I dropped my sandwich

The fluorescent lights of the BAU bullpen always seemed a little too bright, but lately, they felt downright blinding to Spencer, specifically whenever you walked into the room.

You had only been with the team for three months, but you had slipped into the unit’s rhythm with an infuriatingly effortless grace. You were sharp, your profiling skills were precise and worse… you weren't remotely intimidated by him.

While other new agents usually blinked in dazed silence when he rattled off statistics at 180 words per minute, you just leaned back, smiled and countered with your own observations.

He should have liked that, he should have appreciated the intellectual challenge, instead it made a strange tight knot form in the center of his chest, and then there was the way you interacted with everyone else.

"Good morning goddess," your voice echoed lightly from the doorway of the tech office.

Spencer -who was currently sorting through a stack of geographic profiling data at his desk- went completely still. He didn't look up, but his eyes stopped tracking the words on the page.

"Oh stop it, you beautiful girl!" Penelope’s giggling squeal carried easily across the bullpen.

From the corner of his eye, Spencer watched as you leaned over Garcia’s desk, setting down a specific half caf caramel macchiato. You whispered something close to her ear, some private joke that made Penelope cover her mouth, blushing and swatted playfully at your arm.

You laughed, a low warm sound and let your fingers brush against Penelope's shoulder before stepping back.

Spencer’s grip tightens on his pen until his knuckles turned white. “It’s unprofessional,” he told himself, his mind furiously scrambling to find a logical analytical reason for the sudden hot spike of irritation in his gut. “The bullpen is a secure federal environment. Displaying that level of casual intimacy distracts from the psychological focus required for active cases.”

Except, it wasn't just Penelope.

Later that afternoon, Hotch called a roundtable briefing. The air was thick with tension as the team analyzed the timeline of a new unsub in Seattle.

"If we look at the victimology," you spoke up, sliding a crime scene photo across the smooth wood of the table, "the unsub isn't choosing targets based on geography, he's choosing them based on their routine. Emily, look at the transit schedules, they all use the same train line at exactly 6:15 PM."

Emily studied the file for a second, a slow nod forming. "She's right, it accounts for the three day gap between the second and third abductions. Good catch!"

"Just following your lead," you replied smoothly. As Emily looked up, you caught her eye and gave her a deliberate playful wink.

Spencer’s breath hitched, his eyes darted from you to Emily, his brain short circuiting so violently he completely lost his train of thought. A heavy suffocating weight settled in his stomach. "Why did you do that? Why did you look at her like that?”

When the meeting was over, the team dispersed back to their desks. Spencer intentionally lingered by the coffee maker, his posture stiff, eyes fixed on the dark liquid dripping into the pot. He heard your footsteps before he saw you.

You walked up to the bullpen lounge, standing right next to Emily as she filed a report. You said something low, laughing and reached out to casually touch Emily’s forearm, just a brief lingering pressure of your hand against her sleeve.

Spencer didn't even realize he was staring until you suddenly turned your head and caught him.

The warmth in your expression vanished instantly, replaced by a cautious guarded look. The contrast was agonizing, with Penelope and Emily you were bright, tactile and radiant but with him, you were walking on eggshells.

"Am I disrupting your focus Dr. Reid?" You asked, your tone completely dropping the playful edge it had just had a second ago.

Spencer cleared his throat, his chest tightening as his social anxiety spiked, locking his muscles in place. He wanted to say something normal, he wanted to be a part of the casual ease you shared with everyone else, but the sheer terror of rejection -the crushing certainty that you would never look at him with that kind of warmth- made him freeze.

So he did what he always did, he built a wall of academic formality.

"The human brain requires sustained focus to process complex behavioral patterns," Spencer said, his voice clipped, cool and entirely detached. He didn't look you in the eye as he grabbed his mug. "Superfluous socializing in the workspace statistically reduces cognitive efficiency by 23%. So yes, it is distracting."

He turned on his heel and walked straight back to his desk without waiting for your response, leaving a heavy frustrated silence in his wake.

He didn't see the way your jaw tightened or the hurt that flashed in your eyes before turning into pure irritation. He just sat at his desk, staring blankly at his paperwork, his mind screaming at him because he had done it again.

He had pushed you away, all because he couldn't handle the burning desperate jealousy of wanting that attention for himself.

By the following Friday, the tension between you and Spencer had stretched into a thin dangerous wire, ready to snap at the slightest touch.

For an entire week, he had barely looked at you. If you handed him a file, he took it without letting his fingers brush yours, if you spoke in a briefing, he stared fixedly at the whiteboard, his jaw clenched so tight the muscle ticked.

The breaking point arrived at 9:00 PM on the same Friday night.

The team had just returned from a brutal exhausting case in Seattle, the unsub was in custody, the paperwork was logged and the heavy oppressive cloud of the job finally lifted.

Instead of heading straight home, everyone clustered around the desks in the bullpen, loosening ties and kicking off heels, unwinding with a rare relaxed camaraderie.

JJ had brought out a bottle of whiskey someone had gifted Hotch and plastic cups were being passed around.

You were leaning against the edge of Emily’s desk, a cup in your hand, finally letting the exhaustion melt away. Emily was sitting in her rolling chair, laughing softly as Penelope recounted a ridiculous online dating horror story.

A few feet away, Spencer sat at his desk. He hadn't joined the circle, he was meticulously cleaning his satchel, pretending to be deeply engrossed in organizing his books, but his ears were entirely tuned to your frequency.

"I’m telling you, the guy said he had a coupon to a Michelin star restaurant and then asked if we could split the appetizer three ways," Penelope said, laughing and throwing her hands in the air.

"Oh absolutely not," you laughed, leaning down closer to the two of them. "See, this is why I don't bother with dating apps, the standard is entirely too low."

Emily looked up at you, a smirk playing on her lips. "And what exactly is your standard?"

You smiled, the dim light of the bullpen catching the playful glint in your eyes. You leaned in just a little further, your shoulder brushing comfortably against Emily’s as you looked between her and Penelope.

"Honestly? If I wasn't working here and if regulations didn't exist, I’d just ask one of you two out on a proper date," you teased, your voice dripping with an affectionate exaggerated drawl. "You're both brilliant, gorgeous and you actually know how to dress. I'd treat you like queens."

Penelope clutched her chest with a dramatic gasp. "Oh my heart! Don't tempt me sweet girl!"

Emily chuckled, shaking her head, leaning back into your space with an easy familiar warmth. "Careful, don't make promises you can't keep."

It was a joke, it was a harmless casual bullpen banter meant to lighten the mood after a week of tracking a monster, but to Spencer, it was the sound of a match striking a puddle of gasoline.

“A proper date.” The words bounced around his skull, mutating into something agonizing. His brain didn't process the teasing tone, it only processed the visualization of you holding Emily’s hand, of you taking Penelope out, of you looking at someone else with that soft open desire.

The proprietary suffocating jealousy that he had spent three months trying to cage suddenly tore free, it filled his chest until he couldn't draw a full breath, a hot toxic wave of adrenaline that made his fingers tremble.

He couldn't do this anymore, he couldn't sit here and pretend he was just an annoyed coworker when the truth was ripping him apart from the inside out.

With a sudden violent movement, Spencer jammed a book into his satchel, the heavy thud of the binder hitting the bottom of the bag cut through the laughter at Emily's desk.

You paused mid laugh, your eyes instinctively darting over to him.

Spencer stood up so fast his chair rolled back and slammed into the desk behind him. He didn't look down to adjust it, he just looked across the bullpen, his gaze locking directly onto yours.

For a fraction of a second, the mask of the detached genius dropped entirely, his hazel eyes were dark, burning with a raw chaotic mixture of hurt, anger and a desperate untamed hunger that made your breath hitch. It was a glare that stripped away all the polite distance he had built between you.

You froze, the smile dying on your lips, your heart suddenly hammering against your ribs. “What is he looking at me like that for?”

Before you could even think to say anything, Spencer ripped his satchel over his shoulder. He didn't say goodbye to Morgan, he didn't wish the team a good weekend, he turned on his heel and strode toward the doors of the bullpen.

"What's crawled up his edge tonight?" Emily muttered, frowning as she watched the empty hallway where Spencer had just vanished.

"Maybe he's just tired," Penelope offered softly, looking confused.

But you couldn't speak. You stared at the empty doorway, your fingers tightening around your plastic cup. That look, the sheer unadulterated fury and longing in Spencer’s eyes had left your skin tingling. You didn't know what it meant, but as you looked down at your hands, you realized you were shaking.

The streetlights of the city blurred into long bleeding streaks of amber against the windshield of Spencer’s old car. He had been driving aimlessly for hours, completely lost in a vicious looping spiral of his own thoughts.

He hadn't even realized it was already approaching 2:00 AM nor that he hadn't made a single move toward his own apartment. His hands were gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were completely bloodless, the leather casing groaning under the pressure.

His mind was a runaway train, a chaotic overlapping mess of statistics, psychological profiles and… your voice.

“If I wasn't working here... I’d ask one of you two out on a proper date.”

He pressed his foot harder onto the gas pedal, the engine whining in protest. “It’s a statistical anomaly for a team to maintain a cohesive environment when personal desires cross professional boundaries,” he reasoned, his brain working overtime to build a logical fortress around his breaking sanity. “She’s careless, she’s entirely unprofessional, she doesn't respect the psychological weight of this job if she can just stand there and throw around reckless flirtations like they mean nothing.”

He repeated the words like a mantra, trying to turn his blinding jealousy into a righteous clinical lecture on workplace protocol. But it was a lie, a desperate pathetic lie because every time he closed his eyes, he didn't see a violation of FBI guidelines, he just saw the slope of your shoulder brushing against Emily’s, he saw the warm easy smile you gave Penelope.

​He wanted to tear that smile away from them, he wanted to force you to look at him even if it was with hatred just so he could be the center of your universe for a single fleeting second.

The car jolted to a halt, but Spencer didn't pause. He didn't think, he didn't rationalize and he didn't formulate a single objection as the sheer momentum of his own thoughts took over entirely.

​Before his mind could formulate a single coherent objection, he was out of the car.

​Inside your place, you had just changed into an oversized shirt, trying to shake off the strange vibrating electricity that had settled under your skin ever since Spencer had fled the bullpen. You were just about to pour yourself a glass of water when a heavy frantic knocking rattled your front door.

You frowned, your heart instantly leaping into your throat. "A case? An emergency?"

You hurried over and pulled the door open and the words died in your throat. It was Spencer.

He looked entirely unraveled, the cool pristine meticulous Dr. Reid was completely gone, his long brown hair was wildly messy, falling into his face as if he’d been running his fingers through it over and over. His coat was open and his tie was completely loosened.

The top two buttons of his dress shirt undone to reveal the pale skin of his throat and he was breathing heavily, his chest rising and falling as if he had run up a flight of stairs.

"Spencer?" You breathed, staring at him in shock. "What... what are you doing here? It's 2:30 AM! Did we get a call? Is there a new case?"

"No," he said, his voice lower than usual, rough and vibrating with a dangerous unstable energy. He didn't ask to come in, he just took a commanding step forward, forcing you to step back into your entryway so he could slam the door shut behind him.

"Then what is wrong with you?" You asked, your voice rising as defensive instinct kicked in. "You look like you're losing your mind."

"I am losing my fuckin mind," he shot back, his hazel eyes locking onto yours with a terrifyingly sharp intensity. He began pacing the narrow hallway, his hands gesturing wildly, the academic persona returning like a clumsy shield. "I’m losing my mind because the operational integrity of our unit is being compromised and nobody else seems to notice or care. Your behavior tonight… your behavior every day directly violates basic professional protocol!"

You stared at him utterly bewildered before a hot spark of anger ignited in your chest. "My behavior? What the hell are you talking about?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about!" He snapped, spinning around to face you, stepping entirely too close. "The casual touching, the whispering, telling Emily and Garcia that you want to take them on a proper date in front of the entire bullpen! It's distracting, it’s reckless and it is entirely unprofessional!"

"Unprofessional?!" You yelled, taking a step right back into his space, your chest nearly brushing his. You had to tilt your head back to look him in the eye but you refused to back down. "It was a joke! We were winding down after a brutal case! Emily and Penelope are my friends. It's called bonding Spencer, it's called being a human being!"

"It’s a distraction!" He shouted, his voice cracking, a raw vein of pure emotion bleeding through his academic lecture.

"No you know what? I am sick of this!" You fired back, your voice shaking with months of built up frustration. All the cold shoulders, the clipped answers, the way he made you feel like a nuisance, it all boiled over. "You've been looking for an excuse to tear me down since the day I got here! Why do you hate me so much Spencer? What did I ever do to you?!"

"I don't hate you!" He roared, the sound tearing from his throat, echoing off the walls of your quiet apartment.

"Then why can't you even look at me?!" You screamed back, tears of sheer frustration stinging the corners of your eyes. "Why do you treat everyone else with kindness and treat me like shit?!"

"Because you don't look at me like that!" Spencer finally exploded. The words cut through the air like a knife, slicing the shouting match dead in its tracks.

He stopped breathing, his hands hovered in the air trembling, his chest heaving violently. His face was flushed, a deep dark red creeping up his neck to his cheekbones. The anger in his eyes suddenly shattered, leaving behind something so raw and so agonizingly vulnerable it made your knees go weak.

"You spend all day..." Spencer whispered, his voice cracking, the fierce mask completely gone as he looked down at you, totally exposed. "You spend all day laughing with Penelope… you tease Emily… you touch them… you smile at them… you look at them like they're the only people in the room, and you act like I'm completely invisible. You walk on eggshells around me, you drop your voice… you look at me like I’m something dead who doesn't feel anything."

Your jaw slacked, the blood in your veins turned to liquid fire as the puzzle pieces slammed together in your head. The coldness, the glaring, the meticulous avoidance… it wasn't hatred, it was never hatred.

He was losing his mind because he was desperately and agonizingly jealous.

The anger between you instantly shifted, morphing into a heavy thick breathless tension that made the air feel like velvet. The space between you suddenly felt charged with a magnetic pull so strong it was dizzying.

You looked at his trembling hands, then up at his mouth and finally back into his dark burning hazel eyes. Slowly and deliberately you took a step closer, the tips of your toes brushed against his. You could feel the heat radiating off his body.

"You think I want them Spencer?" Your voice was barely a whisper now, low and steady, your eyes locking onto his with a fierce intensity of your own. You reached out, your hand hesitating for a fraction of a second before you let your fingers brush against the loose fabric of his tie.

Spencer let out a shaky hitched breath, his eyes dropping to your lips.

"I was trying to get your attention," you murmured, looking up at him through your lashes. "I was loud and playful because it was the only time you would actually look up from your paperwork and notice I was in the room. I don't want them Spencer, I've been waiting for you."

"Fuck it," he rasped, his eyes dilated so wide the hazel almost vanished into black.

He reached out, his long fingers tangling fiercely into the hair at the back of your head, his other hand gripping your waist with a bruising possessive pressure and pulled you violently against him as his mouth crashed down onto yours.

It wasn't a gentle kiss, it was clumsy, desperate and completely feral.

A soft breathless whimper escaped your lips and the sound only seemed to drive him crazier. You wrapped your arms tightly around his neck, burying your fingers deep into his soft brown hair. You kissed him back with an equal starving hunger, your tongue sliding against his, tasting the dark intoxicating heat of pure desire.

Spencer groaned, a deep vibration that rumbled right into your chest. He staggered forward, completely blind to his surroundings, his lips never leaving yours for a single fraction of a second.

You backed up willingly, your legs tangling with his until the back of your knees hit the soft edge of your living room sofa. You tumbled backward onto the cushions and Spencer came down right on top of you, his heavy body a comforting solid weight.

You didn't want a single inch of space between you, you hooked your thighs around his hips and pulled him closer, guiding him until he sank down between your legs.

With a rough tug, Spencer gripped your hips and hoisted you upward, shifting his weight until you were completely straddling his lap.

The burning heavy heat of his thighs pressed directly against your bare skin, a searing contact that ignited the raw hunger he had been suppressing for months.

Without a second of hesitation, his large trembling hands slid down your waist, his palms dragging possessively over the exposed skin of your outer thighs, his long fingers digging firmly into your flesh, tracing upward until his hands molded perfectly to the burning heat of your bare hips.

The kiss became entirely unhinged, he was devouring you, his lips sliding from your mouth to bite at your bottom lip then instantly sucking it back in, his breathing so loud and ruined it filled the quiet apartment.

You arched your back into him, your hands moving from his hair to grip his broad shoulders, pulling his chest flush against yours as your hips tilted instinctively into his lap.

