bambi

"So, Do you want to talk about it?" Stiles asked, looking over to you in his passenger seat.He could tell you were in a sour mood before he even picked you up.

You were rounding the street, leaving your house behind. You didn't want to answer at all; tears were already burning behind your eyes, threatening to spill. "No" was all you managed to choke out before your tears started freefalling. You hung your head low, watching your tears drop on your lap.

Stiles had no idea what was going on; just a few hours ago after school, he dropped you off at home, and you had a bright smile on your face knowing your family was over for a visit and you hadn't seen most of them since moving to Beacon Hill with your parents two years ago. In the last two years, Stiles and you have grown inseparable; he's the best friend you could have ever asked for, so when you texted him at 1 in the morning asking him to come to pick you up, he knew something was off. He could always tell.

It wasn't unusual for you two to go on late-night drives, but the way you had conveyed your message seemed off immediately: "You need to come pick me up right now." Stiles didn't hesitate; he threw on whatever clothes he could find and took an extra hoodie with him, sneaking past his dad and out into the cold night air. He tossed the extra hoodie onto Roscoe's back seat, knowing you probably didn't even put a jacket on. And he was right, driving towards your house. He saw your silhouette standing in your driveway, no jacket on, just your PJ shirt and a pair of sweatpants that he swore were missing from his closet. You walked towards the jeep, and when Stiles stopped, you entered without a word, put your seatbelt on, and all you said was a quiet "drive".

Stiles didn't know what to do; you didn't want to talk, but he couldn't stand watching you cry; it made his stomach churn and his chest feel tight in a sickening way. He needed you to be okay.

He reached his right hand over to you, taking your hand that was fidgeting with your shirt in his. You loved the way his fingers wrapped around your hand; it always made butterflies erupt in your stomach, even if he was just doing it to comfort you. You let out a choked sob that went straight to Stiles's heart breaking it a little. "I can't help you feel better if you don't talk to me," Stiles whispered, but the Jeep was so quiet that you understood him perfectly. You knew he was right, and you also knew that if anyone could make you feel better, it was Stiles.

Stiles already had a feeling about what was wrong but didn't want to say anything in case he was wrong. He knew you loved your family, but they could be harsh at times. You told him about a year ago how, especially, your grandma would often give you a hard time because of your weight. He found it ridiculous because a) it was none of your grandma's business what your body looked like, and b) he thought you looked amazing—the most beautiful woman he has ever laid eyes on. He loved holding you close and loved the way your body felt pressed against him. You've slept over at his place multiple times in the last two years, and holding you close as you slept is still his favorite pastime ever. Of course, he told you multiple times that you look amazing either way, but he understands how hard it is to feel comfortable in your own body, especially when your personal bully used to live with you.

Ever since moving away, your relationship with your family has gotten far better. Before, you used to live in one big house with your grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins constantly around you.

You wanted to tell Stiles what happened and wanted him to hold you and make it seem like everything was alright, but your grandma's voice kept nagging you: "You better start dropping a few Pounds if you ever want that boy to like you back." That was the first thing she dared say to you as you walked into the house earlier. She had been watching you through the kitchen window as Stiles dropped you off after school.

Anyone could tell how in love you were with Stiles by the way you smiled at him. You'd have to be an absolute idiot to miss it, like Stiles, as Lydia likes to point out; he was one of those absolute idiots, as he doesn't seem to notice your feelings for him. Your mother immediately interfered with your grandmother and told her to back off; they never got along, as she treated your mother with just as much kindness as she showed you, none.

You didn't feel hungry sitting with your family during dinner, and even though your mother had served your favorite lasagna, you could only stomach a little salad from the side dishes before you excused yourself and went back to your room. Part of you knew your grandma was right. Stiles would never like you back in the way that you like him; your name doesn't start with Lyd and end with ia, nor are you a fit strawberry blonde; no, you're about the exact opposite of what Stiles has always desired.

Shortly before you texted Stiles to come pick you up, your grandma had entered your room. You had honestly thought that she would be in bed by now, as you hadn't heard any noise from down the stairs in hours as you kept to yourself in your room. "You know, I am just looking out for you." Your grandmother had started her lecture, a lecture that you are all too familiar with; you've heard it about 250 times by now. She's just looking out for you; she just wants to motivate you to lose some weight; she doesn't want you to end up alone with no man. You never understood where your grandma took her audacity from, considering that she wasn't the skinniest woman herself.

"I saw the way you look at that boy; be real with yourself. Do you really think you'd have a chance with him right now?" Knowing your parents and your family, you couldn't exactly lash out at your grandma, so you did the next best thing you could do, which was only moderately disrespectful: you walked right past her out of your room, put your shoes on, and left the house. You stood in the driveway, and the only person that you wanted to see right now was Stiles. You knew he would pick you up at any time of the day, so you shot him a quick text and ducked yourself into the shadows under a tree in your driveway. You didn't want your grandma to see you, but you knew she was watching again.

Stiles couldn't bear your silence anymore, so he spoke again. This time it startled you, as his voice was more firm and he sounded quite angry. "Was it your grandma?" he asked. Your head shot up, and you looked over at him in disbelief, wondering how he knew. When your eyes met his, they softened; his angry stare was gone. Of course, Stiles knew he always did, didn't he? You weakly nodded your head before looking down at your hand again. You suddenly noticed how cold it was in Roscoe, and you shivered. Stile's hand let go of yours as he reached behind your seat to get his hoodie from the back seat. "Here, I had a feeling you would be freezing," he said as he handed you his hoodie. As you pulled his hoodie over your head, you inhaled Stile's scent deeply, hoping he didn't notice. There was something so intoxicating about Stiles that you didn't know if it was just him in general or if your feelings for him were playing a trick on your mind.

"You know everything your grandma has ever said is not true, right?" You have heard this from many people over the years, but only when Stiles said it did you feel put at ease for a little bit. You sat in comfortable silence, knowing Stiles took over the conversation when you were sad, so you could just listen. "Y/N, I mean it; there's nothing about you that could count as a flaw in the slightest, and I don't know how to make you believe that... Sometimes I just wish you could see yourself through my eyes, so you could realize." Stiles sighed in frustration. You know his frustration wasn't directed at you, but it still made you upset. "Thank you, Stiles," is all you could say.

You leaned your head back against your headrest and closed your eyes. Just now, you noticed that there was music quietly playing in the background. Stiles must have turned it on at some point. It was your playlist, with Until Forever Falls Apart by Ashe playing in the background. You closed your eyes, just enjoying the feeling of driving around.

You were startled when Stiles woke you up. You noticed the Jeep was parked in front of his house. Sometime during the drive, you must have fallen asleep. Stiles still sat across from you in the driver's seat, his hand on your cheek as he slowly stroked across it to wake you up. You felt a yawn make its way across your lips and stretched your legs. Stiles got out and rounded the Jeep, opening your door for you. He held it open as you jumped out. Stiles took your hand as he walked toward the door. You shuffled a little closer, putting your head on his arm. You noticed the sheriff's car was gone. "My dad was called back to the station about an hour ago." Stiles said he had noticed you staring at the empty spot where the sheriff's car usually stood. Once inside, you made your way to Stiles's room; according to his alarm clock, it was almost 2 a.m. Stiles must have been driving a bunch of circles around the city while you were asleep. You made a mental note to quickly steal Roscoe tomorrow and fill his tank for Stiles.

You took your shoes off and crawled into Stiles's bed. You heard him shuffle around behind you like he was searching for something, but you just wanted to lie down. A few seconds late, you felt Stiles get in bed behind you, his chest pressed to yours as his arms sneaked around your waist. At first, you hated when Stiles touched your stomach, but at first, you were also not used to cuddling with a boy in general. To anybody walking in, you two would seem like more than just friends, and the thought of that made your heart race. As you lay in silence, you once again noticed music playing in the background. Stiles must have looked for his speakers; your favorite playlist was quietly playing from the direction of his desk.

Stiles's hand sneaked under your, or well, his, hoodie, and he laid it right under your breast on top of your pajama shirt. Suddenly you noticed how hot it was getting under the hoodie and blanket, but you didn't dare move to take it off out of fear Stiles would move back.

Stiles shifted slightly behind you and buried his head in your neck. While you were absentmindedly intertwining your legs, you swore you could feel something poke you from behind. Your eyes widened. You have felt Stiles boner against you before a few times in the mornings and always just shrugged it off as morning wood. You felt Stiles move a little again when he whispered "I'm sorry" right in the nape of your neck. You didn't know how to react as goosebumps covered your skin and a shiver ran down your spine. You thought Stiles would move away from you, but instead, he pulled you in, making you gasp out when you felt his hard-on fully pressed against you.

Stile's head was still buried in your neck when you felt him slightly lift it and press a kiss right between your neck and shoulder. Another shiver wrecked your body as you turned your head slightly to look Stiles in the eyes; he had fully lifted his head, looking down on you.

Stiles didn't know where his sudden boost in confidence had come from, but ever since he saw your tear-filled eyes in the car, he wanted to confess his feelings to you and make you feel beautiful. Usually, when he got a boner around you, he would run off to the bathroom and take care of it, but right now, he wanted you to feel what you do to him.

He felt like he was about to explode with the way you were looking up at him—your big doe eyes, pupils blown wide, and lips gaping. He wanted nothing more than to kiss you.

You couldn't make out what you saw in Stiles's eyes right now; his dark eyes were almost black. "I really want to kiss you right now." Stiles's raspy voice said in a whisper that had your breath stuck. When you didn't respond, he moved his head a little closer to your ear. "Can I?" he asked again in a whisper. You could only nod your head. That's when Stiles removed his hand from under your hoodie to cup your face. When his lips finally met yours, you were sure time had stopped. You felt a new set of goosebumps rise on your skin as you kissed Stiles back eagerly, and you both smiled into the kiss when Stiles suddenly moved back. He pushed you back to lay flat on your back as he climbed in between your legs before kissing you again.

He couldn't believe that he was actually kissing you, mentally thanking every god out there for today. Stiles ground your crotches together, which ripped a loud moan from you. You turned your head away, embarrassed by what just happened. You felt Stiles heavy breathing. He took your face back in his hand and turned your head so you would look at him again. He looked heavenly; you can't believe what just happened.

"I've been wanting to do that for two years."

With these few words, Stiles had your whole world crumbling as tears slowly started falling from your eyes. You stared up at Stiles as he slowly started to panic, not knowing what he had done wrong. You couldn't stop the tears from falling. For the past two years, you thought that Stiles only saw you as a friend, when he might have wanted you just the way you wanted him. "Y/N, I'm so incredibly sorry. I didn't want to cross any boundaries. I- I m so stupid." Stiles started to sit back and move away from you when you reached for his arm to hold him still. You still had tears in your eyes, but you couldn't stop a smile from stretching across your face. "And I've been waiting for you to do that for the past two years, you idiot." Now, it was Stiles's turn to look absolutely shocked and dumbfounded at the same time. "HuuH?" was the only thing he managed to get past his lips. You laughed at him and leaned forward, reconnecting your lips. You felt like a heavy weight was lifted off your chest. A lump in your throat that you didn't know was there dissipated, and when Stiles started kissing you back, you finally wrapped your arm around his neck. Stiles deepened the kiss, asking for permission with his tongue, which you happily granted.

"Do you want me to stop? We don't have to go further," Stiles asked. "Honestly, this was already way more than I ever expected to happen. You don't -"

Stiles groaned into your mouth when he finally got to kiss you the way he wanted to for so long, and when you pushed your hips up to grind against him, he swore he lost his sanity. His hands traveled down your sides and under your hoodie, where they settled at your waist. "Can I take these off?" he referred to his Hoodie on you and your shirt. You hummed, opening your eyes and looking back at him. "I need verbal confirmation, y/n." He chuckled at you. " Yes, Stiles, please." He gave you a quick kiss on your forehead before pulling your shirt and hoodie above your head in one go. What Stiles didn't know was that you wore no Bra underneath. He tried not to stare at your naked chest underneath him, so you wouldn't feel uncomfortable when he looked up at you. You had your head turned away again, slightly covering part of your chest with one hand. He took your hand in his own slowly moving, removing it from your chest.

He leaned back down and started spreading small pecks along your neck and down to your collarbone, which had you whimpering and trusting back up against him.

You felt him smile into your skin. His hand slowly traveled down your body, settling onto your hips and pushing them back down into the mattress. "Patience, baby, we will get there." Stiles moved his head back up and turned your face to look at him. You couldn't keep yourself from blushing at his words. You've never known that Stiles had such a side to him. Your hands tucked slightly at Stiles's shirt, signaling that you wanted it off; he sat back on his knees and pulled his shirt above his head. You've seen Stiles shirtless before, and every time it makes your skin heat up, you're sure you couldn't blush a deeper shade of red as you were staring at his perfect form. When you looked at his face, you noticed he was already looking at you. Watching as you stared at his body, you felt flustered under his dark eyes. Stiles's hands were back on your thighs, rubbing small circles with his thumbs that made your legs twitch.

You giggled as you noticed Stiles was starting to get into a nervous ramble. "Stiles, calm down, you're fine, I don't want to stop." For the first time tonight, it felt like you could talk freely with nothing holding you back. "Okay, good, good, but tell me if I need to stop. I will I prom-"

"Stiles! "

"Will you please shut up and get back here?" You reached your arms out to him, signaling to him that you wanted him back on top of you. Stiles smiled as he leaned back down, capturing your lips in another kiss. Both of you hadn't planned this, and neither one of you knew how to make the next move. You both knew you wanted more, and you knew that Stiles had slightly more experience than you and hoped he would make the next move.

And thankfully he did. Stiles slowly moved his hand that was still on your thigh a little higher, feeling your breath hitch as he cupped your heat through your pants, slowly rubbing his palm against you. You let a small moan escape your lips, which was swallowed by Stiles as he kept kissing you. He undid the tie of your (his) sweatpants and pushed his hand inside he moved his fingers down over your panties to feel how damp they were. "Stiles, please," you whimpered against his lips. Stiles swore he was so hard that he could come from just looking at you right now. He pulled his hand out, and you buckled your hips in protest. A small laugh passed his lips. He decided not to torture you any longer and started to pull your pants down. You lifted your hips for him to make it easier, and when they were finally off, he ran his hands up and down your thighs, feeling your soft skin.

You reached one of your hands between you to cup Stiles's erection through his own sweatpants. Feeling your hands on him for the first time made Stiles let out a loud groan that went straight to your own core.

You pushed Stiles slightly so he would lay on his back as you climbed between his legs. He stared at you as you settled on your stomach between his legs. He wet his lips and groaned when you palmed him harder. He lifted his hips off the bed and watched you pull his sweats and boxers down in one go. You wrapped your hands around him and looked up at him as you leaned forward to lick one long stripe along the underside of his dick up to his tip, where you collected his precum on your tongue. "Fuck, Y/N, don't do that." Stiles threw his head back; there was no way he could look at you if he wanted to last. You wrapped your lips around him and started bobbing your head up and down in a slow rhythm. Stiles groaned above you as his hands grabbed the sheets, and you saw his knuckles turn white.

You took his hand in yours and guided it to the back of your head to signal him that he could take control. Stiles took your hair in his hand and wrapped the other one around your scalp, holding you close. Suddenly, he started thrusting up while simultaneously pulling your head down, his cock going further down your throat with every thrust. You tried your best to breathe through your nose. Stiles moans fueled your desire to make him finish, so you hollowed your checks more and sucked harder. One of his hands left your head, and he draped it lazily over his eyes, thrusting his hips fast and keeping your head down. "I'm I'm close- fu- so close, Y/N." You felt a stutter in his rhythm, and after a few more thrusts, his hips lifted up one last time. He pushed your head down fully, your nose pressed against his pelvis as he came down your throat. You swallowed around him, the overstimulation making him pull out.

"Come here," Stiles pulled you towards him. You had to crawl on his lap because you were too short to reach him from your position. Stiles pulled you into another kiss and groaned when your wet panties rubbed against his half-erect dick.

Stiles's hands roamed over your body and settled on your ass; he pushed your hips down to grind harder against him as you were still mostly hovering over him, unsure whether you should put your whole weight on him.

When Stiles finally felt you let go and sink down on his lap he moved one of his hands from your ass and in between your bodies where he pulled your panties aside, he moved back a little so he could see you fully and ran one of his fingers up and down your slit collecting your wetness, you moaned at the feelings of stiles finger on you, he moved his finger up and slowly started drawing circles on your clit with his finger pad, you fell forward and put your hands against stiles chest as you let your moans slip freely from your mouth you started grinding against stiles hand as he finally inserted his finger into you, you needed more already soaking stiles hand you begged Stiles for more "More, please Stiles" he added another finger, spreading you open, the hand on your ass helping you move faster against his hand. The palm of his hand rubbed against your clit. 

Stiles couldn't believe the sight above him, trying to implant your beauty into his brain forever as you threw your head back. "I'm gonna come- Stiles!" Your hips stuttered, but his hand on your ass helped you move through your orgasm. You collapsed on top of him. He slowly stroked your back, but Stiles wasn't done with you yet. He waited for your breathing to calm down before he spoke again. "I want to taste you." You felt another blush creep up on your cheeks. You weren't going to deny Stiles his wish and were going to move off him to lie down when he held you still. "Sit on my face," Stiles said as he pulled your hips upward. Your cheeks fired up as you started stuttering. "Whaat no, I can't, we can't," you tried to move off. "Baby, look at me. I know what you're thinking, and I promise you won't hurt me." Stiles insisted looking up at you. "N-no, what if I crush you?" you said quietly, not looking Stiles in the eyes. Stiles smiled at you, and his hands traveled up your thighs, gripping them tightly. "You won't, and even if you did, it sounds like a great way to go out." You frowned and slapped him across the chest, earning you a laugh from Stiles. "Y/n, I mean it; you won't hurt me if it makes you feel better. How about I tap your thighs like this if I need you to move up?" He asked while tapping two of his fingers against your thigh three times. He looked up at you, giving you the best puppy eyes he could muster. You knew you could never deny him when he looks like this, and with a sigh, you gave in "Ookay- but..."

"No more buts!" Stiles interrupted you. He lifted you up slightly as if you weighed nothing and helped you out of your panties before moving your body towards the headboard until you were hovering over his face. He caressed your inner thighs, spreading your legs further apart. Stiles didn't think you could get any hotter, but when he looked up into your eyes from this position, taking you in in your blushing form, he swore you got even more beautiful. Stiles's hands moved up to your hips, which he grabbed tightly before pressing you down onto him, finally having your cunt on his face. He liked a long stripe up from your hole to your clit, moaning at the taste, which sent vibration right through your clit and a shock up your spine.

Stiles ate you out like a man starving, pulling you even closer and fully burying his head into your cunt. He rocked your body against his face, his nose brushing against your clit as he pushed his tongue into you. You grabbed his hair with one hand and the headboard with the other, rocking your body back and forth against Stiles's face, letting moans of his name echo through his room, which only fueled Stiles on more. When he sucked your clit into his mouth, you ground down right into him. "Shit Stiles, s-sorry," you tried to lift yourself back up, but Stiles held you close, pressed up against his mouth. He opened his eyes and looked up at you, the eye contact sending shivers down your spine.

Stiles moaned against your clit making you throw your head back. One of his hands sneaked up your body and ghosted over your breast. Stiles has always wanted to touch them. When you put your hands over his to grab them harder, Stiles finally lost his last reserve and started rolling your nipple between his fingers. "Stiles, Stiles..." His name fell off your lips like a mantra as you came a second time that night, your legs clamping together around Stiles's head, trying to keep him there. He tried his best to lap up all your juices, and when the stimulation became too much, you lifted yourself up, much to Stiles's displeasure, as he would much rather have kept you there. You moved to the side, lying down next to Stiles.

You looked at him, his face glistening in your juice. "That was the best thing ever!" Stiles exclaimed with a smile on his face. You chuckled at his bright smile. He looked like a kid on Christmas. He leaned over to you, connecting your lips. You could taste yourself on his lips. You felt Stiles hard on press against your thigh. You moved your hand down his stomach and wrapped it around your shaft. You moved, so Stiles was in between your legs. "I want you inside me," you mumbled against Stiles's lips.

