#tomorrow I am gonna try to tackle the laundry and maybe put up some more artwork

[heart-bones]

I keep putting off my laundry - I know its become a bigger obstacle in my head and it would not take too long to do but... ⚰️

[fuckallthegood0nesweretaken]

New World CH. Nineteen

Title: Going to War

Words: 2375

Warnings: Strong language, sexual content (P in V sex), fighting

A/N: If you would like to request something, please do! Hope y’all enjoy

Previous Chapter - Next Chapter

New World Masterlist

Daryl Dixon Masterlist

The Walking Dead Masterlist

Masterlist

~~~~~~~

The next morning, Sam, Rick, Carl, and Michonne went on a run. It was needed but it didn’t make you any less nervous. You flitted around the prison, trying to find things to distract you. You did the laundry, made lunch for everyone, and tidied up as much as you can. Whenever someone tried to help, you waved them off with a sweet smile.

 Almost six hours after they left, they got back home. Relief filled your entire being when Maggie came inside to give the news. Slumping against the wall, you let out a breath. The three of them came inside and they had a lot of bags with them. Eyes wide, you went to them.

 “You got a crib?” You said. Carl nodded and smiled.

 “We got two. We also got a pregnancy pillow for you.”

 “I found this too,” Sam said. He handed something to you and you looked down to see a picture of you, your brothers, and your dad.

 “Where did you find this?” You asked Sam.

 “One of the bars in town is a hunter bar. Recognized the name and found this. Thought you might want it.”

 “Thank you.” You threw your arms around Sam and tried to keep the tears at bay. Sam kissed the top of your head before pulling away.

 “I’m gonna go put the cribs away,” Sam said. He left and you walked over to Rick.

 “Everything go alright?” You asked him.

 “Ran into an old friend. He was hording all these guns. Managed to convince him to give us some.” He picked up a bag and winced. Frowning, you looked at his shoulder and saw his shirt bloodied.

 “Rick, are you hurt?”

 “It’s just a scratch.”

 “Doesn’t look like one. Let Hershel check it out? Please.”

 “Alright. Get the baby stuff? I know you want to help, but you shouldn’t carry anything heavy.”

 “Deal.” Rick kissed your cheek and you started moving bags into the cell block. Putting the items away, you saw Daryl sitting and coloring with Adeline. The sight made you smile and you bit your lip before walking over to them.

 “Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?” You asked Daryl.

 “Sure.” He looked at Ada and kissed her head. “I’ll be right back, princess. Mama wants ta talk ta me.”

 “Okay! Come back soon, daddy!” Her eyes never left the coloring book and you walked a little ways away before turning to Daryl.

 “Everythin’ okay?” He asked you. He was slightly worried and you bit your lip again.

 “I was just wondering if you were alright with Adeline calling you that,” you said softly. Daryl let out a breath and a chuckle

 “That what ya wanted ta talk ‘bout?”

 “Yes. I don’t know why she started saying it, but if it makes you uncomfortable—“

 “[Y/n], I don’t mind it, really.” Cupping your face, he kissed you softly.

 “You don’t?”

 “I don’t. If you’re alright with it, I don’t mind.” He looked at you and lowered his voice. “I’d love for her ta be my daughter. If that’s alright with ya.”

 Grabbing his face and kissing him, you poured all the love you had for him in that kiss.

 “God I love you,” you murmured. Looking at you, he picked you up and twirled you around. You giggled and Adeline clapped her hands.

 “Me next, daddy!” She said excitedly. Daryl set you down and ran over to scoop her up, spinning her around too. Her excited laughs echoed throughout the prison and when Daryl was done spinning her, he went over to kiss you again.

 ---

 The next two days went by with no problems and Andrea showed up again. The Governor wanted to meet up to make a deal. It was risky, but it had to happen. Something needed to be done and this was the only way to avoid all-out war with Woodbury. The meeting was tomorrow at noon, at the feed store an hour out. It was decided that Sam, Rick, Daryl, and Hershel would go. Both you and Dean wanted to join them, but you knew you couldn’t. Even if you weren’t pregnant, it was too dangerous and Dean had too much of a temper. So you pretended like everything was fine when in reality you felt sick.

 That night, you couldn’t sleep. Tossing and turning, you tried to be as quiet and still as you could, but Daryl still woke up.

 “Will ya stop that?” He muttered. He pulled you closer, tightening his grip on you and you squeezed your eyes shut.

 “Sorry.”

 “’S wrong?”

 “I’m scared.”

 “Tomorra?”

 “Yes. I don’t want you to go. I don’t want any of you to go.” Your head was buried in the crook of his neck, words muffled. Waking up a little more, he glanced at you.

 “We’ll be fine. I’ll have your brother’s back and he’ll have mine.”

 “I know you can take care of yourself, but this Governor’s dangerous. He’s not going to want to make a truce. He wants us dead.”

 “Everythin’ will be okay. I promise.”

 Titling your head up, he kissed you. Kissing back, it got heated fast and before you knew it, Daryl was on top of you. His hips were rolling into yours but he was careful of your growing belly. Sitting up, he pulled you onto his lap and he took your shirt off slowly, running his hands over your sides, ghosting over the swell of your breasts. You were left in your panties while Daryl was still fully clothed.

 “Daryl,” you whispered.

 He shivered at your lust filled voice and mouthed at your neck. That made you whimper and move your hips. His jumped up and you gripped his shoulders. Daryl ripped off his shirt and laid you back down. Kissing down your stomach to the top of your panties, he pulled them down with his teeth and settled between your thighs.

 Kissing the inside of your thighs, he went up one side and then down the other, skipping past your dripping pussy. Whining again, he did the same thing.

 “Daryl, please,” you said, breathing fast. Damn your hormones for making you super horny.

 “Maybe some other night,” he said, breath ghosting over your cunt. He was being an absolute tease and you wanted him to just fuck you. So you rolled your hips up, his chin catching your clit. Keening, you tried to do it again, but he stopped you with his hands.

 “Nu-uh,” he said. “I want ta fuck ya with my cock. Ya can ride my face later.”

 “Please!” You whispered.

 Daryl quickly got rid of his pants and as soon as he was gone, he was back. Coaxing your legs around his waist, he pushed into you slowly. You both groaned and he started moving his hips slowly.

 He kept the pace slow, not listening to your quiet pleas for him to fuck you faster. His body was draped over yours. One arm was holding him up and his other hand was holding yours sweetly, your fingers tangled together. Daryl was kissing you sweetly and slowly, savoring the moment.

 “I love you,” you whispered in between kisses.

 “I love ya too.”

 Daryl kept going, still keeping the pace slow and you soon came undone. Your pussy clenched around his cock and after a minute, he spilled into you. Pulling out, Daryl rolled over and brought you close to him. His hands were on your belly and his face in your hair. Sighing softly, you focused on feeling him and you fell asleep soon after.

 ---

 Daryl woke you and Adeline up before they left and you got dressed before going down to the common area. You ran to your brother and tackled him in a hug, his arms going around you a second later.

 “Be safe,” you whispered. “Come back and bring them with you, okay?”

 “I will. First sign of trouble and we’re out.”

 “Good.” Sam kissed your head and you went to give Hershel a hug too. After him, you went to Daryl and he pulled you into a kiss. He was standing next to Merle and you could feel his eyes on you.

 “Daddy, don’t go!” Ada cried. She could read the room very well for a five year old and Daryl kissed her head.

 “I’ll be back soon, princess. Don’t ya worry. Ya be good for your mama, okay?”

 “Okay,” Adeline sniffed.

 “Come back to me,” you breathed.

 “I will.”

 “Good.” He kissed you both again and then they left. Swallowing harshly, you turned around. It was going to be a long day.

 ---

 Thirty minutes after they left, you were feeding Judith while the others were getting weapons ready to go in case of attack. The clinking sound of the metal was oddly comforting to you.

 “Carl, come here,” Glen said. He handed Carl some ammo boxes. “You stash these at the loading dock, okay? Beth, put more up on the catwalk. If anyone gets pinned down we need to make sure that they have plenty of ammo. I’ll go work on the cage outside.”

 “What we should be doing is loadin’ some of this firepower in tha truck and goin’ ta pay a visit ta tha Governor,” Merle said. “We know where he is right now.”

 “You saying we should go there and kill him?” Glenn asked and you shook your head.

 “Yeah, I am.”

 “We told Rick and Daryl that we’d stay put,” Michonne said.

 “I’ve changed my mind, sweetheart. Being on tha sideline with my brother out there don’t sit right with me.”

 “The three of them are right in the middle of it,” Dean said.

 “If we went there, they could get hurt. We could get hurt. It’s a risk we shouldn’t take,” you said.

 “A thousand things could go wrong.” Glenn started walking away, the conversation over, when Merle spoke again.

 “And they will.”

 “My dad can take care of himself,” Carl said.

 “Sorry son, but your daddy’s head could be on a pike real soon.” Carl ignored him and you looked at Merle before walking back to the cell block.

 “Don’t say that to him,” Maggie said. Merle shrugged his shoulders.

 “It’s not the right move. Not now. Can’t take the risk of putting them in the crossfire. We’d all lose someone if it goes wrong, but think of [y/n]. She has literally the most to lose if it goes south. We’re staying here. That’s my decision and it’s final.” Glenn stormed out of the room and Merle looked pissed.

 He knew that Glenn was right and he hated it. He just couldn’t help but have this seething anger towards the governor. That son of a bitch promised him he could go out and search for Daryl, but it never happened. He made Merle do all of his dirty work and he got nothing out of it. Merle knew he was being unreasonable but he saw no other way around it.

 So he got a bag and started filling it up with guns.

 “Hey, you’re not going,” Glenn said. You heard that from the cell and put Judith down in her new crib before walking out, Dean following behind you.

 “What’s going on?” You asked.

 “Merle’s taking guns.”

 “I don’t need permission,” Merle said.

 “I can’t let you.”

 “Ya can’t stop me.”

 “If you’re gonna live here with us, it’s gonna be on our terms. If Michonne can do it, why can’t you?” Maggie said. Merle stopped and looked back at her.

 “’Cause it’s my brother out there, that’s why. What’s tha matter with y’all?” He stomped up the stairs and Glenn blocked his path.

 “I’m not gonna let you put them in danger,” Glenn said lowly.

 “Nut up already, boy. This guy cops a feel of your best friend and ya pussy out like this? Get outta my way.”

 “No.”

 “Get outta my way!” Merle yelled as he attacked Glenn. They fell down the stairs and when Merle pointed his knife at Glenn, Maggie tackled him and put him in a chokehold.

 “Get off!” She said. Merle raised his arm and Michonne grabbed it. You watched the scene unfold with wide eyes, Dean keeping close by. The fight ended when Beth grabbed a gun and shot it in the air. You all looked at her and when Judith started crying from the noise, you went to comfort her.

 “Let me go!” you heard Merle yell.

 “What happened?” Carol asked when she saw you.

 “Merle was trying to take some guns to go kill the Governor. How’s Judith?”

 “The shot just startled her. I got her to settle down. You should rest.”

 “I gotta make lunch,” you said with a shake of your head. “They should be back soon and they’ll be hungry.”

 “Let Beth take care of that. You’re already stressed out as it is and you need to rest.”

 “Fine. But if I’m not awake when they get back, wake me up?”

 “I will.” You nodded and walked up to your cell. You had forgotten how tiring it was to grow a human being and when you laid down, you almost immediately fell asleep.

 ---

 You had slept for an hour when you felt someone sit on the mattress next to you. A hand was brushing your hair back and you groaned, turning over so see Daryl.

 “Hey,” you whispered.

 “Hey.”

 “You just get back?”

 “Yeah. Carol told me ta wake ya up. Thought ya might want ta see me.”

 “I always want to see you. Is Sammy okay? What about Rick and Hershel?”

 “We’re all fine. No incidents.”

 “Good.”

 “C’mon. Rick wants ta talk ta all of us.”

 Stretching, you sat up before walking out of the cell and down the stairs. Everyone was in the cell block and you looked at Rick.

 “So I met this Governor. Sat with him for quite a while.”

 “Just tha two of ya?” Merle asked.

 “Yeah.”

 “Should’ve gone when we had the chance, bro,” Merle said to Glenn before walking to stand behind Carl.

 “He wants the prison,” Rick said after a moment. “He wants us gone. Dead. He wants us dead for what we did to Woodbury.”

 “We’re going to war.”

[steppedoffaflight]

Summer’s a Knife - Chapter 13

Catch up on Chapter 12 here

“Not true!” You scoff. “I missed you! And I didn’t get to see you on your birthday!” You return your voice to normal, taking your eyes off of the road to look at him real quick. “Happy birthday, by the way.”

“Oh, don’t remind me,” Van laughs. “Worst hangover I’ve had in years. Or maybe I’m just too old to handle ‘em now.”

“Could be,” You tease. “27, really getting up there now.”

or

You try to make Van’s (belated) birthday special for him.

Word count: ~11k

A/N: content warning for a little bit of under-negotiated edging and some negotiated bondage :)

Chapter Thirteen August 2019

Van sends you more snaps on his birthday than he probably has the entire time you two have had each other added on there.

“Ugh!” You sigh as you sit with Mary in your usual booth at the diner. You’ve got your phone held away from you, both of you leaned over the table as you open the third batch of snapchats from Van today. These ones include photos of the cake the boys had surprised him with, and a small stack of badly wrapped gifts they’ve presented him with. You pull the phone away from Mary when the interesting parts are over, when the snaps turn to clips of Van harassing the boys; Bondy laughing as he flips off the camera, Bob shying away as Van tries to shove the phone in his face. 

“I haven’t gotten him one single fucking gift,” You groan, lowering your head onto your folded arms.

“Sit up, Alexis is back,” Mary tells you, and you pull yourself into a sitting position with another sigh, as Alexis comes back to the booth with your food. You’re absolutely starving, but can’t find it in you to dig into your club sandwich in your sour mood.

“Oh, Jesus,” Mary sighs in exasperation, watching you pick at your french fries. “It can’t be that hard to think of something!”

While Mary speaks you finally take a bite of your sandwich. “It is!” You argue after you’ve swallowed it down. “He’s a millionaire! Anything he wants he just buys it for himself! What am I supposed to contribute?”

Mary narrows her eyes in thought as she chews on a bite of her veggie gyro. “Alright. What do you guys do when you’re together?”

“We fuck, we eat, smoke, watch Netflix, and sometimes hang out with his friends.” You tick each activity off one of your fingers.

“Okay. How about you just cook him something nice? You know, have a nice date but, like, at his house? I’m sure he’d like a home cooked meal after touring.”

It’s a good idea, but still you sigh. “I don’t know what he likes.” No matter what you cook, Van both eats and compliments it. You have a suspicion that everything you make actually sucks and he’s just too polite to say. “He literally eats everything. You should see those boys on tour. They’re maniacs over the catering.”

“Plus,” You continue, “There’s no way I could cook at Van’s house. It’s a fucking dump right now.”

Mary’s eyes widen as she sips her iced tea. “What about paying someone to come clean it? He’d probably love coming home to a clean house. Especially when he thinks he’s got to deal with it.”

That’s not a bad idea, actually. You don’t feel comfortable letting strangers into Van’s house without permission, but a new idea has bloomed in its place.

“I’ll clean it,” You tell Mary. “I don’t know how he’d feel about random people coming in when he’s not even in the country.”

“Okay, so that’s one gift.”

“I’ll clean the house and…” You gaze down at your food when the next idea works its way into your mind, “I’ll get him dinner from his favorite restaurant.”

“Yes!��� Mary claps her hands together in excitement. “What are you gonna get him?”

You try to spit out the name of the French restaurant Van likes the lobster dinner from.

“No fucking way, you’ve been there?” Mary’s eyes widen. “I didn’t know that’s where he took you out!”

“I’ve been there twice, actually,” You admit sheepishly. “That’s where we went for Benji’s birthday.”

“You lucky bitch! Theo and I have tried so hard to get a table there for our anniversary and their waiting list for reservations is so long! I guess the rumors are true. They really do only give a fuck if you’re famous.”

“Weird, I’d never heard of them when Van took me there.”

Mary only shrugs, but you figure you already know why she’s heard of the place when you haven’t. It’s not obvious behind her down-to-earth personality and humor that made you adore her from your first meeting, but Mary comes from money. She’s even got a degree from Stanford to prove it. It’s in accounting (because those were the easiest classes for her), it’s never been used a day in her life, and was entirely paid for by her parents.

“When’s your anniversary?” You ask, ready to change the topic now that you’ve gotten two gifts under your belt. You’ve got a little under two weeks until Van will be back in town for a couple of days, and now you were feeling more confident that you could pull something together.

“The end of September, but they’re booked until next year,” Mary sighs.

\\

When you get out of the shower that night, there are three missed calls from Van. You don’t even bother to get dressed before calling him back, sitting on the edge of your bed wrapped in your towel, the ends of your hair dripping onto your comforter.