When he finally broke the kiss, it was only because his lungs were screaming for air. He dragged his mouth away, a thin wet silver thread breaking between your lips.

Both of you were completely breathless, your chests heaving violently against one another.

Spencer’s head dropped into the crook of your neck, his forehead resting against your collarbone as he sucked in a sharp ragged breath. His heart was hammering so fast against your ribs it felt like a trapped bird.

"You're..." Spencer panted, his voice completely wrecked, dropping an octave into a gravelly, breathless whisper. He pressed a hot wet kiss right beneath your jaw, his lips dragging against your sensitive skin, "...you are so incredibly... unprofessional."

A breathless euphoric laugh bubbled up from your throat, even now -completely unraveled and hard as a rock beneath you- his brain was trying to process it.

"Shut up Spencer," you murmured, tilting your head to the side to give him better access.

You reached down, your fingers catching the hem of his loosened dress shirt. You began tugging the buttons free, your hands trembling as you popped them out of their holes, wanting the barrier gone.

Spencer didn't help you, he was entirely consumed by the texture of your skin. As your hands worked the shirt open, exposing the pale smooth expanse of his chest, his mouth trailed down your neck, biting gently at the junction where your shoulder met your neck, making you gasp and arch into him.

His large hands kept running frantically up and down your bare thighs, his palms smooth but firm, bunching the oversized shirt higher and higher up your waist until there was absolutely nothing between his hands and your skin. He squeezed your thighs, lifting you slightly just to press his hips up against yours, a low needy growl escaping his throat when he felt how soft and completely bare you were for him.

"Look at me," you whispered, finally pushing his shirt off his shoulders, letting it pool around his elbows.

Spencer looked up, his face flushed a dark beautiful crimson, his eyes completely pitch black with blown out desire. He looked completely untamed.

You didn't give him a chance to speak, you leaned down and captured his lips again, smothering whatever academic thought was left in his head.

This time, the kisses became slower, heavier and agonizingly deep. You sucked on his top lip, soothing the sting with the tip of your tongue before he groaned and took over, pulling your upper lip into his mouth, tasting you over and over until your brain felt entirely fried.

"I need to touch every single inch of you," he rasped as he gripped the hem of your shirt. He violently yanked it up and over your head, throwing it carelessly onto the floor. Spencer’s breath caught completely, his hands trembling as he stared down at your bare skin under the dim light of the room. "Look at you… you're fuckin perfect."

He didn't wait a single second, he lunged back in, his mouth crashing not against your lips this time but against your jaw, his teeth scraping gently over your skin, leaving a wet trail down the column of your neck.

Your head fell back as the heavy friction of his mouth drove you absolutely crazy. You were so desperate for him to finally touch you below the waist, to end the agonizing ache that a wave of sheer physical frustration took over your body.

You tilted your hips blindly into his lap, your hands sliding down to frantically tug at his belt. "Spencer... please, no more waiting," you begged rawly, a tight sob catching in your throat as your fingers fumbled uselessly with his clothes. "I can't take this... please just fuck me... I need you inside-"

Driven by his own need to punish you more, his mouth dragged lower. Spencer caught your nipple between his lips and sucked deep and hard, his tongue swirling around the sensitive peak before pulling it into the heat of his mouth.

A loud horny moan ripped from your lips, echoing off the quiet walls of your apartment. Your head fell back, your fingers tangling frantically in his messy brown hair, pulling him closer to your chest.

The sheer intense friction of his tongue sent a violent jolt of electricity straight between your thighs, making you tilt your hips instinctively against his covered lap.

He switched to the other breast, lashing his tongue over the peak, sucking until you were shaking beneath him, whimpering his name like a prayer. He broke the contact by barely an inch, his chest heaving as he fought for air.

"You like that baby?" He panted, his voice a dark gravelly rasp you had never heard from him before. "Tell me… do you like it when I touch you like this? When I bite you?"

"Yes!... Fuck yes Spencer… please," you sobbed out, your hands sliding down to his chest, feeling his heart hammering at a dangerous rapid fire speed. “I need you… I need you right now… ple-”

The admission seemed to break whatever thread of sanity he had left. Before you could even finish the word, Spencer leaned up, his large hands anchoring your jaw as he violently pulled you down into a crushing desperate kiss.

The thought of how much time they had wasted, how many days he had spent glaring at paperwork while his mind secretly simulated the exact texture of your skin turned into a rough unforgiving urgency.

He dragged his lips away by barely a millimeter, his chest heaving violently as he gripped your face, keeping you entirely pinned to his mouth.

"Three months," he muttered against your lips, his voice tight with an agonizing mixture of fury and need. "Three months of looking at you... of watching you touch everyone else and losing my mind... we wasted so much time."

He didn't give a fuck about fully undressing, the desperation was entirely too high for perfect positioning. With a trembling feral hand, Spencer reached down and violently ripped his belt open, his fingers fumbling with a manic breathless urgency at his zipper just enough to shove his trousers down past his heavy thighs, finally freeing his massive aching length.

It snapped out between you, violently hard, thick and dripping with a heavy coat of precum that smeared instantly against your skin, throbbing like a live wire as it pressed directly against your soaking wet, dripping cunt and a fractured breathless gasp caught in your throat.

Spencer gripped your bare waist with a brutal bruising hold, his fingers sinking deep into your flesh to anchor you. He hoisted your hips up slightly, his chest heaving violently as he forced you to look right into his blown out eyes, letting you see the absolute depraved ruin you had made of his sanity.

"You're mine," he growled, the primitive dirty declaration vibrating right against your mouth. "No one else touches you like this… no one else gets you this fuckin wet."

"Yes... ahh!~... fuck yes," you wailed breathlessly, blindly grinding your soaking wet, dripping entrance up against his hard length, practically begging for the stretch."Please Spencer... now... put it in!"

With a sudden violent downward yank of his hands, he slammed your hips down, completely burying his entire length inside you in one deep brutal thrust.

The sheer shock of it made your eyes snap wide, a loud high pitched scream of pure pleasure tore from your throat but Spencer was already leaning up, capturing your mouth in another heavy bruising kiss that smothered the sound, his tongue forcing its way past your lips to match the sudden violent movement of his hips.

"Fuck… you're so tight," Spencer groaned directly into your mouth, his tongue sliding wetly against yours as his hands anchored your hips. His fingers dug into your waist and with a ruthless heavy heave of his arms, he began physically lifting your body up his length and slamming you back down.

The friction was overwhelming, the combination of his rough heavy pacing, the coarse fabric of his pushed down pants rubbing against your bare thighs and the intense deep stretch of him hitting your sweet spot was too much for your senses to handle.

You let out a broken needy wail, your hands abandoning his shoulders to clutch at his face, your fingers tangling desperately in his hair as you pulled him down into a frantic sloppy kiss. You were completely unraveled, swallowing his hot spit, your mouth working against his as frantically as your hips were rolling against his lap.

Spencer was completely unraveled, hoisting you up and down in a fast punishing cadence. He kept his mouth locked to yours, bruising your lips, swallowing your ragged gasps as he pounded up into you. He could feel how incredibly hot and slick you were, the tight walls of your cunt clamping down around him with every hard thrust.

"Spencer!... I'm… ahh fuck~..." you whimpered, breaking the kiss, your head tossing back as your vision went completely blurry. Your internal muscles violently clamped around him, contracting in a sudden shattering orgasm that rippled through your entire body.

"Fuckin look at you," he growled, his voice dropping into a filthy gravelly rasp as he watched your face twist with pleasure. "You like having my cock inside you don't you? Tell me how good it feels to take it… tell me you're my good whore."

"Spencer… fuck yeah~… I'm yours… nghh~... please… I love it," you sobbed out, your mind entirely short circuited by the high of the orgasm. You couldn't even think straight, you were just blindly rolling your hips against his lap, begging for more of the friction. "I’m yours Spencer... please... cum for me… inside me please..."

The desperate undone admission shattered the very last of his sanity, his hands gripped your waist with a brutal trembling pressure, slamming his pelvis flush against yours as he rode the wave.

"You're a fuckin drug," he choked out, his fingers bruising your waist as he delivered three more deep frantic, incredibly rough thrusts, burying himself to the absolute hilt before a loud deep sound of pure surrender tore from his chest.

His body went completely rigid, his hips locking tightly against yours as he spilled himself deep inside you, his hot length pulsing hard against your contracting walls as you both shook with the violent aftermath of a desperate long awaited release.

Spencer didn't pull out, he stayed buried deep inside you, his heavy forehead resting against your shoulder as his chest heaved, his heart slamming against your ribs.

"Good girl," Spencer panted rawly into your neck, his voice completely broken from the release. He squeezed your waist, pressing himself deeper into your heat. "Fuckin perfect... you took every single inch of me so good baby."

You couldn't even answer, you were slumped heavily against him, your breath hitching in little pathetic stutters. You were completely helpless to the throbbing ache of his thick length stretching you open from below, gravity keeping you sunk all the way down on him.

Spencer’s hands came up to clutch the back of your head, his fingers tangled in your hair as he pulled your face to his. He began kissing you again, not rough this time but incredibly wet, desperate and open mouthed, his tongue lazily sliding against yours, tasting you and your shared heat.

You kissed him back just as hard, your lips slippery against his, small whines escaping you every time his pulsing length twitched deep inside your stretched out core.

"Mmm... you're so mean to me," you whimpered tiredly against his lips, completely out of it as you loosely wrapped your arms around his neck. "You were taking so long... I was almost ready to give up and let someone else do it.”

"You think I'll let anyone else touch you?" He whispered roughly against your lips, his free hand tracing a slow heavy line over your hip and thigh, his touch making your internal muscles squeeze him so tightly that his thick length twitched hard deep inside you.

You just giggled as you pulled him back to kiss him deep. He let out a dark needy growl into your mouth, his hands gripping your waist to anchor you down.

"You're mine," he rasped, breaking the kiss just enough to look at you, his thumb sweeping across your bottom lip. "Every single inch of you is mine and nobody else is ever getting near you."

"Mhmm… I'm yours baby," you whined back, your lips slippery against his as you kissed him more, your hips trembling around his thick length. "I'm all yours... can we please go take a shower?"

"Oh, you think we're done?" Spencer let out a low gravelly chuckle, his eyes darkening as his fingers dug punishingly into your waist. "We're not going anywhere until you can barely stand up, let alone walk to the bathroom."

He was angry at how easily you had undone him, angry that he had spent weeks agonizing in silence while you possessed this total absolute power over his body.

Before you could even process the words, Spencer gripped your thighs tightly and shifted his weight, flipping you beneath him as he drove his body forward. He didn't pull out to move you, he kept himself buried to the hilt as he forced your body backward onto the sofa.

The sudden change in position made him shift inside you, his thick length grinding hard against a dangerously sensitive spot. You let out a sharp breathless gasp, your hands flying to his bare shoulders. "Spencer… wait… I'm…"

"No," he cut you off, his tone flat, unyielding and downright mean. He didn't want to wait, he didn't want to be clinical or polite. "You don't get to tell me to wait, not after making me wait for months.”

He leaned down, his mouth crashing onto yours to stifle your protests and immediately began to move. The pace had changed, it wasn't the frantic rushing scramble from before, it was a heavy, deliberate and deeply punishing rhythm.

He pulled back until he was almost entirely out, letting you feel the full agonizing width of him stretching your dripping entrance wide before slamming back down to the hilt with a loud wet slap of his pelvis, using his weight to pin your hips into the couch cushions.

"Spencer… AHH!~... Please…" You screamed into his mouth, your hands clawing at his back.

He didn't stop, he didn't even slow down. His jaw remained locked as he used his hands to angle your hips up, slamming directly into your sweet spot with a blunt heavy thud.

The sheer force shattered your control, sending a sudden blinding second orgasm rolling through your entire body.

"S-stop... please... Spencer… it’s too... too much!" You sobbed out, your voice breaking as you blindly tried to push at his chest, but even as the word left your lips, your hips instinctively rolled up to meet him, your voice turning into a desperate shriek. "Harder!... Please... harder... fuck... ah-ahh!~... I can't..."

"Make up your fuckin mind," Spencer growled, his breathing loud and completely unhinged as he pushed right through your climax. He maintained his hard unforgiving pace, anchoring your thighs to keep you pinned. "You want me to stop? You’re literally sobbing while your pathetic cunt is begging me for more."

"I'm sorry... ah!~... Spencer please!" You wailed, completely helpless as the pleasure held you under. Your hyper sensitized walls convulsed violently around him in erratic desperate waves, overflowing and coating his length.

He was pounding into you with a steady relentless force, his bare chest grinding roughly against your sensitive wet nipples with every single thrust, smearing your shared sweat between you.

The friction was too intense, your nerve endings -already raw and hyper sensitized- began to scream as a tight electric coil snapped awake in your lower stomach almost instantly. Your breath hitched before you started moaning incredibly loud, your voice echoing off the walls as your entire body shivered.

Feeling how close you already were again, Spencer let out a ragged groan, his mouth crashing back down onto yours to swallow your loud cries as he praised you.

"Good girl, such a needy little whore for me," he mumbled dirty and wet against your lips. "You're close yeah? I can feel you baby come on."

"Ah!~... Spencer... stop... I'm gonna..." You tore your mouth away from his, your head tossing violently against the couch cushion as your hands tried to push against his shoulders.

He didn't stop, he didn't even slow down. His jaw remained locked as he drove himself deeper, using his hands to angle your hips up so he could slam directly into your g-spot with a blunt heavy thud.

The sheer force of the impact shattered your control. Your overstimulated walls convulsed violently, clamping down around his cock like a vice as a sudden blinding second orgasm took over your entire body.

Your back arched completely off the couch, your toes curling as a loud high pitched sob ripped from your throat. Your internal muscles squeezed him in erratic desperate waves that had him groaning out loud against your lips, your cunt overflowing and soaking the cushions beneath you.

Spencer didn't give you a second to breathe. He felt your walls contract, felt the hot slick gush of your cum coating him and it only seemed to make him meaner. Instead of riding out your climax, he pushed right through it, maintaining his hard unforgiving pace and slamming into you while you were still actively cumming.

The friction of his thighs against yours, the heavy pressure of his chest, the relentless deep stretching of his length was an absolute sensory overload.

Your brain was screaming that it was too sensitive, that you couldn't take another friction rub without snapping, yet as your hands frantically gripped his wrists, you weren't pushing him away. Your fingers were clawing into his skin, your hips instinctively tilting upward to meet every punishing downstroke.

You were terrified of the intensity, but the primal desperate part of your brain was utterly addicted to it. You didn't want him to stop, you wanted him to destroy you with it.

“You… you can't get enough of it too yeah?” He whispered in your ear, his voice a dark rough taunt. He bit down on your skin hard enough to leave a deep bruise, his teeth scraping over your pulse point as he kept delivering bruising thrusts that squelched loudly against your overflowing wetness. "Don't tell me to stop when you're moaning and begging for more like a greedy little bitch."

He captured your lips again, his kiss much sloppier and wetter than before, his tongue sliding against yours with a bruising desperate hunger that tasted like your shared breath and sweat. He swallowed your whimpers, turning them into shared groans as he kept up the relentless punishing pace.

He was intentionally rubbing his pubic bone against your overstimulated clit with every single hard drive, driving you absolutely insane.

You let out a broken breathless wail, your hands flying up to grip the back of the couch as your vision went completely white. The overstimulation crossed a dangerous line, turning the excess of sensation into pure unadulterated ecstasy.

Before your body could even fully recover from the last climax, the violent rhythmic pounding dragged you right over the cliff again. This one was deeper, a total full body convulsion that made your hips shudder violently against his.

You went completely limp beneath him, your chest heaving as you cried out his name, your body totally wrecked and still shaking from the climax that wouldn't stop.

“You're so fuckin hot, you're destroying me," Spencer growled, his voice completely raw. He slowed his pace down to a brutal agonizingly slow crawl, dragging his thick length out to the very tip before buried it back in, deliberately making your orgasm last as long as possible. "You're such a good obedient whore… taking it so deep."

"Spencer... please... stop... too far... ah~..." you whimpered, your arms feeling like lead as you weakly tried to push at his chest. You were trying to tell him how good it felt but you were so exhausted that the words just came out as an incoherent slurred mess. "More… p-please…”

Spencer easily caught both of your wrists in one hand, bringing them up to his mouth to press a kiss against your pulsing skin. With a violent jerk, he pinned your hands flat against the cushions directly above your head. He didn't stop that slow torturing friction for a single second, leaning all his heavy weight down to kiss you again.

“You think this is over?” He growled darkly against your lips. "I’m going to ruin you for anyone else tonight… you’re gonna remember exactly who owns this body."

