Luna Writes

You looked away the moment tears sprang to your eyes and tried to swallow it down. You didn't want to waste this opportunity to be with him, but you were terrified you were putting too much pressure on it. You went from not wanting to date, to finding the love of your life, and you had to let him go. 

You knew he would be here tonight, it was no secret. After you avoided him for years, the memories never faded. All the different lifetimes of trying to save Harrison, and now he stood in front of you. The man you loved, yet you didn't know anything about him anymore. This man is a stranger that you loved in another lifetime and it hurt like hell to know that. 

It was funny that your memories felt so broken up, now it all made sense. Now it all flowed in a timeline that led you here, every moment feeling like a fever dream. 

Now he was back, you didn’t know if it was the time, or if maybe you were some kind of curse. You spent four long years alone, mourning him and you couldn’t do it again. Even if you could never have him. But what if this is a second chance?

During dinner you’re avoidant of him, meanwhile Chloe is trying to push the two of you together, and Harrison keeps staring at you. It wasn’t anything new in his sphere, you used to catch him staring at you all the time. Apparently it still had the tummy rolling effect that it had then, you catch his eyes and he’d smile. Looking away with a twinge of pink on his cheeks, his jaw working. You used to look at him and you just knew what he was thinking, now you wondered if you still could. Your gaze lingering on him, your mind lingering on the playful ‘soulmate’ remark he dropped earlier. 

“So how was your mentorship?” Mrs. Knott asked. 

“Oh, it-it was great, I felt like I learned so much, definitely had to stretch outside of my comfort zone, I don’t know I actually feel like a decent painter now.” 

“Oh honey, you’ve always been a wonderful painter.” 

“I took a whole year off, I just didn’t know if it’d ever come back.”

“Why’d you take a year off?” Harrison presses, you have to look this man in the eye and tell him it wasn’t because of him. 

“Some um mental health issues.” you murmur, looking off to the side. 

You’d become depressed after all of it, trying to move on with your life after everything. It felt like none of it really mattered, that you went through everything to get him back. Yet it wasn’t enough, it was like the world was trying to keep you separated. 

You swallow deeply, looking away from him, “Yeah, you didn’t even talk to me.” Chloe sighs, “But I always find my way in.” she shrugs, as you smile over at your best friend.

“You-you were going to medical school, right?”

“Yeah, I just graduated, I’ll start an internship here in the fall.”

“Here?” you gape, and his upper lip twitches into a smile.

“Yeah, here.” 

When you caught Harrison’s eyes you thought of the sunset painting, you thought of staying up, tangled up in the sheets together. Of the way his necklace felt against your neck, the way his hand swiped the hair off your neck. It happened, he died and you mourned that night, you mourned not spending more time with him before it was too late. 

You dig your feet into the ground, shoving more food in your mouth to try and quell the swelling of your throat. That wasn’t your reality any more, he wasn’t gone from this world anymore, he was sitting across the table, talking to his step-mom with a knowing smile on his face. 

Then you look over at Chloe to see her eyebrows dancing, you glared over at her, before taking a sip of your water. The rest of dinner was uneventful, before you let the family open their presents. “I’m gonna step outside, need to get some air.” you wave your hand with a smile, opening the back door. 

You tried not to think about him, but it was impossible. You look out at the view with a hope of some type of serenity, but all you find is clouds and a distant ocean. You don’t know how many times you painted the landscape, how many times you looked out and thought about him. There’s a deep ache in your bones at the prospect of losing him again. Was it a second chance or a test of fate? What if this is the final song on the mixtape? Why hasn’t someone else come along? Could he somehow remember? 

The door opens, and you turn around expecting Chloe, “You know-.” you start, pausing when you see Harrison. His hair slicked to the side, a curious flicker in his eyes as he stuffed his hands in his pockets. Standing shoulder to shoulder with you, he turns his head to look at you. 

“I know what?”

“I thought you were Chloe.” 

“Sorry to disappoint,”

“You didn’t.” you assure, meet his eyes as he grins, but then you dart your eyes away.

“Can I ask you a question?” Harrison probes, and you chew on the inside of your cheek.

“Sure.”

“Why do you act like you're scared of me? Did I do something?”

“Wh-what no?” you squeak, shaking your head. Scared of losing you again? Yes. “I’m not scared of you, I’m just a little nervous.”

“Oh, well why are you so nervous?” Harrison eggs, as you giggle, looking down bashfully. 

“Well it’s not everyday a guy drops a soulmate bombshell on you.”

“Oh really? Well you deserve to be complimented more.” he steps in a little closer, dipping his chin down so his ocean blue eyes level with yours. 

“Like what?”

“You’re beautiful.” he husks, searching your eyes, as your gaze lingers on his lips. You press the toes of your shoes to his, and his hand comes up to caress at your cheek. You lean into his touch, “This feels like deja vu.”

“Kiss me.” you plead, as he slowly places his lips on yours, you melt into his grasp. Reaching up on your tippy toes to deepen the kiss. His hand goes to the back of your neck, lips curving up into a smile as you pull back. 

“That was kinda fast.” he whisper-laughs and you nod your head.

“Sorry?” 

“I don’t really care, Y/n.” you nod your head again, mouth slightly agape. You couldn’t believe this was happening again.

His hand slips from your neck, “How about some dessert?” gesturing towards the house.

“Sounds good.” you still felt the shape of his hand against your skin, the way he tasted on your lips. 

That night you decided to stay for a movie, it grew late and Mrs. Knott didn’t want you to drive home. So you wound up staying in the guest room, the thought of going to Harrison’s room crossed your mind. But it’d be weird, right? All you did was kiss, it didn’t have to mean anything. Yet it still did mean something to you because it was him and you were trying not to spiral in your thoughts. 

Then there was a soft knock on your door, you sat up in bed, “Yeah?”

Harrison’s face poked in with hesitancy, “I-I just wanted to make sure the AC wasn’t too cold.”

“Oh yeah, it’s okay.” you nod, the shirt you were wearing was a tad bit too big, falling off your shoulder. “Is that all?” his eyes linger on your bare skin, before he slides into the room, hand coming to the back of his head. 

“I can’t stop thinking about you.” he chuckles, lowering his voice, “I feel so intrusive but-.”

“Do you wanna listen to music with me?” 

Harrison cocks his head to the side, nodding his head, “It’s-it’s a mix I listen to all the time.”

“Oh, old school I see.” he grins, as you pull out a mixtape player that had your catalog of songs on them. The one that you made together, you memorised it, replicated it. 

“Somenoe I used to know.” you murmur, eyes fixating on his blue ones, as he sat on the bed beside you. A confused furrow in his brow, as he leaned in with his arm splayed behind him. 

“In a past life?” Harrison counters as you flush, shaking your head, and handing him the other ear bud. 

Can’t take my eyes off of you by Frank Valli starts to play, but then it blurs, you both close your eyes and the pitch of the song changes. It takes you back to that night of the concert, the band you were seeing covering the song. You’re looking over at Harrison with a smile on your face while he waggles his arms in the air. This time as you're transported in the memory, you have no control over the events, no autonomy. You were forced to enjoy it, it didn’t feel like it was all in your head. Because you felt his hand resting on the middle of your back, you saw the joy in his eyes. 

Then you're brought back to the moment, like a suction cup and Harrison rips the ear bud of his ear. “What the fuck was that?” he gapes, as you swallow.

“You-you saw that?”

“What was that?”

“Keep your voice down, I’ve tried to explain this before and-just quiet down.” you panic, “I-I can kind of explain.”

“It felt like-like there was another part of me out there.”

“No, he’s not, he died. It’s why that memory didn’t happen, I couldn’t let you die.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I I had finite chances to save you, it-I would put in the ear phones and I could go back, and I thought I was supposed to warn you but. I-I was supposed to savor that time with you so, so when it came down to it, I had to let you go so you wouldn’t be here to die. If you stayed four years ago, I would’ve lost you forever and I knew it would have to be okay.” 

He plugs in the other ear phone again, “Press play,” he nods his head. 

You pull away from kissing him, when the phone call rings through the car cabin. You get out of the car, being told you had gotten the mentorship, you’re stood there in shock, he gets out of the car, “What was that?”

“The Walsh Art mentorship, um…” you tuck your phone in your back pocket, “I got in.”

“What?” he beams, “That’s amazing.”

“Have you heard of it?”

“No, but a mentorship that sounds huge!” 

“All the students have gone on to do amazing things, like…” you use your hands to gesture, “huge gallery exhibits and commissioned private work and public murals, and I-.”

“Okay, alright!” he starts, running back to the car to turn up the song, “This calls for a celebration,” you laugh, as ducks into the window before coming over to you, before coming over to you as Angel eyes by Abba begin to play. 

He follows you out to the small cliff, wrapping an arm around you and swinging you to the side as you sing, “Look into those angel eyes,” you sing while you caress his face, as he spins you around, splaying his palms on your back. You wrap your arms around his neck and he pulls you into a kiss. 

Then you pull back in reality, and Harrison opens his eyes to stare at you, “Did you get that mentorship?”

“I did, I-that was the year I took off.”

“Oh yeah…after I left, and all these things happened?”

“Well, they didn’t, technically. I don’t know what this means.” you explain, “I-I’ve been alone with this for so long and.” tears spring to your eyes, “I tried to tell Chloe and she didn’t believe me, so I just didn't bring it up again, it was a joke I guess.”

“What’s the next song?”

“Iris by the goo goo dolls.” you smile, “This is one of my favorites.”

You press the play button, and you taken back to your garage, showing him around your different art. You remember the way your heart was racing in your chest, revealing the most important part of you. 

And I'd give up forever to touch you

“Y/n, I love these.” he makes small thoughtful comments as he scans over your work. You stay to the side, apprehensive as you watch him. “These are different.”

“Those are my dad’s, actually.”

“Did he teach you?”

You're the closest to Heaven that I'll ever be

You hum, throat tightening as he flips through the pages, “He passed away when I was 15.”

Harrison’s back goes rigid, and he slowly turns to you with doe blue eyes, “I-I had no idea.”

“No, it was a long time ago.” you cross your arms over your chest, not meeting his eyes as he steps in closer. 

And all I can taste is this moment

“Well, he was a really good teacher.” he said, crossing his hand over the other as he leant against the bench. 

His broad shoulder slightly curving in with his strong biceps, you step in closer, “Yeah.” standing beside him, you lean into it, “I kept telling him that he should…” you meet Harrison’s eyes, “try and show his work to people, you know? Put it in a show or…a fair maybe, something.” His intense gaze melts through you, making you feel like emotional and physical butter.

And I don't want the world to see me

“Hey…” Harrison murmurs, stepping in closer to you, pleasantly crowding you. “He would be so proud of you.” his voice lowering and his breath washing over your neck. A warm fuzziness spreads over your chest as he presses a kiss to the side of your head. You turn towards him, slipping your arms over his shoulders. 

Then your mouths meet in a soft kiss, a stroke of reassurance for all the baggage you had, for all the fear you felt in showing him your work. Harrison tilts his head to the side to dip the kiss, gripping on to your hips. You moan into his mouth, slotting your tongue into his mouth to suck on your tongue. He presses you in closer, your fingers tangling into his hair, he pulls away to breathe for a second. But you rejoin your lips in a frenzied clash of teeth, desperate to feel him close. Then your front grinds against his, a barrier you hadn’t yet crossed as he groaned into your mouth. 

I just want you to know who I am

You were brought back to the dead of night, a tear running down your cheek that you wiped away quickly. Harrison watches you, he’d only seen a glimpse into this life and you lived it. The moment he saw you he knew there was something about you but he was proven right. It sounded insane, but he could feel you in those memories. He could practically still taste the flavor of your gum and the way your tongue felt in this mouth. Like it only happened seconds ago rather than a couple hours previous. 

“I think that’s enough for tonight, you-you can take it with you.” you offer, pulling the headphones away.

“I like to do it with you, I can wait.” Harrison assures, as you wrap up the music player in the string of the headphones. “I’m sorry,” his eyes shooting around your face, trying to understand, to process. 

“For what?”

“I would’ve told you the second I saw you, I-I don’t know how you did it and I’m sorry you had to, it’s not fair.” he explains, as you look away from his gaze, shaking your head at the water falling from your eyes. 

“I missed you so much.” you sob, softly, and he moves forward, wrapping his arms around your body. 

Harrison tries to properly process all of this, though it seems nearly impossible to believe his reality. It was clear to be true, there were moments that felt like complete deja vu with you and the memories felt like his own. He wasn’t seeing things from a different perspective, he was living in that moment with you. It wasn’t as if he could hear his thoughts but they floated by like a narration as he felt all of his love for you. Even in the beginning, this other version of himself adored you, already planning a future with you.  

You fall asleep crying in Harrison’s arms, all of the pent up emotions crashing down and welling over. All the time you spent without him, all the pain of having to grieve him all over again. The relief of Harrison knowing the truth so you didn’t have to hide behind it. It followed you everywhere, it was a part of your history only you remembered. You don’t know if he’ll ever know everything, the memories cutting off when the song does. But you weren’t alone in knowing that there was more in your past. That even if he didn’t know you, a version of him did. 

That next morning, you slip out of his arms, trying to wrap your mind around everything. It’s early when you grab your things and leave, but all the sirens are going off in your head. You texted Chloe telling her that you weren’t feeling well and you’d talk to her tomorrow. You had also decided to leave the mixtape with Harrison, telling him to listen to it and then come find you. The memories were more painful for you than they were romantic, you didn’t need to go through them again. Because every time you played that mix, you saw the flashbacks even if it wasn’t in real time. 

The note said, ‘You’ll know where to find me after the last song’. 

Because you worked there every evening now, working on the painting you had made for his birthday. With the two people walking into the sunset together, you never redid this mural, too terrified to be confronted with it again. But now it felt like a signal, that if he could spot this, he would find you. That if he knew about this, he knew what it meant to you. 

“I thought I might find you here.” Harrison starts, walking down the small alcove of sand, rounding the corner to spot you with a paint brush in your hand. His whole body at a standstill as he looks over the picture you were working on. 

“I didn’t know when you’d come, I’d hope it was soon.”

“Why didn’t you wanna listen to me?” he asked, stepping in closer.

“Because I relive those memories all the time, Harrison.” you sigh, and he nods his head, rubbing the back of his neck. 

“You didn’t wanna see the one where I say I love you, right?” 

“I-It’s not that I don’t wanna see them, okay? I-You gave up everything for me and that included your life. I couldn’t let you do that. I still think you’re crazy for giving up a once in a lifetime opportunity for me, or giving me a necklace on your birthday. Your-you proving time and time again that you adored me, by selling my whole art exhibit to a group of strangers just by your charming words… It was hard to see you before and now, you know.” 

“I’m easily following in his footsteps, Y/n.” Harrison counters, searching your eyes, “This-this gotta be a second chance, right?” 

“Or a warning sign.” you said under your breath, and he cocks his head to the side, squinting. 

“What does that mean?”

“Don’t forget why all of those memories are hidden behind some mixtape, because you died. When you were with me, you would die, Harrison, what if this is just a reminder to keep yourself far far from me.”

“You already made that decision once,” he retorts, and you frown, crossing your arms over your chest. “Don’t I get a say? Don’t I get a chance to be with you? If the universe is trying to send us signs, maybe it’s telling me it’s my turn to live that.”

“That’s chessy.”

“The rest of this isn’t?” you laugh, looking down at your arms, and tears line your vision as he steps closer and you take a step back. 

“I just can’t lose you again.” 

“If I have anything to do with it, you won’t.”

“You didn’t last time.” you panic. 

“I know,” he coos, reaching out for your face. You melt into his embrace, “This-this is so weird, Y/n, this doesn’t make any sense. But it’s real, I-I took extra time because I kept replying the songs over and over again.” he pets his thumb across your cheek, leaning in to gently kiss your cheek. 

“You barely know me.”

“Well I can’t wait to learn more.” he urges, “I’ve already learned quite a lot, like there was a version of me so clearly in love with you.” he laughs softly, and you gnaw on your bottom lip. His thumb comes to press against the plush skin, making you let it loose. 

You lean forward to kiss him and he hums, sliding a hand into your hair, the other wrapping around your waist. Every time he kissed you it felt like a breath of fresh air, it felt like serenity. A shaky sign leaves your mouth as he deepens the kiss, noses puzzling together. Tears well up at the sides of your eyes before slipping down your cheeks. He moves back when he feels them against his own, a deep furrow in his eyebrows. 

“Hey-.” he mewls, stroking your hair away from your face, before gently wiping at the tears. 

“I promise I’ll stop crying at some point.” you joke, hand coming to shield your face. Harrison gently presses your arm to the side. 

“It’s okay,” he promises, pecking your lips in succession. You reach back to tangle your fingers into his hair and kiss him harder. 

You stay the rest of the night at the beach. Harrison paints with you, and on you, replaying old memories you both knew. You play into it, splashing him with the water, and letting him scoop you up in his arms. He presses you up against the brick wall, slotting his body against yours while his lips devour yours. Your hand still held a brush, with one of his hands pressing it to the wall so you wouldn’t stroke it across his cheek again. You moan into his mouth, sliding your other hand underneath the back of his shirt. 

“Come over to my place.” you murmur, as he catches you in a final longing kiss.

“Yeah, okay.” he nods, as he moves away, you get him with the paint brush, smearing blue against his cheeks, “I’m gonna-.” he growls, reaching out for you as you squeal with laughter,actively running away from him. 

“Ah-.” you gasp, the giggles felt like bubbles that were forced to come out. He squeezes his arms around you and buries his face into your neck. 

By the time you got back to your place, the sun was coming down and it was reflecting off the golden strands in his hair. You stop by McDonald’s to get something to eat before heading back, he talks a lot about med school and the internship he found. The way he spoke about it, all the potential he had back then was coming to life now. But you weren’t going to cry about it now, it’d just make you appreciate his presence even more. Memorizing the way he laughs, or the way his face freezes up when he doesn’t understand something. 

“Are you gonna stay?” you ask, cleaning up the wrappers that accumulated on your coffee table. 

“Do you want me to?”

You shrug, “It’s kinda why I asked.” he huffs out a chuckle, following you to the kitchen. You throw everything away and lean against the kitchen counter. He walks over to you, looking down to meet your eyes. 

“Yeah?” he lifts his eyebrows, jaw slightly uneven as teeth press together in a smirk. 

“Hmm.” you grin as his lip descends down on yours, his arms moving on either side of the counter around you. 

Harrison’s tongue sweeping into your mouth and sucking on yours with a hum. Your hand comes up to clutch at his hair and push up on your toes to get closer. His hands come to your hips, pushing you up onto the counter. A pant leaves your mouth, before he kisses you again, his hands coming to brace at your back. You cautiously hook your legs around his waist, tugging him in closer. It suddenly felt like he’d do anything to savor this moment with you, his mouth slowly trails to your throat. Pressing his bulbous nose against your jaw and feeling his stubble rub against your neck. You moan as his lips latch on to your pulse point, tugging at his hair as he trails softer kisses around the developing bruise. 

He grounds his hips against yours, pausing to press his forehead to yours, “Shit, Y/n.” he’s breathless and you trail your hand over his strong back. “If we keep kissing-.”

“Then what?” you murmur, eyes half moon as they meet him, your palms pulling his front to yours. You feel the erection starting to bloat beneath the denim and his adam's apple bobs. 

“You’re making it extremely hard to-to-think.” he trails, your hands moving up his body, Harrison clothes his eyes to feel them skate under his shirt.

“Is this okay?”

“Yes.”

You pull the fabric over his head before pressing your palms to his strong shoulders that crowded you even more. Harrison watches you with intent in his eyes, you lean forward, kissing over the curve of his collarbone. Then trailing up to his neck, before his hands move to the hem of your shirt. You nod, and he tugs it up over your head. Revealing your flimsy sports bra, that still made his breath hitch in his throat. His tongue coming out to wet his bottom lip before he meshes his mouth to yours again. Sloppy moving down to kiss over the tops of your breasts and down your stomach. His fingers hook at the waist of your shorts, and he pauses to meet your gaze with big blue eyes. 

“Take them off,” you nod, and he unhooks the button before pulling them down your legs. “Not really lingerie prepared.”

“I don’t care,” he retorts, kissing the inside of your thighs before making his back up to your face, “Can I take off your bra?”

“Yeah,” he tugs at the sides and your breasts slightly fall from your position and his eye twitches. “Touch me.”

Harrison’s large hands encompass your breasts, massaging them and groaning as he kisses one pebbled nipple. Then llaving his tongue against the bud and wetting it with his sloppy mouth before moving on to the next one. Meticulous in the way his tongue swirls and lip sucks then dropping down on to his knees. You press your panties away from your hips and he pulls them down the rest of the way. His breath hitches as he spreads your thighs to reveal your glossy center. 

“Barely touched you.” he mutters, before latching his mouth on to your clit and sucking. 

“Oh god, Harrison-.” you gasp, arching your back, as his tongue perfectly swirls before moving down to lap at your entrance. Moaning into your center, he stretches his thick muscle along your walls and curls in just the right places. 

While he presses the tip of his nose against your clit and grinds his face against your cunt. Tears start to well up at the corner of your eyes, knees trembling as he devours you whole. He starts a steady pump of his tongue in and out of you, slowly reaching as far as he can over and over. 