The phone rings until it’s almost gone to voicemail. At the last second Van accepts the call, and there’s some rustling before you decide to speak.

“Hi, birthday boy,” You giggle softly down the line. “How was your big day?”

“It’s been good, yeah. Good.” You’ve heard Van stumble over his words after drinks, but never slur like this.

“You sound like you’ve had a good day,” You laugh. 

“Had a class night,” Van agrees. “Fucking class.”

You’re still not used to communicating across a time difference. The mention of nighttime brings it back in your awareness. “Wait. What time is it for you?”

There’s some rustling noises while Van checks the screen, then the phone is pressed back to his ear. “Half four. Just got back to the hotel.”

“Jeez, Van! Why aren’t you sleeping already?”

“‘Cause I wanted to talk to you,” Van replies. “It’s not right.”

You’re beaming, charmed by this drunken Van. “What’s not right?”

Van scoffs. “That I don’t get to see my best mate on my birthday!”

“You spent the whole night with them, didn’t you?”

“The lads. Not you.”

The earnesty in his voice makes your heart squeeze. “That’s okay. I’m gonna see you soon, right?”

“Yeah. Really soon. Super soon.”

You smile to yourself. “Where are you?”

“In my room.”

You cackle out loud at that. “I know that. I meant the country!”

“Right. Um. Christ, I don’t fucking know. I forgot.”

“You’re so drunk,” You tut. You expect him to deny it, but listen to his distant laughter instead.

“I’m completely fucked,” He agrees. “Beyond pissed.”

“But you had fun? Was your cake good?”

“Loads of fun. Loads and loads of fun. I don’t remember how many pubs the lads dragged me to. As soon as one closed, bam, next one. It was great.” There’s some shuffling, then: “I forgot about the cake. Gonna have some right now, as a matter of fact.”

You hear the chaos of drunk Van serving himself a piece of cake.

“Wish you would’ve been here,” He says through a mouthful of dessert. “Woulda had so much fun.”

You don’t know which one of you he’s declaring would’ve had fun, but it seems he’s still not over the fact you two have spent the day apart. “I know,” You sigh, feeling a pang of disappointment for not the first time today. “I wish I would’ve been able to see you today, too.”

“Next year.” You hear the soft gulp of Van swallowing another bite down, and then his voice is much clearer. “Better request it off work now,” He teases. “You’ll never spend another first of August without me.”

“Okay,” You agree, only to mollify him. “You should probably get to bed. Text me tomorrow, okay?”

“If I’m alive,” Van chirps.

“You’ll be okay,” You assure him. “Drink lots of water.”

“Yeah.” Van’s voice is starting to grow quieter, rumbling like he’s close to falling asleep. “See you soon.”

“See you soon,” You promise. Your heart hurts at the fact you’re both sleeping alone, the distance between you two suddenly feeling overwhelming. “I miss you.”

Van yawns, and you have a feeling he didn’t catch your words. “Goodnight. I love you,” He slurs.

His words send a cold shot of adrenaline rushing through your veins, even if you know he doesn’t mean them. You almost end the call right there, but you don’t.

“I love you too,” You say instead. “Night.”

Even if Van’s declaration only comes from a place of drunken sleep-deprivation, it feels nice to have the opportunity to say it back. There’s something relieving about admitting it out loud, for the first time, even if this’ll be the only time. 

Van’s breathing is soft on the other end as you hang up.

\\

If giving Van’s neglected house some TLC was going to be the foundation of your gifts, you had no time to waste. His place was massive- not a job that could be tackled in one day- and during the week you had absolutely no desire to do anything after your workdays. You’d have to put some real work in on the weekends to make sure you pulled this off, which is why bright and early on Saturday morning you were pulled up to his gate, struggling with the 8 on the keypad.

You’d made a trip to the store last night to prepare your arsenal, and you struggled to lug it all inside. Unsure of what horrors you’d encounter, you’d bought different cleaning sprays for an assortment of surfaces, mildew, molds. You had boxes of trash bags, not sure whether Van was stocked with his own; and plenty of air freshener to try and chase away the stagnant smell that hit you as soon as you walked in. Then there were the tools; fancy antibacterial toilet brushes, fresh sponges and cleaning cloths. Lots and lots of paper towel. You even haul in a gallon of laundry detergent (and the accompanying softener, of course) and some detergent for the dishwasher. You knew that if you were going to be efficient, you’d need to eliminate time trying to understand where Van would store the things you might need. 

His living room is just as you two had left it the night he went to the hospital. There’s a lump of blankets overtaking half of the couch, and seven mugs of tea, three with leftover liquid that was now home to some fuzzy mold. The crewneck he had changed out of is rumpled on the floor, reeking of B.O. from his sweaty fever. The briefs nearby smell similar.

In the spot where there used to be a stunning monstera plant by the front door, there’s now a yellowed, withered corpse, surrounded by dead leaves that have fallen to the floor. You inspect its limp stem carefully before solemnly declaring it dead. You really had your work cut out for you. 

Your main thought as you turn your bluetooth speaker on and get your phone connected, prepared to blast the cleaning playlist you’ve carefully assembled, is that Van better fucking love this gift. 

\\

By the time you’re heading home, you feel satisfied with what you’ve gotten done. The kitchen is cleaned, the dishwasher rumbling as it sanitizes the mugs and dishes that had been left lying around. Your biggest obstacle had been locating the washer and dryer (which are nestled in a tiny room at the end of the living room hall), but now you could hear the sound of rushing water as the washer started on tonight’s load of laundry. You’d throw them in the dryer tomorrow morning, when you’d be back to tackle the half bathroom down the hall and start on the next level of the house. You carefully close all of the windows and lock the patio doors, which had helped air the place out today, before locking up the front door behind you.

There’s something domestic about cleaning Van’s house that keeps the project from being entirely unpleasant. You pick up little quirks of his in every room you explore: wrappers in the trashes reveal his favorite snack foods, the bathroom cupboards only store one chosen brand of toilet paper. His cereal cupboard is well-stocked but with only a small variety. His mailbox by the gate is overstuffed from his time away, and while you throw away any junk catalogues you note what companies he receives bills from. All of the important envelopes are addressed to his legal name, a small detail that amuses you endlessly. 

In the process, you also manage to get a few gifts out of it. You pick up a ficus during your weekly grocery shopping to replace the dead monstera plant by the door, and while passing the candle section you decide on impulse to buy him a candle for his bedroom. He had decided not to take one of his bags to Europe with him, and had instead left the suitcase of dirty laundry to stink up his entire room. You haven’t figured out his scent preferences, but you decide on something that smells like pine trees just because you keep picking it up to sniff it. It’s in these moments- casually grabbing some things at the store for him- where your mind wanders over the what-ifs. What if he was your boyfriend? What if you two lived together? What if he had someone around to make sure all the food in the fridge didn’t rot when he was away? What if you didn’t have to squeeze time with Van into your schedule, because your life would be entwined with his? You know most of the reason he doesn’t want a relationship is because he thinks it would make things complicated, but to you it feels like everything would be much simpler. 

You sigh sadly to yourself, place the three-wick candle carefully on the child seat so that the glass can’t be damaged in the cart with your other things, and continue shopping.

\\

When Tuesday finally comes, you’re bouncing with excitement as you leave the office early, preparing to pick up Van from the airport. He had tried his hardest to resist, dead set on letting you finish the workday while he grabs an Uber home, but there was no way you were gonna let that happen. You head home to change and pack your overnight bag to stay at his, grab the wrapped gifts you’d left on the kitchen table, and head over to Van’s, where you make sure everything is ready. 

You’d be stopping by the restaurant to pick up the carry out on the way back from the airport, so you carefully set the dining table in advance. You put out two plates, two wine glasses, and you’d even grabbed a package of tealights at the store. You set three of the little tins between your place settings, and stash the rest in his miscellaneous drawer. On the end of the dining table that wasn’t being used tonight, you display his wrapped gifts. The ficus has to rest on the floor, but you’d tied a nice silk bow around the plastic trunk. Was it all a bit cheesy and over the top? Probably. But with the way Van is quite the romantic, you think he’ll enjoy it. 

\\

You never get tired of the feeling that washes over you the first time you see Van. He looks dazed and exhausted fresh off of his flight, his backpack slung over one shoulder, his worn leather jacket slipping off of the other. As soon as he sees you he perks up, starting to walk at a faster pace as you approach him.

You reach out for a hug without a second thought, and Van smiles as you pull him in, happy to have him within reach. It doesn’t feel real the way his body is solid against yours. It feels like the dreams you’ve started to have on occasion, ones that leave a fog of disappointment lingering all day. 

“Oh, I’ve missed you,” You sigh when you pull away, because those words just aren’t enough anymore. 

Van smiles, but it’s a tired smile. Suddenly you worry he won’t have the energy for any festivities tonight. “Missed you,” He croaks.

He laces his fingers with yours, swinging your palms slightly as you two head to collect his baggage. You take one suitcase, he takes the other, and then you head out to the Range Rover.

“Are you hungry?” You ask nervously, once Van’s slumped into the front passenger seat. You’d been excited for tonight, but with the way Van’s energy is off your confidence that he’ll love what you have planned has instantly dissolved. 

“Fucking starving,” Van groans. “I’ve been living off of airplane peanuts all day.”

“You didn’t eat on the flight?”

“No,” Van adjusts his jacket on his shoulders. “Been sleeping. Wanted to make sure I wasn’t shit company tonight.”

You’re busy navigating the parking lot, but still reach one hand out blindly to nudge him playfully. “You’re never bad company!”

“Yeah, right,” Van rolls his eyes. You’re relieved to hear him start to shake off the sleep, sounding more like himself. “Bet you’re just glad you didn’t have to deal with me the last couple’a weeks.”

“Not true!” You scoff. “I missed you! And I didn’t get to see you on your birthday!” You return your voice to normal, taking your eyes off of the road to look at him real quick. “Happy birthday, by the way.”

“Oh, don’t remind me,” Van laughs. “Worst hangover I’ve had in years. Or maybe I’m just too old to handle ‘em now.”

“Could be,” You tease. “27, really getting up there now.”

“Oi. Shut up.” Van grumbles, but he’s not able to keep a straight face. He gazes out the window for a moment. “Why’re we taking this way home?”

“There’s an accident,” You lie. “Got caught in stop-and-go on my way here.”

Van accepts your reasoning, lifting his hips so he can pull his phone from his back pocket. You watch him flick through different notifications, staying blissfully unaware of your route until fifteen minutes later when you’re pulling up to the restaurant. 

As your car slows, Van comes back to reality. “What’s up?” He asks, looking around. 

You avoid an actual explanation as you put the car in park and start to unbuckle. “Stay here, I have to run in real quick.”

The carryout is already prepared, a large bag with ‘McCann’ written on it sitting on a surface behind the hostess booth. You pass over your card, trying not to cringe at the price, and in return you’re passed the bag of food and a cardboard carrier with two bottles of Van’s favorite wine. It was all a bit pricey, sure, but worth it when you see Van’s eyes widen through the tinted windows of the Rover when he sees what you’re up to. 

“Are you fucking kidding?” His voice has risen a few octaves in his typical amused/disbelieving tone. “What have you done this for?”

You set the food on the back bench before climbing into the driver’s seat. “You said you were hungry!” You laugh. “I hope you’re in the mood for lobster.”

Van is grinning so wide that his dimple is making an appearance. “Why the fuck did you do this?”

“For your birthday!” You exclaim, starting the final stretch of the drive to Van’s place.

“My birthday was two weeks ago!”

“A week and a half,” You correct him. “And I didn’t get to see you, so it doesn’t count. So today is technically your birthday all over again.”

“Ridiculous,” Van shakes his head. “You’re the worst, you know that?”

“Oh, don’t pretend like you don’t wanna celebrate with me,” You shoot him a glare. “Mr. ‘you’ll never spend a first of August without me again’.”

A surprised laugh bubbles out of Van. “Did I say that?”

You nod. “You did.”

“I’ll be honest, I don’t remember a word of that phone call.”

“Well, you were very drunk,” You shrug. “Drunker than I’ve ever heard you.”

“Why don’t we ever go out to pubs? Do you get pissed with Mary?”

“I used to go clubbing with Mary a lot,” You tell him as you turn off of the main road, the hill of his neighborhood visible in the distance. “Never really been a bar person, but we could go out one weekend.”

Van makes a displeased noise in the back of this throat. “Not here, in all these hipster cafes. You gotta come to London, we can do a proper pub crawl.”

“I don’t have a passport,” You admit sheepishly, as if that’s the only reason you can’t leave the country on Van’s whim.

“Christ. Americans never do! Mental.”

“Yet again,” You start, leaning out of the window slightly to punch the gate code in, “You hate America so much but you keep coming back!” 

“The lobster is good here,” Van deadpans as you pull into the driveway.

Van grapples with both of his suitcases while you’re busy trying to unlock the front door with the food in your hands. You hold the door to let him in first, watching him carefully. He barges his way to the middle of the room before he pauses, realizing what he’s walked into. 

“What is this?” He’s got a confused smile, looking over at you by the door. He’s gaping at the clean living room, and the surprise on the dining table.

“Surprise,” You giggle nervously, letting him take it all in.

“You tidied up the living room?” Van asks, carefully looking around. The mantle is dusted, the rug is vacuumed, and the place finally smells like someone actually lives here. 

“I tidied up everywhere, actually,” You admit. “The bathrooms, the bedrooms, the kitchen. All clean.”

“Holy shit. You shouldn’t have. Really.” He’s clearly stunned by the gesture, carefully removing his shoes and even going so far as to set them on the mat by the door. “You really did not have to do this, love.”

At the nickname, you know you’ve impressed him. You glow with pride as you bring the bag of food to the table, making a quick detour to the kitchen to grab some utensils to transfer the food out of the containers and onto the plates.

“Do you wanna open your presents before or after we eat?” You ask, carefully spooning the seasoned butter that was melted at the bottom of Van’s container onto his food. 

“After,” Van says, rubbing his hands together in anticipation as he starts to seat himself. You grab one of the bottles of wine, heading into the kitchen to find the corkscrew.

“I love the tree,” Van says when you return, nodding to the ficus standing proudly with his bow at the head of the table. “Thank you.”

“Your plant died,” You inform him, pointing to the empty space by the front door where the monstera used to sit. “It feels empty without it.”

Van frowns. “I told Bob not to give me anything that needed watering. I’m shit at remembering.” He shrugs. “He had a good half a year.”

“Bob got you it?”

Van nods. “For Christmas. It was one of his, to be fair. Got a green thumb. Great at pawning off his plant spawns to us lads.” He smiles affectionately, and you can’t help but smile as well. They were such a strange group of friends. 

You don’t sit down after you’ve poured wine for you two. “Do you have a lighter?” You’d forgotten to grab one in the kitchen for a tealights. 

Van procures one from the front pocket of his button up without question, and you light the candles before you sit down. You notice that Van hasn’t started eating without you. 

“Very posh,” He smiles at your setup, raising his glass of wine. “Cheers.”

“Cheers to 27,” You add, clinking your glass with his. 

There’s not much conversation as you two eat. Van is ravenous, and is done with his meal before you. You’re only halfway through your chicken parmesan, but you decide to save the other half for later. It wouldn’t do you any good to get all sluggish and bloated before the night’s even begun. 

You start to clear the table, Van standing to help automatically.

“Don’t help!” You scold him. “This is a gift!”

“You’ve already cleaned the place once!” Van insists, holding his dirty plate out of your reach when you attempt to take it from him. “That’s more than enough!”

He helps you rinse the dishes, marveling at how you put them directly in the dishwasher. It’s clearly not a habit he’s developed. 

You two keep the wine glasses out, not finished drinking for the night. Then Van opens his gifts while you radiate nervous energy the entire time.

He’s not someone who gets worked up over gifts, but his quiet gratitude is special in it’s own way. He loves the wooden rolling tray you’ve gotten him to replace the dented up tin one he carries around, and he laughs at the pack of THC water you’d gotten from your clients. He places the ficus by the front door, refusing to untie the bow around its trunk. When he’s done he pulls you in for a big hug.

“I know it’s not much…” You start nervously, but Van shakes his head.

“Thank you,” He cuts you off, rocking your bodies side to side. When his arms finally loosen you tilt your chin up to look at him and he leans down to give you a kiss.

“Thank you.” He repeats, giving your arms a small squeeze before releasing you.

“What do you wanna do?” You ask, now that dinner and gifts are over.

Van shrugs. He’s gazing out of the patio doors at the Hollywood cityscape. “Do you wanna go for a dip in the hot tub?”

That’s about the last thing you expected him to say. In all the times you’ve been over you have never seen Van use his pool. But you wouldn’t be the one to say no to the birthday boy himself. “Yeah, that sounds fun.”

“I’m all cramped up from sleeping on an airplane seat,” He explains. “Nothing sounds as good as those jets.”