Before you could say a word, he shifted his body, crowding you completely on the narrow couch. He slid his forearm under your right thigh, roughly yanking it upward. The position forced your hips to tilt upward at an extreme, completely exposed angle, tightening your core until it felt like a vice around him.

"I… I can't… Spencer... please… I'm too… sensitive," you sobbed, your head tossing against the cushions, your pinned wrists twisting weakly in his iron grip. "It's too much… nghh~... I'm… I'm gonna…"

"Good," he cut you off brutally, not giving you a single second to adjust to the stretch, he accelerated instantly, unleashing a hard, fast and completely merciless pace.

The friction was monstrous, he was deliberately grinding against your hyper sensitized walls, completely deaf to the way you were weeping, entirely consumed by the primitive need to claim you completely.

He slammed his hips against yours over and over, his heavy weight pinning you down as his cock tore through your slick heat. He leaned down and crashed his mouth back onto yours, his tongue driving inside with heavy rhythmic force that matched his pelvis, swallowing your loud messy sobs.

The room filled with the loud wet slapping sound of his skin punishing yours, the pace so frantic it felt like he was trying to drill right through you. He kept that solid bruising rhythm going, letting the friction build heavily between you until your bodies were slick with sweat.

Gradually, Spencer let out a sharp ragged gasp into your mouth. He felt his own length swelling to the absolute limit, his balls tightening as the climax began to rush up on him.

He ripped his mouth away, his breathing completely unhinged as he grabbed your thighs, hoisting your legs way up over his shoulders. The new angle shifted his cock perfectly and when he slammed back down, he hit your g-spot with a blunt crushing thud.

"Ahhh!~... Spencer!" You shrieked, your eyes rolling back as the direct hit shattered you instantly. Your walls clamped around him like a violent vice, milking him in frantic desperate waves as a new hard orgasm tore through your body, soaking his thighs in a hot gush of your cum.

"Yeah… take it… fuckin cum for me baby," Spencer growled, his voice completely wrecked. Your tight convulsing walls were too much for him to hold back. He groaned out loud, his body going dead rigid as he came deep inside you. A massive thick release pulsing hard into your contracting core.

Instead of stopping, Spencer kept his hips grinding, forcing himself to keep moving in slow heavy friction filled thrusts. He dragged his length back and forth through your pulsing walls, intentionally prolonging the agonizing pleasure for both of you until your bodies were trembling uncontrollably.

Finally, his strength gave out. He collapsed completely over you, his heavy chest heaving violently against your breasts as he buried his face in your neck.

Using the absolute last bit of energy you had left, you weakly wrapped your arms around his broad back, holding him close as he moved to press slow lazy wet kisses against your lips, both of you tasting your shared heat.

When he finally shifted to pull out, a soft pathetic whimper escaped your throat at the cold ache of him leaving you empty. Your overstimulated muscles twitched in protest at the sudden loss of his thickness.

"I got you," Spencer murmured roughly, his voice soft now as he planted a gentle kiss on your forehead. He lingered there for a second, his thumb tenderly wiping away the tears on your cheek while his other hand stroked your tangled hair. "Don't move alright? Just rest... I'm right here."

He sat up on the edge of the sofa, panting heavily as he tiredly pulled his pants back up and fastened them, his shoulders still rising and falling as he tried to catch his breath. He didn't even care about his shirt, leaving his bare chest exposed as he leaned back over you, his arms sliding under your back and knees.

Spencer lifted you into his arms, your legs were so weak they felt like jelly, dropping helplessly over his forearms as he carried you out of the living room and into the small dimly lit bathroom.

He gently hoisted you up, setting you down on the cool smooth surface of the sink counter. The sudden contact with the porcelain made you shiver, your thighs parting slightly.

Spencer immediately stepped between your knees, crowding your space again but this time his movements were hyper gentle, almost reverent.

He reached over and grabbed a soft washcloth, turning on the faucet until the water ran warm. As he soaked the cloth, he leaned in, his lips pressing softly and repeatedly against your jawline and the sensitive skin of your neck.

"I'm so sorry," he murmured against your skin, his breath hitching. "I was just... I was so angry at myself and I lost control… I've never lost control like that. Did I hurt you? Please tell me I didn't hurt you."

You reached out, your trembling hands finding his bare shoulders, your fingers digging softly into his skin to pull him closer.

"Spencer, look at me," you whispered, your voice raspy and broken from screaming his name.

He looked up, his eyes wide, swimming with anxiety and regret.

You didn't let him speak, you leaned forward and captured his lips in a slow deep reassuring kiss. It was completely different from the bruising chaos on the couch, it was soft, wet and filled with a quiet reassurance.

You parted your lips, letting your tongue slide against his, tasting him, showing him with the gentle friction of your mouth that you weren't angry.

"You didn't hurt me," you breathed, a small exhausted smile tugging at the corner of your lips. "I loved it… every single second of it. Stop overthinking Spencer."

A shaky breathless laugh escaped his throat, the tension in his broad shoulders finally melting away as he pressed another soft kiss to your lips.

"I'm just an idiot who was terrified you'd never look at me," he mumbled, his voice dropping into a soft quiet tone before he caught himself. "But mostly... I just thought I lost you before I even really had you."

"Well, I'm here with you now," you murmured.

Spencer smiled, a genuine soft expression that reached his eyes. He squeezed the excess water from the warm cloth and with agonizing gentleness, he began to clean you. He wiped the dried sweat from your stomach, his hand slow and steady before moving between your thighs.

Every stroke of the warm cloth was tender, soothing the hyper sensitive throbbing ache between your legs with a care that made your heart swell.

As he cleaned you, he couldn't seem to stop touching you. His free hand rested firmly on your hip, his thumb rubbing small soothing circles into your skin right over the faint red marks his fingers had left earlier.

Every few seconds, he would lean up to plant a soft lingering kiss on your lips, your nose or your forehead as if he needed to constantly remind himself that you were actually here, holding onto him.

You leaned back against the bathroom mirror, your hands sliding up from his shoulders to tangle loosely in his messy hair.

"What are we going to do on Monday?" You asked softly -teasingly- as he tossed the cloth into the sink and wrapped his arms completely around your waist, burying his face in your chest.

Spencer groaned into your skin, his grip tightening possessively around you. "According to section 4, paragraph B of the FBI employee handbook, undisclosed romantic relationships between active field agents can result in reassignment," he muttered, his voice muffled against your skin before he looked up, a fierce unyielding look in his eyes. "But I don't care… I'll transfer to a different unit if I have to. I'm not letting you go."

You laughed softly, leaning down to press one final long kiss to his mouth. "Let's figure that out later, right now… carry me to bed.”

Tag list: @maxsaturdayhatesnarwhals @hiddentattooodyssey

“Is Spencer hugging?” Emily says, staring at the two across the bar, the whole team doing the exact same unabashedly.

“The guy won’t even shake hands.” Penelope gasps, grabbing onto Derek’s arm.

“A woman?” Dereks brain almost short circuits at the sight. “I didn’t know he could do that.”

“Past lover?” Rossi questions, “We all have a past.”

They’re all still staring, watching your hand grip onto his forearm and the huge smile on Spencer’s face.

Penelope taps on Derek’s arm, “Go over!”

“Alright, alright.” He holds his hand up, shuffling out of the corner booth and striding over to the two of you at the bar. “So, Pretty boy, you going to introduce me?”

“Pretty boy?” The shit eating grin on your face is apparent as you stare at Spencer and he turns a lovely shade of pink.

“This is Agent Derek Morgan.” He introduces and you hold a hand out to shake. He does, it’s firm. “And over there gawking is the rest of my team.” He points over your shoulder to the people who you had heard doubling over in laughter earlier. They all dart their eyes away, pretending to be engrossed in another conversation.

“So how do you guys know each other?”

“Straight to the point, I like you.” You laugh at Derek shaking your head. “We went to college together, well second college.”

“Are you another super genius?” He asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Ha! No I’m.” You start but Spencer cuts you off.

“Yes she is, she’s smarter than me.”

God, you’d missed those brown eyes.

“Umm, do you want to meet the team? I don’t think i’ll ever hear the end of it, if you don’t.” He rocks back on his heels nervously.

“Sure!” You agree, Derek walks in front of the two of you and you feel his hand on the small of your back, guiding you to the booth.

They all scoot up so you and Spencer sit on the end. “Sorry in advance.” He whispers into your ear and almost immediately you are met with a colourful hand.

“Hi I’m Penelope!” She’s all smiles and brightness as you reach out and grab her hand back. “Ooo! I love your nails, you’ve got to tell me where you get them done!”

“Derek Morgan, Penelope Garcia, Jennifer Jareau, Emily Prentiss, David Rossi and Aaron Hotchner.” Spencer lists, pointing around the table.

“Call me JJ.” The blonde says and locks eyes with the dark haired woman next to her, Emily.

“What do you do? As a job I mean.” Emily asks, sipping from her drink.

“It’s no where near as interesting as yours.” You chuckle, “I’m just a lawyer.” You shrug and also sip from your drink.

You can feel all of their eyes on you and you don’t even want to know how it feels to be interrogated as a suspect.

“What branch?” The man next to Spencer says, Aaron. “Also call me Hotch, everyone does. I used to be a prosecutor.”

“Property. Mainly closing on houses and making sure let agreements are fair.” You explain.

“She’s being humble, she’s about to own half of the lawfirm she’s working for.” Spencer interjects.

It was as if they were passing a ping pong ball between them with their eyes. All unable to go a second looking you in the eye before darting to another persons.

“You know for a bunch of people who read people for a living.” You start and you’re sure all of their head whip to you at once. “You’re really terrible at hiding what you’re thinking on your face.” You almost laugh. Spencer does.

“How do you guys know each other?” It spills from Penelope’s lips the second after you stop talking.

“We went to college together. Both did a chemistry PHD.” You explain, crossing one leg over the other.

“Another doctor!” She exclaims happily.

It continues that way for a while, bouncing questions around the group and buying rounds of cocktails and shots. They told you stories of their cases and that time Spencer got shot in the knee. You tell them stories from college and how you were there when he did his first ever shot of vodka, and how he threw it up right after. Hotch and Rossi go home then, leaving the “Young ones” to their fun.

“Soo.” JJ starts and you can tell Spencer shoots her a look but she’s too buzzed to care. But so was everyone. “Did you guys date in college?” There’s a smirk on her face, you choke on your drink and Spencer turns pink again.

“No!” The both of you exclaim at the same time. “Just friends.” It was a rehearsed play at this point, hearing it almost everyday as you both got your doctorates. Everyone asking when the two of you were going to get married and have super genius babies.

Another round of eye contact goes around them. “We’ve never seen him hug someone before.” Derek smirks, “He tells people it’s safer to kiss than shake hands.”

“Hey I’m sitting right here!” He complains, running his hands through his hair. It wasn’t slicked like it used to be, you liked the curls.

“I know that, was the first thing he said when he met me.” You smirk at Spencer, your shoulders bound as you chuckle and you can feel the alcohol hit your feet.

The team sends eachother a pointed look, but it’s Emily who opens her mouth, after taking the shots that Hotch and Dave had left behind. “So just fucking in college then.”

Now, you both turn the shade of red you had giggled at Spencer for earlier. You advert your eyes and bury your face into your shoulder. Spencer chokes on his beer, bringing his hand up to clear his throat.

“See the two of you can’t even deny it!” Penelope laughs, pointing at the two of you. “Even when he had that slicked hair and looked like a little sad puppy?” She gasps, now enquiring. Her green framed glasses slide down her nose and she pushes them up, both elbows on the table and leaning in.

You look at Spencer, he looks as if he wants to crawl out of his skin rather than talk about his past sex life with his coworkers.

“I didn’t always look like this.” You shrug, not wanting to make Spence any redder than he already was. “I was also a nerd.”

Then, JJ’s phone rings. She pulls out her phone, you can’t hear what she’s saying but you can tell that something isn’t right from the scrunch in her brow.

“Sorry guys, I’ve gotta run. Henry’s thrown up and is apparently coming down with a fever and he’s asking for me.” Her shoulders dip and she goes to shuffle out of the booth and everyone goes with her.

“Wait!” Emily calls before she can leave, “I’ll get an uber with you, those extra shots did me in.” She holds a hand up to her head for extra sympathy.

You almost roll your eyes.

They disappear out of the door, pulling you up for a hug before they left, promising to invite you to a girls night at some point in between cases.

Penelope and Derek wander off to the bar and jumping up to the bar seats, getting cozy under the yellow lights.

“Are they?” You ask Spencer, nudging his shoulder and hinting their way.

“None of us know.” He smiles. “They’re always flirting at work, Babygirl this, Chocolate thunder that.”

“Chocolate Thunder?” You widen your eyes.

“Once he got big black twelve pack.”

You can’t help but burst out laughing at that, tears pooling in the corner of your eyes and he laughs along. It was like how it used to be when you were in college and you’d tell him some horrific chemistry pun and he’d double over, holding his sides.

“I mean, they call you pretty boy.” You smile, eyes scanning over his face. The age looked good on him, so did the light facial hair and curls. You thought about how it would feel in between your-

He clicks his fingers in front of your face and you snap out of your daydream. The smirk on his face tells it all, his tongue flicking out to wet his bottom lip. “Do you remember,” His eyes flick over your shoulder to see Derek and Penelope gone, leaning in closer. “When we had that one chem final, by that horrible professor.”

“God that was gruelling, we both studied for like 30 hours straight before it. He hated us I swear.” You chuckle lightly, however it catches in your throat as one of his hands brushes the inside of your knee.

He’s closer now, and you can feel his breath on the shell of your ear. “And after the exam.” He kisses the crook of your jaw. “We went into that supply closet, and I ate you out for so long you couldn’t stand, and I had to hold you up as we fucked right there.”

You’re sure you were wetter than the river nile, panties 100% soaked through and you wouldn’t be surprised if there was a mark on the seat.

“Oh, I remember.”

The next thing you know his lips crash onto yours, big hands grasping the sides of your face and pulling you into him. He tasted exactly as you remembered, but with the beer he’d been drinking added. He was a man now, not the boy you used to know.

His tongue slips into your mouth and the moan you let out is far too loud for the public setting you’re in. Luckily, it’s drowned out by the soft jazz music playing through room.

“Do you want to get out of here? My place is free, I’ll get an uber.” You scramble up, grabbing your purse.

“My place is closer, like walking distance.” He says, wrapping an arm around your waist and guiding you out of the bar and down the road.

“Ok.” You feel the excitement coursing through your veins, making your fingers tingle and a skip in your step as you do the five minute walk to his apartment. You feel his hand snake down and to your ass and give it a hearty squeeze. “Hey!” You laugh and swat his hand away.

“I couldn’t help myself.” He kisses the top of your head and guides you up the stairs of his apartment, hand firmly planted on your ass again.

His apartment was exactly what you’d imagined. Book filled, all browns and greens and warm lights. Autumn personified. “Do you want a tour?” He’s behind you kissing down your neck.

“Mmm” You hum leaning onto his kisses. “Give me one in the morning.”

“Then I’ll show you the way to the bedroom.” He mumbles, guiding you forward into the bedroom, kicking the door closed behind him. The new facial hair covering his cheeks rubbing at your neck.

His room was the exact same as the rest of the apartment. Warm and cozy but it smelt of his cologne. It was suffocating.

His hands shake around your front, popping each button open. Fingers grazing the swell of your tits, then down nine soft skin of your torso. “Get on the bed.”

You almost squeal with excitement and crawl onto the bed, throwing your shirt onto the floor beside you. The way he crawls up you is almost predatory and you were sure you’re going to be eaten alive, not that you minded.

Fingers fiddle with the zip at the back of your pencil skirt, then yanking the whole thing down your legs and joining your shirt in the pile on the floor. “You wear these for me?” The lace of them is soft under the pads of his fingers.

“I didn’t even know you were in DC!” You laugh, bare calf resting on his shoulder exposed by his own shirt slipping off his shoulders.

“You wore these for someone else?” Spencer almost growls, roughly pulling them off you and throwing them behind him somewhere, the flash off black flying through your vision.

Opening your mouth to fend off his misplaced jealousy, his tongue licks a full stripe up you. Sucking your clit into his mouth and replacing your defence with a loud moan.

“You were saying?” He smirks and dives back into your pussy, eating you like he was a starved man.

“Spence, fuck!” You cry out, hand jutting to the sides, gripping his sheets and pulling them up with the arch of your back. His hand slides under your back and yanks you closer to his mouth, making you gasp and your toes curl desperately.