“Right there-.” you whine, his arms hugging around your middle to pull your core closer to his face. “Harrison-oh I’m-.” he grunts loudly into your core, hungry for your release and it makes you shatter. Your orgasm coming to a spike that melts your whole lower body in his grasp, sighs leaving your mouth. Harrison’s mouth comes to a slow, licking up the last of your arousal before pressing a kiss to the top of your mound. 

“Was that good?” he questions, voice thick and he brushes pecks along your stomach before standing up. 

He smiles at you, then he leans in to softly kiss you, “Yes, let’s go to my room.”

You hop off the counter, covering your breasts for scurrying off to the bedroom with a trailing Harrison, full of excited laughter. He turns the corner to see you laid out on the bed, reaching your elbows back. He stands in the frame of the door, splaying his hands against the sides and trailing his eyes all over your body.

“You’re magnificent, Y/n, every inch of you.” he sighs with a shake of his head, you watch him with a prominent tent in his jeans, tan abs on display, the freckles on his shoulders prominent from the time spent in the sun. Harrison steps in closer to the bed, putting his knee on the bed before pulling you down to the edge by your foot. You giggle, hair splaying out beneath you while you look expectantly up into his eyes. “Did we ever have sex?”

“Y-yes.” you breathe, swallowing deeply, as he nods his head.

“One lucky son of a bitch.” he husks, moving down on to his elbows to come face to face with your center again. “I gotta taste you again.”

“Let me see you.” you request, reaching forward to caress his chest. His hand cupping yours and pulling your knuckles to his mouth. 

Harrison’s other hand comes down to his belt, undoing it, before shucking off the button. He pushes down his pants and underwear in a fell swoop, his cock bobbing in the air. You sit up, pressing your hands to his face and connecting your lips in a passionate, mind dizzying kiss. He slips his tongue into your mouth, breathing in deeply as his hands brace on your calves. Parting from you before going back down between your thighs. His hot breath washes over you then before he presses his tongue flat against your clit. 

“So gorgeous right here too, taste so good.” he rasps, sucking on your clit before bringing a finger to your hole and pressing inside. “So tight for me.” 

His pace is tortuous as he drags his middle finger in and out of you, mouth sealed over your bundle of nerves. You reach for his hair, bucking your hips into him, “I need you, Harrison, please give your cock.” your voice is quiet though you sound sure of yourself and he pulls his wet mouth away. 

“Just give me one more minute, I wanna make you come on my fingers.” he pleads, sucking fervently against your clit, making your hips jut off the bed. Harrison easily slides in his forefinger, curling them up against your g-spot. “So close,” he grumbles, humming against your wet pearl and your pussy soaking his fingers. He can feel the way you clench around him and his cock has a second pulse. He keeps his pace steady, more sure and his tongue tracing patterns around your clit before you come around his digits. “Yes, hmm.” Then he leans back, crawling on top of you to attach your mouths in a wet moosh. 

“Harrison-.” you whimper, reaching out for his shoulders and pulling him up to you. Your hand comes down to his cock, working over his wet tip. He moans into your mouth as you separate your thighs further for his body. “Grab a condom.” you point to your dresser and he pushes himself towards the bedside table. He opens the chore, tilting his head to the side when he sees a magic wand. Harrison pulls it out with a smirk on his face, laying on the bed side table, you flush, covering your face. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

“Well do I get to use it?” he mutters, lowly, carefully tearing open a condom, before rolling it over his cock. Harrison cocks his head to the side with his lip quirking up to the side, “Hmm?”

“You can,” 

“Alright,” he kisses you passionately, hooking your legs over his waist before easing his length into your entrance. 

Your walls flutter, opening for him while you let whimpers fall from your lips. The stretch was pleasing, deep, aching, and his hips pressed flush to yours. Filling you up to the hilt, those tears welling up at the corner of your eyes. His tongue licking into your mouth, and twining them together. 

“So good, so tight,” he groans, tilting his head back, adam’s apple straining and jaw working. His blue eyes level with yours as he starts heavy fervid thrusts that rack through your whole body. Hands stretched out on either side of you, while your arms reach up to and you interlock your fingers together. “I’m gonna give you everything,” he promises, rubbing his nose against your ear and pressing featherlight kisses along your pulse point. “Everything he couldn’t, and I’ll remember every second, every second, I’m gonna memorize.” 

“Harrison-.” you whimper, clutching at his hair and slotting your tongue against his while his hips clap against yours. The more you looked at him, the more he spoke, the further he reached you grew wetter and more sensitive. 

“We’re gonna make hundreds of those little mixtapes of all of the things we’re gonna do.” he nips at your ear as you mouth drops open in a breathless cry, “I don’t love you yet, but once I do I’m never gonna stop.” Harrison continues, he moves on to his elbows, pressing his bare torso against yours. Rubbing his body against yours, offers friction to your clit, and your other hand reaches down to cling on to his lower back. He angles your hips to the side, offering you a deeper slide and a shock moan leaving your mouth. 

He’s always been a passionate man, but you felt it so thoroughly right now, he practically fucked it into you. His mouth pecks at the tears falling down your cheeks, before puzzling your noses together with a kiss. It feels like a steady building volcano, each time he fills you like a thumb to a trigger. Your walls start spasming, a gush of wetness spreading down his cock, and he reaches to the side. Grabbing your blue wand and turning it on, he presses right to your clit and you moan loudly, back arching. He doesn’t falter with tempestuous knowing flexs of his hips that know where to hit just right. The steady stream of vibration to your clit, electrocutes all the veins in your body. 

“Harrison-.” you sob, your cunt clamping down on him like a steady pistioned that pulled him in and made his balls tighten against his body. 

“Oh-that good, baby?” he groans, fucking you through your orgasm and letting breathy groans leave Harrison’s soft lips. His eyebrows furrow, a sweat on his brow, his golden hair falling in front of his eyes. He throws the toy to the side, grinding into a few times before his hips stutter and he’s coming into the condom, “Y/n-oh fuck.” you seal your mouth over his swollen one and his moves against yours in gentle clicks. 

He carefully slides out of you, rolling on to his side and tugging off the condom. Then he spreads a hand across your ribs, pulling your body into his. His head nuzzles into the crook of your neck, and brushes his nose along your throat. Your hand reaches back to play with the hair at the back of his head and his palm slides over your stomach, splaying his fingers across your skin. 

You eventually got up to go to the bathroom before curling back into bed with Harrison. That morning you woke up in bed alone, this time, you slipped the sheet around your body. You notice his jeans are on the ground of your bedroom and his shirt on your kitchen floor. Walking down the hallway, you notice a light on in your spare room. You pause in the doorframe, as Harrison looks over the paintings on your wall. Standing up against your wall, sat your table or aisle, the accumulation of acrylic, gouache, oil paints. So many different brushes, cups filled with water, towels dirtied with paint. 

“What do you think?” you keep the sheet tucked between your armpits, walking into the room while his gaze rakes over you like you're a piece of art. 

“I think you’re amazing,” Harrison replies, stepping in closer and looking around your room, “I knew you did landscapes, but I didn’t know about the body art.”

“I usually showcase the landscapes, sometimes they sell better.” you explain, and he nods his head. His arms circle around your body, pressing him to yours, and kissing your mouth.

“Are any of them yours?”

“I guess you’ll have to look,” you grin, pecking his lips, while his hands trail downwards. 

“I’d rather kiss you right now.” he murmurs, gliding his mouth against yours and cupping your ass. 

“You don’t think I’m crazy,” Your hands reach up to glide over his bare shoulders, your sheet dropping across your chest. Yet bunching up around your hips where his hands laid, he grins against your lips. “This is going so fast.”

“For me, maybe but I want every second of it.” He moves his hands to hover around your body, letting it drop as you giggle. His arms wrapping around you, then pressing your naked body flush against his. 

“You always say the best things,” you whisper, your nipples pebbled against his chest, his hands sliding up your back. Then he grips your bare behind, squeezing his fingers into the plush and hooking a leg around his hip. 

“You make it easy, you’re so beautiful…sexy.” he husks, dipping his chin as you press a hand to the back of his head. Reconnecting your mouth with a mix of tongue and sucking, his bulge growing against your center. He presses his hips into you, before slowly backing you up against the wall.

“Fuck me, right here.” you beg, as he groans, grinding into you and pinning your hips to the wall. 

“Let me grab a condom, don’t go anywhere.” he growls, playfully, pecking your lips before doing a cute little jog out of the room, with his arms bent at his sides. You smile pressing your head against the wall and he is back in moments. Harrison trips over the blanket in the doorway, and you giggle, reaching out to catch his shoulder. He falls into you, hands centering at your hips before pulling you back against him in a passionate kiss. 

“I wanna taste you now,” you start, moving down on to your knees and pulling his black boxer briefs over his ever growing erection. You reach out to pump his cock, pressing his tip to your lips before enveloping him into your mouth. Harrison groans, the length of his throat stretched as he bends his head backwards. His lips drop open in a breathless huff, as his fingers tangle into your hair. 

His length plunges in and out of your mouth with a wet sound, you were sloppy and eager. He watches your every movement and pulls you off. “Baby, c’mere before I come.” you move up his body, trailing over his thighs, and he hands you the condom. 

You push him up against the wall, tearing the condom wrapper open and pushing the latex down his shaft. Then you hike your leg around his hip, his hands coming around your ass and lifting you up his thighs. He breathes out shakily, finger teasing on your behind, as you press him into your soaked entrance. “Love this sweet pussy, let me feel it baby.” he mewls, darkly, rubbing his nose against your cheek. 

A shaky moan leaves your mouth, as you sink down on to him, and he grinds your hips together. He offers you a sloppy kiss, the all encompassing one that makes your mind dizzy just as his cock fills your pussy. He starts fucking into your pussy, using the wall as leverage. Your hips are pressed flush together, he moves with solid grinds, he reached deep inside of you. Then you start grinding your clit against his crotch, grasping on to his strong shoulders. Your heart was racing in your chest, he pulled you up closer so his mouth fixed to your chest. Latching on to your nipple and sucking, before kissing over your chest. Hands still drilling into your ass, he gave you deep pumps, reaching deep into your g-spot. 

There’s a deep blossoming curling in your gut, Harrison groans into your neck, thrusts growing harder and your hand coming down to rub on your clit. He pauses, pulling out of you to back you up into a table. Pushing you on to the wooden bench, he hikes your knees apart before delving back inside of you.

“Now touch you’re pretty clit baby.” he coos, rutting into you with heavy claps, your wetness soaking his lower body. You ground your fingers into your clit in tight circles while his hands encompass your breast. Squeezing, rolling them in his hands while his mouth suctioned to throat and neck. His lips descend upon your breasts, sucking your nipples into his mouth, the sensation runs down to your core. Electricity, the depths his cock reaches, the way your clit sizzles your veins and he lits you on fire. 

“Harrison-.” you groan loudly, writhing against him, soaking the condom and running down his balls. A breathy moan leaves his mouth washing over your tits as he helps you ride through the orgasm before falling into his own. Hips rutting, before his seed pumps into the condom, and you reach out to connect your lips. 

“Making all kinds of new memories.” 

note: i stayed up all night finishing this fic! i lovedd this fic i hope you did too! 

The sharp, spine-chilling New England gale propelled him all the way from the now intimately familiar police station and straight into the carcass that was just about his Chevrolet. He checked the clock: 22:35. He turned the radio on loud. His shoulders crumpled into the wheel of his car before his face could follow suit. Ben's fist pounded impotently against the dashboard, the soft thumps the only quarter he would give to the frustration and turmoil that tossed his insides like the blizzard storm that thrashed and wailed against his rust-eaten shelter.

Years of Christmases he'd let slip through his fingers now flickered in and out of view as history repeated itself. The haze of FBI interviews, funerals, medical appointments, and the house move that had been his December had swept him along for the ride, exhaustion and grief dulling his mind to anything other than the next appointment. And now he had ruined Mark's first Christmas without his parents.

The taunting crooning over the radio waves kicked him into gear with a flood of spite against whatever god dealt Mark a two-bit romance writer as a guardian. Hell, he couldn't even write a good dad.

He left the police station until the next time and drove like he could outrun the sickly sweet merriment of the holiday tunes urging him to be anything other than the embittered Scrooge he wanted to be. If he had been alone, he would have repeated last Christmas and driven to the nearest bar and bought a drink for the first person who batted an eyelash in his general direction.

However, the thought never entered his mind. Ben had to find something, anything, that could be worthy of the kid who saved his life. All that mattered to him now was giving Mark a happy Christmas.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

For, I need your love to give each day a meaning

Oh, it's Christmas time for everyone but me

The quiet determination and sheer force of will that was Mark Petrie imbued Ben with a small glimmer of hope that he could, in fact, survive an unimaginable evil, the loss of his family and his childhood, and still come out of it okay. He was unshakeable to the utterly shattered Ben. The quiet sniff and brush of a tear with a pyjama sleeve as Mark thought Ben lay sleeping on the sofa had put an end to all that.

Ben had been that child once upon a time. It was Christmas 1952, he wasn't even Mark's age, and it was just two months before he, too, would lose a parent. His father had sat in his wheelchair on the cardiac ward, nasal specs smoothing out his breathing so it no longer scared the man's son. Presents from his loving wife and only child surrounded him. They decorated his bedrails with tinsel when the nurses weren't looking, baubles hung over his IV stand, and antlers framed his balding head as he sat and opened Ben's gift.

The wrapping paper was ripped at the edges from how tightly he had clung to it to his chest as he handed it over to his father. Long, thin fingers had delicately unwrapped it and held the tiny scrapbook to the light. “Stevie and the Hungry Werewolf” was scrawled in crayon along with a drawing of a knight slaying a mess of blacks and browns in the vague form of a monster. It was the first book he had ever written. His father had read it with joy filling his tired lungs, narrating it in the strongest tenor his paper-thin voice would allow, long past the point of discomfort as he acted out the grand finale of the book to the boy's delight. Age had diminished the finer details of the memory, but Ben remembered his mother leaving the room at one point.

His book had been a grand adventure of a brave prince who found his King Father passed out on his throne, felled by the werewolf who held the potion to revive him. The boy had chased him across the kingdom, meeting healers who couldn't help, and loyal subjects who cried over the King. In the thrilling climax, the drawing of a boy with Ben's wavy hair had convinced the wolf to apologize and save his father in just two short sentences. The family was reunited, and the whole kingdom rejoiced. The End.

The young writer thought his father would have been proud of his plot twist. The adult writer just envied his younger self’s brevity of prose.

Ben didn't know if his father remembered anything of his heart attack, if he recognized the similarities between how the king and he had lain hunched over a chair as their son had discovered them both. Nor did he know if he understood how the words of the healers had upset both the writer and his character. But his father had taken him in his arms and kissed his head as he patted his shoulders just that bit too hard. They had spent Christmas evening racing down the corridors of the hospital in stolen wheelchairs as the nurses waved them past and let them be. It was one of his happiest memories.

However, Ben still felt that same deep crush in his chest when he thought of that book. The overwhelming pressure that made it impossible to breathe, which he had tried to communicate through his story, was an emotion he had been too young at the time to understand. The adult Ben remembered how he wanted his parents to find that deeper meaning in his present, the one which he himself wasn't privy to, and then take that crushing feeling away. He had wanted to tell his mother about it on the ride home, but he could not yet name how he felt, and besides, his dad had told him he had to be the man of the house. Looking at the tightness in his mother's jaw as she drove, he resolved to never worry another soul with it.

Snapping out of his thoughts, Ben watched the Augusta skyline recede into the rearview mirror. He thought of Mark, asleep by himself in the almost barren house of unopened boxes that contained remnants of a family life he no longer had. Of how he himself had spent the night alone while his mother said her final goodbyes. He wondered if Mark was still young enough to believe in Santa.

Ben cut off the driver in front and sped up along the highway.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

Oh, everything is nothing, dear without you

Ben didn't know what to buy for a 12-year-old boy. Nothing in his adult life had prepared him to consider what a child wanted. Miranda would have known what to do. She always brought the presents for friends and often even for his side of the family. After she died, he was lucky if he remembered to send cards.

Ben had never been what you would call truly great at gift-giving. He would get his wife one knockout gift and, if she was lucky, a number of practical ones, normally from shops she recognized within a five-mile radius. Inspiration struck throughout the year, truly thoughtful, romantic (and often cheesy) gifts that spoke to a singular detail of his wife that only Ben knew. Still, they were always filed away under the heading ‘buy nearer the time’. And when nearer the time came, the space in his brain was always, without fail, empty. Thank God for the 24/7 Walmarts.

But that year, he returned to the old ace up his sleeve. 7 years before Salem's Lot, when everything in his life had fallen perfectly into place, he wrote his then girlfriend a book for Christmas.

Ben remembered trying to compromise and argue (definitely not plead) with Miranda that it was his name on the tenancy, so if she must have Christmas decorations, she could have a tiny tree in the living room and nothing more.

They had lain in bed that Christmas evening, her back to his naked chest as he nestled into the mountain of pillows that lined the headboard. Christmas decorations enclosed them in a catalogue-perfect festive bubble- tinsel and themed baubles looking more tasteful than the sheer quantity of them would ever normally allow, all while white and gold lights hung from every surface and framed the windowsill that looked over the New York skyline far in the distance.

Ben had just deposited his first check for his novel that had, against all expectations and good taste, topped the Christmas charts. It would be their ticket out of their tiny, run-down apartment and into that ocean of buildings and human life that had enthralled their small town's imagination. It was the first Christmas of his adult life he had not spent alone, and he truly had wanted to make it special, but between the book, the publisher meetings, and the meet and greets…

But it hadn't mattered to Miranda, not as she nuzzled into his neck as he stroked her hair and warmed her brow with his quickening breath.

“You okay?” She'd asked. Ben said he was, he was just nervous about his last gift to give her. She'd rolled her eyes, threatened to smother him with a pillow if he had brought her a lacy lingerie set that he was just going to rip straight off again. “Who said they were for you?” he teased, trying not to give away how truly terrified he was. He gave her a small rectangular present hidden behind the pillow. The paper ripped again as he had worried it in his hands hours earlier, wondering if this was all a bad idea.

Miranda tore it open with none of the grace of his father, throwing paper over the side of the bed with reckless abandon. Ben gulped, his arms encircled her that bit tighter as she held the cheaply bound paperback in the palm of her hands. ‘Proposals of Desire’ was printed in garish bold on the cover.

“You bought me a smut book?”

He hissed a soft laugh, “Something like that. Go on, read it.” She had opened it immediately and found… nothing. Just blank page after blank page. Ben had chided that everyone knew the juicy stuff was halfway through. So she skipped ahead, shaking her head in disbelief until the pages filled with carefully typed black ink.

The story started in the middle of the action. The sexy side-burned writer hero kissing the beautiful, perfect, smart woman. “Come on, Miranda, I've heard all the glowing reviews- read it to me,” he urged in his huskiest voice, the one that sounded like he'd not yet kicked his seasonal man flu. So she read of the couple's escapade that sounded remarkably like their own, a quiet autumn afternoon spent on the sofa as the Mr Tall, Dark and Handsome devoured her from his home between her thighs until he had felt drunk from her, as though she was the highest quality whisky.

He wrote of how the man had so deeply loved his paramour but was too afraid to tell her, so instead, he showed her with every touch and kiss. Miranda rolled her eyes as the scene ended, causing Ben to cease his nibbling on her shoulder and turn the pages himself to pick up the action.

“I can't help it if the author is giving the people what they want”, he protested as she groaned in either irritation or arousal. It was normally a bit of both with them.

The book continued with scenes of in-depth role-plays with more lore than Tolkien, as the incredibly profound and scholarly author experienced fantasies he thought would always be locked away. He described desperate quickies in the bathroom of house parties with just a hand over the man's mouth, keeping them off the gossip column, and hard, intense fucks against the kitchen table as the heroine rode him until the legs gave way. The author spent too much time detailing the definitely action-filled, amazing, romantic adventure to Home Depot, but if Miranda cared, she (for once) didn't say anything.

The scenes changed to ones she didn't recognize then. Of how the hero had so trusted his lover that he wanted to try new and enticing things with her. How he wanted to make real every one of her fantasies that he knew she secretly held, all with a flourish of prose that showed her he understood. And boy, did he want it too.

The book skipped again to describe future scenes of long days spent trying every food vendor in Central Park, Christmases spent cuddled up by the fireplace with as many decorations as she wanted, and their twilight days spent having the same arguments over whose turn it was to do the laundry.

His girlfriend clocked him instantly, as she always did, “You're being funny, Ben. You always try to be funny when you want something.”

Ben looked sheepish, his face flushed red like the Santa hat on the bedpost. He buried his head into the crux of her neck and he brushed the pages to the end.

On the final page, the dark, mysterious but lovable Hero, who always did the dishes, realised how he was none of the things his younger self thought he was. Nothing really like the man in the preceding pages. He was dorky, awkward, cocky, and immature, but with his beloved, he wanted to be better for her. With her. At the bottom of the page, written in biro pen, read: Sorry I can't be normal and just tell you how I feel, but I hope you understand just how much I truly love you, Miranda. Merry Christmas, my love, Yours always - Ben x

The arms that held her then retracted, his head now rising as he felt her shuddering gasp against his chest. The arms returned then and gently took the book from her shaking hand and replaced it with a small jewellery box. He squeezed her wrist. Ben had asked her to marry him, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't remember the exact words he used.