He heads upstairs to get changed, but you’ve got nothing to change into. You’ve got your matching set of lace bra and underwear on, the same set you’d worn on your first date with Van. In any regular case you’d be strictly opposed to swimming in them, but you did have a change of clothes in your overnight bag, and you’re curious about how Van will react.

When Van comes down in his swim trunks, he realizes you’re still in your clothes. “Oh, fuck. Do you have something to wear?”

You can see he’s ready to retract his request, so you offer him a reassuring smile. “Yeah, let’s go!”

He clearly doesn’t understand what you’re up to, but leads you into the kitchen and out into the backyard. It’s the one area of the house that stays perfectly maintained no matter how long he’s gone; he’s got a landscaping company that comes over regularly to trim the grass and clean the pool. 

At the bottom of the cement steps that descend from the kitchen, Van makes a right around some lounge chairs. You don’t understand what he’s doing until he tugs back a heavy set of curtains, revealing a small cabana built right into the house.

“Are you joking?” You gape in disbelief as you check it out. There’s a seating area, a television mounted on the wall, and a door to a small bathroom in the corner. “What the fuck is this, oh my God?”

Van shakes his head, popping into the bathroom before coming back with two swim towels in hand. He passes one to you. “It’s my patio!”

“A patio is outside,” You correct him, “This is a cabana with a fucking television that’s attached to your house.”

Van gestures to the pool past the open curtains. “It’s got curtains. It’s outside.” The way he’s smiling reveals he knows exactly how luxurious it is. 

The pool thermostat is installed in one of the walls, and Van pokes at it before you hear the rumble of the hot tub coming to life, the jets starting to bubble. 

Van heads straight for the hot tub, but you start to get undressed while he’s not paying attention. You kick off the sandals you’d worn over here, peel off your shirt and shorts, and dig around in your shorts pockets for a hair tie. 

A bra and underwear set has the same coverage as a bikini, but there’s something about openly walking across the backyard in your underwear that feels forbidden. Of course, nobody’s able to see you considering Van’s privacy bamboo that surrounds the house, but the sun is still out and you still feel exposed as you approach Van.

He does a double take when he finally settles onto the stone seat that encircles the small spa. You use the metal railings to start stepping in, pretending you don’t notice him staring.

“I knew you didn’t have anything to wear!”

You smile, giving a small shrug like this is nothing out of the ordinary. “I’m wearing something, aren’t I?”

“Yeah, but now your knickers are soaked.”

You frown as you sit next to him, the hot water saturating the padded cups of your bra. “Ew. Don’t say knickers.”

He snorts, sinking deeper into the water until the ends of his hair are wet, the jet foaming directly on the back of his neck. “Fuck. This feels so good.”

The legs of his trunks have floated up around his thighs, and in the clean water your eyes can linger over him while he’s got his eyes closed, enjoying his makeshift massage. 

“So how was tour?” You ask after there’s been some silence. 

“Incredible,” Van tells you, sitting back up. His back is in front of the jet now, and he arches into it. “Europe fucking loves us. The crowds go wild every night. We only play Glasgow in Scotland, everyone loves that. It’s such a good time.”

He tells you some stories about the festivals they’ve done, some ridiculous questions interviewers have asked. You relax into the warm water as you listen to his voice, falling into a content daze. You suddenly feel like nothing in the world could feel as good as relaxing in a hot tub with Van after a couple of glasses of wine. 

“How’s work been?” Van asks when he’s finished filling you in. You can feel your muscles start to tense, your mind start to remember the numerous frustrations that have been chipping away at your sanity lately.

“Don’t wanna talk about it,” You sigh, shaking your head as if that’ll clear your thoughts. “I just wanna forget about it and have a nice night with you.”

“Fair enough.” Van shrugs. “Are you?”

You’re resting your neck against the cement edge of the tub, your body floating weightlessly in the water as you gaze up at the light-polluted sky that is rapidly becoming darker as the day comes to a close. “Am I what?”

“Having a nice night?”

“Um, yeah,” You answer like it’s a stupid question. “We should use your hot tub more often. This thing is magic.” You imagine this is what babies in the womb must feel like, completely doused in warmth and without a care in the world.

“We should. You can keep a suit over here.”

You laugh at that, sitting up and looking over at him. You shiver as the tops of your shoulders are exposed to the air. “Why do you keep mentioning my suit? Do you not like what I’m wearing?”

“That’s the opposite of how I feel, actually. Just figured an actual suit would be more comfortable.”

You smile at his admission. “Oh, so you don’t actually hate this set?”

The water has carried one of the straps of your bra off of your shoulder, and you watch Van’s eyes dart to your bare skin. 

“Course I don’t. Christ.”

Now it feels like you’ve got him where you want him. You ease up onto your knees, Van’s eyes dragging over the sopping lace as gravity pulls the cups lower, revealing more skin. You fight the urge to tug your strap up as you move closer to Van, who licks his lips.

“Okay.” Your voice is quiet, your body dangerously close to Van’s. You can feel the steam radiating off of his flushed body. “I was worried for a second.”

Van can tell you’re teasing, and he breaks out in a grin. “Shut the fuck up,” He laughs right in your face before his hands are on your hips, yanking you off balance and onto his lap. There’s the rush of water splashing around your bodies and a sickening twist in your stomach as you lose your balance. 

The first thing you comprehend is Van’s lips against your neck, hungrily mouthing at your damp skin. Your knees have found their way to either side of his thighs, your hands gripping the edge of the tub for dear life. As soon as you feel steady again you stop clutching at the cement, gripping Van’s dripping shoulders. You let your hips sink down, your thigh muscles loose and relaxed enough to open wider without any discomfort. 

You can’t feel if he’s hard through the water, but the way he groans is enough of a hint. Every noise you two make bounces off of the water, magnifying the sound.

You wrap your legs around his waist, his hands leaving your sides in order to cup your ass through the lace. You feel his fingers pinch at the fabric, rubbing it between his fingertips before he nestles his head into the crook of your neck, biting down where your neck meets your shoulder. 

“Van!” You gasp in shock. His body is rocking so you grab the ledge to steady yourself. There’d always been an unspoken rule not to leave marks. At his name Van pulls away with a guilty grin.

“Too much?” He asks, carefully watching your reaction. 

“No,” You assure him breathlessly. Your hand comes up to stroke his hair, wetting his roots in the process. You were aching for him to do it again. “But warn a girl, alright?” You breathe.

Van’s grin widens. “Yeah, alright,” He promises before his arms tighten around you, his mouth latching onto the same spot. This time the sting of his teeth makes you moan, your legs tightening around his waist, trying to press him as tight against you as humanly possible. 

You close your eyes, your nose buried in his hair. You breathe in the scent of chlorine as you let him take the lead for this brief moment. It’s something you want to savor before you go upstairs, where the dynamics will be different.

When he pulls away he presses his lips to the top of your shoulder before you start to untangle yourself from him. You watch his expression cloud in confusion.

“You haven’t even seen the bedroom yet,” You tell him, starting for the steps. Out of the water, gravity feels too strong, the air icy cold compared to the water. You regret leaving, but there’s more in store. 

The spot on your neck that Van had focused on throbs in residual pain as you grab your towel off of one of the lounge chairs, trying to dry off as best as you can. Van turns the jets in the tub off, closing the curtains to shut down the cabana.

“Want your clothes?” He asks, and you realize your shoes and outfit are slung over the couch.

“I’ll grab ‘em tomorrow,” You decide. You wouldn’t need them anymore tonight, so there was no need to waste precious time on a distraction.

The two of you struggle up the stairs to Van’s room, your muscles feeling like jelly. 

You proudly open the door to present the room for him. Fresh sheets, washed comforter, fluffed pillows, and an empty hamper. Van laughs in disbelief.

“I got you this, too,” You tell him, holding your damp towel around your body with your elbows as you pick the pine candle off of his dresser. You hadn’t wrapped this gift, instead wanting to make it a nice touch for tonight. “I dunno if you like pine-scented things, but I thought it smelled good.”

“Love pine,” Van nods, coming up behind you. He opens his hands for you to pass the candle over, and you do. He sniffs at the wax before nodding his approval, passing it back to you. 

“Hand me a lighter,” You request, and Van tosses you one before he starts to strip down, keeping the room neat by placing his wet towel and trunks in the hamper.

You struggle to get all three of the wicks lit, but you’re pleased at the warm glow the candle emits. 

Van is already tugging the blankets down, ruining your hard work in the name of climbing into bed naked. You peel away your soaked bra and underwear, dropping them in the hamper with Van’s things.

“So,” Your heart starts racing now, but you try to remain nonchalant as you stride over to Van’s closet, sliding the door aside. “Do you have a robe anywhere?”

“Yeah, you need one? I have one hanging in the bathroom.”

You didn’t actually need one, but you nod, grabbing your overnight bag from the floor. “I’ll be right back.”

You feel like you’re about to start hyperventilating as you lock the door behind you. Van’s plush robe is dangling from the hook on the back of the door. Duh. You were the one who had washed it and hung it there, after all. The nerves were clearly getting to your head. 

Your hair looks like a frizzy birds nest, every section a varying degree of damp. You extract your hair tie from the mess, and borrow Van’s brush to do some damage control. Once you’ve parted your hair correctly and smoothed it down, you look a million times better. 

The only thing left to do was get dressed. You grope around in your bag until you feel the silky cloth of the lingerie. You’d purchased it just for this occasion, a sheer scrap of black fabric that Mary had helped you choose. The website called it a ‘babydoll set’, a lace bra with a silky transparent fabric draping off of the band. The airy cloth fell just below your ass, but it didn’t really matter how low it covered because you could blatantly see through it. There was a slit directly down the front, giving Van the ability to easily push the extra clothing aside in case he needed to access your skin. It had come with a matching thong but you don’t bother to put that on. You figure the bra is enough. 

You unravel the tie of Van’s robe, your fingers shaking. You take a steadying breath before finally twisting the doorknob, turning the bathroom lights off as you step back into the bedroom. 

“Oh, Christ.” Van groans, scrubbing his hands over his face. “You want me dead.”

You head to the bedroom door first, sliding the dimmer all the way down. The room is still lit from the flickering candle and the lights of the city shining through the open window, but without the overhead lighting everything feels much more relaxed.

You approach Van then, sitting down on the edge of the mattress next to his body. While you’d been adjusting the lights he’d propped himself up into a sitting position, and as soon as you sit down his hand comes to rest against the back of your neck.

You don’t speak. You want to poke around for some reassurance that he likes what he sees, some validation that Mary had been right when she’d pressured you into adding this finishing touch. But instead you let him cradle the back of your neck while he takes you in, his neck craning so he can give you a full onceover before meeting your eyes again. 

“I’m convinced you’re trying to give me a heart attack,” He jokes, before hauling you in by the back of your neck for a kiss. “What is it with you and lace?”

“This is, like, all of the lace I own.” Per usual, you’ve got to brush off the compliment even if it’s the confidence boost you needed.

“And I got to see it all tonight? I’m one lucky lad.”

He looks annoyingly smug, the face of a boy who knows he’s about to get laid tonight. You kiss him again (and again) just so that you don’t have to look at him anymore.

You climb onto the bed completely, crawling into Van’s lap. Van startles when the robe tie crinkled in your hand brushes his ribs. 

“What’s that?” He asks, peering down at your hand for a better look. You extend your fingers, the length of cloth unfurling, tumbling onto Van’s lap. “Is that the string on my robe?”

“Yeah,” You confirm. You want to explain, but your mouth suddenly goes dry, waiting for his reaction.

“What’ve you got that for?” He cocks his head in confusion, looking between the rope and your wide eyes.

You gulp. “I was thinking, y’know- if you were into it- we could try something kind of like the last time?”

Van’s expression is blank for a few moments, no doubt trying to recall your last time having sex. You watch his expression change as soon as he’s remembered. 

“Are you gonna tie me up? Is that what this is?”

His voice has gone up in pitch, like he doesn’t really believe this is actually happening. You nod slowly.

“I mean, if you want. Just your wrists. Unless you have cuffs?” You ask the last part hesitantly, predicting Van’s answer. He confirms your suspicions when he shakes his head. “That’s what I thought.”

“You know how to tie me up with that?” Van asks, nodding at your palm. 

“Yeah. Hold on.” You shuffle off of his body, laying the tie out flat on the mattress next to Van. It’s a trick you’d learned from Mary years ago, and was easy enough to Google and relearn. With minimal fuss you’ve tied a handcuff knot, holding it up for Van. 

“No shit. You’re full of surprises tonight,” Van marvels. 

“So… do you wanna try it?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Van grins. “I’ve already told you, you can do whatever you want to me. Consider me at your mercy, always. How do ya want me?”

You giggle, rolling your eyes at his dramatics. “Off of the bed,” You instruct him. 

“How kinky are we goin’ tonight?” Van asks as he clamors off of the mattress. “Am I supposed to get down on my knees?”

He’s teasing, beaming down at you from where he’s standing. You get off of the mattress as well, trying to nudge it downwards.

“I need some space between the headboard and the mattress,” You explain, out of breath with the effort of trying to move it on your own. Van’s headboard was solid wood, not wrought iron like yours. You’d need to secure his wrists to one of the support beams holding the mattress up. 

“You really thought this out, huh?” Van gets on the other side of the bed, helps you nudge the mattress a few inches down.

You don’t answer him, distracted with rearranging his pillows nicely before patting them. “Come lay down.”

Van obliges. As he’s holding his wrists out so that you can loop your handcuff knot around them, he nods to his bedside table.

“Don’t forget to grab a condom,” He reminds you.

You pause where you’re tightening the cloth against his skin. “About that.”

“We could skip it,” You suggest, trying to keep your voice light. “I mean, I know you’re clean. I’m on the pill. And I’m clean, but I don’t have, like, the records on hand, so, if-”

“Skip it.” Van cuts you off. “Deffo.”

The robe fabric is nice and snug against his skin, and you’re pleased when Van tests the restraint and it holds perfectly. Suddenly, everything is feeling very official. 

You need your phone flash light in order to loop the extra length around the support slat you’d moved the mattress to reveal. When you’re done tying that knot you’re out of breath.

“Good?” You ask Van when you stand up. He’s got his elbows bent, his wrists comfortably resting right above his head, and when he strains to move them there’s not anywhere for them to go.

You get back on his lap, but the air in the room has changed. The anticipation is stifling. You’ve never felt so unsure and so certain at the same time. You desperately hoped everything went off without a hitch.

You could do anything to Van with the way he’s restrained, but for some reason it feels right to get a hand around him, starting to jerk him off slowly. It’s weird to think you’ve never given him a hand job before, as simple the act is. You only really get your hands on him for foreplay purposes, but thankfully Van doesn’t seem to mind, arching his back into the sensation. Then you remember his balls, and your other hand slides between his thighs, brushing against the soft skin of them. You feel them tighten reflexively away from your fingertips, Van whining when you cup them. 

You could be minimal with Van’s foreplay, let your eagerness get the best of you, but you don’t. You keep your hand slow and steady, your rhythm perfectly even, and feel him swell in the palm of your hand, his hips wiggling to chase more friction. 

You snap out of your trance when you suddenly feel Van’s thighs tremble underneath you, a small dash of precome blurting from the head of his dick when your hand brings his foreskin down. You hadn’t realized how close he was getting, too engrossed in touching him. You bring your hands away from his dick but let his balls still rest in your palm, giving them some gentle attention while you let Van back away from the edge.

Once Van has cooled down, that’s usually your cue to get started. His breathing has relaxed slightly, not so harsh and loud, and he’s not shaking anymore. But without really thinking about it you wrap your palm around him for a second time. His stomach tightens in surprise, but he doesn’t protest, so you decide to experiment with starting your slow, even tugs again. 

This time you push your luck, still jerking him off even as you feel the warm drops of precome drip onto your fingers. You wait until he’s progressed past the trembling, until you feel his thighs tighten in anticipation of his orgasm before you release him, his dick coming to rest against his belly. While he’s trying to catch his breath you release his balls, letting them hang heavy between his legs in favor of having another hand free. He groans at the loss of contact, but you’re surprised at how quiet he’s been. You rub your hands up and down his thighs, accidentally rubbing his own precome over his skin. You wait until you feel his muscles unclench, until he relaxes into the mattress again with a sigh before you start up yet again.

There’s a strange thrill at what you’re doing, a dopamine rush like you’re playing the lottery. Van is clearly coming undone, hissing through his teeth at every slight touch, twitching and tensing helplessly beneath you. This time when you withdraw your hand you’re afraid you’ve misjudged him, because he tries to buck his hips up against your weight, his dick throbbing, and you’re positive he’s about to come all over his stomach even without your touch. When he doesn’t there’s a strange rush of pride that consumes you, only adding to the adrenaline rush.

Van’s been a good sport, but when you trace the vein on the underside of his dick with the tip of your finger, giddy with the way he startles, he stops staying quiet.

“Holy shit,” He gasps, and you can see his biceps flexing against his handcuffs. “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,” He chants, his eyes squeezing shut so tight you’re sure he sees stars when he blinks them open again.

“Too much?” You’d assumed Van was having a good time, but your heart sinks when you realize that he had no sort of safeword, that maybe you were getting a little too power hungry. 

