on the bench beside him. But the stranger seems unbothered, simply smiling slightly and snagging a fried pickle off the plate between them, which Hob had invited him to share moments after it had arrived.

They are good; crispy and salty and uniquely American. Hob is certainly prepared to believe they’re the best in the county.

“So are you staying here in town, or is that shrouded in mystery as well?” he asks, once he’s slowed down a bit.

“I’ve been staying in a cabin up the mountain, a little way out of town. With my family.” He said the word family as though it is faintly dirty. “One of my siblings thought it would be good for us to get away together. But I have found it… trying.”

“Up the mountain, eh? Are you going to be able to get back in this?”

Hob tips his head toward the window. It is very dark now, and the snow is falling more thickly and wildly than ever. A crease appears between the stranger’s eyebrows.

“To be honest, I had not thought that far ahead.”

“Do you have much experience driving in the snow?”

To Hob’s surprise, the stranger actually blushes, just a gentle stain of pink across his cheekbones. “I… walked.”

“You walked?”

The waitress, stopping by the table to warm up their coffees, echos Hob’s surprise.

“Oh, honey,” she says. “In this? How are you fixing to get home?”

“I was planning to walk back,” the stranger says with some asperity. “But I admit I was not anticipating this kind of weather.”

“Let me check on the roads for you,” the waitress says kindly. “Which cabin did you say you’re at? My brother-in-law lives up that way, I’ll give him a call. I’m sure we can find you a ride.”

She goes back behind the counter and picks up the phone.

“I’m happy to give you a ride,” Hob says quietly. “If she thinks it’s safe.”

“You do not have to do that.”

“‘S okay. I want to.”

“Bill? It’s Jan. I have a question for you,” says the waitress.

Hob realizes, suddenly and with some surprise, that it is quite true, that he is not just being polite: he does want to help this mysterious stranger, who talks like a 19th-century Byronic hero and dresses like a college goth. His stomach is doing the tiniest little swoop every time they make eye contact, and he doesn’t want it to stop.

The waitress calls over to him.

“You got four wheel drive, hon?”

Hob thinks about the little Honda Civic in the motel parking lot. Thinks about mountain roads and snow. Shakes his head no.

Scraps of the waitress’s conversation float across the diner and Hob takes another bite of his burger.

“– well they’re foreign, Bill, they don’t –”

He snickers just a little; can’t help himself, really, because the waitress is just so kind and helpful and also clearly more than a little bit befuddled by their presence in her diner. These two Brits, total strangers, so unalike one another – and yet here they are, sharing a booth and a plate of fried pickles, five thousand miles and change away from home. He exchanges a look of camaraderie with the stranger and eats some more chips. They’re good too.

“– and tomorrow? What’s the overnight –”

After another minute or two the waitress thanks her brother-in-law and hangs up the phone. Her face is serious when she comes back to their table.

“Well, boys,” she says, “I don’t think anyone is going anywhere tonight. Bill says it’s pretty bad up there, and only getting worse. The plows aren’t even going out yet on account of the snow’s still coming down so hard, it doesn’t make sense to try and clear anything. You going to be able to find a place to stay?” she asks the stranger.

He looks at Hob. “Did you mention a motel?”

“Yeah, the Townhouse?” Hob says, and the waitress nods along. “I don’t know for sure if there are rooms available, but it didn’t look like the parking was full.”

“Probably not, this time of year,” interjects the waitress. “It’s a fine place, and Paulie can certainly use the business. I’ll bring your checks by in a minute, guys.”

She leaves them again. Her sensible sneakers squeak against the floor tiles as she walks.

“Thank you again for your offer of a ride,” the stranger says quietly. “That was very kind of you.”

“Course. I’m just sorry you won’t be able to get home tonight,” Hob says.

“It is my own fault. I should not have behaved so impulsively. But my siblings…” The man frowns. “As I said, they can be difficult. I would have done something regrettable, had I remained in the house.”

Hob waves a hand. “Ah, it happens to the best of us. Especially around family. You should hear some of the fights I’ve had with my sister, we can scream the paint off the walls when we get going.”

“Indeed,” the man says darkly.

“I’m glad you did come to town, though. It’s been kind of nice,” Hob says tentatively. “Having someone to talk to tonight.”

“Indeed,” his stranger repeats. But this time one corner of his mouth lifts in a tiny smile. “It seems to have worked out in my favor.”

Hob smiles back. “So, are you really not going to tell me your name?”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“Fun, eh?” Hob glances down at his own hands, folded on the table, back at the stranger. “Is that what this is?”

The stranger smirks. He leans forward and plucks another fried pickle from the plate. He opens his mouth, sticking out his tongue just a little bit farther than necessary to pop the slice into his mouth. He chews, and smirks some more, and gives Hob an unmistakable up-and-down appraising glance, and underneath the table he presses one ankle against Hob’s instep.

Oh. Hob feels a surprising but not unfamiliar spike of arousal in his gut. So that’s where this is heading – has been heading, since he pushed open the door and the stranger had glanced up at him. Had he blushed, when his eyes met Hob’s? Or is he applying more detail to that brief interaction after the fact, now that he thinks he knows what his stranger is thinking?

And when had the man become his stranger?

“I see,” he says, and presses back against the bony ankle under the table.

Ten minutes later, they’ve settled their bills – his stranger had apparently eaten a club sandwich before Hob had arrived, and he’s weirdly relieved that the man has consumed something more substantial than coffee this evening – and are gearing up to head back into the cold. Hob is zipping up his coat when he realizes the other man appears to have only a thick black hoodie and a knit beanie (also black, of course). He glances out the window, where it’s still snowing pretty hard, and raises an eyebrow.

“You going to be okay in just that?”

“You said it is only a couple of blocks? I will be fine. I tend not to feel the cold. And,” he adds defensively, “when I originally walked down the weather was not quite so… inclement.”

“If you say so,” Hob says as he opens the door. The waitress calls out a good night and he waves to her over his stranger’s shoulder. Wonders, just for a moment, what she thinks of the fact that they’re leaving together, or if she will ever think of them again at all. They step out into the snowy evening. “The girl at the motel said there’s a liquor store down the street. Mind detouring there? I was thinking of picking up some whiskey, or something. Something to keep a man warm.”

The man chuckles and they head down the street. It’s not until they’re away from the diner windows that he takes Hob by the elbow and gently draws him just outside the circle of a street lamp.

“Surely,” he says, voice low, stepping into Hob’s space, “there are many ways for a man to… keep warm.”

And he kisses him.

His lips are warm and dry, a little chapped. It’s a simple kiss, a chaste one, just their lips touching and the barest pressure of the stranger’s belly and chest pressed against Hob’s, swathed in layers of winter gear. It lasts for a heartbeat, two, and then the man steps back with a hum of satisfaction.

“Oh?” says Hob, giddily. “It’s like that, is it?”

“Obviously,” responds his stranger.

“Well, I don’t know, mate,” says Hob as they make their way down the street. He resists the urge to link their arms together. “Maybe you play footsie with every guy you meet in random diners in Northern California.”

“Perhaps.”