The fleeting thought crosses your mind, how did you ever let this go?

You felt like you were floating as his tongue circles your clit softly, and a constant string of whimpers pull from your chest then turn into a high pitched moan as you feel two fingers slip into you. You feel him smile against you.

Tongue lapping at you and fingers pumping in you make you feel transported to the edge of heaven, the pearly gates filtering in at the edge of your vision. You know he can tell you’re close by the way you’re squeezing his fingers like a vice and how your wetness is covering the entire bottom half of his face.

You can feel the scruff of his beard on your inner thighs, you felt like you were floating.

“Spencer!” You cry. A particularly harsh suck on your clit pushes you over the edge, hands darting down to his hair and yanking on his curls as he licks you through your orgasm.

The grin on his face says everything as he pulls up from you, popping his fingers into his mouth and licking them clean. “Better than I remember.”

“Shut up.” You glow red, chest heaving and staring at the ceiling as you recover. “Take your pants off.” You order.

He laughs as he pulls them off, and his boxers all in one go. His legs have more hair than they used to, he pulls his shirt off too. He’s toned, and God you just wanted to lick him.

“Another day.” He knows exactly what you’re thinking, clambering on top of you, the heat radiating off of him is intoxicating. “Are you clean?”

“Yeah and on the pill.”

There was one thing that hadn’t changed at all. He pushes into you and you feel transported back 15 years. He stretches you as he slides in, his head coming down to rest on your shoulder, groaning and placing a kiss on the top of your tit.

He stays there for a moment, the two of you adjusting to each other again.

“Please fuck me.” You whimper into his ear, teeth scraping at his ear.

Spencer starts to pump in and out of your pussy. Cock coming out all the way to the tip and then slamming into you roughly. A hand pulls one of your legs up, pushing it to your chest, making his cock plunge into you deeper. The squelch that echo’s around the room makes you bite your lip and cheeks turn pink. Each of his rough thrusts knock air out of you, a squeak coming with each one.

“I love this pussy.” He whispers into your ear, between groans and thrusts.

“Jesus.” You whisper out, feeling your brain melt out of your head.

The tip of his cock brushes against that spot inside of you that makes your eyes roll back into your head. His hands pull into your hair, fingers scratching at your scalp gently, it sends a cold shiver down your spine.

His lips press to yours, sealing them together and you feel his tongue swipe at your bottom lip. You give him respite, letting him in. His tongue slips onto your mouth and yours into his, it’s a light teasing fight between you. The pair of you are moaning into each others mouths, his thrusts never faltering.

Wrapping your legs up and around his waist and pulling him closer and deeper into you. “You’re so deep.” You whisper, then nipping at his bottom lip.

The pleasure you were in was indescribable, back arching up, pressing your chest against his. Hands grasping at his shoulders, they were bigger and more muscular than they used to be. Your nails dig in, scratching up his back leaving red scratch marks all over his back.

He was invading every single one of your senses, the smell of his cologne, skin and shampoo. The taste of him, in your mouth. All of his moans and whimpers close to your ears. However what you feel most is his cock pounding in and out of you, his pelvis nudging your clit and the weight of his body pressing on top of you.

You clench around him, eyebrows pulling together. “So-close.” You pant.

“Me.” Thrust. “Too.” You can tell by then way the rhythm falters and his hand comes down to rub your clit furiously.

“Oh fuck!” You scream, eyes rolling back and you tighten your hold around his back. A hot rush pulls through your body as you cum, thrusting yourself up on him.

He fucks you through it, whispering sweet nothings into your ear as your legs tremble. With one last clench you feel him let out a groan and release inside of you.

Resting his forehead against yours, you both burst out into laughter.

“I have a feeling I’m going to be sore tomorrow.” He shakes his head, pulling out of you and thumping down on the bed next to you. Neither make an effort to get dressed.

“Well we aren’t 23 anymore.” You snort, resting on his shoulder.

His tone is softer now, “How long have you been in DC?” He asks, a finger fiddling with your hair.

“Like three years.”

“Three years!” He exclaims, “Why did I not know you were here?”

“I didn’t want to get in the way of your life.” You shrug, “It looked like you had everything going good.”

“Let’s try it. For real this time.” He grabs your chin and turns your face to his. “We’re in the same city, at the same time. I’m about to go part time at the BAU, and start lecturing at GWU. And well I think we just proved the sex is still great. It’s fate.” You could melt into those eyes for the rest of your life.

“You don’t believe in fate.” You shake your head but you can’t hide the huge, beaming smile on your face.

“Let’s give it a go.”

a/n: sorry this is completely self indulgent lol, i miss my ex xxxx and he’s a munch (KILL ME). hope you enjoyed! i also don’t usually write for spencer so.. i hope it’s good! PLEASE REBLOG!!!!!

You are painfully aware of that but you don’t know where to start. You have friends, yes, but they are not friends you hang out with outside of the weaving looms. You are almost always alone, and while other girls had found their places among the hunters, practicing their war cries or vying for the attention of the said men, you found yourself hidden in the looms to enjoy the repetitive routine of weaving.

It’s not like you were the best weaver, too. You are not the best, not the worst either, just a girl whose hands were often stained with berry dyes and whose eyes were usually cast downward. It was safer that way. When you didn't look up, you didn't have to see the way the world seemed to orbit around people who weren't you.

A few feet away, leaning against a sturdy root, Neteyam sat silently. An elder weaver was currently binding a new leather guard to his forearm, and while he appeared to be focused on it, his ears were swiveled toward the elders' conversation.

He watched you.

Neteyam knew everyone in the clan. It was his duty as the future Olo'eyktan, but as he looked at you now, he realized he has never even heard you speak. He knew your name, he knew your family, but he couldn't recall the sound of your voice until that very moment. Your shy, quiet laughter brought a warm feeling to his chest for some reason, making him take a deep breath.

His mind drifted to Ka’ani. She was the finest huntress among their peers, just like him. And he’s always thought of a partnership much like the one his parents have. His father is a great warrior and so is his mother. To be a great leader is to stand beside a fearsome woman as well... And he thinks it’s Ka’ani.

But right now, she was becoming a challenge. She’s making him look like a fool, flitting from warrior to warrior to test his patience. She wanted him to chase her until he was exhausted, and Neteyam, the proud, capable, and unaccustomed to losing firstborn of the clan’s pillars, was reaching his breaking point. He was never fond of playing, but some games need strategy, too.

Neteyam’s gaze lingered on you. You were still working, your movements steady and humble, completely unaware of the weight of his stare. A slow, calculated thought began to take root in his mind.

“Finished, Neteyam,” the weaver said, patting his arm.

“Thank you,” Neteyam murmured. He stood up, taller and broader than most men.

Instead of heading back to where the warriors were gathering, he turned his steps toward the shadows. He walked with deliberate strides stopping right in front of your loom until his shadow blocked your light. “You’re doing that wrong.”

The voice startled you so badly that the bone needle slipped. “I—what?” you stammered, finally looking up.

Neteyam was standing over you. In the flickering firelight, his bioluminescent freckles were glowing like stars. “The weave,” he said, gesturing vaguely at the basket in your lap. “It’s too tight. It will snap when it dries.”

“The ones I did last moon were fine,” you murmured. You tried to look back down, to disappear into your work as you always did. “Is there something you need?”

Instead of answering, he sat. The movement was fluid, but there was a heaviness to it, sitting so close to you that his knee brushed against yours.

“I have a proposition for you, Y/N,” he said. His voice was low, dropping into a register that felt dangerously intimate. He knows your name?

You blinked, your insecurity rising up like a shield. “A proposition? Do you need help with the weaving?”

“No, no, I don’t,” he answered. “The elders speak the truth, you know,” he said, his voice a smooth baritone. “It would be a shame for you to be hidden in the dark.”

You finally looked up, your eyes wide. Neteyam wasn't looking at the fire, he was looking directly at you, and for the first time in your life, the Golden Son was smiling as if you were the only person in the clearing.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you breathed, your voice trembling.

He leaned in just an inch closer, his amber eyes sparking with a hidden intent. “Hear my proposition... It might just solve both our problems with the coming season.”

You swallowed hard, the dryness in your throat making it difficult to breathe. You were a weaver of threads, but sitting before you was practically the weaver of destinies in this clan. You know he could alter your life and he was looking at you with a terrifying amount of focus.

“Our... problems?“ you whispered, your fingers curling tightly around the bone needle. “I don’t have problems. And I don’t think someone like you have problems, Neteyam.”

He let out a short, huffed breath that might have been a laugh if his eyes weren't so sharp. “Everyone has a role to play. Sometimes, that role becomes... suffocating. My mother is already looking at the daughters of the council. She expects a match that strengthens the line. I’m thinking of Ka’ani. She’s the finest huntress my age.”

At the mention of her name, his jaw tightened. You remembered the last time you saw the girl. She was draped over the arm of a young warrior, her laughter loud and pointed, as if it was a performance, designed to reach the ears of a certain warrior. You remembered Neteyam standing in the training grounds then and everything clicked in your head.

“She wants a chase,” Neteyam continued, silencing your thoughts. “But I do not have the time for nonsensical games. And you... The elders say you are a shadow. That you will be left behind.”

“I am fine being a shadow,” you countered, though your voice lacked conviction. “It’s not complicated. I will have what comes and accept what doesn’t.”

“Shadows are lonely,” he said softly. “Be my partner. Not just for the ceremonies, but the communal meals as well. I will be with you. Let the clan see us, let them see you.”

Your heart gave a violent thud. You weren't a fool. You knew what this was. You were the girl no one would suspect he will actually notice, which made you the perfect weapon to make Ka’ani lose her mind with jealousy.

“You want me to be a decoy,” you said. “You want her to see you with me so she’ll get jealous. You want her to stop playing around.”

Neteyam didn't flinch at your bluntness. Instead, he reached out, his large hand covering yours where it rested on the loom. His skin was warm, his touch steady. “Correct. And in return, you will no longer be the girl the elders pity. You will be the woman everyone sees. When the season ends and the act is over, every hunter in this clan will finally know your name. You won't be a spinster, Y/N. I’ll make sure of that. You’ll have your pick of any man here.”

It was a cold, calculated trade. He will get the girl and you get a reputation and a way out of the shadows. He looked so sincere. You knew you should say no, you wouldn’t know how to act around him. But the thought of being someone for once, of walking through the village and not having people look through you, was a siren song you couldn't resist.

“What if I'm not a good actress?” you asked, your voice a mere breath.

Neteyam’s smile widened, but it didn't reach his eyes. It was the smile of a strategist who had just moved his final piece into place.

“Just sit by my side. I’ll do the rest.” he murmured, his thumb grazing your knuckles.

You took a shaky breath and nodded. “Okay. I'll do it.”

Neteyam squeezed your hand once, a seal of the contract, before standing up. He offered his hand to help you up, and when you took it, the world felt like it shifted on its axis. You were stepping out of the dark, and into a fire that you knew, eventually, would burn you to ash.

Neteyam is a meticulous director and it was very hard for you as an easily embarrassed person. Being seen isn’t even enough for him, the act had to be over the top! He wanted it to be undeniable.

“Chin up,” he whispered one afternoon. You were walking to the central clearing for the communal meal, his hand hovering over your waist. “You look like you’re walking to a funeral. Look at me. Smile.”

“It’s hard to smile when I feel like a piece of bait,” you murmured, keeping your eyes down, feeling at least a hundred eyes on you.

Neteyam let out a sharp breath. He stopped walking, maneuvering you to turn and face him. To anyone watching from a distance, it looked like a tender, private moment between lovers. Up close, his eyes were scanning the crowd, pinpointing exactly where Ka’ani was sitting with her friends.

“You agreed to this,” he reminded you, his voice low and firm. He reached out, his fingers tilting your chin upward. His touch was warm, but it lacked the softness you’d imagined his touch would have. It was the grip of a hunter holding a prized bow. “If you don't look happy, she’ll know it’s a ruse. Do you want the elders to go back to pitying you by tomorrow sun-up?”

The reminder of your own invisibility stung. You forced your lips to curve, a small, shaky smile that felt brittle. “Is this better?”

He studied your face for a beat too long, his thumb grazing your jawline. For a split second, his focus shifted from the crowd to the way your eyes searched his, but he shook it off quickly. “Better. Keep it there, hm?“

He led you toward the long tables. This was the stage. He made a show of picking out the best cuts of roasted meat for you, leaning in so close that his braids brushed against your shoulder. He was performative, ensuring the warriors nearby heard him.

“And since you’re starting a new tapestry,” he said, loud enough for Ka'ani to hear from across your table. He draped an arm over the back of your seating mat, effectively fencing you in. “I’d fly to the borders to get you fibers for it.”

You pursed your lips, lowering your head down to chuckle. “Your voice is too loud, Neteyam...“ you mumbled. “I’ll end up with busted ear drums by the time this is over.“

His own head lowered and angled toward you to catch what you’re saying, but it threw back as he let out a bark of genuine and deep laughter. You startled, your hand flying to his chest unconsciously, your head swiveling to the crowd of people who are now looking at you. You caught a glimpse of Ka’ani’s sharp eyes narrowing to slits.

The mission is working. You know it is working, you’ve seen Ka’ani’s candid reactions in the past days and it was almost comical. You don’t understand how she can let other men touch her when it was Neteyam she truly wants. It’s confusing, especially because you can see how she jealous she looks.

“You can relax, Neteyam,” you whispered, leaning toward him. “She’s gone. She stomped away five minutes ago.”

Neteyam’s posture didn't soften. He didn't pull his arm back. He took a slow sip of water, his expression unreadable. “The act doesn't stop just because the primary audience leaves, Y/N. There are other eyes. Word must travel. That is how a reputation is built.” He looked at you then, and for a moment, the strategic coldness was all there was. “Eat your food. We have a walk through the groves. People need to see us.”

The following days, and weeks, was a blur of choreographed intimacy. Neteyam was serious with his acts, he was everywhere you were. If you were gathering fibers, he was there, scouting the perimeter but always staying within your line of sight. During communal meals, he always ate with you, listening to you ramble and chuckling at everything you say.

Now that he has brought you out to light, more and more men were trying to talk to you, asking you random stuff they wouldn't even bother asking before. For them, you were almost unreachable in the past. You are too shy, too aloof, to be in the selection of girls they dare to play with.

But as the days pressed on, the meticulous director started losing his grip on the script.

The script had been clear: Neteyam would bring you into the light, and the hunters of the clan would finally notice you. It was exactly what he had promised. But as he stood on a ridge overlooking the path back to Hometree, watching you walk beside a hunter who was carrying your bundle of fibers under his arm, the air in his lungs seemed to turn to ice.

The hunter was Ki’ong, a young man known for his easy smiles and a way of speaking that reminded him of the way you speak. If he saw this moons ago, the match would have made so much sense. The gentle hunter matches your gentleness. But today, he felt only bitterness. You were laughing, the sound he wanted to bottle and bring with him on patrol to help him calm down.

Now, Ki’ong is easily basking in it, his tail twitching with a rhythmic interest that Neteyam recognized all too well for he was a man, too. His hand tightened around the grip of the bow until the wood groaned. His jaw locked. This was the trade, wasn't it? He had told you that by the time the season ended, you would have your pick of any man in the clan. So why did he feel like he wanted to shoot an arrow through the dirt at Ki’ong’s feet as a warning?

His feet moved, and by the time you reached the shadow of the massive fern near the entrance, Neteyam was already there, blocking the path, calling your name in a sharp and dangerous tone that made Ki’ong stop in his tracks.

“Neteyam!“ you said, surprised. “I thought you weren’t back from the scout yet.”

Neteyam ignored you, his amber eyes fixed entirely on the other hunter. He stepped forward, entering your personal space with a possessiveness that felt far too real to be an act. You looked around. There was no crowd and no Ka’ani at all, and this confuses you. What more, Neteyam wasn’t even looking around for the audience. He was looking only at Ki’ong’s hand, which was hovering just a bit too close to your elbow.

Ki'ong blinked, his easy smile faltering under the sheer weight of Neteyam's stare. “I saw her in the forest, Neteyam, uh... What she was carrying was heavy—”

“Thank you for that, but I’ll take it from here,” Neteyam cut him off, his voice dropping into a warning growl. He reached out, not gently, and pulled your fiber basket from the hunter.

“I'll... see you later then... Y/N,” Ki’ong said before walking away.

Neteyam’s head snapped back to Ki’ong’s retreating form, his entire body coiled like a viperwolf ready to strike at the mere mention of a later. You watched him, your confusion slowly melting into a mischievous realization. You looked around one more time, and there’s still nothing but a stray woodsprite. No Ka’ani. No prying hunters. Just a very, very grumpy warrior holding a basket of fibers as if it were a thermal detonator.