“You’re driving me fucking mad,” Van groans, slamming the back of his head against his pillow. 

“Do you want me to stop?” You’ve stopped messing with him in case that’s what he’s getting at, absentmindedly tucking your fingertips under one of his knees, petting the thin skin back there. 

“I would like to fuck you some time this year,” Van snorts, his voice laden with frustration.

You keep caressing the back of his knee. “So… stop?”

Van lifts his head enough to shoot you a weak glare. “You can do whatever you want. Just wondering how long a lad’s supposed to fucking hold off.”

It takes one more go to rid Van of his pesky stubbornness. He’s reduced to a flushed, sweating heap on top of the sheets, and although he doesn’t tap out you wouldn’t feel comfortable edging him any longer. 

His body jerks as you rub up and down his sides, trying to ease him into the next thing. He clearly thinks you’re getting ready to play games again, unable to settle down. 

“I’m done, I’m done,” You find yourself whispering, his body instantly starting to relax in relief. “Are you good? Still want me to fuck you?”

Van cracks a smile at that, although he doesn’t look like he’s entirely with you. “You better,” He croaks. “Don’t let that be for nothing.”

“Still want to skip the condom?” You decide to double check for good measure. It had all been fun and games until now, when you feel an increasing sense of duty to make sure Van’s taken care of. “Do you want your hands free?”

“You’re acting like you broke me,” Van chuckles. “Yes to skipping. Leave me be and get on with it.”

You offer his cheek a reassuring pat before brushing the sweaty hair away from his eyes, tucking it behind his ear as you’ve so often seen him do. You lean down for a kiss before sitting back up, positioning yourself over him. 

The absence of the condom is strange when you hold the base of his dick, and you jump when you start to position his head between your legs. He’s warm and throbbing with anticipation, and you can feel every pulse of his heart beat against your opening, your stomach fluttering as your body prepares to make room for him. 

“Oh my God,” You gasp as you start to lower down. Condoms had a tendency to make things a bit dry, to make the first few thrusts a bit tricky, but you’d forgotten how much simpler sex was without one. Van slides in without the slightest hold up, easily working his way deep even as you feel yourself tighten, your body instinctively trying to draw him in deeper. Once seated you force yourself to draw in a few shaky breaths, mentally willing yourself to relax around him.

As you’re lifting yourself back up Van moans, a vulnerable noise that has you clutching at his ribs.

“Oh, Van,” You whimper, aware that you’re losing control of the situation. But it’s been years since you’ve had unprotected sex, and that was when neither of you had any idea what you were doing, and this is a million times better, and Van is watching you with wide, blue eyes as you struggle to fuck him. “This is so good. Fuck, Van, it’s so good.”

He’s watching you in awe. “I know,” He nods, too consumed in you to fight his restraints, his wrists resting limply. 

It’s evident that neither of you are going to be able to hold on; your time apart, the hot tub makeout, fantasy turned reality and the lack of any barrier between your bodies has made tonight come to a rapid boiling point. Your hands scramble against his skin as you try to keep your balance against the shocks of pleasure that twist through your stomach, each one feeling like an orgasm that doesn’t quite make it to climax. With each exhale you’re making what you’d consider the most unattractive noises possible, crying out in desperation when each shock doesn’t make it all the way, your own body keeping you on edge the same way you’d done to Van. 

“I’m gonna fucking blow,” Van breathes after you have to pause to catch your breath against the feeling in your belly. “If you don’t want me inside get me the fuck out.”

“You’re fine,” You assure him, steadying yourself for another thrust. This time you support all of your weight on the palm pressed into Van’s chest, your other hand slipping between your legs so your fingers have access to your clit. When you meet Van’s gaze he’s gaping at you, mouth ajar.

“What?” You ask as you start quick, tight circles that combine perfectly with the fullness of Van. 

Van shakes his head. “You’re incredible,” He sighs, melting back against his pillows.

Your orgasm blooms hot and heavy between your legs, the pressure of your fingertips becoming unbearable, your legs collapsing under the weight of anticipation. You scream Van’s name embarrassingly loud, desperately wishing you had a pillow to muffle yourself. 

His own orgasm is unmistakable when it arrives only moments after yours. You have a flash of panic when you feel the warm gush of Van coming directly inside of you before you relax, remembering that it was intentional. This orgasm lasts noticeably longer than his usual ones, and with each pulse of his dick inside of you you feel impossibly fuller. When he’s done, his face smoothing out as he finally blinks up at you, you’re distracted by the syrupy heat between your legs, terrified for him to pull out.

“Don’t pull out yet,” You plead, your arms shaking as they continue to support you. 

Van gives you a lopsided grin. “Couldn’t if I wanted to.” He tugs at his tied wrists for emphasis. 

At this you can’t help but laugh. “Right.” It takes a strenuous amount of core strength to lift both of your hands, picking away at the handcuff knot until Van could slide his wrists out. His palms immediately come down to hold your hips in place, his skin warm against the wispy fabric of your lingerie. 

“I’ve got to take a shower,” You explain, your body shivering against his. You can feel Van shivering, too, the intensity of everything putting your bodies into overdrive. 

“I’ll take one with you.”

You cringe as you finally lift yourself off of him. Although things feel normal for a moment, by the time you’re standing next to the bed on shaky legs you can feel the trickle of Van’s come sliding down one of your thighs. There’s nothing to do but helplessly allow gravity to do it’s thing while Van leads you into the en suite, getting the hot water running in the shower.

As soon as your bra is a silk puddle on the floor and you’ve both stepped in, Van closes the glass door behind you before standing directly above the drain, pissing right into it.

“Are you peeing?” You ask incredulously.

Van twists his neck, grinning over his shoulder as he finishes. He gives himself two firm shakes, the shower water cascading down his shoulders and rinsing him off. “Yeah. You don’t piss in the shower?”

“I mean, yeah,” You admit, shifting your weight uncomfortably. You actually needed to pee right now, but there’s absolutely no way you’ll do it in front of Van. “When there’s not an audience.”

Van just shrugs, using his fingers to work the warm water through his hair. He reaches out for the bottle of shampoo he keeps on the small shower ledge, but before he can pop the lid up you wrap your own hand around it.

“Lemme do it,” You say quietly, not meeting his eyes as you take the bottle into your own hands, pouring an ice-blue dollop into the palm of your hand. 

Van doesn’t protest, instead stepping out of the stream of water so that you can warm yourself underneath it instead. He turns so that his back is facing you and you reach up, starting to work the shampoo into a foam over his scalp. He’s always felt so much taller than you, but his head isn’t too far out of reach, and you realize you two are closer in height than you’d thought. 

Standing in the small glass square space of Van’s shower, the events that just happened in the bedroom feel surreal. Usually, you two snap right out of your bedroom mentality, moving on to the next part of your day easily. But something about tonight lingers over you, and as you wash Van’s hair you get the feeling he’s on the same page. Everything still feels tender and vulnerable, your bodies still shivering even in the steam, and the protective urge to make sure Van’s comfortable and safe still hasn’t faded. You’re careful to use the side of your hand to smooth any suds away from his forehead, keeping his eyes shampoo free, and when you’re satisfied that his hair is clean you lean forward, planting a kiss on his shoulderblade. He switches places with you silently, rinsing himself off as you gather some stray streams of water into the palm of your hand, flushing between your thighs out as best as you can. 

“Want me to suds you up?”

You hadn’t planned on washing your hair, but considering you’d gotten it damp with chlorine in the hot tub you might as well. “Yeah.”

You shift so that you’re in front of him, your back to him. Van squeezes some shampoo into his hands, and suddenly his palms are smoothing over your head. His hands trail down the back of your neck in long, even strokes as he makes sure he distributes the shampoo all the way from your roots to the very end of each strand.

At first you’re gazing out of the shower walls at the enormous marble countertops housing the his-and-hers sinks, but once Van’s done smoothing his hands over you and starts to dig his fingertips in, really scrubbing at your scalp, your eyes lull closed. You hadn’t expected him to be so thorough, rolling your head back to lean into his fingers as he massaged every inch of your head, the foam of the shampoo running down your back. 

“Lean forward,” Van grumbles, gently tipping your head forward again. “You’re messing me up.”

You do as you’re told, disappointed when the washing finally comes to an end and Van withdraws his hands from your hair, stepping out of the water so you can have a turn to rinse. 

When you’re both finished you get to see Van’s reaction to the bathroom closet brimming with freshly washed towels. He doesn’t seem to understand the extent to which you’ve cleaned, and you suspect he’ll be pleasantly surprised for weeks to come when he sees all the work you’ve put into the guest bedrooms, not to mention what you’ve done with his favorite sunbathing patio. You swipe the towel over your skin, wiping away the excess droplets before wrapping it around your hair. You reach for your overnight bag again, this time to grab your Las Vegas shirt. You pick your lingerie up from the floor and slip it back into your bag, mentally congratulating it on a job well done. 

When you’re done tugging on a fresh pair of underwear (cotton, since itchy lace was no longer needed) and removing your contacts, you come back into the bedroom to see Van’s pushed the mattress back in place and remade the bed, his robe tie crumpled in the center of his comforter. He’s got a fresh pair of boxers on, and shakes his box of cigarettes in his hand as soon as you step out. 

“Let’s smoke.” He nods toward the giant glass window that stretches across the front wall of his room. There’s a narrow balcony on the other side, bordered by a sleek glass railing. You’re confused about how to step outside, but Van easily slips his fingers against the edge of the window, which slides open to expose the bedroom to the outdoor air. 

The balcony is unfurnished, Van plopping himself down in the corner, his back against the house. He’s brought the ash tray from his bedside table out, and you sit down next to him, stretching your legs out in front of you as Van doles out cigarettes to you both. 

“I didn’t even realize that window was a door,” You mumble before inhaling as Van holds the lighter flame to the end of your cigarette. Once it’s lit he does his own, peering out at the city twinkling beyond the railing.

“Don’t really bother to come out here,” He shrugs. “Rather just go out on the patio.”

“So why are we out here tonight?” You ask, looking down between your bodies at the ash tray while you tap your cigarette into it.

“Needed some fresh air. Get my head on straight.”

He punctuates his sentence with a long drag of his cigarette. You let the silence drag on, your body feeling heavier as the adrenaline from the sex starts to wear off.

“Was it good?” You finally decide to ask. You don’t know if it’s the same for Van, but the whole handcuff thing feels like the elephant in the room. For all intents and purposes it seemed Van had enjoyed himself, but now you’ve got the creeping anxiety that the reality might not be as appetizing for him as the porn made it seem. 

“The sex?” Van asks, looking over at you. When you nod, he hooks his thumb over his shoulder, grinning as he gestures to the bedroom. “Are we talking about the same thing? Because that was clearly brilliant.”

You roll your eyes at his teasing, your arm coming to rest over his shoulders. You give his body a playful shake. “You know what I’m talking about. Would you do it again? That… whole thing?”

It’s Van’s turn to roll his eyes before exhaling a warm burst of smoke right into your face. “Christ, I hope we give that a go again. You weren’t fucking kidding about celebrating my birthday. You were absolutely mental in there!” He’s beaming right at you, nudging you with his shoulder. “I’ve never seen you act like that! With the lingerie and everything! What came over you?” 

He’s clearly having a blast teasing you, so now it’s your turn to smoke him out. It only pleases him more to know he’s embarrassed you, a blush blooming over your cheeks as you remember how it felt to be completely in control of Van. You lift your arm from his shoulders to ruffle his hair, and he snuffs his cigarette butt out, resting his head on your shoulder. 

“This is a daft question, since the deed’s been done and all…” You can feel his voice vibrating against your skin. “But you’re not fucking anyone else, right?”

You can’t see his expression while he asks, the only thing visible in your peripheral vision the part of his hair as his cheek stays pressed on your shoulder. As you ash your own cigarette out you plant a quick kiss in his hair. It’s more romantic than you would allow yourself on a regular day, but tonight wasn’t a regular night. “Nope. Just you.”

Van lifts his head from your shoulder. “You really got the shit end of the stick. Sorry, love.”

“Shit end of the stick?”

“Well, yeah! You’re in there in lace tyin’ me up, and all I’ve got to offer is some shit missionary.” 

“I like missionary,” You frown. “And you’re forgetting about the head.”

Van frowns. “You think it’s good?”

You shrug, looking away. “Best I’ve ever had.”

Van knows from your previous conversations with him that’s not a lie, so he doesn’t argue. You watch his eyelashes as he blinks, and it looks like he’s struggling to keep his eyes open. 

“You tired?” You ask, unwinding your arm where it’s snaked around him so that you can lift yourself off of the ground. 

He yawns, nodding. He takes your hands and you help hoist him up until he’s standing over you. 

Once inside, you both immediately climb into Van’s bed, the sheets still smelling like the fabric softener you’d used on them. 

Van doesn’t even go on his phone, too exhausted from today’s travels to fight his exhaustion. The lights are clicked off, and Van’s back is to you, his usual sleeping position.

You should roll over too, like you always do, but for some reason you nestle yourself against his back, throwing an arm over his side so that you’re spooning him. 

“What’re you doin’?” He grumbles, clearly almost knocked out after only five-ish minutes of silence. 

“Spooning you,” You say, as if that was any explanation at all, and kiss his hair again. You let your face linger by his scalp for a moment longer, breathing in the smell of his shampoo, before resting your head against your pillow. The skin of his stomach is soft against your fingertips, and the feeling of his body shifting rhythmically with his breathing immediately has your eyelids drooping.

You just loved him so, so, so much. And even if he didn’t love you back, you hoped he realized how much you cared for him. Because you realize now it’s more than you’ve ever cared about anyone else. 

\\

[disconnxctedd]

Honest.  G.D.  (E.D.)

word count: 2844

I’ve been hanging out with the twins for a couple of months now but we still haven’t reached that stage, in which you are comfortable doing literally everything together. We know almost everything about each other, yet we still haven’t had a sleepover or seen each other sleeping. I’ve always behaved more goofily with Ethan than I do with Gray and I don’t really have an explanation why. Don’t get me wrong, I get on amazingly with both of them, it’s just that things are just a tad bit more awkward with Grayson when it’s only the two of us. It may have to do something with me maybe developing something more for him but I try to push that thought aside.

We basically became best friends the first three minutes we hung out together and I think I found my friend soulmates forever. And I really really don’t want to screw that up.

Soo, as one can expect we are bound to stay at each other’s house at one point and that’s exactly what is happening this Saturday. There are two weird things about it, though, that I just can’t not mention. Firstly, it’s the first time I am going to sleep in the same building as Gray and secondly, yes, I said only Gray because unfortunately Ethan is not coming. I moved two hours away from LA a month ago, since the new academic year started and the guys haven’t visited me still. I have been going on and on about it ever since I came here and when finally it turned out so that they can actually come, Ethan had to fly to San Diego for a really huge directing job offer that he received literally two days ago and could not say no to. He called me the other night and I could see how excited he was but at the same time you could read the word GUILT sprawled across his forehead. Two days later I am still trying to convince him it’s fine but I am not sure I am really succeeding in doing so, to be honest. 

Anyway, Gray is going to arrive in about 13 hours as it’s currently Friday evening and he is supposed to be here at around 10 in the morning on Saturday. I’ve been cleaning my room for the past hour and a half, I went grocery shopping earlier today and also bought an extra pillow because I didn’t really have one, since I haven’t had anyone over yet. I am so excited that I am spending my whole weekend with one of my best friends and I am finally not going to be alone for the first time in a month, you can’t even imagine.

I put the hoover behind the closet door and grab my phone so it’s near me while I am making dinner, in case someone calls. As if he read my thoughts, Grayson’s face lights up my screen and I pick up.

“Hey, goofball. How are you doing?”

“Hey! I just finished cleaning the place so you don’t think I am an extremely disgusting person and I am about to make something for dinner. You excited about tomorrow?”

“Heck yes I am! I get to spend a whole weekend with my best friend for the first time in a month, how do you imagine me not being excited?” he smiles such a warm smile and I can’t help but feel my stomach flutter. Stupid butterflies. “Plus, I know how disgusting you are already, so no need to beat yourself over cleaning the place.” he laughs and sticks his tongue at me.

“Oh, shut it if you want to not sleep on the doormat.”

“Okay, okay. The serious part now. Want me to stop by your place tomorrow morning and get you something?”

“Hmm, not really, I don’t think I need anything. Just your stupid ass.” I smile and he smiles back.

“I am gonna text you when I depart from home so you know around what time I’ll be there.”

“Can’t wait for it to be tomorrow morning already.”

“Goodnight, goofball. Love you.

“Love you, too. Drive safely tomorrow.”

“Will do. See you in a few hours.” Grayson smiles at me one last time and hangs up.

I finish chopping some veggies, pop them in the oven and go to the bathroom to take a quick shower while dinner is getting ready. When I am done in the shower, I wrap my hair in a towel and not bothering to put on clothes I walk to my laptop in my robe and slippers, then put on some random YouTube video and go put some food on a plate. I walk back to the bed and plop down to eat in front of the laptop.

