Blaqué Ivy

you don't even like parties like that.

birthday, baby shower, graduation, whatever kind of party it is—you always find yourself standing near the exit, picking at the edge of your cup, smiling when expected, but never really there. even at church gatherings, when aunties are fanning themselves, talking about the goodness of God, and cousins are running around sticky-mouthed from too much cake, you're somewhere on the sidelines, nodding along but never fully melting into the moment.

it's not that you completely hate them. it's just that they've never felt like you.

you don't do the loud music, the heavy bass that rattles your chest. don't like the way people move in dim lighting, hands wandering, voices slurring, bodies pressing too close. don't care much for the mindless small talk, the smell of liquor clinging to the walls, the fake love that seems to ooze from everybody's mouth after their third drink.

it's not you.

and yet, somehow, you're here. at some house party that has absolutely no business being this packed, clutching a red cup full of something you aren't even sipping, standing by the porch like you're waiting on God himself to send you a sign that it's time to leave.

you should've stayed home, but your friend begged and begged, said you needed to get out, live a little, loosen up. said it like you were some wound-up little thing, too afraid to step outside the lines drawn for you.

so you borrowed one of her dresses. it's tight, clings to you in places you don't usually let yourself acknowledge. it's not short, not inappropriate, but it shows off the curve of your thighs, the softness of your waist, enough to make you feel like maybe you should've thrown a sweater over it before leaving. you tug at the hem, shift from foot to foot, take another glance at the gate like maybe—maybe—you should just call it a night.

and then, he walks up.

casual. easy.

he moves like the world bends for him, like he's used to doors opening before he even knocks. like he expects it. welcomes it. like he thrives in it. and maybe he does—because he's jude bellingham, and his name rings bells far beyond this crowded house, far beyond this city.

he's the guy whose face you've seen on billboards, stretched across stadium screens, flashing in sports headlines your daddy flips past in the morning paper. a name your little cousins scream when they're dribbling in the backyard, pretending they're him, tongue poked out, eyes locked on a goal that doesn't even exist.

you know who he is.

he looks like money. like fame. like a world you don't belong to. he looks like the kind of guy your daddy would pray for you to stay away from. there's something about him that screams worldly, that tells you he's seen too much, had too much, lived too much to ever be satisfied with simple things. with quiet things.

he stops in front of you, close enough that you catch the scent of his cologne. you can't even name it, but you know it smells expensive, smells rich, like something way above your whole bloodline's tax bracket.

"you alright?"

just that. no introduction. no hey, i’m jude. like he expects you to already know. which you do. but still.

his voice is smooth, thick with that accent that makes his words roll off his tongue just a little different. it makes heat lick up your spine, makes your fingers curl tighter around your untouched drink.

you don't answer right away. you just blink up at him, trying to figure out why. why, in a house full of people who probably came here just for the chance to breathe the same air as him, he's standing in front of you.

you shift, clear your throat. "yeah. just—" you hesitate, then sigh, "—not really a party person."

jude's mouth twitches, just barely.

"yeah?" he lifts a brow. "what, you get dragged out here?"

you give a small, tight-lipped smile. "something like that."

his eyes flick down, taking in the way you tug at your dress again, the way your shoulders are stiff, like you're waiting to be judged. he can easily tell you don't belong here, that you slipped in from a whole other world.

he sees it in the way your nails tap against your cup, like you're trying to distract yourself from how much you don't fit into this picture. in the way your eyes flick toward the exit—again—like you're counting the steps it would take to leave.

he almost smirks, because you look like a lost little lamb, dropped into the middle of something you shouldn't be in.

and he likes that.

too much.

"you wanna go somewhere quieter?" he tilts his head just slightly, smiles so sweetly it almost feels calculated.

and you should say no. you should. it's what's expected of you. the voice of every woman in your life rings in your head, your mama's warnings about boys with hands too quick and smiles too sweet, the voice of your youth pastor reminding you of what happens when you stray too far from the path.

"i—" your voice is softer than you'd like, unsure. "i shouldn't."

his smile doesn't waver. in fact, it deepens, like he expected that. like it only amuses him.

"but do you want to?"

"it's just—" you hesitate, shifting on your feet. "my friend's inside, and i don't wanna leave her alone."

jude doesn't react immediately. he just watches you, the corners of his mouth twitching like he's entertained by the excuse you're trying to convince yourself with.

"that her right there?" he asks, nodding toward the open door, where your friend is laughing, deep in conversation with some guy you don't recognise. her body is angled toward him, her hand resting on his arm, her drink half-forgotten on the table beside her.

your stomach twists, because yeah. that's her. looking very much not alone.

jude chuckles, tongue peeking out to wet his lips before he looks back at you. "yeah, she seems real concerned about where you are."

he's got a point. you know he does. and before you can come up with some half-assed rebuttal, he's already stepping in a little closer. soft eyes, even softer smile, head tilting just enough to make you dizzy.

"i won't steal you away forever," he murmurs, voice dropping lower, so smooth it nearly melts into your skin. "just for a little while. promise."

it's stupid. so, so stupid.

but the way he says it makes it feel like the safest danger you'll ever walk into.

so before you can talk yourself out of it, before you can remind yourself of all the reasons why this is a bad idea, before you can let the guilt take root in your stomach—

you nod.

and jude grins.

like he knew you would.

—

you don't kiss him that first night.

you almost do. his mouth gets close, real close, and your breath hitches when his thumb brushes your jaw. his touch is warm, gentle, not rushed. but you flinch anyway, just a tiny jerk of your chin, a nervous swallow he doesn't miss.

he steps back, slow. like he can see the hesitation all over your face. like he already knows the battle waging inside your head, between what you've been taught and what your body is starting to want.

"don't worry," he says, voice low. steady. like he's used to getting his way but doesn't mind waiting this time. "won't do anything you're not comfortable doing."

you nod, grateful, embarrassed, confused all at once.

grateful because he didn't push, didn't try to take what you weren't ready to give. didn't make you feel stupid for hesitating.

embarrassed because you wanted to. for a second—half a second—you wanted to feel his lips on yours, to know if they were as soft as they looked, to know if he'd kiss you sweet or if he'd take his time, teasing, drawing it out until you had no choice but to pull him closer. and that thought alone makes heat crawl up your neck, because what kind of girl are you to be thinking like that? what kind of girl stands out here in the dark, alone with a boy like him, heart racing, mind spinning, knowing full well she has no business even entertaining the idea?

confused because none of this makes sense. because he's him, jude bellingham, a name bigger than this city, bigger than you. because you're just some girl from a quiet neighbourhood, the preacher's daughter, the one who plays it safe and follows the rules and doesn't end up in situations like this. you don't flirt with boys who have money and a reputation that stretches across continents. you don't hold conversations with them after midnight, hands stuffed in their pockets, smirking when you tell them about how your daddy would lose his mind if he knew you were out here.

but you do.

you let it happen.

you let him happen.

you watch as he knowingly smiles down at you. soft. indulgent. patient. like he already knows how this story ends. like he already knows that this thing between you isn't about if—it's about when.

and the way your stomach tightens, the way your lips tingle from nothing but the ghost of what almost happened? you know it too.

he's what you'll be craving... eventually.

—

ynprivate

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yourbestfriend: beautiful ass bitch.😍

↳ ynprivate: language☹️

boyfromchurch: you get prettier every time i see you😢 - liked by author

yourfriend: all your angles are good angles😌

↳ ynprivate: 🥹💕

—

ynprivate added to their instagram stories

💬 judebellingham has replied to your story

judebellingham: cheffing up like this and didn’t offer me none? fake.

ynprivate: i don’t share with strangers.

judebellingham: good thing you and i are way past that then.

ynprivate: are we?

judebellingham: if our intimate little interaction from the other night is any indication, yeah.

ynprivate: intimate? you romanticise things. dangerous habit.

judebellingham: no. i remember things how they are. the way you looked at me was anything but casual.🤷🏽‍♂️

ynprivate: you’re delusional.

judebellingham: and you’re deflecting. which is fine. you’ll say what you mean eventually.

ynprivate: and that is?

judebellingham: you want me

ynprivate: hilarious.

judebellingham: you think i’m charming

ynprivate: even more hilarious. i’m busy. stop texting me, before i burn my cookies.

judebellingham: send me one. wanna taste.

ynprivate: go buy your own, i’m sure you have the budget for it big baller.

judebellingham: problem is, i don’t want a cookie. i want your cookie.

ynprivate: …

judebellingham: i meant that in exactly the way you just thought i did

ynprivate: wow. i’ll pray for you

judebellingham: i’d love that.😊

ynprivate: 🤦🏽‍♀️

—

he’s right about one thing.

you do think he’s charming.

weeks pass, and jude keeps randomly popping up.

at the coffee shop where you work—just off campus, tucked into the corner of a busy street, a place that smells like roasted espresso beans and vanilla syrup. you don't even see him at first. too busy at the register, wiping your hands on your apron, trying to keep up with the rush.

but then you hear his voice. low, warm, unmistakable.

"medium caramel latte. extra shot."

you look up, and there he is. leaning against the counter, watching you with this lazy kind of amusement, like he's already in on a joke you don't know yet.

you stammer out a "hi," and he grins.

"hey, pretty girl. you work here?"

you nod, suddenly flustered, suddenly too aware of how you probably smell like milk and coffee grounds, how your braids are tied in a lopsided bun at the top of your head.

"since when?" he asks.

you tell him—a few months now, just something part-time, something to keep busy.

"i like it," he says, tapping his fingers against the counter. "suits you."

it shouldn't make you warm inside, but it does.

after that, he starts showing up more. not every day, not even every week, but enough that you notice.

one time, he pops up at that one spot behind the student centre where you go to read alone.

you found it your first year—a little courtyard, quiet, shaded by trees, tucked away from the main pathways. most people don't even know it's there. you go when you need peace, when the world feels too loud, when you just want to sit with a book and let time slip through your fingers.

so when jude shows up on a random tuesday afternoon, hands stuffed in his pockets, looking like he belongs anywhere but here, you frown.

"how'd you find this place?"

he shrugs, lazy and unbothered, before dropping onto the bench beside you. "a little birdy told me this is your spot. figured i'd find you here."

your best friend. of course. she's been on one ever since she caught wind of whatever this thing is between you and jude. grinning every time his name comes up, eyes wide with something like glee when she saw him talking to you after church that one time.

she's way too invested. and knowing her? she probably handed him the information on a silver platter. all it would've taken was a quick dm, a little charm, and she would've folded in seconds.

you make a mental note to cuss her out later. in the most christian way, of course.

you turn to jude, lips parted, already halfway to telling him that you don't play about your reading time—but then he stretches out, long legs sprawling, his whole body shifting into something that looks too good to ignore.

his arm drapes over the back of the bench, all casual, his fingers just barely brushing against your back. and he's looking at you with something like amusement in his eyes, like he knows you won't ask him to leave.

and maybe you should. maybe you should roll your eyes, tell him to give you space, bury yourself back in the pages of your book. but the way he's sitting there, looking at you like this is exactly where he's meant to be? yeah. suddenly, the company doesn't feel so bad.

the first time, he talks your ear off.

leans back on the bench, eyes flicking between you and the worn-out pages in your hands. asks you what you're reading, why you picked it, if it's boring, if it's "one of them romance novels with the cringy shit."

"it's a classic," you argue, looking up at him, brow raised.

he snorts, shaking his head. calls you a hopeless romantic.

the second time, he brings food.

"thought you might be hungry," he says, pulling a sandwich and a drink from a brown bag. claims it's the best sandwich you'll ever taste because he made it himself.

you try to act unimpressed, try to keep your face neutral, but your stomach betrays you—growling at the smell of warm bread, fresh and tempting. his lips twitch, like he's fighting a smirk, before he nudges the bag toward you.

"go on, then. take it."

his fingers brush yours when you do. a small thing, a nothing moment. but something flickers in his gaze, quick and unreadable, before he looks away.

and maybe that's the moment something shifts. when you stop seeing him as this footballer who keeps showing up and start seeing him as jude.

jude, who doesn't tease when you say you've never even been on a real date. just nods, like he's storing that information for later. jude, who actually listens when you talk about your family, your plans, your fear of failing—like every word you say matters.

jude, who looks at you like he's figuring out a puzzle he likes being confused by.

jude, who's creeping into your life, slowly, surely, and you don't even realise you're letting him.

—

he doesn't kiss you until the third time he sees you outside church.

you're wearing a long, pink dress. something modest, something pretty. it cinches just enough at the waist to remind you that you have one, but it flows past your ankles, grazing the tops of your shoes with every step. it's the kind of dress your mama approves of. the kind that makes the older women at church nod in quiet approval when you walk past, whispering to their daughters about how this is how a young lady should carry herself.

your daddy's sermon is still ringing in your ears as you step out of the church, voice deep and steady in your mind: temptation comes in many forms, but the Lord will always give you a way out. you had nodded along like you understood, like you believed it was that easy, like you didn't already feel something twisting in your stomach—something you couldn't name, something that lingers even as you take careful steps down those stone steps, hands folded in front of you like a proper girl.

and then you see him.

jude's waiting across the street, leaning against a matte black mercedes. he's parked just far enough to not be obvious, but close enough that you know he's waiting for you.

he's watching you.

not in a way that's obvious to anyone else, but you feel it. the weight of his gaze. the way his eyes drop down the length of your dress before dragging back up. the slight smirk playing at the corner of his lips, like he's already thinking something he shouldn't be.

he doesn't belong here. doesn't belong anywhere near your daddy's church. but neither do you—not if the way your pulse jumps at the sight of him is any indication.

he lifts his hand, two fingers beckoning you over, just once. subtle. casual.

your daddy's voice is still in your head. temptation comes in many forms.

and yet, your feet are already moving.

he doesn't say a word when you stop in front of him. just looks at you, the way he always does—like you're something rare, something to be studied.

"what?" you murmur, voice barely above a whisper.

he tilts his head, corners of his mouth curling in a small smile. "nothing," he says, but it's very clearly a lie.

you cross your arms, but it's useless. doesn't do anything to shield you from the way he's looking at you. doesn't stop the heat that creeps up your neck, the way your stomach tightens when he reaches out, fingers brushing against the fabric of your dress.

"this new?" he asks, voice low, barely audible over the noise of the street.

you nod, because you don't trust yourself to speak.

he hums, fingertips trailing just slightly before he pulls away. "pretty," he says. simple. like that's that. like it's obvious.

you should leave. should turn around and walk back up those steps, back inside where it's safe, where your mama and daddy are probably still shaking hands and exchanging pleasantries. but you don't. you just stand there, rooted to the spot, watching as jude pushes off the car, the heat of his body suddenly much closer than it was a second ago.

he lifts a hand, fingers brushing against the chain resting against your collarbone. it's barely a touch, more like an absentminded gesture, his thumb lingering for a second too long, pressing lightly against the charm hanging there, before he lets it drop.

his tongue swipes across his bottom lip, and when he finally speaks again, his voice is lower than before, softer.

"can i kiss you?"

it's quiet. barely above a whisper. but it hits you hard, like he just knocked the air out of your lungs. because he's asking, asking—so, so sweetly.

your breath catches. your fingers twitch where they rest at your sides.

you should say no.

you should remind him that you just left church, that your daddy is still inside, probably lecturing girls your age about purity and virtue. that you were raised better than this.

but then you look up at him. and suddenly, none of that matters.

"yes," you breathe.

and that's all it takes.

he doesn't waste time. doesn't hesitate. the second the word leaves your lips, he moves—one hand curling around the side of your neck, the other pressing against the small of your back, pulling you in close, closer, until there's nothing between you but heat and the sound of your own breath catching in your throat.

he kisses you like he's been thinking about it for weeks. like he's imagined it a hundred different ways, but none of them compare to this—to the way your lips part under his, to the little sound you make when he tilts his head and deepens it, to the way your fingers clutch at his shirt like you need something to hold onto; because this isn't the kiss of a boy who's unsure. this is possession, plain and simple.

you feel him smile against your lips when you don't pull away. when instead, your hands slide up, fingers brushing at the nape of his neck, holding him there. when you sigh into his mouth like you've been waiting for this just as long as he has.

and when he pulls back, just slightly, just enough to drag his teeth over your bottom lip, just enough to let you breathe—he doesn't go far. his nose brushes yours, his breath is warm against your cheek, and his voice is lower now, thick with something you don't have a name for.

"you have no idea how long i've wanted to do that," he murmurs.

and then he kisses you again.

when he eventually pulls back, he's got that look. like he's tasting something he didn't expect to love so much. like you're some flavour he's never had before, and now that he has, he's wondering how he ever went without it. his fingers twitch where they're still resting on your waist, like he's fighting the urge to grab you, pull you back in, drown himself in you all over again.

and that's what makes you step back.

because the way he's looking at you cracks you wide open. like he's peeling back your layers without even trying, stripping you bare with nothing but his eyes. it's unnerving. intoxicating. makes your fingers twitch at your sides, makes your breath catch in your throat.