A bubble of laughter escaped you, and you poked his rigid bicep.

“Wow,” you giggled, leaning in close to peer up at his stormy face. “Neteyam, that was... incredible. The growl? The death stare? You’re getting really good at this. If I didn't know better, I’d think you were actually trying to pick a fight over my honor.”

Neteyam didn't relax. His jaw remained a hard line. “He was overstepping. He was touching you.”

“He was just helping me,” you countered, your eyes dancing with amusement. You started walking, motioning for him to follow with your basket. “But honestly, I’m impressed. You’re such a perfectionist. Even with no audience, you’re still acting the territorial suitor.”

He fell into step behind you, his tail still lashing even though he’s not speaking.

“Oh, come on,” you teased, walking backward for a few steps so you could admire his scowl. “Let’s just hope Ki’ong tells everyone about your reaction. If word gets back to Ka’ani that the great Neteyam almost bared his teeth at a hunter just for carrying my basket... well, our mission is as good as won. It’s going to make it sound so real!” You turned back around, a satisfied hum leaving your throat. “But I don’t think Ki’ong is the type to talk about stuff like that. He seemed too nice to gossip.”

“How would you know? You don’t know him,” Neteyam cut you off, his voice sharp.

You laughed again, the sound light and airy. “Maybe I just know. I can sense if people have good hearts,” you said, reaching back to give his chest a playful, comforting pat. “Come on,” you smiled, oblivious to the way his hand tightened on the basket handle until his knuckles turned pale. “Let’s bring that to the looms. You can put all that 'warrior energy' into helping me sort the threads.”

You turned on your heels and skipped ahead, feeling lighter than you had in days. Behind you, Neteyam stood for a beat longer, his eyes locked on the sway of your braids.

                                                           ₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚

You two were swimming in the river, not alone anyway, because it’s just one of your many stages. His fellow hunters and warriors were swimming in the river several paces away from the two of you, but he has since swam to a secluded bend away from their prying eyes. You don’t always swim in the river. Mostly because you don’t want to swim alone, so now, you’re enjoying everything, even the reflection of the shimmering canopy above. You kept diving for as long as you could, the act momentarily paused because he had stirred you two away from the audience. You shrieked when you felt something tiny dart on your ankle. You dove your head, swimming after the tiny fish, your hand shotting forward to catch it and you bubbled a laugh underwater when you actually caught it.

You swam to the surface, holding up the fish as you laughed, the sound of your mirth echoing off the rock walls like bells. Neteyam stared at you from where he is, leaning against a mossy boulder, his chest heaving slightly, though he had been idle the entire time. You waded toward him, bringing him the fish, but he looked so serious that your lips pushed forward instead. Neteyam gritted his teeth at the sight of your smile fading.

“You looked like the sky had fallen on you. What is it?” you asked, putting the fish back in the water and watching it dart away from you with a small smile.

“Our scout yesterday everning” he said suddenly, his voice low.

You nodded. He was late to the dinner last night... You figured there was something wrong, but you heard no news about it.

“There was a near skirmish with a violent clan. They were one of those clans whose lands were spoiled by the sky people's actions. Apparently, they’ve been looking for a place to settle in, but they are also harming non-combatant clans.”

You stopped splashing, the water settling around you. You hadn't heard about this. The elders usually kept such news quiet to avoid panic, but to know this now, and to see how burdened Neteyam was by it, you couldn't help but be bothered.

“The council expects me to be like him,” he said, staring at his reflection in the water. He didn't specify who him was and he didn’t have to. You know who he was talking about. As the firstborn of Toruk Makto, Neteyam has always lived in the shadow of a legend. “Every battle, every hunt, every word I speak... it's measured against a standard I will never reach.”

You stopped creating ripples in the waters, looking up at him. “You don’t need to be your father, Neteyam,” you said softly. “Have they considered a dialogue between the people of that clan? Perhaps... The chieftains of our neighboring clans could convene in a large council and speak with their representatives. I don’t think it needs to lead to people getting hurt when speaking would reach a much better conclusion.”

Neteyam went still, his gaze snapping from the water’s surface to your face. He watched you with an intensity he had directed to no one, but you wouldn’t know that. For a moment, the weight in his shoulders seemed to flicker, unsettled by the peaceful logic of your words.

“A dialogue,” he repeated. He had been so focused on formations, weapon readiness, and the cold calculations of a warrior that the idea of a diplomatic council felt like a sudden breath of fresh air. “Why do you think I am a warrior?” he asked, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. “I am taught to protect. To fight.”

“You are taught to lead,” you corrected gently, lightly splashing a bit of water toward his chest. “And a leader’s first duty isn’t to fight, but to ensure peace. Your warriors will think of war, you will think of how to protect the people and the forest. The people of that clan is desperate, for sure... They lost their home, they are living like beggars. There is a reason they steal and harm the people who stop them. Have the clans thought of helping them?”

He blinked, his amber eyes searching yours as if he could find all the answers there now.

You smiled lopsidedly, “You can think of all that later though,” you said softly, reaching into the crevice of the rock wall and plucking a small, ripe fruit that hung low. His eyes watched you peel it with nimble fingers. “But right now? The water is cool, the fish are annoying, and you can rest your mind. Try being here for five minutes.”

You gave him the fruit and when he took it, his fingers brushed against yours, lingering in a way that wasn't for show. He ate it slowly, watching you as if you were a piece of the puzzle he found after a long search. The silence was warm, humming with a new, dangerous kind of energy.

“You think it could be that simple?” he asked, his voice a low vibration.

“I think you make it too hard,” you laughed, feeling a sudden surge of playfulness. You stepped back, the water splashing around your chest. “I’ll bet a week’s worth of weaving that I can reach the falls before you!”

Before he could answer, you dove, your body disappearing into the water.

Neteyam stood there for a heartbeat, stunned. He didn't check the treeline. He didn't look back toward the other hunters. He didn't think about his father's expectations or the violent clan at the border. He simply dove in after you.

He caught up to you just as you reached the white water of the falls. You surfaced, gasping for air and laughing, only to find him right there, his eyes bright with a genuine, carefree light you had never seen before. You panicked at the sight of him, though, shrieking and kicking the hand that held your ankle. He barked a laugh, deep and resonant, that even he knows he hasn't laughed that way before. He reached out again, his hand finding yours under the water, squeezing it before pulling you to him. For the first time, he wasn't holding you so people would notice. He was holding you so you wouldn't drift away.

That night, as you both walked back to the village, Neteyam’s hand stayed on your waist even after you had passed the last group of onlookers. When you saw Ka’ani appeared near the communal fire, looking particularly striking in her new top and loincloth that seemed to match the feathers in her hair, Neteyam didn't even turn his head even after you pointed it out. He was too busy listening to you describe the specific shade of teal the river turns into when the moons are at a particular shade. There's lightness in his chest that made him feel like he was flying.

Several nights later, Neteyam moved through the crowd with a lightness in his step that hadn't been there days prior. The communal dinner was buzzing with different conversations, but for him, it was merely a background, his eyes locked on your form, looking like a man who had finally found the trail home.

Earlier that afternoon, the Council had been tense. Jake and the elders focused on battle plans, on dispatching warriors to fight when necessary. Neteyam saw how the council, including him, lack the sight you have to see things differently. He didn't know where it was coming from, but his chest was puffing with full confidence on the idea you had given him, that when he spoke of dialogue, of the displaced clan’s desperation, and of communal aid rather than battles that would only end in loss, his voice was laced with certainty.

Jake had looked at his son with a mixture of surprise and pride. “That is a path well thought of, Neteyam,” he said.

“You think like a true leader of the people now, son,” Neytiri had added, her hand resting on his shoulder. “You have grown.”

Neteyam had offered them a small, humble smile. “I cannot take the credit, Mother. It was a good friend who gave me the perspective I needed,” he said.

Neytiri tilted her head. “Oh? Who is this friend?” she asked.

Neteyam had looked at his mother. It was the easiest question he’d been asked, but it strike him quite deeply that he didn’t know what to say. “Someone I... trust deeply.”

Now, standing in the glow of the fire, Neteyam didn't even pause to greet the other hunters who called out to him. He made a beeline for the corner where you sat, tucked away with your latest weaving. When you looked up, your eyes widened at the sight of the massive, genuine grin splitting his face.

“They accepted it,“ he said, dropping down beside you, his presence instantly making your corner feel warmer. “The envoys will be sent at first light. My father and the elders... actually listened. We’re calling a council of all the neighboring clans to help the displaced.”

You felt a swell of pride in your chest, your grin matching his. “See? Sometimes, you need to rest your mind and your soul, clear it until it is still water,“ you gestured in the air and be watched you with a lazy smile. “Only then can you see the path clearly.“

Neteyam’s gaze was soft, lingering on your face in a way that made your heart skip a beat. It was no longer the calculated look of someone directing a performance, it was the look of someone truly seeing you. You tear your gaze away, picking at the nuts on your leaf plate.

“I have something for you,” he murmured, reaching into the small pouch at his waist. He held out his hand, palm up, revealing a mountain of perfectly ripe berries, the kind that only grow on the highest, most dangerous ledges.

You gasped, your fingers trembling slightly as you reached out for one. “Neteyam, these are rare. How did you—”

“I was scouting the upper ridges,” he lied effortlessly, though his eyes twinkled with the truth of the effort he’d put into finding them just for you. “They’re all yours. Take them.”

You popped one into your mouth, the burst of sweetness making you hum. Neteyam let out a low chuckle, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he watched you enjoy the small gift. He didn't even notice the silence that had fallen over the nearby tables as they all watched him dote on the girl whose voice they rarely heard.

From across the fire, Ka’ani felt the roasted meat in her mouth turn to ash. She couldn't even swallow. She had been so sure of what Neteyam wanted, sure that it was her in her strength and vitality. She was merely trying to break at his carefully cold facade, but he never did give her the satisfaction of seeing it.

But as she watched him now, she saw the way he leaned toward you, his body instinctively closing off the rest of the world to keep you in his private circle. She saw the way he laughed, unguarded, soft, and intimate. She had never seen that light in his eyes directed at her. She had never seen him look at anyone with such... peace.

Her fingers dug into the bark of her seating mat. This wasn't a game anymore. The challenge she thought she was winning had been forfeited by the man she wanted most, and the realization made her blood boil with a jealousy that was no longer a performance. As fot Neteyam, he has long forgotten to look if Ka’ani even had her eyes on them, and tonight, he had forgotten she was even there.

Days later, you were at the washing stream, submerging your fibers in the cool water. You were thinking too much of Neteyam and the ride you had on his ikran last night when he brought you to the Hallelujah Mountains, but your peace was disrupted with the presence of another. You stopped and turned around, your breath hitching when you saw Ka’ani step out from behind a massive fern.

“Ka’ani,” you said, your voice steadier than you felt. You adjusted the empty leaf plate in your hands, refusing to cower.

“How does it feel?” she sneered, pacing a slow circle around you, her tail lashing behind her. “To be the little pet? To be the girl Neteyam uses to get a reaction from me? You think those smiles of his mean anything? You think that look in his eyes is real?” She let out a mocking laugh. “He’s a warrior. The future Olo’eyktan. Do you think think I don’t know what he’s doing? He wants me, and he’s using a quiet mouse like you to punish me for playing hard to get.”

You pursed your lips to stop yourself from chuckling. This is comedy to you, but you also feel guilty that she seems to be really upset. If only she weren’t being mean, you’d have advised her to go to Neteyam and talk to him properly, so that they can fix things between them.

“If you are so certain of that, Ka’ani,” you said, your voice dropping to a calm, melodic register that seemed to grate on her nerves, “then why are you talking to me?”

Ka’ani froze, her lips pulling back in a snarl.

“If you're so sure he’s yours, go to him,” you continued, stepping closer into her space, though your heart was hammering against your ribs. “Whine to him. Demand his attention. Tell him to come back to you. Perhaps it will do you better.”

You didn't wait for her to respond, you walked past her, maintaining your composure until you were well out of her sight. You stopped when you’re well away from her, pursing your lips. “Wah... That was a good one from me. That’s literally method acting,” you chuckled to yourself.

At the same time, Neteyam was on patrol through the high canopies of the Omatikaya lands’ borders. Patrols are usually a time of hyper-vigilance for him, he was trained to scan for the unnatural glint of obsidian or the misplaced shadow of a predator. But today, his eyes kept snagging on a bright plant. He spotted a cluster of a familiar stalk, their ribbed skin a good shade of cerulean.

Moons ago, he would have seen them as a slippery obstacle on a landing branch. Now, he found himself hovering his ikran near the cliff edge, reaching out to pluck a single stem. He rubbed the surface, watching the pigment stain his thumb.

This, he thought, a ghost of a smile tugging at his lips, this is the blue she said looked like the deep water in the eastern seas. He found himself wondering about every plant he passed, not for its toxicity or its strength which he is wont to do as a vigilant hunter, but for how beautiful its hidden colors would be in the eyes of a weaver he keeps thinking about. He didn’t even have names for the shades he collected, but he knew you would find them beautiful.

When he finally returned to hometree, he didn’t head for the warriors' lodge to report in. He went straight to the weaving looms. His heart doing a strange, light hop when he saw your form hunched over a weaving loom. He silently crept up behind you and leaned down to tickle the curve of your ear with the cool tip of the blue plant.

You shrieked, your shoulders jumping as you nearly dropped your bone needle. You whirled around, your eyes wide but when you saw Neteyam, standing there with that lazy, genuine grin, you glared but still laughed.

“My work will be ruined because of you,” you breathed, clutching your chest.

“I thought a weaver's hands were supposed to be steady,” he teased, his voice low, handing you the blue stalk. “I saw this on the ridge. Is it the one that turns to ink when you boil it?”

You took the plant, your fingers brushing his. “It is. I.. I'm surprised you remembered.”

“I remember everything you say,” he said, and for a second, the air between you felt thick and heavy with a truth that had nothing to do with your deal. He tore his gaze away when his cheeks burned at the realization of what he said.

Before he could lose his footing, an elder weaver called out from the circle, asking you to venture into the lower groves to find specific climbing fibers for the council’s new tapestry.

“I'll accompany you,” Neteyam said before you could even reach for your basket.

As you walked into the dappled light of the forest, your fear of the ruse ending began to fade, replaced by the sheer comfort of his presence. You started to ramble, and Neteyam, as you have discovered in the past weeks, was a good listener. He didn't interrupt, or patronize. He simply watched you with a curious, steady gaze that made you feel... heard.

“You see that?” you said one afternoon, pointing to a cluster of deep crimson berries clinging to a damp log. “Most people think they’re just for eating, but if you crush them with a bit of limestone and the sap from a yellow stalk, you get a purple that looks like the sky before the sun sets. It’s the only color that stays after the fiber is boiled.”

Neteyam leaned in, peering at the berries as if they were a new species of prey.

“And those,” you continued, stumbling over your words in your haste to explain. “If you harvest them when they’re still young, they give a gold that practically glows in the dark. I used it for the elders' ceremonial sashes last year. Everyone thought I’d traded with the reef clans for it, but it was just right here, under our feet, being stepped on.”

You laughed, a bright sound that echoed through the trees, but when you realized you were rambling, you quickly shut your mouth, touching your lips.

“Sorry.  I’m talking too much,“ you gripped the basket hard.

Neteyam stopped walking. He turned to you with a genuine frown on his face. “You can talk my ears off. I’ve spent my whole life looking at the forest for threats or targets. I never realized how much I’m missing what was right in front of me.” He chuckled, a low vibration in his chest. “I found myself looking at different plants lately, wondering if it was the right kind of hue for your weaving.”

The admission was bold and he didn’t even feel shame even though he did feel his cheeks burn. He was thinking of you when you weren't together. The deal was working, but the lines were blurring so fast he doesn’t even care about the reason it began.

Weeks later, the success of the sturmbeest hunt was the reason for the thrumming of drums and chanting of the Omatikaya warriors dancing in the hometree’s communal clearing. High on the central dais, the Olo’eyktan’s voice carried over the throng as he announced the success of the council’s efforts to begin a dialogue with the displaced clan that has been disrupting the way of lives not only of the people, but that of the neighboring clans as well.

The chieftains of the other forest clans had apparently agreed to convene in a Great Council with the envoys returning with messages of unity. Neteyam stood beside you in the crowd, his shoulder brushing your arm. The rigid, perfect posture of a mighty warrior was gone, replaced by a relaxed stance he only seemed to find when he was within your orbit.

“You did it,” you whispered, grinning up at him.

