Just a fun fact! I'm a big fan of realism in my writing when it's about the military because I'm prior military service myself. That's me in the center with my PL, my best friend, and members of my shop while we were deployed in 2020!
I'm currently overloaded doing full-time college for an engineering degree and struggling to find inspiration to write. Forgive my inactivity, but I do drop random shit every once in a while.
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Summary: shameless bloodymary smut. inspired by this post from @wraithillustrates . this is not a cute lil fluffy fuck! read the tags! also sorry I used a ~ lol it felt better than a ! (wc: 3.8k) || ao3
top!ryland, bottom!simon, established relationship, bondage, praise kink, doctor kink, rough sex, power play / dynamic, face fucking, blow job, spit as lube, anal fingering, sweetheart, orgasm control, handjob, multiple orgasms, creampie, overstimulation, degredation kink, dry orgasm, orgasm delay, edging, hehe refractory, color system, pet names, aftercare
Simon could hear the fibers of rope grinding against each other. Getting tighter and tighter around his wrists. Pulling his shoulders back, keeping them in place.
“You okay? It’s not too tight?” Grace asked, running his fingers around the rope, against the delicate skin of Simon’s wrist.
“Yes,” Simon’s voice was weak already, he could feel the blush across his cheeks. Even the first step of being tied up by Grace had his mind in a haze.
Grace pulled Simon’s wrists further behind him by the rope and leaned down so his lips brushed against his ear. “Yes, what?”
Simon felt blood rush to his cock, already half hard with anticipation. His mind threw all the nicknames he had for Grace to the front of his thoughts. He knew what Grace was looking for. “Yes, doctor.”
Grace ran his tongue up Simon’s neck, eliciting a whine from him. “Very good.”
Simon’s head fell back, landing on Grace’s shoulder.
“Don’t tell me you’re getting tired already, handsome. The fun is just getting started.” Grace’s voice was commanding. Simon lifted his head, “No, doctor. I’m sorry. Please, what do I do next?”
Simon loved all the sides of Grace. His teacher side, his long term partner side, his grumpy in the morning side, all of them. But this side. When Simon got to completely let go and let his doctor tell him what to do, how to make him happy. It was his favorite.
Grace walked around to face Simon, who was still on his knees, arms over his head. Simon’s eyes trailed up all six feet of Grace. Fuck, he was handsome.
“You look so pretty on your knees like this.” Grace squatted down in front of Simon. They were so close, Grace took Simon’s chin in his hands and gently pulled him in for a kiss.
Simon whined when Grace pulled away, feeding Grace’s smirk.
“Do you want more, beautiful?”
Simon nodded eagerly, “Yes, please, yes.”
Grace unzipped his pants, letting them fall to his ankles and stepping out of them as he took his cock in his hand. It peered out of his boxers, slowly revealing itself as Grace’s hand worked faster.
“Here you go, baby.” Grace stepped towards Simon and fed his cock into his open mouth, chuckling in pleasure as Simon greedily took him in.
Simon’s tongue swirled circles around Grace’s dick, and he hollowed his cheeks as he sucked him deeper to his throat. His arms were still above his head, aching from the position. The pain only made him work harder.
“You’re so good at this,” Grace whispered, using his hand to keep the strands of Simon’s hair that fell past his headband out of his eyes. Clipped breaths left Grace’s mouth, eyes narrowed on Simon below him. He really did look beautiful like this. Eyes closed, mouth stretched open around the girth of him. Putting all his efforts into pleasing him. He was perfect.
Simon then took Grace to the hilt and hummed, a trick he’d been waiting to try.
Grace arched over Simon, fingers tightening in his hair as he moaned in surprise. “Ohhhh, Simon,” his eyes were closed now, oblivious to Simon gazing up at him, drinking in the reaction. “Simon, do that again.”
So again, holding Grace’s dick down his throat, he hummed. This time, he held it out until he’d counted to five. The sound from Grace was like music to his hears. He’d earned a lot of moans and praises from him over the years, but this was new.
“Simon,” Grace let his partner’s name fall from his lips. His mind was destroyed from the rush of pleasure. He’d never felt something like that before, and he would do anything to keep feeling it. But now, he needed more. He savored the warmth of Simon’s mouth for a few more seconds before pulling out. He watched as Simon slowly closed his mouth, licking around his lips to clean the saliva that had dripped out.
“Was that okay?” Simon figured it was, but the sudden loss from his mouth left him desperate.
“Sweetheart,” Grace stepped to him again, and pulled him to his feet. He pulled Simon’s chest against his own by the front of his shirt, framing their faces with Simon’s biceps. “I am going to fuck you until you come dry.”
They’d talked about that before, and had safe words in place. But it had been a few weeks, and they hadn’t talked about it since.
In that moment, Simon couldn’t think of anything he wanted more.
“That sound okay with you?” Grace’s tone was firm, but Simon knew he could redirect them right now if he wanted. But he knew his response before Grace had finished asking the question.
“Yes, doctor.”
Grace’s eyes flooded with a dark shimmer. “Good, that’s what I want to hear. Now go lay down on the bed, on your back, to rest your arms.”
Simon obeyed without hesitation, Grace following. Sweat was already in his hair, a few pieces dangling over his forehead. So as Grace reached over Simon to take his sweatpants off, Simon leaned up and licked the side of his forehead. Tasted the sweat his mouth had made fall from that face.
“You want me that bad?” Grace sneered, but couldn’t deny the heat it sent through his body.
“Yes, sir. Fuck. Please.” Simon was a mess, and Grace was only getting started.
“Sir?” Grace stripped Simon’s lower half, leaving just his shirt as he crawled over him. “Do you like calling me that?” He straddled Simon’s hips and pushed his shirt up to expose his chest. Grace’s canvas.
Leaning down, he bit Simon’s neck, feeling hot flesh bend beneath his teeth before closing his lips around them and sucking. Once he knew there’d be a dark blossom in place, he raised his head to whisper in Simon’s ear. “Answer me, darling. Did you like calling me sir?”
“Yes,” Simon pleaded, jerking his hips upwards and grinding their cocks together. It was messy, but Simon would have done anything to feel Grace against him.
“Now, now.” Grace bit his lip at the friction, but had returned to his neutral expression by the time he was properly straddling Simon again. “Getting impatient? Tell me what you want, then.” He ran his hands up Simon’s chest, fingers taking their time to appreciate each finely toned muscle.
All words left Simon’s mind. He wanted Grace buried so deep inside him. He wanted to be filled with his come until it leaked out of him and onto their sheets. He wanted to come so hard he went numb. But all he could manage was a whimper.
“Use your words, or I won’t give you anything.”
“Fuck! Please, fuck me, please.”
“Who are you asking?”
“Doctor.”
“Good. I’ll fuck you, but I want you to come once, first.”
Simon nodded, desperate for touch as he attempted to roll his hips under Grace’s weight. His arms shifted to relax into the mattress while still being restrained.
“You want me to touch you?”
“Please,” his response was automatic.
Grace moved one of his thighs between Simon’s legs, nudging Simon’s legs apart. “Lift this up for me, baby.”
Simon’s face heated, but he did as he was told. While one of his legs stayed pinned under Grace’s body, he raised the other to a ninety degree angle.
“Good, perfect. Just how I want you.” Grace’s voice had reached the tone that sent sparks through Simon’s blood.
“Spit,” Grace ordered, placing his hand in front of Simon’s mouth. Simon lifted his head enough to spit into Grace’s palm.
He swirled a finger in it before plunging into Simon’s ass, starting to finger him open. At the same time, he wrapped his palm with the rest of the spit around Simon’s length, moving his hands in tandem.
“Ahhh~” Simon cried out, the sudden stimulation activating his senses. “Oh fuck, so good, fuck.” He moaned, vocal just the way Grace liked.
He hadn’t always been so loud. But once he’d learned Grace had a praise kink too, and how he was rewarded for being vocal, he’d let himself indulge.
Grace kept a steady rhythm in his right hand while pulling his left finger to the rim of Simon’s hole. He began circling it with pressure before adding a second finger to the movement.
“Ohhh fuck, please, more, yes,” Simon rolled his hips, desperate for the emptiness inside him to be stretched back out.
Grace eased his two fingers inside, reaching his knuckles before he started fingering him again. He moved fast, muscles flexing as his fist hit Simon’s ass again and again.
Simon whimpered, head falling to the side as his hips began to jerk involuntarily. A minute went by before Grace saw him bite his bottom lip, a tell Simon had reached a comfortable level of pleasure.
A sign it was time for more.
Grace began separating his fingers each time he drove them into Simon, stretching him just a bit more before he’d add a third. That always made Simon beg in the most delicious way.
This time, Grace added his ring finger without easing it in. He knew Simon liked the pain.
“Fuck!” Simon shouted, hips struggling to jerk off the bed. Grace wished he had a third hand to hold that waist of Simon’s down, but there was no way he was going to stop what either of his hands were doing.
“Good, good. You’re taking my fingers so well, already so wet down here.”
Simon opened his eyes and peered at Grace. His face was red, muscles in both arms flexing as he worked Simon to his first orgasm. He watched as Grace’s eyes went from his hand buried between his legs to his cock. The hunger in those eyes was undeniable.
And then they were on him.
“Are you going to come for me, sweetheart?”
“Mmmm,” Simon moaned in response, then gathering up the energy for the words. “Yes, ohfuck I’m close.”
Grace kept his motions, watching as Simon’s teeth clamped over his lip, then his eyes squeezed shut. He held that for a few seconds before his hips jerked hard against Grace, come shooting from his dick as his mouth fell open.
“Ryland, Ryland, ohfuck, fuck, Ryland! Fuck!”
Grace let a groan leave his throat, so deep it was almost a growl.
Simon’s chest heaved as he rode out his first orgasm. The most they’d gone in a round was two. The most in a day, three. Grace decided then and there he’d get him to five.
“You’re so beautiful when you’re coming for me,” his voice stayed deep, and he slowly pulled his fingers free. “Ready to do it again?”
In the instant Simon tried to think of which word to use, Grace repositioned himself so he was fully between Simon’s legs, and started fucking him. Hard. He fell over Simon, one hand flat against the mattress, holding him up. The other found that rope and gripped it tight, pulling it against Simon’s wrists.
Simon’s legs shot up, desperate for Grace deeper inside him. Moans were spilling from his mouth, his back arched until his chest met Grace’s.
The sound of pounding filled the room, smack after smack of Grace drilling into Simon without stutter.
Simon kept rolling his hips, desperate for as much of Grace as he could take and then – stars. Grace hit the spot inside him that sent something closer to a scream than a moan from deep in his chest.
Grace gasped in Simon’s ear, the pressure against his tip bringing him closer to his own finish.
“Come… for me…. beautiful,” Grace commanded between thrusts. He knew Simon was right on the edge, so he took the hand from his wrists and reached between them.
At his order, and the fifth slam against his prostate combined with Grace’s hand working that devilish magic between them, Simon came. His hips jerked up, unrestrained this time. Grace moved with him, slowing his pace just barely as he enjoyed the show.
Simon sang his name another time, and Grace vowed he would do anything this man ever wanted.
His own orgasm was close, so close. He saw Simon’s chest collapse against the mattress and knew his second orgasm had ridden its course.
Careful to stay buried deep in Simon, Grace turned his legs beneath him until he was on his shins, knees framing Simon’s ass and pushing his legs further in the air.
And just like that, Grace gripped Simon’s waist with his hands and resumed fucking into him.
Simon gasped, voice weak from strain, and Grace’s head fell back at the euphoria. He could stay like that forever. Buried deep in Simon, using him until he was satisfied.
“You feel so tight Si,” Grace praised, “Gonna make me come.”
“Yes, yes, please,” Simon didn’t need a functioning brain to know he wanted Grace coming inside him. “Fill me, fill me, fuck.”
“Color?” Grace pulled his head forward from being lolled to the side.
Simon’s eyes snapped to his, “Green.”
A sigh left Grace’s lips. He was so fucking close.
“I’ll fill you, handsome. You want my come in you?”
“Yes,” Simon’s voice was louder now, mind slightly clearer from their check in.
Grace’s fingers tightened against Simon’s skin, knuckles turning white as he rolled his hips again and again against him.
“You like when I treat you like this?” Sweat dripped from Grace’s hair to Simon’s pelvis, “Fucking you like a doll?”
The expletive from his lovers mouth was enough to barrel him to the edge. The realization of just how far he was going to take this. What all he’d do to deliver on his promise. He moaned, “Mmhmmm.”
“Good, that’s what you are, you know? When I take you like this,” Grace’s face sneered at his own words, “use you until I decide you’ve come enough.”
Simon’s thighs ached from being held in the air, but the pleasure of having his ass used so ruthlessly overrode it. He would stay like that however long Grace demanded.
“Ohhh sweetheart, I’m close.”
Simon whined, and clenched down around Grace’s cock as he thrust into him.
“Ohhhhh Simon!!” It only took one time for Grace to break, panting as he came inside him.
Simon hadn’t realized how close he was to a third orgasm. He knew they’d done three in a day, and two in a row, but never like this. He hadn’t felt the coil tight in his pelvis, the stretch deep inside him. But it all hit him at once when he felt Grace’s cock pulsing inside him.
“Fuck!” He shouted, beads of come leaking from the tip of his cock. Grace’s head rose, eyes shooting between Simon’s legs.
“Was that three?” he taunted, voice laced with lust and pride.
“I think so,” Simon’s voice was soft.
Grace waited a few seconds, squeezing all the come he could into Simon before pulling out of him.
Simon gasped at the loss, but his head fell back when he felt a drop of something warm leak to his back.
“You think so?” Grace, still half hard, scooted back until his head was between Simon’s legs. He’d lowered them so his feet were resting on the mattress, relief flooding his burning thighs.
Grace licked up the back of Simon’s cock, swirling his tongue over the tip. He took Simon in his hand, and looked up to his eyes. “I guess I’d better make sure you know it this time.”
Grace didn’t know if this would take Simon longer than usual, or he’d come in record time. Either way, he was more than ready to spend the next portion of his life bruising the back of his throat.
Simon’s head fell back against the bed, and he left it that time, trying not to buck his hips too hard but starting to lose himself already.
“Mmmm, feels so good,” Simon moaned.
In response, Grace took him all the way to the back of his throat, jaw stretching as wide as he could, and he hummed.
“Ohhhh! Fuck!” Simon’s hips thrust through all the mental restraint he had and he fucked into Grace’s mouth. He wished his hands were free so he could feel Grace’s hair against his fingers, but knowing he didn’t have the option just made the whole situation hotter.
He tried to hold himself back, not wanting to actually hurt Grace, but before he could Grace had his hands on his back and was pressing Simon deep into him.
His pelvis touched Grace’s nose. That beautiful fucking nose.
Simon’s mind was numb, his arm was still tingling from his last orgasm, and to top it off, Grace hummed. And he moved his head as Simon’s hips jerked, taking him deeper and deeper into his throat.
He heard Grace gagging around him, the tightening of his throat only bringing him closer. His body started to tense, his hips losing control as Grace kept humming and gagging around him. His tongue’s flat pressure against the back of his cock only brought him closer. It was magnified every sensation.
And then it was gone. Cold air hit his cock, and Simon cried out.
“You didn’t think I’d let you come again that easily, did you?” Grace massaged his jaw as he spoke before leaning over to whisper in Simon’s ear. A hand ran up his torso, shirt still pushed all the way up, and pinched his nipple.
Simon whimpered.
“You’ll have to show me just how desperately you want this one.”
“Please,” the word flung itself from Simon’s lips, “Please, I’ll show you, please.”
Grace repositioned himself between Simon’s thighs and wrapped his arms around them, bringing Simon nearly on top of him.
“I love this view,” Grace spoke, letting his eyes slowly wander down Simon’s body. “You’re perfect. And you’re doing such a good job for me.”
Simon’s dick twitched, desperate for the warmth that had been ripped away. They’d edged a few times before. Simon never lasted long.
“Please,” he whispered, and cried out again when Grace lowered his head over him.
Grace bobbed his head, dragging slow patterns around Simon’s cock with his tongue. He took his time, devouring every drop of precum, massaging his thighs as he worked hands free.
Simon was in ecstasy. Surely there was no better feeling than this. Fucked out orgasm after orgasms, now laying here while each sensation brought him slowly closer to a familiar cliff.
Would this be his last one? He wanted to savor it.
Like Grace read his mind and accepted the challenge, he felt more and more of him slide against his tongue and down to his throat. He heard Grace inhale slowly through his nose. And then Grace hummed again, at the same time as he hollowed his cheeks.
The vibrations shot pleasure straight to his brain. He wasn’t going to be savoring anything for very long at this rate. Grace wagged his tongue in his mouth, digging his fingers deep into Simon’s thighs.
He wondered if there would be ten perfect bruises there tomorrow. He hoped there would be.
“Ohhfuck, Doctor!!” the term flew from him on instinct as he came, endorphins rushing to fill his veins. But he also felt… empty. He felt a few drops of come leave him, but the complete sensation was different this time.
Had he done it?
But then, he felt it. More come sprang from him, trailing down his cock into Grace’s throat. Just a little, but enough. Grace swallowed it eagerly, not pulling away until Simon had stilled his twitching.
Grace was beaming. He leaned up, resting his arms around Simon’s head and kissing him deeply. “I’m so proud of you, baby.”
Simon nuzzled into him, ready to start relaxing, when Grace continued speaking.
“You think you can give me one more?”
Simon whimpered.
“Honey?” Simon warmed at the endearment, but his brain latched to the tone.
Grace wasn’t asking.
Simon nodded against him. “Is that what I need, doctor?”
Grace bit into his shoulder, then brought his teeth to the spot where his shoulder met his neck, and sucked. Simon writhed, his body unknowing if it wanted closer or distance from the sensation.
He pulled his lips away, admiring the two marks he’d now left. He looked to Simon’s eyes. “Color?”
Simon thought for a moment. He looked down at his body, it looked like him, but he felt so used. So fucked, so filled. But a little part of him was still begging for more.
“Green,” Simon’s voice was low, and he shifted a bit. “You should make sure I don’t have a single drop left.”
Grace’s head fell to rest on Simon’s, pressing their foreheads together. He shakily exhaled, breath on Simon’s face. “You’re perfect. So perfect.”
Simon rubbed his cock against Grace’s, eyes pleading.
“I will never get enough of you,” Grace confessed, leaning back and lining himself up to fuck him. He looked to Simon, so blissfully fucked out, yet willing to be used again. Arms so pretty tied above him. And that face. He wished he could take a picture of how Simon looked right now. It’d probably make him come handsfree if he looked long enough.
Simon gave him a small nod and pushed Grace against him.
Grace bit his lip, shaking his head as he pushed back into Simon. They both groaned at the sensation.
“I won’t last,” Grace whispered, and began a slower pace than he’d had before. His hands ran across Simon’s chest, damp with sweat, and found his hips again.
Simon was moaning thoughtlessly as Grace used him. This was slower, more intentful, each thrust deep into him and angled just right.
“Oh, Si…” he thrust just a bit faster, one hand dropping to fist the sheets as the other tightened around Simon’s waist.
“Ryland,” Simon choked out, and his cock twitched erratically against his stomach. But nothing came out. His face pinched, mouth falling open as he rode this feeling out.
The movements on top of his speed sent Grace spiraling into his orgasm, head falling between his shoulders as he released another round.
A few moments passed before Grace looked up. Simon had relaxed, laying with his eyes closed. Grace slowly pulled out of him and reached up to unknot the rope between his hands.
“There you go, sweetheart,” Grace cooed, sliding the rope down Simon’s arms before tossing it to the floor. He lowered Simon’s arms to his sides and gently kissed his temple.
“Are you feeling okay?” he whispered, studying Simon’s face.
“Yeah,” he whispered, “come lay with me.”
Grace didn’t hesitate, wrapping his arm over Simon’s torso while the other reached above him, untangling Simon’s hair.
“You’re everything I could ever want. In every way.” Grace whispered into Simon’s ear, placing slow kisses around his forehead.
“So are you,” Simon mused, and they both smiled as they closed their eyes and snuggled into each other.
summary: the lads make john a hinge profile against his will, and to everyone’s surprise, he matches with you within ninety seconds
cw: mdni, fem!reader, age gap (30/43), idk how hinge actually works tbh, john price the feminist, alcohol, insecurities, fluff, smut, oral f rec, piv (14.4k)
John has been irritable for months and it's getting worse.
He knows it the way you know a tooth is starting to rot from the inside, tongue prodding at it every hour.
On Wednesday, he reamed Johnny out for being three minutes late to the briefing. It was the kind of reaming that had everyone's eyes turned down into their coffees and files while Johnny stood in front at attention, toes squared, ears hot.
John went on and on, red-faced, telling him that his 'admin's a disgrace', and that he'd better 'get a fuckin' grip before you're explaining your timings to your old CO'.
Somewhere in the middle of it — around ‘disgrace’ — John heard himself.
He finished the dress-down anyway. Ending on a firm threat of a year-long inventory assignment.
It was rough enough to watch that when the room cleared out, Simon hung back. He stayed in his seat, leaning back with his arms folded, eyes following John as he aggressively organized his paperwork at the front of the room,squaring stacks that were already square.
"You need somethin', Riley?" John asked, never looking up.
Simon's mouth was twisted beneath his balaclava as he weighed his options. He wasn't especially eager to be John's second victim of the day, but it'd been miserable for weeks with no stop in sight. In the end, he decided to be straight—
"Y'need'a get laid, boss."
John's hands immediately froze.
That unyielding anger came up his chest right on schedule — insubordinate, out of line — and then couldn't quite find his footing in it because the truth was a trapdoor just under him.
His eyes flicked up and across the room, ears warming up just like Johnny's had an hour ago.
"Bloody ornery, you are," Simon went on. "'ave been."
Simon wasn't wrong, John knew that.
The work winds them all too tight — adrenaline that can't be spent, images that don't erase, choices made under duress that keep them questioning at three in the morning. And everyone's got a valve that lets the steam out. Johnny shouts his out at the football. Kyle has somewhere to be lately that he's cagey about, and Simon has whatever Simon has, no one asks.
And John drives home, shuts the door, and the house is quiet, his walls holding all the built-up pressure.
Ten months since his usual I'm-Home-Hookup found herself a steady bloke and stopped answering his calls. He'd told himself the whole time it was casual right up until it ended, when he learned it had actually been load-bearing.
And was that affecting his mood? Maybe.
His eyes narrowed on Simon and his jaw ticked at the hinge. He threw his chin toward the open door.
"Fuck off out've my briefin' room, Lieutenant."
Simon's chair scraped across the linoleum when he stood, sighing through the cloth over his face.
"I jus' think—"
"OUT."
The door clicked shut behind him, and John stood in the silence for a moment.
Then he squared the stacks again.
——
Johnny never volunteers to bring the beer, yet here he is at half seven with a box of glass bottles rattling on his shoulder, grinning under the porch light. Behind him, the headcount runs long by one. Three men when John only agreed to two. Kyle with a canvas bag full of crisps. Simon at the back, hands sunk in his pockets.
"Thought it was just you and Garrick?"
"Aye, well." Johnny shoulders past him into the hall, close enough that their shirts drag. "Simon heard there was football."
"Simon doesn't care about football," John retorts as the rest of them push their way inside.
"I care 'bout football," Simon lies through a simper no one can see, wiping his boots on the mat.
Unfortunately for John, his team is undoubtedly adept at what they've trained in and he doesn’t always catch when there’s fuckery afoot.
Under his nose, in his very own home, Johnny distracts him with talk about the match while Kyle lifts his phone from the side table just beside his elbow. Simon waits an appropriate amount of time before slipping away to the kitchen to guess the passcode, which he manages in one go.
"Gonna have to talk to him 'bout that…" Kyle mumbles as he swipes to the App Store.
"He textin' anyone?" Simon cranes his neck over Kyle's shoulder. "He used t’see tha’ one bird… wot was her name…?"
"Leah," Kyle answers flatly. "Laura?" he second-guesses as he thumbs in the passcode again to approve the install: Hinge Dating App. "M'not lookin' at his texts, mate. Be lucky he doesn't RTU us just for this. Plus, I think he said she started seeing some—"
"—y'know, Cap," Johnny's voice cuts through, a warning for the men in the kitchen. "I can get ye another beer, y'don't have…"
Simon and Kyle glance up from where they've leaned against the counter and freeze when John appears in the doorway, face screwed with suspicion. His eyes flick between the phone in Kyle's grasp and the faces lit behind it.
His initial thought is that the phone's got a nice, durable case, proper practical. His second thought is to start patting down his pockets with his free hand — which all turn up empty.
The room's gone still, a collective held breath to see which way the tension'll break.
"That's my phone."
"It is," Kyle agrees carefully.
Johnny appears at John's shoulder, squeezing past into the kitchen. "Cap, before you start—"
"When'd you nick it?" His eyes accurately settle on Kyle, the slickest of the bunch.
"Doesn't matter when, sir. We just—"
"It matters to me." John puts his empty beer bottle on the table and uses both hands now to pat down his pockets a second time, not quite believing his own team got the drop on him. "Professionally speakin',” he mumbles.
"Wot really needs addressin' is your passcode," Simon grumbles. "0-0-0-6?"
"Christ," Johnny snickers.
