pedritoe

the community hall in jackson smelled of pine sap, woodsmoke drifting in from the stoves outside and spilled beer, its heavy timber beams strung with whatever holiday lights still worked.

folks had pushed the tables back to make room for dancing, boots stomping uneven rhythms while a handful of musicians sawed away on a low stage.

joel sat at the far back of the room, shoulders hunched, nursing a glass he wished was already empty. he’d rather be out on patrol or back at his place, anywhere but here.

the too-loud laughter, the clumsy spins, the way people acted like the world outside the gates had forgotten how to bite.

his eyes drifted across the chaos and snagged you standing alone near the edge of the makeshift dance floor.

he had seen you around jackson a few times. quiet, always keeping to yourself, carrying that careful stillness that made him wonder if you’d been a priest or some kind of preacher before the world ended.

after a while you drifted closer, boots scraping softly over the wooden floor. without asking, you pulled out a chair at his table and sat down directly in front of him, knees almost brushing. he gave a small nod.

“whiskey’s decent tonight,” you said, lifting you glass. “better than standing here sober.”

you both started drinking together in silence, both watching the crowd with the same flat annoyance.

“couldn’t stand it over there either?” you asked, trying to make conversation.

joel grunted. “too damn loud. too many people pretending everything’s fine.”

you gave a single nod and lifted the bottle in his hand.

“whiskey helps.” joel held out his glass without a word.

the whiskey was working its way through him now, warming his chest and loosening his limbs.

joel’s gaze dropped to your mouth as you took another pull of whiskey, lips wet and parted around the rim. he caught himself and looked away sharply, clearing his throat with a low, rough sound like gravel shifting.

he tried to focus on the chaotic dancers, but his attention kept sliding back. the way your rough hands turned the bottle with surprising care.

he forced his stare to the floor, boots scuffed and muddy, but it didn’t help.

when you tilted your head back for another swallow, joel’s eyes caught on the slow bob of his adam’s apple, the flicker of lantern light across the skin there.

you pulled out a crumpled cigarette and struck a match.

your fingers were growing unsteady.

the flame flared bright between you two, illuminating the stubble along your jaw and the faint scar at the corner of your mouth.

joel’s breath hitched. he rubbed his palm roughly over his mouth and chin, as if he could wipe the tension away, then gripped his glass again until the cheap tumbler creaked in protest.

joel kept feeling your gaze drift back to him, curious and quiet, just like his own.

he told himself it was just the whiskey. just the noise. just the fact that you were sitting right there in front of him. joel could smell faint tobacco and leather on you underneath the sharper bite of alcohol.

he didn’t know why his eyes kept dragging back.

he was watching the way your throat moved.

he’d never looked at a man like this. never had a reason to. but now his eyes were sliding over broad shoulders, the worn collar of a blue denim shirt, the quiet steadiness in the way the man held himself.

what the hell is this? the thought felt clumsy in his head, loosened by the whiskey but still sharp enough to annoy him.

there was a sadness in your eyes, a settled kind that came from carrying too much for too long. joel wondered what kind of shit you’d seen. what kind of things you’d done to still be sitting here, calm and solid in a room full of forced laughter.

the thought stuck with him longer than it should have.

the wondering itself bothered him. why did he care? why did the thought of those losses make something in his chest pull tight?

his face felt hot. he rubbed his palm roughly over his mouth and jaw, the familiar scrape of stubble grounding him for half a second. too much whiskey. that’s all it is.

he wasn’t supposed to want this. he wasn’t even supposed to notice it. men didn’t sit this close. men didn’t stare at other men’s mouths or throats or hands and feel their pulse kick up like they’d just run from the infected.

“you good?” you asked quietly, tilting your head. that low voice didn’t help.

joel grunted. “i’m fine.” the word came out rough. he rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the tight coil of tension running down his back, but it only brought his knee brushing against you.

the contact sent another unwanted spark through him. he didn’t pull away.

the whiskey had hit you harder. it made the room feel smaller.

your eyes kept drifting to him no matter how many times you told yourself to stop. the way his broad shoulders filled his shirt. the way those big, scarred hands gripping the edge of the table.

the music kept playing behind you, fiddles scratching out a clumsy melody while boots stomped across the floor. laughter rose and fell in waves, but it all felt distant.

the only thing that felt real was the small stretch of space between you and joel. awkward, and shrinking with every shared breath.

this is stupid. he’s probably just staring at you because he is recognizing you from some place. you’re probably staring at him because he is a good looking man and there is nothing wrong with that… probably. the uncertainty made you want to groan.

instead you rubbed the back of your neck, fingers unsteady, and let your eyes wander again.

joel was staring at your hands.

neither of you spoke for a long moment.

the silence between you felt louder than the entire damn hall.

tipsy warmth buzzed under your skin, making everything sharper and softer at the same time. you wanted to say something but what could you say?

joel cleared his throat roughly and looked away toward the dancers, jaw tight.

“i oughta head out,” he muttered. “early patrol tomorrow. can’t afford to be half-drunk for it.”

the excuse sounded thin even to his own ears. the truth was simpler and more dangerous: he couldn’t sit here another minute with your knees nearly touching his and your eyes doing things to his stomach he didn’t know how to name.

you felt the pull in your chest, that same confusing mix of disappointment and relief.

the whiskey made you bolder than usual. before you could talk yourself out of it, the words slipped out.

“i’ve got more whiskey in my car,” you said, voice low. “been saving it. hidden away for some special occasion that never came.” you gave a small, crooked smile, the alcohol loosening your tongue. “guess tonight counts.”

joel’s eyes snapped back to yours. for a second he just stared, something flickering across his face.

temptation.

you were tempted. so was he. you could see it in the slight hitch of his breath, in how his gaze dropped to your mouth for half a second before jerking away again.

he could say no. he could stand up, walk out, and put this whole confusing night behind him. instead he let out a slow breath and gave a single, reluctant nod.

“yeah… alright,” he said gruffly. “one more drink.”

neither of you said anything as you made your way out. the tension followed you like a shadow, thick with unspoken questions and the quiet thrill of taking a route neither of you had meant to follow.

the night air hit different once you stepped outside.

your car sat at the edge of the lot, half-swallowed by shadow, gravel crunching under your boots as you walked. neither of you spoke.

you popped the trunk and rummaged for a moment, joel standing a few feet back, hands shoved in his pockets.

when you straightened up, bottle in hand, you turned to find him staring at you very move.

you cracked the seal, the sound small in the dark.

joel took the bottle when you offered it and drank without ceremony, the whiskey cheaper than the stuff inside but somehow going down easier, warmer.

you both settled against the front of the truck, the metal still holding a little of the day's heat through your jackets.

close.

joel told himself there was nowhere else to sit. that was a lie too.

the bottle passed between you in silence, back and forth, the distance between sips getting shorter. joel's head had gone soft and loose, the kind of drunk that stripped away the why and left only the what. what he wanted, sitting right there in the dark next to you, breathing the same cold air.

he was aware of everything. the scrape of your sleeve against his. the low rasp of your breath. the way the moonlight caught the scar at your mouth every time you tipped the bottle back.

he was too aware of his own body. the way his knee had drifted an inch toward yours without his permission. the stiffness in his neck from holding his head straight ahead when every part of him wanted to turn and look. fifty-some years old and he felt like a damn teenager, hating himself for it.

his shoulder stayed pressed to yours anyway. neither of you adjusted away. you cleared your throat, a low rumbling sound, and took the bottle back from his hand.

"you ever—" you started, then stopped yourself, shaking your head slightly like you'd caught the question before it got away from you.

"ever what."

you didn't answer right away. took a drink instead, longer than you needed, buying time same as he had. when you finally spoke your voice had dropped lower, rougher.

"nothing. forget it."

joel's hand tightened on his knee, fighting the urge to close what little space was left.

he didn't decide to do it. that was the only way he could explain it after. his body moved before his mind signed off, whiskey dissolving the last thread holding him back.

he leaned in.

the kiss landed with more collision than intention, his mouth catching the corner of yours before finding its place. and for one full second, everything in him screamed wrong. the sharp bite of whiskey on your tongue, the unfamiliar roughness of your stubble scraping raw against his own.

it was foreign in a way that made his stomach drop.

he pulled back an inch, breath ragged, staring at you like he half expected to find shock or disgust waiting there. some part of him braced for it. for you to shove him off, for this to be the mistake he'd told himself all night it would be.

instead you looked back at him with something steady. something that wasn't fear at all.

the look held. neither of you breathed right. whatever had cracked open between you in every stolen glance all night was fully open now, no pretending left to do.

your hand came up slow like you were giving him every chance to stop you. fingers brushed his jaw first, then slid back along his neck into the short hair at the base of his skull.

joel felt the touch everywhere at once, a shiver crawling down his spine that had nothing to do with the cold.

your mouth met his with certainty this time, whiskey and the faint taste of tobacco.

your smoky taste should've been unpleasant. it wasn't. it was strange in a way that made his head spin worse than the alcohol had, foreign and rich and startlingly good, like tasting some part of you he had no right to know yet.

some tight thing he hadn't known he was holding. the scrape of his own stubble against yours didn't feel wrong anymore. it felt like want.

his hands found your jacket without much thought behind it, holding the fabric like he needed something to hold onto or he might tip right off the edge of the truck.

his thumb moved without him telling it to, tracing along your jaw, feeling the rasp of your stubble catch rough against his skin.

he'd never touched a man like this.

never wanted to, or never let himself want to. he couldn't tell the difference anymore, whiskey blurring the line between the two.

"this is—" he started with your faces pressed together, voice thick, words coming slow and uncertain.

"don't," you cut in quietly. "don't think about it too hard."

he huffed something close to a laugh, low and rough, more breath than sound. "wasn't gonna."

that was a lie. with your hand still curled warm against the back of his neck and the whiskey humming loose through his blood.

he kissed you again, slower this time, no clumsiness left in it. just his hand sliding up to cradle your jaw the way yours held his, mirroring the same want without needing to be told how.

the truck's hood dug cold and hard into his hip through his jeans, grounding him even as everything else blurred soft at the edges.

out here there was only whiskey-breath and warm skin and the low, steady drag of wanting neither of you had the sense left to fight.

once the fear had nowhere left to hide, something else took over completely. he'd forgotten what wanting someone felt like this.

reckless, thoughtless.

you pulled him closer by the collar, and joel went without resistance, chest to chest now, the cold night air doing nothing against the heat building between you. his breath came ragged, catching every time your mouth shifted against his, teeth grazing his bottom lip once, deliberate, testing.

he made a sound he wasn't proud of. didn't care.

his hand found your waist, gripping through the denim, feeling your solid muscles.

it was different, all of it. the hard line of your jaw under his palm, the flat plane of your chest pressed to his. different didn't mean wrong. not anymore. not with your mouth working slow and sure against his like you'd been wanting this exact thing all night, same as him.

he kissed you harder, tilting his head, chasing the taste of whiskey and you and something underneath both that was just want. your fingers tangled into his hair, pulling just enough to sting, and joel groaned into your mouth, hips shifting without thought.

right now there are only two men who'd spent fifty-some years not letting themselves want this.

when he broke the kiss, you both were breathless, foreheads resting together.

joel became aware of the world again. the one that had disappeared entirely somewhere in the middle of that kiss.

jackson's lights scattered small and distant below, scattered like dying embers against the dark sprawl of the valley floor.

above you both, the sky had opened up entirely.

joel tipped his head back, breath still uneven, and found more stars than he'd let himself notice in years. thick swaths of them smeared across the black, the kind of sky the old world never had, all its light pollution long since gone dark and silent. the milky way cut a pale, hazy river straight through the middle of it all, faint and impossible and strangely close.

there was something unreal about the whole night.

the two of you are sitting here in a silence that didn't feel like silence at all.

he'd looked at this same sky a hundred times before.

"Huh— I think this is actually how they reproduce, rather than dropping seedlings," Ryland hums, shooting a glance over to you before he looks down at his notepad, jotting a few of his observations down.

This species of plant isn't one he's ever seen before on Erid; thus, when the little pebbles started singing about it, he'd gotten curious as any science nerd would— you two are the only humans to ever be on Erid, let alone live here! It's an amazing thing, and he enjoyed it quite a bit.

Even the Me-burgers were heaven compared to coma-sludge, or worse, starvation. It took a little getting used to, yes, but it was great.

"So it only looks like seeds," You pipe up, leaning back on your knees and resting your gloved hands over your thighs, "Quite fascinating. Maybe there was an evolutionary purpose to it?"

"I'm not sure," He admits. "Adrian did say it offered some… unique, functions to an Eridian system— it could be that they used it to achieve a bodily high?"

Tilting his head, he leans forward and runs the tip of his pencil over the underside of one of the leaves, watching the connected branch curl up and, seemingly, die immediately. He winces. "…Oops."

A second later, the branch turns almost a radiant pink, and falls down to rest finally on the rocks in the biodome.

It's strange— he's unsure how a plant so sensitive to touch survived this long on the surface — even moreso how it still lives in human conditions — where even the harsh winds of Erid made it difficult for it to thrive. Sure, yes, it was mostly found in deeper systems where movement wasn't as common as the surface, but the question still stands.

Erid biology was amazing.

"So much so to change its propagating system to be less farmable?" You question, and when he glances over, your nose is scrunched in confusion, "Maybe Rocky left some information out."

Shrugging, he moves to kneel alongside you, letting his gaze flit back over to the offending plant. Some of the petals around the bud of the flower have wilted, changing from pitch-black to a pretty, dead pink; proving how little time you both had before it'd completely wilt.

"Only one way to find out," He muses, feeling a grin slip onto his lips as he digs his gloves out of his pocket and gets them on, "I mean— Distant observation can only get you so far, and it hasn't killed us yet or proved to have a scale of toxicity to humans."

Handing his pen and notepad to you — and blatantly ignoring your faint, disapproving grunt — he shifts closer to the flowering plant, leaning down a little to glance over the underside of the leaves and the flower, before he straightens up.

He continues. "Is this a bad idea? Maybe. But we could also learn from it, so there is a light at the end of the tunnel!"

"Ryland…"

Your voice is low, and not exactly approving— but he shoulders on anyway, straightening his spine and wincing at the ache, spreading his knees to give him a wider sense of balance. Only a few bad things could happen, either way; One, he gets a face-full of poisonous spores and ends up kicking the bucket, and Two: the plant fights back and he gets ill for a few days, but is otherwise OK.

Two sounds optional, but he has some hope for nothing bad to happen.

Are those famous last words?

Maybe.

Is he going to continue anyway, for science?

Yes.

"I've got this, It'll be fine— we did survive space," He nudges his glasses back up with the back of his wrist as he peers over the flower, "Let's not forget that part. Space? Scary, but great. Alien plants? Awesome!"

Is he getting slightly nervous and talking to calm himself down? Also maybe.

Upon hearing your noncommittal grunt, he exhales slowly through his nose, carefully reaching over to the core of the life before him— he knocks into another branch with his elbow on accident, and it dies immediately. A little disheartening, but that's pretty normal for his life, so he continues.

Gently, he wraps his hand around the bud of the flower, softly prying the petals open—

He jerks back as spores shoot upward and all over his face, coughing up a fit as he waves his hand in front of his face. His other digs into the rocks below him, keeping him off of his back.

He starts talking before you have the chance; just to save himself from your impending I told you so. Even when he deserves it.

"Well—" He coughs, pulling his spore-ridden glasses from his face, "That was totally, one-hundred percent, completely expected! I did that entirely on purpose. You know. For science. Gotta test it somehow, right?"

Laughing awkwardly, he avoids looking over at you as he sits up, shaking his head to be-rid himself of the shock. In spite of his obvious embarrassment, he feels your hand curl around his shoulder, then the warmth of your body next to his— for some odd reason, it feels a lot more present than before.

Like, fever-adjacent warmth.

Was he getting sick already?

Your voice cuts through a haze in his brain he wasn't even aware was there— Yeah, he's totally getting sick.

Darn it.

"You alright? Ingest any? Get any in your eyes, your mouth?"

Blinking rapidly, he shakes his head again, humming a low mm-mm as your face comes into view, your eyebrows furrowed in concern. Your hands warm his already hot face as you brush some of the colored spores off, and all of a sudden, saliva puddles in his mouth at your touch.

You'd removed your gloves? When and why did you do that?

Sure, sue him, his mouth would water a little any time you did something remotely attractive— but not this much.

"That's…. weird," He mutters, swallowing, "I think I'm getting sick."

The rocks shift beneath your knees as you adjust, and he can't help but watch your expression, to stare at your face. The little scar that marks the flesh from below your jaw to beside the corner of your mouth, the way you huff and tilt your head when you're confused, the way your jaw clenches and your mouth curls back when you're angry…

Your mouth is moving. Are you talking to him?

Who is he kidding. You don't talk to yourself like he does.

"Ryland— Your pupils are blown to high hell," Your grip shifts down to his jaw, tightening as you turn his head however you please, "You're confident you didn't swallow any?"

…Wait a minute.

Oh, no.

"I— I think we were wrong," He gasps, quickly shoving you away the instant his brain makes the connection; not because the touch or your proximity hurt — quite the friggin' opposite, actually, because he already feels like he's dying now that you're not touching him — "It's contact triggered, not ingestion; I— uh, I already feel hot. Super hot. Not-Good hot."

You stumble to regain your balance, falling backward onto your rear into the rocks below next to the abandoned pen and notepad. Guilt pools in his stomach as he observes as it happens, but heat instantly suffocates it at the faint show of your teeths points from behind your lips, and the way your shoulders move as you push yourself back up.

He watches the unreadable expression leave your face in favor of something more restrained— he knows this one, though. You always look like this when you're focused, or you let your past training take the reins for a minute.

Now that he's staring, he finally notices the spores that are on you.

Shoot.

"Any other symptoms? Headaches, nausea, uh, loss of feeling or motor-function?"

You continue rattling off important questions, but he's not really listening. He should be, but it feels like he can't— his eyes stay glued to your mouth, then flick away only to land on your hands as you quickly get out of your spore-infested jacket.

You've got such nice hands. Very sturdy. Very masculine. Very reliable. Very—

Suddenly, his brain kicks back into gear; he's supposed to be doing the same thing.

"No, negative, not at all— I, um, I just feel kind of toasty, and…"

Well, he'll be honest — with himself, anyway — and think that he did not want to say that last part. Instead, he focuses on setting his glasses aside and getting himself out of his cardigan, of which has the most spores clinging to the yarn.

"And?" You continue, tossing your jacket over the offending plant to avoid any more spores escaping, "And what? Ryland— We know fuck-all about this plant, we don't have time to waste; hell, we could grow another goddamn limb and be utterly clueless to prevent it— so, I'd really like to know what the hell you're feeling before I feel it too!"

He swallows.

If he was a braver man willing to test your patience, he would've said something like, language, Captain! but, he knows he's not. And, well, he'd rather enjoy keeping his fingers. You threatened to cut them off the last time he royally pissed you off.

…But there really is no way to lighten up the word aroused, is there?

He opens his mouth once, then twice, only to close it shut right after. It doesn't help you're less than four feet away, gorgeous as all heck, breathing just as heavy as he is.

He's sweating.

"I— ugh, I'm— Sexually influenced! I'm feeling Sexually… influenced. Heavily. Horribly." He winces.

O… Kay. That was arguably worse.

He can't bring himself to look at you; your silence was enough, and it only makes your out-of-sync breaths seem louder. It doesn't help his brain, which, if you were curious, felt like sludge that could leak out of his brain if he thinks too hard.

The symptoms must've finally kicked in for you, because your silence continues, where he knows you would've questioned his wording were you…. uninfluenced.

At the sound of your throat clearing, his gaze flits over to you, and instantly, it's obvious you're feeling the same things he is.

Which, truly, helps his brain avoid functioning altogether.

"Shit," You finally announce, panting through your mouth— sweat slicks the front of your hair as you run your hand down your face, and his thoughts catch on the movement of your Adams apple as you swallow.

"It's kind of awful, right?" He breathes, laughing awkwardly; his voice cracks mid-way, not unlike how it often did when he was going through puberty. Embarrassing. "It's, uh, really bad for you too, huh?"

He wiggles in his spot, trying to get comfortable enough to calm down a little— but all it does is make his jeans grind against a rather sensitive spot he'd hoped to avoid. Quickly, he stills, trying to avoid a repeat offense as he runs his tongue over his bottom lip.

"Yeah," You mutter, nodding slowly, "We should…"

You pause mid-way, your voice trailing off like you'd either gotten distracted or completely lost what idea you had of what you were going to say; and, yeah, he wholeheartedly agrees. He was only trying to keep a brave face, but he felt so strongly he could cry— he wanted so badly it was painful.

"—You, you go inside. Strip before you enter and leave your clothes… outside, by the door. I'll, uh, I'll handle them while you shower and cool off."

"What are you going to do?" The question tumbles out of his mouth automatically, but its concern is true. "We don't— We don't know how long this stuff lasts. We can't be separated forever,"

He's unsure if that last part is him, or the spores' effect talking. Truthfully— he can't bring himself to care a freaking lick (God, if he could lick You…). Swallowing, he continues, "At least not without some difficulties."

"Doesn't matter," You wave your hand in front of your face as you shake your head, as if to brush him off, "Just— just go. I need… to log the— the symptoms, and get rid of the goddamn plant."

He listens, feeling his mouth curl back in slight distaste of the idea. He didn't want to leave; he didn't even want to be this far away from you, let alone so much more he couldn't even see you. It didn't feel right— the idea stung, like physical pain.

"Wha— You can't— you can't touch it!" He blurts, ignoring the fact his voice is in a higher pitch than it usually is, "—Not, uh, without gloves. It's dangerous. And we don't have any fresh ones out here. You should come. Inside. You know… to get new ones? It's bad to reuse them. Very unprofessional."

Why is he saying this?

Okay, yeah, his brain is practically screaming at him to crawl over to you and just do something so he'll stop feeling tether-less, but he doesn't mean to say it. Or imply anything. It just… slips out, on accident. Completely. A complete accident. Yeah.

Yeah.

inhaling slowly through his mouth, he swallows again, crawling backward to put some distance between the two of you, preferably before anything shifts and you both end up in the gravel. Also preferably with you on top of him, with your hands on the back of his neck and—-

"Then I'll figure something out— Ryland, please, just go. We don't know what this stuff… does."

…Right. He probably should get all the spores off of him, huh? They don't seem to be helping. At all. Like, any.

"I'm going," He finally announces, forcing himself to stand even when it's the last thing he wants to do; his knees feel weak, and so does his brain. His mind feels fuzzy when it's not thinking about you or anything to do with… well, he knows what. "I'm going. I, um, promise I won't take too long. Like last time. And the time before that."

"Grace—"

"Okay, okay, I'll stop talking now."

Will he really?

Probably not.

Nonetheless, he puts one foot in front of the other, unable to ignore the heat that gathers in his stomach as he walks past you— your breathing is wrecked, and the sight of your clenched fists and slight shaking do nothing to help his want to stay; for some reason, his brain finds wild comfort (And interest) in the fact you feel a similar, if not the same, way as him.

As he walks, he sucks in an unsteady breath, roughly wiping the spores off of his glasses and onto the bottom hem of his shirt; the further he gets from you, the more it all hurts. The heat gains, and it feels like an invisible iron against his every being, only mounting to the headache now clawing behind his eyes.

I can totally take this, he thinks, using a shaky hand to slip his glasses back on, If he can, I can, right?

Who am I kidding. He's, like, three times stronger than I am.

He runs the front of his palms down his jeans as he steps up to the front door, trying to wipe some of the sweat off of them before he reaches up to undo the buttons of his shirt— this doesn't feel good, either, so he sticks close to the wall and prays no one looks this way.

Even now, with his body temperature wildly higher than It needs to be and under the influence of some strange spores, the humiliation doesn't go away. The pain doesn't, either, instead running the opposite direction and only continuing to mount.

Dropping his shirt, he jerkily undoes the clasp of his belt, roughly yanking it out of the denim loops and letting it join his shirt. He can't decide whether the lack of fabric grinding against his skin feels better or worse— he's so sensitive it feels like he's on fire.

He toes off his shoes, kicking them off to the side before he reaches down to the button of his jeans; unable to help it, he shoots a look over the scars of his left shoulder, letting his gaze naturally find you. You're handling the plant now, moving it over to the entrance of the Bio-dome so Rocky or Adrian can take it out when they come over next.

Even from this distance, thanks to his glasses, he can see the ragged rise and fall of your shoulders as you breathe.

He has to force himself to re-focus. Peeling his jeans off, he steps out of them, quickly opening the front door and stepping inside— as the door slams behind him, he winces, slowly letting go of the knob and moving forward, past the kitchen, the screen room that Rocky refused to not add, and finally into the bathroom.

Stepping over his dirty clothes from yesterday he forgot to pick up, he sinks down to rest on the side of the tub to catch his breath, reaching over to turn the cold water on, and…

Nothing.

"You've got to be kidding me— Seriously, shower? Now is the time you decide to break? When I need you most?"

Dropping his arm, he hangs his head and squeezes his eyes shut. The shower had a habit of refusing to work; something about a hose kinking somewhere within the fresh-water system and here, both you and Rocky had explained. More than once.