"uh," you trail off, voice thin, trying to ignore the way your heart is in such a frenzy against your ribcage, loud enough that you're sure he can hear it in the space between you.

he tilts his head slightly, watching you, watching the way you fidget under his gaze, the way you bite your lip like you're trying to stop yourself from asking him to kiss you again.

"how come you're here?" you ask, because you don't know what else to do with yourself. "aren't you supposed to be in madrid?"

"break between games," he responds mindlessly. his eyes stay locked on you, intense, unreadable. they trace over your face, your lips, the way your chest is rising and falling just a little too fast, like you're struggling to catch your breath. "i come back home sometimes. clears my head."

you feel warm all over. heat rushing up your neck, pooling low in your stomach.

you want to ask why you, then. out of all the girls he could 'come back home' to. out of all the girls he could have. the models, the singers, the girls who got names blue-check-verified. the ones who post thirst traps and don't flinch when someone touches their thigh.

but you don't ask.

because you like how he looks at you.

like you're something precious he wants to keep for himself.

like he's never had anything like you before. and maybe, just maybe, he never wants to go without it again.

—

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judebellopriv 😍😍😍😍😍😭😭😭😭😮‍💨😮‍💨😱

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—

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ynprivate corny.

↳ judebellopriv i’m the love of your life. be nice to me.😔

—

things get... interesting after that.

kisses that grow longer. hands that travel further. his voice in your ear, soft and deep, saying things like, "you can tell me to stop, pretty. i'll stop whenever you say."

and you believe him. you do. but the problem is you never really want him to stop.

he calls you "pretty girl" when you're shy, when your fingers fidget with the hem of your new pastel cardigan, when you tuck your face into his chest after he says something that makes your skin feel too hot to wear. when you sit next to him in his car, trying to ignore the way he looks at you like you're the kind of girl men start wars over.

he calls you "baby" when you're quiet, when you're watching him with those soft, searching eyes like you're trying to understand every little part of him. when you're curled up against his side, his hand resting on your thigh, thumb rubbing slow circles into your skin like he's coaxing you to say something, anything.

"what you thinkin’ about, baby?" he murmurs, voice all gentle, because he genuinely wants to know where your mind goes when you get quiet like this.

you shake your head, because you can't say it. you can't tell him how deep he's gotten into you, how you're always thinking about him now—when you're in class, when you're at work, when you're sitting in the pews listening to your father preach about temptation and sin and how easily the devil slips into the cracks of your foundation.

he calls you "mama" when you're doing things you know you shouldn't be doing. when you're in his bed, back arching, lips parted, fingers grasping at his shoulders like they're the only thing keeping you from falling apart completely. when you let him push you past every boundary you swore you'd never cross, when you let him drag you into the kind of pleasure that feels more like salvation than sin.

and it sounds so good in his mouth. so right. like it belongs to you. like he belongs to you. like every time he says it, he's giving you another piece of himself to keep.

and maybe you are keeping him. maybe he's yours in a way he's never been anyone else's before.

maybe you're his in a way that feels deeper than flesh, deeper than anything either of you have ever known.

—

he keeps showing up more.

in your bed, late at night, when your parents are fast asleep two rooms down the hall. you sneak him in, because that's apparently something you do now. feet tiptoeing across the hardwood, heart pounding so loud you're sure it'll wake up the whole house. you don't even turn on the lamp—just fumble for him in the dark, breathless, nervous, excited in a way you can't explain. and he's there, all warmth and muscle and mischief, slipping under the covers like he belongs there.

on your phone, texting things that make your thighs clench under the covers.

"what you wearing?"

it's the first thing he sends, and you already know where this is going. you hesitate, fingers hovering over the screen. but he knows you too well.

"don't get shy on me now, pretty."

you take a breath, then type back.

"my nightgown."

it's a simple answer, nothing suggestive about it—but jude makes it mean something.

"the white one?"

"yeah."

"the one that's real thin?"

you pause. heart hammering.

"yeah."

the typing bubble pops up, disappears, pops up again. then—

"wish i was there."

you exhale sharply. shift under the covers. try to ignore the way your thighs press together on instinct.

"jude..."

"bet you're warm under there."

your breath catches.

"bet you keep rubbing your legs together, trying to make yourself feel good without me."

your fingers shake.

"open your legs for me, baby."

and God forgive you, but you do.

and, of course, he shows up in your mind as well. when you should be studying, praying, thinking about your future.

you sit in the second pew, bible open on your lap, the words on the page nothing but blurred ink. your daddy's voice booms through the church, preaching about temptation — because that's suddenly all he's been preaching about lately.

"flee from sin," he says, voice thick with conviction as he paces back and forth across the pulpit. "do not entertain it. do not welcome it into your home. into your heart. into your bed."

your breath stutters.

you swear your daddy looks at you too long. like he knows something. like he can see the filth on you. your fingers tighten around the edges of your bible, nails pressing half-moon indents into the leather. your mama glances at you, concern in her eyes. you force a smile, nod like everything's fine.

"temptation is a test," he continues. "and the devil is patient. he waits for a moment of weakness. he whispers to you when you're alone."

you suck in a sharp breath, heat crawling up your neck. because he does.

except it isn't the devil whispering to you at night.

it's jude.

"miss me?"

"wish i was there with you, don't you?"

"bet you still feel me, huh?"

you do.

so much so that it's wrong. so much that you feel like the walls of this church are closing in around you.

you shouldn't be here.

but you shouldn't be in jude's bed either. or sneaking him into yours. or texting him back. or letting him touch you like he does.

"resist temptation, and it will flee from you."

your fingers tremble where they rest on the page. because you don't want it to flee.

you want it to stay.

you want him to stay.

—

jude learns your body too quick. too well. too thoroughly.

it should scare you—the way he figures you out like he's done this a hundred times before, like he's studied you in a past life and came back knowing exactly what makes you gasp, what makes your voice shake, what makes you go all pliant and pretty beneath him.

he takes his time with you. always. moves slow, like he's savouring every moment, like he enjoys watching you come undone little by little. because that's the thing about jude—he doesn't just take pleasure from you; he drags it out of you, pulls it from the depths of your belly, coaxes it from between your lips until you're trembling, until you're arching into him, until you can't think straight.

he likes to test your patience, to see how long it takes before you can't handle it anymore. he'll brush his lips against the shell of your ear, mumbling, "look at you. so damn needy." and he'll chuckle when you whine, when you try to pull him closer, when your fingers clutch at his shirt like you're begging.

and your voice—God, your voice.

the way it wobbles when he kisses down your neck. the way it catches when he mouths at your collarbone. the way it pleads before he finally—finally—presses his hips against yours.

you call his name like it's something sacred. like it's something holy.

and maybe it is.

maybe in the heat of this room, in the way he touches you like you're the only girl in the world, in the way he murmurs, "let me hear you, baby. i wanna hear you say my name,"—maybe in all of that, he is holy.

at least, that's what it feels like when he finally gives you what you've been aching for, when he murmurs your name back just as soft, just as breathless, just as wrecked.

and suddenly, the preacher's daughter isn't so pure anymore.

—

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—

he corrupts you in pieces. not all at once.

one night, he's between your legs, looking up at you like you're the only girl that's ever mattered.

it's the first time. and you're nervous. your thighs tremble, and you keep trying to close them, instinct kicking in. but jude doesn't let you. his hands are firm, spreading you open, settling you against his mouth like he belongs there.

"relax, mama," he murmurs, lips brushing against your sensitive skin. "just let me taste you."

and God, do you let him.

his tongue is slow, dragging over you with a patience that makes your head spin. he groans into you, like he needs this, like this is his salvation. his hands grip your thighs tighter, his tongue flicks, swirls, sucks, and you swear you forget how to breathe.

"fuck—" the curse slips out, unbidden, and you slap a hand over your mouth, eyes going wide.

jude pulls back just enough to grin up at you, chin glistening. "that's a first," he teases, before licking back into you, hungrier this time.

you should feel ashamed, should feel guilty, but all you feel is him. the warmth of his mouth, the desperation in the way he grips you, the heat curling low in your stomach, coiling tighter and tighter with every flick of his tongue.

your fingers tangle in his curls, tugging, pulling him closer, closer, closer, and he groans in pleasure against you, like he loves it when you take what you need.

his name spills from your lips, over and over and over, and when you cum, it's with a soft cry and a shudder that rocks you to your core.

he doesn't move for a moment. just presses his lips to your inner thigh, breath warm against your damp skin.

"told you i'd take care of you," he murmurs, voice low, eyes dark as he watches you try to catch your breath.

you don't respond. you can't.

because for the first time in your life, you don't know what comes after.

—

he meets your daddy once.

it's at a football charity event in the neighbourhood. something small, nothing crazy—just a few sponsors, some local businesses, a handful of academy footballers showing up to sign autographs, pose for pictures, and play a friendly game with the kids. you're only there because your mama insisted, said it was a good cause, said it'd "look good" if you showed up because your daddy's church is donating supplies—clothes, food, books for the kids.

you don't ask how jude's dad got involved. maybe he knows somebody who knows somebody. maybe it's just one of those things that happens when your son is famous, and people call in favours like it's nothing.

you also don't know jude himself is going to be there. not until you hear a collective of screams from the little boys and girls, all hyped up and bouncing on their toes like they can't believe their luck.

your stomach instantly drops as you turn to look across the field. to look at your man. the one you could never claim publicly.

he's in his element—long limbs, strong build, the kind of casual confidence that only comes from knowing you're him. he's grinning at the kids, talking to them easy, letting them pass the ball between themselves.

he laughs at something one of the kids says, head tilting back slightly, tongue peeking out between his teeth. your heart stutters. it always does when he looks happy like this—like the weight of the world isn't sitting on his shoulders for once.

his hand ruffles one of the boy's curls before he steps back, rolling the ball under his foot, nodding for them to come take it. and even in something as simple as that, he moves with a smooth athleticism that's almost unfair.

it's mesmerising. it always is.

and then—like he can feel you watching—he glances up. his eyes find yours instantly, like they always do. his grin shifts, turns into something slower, something more knowing. his head tilts slightly, a flicker of amusement dancing in those deep brown eyes.

you look away. immediately. pretend to be interested in anything else. the donation table. the banners. the sun, for God's sake. anything but him.

but jude? jude is shameless.

because, before you know it—

"hey, pretty girl."

you freeze for half a second. then slowly, carefully, you turn your head, your heart slamming against your ribs. not because he called you that. he does that all the time, whispers it in the dark when he's got his hands on your waist, when his mouth is on your skin, when you're falling apart beneath him.

but this? this is here. this is now.

you don't even get a chance to say anything before your daddy steps in.

"jude bellingham," he greets, extending a hand, voice firm. "been hearing a lot about you, son."

jude takes it without hesitation, shaking it firm, nodding like he knows how to play the game.

"all good things, i hope."

you side-eye him. but jude just grins, the corner of his mouth lifting, and somehow, it makes him look even cockier.

you want to kill him.

but he plays it cool. stays respectful. makes conversation. even your mama seems to like him, which is ridiculous, because if she had any idea the things he's done to you—

you shake the thought out of your head, forcing yourself to focus.

people come up to him, ask for pictures, autographs. he takes it all in stride. smiles, poses, makes them feel like they matter. it's the first time you really see it—the way he switches it on, the charm, the ease, the star power that makes people want to be near him.

but when the attention dies down and the crowd shifts, he still finds his way back to you.

"nice dress," he murmurs, too quiet for anyone else to hear, his fingers brushing your wrist for half a second too long.

you step back, shooting him a glare. "stop."

his brows lift, all innocent. "stop what?"

you don't answer.

you can't answer.

because your daddy's watching, your mama's close by, and the last thing you need is for anyone to see the way your breathing falters when he's too close.

jude notices, though. of course he does. his lips twitch. and then—because he's him—he leans in just enough to make your breath hitch.

"see you later, mama."

and with that, he walks off, leaving you there—flustered, irritated, wanting.

you don't even hear the rest of your daddy's speech. don't even remember why you came here in the first place.

all you can think about is later.

when the sun goes down. when the cameras are gone. when it's just you and him.

because he meant it.

and you know—deep in your bones—that tonight, he's going to make you pay for pretending you don't want him.

—

there's a moment—late, after everything, while jude is lying on your chest, tracing lazy circles into your skin as you lay in his california king bed—where he murmurs something that makes your breath catch.

you're still trembling from the weight of what just happened, your body spent, skin dewy, lips tingling from the way he kissed you like he was trying to brand his name into your mouth. the sheets are tangled around your waist, his body warm and lax beside you, his fingers absentmindedly dancing along the curve of your hip like he isn't even aware he's doing it.

the room smells like him—cologne, clean linen, and the faint musk of sex that lingers in the air. the dim glow from the city outside seeps through the cracks in the blackout curtains, casting soft shadows over the luxurious bedroom.

your heart is still beating too fast, your mind caught somewhere between reality and the high of him. you don't even know what time it is. past midnight, probably. maybe later.

then, in that quiet, between the distant hum of cars outside and the slow rhythm of your breathing, he speaks.

"you're the only good thing in my life right now."

his voice is heavy with something you can't quite name. it's almost like a confession, something secret slipping past his lips before he can stop it. it feels unguarded. raw. too honest for a boy like him.

you want to ask what he means. why he said it. if he really believes it.

but you don't.

because you see the way his jaw clenches like he's already regretting saying too much. the way his fingers tighten just slightly on your hip. the way his head stays pressed against your chest, close enough to hear the way your heart stutters at his words.

and maybe you should leave. maybe you should remind yourself that this was supposed to be nothing, that you were never meant to matter to him like this.

but instead, you exhale, slow and careful, and thread your fingers through his curls. soft. comforting.

"i'm not going anywhere," you whisper, and it feels like a promise you shouldn't be making.

but he sighs against your skin, like it's exactly what he needed to hear.

and so you hold him.

because you're not so pure anymore. not after him. not after the way he's touched you, seen you, ruined you in the best and worst ways.

and honestly? you'd let him do it again.

every night.

every sunday morning before church.

every time he whispers your name like he's afraid he's dreaming you.

because even if it's wrong... even if you go to hell for it...

there's nothing holier than the way he makes you feel.

without a second thought he clicks on the video and has to immediately close it as he comes face to face with your sweet chubby cheeks and long fluttering eyelashes. taking a deep breath the tent under the blanket is unmistakable and he hasn't even watched anything substantial yet. slowly rising his phone he stares into your eyes for a moment, screen dully lighting up his face. clicking play you scoot back from the camera and he makes a mental note as he sees pretty lavender panties with an unmistakable wet mark. your matching lace bralette is way too small and it shows as your nipples nearly pop out with every movement. settling onto the floor a cream carpet seems soft under your thighs and he wonders if your skin is just as soft. shaking his head he has to pause again as you spread your legs wide. just for him.

running a hand over his face he starts the video back up. your manicured fingers, a set he remembers brushing against his skin when you shook his hand, drags them selves down your chest and hook onto the edge of your bra. your nipple pops out and you greedily pull and rub at it. you have to slow down. you seem to hear him through the screen and your movements slow to gentle rubs that has your eyes drooping. his cock strains in his sweats and he struggles to remain his composure. just a few minutes. you let out a soft sound and his cock jumps against his abdomen. he fishes his cock out and digs his nails into his hips bone. your hand glides down your stomach, your chub folding in on itself. your expression is soft and shy, unsure of yourself as you pull that lavender fabric to the side.

he turns, shifting his pillows so he can sit up more. his blanket pools in his lap and it hides his erection as the weight keeps it pinned to his thigh. your pussy shines with arousal. you must have played with yourself a little before filming. spreading those pretty puffy lips, he gets to see your hole as it squeezes around nothing. keeping yourself open, you use your middle finger to gently rub at your bud. it only takes a few minutes until you're pushing into your fluttering core. he mind wanders as he thinks about how different your performance would be if he was there. his eyes move from your hands to your gentle face. brows furrowed as you work yourself over.

his hand wraps around his shaft. the blankets pushed further down his thighs so he has access. breathing slowly he sets his speed to yours. his hand moving in tandem with yours as he quickly becomes frustrated. your inexperience showing as you bounce between slow circles and deep thrusts. he wishes he could reach through the screen, position and move you until you're chanting his name. he frowns and disgust washes over him. how the hell is he going to face you next week? he bumps the back of his head against his headboard, cursing himself for agreeing to dinner with your family. he's lost in his thoughts he doesn't realize the video has ended until the room goes silent. panicking he rewinds the video. his eyes laser into you as you quickly cum. a weak nothingness that has you quickly recovering.

he shakes his head and abandons his cock to rewind and rewatch your pathetic excuse for an orgasm. over and over he watches as his mind constructs a scenario that has him abandoning his phone. light cut off as he tugs and massages his cock. his mind constructs its own ending, something that ends with your satisfaction and his cock covered in your essence. instead of your small fingers trying to fill your gorgeous pussy, his cock is gently pressing into you. if you've ever had sex before he definitely couldn't tell. he wonders how you'd take him. with gentle sounds like in the video or will a real cock make you louder. he alternates between gentle tugging to fast thrusts into his fist. how do you want me to take you? his mind wanders to your face, how soft your lips would be against his.