However, he remembered hers. “You're an idiot, Ben. It's because you're a dork that I love you. Of course I'll marry you.”

He wished he had done something better. Wished he had just showered her with every single stupid and cheesy thought that had ever rattled his idiotic brain. When he cleaned out their house as he prepared to travel to Salem's Lot and leave their home for the last time, he found that book nestled in the space where she kept her photo albums. On the blank pages, she had filled them with all her happiest memories together. The Hero in her retelling of events felt more like Ben Mears than Ben ever knew of himself.

Ben pulled over into a layby until he regained his composure. 02:45 taunted him on the dashboard clock.

Every year after that Christmas, he had promised himself he would keep on top of his writing and give her the perfect Christmas present. Ones that finally showed her just how intensely and deeply he could feel, and it was all because of her. The year of her accident had been the first time he'd bought a present as early as July. And now here he was, different year, different person, but the same Ben making the same mistakes. He promised himself for the 14th time, on the 14th Christmas Eve of his adult life, that he would do better next time.

He wished Miranda a merry Christmas wherever she was, turned the radio on to clear his head with her favourite Christmas songs, and continued on through the blizzard towards home.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

And it's hard to live with just a memory

Ben drove past the department store without deigning to grace its lusciously decorated visage with even a meagre look. He knew it was closed; he knew the one after it was too, and the fifty after that, but by the time he pulled up to the gas station, he still felt his hope ripped to shreds by each cut of a ‘closed sign.’

He sat in the snow-covered parking lot, staring dumbly at the neon open sign that blinked on and off, covering the winter wonderland in a dark and sinister red. The snow sucked the sound of the world around him, and the void that surrounded him made the gas station feel like the final stop before the end of the world.

The reds had reminded Ben of the church in Salem's Lot as the vampires had surrounded them. He tried not to, eyes focused on his hands to block out the shimmering reds, but he was his own worst enemy. He remembered the moment he killed Susan.

She had been so young, so full of life and potential. So full of love. He wondered if all the sound had exited the world around her as it did now, as the vampire that transformed her had sucked the life from her neck.

To his wife's constant amusement, Ben had never been someone who could protect his heart. He could be slow to trust, but when he did, he fell hard and fast, whether romantically or with friends. Susan had been the first person who made him feel that telltale flutter in his heart again, all from just a shy gaze as she tried to hide his book under the library table. It had made him feel like a zombie clawing his way from the ground and back to the land of the living.

In just a few short days, she was able to calm his mind enough that he could sit through a movie for the first time since the accident. She made him feel like a teenager again as they snuck around her mother, and when it all went to hell, he had felt braver than he ever thought was possible.

Ben had thought even in their short courtship what Christmas would be like with her. If she loved or hated Christmas, if she would have wanted to spend it at home or sightseeing around New York. Would she have cooked a full dinner or gotten takeaway, as they ate in bed and watched It's a Wonderful Life? Maybe they would have argued over charades, and she would storm out, never to think of him again.

With Miranda, he knew the future he had lost. With Susan, it was all plagued with possibilities that drove him to madness each and every time his thoughts got too quiet, and he foolishly let himself remember their night together at the boarding house.

She was like a character outline from one of his drafts, a bullet-point list of interests and personality traits known only in theory and a few short moments. He didn't know her in her totality, couldn't write what she would do in any situation as he could with Miranda. Maybe with time, he could have, but that word always rang in his head until only whisky and a smoke could drown it out. Maybe… maybe… just maybe.

Ben wondered if he could have gotten her the perfect gift this year, but as hard as he tried, he couldn't think of anything better than a book voucher. He would probably try and fail to write her a story. Maybe one of a young woman who left her small town behind. But Ben didn't think he could write someone as open-hearted as her, even in better times.

It didn't matter now. All he could do was keep her memory alive with Mark. And if the inspiration to write again ever returned, he vowed he would dedicate his next story to her. He at least knew her well enough to know she would have loved that.

The light of the open sign finally spurred him from the car that he had spent the last few hours pushing to its absolute limit. The gas station was brightly and garishly lit compared to the seemingly never-ending darkness he had just driven through. He browsed the aisles of junk food and stationery with a wild-eyed desperation that had the helpful attendant point him towards the booze. Ben just shook his head as he shoved chocolate bars on top of candy on top of flavoured chips.

Ben had never been one to properly plot out his books; he would just put a mess of ideas into a draft and work out something from the ingredients he had. He gave the stunned clerk a crisp $20 and ran out the door and into his car, praying it had enough gas in the tank to get him home.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

The lights are shining brightly on the tree

It's the season of the cheer

How I wish that you were here

Ben sat outside the new two-bedroom suburban home and worked like a man possessed. It had taken the whole drive home, but through all of his memories and reminiscing on Christmas presents he felt had never risen to the moment, he knew exactly what he needed to do.

Ben knew now, on some level, his present had been enough. They were him, born from thoughtfulness, creativity and open-hearted love, as well as his tendency to distraction, anxiety and despair. But it had just meant his stories had spoken more truly of the man who loved them than any store-bought gift ever could.

Like Susan, he didn't know Mark very well yet. But that was his problem, and in turn, was to be his gift. He knew the Mark who tried to remain stalwart while Ben struggled to put one foot in front of the other. He knew the Mark that had seen the evil lurking in the underbelly of the 'Lot long before any adult did. The Mark who comforted him when he cried at Susan's grave, the Mark who had slain vampires to protect his friends. What he didn't know was Mark, the 12-year-old boy… except that he loved comic books.

Ben pulled out the A4 notebook and some felt-tip pens from the store and started drawing, page after page, as his urge to write came out of him in a deluge, never stopping to think what came next. He ripped the tape with his teeth as he stuck the chocolate bars down onto the page over his drawings. Ben knew this would have been easier at his desk, but something felt wrong about entering the house without a present in hand.

It took two hours, but eventually it was done. 6:30 flashed on the clock. By the barest of margins…

Mark would be awake any moment now. He didn't have time for rewrites. The wrapping paper was ripped at the sides where he clung it to his jumper to protect it from the cold, as though it were the rarest of museum treasures. He placed his key into the lock and teased the door open as quietly as he could.

The small plastic tree, which had been the only decoration, still stood by the sofa near a mountain of unopened boxes. The living room was awash with cardboard containing the rest of their lives- only the essentials of a double seater, a table, a couple of cupboards, and a TV that sat on the floor had been set up in a tight circle near the center of the room. Darkness enshrouded the rest of the house as Ben snuck in. Squinting through the inky black shadows to avoid any abandoned toys or boxes of fine china, he went slow, the new house still so unfamiliar that he hadn't yet mapped it out in his mind, let alone with muscle memory.

Sneaking closer to the tree to hide his present, he felt a strange sensation under his toes. He looked down and saw the floor was awash with polystyrene balls as they framed the small cluster of furnishings into a protective circle of artificial snow. Ben should have been mortified at the cleaning to come, but there in the centre, under a blanket of Universal Monsters, was his Mark, asleep under what little shadow such a small tree could cast. He looked so tiny as he rolled to turn his back to the cold gust from the door.

Ben looked down at the package in his arms next to the precious child who had saved his life. He felt shame flood his system at how insignificant it seemed, but he shook his head. No, for once, he was going to brave through it, just like Mark would do.

Resolved, Ben knelt next to the sleeping boy and plugged in the lights of the tree that instantly illuminated the room in an ocean of greens, red, and blues. Miranda would have never let him live it down if she had seen him voluntarily buy something so colourful. He went to stand, but he stopped. Still suspended on his knees, he took in the wonder before him.

In the darkness, Ben had thought the tiny artificial tree was as bare as he had left it. But to Ben's surprise, it was covered head to toe with the most beautiful makeshift decorations - baseball cards that had gone missing from his box of smokes tied with string, cut-out comic book characters stuck together to create a garland of Spandex heroes, and the silver of chocolate wrappers scrunched into baubles all glistened under the colours of the fairy lights. Their glow enshrined Mark's little hovel as Ben scanned the room, and he saw the Christmas present hugged to Mark's chest, the homemade cookies with half-melted faces with icing, and the ‘Merry Christmas Ben' cut out of paper and stuck to the walls. Mark had decorated the house to make Christmas special for Ben. He clutched the comic closer to his chest.

Ben couldn't wait for him to wake up any longer. With a gentle hand to his shoulder, he nudged the sleeping form below the tree, “Hey buddy, wake up - Santa's been.”

A small smile lined Mark's face before he even awoke. Blinking the sleep away, he struggled to process the voice, but as soon as he did, his whole body relaxed in an instant. Ben wasn't sure he'd ever get used to having someone look at him with such wide-eyed excitement, but he decided he would like to try.

Mark hadn't given him time to finish apologizing before he was thrusting his present into his arms. Ben couldn't believe he had bought him anything, but in his sweating hands, he took the gift, muttering an awed thank you before delicately unwrapping it. Nervously, Mark stood over him, vibrating with excitement as Ben held what looked like a cheap plastic crucifix. He studied it for a moment, confusion creasing his brow before he spotted the small indent on the lower end. With just a small flick, the secret lid came off and revealed the pen hidden within.

“So you can write your books again and kill any vampires that may be lurking around!” Mark laughed, unabashed and wholeheartedly.

Ben loved it almost as much as he loved Mark's excitement over it. He explained he had wanted to get Ben his favourite whisky, but he was just one 12-year-old boy against the weight of a hundred government regulations that had proved to be insurmountable. Ben didn't think he knew words that big at his age... Briefly, he wondered if Mark would enjoy learning to write stories with him.

Putting the present down reverently, Ben tried to muster the same confidence Mark had shown in his gift and handed him the book.

Without wasting a second, Mark opened it, eyes wide and full of wonder as he tore the paper apart. There in his hand was a cheap, branded A4 spiral notebook with ‘Bob and the Hungry Void’ written in pen outline and filled in with glitter that Ben knew he would regret later. On the cover was a young man with ratty brown hair surrounded by five superheroes. The boy was dressed in a grey, baggy shirt and trousers that covered his feet, out of which was a shadowy doppelgänger that stretched out behind the team and reigned over them. The book bulged awkwardly under the weight of all the gifts hidden inside. Ben saw an M&M fall out when he opened it. It looked amateurish, betraying the frenzied state in which it had been made.

However, despite all the flaws Ben could see, Mark beamed at him. “Oh wow, Ben, thank you! Thank you!” he gushed. He lunged at Ben, dislodging another gummy as he buried his head into his chest, knocking the wind straight out of him and knocking him straight into the bristles of the tree. But he didn't care.

Ben blinked rapidly before placing a soft hand to the crown of Mark's head, “Merry Christmas, buddy. You deserve it.” He fussed with his hair before he made a hasty retreat to the kitchen to cook those pancakes before Mark could see the tremor in his hands. Ben was being brave, but not that brave.

Mark had instantly taken his place on his blanket to read the gift. Within the book was a comic drawn with felt tips and biro, that told the story of a young man called Bob. He loved all the same things that Mark did, and all he had ever wanted was to be a superhero to save people. So he undertook a test trial, drinking a potion that made him the strongest being on earth. Within the scientist's grasp were two pink and blue bubblegum bottle gummies stuck on with tape for Mark to eat. The scientists didn't realize that his strength was cursed, and so when the man became sad or felt alone, he would turn as black as the licorice that Ben covered his body. The scientists didn't know how to help him, so they hid him in an underground bunker full of fun-sized chocolate bars and ancient gift cards for Walmart, all stuck on and incorporated into the large two-page spread.

Bob had slept until a group of low-level heroes found him. They too were lost and abandoned, but they worked together to get out of the trials of the bunker, through the pool of Smarties, the trees of brand new crayons, and defeating the monsters at the top that bled strawberry laces. Bob had forgotten how powerful he was, but as the final giant monster with the chocolate coin eye had attacked his friends, he turned into a fully fledged superhero, his skittle coloured laser beam vanquishing the monster before he fell exhausted from the sky and crashed into a van of peanut butter cups.

His new friends had gone to search for him, but he had vanished. The gang wouldn't normally be brave enough to risk their lives to find him, but they were friends now, so they ran off to rescue him in a limousine full of candy and takeaway vouchers found between the seats of Ben's Chevrolet.

By the time they found Bob, the scientists had gotten hold of him and made him a prisoner. He felt alone again and turned into the licorice monster before they could save him. After everything that had happened, all he wanted was to be a hero for everyone. But the crushing feeling became too strong. He rampaged across the city, destroying buildings made of scratchcards. He used his tentacles to kidnap his new friends and take them to a special universe that he had made, where they would never have to worry about falling under a curse like his.

Ben regretted using a sweet as disgusting as licorice so heavily in the story, but hopefully the pack of Cokes would make up for it.

In the comic, Bob's closest friend, Yelena, had found him first. The real Bob sat on the floor of his replica childhood home, filled with novels made from folded book tokens, and spoke of all the things he was cursed with. Of the crush in his chest that occurred whenever he felt alone. Of how he couldn't name it, but he felt a darkness come over him that scared him.

But his friend had sat with him. She told him she knew how he felt because all his friends were under the same curse. She revealed that when she felt alone or missed her family, she would fall asleep for months, while their other friends' powers affected them differently, like how John would turn angry or Ava would disappear. But Yelena had a secret power, one that when they told her their problems, or she told them hers, she would turn stronger and was able to magic the shadow's curse away, at least for a while.

So Bob and Yelena talked until the crushing feeling stopped (partaking in the remaining bounty from the gas station) and left to find their friends, helping them in the same way, before facing Bob's doppelganger to finally escape. Bob had tried to destroy his shadow as it taunted him that he had no friends. But they saw through him, and together they talked him down, convincing him they loved the shadow half of Bob too, until he agreed to merge with Bob to form an even stronger hero (one that used a broken candy cane as a weapon because he was running out of ideas). The whole finale was completed in three sentences rather than two. Maybe I was a better writer as a kid...

Ben hoped Mark liked the plot twist as much as his dad had.

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

Ben turned the radio on to drown out any suggestion of Mark's reaction, busying himself with stirring the pancake mix to keep his hands focused. As the Christmas tunes bathed the still, dimly lit kitchen, Ben thought of his father and how he had looked at him that day when he read his book. Ben felt the same expression creep upon his face as he steeled himself to look at Mark, enthralled, cross-legged on the floor as he picked at the chocolate. He thought then that his father really had known how he felt as a young boy, because Ben's dad had been just as scared as he was. Tears pricked his eyes. The only difference being he had managed to do what felt impossible to him and his dad. He reached out.

Ben dropped the first lot of the mix into the pan, the smell of the butter filling his senses as he swirled it around. He thanked Miranda and how she had accepted and loved the fact that writing had been the only way he had truly been able to communicate himself. She hadn't laughed at his cheesy proposal; she had just held him that night and kissed him until all the doubts melted away. He didn't think he could have done it without her.

And he thought of Susan, whom he would never get to write for while she was alive, but who had unknowingly pulled him out of his depression and into a place where the world seemed worth writing about again. Who made him think writing was something he could stick with, if not just to make sure others could be a witness to her life and love. He had signed Mark's present tag with "To Mark, Merry Christmas buddy, with all our love forever -Ben (and Susan)". It had been a start.

Ben's reverie was broken when he heard the last step of a run. Before he had time to react, the boy barrelled into him, hugging himself to his torso and scrunching up balls of his shirt. He sniffed into the protection of the soft cotton. Mark looked up, tears streaming down his face, but with a smile that made every failed Christmas before it worth it. Ben couldn't breathe; pride welled up in his throat more than any book award had ever come close. He had done it.

Ben placed a gentle hand on Mark's shoulder to give himself room and lowered his aching body onto his knees and fully embraced him. Ben didn't, couldn't say anything, so when they broke apart, he just nodded and smiled, his lips pressed to a watery line that told him he knew. He felt the same way.

The new family had spent that Christmas evening sat under the tiny tree, the excess chocolate packets strewn across the floor, as Mark, for the first time, told him of his parents, of his friends at school he'd never see again and how he worried about what was going to happen next. Ben had listened, fear initially creeping up his spine as he realized the enormity of the future that lay before them... but with each passing moment he relaxed. They had made a start. He just needed to put one foot in front of the other, just as he always had done. Looking at the boy's face as the shadow slowly lifted from his eyes with each new story falling from his lips, Ben knew they would work it out together.

Bob’s stomach fluttered with butterflies as he stared at the camera in front of him. Even though Jordan hadn’t started the stream yet, it felt so intimidating being in front of the camera. He couldn’t believe he was really doing this. Getting naked and jerking off in front of so many people. Strangers. It was exciting and nerve wracking all at once.

Bob was the one that brought it up. He knew Jordan did camming, he’d watch his streams with their girlfriend in the other room, his hand knuckle deep in you pussy and your hand wrapped around his leaking cock as Jordan dirty talked to the camera or showed off his ass or fucked himself with a dildo, taking requests for every stream to garner a bigger audience.

Neither of you cared that Jordan cammed. He was so fucking good at it, practically born to be star, and you were all secure enough in their relationship to understand it was a job, nothing more, nothing less.

When Bob started asking more questions about the process, how to get started, how to get an audience, Jordan asked him if he wanted to join in on a stream. At first, Bob hesitated. Yes, it interested him, but the idea of having his face out there scared him. Once Jordan promised they’d be able to hide most of his face with either camera angles or a mask, Bob agreed, and that’s what lead to now.

Planting a kiss on his naked shoulder, Jordan asks, “You ready to give ‘em a show baby?”

Instead of answering, a nervous Bob, wringing with his fingers, shyly asks, “Can… can you be in me? I just, I need to feel you, I think it’ll help the nerves.”

Jordans eyes twinkled as he nodded, “That’s a great idea. They’ll love knowing I’m inside you while I’m stroking you.”

Thankfully, Bob was already prepped with a plug fit snuggly in his ass. Jordan took his time earlier eating Bob out to prep for the stream. He had Bob edged and on the verge of tears for an hour while he lazily fucked his tongue and fingers in and out of his hole until he deemed Bob ready enough. Jordan wanted Bob crying his pretty tears by the end of their cam session today. And for when he was going to fuck him after for putting on such a good show.

With one nod from Bob, Jordan carefully and swiftly lifted his boyfriends’ hips, and took out the plug before pushing himself in, moaning as Bob’s hole welcomed him.

Bob whimpered at the stretch before finally settling down once his back hit his boyfriend’s chest. Jordans rocked his hips back and forth a bit, he just couldn’t help himself really, but then he stopped and let Bob get comfortable.

“Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

The moment the stream started, it was like a flip switched with Jordan, all his charisma exuding, like he was made for the camera.

“Hey guys, it’s Pretty Boy J here and you might have noticed, I’m not alone today.” Jordan smirks when he sees the comments flying in about the cute little twink on his lap. Oh, this was going to be good. “Now you might remember that this stream is a special one because we’ve hit over ten thousand subscribers on here! And for that, I’ve got a very special guest for you guys. My boyfriend. You guys can call him Sunshine. Say hi, Sunshine.”

Bashfully, Bob waves, the visible parts of his face flared red as he speaks out a, “Hi.”

More chimes and dings come from the chat immediately. Along with a plethora of cha-ching sounds indicating some have already started flooding their account with money. Holy shit, Bobthinks, that guy just sent us fifty bucks because I said hi. And then, Bob sees the comments, and he can’t help but blush more.

Hi Sunshine!

You’re so cute Sunshine.

Shit, I can’t wait to see how J wrecks him for us.

Hi Sunshine, you’re such a cutie!

Aww Sunshine’s so shy!

“Thanks, you guys, I know, my little Sunshine is the cutest, isn’t he.” Jordan nonchalantly squeezes Bobs nipple as he speaks, making the other man whimper. More dings from the chat. “Oh, I know, he just makes the prettiest noises, doesn’t he?”

Murmuring against Bobs shoulder, Jordan comments, “My boys so needy, he just needed my cock in him before we could go on.” The chat starts beeping like crazy. Replies flooding in all ranging from compliments Bob and asking for a closer view, “Oh, you guys wanna see? Now that’s going to cost you extra.” Like magic, more cha-ching sounds come from the laptop.

Bobs eyes are wide in wonder when Jordan just winks at him before shaking his head, “Alright. Gotta give the people what they want.”

Grabbing one of handheld cameras, Jordan brings it right to where his dick and Bobs ass meet. Gripping the flesh of his ass, Jordan lifts Bob up slightly, and hovers him halfway off his cock.

Bob can’t help but squirm at being exposed like this. The feeling of being put on display for the audience, like he was a prop for the show. And it was so unbelievably hot. He almost felt no shame as his dick twitched with every way Jordan showed him off. Almost.

Once the chimes from the chat slightly subsided, Jordan slowly dropped Bob aback on him, groaning lightly in his ear when he squeezes his cock, “Careful Sunshine,” Jordan gently chides into his hear before nibbling on his ear lobe which elicits a moan from the other man, “Don’t tease me when I got all the power right now.” Then Jordan eyes the camera before throwing it a wolfish grin, “So, are you guys ready to be graced with the glorious sight of my boy cuming all over your cameras?”

Chimes explode as more money gets sent their way.