Stile's mind went haywire. He didn't expect to ever get so far with you, so he didn't have any condoms. You saw the worried look on his face as you watched his eyes scan the room. "I'm on birth control, Stiles," you reassured him as you ground your wet cunt against his hard cock. "Are you sure this is okay?" Stiles asked as he lined himself up with your entrance. "Yes, Stiles, I've never been more sure."

Stiles slowly pushed in, making sure not to hurt you. He knew you hadn't slept with anyone since losing your virginity over two years ago, so it stung a little when Stiles was fully inside you. He stayed still for a moment, just taking in your beautiful face and the feeling. "You're beautiful," Stiles said, smiling down at you. Stiles has called you beautiful before, but it had never made you feel the way it did now that you knew he felt the same way about you.

You moved your hips a little, signaling Stiles to move. "Stiles, move, ple-ase!" Stiles pulled out almost all the way before thrusting back in. He immediately found the right spots that had you moaning under him, "fuck- fast- stiles faster!" You moaned in his ear. Stiles picked up the pace and felt your nails dig into his back. He hooked one of your legs over his shoulder so he could reach even deeper. The new position made him hit your g-spot with every thrust and had you tightening incredibly around him. "Fuck Y/N, you're too tight." Stiles swore you were sent to earth just for him, as he filled you perfectly. He propped himself down on his elbow, pressing himself even closer to you. He reached one hand between your legs, rubbing your clit. 

You were still incredibly sensitive from earlier and came almost instantly while he continued rubbing your clit in slow circles to help you back down from your high. Your thighs were shivering. Stiles pulled out of you and turned you around; he gently pushed you on your stomach. You slightly lifted your ass up towards him as well as your shaking legs could support you. Stiles trusted back inside you, but with the first thrust of his hips, your legs already gave out. You were gripping the sheets between your fingers as Stiles held you against him, chasing his own orgasm. "Fuck y/n, I'm going cum," he said, his rhythm breaking. "In-inside... please stileees" you whined out for him. The thought of coming inside sent Stiles over the edge. He pressed his chest against your back as he slowly emptied himself inside you.

When he pulled out, you flopped back on the bed and said, "Don't move; wait here!" Stiles got off the bed and ran into the bathroom, you guessed. When he came back, he had a roll of toilet paper and a warm washcloth. He cleaned up between your legs the best he could before crawling back in bed with you. He pulled you flush against his chest, loving the way you curled into his side. You laid your head on your chest, listening to Stiles's heartbeat as he played with your hair. You heard Stiles say something but didn't register it, exhaustion finally catching up on you as you fell asleep.

At 6:30 a.m., just a few hours later, you were rudely awakened by Stiles's alarm. You debated for a second about just skipping class when Stiles and you heard his dad in the hallway. You both immediately sprang into action, getting your clothes back on, just as you had finished putting on your clothes and pulling your shirt down, the sheriff entered the room. He looked surprised, expecting to only find Stiles.

It's not like you have never slept over at Stiles place, but usually the sheriff knew. Judging by the way the sheriff looked at Stiles, he already knew what had happened between you two. "Just make sure you both make it to school in time, okay?" Was all he said, looking at Stiles, who nodded his head, hand scratching his neck. "We have to be quick; I need my stuff from home," you reminded Stiles after the sheriff left.

Stiles dropped you off at him with barely 10 minutes to spare, which definitely wasn't because you two took an extra long shower this morning. Your mother tried to approach you and question you about what happened and why you weren't at home, but you just brushed her off promising to fill her in later. You changed your clothes, grabbed your bag, and were back in Stiles's jeep in record time. You knew your grandma was watching again from the kitchen window, so you reached over and pulled Stiles into a kiss.

Stiles caressed your cheek and deepened the kiss. You didn't pull back until you couldn't breathe. Just as you were about to lean in again, you saw your dad leave the house out of the corner of your eye. "Drive!" You turned to Stiles, who didn't need to be told twice as you both made your way to school. You couldn't help but laugh at the face your dad made while standing alone in the driveway.

“There’s soda in the house,” He chuckled, nudging you away from him, “I need to finish this paper.”

You made a loud groan of dissatisfaction and launched yourself back against the couch cushions. Giggling at your dramatics, Clark ignored you and continued with his homework.

“Wouldn’t you kill for your mom’s lemonade right now?” You asked, prodding your manicured toes into his ribs, tugging your locket necklace between your teeth. Clark jolted at the ticklish sensation and swatted away your foot.

“I always get your drinks. Can’t you go by yourself for once?” A tight smile graced his face as he flipped through sheets of notes, the hinge of his jaw tightening.

“Oh, sorry, I was only messing around,” You pulled away from him, dropping your necklace to your chest as your brows knit trying to decipher his tone; his face was smiley but he seemed on edge, “I thought you liked doing things for me. I didn’t mean to-”

“I do!” He whipped towards you, holding his hands as if he was reaching for you but holding himself back. A deep sigh deflated from his chest as his eyes darted to the floor, “I do but… It’s fine, I’ll get you lemonade.”

Clark hurried to his feet but, before he rushed off, you stopped him, “What’s going on? You’re being weird.”

Scratching his neck, Clark stayed a healthy distance from you and blurted, “I’m your boyfriend without the rewards.”

Wide eyes blinked at you and his jaw hung ajar, pink blotches climbing up his neck.

“Wha-What?” You fumbled for a response, stuttering and scoffing at the accusation.

“Nothing, just something Pete said,” Clark retreated to the barn steps, “I’ll go get your drink.”

“Clark, stop, what did Pete say?” You followed after him, finally rounding on him at the barn door and halting him in his tracks. With raised brows, he laughed it off, “Nothing. Just Pete being Pete.”

“Clark,” you sternly warned him, glaring up at him through furrowed brows. Clark could never lie to you for long, always cracking like an egg on concrete.

“Okay fine! Pete said I’m your boyfriend without the rewards,” Clark held his hands up, “I’m there whenever you need me, to do boyfriend things...”

“Boyfriend things?”

“Yeah… Getting you lemonade even though I’m totally gonna fail this history paper, driving you everywhere, walking you home, buying your favourite snacks and memorising your coffee order, going shopping with you so you don’t have to carry all the bags, building you furniture-“

“You’re my friend Clark! Those are friend things to do,” You shouted back, scoffing at the ridiculousness of his claim.

“So you’d invite Pete over to build your new dresser? Or ask Chloe for her sweater because it’s cold out?” He raised his brows at you, a knowing smile on his face.

Silence fell between you. Crossing your arms, you raised your chin and Clark shook his head, “He’s right. I’m your boyfriend without the rewards.”

“So you… so you want the rewards?”

“No! No no no no, I don’t- not with you, bleurgh,” Clark wrinkled his nose, laughing at the notion.

“Don’t say bleurgh-” You fought back, riled up by his theatrical disgust, before he interjected, “I don’t want it!”

“-I’m not disgusting. It’s not an unheard of thought,” You continued despite his interruption, your voices raising above each other with every sentence. Clark made another childish sound of disgust and pulled a face.

“Come on, admit it, you’ve thought about it” You goaded him, arguing loudly and quickly.

“You and me, sexually? Nope, bleurgh,” Clark stuck his tongue out, memories of your childhood bickering coming to the forefront of your mind, “Never thought about it once.”

Rolling your eyes with equally childish insult, you pulled a face at him, “Don’t lie.”

“Not on purpose,” Clark held his hands up in surrender as you stared pointedly at him, tilting your head, “Sleeping Clark is a totally different guy.”

“You know you did when we went horse riding!”

“Yeah, check my search history. It’s filled with girls going horse riding,” Clark waved his hands around manically, mocking you with wide eyes.

“I mean I’ll admit I’ve thought about it.”

Clark’s face lit up with shock and amusement, his brows almost touching his hairline. Taunting words twitched at his lips but a smarmy grin curled across his cheeks, dimples popping.

“Yeah,” You weakly mumbled, squirming under his amused stare.

“When was this?” Clark pressed, his grin unwavering.

“Last year, just once,” You shrugged, brushing it off, “When you drew a smiley face on your burger with ketchup and laughed at it.”

“That’s what does it for you?” Clark screwed his face up, pink tinging the tip of his ears at the dorky memory you brought back.

“Yeah I thought about it for FIVE MINUTES,” You couldn’t fight the rise in volume as your nerves were riled, “And then I realised it would never ever work between us!”

“Yeah I agree, that’s how I see it!” Clark matched your volume, leaning into you with playful intimidation. The childishness was off the charts.

“Great I’m glad we agree on something-“

“Me too!” He shouted, as if it was final, but you always had to have the last word, “Great.”

Clark couldn’t let that slide. You knew how to push each other’s buttons and, after so long being so close, you knew that could bicker like this for hours and it wouldn’t change your friendship, just an outlet for your many emotions.

“Out of curiosity, why do you think that though?” His voice boomed the gentle question, equally as riled up as you.

“Because you drive me NUTS, KENT!” You exploded, “Because you’re always sighing like you’re the president of the United States and you have to decide if we’re going to war or not!”

“I sigh because you sing everything!” Clark rebuked and you rolled your eyes, defensively, “I do not.”

“And I hate it,” Clark mocked your singing, nasally and high-pitched, “You sing and dance about nothing.”

“You’re always late,” You fired back, winding each other up with rolling eyes and heavy scoffs, “Always! You’re never ever on time to anything! You cancel plans last minute and never have a reason!”

“What are you talking about? I drive you to school every day and we’re never late!” Clark shouted back, nose wrinkled and brows furrowed.

“Parking up at the last bell is late, Clark! We have to run to class!” Your hands gesticulated wildly as you shouted at him.

“You’re on the track team! It’s not my fault you wear ridiculous high heels to school!” He fought back, pointing to your footwear; currently a pair of bedazzled flip flops.

“Leave my fashion choices out of this!” You jabbed a finger at him, and he continued to argue with you, overlapping each other's sentences, “Punctuality isn’t everything! This isn’t the military!”

“You want to be a reporter! You live by deadlines! You should know better! Maybe you should join the military and learn a thing or two!”

“Well I’m sorry I didn’t know I was on the fence on military manners! I didn’t know how strongly you felt about our troops!” He mocked, poking fun at you and deflecting despite the bickering.

“It’s just rude, Clark! I could never live with that. I barely live with it now!” You yelled louder than him and silencing him, blue eyes staring down at you.

With a heavy chest, you stared at each other as silence settled in the barn. Your heated argument fizzled out as Clark took a step back, “But you need me.”

“Oh that’s what you think? I’m gonna call Pete and we’re gonna go to the movies, and we’re gonna get all up in each other’s friendship,” You stormed out of the barn, brushing right past him.

“How you getting home?” He called after you, leaning against the barn door with a knowing smirk. Halting in your tracks, you stamped your foot and squealed, screaming on the inside. Clark always gave you a ride home but you were as stubborn as a mule, stomping your foot and walking home despite the hay catching under your feet.

The next week was hell.

Seen as though he was “always late”, Clark stopped picking you up and left you to take the bus with stinky freshman and gum-infested seats. The first time you stepped onboard, a dropped thermos splattered soup up your leg. Clark laughed when he saw you prissily wiping your skin clean, fighting the weakening in his knees to crouch before you and take over.

With a tight-lipped smile, he refused to share his fries when you forgot your lunch and neglected to bring you a coffee when he went for a run to the Talon, only you. The tension in the Torch was inescapable as Clark handed Chloe and Pete a takeaway cup each, the two sharing glances as he ignored you and took his seat, swallowing the lump in his throat.

You shivered stubbornly as you stood on the bleachers, watching the Smallville Crows play. Clark, remaining snug and warm in his knitted sweater and thick jacket, cheered along and watched the game with such intense enthusiasm that you wondered if he was distracting himself from being your white knight.

Plastic and paper handles burned at the skin of your fingers, the weight of your shopping bags ripping at the reddened flesh. With twitching fingers and a pained expression, Clark walked beside you, chitchatting and trying to ignore your struggle. It was then that you realised.

It was the small stuff that you missed, the stuff that you had become so accustomed to that you didn’t realise Clark even did.

Hanging out with the others was fun but you couldn’t help the tugging at your heart as another day passed without some alone time with Clark.

It had been just over a week when your ridiculous high heel snapped on the high street. Clark just laughed and you caved with a heavy sigh, sitting on the sidewalk outside The Talon and slipping off your ruined shoes, “Fine, you were right, I need you. Can we go back to how it was before?”

Wordlessly, Clark looked down at you and rolled his eyes before lifting you into his arms like a princess and putting you in the passenger side of his truck.

Dropping you at your house, Clark carried you from the truck to the front porch, opening the door and setting you down inside, “Better?”

“Better,” You nodded, plush carpet under your feet and broken heels in your hand, “I’m sorry about last week. Maybe Pete was right. Maybe you are my boyfriend without the rewards.”

Clark followed you further into the house, listening to you ramble on as you avoided his eyes, “I didn’t know what I was doing to you. We’ve been best friends for so long that I think the lines started to blur a little. You were always in the friendship box and now I’m realising, maybe it’s not that simple. I don’t want to screw up what we have, you’re too important to me.”

With a soft hand on your arm, Clark turned you to face him, “Things have changed but that’s okay. We were kids and now we’re not. But it’s different with us, we both want to be friends but are sometimes attracted to each other.”

“A-ha!” You smiled at him with an accusatory point of your manicured finger, “You have thought about the rewards!”

“That’s not what I said,” Clark laughed, raising his hands and taking a few steps back. His cheeks were rosy and a big smile graced his lips, as he teased you, “I love horse riding.”

Digging your fingers into his stomach, Clark squirmed and giggled before a comforting silence fell between the two of you, eyes meeting.

“I just don’t need a bunch of people telling me how to be your friend, what we can and can’t do. If I want to build your bookshelf, I’m gonna build your bookshelf. I’m a farmer’s son, I love that stuff!” Clark chuckled, taking your face between his large hands, “Just promise me that when you do get a boyfriend, you won’t cut me out.”

“And when you get a girlfriend, you won’t cut me out,” you added, raising your pinkie finger between you and linking with his, and daring to ask, “Clark, what’s the difference between this and a relationship? Is it just sex?”

Pink blotches crawled up his neck, as he stuttered, “What?”

“I just mean,” You went equally as red, stumbling through a response, “Boy and girl best friends can get messy. We’ve both thought about… the rewards. How do you know if something is platonic or not when you’re this close?”

Clark swallowed as he considered your line of questioning, “I don’t know. All I know is I… you’re the closest thing I’ve had to a girlfriend.”

“Bullshit! What about Lana? Alicia?”

“Alicia was… complicated and it was over pretty quick. And I think we both know that girlfriend is a bit of stretch when it comes to Lana. More like pathetic obsession,” Clark chuckled, ducking his head a little, “You’ve always been my number one girl.”

“Kiss me Clark.”

Standing in shocked silence, Clark stared at you with wide eyes, his Adam’s apple bobbing, “What? Are you sure?”

“It’s the only way to test the hypothesis,” You shrugged as casually as possible, hoping to hide your nerves, “Pucker up, farm boy.”

Clark licked his lips and fought with words on the tip of his tongue. Dipping his head, he leaned in to kiss you but hesitated, a small laugh escaping him.

His coyness was cute and, under his gaze and proximity, you felt yourself grow hot. Putting yourself out of misery, you stretched onto your tiptoes and pressed your lips to his.

Clark’s eyes widened, slowly fluttering closed as he melted into you. Fumbling hands cupped your hips as your hands smoothed over his chest.

It was soft and chaste. Pulling away from his lips, your eyes fixed on the plaid of his shirt and a laugh escaped you, “Weird.”

“Yeah weird,” Clark breathed, your glittery lip gloss shimmering along his plush lips, and you felt his eyes bore into you. A grin pulled at your cheeks as you licked your lips.

For weeks, the kiss was a fluke. Things went back to normal and Clark was like your boyfriend, without the rewards. The kiss cemented what your conversation concluded; you and Clark were best friends that occasionally found each other attractive.

Your friends continued to tease you but you and Clark ignored them; if he wanted to carry your books, he would, and if you wanted to sew up the holes in his flannels, you would.

But time alone with Clark began to change. It was slow and steady but the change was there. Casual touches were like a live wire and the boundaries of friendship were pushed.

Chloe picked up on it because of course she did.

Dusk settled and the low lamp light of the Torch softly illuminated the office in sparse spotlights. Keyboards clacked and pens scribbled as Chloe whizzed through her latest exposé.

For some extra curricular credits, you agreed to be the Torch’s proof-reader, checking the grammatical competency of Chloe’s manic writings. With every page that she finished, she printed a copy and you went through it, circling every spelling mistake or grammatical error.

Clark sat beside you, resting his head on his arms, practically dozing on the desk. Wordlessly, you stroked your fingers along his back, the warm muscle beneath his flannel firm and lithe, and carded them through his hair. A soft hum of thanks buzzed through the room.

“Am I interrupting something?” Chloe raised her eyebrows at you, a teasing grin on her lips, “Feels like I’m interrupting something.”

You and Clark snapped away from each other like the attention burned. His bleary eyes blinked rapidly as he turned back to the abandoned English paper on his computer. You buried your head in your proofreading, refusing to acknowledge Chloe’s shit-eating grin.

It kept happening. Brushing his hair out of his eyes after football practice, pressing a palm to your lower back in the Talon, sitting in his lap when there wasn’t enough room at the lunch table.

“Are you guys gonna jump each other or not?” Chloe giggled one night as she stood in front of your mirror, holding different items of clothing to her frame. A little tipsy from your mom's leftover marg jug, she glanced over her shoulder at you and Clark, lying side-by-side on your bedsheets and flipping through potential yearbook templates.

With awkward laughter, you waved her off and focused on the task at hand, stealing glances at Clark. He looked so out of place in your bedroom, on your bed. His long limps stretched across the comforter, feet hanging over the bottom of the bed, and causing a significant dip in the mattress under his weight. The white and blue of his clothes were a stark contrast to the shades of pink around him, and your array of heels and flats were dwarfed beside his heavy worker's boots.

After Chloe left with another teasing comment, it was easily the most awkward twenty minutes of your life, only the low hum of the radio and the swish of paper.

“Maybe we should,” Clark broke the silence as he flipped through the font examples, paying zero attention to the documents in his hands.

“Clark—“

“I’m not blind. Things have changed, and I don’t know what else to do but I don’t want to lose you to all these changes,” Clark continued, hands gripping the template booklet until his knuckles whitened, “The kiss said it all. Maybe we just need to... evolve.”

In the silence, you debated with yourself. You knew you were going to accept reality and give yourself to Clark but your tight grip on your friendship pulled taut against your skin, ripping and burning at your flesh until you had no choice but to let go. You never wanted to let go, but maybe loosening your grasp on your friendship was the solution.

Clark stared at his hands, fiddling with the mess of paper on your comforter. He was beautiful as you reached to cup his jaw and pulled him towards you, pressing your lips to his. It was soft and sweet, pulling away you rested your forehead against his.

"You have to promise me something," You breathed, averting your eyes to his chest, "Promise me this won't change anything, you'll still always be my friend."

Clark nodded, cupping your jaw and tilting your head to meet his eyes, "Always." With soft smiles, Clark tipped you onto your back, pressing against you and smoothing a hand over your hip.

Plush lips brushed against yours, as you carded your fingers through the thick hair at the nape of his neck. A soft hum of approval vibrated against your lips, his grip on your hip squeezing gently.

Pulling you closer and leaning over you, Clark licked against the seam of your lips, coaxing your tongue against his. The intensity built, your lips collided with fervour as your hands explored; he kneaded your thighs and smoothed along your back, and you tugged at his hair and gripped his biceps.

The tightly-fixed lid on your friendship was fractured beyond repair. Desire and lust seeped from your pores with every push and pull of your kisses, bodies pressing flush against one another. Clothing became an unwanted barrier between you as his weight pressed you into the mattress.

Ducking his head, Clark attached his kiss-bitten lips to the sensitive span of your neck, licking and sucking as soft mewls escaped your throat. Your hands clawed at his back, curling under the hem of his white t-shirt and tugging it over his head. Clark pulled back onto his knees, gazing down at you as the tanned and taut planes of his body were exposed to you.

Thick muscles lined his arms, stacked down his chest and abdomen, and rippled with every movement as he freed himself from his t-shirt, tossing it aside. Swallowing thickly, you stared hard, attention flickering between his bulking physique and the soft features of his face, his hair a mess from your grasp.

