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emilybeemartin · 2 months

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A whopping, like, 2.6 people have expressed interest in my recent adventures in watching Bean films, which is all the encouragement I need to present to you:

An Incomplete Guide to Sean Bean Roles (Investigation Ongoing)

Our guy has a vast filmography, and I'm not even close to being halfway through it, but I've watched a lot of his significant ones in the past few weeks thanks to a perfect storm of illness, injury, and lapses in client work. Crucially, I have created superlatives for a variety of them and present them here for your benefit. Disclaimer: many of these films are violent! Or have butts and/or tits! Some have dick! Some have dated bits that didn't age well! So, if you have triggers or are watching with young viewers, do your research first! Also, these are just the opinions of one solitary millennial! Nothing is objective! Nothing is real! I care not!

Okay, CYA done, let's begin. I'll get the two most obvious ones out of the way up front, otherwise they'll dominate half the categories:

ACT I

Greatest Bean: Fellowship of the Ring. I've said it before and I'll say it again, he achieved more pathos with Boromir than a lot of his other roles have allowed for, and every note he hits just sings. No debate.

Best Bean for Your Buck: Sharpe. For the best confluence of quantity, quality, physicality, emotion, humor, and action, you can't beat Richard Sharpe.

Favorite Dramatic Bean: Time; he earned that BAFTA fr

Softest Bean: The first date scene in Stormy Monday, where Brendan shyly gets to know Kate, slow dances with her, lends her a shirt and strokes her back after she asks if they can just go to sleep instead of have sex.

Most Dashing Bean: Vronsky in Anna Karenina, that uniform cuts, damn

Swooniest Bean: I know I'm supposed to say Chatterley, and he is undeniably sexy as Mellors, but there are parts where his character is actually kind of off-putting. I'll lay a good chunk of the blame on the weirdly ominous score, the very of-the-time depiction of dubious consent, and Joely Richardson's tendency to look like she's having the worst time of her life while shagging the hot gamekeeper. No, I'm giving this category to Stormy Monday again. He's just so gentle and genuine in this one, without some of the obligatory "heartthrob" overtones of his nineties stuff. He never raises his voice at Kate or manhandles her. He really does feel like some kid who just wants to be sweet to his girlfriend.

Laddiest Bean: When Saturday Comes, specifically the strip club and bathtub scenes.

Favorite Sad Bean: As a collective, he has some great grief scenes in World on Fire, but! The railroad track scene in When Saturday Comes?! That was RAW.

Favorite Mad Bean: Black Death; there are plenty of movies where he doesn't smile at all, but unlike some others, his grimness and anger felt proportionate to the story, rather than just rage because he's good at rage.

Favorite Bad Bean: There are so many great Bean villains (Goldeneye, obvs), but I think my favorite is Patriot Games. Bonus points for all the different hairstyles he has in this film (long locks-shag-shag ponytail!-buzz-wet spiky buzz). Also HUGH FRASER AAAA

Favorite Dad Bean: Wolfwalkers, where Bill Goodfellowe literally turns his own convictions and beliefs upside-down in order to protect and support his daughter.

INTERMISSION

A note on GoT: I haven't watched it. When season one was first coming out, it was during a time where I really couldn't handle watching any kind of sexual assault onscreen, and while I have a higher tolerance now, I just... don't want to. I like seeing gifs of Ned Stark and appreciate that it's one of his great roles, but I just can't make myself take the plunge.

ilysm you grizzled dead wolf man

ACT II

Favorite Costumed Bean: Odysseus in Troy: curls, leather, thighs.

Favorite Un-Costumed Bean: He strips in quite a lot of his films, so let's give it to Lady Chatterley for sheer screentime, exertion, and the bonus of being naked and wearing a flower crown. Honorable mention to When Saturday Comes for the totally not homoerotic amount of butts and also dick in the locker room bathtub scene.

Hurtin'est Bean: Bravo Two Zero. Oof, don't watch this one if you have an aversion to seeing pain, although---you're a Sean Bean fan, and we all know one of his MOs is being GREAT at pain. This one was directed by Tom Clegg, who directed Sharpe. Also lol at the sickle-shaped wound on his shoulder, which is covering his 100% Blade tattoo (he gets a lot of sickle-shaped wounds on his left shoulder).