Neteyam looked down at you, the firelight reflecting in his eyes. “We did it,” he corrected softly. “I was ready to lead a war party until you handed me that fruit and told me to breathe. I would have missed the obvious path if you hadn't been standing there to point it out.”

You shrugged, picking a berry out of the leaf bowl he gave you. “So, what happens now?” you asked. “Now that the chieftains have agreed?”

“The next step may be the hardest,” Neteyam said, his expression turning thoughtful. “We have to send someone to the displaced clan. Not to fight, but to invite their Olo’eyktan. Someone has to show them we aren't their enemies and that we’ll help them settle and get back to their own feet.”

You looked at him, admiring the way the light caught the beads you’d given him which he had immediately put in his braids. “You should go, Neteyam.”

He blinked, looking surprised. “Me? My father will likely send an experienced diplomat, or perhaps a senior warrior.”

“No,” you insisted, stepping closer. “You’re the one who suggested it to the council. It’s a great opportunity for you to hone your diplomatic skills. You’re going to lead this people one day, and this might not be the last time a clan is desperate or angry. If you go, you’ll learn a lot.”

Neteyam went quiet, watching you with an intensity that made your breath hitch. He listened to you as if every word you spoke was important. “You really think I can do it?”

“I know you can,” you said firmly. “You have the heart for it.” You looked at your berries again, eating more of it.

The wind shifted then, kicking up a swirl of fine wood-dust from the dancefloor. You winced, your hand flying to your eye as you felt a sharp things.

“Ow—wait, something’s in my eye.”

“Don’t rub it,” Neteyam said immediately. His hands were suddenly on your face, his touch firm but incredibly gentle as he cupped your jaw. “Look at me. Keep it open.”

You looked up at him, your vision watering and blurred. He was so close you could feel the heat radiating off his skin. He leaned down, his face mere inches from yours, and blew a soft, steady breath across your eye to clear the dust.

“Is that better?” he whispered, blowing another.

You chuckled as you blinked several times, your heart doing a frantic dance in your chest. “It’s just a bit of dust, Neteyam, you look so serious,” you said, smiling.

He stared at you, still not pulling away and when you didn’t move your head, he tilted his and pressed his lips to yours. It was deep, soft, and carried the weight of his yearning in the past moons. He didn’t know how long he had wanted to do that, but the softness of your lips is making him melt like candle wax.

In your belly, it felt like a hundred forest ikrans had suddenly taken flight. You felt giddy, almost lightheaded, but the thought of the deal flickered in your mind. When he pulled back just a fraction to let you breathe, your eyes pierced through him and spotted Ka’ani across the fire, her face fuming as she watched Neteyam’s back, specifically how he was bent at the waist just so he could kiss you.

“She’s looking...” you murmured against his lips, your voice a shaky mess.

Neteyam’s mind was hazy, drugged by the taste of your lips. His brows furrowed. “Who?” he asked, his voice a gravelly rumble as he kissed the corner of your mouth, his hands tightening on your jaw.

You closed your eyes, feeling the spark of his skin against yours. “Ka’ani...”

“And?” he responded, his nose nuzzling yours before he angled his head to kiss you more firmly. “Open up...”

“Uhm, about what? I mean, she talked to—”

Neteyam let out a low, vibrant chuckle that vibrated through your lips. “Your mouth, space cadet.”

Before you could even process what he meant, he darted his tongue out and licked at the seam of your lips. Your head reared back in genuine shock though, your eyes popping wide open.

“That was...” you sputtered, your face turning a deep, embarrassed crimson. “Why did you lick me? Neteyam!”

He barked a deep, resonant laugh, a real, belly-deep sound that made his whole frame shake. The sight of your shocked expression was too much for him. You tried to maintain your dignity, but his joy was too infectious.

“It’s a sweet gesture!” he laughed, reaching out to pull you back toward him.

“What? Like a fwampop?” you asked, but you were already giggling, the two of you leaning against each other and laughing so hard you forgot the rest of the clan was even there.

The festival fire continued to crackle, but for the rest of the night, Neteyam didn't leave your side. He followed you to the communal food pits when you offered to help the cooks, not letting you carry the heavy food trays so you just rambled about anything you could think of. Every time your hand brushed his, or you leaned in to tell him a secret about one of the dancers, he looked at you with a gaze so heavy and warm.

The next morning, the festival fog had settled over the village, but Neteyam was already awake and waiting by the weaving looms. He was standing there with a slightly large, intricately carved wooden bobbin. Something he spent days working on, but he won’t tell you that.

“Bobbin?” you asked with a huge smile when he gently handed it to you.

He shrugged nonchalantly, as if coming here early in the morning before his patrol to bring you something he had worked on for days meant nothing. “I saw you struggling with the one that kept snagging your thread,” he said. His fingers lingered on yours as you accepted it, his thumb tracing the back of your hand in a slow caress.

“Wow... This is perfect, Neteyam,” you said, beaming up at him as marveled at the craftsmanship.

He stared at you, fighting the urge to punch the air or beat up his chest as if he won a huge prize.

“You really didn't have to. Do you not have patrol?” you asked.

“I have,” he said. But he wanted to see you. Talk to you about last night, to clarify that the kiss had nothing to do with your deal.

“Alright, then. I’ll see you at lunch,” you said, your attention already focused on your new bobbin. He stood there for a few more seconds, just watching you, his ears twitching at the sound of your voice.

Later that afternoon, though, the rain began to pour while you were in the forest, the raindrops caching you near the lower groves. You tried to shield your basket of dyed fibers with your own body but just as heavy drops soaked your braids, you saw a familiar figure coming, holding a massive, broad leaf.

“Neteyam?” you uttered in surprise.

He had a boyish grin on as he held the leaf over your head. He was getting soaked, the rain slicking down his blue skin and making his muscles gleam, but he didn't seem to care. He stepped so close that his chest was almost touching your shoulder, the heat from his body acting as a shield against the chill.

“How did you even know I was here?” you asked, chuckling and pulling him close so he won’t get wet.

“I think I already know your routines,” he said, smirking playfully, though his voice was thick with a tenderness that made your breath hitch. He reached out and tucked a wet strand of braid behind your ear, his touch far more lingering than it needed to be. His eyes dropped to your lips for a heartbeat before returning to yours, as though searching for something.

You tear you gaze away. “I swear, you’re going to catch a cold! And you’re all muddy. What if Ka’ani sees you? You always have to be in character, you know?” you exclaimed, trying to push the leaf more toward his side.

Neteyam’s smile faltered for a second, a flicker of frustration crossing his features before he masked it with a soft chuckle. “Right. The act.”

He guided you back toward the shelter of the Hometree, his hand resting firmly on the small of your back. As you walked, he intentionally slowed his pace, pulling you closer to avoid a puddle. When you reached the dry roots of the tree, he didn't immediately let go. He leaned down, his face close to yours.

“Do you really think I'm doing all this for the audience?” he asked, his golden eyes searching yours with an intensity that felt like a plea.

Your brows furrowed, panic rising in you before laughing nervously, patting his arm and moving away into the shelter of the hometree’s canopy. “Well, you're a very dedicated actor, ‘Teyam. I have to hand it to you. Everybody believes us,” you said with a huge smile.

Neteyam went still. He stared at you, his hand still in the air, his mouth slightly open as if he wanted to say something. Instead, he let out a long, slow sigh, his shoulders dropping just an inch. “I suppose I am dedicated,” he said quietly, a sad, lopsided smile touching his lips.

“I’m just glad I can help you with this. I’ve never had an actual friend, you know?” you said brightly, grabbing your basket from him. “See you at dinner? I heard they’re serving the smoked fish you like.”

Neteyam watched you walk away, your silhouette disappearing into the winding ramp. He looked down at the hand that had held the leaf, his fingers still tingling from the brief contact with your skin. “Damn it...” he whispered to the empty air. This isn’t an act anymore and he doesn’t know how to cross the threshold between the stage and the reality.

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“No way! You can't move there, that's against the rules!” Lo’ak barked, leaning over the board.

“You’re not one to talk about rules!” Spider countered, reaching for your game piece to help you. “Go on, girl, take his territory. Do it!”

You laughed, your face flushed with the kind of rowdy joy you usually only heard from a distance before. You slammed your piece down, successfully “capturing” Lo’ak’s base. You turned to Spider and Lo’ak, throwing up a hand for a high-four. “Did you see that?“

Spider barked a laughter. “Tell him, ‘suck it!’”

“Suck it?” you repeated with a confused smile.

The word had barely left your lips when the air in the room seemed to shift. Neteyam, who had been leaning against a nearby pillar watching you with a soft, protective smile as he sharpen his bows suddenly went rigid. He looked at Lo’ak and Spider, who were both chuckling, explaining to you what it meant.

“Hey, don't look at us,” Lo’ak muttered, though his tail was twitching with mischief. “She’s just part of the crew now, brother. One of the guys.”

Neteyam pushed off the pillar, stepping into the circle. He ignored the snickering from Lo’ak and Kiri’s knowing smirk. “She is not one of the guys,” Neteyam hissed under his breath.

You turned to him, still grinning from your victory. “Neteyam,” you called and his ears twitched at your soft voice. “Are you angry?”

He blinked, shaking his head right away. “No, no, of course not,” he told you, his eyes softening but a flitter of reprimanding gaze to Lo’ak and Spider promised later. He had just introduced you to them more than a week ago, for Eywa’s sake, and now, they are already teaching you the wrong things!

“You're teaching her the wrong things,” Neteyam told the two later that night when you left the small kelku they created for their games.

“Brother, I think she’s enjoying just fine. I’ve seen her before, she’s usually alone. I’m sure Lo’ak and Spider are just who she needs,” Kiri said,

“Right! She’s really fun. Just yesterday, we played with squid fruit by the river and she threw a mashed handful on my face. Look, I still have stains all over!“ Spider said, pointing at his pink-stained face.

“What?” Neteyam replied, horrified, remembering the stain on your temple that he saw last night. “Just what are you two—”

Lo’ak snicked. “Bro,“ he put a hand on Neteyam’s shoulder. “Don’t be too grumpy. You said you want her to have more friends and we are her friends now,“ he grinned.

Neteyam let out a huff, rolling his eyes. He understands this. You’d told him you have never had an actual friend and he thought he could remedy that. He’d give you everything, if he could.

A few days later, he insisted on coming with you to the forest and you agreeed, knowing you will have to pass by the training grounds where Ka’ani could be and she was indeed around, her eyes following Neteyam as if she’s waiting for him to spare her a glance but he was focused on the path ahead, oblivious or uncaring to her longing stares.

“Ka’ani was looking at you,“ you grinned up at him, nudging his side with your elbow.

You saw his brows furrowed for a moment and then his face hardened. You pushed your lips forward. You assumed it was because Ka’ani still didn’t go and talk to him. The woman is fierce warrior, she was probably too proud to see that as an option. She wants Neteyam to come to her. To her credit, you had not seen her in the company of man in the past weeks... You wondered if Neteyam has realized that.

“You know... I noticed Ka’ani has not been hanging out with guys lately? Have you noticed that?“ you asked, angling your head to look up at him as you rambled, “What if she’s just waiting for you to go and talk to her? I think that’s what she wants. She talked to me, you know? She was mad, so I think she was jealous, isn’t that great—”

“She talked to you? And she was mad?” he turned to you, his face etched with both anger and worry.

You grinned. “Yes. I can tell she was jealous—”

“Did she hurt you?”

“No, she didn’t...” you said. “She was just angry, because the act is working—”

You saw the bone in his jaw tick as if he was clenching his teeth. “Let’s not talk about her.”

Your lips pushed forward and you shrugged, listening instead to the soft crunch of dried leaves breaking beneath your feet. Neteyam fell quiet then, his tail twitching with a restlessness that told you something was weighing on him. You walked faster to match his face, pressing a palm on his chest which made him stop walking... and breathing, too.

“What’s bothering you?” you asked, standing in front of him and feeling his chest slowly deflate.

This is crazy. He has never noticed girls’ voices before, but now, they could probably use yours to cool him off. Your voice caresses him and your laugh sounds like bells in his ear. He wouldn’t have said a word if a different person had asked him, but you always have a way to make him open his mouth and just talk.

“The council... they are advising against it,” he said, his voice heavy. “They think sending me to the displaced clan as an envoy is too much risk, because they see me as a target, not a diplomat.”

Your eyes searched his face and he felt warm inside. “And what does your father say?”

He let out a frustrated sigh and your hand caressed his chest. His hand rose to catch your hand, pressing it against his lips. “He doesn’t say anything. Not yet. He just listens and only then he’ll decide. I’m worried he’ll take their advice,“ he looked at you.

You huffed a breath, patting his chest, and giving him a supportive smile. “Then remind them, Neteyam, that you are no longer a child to be shielded. At your age, your father was already Olo’eyktan. You have to learn diplomacy just as much as any other leader. It wouldn't do you any good to be a leader who is ill-equipped in the discussions of peace.”

Neteyam’s gaze softened, the tension bleeding out of his shoulders as he looked at you. You removed your hand but he caught it again. “Thank you... for always sharing my burden. I don't think I could have faced them today without hearing that.”

You chuckled, swinging your joined hands lightly. “Bro, it’s nothing! That’s what friends are for, as Spider says,” you beamed at him before turning back to the path ahead, missing the way his face completely dropped.

His smile faltered, and then it deadpanned. It was a total double-kill. Bro and friends in a single breath. You might as well have just shot him in the head and he would have taken it lighter. He huffed, his tail lashing once in irritation as he followed after you.

“I’m not your 'bro,'” he said, suddenly reaching forward to grab your basket from your arm.

Your brows furrowed in confusion, and you laughed at his sudden grumpiness. “Silly! We’re all brothers and sisters in the eyes of the Great Mother,” you said, lightheartedly twirling as you walked, enjoying the dappled sunlight. You didn't even notice how his eyes narrowed as he watched you move through the forest with no care in the world, seemingly oblivious to how much Lo’ak and Spider were ruining his life with their vocabulary lessons.

He had reached his limit.

Before you could twirl again, Neteyam stepped toward you. He reached out, gently but firmly grabbing your arm. Your eyes widened in surprise as he guided you backward, gently pushing you against the trunk of a nearby tree. You looked up at him, your breath catching. His face was inches away from yours, his golden eyes burning with a sudden, fierce intensity that made your heart hammer against your ribs.

“Neteyam?” you whispered, your eyes dropping to his lips before you stupidly, unconsciously licked yours.

He leaned down, and when you didn't pull away, he pressed his lips to yours in a kiss that was deeper and more demanding than the one at the festival. He licked your lips again and you chuckled against his mouth but when his tongue darted inside yours, you made a sound that sounded so womanly it surprised even you. His tongue tangled with yours as his lips devoured yours.

Everything made you feel hot, and weirdly, tingly between your legs that you had to close your thighs together.

When he finally pulled back, his hands moved to cup your face with a tenderness that made your chest ache. “There’s something I want to talk to you about,” he said, his voice low and trembling.

You blinked. “Now?”

“There are things that needs to be dealt with first,“ he said, caressing your jaw. You nodded.

The thing that needed dealing was Ka’ani. He didn’t know the extent of the conversation you had with the huntress, but he knew how Ka’ani talks, and the fact tha you said she was mad solidified what he knew. You two walked back to Hometree, with him carrying your basket for you. The elders giggled at the sight of him following you around like a loyal pet, and when he left with a lingering brush of his thumb against your cheek, they nosed around and asked if the warrior was truly courting you like they kept hearing from the youth.

“No, he’s not... He’s a friend,” you said, noticing the arm band on your basket. You took it and thought perhaps Neteyam had left it there.

You followed after him, thinking he hasn’t gone far yet, but when as stood in the Hometree’s shadowed entrance, you saw him approach Ka’ani near the training grounds, your breath hitching. Ka’ani tilted her head and smirked at him, turning on her heels into the privacy of the deeper woods. You saw Neteyam follow and you tucked yourself behind a massive fern, your pulse thrumming in your ears.

In the dimmed bioluminescence of the forest, Neteyam stood in front of the huntress, seeing that Ka’ani was already smiling, a triumphant, sharp look. “No need to say sorry, Neteyam, if that’s how you’ll start your piece. Because I know,” she said. “I know exactly what you’ve been doing. You’ve used that weaver girl to make me jealous, to straighten me up. I get it, so you can drop the act now. I’ve learned my lesson. I know it’s me you want—”

“I do not want you, Ka’ani,” Neteyam’s voice cut through her arrogance like a blade. “I never even thought I wanted you. Yes, you are a strong and fierce warrior, and I once thought that was what I needed by my side for when I lead one day... but I didn’t realize just how much I needed to see and be seen.“

“And have I not seen you?” Ka’ani snarled, her tail lashing. “We trained together, Neteyam! We fought, we hunted! I was always here! You just spared that girl a glance literally like yesterday and you think she’s perfect for you—”

“You don’t know me in the ways that matter, Ka’ani,” he countered. “I’ve had more connection with a rock, and I don't know why I ever entertained the thought that I needed someone strong by my side when strength is not the only thing this clan needs.”