Heavy breaths rushed past his swollen pink lips as he leaned down to kiss you, any doubts about your decision were quickly wiped from your memory. He was so big and soft and heavy and strong and gentle and... Clark.

Your head was spinning.

Worker's hands crept under your shirt and caressed your soft skin, the frilly material against his large hands sent a wave of arousal through you. Gently, Clark unlaced the bow at the heart of your top, peeling away the material and exposing your bra-clad chest to him.

His mouth trailed kisses across every exposed expanse of your hot skin. Laying beneath him, you took whatever he gave you with satisfied hums and soft gasps. Your eyes fluttered shut as he peppered open-mouthed kisses to your neck, ascending to your lips.

"Still okay?" Clark whispered into your mouth, his warmth and the scent of his aftershave washing over you. Nodding and cupping his jaw, you smiled up at him, "You've got a magic mouth." Clark ducked his head with a coy grin, laughter bubbling between you.

His large frame wrestled against you playfully until he lay between your spread legs, the pink sheets beneath you ruffled and unkempt. Pressing onto his forearms, Clark hovered above you and, for a moment that stretched into a million, you stared into each other's eyes. Desire and something else twinkled in his blown-out pupils as he lowered onto you, sealing your lips into a deep kiss.

Manicured nails scratched along his bare back, the warm muscle reacting to every tantalising touch. Absent-minded hips rocked against yours with every rhythmic dance of your locked lips. Trembling fingers trailed down your stomach and tugged at the button of your bell-bottoms.

Catching his wrist, you met his eyes, "Clark, have you done this before?" Your timing was never the best but Clark softened at your knitted brows, concern etched into every line of your face. Softly pulling out of your grip, Clark pushed a strand of hair out of your eyes and smiled shyly, "Yeah."

"With Lana?" You asked, retreating into yourself as the green-eyed monster licked up your spine. Clark shook his head before he admitted, "With Alicia, a few times... Have you?"

Swallowing your misjudged insecurity, you nodded and admitted as you bit your lip, "When I stayed with Lois at Met U. Some party, some guy."

A soft smile twitched at Clark's lips, adoration in his eyes despite his head and shoulders dropping, "A college guy? This is gonna be humiliating."

Giggling at his humility, Clark didn't move an inch as you shoved at his chest, capturing his lips in a tender kiss. Wrapping his arm around your shoulders, Clark cushioned your head with his bicep, pressing as close as two people could possibly be.

The metal buckle of his belt was cold against the exposed skin of your stomach, so you reached down to unbuckle it and tear open the buttons of his jeans. Clark groaned gutturally as you fumbled with his jeans, sitting back onto his knees and smoothing his hands along your thighs.

With nimble fingers, Clark unfastened the button and zip of your jeans, tugging them down your hips and tossing them aside. Laying there in your underwear, you lifted onto your elbows and Clark stared with parted lips and doe-eyes, chests heaving with kiss-stolen breaths.

At times like this, you thanked your lucky stars for being a little high maintenance, cute underwear always. Clark gulped as he stared at the lace-trimmed satin set, lying back like something out of his wildest fantasies.

A thick bulge pressed against the denim of his jeans, his belt and buttons hanging open salaciously to reveal his loose boxers. Soft pants beat from his chest and a soft rosy hue bloomed across his cheeks and nose. He looked like something out of a playgirl photoshoot; the rugged farm boy in the pink frilly princess bed.

"You're so beautiful, Clark," You breathed, in awe at his softness despite the hard angles and contours of his body. Clark's blush deepened as a flattered smile twitched across his face, "I think that's my line, baby."

Baby. It was like a tazer to the vagina.

"Take your jeans off," Your tongue ran across your top lip slowly and your eyes glossed over a little, as you took in the sight before you. Sex-mused and flustered, half-naked Clark Kent.

Pushing his jeans off, Clark kneeled between your legs in just his boxers, tented against your inner thigh. Large palms gripped your thighs and smoothed over your hips, as he took in the sight of you on your back and spread out for him.

"So gorgeous. You're so perfect," Clark whispered into the silence between you, the radio now a distant murmur in the background. Your hands dug into his hair as he pressed seductive kisses from your neck to your stomach, kneading your boobs over your bra before circling underneath your back to tug the fastening loose.

Tossing your bra to the floor, Clark laved hot, wet kisses across your skin and sucked your pert nipple into his mouth, circling his thumb over the neglected one. A loud gasp teared from your throat at the sensation, gripping the back of his head and his shoulder tight enough you worried he would draw blood.

Languid strokes of his hips grinded his hard cock against your clothed pussy, the damp material sticking to you like a second skin. A thin sheen of sweat glistened on your skin as the sparks of pleasure rippled through you with every syncronised roll of your hips.

His sizeable bulge pressed right against your clit with every push and pull. Clark kissed up your chest and your neck, taking your locket necklace between his teeth.

“I dreamt about this,” He panted, letting the thin chain rest on his tongue and drip down his chin. Bright blue eyes looked up to meet yours, his lips bright pink and kiss-bitten. The spit-coated chain slipped from his mouth and hung between your breasts, his saliva imprinting onto your skin.

“Anyone ever tell you how pretty y’are, Clark?” The slowing of your hips and the sultry tone of your voice had him whimpering beneath you. Your nails scratched at his scalp as he shook his head, your other hand working on the waistband of his boxers. 

“Well, you are. Prettiest I’ve ever seen,” Your hand slipped into his boxers and warm flesh met warm flesh. A loud whine escaped his lips as you worked your hand along his silky skin, his pre-cum coating your palm.

Hips bucking into your fist, Clark buried his face in the crook of your neck, one hand fisting the pillow beneath your head and the other gripping your thigh as your legs curled around his waist. Choked moans clawed past gritted teeth as Clark begged aimlessly, “Please, baby… Like that.” His flushed face and pouty lips were difficult to deny.

Rolling your wrist, you stroked him, swiping your thumb over the leaking tip. Clark whimpered an inaudible plea, grabbing your ass with one hand as an anchor to reality. A loud rip tore past your ear as Clark's strong grip on your pillow forced the seams apart.

"So- Sorry," Clark stuttered, your unrelenting pace rendering him stupid as pleasure licked up his spine. A giggle echoed around him and you pulled your hand from his hot flesh, leaving him desperate and wound up, whining at the loss of contact.

Toying with his hair and caressing his broad back, Clark's eyes fluttered open and a satisfied hum rumbled through his chest, pulling away from your neck to meet your eyes.

"Are you sure about this?" Clark asked despite the cloud of lust swimming in his eyes. Sweet and caring Clark. Wordlessly, you untangled your legs from his waist and shed the final layer of your clothing, flinging the flimsy panties across the room.

Lying back, your thighs caged his hips as you tightened their hold on his waist, and you felt the weight and heat of his cock pressed against your bare pussy. Thumbing at the waistband, Clark lowered his boxers until he was free of them, the pair of you entirely exposed to each other now.

A broken gasp fell from his lips as you took him in your hand again and guided the head of his cock through your slick before lining him up with your entrance.

His rosy cheeks deepened and his eyes fluttered shut at the pleasurable feeling before his eyes shot open, "Wait I should prep you fir-"

Curling a hand around the nape of his neck, you pulled him towards you, shutting him up by capturing his lips in a heated kiss. Your tongue pushed into his mouth, the two of you melting into one another.

With an encouraging squeeze of your thighs around his hips, Clark was spurred into action. A collective groan passed between you as he sank his cock into you, inch by torturously thick inch. His chest heaved the deeper he went and heavy pants laced with arousal fell from his lips.

The stretch of him burned a little as he buried himself into you, subsiding after a few moments of soft grinding to push the last half an inch in, bottoming out. You were entirely full of him.

Clark's eyes were squeezed shut and his grip on your hips tightened, his cock nestled deep within your walls. Rocking your hips experimentally, you watched with a smirk as his face contorted into pleasure. A grin tugged at your lips as you kept the motion, enjoying him losing his composure so soon.

Clamping his strong hands at your hips, Clark halted your teasing and thrusted into you, pulling back to the tip before slamming back in, his hips smacking against yours.

A loud moan escaped you, hands clawing at Clark for purchase. Your lips smashed into his, an uncoordinated and messy collision of tongues and teeth. His insistent pace prodded at the spongy spot deep within you, the ripples of pleasure curling at your toes and igniting a fire behind your eyelids.

“So wet, warm, feels good,” Clark whimpered between lungfuls of air, dragging his thumb sloppily across the apex of your thighs, your body twitching at the added stimulation, “That's it, baby.”

Sweat-slicked skin stuck you to one another, beading in your hairline at the unrelenting motion as Clark rocked into you over and over again. A band within you pulled taut, all of your muscles tightening at the suspense of your impending end.

Cacophonies of moans, whimpers and groans bounced around the four walls of your bedroom, the mattress squeaking with each joining of your hips. You fought to keep your eyes open as Clark mouthed at your neck, the blunt head of his cock bullying the sensitive spot within you.

"Clark, C-ah Clark, mmmph!" You choked out, intense pleasure crawling through your veins as if Clark's dick was feeding fizzing starlight into your every fibre of your being. Despite his deep groans, Clark kissed you deeply, licking into your mouth with a spiralling lack of restraint.

His thumb worked at you as his cock pounded into you, and the band within you snapped. An embarrassingly pornographic moan teared from your throat as your muscles tightened and then loosed, your body convulsing, leaving you boneless and dazed beneath him.

Clark barely survived the feeling of you pulsing around him, his eyes fluttering shut and pressing his forehead to yours. A string of moans and groans rumbled from his chest as he rocked his hips erratically, spilling inside you with a tight grip on your hips.

His lips were parted, his hot breath on your face, as he came down from his high. Flushed and glowing, you stared up at him and watched his breathing even out as he came back into himself.

Opening his eyes, Clark met your gaze and soft smile, your hands cupping his jaw delicately. He loosened his grip on your body and tenderly caressed your curves. A giddy laugh escaped the two of you, evidence of what just happened leaked between you and onto the sheets below as he pulled out and turned you onto your sides.

"I want the rewards," You panted, pushing strands of Clark's hair out of his eyes and smoothing your fingers across his jaw. A beaming grin almost blinded you, his fang-like canines on show, as Clark leaned down to kiss you. Soft and tender.

"I want it all," He admitted after reluctantly pulling back from your lips, "There's gonna be so many 'I told you so's'."

"Are we, like, boyfriend girlfriend now?" Your cheeks heated at the question despite the man's sex-soaked cock softening between you. A low laugh rumbled from Clark, nodding and pressing kisses to any exposed spot he could reach, "If you want me to be your boyfriend then yes."

Excitement bubbled in your veins as you tackled him onto his back and stole his lips into a deep kiss. Your best friend was your boyfriend. He was everything you ever wanted. Thank god for Chloe and Pete.

The track team circles up as Coach speaks up. “Listen up! The meet’s been pushed til tomorrow.” There’s a groan that comes from just about all of us in unison at that. “This is the closest motel with the most vacancies and the least amount of good judgment when it comes to accepting a bunch of…degenerates like yourselves. You’ll be pairing up, choose wisely.”

Me and Allison walk up and grab a key from Coach, checking out the number and practically stomping to our room. Scott and Stiles close behind us.

“And I’ll have no sexual perversions perpetrated by you little deviants, got that? Keep your dirty little hands to your dirty little selves!” Coach shouts as everyone makes their way to their rooms for the night.

“I can’t believe this. How much you wanna bet we wake up to a cancelled track meet tomorrow.” I complain, approaching our motel room, which is oh so conveniently right next to Scott and Stiles’ 𝘖𝘩 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵.

I stop at the door, waiting for Allison to unlock it, but she’s taking her sweet time chatting it up with Scott. Stiles whips past me, brushing my shoulder.

“Hey Stiles, will you and Scott do me a favor and keep the moans down tonight. I would rather not listen to you two get in on while I get my beauty sleep.” I taunt him, leaning against the door, burning time while I wait for Allison.

Stiles halts his actions of unlocking his door to turn to me, “Didn’t you hear the coach, Y/N? ‘𝘕𝘰 𝘴𝘦𝘹𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴.’ Or is that word too big for you? Need me to dumb it down?” He jabs and I scoff in his face.

“Oh I heard him all right. I just wonder if you did.” I counter, watching as he scoffs, tongue poking out to glide over his teeth.

“We’ll be quiet, Y/N/N. Besides, I don’t want to interrupt your beauty sleep; God knows you need it.” He says, and before I can come up with a comeback, Allison is coming up behind me and unlocking our door.

Scott passes us both and bypasses Stiles into their room, “Sleep tight, Y/N.” Stiles sneers before disappearing behind Scott.

I join Allison in our room, shutting and locking the door behind me. “I hope you don’t kick in your sleep, or someone’s gonna sleep on the floor tonight and it won’t be me.” I say, looking at the single bed in the middle of the dreary room.

“About that…” Allison says, her face already completely giving away what she’s about to tell me.

“Allison,” I warn her, and she trots in front of me with pleading eyes. “Would you do me a huge, huge favor and switch with Scott tonight?” She begs, and I’m completely and utterly in shock.

“You cannot be serious. You want me, to share a room, a 𝘣𝘦𝘥, with 𝘚𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘴?!” I try to wrap my head around the idea of having to survive a night with Stiles Stilinski. Yeah right, 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘮𝘺 𝘥𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘣𝘰𝘥𝘺.

“Yeah, no, no way in hell!” I shout, hands flailing in the air. “Have you even met me?!” I ask, baffled that she’d even think that I’d ever agree to such a thing. “I mean? have you even met Stiles?! I can’t stand him for more than a few seconds, let alone hours!” I exclaim.

“Then don’t stand him, sit on him instead.” Allison says, the tone in her voice suggestive. I scoff, “Yeah right, me and Stiles? Never in a million years.” I say, the idea completely out of the question.

“Oh come on, Y/N! You could cut the sexual tension between you two with a knife! You guys just need to fuck and make up.” Allison tries to convince me, and I’m trying to deny the pit in my stomach that tells me she might be right.

“Allison you’re crazy. There’s no tension between Stiles and I.” I answer, rolling my eyes. “Oh please, Y/N! Please, please, pleaseeeee!” She begs, not backing down.

I groan out, “Alright! Alright! But you owe me big time for this.” I finally give in, and Allison pounces onto me to give me a tight hug.

“Y/N you won’t regret this, I’m texting Scott now.” She says giddily, and I change into my pajamas while we wait for Scott.

After a few minutes, there’s a knock at our door, and I open it to reveal a just-as-giddy Scott McCall. “Y/N,” He greets me with a tight lipped smile. “Scott.” I answer, brushing passed him and out the door.

It’s dark, rainy, and cold outside. I stand in front of Stiles’ motel room, shivering in my pajama shorts and matching t-shirt. I knock. No answer. I knock again. Still nothing.

“Stiles I know this isn’t the most pleasant arrangement but it’s freezing outside, please let me in.” I plead, my teeth chattering. Still nothing. Nothing but the howling of the wind and the drops of rain.

I sigh, sliding my back down against the door, sitting down on the cold cement. I pull my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around myself as I shiver.

Then suddenly, the door is pulled open without warning and I look up to see a half naked Stiles. “What’re you doing?” He asks, looking down at me as I scurry up and onto my feet. “Waiting for you to let me in, dumbass. It’s cold out here.” I chatter, pushing past his naked upper half and into the room.

The room is ice cold, not any better than outside in the elements. Stiles rolls his eyes coming back into the room and locking the door behind him.

I turn to him to ask why the heater isn’t on when he beats me to it. “Yeah, well, the heater is broken to shit so it’s not much better in here.” He answers my unspoken question. I shake my head, sitting on the bed, head in my hands. “This cannot be happening right now.” I complain, more to myself than Stiles.

“You wanna complain some more, Y/N? Since you’re so good at it.” He jabs, padding to his bag, digging through it. I scoff in response, and it’s then that I look up and take real notice of him frame. 𝘏𝘢𝘴 𝘩𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘯 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘢 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦?

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer.” He says, pulling me out of my daze. “Whatever, get some other desperate girl to be your paparazzi.” I reply, digging into my bag for my phone charger, but it’s nowhere to be found.

Stiles goes into the dinky bathroom to change, coming out to me huffing and puffing. “What is it now?” He asks irritated, emerging from the bathroom in plaid pajama pants and a navy blue t-shirt. “I think I left my fucking charger at home.” I groan, checking my phone percentage. 12%

He chuckles, getting snuggled into the single bed and plugging his phone in, rubbing it right in my face. He turns his phone to the side, putting on some tv show. I grab my bag off the bed and drop it to the floor, “Make some room will you?” I push his feet from above the covers, and he scoots a millimeter to the side.

I curse under my breath, jumping into the bed and shoving him over some as he watched his phone. “Jeez, Y/N/N. If you wanted to get in bed with me that bad you should’ve just said so.” Stiles quips, and I pull at the cold blanket to cover myself.

“Oh please, get over yourself. You’re the last person I’d ever want to be in bed with.” I roll my eyes, getting out my phone to distract myself from him until it inevitably dies.

We’re laying shoulder the shoulder. He’s holding up his phone as he watches Supernatural, and before long my phone is dead.

I set my phone on the nightstand to my right, then turning over to lay on my left side and watch his show. My face is millimeters away from his broad shoulder, and he turns his head to me, peering down.

“What do you think you’re doing?” He asks, attention split between me and the phone. “My phone died, and I like Supernatural.” I say, my eyes flick from the screen to him.

“You like this? Scott hates it.” He says, turning his face back to his phone. Is he starting a normal conversation with me? What universe is this?

“Of course Scott hates it, he hates all things 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘭.” I say, wiggling magic fingers in his face. He chuckles, “Yeah, guess it’s too close to home for him. I like it though, I like to think we’re like them.” He says, comparing him and Scott to Sam and Dean.

“So which one are you? Sam or Dean?” I ask, giggling. “Which one do you think I am?” Stiles ponders, his attention fully turned toward me by now. “Definitely Sam,” I answer confidently, “he’s my favorite.” I add, my eyes suddenly avoiding his own.

There’s an awkward silence for a moment before Stiles breaks it. “Awe, so you like me more than Scott?” He pokes fun at me, and I roll my eyes. “In your dreams, Stilinski. I wouldn’t be caught dead with you unless the situation was dire.” I counter, rolling over to my back, his phone long forgotten.

He turns it off, setting it on the nightstand on his side. “See that’s where you’re wrong.” He says, and the tone in the chilly room shifts. He sits up to almost hover over me. His face the closest it’s ever been to mine, and I can’t help but flicker my eyes from his to his lips and back again.

“I think you wanted this. I think you want me.” He says, voice huskier and hushed. “Stiles…” I can’t think of a witty response, I can’t think about anything besides his lips, and how impossibly close they are to my own.

“Say it. Tell me, Y/N.” He demands, a veiny hand dipping under the covers to slink down my thigh. My mind is running a hundred miles a minute, short circuiting.

“Awe, fuck it.” I whisper, more to myself than him, closing the gap between us. Our lips connect in a searing kiss, and my hands shoot up to his neck, pulling him down to me.

He growls into my mouth, moving to now completely hover on top of me, my legs instinctively opening to make room for him. His arms prop himself up over me, and my hands explore his body, moving to slide up and under his shirt. I slowly push up his shirt til his sits up, pulling it off in one swoop.

He’s so fucking hot. My hands dance along his slightly defined abs, speckled like his face. “Like what you see?” He taunts, leaning back down over me to assault my neck with his lips. “Oh, bite me.” I snip, and he nips at my throat in response.

Stiles trails his nimble fingers up my shirt, but I stop him, pushing his chest until he’s off of me. I push him over to his back, straddling his waist to be on top. I settle myself into his lap, his hands gripping my hips tightly. I pull my shirt up and off my body, revealing myself to him. The cold nips at my now half naked frame, nipples perking up and gossebumps cover my body.

I shiver a little, “It’s so cold in here, Stiles.” I whisper, and he snakes a hand up my waist and all the way up to my neck, pulling my face down to his. “Don’t worry, baby,” He whispers seductively, “I’ll warm you up.”

Our lips meet once again, tongues fighting for dominance. I grind down into his lap, his boner prominently poking me beneath his pants. He moans deliciously into my mouth as I do so, hands slipping into my shorts, groping my ass.