Best Inside References: The Frankenstein Chronicles, where he plays a former Peninsular soldier, and every reference to his service is a reference to Sharpe, including shots of his greenjacket, pistol, sword, and flogging scars. Honorable mention to The Martian for the Council of Elrond line.

Most Unsettling Bean: Cleanskin for moral grayness, The Frankenstein Chronicles for body horror

Most Inefficient Use of Bean: Black Beauty. Despite getting high billing he's only onscreen for about two minutes and I'm convinced the long shots are a body double. Criminal.

Biggest Missed Opportunity: We were robbed of a Sean Bean Odyssey. R o b b e d

Funniest Bean: Deploying Bean for comedy is woefully underused, but he made full use of his ~15 seconds in The Vicar of Dibley ("Spring" episode). He's also hilarious in Wasted, though I haven't watched the show, only the clips he's in on YouTube, where he plays a mock version of himself serving as a spirit guide for a stoner. IMO, though, Sharpe gives him the most room for humor.

Favorite Character Quirk: In World on Fire, when Douglas is having WWI flashbacks and really coming apart, he kept putting his hand to his mouth. My modern brain first read this as talking into a phantom radio, but of course that wasn't right, and then I realized--he was reaching for a phantom gas mask. CHILLS. AMAZING. (Honorable mentions to the Mouth Rub and the Tongue Thing [pictured above]).

Most Nostalgic Bean: National Treasure. The concept may be utter silliness, but you have to admit, this is a fun movie to watch.

Best Dismount from a Horse: Henry VIII, he goes pshwing out of the saddle

Best Swordplay: You may think there's no possible answer to this, but there is---two moments, specifically: the preparatory sword-spin he does at Balin's tomb just before the goblin attack in Moria, and the four lunges he does at 1:26:22 of Sharpe's Battle. It's just facts.

Prettiest Bean Film: Wolfwalkers, hands downnnn

Favorite Bean Death: All right, you knew we had to eventually end here. It's Boromir, obviously--- nothing tops that. But if we're looking at other roles, I think Patriot Games is my favorite, followed by Goldeneye.

So! That concludes this installment of Bean films, though I'll be continuing the labor, and I hope you will, too. What are your favorites?

#sean bean #fellowship of the ring #lord of the rings #sharpe #stormy monday #lady chatterley #patriot games #world on fire #goldeneye #bravo two zero #troy #wolfwalkers #black death #national treasure #anna karenina #time #gifs #flashing gifs

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mypoisonedvine · 1 month

Text

𝐚 𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 | riley poole x reader

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 - having a girlfriend who can decode secret messages comes in handy when you're a treasure hunter; and having a clingy, needy treasure hunter boyfriend can be annoying when you're trying to decode something, but you find a way to compromise.

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 - 4.4k

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 - SMUT (18+ only, and honestly who under 18 is watching this 20 year old movie about the declaration of independence? regardless, minors go away), established relationship, free use kink, touch of dumbification kink, FLIP PHONES (oh the noughties nostalgia), a totally unnecessary plot because everyone deserves a dose of colonial american history with their filth, riley and reader being nerdlove goals

(honestly can't believe I actually wrote this but now that I did I'm like hold up... is this my new obsession??)

When Ben answered the door obviously not ready, and obviously surprised by Riley’s presence, it didn’t take a genius to put together that he’d forgotten about tonight— which Riley had sort of seen coming, with how many times this one thing had been put off or rescheduled at the last minute. One of the downsides of being a treasure hunter? Your coworkers tend to be somewhat… unreliable.

“Riley— what are you doing here?” Ben wondered.

“Warm greeting as always…” Riley sighed before answering the question: “I'm here to pick you up.”

Ben gave Riley an even more confused look.

“For dinner,” Riley added flatly. “At Talerico’s. To meet my—”

“To meet your new girlfriend, oh god,” Ben realized, “was that tonight?”

“No, it's tomorrow, I'm just picking you up twenty-four hours in advance,” Riley replied snarkily.

“I'm sorry, Riley,” Ben sighed, “I really— I do wanna meet her, Abigail did too— but I completely forgot— can we move this to another night?”