The liquor store is a brief respite from the wind and the snow. Hob selects a mid-range bottle of whiskey and they trudge back to his motel room. The snowflakes and the streetlights and the swirling wind make everything feel more than a little bit surreal, like something out of a dream or a fairy tale. The two of them could be adventurers, explorers, wading through an arctic wasteland in search of shelter. The mountain looms behind them, dark and mysterious, like a great castle or some monstrous beast.

“Do you mind if I take a shower?” asks his stranger, kicking off his boots dropping his backpack by the desk. “I’m afraid I did get rather sweaty, hiking down earlier. I wouldn’t mind cleaning up.” His gaze, beneath his long eyelashes, feels heavy and significant.

“Go right ahead.” Hob gestures toward the bathroom. “I’m just going to nip down to the lobby and get a bit of ice.” He retrieves the ice bucket from the desk, brushing close to his stranger as he does. The brief contact jolts him back to the real world. They’re not in the arctic waste; this handsome, ethereal man is here, in his motel room. He is pulling off his somewhat sodden hoodie and draping it over the back of the chair, and sniffing dubiously at the sweater he wears underneath it. He is real.

Hob waits until he hears the shower turn on to slip out the door.

Although he has his moments of cluelessness, Hob is not a stupid man. He knows where this is going. He recognizes the signs, the coy little dance they’ve been doing around each other for the past two hours, and no, he’s not a stupid man, but if he were a better one he might be able to resist the temptation of falling into bed with a beautiful stranger who won’t even share his name.

But there’s something about this man. Hob wants him. Already can’t resist him. Wants to wrap him up and keep him warm and kiss his collarbones and, yes, wants to fuck him, wants to feel him shudder and moan and wants to watch his cheeks flush and his head fall back in ecstasy. He hasn’t felt like this for a long, long time, and now it’s come out of nowhere to slam into him and hook into his gut, this wanting.

He throws a few scoops of ice from the machine in the motel lobby into the bucket and goes back to the room.

He’s kicked off his boots, unwrapped one of the shitty plastic cups, and poured himself a couple fingers of whiskey by the time he hears the shower shut off. There’s the usual shuffling noise of towels, a brief blast of the cheap hair dryer mounted to the wall. Then the door opens and the stranger emerges, and Hob is slammed from the real world right back into a surreal dream.

The man is even more beautiful without his clothes on: Hob would compare him to an elf or a fairy prince, but he’s too busy choking slightly on the spit that’s suddenly flooding his mouth at the sight of long, slim limbs, a narrow waist, and a temptingly well-defined Adonis belt that disappears under the cheap motel towel wound around his hips.

There’s a long moment of silent eye contact. Hob’s leaning up against the desk, cup cradled in one hand. His face heats as he watches his stranger’s eyes travel slowly down the length of his body and back up, pursing his lips slightly. His mouth is very pink, with the kind of full bottom lip that’s made for nibbling on, and the rest of his skin is as pale and smooth as… well, as snow, with just a touch of redness from the heat of the shower spreading across his chest.

Hob downs half of his whiskey without even thinking about it. He can’t look away. He can’t think, can’t even blink. He’s afraid that if he does, this vision will disappear and it’ll just be him, alone, a saddish man alone in a motel room with a bottle of booze and a bag of expensive camera equipment, and then who knows what will happen?

His stranger gives him one of those tiny half-smiles, suggestive, not quite a leer, and stalks across the room toward him.

He widens his legs and his stranger steps in to stand between his feet. He takes Hob’s drink out of his hand and tosses back the last swallow of whiskey before setting the plastic cup aside. Then he hooks one finger into the collar of Hob’s flannel shirt and pulls him into a kiss. His mouth is a study in contrasts: warm from the whiskey and cool from the ice, soft tongue and sharp teeth. They sink briefly, gently, into Hob’s bottom lip, and Hob pulls the man close against his chest and returns the favor.

The kiss is turning wet and messy when the man pulls back far enough to start fumbling with Hob’s shirt buttons. He’s pulled the tails of the shirt out of Hob’s jeans and has it about halfway unbuttoned when a phone starts ringing.

It’s not the room phone – it’s coming from a pocket of the man’s backpack.

“Ignore it,” he mumbles into Hob’s neck. “We are busy.”

The phone rings three times; four times. The stranger has finished with Hob’s shirt and is pulling the tee beneath it out of the waistband of his jeans by the time it finally stops.

His fingers are toying with Hob’s belt buckle and ghosting over the seam of his fly when it rings again.

The stranger groans audibly.

“Do you think,” Hob says with the carefully deliberate cadence of the very turned on, “that your family might be worried about you?”

“I do not care,” his stranger grumbles, and sinks gracefully to his knees.

Eventually the phone stops ringing again.

He’s worked Hob’s belt and fly open and is nuzzling into the opening of his jeans, nosing at the base of Hob’s cock through his underwear and Hob is panting, his stranger’s hot breath so close to where Hob wants him most – when the phone rings a third time.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” snarls the stranger, and stands.

He fishes a slightly battered-looking BlackBerry out of an outside pocket of his backpack and stabs at the call answer button.

“What.”

He turns away, so all Hob can see is the furious, stiff line of his stranger’s back. He can’t hear the other half of the conversation, and he doesn’t think he wants to; every fibre of the man’s body radiates anger and discomfort and perhaps a little bit of shame. Hob adjusts himself discreetly, rezips his jeans, and tiptoes over to sit down on the edge of the bed.

“Obviously I am alive. I am fine.” A pause. “I took a walk.” Another pause. “Yes. Yes, I know what time it is. No, I am assured that the roads were too bad to make it back to the cabin. I am in a motel room in…” He looks over to Hob. “What is the name of this place?”

Hob supplies the name of the motel, and that of the town as well, just for good measure. The man relays the information into the phone. There is another long pause.

“That is none of your business. Shut up. You have no idea what you’re talking about. And if you speak to me like that again I will hang up the phone.”

There is another, longer pause, during which the stranger’s face grows progressively redder. He is very deliberately not looking at Hob.

“No. I said no. I will arrange for my own transportation in the morning. I –”

The person on the other end of the phone must say something truly outrageous, because his strangers eyes bug out in a way that looks almost uncomfortable.

“Do the entirety of the known universe a favor and crawl back into whatever slime hole you emerged from and leave me alone,” he hisses. “Goodbye.”

Hob can’t quite muffle a snort at this crowning line. Siblings.

His stranger hangs up the phone with a vicious jab of a button and slams it down on the desk; then seems to reconsider, retrieves it, and shuts it off entirely before throwing it into his backpack. He sighs, a surprisingly tired sound.

“I will have another drink, if you don’t mind,” he says. “And then I would like it very much if you would fuck me. Please.”

Hob’s cock, which had been feeling distinctly neglected, gives a twitch.

“I think that can be arranged,” he says. “Are you –”

The stranger waves a dismissive hand. “I am quite sober enough to have sex with you. And I could easily afford my own room, if that’s a concern. I am here because I want to be.”

“Glad to hear it, but that actually isn’t what I was going to ask,” Hob says mildly.

“Oh,” the man says. A faint blush rises on his cheekbones. He scoops up the whiskey bottle and uncorks it, taking an unceremonious swig. The towel hangs dangerously low around his hips. “What were you going to ask?”