—

Draco despised how effortlessly Theo made himself at home with you. He was an outsider. He hadn't earned you. Who gave him the right to touch you like that—so casually, as if you hadn’t just met?

Like at lunch, when Theo would reach over without so much as a glance and wipe tomato sauce on your sleeve, using you as his personal serviette. Not that you were entirely blameless—you did eat messily. Hopelessly, endearingly so. Always some sauce escaping down your chin, or your fingers honeyed with something sticky, totally unbothered by it.

Theo would catch Draco's eye across the table with a crooked smile on his face and jerk a thumb at you. "Messy girl."

Draco would run his tongue slowly along his teeth and reach to wipe your mouth. "Don't call her that."

Your little disasters were his to make fun of—not Theo's.

Or the time he'd decided to imitate Draco—an open-mouthed goodbye kiss—theatrical, entirely too long. Poking something to see what it did. He'd been very pleased with himself for approximately one moment before Draco's hand connected with his back and sent him cleanly into the nearest bush.

—

Theo bothered Draco so much he catalogued every trace of him he found on you, like small offences.

There was the sitting. When you perched on your chair like the boyish way Theo sat—legs parted, swinging idly, with a lackadaisical posture on top of it. Draco's eye would twitch and press his loafer gently against your ankle, nudging your legs back together.

“Sit properly.”

Then there was the language. Theo's crassness—cazzo and merda slipping out of your mouth too easily, accompanied by some vulgar little hand gesture that he’d clearly had you practice. Draco would stare at you for a long moment. Waiting for you to shrink and redeem yourself, deciding how disappointed to be. Then his fingers would find your lips with a soft, idle flick.

"Watch it."

And there were drawings, too. Tucked into the margins of your notes—crude sketches that bore the unmistakable fingerprints of Theo's humour. Draco would look at them for exactly one second before ripping out the page, jaw set. He hated how Theo made you tactless. Hated how it diluted you.

It wasn't the knowledge itself. He didn't want to keep you ignorant. It was this version of it—gutted, profane, all meaning flattened before it ever reached you. A facsimile of tenderness. Poetry unravelling back to prose. And you, with that open, unguarded curiosity of yours, absorbed the counterfeit.

The revulsion sat deeply in him. He didn't quite know why at the time—only that it was beneath you. Because you deserved the full weight of things. Deserved better than that shallow, careless, adolescence of boys who didn’t act with any semblance of intention.

Deserved better than the coarse company of Theo.

He wanted to bite you at the collar, drag you to his room and smother you until you never come out.

—

Still, Draco gritted his teeth through it all.

Because you seemed to have a particular fondness for him, the way you did with strays. Something you found charming about people who had absolutely nothing to lose and nothing to gain.

But just because he could not rid himself of Theodore Nott did not mean he could not make his life quietly, efficiently hell.

Draco had never needed his fists for that.

He was better at psychological attrition. He would make references—casually, conversationally—to the dense texts that formed the bedrock of any proper upper-echelon education. Wizengamot formation. Early British wizarding law. Political history that the two of you had been tutored through before you could properly write.

"It's the same problem Fernwick identifies in the founding charter. The language around hereditary magical integrity was deliberately vague—intentionally, so it could be applied selectively."

"The 1347 charter," you'd say.

Draco would glance at Theo then knowing he'd find that blank expression.

"Fernwick's treatise on early British wizarding law." A perfectly placed beat. "Thin book, green cover. Your tutor never assigned it?"

"I don’t think—"

"It's forty pages, Theo. It's not a commitment." A light-hearted laugh edged with mockery.

It was also, of course, a well-known fact—unspoken in polite company but known—that Theo was a child born out of wedlock. Which placed him considerably lower in the pecking order. Further from the money.

So Draco would command the house-elves to watch him. To peer at him through half-open doors and half-drawn curtains, to let themselves be caught doing it, to eye him suspiciously whenever he strayed too close to the Malfoy antiquities—the glass cases, framed correspondence, things that had provenance and value. Draco would also make a show of sliding his rings off when he arrived and pocketing the silver.

What seemed like little things reduced him to something furtive. Make the Manor itself treat him like an amateur thief who hadn't yet been caught.

Be so utterly, architecturally cruel that Theo could taste the distance between their lineages.

It was only after Draco had choked him within an inch of his life—that moment when Theo had decided to truly hurt you—that he thought better of being so familiar with you again.

SUMMER TERM, PRESENT

When you woke up, you felt his breath first.

Slow, lightly brushing against your stomach—his head rising with each inhale, as if you were the only thing keeping him afloat.

You had accidentally stayed the night at Draco’s dorm.

It felt rather strange. It had been a while since you’d slept on the same bed, yet he laid on you like nothing had changed, like he still weighed nothing at all. But he did and you could feel it now—the considerable length of him, the firm cords of muscle wrapped around your waist. You recall his growth spurt had hit him like a freight train.

You exhaled and traced the arch of your foot along his calf, noting the shape of him, the warmth seeping into your skin. Sending a faint shiver through you.

Then you felt a damp patch on your stomach.

Drool. Ew.

You glanced around. The others had already gone—no doubt chasing relief from their hangovers in the Great Hall. Only Theo remained, stirring faintly, rubbing sleep from his eyes. A head of long dark hair slipped from the far side of the bed and tiptoed out with hardly a sound.

You hadn’t noticed her last night, but that was definitely not Daphne.

Draco stirred. Lifted his head. Then laid it back down again—he wasn't ready to see you. His eyes were probably puffy. He was never his best hungover, you'd seen him in worse states, but he cared much for his vanity. Shy and embarrassed, too, for the way he acted the night before.

Then he lifted his head again. His hair had gotten long—you hadn't cut it in a while—and it fell loose around his face now, framing it softly.

For a moment he simply looked up at you. Sunlight caught his eyelashes and made his eyes glassy, pale. His lips still faintly wine-stained. He looked a little girlish like that. You had the sudden urge to run your hands through his face and ruin him.

He saw the look in your eyes and raised himself up fully, hovering above you.

Go on then.

You stared at him for a while. The calm on his face doing nothing to interrupt the reel running behind your eyes—and it was a reel, not a memory, because memory implied distance you didn't have yet. Footage of perfidy. Shots of bittersweet heat and want. Frames of defection you kept returning to the way your tongue finds a broken tooth.

Then you slapped him. Hard. A rapid flush crawling up his wintry cheek.

Your first words this fine morning were, "I hate you."

You shoved him off. Then went after him.

Fists at his chest—beating, graceless.

"Hate you! How dare you do this to me?"

How dare you not touch me the way I want? How dare you make yourself unavailable? How dare you choose—how dare you—and then, underneath everything, the thing that was really being said: don't you know who I am to you?

He had forgotten, it seemed, that the entitlement ran both ways in this particular arrangement.

Your hands found his throat.

Draco let you. Lay there and let you make him repent, nails and all, your weight on him, the wanting turned inside out and landing however it needed to. It felt like a kiss.

—

Theo surfaced from sleep to the crack of a slap and something that might have been a whimper.

He blinked. Registered the fervent movement to his right. Understood, in approximately two seconds, everything that was happening.

He exhaled a soundless whistle. Reached for his shoes. 

He did not want to get involved.

—

Eventually you tired from hitting him.

You collapsed against him, breathing hard, your anger spent. Your foreheads found each other the way they always had. Like old friends. Hello. How are you? It's been awhile. What a time we've wasted not doing this.

"I missed you," You confirmed.

His first words this fine morning were, "Kiss me again."

His tongue grazed your top lip. You took him into your mouth and suckled on it. His hands cradled your head, keeping you there, moaning lightly at the sensation.

He never quite pulled away, instead breathing into your mouth. You kiss like me, he thought delightfully, as your teeth clattered against his.

—

On the other side of the dormitory door, Theo found a weedy fourth year haunting the corridor like he'd been there a while.

"Theo—"

"It's Nott to you." Theo clicked his tongue, rolling his shoulder into his jacket.

"Sorry—Nott. Is Malfoy in?"

"Busy."

"I'd only be a moment." The boy's eyes shifted with the eagerness of someone who had rehearsed this. "I wanted to ask him about yesterday's game—"

"Busy."

—

You felt his length throb against you. That familiar warm firmness of him. You reached in between you.

Draco caught your hand. Intertwined his fingers with yours and held it still.

“Don’t you want to—“

“Mm.” A slight shake of his head. Eyes still closed, mouth still moving against you.

No—don’t you feel it too? When I kiss you, I don’t just want sex. I expect everything that comes with it.

Your Pepperup potion beside my bed when I’m sick. You dragging me to the kitchen in the middle of the night because you’re craving something. Your ears, your mind, when I play the pianoforte. Your shoes beside mine at the lake. Even your hair in my drain.

Can’t we stay there forever? Maybe you’ll work on your research and I can make you come when you get frustrated. Maybe I’ll try cooking for you, and you’ll return the favour when I lose my patience. Maybe something we’ll take care of, someday. I haven’t thought it through. Only that it would have your temper—and my jealousy.

I only want your future. Plainly. I want it for myself.

—

“I'm participating in the tryouts this year, I just want to know—”

Theo leaned back slightly, peering through the narrow gap in the door as he rambled on.

Inside, Draco kissing you, hand buried in your hair, the other at the small of your back. Entirely absorbed.

Theo stared back at the prattling boy.

“…the exercises for those maneuvers near the end—”

“Actually, you know what?"

Theo sucked his teeth.

"It’s your funeral.”

He opened the door and shoved the student inside.

—

Draco pulled back from you at the skidding sound—limply—and looked down at the fifth year now on all fours on the dormitory floor, blinking up at him.

A long cathedral silence.

You felt the shift in the air before you turned around. Draco eyes piercing at something.

Heat crashed into your face like a wall.

“Who—“ You started.

The boy scrambled upright, already flushing to his ears. "Um—! I'm Collin, I just wanted to—"

Draco’s eyebrows lifted, as if he couldn’t quite believe the boy had managed to keep talking.

“Sorry! I’ll—yes, I'll go.” the boy blurted, shuffling toward the door, deciding he’d gotten more than he’d bargained for.

The door clicked shut, through it, you could hear a sharp cackle.

You turned back to Draco.

Opened your mouth. Closed it. Horrified.

—

You had known, vaguely, what this would entail.

Names and scandal passed through the school like sweets—plentiful, irresistible. You had rolled them against your own tongue often enough to know. You just hadn't considered what it felt like to be the flavour. The way it barrelled forward. The way it twisted and melted into something unrecognisable—a cruel, runaway game of broken telephone, worst among the lower years who had the most enthusiasm.

You couldn’t get a grip on it. It left you reeling.

Because it wasn’t as simple as being caught snogging Slytherin’s star player.

No, not given your recent alignment with Harry Potter. Duelling at night. Constant dinners. The Slughorn party, where you had arrived at his side and people filed it away for exactly this kind of occasion.

This wasn't just gossip. It was sacrilege.

An offence of the highest order against Hogwarts' golden boy—and never mind that Draco was your confidante, that this was a moment with an entire history behind it. Never mind that nothing really transpired between you and Harry. None of that was the story. The story was simpler and more satisfying and rolled off the tongue.

Did you hear about—yes, her, Potter's—well apparently she and Malfoy—No. The next day. The next day they lost! She didn't. She did.

She's so—I know. 

Everyone knows.

Merlin. Bold.

That's an understatement.

It had tasted too sweet.

—

You'd tried Harry first.

But it was Hermione and Ron that met you at the Gryffindor common room entrance when you asked for him, shoulder to shoulder, his united front assembled.

"Sorry." Hermione's voice was understanding, though you still couldn’t help but feel ashamed. "It’s better he not be seen with you. Not right now."

—

Draco, then. He will say something—clarify something, offer something that might restore a version of the narrative you could actually live in. You knew his capacity for reframing a situation when it suited him.

What you had miscalculated was how thoroughly this one already suited him.

You heard it in class. Someone leaned toward him, trying to be subtle.

Is it true she cheated on Potter with you?

Draco failed to disguise the quirk of a smile on his face.

I don't kiss and tell. He turned a page. But, who would blame her, really.

Then that childish, arrogant laugh.

There it was. Hauteur, cresting. In his version of events you had both emerged from this gloriously, Harry Potter diminished by association. Arranged into a triumph without considering what shape it was taking around you.

It seems he hadn't heard what they were saying about you specifically, that they had avoided telling him.

You wanted to explode on him. But the anger kept snagging on the same thing. How certain, you had been, without ever saying so, that you were the one person in his world he would never speak about that way, no matter the audience. Yet, he had affirmed you were a mere prize in his story. That you weren't his equal.

—

It was the oldest feeling in the world.

Eclipsed under the big reputations of two self-absorbed, strong-willed boys—teenagers, no less, which made it worse. You felt suddenly, sourly diminished. Stripped of everything that usually distinguished you—the composure, the mind, the self-possession—and reduced to something embarrassingly hormonal and ordinary.

You could almost watch it from outside yourself. Some ancient, recurring humiliation finding its feet again with your name attached to it this time. She was a girl. Full stop. End of analysis. She was a girl and he was Harry Potter and the other one was a Malfoy and really, what did you expect, you know how girls are when there are boys like that involved—soft things, girls, porous, impressionable, ruled by wanting in ways they can't quite govern.

The boys would walk out of this mythology intact. Draco gilded by it. Harry sympathetic within it. And you—the girl—would walk out of it as a lesson to both of them.

"He didn't send me."

Theo arrived sideways as always, his hands up when he found you buried under a stack of books in the library. You were well into your examination revision and what appeared to be your fifth draft folded and waiting to be sent to Potter.

"I come in peace." He set a wrapped package on top of your notes. "Concessionary sandwich?"

"You can't eat in here."

"Mm." He unwrapped it and took a bite anyway.

The alluring smell hit you immediately—rich, salty. Prosciutto, maybe. Mozzarella. Something sharp and sweet—balsamic. It was bachelor food made premium.

You swallowed drily.

—

You hadn't been eating properly. Finals gnawed at you. You'd also shut yourself in your room and started actively rerouting your entire daily existence to avoid being seen with Draco. Arriving and leaving before him for every class. The library at lunch and dinner.

Anything not to stoke the rumours.

He’d taken the hint. Or something like it. Now, one lay crumpled on your table.

Minou —

Send me the questions you're not sure about. I'll go through them.

Beseechingly, Draco.

—

"Try it." Theo angled it toward you, seeing your expression. "You look a bit tragic."

"Thank you, Theo. Truly."

You took a generous bite anyway, not registering that you were being fed by hand.

“S’good,” you admitted. “Too salty, though.”

"It’s not my problem you prefer guys that don’t season their food."

"Spice intolerant?"

"English."

You laughed at that.

"He seasons his food just fine."

"M'kay."

“What did you put in this, though?”

"I'll teach you." He tore off another piece. "Even do it from scratch. Just take me off cake-decorating duty."

Oh, Draco's birthday.

You drifted, setting your pen down. In three weeks. You're too furious to even look at him. But you still have to celebrate his birthday. You must, he won't do it otherwise, would spend the whole day pretending it wasn't happening. But, how do you—when it hurt to—

A voice behind interrupted your thoughts, not quite bothering to lower itself.

"—haven't seen her in a while. Gone into hiding, apparently." A girlish giggle.

"Slytherins. Who's next? Nott?"

A chuckle. "It would only be fitting."

"How noisy." Theo's voice, quiet and flat, beside you. He raised his wand lazily. "Langlock."

The girls' mouths sealed mid-laugh. Their eyes went wide. They looked at each other, then found Theo and you through the bookcase, then decided collectively that this particular corner of the library was no longer worth their time and left.

In the quiet, a raw sob came out of you.

Theo stared at you.

"Gods." A pause. "Are you crying."

Another one. You pressed your hands to your face.

"Stop that." His expression shifted into something between distaste and mild alarm. He reached over and patted your back twice—the way you'd pat a surface to check if it was sturdy. "Right now. Stop."

You could not.

"I expected more from you, you know." His eyes swept the library once—calculating whether any of this could be traced back to him.

"Shut up," you said into your hands.

"You're not that special. Everyone screws around." It was not the least bit meant to comfort you but somehow it was the most effective. "Nobody's going to care in a month."

You looked up, eyes red. 

"So dramatic. Who cares?" A shrug, the full-body kind. "Do whatever you want.”

You wiped your face with your sleeve. Looked at him properly.

"...Why are you being nice to me?"

Theo who would pull your ear, lean in like he had a secret, and instead bellow something filthy directly into your eardrum.

Theo who would glare beneath your chandelier—run his fingers along the crystal drops—and then yank.

Theo who would knock you clean off your bike and then crouch down and press his thumb into the bruise. That single dimple appearing when you yelped. Like he'd won something.