“Ben, we've moved this so many times that she's not even a new girlfriend anymore,” Riley sighed.

“I know, I know, but we can't tonight— Abigail just went out,” Ben justified.

“Where'd the missus go?”

“The library, she's trying to help me with something.”

“A clue? It's another clue, isn't it,” Riley realized, not trying very hard to hide his excitement.

“I was going to call you tomorrow,” Ben explained. “Come in, I’ll show you.”

After walking into Ben’s house and upstairs to the study, Riley wrinkled his brow when Ben handed him the coded message. “Well, that’s just a whole bunch of letters,” Riley noticed.

“Astute as always, Riley,” Ben frowned. “We found them in a journal that belonged to James Madison.”

“Why would James Madison write down a bunch of random letters in his journal?”

“No— each letter was underlined in a different entry. And, at the back, we found this,” Ben continued, showing Riley a scanned parchment.

“GABE FADECCE,” Riley read aloud, changing his mind a few times about the pronunciation. “It’s a name, right?”

“It must be,” Ben shrugged, “but we’ve been searching online for any evidence of a Fadecce family or a Gabriel that worked for or with Madison, and we haven’t found anyone. That’s what Abigail went to the library for.”

“It sounds Italian, could he be Italian?” Riley wondered as Ben set down the images with a sigh.

“I don’t know— possibly, but we’re at a dead end at this point,” Ben replied. “I’m sure we’d have a lot more to work with if we could decipher those letters from the journal entries, but we were up all night trying to figure it out—”

“Not what I’d be up all night doing with my girlfriend, but okay,” Riley interjected.

“And I haven’t gotten anywhere with it,” Ben concluded.

“Wait— you can't solve it?” Riley challenged with a smug grin. “The Ben Gates can't solve a clue?”

“It's not that I can't, it's just that a code like this requires a lot of time,” Ben explained. “I'm a historian, not a cryptographer.”

“We need a codebreaker,” Riley nodded thoughtfully, “somebody who can decode something this complex, and knows enough about the Founding Fathers to have some context for the message...” He tapped on his chin like he was really thinking about it, before proudly smiling and tilting his head in faux-realization. “Hey, how about a former intelligence agent who specialized in decryption, with a master's in world history and beautiful eyes that you can get lost in for hours?”

Ben raised an eyebrow at Riley. “Yes, that would be great— give or take the eyes thing— but where are you gonna find one of those?”

“At Talerico’s,” Riley announced, “waiting at a table for four.”

“Your girlfriend is a cryptographer?” Ben realized with wide eyes.

“I told you you'd like her,” Riley beamed.

Riley was engrossed in his game, furiously clicking the mouse and clacking at the keyboard before mumbling a curse of defeat and pulling the headset off; sighing, he turned around and looked over the back of the couch at you.

He'd only started playing the game because you weren't giving him attention, so it made sense that as soon as he died, he'd go back to bugging you. “Hey,” he greeted plainly, smiling yet clearly fighting the urge to pout.

You were laying on your stomach on the bed, half-dressed, looking at the pages Ben had given you and scribbling notes on a pad. “Hey,” you returned flatly after a pause, adjusting your reading glasses before taking a few more notes.

“You look cute doing that,” he hummed.

“Doing what?”

“Thinking.”

You frowned a little in concentration but didn't look away from your papers. “I like to think I'm always thinking…”

“No wonder you're so cute all the time then,” he cooed, leaning in closer and resting his chin in his hands.

He waited for a moment for you to keep the conversation going, but sighed when you simply continued working on the cipher without paying him any mind.

Getting off the couch with a sigh, he hopped onto the bed and laid beside you, making the mattress bounce a few times. He kept looking at you for a little while, eventually reaching out and rubbing your back for a moment, before sliding himself even closer to you and planting a kiss on your shoulder.

Even with ninety-five percent of your attention on the puzzle in front of you, you could still tell what sort of mood Riley was getting himself into. “Well, there is one thing that makes you stop thinking…” he recalled in a purr, nuzzling into the crook of your neck and giving you a teasing trail of kisses there.

You sighed a little and shrugged him away. “Riley, I need to focus.”

“Baaabe,” he pouted. “I can't help it, you're just so— how am I supposed to resist you like this?”