Ka’ani’s face contorted, her pride wounded in front of the man she wanted so much and thought wanted her, too. “We can get to know each other! I regret it, alright? I regret playing around. I’ll focus—”

“Don’t regret what you did,” Neteyam said. “I’m glad you did it, because not only did it prevent me from making a huge mistake, it also brought me to her. And now, I have the rest of my life in front of me, bright and clear as day.” He stepped closer to her, his voice dropping to a warning growl. “Have a good life, Ka’ani. And do not ever approach my woman to tell her nonsense again.”

He turned on his heel and walked away, leaving Ka’ani watching him in deep contempt. All those last words he said not to do? She will do it. Back at Hometree, you sat by your loom, your fingers trembling as you picked up a strand of gold thread. You forced a smile onto your face, practicing the words of congratulations you would give him, even as you felt like the sky was turning a purple far deeper and darker than any storm. That was probably what he was going to talk about with you...

Outside, Neteyam walked back to Hometree with a sense of purpose he’d never felt before. He headed straight for the weaving looms. Tonight, you will be his. He’d tell you the act ends here and you two will start something real. No act from here on end. No games. Just the two of you.

But he never made it to the looms.

A hunter intercepted him midway, out of breath and frantic. “Neteyam! The night patrol was ambushed by the violent clan. Two are wounded. Your father is calling for the council.”

The shift in his demeanor was instantaneous. The soft, yearning man disappeared, replaced by the disciplined warrior. He hurried to the council, standing before Jake with a firm resolve. “I’ll go,” Neteyam insisted. “Fighting would be the last thing I’ll do. I’ll talk to them, Dad. You call for the chieftains to convene and I’ll convince them to come.”

He left within the hour, riding on his ikran, but his heart was back at Hometree, in the weaving looms... He thought he’d be back by light, but he didn’t know he’d be gone for days.

You had been crying. You learned that Neteyam left for a mission regarding the displaced clan, so even though you were heartbroken, you went to the Tree of Souls to pray for his journey. Your vulnerability was too obvious as you walk back to Hometee, and in it, Ka’ani found her opening. You were so close to Hometree when she stepped out from the shadows, a satisfied smirk on her face.

“Hi,” she greeted. “I’m pretty sure you’d heard of Neteyam going to battle... Did he say good bye to you?”

You lowered your gaze and shook your head.

“Where do you think he was last night before he went to battle?” she asked, her voice dripping with mock pity. “He was with me... getting his strength from me.” She stepped closer to you to tilt your head up. “He apologized to me, weaver. For losing sight of what’s truly for him... which is me. He loves me, which I’m sure you know... And he did make me feel loved... see?”

She tilted her head back, exposing the dark hickeys on the side of her neck. To your untrained eyes, it simply looked like bruises, but you knew what you were talking about. Pain bloomed in your chest and you felt ashamed for feeling it. You’re not supposed to feel it. You knew where this is leading to, you knew it was all an act. This woman in front of you was the only reason he approached you.

Ka’ani giggled. “Neteyam was insatiable. He missed me, as you can see... and now, I’m still sore, honestly,” she sighed, looking at you with that mock pity again. “Do you get it? He’s back with me... After he strayed. I hope you can respect that?”

You blinked, your lungs feeling as though they had turned to stone. You didn't realize you were holding your breath until she turned and walked away, and you felt like you might collapse, but the sound of Spider’s familiar voice cut through the silence. He came running toward you, laughing, with Tuk trailing just behind him.

“Was that Ka’ani?” Spider asked, his smile faltering. “What did you two talk about?”

You forced yourself to blink, the world slowly coming back into focus. “Uh... nothing. What are you two doing?”

“Playing tag!” Tuk squealed, slamming into your waist and hugging you tight. You automatically reached down to ruffle her braids. “Tag! You’re it!” she shouted, tapping your belly with a giggle before darting away.

Your soul wanted nothing more than to crawl into a dark corner and let the tears fall, but looking at Tuk’s bright face and Spider’s expectant grin, you couldn't bear to be the killjoy.

“Oh, you’re going to get it now!” you called out, forcing a smile as you chase after them.

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Neteyam had done the impossible. He had returned not just with his warriors intact, but with the promise of a unified forest. The first pace of the Great Council’s efforts to help the displaced clan find a dwelling land, he had secured a future for the displaced and for that, he was their hero.

The clan had a small celebration for it, but as the smell of roasted meat filled the air, Neteyam’s eyes were only on the winding path toward your family’s hut. He hadn't seen you in the crowd. He hadn't seen you at the landing where he expected you would be. Waiting for him. Kiri did tell him you were sick, though, which had sent a cold spike of dread that halted his celebratory high.

He didn't wait for his father’s final toast before slipping away, feeling a worry he didn't even feel during his mission. He arrived at your family’s hut, breathless, practically vibrating with the need to pull you into his arms and tell you that he had thought of nothing but your face as he sat among the displaced.

When you emerged from the flap, he froze. You were pale and your eyes were swollen and bloodshot, the telltale signs of the days you spent in quiet agony. His brows furrowed, his feet moving before he could even think. He stopped when he saw you step back though.

“I... I’m sick,” you said when you saw the question in his eyes. You didn't look at him with the warmth he’d been dreaming of. You looked at him as if he were a threat.

He stepped toward the platform, his hand reaching out instinctively. “I know. Kiri told me. But what made you sick? Why are you crying?" His voice was thick with a worry so raw it made your chest ache. “I haven't even been gone for a week, and this is what I return to?”

You stepped back into the shadows of the hut, a sharp scowl flickering across your face. “I... I don't know why I got sick. But I do know I want to lay down and rest. So if there's nothing else, I’ll go do it.”

Before he could utter another word, you grabbed the woven flap and slammed it shut. Neteyam stood there in the silence, staring at the closed entrance. His brows furrowed, his head tilting in genuine, painful confusion. He had expected a hug, a laugh, perhaps even a repeat of that soul-searing kiss in the forest. Instead, he had been shut out like a stranger. The victory he had carried on his shoulders suddenly felt hollow. For this, he didn't return to the celebration at all. He walked back to the his family’s hut in a daze, laying awake for hours wondering what could have poisoned the air in his absence.

The next day was filled with council meetings. He sat through hours of strategy and relocation discussions, but his mind was in the looms which he would check every time there's a chance, ready to scold you for working while ill, but your spot was empty. It wasn't until the following morning that he found you. You were sitting at your spot, your movements stiff and mechanical. And it seemed like you were waiting, too, because you looked at him the moment he stepped into the looms.

“Let’s talk,” he said, his voice firm, trying to reclaim some shred of authority to hide how much his heart was racing.

You stood up, your face impassive. “We do need to talk.” you said, your voice cold and sharp.

He stopped in his tracks, staring at you for more than a minute. For the first time in his life, after facing predators, raids, and the weight of a legacy, Neteyam felt a genuine, cold prickle of fear. But as he looked at the fire in your eyes, a small, reckless part of him couldn't help but admire it. He feels crazy. You are so hot when you’re mad.

You walked into the forest, feeling even more slighted when you remembered him going in this same route with Ka’ani. You felt his hand on your elbow though, steering you toward a different path instead. You glared at him. “Where are we going?”

The sight of direhorses answered your question though. You saw some warriors riding their mounts and Neteyam whistled for his. You saw Ka’ani among the warriors nearby and saw how her eyes narrowed at the sight of you and Neteyam. Shame rose in you and you tried to wriggle away from Neteyam’s hold, especially when a warrior came jogging toward you.

“Brother, will you not watch the young tame their mounts?“ The warrior asked. “They’ll be here in five minutes.”

The warrior glanced at you and you took your elbow from Neteyam again, but you weren’t able to get away though, because his hand found your waist and pulled you to him.

“No. I got something more important to do,“ Neteyam said. “I’m sure they’ll do well.”

The warrior snickered, “Enjoy then,” he glanced at you meaningfully before nodding to Neteyam, and turning away.

Neteyam’s hand spanned your waist and lifted you up on his direhorse in under ten seconds, making you slightly shriek. He mounted the beast behind you, making tsaheylu with it before wrapping an arm around your waist and pulling you against him. You tried to move away, but the direhorse had started moving, and in a second, it was running.

The wind roared  past your ears as the direhorse ate up the miles, forcing you to lean back against Neteyam’s chest just to stay balanced. You enjoyed the sight during the ride, fighting the urge to move your head away when you felt him pressung a kiss to the crown of your head. You felt sad when he pulled on the reins, already missing the exhilaration of riding and the good view.

Neteyam slid off the mount first before reaching up to lift you down, his movements fluid and sure. He didn't let go immediately, his hands lingered on your waist as he looked around the clearing. He felt a surge of triumph that you hadn't jumped off and bolted, though he felt a twinge of guilt, too, because he’d brought you this far specifically so you couldn't run away.

The glade was breathtaking and it immediately snagged your attention. Under any other circumstances, you would have danced through the high grass, but the weight in your chest kept your feet heavy.

Neteyam turned to you, the light dabbing across his face. “Alright," he whispered, his jaw tightening. “Tell me. What has changed since I left?”

You scowled, the image of Ka’ani’s smug face flashing in your mind. “Are you sure things didn’t change before you left? I’m pretty sure you made up with Ka’ani, and did more than just talking.”

The accusation hit him like a physical blow that his eyes widened, his head snapping back in shock. “I did not ‘make up’ with Ka’ani. Yes, I talked to her, but I simply told her to back off. I told her never to approach you again. Did she talk of nonsense to you again?” He was practically vibrating, his tail lashing behind him.

“Yes, she did! We talked,” you threw back at him. “She showed me the hickeys on her neck, Neteyam! She said she was so sore... because you were insatiable! Because you missed her so much that you had to get your 'strength' from her before you left!”

“What?” The word was a rasp of horror. A visceral disgust washed over his features, his body shivering at the image your words painted. “I did not lay with her. I never did and I never would. Oh, Great Mother... that woman is a huge liar!”

You searched his face. You looked for a flicker of guilt or lie, a shift in his eyes, but all you saw was a man who looked genuinely nauseated by the very idea. You believe him, despite yourself and without your consent, the suffocating clouds over your head began to lighten. He stepped toward you, his hands reaching for your arms, but you crossed them over your chest, refusing to let him in just yet.

“Believe me, please,” he pleaded, his words beginning to tumble over each other in a frantic rush. “That night after we were in the forest, all I did was find her and shut down her delusions. I was so mad that she dared to talk to you, dared to get mad at you, so I told her to back off and never approach you again. I was coming back to you, baby. I was going to tell you our ruse ends there and then. I was going to beg you for a chance to make it real.”

He palmed his face , sounding completely undone.

“But then the incident with our warriors happened and I had to go... Jesus. I was so stupid. I should have gone to you before I left, but I was thinking... I was thinking I probably wouldn't be able to leave at all if you told me you’d give me a chance.”

His heart was beating too fast and to hard against his chest, watching the fire in your eyes finally die out, replaced by a soft heat. You believed him. It wasn't in your nature to stay angry when the truth felt so solid, and you knew Neteyam well enough now to know he would never play around. The fact that Ka’ani had looked so bitter earlier suddenly made sense. She hadn't won anything, she had just tried to burn down your bridge.

You bit your lip, your shoulders finally dropping. “Alright...” you whispered.

Neteyam didn't hesitate. He stepped into your space, gently wrapping his arms around you and pulling you into the solid warmth of his chest. “That’s it? ‘Alright’?” he asked, his voice soft and breathless, his face so close yours.

You pushed your lips forward in a small pout, though you didn't pull away. “I guess I believe you... I don’t think it’s in your character to lie like that.”

A wave of shame washed over you as you realized how quickly you had let Ka’ani’s poison work. You had given him so little confidence, believing a lie over the man you know to be so genuine and kind. But then, you had been protecting yourself; you were in an act, and the lines had been so blurred you didn't know where it all ended.

“I’m sorry,” you murmured “I just... I thought it was still an act. That we were still acting to get her back...”

Neteyam tightened his grip, lowering his head to bury his face in the crook of your neck. “I’ve long forgotten about the deal. I think I stopped truly caring about it just a week after I started spending my days with you. I just didn't know what it was I was feeling until the thought of it ending and not being with you anymore felt more terrifying than any battle.” He pulled back just enough to look at you, his thumb caressing your cheek. “This is why you’ve been crying...”

You pushed your lips forward. You wanted to forget that part! “Let’s just forget it...”

“No, we won’t. You don’t know how much it broke me to see you cry, to see you so gray, and not know why. She hurt you, she meant to hurt you,” he said, his voice hard and his jaw tightening. “And I played a part in it. I should have talked to you, clear everything for us so you would have confidence in me. So you won’t believe her.”

You looked up at him, your hand pressing against his chest to calm him down. “It’s over and done with, Neteyam... What’s important is that we’te okay now. Right?”

He looked down at you, his head tilting. Ka’ani was lucky that you are so kind, but she wasn’t that lucky because he’s not. He leaned down to kiss you, “Right. There will be no more acts and games... Just us.”

You looked up at him, the weight finally gone, and for the first time in days, the light returned to your golden eyes. “Just us.” you beamed at him.

He sucked in a breath, pulling you and tilting your head to kiss you hard. He was a man starved and you could tell with how he's holding and kissing you. He moaned when your tongue licked his lower lip, making him pull his head back to look at you.

“It’s you I missed so much...” he mumbled, kissing you softly. “It’s you I’d be insatiable for... And you I’ll make so sore—”

“Neteyam!” your hand lifted up to clamp around his mouth and he laughed. You shrieked when you felt his warm and wet tongue lick at your palm.

“I know... I’ll court you... Then you'll accept me as your mate... And then you’re in big trouble wth me—”

You groaned, your cheeks burning purple. He kissed your cheek before angling his head to kiss you for real.

The next afternoon, the Sully siblings were in on the plan—though only Kiri truly understood the gravity of it. They had dragged you down to the river, telling you they’ll teach you how to properly splash a person without getting soaked yourself.

“Focus! You have to cup your hand like this,” Spider shouted, sending a wall of water toward a ducking Lo’ak.

You laughed, the sound genuine and bright, completely unaware that Neteyam had quietly slipped away. He had seen Ka’ani heading toward the upper trails, and he wasn't about to let another sun set without finishing this. He intercepted her near the high roots, his silhouette blocking her path. Ka’ani stopped, her smirk faltering when she saw the look on his face. He didn’t look friendly at all, not that he had look friendly the last time they talked, but the hard storm masking his face right now was the look of a man who had seen a threatening the peace.

“Neteyam,” she started, trying to reclaim her cool composure. “I thought you'd be busy with your little weaver.“

“I am busy,” Neteyam said. “I am busy realizing how wrong I was about you. I thought you were a warrior of honor, Ka’ani. I thought that even if you were proud, you were noble. But to purposely hurt a woman who did you nothing wrong? To lie about the most disgusting things just to see her cry—”

Ka’ani’s eyes narrowed, her tail lashing. “I know what I’m doing, Neteyam! You were only using her to straighten me up! I just leveled the playing field. I was reclaiming what was mine—”

“I was never yours,” he cut her off, disgust for her delusions crumpling his face. “There was nothing to reclaim, you had nothing. The life you are living is the one you actively chose. Even if we had tried before, I know I would have quickly realized it would never work, what with our lack of connection. The only thing we shared was the training grounds.”

Ka’ani winced as if he’d struck her. “I... I was just blinded, Neteyam. I was jealous! I was envious. I’m sorry, alright? I was just trying to get you back.”

Neteyam let out a sharp huff. “I wasn’t yours to get back, we had nothing to do with each other. And you’re not really sorry. At least not yet, because you didn't think of taking your words back during the days I wasn't home. You knew she was crying. You knew she was hurting from your lies, and you sat back and enjoyed it. You are only sorry now because I am standing here confronting you.”

Ka’ani opened her mouth to argue, her hands trembling, but no words came out. The truth of his gaze was too heavy to deflect.

“I hope you grow,” Neteyam said, turning on his heel.

“Neteyam, wait!” she called out, sounding frantic as he turned to walk away. “I’m sorry! I’ll go to her right now. I’ll apologize to her! Please... can we still be friends? We’ve known each other our whole lives.”