His stranger pauses with the whiskey bottle against his lips. Hob watches the long line of his neck work once, twice, as he swallows, and figures he may as well put his cards on the table.

“I was going to ask if latex condoms are okay. For when I fuck you into the mattress in a minute here.”

The man clears his throat. “Oh,” he says again. “Yes. Latex is fine.”

“Good. Anything you don’t like? Hard boundaries?”

He pauses. “I do not enjoy being choked. Or having my hands restrained in any way. But I like… I like it a little bit rough. It feels good. To be used.”

Hob leans back on one elbow. “Is that what you want me to do? Use you?”

“Yes.”

The word drops into the quiet room like a handful of snow might drop off a tree branch – soft and muffled and sending the same delicious shiver down Hob’s spine.

“I can do that.” Oh, yes. Hob can use this beautiful man, if he is offering himself up to be used. “C’mere, then.”

His stranger walks slowly across the room to where Hob is half-reclining on the bed, feet still planted on the floor. He kneels between Hob’s legs and runs his hands slowly up and down his thighs from knee to hip. “And you?” he asks. “Your boundaries?”

Hob considers. “I’m with you on choking, not a fan,” he says. “I’m not big on pain, generally, but I can give it to other people, if they need it.”

“Alright.” His hands are still rubbing up and down Hob’s thighs, a slow, hypnotizing rhythm. When he speaks again his voice is thick. “Would you consider the preliminary negotiations to be concluded now?”

“Don’t you have anything better to do with your mouth than spout off like a horny nineteenth century robber baron?” Hob counters.

His stranger smiles, a proper smile that crinkles the corners of his blue eyes, and unzips the fly of Hob’s jeans.

In short order he’s pulled them open and pushed Hob’s boxers down just enough that he can get his cock out. He’s not quite hard, not yet, but he gets there quickly between his stranger’s gentle, surprisingly soft hands and the way he immediately buries his nose in Hob’s pubic hair and breathes deeply as he looks up through his eyelashes.

Then he opens his mouth, and wraps his tongue around the head of Hob’s cock, and Hob’s brain makes a noise like radio static.

Oh, he is good at this. Unfairly good. Supernaturally good. He teases Hob for long, long minutes, working up and down his shaft with light touches of just his lips and tongue, ducking down now and then to mouth gently at his balls, until Hob is twitching and swearing and straining, perched on the edge of the bed. When he finally has mercy and takes Hob’s cock fully into his mouth, it is barely a relief. He is so wet, so hot, and he sinks down on Hob with no resistance, no trace of a gag reflex. Before he can stop himself, Hob’s hips jerk forward that final fraction, and suddenly his stranger’s nose is brushing his pubic bone and his throat is contracting around the head of Hob’s cock.

He’s expecting the man to pull back, to splutter in indignation, but instead he makes an encouraging noise and squeezes Hob’s thigh before folding his hands almost primly in his lap.

“Fuck,” Hob mutters. He makes an experimental shallow thrust into the tight, wet heat of his stranger’s mouth. “Really?”

His stranger can’t nod, not with Hob’s prick in his mouth, but he moans. Hob feels it vibrate all along the length of his shaft and has to stifle a whimper of his own. He sinks one hand into the soft riot of the man’s hair, still a little damp from the shower, and cradles the back of his skull. The bone feels sweet and finely formed in his hand.

“You want me to fuck your pretty face?” he asks, soft and just a tiny bit mean. “Yeah? That’s what your mouth is good for, isn’t it?”

He thrusts again, in and out, and the stranger’s eyes roll back a little in his head, so he does it again, and again. Soon he really is fucking his face, not too hard but deep, fingers tightening in his stranger’s hair as his eyes fall nearly shut, narrowing to crystalline blue crescents.

Hob pulls back briefly to let his stranger breathe. Runs his thumb along his bottom lip, dripping with spit, before he pushes back in. He doesn’t stop until he can feel the first tendrils of orgasm beckoning to him; but as tempting as it is to keep going, to empty himself into this perfect mouth, he’s made a promise. And Hob is a man of his word, so he pulls the man off his cock by the scruff of his neck. He makes an obscene noise as he goes, and another thing string of saliva dribbles from his puffy mouth. His eyes are slightly glassy as he looks up at Hob.

“Get up on the bed, baby,” Hob orders gently.

When the man stands up the towel is just barely clinging to his narrow hips, and his erection is stiff and straining against the terrycloth. He’s so hard, Hob thinks wonderingly, just from having Hob’s cock in his mouth for a few minutes, and his own prick throbs in sympathy.

“Hands and knees,” Hob says, and the man crawls up on the bed. The towel falls away as he goes, languid but obedient, so that he’s entirely naked when Hob positions himself behind him. The contrast between Hob’s clothes and the other man’s nudity is delicious – Hob’s rough denim against the man’s soft thighs, Hob’s hairy wrists poking out from worn flannel as he runs his fingernails along sharply elegant shoulder blades.

He allows himself one long, gentle caress, from the nape of his stranger’s neck down to the shallow dimples in the small of his back, before he grabs at the man’s buttocks and unceremoniously spreads him open.

His hole looks surprisingly loose and relaxed already. Hob runs the pad of one thumb over it.

“Were you prepping yourself in the shower?” he asks, delighted. He presses gently and the furl of muscle gives, just a little, pink and fluttering.

“Hng,” says his stranger, shuddering. “Yes. I thought – I thought about your hands. Oh. I liked the thought that you were just outside the door. While I had my fingers inside myself.”

“Impatient little minx,” Hob says fondly. He kisses one of the lovely knobs of his stranger’s spine and pinches his backside for good measure before pulling away. “Stay here.”

He has to dig down to the bottom of his duffel bag in order to find the box of condoms and the little travel sized bottle of lube. He’d felt a little self-conscious when he’d packed them back in his flat in London – like he was presuming something – but then again he had been preparing for a supposedly romantic road trip with his girlfriend.

He’s glad, now, that he has them.

His stranger has remained on his knees, pitched forward to rest on his elbows, face pressed into a pillow and cock hanging heavy between his legs.

“Good boy,” Hob praises, and runs his hand along the man’s flank. “Beautiful. Oh, darling, I’m going to make you feel so good. And then you’re going to make me feel so good, aren’t you? You already have,” Hob coos, drizzling lube directly onto his arsehole. “And I know you’re going to keep being a good boy for me, aren’t you?”

Before the man can answer, Hob slips a finger inside him, right up to the first knuckle. He’s rewarded with a whimper and the feeling of his stranger pushing back against him, silently begging for more.

And then not so silently. “More,” moans the stranger. “Fuck. More, please.”

Hob strokes his finger in and out, petting the velvet inside his stranger.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “You’ll get more.”

He tries to spend as much time torturing his stranger with his fingers as his stranger had spent torturing him with his mouth, but by the second finger he finds his resolve dissolving like so many snowflakes on warm skin. The man is making such wanton sounds, and his knees skid wider and wider on the slippery motel bedspread, opening him inexorably to Hob’s hungry eyes and questing hands.