“Because I know how it feels—” He stopped. To feel Draco’s personal brand of belittlement. To feel limited against him. Tried again. "To have people decide what something means before you've decided yourself."

His eyes held you in it softly. For the first time.

Your opalescent tears. The way you curved inward and made yourself smaller. The glassy quality of your eyes. The frailty swelled something inside him.

You had always existed, in his particular arithmetic, as something adjacent to Draco—which meant adjacent to poison, kept at bay, never fully trusted with anything. Teeth he might one day find at his throat. Or ammunition.

Now, you were just someone who was hurting.

Just someone he wanted, instinctively, to stop hurting.

He bit his lip.

"Eat the rest," he said instead.

And he stayed. Asked nothing, offered nothing further. Just sat in the library in the middle of a Tuesday with his head resting on the table and watched, peripherally, until your last bite and your tears long since dried.

THREE WEEKS LATER

Do you want to come for tea?

I'm leaving the house. Without sunscreen.

What did I do? You're being annoying.

Do you have my toothbrush? Give it back.

I bet I did better on Herbology than you. I’m telling your mum.

You are a horrible kisser.

You glared at the Malfoy owl. It had lost some of its severity over the past few days—fluffed from the relentless back and forth between the summer house and your estate, less large intimidating bird of prey and more something resembling a disgruntled house pet. Its abyss-black eyes regarded the letter in your hand with its head tilted at an angle that was almost unbearably reminiscent of a dog urging you to throw something.

You had not written back to any of them. This latest one read:

I'm sorry. Please hate me from here.

You hadn't shown.

For the three days before his birthday—when everyone would usually begin arriving—you had not shown up.

A letter from Blaise arrived for Draco on the first morning instead.

Can't come. Called away to Marseille. Back in time for the formal. Don't ruin my rackets.

Happy birthday, you little prat. Don't do anything I wouldn't do.

— B.

Draco had laughed at that. Blaise had been born four months earlier and considered this gap a permanent evidence of his superior wisdom. He mentioned it regularly.

You had been suspended between going and not going when the owl returned late that night.

Another letter tucked in its beak. Only this time it didn't land.

It simply hovered. And hovered.

Just far enough that you couldn't reach it from the window.

You watched it. It watched you back.

Then it turned and disappeared into the dark, the letter still in its beak.

You stared at the empty window for a long moment—it felt like skin bracing before the pierce of shrapnel.

Then you started packing.

—

"You surely took your time. He's driving me nuts."

Theo appeared at your bedroom door, leaning lazily against the frame.

"Is he at the lake?"

“Mm.” He tilted his head slightly. “Hate how eerie he gets when he’s mad.”

You sighed into your closet, stuffing the last of your underwear into a drawer with slightly more force than necessary.

Then you turned to him. Sunkissed. Chiseled. Loose brown curls nearly brushing the top of your door frame. After the little snippet of sympathy at the library, it seemed Theo felt more tangible. More defined.

“You’re tanned more than usual.”

“I started my summer early.” He pushed himself off the frame and wandered in, dropping onto your bed with a self-satisfied grin.

“Where?”

“It began at Les Ambassadeurs, then Annabel's—ended in someone’s cellar, if I recall correctly.” He droned the itinerary like exhaling smoke.

Your brows knit together. “With?”

“The Browns. Palmer. Davie Whitmore.”

Muggle-borns.

"You know I don't particularly care about blood purity," you raised an eyebrow, crossing your arms. "But you ought to be more careful about where you're seen. And with whom."

He shifted onto his side, propping his head up with one hand. His linen shirt slipped slightly as he did.

“Well, they prove far more stimulating company."

The movement exposed the line of his collarbone—and just beneath it, faint marks. Two small bruises, violet against gold.

You stared without meaning to.

Theo followed your gaze, then looked back at you, that one dimple denting his face.

“Might’ve been your best friend's cellar.” Daphne.

You bit the inside of your cheek.

How easy it must be, to be so unruly.

To surrender to vices, amours and never be faulted for them—never admonished, never reduced by them. To be a man was, apparently, to move through the world without the specific tithe levied on everything ‘she’ did.

You had to pay and you had not even indulged in them.

To hell with it.

You crossed the room.

Theo straightened at once, your sudden movement sharpening his attention. His eyes flickered. Throat working as he swallowed, rising back to sitting as you closed the distance—until your shadow fell over him and his long legs bracketed yours. Close enough to catch the scent of him: woody, musky, the familiar ghost of his Luckies.

Close enough to make out the particular texture of the bruises on his skin. It left too much to the imagination. Had she pressed her mouth there to consume him, or only to consecrate him as hers—briefly, carelessly, the way you might fold the corner of a page in a book you never meant to finish?

Here he was. Someone's almost. You could take him into your mouth, taste him and spit him back out if you wanted.

If everyone already considers me a libertine too—why not?

"Tell me what you want."

He whispered carefully.

You became suddenly aware of the warmth radiating from his thighs, the large hands that had found their way to yours, sliding upward.

You looked down at his amber eyes. There was something unusually warm, almost wounded in them, it made your stomach churn. It reminded you he belonged in piazzas and lemon groves and oh, has he always been this tender?

He licked his rosy lips. “Let me make you feel better.”

Before you could answer, he pulled you in by the waist and pressed a soft peck to your mouth.

"This is okay?" he murmured against you. "We've done this before."

You nodded once.

"Mhm?" He kisses you again slowly as you savour the faint bitterness of cigarettes on his tongue.

His hand slid higher, your dress whispering along your thighs.

His fingers reached the fabric of your underwear. He swallowed, it felt like he was running a hand through dew-wet petals.

You moaned softly into his mouth, at the sensation of him thumbing your clit through your underwear.

"It's okay. Just feel good, baby." He cooed as he took in your pleasured expression.

He drew the fabric aside. One long finger pressing into you, as you gripped his forearm. Nails grazing the firm muscle and the little fuzz of his body hair—the masculinity unmistakeable.

"Mmm…”

I might not be the one you want, he thought. But I can be good for you tonight.

Your breath stuttered as his fingers moved. They were long enough to reach deep, his palm rolling against your clit with every slow stroke. You steadied yourself with a hand on his shoulder, his angular nose tipping to nuzzle at your neck.

"See?" he breathed. "It doesn't have to mean anything."

It felt like he threw cold water at you.

The moment it left his mouth it didn’t reassure you like how he’d intended. It hollowed. The truth of what this was. And the truth was that you wanted it to mean something. You felt it in how suddenly the pleasure drained out of you—disruptive now, where it had been tender a moment ago.

Your mind went back to the girl who had slipped from his bed a few weeks ago—dark hair, bare feet, gone by morning. It didn't feel like it was for you. You didn’t want relief, didn’t want to be baby just for tonight.

"Stop." You stepped back, drawing his hand away. "I—I can’t."

He looked at you—hands at your sides rumpling your dress, cheeks flushed.

You weren't sure of much when you'd kissed him last summer. But you were sure of this. This one you could not let slip by.

"I can't, Theo."

He held your gaze for a moment. Then, quietly: "Okay—"

But you were already gone.

—

Draco smelled you before he saw you. The smell of your hair when it weaved with the damp scent of the lake. Only now why did you smell like smoke, too?

He sat up slowly, eyes gleaming up at you in the night.

"You."

A rough kick at his groin.

"Fuck—" His hands flew between his legs, curling forward.

"Don't ever talk about me like that again."

All at once Draco felt ten years old again—hitting the carpet, the ire on your face, the silence that had followed the first time the word bitch had escaped his mouth.

"What are you—what are you on about—"

"Like I'm something you conquered."

He went still.

You stood over him, your gaze searing, the calm waters swishing behind you. "You. Out of everyone. Belittle me?"

“Who could blame her, really?” You repeated mockingly. “Like I was nothing to you.”

The realisation moved through him slowly. Then all at once. His ears burned, an ache in his chest. How fragile the craving had been—he saw that now—how quietly it had curdled into the franticness of taking, so effortless, that it was beneath his notice.

"I'm sorry." His voice came out quieter than he intended. "I wasn't—I didn't think."

A sob came out of you. His eyes fractured at the sound.

Your heart felt raw. With wanting him to talk about you the way you talked about him—like you were telling them come outside, come look at the moon. It's consuming and unnerving but isn't it beautiful?

"I hate this," you said finally. "I'm all messed up inside."

He was quiet for a moment. Then he shifted—propped himself on his knees, wrapped his arms around your thighs, pressed his face against them. It reminded you of how he'd help putting your shoes on for you. How, before the incandescence of intimacy blurred everything, before the roll of the dice, before the winter night, it had been this. Just this.

"I love when you scream those annoying songs in my ear." He kissed your thigh.

A tear slipped down your face.

"I love when you leave crumbs on my bed."

You lowered yourself slowly, the grass cool beneath you.

"I love how you outsmart me in Astronomy every single time."

You laid on top of him, knees knocking against yours.

"I love when I only have to look at you and you already know what I'm thinking." His hands cradled your face.

A beat. His thumb traced your cheekbone.

"You are half of me. I love you." Come back to me.

The syllables of your name rolled slowly off his tongue, cementing it was all for you.

You pouted, tears teeming down your cheeks. "Don't ever embarrass me like that again."

He shook his head, kissing them away.

"I’ll make it right in school. Swear it." Breathless against your mouth. "How do I make it right here, now?"

His lips moved to your jaw, your throat.

He squeezed your waist. “Tell me how.”

"Those earrings you were eyeing?" A kiss at the shell of your ear.

"New vinyl? Box seats?" Kiss.

"Tell me, princess." Kiss.

Against your thigh, he didn’t seem to realise he had gotten hard.

You loosed a breath, eyes trailing downward.

He caught your face with his hands immediately.

"Ignore it.”

Draco thought, you cannot mistake this.

You cannot reinvent this moment.

You cannot mistake this for simple pleasure.

It is so much more.

You nudged your forehead against his. “I want to."

Still, he waited. One beat. Two. Searching for any sign of a flicker.

Instead, your pupils swelled. “Show me, Draco. Please.” Properly, lovingly, wholly this time.

It made his length feel heftier in between his legs. He flipped you, spreading you beneath him. “I’ll show you exactly how sorry I am.”

Soft kisses pressed along your collarbones. Then, you could suddenly feel a sniffing sensation against your skin. His nose tickling you, tracing something.

“What is it?”

“Hm. Nothing.”

He quietly filed the bitter smell away. The way it intruded rudely with your natural balmy scent. Later.

He lowered himself to your supple breasts, licking his lips at the way it swelled out of your wispy barely-there dress—one of your summer’s greatest blessings—as he tugged at the neckline.

Under him, you preened without meaning to, searching his eyes as his hands moved over you—so large and mannish—tracing the soft curve, the femininity you were still not accustomed to.

He drew his lips over your nipple, squeezing and testing. His mouth felt unfairly cold, like he had been chewing ice, causing your nipples to pebble. You sighed as the wet muscle of his tongue worked circles around the bud, how he suckled harder as your back arched.

His grey eyes flickered to yours mid-motion as he ran your other nipple along his row of teeth, saliva running down the mound.

If you didn’t know how he felt about them, you knew now. He sucked them like he was hungry—like he wanted to draw something out. Committing the taste of your skin, the distinct salt of your sweat to memory.

Your hands grappled at his messy hair—the heat had given it texture—as he moved down your stomach, kissing moles, marks as he went.

He licked long, ardent stripes onto your slick underwear, the wet cotton sticking transparently onto your cunt. You moaned, your thighs pressing together instinctively while his hands held your hips steady. Your vision blurred with sensation, only the sight of your best friend’s head in between your legs and the sweet, sweet sounds he made, grounding you.

The moon as a boy—with his white linens and translucent skin—was eating you.

He finally slipped your underwear away, pocketing them and drawing your hips forward a little too eagerly, your fingers curling into the grass beneath you.

This time, his soft lips clamped onto your clit, while his fingers traced your folds, patient, gathering. Once he collected enough of your slick, he pumped them slowly inside you, your walls now better at taking them in than before.

“Mhm? Like that?” He purred into you as your nails dug onto his scalp. You rolled your hips into him, roughly dragging at his nose, both of your exertions needy and feverish like the night had casted an opium haze. Draco’s eyes once so striking now glazed over from intoxication.

He tested one more finger—his ring finger—throat bobbing at the tightness at your entrance. Despite how slippery you were inside, his prodding had stuttered. He tucked it away. Not yet.

The familiar churn rose in your stomach, the still woods upside down above you, turning and turning each time you blinked—your vision trying and failing to right itself, the world tilting pleasantly off its axis.

"I love you. I love you. Come in my mouth."

It was all you heard before your eyes squeezed shut, his name dissolving behind your teeth as the feeling crested—his tongue and fingers merciless, your orgasm damn near agonising.

You sighed up to the void. At the stars, hanging like holier-than-thou eye witnesses to the act. You could hardly care. Let the cosmos know Draco Malfoy could put his mean mouth to good use.

When you came back to yourself, Draco was sitting up—pale hair pressed flat against his forehead, cheeks flushed like he’d just went on a run. Except he was sucking his fingers clean, eyes on you.

"We can stop here—" he loosed a breath.

Your feet lifted to his bulge before he could even think you were finished. Kneading hard onto the firm length with the ball of your feet.

He groaned. His hand caught your ankle.

“Take it out.” You whined. He was right, you were a spoiled brat. How could you not be? When you knew he would always bow to you like this.

You wanted soil under your nails, leaves caught in your hair, the lake watching. The woods watching. For him to take you here in the open summer air, to press your body into the soft earth and make a thumbprint out of you. Wanted him to make a mess of you.

You nudged at his trousers with your foot, teasing, until the waistband caught awkwardly against the print beneath. A faint dampness showed through.

You laughed as he swatted your foot away with a huff, half amused, half flustered.

For a moment, he hesitated, then pushed his boxers down. His pale cock sprung free, the tip flushed and dewy—nearly purple from the ichor rushing through it. He reached for your hand where it rested in the grass and guided it around his girth, his fingers closing firmly over yours.

A broken whimper slips out of him as he began to slide himself from the thick, veiny shaft to the sensitive head with your fingers—spreading the thick spurts through the length.

His eyes flickered to yours, searching.

“How is it?” he asked so quietly you nearly missed it.

You drew yourself closer, flush with his thighs, guiding his length against your stomach. A sharp breath caught in your chest as you realized just how much of him there was—how far he would go if you meant to take him fully. It nearly reached your belly button.

“I want it inside me,” you said as steadily you could, though you couldn’t tell if your core pulsed from apprehension or want.

He slipped the dress away from you and paused, taking you in where you lay against the grass. All softness and curve. So pliant and kneadable in his hands. Laid upon the grass like you were one of those marble muses at his estate, left beneath an open sky to be worshipped.

Then his focus shifted—to his six-foot self, to the length in his hands. The clean lines of his stomach, the masculine sharpness in his hips, the strength in the angles of his body. You were equals in every way that mattered—and yet here, the cruel truth of your bodies, of your biology. How easily he might hurt you. And not even intend to. His chest ached.

You saw the shift in his eyes. The drunkenness receding, replaced by brooding. His thoughts had turned, from the urge to please to caution, the awareness that it might impale you instead.

You had to remind him you wanted it as much as he did, that it still ended in pleasure.

You caressed his cheek, guiding his gaze back to yours.

“You’re not hurting me.”

He caught his lower lip between his teeth, eyes flickering over your face. “Tell me,” he said. “and I’ll stop.”

You nodded.

“I need to hear it.” He brushed a strand of hair from where it clung to your cheek.

“Yes, Draco.”

He began sliding his plump tip through your folds. An involuntary jolt each time the raw, fleshy texture met with your clit. Your breath hitched, turning uneven as sensation built in quiet, insistent waves.

The air felt thick with it—the musky, heady scent of skin, of him, of you. The lake as the overarching note. You wanted to bottle it up.

You pushed yourself up onto your elbows, needing to see. The sight alone made your breath catch again—the creamy head spearing through you slit. He was leaking so much you'd thought he came already.

“Bit wider.” He spread your legs, trying to ease in the rounded tip.

He winced at the squeeze of your entrance. In his manoeuvres to fulfil your wishes and have him inside you—he alternated between gathering slick and fisting it in little by little. But for the life of him, your poor hole could not even accomodate the tip. His cock bending, surrendering each time he tried to press into you.

While he was concerned for your pain, you were trying not to come from him simply rubbing and trying to enter you.

You took him back into your hands before you could, guiding him inside. This time, you pressed more firmly, groaning at the chafing sensation—pain and pleasure blurring together as he finally began to give, the tip breaking into you.

He arched forward, moaning with you, the pressure undoing him. He mumbled against your lips—soft, breathless I love you's and I'm sorry's, repeated like a mantra. His fingers crushing your hips.

Oh, you, he thought, as you strained to take him. Everyone was wrong. I’m not empty—my heart is right here, in my hands.