He groans, but with how broken and defeated it is, it's more like a ruined whine or a grumble.

Deciding for the next best thing on the how-to-stop-overheating list, he, rather quickly, makes his way back to the kitchen and pulls the fridge open. And laying inside, limply against a frozen thing of Me-burgers, is his Holy Grail.

The bag of ice.

Yanking it from the fridge, the closest the fridge door, reaching up and pushing the coolness of the ice against his too-hot face— then, he steps over to the kitchen island, moving the thing of ice to rest on the back of his neck as he drapes himself over the cold counter-top.

It's heaven.

Pushing his forehead into the counter, he stretches his arms out in front of him, forming desperate parallel lines of cold-seeking embarrassment. Sure, the shower was dramatic and temperamental, but it doesn't mean he's screwed. At least for now— his tummy is still searing hot with want, even in spite of what he tries to do to prevent his brain from controlling him any more than it is.

He tilts his head, panting against the surface of the counter as he presses his cheek into the cold; the bag of ice slips, and he has to reach back and fix it before it falls. Before laying his arm back down, he lifts his head just high enough to pull his glasses off, setting them aside and returning to his earlier positions.

He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to calm himself down.

It does nothing.

All he can think about is you.

If your groans sound different when you feel good, if he could make you feel good, how nice it'd be if you just come back and fuck him sensles—

His head pops up immediately at the sound of the doors hinges whining as they open; he makes eye-contact with you just as fast, and you both pause. You're stripped down to your underwear like he is, panting like you just ran a marathon, face dusted pink in a blush he's sure he matches on his own face.

"I thought you were supposed to be in the shower?" You blurt, your voice breaking weakly.

He blinks. "It decided to… quit working."

"Again?" You question, leaning back against the door and squeezing your eyes shut, just like he was moments before. "Shit."

"Yeah," He nods slowly, straightening out and sliding the back of ice over the counter, a free offer. "The, uh, the ice helps. Some."

As you step forward, drop the pen and notepad onto the counter and snag the ice, his gaze slips southward, to your stomach. You've a few scars there; a jagged, wide one from your front to the side, a few smaller ones in clusters, a medium sized one that cuts down below your underwear's waistband.

You're still muscular, though. Where he'd, admittedly, gained a few pounds back after regaining access to food upon the touchdown on Erid, you still held yourself pleasantly— that, or he hadn't noticed much of a change, if at all.

You were good-looking. Always had been, really, but after years together on Mary — and the VERY close proximity that came with — and seeing you handle stressful situations with a sexy amount of control… well, you might as well be a Greek God.

An Adonis, if you will.

"My eyes are up here, you know. I can practically see the thoughts in your head."

He raises his gaze instantly.

"S— Sorry," He fumbles, his mouth opening silently, but he finds no valuable excuse to defend himself with. "…Sorry."

"I'm kidding," You laugh, but it's breathless, and not all there, like you didn't truly find anything funny. He knew, feeling like this, he couldn't. He watches you pull the ice from your throat, then as you slide it back over to him, rest your forearms on the counter, and sink down to rest your forehead against the tops of your arms.

Your voice is slightly muffled when you continue. "…Haven't exactly been an angel myself."

"What's that mean?" He questions, swallowing the saliva pooling in his mouth at the free sight of your scar-littered, muscular back— he presses his lips together, leaning against the cold edge of the counter to try to feel like he's regained Some control of himself.

He hasn't.

You say nothing as you straighten back up, instead, you wordlessly make eye-contact with him; but you break it as you look down to his lips, back to his eyes, his lips again, then down his front and over to the burn scars over his forearm and upward on his left side.

Heat blooms everywhere he can feel you look.

It should freak him out— he was under the influence of hormone-altering spores, he should be running away screaming and locking himself into the bedroom and keeping distance from you. So you could both rough this out on your own and pretend it didn't happen.

But… It's not.

Quite the opposite, really.

"What'd you do to the plant?" He questions breathlessly, pulling the ice away from his face and leaning over the counter to hand it to you— he's not sure what gets him more; the touch of your hand brushing his as you take it, or the cold lick of the counters edge right above his crotch.

He wants to grab you, to yank you over to this side and kiss you so hard it hurts, but he refrains.

It's a feat within itself, really.

"Put it by the door," You mutter, raising the ice to press against your cheek, "With a note for Rocky."

He nods, chewing on his bottom lip as he drops his hand, pressing the heel of it against the edge of the counter. His fingers curl, gripping it tight in an attempt to clear his head from the thoughts running rampant— What it'd be like for you to fuck him here in the kitchen, in the living room, in the bathroom, in the shower…

"And— And the clothes?"

"In a spare storage tub... 'Cept for your belt, and mine. They're still by the door."

He nods again.

Sure, it's wildly risky to just be conversing like it's a casual Thursday when you're both… like this, but the pain is gone— almost completely, aside from the ever-present inferno of his body temperature. He doubts that's going to go away today, but as long as it doesn't hurt, he'll try not to think about it.

He doesn't think you want to be in any more pain, either.

It really stings. Moreso than the ache in his gut, or the throbbing between his legs.

He glances up when he catches you move in his peripheral, accepting the bag of now-slightly-melted ice and watching you move around the island, over to the fridge.

God, your back is insane.

"How long do you think this'll last?" He murmurs, pressing the ice against his tummy— he twitches, sensitive. More than usual; it feels like every part of him has heightened receptors to touch, even his own.

Hm. He tacks it into his brain to record as a symptom, later.

You shrug, prying the fridge open and pulling two waters out from inside of it, "I'd have a better shot at getting back to Earth than figuring that out, G."

"Well…" He laughs awkwardly, licking his lips, "At least we're in it together, right? I doubt this whole… 'having odd reactions to an alien plant species that totally wasn't my fault' thing would be as fun if we weren't? I mean, that's a bright side?"

You shake your head, nudging the fridge door closed with your knee before you turn, handing him a cold water bottle as you push yours against your neck. "I don't think I ever want to have 'fun,' again in my life. I've had enough for one lifetime."

"Whaaat? You don't want to get sick on an unexplored planet in another life? That's awful, [Name]. A complete insult to me and my alien affections!" He accepts the water with a small nod of a thank-you, inhaling slowly at your proximity— it's the closest you've been since he shoved you off of him earlier, and he can't help but notice it.

But he's being sarcastic, of course. If he isn't, he doesn't think he could bring himself to look away from you.

Not that he can anyway.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Ryland— I'd love to get stranded with you every lifetime, I was just kidding!"

Now it's your turn to be sarcastic; and he can't say it turns him off any. Actually, the mock sympathy only makes his heart beat a little faster— the way your mouth curves down into a pitying, fake frown, how your eyebrows draw together and your head tilts…

And the way you say his name?

Stick a fork in 'im. He's done. He's over his head.

Yeah, he can't get it out of his brain.

His lips part as he swallows, feeling the volcano roar in his stomach; he continues staring, influenced and suddenly shameless with need, staring so intently he watches your expression changes the second it happens.

You go from mocking, to curious, to unreadable.

He watches every single one of them have their turn.

He gets two seconds to gasp until you're crossing the kitchen and cutting it off with a kiss.

The warmth blooms upward from his stomach to his chest as you groan into his mouth, and he fumbles to set the ice down as he kisses back— it's clumsy, hot, and quick; it's a physical need rather than a want. He can barely hear the sound of the bag of ice slipping off the counter and onto the floor over the rush of blood in his ears, but he doesn't care.

You continue moving even as you're connected, forcing him to walk backward as he kisses you until a shudder wracks his spine at the cold edge of the counter bumps into his lower back, but whatever chill there was is instantly staved off the moment your hands find his waist, fingertips digging into his skin.

Kissing has never felt so fucking good.

It's like a full-body satisfaction— whatever warmth or pain he had before is synthesized into pleasure, then doubling that into euphoria.

He returns the passion as you tilt your head, making his head tilt back a little until he pushes back, feeling your chest rise and fall in an out-of-sync rhythm against his own; though it's instantly forgotten as his body shivers, his chest tightening pleasantly as you grind against him.

Whining into your mouth, he chases you as you lean your head back, barely registering as you pull his glasses off of his face and set them aside.

God, you feel good.

"This— This is," He pants, swallowing harshly, "Really, really unhygienic."

Your arms box him in as you pull them from his waist, settling them on either side of him on the counter as you pull back, slide a leg between his own, and come closer. An open-mouthed, choked gasp is yanked from his throat at the friction, and whatever care he has disappears.

It's not like you answer, anyway— you just duck your head down and kiss him again, nudging your knee further between his own to, apparently, give him more pleasure as you move your arms to coil around his middle.

And to heck if it doesn't work.

His hand slides up as he hooks an arm around the back of your neck, keeping you in place; if you moved away now, he'd cry. Literally. His other drops to grip along your hip, his fingers brushing a scar there— it must be sensitive, too, because you hum into his mouth and push him further into the counter.

It doesn't hurt; you'd moved your arm down, so your forearm pressed into the counter instead of his back. It didn't snake any lower, but it makes you lean down a little more; and when he grinds his hips again, it feels like heaven.

Actual heaven.

"Don't— Don't move," He gasps, panting into your mouth as his hand tightens around your hip, "Right there, please, don't move,"

He's never felt so sensitive in his life.

You seem to realize that, too, because you prey on it; as he ruts against your leg and yourself, your arm tightens around his lower back, pulling him even closer. You moan into his mouth as he kisses you back with fervor, and it only eggs him on— he arches his spine just slightly, making you chase him and lean over him more.

This feels even better. You do— whether it's the spores or you making him feel so good — like he hasn't ever before, with anyone else — he doesn't know, but he doesn't care about it much now.

"mmng— I—"

He can barely talk in-between kisses; sometimes they're deeper, sometimes they're more superficial but within rapid fashion— he doesn't care. They all work him toward that edge, tighten the coil in his tummy he's chasing—

"Don't stop—"

The moment you pull away to catch your breath and mouth at his neck, the coil snaps.

A broken whine is yanked from his throat as he ruts his hips, squeezing his eyes shut and leaning forward to nudge his nose into your shoulder. His hold on you tightens as he breathes in short, heavy inhales, continuing and tailed by ruined groans and whimpers, his thighs tightening around yours when you move.

You're panting against his neck, whatever noises you're making being muffled by the fact you've got your teeth in him— the sting feels better than he'd ever thought he'd be into, so he lets it happen, slowly relaxing in sync with you as he comes down from his high, but he still lets his hips roll experimentally.

You moan.

"Did y—?"

"…Uh-huh."

That's hot.

You're still breathing heavy by the time you retreat into his neck, not allowing either of you to come down completely or catch your breaths until your pushing your mouths together again, and he can faintly sense the feeling of your nose bumping into his as you tilt your head.

"Wanna go again?" You murmur, pressing a little kiss to the side of his mouth.

He nods, only to clear his throat. "Y— Yeah. The, uh, the bedroom this time, though? Please."

Is he going to last the entire night?

Maybe not. He's not the most… sexually active guy in the world, but God could you make him be.

Is he also sure you'll stop one-hundred percent the moment he's done?

Completely.

——

You had stumbled upon him at one of the many Pittsburgh parks. It was night. It was cold, but you needed to clear your head.

You had a big assignment due the next day and your therapist said that cooping up in your home is does no favors on your stress levels.— “You need air. so occasionally, touch some grass.” Paraphrased, but the core essence is there.

That’s when you saw him. Jack Abbott.

You never really questioned it, and you simply chalked it up to simple forgetfulness. Your friends never really made a big deal out of it, so neither did you. They thought it’s was just a quirk of yours: you were forgetful. A quirk that your employers or coworkers didn’t find as amusing, but it was what it was.

But when Jack, a licensed physician, witnessed it for the first time, it was safe to say that he was relatively concerned.

Which was fair when the first time Jack witnessed your lapse of memory it was on one of your worst episodes, one where your brain drew a blank on the concept of payment.

Today was a rare occurrence, because it was a day where both your and Jack’s off days lined up. You didn’t plan for anything grand just a simple day out in the park. You headed out in the reasonably chilly afternoon Pittsburgh air, and on the way to the park you passed by a café.

You two weren’t planning to dine in by any means. Frankly, both of you were avoidant of any crowds. Dealing with people day today was plenty for you two, so it was supposed to be a quick in and out: Make an order. Pay for it. Grab order and head out; it was supposed to be as simple as that. — if only it stayed that simple.

The problem came along when you got to the cashier. Fortunately, you didn’t just grab your drinks and headed out to the front door, but you did go as far as getting your wallet out, then simply forgot what the next steps were or why you were holding your wallet to begin with.

You’re just standing there unmovingly looking down at your wallet as if you’re trying to solve a puzzle. He noticed people behind you slowly getting irked and proceeded to Take matters into his own hands.

He offered for to pay for the both of you.

Jack pulled his own card out, paying for both of your drinks. When he turned back to you with both your orders in hand he was met with an Intense look of puzzlement. He raised a brow, amused, “What? No one paid for your drink before?”

“Uhm,” You stared at the man before dragging your eyes to your drink. You turned the cup in your hand examining it, your mind seemed elsewhere. When you connected you eyes back to Jack, you saw him staring at you confused. You offered up a simple thanks for the drink before gesturing that you two need to head out on your way.

Something was off, Jack knew that, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

You both walked out of the café and carry on with your plan for the day. As you two made your way to the park, Jack couldn’t quite let go of the idea that something felt off. He kept glancing at you trying to get a clue as to what had occurred.

You haven’t brought it up, so a part of him thinks he’s just chalking it up to paranoia. Something about taking the man out of the ER but not being able to take the ER out of the man type of behavior. But when he looked at you from the corner of his eyes he saw this dazed look behind your eyes as if your mind was elsewhere.

He cleared his throat to get your attention, “You okay there, handsome?”

“Huh?” You dragged your eyes from the road ahead towards the man beside you. You are alert to him talking to you but he could still see that a part of you was elsewhere, “What was that?”

“Was just wondering if you were alright. You’re awfully silent.”

“Oh nothing, just in my head,” you turned your head to face the road ahead of you.

“Hmm, want to share?”

You rugged, “Not really. There’s not really much to share.”

“It will give us something to talk about,” he offered.

You looked at the cup in your hand, tapping the top of it with your index finger. Jack could see the gears turning as you looked over the cup in your hand, but he doesn’t quite know what the gears were turning for, “I’ll get back to you on that one.”

You were never dismissive of conversations, at least never to this degree. You two took pride in the fact that if one of you was having a rough day and did not want to be a part of a conversation that it would outright be mentioned rather than having an odd song and dance of being moody and having the other walking on eggshells around the moody individual. Right now though, you’re being dismissive and dodging conversation, and what makes it worse from Jack’s perspective is the fact that he doesn’t even know if you are aware of it.

You being dazed aside, you did seem relatively fine though.

Jack took a deep breath. Maybe he is blowing this out of proportion. This is one of the few off days that the both of you have. Maybe you’re still trying to brush off some of that work stress, similar to how he is trying to turn off the ER mentality when out with you.— it’s really can’t be helped.

So he releases a breath and tries to let it go.

“Payment,” you whispered to yourself in the midst of bringing your drink up to your lips. “Oh my God, I forgot payment.” You dropped your drink down to your side using your free hand to pinch the bridge of your nose.

There were something in the way you said that. There was a hint of embarrassment but also of something else too. All that Jack knew was that you were seemingly beating yourself over it and he couldn’t have that, “Hey, It’s fine. It’s not like I’m blowing the bank paying for our drinks. If it’s not much of an issue.”

You snapped your head to the side, eyes narrowed. You did not expect him to witness your private moment. “No, I meant— I forgot— ” You bite your lip—There it is again, the gears turning, but this time without that dazed look. Before he could read more into it, you turned your gaze to the path ahead, “Never mind. Thanks for the drink.”

He tilts his head to the side, studying you. He takes you in for a beat before questioning, “You have been acting odd ever since the café. What’s wrong?”

“Don’t worry about it, it not a big deal.”

“So there was something?”

“Hmm,” you hummed in response. He supposes that you did so in acknowledgement of his question, but it came off more dismissive then either of you liked or expected. You brought the drink up to your mouth again to buy yourself more time and Jack knew it.

Jack called out your name.

Your name sounded wrong bathed in that much concern.

The sincerity of which expelled the air out of your lungs. It felt like a gut punch. — A far too strong an emotion and experience to be dealing with on an early morning walk to the park.

You looked at the periphery of your vision at the man besides you. If his calling on your name derived you of air, the look he gave you would have had you collapse on the sidewalk with how weak they brought your knees had you not averted your gaze in an instance. — how could a man convey that much sorrow and concern in his eyes alone? And it was directed in your direction too. You were also the cause of it, you pointed out to yourself.

Swallowing the anxiety and embarrassment that was growing, you decided to not to make a big deal out of it, “I just forgot about payment.”

“I know… I paid for our drinks…” Jack responded confused. He feels there’s more to this, cause why would you bring it up? But what?

Though he wasn’t pushing for any answers, the spotlight that was his gaze had you crumble at its perceived pressure, “I didn’t mean like that, I meant— well, I— God, most people would’ve dropped this by now,” the last statement was mostly to yourself.

You rested your hand on your temple, trying get rid of the frustration that was brewing in you: frustration that was mostly directed at yourself and the situation than any toward Abbot. Not like he knows what he has gotten himself into. —So much for open communication, you passively thought.

Conveniently, you had placed your hand in just a way to avoid any eye contact from Jack. Any more of that and you might’ve blurted out everything without a thought.

You internally groaned.

You were feeling a number of emotions right now. On top of the frustration, you also felt embarrassment and anxiety.

Embarrassment for when you eventually have to fess up. And anxiety at this particular situation where you are trying to provide the best impression of yourself but also having to admit that you forgot the most basic of things of: people pay for things they buy, and how that occurred.— The thought laid out to you like that made you cringe.

As you try to squash your brewing anxiety and frustration, you decided to bite the bullet. You dropped your hand: “my brain forgot how transactions worked, or more that they existed.”

“What?”

You felt your face heat up in embarrassment, and felt your heart affix in your throat.

“Transactions” you made a gesture of handing something over, “that. I— My brain forgot that that is a thing. Uhm, it happens sometimes. Not specifically to transactions. Letting you pay for me was a fluke and is not gonna happen again. Like that. Not happen like that,” you added quickly. “Uhm, it’s just that… my brain just….crosses wires? Forgets to send a signal? God, I never had to explain this before. I just.. I just forget things sometimes.”

“Does this happen often?”

“I don’t keep track,” Your voice came out as small as it could be, embarrassed about this whole ordeal. You cleared your throat trying to gather any sense of dignity “I sometimes don’t even know when it happens. It just… happens. Though the few times that I am aware of them occurring are enough for me to know that it is relatively normal for me. if that makes sense.”

“Have you gotten it checked out?”

You rolled your eyes, “I don’t need you to be my physician right now.”

“What if it’s something concerning?”

“It’s been going on for ages, Jack.”

“And has it been getting worse?”

“Ironically, I don’t remember.” At this point you were getting snappy.

“I’m just concerned.”

You stopped dead in your tracks and pivoted on a heel to stand in front of the physician. “Jack,” You snapped at him. You shut your eyes biting your lower lip. You didn’t expect that to come out as harsh as it did, so you tried it again. “Jack,” this time it came out gentler, “I appreciate the concern. But it just happens occasionally. It’s fine. it’s normal. Just the other day I forgot to dry off after a shower with a towel in hand.” You told him humorously.

He didn’t see it as funny as you did.

You have never been defensive over this topic. to be fair you were never under this much scrutiny either. But Being placed under a magnifying glass didn’t make you feel right either. Especially with someone that could possibly point out a thing that you deemed normal and say “hey that’s actually fucked up.” —. Definitely more eloquently than that but the thought still stands.

And there it was again.

Your name being sounded out in a way the way that was too unnatural. a sound too foreign into your ears. Concerned, sorrowful and… Fearful…?

You swallow hard at the realization.

"Jack, truly it just happens. It has never been a big deal and it’s not a big deal. It’s just a thing that occurs."

"Okay..."

"Alright." You both left it out there. You knew Jack wouldn’t have dropped the issue so easily but he didn’t want to push you on it either so you went about your day.

Your day at the park went relatively uneventful but still relaxing and everything you want out of it.

You hoped for the rest of the day too match in that experience. And it did for a bit. But you should’ve known that it wouldn’t last that long.

You found Jack at the front of your apartment having had just went to his next door to his own apartment cleaned up before dropping by for a quick quick visit. At least, you hoped was a quick visit, but by how he stood there you already knew what was coming.

You allowed him in because what else were you going to do?

You both sat in your living room and eventually after some moments of tense silence and he asked his questions: What’s to do with your memory? Has it been an issue? What’s the severity of it?

You imagined that this is what it would be like if you dropped by the ER when he was on shift. —Jack wouldn’t admit it, but in actuality he was only shows this level of deep concern only for you.

The conversation was tense, but ultimately was rather productive.

You narrow down what could be the issue and told Jack that when you are ready and able you will get yourself checked out and figure out in detail what you were dealing with. He was thankful and you were thankful back for his concern seeing as no one had deemed this little “quirk“ of yours as anything but that just a quirk .

Jack huffed out at that.

That was Jack’s first encounter with your general memory lapses. And since then Jack has witnessed a few other instances of it and had learned how to manoeuvre around them which you never knew how much you needed and how much you are thankful for it now that you have it.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

SCENE TWO:

Author's Note: Technically, this is the first scene I have ever written with this idea, but I expanded upon it, and it made the scene you have just read. I wrote the previous scene because I believed I needed an origin story to explain how jack discovery Y/n's memory issue. and also expand on how severe the memory thing is. Anyway, here is the scene.

Breakfast should be an easy ordeal especially when you’re not cooking. Get a bowl of cereal. Get milk. And there, that’s your breakfast. And if you’re feeling fancy, chop up some fruits and maybe get yourself some orange juice on the side.

So one has to understand the frustration you feel when you end up staring at a bowl of cereal with milk already poured in like it’s some equation for space travel.

You and Jack were both in the kitchen. Jack has already made his breakfast (bacon, eggs, and coffee) and he would’ve made you some had you not insisted on something quick and easy so you can make it out of the door fast. — Plus you said something about morning meals being “too heavy” and that they “make you puke;” Something he’ll look into later.

You two were in the middle of discussing what you were gonna do for the day when you had stopped in your tracks, staring at the bowl of cereal in front of you. Feeling as if you’re forgetting something. Well, less forgetting, and more feel like there is a mental wall between you and the knowledge of what you’re meant to do. You know something is blocking your way, you just don’t know how to get past it.

Jack paused soon after. He recognized what was happening. This isn’t the first time he had witnessed this occurring. So he grew accustomed to it.

Frankly, the first time he witnessed this happened was way worse compared to what he was witnessing right now. — Granted he is a bit biased because he didn’t know what was going on, but forgetting something about your bowl of cereal probably isn’t on par with forgetting the general concept of payment.

But that is a story for a different time.

Jack sat at the kitchen island across from where you were standing. He watched you as you stare down your bowl. He hasn’t quite figured out what your brain drew a blank on, but he also knew that attempting to walk you through it or directly question or tell you what is that you’ve forgotten tends to do more harm than good.

“Hey handsome, what you doing there?”

“Poured some cereal,” You responded in a way more akin to reminding yourself what you did in hopes that it will jog the next steps.

“Yeah?” He drank his coffee keeping his eyes on you, “just for fun?”

“No, obviously,” You rolled your eyes at him. He sees your hand moving at your side, opening and closing as if grasping at something. Your brain was working ahead of your memory. You knew the next steps, but not what it is.

Watching your hand move at your side, it clicks to Jack what it is that your brain blanked on, but you weren’t in a hurry. You didn’t need to race out of the door in any moment so he allowed you to slowly get to it with the very least a little assistance from him.

You leaned on your elbows over your bowel squinting at it, brows furrowed, and lightly glared at the bowl. Your hand was still grasping at air, your wrist rolling on the side of the bowl, mimicking a motion that you can’t exactly place at the moment.

Jack cleared his throat.

Staring back at his coffee, he pours in some more sugar into his drink, clinking the spoon on the mug after mixing the sugar in.

You stared at his actions your brain buzzing as if telling you that there is something in Jack's actions that is of importance. your facial features blank but your eyes were studying him.

Youre widened as it clicks.

“Spoon!” You smiled to yourself at your small triumph as you headed into the kitchen to get yourself to actually eat you food.

Jack smiled as he drank his coffee.

"So any plans for today?"

And the day continues as any other.

+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

Post Fanfictions Author's Note:

Just to reiterated, sorry for any odd writings, flow/pacing, typos and the such. I didn't proofread this like my other fics, but I hope it is enjoyable still!! There is one more scene (more like full story, but still) in the works for this, and i would have added it onto this post, but it is so long that it can stand its own ground. + it is more personal and hits home. So I wanna at the very least complete it than leave it half-assed. This is the world count prior to me editing it and finishing the whole story:

All I am saying is that I won't be surprised if this hits 6k words. If you want to this same concept for some other character, or want me to maybe expand on it, just respectfully send a request; It might take a bit, but i will get there.