“Oh. Oh,” he says. “Oh, yes, fuck,” he moans. No more well-crafted phrases or erudite words; the only thing dropping from that perfect mouth are noises, guttural and breathy by turns, only half-muffled by the pillow his face is smashed into.

“Please,” he begs, “please, in me, I – please, I need –”

Hob obliges.

He’s pretty sure he’s never been harder in his life as he shoves his jeans down around his thighs and rolls the condom on. He has to do it one-handed, clumsily, because some frantic corner of his brain is convinced that if he lets go of the stranger’s hip then the man will disappear, between one blink and the next, and this whole night will turn out to have been some snowblind fever dream.

But his stranger stays where Hob has put him, desperate and writhing, begging for Hob’s cock, and when he finally pins the man down to the mattress and pushes into him, that first hard thrust is enough to silence both of them.

The room is utterly still for a heartbeat, and then another, and then one more, until Hob pulls out in order to thrust in again and his stranger wails and then Hob is fucking into him in earnest, fucking him hard, until the sound of their skin slapping together almost drowns out the sounds his stranger is making beneath him.

Almost.

His stranger moans and pants, and Hob answers him, thrust for thrust and moan for moan, Yes and Ah and Christ and Fuck, fuck me, use me, yes. He grips his stranger by the hips, so hard that his fingers leave little white divots behind when he shifts his grip, so hard that he worries he might leave bruises, and still the man pushes back against him and begs for more.

He comes, when he finally comes, untouched, rutting gracelessly against the mattress. Hob stills, grits his teeth, not wanting to overwhelm the other man as he seizes in pleasure, but his stranger continues to move against him, if anything even more desperate, even in the throes of orgasm.

“Don’t stop,” he gasps, “don’t, oh God, fuck me through it, don’t stop –”

So Hob hauls him up and pushes him down, one hand on his waist and one shoving his chest down into the mattress as the man’s hands scrabble at the sheets and he sobs and Hob pistons into him until he empties himself, until his prick is oversensitive and his stranger is twitching around and beneath him, and the room is finally quiet.

Then Hob takes the condom off, knots it and tosses it towards the wastebasket. He rolls them both away from the wet spot with only middling success, but he’s too tired to care. He shucks the rest of his clothes off. He is boneless and spent, and his stranger is inserting himself relentlessly into Hob’s personal space. They lie there for a long, long moment, sweaty and panting, until their breathing starts to even out and the desperate closeness has receded into normal cuddling. Hob presses a kiss to his stranger’s sweaty temple and marvels at his luck.

“I realize I neglected to ask you why you find yourself in Northern California,” his stranger says, tucked against Hob’s side, voice drowsy and hoarse. “Do you care to share?”

“It’s a long story,” Hob says. “I was – well, I am – on a road trip. With my, ah. With my girlfriend. Well. Ex-girlfriend, now. Actually.”

His stranger tenses slightly, and Hob doesn’t blame him; he knows how it must sound. “It sounds like there is a story there?” the man says, almost tentative.

“Yeah, we… we came over together, about two weeks ago. We flew into Seattle, were planning this whole big trip, right down the coast and all the way to Los Angeles. See the redwoods, do some wine tastings, the whole bit. I’m a photographer, I was thinking I could turn the whole trip into a photo essay, maybe even a book.” He sighs. “Then she heard about this yoga retreat, ashram sort of place. Bit culty, I don’t really go in for all that, but she absolutely had to check it out, so we did. Two days later, out of the blue, she tells me our chakras are misaligned and gives me the boot. Turns out Guru Todd Thingummy, who ran the retreat center, was very aligned with her chakras. As well as other, less… metaphysical things.”

There’s a sound from the vicinity of Hob’s armpit that he realizes with delight is a snort. The snort blossoms into a chuckle, and then his stranger is laughing, a frankly horrible honking sort of laugh, shaking in Hob’s arms with it, and Hob laughs along.

“I’m sorry,” his stranger gasps. “I shouldn’t – I shouldn’t laugh at you. It’s just… Guru Todd.”

“I know!” Hob snickers. “You can picture him, right? White boy dreadlocks and a fucking… shell necklace. Utter tosser.”

“I feel like I’ve probably met someone almost exactly like him, truly.” Eventually his stranger’s horrible laugh subsides. He shifts against Hob, playing idly with his chest hair, curling it around one finger. “In a way, I am also escaping a recent ex. She was the first person I dated after some… difficult experiences I had about a year ago. But in the end I was far more invested in the relationship than she, and she became. Uncomfortable. With my ardor.”

“She’s a bloody idiot then,” Hob says automatically, and his stranger looks up, startled.

“Do you think so?”

Hob briefly considers backpedaling. Don’t come off like a madman, he thinks to himself. Not when he’s finally talking to you. But there’s no hope for him. “Well, yeah. I mean, I’d say your ardor is my favorite thing about you so far.” He lets one hand drift down and gives his stranger’s arse a cheeky squeeze, and is rewarded with a squeak and another snort.

“You are kind to say so,” the man says, and interrupts himself with a yawn.

“It’s true. I… I’m really glad I met you,” Hob says honestly. Too honestly. He can’t help himself; the man is just so beautiful, mouth kissed red and limbs loose, fucked out and soft everywhere he’d been hard and prickly before.

Hob still doesn’t know his name.

“I’m glad I met you, too,” the man says softly.

Hob snuggles them both down into the lumpy motel pillows and pulls the blanket up firmly around their shoulders. The wind blows outside, he reaches up to switch off the lamp, and they fall asleep.

He wakes in the night and stumbles to the bathroom to take a piss. When he comes back, his stranger has starfished out and is taking up a full two-thirds of the bed, sleeping like a stone. Hob manages to reinsert himself into the remaining third and then simply lies there for a long few minutes, looking at the other man.

The skies must have cleared, at least a little, because there’s a few strips of moonlight filtering through the blinds. The pale light turns his stranger into marble, a work of art; he practically glows against the blue sheets. Hob’s fingers itch for his camera.

“You’re going to fuck me up,” he whispers. “I’m going to wake up next to you and never want to leave, and it’s going to fuck me up so bad.”

The sleeping man does not respond, of course; doesn’t even stir. Hob lies there, and gazes at him, until he slips back into sleep himself.

When he wakes again it’s fully morning. The sun is that peculiar thin shade of blue that you get on very cold mornings, but when Hob peeks out the window, the sky is clear and the snowplows have clearly been out making the rounds. He tries to tamp down a sudden feeling of disappointment.

He gets a drink of water, and when he returns to bed his stranger is stirring. First one blue eye opens, then the other.

“Morning,” Hob says.

The man hums and stretches luxuriously, rolling from his belly to his back. The sheets fall down around his hips, revealing one elegant hipbone and a tempting glimpse of dark curls. His pale skin practically glows against the blue sheets in the morning light.

“Enjoying the view?” his stranger asks, and his voice is rough with sleep and slightly hoarse.

“You could say that,” Hob says. He puts one knee on the bed, reaches out to run a hand lightly down the long, lean line of the man’s thigh. “God, you’re… you are so beautiful.”

“Come here to me,” the man says, beckoning to Hob.

Hob ducks his head and kisses up the ladder of the man’s ribs, takes one pert nipple gently between his teeth.