A tear slipped from the corner of your eye, and he caught it instantly, brushing it away with a kiss.

He was nearly all the way in now, your bodies folding into one another, closing the distance inch by inch—like two hands reaching for each other. His face nuzzled the curve of your neck, licking apologetically.

“Love you. You’re doing so well.”

He breathed slowly into your hair, the life pulsing through you now thrumming against his cock—the warmth, the wetness. How it had all been his doing.

You laid back onto the grass, your arms rising to clasp around his neck.

“I’ll start moving, okay?”

He began moving his hips, the tiniest of increments, as your hole bore the girth, the shape of him. Feeling every heartbeat from his veins. Gods, you could not bear it.

You searched his face, finding the same tension there—the same furrow in his brow, as though the feeling was almost painful.

“Deeper, Draco.”

“Mm. It will hurt.”

“I want all of you inside me.” How could he ever say no to you when you talk to him like that?

He drew you closer, pressing you flush against him, fingers stuttering at your hips. You felt a sharp stab of pleasure go through you from the spot he reached deep inside, you were dripping so much now it seemed to slip him in without trying.

“Taking it so well,” He whimpered as you squeezed around him again.

Only because you fit inside me so perfectly.

He found a rhythm then, deeper, steadier, each thrust accompanied by a stroke of your clit. Though, just the snap of the mound of his pelvis could make you come.

“I can feel you,” you mewled, a faint metallic taste on your lips—you had bitten your lips too hard.

"Does it feel good?" he asked despite everything.

"Yes, gods, keep going."

He was unraveling. His face had turned completely red. You could see it in the way he rutted sloppily inside you, how desperately he grasped your body, the stutter of his navel. He was straining not to come first.

You realised, for all his ego, this was his first time too. That he, himself, could not bear it.

And then—

Like last summer. Something caught at the edge of your vision.

That pale gossamer hovered on the lake again. Breathing light. It drifted, gathering itself, no longer just a fleeting shimmer but something more defined. Something forming. A ghostly creature.

A broken moan drew you back to Draco.

You reached up instinctively, inserting two fingers into his mouth. He took them in without hesitation, sucking, placating himself. He looked like he might cry.

“Come with me,” you whispered.

He moved faster then, his rhythm faltering at the edges as the moment overtook him. The earth pressed against your back, re-moulded with every thrust.

“I—I’m close,” he breathed.

You could almost feel the thumping, the rush of his orgasm course through his cock inside you.

Every time he tore the grass from his exertions, he had to move his palms to another patch, and ground himself anew.

You had the oddest compulsion to wrap your legs around his waist to keep him there, and hold his come inside you. You filed the thought away for later.

His thumb kept steady work on your clit, squeezing your orgasm out of you, willing you to come around his cock.

He gnawed on your fingers now, barely holding himself together. Your other hand gripped his bicep tightly, nails pressing into the muscle as you reached your limit too.

All of a sudden it felt like you could identify you and him everywhere.

A pair of lungs unfurling. A double egg yolk merging.

You broke first.

And it might have been the hardest thing Draco had ever done—to hold back, to stay present through the overwhelming pull of your cunt, your walls nearly emptying him clean.

You were still mid-orgasm, when he pulled out so quickly it felt like a part of you was yanked with him.

He came in thick ropes, the pale pigment like spilled milk on the grass. He hadn't wanted to come on you, but some of it still landed and glazed your puffy folds.

“Oh, fuck,” he murmured roughly—spent, as he stroked himself through his orgasm.

You curled in on yourself, the aftershocks still moving through you, your fingers desperately pressing down hard on your clit, trying to counter the blinding pleasure with pain. For a sensation that felt like you weren't falling through the sky.

But you couldn’t help it. You grabbed his tender cock, still flinching from the last of his seed and squeezed, inclining more of it to come out.

He fell against you with a low groan, a teeth impression carving itself deeply into your collarbone. His hands piercing your sides as you continued to apply pressure.

“Fuck! Fuck—please I can’t anymore.”

You ceased your torment, satisfied with his overstimulation.

“Mm—it’s not a toy.” He huffed, still panting.

You laughed breathlessly. Always a tally with you.

For a while, you simply heaved against each other, letting the heartbeats speak for themselves. Before your breath could catch up to you, the little moonlit creature fizzled back into the lake. You sighed exasperatedly.

Slowly, your senses began to return.

He had given it to you. Something lasting. You and him eternally embedded into the earth like a root finding its depth.

The orgasm faded gradually, though you couldn’t quite tell when it ended. It felt as though your body was still aching from being carved.

Draco remained melting over you, his breathing shallow, still caught in that moment. The soft gauze dirtied from where his knees dug the earth.

You scratched his back lightly, nails grazing him back to you. How he had shattered already made it apparent, but you wanted to hear it from his mouth. Wanted to know if he held this moment as preciously as you did.

"Draco," you said finally, cradling him against you.

"Hm?"

"Did you ever—" You paused. "Did you sleep with Parkinson?"

You felt his smirk form against your shoulder. Parkinson. Until now she had never been Pansy—you hadn't been able to afford the familiarity.

"I did." His voice was low. "You should have heard her."

He shifted against you, pitching his voice high and breathless. "Yes—fuck me, Draco—Oh! Fuck me harder—" Grinding into you as he said it, the faux moans so committed it was almost impressive.

You shoved him off and hit him—open palm, hard enough that his head turned with it.

He laughed, "I love when you do that."

You said nothing, your expression souring.

"Did you know your neck is exactly ten kisses long?" He asked suddenly. "Or that your nipples harden from just my breath? Or that when you come, you make this little—"

"I get it." Your face was hot.

He bumped his nose against yours, gentle. "I'm all yours. Always."

Life becomes more bearable when you look as crazy as me, he thought.

You stared up at him, searching for the words. You wanted to offer something, too.

"I kissed Theo," you said. "Last summer."

Oh.

Draco's lashes fell.

Like a grand curtain, the eyes of someone retracting to a place they do not speak of. That same place last winter. But this time the quiet didn't feel solemn. It was older. Predated language, predated the names you had for things like love and want and mine.

And then he laughed nervously, too lightly, making your stomach churn. Because he laughed like that when he was buying time. Had heard it once before, in the pretty palace that was your room, on the pristine carpet with his hand at Theo's throat and Theo's face going the colour of something dying, and you had said stop it, Draco, what are you doing and he had laughed exactly like this and said, he's fine—

The glint of your locket against your skin drew his gaze down, a small silver mercy. His hand came to your neck, large and warm, nearly swallowing it whole.

"How did it make you feel?" His thumb moved, barely.

"Don't look at me like that."

"What else?"

"Nothing else." A beat. "Nothing."

Draco hated that he could tell when you lied.

𓇖 a/n: Thank you for being patient and the check-ins in my inbox I will get to them soon. 🤍 I'm all good, just busy and didn't want to post anything half-hearted.

To Draco's credit, there had been a great many times he'd tried to create a rift between you and Harry Potter.

A great many times. With varying degrees of dignity.

He'd thought having you in Slytherin with him would do the heavy lifting. 

But something about Hogwarts lit you up and made you harder to hold onto. You'd arrived already interesting, and the castle just handed you a match.

That ugly feeling within Draco started in Year Two.

You’d fallen into easy conversation with Harry the way you always seemed to with people outside your world—openly, hungrily—because you were discovering, in real time, what life looked like beyond pure-blood society. Beyond rules and stiff customs.

It beckoned with a kind of irreverent charm.

An undeniable sense of liberty you hadn’t realised you’d been missing.

And Harry—Harry, who rejected everything that world stood for made you the only exception.

You were different. And he liked that.

He liked you.

It was, by all accounts, a most unlikely friendship and yet it settled between you with comfort.

You were mid-sentence, hands moving animatedly as you spoke, the corridor narrowing around the two of you without you noticing.

“…and come to think of it, she never gave me back my atlas—”

You were telling him about Daphne, about the betrayal that had cut clean through your friendship. Exactly the sort of thing pure-blood society rewarded—and the words just came.

At some point, Draco had simply… slipped out of it.

Three paces behind. Then five.

Then not part of the conversation at all.

Hence the violent, echoing slam of his books against the stone floor.

The startling sound split through the corridor like something breaking.

You looked at the mess of his books next to your feet. Then at him.

Shock flickered across your face. You hadn’t quite expected him to bring that sort of childishness with him to Hogwarts.

You might have laughed, it was such a classic tantrum.

Draco, then, had a kind of childish severity that made everything feel terribly serious, even when it wasn’t.

He stood a few feet back, one fist curled tight at his side, wearing that petulant expression. Looking down at you, even when you stood at the same height.

“Draco!”

He just looked at you, daring you to be angry with him.

You left me there!

“Bloody hell,” Harry muttered, staring at the scattered books.

But you were already turning away, crouching to gather them.

“Excuse us, Harry,” you said over your shoulder, hoping the politeness in your voice would suffice as an apology.

Then, quieter—as you rose, closing the distance between you and Draco—

“Just what is wrong with you?”

You grabbed his hand, nudging him down the corridor, away from Harry, away from watching eyes.

“On a first-name basis already, then?” he snarled.

This followed a slew of desperate attempts to limit your interactions as much as possible. Notes appearing on your desk.

Minou, 

Skip next period with me.

Knowing Harry would be in the next class.

—

It festered further at the Yule Ball in Year Four.

Draco had thought that as long as Harry knew you were with him tonight, he would be kept at bay. He hadn't accounted for you.

You’d caught the familiar posture of Harry in these kinds of gatherings—shy, stiff, standing just off to the side.

A smile touched your face as you made your way over.

You wanted him to be part of it.

Music and movement—the simple, reckless pleasure of dancing without thinking. 

The nostalgia had driven you: a kitchen lit low, giggles spilling freely as Draco spun you in uneven circles, little feet pattering against the flagstones. Dizzying you with him.

You wanted it for Harry now. Just a sliver of that.

He saw you coming and started to arrange his expression into something politely resistant. You caught his hand before he could protest.

“Dance with me!”

You pulled him to his feet—dragging him, laughing together, onto the dance floor.

Draco returned from the restroom to find your seat empty.

He paused beside the table, gaze sweeping once across the room before settling on Pansy with a look that needed no words since approximately second year. Where?

She tipped her chin slightly behind him, “Potter.”

Draco turned, his gaze settling on the two of you.

Harry was beginning to find the rhythm of it—awkward at first, still a beat behind, but loosening. Learning to dance the way you always did: careless, as though it was only the two of you there.

Draco told himself, over the course of the evening, that he didn't mind. That he was fine with you making your rounds. Talking, laughing, moving between people. 

But this.

This really put a bad taste in his mouth.

He did not like the idea of him having that memory with you.

"I should kill his damn owl," he said to nobody, under his breath.

Pansy reached for her goblet, "Let them have fun, Draco."

He said nothing.

"She's young." A pause. "We're young." 

The last part came quieter. Still turning it over to see if it held.

It was wildly unnatural, that kind of self-awareness, coming from a teenager.

But Pansy had always been strangely wise when it came to Draco. 

She’d known, somewhere in the weight of watching him, that he needed to hear it—that his life was still unfolding, wide with possibility.

That maybe he needed more space to grow. For him, for both of you.

Whether that thought was entirely selfless—she didn't examine it. Not tonight.

On the floor, Harry finally found the beat.

You laughed delightfully, tipping your head back like you’d given him something.

Draco remained very quiet. 

Still, Pansy waited, watching him carefully, searching his face for something.

She wasn’t entirely sure what she was hoping for.

Only that she might recognise it.

—

The final catalyst was the Quidditch match that year. 

It was particularly brutal: rain in relentless sheets, the sky in a low, churning grey that turned the pitch into something closer to a battlefield than a game. 

It felt like something final.

Slytherin had led for most of the match. Their Chasers kept tight formation despite the weather, forcing the Quaffle through Gryffindor’s hoops again and again, building a narrow but steady lead. 

Draco had been sharp in the air, grey eyes flicking constantly for the Snitch.

Harry, lower at first, had taken longer to adjust. They were both soaked through, hair plastered to their heads, faces slick, indistinguishable from the sky itself.

The Bludgers were vicious that day.

One clipped Harry hard in the shoulder, spinning him half off course. Another forced him into a sudden dive, skimming dangerously close to the stands before he pulled up again.

Now, they’re both darting in the same direction.

A flicker of gold. 

Near the Slytherin end, just beneath the goal hoops, darting erratically against the storm.

Draco had moved first—clean, controlled, dropping into a sharp dive with the better angle.

For a moment, it looked his.

But Harry followed, faster than he should have in weather like that, moving purely on instinct and adrenaline as the Snitch dipped lower.

The wind dragged at them, rain blurring everything.

The Snitch veered. Draco adjusted—a fraction too late.

Harry persisted. He reached—

caught it.

The whistle blew.

“Gryffindor!”

The roar from the stands was deafening.

Draco pulled up sharply, breath tight, the loss settling in with a cold, immediate clarity.

Instinctively, he looked up to you.

Standing among the Slytherins, green and silver dulled under the rain, frustration rippling through the crowd as they bore the loss. 

There. 

A rebellious grin on your face standing out. Unable to hide it.

Unmistakeable pride. Glowing. For Harry.

He watched him look to you with a smile, giving you a nod. He caught the exchange—that quiet, knowing look that passed between you. 

Well? 

Nicely done, seeker. 

Draco stood there, rain striking against his head like bullets. Uncaring—the pang of pain in his chest had dulled everything else.

How you managed to say so much without a word. The sheer implication of it. 

He knew then.

There was no space for the both of them.

No version of this where he could stand beside you, and made room for Harry Potter too.

"We simply cannot let this happen."

Draco was pacing. His shoes tracked restless circuits across the rug, and his fingers kept finding his signet ring, sliding it off, pressing it back on.

He’d decided to sought out his father once he was back home for the holidays.

"Potter’s not pure-blooded, we can't let her go astray," he paused. "…it’s also disrupting house relations."

He knew, even as the words left his mouth, how childish they sounded—how thin the argument was. But he clung to it anyway, hoping, perhaps desperately, that it would be enough to sway his father.

Lucius did not look up at first. The scratch of his quill continued, measured, unhurried.

"Draco," he said quietly, "you are going astray."

He stilled, only for a moment, before resuming his restless circuit.

“Oh, please,” Lucius added dismissively. “This has nothing to do with blood purity or your houses. Quit fidgeting.”

Draco’s jaw tightened. He halted mid-step, something more desperate flashing beneath the irritation.

"We ought to pull her away from Hogwarts, I could teach her everything she needs here. Everything relevant." His eyes suddenly bright, convinced and slightly crazed. "I've drawn up a framework—"

The quill stopped.

"You are grasping," Lucius said gently. "And you are doing it poorly."

Draco bristled. "I—"

"She will hate you," He cut in, absolute. "Sit."

Lucius studied him for a long moment.

At the tension in his shoulders. The brittle certainty. The quiet, gnawing fear beneath it all.

He knew this. He had been this.

God help them both.

Lucius leaned back, steepling his fingers. When he spoke again, his tone shifted—each word chosen to land.

"You will listen. And you will listen closely, Draco."

Draco held his father’s gaze.

"You can bind her to your wing,” he began. "Lock every door. Strip her of every path that does not lead back to you."

He paused.

"You could force her hand. Force her name to become yours."

Lucius leaned forward then, his voice dropping into something intimate in its severity.

"But she would never completely belong to you. Body and soul."

The fire crackled in the grate. Outside, wind moved through the grounds.

Lucius glanced, briefly, at the portrait on the wall. Narcissa painted young, caught mid-turn, as if she'd been in the middle of leaving for somewhere far more interesting when the artist had finally managed to hold her attention for five consecutive minutes.

"You know, there are easier choices," he said, more quietly now. "Agreeable ones. Ones who would be grateful, biddable, and perfectly content within whatever world you built for them."

He glanced back at Draco—

and sighed when he saw it.

That unyielding, determined look.

"Though unfortunately, it seems you and I share the same disastrous taste."

He rose, moving behind his son.

“Stop thinking in chains.”

His posture sharpened.

"You don’t forbid her from leaving, you make staying feel essential." "You don’t demand her attention, you make her crave for yours." "You don’t close her world, you place yourself at the center of it."

Each statement was said with such certainty, as though they’d been learned rather than imagined.

He stepped forward again, just enough to catch Draco’s eye.

"You have to make yourself indispensable, Draco."

SUMMER TERM, PRESENT

Indispensable.

The word sat somewhere behind Draco’s ribs.

Below him, the final Quidditch match had begun to take shape. The chaos of it—Chasers shouting, Bludgers cracking through the air, the crowd surging in waves—all felt distant, muffled.

Snitch. Potter. You.

The three words rang through his head as he adjusted himself.

Draco’s Nimbus 2001 cut across the pitch in a low, aggressive arc, effortless from a lifetime of flying before most people even learned how to read. Then he pulled up, rising higher than necessary.

He levelled out and hovered.

Turned.