Instead of going for his dick, Jordans hands darted to Bobs balls. He rolled them in his hand, giving them light squeezes and tugs which elicited the most delectable whines and cries from the man on his cock.

“J, J - Nggh” Bob panted, head falling back and rolling into the crook of his boyfriend’s neck 

“He loves it when I play with his balls. Sometimes I wonder if I can make him cum from just toying with them and rubbing them in my hands. But we might be here for a while if we do. You guys think I should give it a try?” Bob squirms, protesting that suggestion just as the chat floods with people chiming in.

Do it.

Edge him.

We wanna see that pretty boy sob.

Jordan quirks up an eyebrow at Bob, silently asking him yes or no, if he’d be okay with them changing their plans. Bob subtly shakes his head ‘no’. while the idea sounds nice, Bob wants to do that with you and Jordan first before on screen, “Mmm, maybe next time you guys. But don’t worry, we’re just getting started.”

Removing his hands from Bobs balls, Jordan drops a generous amount of lube on one hand and begins to stroke Bob’s already leaking cock at a relaxed, languid pace and his other hand rests comfortably on his belly, rubbing soothing circles with the tip of his fingers into his boyfriend’s flesh.

Bob reacts immediately to Jordans touch. Bucking once into his hand at the first stroke which makes Jordan chuckle before pressing Bob closer to him as he teasingly coos, “He’s so sensitive,” which scored them a few donations and comments about how adorable Sunshine is.

Then Jordan teases his slit with his thumb, grinning wide when Bob moans, eyes rolling to the back of his head as Jordan plays with his cock. “Do you like that? Like when I tease your cock like this? Come on baby, words. Tell them how you feel. How am I making you fell?”

 “G-Good! Y-you make me feel s-so good.”

Jordan works his hand up and down his shaft, that leisure pace he set for himself earlier long gone as Bob sounded more desperate and whiney, quivering with want as he pleaded, “Don't stop! Feels s’good! Please!"

"You're doing so good. Isn’t he doing so good you guys?"

Sunshine’s the best!

He’s such a good boy for us.

Fuck, the way he moans, I might just cum from that.

Jordan reads off some of the comments to Bob, whispering seductively in his ear as he pumps him. His grip is firm as his hand glides up and down Bob's length.

Bob squirms even more, gasping and moaning at how good it all feels. All their compliments. So many people praising him, telling him he’s doing good.

"Oh, God!" Bob pants, feeling release on the tip of his tongue, “J – I need – please, can I -”

“Should I let him cum? He’s been a good little slut for us; he deserves a reward, don’t you guys think?” Words incoherently spill from Bobs mouth as he pleaded for release, for the chance to let go, “Please, please,” and “yes, yes, J, yes,” along with pleads that he’d been a good boy for him.

Jordan can’t help but proudly smirk when he feels how much Bobs shaking. At how needy he sounds. It’s time for him to get his reward.

“Aww he keeps clenching around me, I think our baby boy deserves to cum. Cum baby, cum for me.”

On command, Bob spills all over his belly and Jordans hand, a broken, loud howl escaping him as he throughs his head back over Jordans shoulder, arching his back. Jordan nearly cums himself at the sight. Bob’s so beautiful like this. Mouth gaped open in a moan, eyes fluttering as his body shakes with euphoria, and now all the viewers can see it. And they don’t even get the beauty of seeing Bobs tear filled eyes blink up at him before he nuzzles his face into his, seeking comfort.

“That’s a good boy,” Jordan ignores the saltiness of Bobs tears as he peppers his cheeks with kisses.

The chat is exploding with donations and compliments. People were already asking for when Sunshine was going to join in for another stream. Asking if Sunshine was going to make his own channel.

With a wink and a kiss, Jordan ends the stream, Bob letting out the faintest whimper when Jordan leans forward to shut it off.

Jordan pulls out of Bob, who whines at the loss, before pushing himself back inside him once he’s flipped Bob over, so his back is now pressed against the bed.

This is what helps Bob a lot when he’s been pushed to the point of crying during sex. It’s such a comfort when he gets to warm Jordan's cock, even though it’s a pain for his boyfriend. All Jordan wants to do it start bucking his hips into him, but he shows restraint since he knows it's Bob's favorite thing ever.

Sighing in want, Jordan nipped and licked all over Bobs throat, “Fuck, you did so good, they loved you baby boy.”

Teary eyed, Bob asks, “Really? Y-you think so?”

“Fuck yeah. Did you see the comments? The chimes from them flooding the gates with their money. We made -” Jordan glanced at the laptop briefly before turning his attention back to man he’s inside of, “- Holy shit – ten thousand in that one stream alone. Fuck, that might be the most I’ve ever made in a stream before. And it’s all because of you.”

Bob's eyes bulge at the number. Fuck. No wonder Jordans told him he doesn’t need to work anymore if he wanted to. They just made more in one stream than Bob ever made in a whole month working full time and dealing with shitty customers working in fast food. Maybe he should give this camming thing a chance. He really did like the feeling, and the audience obviously loved him.

Pressingly their noses together, Jordan tenderly, yet seductively asks, “Want me to fuck you? For being such a good boy and cumming on camera for everyone?”

All it takes is one nod and Jordans hiking Bobs legs around his hips and fucking him into the bed. The bed shakes, the sound of skin slapping against skin echoing in the air with loud needy mewls and ‘uhs’ leaving Bobs plush, reddened lips.

Just because the stream ended, didn’t mean the fun was over for them.

Likes, comments, and reblogs are always appreciated! Love ya!

Please do not copy or repost. Love and thank you all!

He’s so beautiful, you think. No frown, no worry lines, just comfort and bliss as he sleeps the morning away with you safe in his arms. At least, you think he’s asleep, until the hold on your waist tightens, and the sound of the groggy voice, hoarse from not yet taking a sip of the water that rests on the bedside table, reaches your ears, “Watcha lookin’ at?”

You smile. “Nothin’, just looking at my pretty husband while he sleeps.”

Rhett snorts, eyes still closed as he speaks into the top of your head. “Stalker.”

At that, you let out a soft laugh, “Rich coming from you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You forgetting the fact you came by the diner every day for weeks, just so I’d take your lunch order because you were too shy to ask me out? Coming by every time you knew I was working, staring at me all day long when you thought I wasn’t lookin-” You point at his chest, “Stalker.”

You both laugh then, sharing kisses as you continue teasing one another. Enjoying the quiet morning in bed because you know that at any minute, Cailee and Lucas will come barreling through the door, filled with too much energy for such an early hour, pouncing onto your bed before asking for pancakes and bacon for breakfast.

Only they never get to do that this morning. No, because this morning, things will take a turn for the worst.

A loud knock at the front door disturbs your haven of peace. Followed by the shrill of the doorbell.

Rhett moves to get up, but you push him back into bed with a sleepy grin, “I got it.” He had a competition the night before, scoring first place at the rodeo, and he deserves to sleep in for once, especially after the late-night fun you had, filled with fists clutching bedsheets and moans of his name as you tried to stay quiet so as not to wake your kids.

“Fine then, I’ll go round up those little rascals while you tell whoever’s here so early to go the hell home.” He pulls you down for one last kiss, winking as you slip out the door.

The stairs creak beneath your feet as you make your descent, and your lips twitch into a fond smile as you pass by the walls. Littered with family photos that bring memories to the forefront of your mind.

Your and Rhett’s wedding. Simple, but beautiful nonetheless. Neither of you had wanted a big wedding. Hell, you would’ve gotten hitched at the courthouse if it wasn’t for Cecilia insisting on you both throwing some sort of party. So, you settled on a wedding in the barn, just the two of you and the ones you held dear.

Shortly after the wedding, your little cricket Cailee arrived. The ultimate daddy’s girl, she wanted to be a bull rider just like him, because if daddy could do it, then so could she. She even insisted on wearing one of Rhett’s old Stetsons whenever she could, despite it being many sizes too big. Then, a year ago, you welcomed your lovely Lucas. He’d been an unexpected but welcome gift to you both, completing the home you and Rhett fought to have, the missing puzzle piece to your family.

Your walk down memory lane is cut short once you reach the door. The person that greets you makes your stomach drop.

“Sheriff Hawk?”

The woman before you stands with her head held high, a piece of paper folded in her hand, stretched out toward you. Despite her serious stature, you can see the tiniest glimmer of guilt. For what, you’re not sure. But the whole of Wabang sheriff’s department standing behind her is enough to make your breath catch in your lungs, and a chill run down your spin.

“Mornin’ (Y/N)-”

“Joy, what’s going on?” You tug the cardigan you’d hastily thrown on closer. “Why are you here so early? Why-”

“We’ve got a warrant to search the premises.”

Your heart drops to your stomach, “A warrant? What? Why? What’s going on?” Your mind races. What the fuck is going on?

“Joy?”

Rhett comes up behind you, startling you slightly. You hadn’t even heard him come down the stairs with Cailee and Lucas in his arms, still sleepy as they rest their heads on his shoulders.

“Rhett, why don’t you give the kids to (Y/N). Gotta talk to you for a minute.”

Rhett pauses, both of you sharing a worried glance as he places the sleepy kids onto the floor by his sides.

You put a hand out for Joy to stop. “No. Just, wait a minute.” You bend down, eye level with Cailee, “Hey cricket, why don’t you go turn on the TV for you and Lucas, hm?”

Cailee’s eyes sparkle, perking up at the prospect of watching TV so early. “Really? Even though we haven’t had breaky yet?”

“Yep, but just for today. Now go on.”

Cailee giggles as she grabs Lucas’s hand, both of them waddling over together to the TV, close enough for you to see them, but far enough not to hear the conversation you’re about to have with Joy.

You hold Rhett’s arm, needing something to anchor you to reality and keep you sane from all the thoughts running through your head, “Ok, we’re listening.”

“We talked to Perry last night. Brought him in for some questioning. He said he wasn’t driving Rhett’s truck that night. That he wasn’t anywhere near The Pit Bar. And that he can’t verify where you were that night, Rhett. Neither him nor Royal.”

Your grip on Rhett’s forearm tightens, jaw clenching as you try to keep your composure. You glance at him. To anyone else, he might look like he was keeping it together, but you can tell by the distant look in his eyes and the twitch in his hand that his inner panic and pain are growing. Panic at what Perry implicated, making Rhett seem like a viable suspect in Trevor Tillerson’s disappearance. And pain. Pain at hearing that Royal himself corroborated Perry's story. Was he really going to sacrifice one son for the other? What the hell are they doing?

She hands over the warrant, which Rhett clutches in his hand. “I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to get started right now.”

You nod, moving to gather your kids, trying to figure out what to tell them. The deputies don’t even wait for you to leave. Those bastards.

As soon as Joy is done talking to you, they make their way in, ripping apart the living room and tearing their way through the rest of the house.

Rhett’s eyes are hard as he reads the warrant, his grip tight as he crumbles the corner he’s holding.

Cailee tugs at the leg of his jeans, raising her hands up for him. She wants to be in her daddy’s arms. All these strangers are in her house, going through her family’s things, and she’s confused, but knows her daddy will make it better.

Groaning quietly, he lifts her up, kissing her soft on the temple as he looks at you, faltering slightly. Your face is stony as you hold Lucas to your chest, trying to settle him by bouncing him on your hip.

Rhett can tell you’re pissed. Not at him, but at his family, and he knows it isn’t long until you let them have your fury.

Joy sighs as she captures Rhett’s attention again, “You can get your things together, after we check 'em of course, but we’re going to be here for a while Rhett. I suggest y’all pack a day bag and head out to Royal’s for at least a couple of hours.”

Rhett wants to argue, but you give him that look that tells him not to fight. You don’t want to be here any longer. Cailee and Lucas are already fussing over the change in their routine, and seeing Amy and Cecilia might help a bit, even if the last thing you want to do is be in the same house as Perry and Royal.

The car ride to Royal’s and Cecilia’s is silent besides the children’s babbling, both excited about seeing Amy. Rhett’s thumb is anxiously drumming against the steering wheel, teeth gnawing his bottom lip as he tries to send Cailee a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes as she speaks to him, though he isn’t really processing any of it.

The only thing running through his mind is you. His children. His family. Your look of confusion and worry as you read the warrant that gave the sheriff permission to search your house, dig through the place you felt safe and happy, all due to the disappearance of Trevor Tillerson. All due to Perry's fuck-up.

Rhett had told you everything the day it happened. He wasn’t one to keep secrets from you, not even when Royal grabbed him rough by the shoulders and made Rhett swear to secrecy. Made him swear he’d keep what happened to himself and himself only, that he wouldn’t bring you into it. But you immediately knew something was wrong.

Rhett came home later than he promised. His steps heavy, like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders as he came up the stairs. He sat at the edge of your bed, his head hanging low until you came to him, cradling him to your chest as he trembled in your arms, recounting what transpired that night.

How Rhett had lent Perry his truck, that Perry was just supposed to do a last-minute errand for Royal. That Perry showed up hours later with Trevor, lifeless and bloody, in the back of Rhett’s pickup. Perry had stopped at The Pit Bar for a drink, Trevor said something to him about Rebecca, and Perry just snapped. At least, that’s what Perry told them.

He didn’t want to go to the sheriff; he wanted to go to Royal.

Perry and Royal cleaned Rhett’s truck as best they could. They tried to get Rhett to help, but he raised his hands, insisting he wanted nothing to do with it, that he wouldn’t do anything that could jeopardize his family.

In the following days, neither of you were questioned about what happened. You thought that would be the end of it, for the two of you at least. Until Joy showed up to one of Rhett’s rodeos. She came by, asking him questions about where he had been that night. Said that someone saw his truck in town, where Trevor had last been seen.

Everyone in Wabang knew about the tension between the Abbotts and the Tillersons, of course the Abbott boys would be the number one suspects if something happened to one of the Tillerson boys.

Rhett told her the truth, that he lent his truck to Perry that night, but he was with Royal and then you in the hours that followed. But it seemed that since then, Joy talked to Perry, and he’d thrown Rhett under the bus to save his own skin.

Now you’re fuming, anger simmering in the pit of your stomach the closer you get to the Abbott ranch. If it wasn’t for your children seated between you two, you’d be exploding. Not at Rhett. Never at him. But at the situation his family put you in. The crass carelessness of their actions, all in an attempt to save one son, but thoughtlessly setting the other up for failure.

Instead, you coo as Lucas reaches for his toy that you have in your hand, ruffling with Cailee’s hair when she asks if she can be a princess for dinner tonight. Once you arrive, Cailee makes a beeline for Amy, stopping to hug her grandpa and grandma before chatting away with her cousin. Cecilia immediately takes Lucas from you the second you walk through the door, claiming she wants to spend some time with her favorite grandson.

There is no hiding the tensions within the house, but you bite your tongue, not wanting to cause a scene, at least not with the kids within earshot. You spend breakfast sending fake smiles and keeping yourself busy with the kids, in need of the distraction. Rhett stays by your side, the idea of being alone with Perry and Royal causing his stomach to lurch and his fists to clench. It takes everything in himself not to drag Perry out back and punch his brother until his knuckles are red and raw. But he composes himself. At least Rhett can control his own anger.

It’s after lunch when everything finally snaps. Perry continues trying to act like all is fine, laughing and making jokes with Cailee and Amy, behaving like a doting uncle who didn’t just set his niece’s father up for failure. You just can’t take it anymore.

“Royal. Perry.” Your voice cuts through like a knife, all conversations coming to a halt as the two men you called out eye you, “I think it’s time we talk, don’t you?”

Royal goes stiff, but nods, telling Cecilia to take you and the kids to go watch TV.

You usher the children into the living room, Cecilia sending you a tight smile as she tries to urge you to come with her, to let the men do the talking. You shake your head, tight-lipped; you aren’t about to let your husband be outnumbered in there.

Once you’re sure the kids aren’t listening, you return to your seat at the table, your hand finding its way to Rhett’s.

He is the one to break the silence.

“What the hell did you say, Perry? What the hell did you do?”

Perry stands up, immediately on the defensive. “What-”

“Sheriff said that you changed your story. That you didn’t know where I was that night. That you made it seem like I was the one--”

“That’s enough!”

Royal tries to get Rhett to stop, but he ignores him, shrugging Royal off when he tries to pull him away from the argument that was starting to brew into a fight.

“Ya know what, Per? You’re over here playing the victim, the poor husband whose wife went missing, but I think we all know the truth, don’t we? We all know Rebecca left on her own. She ain’t missing. She just wanted to get the hell away from you. Just because you got to screw your wife over don’t mean you get to screw me over-!”

Chairs scrape against the hardwood floor, glasses exploding, falling to the ground as Perry lunges across the table, hands outstretched for Rhett. But he doesn’t get a chance to lay a hand on him.

You surge forward, hand coming up to slap Perry across the face as you shout, “Don’t you dare touch him!”

Perry is dumbfounded, holding his face where your hand connected with it, his mouth open in shock as he tries to rub the sting away. Your hand aches, but you ignore it, pointing at the red-faced man as his nostrils flare.

“You got us into this mess, Perry!” You shout. Royal tries to calm you down, but you shrug him off. He looks at Rhett, silently urging him to control his woman, but Rhett just ignores him, a swell of pride blooming in his chest as you protect him, fight for him and your family. “You’re the one that did this! And now you’re going to try and pin it all on Rhett.”

“I wasn’t-”

“No! You listen and you listen good. I am not letting my husband go down for something that you did. I am not letting my children grow up with their father behind bars. So, you will grow some fucking balls, Perry, and take accountability for what you did. Your daddy can’t get you out of this mess. And if you don’t, I swear to fucking god, me and Rhett are telling Sheriff Hawk everything come sunrise.” You sneer.

A stunned silence rolls in over the four of you, your words sinking into Perry and Royal. Before they can interject anymore, you hear a small cry from the living room, the shouting no doubt scaring Lucas. You take a deep breath, “Now if you’ll excuse me,” the chair scrapes underneath you, your hand coming up to squeeze Rhett’s shoulder as you move away from the table. “I need to go take care of my children.”

Just before you leave, you stop, turning back toward the three men with one final statement, “And remember Royal, you got two sons, not just the one. You ain’t sacrificing one for the other.”

Perry stares at your back, wide-eyed and in disbelief. Royal is trying to rub his headache away, but no amount of rubbing will wash away the mistake he’s made. Rhett glares at them both, shaking his head with a scoff as he stalks after you. If looks could kill, there’d be a bloodbath in that kitchen.

You hurry toward the living room, Lucas already reaching out for you as soon as you come into view, his cries immediately ceasing as you lift him up and bounce him on your hip.

“Mommy, there was yelling.” Cailee stares up at you with her big blue eyes, reminding you so much of Rhett with the concern behind them.

“I know baby. It’s okay, everything’s fine. Why don’t you go kiss grandma and Amy goodbye? We’re gonna be heading on home now, okay?”

Cailee nods, skipping off to do as you told her. Lucas stares up at you with his tear-stained cheeks, “We go home, mama?”

You pinch those reddened cheeks, blinking away your own tears as every emotion known to man seems to make its way forward, threatening to break down the walls you’ve worked so hard to keep up for their sake, “Yeah, we’re going home baby.”

The deputies are long gone by the time you get back home. The only sign they were there being the half dozen tire tracks that made their way from the front porch to the dirt road. Until you open the door to find the house in complete disarray. You huff, clenching your fists. Bastards didn’t even bother cleaning up the mess they made.

You take in a deep breath. Now was not the time to let go.

You quickly get Lucas and Cailee settled in their room, telling them to go play, promising that dinner will be ready in a couple of hours.

Rhett leads you into your room, holding your hand tightly in his. With the final shut of your bedroom door, you lean back, your head hitting the wood as the dam you built finally breaks. The tears start coming, and they don’t stop. You sob, trying to be as quiet as possible. You don’t want the kids to hear any of this, you don’t want it near them. Don’t want them to be infected with the panic and worry Perry and Royal have bestowed upon you.

Rhett pulls you in instantly, apologizing profusely for getting you into this mess.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” You speak between sobs, wiping your face clean of tears. “Rhett,” you sigh, “I am not letting anything happen to our family, you hear me? I ain’t letting your family sacrifice you for Perry, no fucking way.”

Rhett holds your face in his hands, his eyes boring into yours as he speaks with a seriousness and clarity you’ve only heard few times before. Once, when he asked you to marry him, promising to love and care for you ‘til his last breath. The second and third times when he whispered to newborns Cailee and Lucas, holding them to his chest as he promised to never let anything happen to them, to be their protector. Now, he’s making the same vow, to protect the family you created, to make sure this poison doesn’t touch you anymore than it already has.

“I promise you, I ain’t gonna let anything happen to us. Tomorrow, I’ll go to Sheriff Hawk, tell her everythin’ I know. Just like you said today. If Perry won’t do it, I will. I ain’t goin’ down for this.”

He hugs you tight, like he never wants to let you go again, as you bury your face in his chest, taking a deep breath, inhaling his scent. Tears still remain in your eyes.

You stand there for a while. How long, you aren’t sure, all you know is that you need to be in Rhett arms, it’s the only place that makes you feel safe, makes you feel secure. Your intimate moment is cut short by the light pitter-patter of footsteps coming toward the bedroom door, before your door creaks open, “Mommy? Daddy?”

You and Rhett pull apart, wiping any sign of tears away, sighing as you plaster smiles on your faces. “Yeah cricket?”