“Can I take your picture?” he says suddenly. “Not in a creepy way. I can even keep your face out of it if you like, I just… there’s something about you, in this light.”

“I don’t mind,” the man says.

Hob’s heart leaps.

A few minutes later, he’s gotten his camera out and adjusted. The room is so quiet, so still, that each click of the shutter sounds almost sacrilegious. He shoots in black and white. He thinks the sheets will show dark, almost black, and the man’s skin will show light and luminous against them. His stranger poses like a dream, languid and biddable, moving here and there on the bed, wherever Hob arranges him.

“You’ve done this before,” Hob accuses. He’s kneeling above the other man, shooting straight down, and his stranger has one arm thrown over his face so only one eye is visible. “Posed, I mean. You know how to move for a camera.”

“I have,” the stranger admits. “Mostly for life drawing classes, though I imagine the principle is more or less the same.”

“Incredible. Are you an artist, then?”

“I suppose.”

Hob tugs the sheet a little lower, so that it’s just barely covering the stranger’s prick, which has plumped up a little – whether from the attention of Hob himself or of the camera, he’s not sure, but it’s one of the sexiest things Hob’s ever seen. The neat patch of dark hair blending into the dark sheet. The gentle swell beneath it. His mouth waters.

“You suppose?”

“I find it difficult to call myself an artist. To claim that title. But I make art. If that is the same thing.”

“Hmm. I reckon so.”

Hob pulls the sheet another fraction of an inch lower. He can feel himself getting distracted. The itch he’d felt to photograph the beautiful stranger, now mostly satisfied, has transformed into an altogether different kind of impulse. He takes one more shot, barely paying attention to the framing. Catches himself licking his lips.

“Hob.”

“Yeah?”

“Put the camera down.”

He hastens to obey.

He’d pulled his boxers back on at some point last night, but they do little to hide his arousal as he slides under the sheets and slots himself in behind his stranger, rubbing his nose in the riotous bedhead and kissing his neck as the man tilts his head to one side to give him better access.

“I like how you say my name,” Hob murmurs. He grinds against his stranger’s narrow arse and reaches around to make a loose fist around his hardening cock. “You’re really not going to tell me yours, are you?”

“Mine?”

“Your name.”

“I –” The man’s breath hitches as Hob tightens his grip, stroking slowly up and down. “I haven’t – decided yet.”

“Well,” Hob says against the smooth skin between his ear and his shoulder. “Let me know what you decide.”

They writhe together under the sheets for a few minutes, until they’re both fully hard, until Hob’s chest is slightly tacky with sweat where it’s rubbing against the stranger’s sharp shoulder blades. He’s grunting, underwear pulled down, making quick little thrusts in the crease of the other man’s thigh, sticky and warm and so good.

“Fuck me again,” his stranger says. “Please.”

“Don’t be a madman,” Hob chides. “You’ll be so sore.”

But he doesn’t say no. And he slides a finger between the man’s arse cheeks and pets over his hole, still a little loose from the night before.

The stranger twists his neck around to look Hob in the eye. “I don’t care. I want you,” he says. “I want to feel it.”

And Hob tries his best to be a good person, he really does, but when confronted with this bald-faced desire he is only, after all, a man. So he mumbles Fuck, okay, yeah, okay against his stranger’s shoulder, and tears himself away to retrieve the lube and a condom. He fingers him open, as slowly and as carefully as he can bring himself to do it, and rolls the condom on, and he fucks him again. Face to face, this time; one knee hooked over his elbow, and long arms clinging to him like a drowning man, and panting, open-mouthed kisses that are as much simply breathing the other’s breath as they are real kisses.

The stranger comes first, his beautiful face screwed up in ecstasy, and Hob follows him over the edge mere seconds later.

The other man falls back into a doze almost immediately, drifting off as soon as Hob has disposed of the condom and wiped them down with a handful of tissues, but Hob is buzzing with too much energy to lie back down. He cleans himself up, splashing water on his face and brushing his teeth quickly, before dressing quietly and creeping down to the motel lobby to look for breakfast.

There’s a coffee machine, a few muffins – prepackaged, not fresh – and a rather sad fruit bowl with some mealy-looking apples. He assembles what he can and shoves some creamers and sugar packets in his jacket pocket. He asks the bored teenager at the front desk (a different one than the night before, although bearing a distinct family resemblance) about the weather report, and learns that although it’s supposed to stay cold, no more precipitation is in the forecast. Then he goes back to the room.

His stranger stirs again at the rush of cold air when Hob lets himself back into the room.

“I come bearing provisions,” he says, setting the coffees on the bedside table and dropping the rest of his meager bounty in the man’s lap.

“Foraging for our survival?” he asks dryly.

“Something like that. It’s slim pickings out there, I’m afraid. But hey –” he picks up a muffin and wiggles it “– chocolate chip!”

His stranger snorts and mutters something about being spoiled.

Hob is very careful not to say anything about how he’d like to spoil this man very much, actually, for the foreseeable future and possibly beyond that, because Hob has so longed for someone to care for, and because this man so obviously needs it. Hob eats his muffin, and very carefully does not say anything reckless or emotional.

They finish their motel snacks, and drink their coffees (Hob’s with a little creamer and one sugar; the stranger’s with no cream and an absurd amount of sugar). And eventually Hob broaches the subject that’s obviously hovering between them.

“So,” he says. “What do you want to do now? I’m still up to give you a ride to your cabin, if that’s what you want. The roads are supposed to be cleared by now.”

“I suppose I should,” the stranger says, fiddling with his styrofoam cup, not meeting Hob’s eyes. “I did tell my sibling that I would return in the morning.”

“Okay.” Hob clears his throat. “Alright then. Whenever you’re ready.”

It takes them another hour to leave the room. Hob showers, and then his stranger decides he needs to rinse off as well, and then there’s a frustrating search for car keys that turn out to have been kicked or dropped halfway under a bedside table at some point the night before.

Then the stranger stops Hob in the doorway with a hand on his elbow and kisses him, long and slow and wordless, before they step out into the brilliant snowy sparkle of the late morning.

The drive is very quiet. The stranger directs Hob out of town and along a rather steep road that winds up the thickly forested mountainside. It’s certainly not a road that Hob would have wanted to drive in last night’s weather, and even with clear skies and plowed roads he takes it slow, acutely aware of the grip of the rental car’s tires on the snowy highway.

Only one time does the stranger wince and shift uncomfortably when Hob cannot avoid a bump in the road. Hob smiles, and swallows his smile, and deliberately wrenches his mind away from the vivid memories of just why his stranger might be wincing and shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

His stranger is silent, except for when he briefly tells Hob when and where to turn. The farther they drive up the mountain, the stiffer he becomes, until he’s gripping the seat with white knuckles and his mouth is one firm line.

Hob doesn’t think it’s the wintry roads that are making him so tense.

They pull over, eventually, at the base of a long driveway. Through the trees Hob can see a large house – not really a cabin by any stretch of the imagination, but built of logs, and with a wisp of woodsmoke floating up from a picturesque brick chimney. They both gaze up at it through the trees. Hob puts the car in park but doesn’t turn it off.