His gaze found you with precision, already looking up at him.

You sat at the top of the middle section, one knee drawn up. Your gaze gave nothing away—your eyes moving over him with a quality of attention that was neither warm nor cold but simply total.

Draco held it for a beat too long for you to feel it, hands tightening around his broom, his chest rising and falling slowly. Dedication.

Then, a beat longer.

No, devotion.

He looked away.

—

Harry came out after, pulling up hard. His robes snapped behind him, the movement less controlled than Draco’s but no less effective—just different.

He had gotten better.

He rose, adjusted, then smiled at you softly.

A quiet recognition. You knew what it had taken for him to get here. The numerous times you’d turned over strategies together.

Draco watched this.

Watched the way Harry’s expression changed when he found you. The way something in his shoulders loosened, before he released a long sigh. Like relief.

Then Draco looked back at the pitch.

And went again.

I’m crossing you out.

—

It escalated by degrees like it always did.

Small adjustments that stacked on each other until something sharper began to form.

Harry moved first when the Snitch flickered into view—a flash of gold near the left goalpost.

He dove.

Draco followed a beat later—cutting across the angle, forcing Harry wider, disrupting the clean line.

Harry adjusted quickly, banking out and circling back in tighter. He was learning.

Annoyingly fast.

They moved in parallel for a moment—two clean lines closing in on the same point.

Then, the Snitch vanished again.

Reset.

—

At each break, after a near miss, after a sharp turn, after a dangerous recovery—

they both looked to you.

It always felt like the world had frozen over, like it slowed.

Their mouths parted slightly. Breathless.

Heat sat high on their skin, a rosiness rising along their cheekbones, sweat gathering at the temples—then dripping steadily down their neck as they caught their breaths.

They looked younger somehow. Fresh-faced.

But it was the focus on their eyes—the arresting grey and green—and the furrow of their brows. How they sharpened at you made your throat dry.

It wasn’t just the blinding sun.

No, they were luminous with a sort of steadfastness that you’d never seen before.

Harry’s gaze was softer, asking. Did you see?

Draco’s did not ask. You saw.

You gave them nothing, composing your face into neutrality. You couldn’t quite place how or when you’d felt it.

Subconsciously, you just knew your every reaction carried weight now.

As if the smallest shift in your expression—every breath, every glance—might tip something unseen, might push them a fraction further than they should go.

But your gaze held. That was enough to keep Draco pushing.

—

Harry tried the Wronski Feint next.

You saw it forming before it happened—the way his body aligned, the sudden, decisive drop.

It took a second for the crowd to catch up, for the realisation to ripple through the stands.

He held the dive longer than he should have.

Long enough that your body reacted before your mind could stop it.

Draco shot after him.

You sat forward involuntarily. Your hand came to the railing.

The ground rushed up to meet him, dangerously close—

And then—

he pulled up, in one piece.

Draco followed, but not cleanly. The strain hit him the moment he leveled out—his legs buckled, his landing faltering as he half-collapsed. Grass spraying in his path.

Harry came out of it breathless, that familiar reckless brightness breaking through his focus—the kind that only appeared when his body had done something his brain hadn’t quite approved first.

He looked to the stands. You exhaled.

The smallest movement at the corner of your mouth, barely there. You couldn't help it.

You absolute idiot.

Harry like he’d been handed something.

—

Draco was not, technically, reckless.

He was too precise for that.

What followed was deliberate in a way that made reckless look unambitious—control pushed to its visible limit.

He accelerated first.

A clean burst of speed that cut across the pitch like a blade, the Nimbus answering him without resistance—cutting not toward the Snitch, but across its path, intercepting where it would be.

The Snitch flashed ahead of him.

Erratic.

It veered sharply—

And Draco stopped. Stillness that didn’t belong at that speed.

Momentum itself had been dismissed rather than utilised—holding position for a fraction of a second as the Snitch changed direction mid-flight.

Harry closed in.

—

Draco moved. Not away, through.

—

He cut across Harry’s line with brutal precision, so close their shoulders collided.

Definitely not a graze.

It was sharp enough to jolt the line of Harry’s body, his broom forced off its axis mid-chase, the clean trajectory breaking under impact.

But not enough to be called.

Draco chose the force, chose the risk. Living exactly on the edge of the rules.

—

Harry’s Firebolt jolted, dipping for a fraction too long, he corrected a little too late.

It looked like he might not recover.

—

Your heartbeat stuttered, spiking the moment Draco cut across him.

Because that—that had crossed a line.

Draco. Harry.

Their names pressed at your lips—caught there, unsaid—one reprimanding, the other warning.

Your eyes locked onto Harry, tracking the drop, the dangerous tilt of the broom, the way he fought to force it steady beneath him again.

Making sure he was still in it, safe.

Your hand came to your shirt without thinking, fingers pressing into the fabric as if you could steady the sudden shift in your chest. The heat clung to your skin, your palms damp—you wiped them furiously against your trousers.

Your gaze flickered to Draco, your head tilting in the slightest shake, your mouth set into a thin, unimpressed line.

Why?

He caught it immediately.

His eyebrow lifted, stubborn as ever. A quiet huff leaving him as he held your gaze.

Because I can.

—

Draco turned. Sharp, impossibly so.

A pivot that should have thrown him from the broom, that should have broken his balance. But it didn’t—his core held, already matching the Snitch’s new trajectory before it had fully committed to it.

He dropped, like falling.

But he wasn’t, he was tracking it.

The Snitch dipped low, cutting dangerously toward the pitch—and Draco followed, just off its line, closing space with precision.

Low enough that the ground rushed up in a way that made it real. But he never panics.

Then, the broom tilted—

nearly perpendicular beneath him, his body cutting a clean line through the bright, unmoving air as he aligned with the Snitch’s sudden rise.

It looked unnatural, like he had stepped outside the rules the rest of them were bound to. Like he had decided the Snitch would move where he needed it to.

It almost did.

—

Harry kept chasing the Snitch.

Draco kept cutting it off.

The difference was small. But it was everything.

—

Harry was faster in the climb, as always.

For a moment, it looked like he would take it—his hand already reaching, fingers stretching toward that flicker of gold just ahead—

Too soon. The Snitch veered violently.

Harry adjusted instantly, twisting mid-air, trying to correct.

He committed.

Draco held.

One second longer.

Everything he had learned: every time Harry had beaten him by instinct, every moment he had moved too early, too fast—settled into that single choice.

Wait.

—

The Snitch cut across.

Straight into the space Draco had already taken.

—

Now.

A sharp shift of direction, perfectly timed, his hand closing not where the Snitch had been—

but where it had no choice left to go.

—

His fingers closed around it.

—

For a moment nothing happened.

Harry hovered. He was close enough that his fingers had brushed the wing, the barest contact with gold before it slipped free.

—

Then, the world came rushing back.

The stands erupted. Slytherin roared, loud and sudden as a thunderclap.

Green surging like a wave through the stadium.

—

Chills came down over your body as your face burned.

You looked at Draco as he turned slowly, fist closed around the Snitch.

He held you there, the golden glow reflected on his face like a god who wrestled something wild from the sky and made it his.

Triumphant. Resplendent.

With a cutting defiance in it that had nothing to do with Quidditch and everything to do with you.

You held his gaze.

Your brows pulled together slightly, you were still catching up to what you'd just watched. Then you nodded—just once, a breath you had been holding leaving you with it.

Well done, Draco.

The Slytherin common room had become something Bacchanalian. It always did—any excuse for excess, and a Quidditch victory was more than enough.

After the match, you’d given Harry what you could.

Your eyes moving over him first, quick and thorough, making sure he wasn't hurt. Then your most comforting smile and a brief hug.

Half soothing for the loss.

Half apology for Draco.

He'd understood immediately, and smiled back without making you say anything.

Then you'd been swallowed by the tide of green and silver.

Now you stood at the top of the stairs, freshly emerged from the dormitory, and looked down at the wreckage.

Wine had already seeped into the carpet. Bodies were distributed across every available surface with the diplomatic chaos of people who had stopped caring about appearances approximately two hours ago—limbs overlapping, heads tipped back, cheeks flushed and luminous with the ecstasy of collective celebration.

Many danced together. A kind of careless twirling. As though they had been the ones to catch the Snitch.

You descended slowly, collecting the details as you went, amused at the theatrics of it.

Someone had wrapped themselves entirely around a statue near the bookshelf. Their face covered in Slytherin Green, their expression suggesting they were no longer present.

Someone else had passed out at the very foot of the stairs. You stepped over them carefully.

And there—at the centre of a gathered audience, standing on the back of the common room sofa, someone had fashioned a re-enactment of the final catch using only a chocolate orange and an alarming amount of commitment. Their arm outstretched, frozen in triumphant imitation of Draco mid-dive.

The crowd around the sofa was rapt, you quietly laughed to yourself. 

The air was thick—perfume and firewhisky and the close warmth of too many bodies, the music coming fast and formless beneath it all.

You stood at the foot of the stairs and considered your options. The mess of it and the quiet of the dormitory.

You hadn't quite decided yet.

Then—

a rough tug.

So sudden, so strong it snapped through you, your wrist protesting as you were pulled off balance.

A flash of pale hair, a soapy smell, and then darkness.

The corner behind the staircase swallowed you whole, your back pressed against cold stone before you could even gather breath.

Draco loomed in front of you, hair still damp from the shower. His natural scent combined with soap enveloping you.

He felt like the moon, like night incarnate. That pale luminescence, glowing even here in the dark behind the staircase, forehead dropping to press against yours. His breathing slow.

His thumb found your mouth.

You felt it trace across your lower lip, press in, gliding slow across your gums in a way that made your stomach drop.

"You smell so good."

His nose ran along your jaw, leaving you tingly.

"Is that for me?" Don't I deserve something?

You brought a hand to his cheek, pressing gently to create distance between his face and yours.

"You could have very well killed him."

He took your hand from his cheek.

Brought it to his mouth.

He cradled it there, like it was the most precious and fragile thing he'd ever been trusted with. His teeth nipped at your fingers, then sucked.

The look in his eyes focused and dazed all at once, fixed entirely on you—like a mutt that had decided you were its owner.

He loosed a slow breath. Shivered.

"I know." I don't care.

He pulled you flush against him, as if he meant to melt you into his very being—so tight it stole the air from your lungs.

He kissed your nose, then looked at you.

A flash of something sinister in his eyes.

Let us both be damned.

His tongue traced your lips—playing at the softness—his hand closing around your throat with a possessiveness that left not much room for argument.

"I like him, Draco."

It felt impossible to know if it was true, or if you were just holding onto a possibility that didn’t tie you to him.

His knee pressed up into your core.

"Liar."

The word came out so vicious. So biting.

He held your gaze. Wouldn't let you look away. His nose brushed yours, lips parted, breathing you in as you writhed against him—as his knee kept its relentless pressure, kneading slowly, like he had all night and intended to use it.

"Say it."

His breathing had gone ragged at the edges.

"You want me. Need me so bad it makes you sick."

Almost a moan. Almost a plea.

He had never been particularly good at following his father's orders.

The common room thundered on behind the wall. Oblivious.

Your heart pounded so loudly you were certain he could feel it, pressed as you were against him, every beat betraying you.

"You’re ruining me."

A breathless whisper. A surrendering.

His grey eyes went unnervingly still, gleaming like glass.

And it took everything—everything—for you to step back from him.

You moved a few paces away, retreating into the brighter spill of the room, like distance alone might steady you. You hesitated there, caught between leaving and turning back.

His expression was unreadable and it made it worse. You could only recognise it. The particular quiet that used to precede a tantrum when you were small, except now it lived inside his teenage face.

You turned before he could say anything.

You walked back into the room, then outside. You didn't look back.

You lay on a grass knoll and let the sky have you.

The wideness of it. The quiet underneath the buzzing of summer, the distant creak of the grounds settling into night. It was the first thing that had felt like relief in hours.

The Firewhisky was half gone. You weren't sure when that had happened.

You turned your thoughts over slowly, the way you could only do when you drunk enough to stop being careful with them. Turning them, examining them, setting them back down. Not quite arriving anywhere.

Because he had pulled it out of you tonight.

Dark and sticky, something you'd plastered to the back of your mind—and now it was front and centre, you weren't sure you could get it back to where it was.

That being with him ruined you.

And that you didn't seem to mind.

That was the part that frightened you. 

You did need him.

So you lay there, and hoped the dark might simply take you.

Then—light.

Not something. Someone.

Your name, in a light voice that stopped your heart.

You jolted upright.

No.

But there he was. Eleven years old, standing in the grass in his pyjamas, holding a lamp out in front of him like it might help.

Hair dishevelled—the way it got when he'd been running his hands through it, which he only ever did when he was frightened. Shivering slightly in the cold he hadn't dressed for.

You knew he wasn't real. Some part of your drunken, exhausted mind conjuring him up like a defence mechanism, like a reminder you hadn't known you needed.

But you held your breath anyway. As if moving might make him disappear.

He looked so small.

That was what undid you. You had always looked at him—even then—like he could level anyone in a room. Like he was made of something harder than the rest of you.

But here he was simply a child.

Slight and rumpled and shivering, the lamp casting soft gold across his face.

The lost look in his eyes.

Your breath caught. The familiar sting hit the back of your nose, then your eyes.

He was looking for you.

Calling your name, over and over, turning in the dark—and you broke. Quietly and completely. A sound escaped you that you pressed your hand over too late.

Because somewhere in your subconscious you had needed to see this. Had needed to remember that this was him too—beneath the composure, beneath the cruelty, beneath everything he had been the last few months.

A boy. Soft and fragile and absolutely lost without you.

Your Draco.

He was not easy. Will never be easy.

But he was yours.

You got up. The vision began to dissolve at the edges, the sound of his voice fading away.

Your heart ached with a weight you hadn't expected. The time lost. The distance you'd both let accumulate. The magnitude of it settling in all at once—how entirely, structurally you depended on each other. How long you'd been pretending otherwise.

This has gone on for too long.

You walked back. Quickly, then faster. Furiously wiping your face with the back of your hand, the grounds dark and quiet around you.

Back to him.

You found him at the bottom of the stairs to the girls' dormitory.

Sitting on the steps, back against the railing, a bottle loosely in hand. The common room was empty now—the celebration finally wrung out, everyone retired. Just him, and Pansy beside him, who looked up when she heard you coming.

"He's inconsolable."

You looked at him.

Dazed, staring at nothing with the particular vacancy of someone who had drunk past the point of it helping.

"It's okay. I'll take him back." A pause. "Thank you, Pansy."

She went still.

Something moved across her face—not surprise, more like realisation. The look of someone watching an inevitability finally arrive.

She swallowed thickly. Nodded once, to herself more than to you. And walked back to the dormitory without another word.

You sat down beside him. Took the bottle gently from his hand. Then tapped his face—once, twice.

"Up?"

He stirred. Began to move with a cooperative helplessness, your muscles immediately protesting as you got his arm over your shoulder and hauled.

You secured your arm around his waist and took his weight—which he offered with absolutely no consideration for the fact that he was much larger than you.

You huffed.

The stairs were a feat. Each step required negotiation—your whole body pulling, his whole body leaning, the two of you moving in lurching increments toward the top.

"Almost there," you muttered mostly to yourself.

The door swung open harder than you'd intended.

Bodies stirred. You caught Theo sitting up in the dark, blinking, and fixed him with a glare before he'd fully woken.

"You left him there?"

"He seriously could not be moved," Theo whispered, getting up, already coming to take Draco's other side.

Together you got him to the bed. Lowered him as gently as the two of you could manage. You smoothed his hair back from his face—and even now, half unconscious, he curled into your hand.

Theo stepped back.

You found his pyjamas folded beside the trunk at the foot of the bed. You worked quietly—easing him out of his sweater, his trousers.

Then the pyjama top, button by button, your fingers moving efficiently in the dark.

His eyes were open the whole time.

Glazed, heavy-lidded, barely tracking—but on you. Always on you. Even now, when he was barely present, he wanted to retain this memory.

Then you lay down beside him.

Drew the covers over both of you and pulled him close, cradling his head against your chest. Pale wisps of hair brushed softly your chin.

His breathing slowed quickly.

"I'll stay until you fall asleep."

You began to hum—something your mother used to sing, to both of you, on evenings that felt very far away now. Your hand moved against his hair, keeping the beat.

The tears came without permission. You blinked them back.

The warmth of him. His natural scent.

I missed you, you had wanted to say. 

But then he turned his head.

And kissed you.

And it was so soft. So achingly gentle.

The sweetest relief.

The tears slipped sideways across your face before you could stop them.

You pulled back just enough to look at him.

"I love you."

He pressed his forehead to yours. Smiled—the rare, unguarded kind you hadn’t seen in a long time.

Then his eyes grew heavy. His voice dropped to something barely there.

A murmur, already drifting.

"I won today, did you see?"

── 🂺 bonds with you by playing mind stimulating games like shōgi. he sets up makeshift pieces with bottlecaps, anything he can find.