“I'm literally just laying here,” you noticed.

“You know what you do to me in those bifocals, sweetheart.”

You snorted and finally looked back at him, admiring the puppy dog eyes he was giving you— they almost always worked on you, and he knew it. Sighing in relent, you looked back at the pages in front of you. “I need to get this done, I promised your friend I would finish it in twenty-four hours,” you explained, “but you can go ahead.”

“Go ahead?” he repeated, confused.

“You can just use me, while I work,” you offered flippantly, hardly noticing the way his face turned red.

“R-right… I can just, um… use you. That's— okay, sure,” he coughed nervously.

“Just be quick,” you insisted.

“Yeah, that's a challenge,” he scoffed, shuffling on the bed to straddle your legs and run his hands over your back. “I, uh, like when you wear my shirts,” he informed you, as if feeling his erection press against your ass wasn’t enough of a clue.

“Just get on with it, please?” you groaned.

“Yeah, yeah— sorry…” he mumbled, moving his hands down to your panties which he traced slowly. “These are cute,” he noticed aloud anyways, and you sighed a bit to yourself as you realized how futile it was to try to keep him from talking. You were just going to have to tune him out to get this done.

His fingers shakily hooked into the elastic and pulled your panties down, a low hum echoing in his chest as he looked at you. Grabbing handfuls of your ass and kneading them gently, he mumbled something to himself that you weren’t really paying attention to— until he got your attention suddenly with a quick slap. “Hey!” you yelped, jumping slightly.

“Sorry, sorry,” he breathed through a grin, “couldn’t help myself. I-I won’t distract you anymore, okay? Just, you know, keep working…”

You did just that, of course, re-ordering the papers in your hand to look at the scanned back page again.

He went on mumbling to himself as he shoved his sweatpants down to his thighs to free his cock: “juuuust keep working,” he breathed.

He spit into his hand quickly and smeared it on himself, before nudging in between your legs and pressing himself to your opening.

Admittedly, you did react slightly when he pushed inside you— a wince from the stretch of it, especially without much preparation— but you managed to keep quiet and focus on your work again. “God, so tight,” he groaned, digging his fingers into your hips slightly as he slid deeper. “You're too good to me, baby…”

He pushed as deep as he could go, which was honestly a bit further than you expected at this angle, and leaned over you slightly as he started to move.

“You feel so good,” he praised through a heavy breath, not taking very long to savor the moment before picking up speed. You knew if you reacted too strongly to what he was doing, he'd notice instantly and start trying to pull you away from your work; so, you did your best to focus on the problem, even if you found yourself gripping the pages a bit tighter.

Even if your attention was straight ahead, you almost wished you could see him now— but then again, you had a pretty good idea of what you would see if you looked back: his mouth parted slightly with sighs of pleasure, a subtle pink flush across his face, his eyes going a little glassy as they drifted over you. In fact, you could sometimes feel his gaze on you, especially at those times that his fingers traced your back and hips.

Realizing something suddenly about the cipher in front of you, you put your pen between your teeth and pulled the cap off, biting down on it slightly to hold it in place so you could keep writing on the paper your other hand held. “Fuck, you're so hot,” Riley groaned, starting to thrust a bit more urgently. Resisting the urge to smile to yourself too much, you kept taking your notes and didn't especially pay attention to him behind you, even when his occasional whimpers started to grow louder.

For the most part, you were able to keep your focus. It wasn’t that Riley was especially easy to ignore— certainly not with him going just a bit faster with every thrust— but you were finally on a roll with this puzzle; maybe you would’ve already solved it if it weren’t for your boyfriend, even if he was a welcome distraction.

He panted with each movement, holding on tighter to your hips. “Fuck,” he whispered, leaning down after a moment to rest his forehead on your shoulder. Normally, you would have to stop yourself from reaching back to run your fingers through his hair, but you were too engrossed in your work; and it was a good thing, too, because if you’d done that he almost certainly would’ve grabbed the papers and tossed them away, impatiently demanding for you finish that later and let him finish now.

Instead, it seemed like the pace and intensity of both your decryption and his movements grew together: your writing was hurried while his thrusts were faster and harder suddenly, until you could hear skin hitting skin, his groans muffled slightly as they came out through his teeth.