It’s surely nearing midnight when the doorbell rings; a brief, jumping tune that cleaves impersonally through the silence of the dim house. It feels almost mocking in nature, when set against the quiet simmer of anxiety that’s become an unwelcome constant over the past several weeks. 

From your place in the bathroom, rinsing your toothbrush clean, you still. You make a move for your phone to check the time, but realize upon palming an empty pocket that you left it on the bedside table in your room. A long, unnerved stare into the darkness beyond the bathroom stretches endlessly, of such unblinking intensity you could almost swear you begin to see movement in the black. 

Only when the bell rings again, do you move. Your toothbrush slips into the cup by the sink alongside a dry, months-abandoned second. A thick swallow tightens your throat, switching off the bathroom light on your way out and letting your feet’s muscle memory guide you down the hall and through the living room. There, the darkness is notably weaker, abated by the wan threads of moonlight that spill across the floor, through the fine curtains.  

Your front door has no peephole, and although you've been meaning to get a doorbell camera installed you've not had the time nor energy these days to follow through. 

You fleetingly wish you’d grabbed your gun—then, just as swiftly, discard the thought. You're out of that life, of standing on complete guard whenever there’s an unexpected visitor at the door, of reaching for the nearest firearm at the first inkling of danger. It’s been years, coming up on four now since you left, but old habits die hard.

Your palm hovers steadily, for only a beat or two, above the handle. 

Fuck it, you think rather blandly, and tug the door open. 

The pause that follows is surely not as long in reality as it feels to you, but it is stark and charged nonetheless. 

Naturally, being closer to his eye level, your gaze latches on to Court, first. Scanning over his face, his bearing and his clothes, his bandaged palm, the nearly faded, yellowish bruise across his cheek. Battered, as per usual, but staggeringly intact. Relief swathes you whole; the months worth of built-up unease weighing your collarbones down unfurls all at once.

Next, your attention dips, settles instead on the shorter, scrawnier frame of a tired-looking Claire beside him. She’s fairing significantly better, but a pale pink burn on her cheek reveals a preview of what she must have been through in these weeks of radio silence. 

“Hi,” she says, voice turned inward but not necessarily out of shyness. You sense her exhaustion like a plume of thick smoke clinging to her lanky frame. 

She’s moving before you even fully get your own greeting out, sinking into your arms and clinging with a ferocity that stuns you, considering her state. You cup the back of her head, hair soft and clean, which hopefully means the worst has passed. Claire lingers in the embrace, clutching the back of your worn sleep shirt and burrowing her temple into your collarbone like she plans on staying there a while. 

In the meantime, you look back up to find Court staring right back. There’s that hardness to his jaw, faintly tighter than where it would naturally rest that suggests a degree of discomfort from him. Your heart clenches just at the sight of him, relief and concern equal parts to blame for your sudden breathlessness. You long to kiss him, to check out what’s got his hand cloaked in such thick dressing and ideally look over the rest of him, too—knowing when there’s one injury on the man there is always more. 

After a minute, Claire pulls away, and your hands follow her, soothing against her back. 

“You guys eat?”

Claire sniffles once and nods, dragging the heel of her palm against her eye. 

“We got Burger King on the way here,” Court offers, at which you give a faint smile. 

“Okay. Why don’t you head to the guest bedroom, kid? I’ll find you a toothbrush and some pajamas in a minute,” you tell her, pressing one hand fleetingly to her cheek before she nods and retreats. 

Now alone, the two of you turn back to each other. The breeze swings between you, beckoned in by the open door, and when you manage to tear your eyes away from Court’s steel blue pair, you finally speak. 

“You gonna stand guard there all night?”

He huffs; a flicker of amusement amidst the tension stretched through him like a taut wire. With shuffling feet he enters. Shuts the door behind him with a dull click. 

“Hey,” you murmur, planting both hands on either side of Court’s neck. Much to your satisfaction, some of his tension bleeds away at the touch, stepping even closer to circle you in his arms. 

“Hey.”

“You had me worried,” you chastise, but all of your frustrations ebb away at the feeling of him finally back in your arms. 

“I know,” Court sighs, ducking forward to plonk his forehead onto your shoulder, and you take the opportunity to press a long, warm kiss to his temple. “I’m sorry.” His back muscles ripple like weaseling little fish underneath the skin, against your circling palms; a testament to weeks worth of tension left to fester in his body.

“I’ll make you some tea, okay?”

Court expels a shallow puff of air against the neck he’s burrowed into, nodding once, sluggish, and then pulling back entirely. You gently usher him off into the kitchen, where you coax him into a stool by the island and then switch the kettle on. From there, you turn toward the hallway and stroll out of the kitchen, dragging a palm across the set of Court’s sunken shoulders when you walk past him. On the way to the guest bedroom, you stop by the storage closet and grab a thick quilt folded atop one of the metal racks drilled into the wall.

However, when a tentative knock on the cracked door gives way to a long beat of silence, you peek inside to find Claire curled up on the twin-sized bed, sneakers haphazardly kicked off by the rug. Your heart twinges with sympathy, carefully shouldering the door open and sidling inside, quiet so as not to disturb her well-earned rest. You shake the quilt out and then drape it over her small frame. She doesn’t so much as stir.

Making a mental note to lay out a new toothbrush and some clothes for her later, you back out of the room, and very heedfully shut the door.

Back in the kitchen, Court hasn’t moved an inch from his seat, forearms crossed over the laminate counter, head wilted. Neither of you speak upon your return, not for the few minutes in which you prepare two cups of tea, but Court does lift his head at one point, following your movements around with fond, tired eyes.

With a generous squeeze of honey into both mugs, the drinks are ready, and soon carried over toward the kitchen island. You slide one toward Court’s folded arms and settle into the stool beside his.

“Alright,” you sigh, turning to face Court with your whole body, “tell me.”

Court blinks down at the twirling teabag in his mug, fiddling with the paper end between three fingers, and after a long, smooth pull of breath, begins talking.

Last thing you'd heard from him, Court was to fly out to Bangkok for a regular job—before he went radio silent for just over two months. What you didn’t know was that Court’s target was apparently also Sierra, nor anything about Carmichael’s corruption—though that part didn’t surprise you as much.

He tells you about the encrypted drive, and Lloyd Hansen, and the chaos in Prague, and Cahill, all with a careful neutrality to his tone that sets you on edge. You stick a leg out, settling it against the footrest of Court’s stool and pressing your shin to his bouncing calf.

A long beat follows. Steam curls through the air between you, wisping against Court’s stubbled jaw like comforting hands. You set your mug down, nearly empty, and reach for one of Court’s forearms, thumbing over the faded tattoo there.

“Fitz?” you ask, treading very carefully. The line of Court’s mouth tightens—a fleeting twitch of motion—before he looks up, meets your eye. Shakes his head.

A long, thready sigh squeezes out of you. Your fingers tighten reassuringly, and Court then moves to cloak his own free hand over yours. He’s wearing this sad, lipped sort of smile now, a meager attempt at unimpassioned dismissal.

“It’s fine, it’s how—it was never gonna be old age, so…”

“Still. I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah,” Court grates, nodding stiffly. “Me too.”

With another slow exhale, you push yourself to your feet, drawing your arms around him and into a firm embrace, head craned low to press your mouth into the top of Court’s ruffled hair. 

For a long moment, he remains stony and sober beneath you, something that had once bothered you, years ago when he was nothing more than a nameless agent you'd be told to patch up, and you were a dispensable cog in the machine that made him so. You understand now he can't help it—rather than a front he puts up it's his nature. One forced and beaten into place, but his nature nonetheless.

Eventually, though, when the embrace stretches on long enough, his arms slide up, large, rough palms encircling your bicep and shoulder.

"How's she holding up?" you ask next, because you know better than to focus on him too much; the trick with Court is to pry him open in tiny increments, coaxing that tightly concealed vulnerability out of him before he even knows it.

Court shifts against you—possibly in a shrug.

"As well as she can be, considering. She's a strong kid."

"Yeah, she is," you sigh, craning your neck back to peer down the hall where she sleeps. Your chest aches for her—so young, and already so wounded by the world. Court expels a wary breath, smoothing a palm down your bicep to latch under your elbow.

"I hope it's okay that I... came here. If I even suspect they know we're here, I'll be gone before—"

"Hey, none of that," you butt in, turning back to him, sternly holding his gaze. "You know I like having you here. Both of you. It's a big house, gets lonely sometimes."

Court's eyes flick all across your face, quietly analytical in that charming way of his—though now you almost feel the urge to shrivel underneath such close inspection. He's been through hell these past weeks, no point in making him feel guilty for how worried and alone you've been during them.

He seems to do so, anyway.

Before he can speak, you take his jaw in one hand and lean down to kiss him—finally giving in to the nagging urge that's been screaming at you since you first opened the front door.

At that—amusingly so—Court melts, his bandaged palm drifting outward to curl around your hip, mouth warm and pliant against yours. The kiss is soft, chaste, more of a greeting than anything else. You'd missed him so terribly it's almost humiliating, and now having him back has brought all that longing swinging back into your chest like an anvil. You aren't even togther—not officially, but you have a toothbrush for him in your bathroom and a vivid mental map of every corner of his body and the first place he thought to go to when everything went to shit was here.

That’s got to count for something.

You nip at his lower lip, just to tease, and crack a sly grin when he sucks in a small, sharp inhale in response. He chases after you when you pull away, brows slightly furrowed.

"Down, boy," you chuckle, weaseling your palm against his lips when his mouth wanders down your throat. "Let me check you over."

"I'm fine," he mumbles against your loosely sealed fingers, shifting in his stool to bracket you properly between his strong thighs. "Peachy."

"Court," you press, letting your hand sink, fingers sliding lazily down his chin. He reaches up to your own jaw, scraping one calloused thumb against your own stubble—somewhat longer than how you tend to keep it. You've been taking so many shifts at the hospital that your free time has been limited to showering and sleeping. Shaving has been moved to the backburner.

He meets your gaze yet again, with that privately discerning edge that suggests a deep consideration. His face softens impossibly; it was staggering, seeing it happen the first time, back when all you knew him as was just another dead-eyed mercenary capable of unspeakable violence. By the time you met him you'd long come to terms with the fact that no amount of good you could do as a doctor would ever couterbalance the suffering most of your patients inflicted on a regular basis, so you'd cared very little to connect with any of them beyond stitching them up scribbling away all sorts of painkiller perscriptions.

But Court had, even then, snagged your attention. While still stoic and stone-eyed, almost unnervingly so in the face of some of the injuries you've seen him bear, he'd crack the occassional joke with you—mostly lame puns or give it to me straight, doc quips while he was near delirious with blood loss. He had sensed your early apprehension around him and broadcasted every slow movement, apologized whenever the pain made him jerk sharply away from your touch, and once—minutes before passing out in the middle of the medical tent in a temporary base set up somewhere in Poland—denied attention from any other medic on location aside from you. You'd been halfway across the base, not on active duty but as always on call, when you were paged and informed an agent was causing a scene, asking for you by name.

"Don't touch me! Where is he? I need—he can..." was all that you'd caught before ducking into the tent, where a small flock of antsy doctors and nurses hedged Court in, your Head Physician approaching him with a cartoonishly-sized syringe in hand, brow set.

Court had spotted you approaching in an instant, and the rabid set of his broad shoulders had collapsed.

He managed a thready, "Oh, hey Doc," before buckling against you.

As it turned out, his manic state was not only attributable to the GSW in his abdomen, but to a truly inordinate amount of drugs forcefully pumped into his bloodstream by enemy agents. He'd spent the subsequent two nights sunken in a fever so indomitable you'd almost expected him not to bounce back.

"Okay," Court says, and you blink out of your daze, finding yourself back here—not Poland, not ducking your head to war criminals, not watching Courtland bleed out against your palms.

Your hand slides down the firm curve of his shoulder, and all the way into his palm, where you weave your fingers into his and pull him to his feet. From there, the two of you shuffle into the living room, and you push him into the couch with a soft press to the shoulder.

He sheds his shirt without you having to ask—he knows this routine inside out, and for all of his paranoid rituals, born from the type of life he's lived, this is your own. You know he's more than happy to oblige, if it helps you sleep.

"You know, there are easier ways of getting me half-naked on your couch."

"I don't know," you counter, eyes narrowing pointedly at him but your tone distinctly lacking of edge. "This was pretty easy."

Court makes an affronted face at that. "What are you implying?"

"What's this?" you begin in lieu of answering, taking his badaged palm into your lap, fingertips just barely dipping underneath the bottom edge.

"Switchblade," he pushes out on a sigh. In his eyes you find a glimmer of misplaced amusement; you shake your head fondly. "In and out. Pretty gnarly."

"I bet," you say, trailing your ghosting touch up his arm, following the old, ragged scar stretching up to the edge of his collarbone. You study his bare torso, momentarily setting aside the urge to admire the view in favor of indulging the nervous doctor in you; right above his sharp hip bone on his right side, a pucker of half-healed flesh, unbandaged but still bearing that ruddy tone of recovering skin.

"Those were scissors. Same guy. Only a few inches deep, not the worst of the bunch."

You squint through the dimness—the warm kitchen light offers its tepid glow, just enough so you can search for any abnormal irritation or discharge. You find none, and move to the next: another stab wound in the back of his shoulder; a nasty gash in the thigh; an impressive collection of greenish bruises and half-faded scabs. You change dressings where required, study wounds for any signs of infection or improper healing, feel along his ribs for any fractures—and you know, logically, he's spent the last few weeks in a hospital. You know the government-funded team of professionals who treated him wouldn't have missed something as elementary as broken ribs or developing infection.

But it helps. You have to see it for yourself, that he's joking around on your couch at one in the morning and in no imminent, life-threatening peril. God knows you've seen enough of him in it to last you several lifetimes.

By the end of it, Court is boneless against the cushions, head tipped back and angled toward you. His eyes are shut but you know he's awake; he'd fought the mounting weight of his eyelids as long as he could, just watching you, but he's only human. The lazy back-and-forth sweep of his thumb where he has his hand pressed to the small of your back underneath your shirt speaks to his wakefulness.

You readily embrace the warmth the small gesture brings to your ribcage, shifting and breathing like a neutron star fit to burst. Your hand finds his soft, golden brown hair, combing it through with your fingers, hairline to crown. A pleasant hum rumbles in his chest at that, faintly reminiscent of a cat's purr, and a stupid smile pulls at your lips.

"I missed you," you whisper, hesitant to disturb the intimate silence that has taken root. Your fingers dip lower on your ensuing comb, snaking between his head and the backrest cushion. "It was close, wasn't it?"

Court's eyes scrunch, still closed, but the silence preceeding his answer tells you enough. "A few times, yeah. Was touch-and-go for a minute, according to the doctors."

He cracks his eyes open, just a sliver, to catch your reaction. The fear has never relented—not for a minute since you left the CIA. It's as suffocating as it was then, but something you've had to learn how to live with, only because you had no other choice. Leaving that life hadn't been the hard part, it had been weighing on your conscience for the better part of a decade prior, but you knew once you left, Court could very well leave on a mission one day and never come back. You'd never even know. You couldn't treat him, you couldn't swipe his file if he was under the care of another medic, you couldn't say goodbye. You couldn't bury him.

Court knew this, and still he encouraged you to leave.

His palm glides up the warm skin of your back, thumb following the track of your spine.

"Come on, you know me," he says, urging you close with a steady pressure at the center of your back, "I'm not going out if it's not on your table, Doc."

You huff out a strained chuckle, finally yielding to his wordless ask and letting him kiss you. His body is hard and warm under your lazily meandering hands, sliding from his neck to his shoulders and down his chest. On their way down, you fleetingly tweak a nipple, and grin against his mouth when the kiss fractures. His fingers flex into your back, essentially hauling you into his lap—your head spins.

Licking into his mouth, you settle with your knees buried into the back of the couch, thighs braced on either side of his hips. When Court kisses, it's like he's starving. You've learned to ration your breaths during fleeting breaks, when either of you groans or gasps. He traps your head in place with a hand at the nape of your neck, the other still exploring underneath your shirt. After a while, it gets far too in the way and he pulls it off entirely.

The press of your bare chests makes the breath stumble in your throat, the ever-present warmth in your chest simmering and dribbling low into your groin. Beneath you, he's already half-hard, always enthusiastic when it comes to you. You jostle at a tiny buck of his hips.

Court makes a low sound—your name, possibly, trapped amidst a breathless grunt. He's breathing harder now, shifting restlessly beneath you. His hands can't quite seem to settle in one place.

"Court," you hum into him, planting two fingers to his pec and pressing him firmly against the backrest. The sudden severity of your tone gives him clear pause. "Relax."

His pupils have crowded into the lovely sea blue of his eyes, shrunken them down to twin rings, stark against the flush of his skin. You spread one palm against his chest, just barely catching the frantic kicking of his heart. The other reaches down to encircle his wrist where it'd landed on your hip.

"Relax. Okay? Hold still, I got you."

Court nods, dazed and unblinking as you slowly draw his hand to your mouth. There, you press many feathery kisses, trailing from the shifting tendons of his inner wrist, along the heel of his palm, up his thumb. His breath catches when you reach the tip, grazing the flat tops of your teeth against the pad.

Tentatively, Court sinks past your lips, hooking loosely behind your bottom teeth before searching out your tongue. You seal your lips around the knuckle, buzzing with lust-tinged amusement as his flush deepens.

His thumb flattens on the center of your tongue; in response, you faintly hollow your cheeks, and that does it.

A tremulous groan cracks out of him, head dipping back against the cushion. The erratic roll his hips make feels more automatic than deliberate, but he's quick to steel himself—always so good at following your orders it makes your whole body pulse with heat.

You can feel him, hard against your clothed ass—certain the motionless pressure must be driving him crazy, you decide to spoil him a little and give a few slow grinds of your own.

"Oh—fuck," he groans, low and unsteady. His thumb presses harder on your tongue for a moment, before he catches himself and releases it. You teasingly bite down, hoping he gets the message to be rougher, but he just swallows thickly and blinks up at the ceiling.

After a minute or so, you still, thrilled at the harsh exhale he gives, frustrated. You pull off of his thumb, noting the way he stares at the fine, sagging thread of spit that clings to your lip.

"Talk to me, baby," you hum, dabbing his cheeks and jaw with teasingly innocent pecks. "What do you need?"

Court reaches for your face, catching your jaw again—smearing your own spit against your cheek—to look you in the eye.

"You wanna fuck me?" You punctuate it with a slow roll of your hips. "Wanna be fucked?"

Court can't seem to string an answer together, can't even decide whether to gawk at your eyes or spit-slick mouth. Of course you don't expect him to be able to make such a decision, but asking anyway is part of the fun. It's fascinating just how easily you can get him like this, a bit of a power trip, really, and the glassy arousal in his eyes makes you strain against your sweats.

You feign deep thought, dragging blunt nails down the swell and valleys of his abdominal muscles. They catch on the elastic of his boxers, but wander no further.

"I know," you coo when another tiny noise resounds from low in his throat, "I know. You need me to take care of you, don't you?"

Your name on his tongue has always sounded lovely, but like this—thick with need and wet with spit, it's delicious. You kiss him warmly, just to soothe, and finally relent and paw at his straining cock through the thin material trapping it. You swallow his moan, pressing with a steady, circling motion and absorbing every shudder that rips through him.

He clings to your back, huffing and grinding up into your hand. When the kiss inevitably breaks, you migrate to his throat, where sharp bites are balmed by calculated swipes of your tongue.

"Fff—fuck, oh Jesus," Court moans, finding some sort of fleeting clarity and then reaching between your bodies to palm at your own neglected erection. You can't help but groan into his skin, allowing yourself a few lazy thrusts into his large hand before gently prying it away.

"It's okay, baby," you pant, thumbing at his swollen, leaking slit. "Let me focus on you first. You're so sweet, thinking of me."

Court offers a strained hum in response, squeezing your hip once.

"You look perfect like this, Court. You're perfect, all mine."

Much to his dismay, your hand abandons his cock in order to latch on to the back of his neck, which you guide off the cushion so he can properly face you. Then, you shift your weight, resettling how you’d been positioned earlier, with the cleft of your ass applying pressure to his cock.

For a moment, you stop to think. What he needs right now, what will make him feel the best and keep him happy and blissfully sapped for long afterwards. In the meantime, your thumbs pet the stubble across his cheeks in mirrored motions. His eyebrows are pinched, faintly warped upwards with arousal, pooling with nowhere to go. He doesn’t take his eyes off of you for a second.

He’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.

You make sure to let him know this, and grin, catlike, when he squirms and flushes a pretty dark pink in the warm light. He twitches against your ass; you don’t need to look to know he’s absolutely weeping precome.

You lean in, kiss his cheekbone and brow bone, the side of his nose, the corner of his mouth. He murmurs your name again in a shattered voice, gripping your hip with one hand and back with the other so tightly you’re sure he’s trying desperately not to rut against you.

“That’s it. You’re doing so good, Court. You listen so well.”

“Don’t—” It comes out sharp, bladed through his gritted teeth but you can hear the early tones of a whine somewhere in it, and it only spurs you on more.

“What? You’re close already? Gonna come all over yourself, in your boxers?”

You don’t mean for it to come out so sardonic—it’s easy to get carried away when positioned like this, when the eyes on you are so fucked-out and desperate for you—but Court twitches again, full-body this time, and a wet moan cuts through the dense air between you.

One of your hands slip low, pivoting at the wrist to take ahold of the underside of his jaw, careful to steer clear of his exposed throat. You’d made that mistake once already.

“It’s alright,” you murmur, itching to kiss him or to continue mouthing at the sensitive spots at his neck, but the need to watch him crumble eclipses all of it. The spasmodic twitches in his thighs shake all the way up his body, and by proxy through yours. Still, the occasional half-grind against you slips through. You let them slide only because you missed him so much, and he’s been so good.

“You can come. Let me see you come, my good boy.”

Court’s head all but goes limp in your tender yet firm hold, eyes screwing shut, lips parting soundlessly.

His chest swells with a gasping breath, and his body tightens beneath you for a split second, before unraveling.

He comes with a teetering moan, sprouting from deep in the throat but still vaguely whiny in nature. You kiss him quickly so as not to wake Claire, and once his orgasm crests, he lets go and rides it out against your ass, soaking his boxers with his load.

Amidst his frantic humping the arms around your back draw you tightly in, snuffing out every inch of open space between you.

You choke out a moan yourself when your cock presses flush against his tensing stomach, fingers anchoring into Court’s hair.

He pulls away to burrow into your neck, emptying the last of his airy groans against your pulse point as his motions come to a slow, twitchy halt. At no point does he loosen his hold on you. You can feel the wetness beneath you, warm and thick.

Like earlier, you press the loose shape of your mouth into his hair, breathing in deeply, holding the smell of him close and deep in your chest. His breaths fan out across your collarbone, coaxing goosebumps to rise in their wake.

“Good?” you mumble, trying to pull back and get a look at him but rendered immobile by his unyielding arms. He nods against your throat.

You find yourself grinding, smooth and sluggish, against his stomach, eyes shut and feeling the press and drag of his hot mouth against your skin.

Finally (perhaps once he notices your motions), Court’s head straightens, and you get no warning before you’re being manhandled onto your back along the length of the couch.

“Thank you,” he whispers into a too-short kiss, one you can’t even chase after before he’s traveling down your torso in equally fleeting kisses.

“Don’t thank me,” you pant, hands finding his hair again, stretching lazily at his scalp. “That was hot.”

He shoots you a dopey grin, hands cupping your hips before he begins mouthing at the tent in your sweats. Heat flares through you, heels digging into the couch as you try to buck up into the contact to no avail.

Court wastes no time for teasing; he hooks his fingers into both waistbands and pulls your sweats and underwear down with one brusque tug, just enough to free your cock.

He presses damp, open mouthed kisses all along the shaft, glassy eyes pinned on your own. On occasion you’ll attempt to push up against the hold on your pelvis, and his fingers will squeeze once and the corner of his mouth will quirk up.

It’s embarrassing how close you are by the time he enfolds his lips around the head, but getting him off has always been a sort of extension of your own pleasure; it never takes much afterward for you to follow.

Your head spins as he takes you, inch by dizzying inch. He loves blowing you, and you love seeing him like this, hollow-cheeked and focused around you. Working his tongue in ways that make you see stars and taking you to the base, nose buried in the thatch of thick hair there.

“Court—Court, holy shit,” you pant, trying not to abuse his scalp too much but scrambling for purchase amidst the relentless flurry of pleasure swallowing your senses one by one. He’s so good with his mouth it’s unfair, and it’s only made worse by how smug he looks down there.

Your knee presses to his ribs, seeking out contact anywhere. At that, Court rubs a few clumsy circles into your hip bone, and pointedly sucks.

It’s over after that. It only takes a few swallows around your cock before your mounting pleasure reaches a crescendo, and you barely get a warning out before you’re coming into his mouth, down his happily obliging throat.