── 🂺 something that's also out of character for him is… handholding. something so ordinary, so human, that it almost embarrasses him how much he likes it.

── 🂺 he is not physically affectionate. half the time you wonder if he even registers this as a real relationship. still, he allows certain things. your head against his shoulder. your hand sliding into his, without him pulling away. a light pat on your back as if congratulating a teammate. once, after surviving a brutal game that nearly killed everyone, he even wraps an arm around you briefly.

── 🂺 kissing is always on your side. chishiya does not initiate. not once. you hover sometimes, unsure in fear of being too pushy. when you finally lean in, he accepts it without hesitation, his lips stay completely still at first, letting you take the lead, until he finally presses back lightly, and over too quickly.

── 🂺 his idea of reassurance is unintentionally cruel. "statistically, you are not a bad bet."

── 🂺 arguments don’t exist. or rather, you argue, he makes observations. chishiya enjoys teaching you through provocation. he makes a claim he knows you will argue with, just to see you fight for your perspective.

── 🂺 he often teaches through questions—never a direct answer or easy handout. if you struggle, he prods you with hints that force you to think. when you finally reach the conclusion yourself, he leans back, satisfied, "there it is."

── 🂺 you talk about the future sometimes. he never says "we." but rather, "when you leave this place, what will you do?" never if. always when.

── 🂺 chishiya never expected it to last. he thought you’d get tired of his evasions and tendency to deflect.

── 🂺 your relationship is his favourite paradox: it doesn’t make sense for someone like him to want it, and yet it’s the one thing he doesn’t plan an exit strategy for.

“Aren’t you at least a little bit embarrassed?” you tease, already starting to brew the coffee beans. It has been almost a year since he bought it – following your suggestion – and he never even cared to learn how to use it. Not that he needed to, really. You were always there to do it for him.

He pressed his lips together in a mocking reflective expression, just to shrug his shoulders “Not really, no.” you just chuckle as the two of you move in sync to finish preparing breakfast.

Just as the eggs were ready, his phone rang all the way to his bedroom. As an old man who still hadn’t created the urge to be glued to his phone 24/7, you took over the bacon pan as he faded into the hallway to pick up.

You were so focused on your task you didn’t realize he was taking too long. It wasn’t until you filled both of your plates and mugs that you noticed he didn’t come back. Your first reaction was too tense, to go after him and check what was wrong, but soon after you heard his laugh, loud and strong, making its way towards you. So, no emergencies.

Sensing it was probably Sean, your boyfriend’s brother, or maybe Rossi with a gossip – something you learnt after you started dating Hotch: the two older men at the BAU were gossipers. Penelope Garcia level gossiper – you stayed back, giving them privacy to chat. Ignoring all the etiquette lessons you had, you started eating alone. At least one of you should enjoy the warm food.

Just when you took the last bite you heard him stepping back into the kitchen, a ghost of a smile still present on his face “Hey, you chatty” you teased. He chuckled, sitting beside you on the stoll and drinking a sip of coffee “Who was it?” your curiosity got the best of you, even though you knew he was going to tell you either way.

“Beth!”

Oh.

“Oh”

“Yeah.” he agrees, taking a bite of the toast, completely oblivious to the gut wrenching feeling taking over your senses “She called me to say she’s coming back. From Hong Kong.”

Oh (but harder).

“That’s… good?”

“It’s great! She got to transfer back for a promotion, with a higher salary and getting to be close to her family.” he explains, sounding way too pleased with himself.

“She rocks.” you cringe immediately, not knowing what the hell you meant by that.

“Right?” fortunately – or not, that’s up to the eye of the beholder – he remained completely clueless to your awkwardness. “Jack’s going to lose it when he hears it.” he said, chuckling to himself.

You hate how hearing this makes you twice as jealous.

“Y’think Jack remembers her?” you wonder, pretending to be unbothered as you wash your dishes in a way to distract yourself. He stays silent for a second, and you hope he’s not picking up on your selfish rotting for the worse.

“He does. Last time she face-timed me, Jack took over half the call.” he says, his voice suddenly closer to you. He takes the dishes from your hand, gently pushing you to the side “That’s on me.” he points kindly, taking over the dishes. You step away, hoping he didn’t feel the sound of your heart breaking.

They face-time each other? Is Jack a part of this? By the way he said it, it seems like a frequent occurrence. Where were you all those times? How could you miss that?

Is this cheating? Objectively speaking, if it was cheating he probably wouldn’t be so blunt about it. And he’s probably the most loyal person you know.

So why does it feel like cheating? Why do you feel betrayed? Why do you feel so jealous?

Trying to take a hold of the situation, you fight to appear normal, trying your best to hide your anxiousness and all of self-doubt, at least while you figure your feelings out. Otherwise you’d probably end up locked in a mental asylum.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

It turned out the mental asylum would probably be a nicer place to be than your own head right now.

As the day passed by, you started to notice how excited Aaron was for Beth’s arrival. If you missed their calls before, you definitely weren’t now. Every other day you stumbled on him somewhere in the house, his phone balanced between his shoulder and his ear while he finished a task.

When it wasn’t the calls, it was the texting. He would send her pictures about things she liked and places she missed. She would always send a picture of everything that was different over there, ask silly questions about the job or about Jack. 

And Jack was a whole other problem. Not a problem, actually. But his obvious adoration towards the woman made you bitter. You found yourself losing your appetite more often than not every time Jack asked about her in the middle of dinner or lunch. Which was a horror on its own, but it was even worse because every time he did it, soon after the meal ended Hotch would call her to tell her about it.

You felt like an outsider.

The worst part was that it wasn’t even their fault. Everytime you walked by him, he asked you to join the call, pulling you to sit with him and chat with the woman on the other side of the screen. She would ask about you, about your likes and dislikes. She would joke about Hotch, about his sleep myoclonus, about his ability to fall asleep in the first few minutes of a movie.  You laughed with her, making fun of his antic habits as if sharing that with her didn’t feel like a knife in your gut. 

When she finally came back, it was, somehow, worse.

Hotch insisted that you’d tag along on their catching ups, you hang with them as she went out with the team. You had playdates with her and Jack.

It was now safe to say: you hated Beth. And you were completely obsessed with her.

You watched the way she spoke, the way she dressed. How she smiled, how she laughed. The exact color of her lipstick, her haircut. 

When her nails were perfectly made. She was so elegant. You started doing your nails weekly.

Next time you saw her, her nails were chipped and two of them were broken. She was so carefree. You cancelled your membership at the nail salon.

One would think Beth was a frequent character in Hotch's life. She really wasn’t. With all the cases, Jack and his relationship with you, he barely had time to actually hang out with Beth. But there was no point, and the damage was made.

Ever since he took that call, she made her way into your head, building her own little house with a balcony and a white fence. Even if she wasn’t around, your mind made sure to think about her. You hated hearing her name, but you secretly hoped it would come up in the middle of the conversation.

When his phone rang, you braced yourself, preparing for that gut wrenching pain you were oh, so familiar with. 9 out of 10 times, it wasn’t her. But 1 out of ten times, it was. And when you hear him calling her name, smiling easily at the speaker like she was seeing him, you felt your world fall apart, and what a comforting sensation that was.

You had no idea how you could crave someone as much as you craved her.

You wanted her gone.

The thought came to you out of nowhere, in the middle of the night. You were sleeping on his bed – almost yours by now – and his body involuntarily jerked. And there it was: another sleepless night. You were reminded of her, and now you were cursed to spend the rest of the evening wondering if she slept on the same side of the bed you were in, on how she would react. Would she laugh? Would she wake him? Would she pretend she didn’t see it?

It was maddening. It had to stop.

It wasn’t going to stop. You had to get out of this.

When the thought came, it stayed. You haven’t thought about it before, but you knew it. It had to be done. There was no way you would survive this. There was no way you could compete with this, with her. They understood each other to a degree you could never. They were the same age, and had the same references. They were both divorced, they had experiences you still haven’t had. You hated being outside of their inside jokes, even if said jokes were whatever was fashion in the 70’s.

Truth to be told, you wouldn’t even be with him if she hadn’t moved out of the country. And now she was back, reclaiming her old apartment, her athletic habits and his heart.

You weren’t dumb. You could see he loved you. But he loved her too. And you wouldn’t settle for half. Even if it killed you inside.

Besides being younger than Aaron – and Beth – you were very mature. Mature enough to understand that you shouldn’t make a big deal out of this. You knew, usually, the right thing to do was to talk about your feelings. To explain where you were coming from and make changes in order to keep the relationship alive.

But how could you go to the man you loved and beg him to not fall back in love with his ex? What exactly do you want to achieve by talking to him about it? He wasn’t doing anything wrong, you know that much. He would probably just stop talking to her ‘if it meant not making you insecure’, but you know very well how that would turn out. You didn’t want it to end with a fight, and you didn’t want to feel like you had to put up a fight to keep the man you love. You didn’t deserve that, and neither did him.

So, piece by piece, you started to make your way out of Aaron’s life.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

You usually spent the majority of your time in his place. And you started to change that, slowly starting to spend more time in your rented apartment than in his. Piece by piece, you started to move back your clothes. First a blouse, then a pajama. Evolving to your dresses, shoes, and your products.

It was going by unnoticed, until after you moved almost all the products on your side of his bathroom’s cabinet. A wednesday morning, while getting ready to work, you opened it to find everything back where they belonged.

You stayed there, shocked for a few seconds, your heart racing. The toothbrush inside your mouth is frozen, the minty foam starting to burn your gums. Aaron stepped on the bathroom behind you, fixing his cufflinks and looking at you through the mirror.

“Oh, I saw you ran out of them.” he explained, casually pointing at the new stack of products, completely unaware of your mind short circuiting “You didn’t restock, but I remembered them from last time. I had to go to the drugstore anyway.” he shrugged, reaching for his cologne and stepping out like he didn’t just shatter your whole world.

Later, when your tears smudged your mascara, you just said you choked with the mouthwash.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

After a while, you’d spent so much time on your own place that Aaron started to miss you. Not only that, he questioned it. One specific morning, you were in the shared kitchen in the BAU mixing a bowl of yogurt with cereals and fruits when you felt a pair of large hands clinging to your hips. Yelping in surprise, you turned to face your boyfriend.

“Hey, you scared me.” you chuckled, picking up the bowl to put something between the two of you.

“I miss you.” he said, simply. He wasn’t whining, or complaining, or even trying to talk you out of your devious plan – not that he knew about it. He was just stating a fact, as clear as the day, the same way and tone he announced a profile or call a meeting.

Not knowing what to answer without breaking into tears, you stuffed a spoon full of greek yogurt, granola and strawberries into your mouth. While you did it, you mumbled something he couldn’t comprehend. Figuring you said you missed him too, he just moved on, leaning over your head to reach for the cabinet.

“Can I take you out for dinner tonight?” he asked, grabbing the freshly made coffee and filing his mug “It’s been a while since we left the house.”

You swoon at him, taking a deep breath before answering “It has. But I have plans.” you grimaced “Girls night.” you explained, chewing on the granola for longer than needed.

Aaron stopped for a second, his steaming mug already halfway to his lips. “Oh.” He wasn’t the kind of boyfriend to be in the way of your life, but he usually was aware of your plans. Not in a controlling way, but by knowing you, talking to you. And he was just realizing how it felt not knowing. He hated it. Not being a man to give up, he quickly came up with another idea “I can make you that BLT you like while you get ready.” not seeing you immediately jump with joy – as you usually do when BLT is mentioned – he suggested “Or we can stop at McDonalds drive-thru when I pick you up later.” 

Your heart did a backflip and shattered in a thousand pieces with the sight of his puppy eyes, expectantly looking at you.

“Oh that sounds lovely. But the bar we’re heading it’s the one across the street from my building. We’re walking there.” you explain, placing a hand on his chest gently, fixing the lapels of his suit. He looked down at your hands, fighting the urge to pull you by his arms and lock you in there. He wasn’t sure what was happening, but his gut knew something didn’t sit right.

“Text me when you get there. And when you get home.” he says, more a statement than a request. Your safety was not negotiable. You nodded, stepping closer to him and giving him a quick peck on the side of his jaw.

“I promise!” and you meant it, winking at him as you move to leave the kitchen.

Just as you step outside the perimeter, you almost bump into Rossi, who’s just standing there with his hands buried in his pockets and his eyebrow raised so high it was almost blending his hairline. Not ready to handle his piercing gaze – knowing you’d crumble at the first couple minutes –, you just nodded and gave him one of your best polite smiles, speeding your pace all the way to your desk.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

After you knocked twice on the office door, you stared at the words “David Rossi” engraved on the metal platter in its center as you waited for him to open.

When he did, you were surprised to see his office drowned in low light coming from the lamp on his desk and the moonlight peeking through the widow.

“You wanted to see me?” it meant as a statement: he did ask to see you. At first, you were sure it had something to do with the case you were consulting, the topic you and him were talking about during dinner. What confused you was that the setting looked anything but professional, if the expensive bourbon bottle and the two glasses sitting on the table wasn’t enough of a tell.

“Yes. Come in.” he said, waiting for you to walk into the office to close the door. You stood awkwardly in the middle of the room, waiting for him to take the lead. Unaware – or, most probably, choosing to ignore – your startled state, he slowly made his way to the couch on the back of the room, filling up both glasses before sitting comfortably.

Taking one of the glasses, you sat beside him, pressing your lips together and trying not to bounce your leg to ease the tension.

“How was girls night?” Rossi asks, raising his glass to his lips. He didn’t even look at you as he waited for your answer, his tone almost mocking you.

Having absolutely no idea what he was going with this, you decided to play along “It was fun.”

He nodded “I see.” You took a sip of your drink, trying to keep your posture. It didn’t work. As soon as the burning liquid settled in your stomach, you turned to face him. Terrible idea.

“Dave, what’s going on? What is this?”

“You know,” he started, completely ignoring your question “People may think about profiling as a criminal study. They think we have to learn about psychopaths, stressors, geography, and criminal patterns. That it’s about getting in the mind of crazy people and figuring them out.”

“And it isn’t?” you blinked, drowned by his speech.

“Oh, definitely. But it’s not just that. It’s about studying people. Feelings, motivations. Learning, understanding their behaviour and using it to figure out their intentions.”

And that’s when it hit you: he knew.

“We have an unspoken policy in the BAU: not profiling each other.” he began, turning his body to face you.

“So why are you profiling me?” you asked, voice edging and uneasy, desperately trying to stop him from putting into words. He ignored it.

“You’re breaking up with him.” Not a question, not a suggestion, and definitely not a doubt. “I know what this is about. Who this is about.” your chewed on your bottom lip, deciding on what to say.

“Please, don’t try to talk me out of it.” you beg, hating how weak your own voice sounds. He took another long and lazy sip, and you watched as the liquid clinged to his lips, the wet reflecting the low light of the lamp.

“I won’t.” he stared at you, his eyes squinting slightly “I’m here to encourage you.”

You frowned, your eyebrows pinching together “What?”

“Yes. You really should break up with him. You know, if you’re in such an unbearable relationship.” You roll your eyes, tilting your head back.

“Stop.”

“No, seriously. Do you think he’s what? Cheating on you with Beth?”

“What? That’s not what this is about. I know he’s not cheating.” you defend yourself, cringing at the topic of the discussion.

“Then what is it?”

“I’m just…” your eyes burn with tears harder than the liquid on your throat when you down the rest of the bourbon before continuing “I’m not her.”

“You sure? Under this specific light I could’ve swore…”

“Dave!” you whine, and he chuckles.

“Yes, you’re not Beth.” you grimace at her name, not bothering to hide your feelings anymore “Why are you saying this as a bad thing?”

“Because it is. She’s back now and…” you feel a tear striking down your cheek as you gesticulate “She just fits. She gets him.”

“And you don’t?”

You sigh “You must think I sound really stupid.”

“Oh, you sound absolutely ridiculous.” you look at him, looking at a smirk on his face. Before you realize it, you’re laughing as well, but in a weak and depressed way “Love does this to us. Make us blind to the obvious. Clouds our judgement and turns us into…” he gesticulates towards you. You roll your eyes, but you’re not crying anymore “I have three divorces, so you’d think I know one thing or two about failed relationships. And let me tell you: yours isn’t one of them.”

“You’re just saying this because you’re his best friend.”

“I’m saying this because I love you.” he stated bluntly, and you widened your eyes in surprise, not expecting this. “And it'll kill me to see you do something I know you’ll regret later.” he leaned closer, looking at you with a paternal love that made you uneasy “Hotch loves you, kid. Don’t try to assume things. Let him know.”

“It’s hard.”

“I know it is. It has to be, don’t you think?” he smiles, the wrinkle on the corner of his eyes enhancing his passion towards the subject “Or else is not worth it. But talk to him. You know him more than I do, but I’m pretty sure you’re seeing things out of a place of hurt, probably past experiences.” he nod his head in a knowing gesture “From what I see, you’re out of your mind if you think that Hotch would ever consider living his life away from you.”