John chooses to ignore them and holds his hand out, palm up. But Kyle doesn't fork it over. Instead, he looks back at the screen and watches the progress ring around the icon close in on itself.
"What're we doin' right now?" John presses, stepping closer.
"Jus' take a seat, boss," Simon suggests, gesturing to the kitchen table just as Johnny yanks a chair out, beaming something mischievous.
John looks at the chair, then looks at Johnny.
"Think I'll stand."
"Suit yourself," Johnny spins the chair around and drops into it, arms folding over the back.
Kyle checks the screen one more time before turning it around. A new little white icon sits on John's home screen, Kyle points at it. John squints to read the little letters beneath it.
"What's Hinge?"
"It's a dating app," Kyle answers and places the phone on the table.
A dating app….
Grown adults sorting through each other like they're shopping. Swipe, tap, Add to Cart. He's heard the lads chat about it for years — the 'ghosting', the games — and always thought: thank god that's not me.
Under the simmering contempt, the idea of typing hello to a stranger who might simply never reply (left on read, whatever ungodly hour of the soul that phrase was invented in) shoots something cold through him.
There's a beat of hesitation before his eyes snap to Simon, the scowl on his face carrying the weight of Wednesday's interaction.
"This is you, then?"
"Team effort," Simon corrects without a flicker of shame.
"It's no' the dodgy kind of app, it's for relationships," Johnny explains. "Says so in their slogan: 'designed to be deleted'. You make a profile, upload a few pics, answer some—"
"I know how online dating works, MacTavish."
Johnny squints. "Do ye, though?"
"You've been rank for months, sir." Kyle tells it plainly. "Whole teams sayin' it."
John feels like he’s been put on a rinse cycle in the wash. His nostrils flare as he snuffs his irritation back down his chest lest he prove them right in his own kitchen.
"So that's what all this is? A Friday night welfare check?"
"It's no' a welfare check," Johnny defends poorly, voice cracking at a pitch too high.
"It's a bit of a welfare check," Kyle shrugs.
"Right." John reaches for his phone. "Well, thanks for the concern, lads. Truly. Warms the heart."
Kyle slides it just out of reach. "Just give it a shot, sir," he implores. "Try it for the weekend. If you still hate it, I'll delete it and we'll never bring it up again."
John's chin tucks to his chest and he glowers at him from under his deeply furrowed brow. "You'll delete it now," he orders, except these men have never listened to him off the field.
"I could," he agrees, wrestling a smirk. "And you can keep spending your Friday nights with us."
It's meant as a joke. It doesn't land as one.
Because John looks around at the three of them and knows in a few hours their engines will fade down the street and that hulking quiet will pour back in, the one he keeps calling peace.
So… he pulls out a chair.
Simon pushes off the counter and Johnny's grin pulls wider.
"Go on," John surrenders, falling into the seat with a sigh. He does not look at any of their faces because whatever's on them’s going to make him cross.
Chairs scrape and Kyle settles down at John’s arm, Simon looms over them from behind, all crowded around the one screen.
The basics go quick — name, age, pronouns. Kyle finds his rhythm working through the questions.
"Drinks? Socially. Smokes…?" Kyle seesaws his head a bit. "We'll say no."
"I smoke cigars," John protests.
"That's a personality trait, not a habit." Kyle scrolls. "Height?"
"Six-two," Johnny says immediately.
"He's six-foot," Simon corrects.
"Aye, and on the app he's six-two."
Kyle selects 6'. "Occupation?"
That one hangs in the air a bit longer than the rest, and John doesn't quite know why. His hands turn palm-up on the table with the question.
"Consultant," Simon offers.
"Civil servant," Kyle tries.
"Military," John answers irritably off the edge of a scoff.
Three sets of eyes come up off the phone — Johnny's eyebrows go high, Kyle's mouth opens to argue, Simon tilts his head just enough, as if to say: if you say so.
"It's not a state secret that I serve," John says, eyebrows pulling close with confusion.
Kyle types it despite whatever he's got hanging on the tip of his tongue. And in the little silence afterward, the obvious question finally comes to mind.
"What've you lot got on yours, then?"
The simple question sends a tidal wave of overlapping chatter and excuses over the table.
"Ah, well—" Johnny starts.
"I actually—" Kyle says, at the same time.
"Different app," Simon adds, under both of them.
"—see, it depends," Johnny goes on, trying to gain volume over the others, "I like to keep the profile fresh. Rotate the pics, the bio—"
"—don't have one," Kyle is saying over the top of him, "because me and Amara are— well, it's not official-official, but it's a thing, so—"
"Been usin' Feeld," Simon finishes.
When the wave recedes, the full picture comes into view: Johnny reinvents himself on a cycle, Kyle has Amara, mentioned now for the first time ever. And Simon—
"What's Feeld?" John asks.
"No," Kyle says before the question has its punctuation, quick and stern, head whipping back and forth. “Absolutely not. We'll talk about that another time."
"It's not for you," Simon adds.
"Right," he mumbles, taking a pull of his beer, settling back against the chair. He inhales and looks off at the window. "M'glad it's amateurs running my love life."
"Enthusiasts," Johnny corrects.
The rest goes quicker.
"What kind of connection?" Kyle reads. "Options are: Long-term. Short-term. Short-term, open to long. Long-term, open to short."
"Short, open to long," John answers without hesitation.
Johnny opens his mouth but Simon glares at him just as quickly through his ragged eyeholes, and he closes it without a word.
His profile photos have to come off the lads' phones since John's camera roll offers nothing but screenshots of maps, car parts, and three random pictures of the K9, Xena, from another unit on base (he’s been trying to snatch her for his own team for months).
He watches the photos of himself go by and it's a strange census, seeing a year of himself entirely through other people's eyes. Makes him queasy, so he takes another bitter gulp to wash the feeling out.
There's a short argument about the proper order the pictures should be presented, Johnny wins.
After, Kyle starts explaining what a good prompt does, how to choose one. He hardly gets any words out before John's holding his hand out the same way he did half an hour ago.
"I'll do these myself."
This time, Kyle hands the phone over.
The lads drift to the far end of the table to finally give John the space they've neglected to all night.
Fresh beers are cracked open and a bag of crisps demolished as they fold into their own conversations. The match they’ve been ignoring comes first, then Amara, whom Kyle spends five minutes refusing to elaborate on, and somewhere in there Simon mentions an oddities shop he’s been meaning to stop by.
John sits with his reading glasses on, typing slowly, brows low in concentration.
When he finally sets the phone down, all three of them quickly move behind him.
"So, their profile comes up on screen," Kyle reaches over to demonstrate. "Have a look, read the bio. If you wanna chat to her, tap the heart. If you don't, hit the X, and you'll never see her again. Simple."
The first woman is on a beach holding a cocktail the size of a fishbowl. X.
"Okaay," Kyle drawls, mouth pulling straight. "Sure. Was there a reason, or…"
"No."
The next woman is at a festival covered in glitter and feathers. X.
So is the one after. X.
A woman in her work scrubs. X.
A woman holding a child. X.
A woman in a bikini on a lake (his eyes linger). X.
It's not that they're not lovely. Some of them probably are. But every picture is a performance — arms out, teeth out, look how much fun I am. Advertisements.
"The fish," Johnny mourns as another goes down, a woman on a small boat holding a big trout up. "Cap, she was fishin'. You love fishin'!"
"Wasn't her fish," he grumbles under his breath.
"Whose fish d'you reckon, then?"
"Bloke she cropped out," Simon says, and John tips the neck of his beer toward him.
"Give me criteria," Kyle pleads, both hands on the back of John's chair, gripping with restraint. "I can work with criteria."
"He's calibratin'," Simon says. "Let 'im work it out."
Simon's giving him too much credit. He's not calibrating. He's not reading these women, he's not even really looking at them. Each X is just the whole premise being declined, proof accumulating that he was right about the app all along, and if the profiles run out, well, he tried. Right? The lads witnessed it. He can get back to his peace with a clear—
His thumb stops and hovers, then pulls back to the outer edge of the phone case.
Huh.
There you are.
Up a trail somewhere, hills of green grass rolling behind you, hood half-blown off, one hand trying to catch it. You're laughing at whoever's taking the picture, smile wide.
John's not sure he's ever seen eyes twinkle before, but that must be what yours are doing, shimmering even under overcast.
You're very pretty.
For the first time, John taps the profile open.
30. Executive Assistant. 4 Miles Away. Short-Term, Open to Long-Term.
Executive Assistant, so you likely work too much. That's familiar to him, something he understands inside-out.
There's a photo of you in office clothes at what looks like a retirement party, smile an edge more saccharine than the one on the hill.
Another of you criss-cross on the floor, a black and caramel cat stretched out and content in your lap, belly-up. Shirt low cut, cleavage to feast on. He is sixty percent gentleman about how long he looks at it.
And at the bottom:
The best way to ask me out is by: using words.
I recently discovered that: I'm better in person than I am on here.
John huffs an amusement through his nose. He spent more time on his profile than he thinks you spent on yours. Seems like you're tired of the same things he's already tired of, one night in.
Behind him, the lads have gone silent, holding their breath.
John taps the heart and his screen goes bright with a wash of confetti, both your photos ringed together:
IT'S A MATCH!
"Oh, shit, she already matched with you," Kyle cranes his neck closer to inspect.
"Gimme that." Johnny plucks the phone from John's hand. "No way," he scoffs. "Fuckin' fit. A bit young for you, Cap, aye?" He looks at John, then back at the screen like the two won't reconcile in his brain.
"Careful," John warns mildly.
Johnny hands the phone back, muttering something in Scots only Simon could translate.
John doesn't hear much of it anyway. He's already looking at your photo again.
Better in person.
Yeah. He'd bet you are.
"Right, sir," Kyle says. "Now we wait. Midday tomorrow the earliest. Message her any sooner and it reads keen."
"It'd be accurate," he deadpans.
"There's rules, Cap," Johnny says. "No messagin' straight away, no double-textin', keep a wee bit of mystery."
John turns in his chair with a scowl to look up at the three of them.
"So, you're tellin' me a woman says she's interested in you and you… make her wait?"
Silence.
"I mean, when you put it like that…"
"Yeah, s'a bit fuckin' rude, innit?" John derides, turning back around.
He's already typing, screen tipped away.
"Sir," Kyle pleads. "At least let us read it."
"This is a two person conversation, not a five piece."
He presses send and quickly pockets the phone.
——
Four miles away, a phone lights up…
——
Your windows are open to the last of a long evening, warm air breezing through the sheer curtains. You’re finally on the couch. Shower taken, its heat still damp in your skin. A glass of off-dry riesling teeters precariously on the arm, cold from the fridge and sweating through its stemless glass.
Twix is a puddled tortoiseshell furnace against your thigh, one paw twitching through a dream, her purr winding down as she drops deeper. And on the telly, Last Christmas is on. You've seen it a dozen times, that's why you leave it — it's mindless.
The second glass goes down easier than the first, tart on your tongue, blooming warm in your belly and over your cheeks.
Somewhere in the lull, your thumb opens Hinge, a reflex to being bored. You don't really expect anything from it anymore.
A man holding a fish, sunglasses on. X.
A man whose photos are all group shots. X.
A man who is 6'2" and it's his entire personality. X.
Your thumb knows the rhythm without you.
The next profile slides into view and you pause, thumb hovering.
He's handsome in that sort of rugged, classic way. His beard is salted at the edges, lines beside his eyes creased deep, cheeks faintly rosy. He's mid-laugh at what looks like a Christmas party, red and green tinsel drooping off the beams behind him; head slightly tipped, one heavy hand flat on the table. He's not cackling, you can tell it's more reserved, but it's probably still more than he usually offers.
John. 43. Military. Four miles away. Short-Term, Open to Long-Term.
The one thing you should know about me is: I'm gone a lot for work. But when I'm home, I'm home.
Most men bury the catch in the fine print, but he's leading with it.
You don't know yet whether that's honesty or efficiency. You suspect that with him they might be the same thing.
His second photo is of him on the tailgate of some enormous vehicle, fatigues taut over his thighs, thumbs hooked through his bulky khaki plate carrier, looking up from under the brim of his hat.
Two truths and a lie: I've never seen Star Wars. I have a lie-in every Sunday. I've had tea with a warlord.
The sky is pink with the morning in his third picture. He's thigh-deep in a lake, turned away from the camera entirely. (You're noticing it's a common theme that he does not look at the camera for any photo.) The sunlight catches the breadth of his back and shoulders, cotton molded around muscle.
Don't hate me if I: call instead of text. It's quicker.
You giggle just enough that Twix's ear rotates toward you in reproach.
It's kinda cute when older men put more effort into their profiles.
But the alarm is already going off somewhere in the back of your skull — too good, probably old photos, probably has a wife — it has never once failed to ring. But you're two glasses in, and the heart really costs nothing even if the conversation seems off.
You tap it, and put the phone facedown on your thigh.
On the telly, Emilia Clarke is busy falling for a man you happen to know has been dead the entire film. You mouth one of his lines along with him, not really invested, wine warm in your chest, Twix breathing slow against your leg.
Then your phone buzzes against you once, and you ignore it, because you have rules about lunging for male attention. But then it buzzes again, and, well, you just turn it over to have a look. Maybe it's your mum, you don't know!
HINGE: You and John matched!
HINGE: 1 New Message
You open it.
Evening. Not much good at using the app, but I really wanted to chat to you. How's your Friday night?
You hum to yourself curiously. Not an innuendo or emoji in sight.
i actually volunteer helping the elderly with technology, happy to walk you through it.
friday's been average. wine and a movie on the couch. how's yours?
You put the phone back down and focus on the film, but his reply comes within the minute.
Ouch. Friday's alright. The lads invited themselves round for the match. Still here, unfortunately.
you're messaging me with guests in the house? terrible host.
They invited themselves. Hosting rules don't apply.
What movie are you watching?
You glance at the telly where a dead man is mid-song and weigh lying about it.
You could be watching anything. You could pick something more interesting, something with a deep lesson, educational, historical, something niche to come off cool and worldly.
you're not allowed to judge me.
Judging is sort of my life's work, but I'll do my best.
You snort. Twix relocates to the far cushion in protest.
it's called 'last christmas'. i don't know why it's on in july, but i've probably seen it twelve times. it's good background noise.
The reply takes slightly longer this time. You picture him all big hands, small phone, and then stop picturing him, because that's how it starts.
Twelve times? Must be decent.
it's objectively not. the love interest is dead the entire film lol
Dead?
it's a twist. it's festive!
You and I have very different definitions for "festive". I've got a few questions. But I'll save them.
You smile.
so, your lake photo. did you catch anything that day?
Not a thing.
hours in freezing water for zero fish?!
The fish aren't the point.
do tell, what's the point?
The mist off the water. The quiet. The no one expecting anything from you.
It's the first real answer a man has given you on this app in, like, six months.
You feel oddly like you've been handed something and should keep your hands still so it doesn't spook.
that actually sounds really peaceful.
i've never been fishing, but i do love nature in the mornings. i have a trail by me that i like to trek early on weekends.
That the trail from your photo?
it is! my best friend actually made me go that day, i wasn't in the mood. complained the whole way.
Doesn't show.
Good photo of you.
Beautiful, actually.
You stare at the screen and feel warmth tickling your nape, sliding lower, molten and slow.
Every instinct you have reaches for deflection.
oh! thank you. the wind did most of the work lol
No it didn't.
— and he just takes the deflection off you, like being returned something you've dropped. You press the cool curve of the wine glass against your cheek and remind yourself, sternly, that this is a stranger on the internet.
well, for the record your photo's not bad either. handsome smile.
Somewhere past ten, you notice the conversation keeps not ending.
how long have you been on hinge?
It's my first night, actually.
first night???
Profile's about two hours old.
yikes, so i'm just the practice woman then, huh?
Practice implies I'm planning to do this again.
——
John's still at the kitchen table, reading glasses pushed up into his hair now, beer gone warm at his elbow. The lads have migrated to the living room doorway — close enough to monitor, far enough to pretend they aren't.
He knows they're watching, and he's been watched by better.
What he can't seem to manage is his fuckin' face — it keeps doing things beyond his control, and every time your reply comes he has to reel it back to neutral, and he can tell by the quality of the silence behind him that he's not reeling nearly fast enough.
"He's smilin' again," Johnny murmurs, elbowing Simon in the ribs.
"Shameless," John mumbles, without looking up. "All of you."
He's typing when the floor creaks jus to his left. When he glances up, Johnny has drifted to his shoulder under the pretense of collecting empties.
"Need another, Cap?"
"I need you three feet back, MacTavish," he replies, thumbs tapping away.
A minute later it's Kyle from the doorway, "If she asks about hobbies, don't lead with the cigars. They poll badly amongst females."
"'Females'?" John grimaces, face down, thumbs still at it. "Say it with me Garrick, 'women'."
Then Simon, who hasn't moved or spoken in twenty minutes, asks, "Wot's she sayin', then?"
John rolls his eyes and sets the phone face-down, pushing himself up out of the chair.
"Time to go, lads," he says with an obviously fake smile, gesturing his arm out towards his front door. "Goodnight."
"It's no' even eleven oclock!" Johnny complains.
"Then the night's still young. Go on, fuck off."
They go — bottles gathered, snacks cleaned up, Simon herding Johnny down the hall as he’s still negotiating.
Then their engines fade down the street, and the quiet pours back in, right on schedule. Except tonight it arrives and there's a phone lit on his kitchen table with your name on it, and the quiet — for the first time in a long while — has to wait.
He locks up, kills the TV, then drops into his armchair with the phone already unlocked.
did the football finish? who won?
He glances at the dead telly. Hasn't a clue.
Couldn't tell you.
omg lol you had ONE reason for guests tonight!
I got distracted.
by what? 😇
I think you know by what.
Nothing comes back for a minute. He pictures you on your couch, that cat beside you, deciding what to do with it — and it occurs to him, mildly horrifying, that he's enjoying this. The wait. The little emoji with the halo, transparently unrepentant. He finds himself smiling at the ceiling like there's something written on it.
anyway!
Anyway.
He'll allow it: retreat granted. There's no rush.
The cat in your photo. Yours?
yes! that’s twix. she's a menace.
Good name.
she prefers men that ignore her.
Then we'd get on fine. I'm very good at ignoring cats.
It goes on just like that: easy.
You ask if he's a morning person and learn he's up at five most days by choice; he learns you consider five the middle of the night.
He talks about the Brecon Beacons — the actual Beacons, the ones he loves, not the ones that nearly killed him at twenty-two. You tell him you've always wanted to go, and he catches himself already planning the route he'd take you. Then quickly chastises himself.
How's the average Friday held up?
certainly improved
Mine too.
He puts the phone on the arm of the chair and sits in his quiet house, and for once it doesn’t feel so desolate.
——
The following morning he's up at five. He starts drinking his coffee at the counter, looking out the window over the sink, the sorbet summer sky bleeding morning.
He thinks of you before he can stop himself. Asleep, presumably, five being the middle of the night and all. Then he takes the coffee out to his back step for some fresh air.
He wonders if he was any good with the messaging last night. It's the longest he's ever sat with his phone in his hand, period. Let alone chatting with someone. There's no debrief for it, that's the trouble. No one to tell him whether ‘I got distracted.’ read as charming or desperate.
He runs the entire two-hour exchange back over and over and finds no actionable errors, but remains unconvinced.
He goes for his run at six. The route climbs uphill around klick seven, and somewhere on the hill he thinks about your photo, your smile, your mouth. He wonders what you smell like, what you sound like when you're being sarcastic.
By noon he's under the Land Rover draining the old oil, and he catches himself pondering what you might do on a Saturday. Whether you slept in properly. Whether the cat allows it; he grew up with one himself and knows how demanding they can be when they're ready for a feeding.
He hasn't messaged yet and neither have you.
He couldn't say exactly why he's held off. Something the lads said about being keen, and rules, and mystery lodged somewhere he can't reach to dig it out. He's not normally a man that takes doctrine from Johnny MacTavish, and yet… here he is.
It's a stupid fuckin' rule.
The afternoon goes long and gets quiet in the old way.
The house at four o'clock has a particular acoustic he knows down to the plumbing, and today, for the first time, he notices himself noticing it. It never used to be so obvious. Years of Saturdays like this one and it took his phone going quiet for half a day to show him the loneliness so plainly.
By the evening he's got Chinese takeaway at the kitchen table, eating it straight from the carton, chopsticks shoveling fried noodles down his gullet while he does the crossword from the morning paper in his head.
That's when his phone lights up for the first time all day, buzzing three times in succession — he absolutely hates how quickly it's in his hand.
spent six hours wedding dress shopping with my best friend. i need a glass of wine and a lie down.
thought of you on the tube home
He reads the second message again.
Thought of you.
He’d been drafting the same admission since noon and something in his chest going catastrophically hot.
are you still up? i know sundown is bedtime for your generation.
And there's the sarcasm.
Outside the window, the sun is — he checks — still up. Barely. He's got that going for him, at least.
Just in time. Was about to take my dentures out.
Thought about you as well.
He types the second line fast before he can be a coward about it. If you can say it, he can say it. Fair's fair.
I do have a question now though. It's not your wedding we're shopping for, is it? That'd be proper inconvenient for me.
lol no! maid of honor. today was purely supervisory.
don't really see myself getting married anyway.
the dresses were stunning though!
He’s picking up on a pattern. Three messages arriving like one exhale — the vulnerable thing said flanked with distraction.
Nothing wrong with that.
Successful trip then? Or is there another six hours coming?
successful! she found it. there were tears and champagne.
what about you, how was your saturday?
He’s had a day spent purposefully not doing the one thing he wanted to do.
Quiet. Nothing worth typing.
hm. sounds like you should ring me then…
He looks at that one for a moment and blinks, the inside of his cheek finds itself between his teeth.
For all their blabbering, the lads did not warn him about this bit. Not that he can't speak on the phone, he prefers it. You're essentially quoting his profile back at him. But he's been thinking about something since roughly the fourth time you crossed his mind today, and a phone call isn't the ask he's been building up to.
Could do.
Truthfully, though. I was just working up the courage to ask you for a drink.
Courage. He's used that word in citations, for men who ran toward gunfire, heroes. Now he’s using it to describe the act of asking a woman on a date, and the genuinely undignified part is that it's regrettably accurate.
Your reply takes a minute. He watches the dots start and stop, and start again. God, he's been shot at with less suspense.
Then your message comes through and it's just a number. Ten digits. It buzzes in his hand once more.
for logistics.
He stares at it for a beat and then he's up out of his seat. Takeaway abandoned, at the fridge with his phone still in one hand, snapping the cap off a beer on the lip of the counter, and then he's out the back door into the garden where the evening's gone navy and the air’s still warm from the day.
He saves your number first. Then he stands there a moment, beer sweating in one hand, thumb over the call button in the other.
——
You’ve just tipped the bottle over your glass when the phone starts buzzing against the counter.
Unknown Number. Local.
“John?”
“Evenin’.”
Fuck.
His voice lands an octave lower than you were braced for. A honeyed gravel that seeps into your ear and slides thick over your spine, pooling somewhere behind your ribs.
You set the bottle down before you drop it.
“So you actually do ring,” you manage.
“Said so on the profile, I think.”
“I half thought it was a bit.”
“I don’t really do bits.”
“No,” you say through a grin, picking up your glass and drifting toward the couch. You drop your voice into a gravelly impression of him: “You’re a very serious man.”
The laugh that comes down the line is quiet — more breath than sound, warm at the bottom of it, like you’ve caught him somewhere he doesn’t usually go.
“That meant to be me?”
“It’s uncanny, I know.”
The line goes quiet a moment — the good kind, neither of you rushing to fill it — and in it you catch the sounds of his side: a whirl of breeze, the faint ring of a glass set down on iron. He’s outside. You picture a tidy yard with tall dark hedges, a big man pacing slowly with a beer.
“Am I interruptin’ the wine?”
“The wine and I are happy to share the time.”
“Good.” There's a pause that you can hear his smile in. “I have a beer out here. Seemed only fair we’re both suffering the same.”
“Are we having our drink right now? Is this it?”
“No,” he says immediately, unamused even — which is very amusing for you. “This one doesn’t count.”
The speed of his reply sends something fizzing under your sternum. You tuck your feet up under yourself and take a slow sip.
“No?” you tease.
“I had imagined I’d see your face.”
“Been imagining, have you?”
You are very glad he cannot see your face right now. Cheeks warm and strained, you press the cool of the wine glass briefly against them in turns
“Nothin’ mucky if that’s what you’re gettin’ at.”
“Mm, no, 'course not. You’ve been a proper gentleman. Haven’t even thrown me a cheeky pick-up line.”
“I could workshop somethin’ for you if you’d like.”
“No thanks,” you giggle into your glass. “It was a relief when I opened your first message and it wasn’t a riddles-three about your dick.”
You can hear his scoff and recoil on the other end.
“Is that what it’s come to?”
“Unfortunately.”
There’s a short silence you’d swear is him coming to terms with the modern world, and you bite down on a smile.
“Right,” he says, and there's a controlled shift in his voice. “My question...”
Your stomach does a free-fall, nauseating and fluttery, fifteen again on the Detonator at Thorpe Park.
“Mm?” you hum around a sip, deeply casual, a woman entirely unbothered, curled so tight around the phone that Twix doesn’t have a leg to lie on.