I wake up, dressed in my robe, some video still playing, the lights still on. I should have fallen asleep at some point. I sit up and put my feet on the floor and immediately feel pain rising on the bottom of my feet. The dish I ate dinner from must’ve slipped on the floor at some point while I was sleeping and now there’s shattered glass covering the whole floor. I groan, standing up carefully, walk to the bathroom and toss the towel I had on my head in the dirty laundry hamper. I check my feet and there are no wounds or cuts from the glass, gladly. I get the hoover out again from the closet and get rid of all the glass pieces that are shattered around the bed, wipe the floor with a cloth afterwards, put everything in its place and get dressed in my pyjamas before going back to bed. Properly this time. I check my phone for any notifications prior to putting it on my nighstand to get it charged while I sleep and see that I have a text from E.

‘I am so sorry again that I am not able to be there with you this weekend. I hope Gray isn’t that big of an asshole the next two days. I am gonna send a lot of pics from the set. Love you, sis.’

Ugh, I miss him. That’s exactly with what I reply and go to sleep afterwards. 

I wake up by my phone going off next to my head. It’s 10:02AM and I see Grayson’s photo filling up my screen.

“Good morning! A chocolate donut or apple pie?”

“What are you talking about?” My voice it still groggy from sleeping.

“Which one?”

“Ummm, apple pie, I think? Where are you?”

“Literally five minutes away from you. I saw this small cafe slash bakery thing on the side of the road and thought I’ll grab some coffee and breakfast for both of us.” 

“Have I told you how great you are?”

“No need, goof. I already know. Now get up and get dressed cuz I’ll be there in five.”

“See you, asshole.” I blow a kiss at the screen and hang up. 

For fuck’s sake, I most definitely turned off my alarm and now I don’t have freaking time to get ready. I hop out of bed and run to the bathroom. After brushing my teeth and trying to somehow tame my hair with the hairbrush I go to the dresser and take out some sweatpants and a t-shirt, throw them on and the second my head goes through the hole of the tee I hear the doorbell.

I practically run to the door, swing it open and I see my best friend, a satchel hanging on his shoulder, holding a tray with two coffee cups on it and a paper bag with something smelling heavenly from the inside. I step aside to let him in, he kicks off his shoes, puts everything down on the kitchen table and turns to me to tackle me in the biggest bear hug you’ve ever seen.

“I missed you.” my words are muffled from my face practically beared in his chest.

“I missed you, too.” Gray finally releases me from the hug and steps back to take a look at me. “How have you been coping with living alone?” he smirks after asking and walks to the table and grabs his cup of steaming coffee, taking a long sip.

“I most definitely needed some actual physical interaction with people, not only seeing them on screens, you know?”

“You need to go out more.”

“I do go out.”

“When? Right after you hang up on me or E at midnight or 1AM, tired as hell and kind of regretting it because you have to wake up early the next day for that 8AM class?” 

How come this guy knows me so well for only a few months???

“Oh shut it, you love speaking with me.”

“You know I do. Now what’s on the to-do list?”

“Can I first get to know what is inside that bag and then we can actually get down with the to-do list?”

Grayson shakes his head playfully and lets me be the child I am. Basically, I keep jumping around him like a small kid because I am that excited he is here. The awkwardness that I am alone with him, that I mentioned earlier? You can kind of feel it but it is burried under a few other emotions and we both pretend it isn’t there. Maybe an hour or so later we leave the “apartment” - it actually being one big space - a kitchen, a bedroom, a living room all at once, with a bathroom and a really small closet on the side - and walk around the city centre so he gets to see the place. We decide to grab lunch on the go and find a chill place in the park to eat it there and that’s exactly what we do. We find a bench that you can’t really see at first so no one will actually bother us and start snacking on the food while continuing to talk about everything. At one point, I am telling him about all the school work that I have due in a couple of weeks and how I am already stressing about it when Grayson reaches and pulls a strand of hair behind my year. I normally wouldn’t take that as a special gesture or anything but it’s currently just the two of us, alone in the park, his eyes glowing with some gold in them in the sunlight and my mouth just shuts and doesn’t open again. We stare at each other for a few seconds and then I fake-cough and turn around in search for my drink so I keep myself busy. In the meantime Gray suggests we leave to go back to the apartment so we get there on time to settle in and make dinner and we do just that. As we are about to exit the park, I turn around and start walking backwards in front of him, excitedly talking about the autumn break and what I have planned for us when I come back to LA. He watches me intently and before I know it I feel myself falling backwards. Right before I hit the ground I feel his arms around my waist, literally holding me a few inches above it and then pulling me back up.

“Sometimes I can’t believe how clumsy you can be.” Grayson laughs and steps back after I’ve regained balance.

“Nothing ever happened, I don’t know what you are talking about.” I stick my tongue out at him. Damn we seem to do this a lot.

An hour and something later we are already at my place, we both change into comfier clothes and I start making dinner. Grayson helps me with chopping things or simply handing them to me and when the pan is in the oven we decide to set up his bed so it’s ready for the night. We all know that if we don’t do it now out lazy asses are going to regret it later.

“Are you sure you are a 100% fine with sleeping on the ground?” I ask for the 9th time in the past half an hour and Grayson is starting to get annoyed with me already.

“If you ask me one more time I am gonna go sleep in the Bronco. At least she doesn’t annoy me.”

“I just want you to be comfortable, that’s all.”

“I will be, now stop making it such a big deal.”

We set up a few blankets on top of each other and then I grab some clean sheets from the closet and his “bed” is ready for the night. I already puffed out the pillow I bought yesterday and covered it with a pillow case so we just threw it on the blankets.

We ate dinner and decided to put on a movie since both of us weren’t really that sleepy. At first Grayson let me choose what we were watching but because I was texting with Ethan the first few minutes of the film, he got mad at me and changed it. The boy was just telling me how his day went, sheesh. Turns out we were watching a horror one now and I know he knows how much I hate them, he just wants to get back at me. The movie wasn’t that bad for most parts. I say most because at some point I was biting on my nails so hard that Grayson caught my hand in his and held it for the rest of the movie. Towards the end of it I was already yawning and rubbing my eyes, so we both brushed our teeth and hopped under the covers.

“Are you-”

“If you are about to ask what I think you will, you better shut it or I am for real gonna go sleep in the Bronco.”

“I am sorry.” I say from my bed, smiling to myself since Grayson can’t really see me from the floor.

“I am sorry I made you watch that movie. Goodnight, goof.”

“Don’t worry about it. Goodnight.”

But it’s not a good night at all. I keep tossing and turning, not being able to fall asleep and even if I start drifting off to sleep I jump after a few seconds because a nasty image from the movie keeps popping up in my mind. I should have never agreed to watch it, I don’t even know why I listen to Grayson sometimes. At some point I must have started to drift off to sleep again when I feel the the matress shifting under Grayson’s weight and him climbing into bed next to me. I open my eyes and look up confused at him.

“What are you doing?”

“You clearly can not fall asleep, you have been laying here hugging your feet, hidden under the covers, glued to the wall for the past twenty minutes and you are as cold as a dead man. Come here.”

“I’ll be fine, go back to sleep.” but it’s as if he doesn’t hear me at all. His hands wrap around my waist and pull me so close to him, his chest is glued to my back. His legs lock with mine, he nuzzles his head into my neck and his fingers intertwine with mine, while still holding me. I feel so small and so protected and his body is warming up mine that I don’t want to move from this position ever.

After a few seconds he kisses the top of my head, which makes me untagle from him, just enough to turn around in his hands so that I am now facing him again. I look up and he opens his eyes slowly and looks into mine.

“I honestly don’t know what I did to deserve you but I can’t be thankful enough for you always being here for me.”

“Wanna hear something honest from me, too?”

I nod and the corners of his lips curve upwards a bit.

“Ethan didn’t have to leave before Saturday evening so he could’ve come with me and spend the day with us but I made him ask if he could go early and so he did.”

“Wait, what? Why??”

“So I can finally catch you alone and convince myself to show you how I really feel, I guess. When I say I love you, I am not lying.”

I am so dumbfounded, it’s my turn to hide my face in the crook of his neck. After a few seconds I pull back to look at him and he is already waiting to examine my face.

“Say something.”

“Is ‘I love you’ going to be enough?” I reply and as soon as the last word rolls off my tongue his lips press against mine and my stomach does not have butterflies in it anymore. There is a whole zoo inside of it and it is throwing a party in there.

I guess I really, really don’t want to move now.

[ficdirectory]

Disuphere Universe miniseries: When I Was 8: Jesus

Friday, June 30, 2006

Jesus loves summer.  It’s the best because no school.  Him and Mari can just run around outside forever with Lexi and Brandon and Aidan sometimes, too.  Jesus doesn’t really have any friends, except Mari.

That’s because kids at school just think he’s a bad kid.  He’s always in trouble for being out of his seat.  For talking.  For not focusing.  But it’s not his fault.  He just can’t.  

Now, he’s spraying the hose on Mari and Lexi and they’re screaming and laughing.  Brandon and Aidan dart through in their swim trunks.  Moms are out here by the garage watching.

Because it’s gonna be his and Mari’s adoption day tomorrow?  They get to pick family movie tonight.  So it’s The Pacifier time!  If Jesus can just convince Mariana that they don’t need to watch High School Musical again.

The hose is wrenched away from Jesus suddenly and he’s soaked.  His shirt.  His shorts.  Even his shoes and lucky pink laces.  Brandon’s got a mean smirk on his face.  Jesus narrows his eyes.  Goes into attack-mode.

Jesus jumps on Brandon, tackling him to the ground and jerking the hose away from him.  

“Hey!” Brandon yells.  “Mom!  Jesus is fighting!”

“No, I’m not!  You took my hose you freakin’ stupidhead!”  Jesus can’t call Brandon the names he really wants, or he’ll get grounded forever, so he’s stuck using baby ones he heard on Lilo & Stitch.

“Hey, Jesus!  Let go of the hose!” Stef insists, pulling him off Brandon.  “Let go of the hose, I said.”

Jesus glares at her, dropping it in the grass.  “I hope it gets your shoes wet…” he mumbles.

“Excuse me, young man.  You need to apologize to Brandon.”

“Sorry,” Jesus says, with an attitude, not even looking at Brandon.

“And apologize to me, please...the right way…” Stef warns softly.

Jesus drags his eyes up from the grass and looks into Stef’s.  “Sorry.”  He tries not to make it sound like he’s whining but he can’t help it.  

“Go change your clothes.  Now, please.” Stef directs.

Lena walks with Jesus in the house, like he’s some baby that can’t be trusted in there alone.  “I got it,” he grumbles, shrugging her hand off his shoulder.  

When Lena doesn’t immediately tell him to lose the attitude, Jesus takes the chance to explain his side.

“Brandon took the hose from me!  He didn’t even ask!”  Jesus can’t keep his anger in.  Sometimes, Lena’s on their side more than Stef.  Because she knows how Brandon can be an ass sometimes, but Stef just lets him do whatever.

Jesus is pretty sure that’s what it’s like having a bio mom who actually cares about what you do.

“Go change, please.  Put your wet clothes in the laundry room.  Then come back out here and we’ll talk.”

Jesus races through changing clothes.  Lena sends him back to pick up his wet clothes off his and Brandon’s bedroom floor.  He’s getting the feeling she doesn’t really wanna talk to him at all.

But she sits down at the kitchen table with him, after all.  “Jesus, when somebody takes something from you, you tell us.”

“Last time, you just said, ‘Work it out.’” Jesus pouts.  (It’s true.  How’s he supposed to keep track?)

“Working it out is not jumping on your brother in the yard,” Lena reprimands lightly.

“He’s not my brother,” Jesus sulks.

“He’s a human being.  And one of our expectations here is no violence.  Jumping on someone is violent.”

“What about taking their stuff?!” Jesus asks, indignant.

“The hose--”

“Without asking!” Jesus insists, jumping to his feet.

“We’re not talking about Brandon right now, Jesus.  We’re talking about you.  Sit down, please.”

Jesus does, mad.  He buries his face in his arms.  

“You didn’t meet three of our family expectations,” Lena explains, regretful.

“What?!”  Jesus asks, sitting up, fast.  “Three?!  You just said no violence!  That’s one!”

“I am right here.  I understand you’re upset.  But I need you to lower your voice, because yelling is disrespectful,” Lena explains.  

But nothing even makes sense at all.  Jesus wishes he were like Mari who could just turn off her talking if she got scared enough or decided not to, but for Jesus, it doesn’t work like that.

“I can’t help it!” he keeps right on yelling.  “It’s not fair!”

“Not meeting family expectations has consequences.  You know that.  So, because you were violent, you touched someone else without asking first and hearing yes, and you used inappropriate language--”

“What inappropriate language?!” Jesus yells.  “I didn’t!”

“Stupidhead isn’t appropriate,” Lena maintains.  

Tears are in Jesus’s eyes and he swipes them away, angry.  He’d been trying not to get in trouble by saying stupidhead and he’s in trouble anyway?  This is so not fair.

“That means, you sit by us outside.  No more playing with the hose.  And no choosing the movie.  We make unsafe choices, we what?” Lena cues.

“Lose privileges…” Jesus mumbles.

Jesus swallows his tears, because crying’s not going to change anything.  He follows Lena back outside.  Sits right between her and Stef.  Brandon’s on the other side of Stef.  He has to sit out, too.  But when he tries to say sorry Jesus just ignores him.  Watches Mari and Lexi and Aidan play.

When Mariana hears that Jesus can’t help pick the movie, she’s glad.  Jesus can see it.  She smiles and picks out High School Musical.  Jesus still has to sit between Stef and Lena on the couch.  Brandon and Mariana get to be on the floor.

“How come Brandon doesn’t have to be on the couch?” Jesus asks Lena.

“Brandon broke one expectation, love, not three.” Stef explains.

Jesus thinks about it.  Brandon was allowed to go back and play with the hose and Jesus wasn’t.  This is his third consequence.  So maybe when it’s all used up, everything will be normal again…

His brain screeches to a stop as Stef and Lena get up and start dancing with Mari to Stick to the Status Quo.  Picking the movie together was because of his and Mari’s adoption tomorrow.  If Jesus lost picking the movie, he probably lost being adopted, too.

Jesus can feel his body start shaking a little bit.  If he can’t get adopted that means he’ll have to get sent away.  All by himself, without Mari, even.  That never happened.  It was the scariest thing Jesus could think of.  But he did this.  He broke their family expectations.  

Maybe, he broke their family, even.

So, when the movie’s done, it’s time for bed.  He gets hugs and kisses from Stef and Lena.  They say good night.  He’s pretty sure.  They say it every night, but Jesus isn’t really listening tonight.  They’re not acting like he has to go yet.

Maybe tomorrow.

Jesus waits until Brandon is sleeping.  He gets out of bed.  Goes to the laundry room and puts on jeans and a sweatshirt and his shoes with pink laces that are still a little wet.  He walks by Mari’s room.  Her door is open like always.  She’s sleeping inside.

It wouldn’t be right to leave without saying goodbye to her.

“Bye,” he says softly.

Mariana squints at him in the hallway light.  “What?”

“Just bye,” Jesus insists.  Then, he keeps going down the hall.  Down the stairs.  The front door is locked with a high chain Jesus can’t reach without a chair or something.  So he goes to the back.

“What are you doing?” Mariana asks.

“Go back to bed, Mari,” Jesus complains, easing the back door open.

“No.  Where are you going?  We’re not allowed outside without adults, Jesus, remember?”

“Have fun getting adopted tomorrow,” he tells her and means it.  Feels like everything in him is being sucked down a ginormous drain.

“What are you talking about?  Jesus, stop.” Mari says.  She’s slid her way in front of the sliding glass door, arms spread, blocking it.  “You can’t leave.  It’s Jesus-and-Mariana.  We have to get adopted together.  Otherwise, I don’t wanna be adopted at all.”

“Yeah, you do, now move out of my way.  I’m not in this family, so it doesn’t matter if I break the expectations…” he warns, but his heart’s not in it.  Besides, he could never hurt his sister.

Mariana takes a deep breath.  Jesus thinks she’s gonna scream at the top of her lungs, but instead she calls, loud: “I really need some Reese’s Pieces!”

Jesus is beyond confused until he sees Stef and Lena coming down the stairs looking alarmed.  “What is it, my baby?  What’s going on?” Stef asks.

It clicks then.  Mariana’s used her secret safe word.  Jesus never knew it before right now.  Mariana still doesn’t know his.  But Jesus is pretty sure she could guess it if she tried.  He likes knowing they both chose candy.

“Jesus thinks he’s not getting adopted and he’s not in this family,” Mariana reports, looking worried.

“Tattletale!” Jesus exclaims.  

“And he’s trying to run away, I think!”

“Stop tattling everything I do!” Jesus yells.

“Jesus?  Is this true?” Lena asks.

He turns on her.  “Like you don’t know!  You took away my privileges!”  

His throat and nose are burning but Jesus won’t cry.  It won’t help.  It never does.  He always gets sent away anyway.  But he never thought they’d send him away without his sister.