I moan as he rocks me in his lap, “God, why did we wait so long for this?” I whispers, looking up at me with those auburn eyes. “Because we hate each other.” I answer breathlessly.

“I could never hate you, baby.”

Then he’s forcefully pushing me back over, hands dipping into the waist band or my sleep shorts, pulling them and my panties down in one go. He places a palm on each of my knees, spreading my legs apart. I’m now fully bare and at his mercy.

I moan in anticipation as he methodically kisses up my thigh, getting close and closer to my dripping heat. He then brings a finger to swipe through my folds, my slick covering his digit as it glistens. “All this and I’ve barely even touched you.” He taunts me.

“Stiles please,” I beg, but he’s not ready to give in just yet. “Please what? Use your words.” He says huskily. “Please Stiles, please touch me.” I plead.

Stiles licks a stripe through my folds, sending shivers sound my spine. His mouth attacks my heat, his tongue working wonders. Stiles is like a starved man, feeding on anything and everything he can get his hands on. Feasting upon me. He sends me over the edge almost immediately. My hands shoot down to his head, gripping his hair til my knuckles turn white.

Stiles detaches his lips from my clit, sitting up to his knees and standing up off the bed. He drops his pajama pants to the ground, before zipping over to his bag to retrieve a condom from it. He rushes back over to the bed, pulling his boxers off in an instant, kneeling onto the bed in front of you as he rolls the condom into his think length.

My fists grip the bed covers, watching as he lines his swollen tip with my entrance, teasing me with it. “Stiles,” I moan, and he slides himself in completely.

He hisses as he does so, burying himself to the hilt. “Fuck, Stiles.” I moan out breathlessly. Stiles thrusts are hard, his rhythm unbearable. “Yeah, you like that?” He whispers, leaning down to me ear. His voice deep and husky, full of lust. His lips dip down to nip at my throat. “Yes, Stiles.” I moan, and I feel him smile against my kiss peppered skin.

“Awe, fuck.” Stiles drawls out into my ear, sitting up to his knees, still fucking me, his rhythm perfect. “Say my name.” He orders me, his hands gripping my hips as he pistons into me. I can barely take it.

Of course I do as he says. I moan his name, eyes rolling back, my mouth hung wide open as moans spill out of me. He slides a hand to my cunt, his thumb moving to circle my clit. He watches with hooded eyes where we meet as he fucks me senseless.

“Say it again.”

“Stiles.”

“Again.”

“𝘖𝘩 Stiles.”

“Yeah, you getting close? Do I fuck you that good? Say it.” He seethes, his dirty words rattling in my head. I’m breathless, the cold room now unbearably hot. “You fuck me so good, Sti.” I moan, the ball in the pit of my stomach tightening with every touch of his. His hand gripping my hip. His cock hitting that sweet spot inside me with every thrust. His thumb pressing to my clit.

“Yeah? You like that, baby.” I can’t take it anymore. “Stiles,” I moan, my limbs restless, I can’t stay still. “Tell me.” He says, leaning down over me to envelope my lips in a wet, searing kiss. I moan as he parts, “I’m gonna cum, Stiles.”

“Then do it.”

I obey his every word, my release washing over like a wave. My back arches into him, and Stiles buckles down, chasing his nearing high. I’m just about to tell him I can’t take it anymore when he cums, spilling into the condom. His brows furrowing and his mouth agape. He lets out the most beautiful sounds I’ve ever heard, I never want it to stop.

He pumps a few more times, riding out his high. “Oh, fuck.” He whispers, slowly pulling out of me. I moan as he does, partly in pleasure and partly in pain. I’m sore now, I can’t even imagine how sore I’ll be tomorrow.

Stiles gets up from the bed, he quickly discards the condoms and pulls his boxers on. He pads to the bathroom, and I lay there for a minute not sure of what to do. I close my legs and watch as he comes back with a damp rag.

He comes back to me, kneeling on the bed in front of my closed legs. “Open.” He says, placing a hand on my knee to pry them open once more. He cleans me up, and I’m completely and utterly in shock. Did he really just do that? What have I been missing out on?

When he’s does, I sit up so our faces meet, and I peck his kiss swollen lips. “Thank you.” I whisper, and he hums in response, kissing me once more.

As he goes to the bathroom to put the rag away, I gather my scattered clothes from the floor, and I’m slipping them on as he comes back, hopping back into the bed.

It’s at this point that I’m not really sure what to expect now. Are we never gonna talk about this again? Are we just gonna hate each other and fuck on the side? I’m nervous to get back in bed with him.

“Come here.” Stiles mumbles, laying his arm out for me. I crawl into bed, snuggling into him. “Do we still hate each other?” I whisper. He says nothing, reaching om his other arm over to his nightstand.

“Here.” He says, handing me his phone charger.

!𝘽𝙊𝙉𝙐𝙎!

“Jesus Stiles, turn it off.” I grumble, his alarm blaring in my ears. Stiles is dead asleep, how he’s able to sleep through his excruciating alarm? No idea.

I reach over him to grab his phone, hitting the snooze button. But before I put it down I see a text from none other than Scott, at 12:31 AM.

𝙎𝙘𝙤𝙩𝙩 𝙈𝙘𝘾𝙖𝙡𝙡: 𝙔𝙤𝙪 𝙤𝙬𝙚 𝙢𝙚 𝙛𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙗𝙪𝙘𝙠𝙨

c h a p t e r o n e

wolf moon pt.1

All of the craziness started on a Sunday.

The last day of winter break had been stressful enough to start, with the anxiety of having to start up classes again at the front of Amber’s mind all morning. It would be the final semester of her sophomore year. Then, the next year would be crammed with SATs and ACTs and applying to colleges. She knew they would all be one step closer to having to decide what to do with the rest of their lives.

She found it all very daunting.

Since waking up that morning, the girl had restlessly alternated between hiding away in the privacy of her bedroom and lounging in the living room downstairs, unable to find a comfortable place to settle. At some point, she'd managed to chew her nails to the point of bleeding. Pulling her hair back into a braid had become a necessity when she noticed herself picking obsessively at her split ends. Her laptop sat open on the coffee table along with a small stack of paperbacks, from where she had started and then immediately abandoned two different television shows and three books.

After dinner, her irritating inability to sit still had finally pushed her older brother, Jason, to his final breaking point. He'd demanded she go change into exercise clothes and then he dragged her from the house in an effort to release some of her pent up restless energy.

Jason forced her out for a jog through the preserve, and only a measly ten minutes into their run she found herself already with sweat trickling down her temple. She was breathing heavily, slowly falling behind, while her brother continued to run ahead of her with ease.

Amber watched as her brother's lead slowly increased in length, the gap between them growing larger and larger, the sound of his footfalls crunching over leaves and twigs growing more and more faint as she trailed behind. Eventually, upon rounding a long bend in the hiking trail, she realized that she could no longer see him in the distance at all.

With a pause to catch her breath, she bent over at the waist to brace her hands on her knees in an attempt to pull more air into her aching lungs.

Over a mile deep in the preserve, the only sounds that met her ears were that of the breeze whistling as it filtered through barren branches, the odd scuffle of fallen leaves rolling over one another, and her own wheezing breaths of exertion.

When she lifted her head to take stock of where she'd stopped, she found that she'd reached the first fork in the trail. She returned to an upright position, chest heaving as she continued to pant labored breaths, deliberating which path her brother might have taken with hands on her hips.

With a resolved shake of her head, she chose the path to the right. Regardless of which she took, both would eventually lead back to the small trailhead where they'd parked the truck. So, she continued on.

The pace that she settled into could hardly have been considered a jog — if anything, she was moving in a walk with only the exaggerated body movements of a run, but she was tired.

She had only made it a few hundred feet from where the trail split off before she spotted something that piqued her curiosity in a pile of dry brush and leaves at the side of the trail. She slowed as she approached, wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead with her shirtsleeve and breathing heavily.

Poking out from the leaves, she could just make out the peculiar shape of a cluster of pale rocks — it almost resembled toes.

A choked combination of a gag and a gasp escaped her. She covered her mouth with the sleeve of her windbreaker as she reached the pile of brush because — It was definitely toes, connected to a foot, which then connected to legs and, well, that was pretty much where it ended because there was only half of a body.

Another gag pushed its way out of her throat, eyes drawn to the clean, smooth cut that went straight through the hips of the corpse beneath the dead leaves. Something had been used to cut them through muscle and flesh and bone. She could see it was a female — the body had been left completely naked.

This had been a person. And they laid on the ground, covered in earth and dried blood, just a few feet from where she was standing. Amber could see dirt caked around the pink nail polish that covered the woman's toenails. Even through all of the blood, she could make out a tiny freckle on the bare skin of the corpse's knee.

She fought back another gag as she finally found her voice, and she screamed.

“Jason!”

Her voice came out shrill. It cracked painfully as she shouted for her brother again and again. She screamed only a handful of times before she could hear her brother yelling her own name in panic as he backtracked and found his way to her on the trail.

Jason's feet skidded in the dirt as he came to a stop in front of where his sister was still standing. Her shaking fingers still covering her mouth as she struggled to keep herself from dry-heaving. His hands went to her shoulders as he checked his sister over for any sort of visible injury. When he found none, his attention turned around them, searching for a threat. His eyes widened when he followed her gaze and caught sight of the body — what there was of one — that sat only a few feet away from them.

Amber distantly heard the call that her brother placed to the Sheriff's Station. She could hear him telling someone about the body and she heard him give directions to their location on the trail, but it was echoed, like she was underwater as she listened to him speak into his phone off to the side of her peripheral vision.

She couldn't seem to pull her eyes away from the corpse. The skin was so pale, it had almost a blueish hue. She wondered, absently, if the person had been out here in the cold before they died, or if that was just what a body looked like after so much blood loss because this person must have lost... So. Much. Blood.

The whole body was covered in in it, gluing dry leaves and dirt to their skin. They had been cut in half. Or, maybe they hadn’t been cut in half until after they’d died. Maybe, Amber thought, it had been something simple. A quick death. Something like a gunshot to the head–

God. She hoped desperately that the woman hadn’t been sliced in half while they were still alive.

It felt like only a minute or two had passed but it must have been longer because suddenly, the bright evening sunlight that had guided her along the trail during their jog was dwindling. It was growing dark and she was being ushered away from the body as officers took pictures, laying crime tape and placing little numbered tents around the scene.

Her brother stood off to the side speaking to the same deputy Amber had just finished with, recounting his own memory of the evening. The deputy nodded and took notes down on their little pad once again, just as they had when Amber had been talking.

Down at the end of the trail, it seemed as if police cars might never stop coming. There were officers making their way up with search dogs now. The dogs barked and ran around, likely on the search for the other half of the body.

She stood off to the side as her eyes flicked from where Jason was speaking to the deputy, to the location of the body, where cameras were flashing and uniformed deputies were moving back and forth in a blur.

Amber felt a hand land on her shoulder and nearly jumped out of her skin. Her heart pounded loudly in her ears as she spun around to see that it was only Sheriff Stilinski, looking at her with the same soft look of concern in his eyes that she'd seen so many times over the years.

“Amber. I didn’t realize it was you and Jason who’d come across it. When I got the call.. I was out of the house so fast I didn’t think to ask-” He sighed, “You okay, kid?”

The girl took a shaky breath, but nodded. The heavy hand Sheriff Stilinski still had resting on her shoulder felt grounding. While he could never replace her dad, he was as close as she got these days and she was grateful for his presence now.

Over the years, there had been something about the stern, protective, always unwaveringly loving energy that her best friend's father emitted. Somehow, he always managed to make her darkest days just a bit better — it was entirely possible that the ability was simply a Stilinski family trait.

“Yeah. I’m okay. Scarred for life, definitely, yeah. But, okay.” Amber said, feeling proud when the small smile she gave him was only somewhat shaky. “I actually think I might go to Scott's? I’ll call Stiles.. See if they want to watch some movies or something. Just.. Distract myself, y'know?”

Getting Stiles to sit down quietly and watch a movie could be like pulling teeth sometimes. He was constantly jamming his elbow into her waist to get her attention away from the screen, or talking over the action, or pulling out his laptop mid-scene to search the internet for inaccuracies or an actor's filmography in a way that she found endlessly endearing.

It was exactly the kind of distraction she felt like she needed right now.

The Sheriff nodded in response before pulling her in for a tight hug. His hand lingered at the back of her head for a few moments, but then he was releasing her and setting off to talk with a cluster of officers.

“I'd really feel better with you at home where I know you're okay.” Jason told her once they'd closed themselves off inside of his pickup truck.

While understood why her brother was so reluctant to let her go off on her own, Amber was entirely too stubborn for her own good, and Jason inevitably agreed to drop her at Scott's house on his way home, with her promise of getting a decent night’s sleep.

After all, it was a school night.

It was hard to believe that only a couple of hours before, she had been stressed about school of all things. Now, she was fighting off yet another wave of nausea brought on by stumbling across a dead body deep in the preserve.

Well, half of one.

As soon as the vehicle began moving, trees rushing past her window in a dark blur of motion, she was trying to get a hold of Stiles. After two attempts in which the call merely rang through to his voicemail, she tucked her phone back into the pocket of her sport jacket with a frown and a huff. She would just have to wait and see if Scott knew whether Stiles was busy tonight.

Amber had hardly made it two steps into the entryway of the McCall house when Scott came barreling down the stairs, attempting to pull on a zip-up hoodie with one hand and wielding a baseball bat in the other. She opened her mouth to question him but before she could make a sound he shushed her aggressively, pushing her behind himself without explanation as he crept out the front door and onto the porch with an abundance of caution and visible nerves.

“Scott?!” She whispered aggressively, still receiving no answer beyond a frustrated wave of his hand signaling for her to be quiet.

She followed close behind, confused and mildly alarmed as she tried to imagine whatever threat Scott thought that he might find outside. She clung onto the hood of the boy's sweatshirt with one hand as she trailed close behind. Scott held the bat, ready to strike, as the two rounded the porch at the side of the house.

The rapidly dropping temperature over the previous half an hour had the breath puffing out from their mouths in foggy clouds in the dark. Scott relaxed his hold on the bat for a brief second as he peered down over the railing, inadvertently pulling Amber forward with him.

Suddenly, something large dropped down from the roof to dangle in front of them, both teens letting out a scream of alarm. Amber instinctively yanked on Scott's sweatshirt in an attempt to pull him back from the threat, but they both quieted upon recognizing the third scream coming from the person now hanging upside-down from the trellis at the roof of the porch.

“Stiles!” She and Scott both yelled in frustrated synchronization.

“What the hell are you doing?” Scott continued immediately.

“You weren’t answering your phone!” Stiles yelled at Scott defensively. “And.. Okay, I know I wasn’t either.” He added sheepishly when he spotted Amber still hidden behind Scott. “Why do you have a bat?!” Stiles’ voice rose to a shrill level again.

As if only now remembering his weapon of choice was still clutched defensively above their heads, ready for an attack, Scott lowered the bat a small increment before speaking, “I thought you were a predator.” He explained simply.

“A pre-” Stiles spluttered, “Look, I know it’s late, but you gotta hear this. I saw my dad leave twenty minutes ago. Dispatch called. They’re bringing in every officer from the Beacon Department, and even State Police.”

Amber felt her heart drop suddenly into her stomach as if it were made up of lead.

“For what?” Scott asked, his eyebrows scrunching in curiosity.

“Two joggers found a body in the woods.” Stiles explained at the same time Amber’s voice whispered a meek, “We found a body.”

Stiles clumsily dropped down from where he had been hanging upside-down, arms flailing as he fell from the roof and onto the ground below the porch in a clumsy heap of limbs. The boy stumbled a bit before he managed to get his footing and moved to stand upright.

Scott’s head pivoted back and forth between his two best friends, his eyes wide. “A dead body?”

“No, a body of water. Yes, Dumbass. A dead body.” Stiles scoffed, climbing up onto the porch to stand in front of them. He turned to Amber with a furrow between his brows, “Who's we? You found it?” He asked with growing excitement.

“Jason and I.” She supplied quietly.

“You mean like.. Murdered?” Scott interrupted, taking a step back to stand beside Amber instead of in front of her. He seemed to be stuck on the concept of the dead body being dead.

“Nobody knows yet. Just that it was a girl, probably in her twenties.” Stiles said with wide eyes, like he found it all very exciting. Amber was beginning to feel queasy again.

“Hold on,” Scott said, “If they found the body, then what are they looking for?”

“That's the best part.” Stiles started, looking to Amber for assurance, or maybe some assistance in the reveal of the next bit of information. She only managed a deep breath after a moment, feeling truly sick as Stiles finished, “They only found half.”

“It was only half.”

Although they spoke at the same time, Amber's words had come out much quieter than Stiles, hardly a weak murmur. Hand beginning to cramp where she was still clutching tightly onto the fabric of Scott’s hood, she released it to flex her fingers a couple of times.

Stiles reached out a hand to rest on her shoulder, leaning in close, “We're going.” He announced firmly.

“Are we actually going to do this?” Scott asked, looking back and forth between them again.

“No.” Amber got out, though the heavy warmth of Stiles' hand through her windbreaker was already making her judgement fuzzy.

Stiles looked at Scott briefly before returning his attention to her, “How come you're the only one who gets to find a body, huh?” He slipped his hand down from her shoulder to grip at her elbow and cradled it softly.

“I don’t know how great you think finding a dead body was for me, but I assure you, it wasn't nearly as fun as whatever you're imagining.” Amber told Stiles.

He stayed silent for once, maintaining eye contact with her for a long minute. She tried to remain strong, she truly did. Amber broke eye contact to look at his face, her eyes flicking over each freckle and mole dotting his pale skin. Steadfastly refusing to let her eyes fall to his lips or drift back to his whiskey colored eyes, she could literally feel her resolve crumbling with every second that she looked at her best friend.

“I’m never going to be able to talk you assholes out of doing this, am I?” She asked quietly. The pit in her stomach felt as if it were expanding with the intent to swallow her whole as her eyes finally went back to his.

A stupidly sweet smile stretched across Stiles' face immediately as he realized he'd won and his hand trailed lower again, taking hold of her own and giving it a squeeze.

Her belly did a traitorous flip at the feeling of her hand in his own and she heaved a resigned sigh. She really didn’t want to have to find both halves of this body.

“We’re seriously doing this?” Scott repeated, sounding unsure.

“You're the ones always bitching that nothing ever happens in this town.” Stiles said, rifling through his backpack as they climbed out of his cramped Jeep. He triumphantly pulled out a flashlight and clicked it on, illuminating the preserve in a bright stream of light.

“Plenty has happened for me, today.” Amber reminded them, shielding her eyes until Stiles had lowered the flashlight to shine on the ground.

He put a hand at the small of Amber’s back as they ventured away from the Jeep, guiding her forward gently while he lit a path in front of them.

“And I was trying to get a good night’s sleep before practice tomorrow.” Scott said.

Stiles addressed Scott first, “Right, ‘cause sitting on the bench is such a grueling effort. And you,” He said, shining the flashlight at Amber briefly before focussing it back in front of them while they made their way through the trees, “You get to find a body, I get to find a body, right? Fair's fair.”

“I'm playing this year. In fact, I'm making first line.” Scott said, bringing the conversation back around to himself and looking annoyingly smug.

“Hey, that's the spirit! Everyone should have a dream, even a pathetically unrealistic one.” Stiles laughed, his hand drifting to grip Amber's hip momentarily before it returned to the safety of her spine.

She reached up to reprimand Stiles with a gentle thwack on the back of the head as they walked, letting her hand fall to his elbow and pulling his arm from behind her, taking ahold of his hand for support instead as they walked. He began to move faster with his long stride and Amber allowed him pull her along while she attempted to keep up on her shorter legs.

It had grown colder still, their breath continuing to puff out in tiny clouds as the three hiked through the preserve, moving as quickly as they could while watching their step over rocks and fallen branches.

“Just out of curiosity.. Which half of the body are we looking for?” Scott finally asked.

Stiles stumbled, his steps faltering as he paused beside Amber, “Huh. I didn’t think about that.”

Both boys looked to her as they continued to move, waiting for an answer.

“You know what? You’ll find out if we find it. I refuse to indulge you both any more than I already am just by being here.” She huffed, taking a step away from the two of them while maintaining her hold on Stiles' hand.