“Can you help me into my princess dress? Wanna wear it for dinner.”

Rhett walks forward, bending down to lift Cailee as he speaks in a gruff, playful voice, “Of course cricket. Let’s get our princess ready for supper, eh?”

Cailee giggles at Rhett’s voice, and he sends you a smile before taking Cailee to go change. Everything still feels so uncertain, the unknown of what tomorrow will bring, of what will happen to the Abbott family once Perry’s crimes are revealed, is frightening. But you feel at ease knowing that you and Rhett are on the same page, both willing to do anything to protect your family and the life you’ve built together.

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Ben Mears leaned against the wall, and the wall leaned away.

To its eternal credit, the floor gave him a moment to catch himself before it spun around him, sending him careening into the side of a drinks table with just an overzealous flick back of his hair as cover-up. Thankfully, all heads turned to the fashionably late gaggle of beat writers who had just entered. The very ones who wrote extensively about never being caught dead at such a gathering, and who now deposited their coats and took their thrones by the already melting ice sculpture. 

Ben sighed and counted to three, punctuating each beat by tapping his third, but most prestigious award of the week against his thigh. If thousands of tons of concrete weren’t enough to keep him upright, maybe a fresh Pabst Blue Ribbon would- Ah, who was he kidding? If he smuggled something that cheap into here, one of the plain-clothed bodyguards would have taken him to the ground by now. 

He eyed the rows of luxury amber spirits… Surely, his ten-year subscription to the New Yorker had covered the cost of his host’s drinks by now? His guilt assuaged (he knew whose influence that was), he grabbed two glasses of brandy and poured them into a third one, and toasted the grand, shining ice maiden. The duel was on for which of them would last the longest amongst all this hot air.

With this hour’s models finally settled in, the miniature, enclosed Times Square, for a moment completely frozen in time, burst into life again. A sea of people all criss-crossing through makeshift thoroughfares and landmarks of authors, critics, and publishers (who had magically forgotten Ben’s past flops) merged into one monstrous deluge of silk and designer cashmere as Ben gave up trying to track the stoned waiter with the cheeseboard. 

Just a few blocks away, the real Times Square roared with angry car horns and the jeers of excited tourists. However, not even the busiest intersection in the world could cut through the cacophony of perfunctory chatter, aggressive networking, and backhanded compliments sharper than any wooden stake. Or so they seemed to Ben. Maybe it was all innocent. Maybe his fellow nominee really was delighted that a previously mid-tier writer had ‘such a marvellously rich backstory’, but then again, he had supposed ‘everyone must have something worth mining’. Asshole. As the Washington Post critic, an old acquaintance at these parties, had put it better over entrees, “By Jove, there’s something between those sideburns after all.”

He quite liked her. She certainly made for more engaging conversation than the probing money men snooping around for his next critically acclaimed hit, even if it was his worst seller in years. At least she had actually read it. Judging by the same rotation of questions he had spent his evening answering, most of the ass-kissers could not say the same.

Now his partner-in-insults was canoodling with her inner circle while Ben practised his wall-flower pose, perfected through awkward college years, and quietly made redundant as his conversational tag-team with his wife steadily bloomed. Their eyes briefly met through the crowd, exchanging sly, exhausted winks. Between the verbal jabs and brief moments of unity while they bemoaned the state of literature (for which she held him partly responsible), she suddenly mused that he looked taller than the last time she saw him, whatever the fuck that meant. He didn’t think that was possible after Jerusalem’s Lot. Stuck in a suit that chafed at every angle, surrounded by people whose faces filled the trades, not just the tabloids like he used to, he felt smaller and smaller.

Ben always refused to think of himself as a victim, despite the death that had haunted his whole life and practically written his magnum opus for him. But a victim of his own success? Oh, now there was a thought. The writer-for-hire ten years ago would have happily left twenty victims in his wake to be called that, plus a few choice reviewers and publishers as thanks for such a lofty moniker. A lopsided smirk stretched out his punch-drunk, rosy cheeks as one such publisher strutted past. 

Miles always called it his wry whiskey look, the one that reared its handsome head whenever he selfishly shared a joke with only himself.

But no, he wasn’t thinking of him right now. He was at home, looking after their son and far more demanding cat, despite his insistence that he would come if Ben wanted him to. And Ben did, of course he did, but he also knew this was his idea of hell. So instead, Ben cleared his throat and head in the same sip and went once more into the breach to schmooze with the best of them. Unfortunately for him, the best of them included his editor, who threw an arm around his shoulders before he could retreat behind the chocolate fountain and gleefully marched him straight into the lion’s den.

A hand from somewhere topped up his glass, “So what’s the next one about, Mears?”

“Werewolves”, he proudly affirmed with the most serious expression he could fix. “Although I may change it to an incubus.”

Miles would have laughed at that. Mark would have rolled his eyes, but what was the point of being a dad if you couldn’t embarrass your son every once in a while?

Instead, a woman in a dress worth more than his partners’ entire wardrobe cut in. “I love the story at the end about meeting your wife. She sounded so special.”

“She was”, Ben said simply. It was partly why he had written the book - to close the chapter on his childhood that Miranda had worked with him to put into perspective. She hadn’t lived to see it through to the end, but dedicating the book to ‘M’, without whom none of this book would have meaning, ‌felt like something approaching closure. Little did anyone else know the ‘M’ referred to three people, not just his wife. 

“Are you going to write about her next?” the woman probed.

“No. Or at least, not yet. Don’t think I have it in me right now.”

She hummed out an insinuating, disingenuous noise- it was a dead ringer for the sound Miles made when he devolved into one of his rarest, but Ben’s favourite, moods: petty. Such was the power of the most condescending parents at his school’s PTA meetings that even a man as polite as Miles had honed a pitch-perfect imitation of them to rival a New York socialite. It should have got a chuckle out of him, but seeing her eyes suddenly glaze over as though it could literally erase him from her sight made his jaw tighten further.

“But we’ll see,” he bit. “Hopefully, I can get caught up in a few more tragedies and see if that sparks something.”

He captured her withering gaze between the teeth of his wolf-like, unamused smirk. She only broke free when habit made Ben glance to where his son should be, suppressing an annoyed laugh or the urge to run away and join the circus, like he always threatened to do when Ben caused a scene.  

Before he could take another swipe, his fellow nominee, Sam- or whatever his name was, hooked his arm through his and dragged him away with an excuse about checking the Mets' score together for a bet. Sam wove through the disinterested crowd with ‌the practiced ease of a man who had always been nominated but never quite won. Out of the corner of his eye, Ben saw the ice sculpture standing strong. Fucker.

If only Miranda were here. She would have executed that woman before all her peers with a single, scathing remark, so subtle that she would have experienced social death long before she’d ever even realised she had been cut. When they first met, Miranda’s ease of wit terrified Ben, almost as much as it turned him on. But it was also why Miles hated these things. The ride home usually consisted of lamenting what he wished he’d said, instead of how he had actually smoothed things over with his southern hospitality and quiet, if nervous, charm. But on the odd occasion when the knives did come out? Ho boy. Ben couldn’t squirrel him home fast enough. 

Ben Mears landed softly on the chair nearest the pianist. In all the hubbub, he didn’t even realise they’d been a piano, let alone music. Sam, definitely Sam, didn’t take the seat next to him. With a smile wryer and whiskey-er than his own, he gestured a tip of his proverbial hat. “Don’t ruin that nice face of yours with a broken nose, it’ll look terrible on the dust cover.”

Despite the joke, Ben looked suitably admonished. If he was being honest with himself, he wasn’t sure if he had misread her intentions or not. He’d been out of sync all day, exhaustion and homesickness mixing into a potent concoction. Sam patted his shoulder. “Give yourself five. Hey, maybe take the time to work your wife into that werewolf story? It’ll buy you a second house to store all the awards you can steal from me again.”

That got a laugh out of him. Yeah, he remembered Sam from the old days now. Make that five, or was it six favours he owed him? As thanks, he’d get Miles to pray for him when he got back to Minnesota, but in the meantime, a promise to behave and the last of his brandy would have to suffice.  

Miles. 

Ben had tried not to think about him and Mark while he was here so he could focus, but it was no use. 

He missed them. He’d been on his victory lap for two weeks now, and the nerves along his skin were already pricking at him. Feather-like, ghosts of touch in the shape of their outlines, enticing- urging him to return to the real thing. However, it was nothing compared to the 32 years he’d missed them before he first saw his future husband in an innocuous antiques shop in Maine, and his would-be son bounding up the stairs of a run-down drive-in. He could do this; he was being ridiculous. Ben just had to hold out for a few more days, and he’d be on the plane home.

He slowed his breathing, just as Miles had taught him. The woman at the piano must have been at least in her sixties, her grey hair slightly dishevelled as she moved to the bars of her music while the crowd moved to the open bar. Basking in his own little oasis from the chaos, he leant over, and after the third psst, she recovered from her reverie and nodded at his request- Nina Simone, one of Miles’ and Miranda’s favourites.

Listening to her deftly transition into his song, Ben forced himself to relax into the sofa. He flexed the old crick in his neck from too many long hours writing. Left. Right. Then back to the left in time with the soft piano music. And then it stayed there, suspended over his shoulder. A flash of annoyance hit him. The crick always went away on the third stretch, right where a soft, auburn mop would gently buff against it and massage it out as it nestled in closer. Without it, Ben looked like a curious puppy, struggling to make sense of the ocean of colourful patterns of designer suits and dresses before him. 

And then, just as his stomach rumbled, an angel appeared. He thought he’d never see that beautiful face again.

It was the blessed, stoned waiter. Red-rimmed eyes and cheap deodorant, which barely hid the telltale grassy odor, announced him long before his lumbering steps did. Wherever the hell he’d been, it didn’t matter now. He was here. And he’d refilled his platter.

“Um, Mr Mears?” he stuttered.

“That’s me.” Ben jumped in his seat, any pretense of being the aloof writer thrown out the window.

“Hey uhh. L-listen, I know I’m not supposed to be weird at these things, but I’m a b-big fan.”

He didn’t mean to sound quite so surprised. “You read my book?”

“Yeah, man!” he shouted, quickly hushing himself before his supervisor caught him. Although Ben figured the young man couldn’t be that concerned about professionalism as he dived to take the seat next to him. “Loved it! I almost didn’t recognise you; you’re taller than I imagined.”

Ugh. There was that stupid expression again. It bothered him so much that he missed the blundered “and older too.” What the hell did that mean? 

While Ben suspiciously squinted at him, as though perhaps it was some code, or even a curse, the waiter looked him over anxiously. Waiting to see if it had worked. Eventually, Ben gave up and relaxed. “Well, it’s good to meet you…?”

“Rudy!” he shouted again. He tried and failed to mirror his hero’s casual pose. “You’re my girlfriend’s favourite too. She’s read all your stuff.”

“Really? Well, that’s kind of you to say,” and weird, he mentally amended. He wasn’t sure what the appropriate level of enthusiasm was for someone’s book about parental death and childhood trauma, but it wasn’t this. Still, once upon a time, he had been the star-struck fan, so he muscled through as though Miles was there judging his politeness like an all-seeing, exacting God. “She… must have very morbid taste. I’m impressed. A woman like that’s a keeper - make sure you hang onto her.”

“I will!” Rudy nodded like a puppet on a string, hanging on his every word. “Um, you wouldn’t sign this for her, would you? She’ll freak.”

Ben pointed at the cheese platter. “That cheese still up for grabs?” 

It was on his lap in an instant. “Go for it. I already fucked up and spilt half a glass of wine over some hotshot. I ain't getting another gig here.”

That got a genuine laugh out of him. He happily took the disconcertingly sweaty napkin to sign while popping cubes of cheddar into his mouth. 

All the while, Rudy watched him like a hawk, committing every squiggle to memory. “You, um... writing a sequel, y’think?”

Ah, there it was. Ben sighed, his teeth gritting together. Betrayed by his own guardian angel of all things, but his husband’s voice echoed loud and clear, Be nice, sweetheart. 

“God, I sure hope not.”

The stomach next to him rumbled. Taking mercy on the young man, Ben passed him a handful of Hors d'oeuvres, which he instantly snapped up, grateful to have something to occupy his mouth with before he ran it off more. It lasted all of two seconds.

“Ah, but the cliffhanger was so good! That sex scene in the park? And when that chick died and then came back to eat her boyfriend? Or the dude who got so scared he had a heart attack on the spot? It was awesome!”

Wait… What?

Ben shoved down the sudden urge to clamp his hand over Rudy’s mouth. To accuse him of writing such things was tantamount to treason in a place like this, but instead he fell back onto the sofa with a warm, billowing laugh. Of course, he hadn’t read the Marsten book. 

It had been his first novel since The Lot. He’d listened to Miles and Mark exchange thoughts on their favourite monster movies and comics while he couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the tales of heroes who always saved the girl, villains who got their comeuppance, and mandatory happy endings. But after what happened in that accursed town, why not? Why not believe in them again? One ridiculous, thinly veiled yet gratuitous vampire book later, he had overcome his writer's block and was ready to put his childhood to paper. Ben had only intended the shlock for his family and closest friends, but they’d encouraged him to send it to his publisher, and then, before he knew it, they had one hell of a beautiful new kitchen and one very full college fund for Mark. 

“Oh, that book?” The cracker almost lodged itself in his throat as he chuckled. “Ahh. I mean, I hadn’t really thought about it.”

An angry voice came from behind them, demanding that Rudy return to work before they threw his sorry ass out. Reluctantly, he got up, clutching the napkin, his clammy palms already smudging it into one giant blob. “Well, if you do, we’ll be the first in line. Oh, man - if you call a character Rudy, give him a cool-ass death for me?”

Ben grinned and crossed his heart. “I will. Extra gory.”

He couldn’t remember the last time someone looked so excited. Definitely not in these four walls.

As the waiter disappeared into the crowds, Ben felt lighter. And, somehow, rather inspired. God, his family would be insufferable when he told them… 

He sighed again. Dammit. Now that they were on his mind, they were all he could think about as everything else passed him by. The volume swelled in the room until the ground shook; he couldn’t hear the people who came over to congratulate him, nor did he much care by that point.

Ben Mears had finally achieved his childhood dream of becoming a prestigious, award-winning author. He was proud of himself, truly. He’d defeated vampires, writer's block, and his adopted son’s homework between furious, inspired writing sessions to get here. And yet all he could think about was how he missed them all… and how he wanted to give Rudy the final send-off he gallantly deserved and land himself straight onto the list of banned library books. Suddenly, the idea of being ‌a full-time horror writer sounded rather appealing. If nothing else, he knew how to give those stories the endings they deserved.

Just a few more hours. He just needed to get his shit together.

Any moment now.

He clicked his fingers.

…. Now!

….

Ah, fuck it.

Instead, he gathered up his shit, and threw as many free entrees into his bag as he could. On the way out, he passed ‌‌the ice sculpture, still standing. Just. 

By the time the crowds started to make their excuses to leave, the only sign Ben Mears had ever attended the party at all was the glass of whisky hidden under the pianist’s chair, with the pinky of the ice sculpture snapped off to keep it cool, a star-struck twenty-something’s signed napkin and one Washington Post critic. Entertained, and thoroughly smug, as her ploy to tell that fawning waiter how to ingratiate himself into his favourite author's good graces actually worked. Just say he looks taller, he loves that.

As Ben called the cab, stepping out into the bulging mass of pedestrians, the slayer of vampires, the saviour of Maine? America? The world? Breathed in the frigid, gas-soaked air of New York and disappeared back into the night. No longer Ben Mears: the author, but simply Ben Miller-Mears of Ashford, Minnesota, he felt…better…no, taller. He mirthlessly smiled. 

Those bastards.

However, in his defence, it helped that he carried his award for all to see. Let them gawk; he would leave ‌sainthood to his husband. He had a sequel to write.

In his younger years, Ben Miller-Mears could never let a falsehood go uncorrected, even if he wasn’t sure if he was right; however, age, fatherhood and marriage had softened him (unless it was about sports). Now, he didn’t mind; some he even rather liked, such as how his husband thought he was the clumsiest oaf this side of the border. Which was half-true; he was clumsy. But not this clumsy.

The clock struck 10. It had taken him nearly 24 hours to get back, but he had done it.

Mark should be asleep by now, while Miles prepared for their daily phone calls while he was away. Throwing the front door wide, it whined on its hinges and clicked loudly when he closed it. He jangled his keys before putting them on the sideboard. Having some sense of self-preservation, he toed off his dirty shoes, but clambered over every squeaky floorboard and clanked the glasses against the worktop. Just quiet enough to let Mark sleep, but loud enough for Miles to know he was there.  

For as far as they had come, it still wasn’t a guarantee how Miles would react if Ben snuck up on him. He didn’t want to spook him, but he had been gone for weeks. He had time to think, plan. So instead, he let Miles assume, not for the first time, that he had gotten one up on him. He really should have won his prize for husband of the year instead.

As their cat let the wayward food-dispenser scritch under her chin, Ben caught sight of their bedroom down the corridor. He half-expected to see a shadow potter around through the slit in the door, but the house was completely quiet. It was so tempting just to barge in there and kiss the man inside senseless, but he’d waited two weeks for this. He could do five- four more minutes. 

Ben placed the award on the kitchen table and patted it on the head. You, my friend, are going to win me so many arguments. Little did he know in the darkness that he had left it on top of all Miles’ newspaper clippings of his recent award success.

Being back in his own home, surrounded by all his old comforts, Ben felt like he could breathe again. And when he did, he smelt the homemade brownies that Mark and Miles always made together on a Thursday night in time for the weekend. This was the life. Following his nose, he opened the fridge, and there inside was a sight even more beautiful than he imagined. Brownies, yes, but there was more.

Pabst. Blue. Ribbon.

A whole, beautiful case of them, waiting just for him.

And underneath? Oh sweet, Miles. A selection of cheeses from the local farmers' market, without a drop of bargaining required, and next to that- His heart stopped. An expensive bottle of gorgeous amber, more delicious than mana from heaven, with a note attached.

‘Missed your rye whisky smile - Love, Miles x’  

Shit. Four minutes was too long. Without ceremony, he grabbed the bottle, ignoring the glasses, and necked a quick swig. A bit of liquid courage went a long way for what Ben had planned, and while Miles didn’t drink, he loved the taste of it on Ben.

His socks padded along the floor towards their bedroom, stopping just to check in on Mark as he lay sleeping. In only a few months, he’d be starting college. And after that, who knew? But for all the mixed feelings his soon-to-be absence stirred up, Ben never took for granted that after everything he’d been through, they wouldn’t have to worry about him. He closed the door gently. He’d tell him all about his book ideas… tomorrow. 

Ben felt more anticipation walking down that final stretch of carpet than ‌when he stepped up to take his award. The scent of chamomile and sandalwood filled his nostrils, a subtle smell that somehow turned heady in his weary senses, bringing him back to life and down to earth all in the same inhalation. The plane had been delayed, and his taxi hit every traffic light between the airport and here, but none of that mattered because now he could smell chocolate fudge brownies and sandalwood.  

With a small push, he let the door creak open. And there on the floor was his Miles. Ben had been picturing him on his knees since he left New York, although to his eternal damnation, if definitely not his eternal shame, it hadn’t been an image of him praying. Yet there he was, his back to him, his elbows resting upon the mattress with his Nana’s rosary in his hand. The only sign that he knew Ben was there at all was how quickly he thumbed through the beads.

Ben relaxed against the frame, crossing his arms. Even as his skin shivered at being so tantalisingly close, he watched, not wanting to disturb the scene before him. And yet, Miles always said he was the heretic? When he was the one innocently praying in his most seductive, scandalous briefs, and Ben’s traitorous, oversized bedshirt that had stolen Ben’s fantasy for itself and swallowed him whole. Sure, it was the cheap supermarket briefs he wore every day, but he had no right wearing something that slutty. Allowing it to hug the plump peach of his ass while his own husband, of all people, was standing right there empty-handed.

When finally Miles got to the last bead, he tittered to himself. Ben thought he sounded like a beautiful songbird, or a fiendish imp. It was normally one and the same.

“You prayed for an angel, Mr Miller-Mears?” Ben asked, with all the panache he could muster, even as he panted through every word, still recovering from his race back from the airport. 

On cue, Miles got up and turned to sit on the edge of the bed in one smooth, elegant motion that Ben’s knees ached in envy of. How was it that he could look so innocent, and yet so knowing all at once? It wasn’t fair. The dimples of his cheeks burrowed to a sharp point, ballooning out his pink cheeks like a chipmunk prepared for the winter. A small tilt of the head, a flutter of his lashes, and a glimmer in his eyes that held him as though for the first time all over again. 

Ben licked his lips. Miles couldn’t move his fast enough.

“That depends; I was prayin’ for the house to dust itself. They teach y’that up in heaven?”

Miles had the gall to shimmy in place to get comfortable, wriggling his ass against a fabric that wasn’t Ben’s increasingly tight pants. 

“I didn’t think you were supposed to make demands of the big man,” Ben tutted.

A ray of sunshine struck Ben as Miles’ smile grew pearly white teeth. “No’, but I don’t have much to bother him with these days. ‘Specially now you’re back.”