“Jesus.  Slow down, bud, okay?  You want Mariana to stay while we talk to you?” she asks.

He nods.  Thinks about his skateboard in the garage.  Or maybe his bike.  Wonders which one would take him farther away faster.

“You did lose privileges.  I told you which ones, right?  Do you remember?” Lena asks, her voice gentle.

“Sit by you, no more hose and no picking the movie,” he recites.  (Jesus remembers every bad thing he does.)

“Right.  So what makes you think that you’re not in this family?  That you’re not getting adopted tomorrow?  Jesus, I never said that.  I would never say that.”

“Picking the movie together was for getting adopted.  If I don’t get to pick the movie, I don’t get adopted.  Whatever.”  Jesus shrugs.

“Bud, you do get adopted tomorrow with your sister. You are in this family.  Getting to pick the movie tonight was never proof of you getting adopted.” Lena explains.

“It was to me,” Jesus says softly, not looking at her.

“Jesus,” Lena tries again.  “I am so sorry.  I should have explained that better.  You are being adopted tomorrow.  With Mariana.”

“But like...how sure are you?” Jesus checks.

“One-hundred percent positive,” Lena tells him.  “And family is not a privilege, honey.  It’s your right.”

“For you it’s a right,” Jesus corrects softly.  “For us, maybe, it feels like...more shaky.  Like...you guys know how bad we want a family.  How bad we wanna stay together.  And maybe if I was bad enough, you’d take that away, ‘cause of how you’re always saying in order for a consequence to be a consequence we have to care about losing it.”

“What are you saying, Jesus?” Lena asks.

“Nothing...just...I care about losing this.”

He swipes his arm roughly across his eyes again.

“You will never have to lose us, my baby,” Stef says.  “Now.  May I please cuddle you in my arms and cover you in kisses?” she asks.

Jesus takes a step back.  “No.  Maybe tomorrow.”

He reaches out for Mari’s hand, feeling relieved when her fingers grip his hand - lock to key.  

Halfway to the stairs, he turns and looks at Stef and Lena.  “Thank you for not making me go.  And for not taking away my adoption even though I was bad.”

“You’ve got a home with us forever, bud.”

“It’s not forever until tomorrow,” Jesus says, looking back over his shoulder.

Stef and Lena are following him and Mariana, maybe to tuck them back in - maybe just on their way to their own bed?  

“Sleep on it,” Lena encourages.  “Tomorrow will be here before you know it.”

“And then I’ll be your son forever?” Jesus checks.  (He’s let go of Mariana’s hand.  Stef is tucking her in again.  He’s getting tucked in by Lena.)  “You won’t forget about me?  Or give me away?”

“Not ever,” Lena insists.  

“Will you stay here?” Jesus asks, yawning.

“How about...we both promise to stay here?  No running away.  Even when we get scared.” Lena asks.

“If I really did run away, I’d never go by myself anyway.  I’d never go without Mari.”

“I know.  And I’d never go anywhere without you both either.  You’re my heart.  Both of you.”

“Okay,” Jesus sighs.  “Can you please stop talking so I can sleep?  So it can be tomorrow?”

“You bet.”

Jesus isn’t looking, but he can hear her smile.

[antarcticbird]

Fic: Nobody Else (Philip/Lukas)

Summary: Five Times Philip and Lukas are total besties and one time Lukas sort of has an epiphany. (Or: there are no murders, Lukas and Philip become best friends, and stuff happens.)

A/N: Okay, I have such a friendship kink. Like, if you can't be BFFs with your s/o then why bother, right? And I LOVE LOVE LOVE the way these two connect and also, well, they are kind of dumb when it comes to feelings, which is something I can relate to. So that's my excuse for writing this. It was meant to be a short 1k ficlet but I don't know why I even still pretend I can be succinct.

Also up on the AO3

1.)

Lukas is trailing after Philip to the edge of the Caldwell’s property, not really understanding where they’re going or why.

“Are you ever going to tell me where you’re dragging me off to?” he asks.

Philip looks back at him and shakes his head, waves Lukas on. “Nope. It’s a surprise. Calm down. It’s not that much further.”

Lukas shrugs. “Well okay, but there’s really nothing in this direction worth going to? What’s the surprise? Are you going to throw me in the lake or something?”

Philip snorts. “Damn. You’ve totally found me out.”

Lukas sighs and hurries to catch up to Philip. Honestly, this is just like him, Lukas thinks. Philip likes surprises. He remembers a few months ago when he’d asked Philip to show him around the city and Philip had somehow gotten Lukas into following him into a gay club. He laughs at the memory. They’d barely known each other for more than a few weeks at that point, but he’d known right then and there that he had to be friends with someone who could pull that off and have him laughing about it. “Dude, seriously,” he complains, walking beside Philip now. “Tell me where we’re going!”

They reach the top of the small hill, and on the gentle hillslope in front of them is a blanket on the ground, with a basket and a bottle of something. “Surprise,” Philip says, looking very proud of himself.

Lukas squints at the picture in front of him. “Okay, what am I looking at right now?”

Philip laughs and punches his shoulder. “It’s a picnic, idiot.”

“You set this all up?”

“Yup.”

“Why?”

Philip rolls his eyes at him. “Oh my god, to surprise you. I already told you that!”

“Yeah, but . . . why?”

“Because you got an insane amount of hits on your last video, which, by the way, looked awesome -”

“Yeah, because you’re really good at filming them!”

“No, Lukas.” Philip sighs. “Because you’re really good at doing those jumps. So we’re gonna celebrate that. Also, I’m really bored, so I’m tricking you into taking a day off practice and hanging out with me instead, in case you couldn’t tell.”

“Dude,” Lukas says, and hurries over to the blanket, falls to his knees and picks up the bottle. “You even got champagne? Where did you get this?”

Philip’s smile is a little smug. “Tony can be very helpful if you know how to befriend him.”

Lukas almost chokes on his breath, then grins up at his best friend. “You seriously got a cop to buy you alcohol?”

“Yeah, because I’m just that awesome,” Philip says and drops down onto the blanket next to Lukas to open the basket and take out two Tupperware containers, a huge bag of chips, and two small bottles of water. “Figured we shouldn’t only be drinking alcohol,” he explains.

“You really are awesome, man,” Lukas says and quickly leans over to hug Philip from the side, then ruffles his hair as he sits back up. Philip looks happy.

Lukas fishes his phone out of his pocket and almost drops it in his haste.

“What are you doing?” Philip wants to know.

“Putting it on silent,” Lukas tells him. “No interruptions while we’re hanging out here, right?”

“Okay, it doesn’t happen all that often, but sometimes you have good ideas too,” Philip admits, and takes out his own phone to turn the sound off. “No interruptions.”

“Just some sweet BFF time,” Lukas says. “That’s the way I like it best anyway.”

“Same,” Philip answers and grabs the champagne bottle. “There are plastic glasses in the basket. Get them?”

Lukas leans forward to reach for the basket, but not without leaning over to bump his shoulder against Philip’s first. “Thanks,” he says. “This is really great.”

“It’s what friends do,” Philip says.

Lukas is really glad to have a best friend who does things like this for him.

2.)

Lukas is on his way out to feed the turkeys on Saturday morning, but when he grabs for the shirt he was sure he’d thrown over the back of his chair the night before, it isn’t there. Which is weird, because that’s where he puts his shirts every night after taking them off.

He frowns. He knows he didn’t put it in the hamper, because he’d only worn it once and he didn’t get it dirty yesterday. All he’d done all day was hang out on Philip’s porch and watch YouTube videos with him. It was still perfectly fine and good to wear again, but it definitely isn’t on his chair.

For another moment he stands there, confused, before he remembers how he’d actually taken it off yesterday afternoon when they’d gone to help Gabe carry in the shopping. He must have forgotten to put it back on afterwards. The weather had been nice, so it makes sense.

He gets his phone from the nightstand and sends a text to Philip.

Hey, did I leave my shirt at your place yesterday?

It’s only 7 a.m. so he doesn’t expect Philip to answer right away. He slips the phone in his pocket, gets a new shirt from his closet, and walks downstairs before his dad can come up to his room and bug him about the damn turkeys.

His dad actually has a few more chores lined up for him so Lukas doesn’t get a chance to look at his phone again until almost two hours later, when he’s finally done for the weekend and free to do whatever he wants. Well, once he’s taken his bike out for a bit to practice a few jumps.

For now, he leans back against the wall of the shed to check his messages. And he has a reply from Philip from just a few minutes ago.

No, I haven’t seen it.

Weird, Lukas texts back. Maybe I just put it in the laundry by accident idk

Probably, Philip writes. What are you doing right now?

Lukas sighs. He would love to go over to Philip’s place right now, but he has a race coming up next week. Gotta practice for a bit, he writes. Sorry.

That’s okay, Philip assures him. See you later?

Sure Lukas promises, and pockets his phone to go and get his gear together.

He does get in a few good hours of practice. The weather is awesome and as much as he’d just wanted to be lazy he actually feels kind of motivated once he’s out on his bike. Maybe tomorrow he can talk Philip into coming out here with him again so they can get some new footage for his channel. That would be cool.

Once he’s exhausted himself, he goes home for a quick shower and to down like a gallon of water, before he decides to just ride over to the Caldwell farm. He figures he’ll just see if maybe Philip doesn’t want to hang out now that Lukas has nothing else to do for the rest of the day.

They should just have made definite plans for later in the first place, but if he’s in luck Philip also has nothing more to do this weekend and will be cool with hanging out for a bit. And if he doesn’t want to or has other things to do Lukas can just ride around a while and maybe get some ice cream in town.

His dad is still out somewhere doing something, so Lukas leaves him a note and gets back on his bike.

Philip is sitting in the grass out front of the house and he’s playing with a dog that’s probably one of Gabe’s patients or whatever. He smiles up at him when Lukas parks his bike a few feet away and takes off his helmet.

“Done with practice already?” Philip asks.

Lukas stares at him for a moment, puzzled. “Dude,” he finally says. “Are you wearing my shirt?”

Philip’s eyes widen and he quickly throws a look down at his own arm as if he can’t really remember what he’s wearing. His eyes dart back up to meet Lukas’ and he looks a little sheepish. “. . . no?”

“It really looks like my shirt, though. The one you said I didn’t leave here.”

“Yeah, well.” Philip lets the dog run off and gets up off the grass, brushing off his legs before giving Lukas a shrug. “You should take better care of your things, then. It’s mine now. I’m keeping it.”

“So you’re into stealing now,” Lukas says, and something like laughter bubbles up in his chest. He grins. “Give it back.”

“No,” Philip says.

“Yes,” Lukas replies.

Philip bites his lip to hold back his own smile and crosses his arms. “I’m not taking it off. I’m cold.”

“Oh, are you.” Lukas shakes his head at him.

All Philip does is keep looking at him with a challenge in his eyes so Lukas lunges at him and tackles him to the ground, and Philip laughs as he tries his best to fight back. “Stop that!”

“No!” Lukas gets out through trying to capture Philip’s wrists so he can pin him down, but Philip throws him off pretty easily.

“If you want this shirt back, you have to forcefully remove it from my body!”

“Oh, it’s on!” Lukas promises, and lunges at him again.

They roll around wrestling each other until finally it’s Lukas who finds himself on his back, with Philip sitting on his chest and pinning his hands to the ground on either side of his head.

“My shirt now,” Philip says decisively.

“No.”

“I won,” Philip says. “Fair and square. I’m keeping the shirt”

Lukas huffs out a put-upon sigh, but he can’t stop smiling. “Fine,” he says. “It looks better on you anyway.”

“I know, right?” Philip says. “The washed-out plaid really brings out the brown in my eyes.”

“You’re an asshole,” Lukas says, and Philip lets go of his arms to roll off of him and poke him in the stomach.

“You’re the idiot who insists on hanging out with me.”

“Yeah, I really don’t know why I do that.” Lukas turns over onto his side to smile at Philip. “Hey, I was thinking about going to get some ice cream. Wanna go into town? I’ll pay.”

Philip smiles back. “Sure. Sounds good.”

Lukas watches Philip push himself off the ground and accepts the hand Philip reaches out to pull him up. He keeps his eyes on him as Philip walks up to the house to let Gabe and Helen know they’re leaving, and Lukas has to admit that the shirt really does look way better on Philip. He can have it. Whatever. Lukas has a lot of other shirts in his closet.

3.)

“Hey, are you okay?”

Philip shrugs. “Yeah. Sure.”

Lukas steps around him and puts a hand on his shoulder, effectively stopping him in the middle of the school hallway. “You don’t look it, man. What’s wrong?”

Philip just shrugs again and bites his lip. He doesn’t meet Lukas’ eyes. “It’s -” He swallows. “My mom. It’s just -” he lowers his head and gives it the tiniest shake.

“What happened?” Lukas asks, stomach sinking. He knows Philip’s mom had been doing better lately, and while he always has mixed feelings about that because he needs Philip to stay in Tivoli, he also really wants her to get better. Because Philip needs her to be okay and Lukas needs Philip to be happy.

“She -” Philip shakes his head again and sighs. “She took some pills. Or . . . well, a lot of pills, really. I don’t -” He breaks off, just stands there looking so small all of a sudden and Lukas can’t handle it.

“Is she okay, though? I thought she was in rehab.”

“Well, she’s alive,” Philip says, his own voice sounding dead. “But yeah. I don’t know how she even got that stuff in there. I don’t know why she took them.” He takes a deep breath. “She promised,” he says, like he never believed her anyway. “I feel like I shouldn’t even be surprised, but. She promised she’d really get better this time.”

“I’m sorry, Philip,” Lukas says, and just pulls him into a hug right there where everyone can see, even though he knows half of his other friends will give him shit about ‘being gay’ or whatever again. He doesn’t care. Not right now. He might later, and he knows that, but right now Philip is sad and Lukas can’t stand it.

“I’m fine,” Philip says against Lukas’ shoulder, but Lukas can feel Philip’s fingers curling into the back of his shirt and he knows it’s a lie.

“Do you maybe wanna hang out later?” he asks, and pulls back so he can see Philip’s face. “We can do something fun to help you forget all this shit for a while. Do you think that would help?”

Philip bites his lip again, shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says. “I’m probably not all that much fun today.”

“That’s okay,” Lukas assures him. “I can be enough fun for the both of us. I’ll totally distract the hell out of you. We can do whatever you want.” He studies Philip’s face, but doesn’t see any visible changes there. All he looks is discouraged. “I just don’t want you to be alone today, man.”

That puts at least the hint of a smile on Philip’s face. “Thanks. But, uh . . . Gabe’s picking me up after school today, to get me to talk about my feelings or something like that. You know. About what happened. It’s dumb, I know, but he’s trying to be supportive, so I don’t really want to cancel on him? Do you think we could maybe -”

“I’ll come pick you up later this afternoon,” Lukas says, an idea already forming in his mind.

“We can just hang out at my place,” Philip suggests.

“No,” Lukas says. “Just trust me, okay? I got this.”

“Okay,” Philip agrees. “But can we do something quiet? I’m just — you know. A little tired.”

“Don’t worry,” Lukas says, clapping a hand to Philip’s shoulder. “I already have an idea.”

**

He parks his bike outside Philip’s house just an hour or so after he knows Philip got home, and he barely has his helmet off when Philip is already walking out, saying something to Gabe who’s right there on his heels, patting Philip’s back. Philip has a small smile on his face — he still looks tired, but a little better than this morning, so that’s something.

“Hey,” Lukas greets him.

“Hi,” Philip says, after he’s waved goodbye at Gabe and is hurrying down towards Lukas.

“Ready to go?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

Lukas drives them back over to his house as fast as he dares, feels Philip’s arms tight around his middle, Philip’s warm chest against his back. It’s a familiar feeling by now and he likes it.

His dad is in Poughkeepsie, won’t be home until late, so they have the house to themselves. Lukas takes the helmet from Philip and stores it away with his own, then leads him inside. Philip stops at the entrance to the living room.

“What’s this?”

Lukas puts both hands on his shoulders from behind to push him further into the room. “It’s a blanket fort,” he says proudly.

Philip turns his head to grin at him. “You built us a blanket fort?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh my god. How old are you, five?”

“Dude, it’s awesome.” Lukas walks around him, waving his arms at the structure in front of them. “I had to use almost the entire kitchen furniture to make it big enough, but -”

“I love it,” Philip says, and actually sounds a little excited now.

“Come on,” Lukas says, and crawls inside first. Philip follows right after him, the grin on his face wide now.

“Do you have every pillow from all over the house in here?”

“Pretty much,” Lukas says.

“Sweet.” Philip flops onto his back next to Lukas and smiles up at him. “Thanks.”

“You said you wanted to do something quiet. So I figured -”

“Yeah. This is perfect,” Philip says. He looks comfortable. That’s progress, and Lukas is a little proud of himself for making it happen.

“Oh wait.” He bends to the side, fishes his laptop out from under a pillow. “Wanna watch something? Like, a movie or whatever?”