“There’s a pub about halfway between us, Lamb & Flag. I’d like to take you for that drink tomorrow. Will you come?”
Then you remember what tomorrow is and sigh, immediately irritated with your whole family.
“Ugh, I want to say yes,” you sulk. “But I’ve got Sunday dinner with my family tomorrow. My mum would hunt me for sport if I flaked.”
“Fair. Wouldn’t want that on my conscience.”
“I could do a weeknight? After work?”
There’s a pause on his end.
“I’d rather not promise you a weeknight,” he admits. “I rarely get away on time, and I’m not startin’ this by standin' you up.”
You go quiet for a beat, you were ready for the usual ‘ahh, well, we’ll figure something out’. But instead got a man mindful of your time; a unicorn, really.
“Also fair. And— and thoughtful.”
“Friday, then?” he tries hopefully, you catch the small lean in his voice.
“Friday’s perfect,” you agree. “It’s a date!”
“It is,” he agrees, smiling.
The conversation should end there but it doesn't.
You learn things no profile has a field for; that he talks slower than he types, that he hm's real low in his throat when he’s considering something, that when you make him laugh it rumbles, so rough at the bottom that you feel at the back of your knees.
Somewhere past the hour mark you stop scrutinizing the call for red flags and just talk, and you only notice you’ve stopped when Twix jumps onto the couch and you realize you’ve been lying down for a while, phone balanced on your ear like you’re seventeen.
Eventually, you yawn.
“Right,” he says, and you can hear him moving, standing up by the way he tries to muffle a stiff groan. “That’s my cue.”
“Aw, no! I’m fine, really.”
“It’s late, love. And you’ve got your family tomorrow.”
“True. And you’ve got… whatever it is old men do on Sundays.”
“Lie-in, according to my profile.”
“Ha!” you bark, vindicated alone in your living room, having forgot about his little 'two truths and a lie'. “That’s the lie, I bet. I don’t think you’ve ever had a lie-in in your life.”
A low sound of amusement rolls down the line. “Goodnight,” he says, declining to confirm.
“Night, John.”
You sit a minute in the amber shine of your lamp after the line goes dead, phone loose in your hand.
——
Sunday morning, you text him at 8:12 AM.
good morning. how was the lie-in?
Wouldn’t know. Been up since five.
the lie confirmed!
He doesn’t dignify it. You don’t expect him to. You grin at your phone while you wait for the kettle to boil.
Your mum will later describe you, over dinner, as ‘suspiciously cheerful’.
The day swallows you — the drive, the roast, your mum’s questions, your brother’s kids. It’s near ten when you’re finally home, shoes off, replying to the last thing he’d sent that morning.
survived. my mum sends her regards to whoever put me in a good mood. her words.
Regards received. Sleep well.
——
Monday morning, John’s at his desk with his coffee going cold because somewhere between the canteen and the walk to his office, his phone buzzed, and it was you and he hasn’t stopped looking at it.
good morning :) big meeting today. does this say “promote me” or “she tried”?
[ PHOTO ATTACHMENT ]
You, in your hallway mirror — chin tipped, black short-sleeve blouse with a wide collar exposing the smooth skin of your upper chest and collar, grey pencil skirt stretched over the curve of your hips and thighs, one knee bent like you’d just been lowering your foot from fitting on your heel.
His eyes are stuck on the soft-looking flesh just above and between your knees when a rap lands on his door and forces a cough from his throat.
Johnny eases it open with Kyle behind him holding a folder, Simon's behind them both, holding nothing, not even a pretense.
His phone goes face-down on the desk at a compromising speed, shifting to sit up straigher.
Simon’s eyes go to John’s hand over the phone, then to his face before he leans in the doorway with his arms folded.
“Mornin’, Cap. Good weekend?” Johnny asks, falling into the side chair in front of the desk with a theatrical groan.
“Fine.”
“Aye? Do anythin'?” He smiles, waggling his eyebrows. “Anyone?”
“You’ve got thirty seconds to develop a work reason for being in my office, Sergeant.”
It's an empty threat and everyone in the room knows it.
Kyle sets the (empty) folder down and steps back behind Johnny. “How’s it going, sir? Did you have any luck with Hinge?”
John could make them work for it. He’d planned to. But all three of them are standing in front of him trying so hard to look casual it’s a wonder none of them have pulled something.
"Have a date Friday. Drinks."
Johnny is ready to blast out of his seat, but Kyle shoves him back down by the shoulders, digging his fingers into the pressure points on either side of his neck until he relents with a hiss.
"That's great. Same woman or…?"
"The same."
“Good, good, good,” Johnny says, and means it — John can hear that he means it, he can also hear the restraint he's keeping from unloading shite advice.
“We'll stop buy Saturday for the debrief,” Simon says, already turning around, and Kyle picks the folder back up like it had a purpose all along, and they file out the way they came.
"I'm not debriefing you on my date. Don't come!" John calls to them half-heartedly, but the door's already shutting on top of his words.
He turns the phone back over.
Promote you, he types.
You look lovely.
Your reply comes before he’s picked his pen back up.
well now the meeting feels easy. thank you x
He gets on with his morning, but by noon he suspects he's looked at that damn photo a dozen times.
——
The rest of the week goes standard. Your Tuesday runs long and his Wednesday runs longer, and the messages carry throughout it all. His texts arrive before your morning alarm even sounds, your replies go mid-commute — nothing heavy, just remaining in each other's orbit of interest as Friday chugs slowly into view.
Thursday night, near nine, he rings you, having first texted to ask if he could, which you’re beginning to understand is just how he’s built. It’s a short call by your new standards with him. He only wanted to confirm you’re still on for the pub, but he had you grinning into your pillow until you fell asleep.
———
You leave work at five on the dot, and you’re in front of your open wardrobe by six.
The little black dress comes off the rail first. Goes back. Comes off again. Back. The floral one gets as far as your shoulders before you pull it off over your head and drop it on the bed, where Twix immediately sits on it.
The silky baby blue halter’s been hanging on the door since you bought it. You put it on like you hadn’t already decided and do the tie at the back of your neck twice before the bow sits flat and neat. You pull on some jeans and rummage the closet for your chunky heels.
You press some strawberry perfume to your throat in the mirror and try to comfort the nerve-ridden woman in the reflection.
“It’s just a pub,” you tell her.
She doesn’t seem convinced.
———
The pub is exactly the kind of place you imagine he'd frequent — quiet, all old mahogany and low brass lamps, no telly anywhere. You claim a stool, hook your heel over the rung, and decide not to order anything yet simply because it just feels polite to wait.
You're fifteen minutes early which means you're left alone with your anxieties.
The last of the sun lies across the bar top in warm stripes, and you trace one with a finger while you wait.
You’ve done this before, and it almost never goes how the phone promises. There was the guy whose photos were six years out of date. The one who spent both drinks talking about his ex and then sent a payment request for half the tab. The one who, two hours in, hadn’t asked you a single question about yourself. And John has been too good to be true for a week, and you know how that saying ends. Tonight is where you find out how, find out he really is just a man between deployments looking for entertainment and a shag.
It felt good, though. All week. Being excited about something. You’d forgotten the feeling.
You pick at the hangnail on your thumb until it stings.
You don’t have to wait much longer for him.
He casts a shadow when he comes through the door. Broad. Tall. Smart olive polo fighting for its stitching across his chest and where it grips into his biceps. He’s tidied his beard in comparison to his photos, hair less kempt in a purposeful way.
He scans the whole room before he finds you and stops looking anywhere else. He smiles tight and restrained, pleasant, but like he’s pacing himself, and by the time he crosses to you, your tongue has gone dry and whatever you’d planned to open with has shriveled away.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hi,” you smile.
He smells clean, a bit like pine and amber, and faintly like there’s tobacco somewhere on his collar.
“You’re early,” he adds, almost pleased.
“So are you.”
“I’m always early.” His eyes drop to the empty bar top in front of you, then come back. “You haven’t ordered?”
You shake your head once, legs shifting to cross. “I wanted— I was waiting for you.”
The lines beside his eyes deepen and he holds out his hand, says your name for the first time, and his hand swallows yours — big and dry and calloused across the palm where yours is soft — and you hold on a beat too long. He doesn’t mention it. You add that to the list of things you like about him, which is getting embarrassing for something four minutes old.
“What’ll you have?”
“Uhm, whatever you’re having,” you decide.
He signals the bartender with two fingers and opens his mouth — and there’s a brief second where he looks at you first, and you notice for the first time that his eyes are blue, and you get stuck, and it seems so does he. By the time he looks back, he’s lost the name of the beer he’s drunk here a dozen times.
“Two of the, uh— the local,” he manages.
You pretend not to notice. He knows you did.
He pulls out the stool beside you, and more of his cologne wafts around you as he sits, turned to face you, legs spread, one knee pointing between yours.
The pints arrive wet from the tap, and for a second neither of you says anything at all. You trace a bead of condensation down your glass.
“Funny, isn’t it,” you offer, sheepish. “We’ve talked every day for a week, and the second we’re actually in front of each other…” You trail off, cheeks warming, eyes fixed on the fizz jumping over the rim of your beer.
“You’re nervous?” he asks, a cheeky lilt on it.
“A bit, yeah. Aren’t you?”
“Not at all.”
You squint at him. “I don’t know if I buy that.”
“Hm.” He takes a sip that lasts a little too long, and the tips of his ears have gone pink.
Your cheeks are doing about the same. You drink your beer — cold, hop-bitter, helping — and let him have his lie. It’s a generous lie anyway. It’s a lie shaped like a man trying, and you’ve been handed far worse shapes.
“So,” you start. “I haven’t asked why you’re even on Hinge. You don’t seem the type.”
“I’m not,” he chuckles, and offers nothing beyond it.
You wait. He just sips his beer. You hike a brow.
“That’s it? That’s your answer?”
“Well, it wasn’t my idea. The lads put me on it.”
“The lads — your guys from work?”
“Yeah.”
“They what, talked you into it?”
“No.” He turns his glass a degree. “They nicked my phone and made the profile behind my back.”
“And what made them do that?”
He takes a moment with that one. He could give you a cover story — you can almost watch him weigh one — but then he doesn’t.
“Their assessment,” he laughs to himself, “was that I’d been… cranky. Needed gettin’ out of the house.”
“Cranky?” you repeat, delighted.
“Their exact words were a bit different.”
“Hm.” You look at him — at ease, half a smile living in his beard, one arm resting along the bar. “You don’t seem cranky to me.”
“Yeah, well. Guess they were right, then.”
Your neck goes hot and you have to look away from him. “Well,” you manage. “They do good work, your committee.”
He huffs into his pint, and lets you recover.
“Okay, next one, then. Military.” You tip your glass toward him. “What do you actually do?”
He sets his beer down and you can see him carefully choosing which door to open. “What d’you want to know?”
“I don’t know. What’s your day look like?”
“Depends on the day. Paperwork, mostly. Meetings.” A beat. “Sometimes we go away.”
“Away?”
“Away.”
“For how long?”
“As long as it takes.”
“Doing…?”
“Whatever they need me to,” he says easily. “S’not me being mysterious. I’d tell you if I could.”
“That must be so strange, though. Having this whole— like, most of your life you can’t talk about.”
“You get used to it.” Then, because you’re still looking at him expectantly, not filling the space the way people usually do: “There’s loads I can say. Ask me what six weeks of rain in a jungle smells like. Or what a month in the desert does to your skin.”
“What’s a month in the desert do to your skin?”
“Nothing good, love,” he answers, shifting to face you better. “The beard’s load-bearing.”
You laugh into your beer, and it makes the next one easier to ask.
“Do you like it? Like, the whole life of it?”
He goes quiet on that one. Longer than he’s gone quiet on anything else you’ve asked. You can see him thinking on it.
“It’s what I’m best at,” he says finally. And then, mostly to his glass: “It’s all I’ve known, really. Been doin’ it since sixteen.”
You turn that over. There’s a whole life folded up in that sentence and you notice you want to ask about all of it, which is not a thing you’ve wanted to do with a man in a very long time.
The second beers arrive, and the conversation stops keeping to lanes — his lads and your best friend, the wedding in October, the neighbor whose bins are apparently a whole saga. You’re midway through the story of your work feud when a birthday party arrives loud and glittering behind you, and John, without so much as glancing down, reaches down and hooks his hand under the edge of your stool, and pulls.
The whole thing drags six inches across the floor with you on it, your knee sliding neatly between his, close enough now that his voice drops to match the new distance. You’re looking up at him, pulse tapping somewhere that has your thighs pressing together.
“Go on,” he encourages. “She said what?”
It takes you a moment to find your place, but you go on.
The bar only gets louder from there, the birthday table multiplying, and when a booth opens up in the back corner, John tips his chin at it.
“Go grab that,” he says, turning back to the bar. “I’ll get another round. Want the same?”
“Actually—” and you hesitate out of nothing but habit, out of years of a man’s face going tight when you complicate an order, “—could I do a vodka cranberry this time? I could get the round—”
His brows furrow with something akin to bafflement, brief and genuine. “You can have whatever you’d like,” he says, and suddenly you feel silly, your hand crossing to grip your elbow.
“No—I know. I just—”
“Whatever you’d like,” he repeats, gentler. “And—” he grimaces, like what he’s about to say pains him deeply. “Don’t ever offer to pay on a date with me again. Properly wind me up, that will.”
“S-sorry,” you shake your head, like you can rattle the habit loose.
“None of that either,” his eyes have gone crinkled at the corners, warm all the way through, and he raps two knuckles soft on the bar top like the matter’s settled. “Vodka cranberry. Go, sit.”
“Actually— I’m gonna go freshen up quickly. Two minutes.”
And you go, biting down on a smile, ears hot — embarrassed and looked after all at once, which is apparently a combination that works on you.
The bathroom is cooler than the bar and a quiet that leaves your ears ringing. You reapply some lipgloss and wash your hands and look at yourself in the dirty mirror, buzzing warm at the collarbones, eyes shiny, mouth half-curved.
It’s going well.
It’s going suspiciously well.
And every time it’s gone well before, this is exactly when you started hunting for the catch. So you dry your hands on the rough paper towel and leave before you can start.
He’s in the booth when you come back, settled against the wall side, the last of the evening gone from the windows and the lamp above him glowing gold over the table. Your drink is waiting — pink, iced, a lime wedged on the rim — set neatly across the table at the seat opposite.
You look at the seat opposite.
Then you slide in beside him instead. Your thigh a heated inch from his, reaching across to relocate your drink.
You don’t look at him, but you can tell John’s a bit curious of the arrangement. His arm comes up and settles along the back of the booth behind you, and it oddly feels like it was always going to end up here, his thumb grazing the bare skin of your shoulder. He picks up his beer with the other hand.
“Comfortable?” he asks, low, and with entirely too much satisfaction.
“I am,” you say, and the first sip of the vodka cranberry is cold and tart and sweet all the way down, blooming behind your sternum right where his voice has been landing all night.
The booth is easier than the bar, somehow — closer, quieter, the birthday party more muted — and the talk drifts wherever it wants, his low laugh arriving against your shoulder through the arm behind you. At some point the lull comes; ice softening in your glass, his thumb resting an inch from your shoulder. And maybe it’s the vodka, or the arm, or the running list of things you like about him that you’d need both hands to count now—
“How long ago was your last relationship? Like a real one.”
He takes a deep breath before answering. “Honest answer?”
“Preferably,” you giggle softly, and he smiles — most of it lost in the beard, enough that you wonder if there are dimples under there.
“Longer than what sounds good out loud,” he admits through the pull of it.
“Say it out loud anyway.”
“I was thirty-two. So, almost ten years ago.”
“Ten.”
“Mm.”
“A whole decade.”
“You can stop countin’ the years to me at any time, love.”
“Sorry, sorry.” You’re grinning. He is too. “It’s just, quite the gap in romance.”
“It went quick,” he says, and it’s a joke, and it’s also not. “What about you?”
“Ended about a year ago, we were together four.”
“Mm.”
“It was fine. Amicable— mostly,” you shrug.
“Mostly,” he repeats — not pushing, just setting the word down where you can see he heard it.
“Mostly,” you confirm, and leave it there.
The ice ticks in your glass. And the next question’s been sitting in your chest, so you take it out while you’re brave.
“Can I ask something and you not be offended?”
“Startin’ well,” he says, nodding on for you to continue.
You settle further into the booth and your shoulders press against his warm arm behind you, his fingers brushing over your shoulder. You lean your head back, turned to his face.
“What’s changed? Between thirty-two and now that you’re trying dating?” You mean just to ask the question, but you find yourself rambling on. “Because if the honest answer is nothing, and this is just— a-a hookup with, like, really good manners, that’s fine. Genuinely. I’d just rather know now.”
“Fair,” he says. “Asked myself the same thing this week.”
“Yeah? And what was the answer?”
“I’m tired of the quiet,” he starts, pausing as his eyes drift away in thought. They come back to you just as quick. “Used to come home to it like a reward. Now it just feels… empty.”
Something in your chest slides sideways.
“So, no. Not a hookup,” he continues with a breath. “But I can’t promise you’d be happy with the alternative either. I can be gone longer than I’m home.” His thumb brushes along your shoulder, once, like an apology.
“Guess I wouldn’t know unless I gave it a go.”
You say it lightly, and the exhale he lets out has a smile riding on it — and something in his shoulders comes down, some held thing you didn’t notice until it let go.
“No,” he agrees, low. “You wouldn’t.”
You’re suddenly aware of the distance between you — or the lack of it. Somewhere between sitting down and the vodka you’ve ended up awfully close: near enough to count the grey threaded through his beard, to catch the beer on his breath, near enough that the light between you has stopped reaching the space. Near enough that you can feel the heat coming off him, and your heartrate has picked up on it before the rest of you has.
His eyes flick down to your mouth. Quick — half a second, there and back — but you catch it, and it lands low in your stomach and stays.
Neither of you leans back.
And the pub carries on behind you — glasses clinking, the birthday table shouting, a till drawer slamming — all of it arriving from somewhere far off and dreamlike.
You move closer. Barely. Imperceptible. Your pulse is in your ears now, drumming out the last of your sense—
“You know,” you say, quiet, pitched for the six inches between you and nobody else, “you can kiss me. If you’d like.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Mhm,” you grin.
“Well,” he says, matching your volume, low enough that it lands somewhere below hearing, “I was going to be a gentleman about it. Wait til I walked you out.” His gaze drops to your mouth again, slower this time, no secret. “But if you’d rather have it here in the booth, I won’t argue.”
“I suppose I could be patient.”
“Mm,” he says, and doesn’t move.
Somewhere in the world, presumably, time is passing.
His jaw shifts.
“I’ll go pay the tab,” he decides.
And you’re both up and out of the booth quick, and you watch him stand at the bar with his back to you, shoulders set, and you press one cool knuckle to your own cheek and find it burning.
You two make it out the door.
The night’s gone hazy and July-thick, and you get maybe four steps down the side of the pub with his hand a light at the small of your back before you glance up at him and he glances down.
Whatever was left of patient dies right there on the pavement.
He moves you.
One hand finding your hip, the other your jaw, and then your back meets brick, warm through the thin of your blouse and against your bare shoulders, and his mouth is on yours.
Whatever mindful version he’d planned for the end of his gentlemanly walk out must have been spent in the booth — this is the interest. The kiss opens on a low rumble out of his chest, one you feel travel through his ribs into yours, and his tongue slides against yours, all beer and him, and you grip the front of his shirt with both fists just incase the wall behind you vanishes.
He kisses you thoroughly, his beard catching along your chin, a chafe you know you’ll feel tomorrow. A thigh slots half between yours, not pushing, not touching, but it’s not any less inviting. You could bare down on it, get the friction your body is craving, he’d let you, but you restrain yourself. His thumb strokes a slow line along your jaw in obscene contrast to what his mouth is doing — and it blooms down through you, fervid, liquescent.
He pulls back just far enough to breathe — forehead near yours, both of you loud with catching your breath — and when you open your eyes his are dark.
“Very gentlemanly,” you croon.
“I walked you out first, yeah?” he says, unrepentant.
You giggle against his mouth, and he claims it for himself with one more gentle kiss, and then he steps back a seemly distance, hand smoothing once down over his beard, shoulders resetting, breath evening out, everything going back in its place except his eyes.
“Walk me home?” you ask.
“I drove. I’ll give you a lift.”
You look up at him, all vodka-warm and enjoying yourself. “Well, just so you know, I share my location with my best friend and she knows exactly what pub I’m at, and has your name and photo, so—”
“Good,” he replies, no hesitation. “Smart girl. Keep it that way.” He finds his keys, fishing them out of his pocket. “I’m taking you straight home. You have my word.”
He draws an X over his heart, your lipgloss shining at the corner of his crooked mouth.
——
The car smells like-new — clean upholstery and faintly of engine oil, everything squared away, nothing rolling around in the footwells.
The drive is short. The radio murmurs. His hand rests easy on the gearstick a few inches from your knee — close enough that you spend two full streets aware of nothing else — and the streetlights slide over him in slow bars, catching the grey at his temple and the small satisfied set of his mouth.
The kiss is still thrumming under your skin like a struck glass, low in your belly, at the back of your knees — and you catch yourself doing the thing you swore off doing: imagining forward. Him in your doorway. Him in your kitchen on the weekend. Him coming home from wherever away is and it being your door he—
You look out the window. Four miles has never taken so long.
He pulls up outside your building and sets the handbrake, and the engine idles, and neither of you move.
The dashboard glow makes everything blue.
You want to ask him up. That's not the question; that got settled somewhere around the second kiss in the alley, possibly earlier, possibly around the moment he walked into the pub, or whatever. But there's the other thing you can't evict from your head: do you really want to sleep with him on the first date?
"So," you say.
"So…”
You look at him — streetlight in the grey of his beard, arm along the wheel, he’s in absolutely no hurry to resolve you.
"Did you have a good time tonight?"
His head turns. There's a beat where he just looks at you, and you watch him physically decide not to make a joke of it.
"Yes. Best night I've had in a while," he says.
"Would you—" and god, you're thirty years old and your heart is doing this anyway, "—want to see me again? Like this?"
"Was already plannin' to ask you to dinner." A small crease starts at the corner of his eye. "Was workin' out whether to do it now or ring you tomorrow, so I didn't seem overly—"
"Keen?"
"Keen," he confirms, gravely, like the word's been a burden to him all week.
And that lands warm and the relief does something reckless to your mouth, which is that it stops guarding it.
"Okay. Then I'm going to say something, but you can't look at me while I say it."
“Right.” He scrubs a hand over his twitching lips and looks out the windshield, obedient.
"I want to ask you up."
"Mm."
"And I'm having a whole debate about it."
"I can hear it," he says. "Been losin' to the engine for about a minute now."
"Just—,” you sigh, “—shut up." But you're smiling at the dashboard. "It's just— I spent all week wondering if this was a hookup thing for you. And you answered that, and I believe you, I do. But there's this small, paranoid part of me that's like, well, that's exactly what a man would say at the pub, isn't it? And then there's this other, stupider part that thinks if you come up, you'll—" you take a deep breath, your fingers hooking into each other on your lap, and make yourself finish it, "—think less of me. First date and all."
He's quiet for a second, lips pursing.
“Can I look at you now?” he tries.
“Yeah.”
"You want to know where I'm actually at?"
"Truly just desperate for a man to be honest so I know what headspace to put myself in."
“Alright.” He shifts to face you, wrist still hanging over the wheel. “I want to come up. Badly, if you want some extra honesty.”
The badly goes straight between your thighs.
“Okay,” you manage. “Noted.”
“I haven’t lied to you once tonight. And I’m takin’ you to dinner whether I come up or not.”
“And, like— you wouldn’t think—”
“Think less of you?” He frowns, like the math’s not mathing. “For doin’ the same thing I’d be doing? Together?”
“When you put it like that…”
“For what it’s worth, I’m sat here havin’ a version of the same debate. Been out of this a long time. Didn’t want you thinkin’ that’s all I came for. So if you’d rather I kiss you at the door and drive home, I’ll do that and consider it a perfect evening.”
And maybe it’s the ease of him, the total absence of pressure you’re always braced for on nights like this, that settles it for you.
“Would you like to come up?”
——
The stairwell smells of somebody's late dinner and warm dust, the day's heat still trapped in it, and you take the stairs ahead of him to the second floor.
John is a gentleman.
John has been a gentleman all night.
John gives himself the length of one flight of stairs off the clock — the sway of you in those jeans, the shift and give of you with every step, the smooth line of your bare shoulders under the halter's little bow — and by the landing he's a gentleman again, and if you felt his eyes like a brand on you, and by the half-smirk you throw over your shoulder you did, neither of you says a word about it.
Your flat smells like you — the perfume he got to know at the pub, but underneath it, clean laundry, a candle burned down sometime this week — and a blur of black-and-caramel bolts across the living room and vanishes down the hall before he can so much as get a look at her.
"That was Twix," you say, her paws still pattering away. "She'll start her background check and circle back."
"Sensible."
And then the two of you are standing in your living room with the whole car’s worth of honesty sitting in the middle of the floor, and you look at him, and look at the kitchen, and say:
"Do you want a drink? I have wine. Or, um. Tea? I might have a beer from—"
"I'm alright," his mouth pulls at one side.
"Water? I'm gonna have water."