Ben’s eyes softened. All those years of writing, and yet his fae could surpass all his best work with just a few words. But what stuck in his throat the most was that it was true. They still had bad days, sometimes downright horrific ones, but as they pushed through every one of them, it paved the way for the quiet, gentle knowledge that they would always pass. The party would end, the nightmare would let them go, the broken dishwasher would get fixed. And Ben would always return. 

An enigmatic smile fell upon Miles’ face when Ben didn’t respond. He hadn’t meant to throw him off; however, he always preferred to know when Ben was out of sorts. Not pushing him further, Miles held out his hand, and Ben followed it like a lost child. Their fingers entwined together as Miles brought it up to cup his own face. “And what did I do to deserve a visit from a heavenly thing like you?” 

He pressed a kiss to the swell of Ben’s thumb, and before he could do it again, Ben tipped his face up between both hands and kissed him. Tender, at first, a few passing swipes of his lips as though they needed time to warm up after so long apart. And then harder, full. Coaxing Miles just enough to plunder his mouth as Ben opened up for him. He could feel the exact moment his beloved tasted the whiskey on his tongue when Miles hummed in satisfaction straight into his mouth. 

Voice as smooth as the drink, Ben whispered, “That’s what you did.”

Leaving him with a quick peck, Miles leant back just enough to see the thing he had missed most. “There it is.” He kissed the corner of his mouth again as if he were greeting an old friend. “So pretty f’me.”

He lazily traced his smile with his thumb, smoothing out his chafed lips and onto his laugh lines as though he had the power to make wrinkles disappear. Ben didn’t need to see himself to know it had worked. It took everything Ben had not to chase, but after a few blinks, his brain caught back up. Nothing could wipe that smile off his face now, especially with Miles tracking his every movement as he stepped back and then paced around the bed. Who needed the baying crowds at the awards ceremony when he had the only audience he ever needed right here?

“Wait-” Miles suddenly interrupted. “Y’not back early cause somethin’ happened are ya’?”

Ben clucked his tongue in feigned shock. “For a man of God, you have such little faith.” His voice lowered an octave, sultry and with more ham than even his harshest critic had accused him of. “I’ll have you know, I was the model writer. I gave my speech. I thanked them and all my fellow nominees for the honour. And now that I’ve been a very good boy, I’ve come to claim my real prize.” He elongated the word until it ran out of oxygen and his throat ran hoarse, like Barry White. Or, as Miles worried, the beginnings of a chest infection.

He giggled anyway, “You’re incorrigible.”

“Maybe, but I’m obviously not doing my job as your husband if you can use big words like that, country boy.” Ben came to a stop by the old record player and lowered the needle onto whichever record was there. Crossing his fingers, his hopes lifted with the violins, and then dropped again as the sullen, dulcet tones of Frank Sinatra sang, ‘The Stars Will Forget You’. Shit. 

He closed the curtains. The owls didn’t need to see this. It was going to be a challenge, but Ben Miller-Miles had overcome worse. With a deft hand, Ben undid the top button of his suit jacket.

And at the same time, Miles undid one of his.

The music burst into life, creating a hushed burst of laughter from Miles as he admonished. “Shhhh, Mark’s asleep.”

Conceding his point, lest their young ward come in and scar himself for life, Ben did as he was told, increasing his challenge level by lowering the volume until it reverberated low across the room. Luckily for him, Ben had never met a challenge he couldn’t blunder or talk his way through. He could barely make out the lyrics, but what little rhythm there was dragged his hips from side to side to the beat.

Ben beamed. Miles groaned, “Oh, Lord.” It must have been a record for how quickly Miles’ eyes rolled into the back of his skull as his back hit the mattress with a soft thump. However, the ceiling was a momentary reprieve from the embarrassment. 

Grabbing Miles by the ankle, Ben pulled him back down the bed before he could even think of escaping, or divorce. “Ah, ah, ah. Where do you think you’re going? Your favourite show is on,” he admonished, sitting Miles up on the edge and kicking his legs out so he could stand between them in his own exclusive stage.

He undid another button before lowering his lips to Miles’ ear. His hot breath felt like fire against Miles’ skin. “Now, my love. How do you want me? Soft and sensual or hard and fast?”

Sheer delight danced along Miles’ countenance, even as he strained for smugness. “Benjamin, that's like when you ask me how I want my eggs. We both know you can't crack an egg to save your life. They’re gonna be scrambled either way, so give me the Husband Special from the beginnin’.”

Ah, the famed husband special. Previously known as the fiancé special, and then boyfriend special before that. There weren’t any secrets between them, not anymore… Except one. He didn’t want to tell him what Miranda had dubbed it.

“An excellent choice, sir,” Ben said with all the seriousness of the servers he had met in New York, and all the pomposity he hoped Rudy never learnt. “Although I must say, I do make an excellent omelette.”

Okay, maybe he still had to be right sometimes.

However, for all the jokes, Miles could see he needed reassurance. It had been a couple of years since they’d been apart for so long, and Ben’s early return didn’t make him worry - no, he knew him well enough to read that it wasn’t serious. But it did instill in him a sense of purpose. One that led him to bring Ben’s hands together and knight them with a kiss.

“And you always take such good care of me when I need to stop thinkin’, or when I wanna be close to you.” Miles squeezed them tight. “But I’ve missed my bubba.”

I missed you my whole life, Ben wanted to say. But that was too corny. Corniness was tomorrow’s agenda along with cuddles, ice-cream with Mark and whatever dusting Miles wanted. So instead, with a flick of his wrists, another button fell. “The Husband Special it is then: Slow and dumb.”

He didn’t have to worry about impressing anyone here. Without further ado, Ben popped another button, then another in time to the music. Standing in the tiny spotlight of his beloved’s gaze, he girated to the crooning, somber piece as though it was the soundtrack to a seedy strip-joint. He heard a crack in his knee. And then his ankle. But no matter. He persevered, snaking his tie out of his shirt and lassoing it around Miles’s neck, drawing him in as if to kiss before pushing him back.

“Miles”, he hissed. “I can’t hear the music if you’re giggling.”

It was a defense he had uttered time and time again. “Then stop making me-”

The tie hit his face before the words ever passed his lips. 

The song was already winding down, and if Ben remembered correctly, they were nearing the end of the album. Before things got very quiet and very awkward, Ben worked his way down the jacket with the dry efficiency of a Formula One crew as the album went dead before skipping to the next tune. A livelier one, if not somehow more miserable. Thankfully, ‘Ol Blue Eyes was no match for Ben’s that glinted mischievously as he worked his belt free from the buckle and then cruelly spun on a dime, leaving Miles with an eyeful of his plump, ample cheeks that swayed like a cobra trying to hypnotise its prey.

Maybe it was just the time apart, or perhaps he really was that easy, but it somehow, infuriatingly, worked. Miles remained glued to his seat. His bottom lip glowed a crimson, shiny red that alternated between opening in shock and being sucked ‌between his two front teeth, looking like a cartoon bunny obediently waiting for its treat. But two could play at this game. 

Knowing exactly what it did to Ben for Miles to wear his things, he undid his shirt as Ben hooked his thumbs into his pants. Where Ben inched them lower, one drumbeat at a time, Miles left his shirt hanging loose off his shoulders and reclined back onto his elbows. The expanse of his scarred chest was on full display, all muscle and soft, pillowy fat. Still, the underwear stayed on; that could be Ben’s treat for the show. 

Once his pants hit his knees, Ben shimmied them down the rest of the way like a failing hula-hoop and kicked them across the room- thinking better than to bend over and risk a spanking from Miles that would send him tumbling. Finally, free of its confines, Ben teasingly turned back, whipping his head around first and letting his hefty, pronounced bulge follow. As if there way any chance Miles wasn’t looking, he cupped himself and squeezed.

Since leaving New York, Ben had eaten nothing but a tiny bag of peanuts and a square of complimentary chocolate, yet he wasn’t salivating the way Miles was. That is, until he saw how confident his trickster fae looked. There, in his briefs, stained with a small wet patch, and his shirt that parted like the Red Sea over the subtle swell of his-

“-Tits.”

He didn’t even realise he said it until Miles’ luscious laugh graced his ears. Great, Miles wasn’t just a better writer; the good Catholic boy was effortlessly the better stripper too. All bets were off. Shaky hands lashed out at the rest of his buttons, helped along by Miles’ much steadier ones until his shirt too joined his pants in the ether. The music now forgotten, Miles kissed and licked at every piece of flesh he could latch onto, as though Ben were the last meal of a starving man. Leaving little pink marks in his wake, Miles descended lower and lower until he reached his belly button and speared it with his tongue. He pistoned it in and out like it was his greedy hole until every muscle in his torso flexed in both surprise and pleasure.

The connection between brain and body momentarily severed, Ben threaded his fingers through Miles’ hair and, after a quick nod, Ben heaved one foot onto the bed and brought Miles’ head straight into his crotch. His attempt to keep to the music lasted as long as it took for Miles to mouth at the underside of his balls. Helpless to do anything other than chase after the delicious sensation, Ben panted under his breath while his husband nuzzled his painfully hard cock with his nose, teased at the fabric with his teeth and licked, from top to bottom, the full length of his shaft.

It may not be the full thing, but just the weight of him on Miles’ tongue was addictive. 

And besides, two weeks was an awfully long time. After a couple more sucks, Ben was dangerously close already. His member twitched under the confines of his briefs, bumping up against wherever it thought Miles would kiss next, desperate for just that bit more friction. He didn’t want it to end so soon. And yet, against his better judgement, he moved Miles’ head with him, rubbing him further into his bulge as Miles did his utmost to keep up and let his mouth hang open, his tongue lolling out so Ben could hump against it like a dog in heat.

“Sweetheart”, Ben groaned. “You feel so good. Missed this. Missed you.”

In response, Miles grabbed a handful of Ben’s butt and held him in place while his other hand devilishly went to work and pulled Ben out of his briefs. Not fully. That could wait, but just enough for the head to shyly peek out the waistband, blushing and purpling. 

A bead of pre-cum wetted the tip, but was gone as quickly as it came as Miles took him in his mouth and suckled on it. Distantly, Ben could feel him doing it in time with the music. Or what he could remember of it. His blood pounding against his eardrums like a big brass band, Ben gave himself over to his partner’s control. And how easy it was to control him after all these years. Miles sucked on the engorged, bulbous tip like a lollipop, obscene, wet sounds cascading from the back of his throat, and from Ben’s sweet lips, a more luscious, sweeping orchestra than even Sinatra could ever conjure. 

He should have known better. He did know better. However, Ben looked down anyway. From over his crown of hair, whipped up into a windswept, autumnal frondescence of curls, Ben saw Miles palming at himself. Sensually teasing and keeping himself on the edge as he lapped at the sensitive underside of Ben’s head like it was his god-given mission. 

A liquid pleasure stirred in Ben’s gut at the sight, threatening to erupt. Miles must have felt Ben’s eyes burning into the back of his head as he slowly leaned back, and with his mouth still full of Ben’s cock, he batted his lashes up at him. Ben’s whole body lurched.

“I’m close, baby. Please.”

But the faes of fairytales weren’t known for their mercy. With a resounding snap of his briefs that shot both their heads to the door to check that they hadn’t woken their son, Miles put Ben back into place. 

When the coast was definitely, 100% clear, Ben pushed Miles onto his back with a single tap. Miles scrambled on his elbows toward the headboard, but Ben lunged before he could even reach the middle of the bed. If entire states had separated them for weeks, now not even a centimeter remained between them. Chest to chest, legs weaving together, and mouths drinking the same glorious moans, Ben’s skin no longer thrummed along the outline of its other half, waiting for it to return. Their bodies were together again, and with it, Ben’s slowly heart settled into its keeper’s embrace.

At first, they just enjoyed the taste of each other again. The feel of their hair streaming between their fingers, of Ben’s sideburns and the security of Ben’s weight against Miles’ body. None of them knew who started it, but when their clothed bulges ground together, everything built back up until they devolved into a mess of limbs and muffled moans.

“B-Ben. Bubba- Sugar-” 

As Miles went through the Rolodex of pet names, Ben’s whole existence honed in on where he could punch out another choked whimper from his love. He rutted their hips together with abandon, rolling and thrusting into Miles’, their spit and pre-cum slick underwear keeping them contained. Each pass was electric. Each kiss grounding and devastating in equal measure. The only thing keeping either of them from cumming was the control Ben barely hung on to which kept the bed from banging against the wall.

But neither of them would last much longer, nor did they want to.

On a particularly hard thrust, Miles threw his head back, a high-pitched whine strangling his throat as he struggled to stay quiet, but he was too far gone. His cock throbbed against Ben’s, which seemed to pulse in response to his arousal. Chasing that feeling again and again with little stutters of his trapped hips, he punched out tiny ‘uh uh uh’s until all of a sudden, Ben’s hand clamped down on his mouth. Eyes wide, pinned open just as Ben pinned him to the bed, his husband smirked. And then, oh so very slowly, he brought his mouth to the back of his hand and placed a gentle kiss on where Miles' mouth lay underneath. Miles groaned, the vibrations warming Ben’s palm, but he kept at it, building the kiss further until he was making out with him through the barrier of his skin. It had no right being that hot. Then again, neither did his attempt at a striptease.

Whatever he gave, Miles returned tenfold, dragging Ben by the hair as close as possible, undulating his hips in time with the kiss, dragging their cocks together, until saliva pooled under Ben’s palm. Ben couldn’t be sure if Miles was trying to drive him crazy or simply got lost in the feel of him, but whatever his intentions, they were all working. 

In a flash, Ben whipped his hand away and crashed their lips together. The reaction was instantaneous. Miles rose to meet him, almost pushing him onto his hands through the strength of the kiss as he feasted on Ben’s lips, drawing out every pretty sound he could. Yet just as quickly as he moved, Ben pushed him back down, rearranging them so he could lean over just enough to lower their underwear. 

Miles’ hips stuttered as Ben fisted Miles’ dick and then his own, coating them in their joint slick and then encircled their cocks together with his hand. The simple motion released another gush of pre-cum from Ben. His hand didn’t fully encase them, but Miles was on it, mimicking his position at the root of their shafts, while Ben took the tip. It was enough. They stared entranced as their hips worked without them, gliding their lengths together in a jerky, stilted rhythm that somehow heightened the feeling of ecstasy with every pass and squeeze. 

Miles’ cheeks flushed. His balls drew up, his hand losing what little grip it had, and his toes curled and kicked at the bed.

And yet it was Ben who finished first. By the time Ben realised he was cumming it was too late. However, ever the eagle-eyed, prepared concierge, Miles caught the telltale signs and brought their mouths together to swallow the wrecked, drawn-out groan that wrung Ben’s body and soul from the outside in. As Ben spurted ropes of thick, pearly white cum onto Miles’ tummy, Miles clamped the heels of his feet over the defined demarcation between ass and thigh. He rocked Ben into him, giving him the friction and comfort he needed to ride the crest of pleasure even as it crashed and slammed against him, leaving him a quivering wreck in Miles’ arms.

Miles kissed his clammy forehead, cooing sweet nothings into his hair, as though it would hold on to them until Ben had recovered enough to hear them. Just as his breath started to even out, Ben suddenly twirled him and Miles around, landing on his back as Miles sat up over his waist, his cock standing to desperate attention.

“On me, on me, love,” Ben begged. Drool pooled out of his mouth as though he’d lost the wherewithal to close it.

Well, who was Miles to deny him after such an incredible rendition of the Husband Special? Taking himself in hand, it moved in a blur as he jerked himself off, helped along by his husband who cupped ‌his balls and groped mindlessly at his thighs, biceps, stomach- anywhere he could reach.

“That’s it”, the writer slurred. “So beautiful. Give it to me, please.”

With a soft whimper, Miles succumbed to the pleasure that had been building since Ben had first walked into the room. His spend pulsed out of him, hitting Ben square on the chest, dribbling down onto his stomach and onto his hand as he lost himself in the image of Ben’s rapturous, beatified gaze that soaked in every drop, as his skin did the same.

Gathering what little strength he had left, Miles collapsed onto his side so he wouldn't squash Ben. His heroic attempt was for naught, however; Ben guided him straight back into his chest, wanting so deeply to feel Miles plastered against him that he ignored the mess between them. With sleep trying to wrestle Ben away, he hadn't meant for his hand to drift up and cup Miles' pec; it just went where it pleased.

Trying not to laugh and jolt his recovering husband, a crooked, dreamy smile painted Miles' lips as he kissed Ben's jawline. “Still incorrigible.”

So much for making him forget his big words. Without meaning to, Ben yawned. Not to worry; it could go on tomorrow's agenda with the rest.

But one thing that couldn't wait was his speech. Absently, his brain urged him on. This was the perfect opportunity to extoll all his husband’s superlatives and ensure that Miles knew, without a shadow of a doubt, just how much he had missed him.

“And you.. You’re…” God, words should come easier to a writer. Miles’ eyes were too distracting, so instead, he serenaded his other favourite body part: His tits. “Hot.”

Close enough.

His speech won him the best award of the week, a slap on his flank and a kiss to his nose. He would have to move soon and get cleaned up… But he figured he had saved five minutes earlier on when he came rushing in; he could claim them back now. Heavy lids gently closing under the weighted blanket of Miles’s tender caress, the hours spent on the plane suddenly caught up with the middle-aged writer. His neck seized. He cricked it to the left. Right. And then back to left. And as he did, a soft buffer of hair nuzzled into it and soothed the ache away. Ben was home. 

That night, as he slept like the dead, he dreamt of the undead. Not of being bitten, or of his family being turned and damned for all eternity. But of one stoned waiter, stake in hand, drenched in blood and making one last stand against a horde of ravenous vampires. But perhaps he would disappoint his friend, if just a bit. Rudy would have his day, and then maybe he would live to see another one, because all Ben could dream about, encased in his soulmate’s arms, was happy endings.

Notes: Soooo man I love this prompt it was so freaking good I love it!!! And I had so much fun writing it despite being really tired lmao

Also thank you @abbottsdarling for editing this!! Sorry for making you edit all your requests so far lmao

And most importantly: HAPPY BIRTHDAY LEWIS PULLMAN!!! Thank you so very very much for providing us fans with all these wonderful performances and characters!! I’m sure you will do more wonderful things!!

-Iris/Mars ♥️

Words: 1.6k

You had a feeling you guys were meant to be doing something but you couldn’t care about that right now with how pretty Bob sounds underneath you as you litter his skin in various marks in shades of reds, purples and your signature shade of hot pink.

You were seated right in Bob’s lap, kissing and sucking on his neck, hands twisted in his hair and pulling hard. And god, Bob was in heaven. The weight of you on top of him, the feeling of your lips all across his skin was making him feel faint and the only thing grounding him was occasional too harsh tugs on his hair. But he didn’t mind one bit.

You could be doing this for hours and neither of you could ever be bored. Both perfectly content with just being with each other and making out like a couple of teenagers. But you knew something was stopping you from doing that but what was it…

Then the answer hit you.

There was a pounding at the door, “Bob! Bobbb! Come on, the press conference starts in like five minutes and if we aren’t down there Valentina will bite our heads off.” Yelana called from the other side of the door.

You both freeze and exchange wide eyed panicked looks. “Uhh, thought that was at 4:30” Bob calls out, voice uneven and sounding horse.

“Nope. She moved it up to 4. Jeez, do you not check your phone?” Yelena snorted. Bob gently moved you off his lap, and reached across the bed to grab his phone. His face slightly pales when he sees the dozens of missed calls and messages from your little makeout session.

“Oh… Ok-” Bob scrambled off the bed and practically tore off his clothes in a rush to put on his Sentry Suit. You helped the best you could, but he swatted you away with a pained expression as you got distracted with the view of him in his straining boxers. The sight was so enticing, you couldn’t help but rub your hand up and down him, wishing you could have finished what you started. “I'll be right out in a minute, having…. zipper problems.” Bob breathed out, barely holding it together when he caught the heated look in your eyes as you licked your lips.

“Oh, do you need help?” Yelena called from the door, none the wiser of what was actually happening inside.

“No!! I mean, no need i’m good… I’ve got it now” Bob said, trying to play off his outburst as he zipped up the suit. He was about to head towards the door, cape in hand but thankfully you stopped him just in time.

He gave you a puzzled look mouthing something you couldn’t understand but you dragged him back to the mirror and gestured to his hickey and lipstick marked stained neck. He shot you an annoyed glare, like it was all your fault –technically it was, but he was enjoying it at the time so– you tried to smudge it off but it just made it worse so you quickly put his cape on him instead. You pull it up as high as it can go around his neck to cover all the marks the best you could.

You turned Bob to face you and gently fixed his hair with a gentle smile. God, he was so handsome, especially in his Sentry suit. You still couldn’t believe after all these months of pinning he was finally yours. You pressed a soft kiss to his lips intending it to be short and brief but then Bob threw his arms loosely around your waist and suddenly you were getting distracted again.

“Umm, hello!! We are officially late! We need to get going now golden boy!” Yelena huffed impatiently knocking on the door.

You and Bob broke apart and you hid behind the door so she wouldn’t see you as Bob exited “I’m coming ‘Lena! Jeez.” Bob murmured, shutting the door behind him.

Yelena snorts, amused. “What’s got you all red?” Bob’s blush brightens, red as a cherry as they disappear down the hallway and to the elevators.