“Well, here we are,” he says.

“Indeed,” his stranger says, and his voice sounds tense and slightly strangled. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”

Hob waits for him to open the door and walk away.

The man does not move.

A minute stretches by, and another, and another, and still his stranger has not opened the car door.

Hob dares to hope.

“Come with me,” he says suddenly.

His stranger looks up, startled.

“I mean it. Come with me. Go get your stuff and we’ll just. Drive away. Go down the coast, find somewhere it’s actually warm. Or don’t even get your stuff,” he adds hurriedly, aware that his voice is sounding increasingly unhinged. “Say the word and I’ll just turn the car around. We’ll go. Anywhere you want, just… come with me.”

The man looks at Hob with an unreadable expression for a long moment. “You know nothing about me,” he says finally.

“I know I like you. A lot,” Hob says. “I know last night was one of the best nights I’ve had in a long time, maybe one of the best nights of my whole life. I know I’d regret it if I didn’t at least ask. So, I’m asking. Come with me.”

“I haven’t even told you my name,” says his stranger. “I could be a serial killer.”

“You could be, yeah. But I don’t think you are. I think… I think you just want someone to want you.” Hob reaches across the gear shift and briefly touches his stranger on the cheek. The man’s eyes flutter closed and Hob doesn’t think he’s imagining the way he leans ever-so-slightly into the gentle touch before he looks down. “I want you.”

There’s another long silence, punctuated only by an occasional call from the chickadees flitting through the trees.

“My name is Morpheus,” he says to his hands, clenched in his lap. “But some people call me Dream. People – people close to me. Call me Dream.”

Hob smiles. “Can I call you Dream, then?”

Dream nods. “Let’s go,” he says. Hob’s smile widens.

“Want to get anything from inside?” he asks.

“No. I think not,” Dream says. All of a sudden it’s like the tight strings of his body are loosened: he leans back in his seat, crosses his ankles, looking relaxed for the first time since they’d gotten out of bed. He lolls his head to one side and peeks at Hob and his face looks fey and happy in the afternoon light. “I believe I have everything I need for now.”

Happiness wells up in Hob’s chest, a rushing feeling like a mountain spring swollen by melting snow. He puts the car in gear and reaches over to take Dream’s hand.

“Right then,” he says. “Let’s go.”

Read on AO3 >>>

#dreamling #the sandman #my writing #designtheendless

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hotvintagepoll · 8 months

Note

Thank u so much for making this blog! Logging on to read all the silly tags of ppl fighting for their lives to convince others to vote for their faves is so wonderful to see. Seeing all of this after a long day being an adult and having responsibilities is so nice and relaxing. And I love how you have inspired some other fandom battle Royale polls too <3 I am low key hoping someone pits all the animated disney characters together (Mufasa from the lion king on top!!!) anyway thank u so much for everything! Can’t wait to see who wins the actor and actress battles!

Thank you! Has no one done a Disney character poll yet? That's nuts.

anyway apropos of nothing. here's this

If you'd like to base your vote off their voices, not their faces, you can hear clips of each of them below:

June Foray (Lucifer in Cinderella)

Verna Felton and Barbara Luddy (Flora and Merriweather, respectively)

Eleanor Audley (Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty)

Phil Harris and Charles Sebastian Thomas Cabot (Baloo and Bagheera, respectively)

Sterling Holloway and Eva Gabor (Roquefort the mouse and Duchess the Cat)

Bill Thompson (The Dodo and The White Rabbit in this same clip from Alice in Wonderland)

edit: fucked up and put the wrong Phil in. It's Phil Harris apparently. The Disney people are allowed to eat me now.

#fuck i love voice actors. fuck i love old animation.#asks #minis #hotvintagepoll #disney #animation #voice actors

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lactoseintolerentswag · 11 months

Text

Rise Characterizations Pt. 6!!!!!!

After the turtles and Splinter, here we have the girl Ever. She's pretty spunky, I had fun analyzing her for writing.

April O'Neil Character Notes

Language Habits:

Uses bae/aave, something she could have passed on down to Raph and Mikey as they also use bae/aave

Most notably uses "mm-kay" in place of "okay"

Uses a lot of filler language, interjections, or onomatopoeia. Think "mhm", "uh huh, uh huh!", "oh yeah!"

"Ah nuts" is her go-to disappointed phrase

Grits and or strains her teeth when she's frustrated

Uses her own name (the full "April O'Neil!!!!") as a battle cry, or brings her name as a motivator i.e. "the one and only April O'Neil will solve this case!"

The more worked up she the louder she tends to be, this extends to stronger emotions such as passion or panic

Over text uses emoticons

Refers to splinter as "splints"

Refers to the turtles as "the fam"

Refers to villains/antagonists through insults rather than their names

Personality:

Adrenaline junkie, as she's often the first to jump into a fight. She also laughs in the face of danger, and was seen maniacally laughing and smiling the entirety of the gumbus episode

Jack of all trades. April has a lot of skills she's picked up from various jobs or personal adventures she's seeked out (like canoeing through the sewers in a hazmat suit and earning a crane license)

Wild and blunt. April is Loud, and rarely ever afraid to share her opinion. This can either make people draw back from her bluntness or be drawn in by her excitableness

Self-conscious. Despite her strong sense of self-esteem, April is still often motivated to impress the popular kids at school or at least fit in. She doesn't want to be seen as the weird kid, or associated with the weird kids

Persistent. April is always quick on her feet to hit back whatever comes at her. She has a good set of problem-solving skills that she's gained from all the skills she's picked up

Loyal. She's always willing to back up the turtles, and goes out of her way to keep Splinter happy with her company. Once she finds a friend it's hard to pry her away

Unlucky. Mostly in absurd or mundane ways. She has that whole curse with her birthday, but things don't often tend to go right for April O'Neil, which contributes to the disasters that cause her to get fired all the time

Miscellaneous:

Code-named "yellow submarine" by raph

Tends to have information on wifi passwords, secret exists, and access to keys from all the jobs she's been hired and fired from

Has a preference for blunt objects as weapons (most commonly bats, clubs, pipes)

Uses the environment in a fight in general

She's been part of the "warren stone fanclub" since 2010, and keeps all her ids in her wallet

Likes unicorns and cats (as seen through her brief texts with sunita and her pajamas)

Loves laser tag

Can beat Donnie at video games (if he didn't use cheat codes)

"sherlock_corn" is her handle online

Lives in an apartment/flat with her mom (showed onscreen briefly), that has its own bathroom

Has a subtly mentioned interest in fantasy, as noted by Donnie she tends to download fantasy rpgs and freaks out over cosplay wizards

Just an end note to all of you who aren't black, some offensive tropes I would stray from is making April the angry black girl. This is one of the most common stereotypes of black women in media. I wouldn't mistake April's passion or loudness for aggression. It would be a disservice to dilute her lively character into familiar but ultimately harmful tropes in media.

I am in no way saying you cannot portray April as angry, this is a powerful emotion and it should be explored with black characters, but I am saying that should not be the base of her character. Because well that's not even April's base. She's centered around fun and thrill-seeking.