You only notice the tear streaming down your cheeks like a waterfall when his fingers gently wipe them away.

“Sorry.” you mumble, and he shakes his head.

“Listen, if it doesn’t work out, it doesn’t. It’ll be fine too. You’ll be fine. But just don’t let it all go to waste before at least giving him a chance.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

It got to a point where you had to stop for a second to wipe the sweat out of your eyelids to see. By the time you reached your – Aaron’s – front door, your heartbeat had lowered to a normal rhythm and your skin was now cold rather than wet. You spent almost the entire night awake, tossing and turning on the bed. The night went so late it was almost morning, so you figured it made more sense to just get up and do something other than to lay in the dark with nothing but your loud and torturous mind.

Running, these past few weeks, were your loyal ally to your early mornings. That specific day, you just got back from an over two hour long run, finally feeling your limbs hurting more than your heart. As you walked in, you were surprised to find Aaron pacing around the living room, something crumpled up on one of his fist, a piece of paper in the other.

When he looked at you, his face was everything but stoic: he looked panicked, tortured, confused and, overall, hurting. “We need to talk” he said, quietly. If you listened closely, you could hear the way his voice wobbled in the middle of the sentence, like he didn’t actually want to talk. Like he wanted you to just be confused, and just ask what he meant by that, and that you weren’t being distant, he was just paranoid. Anything that could prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that you weren’t, in fact, leaving.

Despite all his silent wishes you just nodded, making your way to the couch “Yeah, we do.”

Hoping the sound of his heart shattering wasn't loud enough for you to hear, he made his way to the couch in front of you, distant enough for him to think clearly – as much as possible, under the circumstances. For a minute you just stared at each other, the weight of everything unsaid so heavy it could suffocate.

You glanced down at his hands, still not managing to understand what he was holding so tight on his fist. On the other hand, you could finally see what it was. Before you left the house that morning, already planning on staying out for long, you wrote him a note with the steps to use the coffee pot.

“Before we start,” he began, his voice hoarse. He clears his throat before continuing “I already know. So there’s no need to lie.” you gulp, shifting in your seat. You never lied to him before, but it was fair of him to point it  out. You weren’t being exactly honest. And even though you knew what he was talking about, it still surprised you when he finally said it out loud “When exactly you were planning on breaking up with me?”

Your breath hitched, panic rushing through your veins. It didn’t matter that you still weren't sure about what to do, there was no point in lying. Not anymore. It hurt you to think about it, but actually admitting to him was a whole other level of pain.

“I don’t know.” you answer weakly.

He blinks. And then chuckles.

When he dips his head down, you stare at him confused. The only thing you catch is the way his head shakes slightly, his fists flexing but never letting go of your note and the other white soft – looks fluffy? Is it a stress relief ball? – thing. Aaron tilts his head up and his eyes are full of tears. They are shiny and reddish, and you want nothing more than to make it all go away.

“Hotch,” you try, because just watching him crumble in front of you is not an option.

“Jesus! Stop calling me that.” he spat, frowning.

“Your name?”

“That’s not my name. Not to you. Not in here.” he adverts, the pain muffling the anger in his tone.

You chew on your bottom lip, trying to hold back the tears that are threatening to fall from your eyes. Sniffing as quietly as possible, you look at him “Do you think this is easy for me?”

“It must be!” he says, barely containing himself, “You’re doing it all behind my back, vanishing from my life little by little, until all I have left is an empty drawer with nothing but this shirt and a coffee pot I don't know how to use.” and you finally understand what he was holding on so tightly. It’s a plain silky pajama shirt. It’s the only piece of clothing because it’s matching short you – he – ended up tearing it in half on the first night you wore it.

“I left you instructions.” you point to the paper in his other hand.

“I don’t want to learn.” he looks disgusted at the paper, like it personally offended him “I’m not learning how to use it.” he emphasizes.

You try again “It’s not that hard.”

“I won’t.” 

That discussion was pointless, anyway. It is something to cling onto while avoiding the main issue. Sighing deeply in order to avoid crying, you change the subject “Listen, it’s nothing with you. It’s me.” you snort at that, because it’s that old cheesy and shitty excuse. But it’s the truth. “I’m just…” it’s all you manage to say before the tears blur your vision and you have to dip your head down to try and wipe them away.

His voice filled your ears, making you glance up to face him again. “I noticed that you weren’t being yourself, but I figured you’d tell me. It was something from work, or your family. I didn’t think it was this. It was us.” his voice weakens, and he has to gulp before continuing “Aren’t you happy anymore?” 

“I… there’s a lot going on.”  you feel your nose burning, and you stop caring if he sees the tears streaming down your face.

“Tell me what I did.” his demeanor changes, and he doesn’t look sad and confused anymore. He sounds energetic, urgent, demanding and begging all together “Tell me where I got it wrong, i can change it. I’ll do it right. I’ll do it better.”

Hearing this, combined with the raw desperation on his voice, so opposite from his usual calm and steady behavior, only makes you cry harder, and you don’t even try to wipe them away.

“You did nothing wrong. Nothing. I don’t want you to change. I just…” a strangled hiccup interrupted your speech, and you feel ridiculous, weak, dramatic and lonely. You want this to end, but also you want this to have never happened. “I shouldn’t feel this way in a relationship.”

He nodded, thinking. When Aaron speaks again, his voice is much calmer. Resignated, even. “So that’s it, then? You have your mind made up? Nothing I say will change it.” and it’s not a question anymore.

“I’m doing this for you, I want nothing more than what’s best for you.”

“Bullshit.”  he snapped, his words startling you “Why are you doing this? Is it the job? You said it’s not me. Is it Jack? Is this life too much for you? The responsibility of…”

“What? Of course not!” your heart aches thinking about it. It hurts that he thinks this, but you have no one but yourself to blame “I love Jack. I love our… this life.” 

He stays silent for a second, as if analyzing your explanation — or lack thereof. “Is it someone else?” you stop, and blinks. This is it. You won’t lie straight to his face. He stiffens, and it doesn’t need another word from you to understand. “Who is him?”

“Him?” you frown in the middle of your tears, so confused you stopped crying. “What do you mean?” 

“You said there was someone else.” he squinted his eyes at you.

“I didn’t, you did.” 

“You didn’t deny it. Who is he?” he insisted, his jaw tensed.

“Who do you think I am?” you asked, actually aggravated at his accusations “I would  never…” 

“Who is he?” he interrupts you, his eyes burning holes in your head.

“There's no he. It’s Beth.” 

Hotch’s jaw is immediately unlocked at that, the anger and betrayal completely subsided by complete shock and confusion. “What? You and… Beth?”

“Huh?” you were the one left in confusion now. How did he get to that conclusion? For a second, you didn’t feel the excruciating pain and humiliation from admitting your feelings to him “No. You and Beth.”

“What do I have to do with this?” he asks, his confusion turning to aggravation once again “You don’t like our friendship? That’s why you're breaking up with me?”

Now, said excruciating pain and humiliation were back on its full force. You ignored the lump on your throat, taking a deep breath and explaining the situation in the most sober and objective way possible. “I realized you and her fit more together than me and you, and…” your voice faltered as you saw his outrageous expression “...the two of you only broke up because she moved away. You’re all happy that she’s coming back. I just figured…”

“What?” he interrupted, his voice sharp and edgy “That i’d break up with you to be with her?” asking like it was a ridiculous thought. You stayed silent, because that was exactly what you thought. He huffed an incredulous laugh through his nose “Jesus. Did I ever give you a reason to question me? Or my loyalty?” he accused, his voice showing more worry than anger.

“No. Actually I don't know if you’d break up with me. That’s why I saved you the trouble.” you shrugged, trying not to show how much it hurt you to say it.

“Jesus fucking christ.” he muttered, pintching the bridge of his noise “Are you even hearing yourself?”

“Stop talking like I'm insane.” you snapped, losing your patience “You’re the one making phone calls, facetiming and going on dates with your ex girlfriend. I saw you when the two of you broke up. I was there. You were in pain. How am I supposed to feel? How am I supposed to handle this? How am I supposed to compete with this? Explain to me, Aaron. Because I have no fucking clue.”

The moment you stopped speaking, you realized you were almost yelling. It was the first time you let out your anger, your hurt. All the time you kept saying you were doing the best: for Aaron, for Jack, for Beth… Not once you stopped to think how much it sucked to be you, to deal with all of that. Yes, you could’ve talked to him sooner. But you shouldn’t have felt like that. No one should. 

When you asked him to explain, to tell you what to do, it wasn’t a fight. It wasn’t sass. You were actually asking, begging for him, for someone, to tell you how to feel. It didn’t make sense, none of this made sense to you. It was too overwhelming, and you just wanted it to be gone. You wanted to disappear.

You noticed too late you were crying, fully sobbing now, with one hand clutched to your chest, as if you tried to rip your heart out, and the other resting against your throat, trying to soothe the pain from talking so loud. You didn’t see how his expression softened, his anger melting into pure sorrow. He couldn’t believe he did that to you, that he, of all people, made you feel this way.

A few minutes had passed when he finally made a move. He got up from his couch and crossed the room, sitting right by your side. His knees were pressed against your thighs, his eyes filled with tears. His body and his soul were completely in surrender to yours. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, simply. “I should’ve seen it before. I shouldn't have acted like this. Or at least, talked to you about it. I’m not trying to make any excuses for the way I acted, but I need to explain.” he cleared, his eyes scanning your face every 10 seconds, trying to find any hint of chance in your stance “The thought of someone other than you, in a romantic way, is so out of my reality that I didn’t even considered her a ‘threat’. Not that she, or anyone, is a threat. But I really didn’t see the situation as something that could’ve hurt you. And that was my first mistake.”

“She knows you in a way that I can’t.”

“You know me in a way no one can.” he argued “You were my subordinate, then my work colleague, my friend. Now you’re my best friend and my family. You’re the woman I love.” he gulped, flinching at his own words and feeling the hot streak of a lonely tear falling from his eye. The one he couldn’t hold back. “I don’t want you going back to being less than that.”

Your posture didn’t show any kind of surrender. But he didn’t see resistance either, and when you turned to face him, he noticed that you didn’t keep arguing and just waited to listen. Taking it as a good (the best yet) sign, he pressed further.

“There’s nothing going on between me and Beth. She happened to be the first friend I’ve had outside of the job for a long time, that’s all. I don’t know if it will help to hear this,” he tried, hesitantly “...but her leaving wasn’t the only reason why we broke up.” seeing your questioning expression, he kept going “We came to the realization we worked better as friends anyway, and it was just a matter of time for us to end things. The moving just happened first.” he shrugged.

You opened your mouth to speak, but he anticipated your argument “Yes, I did suffer. It was a change in scenario, how could I not? But as I said, we knew it was happening. So what it hurt the most was actually Jack. I felt like the worst parent from giving another sort of mother figure just to take it away from his life. Again.”

Before you could think properly, your hand reached out to his, squeezing in a silent reassurance. He always doubted his parental skills, and you were always making sure to remind him how amazing he was. Even now, with your heart broken and your relationship hanging by a thread, you still found a way to comfort him. 

How could he lose something like this? Someone like this? How could he let you go? How could he make you feel that way? He had to press his lips together in a thin line to keep them from trembling, and to hold back the force of his grip when he squeezed your hand back, making sure he wasn’t hurting you as he not so subtly tried to hold on to you. To keep you from leaving.

“Honey,” he started, not even caring about his voice cracking. He couldn’t wait any longer, or lose any more chances. This was it. “I love you so much. I know this isn’t ideal, and I hate myself for ever making you feel this way. If not being with me will make you happier, then…” he gulped “...I’ll let you go. But if this situation is the only reason, please, don’t go. Please, give me a chance to show you how you’re the only one I want.”

You feel your tears running freely from your face, and you choke up a sob before speaking, your voice so weak it was barely hearable “I feel really immature.”

He laughs, but it doesn’t sound like he’s making fun of you. It sounds like he’s gone completely mad, like your admission was the water bottle after two days in the desert. It gave him hope.

“No.” he denied firmly, not letting go of your hand even for a second “Now that I think about it, if the tables were turned, I might’ve murdered your ex.” he whispered like a secret. It was so unexpected and so out of character of him that you laughed, surprising both you and him. He smiled from ear to ear at the sound of it. “I’m really sorry, I should’ve been more careful with the situation.”

“I should’ve just talked to you instead of jumping to conclusions.” you smiled apologetically. He ignores your attempt, looking deep into your eyes and calling your name with such a raw expectation that if you weren’t already seated, you would’ve fell.

“Did you change your mind?” you hesitate for a second, and he sees right through you “Tell me you have. I know you want to, I can feel it.” His voice is quiet, his words so soft spoken it feels like a spell. Only you know that you do want to be with him, now that is all cleared. “Please, give me a chance to make things right.”

You chew on your bottom lip as your eyes fill with tears again “I feel stupid.” you admit, and he wants nothing more than to cry his eyes out.

“Don’t say that ever again.” he leans in hesitantly, and when you don’t flinch or pull back, he wipes the tears from your face with the pad of his thumb. The other hand is still holding yours firmly “You were protecting yourself, as you should’ve. Thank you.”

“What for?” you snort between tears, not understanding what he could possibly be thankful for in this situation.

“Thank you for protecting and taking such good care of someone I love so much. Especially when I was too damn blind to see that she needed it.”

After that, there was no point of dragging this any further: you were completely and undeniably his.

He didn’t see it coming, his body jerking in surprise when you literally jumped to his lap, hugging him tightly and burying your face on his neck, sobbing and muttering apologies on repeat. His lips were glued to the crown of your head, kissing you repeatedly. His hands were all over you, touching from your feet to the strands of your hair, as if his body needed to feel you there, to make sure you were with him, for his mind to completely wrap up around the fact that you weren’t going anywhere.

Ignoring your words, he whispered his own, “Don’t you ever apologize. I should be the one apologizing. I’m so sorry, sweetheart.” and it’s the only moment his lips leave your skin “I’m sorry. I will never make you feel this way. If I ever hurt you like that again, and I won’t, I want you…”

“Don’t say it.” you cut him off. He ignores, once again.

“...to just shoot me in the face. Kill me.”

You chuckle weakly, lifting your head from his chest to face him properly “Dude, you gotta stop with the murder threats.” he arches his eyebrow at you, the corner of his mouth twitching in a smirk.

“Dude? Who do you think you’re talking to?” he asks, and his finger tickles your sides as the stubble on his beard tickles your neck. Your body jerks and twitches on top of his while you laugh loudly, but never moving away from his.

When he finally feels you learned your lessons, his hands rested comfortably around your waist in its rightful place. You sigh, looking at him.

“Promise me that you will always talk to me, and be honest about your feelings. No matter how ugly you think they are.”

“I promise.” you say as you wipe the wet off his face, and it’s just then that he realizes he’d been crying all along “Promise me that if your feelings for me change, you’ll communicate.” he rolls his eyes so hard it feels like they’ll hit the back of his head “Promise.” you insist.

“I promise.” he says, seriously. When you relax, he starts again. “Matter of fact, my feelings just changed.” you squint your eyes at his playful tone “A few minutes ago I wanted to stop by your place to get back the clothes you took. But now, I’ve decided you’ll be spending the rest of the weekend with nothing to wear but that shirt.” he says, leaning – without moving you away from his lap – to grab the piece of fabric he left on the center table.

“I have to get at least underwear.” you argue.

“If you behave, I’ll let you borrow a couple boxers.”

“Jack will see it.”

“He’s a kid. And they’re the exact same size of what you call your casual shorts so I doubt he’ll notice the difference.” he points seriously and you squeal, slapping his chest slightly.

“That’s rude. And humiliating.”

“That’s what you get for stealing.”

Your mouth hangs open for a second “I didn’t steal! I didn’t take anything from your house but my clothes.”

“This house is ours.” he stares at you deeply, waiting for his statement to sink in before continuing “So is everything in it. From the bedroom to the coffee pot and, therefore, your clothes. So, basically, you stole from us.” he shrugged, like he made a perfect point. You just laugh, choosing to accept it.

“I’m sorry for stealing.” he nodded politely and you dive back into his embrace, sighing happily “Can we stay like this forever?” Aaron tight his arms around you, his whole body answering before any words came out.

“I’ll think about it. But before that, we have to eat. You're probably on the verge of dehydration right now.” he points, standing up with you still in his arms, and makes his way toward the kitchen. He settles you in one of the stools and hands you your shirt “Go change while I make us breakfast. Now that I’ve learnt how to use the coffee pot.”

You gasp, widening your eyes in a mock-threat. Jumping out of the stool with your shirt already crumpled on your hands, you stomp your way to where he stands behind the stove, pointing your finger to his chest. “You can cook whatever you want, but don't you dare touch the coffee pot, Aaron Hotchner.”

Aaron does just as you said, beaming while frying the bacon even when you’re upstairs in his shower. Your shower. And both of you know, somehow, you’ll be okay.