“And, uh, what if whoever killed the body is still out here?” Scott followed up, nervously looking up into the trees surrounding them.

Amber took a hasty step back toward Stiles as her stomach tied itself tighter in knots at the thought, fearfully clutching Stiles' hand tighter in her grip.

“Also something I didn't think about.” Stiles replied.

“It's comforting to know you planned this out with your usual attention to detail.” Scott panted as they dropped to nearly a crawl at a steep incline.

“I know.” Stiles grinned, carefully pulling Amber up with him as they scaled the slippery hill.

When Scott stopped to lean against a tree trunk, she paused and tugged on Stiles' arm to slow him as he tried to keep moving.

“Maybe the, uh, severe asthmatic should be the one holding the flashlight, huh?” Scott said between choppy breaths.

Amber shot a brief glare toward Stiles in the dark, rubbing her free hand on Scott's arm in a comforting gesture as he pulled out his inhaler.

They continued on, following the light Stiles shined ahead of them until he suddenly dropped to the ground, dragging Amber down beside him and covering the bright beam shining out from his flashlight. In the dark, they could see more flashlights sweeping back and forth in the distance, illuminating the mist of rain that was beginning falling around them. They could hear search dogs huffing quiet noises between barks.

“Come on.” Stiles shot to his feet and took off before either of them could stop him and he pulled Amber's arm painfully as he took off, not yet relinquishing his grip on her hand.

“Stiles!” Scott and Amber both whisper-shouted at his back.

When her hand slipped from Stiles' as they raced after him in the dark, Amber squeaked unhappily, “Wait up!” She called out iman hushed voice.

“Stiles!” Scott called after him, “Stiles!”

The two moved as fast as they could, trying to keep up with their friend, but he'd gotten ahead of them. Amber huffed when her toe caught on a tree root and she grabbed onto Scott as she righted herself. She was still gripping onto Scott's arms and getting her feet back underneath her when she heard Stiles let out a cut off scream of alarm in the distance, shortly followed by the sound of dogs barking.

He had been spotted.

“Stay right there!” An officer shouted over the sound of the dog barking.

“Shit.” Amber whispered with wide eyes as Scott dragged her along to hide behind a large tree.

“Hang on, hang on. This little delinquent belongs to me.” They heard the Sheriff’s voice announce with disappointment.

“Dad. How're you doing?” Stiles greeted weakly.

“So. Do you, uh, listen in to all of my phone calls?” Sheriff Stilinski questioned.

“No,” Stiles laughed nervously, “Not the boring ones..”

Amber thumped her forehead against Scott's shoulder. “Idiot.” She whispered fondly, shaking her head.

“Now, where're your usual partners in crime? I thought after the night she’d had, Amber would've kept you away from this.”

She felt the heat of it when Scott took a quiet, shaky breath.

“Scott? Scott's home.” Stiles stuttered, “He said he wanted to get a good night's sleep for first day back to school tomorrow, so.. Amber went home and now it's just me. In the woods.. Alone.”

“Scott!” The sheriff yelled out, causing them both to flinch from where they were huddled behind the tree, “Amber! You out there? Scott!” There was a pause during which Amber and Scott looked at one another nervously, eyes wide. “Well, young man, I'm gonna walk you back to your car and you and I are gonna have a conversation about something called invasion of privacy.”

Thunder rolled loudly over the sound of the Sheriff dragging Stiles and their only flashlight off into the distance. The mist from earlier had eased it's way into a drizzle during the encounter and Amber shivered violently as the cold rain began to seep into her clothes.

“Now what?” She asked quietly.

“We- Walk home, I guess.” Scott sighed.

They made their way back through the trees in what Amber could only hope was the right direction, arms coming up to attempt to rub warmth into her own biceps as they moved through the rain.

They both flinched and spun around in fear at the sound of an animal howling in the distance. Amber turned to Scott and they looked at one another with wide, scared eyes before they began walking again. Scott jerked and came to a stop again only a few minutes later when they heard a large bird flapping it's wings overhead in the trees, prompting Amber to walk straight into his back. She reached up to push him forward with hands on his shoulders.

“Come on.” She urged quietly through her own nerves.

Eventually, Scott slowed to a stop again and moved to take a puff from his inhaler, his breathing ragged from all of the hiking. As he brought the inhaler to his mouth, Amber heard the sound of twigs breaking, the sound growing louder at it rushed toward them.

Scott yelled, shoving his friend to the side before falling to the ground himself. Amber screamed as she smacked against the ground, scrambling to hide behind a tree as a stampede of deer came running through. She gasped as she watched the deer only narrowly avoid trampling Scott several times before they cleared.

“Scott,” She whispered in the dark, heart pounding in her ears, “God.. You okay?”

“I dropped my inhaler!” He answered frantically, pulling out his phone for a weak source of light as he raked his hands through the leaves underfoot.

Suddenly, he yelled out again and Amber took a step closer to her friend just in time to watch him stumble and fall down an incline, and then he was gone.

“Scott!” She ran to the place where he’d fallen but as she reached the hillside, she tripped over something large on the ground and tumbled down after him.

Twigs snapped and scratched at her skin as she rolled down the hill, scraping at her hips and back as her shirt rode up, the back of her head smacking down roughly on a large rock when she finally came to a stop at the bottom of the incline.

Scott's heavy breathing was loud in the silence that followed as he righted himself.

“Amber?” He whispered, moving through the leaves.

She moved to sit up but her vision swam and she was forced to drop her head back down to the rock beneath her with a painful thunk.

“Ow.” She moaned quietly.

A loud growling sounded close by and they were both immediately filled with a cold dread. She could hear Scott’s screams but couldn’t make herself move. She shivered both from the cold and from fear, her head throbbing painfully as her heartbeat picked up.

“Scott?” She called out after a moment, voice quiet.

His screaming had stopped and she heard the sound of twigs breaking and footfalls running into the distance until she could no longer hear them at all.

“Scott?” She tried once more, finding the strength to lift her head to look around her.

The forest remained silent.

She rolled onto her front, moving her arms underneath herself and pushing up onto her knees shakily, black spots danced in the corners of her vision but the preserve was so dark that it was difficult to tell if it was due to the throbbing in her head or lack of light.

Crawling toward a large tree, Amber moved to lean back against the trunk. She shakily lifted a hand to the back of her head and felt the warm wetness in the hair at her crown. She withdrew her hand and her fingers came back stained dark.

“Fuck.” She whispered into the trees, unsure what to do now.

She must’ve fallen asleep for a few minutes because suddenly, she found herself waking.

She groaned quietly when she felt the sharp pain in the back of her head, the wound immensely sore where she had it pressed against the trunk of the tree behind her. She pried her eyes open and saw a head of dark hair on the person who was knelt down in front of her.

She tried to lift her head to lessen the pressure on her injury, but her head felt heavy so soon after waking, and it lolled to the side instead. The movement stopped when a hand moved to catch her gently by cupping the side of her face. Her vision swam for a slow second afterward while the hand held her head steady.

She could hear a voice but it sounded muffled and distant, like she had cotton stuck in her ears.

“Scott?” Amber rasped softly.

The first thing she’d felt had been the ache in her head, but as she came to, she began to feel other things. She could feel the way her damp clothes clung to her skin as she shivered. Her whole body felt sore from rolling down the hill but nothing seemed to hurt enough to be broken.

The hand on the left side of her face moved to cup her chin and pressed their thumb into her jaw, shaking her head softly. She let out a quiet, unhappy noise when the movement made her vision swim again.

“Spinny.” She complained.

Amber lifted a hand up to reach for the person's face. When her cold fingertips landed on their cheek she could feel a light stubble covering the person’s sharp jawline.

“Not Scott,” She deduced to herself miserably. She widened her eyes at the mystery person comically for a moment in an attempt to clear her vision, “Definitely not Stiles.”

She let her hand drop to the person’s shoulder to steady herself and pulled her torso up to lean away from the rough bark of the tree.

“Your. Name.” The voice repeated slowly, voice sounding clearer to her ears now that the fuzz in her brain was clearing. The hand on her face squeezed softly and pressed warm fingers into her cheek with each word.

“Amber.” She told them.

Her vision was clearer now. As the rain passed, so had the clouds, and in the glow from the moonlight that now shined through the bare trees above them, she could see the person in front of her with minimal double vision — The incredibly handsome person in front of her.

“Your eyes are very pretty.” She whispered before she could stop herself, looking into the palest eyes she’d ever seen. She wondered absently whether they were blue or green in the daylight.

The guy snorted softly in amusement, shaking his head before regaining a stoic expression, “Turn your head so I can check what we’re dealing with.”

His voice was deep and gruff and incredibly soothing. He continued to gently cup her head in one hand as he examined the bloody patch at the back of her skull, his hands the same rough yet soft combination as his voice.

“What seems to be the damage, Mister Doctor, Sir?” She asked after a moment, flinching when he prodded gently at the swollen area.

“Doesn’t look like you need stitches.” He told her, leaning back to give her some space and wiping his hands on his dark jeans, “Don’t think you hit it hard enough for brain injury either, but it’ll probably hurt for a couple days.”

“Yay for no lasting brain damage.” Amber cheered quietly as she shivered, missing the warmth of his hand against her cheek.

“You should get home. Get some rest.” The guy reached his hands out to her again, gripping one of her own and helping her to her feet with a firm grip at her elbow, “You shouldn’t even be out here in the first place. It’s private property, y’know. This isn’t a part of the preserve.”

They started to move through the woods slowly. Amber’s legs felt shaky and her butt was numb from sitting on the cold ground for so long, but her mystery doctor had moved one of his arms around her waist, supporting a majority of her weight as he maneuvered her feet smoothly over fallen branches and tree roots.

“It’s dark and my flashlight abandoned me,” She defended, “Then I tripped. Then I was abandoned again. Jesus, I hope Scott made it home okay.”

She looked to her doctor-helper with wide eyes, suddenly remembering the blood chilling sound of Scott’s scream before he had run away from her.

“There’s no one else in the preserve, now.” He assured her, “It’s just the two of us. So, whoever he is, I’m sure he made it home, just like you should be doing.”

“Yes, sir.” She mumbled reluctantly with her eyes still glued to his face, trusting that if she tripped he wouldn’t let her fall. She swore she saw his lips twitch into a brief but genuine smile before he shook his head, continuing their hike out of the forest.

“Do you have someone you can call for a ride?” He asked, “I didn’t drive here.”

Amber found herself wondering how he’d gotten out to the preserve on the edge of town if he hadn’t driven, but didn’t voice her thoughts.

“I, uh, yeah. I can try.” She decided. She pulled out her phone to see that less than an hour had passed since their run in with the Sheriff’s Deputies. She couldn’t have been unconscious for more than twenty minutes.

Amber sent a quick text to Scott to check he’d truly made it home, but paused before calling anyone. There was no way she was calling her brother to pick her up at nearly midnight, so she pulled up the number she’d called twice earlier in the evening and hoped for an answer this time.

The man beside her guided her over a cluster of rocks with a hand at her elbow as she brought her phone up to her ear and listened to the dull ringing.

“Amber! You good? You and Scott make it home okay?” Stiles greeted, picking up after only the second ring.

“Not exactly.” She muttered, her phone beeping as a text came through and she read the message from Scott.

Just got home. In bed. Need to talk to u and Stiles before school tomorrow.

Her eyebrows furrowed as she read and reread the message. She was glad Scott was safe at home but was he not at all worried about her?

“What do you mean? You guys okay?” Stiles asked nervously through the phone.

Amber smiled at the stranger beside her in silent thanks as he kept her from tripping over another rock.

“Scott’s gone. I guess he’s home now but I’m still in the preserve. I think I’m almost out to the road-” She said with question in her voice. The man next to her nodded silently and she continued, “Yeah, almost out to the road, but-”

“I’m on my way-” Stiles said quickly. She could hear movement on the other end of the line before his keys jingling loudly and the telltale bang of his front door closing.

“Your dad still working?”

“Yeah, I doubt he’ll be home ‘til morning.” He told her as the door to the Jeep slammed and she heard the loud rumble of the car coming to life, “Just stay with me and I’ll find you when you get out to the road, alright? Let me know when you’re out.”

“I can actually see it now.” She said, as the trees began to clear and she caught sight of the pavement ahead of her.

“Okay, okay. I’ll be right there, alright?” His voice was laced with worry and she sighed softly into the phone.

“Stiles, I’m fine, okay? Don’t speed to get to me.”

She heard him huff in response, which meant he was probably already going too fast as he drove the winding roads that led out to the preserve.

The hand on her arm had released her when they got closer to the main road and Amber looked to thank the man next to her but he was gone. She spun in a slow circle as her eyebrows furrowed, thinking that surely he couldn’t have gone far, but he’d vanished.

She looked back to the street after a few minutes and could see headlights shining bright in the distance, reflecting off the telephone wires and the wet pavement.

“Stiles, I see a car coming.”

“Okay, okay, I’m slowing down.”

The car approaching did, indeed slow down until there was a blue Jeep stopped in the road in front of her. Stiles threw the door open and ran from the car as she crossed she street and he didn’t waste a second before he was throwing his arms around her shoulders.

“You okay? I can’t believe Scott left you by yourself.”

His voice was muffled in her hair as he pressed his face into the top of her head. One of his hands trailed up from her shoulders to cup the back of her head and she flinched, whining in pain when he pressed against where she’d hit her head earlier.

“What happened?” He asked immediately, pulling back to look at her. When he caught sight of the red stain on his hand in the glow of the headlights, his eyes went wide, spinning her around quickly to look at the spot he’d touched. “Jesus, Am, what happened?”

“I’m fine, honestly. I’m pretty sure it’s barely bleeding anymore. I tripped and hit my head, but I’m okay. Could use an aspirin or ten, though.”

Stiles spun her back around and looked at her like he didn’t quite believe her, but guided her to the passenger side of the vehicle silently. She climbed inside and he was leaning in to buckle her up before she could begin to do it herself.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” He asked softly, letting his hand linger on her thigh after getting the buckle clicked into place.

“I’m fine,” She promised quietly, flushing under his gentle attention, “Can we just go to your house? If I get caught sneaking in at this point, Jason’s gonna kill me. I’m better off sleeping somewhere else.”

“Yeah, ’course.” He pulled back and gently closed the door before rounding the vehicle and climbing behind the wheel. Turning them around and heading home.

When they got to the Stilinski house, they went straight to Stiles’ room and he closed the door out of habit despite them being the only ones home.

“Let me see your head again so I can get a better look.” Stiles demanded as he approached her.

In the bright light of his bedroom, Amber could now see how dirty she was, her athletic leggings covered in mud streaks and her hands much the same. She could only imagine how filthy her face was. And her hair hair where it was pulled back in a now messy braid.

His hands were gentle as he moved her hair to look at the bump on the back of her head, but she still flinched when he poked at it delicately.

“Sorry.” He apologized from behind her, stroking a hand down the side of her hair.

“It’s fine.” She promised again, “I should shower though. Seriously.”

“Yeah, of course.” He said easily, squeezing her arm before traipsing back into the hallway and to the linen closet, pulling out a clean towel and holding it out to her.

She thanked him and made her way to the bathroom before closing the door behind her. She stripped out of her damp, dirty clothes, undoing the braid in her hair and combing her fingers through it softly. She turned the water on and let it heat up before climbing under the spray. She watched dirt and small bits of leaf trailed down onto the shower floor as she rinsed her hair.

She used the men’s shower products that littered the shower, scrubbing down with the masculine smelling body wash twice. She winced when it stung the tiny scrapes on her hips, and proceeded to gently shampoo around the bump at the back of her head.

When she finished, Amber climbed out and dried the excess water from her hair roughly before drying her body. She secured the towel she’d been given around her tight once she was no longer dripping.

She knocked softly on Stiles’ bedroom door as she made her way back over, not wanting to interrupt him if he was getting changed. The door swung open quickly and Amber jumped in surprise at the sight of Stiles standing in front of her in his doorway, already changed into pajama pants and a tshirt.

He gaped silently as his eyes trailed to where her towel was hooked loosely at the top of her breasts. A small bead of water dripped from the nape of her neck in a slow trail past her collarbones and into her cleavage before disappearing beneath the towel and he couldn’t help but swallow loudly, blinking himself out of his stupor and returning his eyes to the safety of his friend’s face.

“Am I allowed in, or have I been exiled to the hallway?” She laughed when he continued to block the doorway after a few moments.

“Right! Sorry!” He jumped back, opening the door wider and allowing her entrance into the room.

She continued to smile as she stepped past him, a blush rising to her cheeks as she thought about the look on his face as his eyes had trailed down to her chest.

“Can I borrow something to sleep in?” She asked, hand coming up to fiddle with where the towel was secured around her.

“Sure, yeah, what do you want?” He rushed to his dresser and opened a drawer already rifling through it.

“Any tshirt would be good.” She said, biting her lip as she thought about the underwear she’d left in the bathroom. She’d been wearing them on her run earlier and grimaced at the thought of putting them back on.

Stiles triumphantly produced a clean shirt and threw it toward the bed before looking at her, his eyes stuck on where she had her bottom lip pulled between her teeth.

“Would- Would it be weird if I asked for boxers or something?” She asked awkwardly.

“N-No, no I can-“ He slammed the drawer he’d procured the tshirt from and opened another, moving things around aggressively in search of a pair of underwear for her. It took longer than it had for the shirt, but after a minute his hand re-emerged from the drawer with a pair of checkered boxers in his hands and a flush on his cheeks. “Here.”

Amber accepted the shorts, her hand brushing his softly in the exchange and she gulped.

It was hardly the first time she’d slept at one of the boy’s houses, definitely not the first time she’d borrowed a shirt, but there was something significantly more intimate about doing so after a shower — about doing it and not having an article of her own clothing to separate Stiles’ clothes from her naked body.

She toyed with the underwear in her hands, “Stiles?”

“Yeah?”

“I uh, I can’t get changed if you’re standing right in front of me.”

This seemed to startle him into action and he blushed, coughing into the back of his hand awkwardly in an attempt to hide it.

“Right, I’ll go- I’ll get you some Aspirin!” He said before moving around her and closing the door behind him.

She shook her head and took a deep breath, dropping her towel and drying herself one final time before pulling on the boxers, rolling them twice at the waist to get the fit better before she paused, distracted. Curling her fingers into the material at her hips, she had a thought.

Her mind was racing, imagining Stiles’ own naked body beneath the shorts that were against her bare skin, now. The thought sent a flush creeping up her neck and a tingling heat to her gut.

She swallowed loudly in the quiet room.

Stepping toward the bed, she picked up the basic shirt Stiles had gotten out for her. She moved her arms through the holes and was using her hands to stretch it over her wet hair in an attempt to avoid the sore spot at the back of her head when she heard the door open behind her. She quickly pulled the shirt down over her back and turned to face Stiles where he was standing frozen in the doorway with a glass of water in one hand and two Aspirin cupped in the other.

“I- Sorry,” He said quickly, “I should’ve knocked? I don’t know why I didn’t knock.”

“No worries, Sti.” She told him softly as she pulled her damp hair out from beneath the collar of the shirt. She moved to take the painkillers and the water from him with a smile before sipping from the glass and swallowing the pills.

“I also got out a new toothbrush. Left it by the sink. Figured you’d need one.” Stiles told her as he watched her swallow down the tablets.

“God, yeah. Brushing your teeth with your finger is just- Not the same.” She shuddered at the thought, “I’ll be right back, then.”

Grabbing her towel from the floor, she went back across the hallway into the bathroom. The mirror was still clouded with condensation from her shower and she wiped it clear with the damp towel before putting it in the hamper tucked behind the door.

She brushed her teeth quickly, collecting her dirty heap of clothes from the bathroom floor before she made her way back into the bedroom and closed the door behind her.

Stiles was already standing at the bed, pulling down the blankets and settling into the open side, already armed with the knowledge from previous sleepovers that she preferred to be on the side closest to the wall.

She moved to crawl across his legs to the other side of the bed and climbed underneath the covers, settling down onto her side facing the wall, not wanting to put pressure on the back of her head while she slept. Stiles quietly settled down next to her after switching off the lamp beside the bed.

“You smell good.” He whispered to her in the dark after a moment.

“I smell like you.” She laughed, “I used your shampoo and your body wash.”

“I know.” He said quietly.