"Then I'll have water," he says like he’s surrendering.
He watches you go — and he could laugh, not at you, but because he knows exactly what he’s looking at. The two of you agreed in plain English on why he’s standing here, and now you’re in your kitchen filling glasses neither of you want, and wiping down a counter that, from where he’s stood, was already clean.
So he gives you room. Settles against the arm of the couch, takes a slow lap of your shelf with his eyes — you and a woman he guesses is the October bride, you on a hike somewhere sunny, you and Twix bravely on the balcony — and he wants you the whole time, low and patient, in his back teeth, but doesn’t move on it.
Your pace. Your move.
You come back with the waters, and hand him his, and hold your own in both hands like you might drop it. He takes a sip, looks at you over the rim of it.
“You’re nervous,” he says.
“Not at all.”
“Mm.” He nods slowly, deeply unconvinced and taking a page from your own book. “Don’t know if I buy that.”
He watches it land, watches the laugh come up out of you before you can stop it, head tipping back, throat bare, and half your nerves seem to leave with it.
He likes that.
He sets his glass down. Then, gently, he takes yours out of your mid-fidget hands and sets it down too — he tips your chin up with one knuckle, and kisses you.
Easy-like, cold from the water, cranberry still faint on your tongue, your breath catches once against his mouth and then lets go. Your hands slide flat up his chest and stop over his heart — which is going quicker than he’d care to admit, and he feels the exact moment you find it out, the little hum of discovery you make.
When you pull back to look at him, whatever nerves were left in you are gone from your eyes, and they’re twinkly a lot like the first photo he ever saw of you.
You take his hand off your waist, lace it through yours, and guide him backward toward the short hall.
In your bedroom he finds the tie of your halter at the back of your neck and pauses with the ends between his fingers, silk warm from your body. One pull and it gives, the fabric sighing loose, and he follows it slide down with his eyes first, then his mouth — the slope of your throat, over your shoulder, then the soft skin below your ear that tastes of strawberry perfume and salt. His beard drags over your neck and a shiver flows through you so he does it again, slower. You shiver harder, fingers curling into the front of his polo.
Good.
You tug the hem of his shirt up and he reaches back, pulls it off over his head one-handed, and drops it somewhere he’ll look for later. He unhooks your bra just as easily, and when your palms spread into the coarse hair over his bare chest and down his toned stomach, the muscle jumps under your fingertips, he hears his own breath go rough.
“Okay,” you say, a little wonder in it. “Wow, yeah, that’s….”
“Mm?”
“Nothing. Just— I knew military, just didn’t realize… this much military.”
“Lodging a complaint?” he askes, amused.
“Definitely not.”
The rest goes gradually — his belt, your jeans peeled down warm thighs with his calloused palms flat against your skin the whole way, a hop and a giggle when the denim catches your ankle and he steadies you by the elbow — and then you’re bare in front of him, lamplight pooling gold along your shoulder, your hip, the soft curve of your stomach. He stops with his hands at your waist and looks.
“Say something,” you murmur, half a laugh, shy at last under the attention. “You’re oggling.”
“I am.” His thumbs press slow arcs into your hips. “Give me a minute. Been picturin’ this since Tuesday and I did you no justice.”
You pull him down onto the bed by way of an answer, and the mattress sinks with a soft complaint, and then it’s just skin — so much warm skin, soft everywhere he’s hard, giving under his hands, smelling of perfume and the clean sweat July dampens into everyone.
He stretches out alongside you, one heavy thigh over yours, and takes his time. The curve of your waist. The full weight of your breast, thumb dragging over your nipple until it peaks and your breath stutters. The inside of your thigh, where the skin is finest and the heat pools. You move under his touch the whole time, restless and rising, fingers in his hair, at his shoulders, and the small sounds you make land somewhere at the base of his neck and prickle there.
Then he shifts down the bed, kisses the soft of your stomach, the plush crease of your hip, and looks up the length of you.
“Can I?”
“You— yes,” you breathe, trembling feebly. “Yes, obviously, you don’t have to a—”
His mouth is on you before the sentence ends.
You’re sweet and slick against his tongue, already so wet the first slow lick slides easy, and the sound you make is high and caught somewhere low, thigh twitching against his ear, one hand flying to his hair. He hums — feels you feel it — and settles in. No rush. Long soft strokes of his tongue until your hips learn the rhythm and rise to meet it, then his lips close warm around your clit, sucking gently, and your whole body pulls tight.
“Oh my god— okay— okay—”
“Mm.”
“Don’t be smug—” and your voice climbs off the end of the sentence as he slides two thick fingers into you, curling them, tongue still working, and whatever the rest of that scolding was, he never learns it.
“Could do this all night, sweetheart,” he murmurs against you, and feels the words land in a shudder. Your breathing changes. Your thighs start trembling, your hand fists in the sheets — and he keeps the pace exactly the same until you’re pulling at him. Hair, arm, anything you can reach.
“John— John— come— I want you. Now,” you whine, “Please.”
He comes up the length of you slow, mouth mapping stomach and sternum and throat on the way, and settles over you on one forearm—
"I should've said this in the car," he starts, eyes on yours. "I don't have a condom. Wasn't assuming tonight would end up here."
"I don't have any either. I actually checked the drawer before I left tonight." You push his dampening hair back off his forehead. "I'm on the pill, and I trust you. But I'd still feel better if you pull out. Is that okay?"
He nods assuredly. "Then I'll pull out," he says flat and plain. "You have my word."
"You and your word—" but you're smiling, and then you're not smiling, because he's already moved and taken himself in hand and dragged the head of his cock through your folds, coating himself in you, and notched against your entrance, and the smile falls open into something much, much better.
He pushes in slow, watches your face the entire way — he couldn't look elsewhere if a grenade went off — your brows drawing up, your lips parting around a breath that doesn't finish, your nails biting little crescents into his forearms — and fuck, the feel of you: scalding, soaked, tight enough that he has to stop twice, jaw clenched, sweat sliding at his temple, feeding you his cock an inch at a time and pulling back, then giving you more; the slick easy give of you around him unspooling something in his stomach.
"Talk to me," he murmurs, gravel-low. "Alright?"
"Yes." Your voice has gone breathless and small and blissed. "You're— god—"
"Christ, you’re snug," he exhales shakily, eyes finding yours. “Relax for me, baby. Breathe.”
"I am breath—oh. Oh—shhit—"
John’s seated all the way, hips flush to your backside, and both of you go quiet — a shared beat of stillness, you fluttering around him hot and full, his body coming down, forehead dropping to yours, ten months of silence pulling a sound up out of his chest that he couldn't have stopped if he knew it was coming.
Then you shift your hips, experimental, a slow grind up against him, and that stillness is over.
He moves slowly; long level strokes dragging all the way out so you both feel every hot stretch of the return, your breasts pressing soft against his hairy chest. Your heels slide up the back of his thighs and he budges his hips closer, holding deep and pressing the head of his cock into your furthest wall. Your hands squeeze the meat between his shoulders and his neck as he pushes a small squeal out of you.
"Right there—right there—right there, don't—"
"I won’t," he murmurs against your jaw. “I won’t move.”
"—okay maybe move a little—"
He breathes something restrained through a smile. "Make your mind up, darling," he grunts.
“It’s hard to— mmm—think like this,” you half-moan against his cheek.
“Don’t think, then.”
It’s all your talking that undoes him more than anything, he realizes distantly. He’d forgotten there was a version of this with laughing in it; a version with a woman eagerly gripping him and grinning against his cheek in the second before a moan carries her voice away — and every time you say his name, breathed and broken, something in his chest cinches another notch tighter.
He draws back and drives home again, and whatever you’d been about to answer with comes out as a punched huff.
You don’t think.
He feels the difference in you immediately — your body dropping the manners, hips rising to meet him harder than he’s giving it, heels dragging him in by the thighs on every stroke, a low frustrated sound building in your throat when he keeps the same controlled pace. You’re not asking for anything. You’re taking it in inches, greedy and unaware of yourself, nails dragging down the small of his back, pulling—
“Harder?” he asks against your ear.
"Yes, please."
He hooks your knee up over his hip and opens you wider—“So polite.”—and gives it to you deeper, his weight behind it, your headboard cracking against the wall. You go loud and lovely underneath him, clutching, slick heat and plush skin and your nails scoring lines down his back that he hopes, viciously, will last long enough to admire.
He works a hand between your bodies, thumb finding your clit, riding the motion you’ve bkth created.
"That's— John— You’re gonna make me come," you sob.
"I know. I feel you. Squeezin' me like— Christ. Go on—fuck."
He watches it arrive before you do, a shiver running ahead of the wave; your spine arches up off the bed, your cunt clenches around him in long pulsing, aching, waves — it takes you under, and you pull him with you.
He holds you, murmuring filth and praise in equal measure against your ear—
How good—
How gorgeous—
You’re mine now, you know that? Hm?—
It’s watching you eagerly nod along with his babbling that finishes him. He lasts maybe ten more strokes on borrowed time, heat gathering alacritous and irrevocable at the base of his groin — and he rears back onto his knees, pulling out of you with a growl that tumbles from his throat, fist working his cock over, soaked with you, spilling hot across your stomach and hip in thick ropes, head hanging, shoulders heaving, your thighs still bracketing his knees.
When he lifts his head, you’re already looking at him.
Glowing down to your chest, lips parted and kiss-swollen, wearing him low on your stomach — and neither of you says anything. Neither of you looks away either. His chest is still heaving. Your knee presses in against his side, and the corner of your mouth starts to curl, and his does too, helpless about it.
He comes down on his side, careful of the mess he’s made of you, one arm heavy across the pillow above your head. The curtain breathes at the window beside the bed and the night comes in and cools the sweat on his back, and he can see your heartbeat going hard at your throat, the rise and fall of your stomach not yet settled. He gently fits his thumb against your pulse, just to feel it going.
He kisses you, your mouth lazy under his, and then your temple, and the crown of your head, and you make a low, boneless sound and turn your face into his hot neck, and the two of you just lie there breathing each other in, tangled and settling, your finger drawing slow shapes on his forearm.
"John?" Small, against his throat.
"Mm?"
"Would you mind grabbing me a cloth? Bathroom's just across the hall."
He's up before the sentence finishes, annoyed at his own carcass the whole three steps to the door, ten months out of practice and it shows, he used to know this part, the part where he takes care of you before you have to ask.
You bathroom is small and smells of your shampoo, fruity, herbal. He runs a flannel under the warm tap, wrings it out, catches his own eyes in the mirror over the sink — wrecked hair, beard ruined and shiny with your lipgloss. He turns, craning his neck spotting a blooming red scratch coming up nicely at his shoulder.
He comes back and cleans you up properly, kneeling on the edge of the bed, one hand steady at your hip while the warm cloth moves over your stomach — thorough about it, frowning slightly the way he does when he’s concentrating — and you watch him do it propped up on your elbows with an expression he can't quite read and doesn't need to. It's warm, whatever it is. And it’s aimed at him, so.
"You're staring," he says, not looking up.
"You're tidying me."
"Should've done it before you asked." He folds the cloth, sets it on the nightstand, and stretches out beside you again, this time gathering you into his chest. "Out of practice."
"I'll allow it," you say, magnanimous, settling your cheek against his pec. "The rest was very in-practice."
He huffs into your hair.
Your fingers trail idle through the hair on his chest, down over old pinked scars, and you ask him about them — whether the jagged line at his shoulder hurt, what caused the puckered one under his ribs — and he answers more honestly than he means to, your weight settling heavier against him as the adrenaline drains.
There's a soft thump from the hallway, then, and a moment later a small shape appears in the doorway — sits, tail wrapping her feet, and surveys the wreckage: the trail of clothes, the stranger man in the bed, you draped over his ribs.
She stares at John.
John stares back.
"We have an audience," he says.
You look over him to see your cat, "Twix, John. John, Twix."
Twix holds his gaze a moment longer, supremely unimpressed, then steps delicately over his discarded shirt and exits the way she came and he feels you giggling before he hears it, the shake of it against his chest.
"That went well," you say, overly pleased.
“Yeah?”
“Mhm.”
"Well, consider me chuffed."
Some comfortable minutes later he feels you surface a little out of the drowse, feels your breathing change, going careful; feels your face arrange itself against his skin before you speak.
"You don't have to stay, by the way." Light. Smooth as eroded stone, polished by use, he imagines. "If you'd sleep better in your own bed. No pressure either way."
And there it is — the same maneuver from your texts, the honest thing dressed up so you can't be caught caring — except this time he can feel your heartbeat while you run it, quick against his ribs, betraying the whole performance from inside.
He keeps his hand moving on your arm, slow, so you know nothing's landed wrong.
"I'll head home," he says. "Not because I want to," he clarifies.
“No?” you ask.
"Believe me. This is about the last place I want to leave." His hand doesn't stop, slow up, slow down, steadying you through it. "I'd like at least one proper dinner between us before I go makin' a habit of your bed."
You lift your head off his chest and look at him — hair wrecked, eyes searching his face for the trick — and he lets you look as long as you need to because there's no trick to be found. He meant it.
“Alright," you agree.
“Yeah?”
“Yes. Dinner sounds nice.”
"Mm," he hums, contented. He presses a kiss into your hair and untangles himself, face scrunched with visible reluctance, and dresses while you watch from the bed with the sheet gathered loose around you.
At the door he stops.
"C'mere."
You come to him in the sheet, and he kisses you properly, one hand cupping your face, thumb at your cheek. You go languid against him. He takes his time. Long past politeness. Long enough that leaving starts to look renegotiable, and he breaks away before he starts.
"G’night," he says, low, still holding your face.
"Goodnight."
"I'll ring you about dinner tomorrow."
——
The flat is quiet. But it's a different quiet than the one you left this morning and you stand in the middle of it grinning.
Twix reappears at the edge of the counter and stares.
“I don’t need the lecture, I’m grown,” you tell her and start walking back to the bedroom, you hear her little jump to the floor and her feather steps catching up with you, “I can have sex. I deserve it, even.” You drop into your bed with a sigh. “You’d understand if you still had ovaries.”
I'm not sure how I found Through the Plaster, but if it led me to your blog so that I would be around when this masterpiece dropped, then I'm thankful for the happenstance.
I adore your John.
This story is so rich. I am kicking myself for trying to do this without the post up on a other tab somewhere 'cause your readmore means I can't drift back and forth between your extremely clever paragraphs to capture the lines that made me laugh out loud so I can quote them in my reblog.
I want to comment on every bit of dialogue from the team. Brilliant and hilarious, the lot of them.
I want to remember the exact turns of phrases used while Price was realizing his phone was sat in the hands of his subordinates in front of him and during the discussion of the dating lives of the 141.
I want press rewind and play over and over and over again on every text exchange or phone conversation until it becomes as natural to recite as the lines from Last Christmas.
And that sex. Oh my god! Not one single, solitary note. 10 out of 10. That knowing question whispered in my ear, maybe growled. Either way, if it got him where I needed him, so be it.
I can't wait to take him to my sister's wedding. That wanker her fiance lined me up with in the wedding party is going to shit his pants when he sees what he's up against at the reception. That short term was the shortest I've ever seen
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you don’t know why you thought simon would be a cocky fuck.
maybe it was how cool and collected he always was. that hot, quiet confidence.
if only you knew when you’d finally got him into bed. ready for him to be rough, to be a little mean, not that you’d mind.
in reality, he was whining into your neck as he pumped into you at a primal speed. whispering and mumbling half words into your throat as he groped you anywhere he could. his eyes were rolled and he was drooling on your collarbone.
“o-oh.. oh, fuck- nghhhuhh… yyeah?.. awww… my baby.. gonna fill y-you… mhm…”
sweet little brain-numb nothings falling of the tongue of the smartest, coldest man you know.
and you could’ve cum just from the sight when he lifted his head and started actually panting and pathetically stuttering his hips against yours like a mutt.
An Experiment in Relaxation (ryland grace x reader)
also posted on ao3 | my masterlist
A wet dream leaves you a little on edge. Grace is nothing if not a problem-solver, and he does not do things halfway.
~6.5k words; smut; a dash of voyeurism and exhibitionism; masturbation; vaginal fingering; hand job; Grace explains some anatomy to you during all this because he's a nerd; fem!reader (referred to with she/her pronouns)
a/n: so you know how i said the other day that i wanted a break from smut? apparently i only needed like, a day LOL
Consciousness comes to you slowly, piece by piece, and with it is the awareness of the aching need between your thighs, the fragments of your dream adding fuel to the fire: someone hovering above you, mouthing at your neck, hands pressing fiery traces against your skin.
You turn onto your stomach. Your hips drag slowly against the blanket twisted up between your legs, still half in the dream, as you chase the ghost of someone’s touch. It has been so long, so long since someone felt you there, since you have allowed yourself to satiate that desire, and you find that you cannot spend another second without it. You needit, need it like air, like water, and it’s so close, that fall off of the cliff, the release of the tension that’s been building while you slept, and you think you can do it, just like this, rutting pathetically against the cotton, only barely awake.
There’s a sound, then, like a very quick tapping against glass, and—that’s exactly what it is, because Rocky is now in the dormitory, pattering his claws against his xenonite enclosure. “What is wrong, question?”
You fight the urge to groan, because you’re afraid it will come out like a whine. “Nothing. I’m fine. Just—a weird dream, that’s all.”
It’s a concept he barely understands, because Eridians simply do not dream, so he focuses instead on the physiological signs that scream out to him, clear as day. “Heartrate elevated. Breathing rapid. Not fine. Rocky will go get Grace.”
You want to scream, please don’t do that, because he will know exactly what is going on, but you can’t, because Rocky is gone as quickly as he had appeared. Frustration bubbles in your chest. You had been close, so close, and now the feeling is already slipping through your fingers like sand.
Grace rushes in. “So, Rocky made it sound like you were dying. Are you dying?”
“No. I’m fine.” Your face is pressed into your pillow, because there’s no way you can look at him right now. “I’m fine,” you repeat. “Go back to—whatever it is you were doing.”
He does not. “He was pretty panicked. What’s going on?”
Sometimes, you muse, it seems like everything would have been a lot easier if you hadn’t survived the coma. “Like I just told him, it was a dream. A weird dream. Please go.”
“Like—a nightmare? I get them too, you know. It’s alright, a totally natural thing, given the circumstances.” Instead of leaving, he walks closer to you, and you can hear his feet pad against the floor. “It’s just your subconscious sorting through things you’ve experienced, if that makes you feel any better. I’m pretty sure I read an article, before we left—so maybe it’s outdated at this point, I don’t know—but it said that dreams are one of the ways that we consolidate memories.”
It was definitely not a memory, because you’re pretty sure the dream had taken place on the ship, but you do not tell him this. “Great. Thanks. I am properly comforted. You can leave now.”
He takes another step forward. Why is he so bad at following instructions? “You don’t need to be embarrassed.” He’s so close to you, now, and you’re fairly certain that he’s squatting next to you, about to lay a comforting hand on your shoulder. And then there’s nothing, and it takes you half of a second to realize that he must finally be taking you in, the way that you’re laying on your stomach, hips slightly lifted over the twisted blanket wedged between your legs. “Oh. I see.”
Rocky runs back into the room. “Grace make diagnosis. Tell Rocky. Now.”
There is a terrifying moment, where you think that he’s about to actually tell Rocky what’s happening, because Grace likes to do this thing where he explains human biology in excruciating detail in the name of cross-species communication. “It’s alright, Rock. Like she said, it was a dream. They can—dreams can really affect the person having them, because the human brain believes that they’re real. So they can produce physiological effects. Nothing to worry about.”
“Oh. Okay. Strange. Rocky does not like. But understand.”
This is, apparently, enough for him, because he skitters back to his workshop. The room is silent, and you are trying to become one with the flooring beneath you. “I—what I said still stands,” Grace says, lowly. “Don’t feel embarrassed.”
You would like to tell him that it’s too late for that, at this point, because the past five minutes have just happened and can’t be taken back. Instead, you settle for sticking up your arm and giving him a thumbs up, which definitely does not make any of this more awkward than it already is.
Finally, he leaves, and you cannot find it within yourself to keep going.
--
A few days have passed. Neither of them have said anything. You’re starting to let yourself hope that you’re in the clear.
“So,” Grace speaks into the quiet, because Rocky has finally decided to go asleep, and it is immediately apparent that you are not, in fact, in the clear, just by that single syllable. “About the other day.”
It would be an interesting experiment, you think, if you launched yourself out of the ship while moving at ninety-two percent the speed of light. You do not turn around from the panel you opened up in the wall so you could tinker with some of the wiring. “I don’t know what you’re referring to.”
He huffs a little. “Sure.”
“Don’t—don’t do that. I really don’t want to talk about it.”
“If you want to, you know. Rest for a little bit. I understand.” You’re pretty sure he’s smiling, as if this is just a funny thing that’s happening, as if you hadn’t had an orgasm in almost five years. In all fairness, you weren’t awake for four of those, but—still.
You very purposefully continue staring at your hands, even though they have long since stopped doing anything meaningful, when you finally speak next. “I’m not doing—that—while Rocky is in there sleeping. That’s just. I can’t do that.”
“Fair enough. The cockpit has a door.”
“Why are we still talking about this,” you say flatly. But then you keep going anyway, because this is, frankly, ridiculous. “And I don’t—where would I even, like, position myself in there for that?”
He’s still smiling, and you can tell even though you still haven’t turned around, and why is he suddenly choosing to torment you like this? Is he truly just that bored? “I mean. You could just sit in the chair.”
You snort. “Yeah, because that sounds super comfortable. I don’t really like—god, why am I even telling you this,” you mutter, “I like to be. Horizontal.”
“I see.” There’s something to his voice that’s difficult for you to pin down exactly, but it gives you the impression that Grace has a million more questions and is, for once in his life, trying to slowly meter them out instead of letting them go all at once. “What’s wrong with verticality?”
Of course he is phrasing it this way, and of course you are still going to answer, despite the fact that you would like to melt through the floor. “It’s just, I don’t know, a little uncomfortable.”
“So…even when you’re, you know, on top? Of someone, that is. It doesn’t really work for you?”
“That’s different.” The fascinating thing about this conversation is that neither of you are looking at each other, still, as if that makes it easier to have it, like you were casually discussing a repair on the ship or one of the taumoeba farms. For all you know, maybe that is what this is like for him: just a totally normal exchange about human biology. “I don’t really have a better explanation, but it’s just different than when I’m. By myself.”
He makes a little thoughtful hum, and you are struck with the realization that he is genuinely turning this all over in his head, not simply messing with you. You are not sure if you feel flattered that he wants to help, even if it is a very strange thing to decide to assist you with, or if you feel like you’ve been squished into a glass slide and are currently being examined underneath a microscope. “No, that makes sense. So cockpit’s out. Screen room?”
“I don’t think I’d be cool with all the screens, either,” you reply, because this is, apparently, an actual brainstorming session now. “I’d feel like I was being watched.”
“And you don’t like that. Being watched.”
“Well, not like that. It would be like the panopticon thing, or whatever. Too impersonal.” You think if he had a pen and paper in his hands—maybe he does, you don’t know—he’d be taking notes. “So not there, either.”
“Okay. Process of elimination means there’s only one room left.” Which is the room that you are currently in. And the room where he is, too, in case you’d forgotten, which you certainly have not.
You swallow hard. “And. Where would you be. In this scenario.”
“I could go to the cockpit? Or watch Rocky.”
This is starting to cross the line again of being too weird, so you lift your hands back up to the wiring in order to try and distract yourself. “It’s really fine, I appreciate that you’re trying to help and all, but. I don’t. I think if I knew you were in the other room, and that you knew what was happening, and we were both trying to act like that fact didn’t exist, I wouldn’t be able to relax enough. It’s fine,” you repeat. “Seriously. I will be okay. I’m not going to, like, explode or something.”
He’s finally quiet, then, and you begin to let yourself hope that the conversation is actually done and dusted this time. Then: “I could stay in here, then.”
Your hands jerk in surprise, and then your fingers catch an unprotected wire. “Ow, fuck—”
“Oh my gosh, are you alright?” Grace rushes over, and for the first time since this conversation started, you turn to look at him. “Let me see.” He grabs your hand and peers at it closely, bringing his glasses up from where they must have been hanging, under his chin, the whole time.
“I’m alright, it’s not that bad, it just hurts like a bitch.”
He glances up at you, over the rims of glasses, and quirks an eyebrow but otherwise does not comment on your language. “I think Armando has some cream. I’ll be back.”
Grace walks down into the dormitory before you can tell him, again, that you’re fine, and after a few minutes he returns with a little tube of cream, a pouch of water, a bandage. He gestures for you to sit at the table in the lab, and you sigh before acquiescing. His hands are gentle on yours as he pours a little bit of water on your right middle finger. You suck in a breath through your teeth but stay still. He dabs it dry with his shirt—that doesn’t really seem sanitary, but whatever—and then carefully applies a bit of the cream before finally sticking the bandage on.
“There,” he says. He’s still holding your hand, his thumb pressing into the middle of your palm. “Better?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
“Sorry that I startled you and made you shock yourself.”
His thumb starts brushing little reassuring circles against your palm. It’s—it’s sending a different kind of electricity through you, arcing up your arm and down into the pit of your stomach. You shift in the chair. “It’s okay. I just—wasn’t expecting you to say that.”