You quickly adjusted your outfit, reapplied your hot pink lipstick before quickly headed out of Bob’s room and down to the conference, careful to avoid any main hallways to avoid Yelena and Bob as they made their way down.

You appear off to the side, making it a few minutes late, slightly panting. You quickly head over to Mel’s side trying to act casual.

“What’s up with you, why are you late?” She questioned, barely looking up from her beloved tablet, only doing so to give you a judgemental look.

“Just wardrobe issues. I’m so sorry” You lie, watching the press conference begin. Slightly smiling when you and Bob meet each other’s eyes.

“Huh, funny. Mr. Reynolds had a similar issue.” Mel mused and walked away presumably to find Valentina.

A shiver ran down your spine at her tone. There was no way she knew… could she? But honestly if anyone did know, it would be Mel. And if she knew, she hasn't told Valentina yet, because if she had, you would already be fired. But for now you guys were fine. For now.

~~~

“God, this press conference has been so unbearably long.” Yelena muttered into Bob’s ear as the press was focused on whatever John or Bucky were droning on about.

“I know and it’s so fucking hot…” Bob groaned, pulling his suit away from his neck, trying to get some air to circulate.

“I know, these stupid suits. Why don’t you just take off your cape? It should help out a bit.” Yelena suggested with a shrug.

Bob considers it and shrugs, no harm in not having it on right now. He undoes the clasp and lets it slide off his shoulders and is confused when the Russian beside him lets out a gasp and stifles a giggle.

“No, no, Bob! Put that back on or you are fucking dead!” Yelena hissed in a whisper trying so hard to fight back her snorts. Bob glances from her down to where she keeps staring at, for some odd reason she keeps staring at… at his neck- oh shit.

Bob blushes a furious shade of red, quickly puts the cape back on to hide the various bruises and hot pink lipstick marks littered across his neck, leading down into his suit.

“I can now understand why you were so late, looks like you were a little preoccupied huh?” Yelan smirked, raising an eyebrow, nudging Bob in the ribs

God, Bob could already feel the flush creeping down his neck. “Shut it…” He mumbled, embarrassed out of his mind, and praying none of the reporters saw it.

“God Reynolds, didn’t imagine you had it in you to get a girlfriend. I’m impressed.” Yelana teases. Bob just tries his best to ignore her but she is not done. “I wonder who she is…” she muses but stifles another laugh “Just kidding I know exactly who it is” Bob chokes on his own spit, eyes bugging out and Yelena has to bite down hard on her lip to stop herself from losing it.

“What do you mean you know who it is?” Bob demanded, trying to act casual once he finally stopped coughing.

“Oh please, you make goo goo eyes at her all day during media training, you blush every time she talks to you and there is only one person in the world to wear that shade of lipstick and it happens to be the same shade currently decorating your neck.” Yelena lists out, checking them off her fingers. “So yes, it’s very obvious you are dating our social media manager.”

Bob lets out a whine of frustration and embarrassment trying to cover his face and continuing to pray to whatever media gods there are to take pity on him.

~~~

Two days Later

“New York's newest and favorite upcoming hero is rumored to be covered in marks left from a lover at the latest press conference held on Friday. The New Avenger hero ‘The Sentry’ is rumored to have a secret romantic partner and to have been seen with hickeys and lipstick stains covering his neck during the latest press conference/ Q & A hosted by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. Though these marks were only briefly shown during the event when the superhero took off his cape for a brief moment, reporters have sent in photos of the event (see images below). While the New Avengerz’s press team hasn’t said anything about the rumors, fans have been split between whether these rumors are true or false. While some fans believe it is true, others are praying the rumors aren’t so they could have their own shot with the beloved Sentry and have him as their own. But needless to say, it looks like hot pink lipstick is coming back in style!” You read out from the article on your phone, barely able to contain your giggles.

“Ughhh, why!! Why did I do that!” Bob groans, hiding his face in the crook of your neck. You sympathetically rub his back.

“It’s ok baby.” You coo, pressing a kiss to his temple as you start to giggle.

“I’m gonna get you back for this.” Bob huffs, starting to press open mouth kisses to your neck.

“Oh, please do! I look forward to the day! I found it so fucking hot knowing the world knows you are taken by me~” You murmur, a heated glint twinkling in your eye.

“Mmm, love my possessive girl~” Bob practically moans, nipping at your neck, rolling you over onto your back as you squeal, glad to no longer be hiding the relationship. Because now you can be as loud as you want.

"Happy to take your money, Garcia. My money's on the mobster," he quipped, throwing down a ten of his own and gesturing at an alpha with slicked back hair on the inside of the booth a few from the group had taken up residence in. He had his arm around the only female in the pack and was quietly chatting with a very animated man with an obnoxious gold chain and the kind of showy muscles that come not from hard labor like the ones under the sleeves of the alpha they'd deemed the Cowboy. This one that Bob quietly referred to as the Greaser had a small, barely perceivable smile and watched his mate with a fondness that made Bob's own heart ache. As much as he hated to, Bob had to admit Jake might just be right. And Bob wasn't even sure the cowboy was an alpha despite the rest of the group readily agreeing.

Mickey seemed to be having some doubts as well. He smiled at Hangman, but it came off as put on, the kind of confidence his erstwhile teammate never had to fake. After all, Jake Seresin was a neverending well of self-regard.

"What makes you think that? Yeah, the mobster is definitely an alpha, but he's not commanding the space the way the cowboy is." Nat, an alpha herself, turned to Bob and rolled her eyes.

Hangman grinned. It looked less inviting and charming the way it did when he flashed it at the single betas and omegas who came to the bar and more the smile of someone who knew they'd won the game before it even began. Fanboy's cheery grin visibly faltered.

"I tried to chat up the female," Jake admitted, much to everyone but his chagrin. Even Nat raised her eyebrows, but Hangman was too busy being smug to pay their surprised reactions any mind.

"That's a level of ballsy I didn't think even you were capable of, Seresin," Rooster shot at him, taking a lazy sip of his beer, face nonplussed even when Jake turned his Cheshire grin to the squad's only omega.

"What? You jealous, Bradshaw?"

Before Rooster could bite back, Payback cut him off.

"Get to the point, Bagman. At least give Mickey the courtesy of knowing why he's losing money tonight." When Mickey shot him a fake hurt look, Reuben just shrugged and grinned. They all knew that Fanboy's proverbial goose was cooked.

"Right, so where was I?" Jake drawled. He hadn't taken his eyes off Rooster, who was doing his best to ignore the obnoxiously cocky alpha who was blatantly peacocking for his attention. Again.

"They need to fuck and get it over with," Nat muttered into Bob's ear right as he took a sip of his (non-alcoholic) drink. He should've known to brace himself the second she leaned in conspiratorially, but her little asides routinely caught the WSO off guard. It took a kind of effort Bob had practiced as long as he'd known Phoenix, but he was able to swallow his mouthful of Sprite without sputtering or choking. His glass, on the other hand, wasn't so lucky.

Fortunately, Phoenix was on top of it, instantly mopping up the spilled drink with the kind of speed and efficiency that meant she'd already carefully weighed the pros and cons of her snide remark before it even left her lips. When the others turned towards them, concerned, Bob waved them off, wiping his mouth with a clean napkin Natasha handed him with a smirk.

"Anyway," Hangman said, finally turning to face Fanboy, "I was talking to the female of the group - definitely an alpha, by the way - and the greaseball glared at me like he wanted to blow my damn head off. He stormed over, put his arm around her shoulders, and told me in no uncertain terms to get lost."

"What did he actually say? The exact words used?" Coyote spoke up.

Jake only grinned more. "He told me to get my goddamn hands off his girl and fuck off."

Most alphas would be at least repentant about treading on another's territory as laughably outdated as that notion was, but Jake just laughed like it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard. Typical.

The squabbling only got louder, so Bob used his empty glass as an excuse to get away. His call for refill requests fortunately was ignored just like it normally was, so he didn't have to haul half a dozen various beers across the crowded bar. And he didn't have the voice of his mom in his ear, scolding him for not being a gentleman like he did when he didn't ask at all. It was a win-win all around.

That was one thing about being the quiet beta of the group. When he was younger, Bob resented how easily overlooked he was. 'A wallflower,' his sisters called him when he told them about how he was always passed over by his peers at school. 'A sweet, upstanding young gentleman,' his grandma declared him to be as she pinched his cheeks until they hurt. 'A late bloomer,' his pa deemed him when Bob didn't get the same growth spurt at the same time all the other boys did. 'Just like your dad,' his mom would say with a wistful smile, no doubt thinking about their younger years. He didn't like any of it.

But, grudgingly, Bob Floyd learned the benefits of being generally overlooked. Anything he did well always shocked and impressed the others around him. The few moments he'd let his wit out to cut like a fresh rapier, his opponents were always thrown off. And the few people who did notice him, like Natasha Trace and, eventually the entire Dagger Squad, were the kind of friends you made for life, the ones who saw Bob for who he was and liked him for it.

Which is why it surprised him when one of the omegas from this new pack looked straight at him from across the bar and gave him a faint smile. Bob had to fight the immediate urge to turn around, to see who else this man was looking at. But he saw the eye contact and the way the omega appeared briefly hesitant at Bob's lack of response. And his blatant staring. So quickly, Bob smiled back. It was perfunctory but natural. Not one of those he'd give in the hallway while passing any number of faceless, nameless officers he'd most likely never see again. It was genuine. And even across the room, the omega seemingly sensed the sincerity, and his face relaxed.

Whatever little moment was or wasn't happening got abruptly interrupted when another bar patron accidentally walked right into Bob, who barely avoided the man's drink spilling on him. He'd been in this situation more times than he could recall. Fortunately, this man that Bob quickly clocked as another beta, one with long brown hair and a gentle face, acted more concerned with Bob's state of being than the condition of his now half-spilled glass of white wine.

"I'm so sorry," the beta said, grabbing some napkins from a nearby table and checking Bob over for errant stains. "Don't know how I didn't see you. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Bob assured him with a smile. Fortunately, his dress shirt was just as clean and crisp as when he'd put it on after drills that afternoon. "No harm done. It happens all the time."

Their interaction was fairly short: the stranger apologized a few more times, tried to start mopping up the spill with his handful of napkins until Penny threw Bob a spare rag to use instead, and even turning down a free refill (a first that he could remember from Penny), declaring that the incident must be God telling him that he's cut off for the night. It didn't surprise Bob when the handsome beta walked back to the corner with that strange pack, right into the arms of a different small omega who immediately inspected him like he'd been in a serious accident as opposed to the human equivalent of a fender bender. Bob watched as the beta reassured his mate, nuzzling his forehead against the omega's cheek until the latter visibly relaxed.

"Weird evening, isn't it?" Penny asked when Bob finally stepped up to the counter, placing his empty glass there for a refill.

"Yeah, there's something about that pack," Bob admitted, watching as the bartender swept his old glass away in a motion as easy as breathing. "The squad's been taking bets about them all night."

"I meant the two spills in less than five minutes, both of which you were involved with," Penny said with a grin. Bob had the decency to blush, something that only made Penny laugh mirthfully. "Don't worry, Lieutenant. I won't charge you a clean up fee."

Quick as a blink, the bartender turned to the soda fountain, filling up a brand new glass. She turned and set it down on the counter in front of Bob and popped a new straw in it in one fluid motion with the kind of easy grace that always secretly astounded the pilot.

"By the way, you left your jacket," Penny added, nodding over to a black lump of fabric in one of the bar chairs.

Confused, Bob picked up what appeared to be a much-loved but clean hoodie with the name of some band he didn't recognize splashed on the front. Bob Floyd didn't wear hoodies, preferring zip up sweaters instead. And he certainly didn't listen to the kind of music where the band spelled their name in letters so jagged and stylized that he could barely make out the words. But he could see why Penny thought it was his. Written on the label in bold, sharp script were three familiar letters - B O B.

Before he could do more than process the name, a voice came from behind him.

"Um…that's mine, actually."

It was a nice voice: low, quiet, and so soft around the edges that it was almost a hum. It was the kind of voice that was more used to rounding the ends of sentences into a question even when stating an objective fact. The kind of voice Bob could easily imagine murmured into his ear late at night, one he could feel through a rumble in a lover's chest pressed against his back.

Maybe it should've been a surprise when Bob turned around to see that omega from the new pack, the one who smiled at him from across the room. But for some reason? It wasn't.

His voice fit his appearance. Whether it was the mop of brown curls, the cozy and clearly well-loved sweater, or the openness in his face, one word came to Bob's mind: soft.

But there was more to this omega than that. There was some steel there. Even mated omegas tended to avoid being alone with someone unmated that they didn't know. Even a fairly harmless beta like Bob could prove a threat in a room full of liquored up and rowdy patrons. But this omega didn't even seem nervous about Bob himself, just about interrupting his conversation with Penny.

And when Bob spent too long staring at this handsome stranger, those eyes went from warm and friendly to flinty and hard. The tentative smile on his face stretched taut, as if putting on a gruesome mask of the kindness that was previously on his face.

Before the omega could ask, Bob quickly blurted out, "I'm sorry. Didn't mean to stare. It's just…" He gestured down at the tag and the faded name in Sharpie, his words failing him.

"Surprised someone still writes their name on the inside of their clothes as an adult?"

And a sharp sense of humor to boot. Bob added that to his mental tally of this omega who was becoming more fascinating by the minute.

"No," Bob said with an awkward little laugh. "No, it's not that. That makes sense if you're living with other people. Keeps you from getting your clothes stolen."

The stranger nodded, his stance becoming slightly less defensive even as he crossed his arms in front of him.

"I was just surprised is all," Bob continued, pointing at the tag. "Penny, the owner, thought this was mine."

The man across from him paused, blinking rapidly, a cute little crease of confusion forming between his eyebrows.

"Wait, but…" He pointed at the name tag on Bob's shirt, the one that said "FLOYD" in all capital letters.

"Last name," Bob explained. He extended his hand to shake before introducing himself. "Lieutenant Bob Floyd."

The other man paused, eyeing his outstretched hand hesitantly. This wasn't exactly a typical greeting to a mated omega, but Bob wagered this wasn't your typical mated omega anyway.

After a moment of hesitation, he took Bob's hand, giving him a firm but friendly shake. "Bob Reynolds. No fancy title. Just Bob."

Their hands lingered perhaps a few seconds longer than strictly necessary, and Bob had to ignore the way his heart pounded just a hair faster.

They talked for what felt like minutes but stretched out to over an hour. On the surface, the two Bobs had little in common beside their names. After all, what would a straight A student turned decorated Navy lieutenant have in common with a middle school drop out who spent most of his adult life struggling with addiction and housing insecurity even have to say to each other? Yet they continually found common ground.

"Vodka soda?" the Other Bob asked as Bob took a new glass of Sprite from Penny. At Bob's frown of confusion, Bob Reynolds gestured at the drink. "Drinking a vodka soda?"

"Oh!" Bob Floyd exclaimed, chuckling a little nervously under his breath. He was used to the teasing from his heavy-drinking friends, but experience didn't make the sobriety talk any easier. "No, just a Sprite." Pointing at the dark cola on the bar next to the other man, he added, "Rum and Coke?"

"Close," Bob R. said with a little laugh of his own. "Just hold the rum and replace the Coke with a Dr. Pepper. I've been clean for two years this coming February. Not breaking that for a shitty cocktail."

"Oh." Bob knew from the way the other man's face tightened just a fraction that he'd made the situation awkward just that much weirder from his reaction. So clearing his throat, he added, "Congratulations. That's a huge accomplishment."

When Bob R. waved away the compliment, Bob F. doubled down.

"No, seriously. That's impressive. I don't drink because I don't like the way it makes me feel and it tastes gross. But you're here at a bar, addiction ground zero. That must take a lot more self-control than it seems. You make it look easy." He spoke with such sincerity that it seemed to strike the omega speechless for a moment. The other man blinked a few times, eyes darting around like he was trying to process the words.

Bob gave him that space, let him sit in the compliment and figure out if he even wanted to respond to it. Unfortunately, he took a sip of his drink when the Other Bob found his words. And even though he'd learned how to keep it together with Phoenix, he had no defenses against this new Bob.

"Bars aren't that tempting to me. Now a crack den? That would be a problem. I'd be like a kid in a candy shop."

A few minutes later, Bob Reynolds apologized for making the lieutenant choke on his drink, but to Bob Floyd? It was worth it to make the other man laugh so hard tears pricked his eyes.

Naturally, conversation shifted towards their respective groups. The Other Bob was the first to offer up details about his pack.

"So, the beta that bumped into you? That's William," Bob R said, pointing out the man with the long, brown hair and friendly face. "And the omega in his lap? That's Miles. They're bonded. Joined the us together a few months ago."

All of the pack were introduced in turn, so Bob was able to put an actual name to the unofficial titles the Dagger Squad had dubbed them.

Bob R agreed that "Cowboy" was an appropriate nickname for the one called Rhett, not just because he wore a cowboy hat and boots. Finding out he was a former pro bull rider was a shock but nowhere near as much as finding out the cowboy was an omega.

"I thought he was maybe a beta," Bob admitted, trying not to stare at the man out of sheer curiosity. If the cowboy noticed how closely both of the men at the bar were watching him, Rhett gave no indication of it. "I've never seen an omega who's built like that."

When the other man's cheeks turned a brilliant shade of bright pink, Bob tactfully said nothing. But he found himself glancing at the seat of the tall omega's pants, idly wondering just how built this cowboy really was.

The well-dressed alpha sitting nearby was introduced as Todd, an unlikely pairing for a rough and tumble country boy like Rhett. But, according to Bob R, they joined the pack as a mated pair.

The three in the corner booth were all directly mated to the Other Bob, a revelation that didn't come as too much of a surprise from the casual way he'd noticed them touching the omega all night. Nothing untoward, of course. Just leaning against him, holding his hand, draping an arm across his shoulders. Little careless gestures that spoke of quiet companionship and a deep affection.

The muscular beta with the gold chain who was now visibly playing footsie under the table with his two alphas was Jordan. The only female in the pack was indeed an alpha like Hangman had claimed with a pretty name that suited her well. And the one with the slicked back hair, the alpha who'd confronted Hangman earlier, was introduced as Rocco.

"He's the head alpha," Bob R added, popping the de-shelled peanut the WSO offered him into his mouth.

Bob didn't mean to laugh. It just bubbled out of him, fast and sharp enough that he covered his mouth and glanced around to make sure he hadn't disturbed any other patrons. The Other Bob didn't question him, just watched patiently with a raised eyebrow and an amused quirk of the mouth. It hit Bob that the other man knew that he didn't have to ask, that Bob would explain himself. Phoenix had given him the same look innumerable times in the past few years they'd been partners. That thought was quickly brushed under the proverbial rug. He wasn't quite ready to ponder the meaning of that revelation and how it made the tightness in his chest that had been there since this mysterious pack entered the bar loosen just a fraction.

"Hangman was right," Bob said, gesturing at the preening alpha still at the center of attention of the Dagger Squad.

A few of his teammates caught his eye, shooting curious looks at him, some of them even openly gesturing at Bob R then back to him in silent question.

He ignored them.

Bob Reynolds gave a nervous wave and a bashful grimace in an approximation of a friendly smile. When he turned in his chair a bit to subtly put his back to the group, Bob Floyd didn't blame him.

"I'm guessing 'Hangman' is that blond alpha who looks like he thinks he's a king holding court in front of his subjects?" the Other Bob asked.

"Unfortunately, yes," Bob muttered, tossing an errant peanut shell in an empty Budweiser glass he'd designated for such a task. No need to get Penny on his ass for making another mess for her to clean. "He's more a court jester who thinks he's king. If we had a leader other than Mav, it wouldn't be him." Tilting his head, Bob gestured at lone omega in the squad who was sitting by the wall, too distracted by the temptation of the bar's piano to pay Hangman any mind. "More likely, it'd be Rooster. Or maybe Phoenix, but I don't think she'd be too pleased with me for saying so."

The Other Bob risked a look at the Dagger Squad, just long enough for him to register their faces, most of which were still eyeing the two Bobs at the bar with unabashed curiosity. Bob Floyd turned and looked himself, briefly catching Phoenix's eye and blatantly ignoring her raised eyebrows.

"Do they always stare like that?" Bob Reynolds asked with a wince, his voice slightly higher and creaking from embarrassment.

Catching Payback's eye, Bob Floyd's unamused stare was met with an impish grin and a wink. When Fanboy wolf whistled, Bob turned back to the Other Bob with an audible sigh, fighting down the urge to roll his eyes.

"Unfortunately," he deadpanned, taking another sip of his Sprite, for once wishing it was something a little stronger.

After a few moments of the kind of awkward silence that only comes when two people know their every move is being heavily scrutinized, Bob R spoke up.

"Are they always this…" He glanced around the room, blinking rapidly like he was searching for his next words which had suddenly taken flight from his brain. Bob returned the same polite patience the omega had given him just minutes before, letting him figure out what he wanted to say and not interrupting or pressing him.

When he found the word, the Other Bob wrinkled his nose as if dissatisfied with the results of his searching.

"This…nosy?"

"Absolutely," Bob said with zero hesitation. That awkward expression bled from Bob R's face, replaced by the kind of genuine amusement Bob F wasn't used to receiving from something he'd said. Hangman had once declared he had no sense of humor, but it wasn't Bob's fault he didn't like being unnecessarily mean for the sake of a joke. But if everyone responded to jokes as beautifully as Bob Reynolds, maybe he'd need to start making more.