She waited a full minute for him to continue, but he said nothing else. She turned to smile into the pillow before closing her eyes and drifting to sleep.

Too soon, morning came and they woke to the sound of Stiles’ alarm clock trilling loudly. Amber cracked her eyes open to find herself on her back, head tilted toward where best friend slept beside her.

During the night, one of his arms had been thrown over her chest, his forearm rose and fell in time with each of her breaths where it was laying across her breasts. He was sprawled out on his stomach, pillow tucked over his head, still sleeping soundly with his pillow muffling the obnoxious beeping.

“Stiles.” She groaned loudly, nudging her friend with her leg beneath the duvet, “Turn it off.”

He woke with a snort, moving to push himself upright with one arm against the mattress and the other where it was still pressed to her chest. He reached out a hand and clicked the alarm off.

“Ow,” She gasped, jerking away when his elbow put the brunt of his weight on her left breast, “Boobs, Stiles. Jesus.”

Stiles’ head snapped around to look at her as he pulled his arm away from where it had been digging into her. His eyes were wide, flicking down to her tshirt covered chest quickly before they traveled up to her sleepy face.

“Sorry.”

She sighed in response, reaching a hand up to sleepily cup the injury with a sleepy frown. It didn’t hurt anymore, the pain gone as quickly as it had come, but she covered the breast protectively for a moment anyway out of principle.

“Uh.. How’s your head?” He asked after pulling his eyes away from where her small hand was touching herself through the shirt. His shirt.

“Better than last night. Probably should take something for it before we head out, though.”

When Stiles crawled out of bed, Amber rolled onto her stomach and smothered herself in the pillow he’d been using, taking a deep breath of the scent under the guise of still being tired. She stayed in bed as Stiles went to shower and get dressed, waiting until he returned before she got up to use the bathroom and brush her teeth.

They stopped at Amber’s house before heading to the school so she could change out of her borrowed sleep clothes and get her backpack.

“Fifteen minutes!” Stiles yelled out the window of the Jeep in warning as she ran inside.

“Time me!” She dared over her shoulder.

She ran upstairs to her bedroom, stripping out of Stiles’ clothes and quickly pulling on a pair of jeans and a sweater within two minutes of rushing through the front door.

Using her hair brush, she removed the tangles from the ends of her long, ashy waves, combing through the top with her fingers until her flyaways settled.

Still rushing, she applied deodorant beneath her sweater with one hand and tossed her books into her bag with the other before zipping it shut and throwing it over her shoulder.

The girl ran down the hall to the bathroom and spritzed herself with the perfume on the vanity, fumbling to collect a tube of mascara and her eyelash curler in her hands before jogging back downstairs.

As she passed through the kitchen, she grabbed two apples from the basket hanging on the wall without slowing and continued on until she was out the front door and back at the vehicle where Stiles was waiting.

“Seven minutes.” Stiles told her with an impressed grin as she climbed back into the passenger side of the Jeep. “I think that’s actually a new record.”

She smiled, shoving one of the apples toward his face. She grinned harder when he automatically opened his mouth wide and sunk his teeth into it to take it from her while he backed out of the driveway.

Pulling down the sun visor, she curled her eyelashes and applied mascara quickly before shoving the items into her backpack where it sat on the floor between her feet.

“Dunno how you can do that in a moving car.” Stiles said through a mouthful of fruit, earning a laugh from her in response.

As she grabbed her own apple from where she’d put it for safekeeping between her legs, she looked over to where Stiles was steering the car with his left hand and shifting gears with his right between bites of the fruit. She ate her breakfast as they drove, her eyes bouncing between her friend’s long fingers where they wrapped around the gear shift and his mouth as he munched on his apple, too distracted to notice her ogling.

Stiles was finishing the last bite as he turned into the parking lot at the school, pulling the car into a spot and shutting off the Jeep before he turned to face the girl beside him. “Scott’s got something crazy to show us before class.”

“What?” She asked in confusion, climbing out of the Jeep and pulling her bag over her shoulders as she rounded the car to meet him, “He just told me he wanted to talk. What the hell’s he got to show us?”

Stiles rested a hand at the base of her neck, above her backpack, and guided her as they approached the school.

“Got bit by an animal last night, I guess.” He told her, “Says it’s pretty nasty.”

“Shit.” She said quietly, eyes scanning the bike rack as they passed to see if Scott was there yet, but not seeing his bicycle.

“Deserves it.” Stiles muttered, his hand gliding from her neck over to her opposite shoulder as he wrapped his arm loosely around her, “For leaving you alone in the woods. Hope he has to get a rabies shot and everything.”

“Stiles.” She scolded, “If he got bit by something, I’m pretty sure it happened before he left me.” She said softly, reaching her hand up to pat his where it was curled around her shoulder, “I heard him yell and then he was gone. He was probably in shock.”

“Yeah, well.” Stiles muttered as they came to a stop outside the front of the building to wait for Scott’s arrival, “I stand by what I said.”

She shook her head at him, appreciating the protectiveness, but more concerned about their other friend at the moment.

Only a few minutes passed before Stiles perked up and was releasing her shoulder as Scott came to stand in front of them.

“Okay. Let’s see this thing.” Stiles said excitedly, bouncing on his toes.

They both watched with rapt attention and leaned in close as Scott tugged up his shirt to reveal a large piece of bloody gauze on his side. The size of the bite was significantly bigger than either of them had been expecting. Amber gasped at the sight but Stiles looked absolutely thrilled.

“Ooh!” He said excitedly, reaching out to touch it before getting his hand slapped away by Amber, the girl pulling his hand back and keeping it trapped in her own.

“Yeah. Woah.” Scott said blankly, pulling his shirt back down, “It was too dark to see much, but I’m pretty sure it was a wolf.”

“A wolf bit you?” Stiles questioned incredulously as they slowly walked down the path to the school building.

“Uh-Huh.”

“No,” Stiles said immediately, “Not a chance.”

“I heard a wolf howling.” Scott looked past Stiles’ body to make eye contact with Amber, “Did you hear it?”

“I mean, I don’t know that it was a wolf,” She said slowly, shrugging and shaking her head, “Sorry, Scott.”

“No,” Stiles repeated, looking at Scott, “You didn’t.”

“What do you mean, ‘No I didn’t’? How do you know what I heard?”

“Because California doesn’t have wolves, okay? Not in like sixty years.” Stiles explained, shaking his head. He pulled Amber and himself to a stop as they turned to face Scott at the staircase in front of the school.

“Really?” Both Scott and Amber asked at the same time.

“Yes, Really.” Stiles told them, his eyes bouncing between his two friends. He squeezed Amber’s hand where they were still connected, “There are no wolves in California.”

Amber took in the information and reached down out of habit to check the time on her cell phone, only to find it missing. The pocket of her jeans decidedly empty.

“Stiles, is the Jeep unlocked? I think I left my phone.”

The boy reached his hands deep into the pocket of his jeans and produced his collection of keys, a tiny green bottle opener bright in the jumble of metal. Amber plucked them from his outstretched hand and rushed off without a word to retrieve her phone, only hearing the beginning of what Scott said next.

“Alright, well, if you don’t believe me about the wolf-“

Unlocking the passenger door, she quickly reached in to snatch the device from where it must have slipped out of her pocket and into the seat on the ride to school.

As she made her way back to the building, she fell into step with the beautiful strawberry blonde beside her as she made her way back toward the building, “Hey, Lyds.” Amber smiled, “How was break?”

“Oh the usual," Lydia narrowed her eyes. “We should’ve hung out, though.”

“Soon.” Amber promised her friend as they approached where Scott and Stiles were still in conversation at the bottom of the stairs, the latter’s voice gaining in volume the closer they got.

“-seriously gonna be the best thing that’s happened to this town since.. Since the birth of Amber Callisto.” He finished, catching sight of their friend and grinning at her cutely, “Hey, Amber, you look- Like you’re gonna walk right past me with Lydia.”

The girls passed by, but while Lydia’s eyes remained focused on the path in front of her, Amber shot her best friends a sweet smile over her shoulder, Stiles’ car keys still gripped in her hand.

“You’re whipped, dude.” She thought she heard Scott mutter before hearing what was definitely the sound of someone being hit followed by Scott’s quiet whine of pain.

Amber couldn’t keep the smile off her face at her friend’s antics, shaking her head as she continued to her locker to collect her things for first period. She turned her head when Stiles passed her locker to get down the hall to his own, her eyes glued to the back of his buzzed head as she pulled out her notebook.

She jumped when Scott stepped into her field of vision and blocked her sight of Stiles.

“Hey, I wanted to talk to you alone real quick.” He said, his hands pulling at the straps of his backpack nervously as he avoided her eyes.

“Sure, what’s up?” Amber clamped her notebook between her legs as she reached into her bag to pull out her chemistry textbook to stuff it into her locker where it could stay until third period.

“I just, I wanted to apologize. For last night. I-I don’t really remember getting home, or cleaning up the blood, or even texting you before I fell asleep. It-it’s all kind of a blur.”

“Scott, it’s okay,” She promised, turning her body to face him as she freed up her hands. She reached up to loosely tangle her fingers in the long hair at the side of his head, “You were in shock, okay? I’m not mad at you.”

“Right, I just, I needed to make sure you knew, y’know, that I’d never leave you behind.”

Amber’s grip on his hair tightened and she pressed up into her toes to lean her forehead against his. “I know.” She told him with a smile, knocking their heads together softly before shoving his head away and pulling back to gather her books for English into her arms.

She made her way to the English classroom and slid into her seat, smiling at Stiles where he was sitting at the desk behind her. She pulled out a pencil and tapped it quietly on her desk top as her eyes skimmed over the words printed on the paper in front of her until class started.

Students trickled in slowly, Scott going to his own seat beside Amber. When only a few empty desks remained, Mr. Anderson stood from his chair and moved to begin writing on the blackboard behind his desk.

“As you all know, there indeed, was a body found in the woods last night.” The teacher started, “And I am sure your eager little minds are coming up with various macabre scenarios as to what happened. But I am here to tell you, that the police have a suspect in custody-”

Amber whirled around to face Stiles, Scott doing the same, but the former shook his head. The Sheriff hadn’t even returned home by the time they’d left for school that morning, so there was no way for him to have obtained the information.

“-which means you can give your undivided attention to the syllabus which is on your desk outlining the semester.”

Amber turned to face forward again and slouched in her seat as she looked through the paper Mr. Anderson had left on their desks, reading through the syllabus and jotting down notes in the margins as she went. Her attention was torn away only for a moment to lean her head back and see Stiles with a pen in his teeth, using a yellow highlighter on his own paper. She grinned at him from her upside-down position before returning to her notes.

“Class,” A voice cut through the silence in the classroom, the students all looked to see their Vice Principal standing at the front of the room with a beautiful brunette. “This is our new student, Allison Argent. Please do your best to make her feel welcome.”

The girl, Allison, was nervously fiddling with the end of the thin scarf she had wrapped around her neck. She smiled, looking at the ground and making her way to the back of the room to sit in the seat behind Scott.

Amber watched as Scott turned to face Allison, pen between his fingers in offering. Both girls’ faces clouded in confusion before Allison smiled softly and took the pen from Scott’s outstretched hand.

“Thanks.”

Amber watched in awe at the way Scott continued staring at the new girl for just a moment too long before turning back to face the front of the room with a grin on his face.

“Are you staying to watch tryouts today?” Stiles asked Amber as he came to a stop where she was standing at Scott’s locker later that day after classes ended.

“Yeah, of course.” She told him with a grin, “Gotta watch my boys make first line, don’t I?”

Stiles rolled his eyes, engulfing her face in the palm of his large hand and playfully pushing her head away as she cackled.

“Can someone tell me how ‘new girl’ is here all of five minutes, and she’s already hanging with Lydia’s clique?” A girl from their English class asked as she came to stand behind Stiles.

“Lydia’s really not so bad. She’s a completely different person when you get to know her.” Amber defended.

Stiles ignored his friend and turned to the girl, “Because she’s hot.” He stated, “Beautiful people heard together.” He flicked Amber on the nose after his statement and she furrowed her brows. She rubbed at her nose before leaving them beside Scott’s locker and making her way across the hall where Allison, Jackson, and Lydia were standing.

“Um, I can’t. It’s family night this Friday.” Allison was saying as Amber reached the group, “Thanks for asking.”

“You sure?” Jackson pushed, “Everyone’s going after the scrimmage.”

“You mean like football?” Allison asked innocently, eyes drifting to Amber and smiling.

Amber shook her head at the girl, about to answer when Jackson’s voice cut in again.

“Football’s a joke in Beacon.” He laughed, “The sport here’s lacrosse. We’ve won the state championship for the past three years.”

“Because of a certain captain.” Lydia added, smiling at her boyfriend.

“Takes a whole team to win!” Amber said sweetly, her thoughts drifting to Scott and Stiles warming the bench for the entire season the year before.

Jackson rolled his eyes at her before returning his attention to the new girl, “Well, we have practice in a few minutes. That is, if you don’t have anywhere else-“

“Well I was going to-“

“Perfect!” Lydia interrupted what was likely to be an excuse from Allison, “You're coming.” Lydia and Jackson wandered off down the hallway, leaving Allison stunned in their wake.

“It’s actually kind of fun to watch.” Amber smiled, “I’m going too. You, Lydia, and me can all sit together, if you want. But, if you really don’t want to stay, you don’t have to. Lydia honestly won’t be mad. She doesn’t realize the force behind her own words sometimes.”

“No, I-I’ll stay and watch.” Allison decided.

The two girls caught up with Lydia on their way to the lacrosse field and the three of them settled down on a set of bleachers on the side of the pitch.

Amber smiled and waved when Scott turned to look at where they were sitting, but he paid no attention to his best friend, his eyes glued to the darker-haired brunette beside her. Scott’s gaze was torn away by Coach Finstock throwing a lacrosse stick with a larger net into the boy’s hands along with a new helmet.

“McCall! You’re in goal.” Coach told him.

“I’ve never played.” Amber heard Scott defend, clutching the new stick in his hands.

“I know,” Coach said, “Scoring some shots will give the boys a confidence boost. It’s a first day back thing. Get ‘em energized! Fired up!”

Amber’s shoulders slumped slightly. She knew that Scott had worked his ass off over the last year to try and improve his skills, but he’d never practiced in goal. She was unsure how her friend could attempt to impress the coach if he was being thrown into a new position just to make the rest of the team feel better about themselves.

“What about me?” Scott asked.

“Try not to take any in the face.” Coach supplied, reaching a hand up to slap Scott’s cheek softly before turning to the rest of the players around the field, “Let’s go! Come on!”

Amber rubbed her hands together in an attempt to keep them warm in the cold, winter air of the afternoon. She watched Stiles settle onto the bench, putting his helmet on the ground between his feet. He craned his neck to look for her on the crowded bleachers and grinned when he found her.

Shooting him a thumbs up and a smile, she waved before he turned his attention back to the field. Amber watched Scott make his way into the goal, helmet on his head and the goalie stick clutched in his hands.

“Who’s that?” Allison asked, looking at where Scott was waiting.

“Him?” Lydia asked, “I’m not sure who he is. Why?”

Amber rolled her eyes at her friend, about to cut in when Allison spoke again, sounding self-conscious.

“He’s, just- He’s in our English class.”

Allison turned her attention to Amber in question and Amber smiled at the girl’s lack of subtlety before the whistle blew loudly, interrupting them.

Their attention went to the field and Amber watched Scott in confusion as he clutched at his ears over the thick plastic that covered them. He looked like he was in pain and Amber rose slightly from her seat, debating going over to check on her friend.

Before she could move, another player walked toward the goal, stopping ten yards away and lobbing the ball as hard as he could at her friend. Amber flinched when Scott immediately took the ball to the head. It thunked loudly against the plastic of his helmet before he fell to the ground in the goal. Players on the field laughed at his pain and Amber slumped back to a seated position with a frown, seeing Stiles make a similar movement where he sat on the bench in front of them.

“Hey, way to catch with your face, McCall!” Someone on the field yelled.

Scott began to pull himself up, getting ready for the next player.

“Scott McCall.” Amber finally recovered enough to tell Allison, leaning close to give a small amount of privacy from Lydia. “He’s one of my best friends. Very much single.. Y’know, if you’re interested.”

Allison blushed and smiled, but refused to look at the face of the girl sitting next to her.

Another player ran up on the goal, throwing the ball to the left corner and straight into the net of Scott’s stick.

“Yes!” Amber squeaked in excitement.

Scott looked at the ball he was holding for a moment as if surprised he’d caught it at all.

“Yeah!” Stiles called out after a few seconds had passed, turning to look at Amber behind him for a moment and also wearing a look of pleased surprise on his face.

The third player in line rushed forward, shooting the ball low at Scott’s feet, but the ball was again, miraculously stopped from reaching the goal by Scott’s stick.

Stiles and Amber both yelped in surprise, the latter’s hands going above her head as she squealed excitedly.

Scott proceeded to catch every ball that was thrown at him, letting no goals pass as his friends watched on in amazement.

“He seems like he’s pretty good.” Allison observed.

“Yeah, very good.” Lydia agreed, impressed.

“He’s been practicing like crazy.” Amber supplied, unable to wipe the proud grin off her face.

They all watched as Jackson stepped forward, moving to the front of the line and readying himself for a shot. His feet came off the ground as he launched the ball toward the goal.

Scott caught that one too.

Stiles shot out of his seat when he yelled, his arms outstretched as he spun to look at the people around them, ensuring that they’d all seen the save.

“That is our friend!” Stiles announced loudly, looking toward Amber on the bleachers and pointing to where Scott was standing on the field. She nodded at him with an incredulous laugh.

“You let me take a taxi with you back to your place at the end of the night… You don’t let me in, but you do tell me to meet you for coffee the next morning.”

“Did future me happen to mention Dolly’s Diner?”

“She did, actually,” Johnny nodded with wide ocean eyes, rainbow lights shining in his flaxen locks like a neon halo. He crossed his strong arms over his chest, and his biceps strained against the jacket sleeves. “She specifically mentioned Dolly’s Diner at 8 a.m.—”

“Nine,” you corrected with a knowing half-smile.

“Nine.”

“Well, then, Johnny Storm… I guess we’ll see.”

You handed the stranger the dwindling cig as you walked past him. He didn’t try to stop you when you headed towards the light-up dance floor, where all your friends waited for you on the other side. You made it to the very edge of the flashing neon squares before you turned to look at him over your shoulder. He lingered in place with the half-gone cigarette between his pointer and middle finger, pretty features twisted in a puppy-like pout.

“Well, future-boy?” you called to him. “You comin’ or what?”

Johnny Storm, you soon realized, was a lot of things. Confident, chaotic, and occasionally hotheaded — but a liar wasn’t one of them. His brazen introduction as your future husband wasn’t just a clumsy way of flirting with you, but a promise. And, somewhere down the line, you became Mrs. Storm; and Johnny was the smug sonofabitch who accidentally told the future.

Sometimes, he worries that he may possess certain powers beyond the pyrogenesis kind. That something deep in his brain can actually predict the future, and did somehow manipulate you into falling in love with him that night. As far as he’s concerned, it’s the only plausible reason for your being here.

How else could he have gotten you to wear his ring on your finger? Or sleep in the noisy headquarters of Manhattan that he also shares with the rest of his superpowered family? Or be excited about spending the night babysitting his nephew, over the billion other (arguably more interesting) things you could be doing?

Johnny met you as a party girl in a small dress and go-go boots, full of smiles and wit and cunning. You’re all of those things still, but also his wife. So, yeah, either he is far more powerful than he realizes, or he’s just too lucky for his own damn good.

As Sue and Reed exit their shared bedroom, having finally traded their baggy, milk-stained sweats for fancier dinnerwear, Johnny looks down and realizes you’re wearing those same boots from that night. The white vinyl of them zips up to your mid-calf; the platform heel is slightly worn from constant use. You’ve paired them this time with a patent matching skirt and a black turtleneck — still the same girl from all those years ago, just a little more mature and a lot more loved by him.

Reed’s voice knocks Johnny out of his own head. He shrugs on a pin-striped suit jacket and rambles, “The number to the restaurant and the hotel is on the fridge. Call there if you need anything, alright? I mean it. Anything—”

“Anything,” Johnny echoes with a nod from where he sits between you and Franklin at the dining table.