Grace simply shrugs nonchalantly, although the tips of his ears are starting to redden. “It just seemed like the natural solution. To the problem.” Right. Because that’s really what he is, at the end of the day: a problem-solver, the kind that will obsess over the thing until it’s been resolved.
Two paths seem to branch out in front of you in that moment. Either you tell him to drop it, and then every time he looks at you for the rest of your life, you will wonder in the back of your mind if he’s still stuck on this, thinking about just how long you have gone without orgasming, or…
“We. I guess that. We could try.”
You had assumed that you would regret the words as soon as they left your mouth, but you find that you don’t, not when his eyes search yours and his tongue darts out to wet his lips. Your body feels like it is dialed up to a hundred, and all of that energy is starting to collect between your thighs, and you’re surprised that you’re not trembling. “Yeah?”
“Sure. Just. Don’t make it weird.”
He laughs a little at that. “I will try my best.”
--
Grace has created a little blanket nest for you on the floor of the lab. He even unclipped one of the mattress pads from its platform to maximize your comfort. It’s very sweet, even though you kind of feel like you might throw up from anxiety.
He sits down in the chair that he’s dragged toward the edge of the room, facing the bottom end of the blankets. You stand there for a second. Right. Clothes are probably the first step here, you think, looking down at your jumpsuit. You look back up at him. “Um. Could you close your eyes?”
This makes him huff out a laugh, but he does it anyways. “This feels a little redundant,” he says as you slowly unzip your suit and shuck it off, leaving you in a tank top and your underwear, because pants always feel insanely uncomfortable underneath the jumpsuit. “Unless you want me to have my eyes closed the whole time.”
“No, it’s just—leave me alone, okay, I don’t really know what I’m doing here.” You lay down on the pad and take a few moments to adjust and try to get comfortable. For a split second, you consider drawing one of the blankets over your bottom half, but eventually decide against it. It’s—you’re not really sure why, but it just feels like it wouldn’t help. “Okay,” you whisper. He opens his eyes, or at least you think that he does, because you’re currently staring up at the ceiling of the lab. “Um. I don’t really know where to start.”
This is a point where you assume he’s going to poke fun at you, or something, but he doesn’t. “What do you normally do?”
You clear your throat and fidget a little on top of the blankets. “Well. Usually I have. A thing that I use.”
“A—A toy?”
The slight hesitation is the only hint you get that he’s, possibly, just as nervous about this as you are. “Yeah. I’m assuming we don’t have one of those on here.”
“Ah, no, I don’t think so. I mean…we could…if we used some of…” Is he—he’s thinking through how he might build a sex toy.
“Anyway. And sometimes I’m. Reading something. Or. Watching. Something.” You’re starting to think that you might not be able to do this, and that you should probably just call this whole thing off, because now you’re worried he’s going to suggest pulling up porn or something on one of the laptops.
He does not, but you still don’t expect what he does end up saying. “What was the dream about?”
You keep staring at the ceiling. “Um. It was just kind of a basic sex dream, I don’t know. Listen, maybe we should—”
“Close your eyes,” he interrupts you. “Think back on it.”
It is either very admirable or a little creepy that he is so intent on helping you with this. Regardless, you do as he says, letting your eyes drift shut and trying to recall the details of the dream that had landed you in this whole mess. “There was—I was laying down, and there was someone above me.”
Grace hums lowly. “What were they doing?”
“I remember…hands. His hands were sort of all over. And it was. Nice.” That heat you had felt when you had first awoken from the dream is starting to return, simmering just beneath your skin, as you recall the paths that had been traced fervently along your body.
“Start there, then.”
You nod wordlessly, still keeping your eyes closed, and your hands shake a little as you bring them up and hesitantly drag them along your sides, across your stomach, over your thighs. Grace’s chair creaks a little, but instead of the sound breaking you out of it, it makes you feel a little bolder, especially when you can hear him take in a long, deep breath as your fingers brush over your peaked nipples through the fabric of your shirt. “Now what?”
Another creak. You almost want to open your eyes and lean up on your elbows, to see what he’s doing that’s causing the sound, but that means stopping your hands in their movement. “Maybe—over your underwear?”
Jesus Christ, maybe you will explode. A little noise finds its way from the back of your throat and out of your lips. One of your hands leaves your chest and trails down, down, down, past the hem of your shirt, until it finally hovers just above the apex of your thighs. A few more circles with your other hand, and then you carefully, experimentally push down your fingers over your underwear. Your hips immediately roll to meet them, and another breathy sound leaves your mouth.
Grace clears his throat. “There are over ten thousand nerve fibers right there, just below your fingers. In case you didn’t know that.”
You smile and arch your back a little. Of course this would turn into an anatomy lesson. “I didn’t, but I—I’m getting the picture, right about now,” and the last word comes out with a whine as the movement of both of your hands start to fall in time together. Pleasure blooms and spreads through your body, and your eyes squeeze a little tighter, and you find that you don’t really need to think of the dream anymore, that what’s happening right now is doing it for you better than the memory of an imagined touch could.
When he finally speaks again, his voice is low and strained. “I think you could—if you wanted—you know. Skin-on-skin is probably more efficient.”
“Like this?” Your hand slips underneath the waistband of your underwear, and he lets out a choked mm-hm, and you cannot believe that you agreed to do this, and that he suggested it, and that you are already so wet just from touching yourself through the fabric of your clothes, from him watching you do it. You gather a little bit of your slickness on your index finger before slowly circling your clit. Screw the ten thousand, you’re pretty sure there’s a billion nerves right there, right at the tips of your fingers; you don’t bother holding back your moan, then, and your hips buck when you hear Grace’s sharp inhale.
You had assumed this probably wouldn’t take that long, but your hand is already starting to feel cramped underneath the fabric, so you slowly open your eyes and still your hand, drawing it out so you can drag your underwear down. You have to sit up a little to get them off all the way, and then you finally look at Grace to see him leaning forward, his elbows on his thighs and his hands clasped tightly together, his glasses hanging on for dear life as they dangle beneath his face.
He meets your eyes, then, and the look he gives you—it’s like there is simply nothing he would rather be watching, in this moment, and your thighs squeeze involuntarily at the thought. This is weird, this should feel so weird, because you’re half-naked on the floor while he watches you, waiting for you to start touching yourself again, but all you can feel is the headiness in your mind that spreads to your limbs, the ache in your core, the tight desire in your chest.
So you lay back down, but you keep your eyes open, half-lidded. “My hand was getting uncomfortable,” you sigh. Your fingers begin moving again, and it is so much better without the fabric pressing you down, with the cool recycled air of the ship brushing against your wetness.
“I bet.” He shifts in the chair, again, before continuing. “It looks like—you favor one side of it. Your clit.”
You wonder if his face warmed at saying that, if he’s hard in his sweatpants right now, even as he analyzes what you’re doing as if he needed to write a report on it later. “Mm-hm,” you gasp. Your other hand drags back up to your breast again, circling the beaded peak there through your shirt. “I don’t—know why—just feels better. The other side is, it’s, too sensitive.”
“Maybe the nerves aren’t evenly distributed? Like, they’re more concentrated—oh, my God,” he chokes out, because your fingers have just made an absolutely obscene noise as they swipe down through your slickness again, and your head has tipped back into the blanket. “Sorry, I’m, anyway, it’s possible that—that more of your nerves are concentrated on the other side.”
You laugh, then, and the sound is tinged with a whine. Your fingers move a little faster, because you think you’re almost getting there, not to the crest of it, not yet, but to the steady buildup that comes right before it. But the bandage keeps scraping against the sensitive skin there, and then you’re thinking about whether it’s unsanitary for the burn, and the buildup is gone as quick as it had arrived. “Fuck,” you groan in frustration. “Sorry, it’s the—stupid bandage—”
There’s a moment of quiet, then, and you think maybe you’ll have to wait until another day, when you can take the bandage off, but then he’s getting up out of the chair and kneeling down beside you. “Can you keep it to the side—like this?” Grace gently grabs the burned finger, careful not to touch anything else, even though you are starting to think that maybe you really, really want him to, and lays it to the side, almost to the crease of your hip. “Is that okay?”
“Um, maybe? Let me…” You do a slow circle over your clit while keeping your middle finger out of the way. With Grace now right next to you, you can see him, even with your head laid back, can see the way he tracks the movement with narrowed focus. “It’s—I guess it’s fine?”
“You guess?” He glances up at you, and the corner of his mouth lifts. It’s almost at odds with the flush of his cheeks, the flare of his nostrils as he breathes deeply. “We don’t want fine. We want good. Great, even.”
What an overachiever. You smile and roll your eyes playfully. “It’s just, I normally use that finger to, sort of, like, hold stuff out of the way.”
He nods and looks back down at your hand. “The labia majora?” The overly-clinical-speak should really be taking you out of it. It does not. You nod. “Okay. That’s an easy fix.” His hand slides over your hip, then, and gently spreads you open, still not touching you where you have decided in the last thirty seconds that you definitely, not maybe, would like him to. The feeling of his hand there, the comforting pressure of it, makes you shudder. “Try it now.”
There’s a joke somewhere, floating in the back of your mind, about how he is literally troubleshooting your masturbation—what’s next, is he going to tell you to turn it off and back on again—but you say nothing, instead dipping your finger down to lube it up again before pressing it against your clit. It’s—the sensation has doubled, tripled with his hand right there, and your head lolls to the side as you exhale shakily. “That did the trick, I think.”
“Good. That’s—really good. You are.” You look at him curiously, even though it strains your eyes a little with your face pressed against the blanket, when he doesn’t finish the sentence. Grace is simply looking with rapt attention at the way your finger moves, and his lips part slightly. “Sorry,” he apologizes again. His fingers flex against you, and your cunt squeezes at the feeling. “I think. I am hitting a point where the words are not working.”
“Never thought I’d see the day,” you laugh breathily. It turns into a moan as you adjust the pressure you’re applying, and you can just barely see the way his eyelids flutter and how the hand that’s not in use clenches into a fist against his thigh.
There is a new problem, now: it all feels so incredible, of course, but now his hand is right there, and he’s watching you so closely, and you are swiftly realizing that this is probably not going to happen for you until he actually does something.
You have to take a deep breath to gather yourself enough for this. “Grace. I need. Um.”
“Yes, yes, what is it? What can I do?” Something clenches in your chest at his fervor, that he is so desperate to help you with this problem.
“I’m just. Okay. I feel like whatever boundary we were pretending was there doesn’t actually exist, and I think that I really, really need you to touch me. More than you already are,” you tack on, before he decides to be pedantic about it.
He nods feverishly. “Yep, that sounds great, perfect, even, what should I—what do you want me to do?”
Your hips shift. It is insanely unfair that he is making you say all of this out loud. “Could you—your fingers? Inside?”
His eyes fall shut at that, and he groans quietly, still nodding. You expect that he’s going to say something, either a string of words that don’t really make sense together grammatically, or some anatomical explanation of your vagina, or even a description of the optimal angle and technique for this; but he surprises you, again, because he simply opens his eyes and nods, one final time, before unclenching the hand on top of his leg and slowly brushing his fingers over your cunt.
You shiver, even though he still hasn’t really done anything yet. This statement is immediately retracted when one of his fingers slowly presses inside of you. “So tight,” he observes. “How long…? I mean, not that—it’s a pretty elastic thing, you know, but.”
“Longer than, than the coma, that’s for sure.” You resume pressing circles into your clit, gasping and whining, because even just the one finger slowly dragging against your walls provides a delirious kind of fullness. “And. And you?”
He huffs. “Pretty much the same.”
In that moment, you resolve that once you’ve orgasmed, you are going to do everything in your power to make him come, because the tiny little noises he’s been making so far are addictive, and you want, need to know what the real ones sound like. And you want to give this to him, because he has gone out of his way to do this for you, and oh, now there’s a second finger, and you lift your hips to meet their thrust.
The friction against your clit has started to become a little uncomfortable, so you try to slide your finger down to gather up some more of your wetness, but it bumps into Grace’s. “Sorry, my finger’s just. A little dry.”
There is not a world in which you are prepared for the thing that he does next, when he dips his head a little and lets some of his saliva drip from his lips onto your slit. Your finger gathers it up greedily, and it’s exactly what you needed, and you clench around his fingers as you resume your own movements.
“So, holy shit, what the fuck was that,” you gasp, not even bothering to watch the swearing like you normally do, because it’s one of his favorite ways to mess with you.
He merely grins, never stopping the careful rhythm of his hand. “What? Saliva’s a great lubricant. It’s a coagulant, too, fun fact.”
“That doesn’t really—explain—you doing it like that. Could have used my own.”
“Nah. This is faster,” and then he lets a little more drip down, and you are fairly certain that image is now branded into your mind forever and will most likely revisit you in your dreams.
For a while, there’s nothing but the sounds of his fingers, and your moans, and every so often a little sound of his own, and your earlier resolve is strengthened. You are so close, so much closer than earlier, and your other hand starts grasping your breast again, tweaking the bud of your nipple, in an effort to get that final push you need.
Grace’s eyes flick up—it almost seems like he has to physically tear himself away from watching both of your hands moving in between your thighs—and he speaks up again. “I have an idea.” His fingers shift a little as he says it, and the new angle is heavenly, forcing you to really have to concentrate on his words. “And I think that you will be amenable to it.”
Does he have, like, a thesaurus memorized, or something? ‘Amenable’? “I don’t really need the play-by-play,” you nearly whimper, “Just do it, and I will probab-ly—”
He leans forward to replace the hand on your breast with his mouth before you can finish your sentence, lapping at the bud of your nipple through your shirt, because apparently moving that out of the way would take too long.
“Hah, yeah, definitely—amenable to that—Grace,” and the sound of his name falling from your lips makes him groan, but his tongue still doesn’t stop, and neither do his fingers. “Oh, my God, I am so—do not change anything you’re doing, please.”
You think he might be about to respond, but he doesn’t get the chance, because finally, finally the release is there, cresting and breaking and rolling through you, and you clamp down around on his fingers, and your free hand flies out to clutch at his shoulder. His head lifts from your chest, and maybe if you were still cogent, you would protest at this, but then you realize that he’s watching you with wide, glassy eyes, taking in the way your body shakes and your mouth falls open with a cry. His glasses, you manage to note, have vanished somewhere in the middle of all of this.
As the high finally subsides, you twitch from the overstimulation of your finger, because it’s still moving, and after a few more gentle brushes against your clit you move your hand up to rest on your lower stomach, breathing heavily. Grace pulls his hand back then, too, and after a beat you watch as he sticks his fingers in his mouth.
“I didn’t know,” you gasp in between breaths, “that you were kind of a little freak.”
He wipes his hand on his pants after he’s done licking them off. “To be honest. Neither did I.”
A surprised laugh is ripped out of you, and after a few seconds he starts laughing with you. When the two of you quiet, you slowly sit up. “Alright. Your turn.”
His eyes widen. “Oh, that’s not—it’s really okay, you don’t need to do that.”
You look at him flatly. “Grace. You just gave me what was, probably, the best orgasm of my life. Just let me—I would really like to return the favor. Please.”
“Yeah. Okay. I mean. I would probably be pretty insane to say no.”
Oh. That’s kind of a weird way to say yes. “Um. If you, like, actually don’t want to, we don’t have to. I can just go…clean up, or something.”
“No, that’s not. I’m sorry, this is not at all coming out the way I would like it to,” he rushes out. “I’m going to be so honest. Embarassingly honest. I am so hard, and I don’t think any of my blood is going to my brain at the moment.”
Both of you dissolve into laughter again, even while you gently grasp his shoulders and maneuver him to lay down, as you find his glasses on the floor next to the blankets and slide them onto his face. A realization pops into your mind as you look at him, your hands resting on his chest while you kneel beside him. “So. I know your fingers were literally just inside me, and so this might be a little bit of a stupid question, but. Is it alright if I kiss you? We just kind of didn’t that whole time, and I wasn’t sure—”
“Please,” he breathes. “Yes, please do that.”
You can taste yourself on his mouth when you lean forward and press your lips to his, when you lick into him and he groans. Meanwhile, your hand slowly slides down—you’ll have to use your left, because you imagine the bandage would not feel great for him, not with what you would like to do—and pauses at the hem of his shirt. You slip your fingers underneath it, just for a moment, so you can feel the skin there, before your hand keeps moving in its descent. As you palm him through his sweatpants, you are delighted not only to confirm his earlier admission, but also to discover that, yes, the real sounds he’s making right now are so, so much better than the little ones he was letting out earlier.
“Hah,” he gasps into your mouth, “just—a warning—this is not going to take me that long.”
You pull back a little and laugh, still stroking the length of him through his pants. “I do not even have the words to tell you how much I do not care about that.”
Grace simply gives you a small thumbs-up, which is so delightfully him, and then he watches as you sit up more fully to pull his pants down, and then his underwear. It is—he really was not kidding, because he looks almost painfully hard, and the tip is already red and leaking onto him, and then you’re imagining what he’ll look like with his cum on his stomach, so you drag his shirt up a little before finally drawing your fingers over his cock.
You watch, a little dazed, as he twitches and his abdominal muscles contract, and you think you understand a bit more now why he was so adamant on watching you. You glance at his hands, which are fisted in the blankets, and then at his face. It’s completely flushed, and somehow his glasses are already skewed again, and he’s looking at you with his eyebrows drawn.
Another idea pops into your head. You’re still not wearing any pants. Or underwear. This is very convenient. You make a whole show of gathering your lingering wetness on your hand, and then you spit into it for good measure, and Grace looks like he is about to combust. You grin and carefully spread the mixture of your saliva and slickness onto him, from the base to the tip, and the whine he lets out is so good that you consider abandoning this plan to just ride him instead.
But, well—you’re definitely not prepared for that, you realize as you start sliding your hand up-and-down, because two fingers is definitely not enough now that you’ve seen and felt the size of him. You let yourself hope, for a brief second, that there will be a next time for that, and then you turn your focus entirely on the task at hand. Literally.
His hips jerk up into your hand. “Holy, crap,” he groans, “this is—you are so—I meant what I said, I am not going to last that long.”
Your other hand draws his shirt up a little more so you can slide it against his skin, across his stomach, up to his chest. “And I meant what I said,” you parrot back, “I really do not care.”
Your hand does this little twist, and he bucks up, so you keep doing it, testing different rhythms until you find the one that makes his eyes squeeze shut and one of his hands release the blanket so it can grasp your arm instead.
“That’s it, Grace,” you coo. “You’re doing so good for me.”
“What—was that,” he gasps, pressing his face to the side, skewing his glasses even further, “about me being a little freak?”
You simply smile and say nothing, happy to take in all his sounds and the way his chest heaves underneath your hand. You are, apparently, full of ideas at the moment—maybe orgasming is just that intellectually stimulating for you—because then you slide a curious finger over his nipple, and—
You desperately hope that you will never forget the way he keens, then, the way he chokes out that he’s close and then keeps babbling, right up until the words run out and his cum is spurting onto his abdomen.
“That,” you breath, watching the way he twitches, because your hand is still slowly moving around his cock, “was probably the hottest thing I have ever seen.”
It takes him a few moments to get to a place where he could begin to string words together in a way that makes sense, but before he can, just to fuck with him, you swipe your finger through his spend and bring it to your mouth. You’re pretty sure he stops breathing as he watches. “You—you’re killing me here. I’ve passed. I have simply passed away.”
You giggle around your finger. “Before you can even say ‘I told you so,’ I will admit that this was not as bad of an idea as I originally feared. And I would also like to request that this is not a one-time thing.”
Grace looks at you, utterly surprised, because it seems like only doing this once was not an idea that had even crossed his mind until you said it. “I feel like you’re forgetting the ten thousand nerves thing from earlier. It means back-to-back orgasms are not just possible, but, like, probably necessary. I think I read somewhere once that record is somewhere in the hundreds.”
“Okay. Maybe we start with two.”
He grins as you lean forward to kiss him again. “Two is good. But can I bargain for three? This is very important for the experiment.”
pairing: upset and needy!ryland grace x fem!reader (eva stratts sister)
word count: 2.6k
content: smut w a plot, pre space, oral (reader receiving,) use of pet names, handjob, panic attack, hurt/comfort, crying, unprotected sex, softdom!ryland and subby!ryland !!!! cliffhanger 👀
summary: you and your sister (eva stratt) were always close, but that changed when the sun started dying. that's when you met ryland. he was a science teacher, but also a very intelligent scientist. you fell for him almost immediately. but as you got closer to the launching of the hail mary, your sister kept secrets, and they impacted both you and ryland equally.
a/n: hi my darlings! i thought of this idea and had to get right to it. it has not been proof read, so correct me if I make mistakes. this leaves at a cliffhanger... so please let me know if i should continue it! as always feel free to drop requests in my asks!!! i hope you enjoy!! 🙂↕️🤍
You were Eva Stratt's sister. You were adopted, but still the two of you were pretty close.
The two of you had a stable upbringing. You were both incredibly intelligent, had good behavior, and a good support system. You told each other everything.
However that changed when the government swooped her up into the whole stop astrophage mission. Yes, she had brought you aboard the massive ship in the ocean, but you could tell there were so many things unsaid.
Dr. Ryland Grace was brought on the ship because of a research paper he did a few years back, and he was the talk of everyone. Some thought he was kinda stupid, but majority of them admired him and his work ethic. Including you.
You and Ryland had become quick friends. He would spend any free time he had with you, in fact. You loved it. He was goofy, of course a nerd, and very very handsome. You may have developed a crush on him.
Eva was always in his space though. Pushing him to find out more about astrophage, breeding it, and having him at meetings almost 24/7. And that's exactly where he was now.
You were sat in your assigned bunk, a very small room, but enough to live comfortably in. Ryland had told you he was going to meet up with you after, so of course, you waited.
and waited.
and waited.
⪻────★────⪼
After what felt like an eternity, your door was pushed open, and there stood Dr. Ryland Grace.
You looked up with a smile, glad to finally see his face, but that quickly changed when you saw how upset he looked.
"Shes going to do it.." He said, walking inside your room, locking the door behind him.
"What?" you asked, standing up and taking his shaking hands. "She's going to do what, Ryland?"
He inhaled shakily. His eyes were red and irritated.
"I'm the replacement.. I-" he stuttered, his voice softer than you'd ever heard it. "She hinted at it during the meeting- and-" A tear slipped down his cheek.
The words hung in the air. He was the replacement for Dubois. The dots connected. All of Eva's hidden meetings, the death of the primary crew, and all the sudden decisions.
You shook your head. She wouldnt.
"Ryland, look at me.." you whispered, hand meeting his cheek. "If she hinted at it, that doesn't mean it's for sure yet."
He shook his head back. Tears falling quicker now. "Do you really think that? You know how she is.. once she makes a decision it's set and stone." He said.
You knew he was right. There was no changing her mind.
You didn't know what to say. You were speechless.
"Please don't let them.. I can't- I'm not an austoranut.. I'm a science teacher.. I-" He was near hyperventilating now.
You frowned, taking his head in your hands. "Hey.. listen.. It's gonna be okay. We'll.. I'll talk to her, okay?"
He nodded, sniffling softly. "Okay.."
⪻────★────⪼
Weeks went by. You had talked to your sister, but she refused to listen. Ryland knew it. Now he was just trying to flush the idea out of his mind. The ship had thrown a party. Everyone celebrating.. drinking, living their best lives.
Except for Ryland.
You were lounging on a couch, reading a book, when you looked up. Ryland was sitting on a stool by the bar, staring up at the ceiling. Clearly lost in thought.
You sighed. Why did your sister have to pick him? The man you had just fallen in love with to go to space for 11.9 years. With no way home.
You pondered. What could you do. Now you were the one lost in thought, that was until one of the crew members bumped into your shoulder as they fell backwards onto the couch, clearly drunk.
You snapped out of your thoughts and got up. Only to realize that Ryland was now gone.
You quickly excused yourself from the celebration, stepping into the corridor outside of the lounge area. You made your way through the halls until you got to the door to the balcony. You slid it open, and to no surprise you saw him. He was far off into the distance, sitting with his head pressed against his knees.
You walked in his direction, but only began to speed up when you heard his muffled cries.
You dropped your book to the floor, crouching down beside him.
"Ryland?" You asked, rubbing his back softly. He was hyperventilating.
He looked up at you, his face tear stained and red. The sight made your heart drop. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out.
You shook your head, taking his hands in yours as you spoke again. "No no don't talk right now. Just breathe, okay?" He nodded. "In.... and out." You said, demonstrating for him so he could follow.
It only took a few minutes for him to calm down, his hands gripping yours tightly.
"I.. I can't do this." He said, lip quivering. "I don't- I'm not meant for this. Why doesn't she understand that? Why doesn't she respect that?" He asked, breathing shakily.
You shifted your hand out of his grip, moving it to his face. "I know, Ry. I'll figure it out. I promise." You said, but immediately regretted it.
You knew you couldn't. So did he.
He nodded, taking a deep breath. He would believe you. Just for now.
He sighed, staring up into your eyes. You shifted closer, pulling him into a gentle hug.
"You're my only hope." He said, voice shaking still. "I don't trust anyone here but you."
It made your heart shattered. You couldn't do hardly anything to help him, but you were still his anchor. You sighed, ruffling his hair gently.
"Let's go back inside the ship, yeah? It's cold out here." He nodded, standing up and pulling you with him.