“Oh my god,” you gasped, taking your pen away from the paper abruptly and looking at your work.

“Yeah, you like that?” he encouraged in a rough voice.

“Oh my god, I solved it,” you announced, hardly noticing how he'd misunderstood your exclamation.

That seemed to break him out of his focus for a moment, and he stopped moving as he leaned down over you, resting his chin on your shoulder to read the page you were holding. “At the place of eighty-five pleas, remove the Crucifiction keys,” he read aloud from the paper— once he managed to navigate your disorganized notes.

“It's a polyalphabetic substitution cipher,” you explained excitedly. “Once I realized the key word was his wife’s name it was relatively simple— aside from having to reverse engineer some Vignere tables—”

“But what does it mean?” he wondered. “What even is a Crucifiction key? Please don’t tell me Ben’s gonna rob some nuns.”

“This was Madison’s journal,” you recalled, “and he co-wrote the Federalist papers with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay— eighty-five pleas— but Hamilton wrote the majority in his home. I think we need to go to his estate, and see if they still have any of the instruments he owned.”

“Instruments?”

“The Crucifiction keys, that threw me off too,” you admitted, “but Hamilton was a pretty accomplished pianist— but he would’ve played the colonial precursor to the piano, the fortepiano, which was created by an Italian inventor named Cristofori. Cristo as in Christ, obviously, and fori meaning ‘holes’. The Crucifiction! The keys are piano keys!”

“But who’s Gabe Fadecce?” he pressed.

“It’s not a name,” you answered, “it’s a song. G, A, B, E, F…” you hummed each note as best you could recall. “If we start at the first key in the bass and take out the first G, A, and so on up the scales, I’m guessing there will be another clue beneath them, or on the back or something.”

“You're amazing,” he smiled, kissing you on the cheek proudly.

“I'll call Ben,” you decided, reaching to pick up your phone from nearby on the bed and flip it open; you hadn't even opened your contacts yet before Riley wrapped his hand around yours and— gently— pulled it away and closed it.

“I'll call Ben,” he offered, “later.”

You turned to look at him, and he smiled at you, though there was something softer and darker about his gaze as it fell slowly to your lips.

“You and I have unfinished business first,” he continued softly before kissing you with more patience than you expected from him after all that…

When he pulled away, you reached up to take off your glasses, but he clicked his tongue as he stopped your hand from moving any further.

“No no no, leave those on,” he encouraged. You grinned before he kissed you again, his weight sinking into your back as he slipped an arm around your shoulders. You moaned softly into the kiss when he started moving again; it was a relaxed pace, but with him draped over you like this, he seemed to go so much deeper.

When he pulled away, you found yourself leaning towards him for more— but he just smirked at you and propped himself upright again, starting to move faster behind you.

“Look back at me,” he requested in a softer voice, and when you turned to look over your shoulder at him behind you, you found him biting his lip at the sight. “Oh god,” he choked on a groan, meeting your gaze before shutting his eyes and tilting his head back. “Fuck, is it weird that you ignoring me kinda turned me on?”

You laughed a little, and shook your head. “No, that's fine… I can go back to it, if you want—”

“No, please— I still like you better like this,” he insisted. “I like how responsive you are.”

He ran his hand up your back and you shivered, rocking your hips up slightly as he ran his fingers over your hair before taking a hold of your shoulder.

“Yeah,” he breathed, something beautifully dark to his voice, “like that.”

He began to fuck you hard— not fast, but intense and deep and just the right amount of impatient— and you didn't even try to hold back the loud whine of pleasure that jumped from your chest. “Fuck,” you gasped, “oh my god, yes…”

“Uh huh?” he encouraged, watching with half-lidded eyes at the way you moved under him, your body naturally starting to rock back towards his. “Tell me how that feels.”

“Good,” you panted.

“But not good enough to distract you from your work, huh?” he challenged.

“Well, to be fair, nothing feels better than cracking a code,” you giggled.

“Oh, baby,” he groaned, putting his hands on either side of you on the bed so he could lean down and kiss your neck, only to bite it a second later— not too hard, but a little harder than just playful. You felt him smile when you yelped softly. “You’re trying to piss me off, right?”