You muffle your own cry of bliss into the crook of your elbow, fucking into Court’s mouth until your orgasm begins to subside. Even then, you linger for a minute, one hand knotted in Court’s hair, his throat subtly working around your softening length, the soothing stroke of his thumbs on your hips a perfect comedown.

Finally, you squeeze out a heavy breath, tapping the back of his skull so he pulls off. You follow the sweep of his tongue across his lips with drowsy fascination. Wordlessly, he tucks you back into your sweats.

As he crawls back up your body, you steal a glance down at his crotch, and snort at the rather conspicuous stain at the front of his light gray underwear.

“You’re laughing at me?” Court grumbles, pecking up your jaw. “I just gave you life-changing head and you’re laughing at me.”

“Life-changing?” you chuckle, letting him kiss you—too flooded with post-coital endorphins to think it’s gross in the slightest. “Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back.”

He snorts, going abruptly boneless atop of you and knocking from your chest a low oof!

“You should shower,” you murmur, tracing the curve of his shoulder blade with a forefinger. He grunts vaguely.

“I need to sleep. For a year.”

“Sure. But a pre-hibernation shower wouldn’t hurt.”

He breathes out, steady and slow and warm against your jaw. Your fingers begin instead an absentminded drumming rhythm against his strong back. An idea strikes, and you grin wickedly at the ceiling.

“I could even join,” you slyly add.

All things considered, Holland thinks he’s doing a pretty fine job so far. So fine, in fact, that this case is looking like it might be the quickest they’ve ever wrapped one up. It was only yesterday that he and Healy met up with the client—a feisty young lady who suspected her kid brother was caught up in some nasty drug business, with such vivid orange hair Holland couldn’t help but ask if it was natural before they parted. Healy had kicked him sharply under the table, and the woman had merely blinked at him, grabbed her purse, and said, “just find my goddamned brother.”

If the kid really is balls-deep in any sort of clandestine organization, drug-related or otherwise, then he’s doing a pretty poor job at it; they only had question two of his friends to find out he frequents—with a rather methodical consistency—an underground club in the Eastside every Saturday. Though they only acquired this pivotal piece of intel from the second one, the first had expressed his own concern for his buddy, and after some coaxing gave them the address of his "business partner”, whatever that means. The guy wasn’t sure what exactly they did, either, but claimed the guy was creepy and filthy rich.

So, if only to kill two birds with one stone, and because this case wasn’t looking like one that would require any backup, he and Healy split up: Holland looking for their guy, and March seeing what he could dig up at this elusive business partner’s place.

The club really takes its underground title seriously, Holland quickly learns. It takes him a good fifteen minutes to even find the alley, at the end of which an unassuming pair of steel doors led down a steep flight of stairs—and then he’s in it. Brilliant, colorful lights sweep across the crowded space in cyclical routes, cutting through the blue-tinted darkness. Music blasts through deliberately positioned speakers, low bass vibrating through Holland’s sternum while he shuffles through sweaty bodies and makes his way toward the bar. The dancing multitude is certainly to blame for the warmth hanging thick in the air, so Holland doesn’t think twice about half of the male attendees being shirtless or near it—clad in haphazardly chopped or lightweight materials that hardly pass as clothing, in his book.

He finds a gap between chatting groups at the bar, and flags down the harried bartender. He darts up to Holland, planting his hands on the lower side of the surface and leaning in to listen over the music.

“I’m looking for someone,” Holland starts, fingertips tapping restlessly over the sticky wood. “He comes here often, Jason Stewart? Might know him as Sonny? Yea high, red hair?”

The bartender’s face stiffens, then cements in a dismissive frown. He glances past Holland, waving down some waiting customers.

“Order something or go, you’re holding up the line,” he bites, defensive. Holland gapes, glancing over his shoulder at the line in question: a pair of young women conversing and lightly bouncing along to the music. One of them meets his eye, her hair cropped short against her skull, and upon sharing a look with the barkeep furrows her brows.

Right. So, this might be trickier than he thought. Might as well acclimate. He tries to refrain from drinking too much on the job after the shitshow that was the house party they infiltrated last year, but Holland reckons skulking around an underground disco asking for a regular by name, and without even having a drink isn’t helping his chances at success. Partygoers, from his experience, often aren’t too keen on selling each other out, and if not that, are often too drunk or high to offer any lucid answers; these, however, seem far more skeptical than usual. They must get up to some pretty sketchy stuff down here—but far be it from Holland to judge them.

So, he gets a beer. It won’t be enough to get him drunk, far from it, but it'll hopefully make him blend in more, even though his outfit alone makes him stick out rather sorely.

He weasels his finger into the knot of his striped tie and loosens it slightly, eyeing the brightly or barely-clad attendees. He makes room for the two women and nods in thanks to the narrow-eyed bartender, before shuffling down the length of the bar. He ignores the terse looks flung his way, growing strangely antsy under the curious stare of a lone, younger man sitting at a stool, his expression not so much hostile as it is alert, discerning. Taking a sip of the cheap beer, Holland finds a relatively sober-looking woman near the restrooms past the bar.

His attempts prove fruitless there, too. Either she truly has no idea who Sonny Stewart is, or she has a phenomenal poker face; as he’s about to ask if she knows any regulars who might be able to help him, another lady strolls out of the bathroom. The first greets her with a hand on the waist and a private smile, and…

Oh. 

Oh, yeah, well, that explains it.

They saunter back to the dance floor, leaving Holland gaping and feeling laughably dense. For once, he peers into the multitude, really looks into it, and it only takes a few seconds to notice the unconventional pairs dancing together under the strobe lights. 

What the hell kind of a PI is he?

Well, now everybody’s caginess makes a whole lot more sense.

He takes a hearty swig of beer and sighs, more frustrated with himself than anything else. If he’d known he would be gathering intel at a gay club, he would have gone about it differently from the start. Now, he just hopes word hasn’t gotten around that a possible cop is snooping among them.

“Hey, pal.”

Holland turns toward the source of the unfamiliar voice. His gaze locks on yours, and he’s quick to recall your face as the one that’s been watching him since he first approached the bar. You’re alone, still seated atop a rickety stool, nursing a cocktail and leaning back leisurely against the wood. The high hem of your tank top reveals a narrow strip of stomach, and the tight material across your chest leaves nothing to the imagination. Holland squeezes out a shallow breath, and floats over to you.

“You sure you at the right place?” you ask once he stops, eyeing him brazenly.

“Why's that?”

“Is that corduroy?” You push yourself off the edge of the bartop, reaching out to catch the lapel of his suit jacket and laughing when you confirm your suspicion. Warmth prickles at Holland’s cheeks. He swats your hand away, grinding his molars when your lips seek out the thin straw resting on the edge of your glass, cheeks hollowing faintly in a lazy sip. “There’s a sports bar one street over, in case you missed it.”

He ignores your teasing, steels himself. “I just need some information, and then I’m gone.”

Your brow furrows, expression hardening under the glow of a passing blue strobe.

“You a cop?”

“No,” he immediately replies. “I mean, I was, but that’s—that doesn’t matter. I’m a PI, okay? I don’t give a shit what you get up to down here, in fact I’m all for it, probably, so I’m not going to rat anybody out—”

“Except for Sonny,” you butt in, cocking an eyebrow while you chew on your straw. Holland’s mouth clamps shut, eyes dipping fleetingly to the soft shape of your lips, curled around the plastic.

Jesus—focus. And he’s not even buzzed.

“His sister hired us. She’s worried about him.”

“Us? There’s more of you?” Your gaze leaves his, turning instead to the open expanse of the club, sweeping across it with mounting alarm.

“No! Well, okay, yes, just one, but he’s not here. Honest.” He crosses his heart over with one fingertip.

You look back at Holland, brow set, and then reach behind you without breaking eye contact to set your empty glass on the bar. The motion makes your shirt ride up a little, and Holland makes a truly monumental effort not to steal a quick look at the sparse trail of hair leading down to your belt buckle.

“His sister hired you?”

“That’s right.”

He watches your face in the chromatic lighting, losing its wary edges and eventually settling into something more genuine. You wipe the condensation from your palm off against your dark jeans, sighing lightly.

“What’s your name?”

“Holland,” he breathes out, stiffening unconsciously when you lean in, elbows on your parted knees. “March.”

“Alright, Mr. March,” you say, and for whatever goddamned reason it makes his gut sink into a pool of bubbling warmth. As you rise from the stool, movements smooth and unhurried, almost catlike, you say, “let’s go somewhere quieter, hm?”

Then, your hand is on his tie, and you’re all but dragging him through the club, not looking back for a second at the way he staggers after you, apologizing mildly when he bumps into a drunken partygoer. 

The club is far bigger than it looks, and he wonders what the original use of the space might’ve been before it was refurbished into a secret underground disco. He reaches up for your wrist, though halts before closing the gap. The mild pressure circled around the nape of his neck, herding him across the dance floor holds him at an unbalanced, hunched posture, wholly undignifying—and yet, it makes his head spin.

Down a broad corridor, you stalk past a file of closed doors labeled VIP, and Holland isn’t certain whether he should be thrilled or terrified. You stop at the end of the hall, where a piece of paper is taped to the last door, reading ‘CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE’, and without a second thought, you haul him inside.

Immediately, his back is struck against the closed door, wincing at the force and reflexively raising his palms in a gesture of peace. 

“You know I still don’t trust you, right?” you say, voice stern again, though clearer now with the music and clamor sealed outside, muffled through the walls. He opens his mouth to reply, but your fist tightens in wordless warning around his tie, so he simply nods, meek. The heat in the pit of his stomach refuses to dissipate—though this is really not the time for his fucked-up libido to rear its ugly head. “The second I suspect you’ve lied to me, or are in any way up to something that would put a single person here at risk, I’ll see to it myself that you regret ever coming here. Am I clear?”

“Crystal,” he wheezes.

At that, you press on a flat, sardonic smile, and pat his cheek twice. You don’t release his tie just yet, but when you pull him off the door it’s a morsel less harsh than it was moments ago. You whirl him around the small room, and then spread your palm to push him back into the leather sectional sofa, which he collapses into with a yelp. Now freed from your iron fist and stifling proximity, he breathes out—a little shaky, strained—and lets himself look around the interior. It’s nothing too special, a dim room with elegant leather seating, a low table before him and a small, slightly elevated platform at the very front of the room. You switch a light on, which only partly succeeds in illuminating the space; there’s no overhead bulb, but many smaller fixtures throughout the room, the largest of which being a warm-toned, almost orange lamp by the door.

He notices, then, rather belatedly, that by some miracle he’s managed to keep his beer, clutched tightly in one hand. As you shuffle up to him and sit on the edge of the table before him, Holland downs the rest in a massive gulp. Liquid courage, and all that.

“Alright,” you say, “shoot.”

Right. Right, the case.

He clears his throat, scrambles to get his wayward thoughts together. First order of business: get the intel. Then he’ll focus on the warmth flooding his cheeks and, mortifyingly, his crotch.

As it turns out, Sonny isn’t secretly smuggling drugs in clandestine discos. He certainly attends them, but the way you put it, he hardly ever dips into anything stronger than an occasional bump or two. A few months ago he met an older guy in this very club and the pair have only been seen together since.

“My guess,” you say, prying the empty bottle he’s been absentmindedly playing with from his fingers and setting it on the table beside your hip, “is he hit the jackpot: found himself a hot older guy who’s happy to spoil him, and his sister notices him being vague, always busy, suddenly able to afford all these expensive things… First thought, 'he’s dealing drugs'.”

Holland sinks against the backrest, hands falling limp on his thighs with nothing to fidget with. An incredulous huff escapes him, looking off in the middle distance as he turns it over in his head. It makes perfect, logical sense.

“How do you know all this?”

You shrug. “Worked here for two years up until a few months ago. Marty gives me a discount for drinks and I still like to keep up with the long-time regulars. Word gets around quick down here.”

“I’m sure.” He looks back up at you, and a thought strikes him. “So, what are the odds I don’t get jumped outside for looking like a cop?”

You pull a deeply pensive face, head tipping with a long hum. “Not too good. Don’t worry, Sherlock, I can walk you to your car.”

When you go to stand, Holland’s chest seizes with something akin to panic. His hands shoot out, but hesitate to touch.

“Wait.”

You pause, already half-turned toward the door, and raise an eyebrow down at him. Holland scrambles to his feet, swallowing hard against the sudden dryness in his throat.

“Thank you,” he chuckles, aiming for cool self-assurance. “Pretty much did my job for me.”

Your mouth quirks—a flash of motion you quickly tame into a neutral politeness. You nod once.

“No problem, Mr. Holland.”

When his eyes slip again, down to the elegant curve of the smile you can’t quite tamp down, that’s it. He can’t look away, can hardly blink. His chest feels shrunken, thready little breaths whistling silently out of him. He tries, with every ounce of rapidly dwindling willpower in him to meet your eyes again, to stop gawking at your mouth like some sleazy asshole, but his body appears to have incited a mutiny against his brain, because his heart is hammering against his ribcage, his gaze fixed inexorably on your mouth.

“Jesus, sorry,” he manages, just barely succeeding in pressing his eyes shut, chuckling airily again. He rubs circles around his eyes, pinches crudely on the bridge of his nose. “I’m—I don’t know what…”

“It’s alright,” you hum, and despite your words you sound amused, almost mocking. Holland flushes even further. He senses you step closer, and keeps his eyes valiantly shut. When your hand curls smoothly around his wrist, however, they fly open on their own accord.

“I don’t even know your name,” he murmurs as you lower his arm from his face. “How old are you?”

Your eyebrows rise slightly, smile sharpening. 

“Don’t lie, I’ll know.”

“Alright, tough guy,” you laugh, a sound that thrums through him like a peal of thunder. “I’m twenty-five.”

“Oh, fuck.” His head sinks between his shoulders, hoping the subtle lighting masks the color that must be flooding his face. The magma-warm desire steadily rolling into his gut has begun to spill lower, tightening his flared slacks around the hips.

“What?” you hum, tone dipping teasingly. “That doing it for you?”

He chances a look up; your hooded eyes bore into him, open and undaunted—so bold with your want in the way one only is in their youth, and Holland is no senior citizen but he’s lived a dozen lifetimes since he was your age. He’s learned apprehension. Discretion. At least he thought he did.

You step closer, releasing his arm, only to regrip gently at his jaw.

“You ever been with a man, Mr. March?”

You’re getting cocky, he can tell. You don’t even know how old he is and yet, his reaction must have revealed it is not a trivial number. Emboldened only by his frustration, rather than answering you, he rushes forth, kissing the smug smile right off your face.

Your sharp inhale reveals your surprise, free hand flying up to his shoulder to steady yourself, but the other only tightens, pointedly angling his head and deepening the kiss. His own slide around the curve of your waist, settling at your lower and mid-back. From there, he pulls you in flush—and regrets it upon realizing you can probably feel him, already half-hard against you. He supposes the satisfied hum you push into his mouth is a response to that; he burns.

Releasing his jaw, you reach over to sink your fingers into his hair and catch them in a stern grip. Holland hisses at the lovely little pinpricks of pain it summons, and bucks automatically against your groin, where he feels you beginning to stiffen up, too. 

You regrip abruptly, from his shoulder to his hip, and hold him steady in order to repeat the motion, grinding shamelessly against him. A pitiful little hum emerges from his chest when your hands withdraw entirely—though it’s only for a second, before they splay across his waist, his stomach, smoothing up then to push his jacket off his shoulders. Spacey with want, Holland blinks at you, lets you strip it off, hardly registering the delighted sound you make when you feel the shape of his pack of smokes in the pocket and whip it out. You pluck one out and hold it between your lips while you search for a lighter. Once retrieved, you toss the jacket onto the table, and without looking up plant one palm to his chest and shove him down onto the sofa.

“On your back,” you mumble around the cigarette, instinctively cupping the flame to light it. Holland moves off the backrest, swinging his feet up to lie across the cool leather. You pause, then, driving one knee into the cushion by his hip, taking a long, thoughtful drag of the cig, and then gesture silently at his shirt. He doesn’t need to be told twice; immediately he reaches for his tie and damn near rips it off. From there, he moves to the uppermost button, undoing it swiftly and fumbling for the rest.

He’s fully hard by the time he shucks it off, left shirtless and flushed under your cool scrutiny. Something gleams in your eye, though, something hungry and satisfied, and then you’re moving, straddling his thighs. The bright end of the cigarette bounces slightly between your lips as you shuck your belt off, then his, and yank open his fly.

“God, you’re easy,” you comment offhandedly, dragging your knuckles down the shape of his length through his briefs, at the end of which a puny spot of precum has bled through the material. Holland’s whole body quivers, biting down on the wobbly groan that slips out of him. In a rare show of kindness, you offer the pressure of your palm, pressed firmly against him, but it soon hits him that, with your weight perched on his upper thighs, attempting to grind up into it is futile. He writhes, hips pivoting side to side in a desperate search for friction, the ineffectiveness of his struggle only making him harder. Needier.

You chuckle, airy and light, and pluck the cig from your lips. You turn it over and let your hand descend to his mouth, where his head flies off the leather to take a much-needed drag. As you observe, he notes the thinly-veiled lust that darkens your gaze, sucking in a hitching breath.

As you pull it away, your other hand slides higher, sinking two fingers into the elastic of his briefs. Ash plummets onto the floor beside you, but you only watch him as he steadily exhales, smoke clouding in the space between you. Your eyes sweep his bare, heaving chest, and after returning the cigarette to your mouth you reach down, drag a blunt nail over his nipple. Holland gives a strangled grunt, involuntarily arching into the contact, hyperaware of both it and your second hand, slowly easing his briefs down, just enough to free his cock.

“No fair,” he grits out, panting. You tilt your head in question. “You take something off now.”

Your grin turns wicked, circling the stiffened pebble of his nipple a few times before leaving it entirely.

“You’re cute,” you say dismissively. Holland can’t help but feel patronized. He squeezes the outer flesh of your thighs, letting his head fall back in defeat. At the sound of a zipper opening, however, he’s quick to perk back up. You offer him the cigarette again, only to use both of your hands to push your jeans a bit down your hips, readjusting so you’re lying on top of him, knees bracketing his on either side. Your underwear follows shortly thereafter, but Holland’s view is mournfully blocked when you duck your head to mouth at his chest. Your teeth graze his collarbone down its sharp length, pausing at the inner end to bite down, and then latch your lips over it, sucking leisurely.

“Oh, Jesus,” he breathes to the ceiling, choking on his inhale and, in a frustrated impulse, tosses the cig onto the floor. He grips your shoulders, your neck, the back of your head, hands flighty and restless, wanting to feel every inch of you as you pinch his skin between your teeth and roll it sharply. Holland muffles a humiliating whine into his fist, bucking up into your hip. He can feel the weight of your own cock against his stomach, hot and hard.

“Shit, shit—come on, c’mon, can you—” he cuts himself off, not entirely sure what he’s asking for, other than get me off or else I’ll blow my load like a horny teenager.

You shush him, planting a wet kiss to his sternum before drifting back up to eye-level. You frown.

“Where’s the cig?”

Holland looks down. Quietly mumbles, “dropped it.”

You peer over the edge of the sofa and click your tongue. Your eyes dart to him, then to his mouth. Before he knows it, three of your fingers are bullying past his lips, coaxing his jaw open.

He’s already sucking them down by the time you murmur the order. A ripple of motion catches your eyebrows, and then you smirk, pressing down on the back of his tongue, drool gathering around the digits.

“Second nature, huh?”

Holland flushes, ears burning. He shuts his eyes and sucks harder.

For a minute, he floats through the haze of his bliss, lost in the simple task of sucking your fingers down to the base, gag reflex be damned. Maybe all those years of vigorously trying to scrub the bitter taste of hangovers off his tongue proved more beneficial than he thought.

Your thumb, in the meantime, traces his chin encouragingly, scratching gently over the stubble in a way that makes his chest loosen, push out a long, low hum—almost a purr.

“And here I thought you’d be too green to take them,” you say after another brief lull, anchoring your thumb by the corner of his mouth to slowly pull your fingers free. Holland’s eyes crack open, brows knitting slightly with the loss. A string of spit connects your middle finger to his lower lip for a long moment, stretching and sagging as you bring your hand down between your bodies. When it snaps, Holland shudders as it lands, cold, against his chest and chin.

Both of you peer down at your cocks, hard, neglected, and his own sitting in a mortifying pool of precum, one that gets a groan out of you when you notice it.

“Jesus, you’re soaked.”

Tonight is quite the educational night, Holland is quickly learning, as the simmer of humiliation under his skin rolls into arousal, and coaxes yet another drop to surge out of his slit.

You wrap your fingers around your own dick, slick with his drool—the image makes him squirm—and drop a groan into his shoulder at the sensation. Again, his view is blocked, but the sounds of your low, muffled moans against his skin and the softer ones of you working yourself over paint a clear picture. Holland’s fingers curl into your back, writhing, fucking up into empty air. A choked whine weasels its way up his throat, not knowing whether he wants more to get off or watch you touch yourself. 

“Alright, alright,” you pant, and within seconds Holland feels your fingers wrap around him, and the weight of your cock press against his own. 

Immediately, he’s thrusting up into your right fist, chasing after the swift pace you quickly set. His toes curl in his shoes, all that static amassed under his skin rushing down into his cock, and from there bursting outward in bright flares of pleasure. He clings to you, seeking an anchor point in your warm, breathing, blanketing body, curled fiercely over him. He feels, suddenly, very small—like something so intuitive and uncomplicated it could be pulled apart and pieced back together without issue. And that’s what you’re doing: prying him open, extracting piece by delicate piece with attentive certainty, despite the severity of your teeth bearing down on his skin and the near cruel amusement in your tone.

You tighten your grip around the heads, thumb gliding firmly over his slit, gathering more precum, and the blinding flare that whizzes through him could put fireworks to shame. Whatever urges he might’ve previously had to shy away from your hot, weighted gaze are nowhere to be seen now, as you lift your head and watch his reactions; squeezing, twisting your wrist, grinding against him.

He’s getting loud, he knows—amdist the rumble of blood in his ears, the slick sounds of you both sliding against each other, he can catch his wanton moans, his shattered grunts and whiny bleats.

“Shhh, you want us to get caught, March?” you murmur, dropping your weight to an elbow in order to seal a palm over his open mouth. After a moment, the glint in your blown pupils turns knowing, almost chastising. “Unless you want that? For someone to find us? To see you like this?”

Holland makes a sound shamefully reminiscent of a sob, muted against your palm. His head twists, not trying to displace the muzzle of your hand but unable to resist the animalistic urge to writhe and thrash. Despite the sweat across your brow, the uneven jumping of your breathing, you look terribly composed compared to him.

“Well, we can’t have that. I want you all to myself tonight, okay?”

Holland moans in response, realizing his teeth had captured a bit of your skin in a gentle pinch, just to hold something. You pull your hand away, wiping spit off on his cheek, and lean over, torso straining off the sofa. He watches your free arm extend toward the table, pausing your motions over your cocks for a moment, and when you return, it’s bearing his tie.

“Open,” you instruct, balling the tie up, and Holland’s understanding groan is promptly muffled halfway when it’s shoved into his mouth. The material instantly soaks up most of the spit in his mouth, making his tongue feel uncomfortably dry. He runs it in tiny circles against the bunched fabric in an attempt to salivate and rid himself of the sensation.

Your fist continues pumping, then, and now he’s far quieter—strangely soothed by the feeling of something in his mouth again.

He’ll analyze that later.

For now, your forearm presses against his bare shoulder, fingers tracing sweet, mindless shapes, occasionally brushing against the chain around his neck, the ring hanging off of it. You don’t ask, and Holland eases. Not that he could answer any questions at all at the moment, dead-wife-related or otherwise.

You lean down, kiss the stretched corner of his mouth, and tighten your grip between your bodies. The pit in his lower gut grows and grows, a simmering heat threatening to swallow him whole as the precipice makes itself known in the near horizon. He emits a long, wavering hum, hips rolling wildly, cock twitching and weeping another trickle of precum.

You say nothing, but seem to sense his oncoming orgasm, picking up the pace, squeezing his shoulder once. Holland’s eyes burn with the sheer force of his mounting release, not having realized how close he was until he’s almost reached it, pulse throbbing against his breastbone, surely visible in his sweat-sticky chest. He breathes in, sharp and forceful through his nose, trying to keep his eyes open as they grow leaden.

It only takes one more squeeze of your deft fingers, one more press of your thumb to his tip before he’s coming, whining long and low through his tie—heat erupting from his groin and barreling through him in a tingling tidal wave of pleasure. It has his legs drawing up on a reflex, thighs knocking against your ass, neck straining back against the leather cushion as the sound dies out on the material and gives way to silent bliss.

The seemingly endless ropes of cum his pulsing cock offers makes the continued slide of your fist all the smoother. You work him through it, though the pace hastens, grows sloppy and erratic, and when he pries his eyes open, blinking through the mistiness, watches your face contort beautifully around your own release, uttering a fractured sound into the air.

Your hips roll steadily with each wave, and the feeling of your load landing across his stomach, over the mess of his own gets another pitiful mewl out of him, head lolling to the side. Your hand catches his jaw, abandoning his shoulder, and with a deep sigh you release both of your dicks.