Wikipedia (yes I know, But they have proven to be more dependable these past years) has a good article on the angry black woman stereotype, so that would a good place to start research on what to Avoid. In my splinter post I also provided some links on doing research on writing poc.

---

Anyway!!! We've ended our analysis trip of the main cast in s1. Next I'm thinking of picking apart our antagonists :]. Gonna take a break to work on my own fic, but stay tuned if you found any of my other posts helpful! It's been a fun ride with you all <3

#rottmnt #rise of the tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt april #rottmnt april o'neil #character analysis #writing #fan fic #long post #critter talks #she's the weird girl of all time #she's like lilo to me

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kodydrs · 10 months

Text

don’t stay at my house - j. kirstein

a/n : i need him in a way that’s terrible for feminism. I’ve been in love with this man since day freaking 1 and i think if i search hard enough there’ll be fanfics i wrote abt him when i was 15 (they will not be getting posted). but anywhos. why not send in a request, or ask?!

warnings: jean x fem!reader, jean x marco!sister!reader, fxm, smut (mdni), friends with benefits, brothers best friend type fwb, p in v, unprotected sex (wrap it before u tap it), titplay (not really), mostly fully clothed, not proofread (it’s never proofread), I’m bad at tagging still

ib: this one fanart i saw on pinterest

request: yes / no

rule number 1: no feelings. it’s called off straight away if either of us catch feelings

rule number 2 : don’t tell anyone

rule number 3 : all things must be discussed previously before trying

rule number 4 : consent is key

rule number 5 : MARCO CANNOT FIND OUT

It’d been a boring day. You had no classes, and you’d done as much study as your brain would let you. You probably could’ve invited Sasha or Mikasa over, but they both had partners to hang out with, as well as other stuff.

You were single. There was no real reason why. There were boys & girls that’d happily go out with you if you gave them the chance, but dating just didn’t appeal to you that much. Not when there were so many strings attached. But that doesn’t mean you were a slut. You didn’t jump from person to person’s bed or anything. You were happy with your situation.

‘Hey.’

‘Oh. I didn’t realise you were over.’

Jean stood at your door, arms folded and leaning against the frame. He chuckled lightly, walking into your room and sitting on the edge of your bed.

‘I’ve been here almost all day. Marco just went into town to grab stuff so the house is empty. How are you feeling?’

‘I’m fine, thank you. How about you? I haven’t seen you in over a week.’

‘I’ve been great.’ He says, pushing his hair back. ‘But I was kinda wondering if… um… I wanted to see your smile.’

He grinned widely, and the flicker from your eyes to your lips didn’t go unnoticed. You leaned forwards, closing the gap between you slightly.

‘You’re allowed to kiss me, Kirstein.’ You whispered, smiling at his unsubtlety. His grin growing, he brought his hand to your cheek, caressing it lightly before brushing his lips against yours in a sweet, gentle kiss.

‘I love your smile. You know that?’ He pulled back slightly, his hand moving down to gently squeeze your thigh beneath your blanket.

‘I know.’ You reply, moving your hand to hold his jaw before smoothing along the bone. His eyes closed, melting into the soft touch of your fingers on his skin.

He leaned in again, and this time their kiss deepened, his other hand moving up to grip your waist, pulling your bodies closer.

‘Jean…’ You breathed, bringing your hands to his chest. Their placement made me groan softly, heart racing.

‘Yeah?’

‘We can’t right now. Marco could get home any minute.’ You pulled back, pressing your foreheads together to maintain proximity. He muttered a quiet ‘damn it’, aware that you were right. He sighed and took a deep breath, trying to calm his body down.

‘I know this isn’t the best place or time, but I can’t stop thinking about you.’

You could only give a sympathetic smile to his words. You took his hand and rubbed your thumb along his palm.

‘You’ll have to stop it then. You remember the rules. No feelings.’

‘Yeah. Yeah. Got it. “no feelings involved”.’ He said, holding your hand. ‘But you don’t know how hard that is when it's you I could be with. Like, I keep catching myself thinking about things we could do together. It drives me nuts.’

You listened to him, but the inside of your mouth was being abused by your teeth, distracted by his words.

He leaned in to kiss you once again, but this time, your hand came between your mouths, pushing his face away.

‘Look. Jean. I do really like you, ok. But Marco and… if he found out, then that’s the end of it. You won’t be invited over anymore.’

There was a look of hurt in his eyes when you met them. His hands wrapped carefully around your wrist, pulling your hand away.

‘Please say you aren’t pushing me away right now.’ You couldn’t keep looking at his eyes, so they diverted to your wall, holding your breath like you were about to cry.

After a few moments, Jean’s grip on your wrist loosened and you felt the bed adjust as he stood.

‘Yeah. You’re right. We can’t do this.’ You wanted to look at him. You wanted to pour your heart out to him and get him to stay, but the thought of his friendship with your brother being destroyed seemed to keep you quiet.

‘You… You should probably go back to Marco’s room. Pretend the house is actually empty.’

‘Yeah. I should.’ He hesitated for a moment, but he gave you a small smile before he left, closing the door gently. As soon as his footsteps faded, you burst into tears, clutching your shirt to cover your mouth.

Jean left your room hurriedly, face flushed and heart racing from the feelings he’d just tried to suppress.

‘Shit.’ He sat down on the stairs, putting his face in his hands as he took deep breaths. ‘Fucking shit.’

It’d been a few months since the “incident” if you’d even call it an incident at all. You hadn’t seen each other since, and you had no clue if it was because he hadn’t come over, or because you barely left your room. But it didn’t matter to you at all. You had exams to focus on.

‘Hey Marco. Do you have any spare batte-‘ You opened your brothers door, only stopping when you saw he had company. ‘-ries.’

Jean looked up from where he lay on Marco’s bed, face flushed and burying his head down as if it’d hide the fact you’d already seen him. Marco went unphased, opening his drawer to rummage through.

‘What type do you need?’

‘Do you have like, 2 9v ones? Preferably lithium but not too phased.’

He found the first one pretty quickly, but it felt like a mission finding another one. After about 3 minutes, you both gave up and closed the drawer.

‘I’ll pick some up later when I go into town. Do you need anything else?’

‘No. I should be right. Take him with you when you leave.’ You nodded towards Jean. Jean who still had his face hidden. Marco gave you a look, but you just closed the door. You froze outside for a minute, letting out a deep sigh before you went back to your room.

You’d told Marco about what happened. Told him everything from the first hook up to the “break up”. He was a little weirded out at first, but he didn’t seem to care otherwise.

A few hours had passed when you heard the rustle of shoes before a soft knock on your door, followed by your brother's head poking in.

‘I’m going now. Don’t die while I’m gone.’

‘Take Jean with you.’ Marco opened the door fully, folding his arms across his chest.

‘You haven’t been phased by being alone in the house for the past month, so why now that you know he’s here?’

‘Because I know he’s here.’ You emphasised each word, trying to prove your point. ‘It’s like when there’s a serial killer in your house. You aren’t phased until you know they’re there.’

‘That’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think?’ A deadpan reaction was the only reaction he was getting out of you. ‘Whatever. Just don’t burn the house down.’

‘Thank you.’