“Maybe,” you shrugged a little bit.

He sat back up and pulled out of you unexpectedly, but thankfully explained himself before you would’ve likely let out a pathetic whine that he would’ve held against you. “Turn over,” he instructed, “and take that shirt off.”

You flipped onto your back with a smile; “I thought you liked how I look in your shirts,” you reminded him as he helped you pull it over your head and toss it aside.

“Yeah, but I like how you look without them even more,” he explained, running his hands along your sides before surprising you as he suddenly bent down to swirl his tongue around a hardening nipple.

“Fuck,” you gasped, grabbing onto his hair as he moved to the other, first with his eyes shut and then opening them to look up at you as your back arched.

“You’re so pretty,” he praised as his lips traveled to your neck; he yanked you closer by your hips, making you laugh slightly with surprise as you slid across the bed, though it turned into a moan when he thrust into you again in one go.

This time, he didn’t hold back at all: rough, needy, hungry. You moaned louder than you planned to, grabbing onto his shoulders through his t-shirt.

“Sorry,” he panted out through a thin laugh, “but I can’t slow down now— not after you drove me crazy like that. God, baby, you’re so fucking wet—”

You choked on the back of your own throat; you couldn’t help it, you just loved the way he said that.

“— this is what you wanted, isn’t it?”

“Uh huh,” you mumbled,

“You like when I use you, huh?” he taunted, and you bit your lip before nodding. “That’s pretty kinky, you know. Is that all you wanna be? A fucktoy?”

“Oh god,” you groaned, accidentally digging your nails into his shoulder, though he didn’t seem to mind.

“Want me to just fuck you whenever I feel like it, whatever you’re doing?” he continued.

“Yes,” you admitted in a hiss, head dropping back onto the bed.

“You're really trying to spoil me,” he cooed, leaning down to kiss your neck in between words. “Be careful what you wish for, sweetheart— I might end up fucking you five times a day. At least.”

You moaned lowly, feeling your muscles seize up on him briefly, making him laugh in the most condescending-yet-sexy way.

“Oh, fuck— you want that!” he realized, and his voice dropped to a low growl again as he thrusted even faster, teeth teasing your pulse. “You can never get enough, can you?”

Not that you ever really thought your response to that was going to be especially coherent… but the way you cried out totally gave yourself away; how had he made you so desperate so fast?!

“Oh, poor baby,” he offered pityingly, only to fuck you even faster until you whined pathetically. “You don’t wanna think, huh? Just wanna be my hole.”

“Y-yeah,” you gasped, “fuck…”

“You’re too fucking perfect, you know that?” he praised. “The only thing sexier than fucking you while you use that gorgeous brain of yours, is fucking you until you can’t.”

Your moan was sort of trapped in the back of your throat as you tried to swallow it down; you wished you had the wherewithal to hold it back better, but you weren’t really used to him talking like this. Normally he would just go on tangents of praise and begging (as needed), and even though it wasn’t your first glimpse of his more dominant side, this all felt a bit different. Even the way he was looking at you seemed different— a sort of pride in his eyes, pride in his own ability to turn you into a wet and whimpering mess.

“So fucking good,” he cooed, “you’re so good, baby— my good, dumb little fucktoy.”

“G-god,” you choked, holding on tighter to the sheets under you, trying to hold yourself together.

“You’d better come fast, ‘cause I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” he warned with a sigh— which would be a much more credible threat if he’d ever left you hanging. But no, those times Riley’s stamina hadn’t taken you all the way, he was more than happy to put his mouth on you and let it do the rest of the work.

This time, though, all he needed was a thumb drawing rough circles on your clit to help you along. You hadn’t even noticed how sensitive it had become, not until your back arched and a needy whine jumped from your chest. “Oh fuck, Riley, I’m close,” you yelped.

“Yeah?” he whined— actually, he repeated it a few times as he watched you get closer to your peak, but it was all falling on deaf ears as your moans got louder and louder.

“Yes!” you cried out, shaking under him; even with his weight pressing you down into the bed, it began to feel like you were floating somehow. It was one of those orgasms that left you a little numb, with little jolts of raw pleasure that were almost too much— but your only defense was holding tighter onto him, inside and out.