First, you sit up, towering over him on your knees while you tuck yourself back into your jeans. Then, you repeat the gesture for him, and finally pry the tie out of his mouth. 

“Hope this wasn’t your favorite tie,” you say, finding a somewhat dry edge to wipe your hand and his stomach clean.

He grunts, smacking his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

You lightly pat his flank once, before getting to your feet. The tie falls with a wet smack to the floor, by the half-smoked cigarette.

“You planning on getting dressed, or I gotta do it for you?”

Holland grunts again, and scrapes up his voice. “Give me a minute, Jesus.”

You snort, finding your discarded belt and beginning to work it through the loops of your jeans. “One good orgasm’s got you incapacitated, old man?”

“Don’t,” he bites, but the rawness of his voice kills any attempt at sternness, “...call me that.” He watches your fingers smoothly buckle the belt, fingers that were moments ago effortlessly plucking away at all his seams, unfurling him.

“I need a drink,” you announce, settling your hands on your hips. “You?”

Holland pulls in a Herculean breath, and pushes himself up to his elbows. He shakes his head with great defeat—oh, the burden of having responsibilities. He checks his watch; he still has to meet up at home with Healy to debrief.

“No, I should… probably get going.”

“Oh, right. The case, and all.”

He grunts, again.

“Well, I had fun,” you say, turning back to the table and fumbling for his jacket. For a moment, he expects you to pull out another cigarette, but with a hum of triumph you whip out his wallet, and he stiffens. You pay him no mind as you begin rifling through it.

“...Please don’t rob me.”

PETROVA TASKFORCE  ARCHIVAL TRANSCRIPT

TRANSCRIPT ID: COMM-LOG-INT-88 FREQUENCY: CH-09 (INTERNAL SECURITY / MEDICAL RELAY) DATE: ▇▇, ▇▇ / 20:15 UTC

[ AUDIO START. ]

[20:15:02] MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):             Watch-Command, this is Attending Physician, Unit B. Metabolic panels for Sector 4 are complete. Requesting clearance to log off the active medical net for the evening. Over. [20:15:15] WATCH-COMMAND (MILLER):             Copy that, Doctor. Metabolic logs received by central grid. Clearance granted at 20:15 hours. Secure your handset and switch to standby status. Over. [20:15:17] HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):            [ AUDIO FEEDBACK. ]

            This thing on? Over. [20:15:19] MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):             Birdie, what did I tell you about using the tactical frequencies? Switch to the house channel. Over.

[20:15:22] HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):             House channel is very quiet and no one responds to me. Over.

            [ SILENCE. ]             [ FAINT CHATTER. ]

[20:16:02] HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):             I’m bored. Over.

[20:16:05] MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):             Young lady.

[20:16:08] HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):             What’s for dinner? Over.

[20:16:13] WATCH-COMMAND (MILLER):             Hab-Deck-B, be advised this frequency is reserved for operational data and emergency triage. Clear the net. Over.

[20:16:20] HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):             Hi, Miller.

[20:16:23] WATCH-COMMAND (MILLER):             Hi, Miss Birdie.

[20:16:30] MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):             Apologies, Command. The civilian asset will be contained. Heading to quarters now. Unit B, actual, out.

[ AUDIO END. ]

PETROVA TASKFORCE  ARCHIVAL TRANSCRIPT

TRANSCRIPT ID: COMM-LOG-INT-89  FREQUENCY: CH-12 (HABITATION / RESIDENTIAL RELAY)  DATE: ▇▇, ▇▇ / 20:17 UTC 

[ AUDIO START. ] [20:17:05]  MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):              Okay, I'm on twelve.             Birdie, do you copy?

[20:17:11]  HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):              Loud and clear! 

[20:17:16]  MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):              What are you botherin’             us for. 

[20:17:22]  HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):              Nothing. Just wanted             to chat. 

[20:17:27]  MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):              Okay.             [ PAPERS SHUFFLING. ]              What do you wanna             chat about? 

[20:17:35]  HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):              I dunno. What did you             do today? 

[20:17:41]  MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):              Lotta tough work. We’re doing as many trials as we can, putting folks to sleep.            'Course the issue isn't actually getting them to sleep. We can throw a dozen different sedatives into the line and knock a subject out in under two minutes. The real problem's the metabolic maintenance.

[20:17:54]  HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):              Medically-induced comas are so fascinating. 

[20:18:00]  MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):              [ SOFT LAUGHTER. ]              Are they? 

[20:18:04]  HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):              Yeah. It's like a pause button. They could close their eyes in your lab, sleep for four years, and when they wake up, it'll feel like only hours have passed. You're like -- removing them from time.             Super cool.

[20:18:08]  MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):              Other twelve-year-old kids don’t usually think so. 

[20:18:13]  HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):              They’re missing out.              Oh, hey! I got so much mail today! Everyone wrote me back and I got a bunch of gifts! 

[20:18:25]  MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):              [ BACKGROUND CHATTER. ]             Run the analysis again.             Thank you, Doctor.             What sorta gifts? 

[20:18:34]  HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):              It’s so funny.              I have six winter hats now.             They're all from my friends. 

[20:18:43]  MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):              Winter hats? 

[20:18:47]  HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):              Yeah, they think I’m in Antarctica, remember? 

[20:18:52]  MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):              Oh, yeah. 

[20:18:56]  HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):              I love them all.              I might as well wear them around the facility. They’re pretty cute. 

[20:19:07]  MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):              That’s nice.              You got a favorite? 

[20:19:12]  HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):              Yeah, there's this fox one. Wraps around my ears.              I got a ton of             stickers, too.              Olivia gave me fifty             sheets. 

[20:19:24]  MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):              That’s too many stickers.

[20:19:28]  HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):              No such thing! 

            [ STATIC. ]              [ SILENCE. ] 

[20:19:50]  HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):              I miss them. Over. 

            [ STATIC. ]              [ SILENCE. ]

[20:20:12]  MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):              I know, baby. 

[20:20:18]  HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):              [ SIGH. ] 

[20:20:23]  MED-UNIT-B (DR. ▇▇▇ ):              I wish things             were different. Over. 

[20:20:30]  HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):              I don’t.              Don't ask me to go             back again.

[20:20:36]  HAB-DECK-B (BIRDIE):              I’m okay as long as             you’re here. Over. 

[ AUDIO END. ]

PETROVA TASKFORCE ARCHIVAL TRANSCRIPT

TRANSCRIPT ID: COMM-LOG-INT-88 DATE: ▇▇, ▇▇ / 20:45 UTC

[02:45:01] [ AUDIO START. ]

[02:45:04] DR. ▇▇▇:

>> _This is Dr. ▇▇▇, Attending Physician and Lead Coordinator for the Comagenesis Division, Petrova Taskforce. Recording audio log from Auxiliary Lab Four, Observation Suite B.

>> _I am accompanied on deck by senior research leads Dr. Annalise Bautista and Dr. Ethan Jackson.

>> _The time is... 0245 hours.

[02:45:32] DR. ▇▇▇:

>> _We are currently observing Subject 0-42, cleared for Trial Phase 3-B at approximately 1800 hours yesterday following a titrated intravenous infusion of the revised neuro-suppressive cocktail.

>> _Current physiological vitals are stable, but highly volatile.

>> _Core body temperature is holding at thirty-four point two degrees Celsius. Heart rate is suppressed to twenty-eight beats per minute.

[02:45:58] DR. BAUTISTA:

>> [ DISTANCE VOICE, SLIGHTLY MUFFLED. ]

>> _I'm seeing a minor spike in baseline levels. Cortical micro-arousals are beginning to register in the occipital lobe on Monitor 2.

[02:46:09] DR. ▇▇▇:

>> _Copy that. Increase the paralytic drip by zero point five milligrams per hour. Let's keep the receptors dark before the twitching triggers a full cycle.

[02:46:21] DR. JACKSON:

>> [ KEYBOARD TYPING. ]

>> _Adjusting the line now.

>> [ KEYBOARD TYPING. ]

[02:46:35]  DR. BAUTISTA: 

>> _Think this one'll work? 

[02:46:39]  DR. ▇▇▇: 

>> _Too early to tell. Cross your fingers.

            [ SILENCE. ]

            [ FAINT SHUFFLING. ] 

[02:46:58]  DR. JACKSON: 

>> _Hey, what do you guys think about Stratt?

[02:47:04]  DR. BAUTISTA: 

>> [ KEYBOARD TYPING. ] 

>> _What about Stratt? 

[02:47:08]  DR. JACKSON: 

>> _I don’t know. Just - -

>> _Stratt.

[02:47:13]  DR. BAUTISTA: 

>> _Like, a general idea?

[02:47:16]  DR. JACKSON: 

>> _Yeah, something like that. 

[02:47:20]  DR. BAUTISTA: 

>> _I’m not sure.

>> _She’s very severe, I guess. In a good way. She gets things done regardless of how crazy it may seem.

[02:47:31]  DR. JACKSON: 

>> _She feels a little disorganized to me.

[02:47:35]  DR. BAUTISTA: 

>> _Disorganized?

[02:47:38]  DR. JACKSON: 

>> _I mean look at us --

>> _We’re synthesizing coma technology for astronauts she hasn’t even recruited yet.

>> _And even when she does recruit them, the probe’s not set to come back for another month. We don’t know what’s dimming the sun.

>> _Is that her next plan? To send astronauts to the sun?

[02:47:58]  DR. BAUTISTA: 

>> _You think that’s disorganized?

>> _She’s literally thinking twenty steps ahead. I don’t know what you mean. Even if we don’t have the data on the sun yet, we can still try to look for other solutions out there in space. 

[02:48:12]  DR. JACKSON: 

>> _Out there in space? 

[02:48:15]  DR. BAUTISTA: 

>> _I don’t know. I’m not an astrophysicist.

[02:48:19]  DR. ▇▇▇: 

>> _I have an audio log running, I don’t think now’s the best time to gossip.

[02:48:25]  DR. JACKSON: 

>> _Just edit it out later. 

>> _What about you, ▇▇▇?

>> _What do you think about Stratt?

            [ STATIC. ] 

            [ KEYBOARD TYPING. ] 

            [ SILENCE. ] 

[02:48:45]  DR. ▇▇▇: 

>> _Subject status?

[02:48:48]  DR. BAUTISTA: 

>> _Subject is stable.

[02:48:51]  DR. ▇▇▇: 

>> _Nothing’s going to get in Stratt’s way.

>> _Good for humanity. Bad for the people around her.

[02:49:01]  DR. JACKSON: 

>> _How’d you get saddled into all of this, anyway?

>> _I hear you took some convincing.

[02:49:08]  DR. ▇▇▇: 

>> [ KEYBOARD TYPING. ] 

>> _The convincing is downstairs in the mess hall eating ice cream.

[02:49:15]  DR. JACKSON: 

>> _Wait, that’s your kid?

[02:49:18]  DR. BAUTISTA: 

>> _Geez, Ethan. ‘You been living under a rock?

[02:49:22]  DR. JACKSON: 

>> _I don’t ask questions, alright? 

>> _I see a girl running around the facility I think it’s one of the senators’.

>> _I didn’t know ▇▇▇ had a kid.

[02:49:31]  DR. ▇▇▇: 

>> _Now you do.

>> _Status?

[02:49:35]  DR. BAUTISTA:  

>> [ KEYBOARD TYPING. ] 

>> _Ah, shit.

>> _Encephalogram is smoothing out but the delta wave amplitude is still dragging. It’s not locking into the hibernation state we need.

[02:49:48]  DR. ▇▇▇: 

>> [ LONG EXHALE. ] 

            [ SILENCE. ] 

            [ STATIC. ] 

[02:50:02]  DR. ▇▇▇: 

>> _As the logs will corroborate across the past three cycles, the data suggests that while we can successfully induce a prolonged, deep comatose state without immediate cellular degradation, the threshold between true metabolic stasis and irreversible brain death remains narrow.

>> _We are trying to perfect a chemical suspension that can keep human beings alive, asleep, and entirely unmonitored for years in a deep-space environment.

>> _To be entirely frank for the record... the trials have a long way to go.

>> _That’s it for Phase 3-B. In the meantime, we will reconvene.

[02:50:41]  DR. JACKSON: 

>> _You guys wanna go out for lunch?

[02:50:45]  DR. BAUTISTA: 

>> _Very funny.

[02:50:48]  DR. JACKSON: 

>> _What? This great new place just opened. I think it’s called the West Side of the Facility?

[02:50:55]  DR. BAUTISTA: 

>> _Do you have a single serious bone in your body?

[02:51:00]  DR. JACKSON: 

>> _You? ▇▇▇? C’mon, let’s get drinks.

[02:51:04]  DR. ▇▇▇: 

>> _Can’t.

>> _I’m the division’s representative for tonight’s plenum.

[02:51:10]  DR. BAUTISTA: 

>> _I have literally never seen you outside of work. 

[02:51:14]  DR. ▇▇▇: 

>> _Which makes me a good representative?

[02:51:18]  DR. BAUTISTA: 

>> _Which means you probably have five minutes before you drop dead.

[02:51:23]  DR. ▇▇▇: 

>> _That’s funny, Anne.

[02:51:26]  DR. BAUTISTA: 

>> _I got news from that plenum you’re going to attend, though.

[02:51:30]  DR. ▇▇▇: 

>> [ SHUFFLING. ] 

>> [ FAINT THUD. ] 

>> [ PAPERS RUSTLING. ] 

>> _There is a difference between news and gossip.

[02:51:39]  DR. BAUTISTA: 

>> _Oh, c'mon.

>> _All I was going to say is I hear they’re recruiting more people. Making more divisions.

>> _They’re looking into microbiologists.

[02:51:50]  DR. ▇▇▇: 

>> [ FAINT LAUGH. ] 

>> _I matched with a microbiologist once. On a dating app.

[02:51:56]  DR. JACKSON: 

>> _You’re on dating apps?

[02:52:00]  DR. ▇▇▇: 

>> _Was. Alright? It was a while ago.

[02:52:04]  DR. BAUTISTA: 

>> _And? Then what?

[02:52:07]  DR. ▇▇▇: 

>> _What do you mean, then what?

>> _Then I got shipped to the pacific and made to do all this work.

>> _I don’t talk to him anymore. I wish I still did.

[02:52:19]  DR. BAUTISTA: 

>> _Maybe you’ll meet a new one on the Taskforce.

[02:52:23]  DR. ▇▇▇: 

>> _Right.

[02:52:25]  DR. BAUTISTA: 

>> _No, c’mon. Maybe you will.

>> _I mean just this morning I saw a printout in the office.

>> _I think they’re planning to recruit this guy named Ryland Grace?

[02:52:38]  DR. ▇▇▇: 

>> [ OBJECTS CLATTERING TO FLOOR. ] 

[02:52:41]  DR. JACKSON: 

>> _Dude.

[02:52:45] [ AUDIO END. ]

Grace nearly launched himself into the ceiling. “Jesus—!”

The tether uncoiled behind you in loops, its faint clinking traveling up the steel braid and vibrating into the chest plate of your suit. Beneath you, the hull of the Hail Mary stretched out like the white belly of some prehistoric deep-sea leviathan. Overhead, the infinite empty void of space yawned open.

Back in the control room, Grace’s eyes scrambled over the main console until they finally locked onto the small microphone. “Hello?” he said, quite frantically. “Cap, can you hear me? Hello? Copy?” 

You smiled behind the glass, though your brows furrowed at the obtrusive volume of Grace’s voice. You were using a handrail to orient yourself as you began the slow hand-over-hand crawl along the ship's spine. “I copy. But turn your mic down a notch, you're practically inside my skull.”

“Right! Sorry. Adjusting. Is that better?” 

“Much.” 

“Everything okay out there?” 

“You tell me, Doc. You’re the one on the screens.” Your laugh was accompanied by static. “S’just dark as far as the eye can see over here.” 

“Oh, god. Right. Okay.” You heard him shuffling across the panels. “Okay, everything looks normal. And there’s this radar here with a bunch of little green dots. None of them are near you. Well, there's one, but it's moving away. It’s moving very fast. Wow, space is terrible.” 

“You’re doing great.”

The damage to the Petrova scope's antenna array was exactly as the diagnostic had described. The primary bracket was sheared through, looking like torn foil. The relay coupling, which was the little yellow case's counterpart, was warped. Its ceramic housing cracked open to expose a nest of severed fiber-optic filaments that floated like tiny transparent hairs. 

“I’m onsite,” you reported, hooking your safety tether to the anchor point. “The bracket is compromised. I'm going to have to manually realign the housing before I can seat the new coupler. It's going to take some muscle. My telemetry might spike a bit; don't panic.”

“Copy that,” said Grace. You could hear him impatiently tapping against the console. “Hey, can I tell you something?” 

“Talk to me, Goose.” You unclipped the tool bag from your thigh and pulled out the pneumatic wrench. The work was tedious, frustratingly restricted by the pressurized bulk of your gloves. 

There was a brief crackle of static as Grace took a breath. “I’m terrified of heights.” 

A soft chuckle huffed out of you, echoing inside your helmet. “If it makes you feel any better, there’s no up and down out here. Technically, no such thing as ‘height’ either. There’s no floor to catch you and no floor to fall from. We’ve got a trillion miles of absolute nothing in every direction.” 

It took a while for him to respond. “You seriously thought that would make me feel better?” 

Every action required an equal and opposite reaction; if you turned the wrench too hard without anchoring your hips, your whole body would swing around the bolt like a pendulum. For five agonizing minutes, the only sounds were the rhythmic whir-snap of the tool, the steady hiss-click of your suit's oxygen regulators, and Grace's occasional, anxious updates.

“Debris field is clear,” he said. He’d begun chewing on a Twizzler that he’d found floating over the panels. “Hull pressure is rock solid... You've got a slight temperature spike in your left glove, is that normal?”

“Yeah. Friction from the wrench. Keep watching.”

“Copy.”

You pulled the cracked coupling free. It drifted away on a short wire lanyard until you clipped it to your tool belt, replacing it with the pristine, yellow-housed component Grace had retrieved for you. It slid into the slot with a gratifying mechanical clack.

“Coupler is seated,” you grunted, bracing your knees against the hull as you reached for the locking lever. “Engaging the primary seal now.” 

As you worked, the cause of the damage became clear. The tricky thing about traveling at the speed of light was that any loose debris you met had the calibre of a bullet. The ship's primary defense was its massive sacrificial bumper, designed to absorb the brutal kinetic energy of cosmic dust. But with the ship now in orbit, (or settling into orbit) there was hardly a need to be wary of such dangers. 

Unless of course, instead of the ship propelling towards the debris, the debris was coming at you. 

“Something’s wrong.” Grace sat up from his chair. “I’m getting alarms, Cap. Foreign objects detected? This wasn't here before. What the – Oh, god the green dots in the radar earlier — there’s a cluster of them now. Heading to you!” 

Your head snapped up. You didn't waste time looking at the void; you wouldn’t see projectiles traveling at kilometers per second until they were already tearing through you. “How long?” you barked, having already abandoned the wrench. 

It didn’t make sense to Grace. How was it coming so fast? How had Mary not seen it sooner? “Five seconds! Four—!” 

You unhooked your knees from the cleats and threw your weight downward. You tried to tuck your body behind the thick, reinforced structural rib of the Petrova scope's primary housing. It was the only substantial piece of shielding within arm's reach. You pulled yourself in, curling into a tight, desperate ball against the hull. But you were a fraction of a second too late. A soundless flurry of violence erupted around you. A spray of cosmic gravel shredded the space where you had just been floating. It didn't make a sound in the vacuum, but you felt it — a series of sharp, rhythmic thuds vibrating violently through the metal hull beneath your chest. Bright sparks danced across your visor as particles vaporized against the ship's skin.

Then came the impact.

A blinding spike of agony caught your trailing left arm. One of the larger fragments slammed directly into your sleeve. Your dutiful EVA suit refused to breach, and as a result, trapped the force into your forearm and shattered the bone under your skin. 

The strike spun you against your tether until your helmet snapped against the hull. You couldn’t tell if you were screaming. You were deaf to the world, hearing only the sharp singing of your broken arm. 

You gasped for air, spots dancing in your eyes. You clutched your shoulder and pulled your wrist toward your chest. The pain was a sickening, throbbing white-hot fire radiating towards your entire torso. You forced your eyes to focus on the flashing HUD data overlaying the dark void.

SUIT PRESSURE: 14.7 PSI (STABLE)

O2 SUPPLY: NOMINAL

INTEGRITY: 100%

The ringing in your ears gradually subsided. In its place, came Grace’s frantic calls. 

“Cap! Cap!” He was screaming into the microphone, his voice slightly distorted by the volume. “I lost your vitals — no, wait, your heart rate is at 180! The suit sensors — is there a breach? Tell me there's no breach. Talk to me!”

The multi-layered Kevlar and reinforced polymer weave of the sleeve had held, absorbing the brunt of the hit without puncturing. But the sheer force of the impact had transferred straight through the insulation.  

“No… no breach,” you squeezed through gritted teeth. You pressed your forehead against your visor, sweating profusely. “Suit’s… suit’s whole, Grace.” 

Grace didn’t realize he was already crying. He angrily wiped his tears away with his fist. Now was not the time. “Okay.” He sniffled. “Okay. Come back. Forget the antenna, come back now.” 

“My arm,” you groaned. A choked sound escaped your throat as the throbbing intensified. Inside the rigid, heavy suit, you tried to move your hand and immediately regretted it as a fresh wave of agony made your stomach churn. “My arm's broken. I can’t move it.” 

Grace paled. 

It took everything in you not to vomit. In zero gravity, a broken arm wasn’t a weight-bearing problem, but a physics problem. Every time you hauled your weight forward with your single good hand, the lack of a counter-stabilizing grip sent your lower body swinging. You kept your injury as close to your body as possible, but the shattered bones under your skin felt as though they were grinding together with sickening, wet friction. You had to time each pull, slowly dragging yourself along the handrails, knowing that one missed grip meant hurtling into the void.

“I see you.” Grace’s trembling voice snapped you out of the haze. “I-I see you, Cap. You’re doing great. You’re past the thrusters. Just six meters to the airlock.” He was lying. It was eight meters. But he needed the distance to be shorter, if only to keep his own lungs from seizing up. He felt completely and utterly useless.

“Tell me… tell me about the radar,” you panted, your voice cracking as you reached for the next magnetic cleat. You needed a distraction. You needed him to talk. “Any—Any more debris?” 

Grace snapped his eyes to the screens. He blinked back the tears that blurred his vision. “No. Nothing. It’s clear. You’re safe, I promise.” 

“Good.” You laughed weakly. “Because I don’t think I have another dodge in me, Doc.” 

“Don’t talk, just focus on the rails,” Grace pleaded. His breath shuddered. “You’re almost there. Just come inside. Please, just come inside.” 

When you got closer towards re-entry, Grace abandoned his station and rushed to the nodes to get you. 

The internal airlock door hadn’t finished its depressurization but Grace was already throwing it open. The sudden rush of cabin air swirled around your helmet. You barely registered it. You were slumped against the bulkhead, your right hand locked onto an emergency handle in a death grip while your left arm hung weightless.

​“Oh my god, oh my god, I’ve got you,” Grace lunged into the airlock, his hands trembling so violently he could barely get a purchase on your suit’s latches.

​He didn't bother with the full decompression protocol. With a frantic grunt, he popped the seals on your helmet and yanked it free. The sudden rush of cool, recycled ship air hit your sweat-drenched face, but the relief was instantly swallowed by a wave of vertigo. The cabin was spinning.

​“Can you talk? A-Are you going to pass out?” Grace’s face was inches from yours, his eyes wide and panicked behind his crooked glasses.

​“Don't… don't touch the left sleeve,” you wheezed, your voice a ragged whisper. Every breath felt like inhaling glass. “Just get me… out of the suit.”

​“Right. Okay. Carefully. We’re going carefully.”

​It was anything but careful. In microgravity, maneuvering a dead-weight human body out of a rigid multi-layered EVA suit was an Olympic sport. Doing it while trying not to jostle a shattered forearm was competing in the finals. Grace worked like a man possessed, unclipping the torso restraints and peeling the heavy material down past your hips, steering entirely clear of your left side.

​When your left arm finally slid free of the inner lining, a sharp, ragged gasp tore from your throat. Without the stiff structure of the suit to hold it, the arm deformed — bending at a sickening, unnatural angle between the wrist and the elbow.

​Grace let out a small, horrified squeak, the blood draining from his face. “Oh, Jesus. Okay. Don't look at it. Just look at me.”

​He grabbed your right hand and draped your good arm over his shoulders, anchoring his arm around your waist to keep you from drifting. “We need to get to the lab. The med bay. Hold onto me, okay? Just hold on.”

​The journey through the narrow, cylindrical corridors of the Hail Mary was an exercise in pain. Without gravity to keep you grounded, every movement required momentum. Every shift was an enemy. Grace used his free hand to pull both of your masses along the guide rails, but he wasn’t a trained astronaut; his movements were jerky and frantic.

​With every forward lurch, your lower body drifted, and the momentum transmitted straight up your torso to your dangling left arm. The shattered ends of your bones shifted and ground against each other inside your swollen skin.