The two of you walked through the ship, hand in hand until you made it to your bunk. He held the door open for you and closed it behind the both of you.
You sat down on your bed, and he sat down in your desk chair. He rolled it so he could be right in front of you. Close enough that he could hold your hand still. He rested his elbows on his knees, hands falling between his legs, except for the one holding yours.
The two of you sat there in silence for a moment.
He broke it. "Hey." He whispered softly.
"Yeah?"
He didn't answer for a moment. He just stood up, stepped closer, and then sank down onto his knees in front of you where you sat on the edge of the mattress.
Your heart rate increased.
"I need to tell you something." He whispered.
He was sat on his knees, arms free on his lap. Looking up at you with what looked to be adoration.
"Okay..?"
He brought one hand up, tucking a strand of your hair behind your ear. "I'm tired of acting like you're just a friend. That you're just.. the person I go to for comfort... Which- you are, but.. you're so much more than that."
You stared down at him, your face heating up. Your hand slid up his forearm and up to where it rested on your cheek as you waited for him to continue.
He closed his eyes for a second, enjoying the feeling of your hand against his. He opened his eyes as he spoke again, "I've.. spent so long trying to keep myself away.. making sure I don't fall for you, but I can't. Not after today." He said, inhaling, "Not when... I know I might never see you again."
His words hit you hard. The thought of losing him only made you act. You slid your arms around him, pulling him up so he was eye level with you. You kissed him. He melted into it immediately, his other hand moving to your waist.
The two of you kissed for what felt like ages. That was until he finally pulled back, resting his forehead against yours. He stared into your eyes.
"I love you.. so much." He said.
Your heart fluttered. "I love you too.." you whispered.
"Let me show you how much you mean to me." He whispered back. "Please."
You nodded, your breath hitching at his words. "Okay.. yeah."
He pulled back, settling on his knees again. He slid his hands up your legs, then your thighs. "Can I take these off?" He asked, looking up at you.
You nodded, lifting your hips slightly so he could pull your pants down. And he did just that, along with your underwear.
You shivered.
"You're so pretty.." He whispered, pressing his head down to kiss your thighs. He trailed up as far as he could until it was uncomfortable, and only then did he grip your waist and pull you to the edge of the mattress.
He looked up at you, silently asking for permission. You nodded again.
He spread your legs far enough that he could slide his face between them. He kissed softly before finally running his tongue through your slick.
You gasped, sitting up slightly. He held onto your thighs as he lapped all of your arousal up. He circled his tongue around your clit, causing you to tangle your hands in his hair, your hips bucking into his face.
"Oh my god-" you breathed out.
He hummed into you, moving his tongue down to lick around your entrance. It was only seconds before you felt his tongue enter you. You squirmed under his touch, his nose brushing against your clit. He gripped into your legs tighter, holding you still so he could make you see stars.
You moaned, tilting your head back as you pulled his hair gently, causing him to groan softly into you. He pulled back slightly, but only to plunge two fingers inside of your soaking pussy.
"Ry-!" You whined. You were getting close already.
He chuckled softly, his breath tickling your skin. He moved his mouth back up, taking your clit into his mouth, sucking on it. His fingers thrust into you at a relentless pace, him hitting your g-spot every single time.
"F-fuck Ry- I'm so close-" You whimpered.
That only pushed him farther.
He began curling his fingers just right into your cunt, making you throw your head back as moans and whines left your lips. It was only then that you felt him humping the bottom of your leg, whimpering against your clit.
Your shaky legs wrapped tighter around his head, pushing him deeper into your pussy.
"Oh my god- i-"
You didn't finish your sentence. You came all over his fingers, squeezing him tightly. You moaned, panting softly as you came down from your high.
He pulled back, his fingers following, only to be pushed into his mouth. You whimpered at the sight of him.
"You taste.. so fucking good.." He said. His face was covered in your arousal, his hair now a complete mess.
Your breathing slowed as you help his gaze until you finally sat back up, pulling him into you.
He nuzzled his head into your neck, breathing you in. However he couldn't ignore how hard he was. He was rutting his hips into the edge of the mattress like a feral animal, whimpering softly.
"Come here.." you said, patting the mattress beside you.
He obliged without question, sitting beside you. His jeans were so tight it was almost unbearable.
You chuckled softly. "Lie back, Ry," you said, gently pushing at his shoulders.
He did just that. You slid your hand down to his waistband, unzipping his pants and pushing them down to his thighs. He whimpered.
"P..please-"
It made you shiver hearing him like that. It was only seconds before you were nudging his boxers down just enough for his cock to spring free. He whimpered again.
He was pretty average in length, but in girth.. he was thick. He was already leaking with precum.
You smiled at him. "You poor thing," and then wrapped your fingers around him. He was warm, and your touch only made him twitch. He gasped softly, his hips grinding into your hand.
You began sliding you hand up and down, squeezing ever so gently to make him whine.
"G-god you feel so good-" He moaned softly, his head thrown back on your mattress.
You hummed, flicking your wrist faster, thumb rubbing his irritated tip. He could only rut into you as sweet sounds including your name spilled from his mouth.
His legs began to shake and you started to move faster, but he protested.
"W-wait please- Please sweetheart I want to cum inside you- Please.." He begged. It was such a sweet sound that you had to comply.
You stopped your movements and pulled you hand away, a whimper falling from him again. His legs shook as he sat up. He gently pushed you back, him following behind, hovering over you.
He was holding himself up above you, his hands just by your face. His leaned down, kissing the corner of your mouth. He was still panting.
You wrapped your legs around his waist, a sign that you wanted him inside you.
Of course he obliged, positioning himself at your entrance. Your hole was already fluttering around him, despite him barely even being inside.
Then he thrust inside. He did it fast, and the stretch burned.
"Fuck- I'm sorry-" He whimpered. He was barely able to hold himself back.
"It's i- okay, Ry... you can move." You whispered.
"A-are you sure? I don't want to hurt you-" He said.
You nodded, shifting your hips slightly just to prove you were serious. He took a deep breath and began rolling his hips into yours. He was gripping the sheets beside your head so tightly you thought he might rip them.
He set a quicker pace, enough to give you please, but slow enough to hold him off.
He was close, still, from when you had jerked him off moments before, but he wanted to hold on for you.
"I- can't hold it much l-longer.." He whimpered softly.
You nodded. "I know, it's okay.. I'm getting close too." You said, sliding your hand down to circle your clit. The double stimulation had you whimpering again and again.
"That's it.. There you go," he groaned, now thrusting into you faster as he felt you clench around him. "Cum with me, honey."
The stimulation was unbearable, and you came only seconds after him. The both of you moaning in unison as his hips stuttered against yours.
Eventually he stopped, both of you dripping with sweat and panting. This mixture of your release dripping out of you.
He collapsed on top of you, nuzzling into your chest as you both came down from your orgasms.
The two of you sat there in silence for a few moments, just until you broke it.
"I.. I'll come with you." You said.
"What?" He asked, lifting his head up.
"I'll come with you.. on the Hail Mary.."
"No.. no no no- you can't do that- you can't give your life away just to be with me-"
"I'm not.. Do you think I want to be stuck here alone, wondering if you're dead or not for the rest of my life?" You asked, looking down at him with furrowed eyebrows.
"I- you can't-" Tears were welling in his eyes.
You shook your head. "I'm not asking for permission, Ry... It's my choice, not yours."
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Content: smut with a plot, detailed masturbation (reader), use of pet names, clit stimulation, p in v, and some of it might be corny but 🤫🤫🤫
Word count: 2,962 words 16,338 characters
Summary: you and Ryland were chosen to board the Hail Mary a long, long time ago. 11.9 light-years to be precise. you, a medical professional, induced yourself into a coma along with two other participants (who sadly passed away in their sleep.) along with Ryland, who of course, was already under when you boarded the ship.
eventually, that stasis ended. after waking up, you and Ryland spent days fighting through severe amnesia, trying to regain as much memory as humanly possible, but the adventure was far from over. you had barely processed your arrival at Tau Ceti E when the radar picked up the impossible: an encounter with an alien ship.
that encounter led you to Rocky. he is a bundle of energy, to say the least. over the past few days, the three of you have been bonding across the barrier, learning to communicate and survive together. which led to right now...
⪻────★────⪼
you, ryland, and rocky were all sat in the mental health node, or as ryland liked to call it, the "don't go crazy room," chatting about your lives back home.
rocky had just got done talking about his mate who he allegedly had been with for 186.3 Earth years. which of course caused ryland to make a stupid joke about that being the honeymoon phase.
after ryland explained the joke to him, rocky finally changed the subject.
"y/n have mate on human world? question." he asked.
you laughed awkwardly in return. "no.. not really, rock."
he quickly turned his torso in rylands direction as he spoke again, "grace have mate? question."
"uhh... I mean I did... but.. she thought I had my head in the clouds, and that I didn't really want to live in the real world.." he paused for a moment, "she was right.. and now she's with mark."
"rocky hate mark."
that statement stifled both a laugh out of you and ryland.
"me too, bud, me too." he responded.
there was a long pause for a moment before rocky spoke again.
"why don't you two mate? question."
"uh..."
your face immediately went pink. you looked to ryland before looking away. sure he was.. handsome.. smart.. funny.. and almost exactly your type, but you were coworkers. friends. you couldn't..
before you could spiral into any more deep thoughts about your friend, rocky spoke again "is yes or no? question."
"it's-" ryland began, but you quickly interrupted, standing from the metal platform.
"i'm gonna go... do something." you said, simply wanting an escape from the conversation.
as you left, you could hear rocky speak to grace again.
"grace is stupid. statement."
you laughed to yourself quietly before making your way across the ship into a more private area. you sat on the metal floor, head back against a wall.
you began to ponder. what rocky said.. wasn't exactly a terrible suggestion.
you and ryland were destined for death after figuring out why a random planet wasn't dying... so what was stopping you two from.. dating?
you thought about it for a while, but that only led your brain to think of more and more suggestive things. the way ryland looked when he was focused on something. the furrow of his eyebrow, the way he bit his lip... the movement of his biceps when he picked up something rather heavy... the way his body looked.
you eventually grew... aroused. which then let you into a spiral.. you hadn't been touched in forever.. kissed in forever.. fucked in forev-
"are you okay?" rylands voice cut through your train of thought.
"yeah.. just.. needed a break from... you know who." you muttered, swallowing.
ryland moved to sit beside you. "i know what you mean," he said, moving to press his hand to your back, "don't worry about him."
"mhm.." you mumbled.
⪻────★────⪼
later that "evening," rocky had settled down into his ammonia filled enclosure, sleeping while you and ryland watched.
"you should get some sleep, you know?" ryland said, breaking the silence.
"i'm not tired," you replied.
"yes you are. you've been working nonstop for at least three days now"
"eh" you shrugged, just as stubborn as you were on Earth.
he scoffed, "you're impossible, y/n. you've been working you ass off for god knows how long and you won't even admit to exhaustion? what are you made of?"
"oh, just.. atoms.. molecules.. cells... you know, the usual." you replied.
that made him laugh. "listen, smartass.. I'm just looking out for you."
"I'll survive" you shrugged again.
"y/n, come on. please, just get some rest." he said, getting up from the stool he was sitting on.
"I'm fine, ry, I promise." you said, looking up into his eyes with a smile as he approached you.
"I'm not asking you. you need to get some rest. you're going to burn yourself out."
you remained seated, holding his gaze with a grin on your face. oh how you loved testing his patience.
"I will drag your ass to bed."
you scoffed softly, "you wouldn't dare."
and you were proved wrong in only five seconds. he swiftly picked you up bridal style and began crossing the ship.
"hey-! put me down!!!" you exclaimed.
"I warned you, did I not?" he teased.
eventually, you made it to the sleeping quarters where he gently set you on your designated oval bed. you instantly felt drowsy as the memory foam hit your body.
"mm finally cooperative, huh?"
"whatever." you rolled your eyes and got under the thin sheets. "what are you gonna do? go to sleep? right?" you asked.
"maybe."
you glared. "ry."
"I'm not even tired." he fought.
"that's exactly what I said to you, but look where I am now."
"it's different," he protested, stubborn. "you're exhausted, you're barely holding yourself upright. i'm perfectly fine." he shifted against the wall, arms crossing.
"cmon ry, it's only fair." you said, giving him your best subtle puppy dog eyes.
he couldn't say no to your sweet face. he sighed in defeat. "fine."
"thanks so much." you hummed, teasing.
⪻────★────⪼
you only slept a few hours when you were abruptly woken up by the sound of your name being spoken.
"mmp.. y/n.." shuffling.. "just like- just like that-"
your body froze with shock. your body shot up, looking below you, where rylands bed was. and there he was.. shifting into his sheets, asleep.
your "coworker," and "closest friend" was having a wet dream about you.
you sat there. speechless. so he did like you.
you slumped back into your bed, closing your eyes in attempt to fall back asleep... but ryland just wouldn't stay quiet.
"y/n please.. I wanna be good for you.. I wanna..." he whimpered.
your eyes shot back open and your heart rate increased. you covered your face with your hands. thoughts began to consume you... he sounded so good. so needy and pathetic.
you couldn't help yourself.
your hand slid under the thin sheets, under your sweats and then your cotton panties.. right into your soaked mess of arousal.
"please please please y/n.. let me touch you.." he muttered softly, followed by what sounded like humping into his sheets.
two of your fingers began circling your already swollen clit. which only led you to buck your hips into your palm. you slid your fingers through your slick folds, circling them at your entrance.
"fuck.. y/n.."
that broke you.. you plunged your fingers into your wet pussy. hearing the squelching sound under the sheets drove you even more crazy. your hips were bucking relentlessly into your own palm, followed by soft whimpers leaving your lips.
your free hand moved under your shirt, groping at your breasts.
"ah- y/n I'm so close-" he whimpered.
all you could do was whimper in return, no matter how badly you wanted to climb into his bed and have your way with him.
you picked up the pace, hitting that g-spot, legs shaking already. this was the first sexual experience you'd had in over 11 years so.. what was there to expect. just as you were about to cum, ryland pushed you over the edge.
he let out a loud moan, followed by his heavy breathing. you came immediately after that.
you went to bed immediately after, still exhausted, but now warn out from what you had just done.
⪻────★────⪼
the next "morning," ryland and rocky were you hours before you. chatting and what not, until rocky decided it was upon him to wake you up. he climbed to your sleeping quarter and sat on your chest.
"y/n, wake up." he said.
you groaned in return. "rocky, go away.." you said in a frustrated tone.
ryland laughed at the sight, but then got up. he picked rocky up, placing him on the floor. "let her sleep, rock."
and they both did. you slept for another five hours.
by the time you had woken up from your deep deep slumber, rocky was already asleep. again. apparently you slept that long.
you shifted awake, sitting up.
"well good morning, sunshine." ryland teased.
you groaned in response.
"okay, okay, relax. I'll let you wake up."
he gave you a few moments to wake up. and eventually, you were wide awake. ryland was working on some type of 3d device that looked to be made by rocky.
you decided not to question it and you sat in the chair beside him, reading some random biology book you found in the laboratory.
"whatcha reading?" ryland asked
"some random bio book." you shrugged. you hadn't made eye contact with him since the previous day.
this of course, peaked his interest. "can I see?" he asked
you finally made eye contact with him as you nodded, handing the book over.
he scanned it, flipping through pages until something caught his eye. "oh.. this is quite interesting.." he hummed, his eyebrow furrowing as he read. "this book is incredibly outdated, but there's a segment on how the world would decline if the sun was dying.. it's almost like the author predicted what would happen."
he studied to pages for a long long 15 minutes. ranting to you about random things in the book that fascinated him. you couldn't help but stare at him. the way he got so excited over the things he was talking about. the way he got animated when trying to explain things.
suddenly his face faltered. "I'm sorry am I.. boring you?" he asked, chewing on his bottom lip.
"what? no, of course not" you replied.
"sorry I just find this incredibly fascinating.. can I continue?" he asked.
"of course. tell me all about it, ry" you said. and you were completely serious. if it was interesting to him.. of course you would find your way to wrap your head around it.
he rambled for about 23 minutes, in which you were staring at him with absolute adoration. eventually, the conversation came to its natural conclusion. and you both sat there, looking at each other.
the book laid there forgotten in his lap.
the two of you were sitting closer than you had earlier realized. and that just dawned on you.
"y/n.?" he began.
"yes?"
he opened his mouth, about to continue, but he stopped himself. "uh.. nevermind.."
"oh come on, what is it, ry?"
"i don't... know if it's the smartest thing to say.. regarding our situation."
your pulse increased.. what could he possibly mean?
"just spit it out.."
he hesitated for a moment. then opened his mouth again. "i.. i cant."
you frowned. you placed your hand on his forearm. rubbing it with your thumb.
"ry.. im not gonna ju-" but before you could finish your sentence, his lips were on yours.
you of course, melted into the kiss despite how shocked you were that this was actually happening. your face grew a dusty pink color as his hands met the soft skin of your cheeks.
you both pulled back for air, making direct eye contact, both hearts pounding.
but it was only seconds before he pulled you back in, kissing you passionately than the first time. without much thought,you stood up from the stool you were sat on, and you threw the book from his lap onto the floor, making room for yourself.
you sat yourself on his lap to where his hands instantly found your hips. he pulled back, but only to trail his lips down the collum of your throat.
"you're so fucking beautiful.." he whispered between kisses. "so pretty.. I can't stop thinking about you no matter what I do." he admitted before sucking softly on the skin surrounding your collarbone.
"I've dreamt about you.. every night." he whispered. he left a hickey that bruised almost instantly. you tilted your head up more.
"i... know. last night you..." you hesitated.
"what? what did I do?" he asked, dragging his tounge back up your throat. leaving wet kisses under your jaw line.
your breath stuttered. "y..you were whining my name in your sleep."
he paused. "i was..?"
you nodded.
he pulled back. "how did that.. make you feel.."
you didn't answer for a moment, staring into his eyes, your hands playing in his hair. "uhm... aroused.."
he chuckled softly. "yeah?"
you nodded.
"y/n?"
"yeah?"
"let me show you.. how badly I want to worship you."
the intensity in his voice sent a shiver down your spine. you nodded. "okay.."
with your consent, he kissed you again, much sloppier than the previous times. he squeezed your hips, now guiding you to grind against him... which made it a 10x easier to feel how hard he had grown in the past few minutes.
you gasped softly at the feeling. your own arousal had been growing as well.
his hands moved to the hem of your shirt. he pulled back and slid it up no problem before his lips landed back on yours. you didn't have a bra on.. because why would you need a bra on an 11+ year mission, so his hands slid up to your chest, groping your tit gently. you moaned softly into his mouth.
he pulled back again, tilting his head to kiss your neck yet again. you began to pull up his shirt as well, pulling it over his head as he let you. you instantly moved your hands to his abdomen, feeling the muscle there and dragging your nails down his chest.
with your hips still grinding into his, you couldn't help but whimper. you were incredibly touch starved after all. "ry.. please.." you said, panting softly.
"it's okay sweetheart.. im gonna take care of you." he said, sliding his arm around your waist. "stand up for a second" he said.
you obliged, standing up. he shifted his hips up so he could slid his pants down his thighs. you watched. once he had them slid down enough, he brought his hands to the waist band of your sweats, looking up into your eyes for approval before pushing them down to the floor.
once they were off, he pulled you back onto his lap. instinctively, your hips bucked into his. his bulge was much more prominent now that he only had one layer on. his hips shifted up to meet yours, causing both of you to let out soft noises.
"please.. let me fuck the stress and worry out of you." he said, his hand now in your jaw. "i'll do anything you tell me. whatever you want, baby.. just let me worship you."
you nodded, chest rising and falling quickly. "yes.. fuck yes." you said.
with that, he pushed his boxers down as far as he could. his dick springing free. god he was.. thick. you shivered.
you got off of him reluctantly, but just to slide your panties fully off before sitting right back on him. hovering just above his throbbing length. he held your hips in his hands, looking up at you with pure love and lust.
"tell me if we need to stop, okay?" he said, because of course he would.
you nodded in return and slowly sank down on him.
he let out a groan, which turned you on even more. once he was fully inside, you took a moment to adjust. the stretch burned... but felt so fucking good. his hands slid to your thighs, gripping them as he held himself back from moving.
you took that at your moment to rise back up, leaving just the tip inside before slamming back down on him. he moaned.
after a while of this, you finally set a medium pace, bouncing up and down on him.
"fffuck y/n you feel so good baby.." he groaned into your shoulder.
he pulled back to look at you, only to bring his fingers to your mouth. you opened it, and he pushed his fingers in, pressing then down on your tongue.
"that's it, good.."
he pulled them out with a soft pop noise and snuck his hand between the two of you. circling your swollen clit with a quick pace.
you gasped. "ry- fuck.. oh my god-" you whined. head falling against him. you wrapped your arms around his neck, setting a quicker pace as you felt your pussy clenching around him.
"come on baby.. that's it.." he nodded, bucking into you. "squeeze my dick with that pretty pussy.." he said, his fingers moving relentlessly.
you felt your high coming. whimpers spilt from your lips without your consent.
"ry- I'm gonna cum- I'm so close-" you moaned into his ear.
he huffed at the sound. it drove him insane. "i know, me.. me too.." he nodded, groaning softly.
there was a small silence, only slaps of skin and your heavy breathing for a moment, before you let out a loud moan, nails scrapping against his back as you finally came. legs shaking.
ry didn't stop just yet. he was so close, chasing release now. and it only took a few more seconds before he came as well. and you could feel his hot release inside of you.. so much it was dripping out of you.
the two of you sat in silence for a while until he finally spoke.
"that was.. incredible." he said, kissing your temple.
you nodded. "it was.. thank you.." you said, cuddling into his chest. "we should... probably get up and clean up soon.."
but neither of you made any move to do that.
"no.. just rest here a while." he said, rubbing your back. he then reached over to the big laboratory table, where you had just so happened to leave a blanket on from this morning. he took it and wrapped it around the both of your naked bodies.
and the two of you sat there silently, drifting off to sleep.
⪻────★────⪼
A/N: hello beautiful gorgeous people!!! this is my first phm one shot so lmk what you think!!!! this was only proof read one or two times so if I made any errors, feel free to correct me! (which I'm sure there are lots of grammar errors... i read once and then couldn't find where my spelling errors were the second time I read it😭😭) if you have any ideas or scenarios on what I should post next, don't be afraid to put them in my asks!!! 🙂↕️🤍
a landing page for Sperm Donor Fic, a.k.a. a Ryland Grace/Reader drabble that sprouted legs and became a three-part series. ao3 link here, tumblr links below.
Part 1: Scrambled: You fell head over heels for Ryland Grace when you were twelve and he was thirteen. You let him break your heart when you were eighteen and he was nineteen (and an asshole). Now you're thirty-four. Now you're single, and determined to stay that way. Now you know better than to expect anything more from him than friendship, and advice, and maybe some sperm while you're at it?
Part 2: Shirred: When he was thirteen, Ryland made you a promise. At nineteen, he fulfilled it. You sort of wished he hadn't. At thirty-four, you've made yourself a promise. You are trying very hard to keep it. You really wish you weren't.
Interlude: Poached: An invitation. A garden. A dozen things he could have done differently.
Part 3: ?
The original drabble/concept: "deciding you're sick of dating and just want to do the single mom thing, except sperm is expensive (and you're slightly terrified at the idea of not knowing the person whose dna you're about to combine with yours) so you ask your longtime friend and crush ryland grace if he'll donate. and instead if saying no he makes a joke about what, with a turkey baster? and you joke back, sure. or the old fashioned way, to which he replies that he's always been a sucker for tradition, and this goes on for a little bit until you realize maybe neither of you is joking anymore."
I made the whole start in the request post by @whosregan, I'm sorry I lost it! I'm so sorry!!!
Content: Lars has always been in love with you, since you two were little kids, and after Bianca, he is pushed to make a hard choice.
TW: 18+, MDNI, a little OOC Lars, Non-con, Dub-con, kidnapping, hunt/prey kink, doll kink, Reader is bisexual, Lars is autistic and I will die on that hill, Mention of home invasion, Post Bianca event, creampie, P in V, Remember that all the readers girls I write can be read as chubby, tall, POC, alternative, etc (I'm done with basic templates), First time for Lars.
A/N: After this, I would accept requests, but I would answer after writing Part 3 of the Goose Dark Family AU. I need to lock the fuck in, fr.
I apologise, but please remember that English is not my first language.
Enjoy!
Bianca was not real.
He is old, he is dying, everyone is dying, and he just recently accepted very harsh truths. He just induced his whole town because he couldn't face them. After Bianca's funeral, the fog was clear behind his eyes.
He is a single, 35 year old man living in a garage.
And he has a doll kink.
Or, that's what the internet affirms he has, after weeks of being on the edge of madness, again, he is finally facing his own issues.
Because no matter how much he now stares into Bianca’s resting place, who is immobile, silent and unreal; the idea of dressing, taking care and grooming a real girl stains his mind. He envied Karin, because it was her and her friends who did all that hard work; but why did he refuse to do it? Was it God telling him no, or was the idea of his desires so disgusting he was ashamed to even dare to open that door?
He tries to distract himself with work, with Gus and Karin, and his baby nephew; it's calming, he adores them, and he has received the love and the appreciation people might envy.