He digs a pale fist into the box of Lucky Charms in his lap and shoves a handful of dry cereal into his mouth. He exhibits the same sort of gracelessness Franklin does in his high chair, mashing at the chopped banana before him rather than actually eating it.

“Not unless there’s an emergency, obviously,” Sue corrects, half-distracted, with her hands beneath her platinum locks to clasp her necklace. She pairs her mid-length, boatneck dress with the silver F pendant she wears in honor of her baby boy. “If he gets really fussy and nothing can calm him down, just try playing the Beach Boys— He loves that.”

“You know where we keep the breast milk, right?” Reed wonders aloud, anxious hands struggling with his cufflinks. Johnny nods, but the man answers himself anyway. “They’re in packets in the freezer, so just heat ‘em up if he gets hungry. They’re in the exact right amounts, okay? I made sure of that, so make sure you only use one—”

Sue sweeps in then, fastening his silver cuffs for him with steadier hands. “We already fed and changed him, so he should be good to go until tonight.”

Reed flashes a pair of pleading brown eyes over his wife’s shoulder, brows pinched in a pained sort of look. “I’d prefer if you’d just call, though. Every hour on the hour, ideally. Just so I know he’s okay.”

Sue’s icy gaze hardens playfully over her shoulder at the two of you. “Absolutely do not do that,” she instructs with an amused smile.

Johnny blinks like an owl, ocean eyes darting between his older sister and her husband, who he’s only just starting to care for. “I… Don’t know who I’m supposed to listen to.”

“Me,” Sue and Reed respond simultaneously.

“It’s Sue,” Ben answers as he stomps across the kitchen, in a pair of khakis he’s paired with a navy sweater vest and a matching baseball cap. (Ms. Rozman complimented the outfit once, and he never quite let it go.) “It’s always Sue.”

He chuckles at the half-hearted glare he gets from Reed and presses the button for the elevator with a large, calloused finger. The doors ding, and he steps inside — broad shoulders taking up the majority of the narrow space.

“Dinner’s on the stove, kids,” Ben tells you and Johnny as he hits the switch for the bottom floor.

“Thanks, Benny!” you call to him when the doors of the lift start to shut.

He shouts back, “Don’t forget!”

Reed and Sue share a quiet look then. “Ready?” he murmurs quietly to her. The older woman takes a deep breath in and nods wordlessly. They’ve saved the world together a thousand times over, yet you don’t think you’ve seen them look as worried as they are right now.

“We’ll call if there’s an emergency. I promise,” you assure them. “But there won’t be because Franklin is, quite literally, the perfect baby.”

The boy babbles in his high chair next to Johnny, utterly enraptured in his smushed bananas. He reaches across his uncle and out towards you with a tiny arm, offering you the piece of fruit enclosed in his chubby fist.

“For me?” you lilt in a small voice. “Thank you, Frankie…”

You lean down towards him and pretend to eat it. You make a quiet num, num, num sound that makes Franklin grin with all of his two bottom teeth.

Johnny’s pink lips curl into an absentminded smile as he watches you with his nephew, always so effortless in the way you care for him, like you were made to do it.

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure between the two of us and the Beach Boys, we can handle it,” Johnny shrugs, then flashes you a blue, button-eyed look. “Right?”

You nod once with a tight-lipped smile. “Right.”

Reed and Sue leave with a smacking kiss pressed to their son’s chubby cheeks. They enter the elevator side by side and press the button for the main floor. “Try not to burn the place down while we’re gone,” Reed begs, only partly joking.

Sue smiles with an arched brow. “Literally.”

The double doors of the lift close before them.

Only when the parents are out of sight do you and Johnny exhale the pair of wavering breaths you didn’t even know you were holding. Franklin continues his babbling, playing with the mashed bananas on his high-chair table, while the two of you share semi-anxious looks.

“We can handle this, right?” Johnny wonders aloud, itching for an ounce of reassurance.

The two of you have looked after Franklin a thousand times before, during bathroom breaks and grocery trips and ninety-minute children’s movies, but never for a whole night. And never without Ben Grimm, the usual designated babysitter, more than one story away.

“Yeah,” you shrug. “We’ve done it before, kind of… What could go wrong?”

The answer to that, you soon realize, is everything.

And it happens far sooner than you expect.

You and Johnny lay Baby Franklin down for tummy time and get immediately enraptured in watching the boy experience the world on his stomach. So much so that you completely disregard the pasta Ben left simmering for you on the stove, which he blatantly told you not to forget.

The blonde boy sniffs once. “Do you smell smoke?” he asks.

“I think that’s just you, fire-boy,” you scoff.

Then the smoke alarm blares. The beep, beep, beeping is faint and faraway, but it startles Franklin nonetheless. The boy screams — a loud, teary, and grating scream — that’s a whole lot louder than the siren that had scared him to begin with.

While you rush to the kitchen to remove the smoking pan from the hot stove, Johnny scoops up his disgruntled nephew and brings him to his chest. He tries to soothe Franklin with one hand and start the record player with the other. With careful work, the Beach Boys crackle suddenly to life.

“—For I have the warmth of the sun…” the speaker croons. “Within me at night…”

It does little to quell Franklin’s screaming, despite his sister’s past assurance that it would. It’s entirely likely that he can’t hear the music over his pained shrieking, which pierces Johnny like a knife to the chest just now.

The blonde boy paces the length of the living room, bouncing the crying kid in his arms. Tears stream down his round, red cheeks in fat droplets that leave a dark stain on Johnny’s white t-shirt.

“Why isn’t it working?” Johnny strains through gritted teeth, hardly audible over the music and the subsequent screaming.

“It’s probably not the right song,” you answer, running past him in a flash and ducking for Ben’s record player. The record scratches faintly when you lift the needle from the vinyl.

“Not the right song?” he echoes incredulously, blinking at you with a pair of wide cerulean eyes. “He’s five months old, babe— He’s barely sentient. He can’t have a favorite song—”

You shift the arm slightly before setting it back in place. The needle hits the grooves of the record with a faint hiss. The music resumes again. “—Something’s bound to go wrong… But she looks in my eyes… And makes me realize…”

Franklin’s cries quieten instantly at the familiar music. He seems to forget, in that instance, what he’d been crying about in the first place. His pink mouth juts in a dramatic pout as he blinks up at his uncle with a pair of big, wet eyes.

Johnny grins down at him.

“Oh… Is that it? Huh?” the blonde boy coos, swaying the baby in his strong arms. He runs a wide palm up the length of his small back, and Franklin lets out a quiet hum of contentment. “You have a favorite song after all, don’t ya?”

The baby lets out a series of unintelligible babbles as you migrate to Johnny’s side. You rest your head on the boy’s broad shoulder, chest pressed to the outside of his bicep, while you run a gentle hand over the back of Franklin’s head. His still-growing tuft of dark chocolate curls is softer than cotton against your palm.

Franklin grins wide despite the tears still clinging to his round cheeks. Two tiny teeth poke from his bottom gums while his mouth opens and closes in unpracticed motions. He hums faint gibberish that you can’t quite understand, though it’s strangely in time with the crooning from the record player behind him.

“—Everything will turn out alright… Don’t worry, baby…”

It makes you laugh. “Are you singing, silly boy?”

Franklin’s babbling grows in volume at the acknowledgment.

He jerks in his uncle’s hold, tiny limbs failing with an excitement too big for his body. He reaches towards Johnny’s face, for the short flaxen strands just behind his ear. He wrenches the hair there into a tiny, unforgiving fist, and Johnny lets him. This raucous excitement is a lot easier on his heart than the screaming from before.

“Screw superpowers,” Johnny laughs, grimacing slightly when Franklin gives the strands a particularly hard tug. “We’ve got the next Beach Boy on our hands.”

His blue eyes glint with mirth when he turns his head to face you. The tip of his nose nearly grazes yours at the dwindling proximity between you. He kisses you instinctively then, pressing his smiling lips to yours in a chaste kiss.

Johnny’s eyes flutter shut. His long lashes dance over the tops of his flushed cheeks. In that fleeting moment, he feels a strange jerking at his chest.

The stars just beginning to speckle outside the floor-to-ceiling windows seem to align in that very instance. With you pressed so ardently to his side, and with Franklin still squirming in his hold, he feels a strange sense of nostalgia that he knows he shouldn’t. It’s strikingly familiar to him, but foreign all the same.

He gets a faint glimpse of his future then — of you and him and a baby, his baby — that he grieves when you pull suddenly away from him.

“You okay?” you murmur at the pinched look on the boy’s pretty face.

Johnny nods, still swaying softly with Franklin against his chest. “I think I just saw the future…” he tells you, playfully solemn as his brows raise to his hairline.

“Oh, yeah?” you hum, caging your bottom lip between your teeth in a feeble attempt to hide your smile.

“Mhm… And if I’m right, which let’s be real, I am right,” the blonde boy quips, only halfway joking. “Then… I’m gonna give you a baby.”

You meet his knowing grin with a deadpanned look. “Like, you’re gonna steal one off the street, or…?’

“I was thinking maybe we just kidnap Franklin or something,” he shrugs.

“Oh. Totally,” you hum with a slow nod. “I’m sure that won’t have any repercussions at all.”

Your gaze glitters with amusement despite the faux-serious look on your face. You couldn’t hide the way you feel for Johnny if you tried. You seem to carry all your love for him in your eyes. You think you always have. And Johnny sees it, too.

“I mean it, though,” he tells you. “I can see the future you, you know?”

“Oh, trust me,” you scoff. “I know.”

“So just… Prepare to have a baby soon.”

“How soon?”

When Johnny’s pink lips curl into a cheeky half-smile, you know he’s up to no good. He cradles Franklin’s bottom with one palm and smooths the other over the baby’s profile, cupping one ear and pinning the other to his chest.

“Tonight, if I’m lucky,” he quips in a low whisper.

Your face screws, and he laughs.

“You’re incorrigible.”

Franklin, now perfectly content, squirms like a wild little thing in your lap. With his chubby fist in his gummy mouth, he gapes incredulously at the black-and-white television across the room. As his aunt, you felt it was your duty to start him on chick-flicks while he’s still young. Tonight’s choice being Roman Holiday. He’s as enthralled by the moving picture as any baby would be, so you consider it a job well done.

You hold him carefully by the waist while he bounces up and down on your thighs. “Can you say Gregory Peck?” you coo in the baby’s ear, who responds with his own sort of gibberish. You repeat, slower this time, “Greg-ory… Peck…?”

Johnny laughs from where he stands in the kitchen.

The apartment has gone slowly dim with the late evening, lit only by rogue lamplight and the flickering television. He can just barely see your profiles from here, across the expansive apartment, where you and Frankie cuddle in the conversation pit.

“You are aware the kid’s basically a future genius, right?” Johnny laughs with a frozen pack of breast milk in hand. His palm glows a faint red color as the milk turns slowly into liquid. He pours the freshly warmed drink into a glass bottle and continues, “So if his first words turn out to be my sister’s first ever crush, Reed’ll have an actual aneurysm.”

“Sue and I are colluding to get Franklin to say ‘momma’ first, actually. And he’s almost got it, don’t ya, Frankie?” You grunt quietly as you spin the heavy baby in your hold. You grin instinctively when he faces you. “Can you say momma?” you coo to him. “Mom-ma?”

Franklin just babbles to himself, ‘cause he can’t seem to make the m sound quite yet. He just drools onto his onesie instead. You’re wiping the dribble from his chin with his bib when Johnny returns with the bottle.

“Here ya go,” the boy lilts.

“Thank you, honey—” you say, huffing as you shift Franklin in your arms once more. You cradle him in your lap and contort your limbs to check the temperature of the milk on your wrist.

Johnny’s face contorts in offense. He props his hands on his slim waist and frowns. “I tested it already, babe. It’s not hot.”

You look at the boy over your shoulder, eyes narrowed in a challenging squint. “You tested it on your skin?” you deadpan.

The blonde boy nods in response.

“Which has been known to be actively set on fire from time to time?”

Johnny thinks to himself for a moment, lips jutted and blue eyes flitted towards the ceiling.

“Exactly,” you giggle and turn away with the roll of your eyes.

Franklin grabs the bottle in a pair of strangely aggressive hands but still struggles to hold it on his own. You keep it propped up for him while he scarfs down his dinner. Johnny, meanwhile, descends the steps of the conversation pit and plops onto the plush sofa beside you. He sits with his legs spread and his arm thrown along the back of it. You melt instantly into his warmth.

While Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck slow dance to an unfamiliar song on the small, staticky screen across the way, Johnny feels a strange tugging at his chest.

“You know…” he starts with a sigh, cheek squished into your hair. “I think I could do this every day.”

“Watch Franklin?” you respond, half-distracted.

“Well, yeah, but… I mean, if we had our own kid, you know? I think we could do it.”

You turn your head slowly, half-expecting to find him wearing a cheeky sort of grin. Instead, you see something strangely sincere swimming in his round, ocean eyes as they flit back and forth between yours.

A laugh sputters from your lips before you can help it. “You haven’t even changed any diapers yet, Johnny—”

“I have!” he argues, wearing a pout that resembles his nephew’s.

“Or lost out on sleep for days because of sleep regression. Or because the baby’s gassy. Or colic—”

“I’m just saying we could handle it. That’s all,” Johnny shrugs with a shy smile. “There’s no one else I’d rather lose sleep with. Or change diapers with… Or clean up baby puke with.”

You falter for a moment.

It’s a more mature admission of love than you think you were expecting.

When Johnny approached you that sacred night in the smoky, neon dance hall — with the bold assurance that he would some day marry you — you figured you were just the prettiest, glittering thing that caught his eye. And you were okay with that, even more so when he started to love you for real. Far more than either of you was expecting.

Then you got married, and life got a little bigger. The laundry day, joint taxes, and choosing whose TV show gets watched on Wednesday nights, kind of bigger. Somewhere therein, you started to realize what it truly meant to love someone.

Love wasn’t always the prettiest glittering thing. Sometimes love was ugly. And that’s when it was best.

“How romantic…” you deadpan in response, lest you give away the warmth surging in your chest. But then you lean in to kiss him, chaste but lingering still, and Johnny feels all of it anyway.

He takes the empty bottle from Franklin’s tiny hands a moment later. You bring the boy to your chest, patting softly at his back for a few minutes more until his body jerks with a small hiccup. Johnny then laughs at the screwed look of concentration on his tiny features.

“What’s that face for, huh?” the blonde boy chuckles.

He inhales once and answers his own question.

The two of you wear similar looks of vague disgust at the baby’s obviously full diaper. You pass the full-bellied boy off to his uncle. “Here you go…” you mutter, half-strained as you hold your breath.

“Oh, god…” Johnny huffs in response, keeping Franklin at arm’s length as he rushes down the hall and towards the nursery. He hears your pretty laughter following him as he goes.

“I owe you one!”

Franklin’s nursery overlooks the Manhattan city skyline. The floor-to-ceiling window makes stars out of the yellow-lit buildings sparkling outside, like a personal nightlight for the sleeping baby.

You lean against the door frame while Johnny rocks his nephew in his arms. Your eyes follow his towering shadow as he paces the length of the dim, lamplight room. Franklin whines, trying hopelessly to fight his much-needed slumber. His attempts prove to be fruitless, though, when his uncle starts to sing.

“She told me, ‘Baby, when you race today, just take along my love with you…’” Johnny croons quietly, voice low and only slightly off-key. “‘And if you knew how much I love you, baby, nothing could go wrong with you…’”

Franklin doesn’t last long like that — not pressed to his uncle’s warm chest, swaying gently in his strong arms, listening to his most favorite song. Sleep lulls finally over him no more than a few minutes later, and Johnny makes the transfer into his crib with ease.

Franklin doesn’t move an inch when you slink out of the room with the baby monitor in tow. Johnny shuts the creaking door behind him, leaving it slightly ajar and exhaling a relieved breath he didn’t know he was holding.

You stand facing each other in the dim hallway, lit only by the kitchen light down the way. Half of your face is softened with dark shadows as you smile up at the boy. “You’re a real natural, you know that?”

“You are, too…” Johnny grins, pulling you closer by the belt loops of your skirt. Even in the dark, you can see the amused glimmer in his light eyes. “You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” he murmurs quietly.

The bridge of your nose scrunches in response. “That it’s really late, and we should probably eat something before we starve to death?”

The non-answer only makes him smile wider.

“Yeah, I think I could go for something to eat…” His voice trails as he ducks down for your neck. He presses a warm, wet kiss just over your pulse. Your knees threaten to buckle underneath you when his tongue darts out to taste the skin there.

“Johnny?” you sigh, eyes fluttered shut.

“Mhm?” he hums into your skin.

“You… are incorrigible—”

You push him away with a pair of half-hearted hands against his chest. Johnny wraps his fingers around your wrists to pull you gently back into him, anyway. His pink lips are noticeably rosier and slick with his spit when he asks, “How about we compromise, hm? I make you something to eat— without burning it this time, hopefully— and then you give me something to eat, too.”

You meet his smug grin with squinted eyes. “We’re supposed to be watching your nephew, Johnny—”

“He’s your nephew, too, you know? And he’s passed out until morning… The others won’t be back ’til then anyway, so…” He trails off with his brows raised in a playful look. “You owe me one, remember?”

You give in far quicker than Johnny expects.

“Well, then you better get to cookin’, fire-boy,” you monotone, poking him hard in the chest. “’Cause I’m not doing anything on an empty stomach.”

Johnny abides without question. It’s in his nature to obey you, and to keep you full — all in more ways than one.

So it’s only right that you keep your promise, too.

You christen the guest room on the Richards’ hall. Johnny tells you that Sue and Reed wouldn’t mind — that they’d much rather prefer it if you stayed on the same floor as Franklin, rather than a story above where your bedroom sits. You lie in the center of the foreign king-sized bed, as half-naked as the boy above you, while Johnny kisses down your body.

“I think they’d prefer it if we kept our hands to ourselves, actually,” you correct with a pretty laugh, staring down your body at the boy disappearing beneath the covers.

You run your fingers through his short, blonde locks when he presses a searing, wet kiss to your bare stomach. His warm fingers curl under the hem of your panties, sliding them slowly to the side.

“I mean, you are capable of that, aren’t you?”

Johnny’s mouth drools at the sight of your similarly weeping cunt, made of silk and honey. He looks at you from beneath his long lashes, blue eyes dark and dilated with lust. “Do you want me to be?” he murmurs lowly.

The warm breath of his whisper fans across your pussy. It clenches around nothing accordingly, waiting and pleading for his mouth.

You roll your eyes at him despite all that. “Get to work, fire-boy—”

His mouth latches immediately to your cunt. Your quip dissolves into a pitiful whimper when his tongue lolls over your clit. You keep one hand curled in his hair and the other gripping desperately at the silk sheets, trying fruitlessly to keep yourself tethered while Johnny sucks the sin from your body.

He kisses your pussy the way he would your mouth, tongue sloppy and languid against you. He makes a total mess of your thighs and his mouth and the bed sheets below you. His fingertips dig bruises into the plush skin as he laps at you, savoring the honey you leak for him.

He works until his jaw aches, until his neck burns from the harsh angle, until he feels your thighs trembling on either side of his face.

“I’m gonna cum” you squeak suddenly above him. Beneath his low grunts, which send gentle vibrations to your swollen clit, he hears you exhale pretty little whimpers for him. “Fuck, Johnny, I’m gonna cum—”

Johnny makes no mention of how quickly your orgasm finds you. There is no snide remark or smug brag from the silver-tongued boy. His lips just curl into a proud smile against the velvety lips of your cunt, right before his mouth wraps around your sensitive button. He sucks mercilessly there until your hips buck off the bed — until your pulsing hole drools for him and a choked-back scream rises and dies in your throat.

He kisses away the remains of your orgasm until you’re pushing him away. Then he rises to his knees above you — cheeks flushed, lips rosy, chin shining with your cum. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and leans down over you, blue eyes lidded and glazed over.

“God, baby, I need to fuck you,” he slurs in a low murmur.

You smile deliriously at the ceiling when his mouth locks on your pulse point. His teeth graze over the skin there while you curl your arms around his neck. “Watching me with a baby got you this worked up, huh?” you tease — though judging by the swiftness of your previous orgasm, you’re hardly in a position to talk.