​“Wait—Grace, stop, stop,” you choked out, your eyes squeezing shut as a violent wave of nausea hit you. Your stomach convulsed, and you had to swallow down the bitter taste of bile. If you vomited in zero gravity now, you’d choke on it.

​“Stopping! I’m stopping!” Grace slammed his hand onto a handrail, bringing both of you to a sudden, jarring halt.

​The abrupt deceleration sent a searing shock of lightning straight up your arm and into your brain. Your vision completely blew out into a roaring haze of grey static. You felt your knees buckle into the empty air, your chin dropping against Grace’s shoulder as you shivered from deep, systemic shock.

​“Hey, hey! Stay with me!” Grace’s voice sounded like it was underwater, echoing from the end of a long tunnel. He was panicking, his grip tightening around your waist as he began hauling you forward again, much faster now, his breaths coming in ragged, terrified gapes. “We’re almost there. Come on, don't pass out on me yet. I can't do this by myself!”

​You couldn't answer. You could only press your face into the fabric of his jumpsuit. Your right hand clutched his shoulder so hard your fingers cramped, riding out the humming aches as he dragged you through the hatchway of the infirmary. For what it was worth, it felt good to be held. You kept your cheek against Grace's shoulder, relishing in what little relief his presence brought. 

​“Okay, okay.” Grace set you down on one of the cots. Under the infirmary’s fluorescent lights, the unnatural color your arm was turning became impossible to ignore. He did his best not to look at it as he strapped you down. 

Your head lolled as he moved. “Grace,” you called weakly. 

His eyes snapped to you. “Yes? Yes? What's wrong? It's gonna be okay, we're gonna fix this, okay? Hang on. I'll fix it, I promise.” 

You couldn't even remember why you said his name. You supposed you just wanted to see his face. Dazed and weakened by the deafening pain, you sought comfort in having his attention. At least you weren't alone, you thought. You couldn't imagine going through something like this by yourself. 

As the final strap clicked into place, securing you firmly against the cot, a chime sounded overhead. Mary's perfectly modulated voice echoed through the small room.

​“Warning. Biometric anomaly detected. Commanding Officer: heart rate: 178 beats per minute. Respiration: elevated. Severe localized trauma identified in upper left extremity.”

​“Yeah, no kidding!” Grace yelled at the ceiling, using the back of his arm to wipe a mix of sweat and tears from his face. “Uh… Uh, initialize medical assessment protocol!” 

​With a heavy hydraulic hiss, a panel in the bulkhead beside the cot slid open. Out glided Armando, the ship's sleek, segmented contraption of aluminum and white polymer, tipped with a precise multi-jointed hand. 

​Armando didn't have a face, but the way its optical sensors whirred and clicked as they focused on your left arm felt intensely invasive. The robotic hand hovered a mere inch above your swollen, distorted forearm. A thin line of green laser light swept down from your elbow to your wrist, mapping the grotesque S-shape of the fractured bone beneath the skin.

​You hissed through your teeth, flinching away even though the machine hadn't actually touched you.

​“Assessment complete,” Mary reported. “Displaced compound-adjacent fracture of the left radius and ulna. High risk of compartment syndrome. Radial artery compression detected. Peripheral blood flow to left distal extremity is critical. Immediate manual reduction required to prevent permanent tissue necrosis.”

​Grace stared at the diagnostic monitor, his face losing what little color it had left. “Necrosis? No, no, no... Okay, uh, Mary, initiate automated analgesic protocol? Give him the good stuff, knock him out!”

​“Request denied,” Mary responded instantly. “Mechanical failure detected in primary intravenous delivery valve. Fluid line pressure: insufficient. Administered dosage of localized analgesic: 0.05 milligrams. Maximum threshold reached for current capacity.”

​“What do you mean threshold reached?!” Grace slammed his fist against the medical console. “Override it! Bypass the valve!”

​“Bypass unavailable. Manual intervention required.”

“Grace,” you choked out. “Something's blocking the valve. It's not gonna work till you fix it.” 

​The infirmary lapsed into a terrifying silence, save for the rhythmic, high-pitched beeping of your spiking heart rate. Armando’s robotic hand retracted slightly, twisting its joints into a waiting posture, as if acknowledging its own inability to fix the mechanical jam.

​Grace turned his head to look at you. “Okay, so I'll fix it. I-I'll fix the valve.” 

“Fix it later,” you told him. “Right now you have to activate the centrifuge. We need gravity for the rest of the infirmary to be operational. C-Can you do that for me?” 

Grace nodded. He asked you to stay still, then he was gone. 

Grace had been out of your sight for no more than two minutes, but it was hard to gauge time with how incessantly your arm was burning. It felt like forever. It felt like he'd never return. You breathed shallowly in your cot as you stared up at the ceiling and did your best to stay conscious. 

Then, the world shifted. You held your breath, thinking it was another wave of vertigo. But then your hair fell over your face and you realized that gravity was making a cautious return. Up and down were re-established in a slow, careful descent. 

It felt good to be oriented, but worse to feel pressure against your broken arm. You let out a strangled, breathless cry, your right hand instantly locking onto the metal frame of the cot as the extra weight crushed you into the mattress. Your vision, already swimming with static, began to fade into darkness.

​“I know, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Grace yelled, stumbling as his own feet slammed into the newly formed floor. He nearly ran into your bed upon his return. His glasses slid completely off his nose, dangling from one ear. “I did it. Gravity stable. What now?”

“Shit.” You gasped. “Shit, shit, shit.” You inhaled a deep, unhelpful breath. “Grace, you have to set my arm.” 

“What?!” 

“You do. You have to do it. Armando's not going to with that broken valve. You need to set my arm before he can operate.” You held your good hand out as if to stop him from bolting. “You just — i-it's just one big snap into place, okay? Then I'll pass out, then you can fix the valve.” 

“You're insane!” 

“I'm out of options, Grace!” You were hyperventilating by then. The monitors next to you were going haywire. “You can do this.”

Grace tugged on his hair. He was going to be sick. “Can't I just fix the valve first?” 

“No!” you yelled. He hadn't heard you yell that loud before. “No. Please. Set the arm. I want this over with. It hurts. If you take any longer the injury will be irreparable. You have to do it.” 

Grace froze, momentarily shaken by the desperation in your voice. ​He looked at your face, streaked with sweat, pale with shock, twisted in an agony he doubted he could comprehend. He inhaled a deep, steadying breath. This was the least he could do. 

​“Okay,” Grace breathed, his voice suddenly losing its frantic pitch. He swiped his dangling glasses off his ear and shoved them into his jumpsuit pocket. He didn’t want a clear view of this. “Okay. I’m going to do it.”

​He stepped to the side of the cot, his boots slamming heavily against the floor. He positioned himself over your left arm. Up close, under the harsh infirmary lights, the distortion was stomach-turning. The sharp, jagged edge of the radius was pushing so hard against the underside of your skin that the tissue was white and bloodless, a mere breath away from tearing through.

​“Hold onto the rail with your right hand,” Grace commanded, hands hovering over you. “Don't let go. Don’t move.” 

​You locked your right fingers around the cold titanium frame of the medical bed. You closed your eyes, squeezing so hard your face creased. You took one last ragged breath. “Do it.”

​Grace didn't give you a countdown. He knew if he paused, he’d lose his nerve.

​He clamped his left hand firmly just above your elbow, pinning your upper arm against the mattress to anchor it against the crushing centripetal force. With his right hand, he gripped your wrist, his fingers locking tightly over your cold, purple-tinged skin. ​Then, with a guttural grunt of exertion, Grace leaned his entire body weight backward, pulling your wrist down and away from your shoulder with everything he had.

​The universe fractured.

An ungodly wet grinding screech echoed within the flesh of your arm as the overlapping, shattered ends of the radius and ulna were forcefully dragged back past one another. The sharp shards of bone plowed through muscle and fascia. ​A raw, piercing scream tore from your throat, a sound of pure, unadulterated torment that vibrated through the metal frame of the bed. Your spine violently arched off the cot, fighting against the padded restraint straps as every nerve ending in your upper body flared into a blinding nova of pain.

To Grace’s horror, the job didn’t end there. He felt the horrific, structural resistance of the bones, and with one final, agonizing heave, he gave the wrist a sharp, aligning twist.

​SNAP.

​A heavy, sickening thud reverberated through your arm as the two main shafts of the bone finally slid back into their parallel tracks. Instantly, the pressure on the radial artery released, and a hot, throbbing rush of restricted blood surged back into your fingertips.

​At the exact same moment, the automated splint on the counter sensed the alignment. With a sharp hydraulic click, it shot forward, wrapping around your forearm and clamping down to lock the newly straightened limb into place. 

​But you didn't feel the splint. The overload to your nervous system was too much. Your eyes rolled back, your grip on the metal rail went completely slack, and your head fell heavily to the side. The world mercifully went black, plunging you into deep, silent unconsciousness. 

​On the monitor, your heart rate plummeted from its frantic peak, settling into a steady thumping.

​Grace let go of your wrist, stumbling backward until his back hit a wall. He slumped down against it, sliding to the floor, his chest heaving as he stared at his trembling, sweat-slicked hands. He was hyperventilating, crying, tugging on his hair again. He wanted to throw up. But he also wanted to be sure you were alright. 

​Above him, Mary’s voice chimed with a serene indifference. “Vascular occlusion resolved. Distal blood flow restored to 100%. Bone alignment within acceptable parameters.”

​Grace sat there for a moment longer, timing his breaths to the steady beeping of your heart rate. 

​“Right,” he choked out, aggressively wiping his cheeks as he forced himself back up. “Not done.” 

Compared to the horror of setting your bones with his bare hands, fixing the valve was a walk in the park. Mary had been there to guide the repair, and soon enough the rest of the medical systems were operational. More hands protruded from the cot. They snipped your shirt off and injected you with needles and tubes. Armando wore an oxygen mask over your peaceful face. They whirred and hummed and then a scalpel was slicing through your skin. 

Grace did not do well with blood. Back on Earth, he felt dizzy at the sight of a drop. But he could not look away from you. He held himself as he stood over your unconscious body and watched as mechanical arms operated on yours. He didn’t leave until the process was done. It had taken hours, and the balls of his feet had ached and numbed, but he wasn’t satisfied until he had confirmation that you were stable. 

When the tension finally bled out of him, it hit his knees first. Grace sank straight into the floor, head dropping to his hands. He cried into the ground and stayed there until he could cry no longer. His lungs burned with a weariness that felt heavier than any force the ship could pull. 

He didn’t think about going back to his quarters. Instead he dragged his blanket and pillow from his bed and pulled them through the corridors, clumsy in his exhaustion. He laid them out on the floor beside your cot and collapsed there. He wedged himself into the tight gap between your bed and the diagnostic console. The space was cramped and ridiculous for a man of his size, but it was the only place he could bear to be. 

Lying there on his side, his cheek pressed against the rough fabric of his pillow, he stared up at the underside of your cot. The position was devastatingly familiar.

It brought him right back to those terrifying first weeks. The fog of his amnesia had been so thick and suffocating, and you had been nothing more than a stranger with a stable heartbeat on a monitor. He remembered watching you until his eyes could no longer do so. Now, he would do it again. He would wait for you to wake up no matter how long it took. 

The hours blurred into a disjointed montage of isolation.

Grace lost track of the ship's artificial day-and-night cycles. He lived in the increments between your medical readouts. Every three hours, the overhead console would hum, cycling a fresh dosage of targeted analgesics into your IV line. Grace would instantly sit up at the sound, his eyes scanning the data, verifying the diagnostics and checking your skin temperature before allowing his head to drop back onto his pillow.

He tried to pass the time. He brought your navy moleskine notebook into the bay, holding it under the dim tertiary lights. He traced the crude, jagged diagrams of Astrophage membranes and Petrova formulas he had scrawled just days before. He filled the empty margins with frantic sketches and lists — anything to keep his brain moving. But the science felt flat, and the math was useless. He felt as though the universe’s worth had shrunken down to the hitching breaths of the man on the bed next to him. 

He ate his space ramen cold, sitting on the floor with his knees pulled up to his chest, his eyes never leaving your resting profile. The plastic mask obscured the lower half of your face, fogging slightly with every exhale you took.

The twenty-two hours of orbital settling had long since passed. Outside, Tau Ceti held the Hail Mary firmly in its gravitational grip, spinning the ship through the silent, perfect curve of its new home. 

It was late. 

The world outside was dark, and cold, but the lab was warm and lit by the steady hum of monitors. 

A desk lamp cast long shadows across the tiled floor. 

There was so much work to be done and so little time to do it. 

The edges of the room were washed out like an overexposed photograph, but the feeling in your chest was heavy and whole. You were focused on a task, hunched over a surface, pen in hand, scrawling something down into your familiar navy-colored notebook. 

Something was distracting you. 

Someone was distracting you. 

Everything sounded far away, but you could hear the unmistakable cadence of Ryland’s voice. He sounded lighter — softer. He had nothing to be afraid of here. 

Since when did you call him Ryland? 

Hands.

Fingertips.

You could feel him breathing on the back of your neck. You could hear the smile in his words. 

That's enough for tonight, Captain. 

How annoying. Couldn't he see that you were busy?

Stay on your side of the lab, Grace. 

Slowly, deliberately, the tips of his fingers trailed an agonizingly gentle line up the sleeve of your shirt, tracing the curve of your bicep, sending a wave of electric heat straight to your spine.

You snapped. With a low laugh bubbling in your throat, you dropped the pen. 

You caught his wrists and surged forward, using your weight to pin Ryland back against the edge of his desk. 

A pile of folders shifted beneath him, but neither of you cared. He let out a breathless, triumphant gasp, his hands instantly wrapping around your neck to pull you down.

A kiss. 

Warm. 

Familiar. 

Secret. 

Beep. 

Beep. 

Beep…

Your eyelids felt like lead. 

You moved your good hand first, fingers twitching against a rough but thin sheet. The sensation of friction jarred your brain further into consciousness. A dull throbbing ache pulsed in your left arm, muted and distant under a heavy blanket of narcotics. 

Slowly, your eyes blinked open. 

You felt good, all things considered. You were sure you had the morphine to thank. The ceiling of the medical bay took shape above you. You sluggishly turned your head. The plastic straps of the oxygen mask shifted against your cheek. Your arm felt like a distant object. Curious, you commanded the limb to move. It rose with a heavy reluctance, floating up into your line of sight. You blinked, attempting to draw your swimming vision into focus. Your forearm was encased in a thick, rigid medical cast. It locked the limb straight, while your exposed fingertips looked slightly pale against the stark white bandages. 

You felt good. Wait, you thought that already. Boy, those meds sure were working. 

You sat up, tugging the oxygen mask from your face. 

Grace was on you in a millisecond. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! What do you think you’re doing? Lay back down!” his hands were on your shoulders before your head could even clear the pillow. 

“Narcotics,” you mumbled, your voice sounding like it had been dragged through gravel. The oxygen mask was dangling uselessly around your neck, puffing a gentle hiss against your collarbone. You had a dazed look in your half-lidded eyes. “These are. Good. You should try.” 

“Okay, that’s nice. Please lay back down.” Grace was crying again. His warm eyes glistened with tears. 

You reached your good hand out to touch his cheek. 

“I’m so glad you’re awake,” he whispered. Despite his emotional state, he was still making sure you weren’t hurting yourself. He let you sit up, but kept a close eye on the needles and thin tubes that poked out of your skin. 

“I’m fine,” you insisted. To prove your point, you craned your neck, which triggered your vision into a slow, dizzying spin. Your hand shifted on Grace’s face, thumb clumsily catching the edge of his crooked glasses and shoving them further up his nose. 

“Don't move, just—please, don’t move,” he begged. He didn't pull away from your hand on his cheek. If anything, he leaned into the touch, verifying that you were actually warm; actually alive.

“It'll take more than just a couple of rocks to keep me down,” you slurred. “How long was I out?”

“Three days,” Grace muttered. The answer broke out of him like a sob. 

The resistance in his posture completely collapsed. His forehead dropped against your mattress, landing next to your good arm. His fingers slid down from your shoulder to lock tightly over your right hand. His shoulders shook as the last 72 hours of terror finally gave way to a wave of relief. His tears soaked wet circles into the sterile sheet of your bed.

“You did good,” you muttered.

You ran your functioning fingers through his hair, petting his messy oil-slicked curls. You didn’t know what else to do to comfort him. The sight of him so thoroughly broken by the thought of losing you was doing funny aching things to your chest. These, the painkillers couldn't numb.

“You’re a terrible patient,” he mumbled into the mattress. “An absolutely terrible patient.”

You hummed out a laugh. 

His hand blindly reached for yours. When he found it, he didn’t let go. He squeezed every time his chest hitched with another shuddering breath. He stayed like that for a long time, letting the weight of the universe bleed out of him onto the edge of your cot. 

“C’mere,” you said. You shifted your torso to the side, wincing slightly as the automated splint on your left arm gave a tiny, protective whir to adjust for the movement. You tugged at your blankets with your right hand. You made space for him on the bed; which was hardly any space at all. 

Grace lifted his head from the sheets, staring at you, bewildered. His eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. “What?”

“Lay with me.”

He looked at the tiny gap of mattress you’d cleared. “What?” he repeated.

“C’mon, Grace,” you slurred, your eyelids drooping as another wave of warm drowsiness rolled over your brain. You gave his hand a clumsy, insistent tug. “Who’s gonna fuckin’ see? Lay with me here — I’m cold.”

He could’ve gotten you another blanket. But he had to be numb to reject the offer to be held. Tired and sleepless himself, Grace crawled into your cot. He was hesitant and careful not to touch your broken arm, but he was also embarrassed at how little convincing it had taken him to lie down next to you. 

The rest was automatic. Grace somehow knew that he laid with his back to your chest, and you somehow knew that your good arm went over his waist. Your chin rested above his head. The mattress was entirely too small for the both of you, but it was impossible to feel uncomfortable when the warmth of another body was there to cushion your every ache. 

You slotted against each other like you'd done it a hundred times before. Grace was too exhausted to have realized this. And before he knew it, he felt himself drifting closer to proper slumber. 

“How did you figure out how to activate the centrifuge?” Your voice had gone low and sleepy. It made Grace’s stomach flip. 

“It just came to me,” he whispered. 

You smiled. “That’s good.” 

“I did this to you,” he muttered, now loopy from his own sleep depravity. His fingertips traced idle shapes on your good arm. “I didn't watch the monitors. I should've been able to tell you there was incoming debris.” 

“Wrong.” You nuzzled into his hair. “The Petrova scope wasn’t the only thing damaged. The housing sits right over the main radar antenna — the ship’s main computer couldn't see the debris because the broken scope was blocking its eyes.” 

You felt Grace curl into himself. 

“Mary couldn't have known,” you insisted. “The radar itself was broken. Didn’t even transmit to my suit. You didn't mess up. You gave me four seconds of warning in a total blind spot. If you hadn't been there, I’d be dead.”

Grace went entirely still against you. 

“You saved my life,” you whispered, your eyelids feeling heavier by the second. The morphine was pulling you back under. “Don't do it again. Bad for your heart.”

A tiny, breathless huff of a laugh shook Grace’s chest. 

Grace drifted the rest of the way down until his cheek was against your pillow. His breathing fell into a slow rhythm, matching the steady beeping of your heart monitor. One of his hands remained loosely tangled in your right fingers. You were a protective dead-weight anchor that kept you both pinned to the bed.

The medical bay faded around the edges. The harsh fluorescent lights dimmed in your consciousness, replaced by a thick, safe silence. You didn't think about the four light-years you had traveled, or the memories yet to return, or the dying suns, or the extent of your new injury, or the difficulty it would add to succeeding in your mission. You held onto the warm man beside you and let the momentum of the Hail Mary carry you both into a deep dreamless sleep.

…

˗-ˏˋ ✸ ˎˊ-˗

a week after meeting you, colt somewhat manages to convince himself you forgot all about your interaction, and the promise you made—though promise feels charged when he thinks about it, like something far more significant than the offhanded comment you probably only made to be polite.

you cross paths on set a few times, locking gazes across a field or stable crawling with crew members—it's always the same: you'll tip your head, offer a crooked, faint smile in the shade the brim of your hat stretches down your face. and colt... will short-circuit. every time, without fail. on a good day he'll at least manage a smile back, but if he's particularly caught off guard by your suave charm, he'll go hot in the face and make some ambiguous gesture between a wave, a thumbs up, and a peace sign.

so. things are not going smoothly. he's not entirely certain what "things" refers to, either. it's fine.

he manages. at any given point in time while on set he is dreadfully hyperaware of your presence, like a blaring neon sign that just can't escape his peripheral. he fumbles a few stunts, earns himself a stern talking-to by dan, who for all his sharp judgement still hasn't discovered the source of colt's sudden and recurring abstraction.

you approach him again by week two of production. it's just past eleven PM after a particularly punishing shoot; most of the exhausted cast and crew has scattered by now, eager to return to their beds to start it all again tomorrow morning.

colt is not one of them, despite how his body aches—literally and figuratively—for a comfortable bed. his reasoning, of course, being you, lingering across the ample barn, harper's reins roped around your fist as you chat with one of the equine veterinarians they keep on set for any stunts involving the horses.

he's been working at his jumpsuit for the better part of five minutes, pretending to fumble at the buttons and zipper because once it's off, he won't have a reason to stick around. he just can't get enough of you, from the shape of your strong legs, to your stubbled jaw, hell—even to the glinting spurs on your aged boots. is he into that? somehow? jesus.

when he drags his eyes back up to your face, he finds it staring right back, eyes a little squinted and unreadable in the dim lighting. he jumps, and very un-subtly feigns a sudden fascination with the stained wooden ceiling, hands finally zipping his jumpsuit open. heartbeat stuttering in his ribcage, colt clumsily steps out of it, balls it up and tucks it under his arm.

his flighty bee-line toward the barn entrance is cut short by your voice, calling out. he gazes mournfully out at the dark, open field just outside before stiffly turning around.

you approach with harper in tow, looking tired but amused. behind you, the vet gathers her things and makes her exit. you nod and politely bid her farewell as she passes. when you turn back to colt, the temperature in his face has only dropped a few degrees. he's suddenly very grateful for the dimness.

"hey, partner," you tease, and he swears you deliberately deepen your accent to punctuate the joke, but the low, friendly drawl of your tone makes him forget, briefly, what you're even referencing.

"hey. hi—uh, partner." he makes a sort of hat-tipping gesture, which he manages not to grimace at when you laugh.

"i've been meaning to talk some more," you say after a short pause. "but things have been so hectic and all..."

"right. yeah, no, of course. me, too. i wouldn't want to approach you while you're working, or distract you, or anything."

you level a meaningful look at him. he's too battered and scramble-brained to read into it before you're speaking again: "you can distract me whenever you like."

jesus christ.

colt chuckles, strained and airy, and glances down at his shoes.

"okay, yeah, cool. good to know."

"are you...?" you cut yourself off, lower lip twisting faintly as though chewing on the inside of it. you cram your thumbs behind the buckle of your belt, hands hanging casually. colt has to scrape his gaze off of the general area to meet your eye again. "you still interested in those lessons?"

colt's reply is lightning-quick. "of course i am. how else am i ever gonna ride off into a beautiful sunset?"

you grin, tipping your head to the side. "you planning on doing that soon?"

"it's on the bucket list."

you laugh again, earnest but soft with tiredness. harper blinks boredly at the two of you, ear twitching.

“great. how’s sunday?”

and so you settle on sunday around noon. it’s the cast and crew’s day off, and colt is grateful for the agreed time to meet outside the horse stables—only so he can sleep in and shed some of the amassed exhaustion he’s been building since production started. he has to be sharp, lest he embarrasses himself in front of you.

(who is he kidding? he’s probably going to do that anyway, sleep-deprived or otherwise)

he hypes himself up the entire drive from his hotel, blasting his playlist so as not to let his mind wander, and subsequently panic. it’s just horseback riding. with a disarmingly handsome, real-life cowboy. no biggie.

you’re already inside when he arrives, combing through harper’s long mane and whistling to yourself.

colt's hope to quietly oberve you from the door for a moment backfires when you immediately turn over as he steps inside, catching his eye. you smile and wave him over. colt doesn't think he could deny you if he tried—he doesn't, of course, and walks up to you.

"well, don't you clean up nice?" you say, eyeing him up and down, still half-smiling.

colt, suddenly, is flooded with warmth, looking down at his outfit: a black fitted tee under one of his nicer flannels, jeans, and a pair of suede boots. he'd tried for a casual, just-threw-this-on look, but then again, he had definitely not just thrown it on, and spent the better part of twenty minutes rummaging through his bags before leaving.

"thanks," he breathes out. "you, too. i mean, you always look nice."

your own smile warps, something a cross between flattered and humored. you nod in thanks, and move to set harper's brush aside. she's already saddled up, nudging colt's palm when he extends it toward her.