But there is something wrong with him.
But the idea is there, melting his brain completely, not leaving a breathing second for him to create those heavy pictures in his mind.
You came back to his mind after so many years.
You, dressed in pretty dresses, hair fresh and brushed, with velvet bows adorning your satin hair on the back; pictures that drown his common sense and possessed every waking and unconscious second of his life.
So that guides directly to you.
You, the girl who has always been in love with you, since he was a little boy with falling milk teeth and burning admiration in his eyes.
Both have grown together.
From childhood to high school, until adulthood, made you grow bigger wings, and he has to accept forever to carry the burden of his failure.
You work in the bookshop he always likes to go to when he doesn't find anything interesting in the public library.
But he has always been a fucking coward.
Silently, the fire that could burn the entire forest was slowly getting smaller, as he saw your life from afar.
How you took other boys, and even girls… You moved out. He accepted that; he let the girl of his childhood dreams go; maybe by this moment, he could have the chance to have what Gus had with Karin, maybe having two baby daughters by now, if he wasn't… different.
But suddenly, very pleasantly and conveniently, you returned.
You bought a little house close to the forest, a little far from your parents just to live — they all died, you only had an older brother, who he never grew to like. – You got a job, avoided church and ran every morning.
He knows, because he has been watching ever since.
Everything was falling into place, your return was not just a lucky convenience, it was God’s will to make you his!
He entered your house when you worked one time, he wrote down any clothing measurements, shoe sizes, bra cups, what bathroom products you used, so what is he keeping and what he would replace them with something better.
Because he is willing to bring your hair back to life and cheap shampoo with no conditioner, he doubts it, but that's why he took a full summer break for how to be a hairstylist from Karin’s friend; he can’t depend on her, and even when he has a gentle amount of knowledge in women's fashion, hair is another rocket science, a misstep and all can go fall into the pits of hell.
He is devotedly determined to make you his real doll.
Not a doll; everyone would laugh at him or see him as a mentally ill man.
He learned.
He is not that man anymore.
He wants to be a man, a father a husband, like his brother and his father before them, so bad.
He would be forever grateful to Bianca, because he did not just open himself to want something more than just to be a voyeur in life, he wants to take his dreams and make them true, no matter the cost.
Lars has wasted enough time.
He cannot afford to waste more.
He doesn't like shopping for clothes for himself. He doesn't like men's wear. It's boring and dull. Women's clothes are beautiful and so fun! He has enjoyed them since he was such a little boy. Watching women's magazines and looking at the malls; Gus never made him shameful for it, his dad tried, but after he watched him using his mother's clothing, he immediately gave up. He has always been so alien to women's lives. No sisters or relatives. He only had his mum's old clothes to picture what she was like, and nothing else.
But he doesn't look in a weird way.
It is pure admiration.
And obviously, he is heavily aroused by the idea of dressing up some girl.
And that girl is going to be YOU!
He bought everything!
Everything is ready and settled.
He is just going to hunt for his doll.
And that's another big fantasy of his.
Chasing someone in the woods.
Fucking her in the woods.
Filling your tight cunt with every drop inside his balls, over the floor of the woods.
Making you his in the woods.
And that's what he is planning to do, in the plain daylight, at 6am, in a small town, in a foggy Minnesota morning.
It is cold and dark, but lightly visible.
You always say hi to him politely, even when he barely managed to say hello after years and years of mirror training! You have always been so nice and so dumb fucking pretty.
After you passed him on the road, it was time.
He starts following you from behind.
He races his pace as you and him step deeper into the road of the hardwoods.
His cock starts to tingle inside his pants as he follows you.
“Do you want to walk with me, Lars?” You ask him, to dryly stop, he has never spoken to you directly, but it's time to break that.
And stopping their pacing is not going to change the fact that he is going to hunt you down like a wolf to a hare in the woods.
“I want— I want to hunt you in the woods…” He said it the best he could, he was fucking nervous, talking to the love of his life is hard!
“Excuse me?” Lars wants what? “Y-you want… to hunt me, like, what? Like an animal with a gun?”
You want to freak out, but you are hoping he is joking.
Is it so hard when the one saying that batshit words come from a chubby, stuffed animal giant man you have known since you were like five- seven?
“¡No! Absolutely not, I don't like guns! Uhm…” He shakes his head with big shocked eyes and a flush round cheeks. “I-I want to hunt you down, like—like if I want to catch you and fuck you in the ground… kind of hunt,” he explained, he touched his pants, he nervous to death, but he has no other options.
He doesn't like guns, they are too loud.
You were frozen, a stone figurine in the middle of a pond, what can you respond to that?
'Thanks for wanting to fuck me, I haven't had sex in more than a year! How did you know I'm desperate?' or 'How you, Lars Lindstrom, can say those things out loud, the most I had heard you in almost thirty years say was yes or no, and Hi, nothing else! What do you mean you said that you want me, to chase me through the woods and fuck me??’.
“First of all, what the fuck?” You closed your eyes. “Second, why?”.
He cannot give you a sincere answer because he is about to kidnap you, and he is still not ready to confess his entire life infatuation for you, not yet, at least.
Not in words.
He shrugged his shoulders, the only thing that can be heard is the birds singing and the dead leaves crushing under their feet.
“You are joking?” you asked, still, still! Holding onto any kind of hope, he just says something funny or walks away to forget this moment.
Because, the tragedy of all, is that you always liked Lars, at least a little, he has never known a single day of ugliness in his life, but he is too neurodivergent to even notice it.
Or, well, it's that, or he is just too shy.
He shakes his head with blinking eyes, he is alarmingly nervous, you know him well enough, he is restless and somehow impatient.
“If… you catch me, what would you do?” You asked, you can't believe you haven't run away or called him weirdo or something, you heard about the Bianca thing, you didn't witness it, but you have seen the tombstone to confirm it was true.
You can say Lars has something special.
A charisma or a charm, something that made him so loved, cared for, and very protected by the whole town. You cannot explain the phenomenon that happens around him, but you cannot explain what makes him so special, to be this thoughtful and patient with him.
When he is telling you he wants to hunt you down in the woods and fuck you… The idea somehow doesn't disgust you.
“I told you, I would fuck you right there,” he gives you a tight lip smile with apples in his cheeks, sweet crazy motherfucker.
“Ok… and what would you do after?” A ride home? A pat on the back? He would pay you money or something? You are walking in the middle of a forest park, the idea of feeling like a sex worker is not that far to come true!
“I will take you home with me.”
“For what?”
“Take care of you, of course.”
“Like an aftercare?” This is a small, traditional town, you doubt he would know what aftercare really means.
“Yeah,” he simply answered, OK, awesome, should you start running or are we going to warm up first?
You sigh.
“Cool,” you said, making both of you stare in silence.
“I will give you thirty seconds of advantage,” he said, looking at his watch.
“What happens if you don't catch me? And when do you start counting?” you asked, immensely anxious.
“I will come back tomorrow to try again, and I'm counting by now, you still have twenty seconds.” You cried a worried squeak before you start running, not as fast as you need to be.
But you didn't take it seriously until you heard the hard and heavy stomps from behind.
He is still wearing those heavy leather boots he got almost fifteen years ago, you made the bad choice of looking back just to see him getting closer and closer.
“Fuck! Shit! Shit! Ah!” you shout obscenities, burning the little air your lungs can barely contain, making you slower and slower as he follows you into the deep side of the woods, you try to avoid the roads of branches and fallen trunks that could put you in disadvantage.
But Lars has years of experience and training, you don't need to ask him to know he does, because he is skipping everything on his way, like a deer on steroids. He is a woods ballerina while you were fighting not to fall and break your fucking ankle or hit your head over a tree like a Looney toon.
You didn't even have the chance to grasp into any chance to see hope from afar, is the fucking deep insides of the woods, Lars stumbles on you from behind as you both crash on the floor and he just smashes you in the wet, cold ground, he is fucking heavy as hell; the weight wasn't that bad, you could never dream to carry him or at least try to raise him up to fuck him off.
Your hands grasp on the damp earth and the dead leaves, crawl away, but his heavy body pinned you completely, you growl in desperation.
As he huffed violently, regaining his breath, but also desperate to hold you still, and also… he was pulling down your exercise sweatpants, you felt a cold slap on your ass cheeks.
“Why didn't you have any better fantasies? Why outside in the fucking cold!” you shout as he was huffing violently, taking his already hard cock out.
“I'm sorry, I'm… I'm so sorry,” he moaned, relieved, you felt a fat stretch that burned you, he is insane but he has a fat cock! He never stopped apologising.
“Fuck…!” you shout, still crawling to escape the fullness. Lars just hit rock bottom on your cervix.
Large and thick, lovely, adorable, and handsome, all in one man, why?
Your legs were starting to fail you, but you were cold as fuck, your whole chest and belly are damp, so you are shivering like crazy, and it doesn't help, Lars slow thrusting… It feels so good, your head falls into the ground, denial, then why do you want to moan?
The cold that's invading your chest, belly and arms is a funny, uncomfortable contrast of what you are feeling on your insides, you feel hot, a warm spread of warmth just rising to your head, how long has it been since the last time you did this?
Well… too long, to be enjoying this too much.
His big hands hold the beginning of your hips and waist, making a delicious, possessive grip under his non-stop grinding. You couldn't see his face, but it was obvious he was enjoying it by the exciting whining sounds that he emitted, it was weird to find a man this noisy in sex.
You enjoy it, big time, actually.
There must be something wrong with you, because how can a big, chunky man who weighs almost as much as a standard car and looks like a bear who had a wish to become human, be provoking you great pleasure just by the noise? Well, it is impossible to ignore: he owns big thighs, and maybe that explains the great force of thrust he provokes.
You want to roll over and let him fuck you face to face, maybe kiss him if he lets you, but he was determined, he clunches your jacket, lifting your back a little more, as you hear him peaking a little more on his tone, his orgasm was falling rapidly with you, because you didn't know in a million years you would be into this.
When the floor got damped with your coming and excessively shivering legs, you knew you were officially fucked up forever. Lars was still rutting inside you, he hasn't let you go for a second, you are deeply wondering how the fuck are you going to walk back at home, so dirty and damped.
The cum dripping outside your hole was a weird sensation in the freezing air, something primal in your mind just got a sparkle of enjoyment from it.
Just when you thought he was finally letting you go, he pulls up your underwear and your sweatpants, and he just casually lifts you off the floor to hang you on his shoulder like if you were a lost sheep.
Somehow, you were grateful he is doing this, because your body ached by the cold and… everything. You didn't give him your home address, and still he knew exactly where you live and he knew the door was open, how?
“You shouldn't leave your house door open all the time, strangers might get in,” he said as a matter of fact, because he already has done that and he didn't like to know you are so careless.
“Who is going to get in, anyway?” Him.
…
Lars leaves you on a chair next to the bathtub while he prepares the shower. The promised aftercare. He washes your hair with products he hid in your bathroom closet.
“I have never bought these,” you point out at the hair products, while Lars keeps scrubbing deliciously on your scalp.
You might start kicking your leg like a dog.
“No, I did,” he said softly, rinsing the product with the warm water, being careful of your eyes.
“You get inside my house,” that's why… oh, ok, got it.
You made a mental note to barricade your house tomorrow.
“I will bring the rest of the stuff with me later, but right now I need to clean you up,” he clears, bring what? You asked yourself, as he washed your skin with a washcloth, he was meticulous and careful with the passing.
The feeling was sensational, your body is so loose and relaxed, it is concerning.
Because what if he is a serial killer?
But painfully, you know him all his life, you watched how he sobbed every time when science teachers dissected frogs, he couldn't watch frogs getting brutally murdered, and he always had school troubles in science because of it, he didn't got the best grades, but at least the teacher was human enough to let him go.
You know he has been a softie from the moment he was born, because he was sobbing uncontrollably after watching ‘E.T.’ in class.
That hunt in the woods was actually the most violent thing you have ever seen in his life.
And it wasn't that bad, in your opinion.
Living in big cities has taught you enough.
He helped you dry, brushed your hair, he dried it, he put in more hair products that made your hair feel expensive and smell delicious.
“I can dress myself, thanks…” you said to him, still holding the towel, he didn't say anything, he just stared at you, highly determined you will let him dress you.
He didn't resign.
You gave a faint sigh as you left the towel on the chair and let the pretty underwear be on.
You didn't thought much on the fact that he saw you naked, he already left his sperm inside you and leave him inside your house.
Socks and a mid-thigh white cotton nightdress. you didn't recognise anything he was putting on you, where the hell is he taking all this stuff? God only knows, but apparently, he has been planting stuff in your own fucking house for God only knows for how long.
He made you stand before your bedroom mirror, and you looked like a doll.
You have a trillion questions he wasn't going to answer, he gave you the prettiest baby blue cardigan to cover, it was so soft, and it smells like him and vanilla clothing softener.
“You must be hungry,” in fact, you were.
He didn't pop up anything else from nowhere, he used what you had on your fridge, and the white sauce chicken pasta was absolutely insane.
He ate too, he was dirty too.
“You can shower if you want,” you said after finishing the food, you would lick the plate, but you can highly guess he would be mad if you stained the pretty clothes he just… induced you to wear, how does he do it? Why are you so OK with any of it?
Well, his demands are not violent, ugly, or unpleasant.
“Oh no, I cannot shower in my doll house, I will shower at home, but thank you,” he said, taking the plates to wash.
“What doll house?” you asked him, totally forgetting Lars is the same man who, at least an hour ago, he tackled you in the woods.
He turned around, still washing the dishes, you should be helping, but you feel very little in doing so.
His expression was one of deep surprise, and almost like if you were asking why the sky is blue, or why we keep using capitalism when it doesn't work.
“Your house, dummy, you are my doll,” he said with a tight lip smile, his usual normal smile.
It would be foolish trying to speak with common sense, but you have to start taking different directions towards your questions because, so far, you have been fruitless.
“But in the woods, you said you would only do aftercare,” you point, he hasn't finished with the dishes, that's why he hasn't faced you yet.
“Yeah, but I will give you constant aftercare after that. I will take care of you, because you are my doll,” he overexplained.
“So, you have a thing for dolls, I thought your relationship with Bianca was pure, as what people said, did you fuck her in the woods too?” He catches your stare so quickly he almost drops a dish.
He was so scandalized by the accusation.
“We never did anything, I kissed her the moment she died…” He said hissing a sting of pain stabbing his chest. “I have never had sex before, or with Bianca.”
It was weird, he was so poignant about it, Bianca was a sex doll after all, that was her whole purpose.
Wait, the fuck!
“Lars, what we had in the woods was your… first time?” He nods slowly, hiding his eyes on the floor as he blinks a trillion times, red as the mug he was holding.
“Oh my fucking god…” You sink your hands on your face, you don't know what to do with that information.
Why would he want to have his first time like that?
Why you?
And why was he so good at sex already?
“OK, bedtime!” he announced when the kitchen was pristine.
He let you wash your teeth alone. You are not a dog, and just that analogy would win you the privilege of letting you do it yourself.
You were getting inside bed alone, until you heard hard clicks in the bathroom. He came out with a large line of chains on his hand, and he just grabbed your ankle and…
“Lars, why are you chaining me in my house?” You are exhausted, to keep making questions, Lars looks like he is shining inside out.
He accommodates the sheets and the comfy cushions.
“Well, I need to go to work, and I would need to change the door locks and prepare your windows so you don't hurt yourself. Don't worry, I would let you go outside, but right now is a prevention.” You were collar up, covered and suffering in nonestop nonsense.
“Prevention from what?” He sits beside your bed, he looks truly… happy? He could light fireworks with his eyes.
“I would need to prevent you from flying away from me, when you accept to stay with me as a doll, you can go back to work and everything, oh! I'm dying to see you walk around with such pretty clothes!” OK, why are you blushing? You are so exhausted, this day is so fucking weird!!!
“OK, would you come back tomorrow?” You literally depend on it, or else you will die.
He nods, leaving a soft kiss on your lips and calling a good night, you hear him outside, the click of your door keys, the heavy steps, the engine of his car… Wait, he parked in front of your house?
You literally have the survival instincts of a hamster.
This was so fun!
I don't think this can be told in one post, I would make a second post about this, just like the Dark Ken with the Monster High doll.
REMEMBER I'M STILL OPEN TO REQUESTS AND READ YOUR THOUGHTS, LITERALLY ANYTHING, I ADORE ANYTHING YOU SEND ME, REALLY!
STAY FREAKY, POOKIES!
Reader at the end of her day, just so fucking DONE with Lars continuous unstopped bullshit:
So this is VERY self-indulgent because I have ms and I know he'd be so good to me ugh
Pairing: Lars Lindstrom x fem!Reader
Summary: Because of your chronic illness, you usually hang out at your aunt Dagmars office, where you meet Lars- and you bond through your sicknesses.
Wordcount: 6.3k
Warnings/tags: Plot with porn, smut, friends to lovers, mentions of blood/needles/medications, Reader has multiple sclerosis, LATRG SPOILERS!, canon character death, Praise kink, hand jobs, oral sex, pussy eating, penis in vagina sex, riding, multiple orgasms, unsafe sex, creampies, crying, subby!Lars, english is not my first language, not proof read
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
You sat curled up in a plush armchair in the corner of your aunt Dagmars office, a thick medical journal you had stolen from her shelves open on your lap, even though you weren't really reading it anyway. You drew little doodles onto the pages instead.
The afternoon sun dimmed by the winter time filtered through the blinds, casting stripes of cool, golden light across the floor, and you were halfway through the fog of fatigue that always seemed to settle over you like a heavy blanket, no matter how much you slept. Boredom only made it worse, but when your aunt suddenly ran tests on a silicone doll, it seemed like today would be a bit more interesting than usual.
You watched her sit in the examination room next door, scribbling something into a notebook while the doll laid on the recliner to rest.
She had told you about a young man named Lars, who's girlfriend was a doll he believed to be a real girl because of a delusion. If you ever met him, you were supposed to play along. No problem, you had encountered weirder things in the hospitals and doctors offices that might as well be your second home by now.
So when the door opened and a timid, soft voice kissed your ears, you instinctively sat up straighter.
"I just couldn't wait any longer. I wanted to see how she was doing" you heard him speak, guessing that this was the young man you heard so much about. You couldn't see him yet from where he was sitting, but you saw your aunt Dagmar turn to the door "Well, after the treatment, she has to rest. It doesn't work without the resting." she explained to him gently.
Before he could turn to leave with his head held low, Dagmar stopped him "Lars, keep me company" she said and gestured to the adjacent room. The silence stretched until a man appeared in your aunts office, unsure if he was even supposed to be in this space.
He awkwardly fiddled with his fingers before removing his gloves and stuffing them into the pockets of his thick jacket, which he put up on a clothing hanger alongside his navy blue hat. Only then did you truly see his face. He was cute with his rounded face and his cheeks like red apples from the cold, his mouth pulled into a tight line beneath his mustache.
It didn’t seem like he had noticed you sitting in the other corner, too caught up in blinking harshly and wrestling with his hands. He had very...big hands.
Your aunt went to lean against her desk, fishing out a PB&J sandwhich you had made her this morning, biting into it while asking Lars a few questions, her voice taking on that probing but soft tone she used when she was trying to dig deeper than the surface without the patient noticing. It seemed to be working on Lars, you noted as you watched over the top of your book, keeping quiet in your dark corner.
After a few mundane questions that took Lars a few moments to asnwer, you brought your attention back to the medical journal, listening with only one ear.
"So tell me about Karin. I don't know her very well." Dagmar said, brushing a strand of blonde hair behind her ear as she took her next bite. You had no idea who Karin was, but she seemed to be a close relative for Lars, one which he described as wonderful.
"But she...I'm worried about her." he finally pressed out after mulling over it for a bit, not knowing if he was even allowed to voice his concerns like this. Dagmar looked up, waiting for him to continue.
He shook his head a little "I think she has a little problem. It's just...and I think it's cause she's insecure- but she's just always trying to hug everybody." he explained with a shocked expression. It was adorable, honestly. And relatable, in a way. You also weren't in the mood to be hugged in certain situations, by certain people.
"You know, some people don't like that. Some people don't like to be hugged." he stated firmly, and it sounded like he had his fair share of bad experiences through involuntary hugging. "But she doesn't realize that, she takes it personally and thinks...you know, it hurts her feelings. I don't know what to do about that. Do you?" he sighed as he was finally done rambling, looking to Dagmar for help, as if she could will Karin to stop this with her mind alone.
Your aunt shrugged softly "But it's such a comfort sometimes just to have somebody's arms around you. Don't you think?" she muttered between chewing on her bread. Lars instantly went to shake his head, his eyes growing wide "No" as if the possibility of a hug feeling nice was the most perverse thing he had ever heard.
Dagmar waved her hand dismissively "Come on, it feels good"
Lars couldn’t stop shaking his head as if this whole thing was absurd "It does not feel good, it hurts." when he said that, you perked up, watching him more closely. Some kind of touch aversion perhaps? Or was it smiliar to your own illness...?
"Excuse me for a moment, Lars. I'll be right back" Dagmar said, put some keys into her pocket and exited her office. There was probably already an idea brewing in her head on how to help Lars, she just had to gather the right equipment for tests.
Lars seemed to deflate as she left, feeling even more out of place in this room.
You closed your book a little louder than intended and Lars practically jumped up, finally noticing that you were in the room, too. He looked horrified, to say the least.
"Sorry! I didn't mean to scare you" you apologized kindly, shifting forward in the armchair until your feet touched the ground. Lars looked at you like you were a creature out of this world "How...how long have you been there?" he asked in almost a whisper, wrestling with his hands, his head turning to the door every few seconds as if Dagmar would come to save him.
You smiled softly at that "Haven't left this seat all morning" you yawned, finally standing up to stretch your legs out. You were wearing shorts that ended above your knees, not because it was so warm in Dagmars office, but for practical reasons. Lars eyes followed you as you walked over to a bag on Dagmars desk, pulling out a disinfectant spray and a white box containing a pen.
"So, when you say touch hurts...is it like a bruise? Burning, maybe needle pricks?" you turned back to him, leaning against the desk and pulling up the hem of your right pant leg, just a few inches, enough to bare the meat of your upper thigh. Lars' gaze dropped immediately, his cheeks flushing a deep, painful looking pink in embarrassement, like he was forbidden to see this much skin.
It took him a moment to answer you, carefully watching you spray your thigh with the disinfectant, waving your hand to make it dry quicker. "Like a burn" he nodded, eyes trying to stay glued to the floor, but eventually giving in to watch what you were doing. "Like when you go outside and you feet freeze and then you come back in and they thaw out? It's like that. It's almost exactly like that."
You nodded slowly, letting his description settle into your understanding as you twisted off the cap of the pen, throwing it into the bin near you. “That's awful. I know how that feels like. My feet like to burn like this when they are nice and warm and I'm ready for bed so I can't sleep" you giggled, joking about it as if this didn't bring you to tears late at night when all you wanted was to fall asleep. "And when my skin goes numb, I can't feel warmth or coldness. It just stings when I touch it" you muttered, holding the pen near the light and squinting at it to make sure the liquid in the little vile inside was clear and not cloudy or any other weird colour, before positioning the pen on your thigh.
Your words clearly sat deep in Lars' chest, and his brows furrowed in thought. "What are you doing?" he asked then, unsure if it was even appropriate to ask that.
You looked up at him "Oh, uhm, that's my medication. I'm chronically ill, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when I was 17. I gotta take this monthly"
Click
That was the only sound as you pushed the pen firmly against your side, the needle puncturing your skin, your medication being disposed into your thigh. You didn’t flinch. You held his eyes the entire time, smiling gently at his sad expression, as if to tell him he didn't have to feel bad about it. "I hate needles, but I think the alternative is worse" you shrugged.
Click
The second click told you that the dose had been delivered, and you withdrew the pen, a tiny bead of blood welling up on your thigh. You wiped it away with a cotton pad and disposed the empty pen in the bin.
Lars made a small, choked sound and his hand twitched on his knee as if he wanted to comfort you, but didn't know how. Not that he would have mustered up the courage for it anyway.
“It’s okay” you whispered, and you saw the tears gathering in his eyes. "I've been doing this since I'm 18. I'm used to it, honestly". All you got was a tight smile and a harsh blink from him, nodding to you. Right, you got used to the pain to not make anyone uncomfortable around you, even if it meant you had to be uncomfortable yourself. That's what he had done over the years, too.
You didn't know that this moment would turn your life around, in a positive way, a beautiful friendship blooming between you. You understood each other without uttering a single word. It started with you understanding his pain because you lived with your own, and with him seeing that understanding in your eyes and believing it.
☆
Weeks turned into months, and you found reasons to be at the clinic when Dagmar told you Lars had an appointment, even though you really didn't have to be there.
But Bianca was always there, of course she was, she was the one getting treated after all, sitting patient and beautiful in her wheelchair, and Lars would wheel her into the examination room with such tenderness, such care, that it made your chest ache. He was very devoted to Bianca, which was beautiful, but sometimes you wished he'd look at you that way. Though you noticed his eyes found you across the waiting room more frequently, and you even started to meet at his place, then yours.
More and more, he lingered after Bianca’s treatment was done, finding excuses to stay and to talk to you, even with Dagmar probing him with questions of her own in the meantime.