“O-oh god,” he choked weakly, the movement of his thumb slowing but his hips going faster than ever. “Fuck, fuck!”

He stopped all at once, burying himself in one last stroke as deep as he could reach, moaning lowly against the crook of your neck as he went mostly limp atop you.

After catching your breath for a few moments, you hummed softly in contentment and he carefully lifted himself up just to fall back down beside you on the bed. He looked at you with heavy eyes but a huge smile; “You wear me out, you know that?” he breathed, reaching up to move some hair stuck to your face.

“You distract me from my work, you know that?” you countered.

“Hey, you got it done,” he defended. “We’ll let Ben know as soon as I… you know, remember how to exist. And use cell phones.”

“And maybe after a shower…” you suggested. As soon as you saw the sparkle in Riley’s eye you added: “Separately. I’ll pass out before we can make it to dinner tonight if we just end up fucking again.”

“I mean, they’ve been putting off dinner for months— why can’t we blow them off for once?” he suggested with a smirk, moving closer to you on the bed.

“I thought I’d worn you out,” you remembered with a breathless laugh, and he wrapped an arm around you to pull you into him.

“You did,” he sighed against your neck, “I’m just… easily re-inspired.”

It was a good thing this place was mostly empty, since this was technically somewhat sensitive information, but you figured anyone who overheard wouldn’t know enough about the conversation to glean anything too significant. You found yourself rubbing your hands together under the table anxious as you watched Ben across from you, holding your work, and waited for his response.

“This is incredible,” Ben smiled as he read your decryption, making both you and Riley smile back with pride. “A polyalphabetic substitution cipher, I should’ve known.”

“Yeah, any idiot would’ve known that,” Riley joked flatly.

“Where’d you find this girl?” Ben asked him, and you glanced at your boyfriend to find a little flush on his cheeks.

“You know, the technical answer is that we met at a panel lecture proposing that certain ‘random’—” he accentuated the word with a sarcastic tone and air-quotes— “radio frequencies detected by military technology might be messages from extraterrestrials—”

Ben rolled his eyes even at the passing mention of one of Riley’s more absurd conspiracy theories.

“But,” Riley continued, “I have a theory that she was actually created in a lab, specifically for me, by a team of scientists with the inexplicable goal of making me happy.”

“Oh, come on,” you giggled nervously, shoving Riley on the shoulder but failing to stop him from giving you a kiss on your heated cheek.

“That line working on you really is a testament to the fact that you’re made for each other,” Ben offered, and you decided to ignore the backhanded element of the compliment because of your sense that there was something very genuine about it.

“Look who’s here,” Riley pointed towards the front door of the restaurant, over Ben’s shoulder, causing the latter to turn in his seat and look back. “Abigail, over here!”

She waved when she saw you, quickly approaching the table and taking her seat as she apologized for being tardy; “This is Dr. Abigail Chase,” Ben introduced her with a proud smile.

“Oh, don’t be so formal,” she gently scolded him (maybe everything she said sounded that nice with her accent, though), but she beamed as she grabbed your extended hand to shake it. “It’s so nice to meet you, finally— I’ve heard so much from Riley. He’s been bragging about you so much these past few months, I feel like I already know you!”

“Apparently he met her attending some panel about secret alien messages from space,” Ben told her with a smile and a yeah, I know, it’s crazy look in his eyes.

“Attending?” Riley repeated with a scoff. “We were both speakers!”

Abigail was a little better at hiding any judgmental instinct; “How perfect,” she announced sweetly.

“She’s a real whiz with decryption though— look at this,” Ben instructed, handing the (condensed) page of your notes over to Abigail, who took it and tilted her head as she read to herself.

“Wow,” she sighed, “you made quick work of it: Hamilton’s fortepiano? That must be in a museum somewhere.”

“It’s still in his home in New York,” you replied quickly, “we already looked into it.”

“Did you help her at all with the solve?” Ben asked Riley suddenly, who turned to you with a slightly mischievous look in his eyes.

“Uh,” he stalled before clearing his throat nervously, but never looking away from you— “y-yeah, I helped… in my own way.”

#riley poole x reader #riley poole smut #national treasure #justin bartha

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