"alright. get on her, c'mon," you say, looping the reins a few times around your fist, clapping him once on the shoulder.

colt sticks his foot in one stirrup and hoists himself into the saddle, missing the warmth of your hand the instant it leaves his shoulder. god, he really is screwed.

harper snorts as you lead her out of the stables, and colt is glad you're minding the path because he can't look away from you.

harper comes to a steady halt in the flat plot of land behind the stables. you hand him the reins.

"right," you say, absentmindedly picking something out of harper's mane. "it's easy once you get a hold of it. to move forward, gently squeeze her sides with your legs. to stop, you lean back and pull slightly on the reins. straighten your—here."

you step forward, reaching up, and colt has merely a split second to brace himself before your hand settles on his mid-back, gently coaxing him to straighten it. your chest brushes against his knee. he keeps his gaze pointedly ahead.

"there, that's it," you hum, withdrawing. "easy, right?"

he nods jerkily, squeezing the life out of the leather in his fists. "yep. easy."

you give him a few more pointers before he moves, most of which he fortunately registers. a few are lost on him, but he gets the general idea. you step back and he coaxes harper into a calm stroll, steering her around for a bit before picking up a bit of speed.

during it all, you linger where he started, arms crossed as you watch him. ocassionally, you'll shout out a tip or correction, but for the most part, colt holds his own pretty well. it is fun, he realizes, but he still regularly circles back to you, just to chat for a minute. that's even more fun.

he rides for about an hour before harper grows antsy, and you call her back. when colt moves to hop off, you extend a hand to him and catch his in a firm grip. for half a second after his feet hit the dirt, the hold lingers, fleetingly, and then you release it.

the two of you stroll up to the stables, where you park harper before a water trough at the rear end of the structure. she happily ducks her head to drink.

"you're a natural," you tell him, grinning under the spring sun, one elbow perched loosely atop the white fence circling the plot.

colt huffs, shaking his head modestly. "beginner's luck," he deflects, warm in the ears. "harper’s really great." he reaches up, strokes harper's firm shoulder muscle.

"she's a saint," you say warmly. "had her since i was seventeen. trained her myself."

colt hums curiously. he's deciding which of the cluster of questions on his tongue he wants to ask first when harper's head comes back up, snorting and sighing sharply a few times. colt looks at her, concerned for a brief moment until he hears you chuckle, stepping up to grab her reins.

"alright, girl, settle down, don't be throwing a fit now," you grumble, patting her neck as you guide her away from the trough. you turn back to him. "she's angry i got her working on her day off. mind if we continue another time?"

colt shakes his head, gesturing openly toward the stables which harper is longingly gazing at, still puffing.

so the three of you head over back to harper's pen, where you pull her saddle and halter off and hang them up right outside the dutch door.

"hey, thanks for this. i had a good time," colt says once you've stepped back out and come to a stop in front of him. he's leaning his shoulder against the aged wooden wall, picking absentmindedly at his cuticles over his stomach.

you nod graciously. "the pleasure was all mine. maybe i could sneak one of harper's doubles for next time, we could ride together."

colt isn't entirely sure why that thought makes his stomach flip with a tiny thrill. he shrugs, feigning composure. "as long as it's into a beautiful sunset, i'm down."

you laugh down at the dirt and straw-covered ground, then bring a hand up to scratch at your jaw, tendons flexing subtly under your skin. colt swallows thickly.

"sounds nice," you say, looking back up. you level him with a new look, now—still bearing that friendly warmth of yours, but denser, now. heavier. your mouth holds it's faint slant, the smallest of lingering smiles, and colt can't deny, even with his impressive talent in doing so, the way your eyes trail over his face. darting from his eyes, to the messy sweep of his hair, down his jaw and over his mouth.

he indulges, and allows his own to lock onto your lips as well, faintly chapped but looking unbearably kissable. he drifts, almost involuntarily, and smiles dopily when you mirror the motion.

when there's nothing but a few inches of charged air hanging between your noses, colt feels a strong hand settle on his hip, thumb mindfully slipping underneath the hem of his t-shirt, slow enough to give him time to stop you. the rough texture of your calloused pad scrapes gently over his hip bone, and his chest shrinks.

"this alright?" you murmur, forcing your attention from his mouth just long enough to meet his eye.

colt foregoes an answer, and instead locks a palm around the nape of your neck and pulls you in for a kiss.

it's tentative and warm at first, just a motionless press of impatient mouths, but then he feels you smile lightly into it and squeeze his hip.

of course, he thinks, damn near annoyed by it; you kiss just as skillfully as everything else you do.

his fingers flex against your neck, skin thrumming with a staticky buzz as you tip your head, deepen the kiss. your second hand comes up to smooth the small of his back.

with clumsy, knocking feet, he’s maneuvered to the side, rotating until his back is pressed against the wall and your chest is pressed flush to his. he clings to you like a lifeline, experimentally sweeping his tongue over your lip.

a blunt, unquestionably irritated snort snaps you both out of your daze, and you break the kiss with a forlorn sigh. colt remains frozen under your hands, unable to so much as glance away from your face, your kiss-slick mouth, as you turn over to face harper, whose head is sticking out from her stable, peering at the two of you with one critical eye.

"yeah, yeah, we're going," you tell her through a low sigh, and then face colt again. your thumb is still circling the sharp cut of his hip, and you seem just as reluctant to look away from his lips as he is from yours. he watches them pull into a fond smirk.

When Holly walks into the living room, she finds Healy with his reading glasses slipping right to the end of his nose, haunched over something in his lap on the sofa, illuminated by a small desk lamp.

"Mr Healy?" His head lifts, and he peers at her over his glasses, a soft smile tugging at his lips, the one he only ever gets around the young girl.

"Hey, shouldn't you be in bed?" He raises a scolding brow, but the grin exposes that he can't quite be serious with her. "Your father's in his." He answers before she can even ask, turning back to whatever he was working on.

"I couldn't sleep, can I sit with you?" He nods without looking up again, and she flops down beside him. He feels softer when she’s at his side, and a bubble of pride blooms in his chest that she’s comfortable enough to come to him at a time like this.

"Are you sewing my dad's suits back up?" He hums in confirmation, and she giggles at the sight of him fiddling with a small needle, it's comical and sweet all at once, and she finds herself leaning into his side.

"But don't tell him it was me-" He bumps their shoulders together before his brows bunch in concentration as he pulls a stitch taught. "-And I'll take you for icecream."

"You're the best, Mr Healy!" She cheers, though it melts into a whisper with a pointed look from Jackson, who nods in the direction of March's bedroom.

"If he finds out I'm doing this, I'll never hear the end of it." He wouldn’t mind that- not really. The longer he spends with Holland, the more his goofy charm works its way into his heart. He’d put up with his relentless teasing until the end of time if it meant he could continue feeling so happy. Fulfilled.

They fall into a gentle silence, and an hour later, when all of Holland's sleeves are stitched up and Holly's sleeping soundly again, he slides his arms beneath her. She pretends to still be asleep, he pretends he doesn't notice, and he carries her back to her room.

She feels like his own now, and he wonders how he ever existed before them. He couldn't ever dream of living without them, there's no life that he could ever want that didn't include pair. Looking back, he’d never imagined himself a father, but now, as he holds Holly in his arms, he realises it’s all he’s ever wanted. The way his heart swells as he sets her gently into her bed almost makes him tear up.

So he doesn't mind when Holland stumbles -still drunk- into the doorway of Holly's room, a smile tugging into his lips at the sight of the pair of them, Jackson pulling the sheets up to her chin, pretending again that he can't tell she's suppressing a grin. "You comin' to bed?" He's clearly too fuzzy to remember that their relationship is supposed to be a secret- not that much got past Holly regardless, she has her father’s instincts.

"I'm coming." He brushes the hair off her forehead and presses a small kiss to her temple, humming a quiet goodnight, before straightening himself up and all but glaring at Holland. "Have some patience." He rolls his eyes. He can’t be mad at the flushed cheeks and beaming smile of the PI who’s gazing at him like he hung up the stairs in the sky.

"You gonna kiss me goodnight like that, too?" He teases once the door is shut and they're both in the hallway, and Jackson can't even find it in himself to pretend to be mad anymore.

"If you're good, I'll kiss you better than that. Now, bed." Hollands eyes light up like a kid on Christmas, and he almost falls flat on his face when he moves to run towards his room.

He watches Holland dive into his bed, and lets himself relish in the feeling that he’s exactly where he wants to be. Once he climbs into bed beside him, he holds Holland tighter than ever, and falls asleep thinking about the smile that’ll be on Holly’s face when he takes her for icecream the next day.

He loves in a way he didn’t think he was capable of anymore.

You find Holland exactly where Holly said he would be: in the bathtub, fully dressed, soaking wet, surrounded by empty bottles that float around him like little lonely boats on a sad, alcoholic sea. He called you just from this position, you’re guessing based on the discarded phone on the bathroom floor.

“Hello there.” You murmur, leaning against the wall of the tub, fingers brushing the water. It was hot at some point, you can tell, but now it's barely room temperature.

Holland's eyes flutter open at the sound of your voice. His pupils are blown, he smiles, lopsided, and reaches for you like a baby koala. “Hi baby…” he slurs, doing grabby hand motions in your general direction. You hum, reaching for his middle and hauling him upward. Water cascades off him in sheets. His clothes cling to his body like a second, much wetter skin.

“Nooo..” he whines, but makes no effort to get away. “I like the water..”

You set him down on the bathmat. His clothes are a disaster, his shirt is plastered to his chest, his trousers are sagging, and his socks have been turned inside out. You're not even going to ask about the socks. “How long have you been in the tub?” You ask, undoing his shirt, or at least attempting to, the wet fabric stubborn and hard to get a proper hang of.

“Fifteen? Twenty? I dunno.” Holland mumbles. Then he catches on to what you're doing. your hands on his chest, working his buttons, and a slow, crooked smirk spreads across his face.“Hey…” he licked his lips, his own palm trapping yours against his shirt. “You just got here, y/n… that impatient?”

You roll your eyes so hard you nearly sprain something. You shake his hand off and manage to pry his shirt open, shoving it off his shoulders. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Holland. I’m trying to get you out of these so that you won’t get sick.”

"I can do the pants myself," he says, and reaches down to wiggle out of his trousers without waiting for a response. The sight of a grown man shimmying out of wet pants on a bathroom floor while wearing nothing but a half-unbuttoned shirt and a very self-satisfied expression is, you have to admit, not the sexiest thing you've ever witnessed.

You drag him to the bedroom, his arm slung over your shoulder, his feet scuffing against the floor. He's down to his underwear by the time you get him to the bed, boxers, blue with little pineapples on them, because of course, and you're almost 100% certain he's faking the worst of the drunkenness at this point. Because when Holland March rolls onto his stomach, face buried in the sheets, and lets out a dramatic little hum, he says: "Mm. I wish someone would cuddle me right now." And his voice is perfectly clear.

You cross your arms. Stare at his back. At the ridiculous pineapple boxers. At the way he's sprawled across the bed like a very large, very drunk starfish.

"Holland."

"Mmph."

"You're not that drunk."

"Am too."

You sit down on the edge of the bed. He doesn't move. But you can see the tension in his shoulders now, the way he's waiting for you to either leave or stay.

"Holland," you say again, softer this time.

He rolls over. His eyes are clear. A little red-rimmed, a little tired, but clear. He's been crying sometime in the last few hours, you can tell by the puffiness around his eyes, the way his nose is slightly pink.

"What's going on?" you ask.

"Nothing."

"Holland."

He sighs. Runs a hand through his wet hair. "I don't know. Bad day. Bad week. Bad life."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I've got."

You look at him. At the man you've been dating for eight months, the man who is somehow both the most competent person you know and the most profoundly stupid person you know."Come here," you say.

He doesn't need to be told twice. He crawls across the bed and collapses against you, his head in your lap, his wet hair soaking through your jeans.

"You're getting me wet," you say.

"You like it."

"I don't—"

"You do." He looks up at you. His eyes are gray in the dim light. "You like taking care of me."

You don't deny it. You can't. Because he's right. You do like taking care of him. Even when he's a disaster. Especially when he's a disaster. A few minutes pass. Maybe more. The room is dark except for the sliver of light from the bathroom. Holland's breathing has slowed, and you think he might be falling asleep, when he shifts and reaches for the nightstand.

"What are you doing?" you ask.

"Getting a drink."

"You've had enough."

"One more."

"Holland—"

But he's already uncapped the bottle, whiskey, expensive, the kind he only breaks out on bad days, and taken a long swallow. He offers it to you. You shake your head. He shrugs and takes another.

"You're going to be sick," you say.

"I'm already sick. Mentally."

"That's not... that's not what I meant and you know it."

"Emotionally sick."

You sigh. Reach for the bottle. He holds it just out of reach, grinning. It's a sloppy grin, drunk and uncoordinated.

"Make me," he says.

"Holland."

"Make me," he says again, and there's something in his voice now: teasing, inviting. You lunge for the bottle. He pulls it away. The motion is too fast, or maybe he's drunker than he's letting on, because the whiskey sloshes over the rim and spills. Right onto your chest. Right onto your shirt. The liquid is cold and sharp-smelling, soaking through the fabric in seconds. You look down at yourself. Then at him. He looks down at your chest. Then at you.

"Oh," he says. "Oops."

"Oops?"

"That was an accident."

"You're holding the bottle. You're the one who—"

"It was a reflex."

"You don't have reflexes. You're drunk."

He sets the bottle down on the nightstand. Very carefully. Very deliberately. Then he turns back to you, and his eyes have gone dark, "Well," he says. "Can't let it go to waste."

Before you can ask what he means, he's leaning in. His hand comes up to your chest, flattening against the wet spot, and his tongue licks the whiskey off your shirt. Right there. In the middle of the bedroom. While he's still in his pineapple boxers and his hair is still dripping and you're both a complete mess. You stop breathing.

"Holland." your breath shudders.

"Mmm," he hums against your chest. "You taste good."

"That's whiskey."

"I know. But it's on you."

He does it again. Slower this time. His tongue is warm through the wet fabric, tracing a path along your nipple, circling it through your wet shirt, humming as if he was savoring the taste.

"Holland, we're—you're—"

"Shh." His voice is low, rough. "I'm cleaning."

"You're licking."

"Same thing."

You should push him away. You should be annoyed. He spilled expensive whiskey on your shirt, your favorite shirt, and now he's lapping it up like a cat with a bowl of cream, and you should be annoyed. Instead, your hand comes up to the back of his head. Your fingers thread through his wet hair. You don't pull him away. You hold him there.

He makes a sound, a small, pleased sound, and presses closer.

"Holland," you breathe shallowly, and of course your dick feels it’s time for fun, and makes a shift in your boxers.

"Honey," he murmurs against your skin.

He licks the last of the whiskey off your shirt, right over your heart, and then he looks up at you with eyes that are dark and hungry and more sober than they have any right to be.

"Better," he says.

"You're insane."

"So I've been told."

He kisses you. Tastes like whiskey and sweat. His hands are on your waist, your back, pulling you down onto the bed with him.

"You're still wet," you say against his mouth.

"You're still wearing a whiskey shirt."

"I wouldn't be if someone hadn't—"

"Shh." He kisses you again. "Don't ruin the moment."

"What moment?"

"The moment where I'm very sorry and also very attracted to you and you’re very hard in your pants.”

You laugh. You can't help it. He's ridiculous. But the laugh dies down in your throat as you feel his hand palming over the front of your pants. March leaned back down to your shirt, sucking more whiskey out of it, nosing between your pecs now with a very sloppy noise.

You throw your head against the headboard, and your body goes haywire now, your cock straining against your boxers and fly as March continues slowly stroking you through the pants. His other hand reaches for your shirt, finally, and tries pulling it off of your body. He whines when it doesn’t work immediately and you can’t help but smile at him again. “Let me help you..” you murmur, pulling the shirt which was now sticky and possibly ruined off of your torso.

March lunges right back in, sucking marks into the slope between your neck and your shoulder, his other hand still on your cock, frustratingly not pulling it out of your pants. You swear at the ceiling and close your eyes, breathing heavily as you feel your boyfriend lick and kiss down to where the alcohol clung to your skin.

“Fuck you taste good.” Holland muses, his tongue now going for the other nipple, sucking it lightly.

“Holland-“ you suck in a breath and your hand finally remembers how to move, and finds your boyfriend’s ass, squeezing it through the boxers. This sends a whine out of his mouth, the vibration still on your chest.

March ruts back into your hand, grinding against the heel of your hand hungrily. He finally lifts his lips from your chest and you are a little too distracted by the way his hand is working your jeans open to notice how he’s reaching back for the whiskey bottle.

“Man I love this brand.” He muses, one hand pushing down your jeans and letting your erection spring against just your boxers now.

“Holland..” you breathe out heavily, almost begging for your boyfriend to do something.

“I’m here honey.” He murmurs, leaning down to your crotch with the whiskey bottle in his hand. It is too late when you notice the bottle and start trying to protest, March spills a few drops on your hardness and immediately sinks down on you, his wet mouth enveloping you still in your boxers, tongue running in circles trying to suck out all of the alcohol from the fabric.

A moan dies in your throat as your eyes meet the ceiling and your hips make a small involuntary push further down the private eye’s throat. He’s good at this, no denying that. Not when he swallows around you tentatively and pulls off with a very obscene noise, only to immediately duck back down, pressing open mouthed kisses over your clothed cock.

“Holland, just fucking— come on…” you rasp and tangle your hand in his hair, forcing his mouth back down, much to his delight, judging on the blissed out moan coming from him.

You close your eyes and let yourself get lost in the feeling of both the fabric of your boxers, now completely soaked with booze and your boyfriend’s spit, and March’s hot tongue circling the head, his hand coming up to help him pull the waistband down. His lips find your length again as soon as the boxers come down, now only the head in as he hollows out his cheeks and looks up at you through hooded eyes. You feel your heart leap in your chest at the sight, all the breath knocked out of you.

March comes up for air and buries his nose in the happy trail on your stomach, pressing timid kisses against the sensitive skin there. “So, so good, y/n..” he muses, and you almost miss how he’s pulling down his own boxers, and making an attempt to climb into your lap. You can’t help but notice he’s still only halfway to a hard-on, if that. He seems to notice your eyes catching between his legs and raises his hand in protest. “Oh, don’t worry, I fuckin’ dig you, honey, it’s just I’ve had— uh.. issues with getting it up lately…”

He sits in your lap, hairy thighs on each side of your hips now, a loopy grin on his face as he looks down at you from this position. “You’re so handsome…” March murmurs, leaning down to give you a surprisingly sweet kiss before you can respond. And while your lips are trapped in the kiss, you feel your length slip between your boyfriend’s cheeks as he starts tentatively moving.

“Ho- ohh…” You can only breathe out in surprise as your cock catches on his rim but doesn’t slip in, rather continues sliding up and down between Holland’s ass.

“Mm, don’t feel like prepping.” March says, as if responding to the mess of noises you made just now, his hands braced on your shoulders. “But you feel good like.. mmm…”

You guess your dick managed to massage his prostate from the outside, pressing a little harder on his sternum, as much as you could manage. And judging by a high pitched whine emitted by the man in your lap, whatever it is you did was a good idea. You slide your arm around his waist and grind March on your cock more, his asscrack enveloping you nicely from both sides. His head lulls to your shoulder, hands now travelling down to cling onto your back.

“Babyyy…” Holland whines, adding some of his own pressure on your member, his thighs growing more restless as he abandons the nice rhythm, instead opting to rut against you, all the while you still slide him on you, just hoping his hair won’t give you carpet burns.

“You’re doing great, sweetheart.” You murmur into his ear and smile at the feeling of him clenching his muscles in response to the praise. You enjoy sliding your cock against his crack a few more minutes, savoring the high pitched and loud noises now directly into your ear.

“Y/n… cum… please?” March murmured, voice now a lot more quiet and fucked out. You bite your lip and grip your boyfriend’s waist tighter, sliding him up and down the length of your cock like his crack owed you money. He was all too happy to meet you there, his own hips moving eagerly in tandem with you, his ass clenching around you nicely. “Cum, cum… cum, please…” March begged with a breath against your ear, and with his insistence, you weren’t able to deny him, a few ropes landing somewhere on the sheets.

You both collapsed on the bed, and Holland immediately tucked his nose into your neck. “G’night…” he murmured, an arm and a leg clutching your side.

“Are we not gonna clean up?” You ask, still a little out of breath.

March makes a dismissive sound, nuzzling you closer, “It’s whatever. Sleep.”

The switch had been jarring, at first. You’d been so patient, so gentlemanly in those first days after he’d impulsively kissed you in the empty set of a hospital parking lot. Not the most romantic setting for your first kiss, sure, but you’d looked so damn handsome under the wan gleam of the moon, and he’d been buzzing with adrenaline from leaping out of a fifth story window an hour prior, so he just couldn’t help it.

Those following days had been mortifying for him—but he suspects merely amusing for you, as you waited for him not to panic whenever you tried bringing it up. He noticed the lingering touches, the hungry sweep of your eyes when you’d duck into his trailer to call him to set, the fleeting glances to his mouth while he spoke. Anyone could’ve read that as what it was. And Colt did, for the most part.

But despite his occupation consisting of being thrown off buildings and set on fire on a regular basis, Colt can be quite the coward. Especially when it comes to pretty, outrageously charming men.

It took him a week and some change to muster up the courage to properly ask you out, which only stepped into his reach upon realizing that if you hadn’t gone running for the hills yet, then you probably wouldn’t any time soon. And maybe after a particularly lewd dream involving you, too, though that he'll keep to himself.

“Colt,” he feels vibrate against the hollow of his throat. He hums absently, fumbling for the back of your shirt, only to shove it out of the way and slide his palms up your warm back. “Stop thinking.”

“Yep, right, sorry. No more thinking. All empty up here. Starting now.”

Your airy puff of laughter falls against his overheated skin, drawing up goosebumps in its wake. His fingers flex against the broad expanse of your back.

He’s half-hard already, though he’s certain it can’t have been more than a few minutes since you hauled him into this tiny bathroom, hidden away in the mansion rented out for the wrap party. Much to his embarrassment, you’re quick to take note of this, and reach down to drag your knuckles along the top of his belt, hooked underneath his shirt.

“Eager,” you hum, low as if to yourself. With a final kiss to his pulse point, you straighten back to eye level. You meet his gaze, steady and collected as ever, and Colt has the itching urge to shrivel under your quiet scrutiny, feeling heat bloom up his face, near feverish at the tips of his ears. He clutches you tighter, drawing you in closer in hopes of getting your mouth back on his, but you only smile—so tender it’s almost patronizing, and his cock gives a feeble throb in his jeans.

“You really want this, huh, angel?”

The pet name dunks him into a full-body warmth, pooling like slow-moving magma low in his belly. A frustrated sort of groan wobbles out of him, lunging forth in search of another kiss. Ever quick, you dodge him, sliding the hand in his hair down to his jaw, where it grips him steadily. You click your tongue a few times in soft reproach, but press a thigh to his aching crotch nonetheless.

“You look so pretty like this, you know that? I figured I’d appreciate the view for a minute, but it seems someone’s too needy.”

Your name falls from his lips in a ragged huff, unbalanced and more pathetic-sounding than he’d like to admit. His hips, driven by their own volition, roll in erratic grinds against the meat of your thigh, seeking far more than what the meager friction provides.

You smile at him once more before pressing a lingering kiss to the corner of his mouth, then to his chin, and finally to his lips. Allowing him to part your own with his tongue, your second hand dutifully works on his belt and fly. His heart kicks out wildly, a jackrabbit against his breastbone, when you manage to shove his jeans halfway down his thighs with one hand.

A few seconds of nothing at all precedes the sensation of your hand cupping the tented front of his boxer briefs, and it’s in spite of himself that a wet moan cracks through his chest. You swallow the sound happily, thumb sweetly scrubbing across his bearded jawline while your palm follows the length of him, up and down.

“Hmmn—Jesus,” he manages, molars gritted to dust as he tries not to buck too desperately into your warm hand. Only grinds and chases after it when you teasingly withdraw.

There isn’t a single light on in the bathroom, but the moonlight pours in through the tiny overhead window and somehow you stand out in stark relief against the dim blue background. Your eyes, faintly narrowed and a far darker shade than usual, track his every movement, attention evenly split between his face and the rolling of his hips. You’re looking at him as though studying some fascinating experiment, drinking in every minute reaction at the smallest exploratory motions of your hand. Colt burns with arousal.

“Could you come like this?” You ask after an amount of time that is completely lost on him, and the sudden breathy quality of your voice sounds something like awe. Like you’ve made some big, beautiful breakthrough.

Colt, on the other hand, is clawing at your back in a way that’s sure to leave marks and too focused on the blissful angle he’s found, dragging his cock right up against the hollow of your palm. It takes a moment for your words to reach him, and an even longer one for him to piece together their meaning.

“Mhm,” he hums, forehead meeting your shoulder, suddenly feeling it very heavy.

In return, you hum as well, learning the rhythm of his pelvis and matching it, slower yet firmer. Colt’s never been one for this sort of stimulation—more often than not the texture of his boxers makes it all more uncomfortable than pleasurable, but the sheer, fiery want swarming him head to toe could make him come with you just uttering the order.

He’s brought back, fleeting but very vividly in the way drunken abstraction often is, to the dream he had of you—no more than a few nights back.