Philip nods at him, fingers picking at the corner of a random throw pillow. “Sure.”

“Awesome,” Lukas says, and finds a comfortable position to sit before opening the laptop. “Anything in mind?”

“Not really. Just — I don’t know. You pick something. Nothing too sad, though, maybe?”

“Okay,” Lukas agrees.

They end up watching Shrek because it’s funny and definitely not sad, but after half an hour or so, Lukas can hear Philip silently crying next to him. It breaks his heart because he’s so obviously trying not to let it show, sitting perfectly still, his shaky breath the only sign that he’s not okay.

He doesn’t know what to say, he’s so bad at saying things, but he sort of feels like crying too listening to his best friend being in so much pain.

So he just shifts over a little, puts one arm around Philip’s shoulders and pulls him in close. And Philip goes without a fight, just sort of sags into him, his head dropping onto Lukas shoulder.

Lukas wraps his other arm around Philip as well and holds him as close as he can, presses his cheek against Philip’s hair and still doesn’t have any words. He wishes he had something smart to say, anything, just some words to make him feel better.

Instead, he lets him cry against his chest and hugs him in tight and thinks if he could absorb all of this pain and stress and sadness into his own body and leave Philip free of it, he’d do it without even having to think about it.

They stay like that for a while once Philip stops crying and Lukas figures he’s probably embarrassed. He doesn’t know how to tell him that he doesn’t have to be.

“Hey, do you want something to drink?” he asks tentatively. Because you’re supposed to hydrate after crying and because maybe if he leaves for a minute it will give Philip some time to put himself back together in private without Lukas watching.

“Yeah, sure,” Philip says, and Lukas lets him go, which is more difficult than he’d expected it to be, to crawl out of the fort and get them both some water.

Philip is sitting back against the pillows with his face dry but his eyes still a little red-rimmed once Lukas gets back and hands him his glass.

He settles in next to him again, throws him a careful look from the side. “Are you okay?” he asks.

Philip takes a sip of water, then turns his head and looks him in the eyes, and his smile is wobbly but real. “Yes,” he says. “Thanks.”

“Anytime,” Lukas says, and he’s never ever meant anything more in his life. After all, this is what best friends are for.

4.)

“Are you sure?” Lukas asks, looking at Philip, who’s staring down at the ground in front of him where they’re sitting next to each other under the tree.

Philip gives a small nod. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

“Oh,” Lukas says. “Yeah. Okay. Um, I mean, yeah.”

For a moment, Philip just keeps his eyes fixed on the grass, then he turns his head just a little, just enough to be glancing up at Lukas carefully, from the corner of his eyes. “How freaked out are you right now?”

Lukas swallows, opens his mouth, closes it again. The truth is, he actually is freaking out, kind of. This is a pretty big deal, especially in a small town like theirs. People won’t like it if they find out. And he doesn’t want Philip to have people giving him crap for this. He knows it’s not a thing Philip chose — he doesn’t really know much about anything but this is something he’s pretty sure of. Something in him wishes Philip had never told him, but another part of him is weirdly not surprised at all. “I’m not freaked out,” he says. It’s not exactly the truth, but it’s what he knows Philip needs to hear right now.

“Really?” Philip is fully looking at him now, studying him, his voice hopeful.

“Yeah,” he says. “I mean . . . it’s just . . . you’re really sure about this? That you’re gay?”

Philip bites his lip, then nods slowly. “Yeah. I have known for a while, actually.”

“Okay.” Lukas thinks about it, thinks about whether or not this changes anything. Between them, like, what this means for their friendship, or just in general about the way he sees Philip.

He doesn’t want it to affect them, but it still feels as if something’s just changed, something big. There’s a funny feeling spreading through his body, like a persistent buzzing under his skin, as if he’s nervous or something. But that’s dumb and stupid and he does his best to fight it down — he knows Philip and he trusts him and this doesn’t change the kind of person that he is, the person Lukas has been hanging out with for months now. “Okay,” he repeats.

“You’re cool with this?” Philip still sounds apprehensive, but there’s a hint of relief mixing into it as well.

“Yeah,” Lukas promises, even manages a smile. “Yeah, of course.” He pauses, not sure how to ask this. But it seems like a really important question, something he has to know. “How -” He breaks off, shakes his head.

“What?” Philip asks.

He picks up a stick from the ground, starts poking at the dirt at his feet. “I mean.” He can’t look at Philip. “How did you know? That you were gay, I mean.”

Philip lifts a shoulder, hesitates for just a second before he answers. “I just knew,” he says. “I guess I’ve always known, somehow. It’s kind of . . . hard to explain.”

“Oh.” Lukas draws invisible patterns with the stick and tries to make sense of all this in his head. “But, like . . . have you ever even kissed a guy? Like, have you tried it?”

Philip grins. “What, have I tried being gay?”

“No.” Lukas is getting a little frustrated now, because he can’t wrap his head around this. And it feels really important that he understands. “I just mean, I don’t know. It’s stupid. Forget I asked.”

Philip is silent for an endless minute, before he speaks again. “Have you ever kissed a girl?”

Lukas nods. “Yeah. I kissed Rose at a party, about a year ago.”

“And did you like it?”

He shrugs, throws the stick away, watches as it flies in a low arc and lands in the grass several feet away from them. “It was okay, I guess? It was just a kiss. We didn’t date afterwards or anything.”

“Did you want to? Date her?”

He shakes his head. “Nah. I mean, she’s okay, but I was really busy preparing for a race at the time and then you came here and we started hanging out all the time, so I guess . . . it just never came up again.”

“But if she’d ask you out now, would you say yes?” Philip insists.

“I don’t know, maybe?” He has to think about that for a moment. “I’ve never really thought about it. Why?”

“Because -” Philip pauses, as if carefully considering his next words. “You didn’t have to think about kissing her at that party, right? You just knew that you wanted to?”

“I guess,” Lukas says, but he’s actually not sure. It was just a thing that happened, because he’d been a little buzzed from the beer and Rose had been there and flirting with him, and then it hadn’t actually been him who’d done anything or decided anything or wanted anything, it had been her who’d kissed him first. And he’d just sort of gone with it because he’d never kissed anyone before and he’d been really curious about it. But he’d also been kind of relieved when nothing else had happened after. He hadn’t wanted a girlfriend then and he’s not sure about it now either. It just seems like . . . He doesn’t even really know. He just has a lot of other stuff going on right now.

“See?” Philip twitches a smile at him. “You just knew. The same way I just know.”

“Have you ever kissed anyone, though?” he asks again.

Philip shakes his head. “No. I just . . . There was never really an opportunity. And I didn’t really think about it too much when I was still living in the city with my mom because things were so -” He shrugs. “You know.”

“Yeah.”

“And then I came here and I just . . . there’s not that much to do here most of the time, so I finally got to thinking about some stuff, and then that one time I visited my mom she asked me if I had a girlfriend. And I kind of realized I wasn’t into girls that way. But it was like . . . it wasn’t a big revelation or anything. It just felt like something I’d known all along but had just never really thought about.”

“So are you going to get a boyfriend now?” Lukas asks.

Philip snorts out a laugh. “Wait, are you serious? In this town?”

“Maybe there’s someone else like you here, you can’t know for sure!”

“Okay, even if there were someone,” Philip says, a little sadly. “You really think they’d do anything about it? Because I don’t think that’s very likely around here.”

“So . . . then what are you gonna do?” He doesn’t like how sad Philip is looking all of a sudden.

Philip sighs. “Wait, I guess? Until I get out of here and can go back to the city and meet someone?”

“We could go to the city together,” Lukas suggests. “You know, to that gay club you took me to that time.”

“Why?”

“So you can kiss someone,” he explains, even though he’s not sure how much he really likes the idea. It probably wouldn’t be much fun to hang out alone in a gay club while his best friend was off somewhere kissing some random dude.

“I don’t really want to kiss some random stranger,” Philip says. “And I definitely don’t wanna do it in a club where I couldn’t even really see his face. That’s just not what I want.”

“What do you want?” Lukas wants to know.

“I don’t know.” Philip stares down at his hands. “I’d like it to be with someone I already know, someone I like.”

Lukas stares at him for a long time, and he doesn’t like the look on Philip’s face. Like he’s tired and lonely. So he makes a decision, quickly, without thinking about it too much. They’re friends. And it might cheer Philip up. And prove that Lukas really can be cool with this. That he’s not afraid that things will change. “You could kiss me,” he says.

Philip’s head snaps around, eyes narrowed. “What?”

“If you wanted to kiss someone,” Lukas explains. “Just to know what it’s like. I’m not a stranger, right? And we’re best friends, so obviously you like me. As a friend. So if you wanted to, we could do that.”

“You want me to kiss you,” Philip says, sounding more incredulous than enthusiastic about this.

“No, I -” Lukas sighs. “I’m just saying, we can, if you want. No big deal, right? Because it kind of sucks that you can’t date anyone around here and it’s not really fair that you can’t, and, like . . . I don’t mind. If you want to try. Just this once.”

Philip sits there chewing on his bottom lip, looking as if he’s actually considering it. Lukas is feeling nervous and yeah, he is kind of freaking out a lot now, but he can’t take it back anymore. And maybe, just maybe, he’s actually a bit curious himself. About what it would be like to kiss a dude. Not that he has a lot of experience with kissing, but he wonders if it would be different from kissing Rose. And Philip is cool. He won’t tell anyone.

“Okay,” Philip says. “If you’re sure.”

“Yeah, of course,” Lukas says, glad when his voice doesn’t come out too obviously scared. “Let’s do this.”

Philip nods and shifts in closer, and Lukas turns a little to face him. He’s not really a hundred percent sure how to do this, but he starts by grabbing the sleeve of Philip’s sweater to pull him a little more toward him, and then he places his hand on the side of Philip’s neck. Philip places a hand on Lukas’ chest and holds onto the side of Lukas’ shirt with the other one, and Lukas lets his eyes drift down to Philip’s mouth. He can do this, he tells himself. He’s almost a bit excited about it if he’s being honest. Like they’re doing something secret and forbidden like stealing booze from his dad’s cabinet or ditching a school trip together.

And then Philip is leaning in and Lukas meets him halfway, a little thrill going through him when their lips touch for the briefest second. It’s only a peck, but when he pulls back just far enough to see Philip’s face, Philip still has his eyes closed and his lips parted a little, and Lukas puts his other hand on the side of Philip’s head to frame his face between his palms and leans in again.

This kiss is longer, deeper, wetter, and he can feel Philip’s body moving in closer, one hand sliding along his ribs and up his back, the other cupping the back of his shoulder.

It starts soft and tentative, their lips moving together in a gentle rhythm, but then, because he forgot how nice kissing is, he opens his mouth wider, touches his tongue to Philip’s, and it turns hungry and almost frantic within the space of a moment.

Philip doesn’t stop, so Lukas doesn’t either — he wants to give Philip this, to let him have it, and besides yeah, kissing really is nice. And Philip is really good at it too, a natural, apparently, so Lukas goes with it when he kisses him deeper. His head is swimming with joy at the thought that he can do this for his best friend who’s so awesome and deserves to have all the good experiences.

When they pull apart at last, they’re both breathless and Lukas can feel his skin humming with leftover excitement. Philip’s expression is a little dazed, unbelieving, but happy. Lukas likes seeing that look on his face. He likes it a lot.

Philip lifts his eyes to look at him, and smiles. “Thanks,” he says. His lips are still wet from the kiss and Lukas smiles back at him.

“Sure thing, man,” he says. “So, you still sure you like kissing dudes?”

“Oh, yeah.” Philip laughs, lets go of him to sway his body out of Lukas’ space, but his hand is slow to slide from Lukas’s shoulder before he drops it back onto his own thigh. “If anything, I’m even more convinced now.”

“Good,” Lukas says, and laughs. “Glad to help out. I mean, I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist me.”

Philip shoves him hard and grins, and Lukas can feel his chest expanding with happiness at the thought of having done something nice for his best friend.

5.)

“Hey.”

Lukas turns around when he hears his name called out and sees Rose walking up to him. “Hey,” he says. “What’s up?” They’ve been talking a bit lately when they run into each other and she’s cool, and Lukas thinks maybe they’re becoming friends or something.

“Have you heard about my party this weekend?” she asks.

“Oh.” He nods. “Yeah. Totally.”

“Cool.” She smiles. “You wanna come?”

“Sure,” he says. “Of course. That sounds good.”

“Awesome.” She pulls her bag higher up on her shoulder and looks thoughtful. “Hey, I don’t actually have your number, though. You know, just because we have this group text thing going for everyone who’s joining, to work out who’s bringing booze and stuff.”

“Oh, yeah, hold on,” he says, fishing his phone from his pocket. “Sorry, I always forget my own number. How often do you have to call yourself, right?”

“You can bring someone, if you want,” she says, taking a step closer and looking up at him from under her lashes. “Unless, of course, there isn’t anyone you -”

“No, that’s awesome, I’ll bring Philip,” he interrupts. “Or did you invite him already? I think he could use a few more friends around here, so this is kind of perfect.” Maybe, he thinks, if they start hanging out more around other people, they can find Philip a boyfriend eventually. Not that he really likes the idea of Philip having less time to hang out with him, but . . . well.

“Oh,” Rose says, and frowns a little. “No, yeah, that’s a good idea.”

“Cool, thanks,” Lukas says and unlocks his phone to look up his own number.

She rises up onto her toes a little and glances at his screen. “You have a photo of Philip set as your background?”

He grins. “Yeah!”

“His shirt looks wet.”

He has to laugh at the memory. “That’s because I was trying to get him to go swimming and he didn’t want to, so I splashed him with, like, a shitload of water. And he was pretending to be really mad at me afterwards, but I could totally see he was laughing, so I took a picture to prove it to him.”

“And then you set it as your background.”

“Yeah.” He nods, still grinning. “He needs a reminder sometimes that he really finds me funny even when he’s calling me an asshole.”

“Okay,” Rose says, and it sounds a bit like a question.

But then she just gets out her own phone and lets Lukas give her his number, and after that they both have to hurry so they won’t be late for class.

Lukas texts Philip about the party from under his desk when the teacher isn’t looking. He hopes Philip will feel a little more at home in Tivoli if he makes a few more friends.

Maybe then he won’t be talking about going back to the city quite so much anymore.

+1.)

“You can do this,” Philip says.

Lukas is not so sure. “What if she says no?”

“She’ll say yes,” Philip promises. “You two talk all the time, right?”

“Only at school.” Lukas looks over to where Rose is standing laughing with her friends. He feels weird about this.

“Well, if your dad keeps bugging you about this stupid school dance, you’ll have to ask someone eventually, don’t you?” Philip points out. “And at least you two are sort of friends.”

“Yeah, but what if she thinks we’re dating after that?”

Philip hesitates. “Would that really be so bad?” His tone is careful, tentative.

He sighs. “I guess not. I don’t know. She’s kind of cool?”

“She is,” Philip says, and gives Lukas a little shove. “Go ask her. Helen’s here to pick me up, but text me after? Tell me what she said?”

“Yeah,” Lukas agrees, tries to smile at Philip but his stomach is all in knots. “Wish me luck.”

“Good luck,” Philip says, twitches a smile back at him, and then hurries off so quickly Lukas doesn’t have a chance to keep him talking to stall just a little more.

Gathering all of his courage, he walks over to Rose, sways back and forth on his feet to seem cool and relaxed when he stops in front of her. “Hey.”

She looks up at him, and she seems surprised. “Lukas. Hey.”

He swallows heavily. “Can we, um. Talk? For a second?”

“Sure, of course.” She waves at her friends and pulls him a little way away, out of earshot. “What is it?”

“I, uh -” He runs his fingers through his hair, looks everywhere but at her. He has no idea how to do this. “I was wondering — I mean -”

“What’s going on?” she asks, sounding a little concerned now.

“You know how this school dance is coming up?” he asks.

Her frown smoothes into an understanding smile and she nods. “Yeah.”

“So, um.” He takes a breath. “I was wondering . . . if you’d maybe . . . go with me?”

At first, she just sort of stares at him, like she can’t quite process his words. Then her eyebrows draw together in confusion and she shakes her head at him. “Uh, no?”

He feels his insides twisting, embarrassment making his face feel hot. “Oh, yeah, no, okay, cool. Uh, okay. Yeah.” He fidgets, thinks about the quickest way to leave.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, you’re really nice, and you’re cute and all, and I’d probably totally would have said yes, but I just don’t think that’s very fair to your boyfriend.”

He looks at her, can feel his eyes widen, his mouth dropping open, and for a moment, his mind goes completely blank. “Uh,” he says. “What?”

“I mean, I get it if you guys don’t wanna go together as a couple, because yeah, people would probably talk. But -”

“Boyfriend?” he manages finally. “I don’t — I’m not — I don’t have -”

“Oh, come on.” She huffs out a breath. “You and Philip, right? It’s cool. I’m not gonna tell anyone, don’t worry. I’m just saying, you don’t need to pretend with me, okay? It’s all good. But I really can’t go to the dance with you.”