“You get me worked up all the time,” Johnny mumbles into your skin, before dragging his tongue over the bite mark blooming on your neck. “You’re gonna be the death of me at this rate—”

You hardly get a breath in before Johnny’s kissing the air from your lungs, licking fervently into your parted mouth. You taste yourself on his tongue, a foreign sort of salty-sweetness stained on his lips. With his elbows propped on either side of your head, he cages you beneath the weight of his hungry mouth and golden body. Your nails dig into his freckled shoulders to pull him impossibly closer.

He grumbles a dramatic groan of disappointment against you a second later. Your swollen, spit-slick mouths part with a quiet smack.

“Shit…” Johnny huffs. “I left my wallet in the living room—”

Your legs wrap around his slim waist when he threatens to roll off of you. His pinched look of confusion is met with your devilish grin.

“I— I gotta get a condom, babe…” he stammers.

“You can’t exactly fuck a baby into me with a condom on, can you, Johnny?” you lilt with an air of feigned innocence, fingers twirling at the blonde curls at the nape of his neck.

Johnny huffs, like your words have physically knocked the breath out of him. He exhales hard through his nose as his lips quirk into a love-drunk smile. “See what I mean? You’re gonna kill me, baby—”

He’s kissing you again before he can properly get the words out, fueled with a primal sort of hunger that makes not touching your borderline unbearable.

It’s all tongue and teeth. Sloppy and nothing short of ravenous. He bothers not to drag his underwear down his legs, lest he have to part from you for more than a moment. Instead, he tucks the hem of them under his balls before jerking his stiff cock in his fist.

“Want this?” Johnny pants against your mouth. “Want me to fuck you?”

You nod wordlessly, throwing your head back when he drags the weeping, strawberry tip of his cock over your glimmering pussy.

He smiles crookedly down at you as he presses, “Need to hear you say it, baby, c’mon.”

“Fuck me, Johnny,” you plead in a breathless whisper, head back and eyes shut. “Fuck me, Johnny, please—”

And Johnny does what he always does. He obeys you without question, sliding within the velvety walls of your shuddering cunt with a practiced sort of precision.

You share sharply inhaled breaths when he’s sheathed fully inside of you — balls pressed to your ass, coarse thatch of hair above his cock grating your soft clit. His thrusts are painfully languid, and measured in a way that drives you wild.

“Please, go faster,” you beg against the shell of his ear. “Please. I need it…”

He shushes you gently. “Just let me make you feel good, baby…” he slurs into your neck. “Let me hit that spot…”

He rocks his hips, tilting them slowly forward until he hits somewhere deep inside of you. Only when you make a pretty noise for him does he creep back out again. He never pulls all the way out of you, just keeps your hips caged beneath his own until the pressure on your clit makes you keen.

You wrap your legs around his hips with a choked-back whimper, heels crossed and digging into the base of his spine. Your cunt suckles him further inside as the angle shifts. Johnny grumbles a moan into your neck.

“Oh, yeah— There you go…” Johnny praises, tucking his fingers into the curve of your waist as he sits back on his haunches.

His golden wedding band presses against your burning skin and glitters in the low lamplight. Yours does the same, small diamond glinting where you fist at the silk sheets.

The measured, unhurried rocking of his hips never ceases. A feeble whine sounds in your throat. His praise makes you as dizzy as his cock, and he knows it. “Yeah? You like that?” Johnny grins.

You nod, hair wild on the pillow.

“What happened to all that mouth you had before, huh?” Johnny pants, smiling deliriously at your fucked-out face. “You don’t have anything else to say? Huh?”

You only moan in response. He knows you don’t have the words to answer him. He knows he’s fucking you far too stupid for any of that.

“No…. You just wanna cum, don’t you? Want me to fuck a baby into you?” Johnny continues to tease despite his own breathlessness. You nod again, pussy fluttering around his twitching cock. He has to remind himself to breathe. “Then cum for me.”

The thread at the pit of your stomach snaps at his permission. Your body tenses underneath him — legs trembling around his hips, nails digging crescent shapes in his shoulders. There’s a fleeting moment of numbness when your cunt clenches tightly around him. It ebbs into a more blinding, white-hot pleasure a second later when you cum for him, leaking around his cock and onto the bed sheets below you.

Johnny’s not far behind.

You watch his orgasm roll over him through fluttering lashes. His jaw clenches, his neck tenses, his flushed chest heaves with heavy breaths.

He always talks a big game when he gets you all sweet and pliable underneath him. He likes to play dominant from time to time, likes the rare moments when he gets to tear you apart. But when his own orgasm crawls up his spine, he loses all of that bawdy confidence from before and leans back over you again.

Johnny cages you beneath his warm weight and the mattress while his thrusts go messy and erratic. He buries each of his pathetic whines and whimpers into your sweat-slick shoulder, babbling a string of nothingness in your ear.

“Fuck, honey. Oh, fuck— I’m gonna cum— Gonna fuck a baby into you— Shit—”

He punches into you once, hard, and then stills suddenly over your body. His cock jerks within your pulsing confines, spitting three ropes of warm cum inside you. Johnny trembles through every single one of them, slow to relax on top of you.

His golden body, radiating with heat and hunger, softens over yours in time with his sensitive cock. You lay like that for several long moments — sweaty bodies twisted in the sheets, pressed and melting together. The quiet bedroom fills with the sound of your heavy breaths.

“We’re gonna have to wake up early to wash the sheets before they get back,” you whisper to him, breaking the honeyed silence.

Johnny nods against your shoulder until the words catch up to him. “I know…” he sighs.

He rolls off of your body and dissolves onto the mattress below. You waste little time leaving it, mourning his warmth as you squirm out from under the sheets and out of bed. You disappear into the adjoining bathroom, careful to keep your thighs together on the way there to prevent making a bigger mess than you already have.

You spend a few minutes cleaning yourself up, then return to the dim bedroom to toss Johnny a fresh rag for himself.

He wipe your slick away from his stomach, thighs, and still-sensitive cock, while you drag your panties up your legs. He flashes you a shy smirk across the bedroom and pulls his own underwear back over his hips. “Think it took?”

You shrug and pluck his t-shirt from the floor to drape it over your bare body. It just barely covers your ass. “I don’t know… Maybe.”

Johnny props his weight on his arms, sheets still twisted around his waist. His blonde locks are wild from your fingers as he blinks the remnants of bleary pleasure from his glassy ocean eyes.

“We can always keep trying if it doesn’t. We aren’t in a rush… Right?”

“Yeah…” you hum with a quiet grin, eyes glinting with mischief as you take slow steps his way. Johnny throws his legs over the edge of the bed, and you stand between his scruffy thighs. You drag your palms over his burning chest and hum, “The trying part’s pretty fun, actually…”

“You’re telling me,” he scoffs, obediently lifting his chin when you lean down to kiss him.

Your lips lock in something much more chaste and innocuous than before. Until a cry crackles from the baby monitor on the nightstand, anyway. It’s a garbled sort of whine at first, like Franklin’s just annoyed at having woken himself up. Then it turns into a full-blown wail the second he realizes he’s alone.

Neither of you says a word as you part from each other, leaving the sanctuary of the golden-lit bedroom to tend to the crying baby.

You head straight for the nursery while Johnny migrates to the kitchen. He retrieves another packet of milk from the freezer and heats it in his palm, all in practiced motions. He returns to you and his nephew with a fresh bottle in tow and finds you rocking the fussing boy in your arms.

He can’t shake the feeling that he’s looking at his future in the flesh.

Franklin takes to the bottle immediately when you give it to him, suckling at the milk like it’s the first and last time he’ll ever get to do it. You keep it angled for him with one arm and cradle him in the other. Johnny stands at your side and wraps his strong, golden ones around you. He keeps you pressed to his warmth as he sways you gently back and forth.

“I hope my sister knows she’s never getting this baby back,” he quips with his cheek pressed to your hair. Your giggling fills the dimly lit nursery, and he grins. “I mean it, babe. He’s ours now.”

You turn your head to flash him an amused look, eyes laced with a quiet sort of exhaustion. “You’re crazy, Johnny Storm, you know that?”

“Crazy for you…” he croons before pressing a smacking kiss to your flushed cheek.

Your subsequent laughter paints the lamplit room in flaxen shades of gold. Something about it pierces him deep in the chest. He loves you so much it hurts.

“How am I supposed to ever give this up, huh?”

“Well, we’ll have our own one day, right?” you ask him, smiling reminiscently at a memory that hasn’t yet happened. “We’ll give Franklin a cousin to run around with… And another baby to annoy Ben all the time.”

Johnny laughs at the thought of your baby climbing over the towering man like a jungle gym, the same way Franklin does. You feel the vibration of his chuckling against your arm. “The big softie,” he scoffs.

You cage your bottom lip between your teeth as you look at the blonde boy behind you. Your eyes go all squishy around the edges as they scan over his features, almost like you’re trying to memorize them.

“I hope our baby looks like you…” you confess in a honeyed whisper.

Johnny warms at the sincerity but hisses through his teeth all the same. “Well, now we’re in a dilemma, honey— ‘Cause I want a baby that looks like you. So… Now what?”

You shrug with a sardonic smile. “Guess that means we just have to keep trying until we get one of each, then, huh?” you lilt, all sarcastic and knowing in a way that makes him grin.

“Dammit, you read my mind.”

This picturesque moment was permanent in your mind- your painted toenails on the dashboard, arm whipping in the wind as it rested out the window- vocal cords nearly fried from screaming along to some cheesy rock song with your boyfriend.

“How am I supposed to keep my eyes on the road when you look that damn good?” he teased, flashing you a flirty little smile, making you giggle.

You shuffled in your seat, the leather sticking slightly to your thighs as you sprawled across the gear shift consul, tracing a finger across Dean's jawline, nipping at the clean shaven skin- making him shudder.

“You keep doin that, we're gonna crash god dammit you.” he groaned, letting you wrap your hands around his arm, resting your head on the muscle.

“You wouldn't.” you smirked, playfully wrapping your lips around your straw, taking another big gulp of the slushed ice- the chill shooting straight up to your brain, making it fuzzy. Or maybe that was Dean, and the way he kept looking over at you, tongue darting out to wet his bottom lip- eyeing you up and down.

“You’re right I wouldn't. But you’re makin it harder n harder to focus sweet thing. Sit down n be good.” he teased as you snuggled up, getting comfy on your new pillow as you let the dust kick up behind the wheels.

It wasn't long before the reds, whites and blues of the American flag captured your attention at a local highschool- empty for the summer. There was only Dean's Impala in this rundown parking lot, facing the empty football field.

You stretched, uncurling yourself from the passenger side as Dean got out, slamming the door behind him. “Just gotta grab some water sweetheart. I’ll be one second.” he said, nodding over to the near empty convenience store that was just beside the school.

“Can you get me a soda?” you asked as he walked over to you, pinning you up against the car door and gave you a soft, needy kiss.

“Course baby. Jus stay pretty n right there, kay?” You nodded, watching him jog over, your eyes slithering over to the empty field.

The old wooden bleachers were slightly faded, some cracks starting to form at the ends. It looked so pretty as the sun started to set, tinting it a gentle pink. Your hands went up to start to play with your hair, twirling the ends around a manicured finger as Dean quickly started to walk over, two drinks in hand. It was so nice out here, you almost wanted to stay.

By the time Dean had returned, setting the drinks on the hood of the car, your mind was made up. He barely had time to react before you bolted, hopping over the fence and sprinting onto the empty field.

“Hey!” You heard Dean call behind you, sending you into a fit of giggles as he sprinted after you, long legs watching strides with yours.

You whipped your head around, hair blown across your face as he caught up with you, arms wrapping around your middle. You shrieked as he brought you down to the grass, rolling over so you were pinned under him.

“I thought I told you to stay there?” he teased, squeezing your wrists gently above your head. You smiled confidently. “Well I stayed pretty.”

“That you did. Though that's not very difficult for you, is it? You just can't sit still.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Can too.”

He scoffed, eyes widening in surprise. “Can too? Do you see the predicament we’re in right now? We’re sprawled out in some football field like we’re teenagers.” He rolled off you, so he lay beside you, hand in yours.

The two of you gazed up at the pink and orange clouds that rolled past, and you couldn't help but smile at nothing, like some love sick idiot. He did make you feel like you were a teenager again, with some deep rooted crush on the cool kid.

“That's a good thing, silly. Having this young love with you, it makes me feel… whole.” you said, turning your head so you could look at him- take him in fully, imprinting a sketch of him in your mind.

He was so beautiful it hurt. Like Lucifer, before he had fallen. He mirrored your expression, eyes full of love- smile beaming as bright as the stars and the spangles that flapped in the wind.

“You make me feel whole.” he replied, squeezing your hand in reassurance. “You are my home sweetheart. Wherever you go, I go. On the other side of the country, or chasing you into football fields.”

ﾟ*☆*ﾟﾟ*☆*ﾟﾟ*☆*ﾟﾟ*☆*ﾟﾟ*☆*ﾟﾟ*☆*ﾟﾟ*☆*ﾟﾟ*☆*ﾟ

It was dark by the time the two of you made it out of the little town you had stopped in, too preoccupied with making out to realize the sun had barely had any light left to give the two of you.

The old street lights flickered on, as you two sped past the old store, firewood tarps fluttering in the breeze. It wasn't long before you had become too needy, too touchy for him to not do anything about it.

He couldn't keep his attention on the road any longer with the way you kept biting your lip, whispering sweet nothings into his ear, letting his hand wander across your thigh, up towards where you needed him most.

A little side clearing had been your save and grace, and without a warning he spun into the opening. The car was put into park, the key pulled from the ignition before you could process what was happening- but your body knew.

“Baby…” he growled as you reached your hand over, squeezing his thigh softly.

A glint in your eye. He knew that look. He knew what came after it.

“You’ve let your hands wander quite a bit tonight, don't you think?” he asked, a chuckle leaving his lipsas you battered your eyelashes, all doe eyed and innocent appearing.

“I don't know what youre talking about Dean.”

His eyebrows raised, clearly amused at your games. You wouldn't have the upper hand for long. You both knew that.

“Hmm. I’m sure you don't sweetheart. Don't you think its my turn now?”

You tilted your head, in confusion. “Your turn to what Dean?”

He smirked. Leaned in a little closer, until his breath warmed your chilled skin, teeth nearly nipping at your shoulder as he spoke. Sinking into you with his dog teeth.

“My turn to touch.”

You swallowed. “Touch how?”

You knew how. Fuck, the two of you were teasing eachother like horny teenagers who snuck off in the middle of the night to fuck- but had to fill that sexual tension on the drive over with something to pretend the deed was innocent.

But the tension was too good to let go of. You wanted to hold on, just a little longer.

“Why don't you crawl that pretty lil ass of yours to the back and I can show you?” he murmured, planting a kiss to your shoulder, eyes flickering up to meet yours- following the rise and fall of your quickend breath.

“You started this sweetheart. You’re gettin exactly what you wanted, so don't go actin all miss innocent like you weren't begging for this. I ain't dumb.”

You scurried to unbuckle yourself, wiggling ontop of the console,- feeling a smack to your ass. You squealed, tumbling back until you lay sprawled in the back, thighs rubbing with anticipation as you watched Dean get out and open the back door.

In no more than a second he pounced on you. Pinning your arms above your head, letting you try and squirm, bucking your hips up into him.

“Baby…” he tsked, clucking his tongue as if he were scolding a child, gripping your wrists tighter as you still squirmed. “Enough of that. Let me have my fun.” he cooed, smacking your cheek softly before squeezing your cheeks together as he held your jaw firm, making you look at him with wide eyes.

“Want you now.” you pouted. He sighed.

“Now sweetheart, y’know I can't let you yet, right? You were teasin me, so now its only fair I do the same.”

You sighed, putting up a little bit more of a fight before he gave you another gentle smack, making your brain turn all foggy. You went limp as his fingers traced little circles around your harded nipples that poked at him through the fabric of your flimsy tank top.

“But I need you.” you whined, trying to give your best puppy dog eyes, letting your forehead crinkle and your lip quiver. Sometimes if you looked sad enough, he felt bad and gave in. But it seemed like tonight, you’d be talking to a brick wall.

You had been too hansy with him, too bold when you teased. And now, you were getting the same treatment.

“Now you know how this works honey. Gonna let me touch you wherever I want, yeah? N’ your gonna be my good lil girl and take it.”

You nodded, letting out a squeak as he pinched your nipple, tugging on it.

“Words sweetheart. Or I’m gonna be a lot slower.”

“Yes Dean.” He nodded, satisfied with your answer, letting your wrists slip from his tight grasp- wanting both hands to explore each and every one of your curves.

Knowing you wouldnt squirm if you knew what was good for you. You were good that way.

His other hand came down to cup your other breast as he wrapped his lips around the other through the fabric, leaving a massive wet patch in his wake.

“S’all messy Deannnn..” you whined, bucking your hips again as he stared up at you with a hunger in his eyes, using his free hand to grab hold of your hip and pin it to the leather seat. Fingers digging into your skin so hard it was sure enough to leave a mark in its wake.

“My dirty girl likes messy. And she likes to get handsy, doesn't she?” You shook your head as he sucked again, making you moan and whine.

“Doesn't she sweetheart?”

“Yes Dean, I like when you’re messy…” you confessed, making him smirk.

“Gotta use your words for me honey, you gotta remember you're not the one in the drivers seat anymore.”

“Well I was never in the drivers seat-” your smartass words were cut off by a another pinch to your nipple- hard.

“Arms up girl. No more being smart with me.”

You quietly obeyed, lifting your arms and let him tug off your shirt. He eyed your jean shorts expectantly, his tone stern.

“Hips up.”

You watched with lustful eyes as he shimmed them off your legs, tossing them somewhere in the front with your shirt. You were bare before him- and yet, he remained fully clothed.

Was this how he felt as you pawed at him?

“See, that wasnt so hard now was it? You can listen baby, I know you’re a good girl. You just tease more than you should when I'm driving.” he cooed softly, something like a sympathetic frown etched on his face as he stroked the back of his hand across your cheek, letting it trail down to your bare breasts.

“M’sorry…”

“I know, I know. Gonna let me touch you to make me feel better?” he asked, and you nodded quickly. He smiled.

“Such a sweet girl…”

His hands traced their way down your curves, resting on your hips as he squeezed them gently. Then lower. Then lower. You squeezed your thighs together in anticipation, certain that you were already staining the seat beneath you with your juices.

“M’gonna touch you everywhere baby. Everywhere.” he promised, making you whimper as he kissed you deeply, tugging on your lower lip teasingly, kissing you until your lipgloss was smeared and your lips were swollen.

You let out a gasp as his hand slid between your thighs, parting them as he cupped you. Bare. Laid out, just for him.

“Everywhere..” you murmured as he smirked, the moonlight illuminating his green eyes- his blown out pupils.

He was hypotized by you. The way you responded to every touch, every flick of his finger, every lick of his tongue as he lapped at the bite marks that he left in your neck.

It was bliss, having you unravel for him, so easily. The two of you were nothing but free spirits in this world, on the run from problems that struggled to catch up, like a dog after the speeding wheels out the driveway.

Your eyes widened into little saucers, mouth parted in a gasp as he slipped two fingers into you, curling them ever so slightly. You reached for him, a hand gripping his bicep firmly, the other tugging strands of hair tight enough to hurt.

But instead of wincing- he moaned. “Fuck sweetheart d’that again. I wanna make you do that again.” he panted, hitting that sweet spot inside your walls that had you seeing stars- not from the sky above but with your eyes pinched closed.

“D-dean I need… I need more-” you begged- no, practically cried as he quickened his pace, thumb coming up to rub sweet little circles on your clit, as if he wasn't assaulting your pussy.

“I know sweetheart, I know. I’ll give her what she needs in a minute. Just let me have my turn.” he cooed gently, planting a kiss to the curve of your breast, letting it trail upwards towards your collarbones.

“Such a pretty pussy… you’re doin so good f’me sweetheart. Jus like that. Jus a little longer.” he promised.

And god if only you could believe him. Because knowing him- he needed the upper hand. And that meant your teasing had to be miniscule compared to his.

You’d be in for a long ride, and yet the Impala remained at a stand still in the cool, gentle whispers of the summer night.

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(Also me finding an outlet for my love of creating and ethel cain)