In it, your skin had been so warm under his fingers, your voice so low and wrecked and your eyes lit with such desire he’d woken up hard and panting and mournfully empty.

The memory alone draws a little surge of pleasure forth, twisting into your neck, sucking in your familiar scent with mounting desperation. His skin crawls with hot anticipation, rutting quicker, harder against your deft hand.

Pleasure rolls over itself, snowballing deep in his navel, sparking down his sweat-sticky thighs; he sucks in a shuddering breath and—

You pull away.

He moans in frustrated dismay, ass coming off the wall entirely, chasing after your retreating palm, but within seconds the building crescendo of his orgasm has wilted away, back to a low baseline of thrumming arousal.

You shush him when he makes another pitiful sound into your clothed shoulder, absentmindedly carding your fingers through the hair at his crown. He will admit, the feeling does somewhat soothe the ache of a denied orgasm. A little.

“We’ve got all night, no need to rush.”

Colt huffs. “We’re in a bathroom at a Hollywood party, if there was ever the need for a quickie, it’d be right now.”

Your answering laugh is quiet and deep in the chest, and it rumbles through his own and settles there, warm.

“Not like anyone will come looking for us. Besides…” You pull back, gripping onto his hair just enough to meet his eye. “You’d stay here all night if I asked you to, wouldn’t you?”

Colt blinks. Considers, quite seriously, the risk he must be at of spontaneously combusting. His cock throbs and throbs, and the way you’re looking at him, keeping a lovingly firm hold on his hair, only makes matters worse.

He doesn’t give you the satisfaction of answering that question; you both already know the answer, anyway.

Next your hands find his waistband, hooking two fingers into either side and sliding it down just enough to free his cock.

It isn’t the first time you’ve seen it, but the satisfied sound you make shoots a pulse of heat straight down into it. You reach down, encircle the base with your clever fingers, and Colt sags against the wall. He pulls one hand out from your shirt to latch on to your tricep, shoving out a shuddering exhale.

“Look at you,” you croon, beginning to languidly pump your fist, all loose and steady. Colt’s thighs quiver.

You’re gonna be the death of him. He just knows it, down to his bones.

“Please,” he grits out, hoping to meet your gaze and inspire some kindness but you keep your own low, fascinated by the ruddy, leaking image of his dick twitching in your fist.

You make an acknowledging sound, but Colt has a feeling you aren’t really getting it. The stimulation is somehow too much and not enough, all at once. He gives a few tentative rolls into the circle of your fist, and when you utter no word of dissent, he begins fucking into it in earnest.

His moan falls muffled into your throat, a place where he comes to realize he could stay forever, breathing you in, getting off on your clever hands and dizzying words.

“What would they all think out there, huh? Seeing you like this. So desperate to come.”

He’s close again already; his pace grows arrhythmic, shallow, sucking at the base of your throat when he isn’t tucking low moans into the skin there.

Your free hand smoothes down the back of his head in an almost petting gesture, thumbing his tip once before pulling away entirely.

Colt’s moan warps, halfway through, into a strained sob, bucking into empty space as his cock weeps pre onto the tile below. He cries out your name, a dragged-out sound of raw need.

“I know, I know,” you sigh into his hair, still stroking it with sure fingers.

“You’re being mean,” Colt whines against you, the arm still crossed over your back dropping to your hip and palming it insistently.

“I just wanna make you feel good,” you reply, the fan of your breath sending shivers down his sweaty back. “At least until I can get you in my bed and fuck you properly.”

Shit—Colt damn near comes from that alone. He whines and his hips jerk wildly, taken on life of their own. For the first time since he’s gotten to know you, he tries very hard not to think about you fucking him within an inch of his life, lest he comes untouched, and as much as he wants to release all the circling, built-up pleasure in him he wants to do it when you let him.

So, he just screws his eyes shut, and mumbles a weak, “okay.”

“Attaboy,” you tease, squeezing the nape of his neck once before returning your free hand to his dick.

A steady breath rolls over into a fractured hum, stretching on with your sparse, gentle touches—a thumb across his slit, a drag of knuckles down the underside, then a graze to his balls. Sweat slides down his heaving chest, longing to bury himself back into you but held back by your hand on his nape.

Observing his slow unspooling, you make a low sound, vaguely resembling a growl.

“God, I wish I could fuck you right now,” you lament, squeezing the head of his cock lightly. Colt yelps, skull knocking against the wallpaper. He eyes you through the narrowed slits of his eyes, draws up something he hopes looks like a smirk.

“You could.”

You shake your head. “No. I really want to take my time with that.”

Colt groans—more agitated than pleasured this time, and digs his thumb into the flesh right above the curve of your hip bone. Your ministrations on him are far more relaxed now, lax and distracted, like some absentminded reflex, and it should be frustrating, but he finds himself reluctantly enjoying it. Your collectedness before his shaky, desperate frame.

Your palm begins making these tight, quick circling motions against his tip, thumbing underneath the head with a pointedness so determined he's certain you'll let him come this time. His body responds in kind, kicking into high-gear and frantically chasing release. A very faint, very fleeting thought crosses his mind that you never even had to spit into your palm—he's damn near soaked your palm and fingers with a seemingly endless supply of precome, and the glide is so utterly frictionless, product of your clever motions and his overwhelming want that it makes his head spin.

He's hardly aware of how loud he's being, bucking like an animal into your hand, baring his throat for your nipping teeth, unraveling in your firm hold. You murmur into his skin, things that are completely lost on him amidst the roaring of blood in his ears, the deluge of pleasure bursting through him—so acute it makes his eyes prickle and his vision warp.

It builds quicker than ever, almost too intensely, his steady quivers deepening into involuntary, full-body jerks. His jaw falls open right as he feels himself approaching the summit, tensing in preparation.

Then you're gone again, and he's ripped right back down. With a wet sob, his tears finally spill over, searing against his warm cheeks. He knows better than to seek you out with his hips again—but they don't seem to get the memo and continue twitching, grinding into nothing.

His mind is empty, scraped hollow and reduced to its most basic instincts; he doesn't register his own frenzied weeping or the near bruising grip he has on you, only tightening as his pleasure slips away like a receding tide. All that he processes is his arousal, so trapped and pressurized it almost hurts, and you, brushing the hair out of his eyes and cooing, as though comforting a small, startled animal.

"Please, please," Colt manages, voice thick with tears, wet-cheeked and aching. You tut softly, and lean in to kiss each streak of salt on his face. It's so tender it makes Colt choke on a sad bleat, sniffling.

"You think you can do one more?" you ask, and maybe if he weren't so muddleheaded he'd catch the fond, facetious lilt of your tone, but panic rises before he can quell it, and his grip on you tightens abruptly. Tears threaten to gather again.

"No, no—I can't, please, I can't do it, I'm sorry—"

"Hey, hey." His teeth clamp shut, blinking hard so your warm expression comes into focus through his tears. "I was joking, angel. You've been so good, so patient. I think you deserve to come, hm?"

Colt's tongue, suddenly, feels stuck to his palate, thick like honey. He nods, though, quite fervently, and flushes warm all over at your sweet answering smile. You lean in to kiss him, closing the gap between your chests and caging him in with your forearm pressed to the wall behind him.

When you finally take him again, it's with a firm, committed grip and quick motions. You're crowded in so close to him he can barely fuck into your fist, pelvis trapped against the wall. He's completely at your mercy, subject to whatever you may decide as his bliss swells, even quicker this time around.

He trusts you, and the way you're looking at him, swiping rogue tears away with your free hand on his cheek, entranced by how he cries—it all makes him shudder.

Pleasure becomes greater than him, so all-encompassing he can't keep his eyes open, rolling so fiercely through his limbs like a ceaseless electric current he briefly fears his legs giving out. It's sharp and blunt and sweltering all at once, crowding into every inch of him, throbbing in his cock, pouring out into your fist.

You watch him unblinkingly.

His own orgasm takes him by surprise. Strikes all at once, so intense he's silent through most of it, shaking and spurting over your hand, onto the floor below. He pulses with it, wave after wave of devastating pleasure, and you pump him through and whisper candied praise into the shell of his ear, coaxing every last drop of come and shudder of bliss out of him, until he sinks against you with a high moan, spent.

His cock continues to twitch through the aftershocks, softening in your still palm, which you're kind enough not to move anymore. His head feels stuffed full of cotton and air, though terribly heavy against your shoulder. Your arm comes off the wall, running a hand along his firm upper arm.

"I love watching you come," you chirp, all warm and lighthearted like you've just won the lottery. Colt grumbles incomprehensibly against your collarbone, letting his eyes slide shut as the world drifts back to him in chunks. You soon release his arm to make him decent, keeping your dirtied hand hovering off to the side.

"Okay," you say, wrapping an arm around his mid back. You pull him off the wall, and turn him over—he goes like a ragdoll in your grip. "There you go, good?" you ask once plopped him down on the toilet seat lid.

Colt manages an inelegant nod, humming his confirmation for good measure. He's better than good—better than great, in fact, but no such word is really coming to mind at the moment and he doesn't feel like speaking, anyway.

You nudge his legs apart in order to crouch down between them. With your elbows perched atop his knees, you peer up at him, eyeing him thoughtfully to make sure he's being honest.

He leans into your hand when you reach for his cheek like a purring cat, certain that were he able, he absolutely would be doing so. Your thumb stretches out, delicately tracing the slightly puffy skin under his right eye, and he watches, then, as your gaze falls to your other hand, still bearing some pale streaks of his come. You quietly regard it, look at him thoughtfully, and then bring your knuckles to your mouth.

His crotch throbs when you lick the come right off your skin, holding his eye with something like a challenge gleaming in your own. You move to your thumb next, sweeping your tongue across the webbing at the base of it. You peer up at him through the fan of your eyelashes and Colt thinks he could almost get hard again, just by watching you. He doesn't think he's ever watched something more erotic, and it's in a stranger's bathroom at a wrap party after the most intense orgasm he's ever had.

Once satisfied, you lower your hand, and reach out with both to zip his fly and do up his button. You lightly smack the outside of his thighs and rise to your feet.

"You with me?" you ask, reaching out, palms upward. He makes haste in taking them, letting you pull him to his feet. He can't help but kiss you again, holding on to either side of your face like you might duck away. You don't; you simply indulge him.

"You're insatiable."

"Mhm."

"I'd suggest a chastity belt but you'd probably be into that."

Colt barks a surprised laugh against your collarbone, breath warm against the dampened skin there. He cranes his neck up, blue eyes crinkled with mirth, and digs his chin into your sternum. His beard stratches the thin skin there, but you pay it no mind.

"I'm not hearing a refusal," you add, feigning shock. Colt rolls his eyes but foregoes an answer. Instead he turns back to your chest, peppering kisses across the bare expanse.

Sighing, you drop your head onto the pillow and let him have his fun. You'd barely gotten through the front door after an agonizingly contactless drive back from the wrap party before Colt damn near jumped you, and within seconds you'd ended up sprawled laterally across the bed. He'd tried to kiss you once you'd both settled into the car, but the Uber driver had shot a look so stern through the rearview mirror neither of you had the nerve to even stray from your sides of the back row.

He pulls away from sucking a faint bruise into your pec only so he can shuck his shirt off, and when he resettles, the press of bare skin-to-skin makes you hum with satisfaction. Your fingers automatically seek out his head, sliding into his hair—not pulling just yet but twirling longer strands around your knuckles. A wordless reminder that despite your positions, you’re still the one calling the shots, and at any point you could easily guide him wherever you want him.

He hums a long, throaty sound at the sensation, nipping your skin once more with playful levity, and skirting his broad palm up your shifting ribcage. It comes to a stop a mere few inches from your armpit, where he swiftly flicks his thumb over your nipple.

Clambering back up to your eye-level, Colt draws up a slanted smirk, the tips of your noses brushing. He’s so close his face is faintly out of focus, but the rapidly-rooting desire gleams starkly in his eye, impossible to miss.

“Hi,” he hums, gaze trained low on your loose mouth.

“Hi, handsome.”

Much to your delight, Colt goes pink within a matter of seconds, mouth shifting and twisting with bashfulness. One of your hands slips down to his cheek, feeling the blooming warmth there.

“What do you need?”

Colt’s eyebrows furrow, ever so faintly, eyes darting low for a split second. “You know.”

At that, you mirror his expression, albeit with a far more dramatized edge. Your head tilts against the comforter in mock confusion.

“Hm, I don’t think I do. You’re gonna have to tell me. In great detail, preferably.”

Colt’s head wilts, lands roughly onto your shoulder with a defeated puff of breath. You scrape your blunt nails against his scalp just to feel the suppressed tremor that lances through his shoulders.

“You’re a sick man, you know that?” he bleats. “A sick, evil man.”

"And yet, here you are," you counter, folding a leg up to press your inner thigh to his hip. The pressure of his half-hard cock is impossible to miss with this angle. Self-satisfaction blooms in your chest—it's hard not to get a big head when it comes to Colt, such an eager little thing, wrapped right around your finger.

He plants a brief, wet kiss to the knob of your collarbone, blindly drawing one arm back to paw at your raised thigh, hips driving down to press clumsily against yours. It knocks a lovely, low groan straight out of him, reverberating through you as he finds a jerky pace.

"Come on, sweetheart, you've got no problem humping me like a dog but you're too embarassed to use your words?"

Colt, fully hard now, freezes against you, fingers fixed like claws into the meat of your thigh and his free arm holding some of his body weight off of you, forearm trapped under your upper back.

"Unless you want to get off like this," you taunt, tone loose with indifference. Colt's head shoots up straight, almost knocking into your chin in his haste. His pelvis rolls again, though a movement so shallow and brisk you figure it was more of an automatic impulse. His hand beneath you wriggles up your back, curling around the curve of your shoulder to prod at the nape of your neck.

"Fuck me? Please?" he breathes into your mouth, brows pinched and hair askew—the image of need.

"There you go," you murmur with delight, soft despite the thrill of heady arousal his face and quiet plead have roused under your skin. "Was that so difficult?"

You don't give him any time to reply, hastily tipping him over onto his back. This strong thighs catch your hips instinctively, grinning up at you like the cat that got the cream. Little does he know you were always bound to end up like this—despite your far superior capacity for concealing your own arousal, you've been near dizzy with the urge to fuck him senseless since you hauled him into that tiny bathroom well over an hour ago.

You both shed your pants and briefs, and while Colt battles with his pair caught on an ankle, you retrieve the lube from your bedside drawer. With this, you waste no time, pumping a generous amount onto the pads of three fingers and smearing it around with the same hand's thumb, while you toss the bottle aside and settle on your haunches in between his thighs. His legs are bent and draped over yours, feet planted on the mattress behind you.

Hard and leaking already against his toned stomach, bathed in the yellowish light of your bedside lamp, flushed all sorts of pink and red, Colt is gorgeous. You say as much, rendered a little breathless as you skim your dry palm up his flank and watch it quiver with a sharp intake of breath. You draw it back down, settle your thumb in the crease where his thigh connects to his body.

Your first finger goes in with little resistance and a contented sigh from below. At first you simply press in and pull out to the last knuckle in steady, cyclical motions, gently working lube and looseness into him. Colt's got his head perched on one folded arm, the other lax on the mattress, loosely extended to draw mindless patterns into your kneecap.

It's when you work a second finger into him that you start having some fun. You crook your fingers sharply upward, testing. Colt sucks in a shuddering breath, jolting as though suddenly shocked.

"Ooooh, boy," he says, a little strained. His gaze abandons the ceiling to peer at you down the sharp line of his nose, mouth slanting with dazed amusement. He must read something in your eyes, because suddenly, his own narrow pointedly. "Don't be mean."

"I didn't do anything!"

"I can see you—" he waggles a finger at you. "Scheming."

"Alright, settle down," you dismiss, swatting his hand away as you scissor your fingers, and then snicker when he grits out a low moan, head straining back against the bed. Your free hand drifts to the bend of his knee, drawing it up, closer to his chest. "Hold here."

Breathing out hard through his nose, Colt hooks his palm under his thigh, dutifully securing it in place.

During the press of your third finger into him, you clasp your hand over the back of his, watching his face tighten around a half-swallowed sound. You keep pressing in deeper until you can't, fingers angled unward and drawing firm circles with them that make Colt's hips jump, his arm soar up to cover his eyes.

Alternating your motions, scretching and pressing and circling and retreating, you watch him crumble at your fingers. Something like awe captures you, gawking at the massive swelling of his broad chest and the surges of precome leaking out of his slit, pooling in the dips and valleys of his straining abdominal muscles.

"Jesus," you breathe out, releasing his hand to grip the base of your own cock—hard just by watching him. It hits you then that you haven't come at all tonight; no wonder you're so pent up. Keeping a firm ring around yourself, you pick up the pace of your fingertips, itching to reach for his dick as well but mostly wanting to see how far you can push him, just like this.

Colt's low moans are cut short by a blurt of your name, snipped with pleasure. You watch his nails fade into a ghostly white, curling fiercely into his thigh.

"Hm?" you ask absentmindedly, refocusing again on the way your fingers disappear into him, blood thrumming through your head, joined only by his fractured groans and the wet sounds of your ministrations.

"Wait, wait—ssshhit, 'm really close."

"Hold on, hold on baby."

"No, no wait, I'm ready, 'm gonna come, I can't—"

You curl your fingers up again, and reach over with your thumb to press it flat against his perineum.

Just as his hips drive up, grinding sloppily onto your fingers in a raw instinct to chase his orgasm, you slide your fingers free entirely, watching as his cock dribbles onto his skin and he sags, moaning feebly into the crook of his elbow.

You soothe the tremors caught in his extended thigh, using both the remaining lube on your fingers and scooping up some of his pre in order to slick yourself up.

“I said don't be mean,” Colt grouses, peering mournfully up at you. You slide your palm over your tip a few times, grasp tightening over the muscle of his thigh, and an airy chuckle slips out of you as you line yourself up.

“You said stop, I stopped,” you reply with innocent lightness, lowering your torso to peck his ruddy cheekbone. His exasperated sigh rolls into a deep hum when you finally press into him, inch after steady inch.

Pleasure fizzes and thrums under your skin, dizzy with the tight heat around you, clenching spasmodically. You muffle a long sound of your own into his chest, rolling your hips deeper even once you’ve bottomed out.

“Oh, fucking—Jesus,” you grit, stuck to his chest with your mingling sweat. Colt is mostly silent beneath you, save for the hitching irregularities of his breath, catching and stuttering with every lazy grind of your pelvis. He’s released his leg at some point, and now both hands are clinging to you, one planted on the small of your back and the other strewn across your shoulder blades.

“You feel so good, Colt,” you murmur once the initial flare of bliss has ebbed into a steadier constant. You nose at the hollow of his throat, pulling out a few inches and feeling his cock twitch against your stomach. “So tight, perfect for me.”

“No need for flattery, baby, you’ve already got me in your bed,” Colt ribs, but his voice is a little wheezy, a little dazed, so it falls somewhat flat. You push back into him—not quite a proper thrust but something approaching it. You lift your head just in time to see his face crumble, pushing out a stilted huff. Unable to tease any further, you settle into a deep, steady pace, though not yet rough.

“I know, but you love it.”

His brows furrow and swiftly release, gazing up at you with his half-lidded eyes a little bashful. “I wouldn’t say love…”

“Oh, come on. There’s no shame in this bedroom. You love being good for me. My good boy.” To punctuate, you give a particularly firm thrust, letting your whole body roll with it, angling yourself deeper into Colt. He responds as expected: jolts and utters a wavering moan into the ever-narrowing space between your faces, fluttering around you.

You're struck, suddenly, with a fondness so potent it nearly makes the climbing rhythm of your hips falter. Colt clings to you and shakes and moans so beautifully, fitted to your body as though tailored to it. He digs one heel into your ass and involuntarily scrapes his nails down the soft arch of your spine—marks which he'll later kiss and mumble apologies for. He's so perfectly tight on your dick, taking you with such ease and enthusiasm you can only bask in the gales of simmering pleasure that rip through you with every deep thrust and clench of his spongy insides.

"You're staring," he manages after an indecipherable stretch of time, head pressed back against the comforter, a vaguely Y-shaped vein bulging in his throat. You tamp down the urge to bite into it, in favor of leveling his gaze.

"Can you blame me?" you huff, shifting your weight onto one forearm in order to bring your other palm to his jaw, propping your thumb up under his chin to keep his head held back and lovely throat exposed. He rolls his eyes but otherwise ignores your comment, and instead you watch in steady increments as his orgasm approaches.

His brows warp and pinch closer, blinking unevenly until his eyes eventually stay screwed shut; his breath hitches, his throat bobs.

"Close already?"

"Shut up," he groans, though any attempt at frustration is cheapened by the high-pitched quality of his voice. "You shouldn't've—teased so much... earlier—shit..."

"Mhm," you hum, reluctantly releasing his jaw in order to reach blindly behind you, finding his knee and hitching it up to your ribs. The new angle has Colt yelping, squeezing around you like a vice, hips lurching up to meet yours.

He's so loud when you fuck him, it's addictive. Even more so as he's approaching his release, when whatever scrap of dignity he has left flies out the window and he gets particularly whiny. You lean down, drink them all in, hips not relenting for an instant despite the quiver of strain in your thighs and arms.

"It's okay," you murmur into his cheek, dazed, warm and buzzing all over, "it's okay, baby, come on."

He sounds almost suffocated when he comes, shuddering harshly beneath you, clamping down on your cock and spurting across your stomachs. You can feel the tremors in his arms on your back, in his inner thighs where they're pressed against your bare skin. You fuck him through it, only slightly decelerating. He continues to tighten and spasm, even as he begins to come down, and your head spins.

He finally sags beneath you with a cross between a groan and a deep sigh, nails relenting on your poor back, swiftly replaced by sweat-sticky, circling fingertips.

At some point during his orgasm, your face sunk into the crook of his neck, breathing in his musk and just barely keeping yourself from picking up a harsh pace, in search of your own release. Still, the steady, even rolling of your hips soon makes Colt whine.

"Gimmie a—s'too much, give me a minute," he gasps, though his pelvis gives weak, tentative twitches against your own. You don't answer to that, sunken deep into your long-neglected pleasure, now that you've taken care of him. You release his knee in favor of palming at the rising and falling width of his ribcage; it's mostly unintentional, the way you begin pounding into him harder, movements rushed and somewhat snipped with urgency.

Colt grunts, fingers tensing on your skin again, into the indents his nails have surely left. He appears split on whether to grind down onto you or attempt to writhe away from the stimulation, bordering now on painful. The breathless cries of your name, uttered just above your ear only amplify the heat surging through you, condensing in the pit of your gut.

"Too much—s'too much," he repeats, thrashing beneath you, breaths coming in so quick they stumble over each other.

Despite it, he's still hard between your bodies.

"Want me to stop?" you manage through your own trance, between lazy licks and bites to his pulse point. From this close you can hear the tiny huffs each harsh thrust knocks out of him, and when he gives a rather telling wet sniffle your cock twitches.

Colt hums and moans and whimpers, makes all these addictive little noises that draw you further to the edge, but he says nothing. You take it as what it is, and let animal instinct take the wheel. Your thrusts grow sloppier, arhythmic, jackrabitting into him and fueled only by your approaching orgasm and Colt's cries of pleasure-pain.

You come with a low moan that feels ripped straight from your chest, wavering at the tail end as you dump your load into his twitching insides, near overwhelmed by pulse after pulse of warm pleasure. It lasts ages—at least it feels that way to you, and by the time you surpass the peak and roll through the aftershocks, Colt tenses and follows right after you. You crane your neck down just to see the pitiful two, three surges of come his dick offers up, and pull out when he starts to hiss with true discomfort.

You sit back on your knees, palms holding his own apart in order to watch your come trickle out of his hole. You certainly can't get hard again, not this fast, but you feel your dick give a weak jolt at the mind-numbingly erotic sight.

With a curse muttered under your breath, you reach over the side of the bed and pull up the first thing your fingers graze—which turns out to be your discarded boxers. You clean up his stomach first, then some smears on your own, and finally his ass.

Despite the weight of exhaustion enfolding you and the general achiness in your legs, you shuffle off the bed to grab some water from the kitchen, an opened bag of chips held shut by a plastic clip, and once back in the bedroom, two pairs of underwear.

Colt chugs most of the water, but stops himself before finishing it, smiling bashfully up at you when he offers the few sips left. You thank him anyway and down the rest before crawling back in beside him.

He hisses when he tucks himself into your boxers, legs drawing up slightly.

"Dude, I think my shvantz might fall off," he solemnly says, rolling into your side and propping his upper body onto one forearm. You snort, eyes shut but hands easily seeking him out.

"Your what?"

"Totally worth it, though," he says in lieu of an answer. You feel him pepper soft kisses along the side of your face, leading ultimately to your mouth. "Didn't even know I could do that."

He settles agaisnt your shoulder with one palm pressed flat against your stomach, thumb sweeping lazily.

"The more you know," you hum, sinking your fingers into his sweaty hair. You probably should've showered. Oh well, you can do laundry tomorrow.

"We are doing that again, though, right?"