On your bad days, when the fatigue pressed down on you like a physical weight and your legs felt like they were made of concrete, Lars would come over to your apartment and just be. He would sit on your couch, hands folded in his lap, and talk to you in that soft, halting voice about the weather, about the baby that was on the way for his brother, about the wood he chopped and that you should watch him once you felt better, he was pretty good at it.
He never demanded anything from you on those days, not that he was demanding by nature anyway. He never asked you to get up, to do anything, to be anything other than what you were in that moment. He brought you tea and set it on the coffee table within your reach, and he stayed until the sun went down. And when he couldn't because of work, he left Bianca with you to keep you company.
And on your good days, you respected his prefered distance as well, though you were prone to test his boundaries from time time with gentle and patient persistence. Just like he was gentle and patient with you. You'd brush your fingers against his when you handed him something, your shoulders barely pressed to his on the couch while you watched a movie. Each time you watched him tense, watched him breathe through it, to eventually watching him stay with you touching him instead of pulling away.
You wouldn't forget the first time he actually held your hand on his own accord without you asking or making him do it.
Dagmar had called you in to get your blood drawn, and while you had done this a million times already, it still made you squeamish. You sat upright in your chair, grimacing as the tourniquet was pulled tight around your biceps, feeling your heartbeat down the veins of your arm. You looked away when Dagmar tapped and pushed at your veins to find a good one, nearly flinching as she sprayed the cool infectant onto your skin.
And Lars, who had accompanied you because you had asked him to, reached out and took your hand in his.
His palm was warm and sweaty, his grip uncertain. His fingers trembled against yours. But he held on, and he squeezed when the needle went in. You were so shocked he actually held your hand that you barely felt the prick, only looking over at Lars so you didn't have to see the needle stuck in your arm nor the vials in Dagmars hands filling up with your blood. Instead you could admire his beautiful blue eyes, even though he couldn't bear to look at you more than five seconds at a time.
When it was over he didn’t let go immediately. He held your hand for an extra ten seconds, his eyes fixed on the floor, as if ashamed he had done this without asking first. It had been a long time since someone held your hand or comforted you while getting your blood drawn. You were mostly just ridiculed by most nurses or doctors, telling you that you were an adult and there were way worse things than this and you shouldn’t act so childish- just a few seconds before you passed out in their chair because they wouldn't listen to your fears.
“Thank you” you said truthfully, sighing in relief as Dagmar loosened the tourniquet around your arm, and Lars helped to press a cotton swap where you had been pricked with the needle, while your aunt searched for a band aid.
“It didn’t burn” he whispered then, the excitement evident in his expression as he gave you one of his cute smiles that you loved. You mimicked it. “Your hand, it didn’t burn” he muttered it as if he couldn't quite believe it. Only Biancas touch had been fine for him until now, but yours was strangely pleasent as well.
From then on, touch became more frequent. A hand on his arm. Your head resting on his shoulder. Your fingers laced through his as you walked through the park, slow and careful because your legs got tired and his world had been turned upside down by a woman who wasn’t quite real and a woman who was.
Dagmar told you, during one of your own check ups, that Lars had spoken to her privately. That he had said that he didn’t feel uncomfortable when he touched you. That he wanted to touch you. That he was afraid of the wanting, afraid of how much he craved it.
“He’s in love with you" your aunt said, and you had to look away to hide the tears pricking at your eyes, especially when she looked at you with that knowing smile.
You shook your head "He has Bianca. He could never cheat on Bianca or leave her behind like that, and I-" you started to ramble, but Dagmar put a warm hand to your shoulder "I think he's starting to not need Bianca anymore, because he has you. You just need to give him another gentle push"
You didn't know if you could believe her, but god did you want to.
☆
Not long after, you had to attend Biancas funeral. You sat with Lars through the whole thing, holding his hand, gently shushing his cries. You tried your best to comfort him without overwhelming him with too much touch at once.
The weeks blurred together after that, and the small, quiet town seemed even quieter than usual.
No one spoke to Lars about Bianca, only looked at him with pity in their faces, though he didn't feel sorry for himself. He didn't want to, he just wanted everyone to treat him like a normal person. Like there wasn't anything special about him just because his girlfriend died. He didn't even know if he could call her that now- it was like he had been awoken from a dream now, his brain still foggy, though you knew Bianca would always hold a special place in his heart, and you loved that for him.
Still, you didn't want to leave him alone just yet, so you asked him to stay over at your place for a few days- or as long as he liked.
You woke up when Lars had already wen't to work. It felt weirdly domestic, like you were a wife waiting for her husband to return from work to love on him. You smiled to yourself at that, shaking your head.
You didn't know what this was between you and Lars, you hadn't put a name to it other than friendship, but asking the townsfolk they'd scream in your faces that you were anything but just friends. You shook your head to get those thoughts out of your mind. He had just lost his girlfriend recently, he couldn't possibly jump into the next relationship right away. Lars wasn't like that.
As long as your energy let you, you tackled the mess in your apartment after letting clothes and dishes pile up through attacks of fatigue and depression, cleaning everything as best as you could.
It wasn't perfect, but at least you had done something productive today, which automatically made you feel better. You hummed proudly in your kitchen, stirring the hearty tomato sauce after adding the seared and juicy meatballs you had prepared before. You graded fresh parmesan into the rich sauce and broke some basil leaves over the pot.
As the pasta boiled and the garlic bread roasted in the oven, you already went to set the dinner table for Lars' return. Wow, okay, yeah this does look...a bit too romantic, maybe. But you wouldn't back out now.
You passed your calendar as you went to the fridge to retrieve some chilled wine, your eyes falling onto todays date, which was circled red. Oh, right. Your medication.
As you got the bottle of wine out, you searched the fridge for your medication pen and to your shook- you found none. Shit! You thought you still had one left! You went to look at the clock, realising that the only pharmacy in town had already closed down thirty minutes ago.
You groaned, holding your head in your hands. Now you could only hope your aunt was still in her office and still had some pens for you in the supply closet, though you really hadn't planned to go out today at all. With a heavy sigh, you changed your pyjama pants for actual pants and were just about to throw your jacket over your shoulders and get the car keys hanging near the door, when there sounded a knock.
Lars stood on your doorstep in his cute, thick jacket, baby blue blanket and warm hat that framed his rounded face so adorably, snowflakes melting on his mustache.
"Oh, hi Lars! You're here early..." you muttered, brushing a strand of hair over your ear "I made spaghetti with meatballs, you can already eat if you want. I gotta ask my aunt if she has my medication ready-" you said and already went to brush past him, but he held a white plastic bag into your face.
He blinked harshly before he spoke "I have your medication" he stated simply, waiting for you to take the bag from him. When it took too long, he practically shoved it into your hands. As you peeked inside, there were three boxes, three months worth of your medication.
He swung his hands by his sides, rocking a little back and forth on his heel. "How did you know?" you breathed, an unbelieving smile stretching across your lips. "You said you had to take it today a few days ago, and I saw it in your calendar" he explained, looking down to his feet "I saw you ran out this morning, so I asked Dagmar if she could give me some for you so you wouldn't have to go out today"
You stood there in your doorway, the bag cradled in your arms, and you looked at this man- this shy, awkward and beautiful man who had been so terrified of growning closer to you at the start, now remembering your schedule and getting your medication so you didn't have to leave the house when you already felt tired. You felt something crack open inside you.
“Lars” you breathed, and your voice came out thick and wet, and you couldn't hide your smile.
He was fidgeting, shifting from foot to foot, his eyes darting everywhere except your face. "Thank you so much, that means more than you know" you confess, and wrap your hands around his gloved ones to pull him into the warmth of your apartment.
You set the bag down on the entry table, fishing out one long package “Will you help me inject it?” you asked softly, not knowing why you did it. You hadn't even thought of an excuse as to why you couldn't do it yourself, but maybe you also didn't want to excuse it. You just wanted him to do it.
His eyes flew open and he shook his head as he took his knitted hat off “I, no, I can't...I’ve never, what if I do it wrong? I don't want to hurt you" he muttered while hanging his thick jacket away, which only did so much to make him appear less cuddly, the remaining layers of his button up and sweater making him look so warm and home-y.
“You won’t” you assured him, taking the pen out of it's case “I’ll talk you through it. I trust you, Lars.”
It took him three minutes of mulling over it to agree. Ever since knowing you, he learned a lot more about the chronic disease that you had. His boss even caught him at work browsing through internet forums to understand the illness better instead of asnwering emails. He was aware how cruel it could be and he didn't want to cause you any more harm. But he also didn't want you to get even sicker.
You led him into your living room, sat down on the couch with him, and pulled off your pants all the way. He reacted the same way all these months ago seeing your thigh the first time after you met. How adorable.
You prepped your leg with the disinfectant and gave him the pen, pushing your knee between his legs. It felt like the startest thing to do accecable wise, but Lars blushed at the contact. But you didn't let him dwell on it.
“Just twist it open" you instructed, twisting your own hands in front of you to show him how it was done. He did so quickly, looking up at you for the next step. "Very good! Now we gotta check the medication. Is it cloudy?" you asked then and he squinted at the small window in the pen, shaking his head no. "Are there clumps inside?" another headshake. "Is it blue, green, yellow or another fun colour?" okay, now you were messing with him, he could tell by your teasing smile. He couldn't help but mimick you, but still shaking his head.
"That's great! If that was ever the case, we gotta throw that pen right out" you explained, and his expression locked in as he nodded firmly, as if he had saved this information under very, VERY important in his brain.
You giggled "Okay, then it's time for the real fun. Just put the pen against my thigh"
When his hand hovered over your leg, unsure, you wrapped your fingers around his trembling ones and guided him where he needed to be. You could feel his shaking through the pen pressed gently against your skin. "Very good. Now you just press it in harder to inject it" you explained with a little shrug, your hand staying on his wirst to comfort him.
God, his hand was shaking so hard you thought he might drop it entirely. He leaned closer to carefully eye what he was doing. "Uhm...ready?" he asked, looking up to you with those large, round and earnest eyes. You just nodded, wishing to replay this moment in your head all over again. He was just so pretty.
He inhaled deeply before following your instructions, pressing the pen harder to your thigh, his brow furrowed in concentration.
Click
You felt the familiar sting, the deep ache of the needle penetrating muscle as the pressure burned uncomfortably down your leg. You didn't flinch or make a sound other than praising Lars for being so gentle with you. And when the next click sounded, you breathed out the pain you had ignored, prevented him from pulling away too quickly.
“I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry” he apologized quickly as he noticed the discomfort you had hidden during the injection, his hand covering the small, bleeding spot on your thigh with his hand as if he had caused a large wound. To stop his ramblinv, you reached forward and pulled him in for a kiss.
It was gentle and soft, your lips barely brushing his. He made a startled noise against your mouth, his hands frozen in midair, the used pen dangling from his fingers.
“You did so good” you whispered against his lips. “It barely hurt, really. You were so careful, Lars. Thank you so much for helping me"
When you pulled back, you first saw Lars being a blushy mess and averting your eyes. Then your gaze trailed lover and you saw the unmistakable and obvious tent in his trousers, just barely brushing your exposed knee. When he was sure you saw it, his eyes watered and he covered his face with his hands, whimpering softly. Your praise clearly had a very strong effect on him.
You gently pried his hands away from his cheeks “Do you want me to help you?” you whispered, and the question hung in the air between you, delicate and fragile and charged with possibility. You waited, not wanting Lars to think you were just playing with him, waiting for the perfect opportunity to embarass him like this. But deep down he knew you would never do that. That's what he loved about you.
Yeah, he loved you.
He nodded then, a small and jerky motion wgile blinking rapidly and harshly. You took his hand and led him to your bedroom.
You guided him down onto the edge of your bed, your hands moving slow and deliberate, never rushing or pushing his limits without asking. You unbuckled his belt with the same careful attention he had shown you moments ago and drew his pants down his hips with a reverence that made him shiver.
After a lot of coaxing and praising, he even shrugged off his sweater to be left in a thin but long armed shirt as the heat became too much, and he allowed you to push down his briefs.
His cock sprang free, hard and flushed and fucking big, and Lars couldn’t look at you. His eyes were fixed somewhere on the ceiling, his hands fisted in the sheets, his breath coming in shallow and ragged bursts. You on the other hand just couldn't look away. He was...bigger than average and obviously not aware of it in the slightest. Your mouth watered at the sight, and you already knew you'd feel him all the way in your throat if you even got that far today.
“Look at me,” you said softly, and when his gaze finally dropped to yours, you leaned over his weeping cock and spat on it, and the gesture almost killed him. You then wrapped your hand around his length, slick with his precum and spit. He gasped, his body bowing off the bed. His hips bucked involuntarily, and you watched the way his pupils dilated into round pools of black, his mouth falling open.
You stroked him slowly, your thumb circling his head, your grip firm but gentle. You didn't want to overwhelm him, but that was easier said than done. The glide over his dick was easy, and each pass of your hand drew a soft, broken sound from his throat. “You’re so good for me” you murmured, watching his fucked out expression, even though you had barely done anything to him yet “You're so beautiful like this, Lars. God, you're always so pretty. I've dreamed of this" you sighed, your other hand coming up to ghost over his flushed cheek.
“I don’t- I don’t know what to do” he confessed, his voice cracking in a hiccup. You cooed softly at him, corkscrewing your hand every time you reached his tip. He cried out, the air punched from his lungs. “You don’t have to do anything” you assured, your hand rubbing up and down his tensed thigh “Just let me take care of you.”
It didn’t take long for him to burst, not with the way you were stroking him relentlessly. He was so pent up, so starved for touch and connection that he couldn't hold back and you must have been uch a pro at what you were doing because it felt so damn good. So good that he couldn't even feel selfconcious about his severe lack of experience next to yours, though you just liked reading spicy romance books and you used that fact to your advantage.
His hips started thrusting into your fist, his breath coming in desperate little pants, and you watched his face contort with pleasure that almost looked painful. "I'm-! I think I'm...mhmm!”
“Cum for me” you whispered, and he did so instantly with a broken cry that sounded like your name. Hot stripes of cum painted his belly where his shirt had ridden up from his thrashing, and you stroked him through it, genty bringing him back down to earth with murmured praise.
He laid there, his chest heaving and staring up at you with an expression of dazed wonder. With newly found courage, he sat up to push you down against the bed, though it was anything but forceful and demanding.
“I want to...c-can I...taste you?” he asked timidly, the shyness was still there, but layered over it was something new. Something hungry you had just awoken “Please. I want to make you feel good too.” he whispered, his eyes clenching shut in fear of rejection.
You nodded quickly and eagerly, settling down against the pillows with gidiness rising up in you chest.
He slipped down your body and pressed a kiss to the inside of your knee, then another, moving higher inch by agonizing inch. When he reached the spot where he had injected the medication, he paused. It was very small, just a red dot with light bruising forming around it, but his chest squeezed anyway. He pressed his lips to the tiny puncture wound, kissing it like an apology.
“I’m sorry you have to do this” he muttered against your skin, his mustache scratchy. “I’m sorry you’re sick. I wish you didn’t have to hurt all the time”
You smiled down at him, brushing your hand through his thick hair “You make it better,” you whispered, and you meant it with your whole heart. He took his time then. Not only because he was insecure about his technique, but also because you deserved to be taken care of throughouly.
Lars kissed your thighs until you were squirming, until you were gripping his hair and pleading, and when he finally pushed your panties down and connected his mouth to your pussy, you cried out.
He licked you like he was worshiping an altar in the local church, slow and deep and deliberate, listening to every sound you made. He hoped your lustful moans meant he was doing good, as he had no idea what the hell he was doing, but his eagerness made up for it.
He found your clit with an instinct that surprised you both, and he circled it with his tongue until your legs were shaking around his shoulders and you were arching off the bed and gasping his name. You tasted even better than he could have ever imagined, and your hands pulling his hair made him mewl pathetically into your pussy, slurping you up.
When you came, he drank it down like a man dying of thirst, and when he finally came up for air, his chin and mustache were slick and his eyes were bright like he had found his new favourite activity, his smile the most beautiful thing you had ever seen.
“Was that okay?” he asked, and you laughed, tugged him up by the collar, kissing him with the taste of yourself on his lips. “More than okay” you smiled breathlessly.
Soon you had worked up your way into his lap, his cock standing proudly between your stomachs. You cursed under your breath as you saw just how much he'd fill you, guiding him to your entrance with trembling fingers. Luckily, Lars' hands were just as big, and a comforting weight on your hips.
He yelled into your neck as his swollen head slipped between your velvet like lips and you gasped at the stretch.
You circled your hips to take him deeper, one inch at a time, groaning through it "God Lars, you're so big!" you sighed, clinging to his broad shoulders. "Is that...a bad thing? Am I h-hurting you?" he whined, the unfamiliar tightness around him making his head spin.
You shook your head violently "No, no, fuck no, this is so good. You feel so good" you moaned, the air being punched out of your lungs when you bottomed out in his lap and the bumped into your cervix.
You both panted, clinging to each other with furrowed brows as you got used to the sensations. Lars forced his eyes to look at you, tears already gathering at the corners. “You’re so beautiful” he whispered in absolute awe “You’re so good to me" he almost sobbed, like he didn't deserve all this tenderness. You shushed him gently with a kiss, before you lifted yourself up before falling back down, rocking back and forth on his cock in a slow rhythm.
Lars buried his face in your neck, and you quickly felt your shoulder growing wet “You feel so good” he slurred against you, high and needy. You wrapped your hand around his neck to keep him there, kissing his ear to soothe him. 'F-faster, please"
You granted his wish, bouncing faster ans harder in his lap, to which you felt him throb heavily in your core, your eyes fluttering shut in pleasure. He was hitting all the right spots, just his strong thumb was missing on your clit. Your hand found his and you guided him to the swollen nub, and he instantly knew what to do. He rubbed your clit in thight circles with the last bit of function he had left in his brain and you moaned right in his ear, making him shudder.
You began to tighten around me, which was what undid him in the end and you felt him swell inside you, the heat building. “I’m going to...cum!" he gasped, barely pressing out the word cum “I can’t hold it-”
You hugged yourself tightly to him, rocking yourself into the motions of his thumb “Cum with me, baby. Cum inside me” you gasped, your orgasm approaching fast “Fill me up, Lars. I want to be so full of you"
He came with your name on his lips, a broken, desperate sound that was equal parts pleasure and relief. His hips surged up to fill you deep, grinding against you as he spilled himself into you as your cunt fluttered around him. You held him through it, stroked his back, kissed his damp temple and whispered how good he was, how perfect he did for you, how much you loved him.
After you cleaned up, he laid curled against your side, his head resting on your chest, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on your hip. He was quiet for a long time, and when he finally spoke, his voice was thick with emotion. “I’ve never had this” he admitted “I’ve never had someone touch me and have it feel good. I’ve never wanted to be touched...until you. You're...you're not going to leave me, are you?"
His question sounded so small, so sad, your heart gave a tight squeeze in your chest.You pressed a kiss to the top of his head, burying your nose in his hair, breathing in the scent of him. “I'm not going to leave" you promised “I’m yours, Lars. For as long as you want me.”
He tilted his head up, his eyes meeting yours, and there was something raw and open in his gaze. Something that looked a lot like hope.
“For always” he whispered.
“I want you for always.”
★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★
Thank you so much @ken-dom for inspiring me to write for Lars! Please check out their work, it's amazing!
I really hope you guys liked it, even though the situation is very specific. Maybe some of you can relate, and if not- maybe you learned a bit more about multiple sclerosis and one possibility to treat it (yes i have to use such a pen every month!)
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“I’m patient, you’re learning. Pretend it’s not hurting” ♪♫✮༄˖°.‧
parts: part 2, part 3
summary: life with Lars has been nothing but bliss, but eventually a mindless touch becomes the tipping point for him.
warnings: break up, panic attack, upset!Lars and reader, snoopy old ladies.
note: i was listening to begged and had this idea and it’s been on my mind ever since! This will be the sad part, and part two will have a happy ending I promise! very excited to write this as Lars is everything to me. if you want to be tagged in part two just let me know :)
taglist: @djolivia
It started when the old ladies at church, the ones who wore floral cardigans and ballet flats, started to gossip.
They’d huddle together on the pews, Janet throwing the occasional paranoid glance over her shoulder to ensure neither of you were listening in.
“That Lars boy and his girl? They don’t touch much you know.”
“Sure… I did notice. But you know how he is.”
“Ladies won’t wait forever Doris, god bless that woman.”
Janet glanced back, seeing you two sat close as you could without touching, Lars smiling softly at you with doe eyes while you ranted on about a new obsession or your daily activities
“They seem happy, it’s fine.”
Lars wasn’t a toucher, everyone knew that. Certainly you. The way he’d unravel at the burning sensation even the slightest touch would bring.
You didn’t mind, not really.
Lars was attentive in ways others weren’t.
He’d listen and remember even the smallest of details, whether it was a gift you mentioned in passing or a favourite movie. He’d help you out when you didn’t even ask, whether it was fixing something broken or replacing a daily necessity. And he’d always put you first, whether it was holding the door or making plans, even always serving you first at dinner.
He was an absolute angel, so everything else outweighed his touch aversion, but after a while, you really struggled. Having always been a touchy person, being physically distant from your own partner really hit you. He’d said many times he was trying and learning and working on it- but was he? The most you’d ever been touched by him was a rare kiss on the head or hand hold, but he always knew it wouldn’t be enough.
Eventually, as you learnt more you began to understand him better.
How to feels, mentally and physically, to be touched. How it affects him, the nights he’s spent sobbing quietly into his pillow in pure loathing of his touch aversion.
You loved Lars, every fibre of your being was pulled towards him like your body was compass and its only job was to get to him. You knew he was your person, your rock.
All of the nights spent near but not touching began to mean more, and you learnt to wait. To be patient for the day he would finally loosen up. And you were okay with that, it hurt, but you would wait.
It all came crashing down one night - the night of your two year anniversary.
Lars had poured his heart into cooking you two a candle lit dinner, chicken a bit too crispy and a fire alarm having gone off twice, but it was perfect. You both ate in his tiny kitchen, talking about a new interest or something that happened at work.
Once dinner was done, you and Lars washed the dishes in happy silence. It was one of your favourite things to do with him, it felt warm and domestic, giving you a taste of how it would feel to grow old and live with the man you love. It was also an excuse you brush your fingertips against his when passing plates or cups.
Afterwards, the two of you sat on the couch, the cushions moulded around your body, as you watch shitty reruns deep into the night. The seat creaked as you shuffled towards him, desperately trying to get him to initiate contact.
Lars was wearing your favourite sweater of his, the one with the little reindeers on it, and his usual under layers, so thinking it was fine, you rested your head on his shoulder, a new point of contact.
The second your head settled onto his firm shoulder, he yelped, jumping up like a frightened puppy. You immediately shuffle back, creating distance between you and your other half.
“Lars? Im so sorry! Are you okay?” Panicking, you dart up from the couch and stand infront of him. His usually gentle doe eyes were clenched hard in overwhelm, and he buried his face in his hands. Chest rising and falling rapidly, he drags his hands through his hair and begins to pace, the floorboards creaking under his restless footsteps.
“Oh Lars please im so- im sorry…” you manage to whisper out, taking a step back to give him space.
“I can’t even touch my girlfriend.”
Your brows furrow in worry.
“What? Lars it’s okay, c’mon let-“
“No. No no no- I- I can’t even-“ sensing a panic attack coming along, you usher him to the sofa without touching him. It was times like these that made your heart ache. Seeing him in so much distress really upset you, but Dagmar and Karin had taught you what to do in this situation.
“Head between your knees baby, remember what Dagmar says?” You encourage, placing a warm hand on the middle of his back, something you knew helped ground him.
Taking deep shuddering breaths, he continues to mutter quietly.
“I’m so sorry. I-I can’t- I can’t do it. I can’t do it.”
The pure emotion in his voice is too much for you, leading to the both of you sat on the couch with teary eyes.
“Lars stop that please…”
Once he calms down as much as he can, he sits up, chin in his palm as he averts his wet gaze from yours. His normally perfectly gelled hair is messy, strands flying away and falling in front of his painfully beautiful face.
“You don’t deserve this.”
Confusion bubbles in your blood like a boiling kettle of worry. Lars gets upset sometimes, overwhelmed at life, but he never says things like this.
“What?…”
“I’m not good for you.” The gentleness of which he uttered your name shattered your heart. You knew what he meant, what this was leading to you. You felt it like impending doom. “You should go. We-we shouldn’t do this anymore.”
“No. No-no I’m not going. Don’t be silly Lars it’s fine.”
Lars simply shakes his head and gets up.
“I’m going to chop wood.”
And with that, he grabs his coat, fumbling with the zipper as he pulls it up, pulls on his gloves, the ones you got him for his birthday, and leaves.
Autumn leaves crunch under his feet as he travels further from the house. Further from his other half.
And then it’s just you.
Left alone on your… on Lars’ couch with a wet face and a broken heart.
Clearing your throat, you shakily grab your bag, gently pulling out Lars’ sacred blue blanket. He’d lended it to you the week before when you mentioned how much you miss him in the night. You fold it with immaculate care and place it on his bed.
It felt like taking off a wedding band.
With a kiss to the worn fabric and a teardrop falling off of your cheek, you stand up, the room feeling unnaturally cold in his absence, and leave.