“We’re not — I’m not — He isn’t -” He knows he’s stammering, but he can’t seem to stop. He doesn’t understand anything anymore.

“Please,” she says. “You two are totally inseparable. Everyone can see the way he looks at you. You have his picture as a wallpaper on your phone. And when I tell you to bring a date to a party, you invite him. It’s not like you guys are being all that subtle.”

“Oh.” He shakes his head. “I didn’t know you meant a date when you said I could bring someone to the party. I just -”

She puts a hand on his arm and smiles. “Hey, relax,” she says. “I’m really not going to tell anyone. Your secret’s safe with me, all right? But I do kind of have to go now. My mom’s here and we’re going into the city.”

“Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, no, sure. Okay.”

She pats his arm and walks away and Lukas has absolutely no idea what just happened. So he just keeps standing right there where he is, and he just feels so confused.

**

He means to go home, he really does. So he’s a little surprised to suddenly find himself turning onto the road that leads up to the Caldwell house, and he stops his bike, keeps sitting there, staring straight ahead.

He has no idea how he got here, but maybe, he thinks, it isn’t actually very surprising that this is where he ended up.

Because every time he’s feeling weird, and every time something good or bad happens in his life, he runs straight to Philip to tell him. He talks to Philip about everything. He never lies to him. He trusts him with secrets no one else knows. For fuck’s sake, he even kissed him. As a favor, yes. But . . . he did actually like it. If he’s being completely honest with himself.

So he sits at the street exit that leads into the road to Philip’s home and feels his mind spinning as piece after piece of everything he thought he knew about himself shifts and falls into place. He feels a little cold, and then a little hot, and his hands are going tense around the handles of his bike as something resembling restlessness spreads from his stomach into every part of him. Or maybe it’s nervousness. He can’t really name it, but he feels unsettled and shaky and his breath is going too quick.

Philip. His best friend. The coolest person he’s ever known. The last person he thinks about before he falls asleep at night, and the only person he wants to spend time with every single day. The only person he’s ever tried to teach how to ride his bike, which no one else is even allowed to touch.

He’d known all along that Philip was special to him, but he’d never had a best friend before, not really, not like this. And he’s never had feelings for anyone, not in a way that made him want to kiss them or anything, but now he’s not so sure. Is that what this is? He can’t slow down his breathing and his body is starting to ache as he thinks of everything he’s done with Philip, and all the reasons he’d wanted to do these things only with him.

The way he wants to make him laugh. Wants to hold him when he’s sad. The way his heart speeds up when he knows he’s made Philip smile, or the way it makes his chest expand with this feeling he’s never even tried to name when he looks at him sometimes. The way he feels when he’s with him, and the way he can’t stand it when they can’t see each other even just for a day.

How the thought of Philip finding a boyfriend had made him sort of queasy and afraid of losing him, even though he wants Philip to be happy and would have totally helped him meet someone, or keeping it a secret, or whatever Philip would have needed from him.

He thinks about how he’d kissed him and hadn’t really wanted to stop.

“Shit,” he says out loud, to the empty air surrounding him.

And then he starts his bike back up and turns it fully onto the road towards Philip’s house.

He’s more afraid and unsettled than he’s ever been in his life, but Philip is the person he tells everything. The person he goes to when something happens in his life.

This kind of qualifies as a life-changing event, he guesses. So there’s really only one person he wants to talk to about this.

**

Philip is not outside, so Lukas jumps up the steps and enters the house through the wide open front door. There’s no one in the kitchen either, so he just proceeds up the stairs, shaking with nerves, and impatiently knocks on Philip’s bedroom door before simply turning the handle and pushing it open.

“Hey.” Philip is lying back against the headboard on his bed and looking at something on his phone, probably the photos he took the other day when they were out by the lake together. He sits up quickly when Lukas enters the room. “What are you doing here?”

Lukas makes a vague gesture with his hands, opens and closes his mouth without any words coming out. “I -” is all he manages.

Philip scoots to the edge of the bed to put his feet on the floor, pats the space next to him. “Come on, sit down. You look like you’re about to fall over.”

Lukas does feel as if he’s about to fall over, so he does sit down on the edge of Philip’s bed. “Sorry,” he says, propping his elbows on his knees to bury his face in his hands. “Sorry, I -”

“No, hey, it’s okay,” Philip says, putting a comforting hand on Lukas’ back. The touch is like a shock to his system, a confirmation of everything he’s discovered about himself in the last half hour or so. He feels dizzy.

“Did Rose say no?” Philip asks.

Lukas chokes out a laugh. “Oh yeah. She said no all right.”

“I’m sorry,” Philip says, stroking his back softly.

“No.” Lukas lifts his head to look at Philip, afraid of how much of all this will be obvious on his face. But he’s so lost and confused right now and Philip is the only one who will understand, the only one who can help him figure this out. “No, it’s okay. I didn’t want to go with her anyway.”

“Then what’s wrong?” Philip wants to know. “What happened?”

“She just . . .” Lukas breathes, closes his eyes for a second to center himself. “She said some stuff. Which made me realize some stuff.”

“What did she say?” Philip is still rubbing his palm across Lukas’ back and that makes it harder to think, but he also doesn’t want him to stop. He never wanted to stop these little touches. He wonders how that didn’t tell him something from the start.

“She told me how she couldn’t go with me to the dance, because of how she knew that I didn’t want to go with her.”

“Okay?” Philip looks a little helpless. “How did she know you didn’t wanna go with her?”

“Because -” Lukas looks away at the far wall, before gathering all his strength and turning his head, to at least look at Philip’s knees. He can’t quite meet his eyes yet. “She said she knew that I’d rather go with you.”

Philip’s hand stills on his back, then drops away.

For a moment, there’s nothing but silence, interrupted only by their breathing.

Then, in a very small voice, Philip says, “Was she right?”

Lukas exhales, gives the tiniest nod. “Yeah.”

Philip doesn’t say anything. Lukas can’t say anything either, has no words left now that they’re all out in the open. The fear almost gives way to relief . . . no more secrets, no more lies. Even if the only person he’d been hiding from and lying to had been himself. But it’s out of his hands now. He’s done what he came here for.

He simply doesn’t know what to do next, and Philip isn’t moving at all next to him, letting the silence stretch second after second after second.

“Are you messing with me right now?” Philip finally asks, and even through the cautious hesitance in his voice there’s an undertone of hope just barely recognizable. It’s all Lukas needs to gain back another little scrap of courage.

“I’m not,” he says, and lifts his head to look at him straight on.

“You never . . . said anything -”

“I guess -” He shrugs one shoulder. “It took me a while to figure it out.”

“But -” Philip isn’t looking away, and his eyes are so dark, but his expression still so guarded. “You’re sure now?”

“Yeah,” Lukas promises, and lifts one corner of his mouth into a half-smile. “I am.”

“Okay.”

“And, I mean -” he sits up a little straighter, waves a hand at Philip. “I’m not — I don’t expect anything to happen or whatever. Like, I get it if you’re not into me that way and we can totally still be friends if you’re cool with that, but I didn’t want to lie to you and I just -”

“Hey,” Philip says, leaning into him a little.

“What?” Lukas breaks off his ramble, his pulse speeding up at having Philip so close.

“Shut up,” Philip says, and kisses him.

Lukas needs a moment to recover from his brain short-circuiting after the shock of Philip’s lips on his, but then he lifts his hands to draw him in closer and kisses back with everything he’s got.

+1a.)

They’re sitting under the tree they’ve sat under a million times before when they were just hanging out, but now Philip has his head on Lukas’ shoulder and their fingers are linked and resting against Philip’s thigh. Lukas presses his face into Philip’s hair and inhales deeply.

“Are you smelling my hair?” Philip aks, voice amused.

Lukas laughs. “No. Why would I do that? That’s weird.”

“You are weird, though,” Philip points out.

“Your face is weird,” Lukas throws back at him.

“Don’t you have to practice today?”

“Nah. I can skip a day. It’s okay.”

“So,” Philip sits up, grins at him. “What did you want to do today?”

“I might have an idea or two,” Lukas says, grinning back.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Like what?”

“Like . . . maybe just sitting here and doing nothing for a while? And then maybe we can go back to my house, heat up some dinner and watch a movie or something. My dad has his bowling night today and he’s usually not home before ten or so.”

Philip bites his lip, tilts his head at him. “Are you asking me on a date?”

Lukas still has this little wall of resistance to push through every time they talk about all this like they’re a couple — but that’s exactly what they are, what he wants them to be, and he gets better at pushing through it quicker as that wall is starting to thin and fade. “Yeah, I guess I am,” he says. “So? Interested?”

“Sometimes you ask the stupidest questions,” Philip tells him.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Well, that’s good, because it was one.”

“You’re an asshole,” Lukas says and laughs.

“”Yeah, so are you,” Philip declares, and Lukas tackles him to the ground to kiss him.

Philip holds onto him and kisses back.

It’s only early afternoon, Lukas thinks happily. They have hours before dinner.

Hours to spend making out with his best friend who he’s also kind of sort of breathtakingly in love with.

He really likes the way this all turned out.

[tevintermagisterium-blog]

✆ “” ✿ & {GIVE ME THE PAIN AND/OR FLUFF}

“✆” for a MORNING text. “” for a text that WASN’T SENT. “✿” for a SUGGESTIVE text.  “&” for a LOVING text.

{Text: @ Alexander ❤️ } I had forgotten to say such this morning. I love you. I have left your lunch on the table with your wallet and keys, Aurora has hers within her usual lunchbox. If she complains… please… mess up her hair. Thank you. 

{Text: @ Mi cachorro💗 💖 💘 } Hey! I am sorry, I know it’s only 8am… but… I love you! I… said this… an hour ago huh… oh well! I love you! Have a fun day at work, Mi Amor~! I will have a bath run by the time you get back.. all your laundry is done and dishes! dogs fed! if there is anything else.. just text me back.I love you~

{Text: @ 👏🏻 Dieu👏🏻 }Mon Cheri; I hope you slept well!… please… don’t work as hard today! you deserve a break! In other words…

JoinMeTonight!

I need you…. you’re company today! I crave such at this point! please? You know I love and adore you and you.. need a break… I will be there in half an hour with coffee and food! paints in the back were ordered alphabetically.. À bientôt!!💙

{Text: @ Mutinium 🖕🏽 }Wake up. Your brother had called me at 5am leaving a lengthy voicemail to how you had forgotten to pick him up and left him to catch the bus.Now, because I love you.. I assume you did such on purpose, and so, I have left $10 and a copy of the voicemail on your desk. You have my gratitude. 

{Text: @ Alexander ❤️  - 02:43}You can not answer your phone.. I do not know what I am doing.. but It seems that the sound of your voice keeps me alive.. Aurora won her first soccer match today. Caecilius was very proud. She got kicked out of class however. She claims she misses you. I miss you too. You can not even read this, can you. Because maybe you do not care.. why would you? Why would you care about me? Who would care about me? Nobody. I do not blame you. I fucking can not stand the fact of what you have done. Why did you leave? You were home for a FUCKING week. A week. A WEEK. 

I am sorry if I am not alive for when you return.

{Text: @ Mi cachorro💗 💖 💘  - 03:23}I know you decided to sleep at Bella’s because you were so hungover and the trainride didn’t seem nice… (note… it wasn’t.) but…. I can’t get over the feeling you are with the man who smiled so blissfully at you.. I can’t get over the fact you smiled and blushed back… Am I really the replaceable? Did I… face this fear for nothing? I am so scared.. please don’t leave me.. oh god’s don’t leave me.. I can’t live without you!… you complete me and a life without you is something i can’t bare to think about.. I need you.. I desire you… I am laying here with my nose buried in your pillow, taking in every deep breath to take in your scent, to never forget it… my arm outstretched to where your body would lay.. the idea that you are now under some man who smiled at you.. who offered to buy you a drink.. who offered to dance.. I… can’t…. eve-

{Text: @ 👏🏻 Dieu👏🏻  - 01:15}

Je ne peux pas supporter le fait que vous travaillez si dur et oubliez tout autour de vous. changer sa position! Tu es si belle et je t'aime.. Je t'aime plus qu'un ami! Qu'un frère! Que d'un frère… Je veux te tenir et t'embrasser et me coucher sous toi comme mes mains traînent sur ton corps. Je suis ivre mais je m'en fous … J'ai besoin de toi.. Daniel… J'ai besoin de toi! Votre sourire.. votre rire.. votre âme et le corps.. vous êtes… si si belle. Tu es tellement plus d'un homme que je ne serai jamais et j'adore que… s'il te plaît ne meurs pas.. pas sur moi.. pas aujourd'hui.. pas demain… s'il te plaît… Je t'aime.TRANSLATION: I can’t stand the fact you work so hard and forget everything around you. snap out of it! You are so beautiful and I love you.. I love you more than a friend! than a sibling! than a brother.. I want to hold you and kiss you and lay underneath you as my hands trail over your body. I am drunk but I don’t care.. I need you.. Daniel… I need you! your smile.. your laugh.. your soul and body.. you are… so so beautiful. You are so much more of a man than I shall ever be and I adore that… please don’t die.. not on me.. not today.. not tomorrow… please… I love you.

{Text: @ Alexander ❤️ } Mmph… I miss you, the way your hands dragged over my hips and ass, the ways your eyes gazed upon my body like that of a starving animal. Dominate me, master~ Fuck me until tomorrow. Fuck me until I scream your name, until you are all I hunger for. Deny me to come.. Deny my every beg and movement. Tie me down.. or do not.. for the God’s know I will only do as you say, and if you command me to not move.. I am to lay their still. Please.. fuck me~ Oh God’s please fuck me..~ I need you inside of me.Can you finish work early? 

{Text: @ Mi cachorro💗 💖 💘 }My Little kit… when do you finish work today? Do not lock up, please.. I believe I desire to see you later today.. alone.. in the darkness… when the shutters aren’t closed and people can witness you moaning my name as I pound you behind the desk. Where I can mark you as my own again; I noticed the marks had faded and we can’t have that, my beautiful pup.. I want to hold you to my chest and have you scream my name where the glass almost threatens to shatter. I want you to defile the name of God, for you to shout and whimper his name so often that he smites us down in disgrace.. I want to see that beautiful face as you cum over my hand and on your chest.. over that beautiful.. beautiful chest… Umph… So… Do we have a mutual understanding mi amor?~ Don’t lock up, no?~

{Text: @ Alexander ❤️  - 01:27}

I know I am not home, but I swear I am safe. I just desired to walk and have some time to think, to clear the mind. Do you know how much I love you, my dear? I do not think I tell you such enough to keep the image that I am stern and harsh, but I truly love you, with all my heart. I have cried over you, sobbed over you.. contemplated taking my life over you.. the thought of living without you is something I can not do. Please, do not ever question my love and desire for you.. You are the most beautiful man I have ever laid eyes and hands upon and if you ever want to leave me.. I understand.. But I shall never think twice for you; as you are my one and only.

Aurora’s favourite book is on the top shelf. Far left. I shall be back home in an hour…

I love you.. more than life itself. We do not screencap this… This is the only text you are ever going to get on this matter.

{Text: @ Mi cachorro💗 💖 💘  - 03:48}You’re sitting right next to me.. on the couch asleep and your phone is nearly falling out of your hand but I don’t desire to wake you or move in case I receive a foot to the face again..so… hey… I love you.. I am awful with wording this but I love you… SO SO MUCH! :D More than I can ever put into a string of sentences.. and that is saying something! considering… I teach kids.. english… heh! You are everything a man could ever dream for in his life, you are what people aspire to be.. beautiful… caring.. just a PERFECT amount of attitude (And great in bed.. like… MYGODSOGOOD? 👏🏽  besides the point.. } What I’m trying to say.. I think.. is that you are everything I have dreamt of since I was a little boy horrified about dreaming of such.. the way you laugh and smile.. the way you run your hands through your hair when nervous, bite your lip when you think I am not looking.. the way your ocean-like eyes glisten when excited, the way you hop up and down and tackle me into hugs and I-….My gods.. thank you for marrying me… thank you.

(Every time it moves to a different line… it’s a separate text){Text: @ 👏🏻 Dieu👏🏻  - 02:17}OMGOMGOMGOMGMonCheriThereWasAPuppyAnd it reminded me of you.. it was so sweet and licked my cheek for 12 WHOLE MINUTES and honestly now that I think about it it probably has licked it’s own butt bUT THATS FINE I love you, hmm? Please say you get this or I am going to be standing outside your door for a LONNGGG time which means I will probably be dead by the time work starts tomorrow BUT I DONT CARE my parents know I am probably skipping about somewhere.I guess the hyperactivity is evident but whO NEEDS PUNCTUATION ANYWAY please say you are awake the rose is hurting my hand.I DONT HAVE AROSE*A ROSEI LIED…I love you mon cheri!So so much… omg! so much.. You make my heart feel like its gonna explode and im only 10 minutes away from your house and I think your lights are all off BUT OH WELL… I will sit here! 

sleep well Mon chevalier en armure brillante 💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