"Makes sense why you guys were nicknaming some of us. Have you been watching us all night?" There was a twinkle in the omega's eyes that made Bob's stomach flip in the same kind of way as when Becky Wilson in 5th grade held his hand for three precious minutes during recess. The same one as when Melinda Davis kissed him after junior prom.

Bob Floyd was many things but a stuttering fool wasn't one of them. Usually. So he cleared his throat, composing himself before he answered.

"A little bit," he admitted. Even if his voice was steady, the tips of his ears burned hotter than an overheating F/A-18 engine.

The impish grin that spread across Bob Reynolds' face should've been classified as a military-grade weapon suitable only for use in active combat. Definitely not something to be used in the middle of a bar against an unarmed combatant. Bob Floyd's stomach wasn't the only thing flipping; his damn heart felt like it was doing jumping jacks in his chest.

"Explains the nicknames," the Other Bob said with just a hint of a drawl. There was a mischievous light in his eyes, almost like he knew what he was doing to the flustered beta across from him. "You guys debating on who's the cutest? Because I can make a good case for myself."

"Not exactly," Bob said wryly. He took another sip of his drink to whet his suddenly-dry mouth, hands still fiddling with the same peanut he'd been rolling back and forth for the past few minutes.

The Other Bob waited, eyebrows raised expectantly, his smile growing more dangerous by the second. Bob Floyd thought he caught the other man sneaking a glance at his ears which were bright red by now judging by how they burned with the kind of heat usually only registered on the surface of the sun. But, when he glanced up at Bob Reynolds' eyes to catch him looking, the omega was merely watching him back.

"We were…" he started, cutting himself off before continuing. "They were making bets. About your pack."

Bob R's eyebrows shot up even further, making his forehead crease in a way that the WSO struggled to not label as 'adorable.'

"Nothing weird," Bob F added quickly. "Things like who was going to win that game of pool. Or who'd finish their drink first."

The Other Bob nodded, but Bob Floyd couldn't help but notice a twinge of some expression he couldn't quite place cross his handsome face. Relief?Disappointment? Hard to tell.

"Not exactly the most exciting bets. I think my idea is way better."

Bob F nodded absently, finally popping that peanut in his mouth and slowly chewing.

"Hangman and Fanboy were betting on who the pack alpha is," he finally added, flicking the crushed peanut shell into his cup to join its conquered brethren.

That seemed to interest the Other Bob, who perked up, sitting taller in his chair.

"Oh, that's what you meant by 'Hangman was right.' Everything's making sense now." He tapped his forehead, just like the meme, causing Bob F to let out a snort of laughter he couldn't quite hold back. Bob R beamed at him, eyes crinkling at the sides with laughter.

Since the squad were still closely monitoring the duo at the bar, Bob pulled up a picture on his phone to introduce his teammates in turn. Words flowed out of him, but in all honesty, Bob wasn't quite sure what all he said. He was hyper focused on how the Other Bob pulled his chair closer to better see the phone screen.

Stillness, it seems, was not a natural state of being for Bob Reynolds. He shifted in his seat, shaking his leg and rocking back and forth in an almost imperceptible way that Bob Floyd hadn't noticed until they were practically pressed against each other. Their legs bumped a few times and the Other Bob's hand brushed his own when he'd point at something in the picture that Bob himself had never noticed before. His heart practically pounded out of his chest any time they touched. If the omega knew what he was doing to him, Bob sure as hell couldn't tell. So he kept talking regardless.

The only thing he specifically remembered saying was mentioning Nat's civilian boyfriend she'd been with for the past year or so. Later, he wondered to himself why he'd brought that up, but all he knew was that Bob Reynolds had seemed tense when Phoenix was brought up and that his smiles and quiet touches came much more frequently after.

"You guys seem really close," the Other Bob said. Bob Floyd risked a glance over at his teammates and let out a relieved sigh seeing they'd moved on from staring to yet another game of darts where Payday and Coyote teamed up against Hangman. From the look of it, things weren't going well for them on that front.

"I mean, yeah. We're around each other what feels like every minute of the day. Can't even use the latrine without the entire unit knowing about it. 'Least, that's what it feels like."

The laugh the Other Bob let out wasn't faked; it was genuine but with something that rang hollow underneath. "I definitely understand that. Everyone knows everyone else's business in a pack, after all."

Now it was Bob's turn to smile ruefully. His eyes dipped to his own hands, watching as if from a distance as his index finger traced the bottom of the glass back and forth, swiping through cool beads of condensation and letting the water break, sliding down his skin and onto the bar counter.

Thoughts lingered on the tip of his tongue, ones he'd left unspoken to anyone but his closest family. They'd welled up before so many times along with a fierce sense of envy so strong Bob had to swallow the bile that rose in his throat - when Maverick finally settled down with Penny and Amelia, when his baby sister introduced the family to her new mates, when Coyote's pack came for a surprise visit on shore leave.

By the time he looked back up, the Other Bob was also following his movements. When he stopped, the omega blinked and looked back up at him, the upturned tilt of his lips distinctly bittersweet. There was an understanding there. A lack meeting another lack, like the holes in their hearts saw through the facades they held up and recognized each other.

So, for once, Bob didn't think through what he said. He just spoke.

"It must be nice to have a pack. A…family."

Several seconds passed before Bob Floyd found the nerve to lift his head up to see the other man's reaction. Would that change how the omega saw him? Would such rank honesty earn him discomfort or even the kind of pity he felt lurking in the eyes of even his closest friends? But, no. The Other Bob didn't give him a sad smile and a pat on the back. He didn't squirm away from the WSO either.

If anything, Bob Reynolds looked confused.

"What?" Bob Floyd found himself asking, the words leaving his lips involuntarily, not caught or even delayed by the ever-present filter he normally pushed all his thoughts through.

"But you have a family."

Before Bob could protest, to say that he meant a non-blood family, a group of people that chose each other willingly, a round of raucous laughter erupted from the direction of the dart board. The Hard Deck might have been emptier than normal, but this was the kind of hooting and hollering that would've drawn the attention of the entire place even during peak times.

Both Bobs immediately turned in their seats to watch as Coyote and Payday knelt on the floor to do push ups as Hangman strutted around like…well, a rooster while the others jeered at the losing duo and cheered them on in turn. From the expressions of chagrin and dread on Javy and Reuben's faces, Bob knew without a doubt they'd be going at it for quite a while.

The breathy laughter to his right drew Bob's attention back to the omega next to him. Bob Reynolds let out a little snort, covering his mouth and practically giggling as if his own noise only tickled him further.

"They do this often?" he asked.

"Oh yeah," Bob answered, chuckling to himself as Jake put his boot on Javy's upper back, posing like Captain Morgan on the other pilot. He caught Bob's eye, holding a precise, showy salute and grinning at the WSO. At least until Javy shifted his shoulder forward, purposefully causing the cocky alpha to stumble to catch himself, which only made the Dagger Squad howl with laughter.

"Honestly, it's their fault for betting against Hangman at darts. I swear he leaves his bunk in the middle of the night to practice in the rec hall."

Turning back to the bar, Bob R fixed him with a look that Bob F could only describe as fond.

"There's always at least one troublemaker in a pack," the Other Bob said with a wistful smile. His words were so casual, taking a sip of his soda after like there was no weight to them at all. But they hit Bob Floyd all the same.

As if he was on autopilot, Bob pushed the button to turn his phone screen on, looking at the same picture that had greeted him for years. He could still smell the briny ocean spray lapping against the shore and feel that familiar California sun beaming down on the back of his neck, making his skin prickle in the way that let him know it was time to reapply sunscreen. Some 80s rock he vaguely recognized played in the background, but Bob could barely hear it over the grunts and yells and laughter as his squad loped around the beachfront. After a while, teams and scores and even winners were forgotten, replaced with the pure joy of tackles and touchdowns. Even Bob himself, initially turned off by the excess testosterone and macho posturing, got into it, scoring a goal where everyone cheered like it was a winning one. For once, he'd enjoyed being the center of attention, foisted up into the air by his comrades who chanted his name as he threw his head back, laughing.

Penny'd insisted on taking a photo. She'd said they needed a token, something to remember in the coming days and weeks of training for that mission none of them should've come back from but, by no small miracle, all of them did. The whole squad kept it as their lock screen for all this time. Girlfriends, boyfriends, and packmates got the honor of being their wallpaper, kept safe and secure behind a password. But the Dagger Squad were the first thing they all saw when they grabbed their phones in the morning and the last thing they saw as they went to bed at night.

As the screen went black, Bob Floyd was greeted with his own face. Only a couple of hours ago, he'd seen it in the mirror of the men's room as he looked up from washing his hands. Then he was met with a frown, one he quickly schooled into a neutral expression. It was just another night out, one he tagged along to because he had nothing better to do when Phoenix asked him his plans for the evening. That Bob in the mirror had lines on his forehead and a weariness in his eyes.

This Bob, the one reflected by his phone screen, couldn't be more different. Gone was the grimace, replaced with upturned lips, like the remnants of a smile tugged at his mouth. The lines on his face were still there, of course, but not as deep as they'd been before. And his eyes? Now those were the most different.

Bob Floyd wasn't unhappy. The exact opposite, actually. He was doing the job he loved with a team who both relied on him and cared about him, even if they didn't always notice when he left the table. But there was an emptiness inside of him. A loneliness he was loathe to name. But this Bob looked…lighter. Happier. Somehow more fulfilled. Like a conversation with a handsome stranger had buoyed his spirits in a way he didn't realize he needed until he saw the results himself.

For some reason, he felt the urge to turn and look at this unusual pack. Most of them paid him no mind, not the cowboy and his fancy alpha. Not the mild-mannered beta and his doting omega. And not the female alpha or the showy beta, who were too busy flirting to pay attention. But the greaser - Rocco, he corrected himself - caught his gaze and held it there.

Bob couldn't fight the feeling that this was an important moment, that his new friend's mate was passing judgment on him. Normally, he wouldn't care what some knothead alpha thought of him. His parents had told him long ago that gender is irrelevant to what kind of person you are. You can't blame your mistakes on it or let it encapsulate who you are. But something about that moment made Bob want to be a 'good beta' for the first time in his life. Whatever the hell that was supposed to mean.

When the alpha raised his glass in a salute, a smirk firmly carved into his lips, Bob Floyd let out a breath he didn't know he was holding in. He lifted his Sprite in turn, toasting this complete stranger for something he didn't quite understand. Maybe he would later.

The Other Bob's voice jerked him firmly back into reality.

Turning to face the omega, Bob mumbled an apology. "Sorry, what was that?"

"I said, 'so, what's yours?'" Bob R stated, his head tilting to the side slightly, just enough that he had to gaze up through his lashes to make eye contact.

"Mine?" Bob F asked, brow furrowing in confusion. "My what?"

"Your callsign," the Other Bob clarified. "Sorry. I know I'm rewinding the conversation back a few minutes. Before we got distracted by the ruckus."

"Ruckus is a damn good way to put it," Bob said. He glanced back at the head alpha across the room, but Rocco had turned his attention away from the two at the bar.

"So, there's Payback. And Rooster. And Phoenix. What are you? Specs?" Bob R grinned as he said it, visibly proud of himself for coming up with a nickname.

"Uh…not exactly."

Bob Floyd had answered this question many, many times. People responded usually with confusion ('No, your callsign, not your name'), more questions ('Did you…choose that yourself?'), or, even worse, disappointment ('Aww, man. I was hoping it was something cool'). But this response? It was a new one.

"Hmm," Bob Reynolds said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully while looking off into the distance. The gesture made his already-thin lips smush together into a solitary line, making it look like he had a comically long frown. The word 'adorable' floated through Bob Floyd's head for the second time that night.

After a few moments of hard pondering, the Other Bob turned to him, releasing his chin as he declared, "I like it."

Bob blinked, saying nothing at first. And when he did speak, it was just one word.

"…What?"

"I like it," the Other Bob said with even more conviction, nodding his head as if agreeing with his own assessment. "It suits you."

Bob Floyd couldn't help himself. He laughed. It was sudden and jarring, like his body had a mind of its own. Like it was pulled out of his lungs by sheer surprise.

Bob Reynolds eyed him with a raised eyebrow. "What's so funny?"

"Normally people are disappointed that my callsign is just…Bob. They expect something cooler."

The other man audibly scoffed. "What? Like Hangman? Wow. He must be so cool." He made a quick pumping gesture with his right hand, wordlessly calling the blond alpha a jerk off. "No, Bob is unique. I bet there isn't another pilot with that callsign. There are probably dozens of 'Hangman's. And, after all, you know what 'Bob' stands for, right?"

"If you say 'Baby On Board,' I'm going back to my -" Bob F started, shaking his finger at his fellow Bob.

"No, no," Bob R said, waving away the other man's concerns. "Nothing as lame as that."

"Then what?"

Bob Reynolds grinned.

"Big Ol' Balls, obviously."

When Bob Reynolds said his goodbyes and made his way back to his pack through the slowly emptying bar, he was hyper aware of the phone resting heavily in his right front pocket. He ran his fingers over the glass faceplate, feeling the tiny cracks in the touch screen, the ones Jordan insisted wouldn't be there if he'd just get a proper phone case. If he traced the name of the man he'd spent the last hour and a half with, give or take a few minutes, no one would know. Or even blame him.

The rest of his pack was suspiciously silent as he slid into the oval booth at the far end of the room, the one right next to the door. Everyone had made their way over to the table eventually, nearly filling it up. It wasn't an easy fit like it had been with just his bonded mates where he could stretch out over the worn brown vinyl, resting his head in one of their laps. But the way Miles chirruped happily, wrapping his arms around Bob and pulling him close, rubbing their noses together, more than made up for the lack of space.

"You tryin'a get us another beta?" Rhett asked with a grin. He'd long ago taken off the cowboy hat. Now the Stetson decorated the table in front of them, set amidst a veritable field of discarded and half-empty glasses.

At those words, Jordan perked up.

"We could use another beta. William helped get our numbers up, but you damn alphas outnumber us," he said, shooting fake glares at the three at the table who just chuckled in response.

"There are three omegas too," William added, pointing at Rhett, Miles, and Bob himself in turn.

Jordan dismissed him with a simple "psht" sound.

"There is never such a thing as too many omegas," he said as justification. Todd, who never missed an opportunity to cuddle with the nearest omega, nodded his head as if agreeing with some deep, sage wisdom. Rhett nudged him with his elbow, snickering when the alpha pouted at him, exaggeratedly rubbing his side as if dearly wounded.

"Can't disagree with you there," Rocco said, taking a swig of his beer before turning his eyes on Bob. Without even saying another word, Bob could feel his own face growing red. Rocco didn't even have to ask. From the smirk that tugged at his lips, he knew what Bob was thinking possibly even better than Bob knew himself.

As much as they so obviously wanted to, a stern look from Rocco quieted any more questions about the handsome stranger Bob had spent so much time chatting up. Everyone seemed mostly tired (or buzzed), so further talk was minimal, mostly just murmuring to the person next to them.

When William caught himself nearly falling asleep at the table, they collectively decided to call it a night. Miles and Jordan busied themselves organizing the glassware on the table, clean spills and stacking plates to make the night a little easier for the barkeep, while Todd made his way to the register to square up their tab.

It didn't take long before everyone filed out of the bar. Bob tried to catch a glimpse of his military counterpart, but, between his own packmates and the people settling up at the bar, there were too many people in the way. He could have sworn he saw that perfectly coifed hair swiveling to face them as they left, but he couldn't be certain.

The parking lot was mostly silent except for the buzzing of the neon lights in the Top Deck's windows, so any noise the pack made was amplified. From the words they exchanged to the keys jingling in the drivers' hands and especially to the gravel crunching under foot, Bob almost didn't hear Rocco when he started talking.

"Was he nice?"

"Hmm?" Bob answered, blinking and looking up at his mate. Rocco smiled down at him, one of those smiles that made him look devilishly handsome. That smile used to haunt his dreams before Bob had finally admitted his attraction to the alpha, but now it brightened his days and warmed his nights.

"Was he nice? The guy you chatted with."

"Oh? Yeah. Yeah, he was really sweet," Bob said, pushing his hands even deeper into his pockets as the cool night air nipped at his skin. Once again, he ran his fingers over the phone as if expecting it to buzz or ring at any moment. Or maybe he hoped it would.

"Sweet, huh?" Rocco said teasingly. He knocked his shoulder lightly against Bob's, who retaliated by leaning against him. From the way Rocco immediately put his arm around the omega, Bob didn't think he was complaining much.

His next words were quieter, spoken practically into Bob's ear.

"You feelin' better?"

Bob didn't mean to stop in his tracks, but Rocco jerked to a halt next to him, practically getting whiplash from the sudden pause in their walk. He wanted to deny it, of course. To tell Rocco that he had no clue what the alpha was talking about. But, looking up into the eyes of his mate, he knew that lying was useless. Rocco knew he'd been in a rotten mood all day, as much as Bob had tried to hide it.

He wasn't even sure why he'd been having a bad day to begin with. It could have been a million things. Or it could have been nothing. After all, it's like his therapist always said - depression doesn't always need a reason.

Hell, he wasn't even sure why he'd approached Bob Floyd to begin with. I mean, yeah, the guy had his hoodie, the same one Bob R had pulled on as soon as the crisp night air hit his bare arms. If Bob put his nose to it, he imagined he could still smell the beta's scent - clean and woodsy with just a hint of something sharp, like the one that lingered on his clothes the one time Todd had managed to convince him to fly on a plane despite his fear of heights. It was like gasoline or kerosene but not quite. The combination was odd, but Bob found that he quite liked it.

Their connection should have ended there. They'd touch hands as the WSO handed his hoodie back, Bob would think about it all night, and he'd look for the cute beta with big, blue eyes and aviator glasses every time they went to the Hard Deck from then on.

But talking to him just felt so…nice. He was nice. Bob Floyd was the kind of man who made every person he interacted with feel seen. He waited his turn to speak, and when he did, he made it clear he was listening, carefully logging little tidbits into some nebulous folder in his mind to reference later. And his life was so different from anything Bob Reynolds had ever experienced, full of dangerous missions, cocky pilots, and apparently some beach football. It didn't hurt that the WSO's eyes kept slipping to Bob's lips, his ears turning scarlet when Bob flirted back with him.

Somewhere in their conversation, the ache in Bob Reynolds' chest eased, leaving him feeling lighter than he'd been in days. And the new contact in his phone just meant this wasn't just a random chat between strangers. Maybe it was the start of something more.

"You okay, sweetheart?" Rocco's words brought him back to reality, back to the cold parking lot where his mate was waiting for an answer. None of the pack's vehicles had moved either. They waited for their alpha to lead the way. Or, more likely, they stayed to make sure nothing was wrong with Bob.

That thought felt like ice water over his head. Abruptly, Bob started walking towards Rocco's car, grabbing the alpha's hand to drag him along. Letting out a grunt of surprise, his mate followed wordlessly.

When they got to the car, Bob turned around to squarely face the other man.

"I'm okay, Rock," he said, meaning those words for the first time in the past week that he'd spoken them. "I'm okay."

Rocco fixed him with a stare, one Bob could never seem to hide from. It was like his alpha could see right through him, reading all the truths etched on his soul that he tried so desperately to keep to himself, not wanting to bother his packmates. After a few tense seconds, Rocco breathed out a little sigh of relief, his shoulders visibly relaxing.

"Okay," Rocco said. There was no pushing, no trying to get more information out of the omega. And Bob knew he wouldn't. His alpha trusted that he would open up in his own time.

The ride home was full of the regular noises: the hum of the engine, bits of scattered conversation, and a little off key singing.

When they pulled into their driveway and rolled to a stop inside the garage, Bob didn't even reach for the handle. He knew better by now. Long ago, Rocco had made it a habit to always open the door for his passengers. It was so ingrained into Bob that it took him a few seconds to realize that the alpha didn't move to exit the car.

"I do have one question," Rocco admitted almost sheepishly. He looked almost embarrassed to ask but bursting at the seams with curiousity, like he'd been chewing on his words the entire time they'd driven home."You know I won't press the issue. I don't need to know a damn thing about him until you're ready to talk. But it's kinda killing me. Can I…" His words trailed off, looking to Bob for permission.

When Bob nodded his assent, the alpha asked simply, "What's his name?"

Now that was a question Bob was more than happy to answer. Bob grinned up at his partner, smiling even wider when confusion and even a little bit of dread crossed his beloved's face. It was like he'd told the WSO; there was always one troublemaker in a pack, a fact Bob knew well from personal experience.

So, of course Rocco didn't believe him.

"You're fucking with me," he'd insisted. "There's no way that we went to a bar full of people, and you came out with a crush on the only other Bob in there. What's his name really? James? Tom? Lewis?"

It took pulling out his phone to show Rocco the new contact he'd entered in there just an hour ago, the one with the photo he'd startled the lieutenant when he snapped it so that the WSO more resembled a deer in the headlights than a decorated military officer.

When Rocco groaned in defeat, muttering "goddamnit, Bob" under his breath, Bob Reynolds laughed harder than he'd done in months.

Divider Credit -> @/strangergraphics

Images in header are not mine.

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