Like any brother, he didn’t close your door properly, but you heard the front door close, followed by his car leaving and that was enough reassurance that you were alone in an empty house.

You only worked for another 30 minutes before dehydration set in. Usually you had your drink bottle on your desk or in your bag, but today seemed to be an exception because you couldn’t find it at all. So you stood, pushing your chair back and walked to the kitchen.

Like you wanted, the house was empty and quiet. It was always like that considering it was only you and Marco that lived there.

The house was big enough to fit more people, but living alone just out of the city meant it was mostly silent, mind the few cars that drove past into work or to one of the neighbouring houses. But it also meant that if you needed to, you could catch a bus to your classes.

You were reaching for a glass when you heard footsteps on the lino. It made you flinch, nearly dropping the glass when you saw Jean trying to escape quietly.

‘Why are you still here?!’

He froze, stepping back like he’d been caught doing something he wasn’t meant to. Not that he wasn’t meant to be in your house. Just not at that exact moment.

‘Look. I didn’t even know you were here until you came into Marco’s room. I thought you had classes today.’

‘Is that your excuse?’ You asked. Your tone showed how pissed off you were if your expression didn’t. You left the glass on the counter, suddenly well hydrated before storming out of the kitchen.

‘Wait. Please.’ You felt hands grab around your wrist, stopping you in your tracks. ‘Just… let me talk. Please.’

You maintained your frown, making it obvious you didn’t wanna hear what he had to say, but you were more respectful than that, so you stopped pulling against him.

He released a sigh and let go of your wrist.

‘Alright. Can I start off by saying I’m sorry? I should’ve checked you weren’t here before I came. That part is fair for you to be mad about.’ You stood, arms folded and leaning against the counter as the brunette continued. ‘And I want to apologise for how things turned out back then. I still really fucked up, and I’m not denying that any of it was wrong, because I pushed you and I shouldn’t have. You didn’t deserve any of that.’ You watched as he ran a hand through his hair, an action you noted hasn’t changed in your time apart. But you couldn’t meet his eyes, so they looked down at the floor, the same way you looked away when you last spoke. He sighed again, moving closer to you so his hand gently brushed against your arms.

‘Look. I know I’m not the best, and you probably have plenty of other options that you could go to, but… I still really like you. A lot. And I’ve done everything I can to try move on-‘

‘Jean.’ You interrupted sternly. It’s not like how you used to say it. You used to breath his name with so much love that it drove you both crazy. There was no love in the way you said it now. ‘Stop.’

‘Stop what? Talking to you? Even if I did, I wouldn’t stop thinking about you.’

‘Just stop it!’ There was anger boiling in your voice, but he seemed so clouded that he couldn’t see it.

‘Why? Why do you hate me so?’

‘Because if I don’t hate you, then I’m going to fall in love with you again!’ Tears brimmed your eyes as you finally confessed.

Jean’s heart skipped a beat. He moved closer, placing a hand on your chin and gently raising it until your eyes met.

‘That can’t happen.’ He said, his voice barely above a whisper.

‘Don’t you dare say that. Because I’ve been trying not to for months.’ You’re looking up at him, leaning against his hand. Reaching down, he cupped your face, his thumb gently stroking your cheek.

‘I’ll fight it with everything I have in me but…’ He trailed off, leaning in so his lips barely brushed against yours.

‘But..?’

‘But I can’t promise I’ll win.’

He kissed you slowly, his hands sliding off your face and down your back, pulling you closer. The kiss only deepened as emotions ran high between the 2 of you.

You kissed him like a starved man, quick to get your hands beneath his shirt to feel the dip

Jean moaned against your lips, hands following suit as they slid along your thighs, gripping your hips tightly.

‘God. I’ve wanted this everyday since I last saw you.’ He whispered before pulling away slightly, looking into your eyes. You were quick to pull him back in, whispering against his lips.

‘Then don’t stop.’

He was hesitant for a moment before leaning down to once again taste your lips. He grabbed you around the waist, wrapping his arms around you as your legs wrapped around him.

‘I love you.’

You paused for a minute, almost like you were scared of the words, before you pulled away and kissed his jaw up to his ear.

‘Show me then.’

With a smile, Jean hoisted you atop the counter, positioning himself between your legs while he attacked your neck. A soft whimper came from your mouth, and your fingers tangled with the hair at his nape.

‘You like that?’ He nipped at your neck again, hips grinding languidly against yours. You grinded against him, making you both breath deep as his hands pressed you against the counter. ‘You haven’t changed.’

You grinned, pulling his chin up to look at you.

‘Will you fuck me on the kitchen counter?’

‘You’re a hot mess, aren’t you?’ He chuckled, his judgement clouded by lust and desire. You shurgged.

‘It wouldn’t be the first time.’

‘You’re so slutty.’ He teased and pecked your lips, but still started to undo his belt. Your grin widened, and you took his free hand, trailing it up your torso to massage your tit through the fabric of your shirt.

His breath hitched, and his fingers searched for your hardened nipple as he pulled his erection free of its restrictions. Seeing his throbbing cock, you slid your shorts and underwear to your ankles, revealing yourself to the man.

‘Fuck. You’re gorgeous.’ He stepped closer, swiping his tip through your wet folds and groaning as he sank into you.

Head thrown back, you gripped his hand that was on your breast, while your other held his nape, keeping you upright.

‘Holy shit-‘

‘That’s right, baby. Just like that. Take it all.’ He started with moving slowly, dragging himself along your walls with a string of soft grunts. But as he felt you relax around him, he picked up speed, skin slapping together in rhythm.

Damn did you miss this. Both of you missed it. Missed the way he’d tease you by changing pace, but just not enough teasing to annoy you. Missed the way you had to keep a hand over your mouth so the neighbours couldn’t hear you being fucked by your brothers best friend.

Jean leaned down, capturing your lips in a heated kiss, his thrusts growing deeper and more intense as he felt you clench around him tightly.

‘Jean.’ You whimpered, interlacing your fingers.

‘I know, baby.’ He bit your bottom lip, feeling the pleasure coursing through you both. He could tell by the way your body was reacting that you were close, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t either, noticeable by his movements becoming more desperate.

You did your best to grind your hips to his timing, making you both groan. Eyes rolled at the overwhelming sensation, unable to hold back any longer.

‘Fuck. I’m gonna cum.’

‘You can cum inside.’ You panted, pulling his lips back to yours. With a few final thrusts, he groaned as he released his seed deep inside you, feeling your wall clench around him in the most perfect way. You came hard at the same time, trembling against him as the aftermath washed over you both.

‘Fuck, baby…’ Leaning heavily forwards and stabilising himself on the counter, he pressed gentle kisses along your neck and collarbone. Your hand on the back of his neck found its way to his hair, running your fingers through the strands.

‘T-That was good.’

He sighed, an unmatched sense of comfort in your presence. Arm wrapped around you, he pulled back to look in your eyes.

‘God. I want you.’ His face was flushed, like he was embarrassed to admit it. You smiled, brushing his hair out of his face.

‘Then you can have me.’ His heart races at your words. searching your eyes like they would tell him how serious you were being. You just grin, pulling him back down for another kiss. Another kiss, just as the front door opens.

‘Shit.’

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