Neteyam stopped, but he didn't turn around. He looked over his shoulder, his profile sharp against the sunlight filtering through the leaves.

“We were never friends, Ka’ani. You don't see me as a friend. You see me as a prize to be won.” He took a breath, thinking of your laugh echoing by the river. “Friends don’t hurt the people you love. And that is exactly what you did to the woman I love. After that, I don’t think your wish can be possible.”

He left her standing there, the weight of her own choices finally settling on her shoulders. When he returned to the river, he saw you. You were dripping wet, laughing as Tuk tried to climb onto your back.You looked up and caught his eye, beaming at him with a warmth that made his heart feel like it was soaring home.

He didn't say a word about Ka’ani. He just waded into the water, pulled you into a lopsided embrace, and whispered into your ear, “I think it’s time I started that courting I mentioned. Properly.”

And just like that, the moons had drifted by like dust in the wind, and Neteyam had kept his word. He courted you openly and even formally asked your parents for your hand, which they initially did not want to grant him. They think your life wouldn’t be as peaceful if you mated Neteyam instead of a simple man in the clan. Honestly, your parents didn’t know what to do with him. Neteyam was so intense in his courtship to you and your family that, most times, your parents were literally hiding from him. By then, he had already brought your family the finest meat and the rarest fruits, but surprise of your parents’ lives probably came when he brought Jake and Neytiri. He wasn’t really planning to bring them along, it was just... Neytiri is apparently getting impatient over the fact that Neteyam isn’t an official suitor yet, and Jake wanted to relieve your parents of their worries over you being Neteyam’s mate.

And today, the celebration for the new village of the displaced clan felt like the culmination of everything you and Neteyam had built. It seemed so long ago when you two discussed the matter when you were swimming in the river, and now, the clan found a home by the river. The Olo’eyktan of the displaced clan stood before the grand fire. You’d met him only today, but you could already tell the respect he has for Neteyam.

“For too long, we were ghosts in this forest,” the Olo’eyktan started. “We lived like beggars, raiding for sustenance, hurting our brothers and sisters among your clans, and also fearing their spears, but a path was cleared where we saw only hopelessness. Our homes are standing here today because of Neteyam te Suli, our brother of the Omatikaya. Because of him, we have peace. Our children will know only the beauty of the forest and never the tragedy that forced us out of our lands.”

You grinned as the crowd erupted, but Neteyam tried to sink into his seat, his ears pressing back in embarrassment as his arm pulled you to him. He hated the attention, but the chieftains wouldn't have it. They pushed him to the center, where he was forced to give a piece of his mind.

He cleared his throat, his golden eyes immediately finding yours in the crowd as if to ground himself. “The peace you see today was not born in my mind,” he began, his voice steadying as he looked at you. “I am a warrior, I was ready to lead with my bow. But it was my woman who showed me the wisdom in a hand offered instead of an arrow. She gave me the strength to listen when I wanted to fight. If this land is a home today, it is because her heart guided my way.”

Neytiri turned to you and smiled as the men in the crowd roared to tease the warrior they’ve been acquainted with in the past moons. As he strode back to you, pulling you into a deep kiss of victory, a warrior from a different clan hooted from the side. “Careful, Neteyam! Keep your wits about you and don’t let her hit her head, or she might wake up and realize she could leave your ass behind!”

Neteyam let out a deep, resonant laugh, pulling you flush against his side. “I have no intention of ever letting her get far enough to find out!”

As the party reached its high, Neteyam’s eyes found yours, looking at you meaningfully, in a way that made your skin tingle. You raised a brow and he jerked his head toward the dark woods. You pushed your lips forward in a playful pout but tugged his hand anyway, leading him away from the noise and into the glowing embrace of the forest.

You skipped hand in hand, admiring the bioluminescent flora lighting your path and when you reached the secluded bend of the river, the sounds of the festival was nothing but a hum. You turned to him with a grin and, without a word, untied the ties of your beaded top. His hungry eyes followed the movement, his breath hitching as if he has not seen them for a hundred times already. You untied your loincloth next, letting it pool on the floor.

He watched you with an intensity that excited you, and when his own loincloth fell, you bit your lip, seeing of the hard-on you had become quite well-acquainted with over the past moons. The glow of the river and the forest illuminated his handsome face so perfectly your heart hammered against your chest. He is so handsome.

“Hi,” he whispered, his large arms on your waist pulling you close.

Your smile grew to a grin. “You’re silly,” you chuckled, pressing a palm against his muscled chest to gently push him back. “I’m going to swim... why are you holding me?”

Neteyam’s eyes narrowed playfully, a boyish grin spreading across his face as he leaned in, his nose brushing yours. “Oh, I think there are other things that need swimming, too,” he teased, his voice dropping as his hand caught yours, bringing it down so you could feel his hardened cock. “Your babies want to swim in you.”

“Neteyam!“ you called, almost swiveling your head around in case someone could hear him. You’ve learned, in the past moons, how lewd he can be with his words but your habit of looking around will probably stay for a few years more.

He angled his head to press a hard kiss against your lips. “What? Don’t you want our kids to have fun time?”

You laughed, the sound like bells in his ears. You threw your arms around his neck, pulling him into a hug. “Am I in big trouble again?” you whispered against his ear.

He groaned. “You’re always going to be in big trouble with me if I had my way.”

You smirked, tilting your head. “I want to take care of you tonight...” you mumbled, your hand on his chest caressing his skin and pushing him back.

He raised a brow, always surprised still whenever you show him fire. You pulled him down to kiss him, your lips crashing into his with a hunger that made him vibrate in excitement. He let you push him back against the trunk of a towering tree, letting out a gravelly groan when his head thumped back against the bark.

His hands gripped your waist, pulling you so flush against him that the ridge of his hard-on felt like it was imprinting itself on your belly. With practiced ease, he reached behind himself to bring his queue forward, while his other hand found yours behind you, making you break the kiss for just a second, watching through hooded eyes as the pink tendrils of your kurus began to reach and weave together.

The familiar psychic  jolt of his intense love, raw devotion and desire for you flooded your mind, feeling his heart hammering against your ears, echoing the rhythm of your own. His fingers cupped your jaw to kiss you again, ad you smiled against his lips, pressing a lingering kiss to the corner of his mouth before trailing your lips down. You licked and kiss his neck, your palms staying flat on his chest, feeling the heavy thud of his heart as you kissed your way down over the hard ridges of his stomach.

“My warrior...” you murmured, kissing his lower abdomen.

You peered up at him, seeing his head pressed against the tree, but his eyes were looking down at you. You kissed sharp V-line of his hips before your hand reached out, fisting his girth. Neteyam’s breath hitched, a strangled sound escaping his throat as your hand began to move. The bond between your queues flared, sending waves of his pleasure crashing through the both of you.

“You are celebrated tonight,” you whispered, looking up at him with your innocent doe eyes that contrasted the sinful movement of your hands on him. “I think you deserve a reward, don't you?”

“Baby...” he rasped, his hands fisting as he tried to ground himself.

You didn't give him a chance to respond. You lowered your head, taking him into your mouth with a heat that made his entire body shudder. Through the bond, you felt the exact moment he weakened. His hands flew to your long braids as your mouth started sucking around his girth, your tongue playing with its underside, getting another sharp intake of his breath. You drew back slightly, then plunged deeper, taking more of him down your throat. You worked your mouth, your lips sealing around him that made him tremble. His fingers tightened in your braids in a gentle tug, guiding your movements, urging you faster.

Your tongue swirled, licked, teased, tracing the veins along his length. You felt him grow even harder in your mouth. You pulled back, then swallowed him again, your breath hitching as you felt the wide head deep inside your throat. His hips began to thrust, his hand on your jaw, meeting your eager mouth until you tasted him, the musky scent of his arousal filling your nostrils. Your throat ached, but the pleasure in his groans kept you moving.

“Oh, baby,” he gasped, his body trembling.

His hips bucked, a deep growl rumbling from his chest. You felt the first warm gush of him erupt into your mouth, hot and thick, and you swallowed as his body convulsed, still pouring into you. He groaned deeply, a powerful sound that made you shiver, his fingers digging into your hair as he emptied himself.

He slumped, his breathing ragged. “Enough, my love,” he whispered, his voice hoarse, trying to pull your head up.

But you weren’t finished. You wanted to clean him, to savor every last drop. You ignored his pleas, your tongue flicking out, licking away the remnants of his pleasure, tracing the underside of his shaft. You heard his sharp intake of breath, his abdominal muscles tensing again. He was literally fighting to hold onto his strength, and you felt his cock twitch, hardening slightly at your continued ministrations. You ran your tongue along the tip, then sucked gently, drawing out the last of his cum.

“Fuck. I regret teaching you, you know?” he said weakly, his knees buckling.

You glared at him before reluctantly releasing him, your lips glistening. He reached down, pulling you up with a sudden, fierce strength that lifted until your bodies collided. His mouth found yours in a hard, demanding kiss, his tongue plunged into your mouth, mirroring the thrusts of his shaft earlier, tangling with yours. You met him with equal fervor, your arms wrapping around his neck, pulling him closer still, your hips instinctively grinding against his.

He broke the kiss, his lips trailing down your jaw and your throat in a fiery path. He lifted you, cradling you in his arms, your legs wrapping around his waist before he lowered you gently against the soft moss. He knelt above you, his golden eyes devouring your body like a man starved. His hand traced the curve of your waist, then upward, toward your breasts. His fingers brushed against your nipple and you arched your back, a soft moan escaping your lips. He leaned down, his mouth closing over one of the pebbled tips, sucking hard. You gasped and shivered, your fingers tangling in his braids, pressing him closer. His tongue swirled around your breast, while his other hand kneaded the other, his thumb circling the aroused tip.

“What a great reward,” he groaned, his voice muffled against your flesh. He suckled hard that it made you arch your back both in ache and pleasure. He moved to the other breast, giving it the same intense attention until you cried out, your body writhing for more.

He pulled away, his eyes hot with a familiar predatory hunger in them. He shifted, kneeling between your legs, which had instinctively parted for him. He leaned down, his mouth moving lower. You moaned, knowing what was coming, your hips lifting in anticipation. His tongue flicked out, tracing the velvety folds of your pussy, already wet with anticipation,

He spread your lips, his tongue plunging directly into your clit, making you arch your back, your fingers scratching at his back. He licked, sucked, and torment, his mouth relentlessly sucking and his tongue playing more than it licks. He used his fingers, too, parting your lips to allowing his tongue full access on you. He tasted you, the salty-sweet essence, a taste that always drove him wild.

“So sweet,” he murmured against your folds his voice a low growl, his tongue flicking faster, harder.

Your breath came in ragged gasps, your legs trembling, wrapping around his head, pressing him deeper into your pussy. You felt the suction of his mouth and the relentless assault of his tongue on your clit, and your orgasm coiled in your belly. You whimpered, unable to form words, only sounds of pure pleasure, your hips bucking as your body shivered with release, leaving you gasping. You felt the soft shudders of your pussy, contracting around his tongue.

He pulled away, moving above you, his hard cock pressing against your folds. You whimpered, still quivering from your orgasm that your pussy was still throbbing and incredibly sensitive. He still pushed though, the head of his cock sliding inside. You moaned and he pushed deeper, stretching you, and filling you completely.

You wrapped your arms around his body that hovered above yours, his eyes locked with yours. He began to move, a slow thrust, then another, pulling almost completely out before plunging back in deep and hard. The sounds of him sliding in and out of your wetness filled the air, mingling with your gasps and his grunts. You wrapped your legs tighter around his waist, urging him deeper and faster.

He gripped your waist, his fingers digging into your flesh, lifting you slightly to control the angle, to thrust even deeper. “Harder,” you pleaded, your voice hoarse, your hips bucking to meet his.

He responded instantly, his thrusts becoming a furious assault. He pounded into you, deep and relentless, filling you with every thrust. You felt yourself tightening around him, your muscles clenching. Your breath hitched, your vision blurring. You cried out his name, again and again, as your body convulsed, leaving you gasping, clinging to him.

He groaned, his body trembling above you as he thrusted a few more times, deep, desperate strokes. His body tensed, his seed erupting inside you, hot and thick, filling your womb with your babies that needed swimming. He collapsed onto you, heaving, his breath ragged against your neck. You lay there, your entwined bodies both slick with sweat and release.

He let out a long, shaky exhale, his tail giving one final, exhausted twitch against your leg. With a groan that sounded sated and delirious, he pulled out of you, watching the gush of his heavy and thick cum dripping out of you. “You emptied me,” he mumbled, his voice thick.

You chuckled, breathless. “Complaining, are we? You’re the one who started talking about ‘swimmers’ in the middle of our conversation,” you smirked.

Neteyam let out a dry, boyish laugh, propping himself up on one elbow. He looked down at your stomach, then back at your face, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I believe in my warriors. They’re fast.”

You groaned, reaching up to swat his chest, but he caught your hand, bringing it to his lips to kiss your knuckles. “Neteyam, if my mother sees me walking back looking like this, I’m going to receive a scolding.”

“Tell her you are a mated woman,” he suggested shamelessly, pulling you closer until your head was resting on his chest.

“Neteyam... They don’t know that yet. We are following the traditions!” you whisper-shouted playfully. “Beside, what happened to being modest for my parents?” you narrowed your eyes at him.

He laughed, a genuine, chest-shaking sound that made you feel warm all over again. He rolled to his side, his hand grabbing your waist with a renewed look of heat in his eyes that made you groan. You sat up and his head angled to catch the pebbled tip of your breast into his mouth.

“‘Teyam...” your hand clutched at his shoulder.

“Just one more...” he said, his words muffled because he had your flesh in his mouth.

You bit you lip and laid back on the soft moss, spreading your thighs as your hand caressed the soft skin on his back. You watched his large, formidable form hover over you, his thick and long cock already pointing at your pussy as if it knows its target. You shivered at the sight of it, your excitement vibrating in your body. His hand clasped under your knee and pushed your leg back, stretching you before his cock nudged your entrance.

His other hand moved over your pussy, his thumb rubbing your sensitive nub as his length disappeared in you. You moaned a long one, arching your back, offering your rounded breasts to him and he lowered his head to take one into his mouth, his tongue immediately swirling on your nipple. In a sudden, hard movement, his hand on your hips pulled you to him, burying himself to the hilt inside you.

“Ah!” you moaned, your thighs quivering to close around him but he kept them open, restraining both of them tightly befote delivering a series of hard and intense pounding.

You held onto him, your eyes flying open and meeting his. You probably looked so aroused and fucked, because his pupils blew even wider, almost swallowing the gold. Your mouth remained perpetually gaped, releasing jagged breaths and moans as he continued pumping into you. Your hand pressed against his lower abdomen and his thrusts quickened and hardened even more.

He lowered his head to kiss you, his tongue immediately plunging into your open mouth. You wrapped your arms around him, feeling his hard muscles contrasting his soft skin until all the sensations he’s giving you pushed you to the edge. He came first, shuddering above you despite his efforts to hold out longer. You hugged him tighter when you felt yourself erupt.

He kissed your neck softly, feeling your body shudder against him, you legs literally quivering as your walls clenched around him to milk him dry. He chuckled, pressing a hard kiss against your jaw. “I told you. Big trouble.”

You let your head fall on the mossy ground, feeling him lick the skin on your exposed neck. “I think I can handle the trouble,” you murmured. “As long as it’s yours.”

Hate is a powerful word. It drives people, it feeds one’s power.

You were made with hate, given birth with hate, and raised with hate.

You never called her sa'nok [mother], always Varang, or Tsa’hik. You never knew your father, and never bothered to wish for one. All you needed was Varang, her hand guided your every movement, from a young age, she made sure you would be what could lead the Mangkwan after her.

At 10, you learnt what happened to your father, as his kuru was given to you, the braid was slightly disheveled from the years, but you didn’t care. You hooked it on your leather belt, and promised Varang that one day, that belt would be full of more.

Even if deep inside you just wanted a hug, or any show of emotion other than rage.

So now you’re here. Sitting over a rock, in your hand what sky-people called mirrors. One of the males gave it to you after they had found a campsite of RDA soldiers, and after killing and raiding, he brought this to you as a courting gift. 

At first you didn’t understand the reason for the small circle, but then you saw the reflection. 

Slightly cracked. But you saw yourself in it. Your golden eyes, the facial features Varang passed to you, your scarification. Seeing your approval of the gift, he bowed down his head in respect.

“You are fire incarnate” He said, or at least something like that, before leaving.

So you began using it, making sure the ash on your face was evenly spread, your tribal paint  threatening and powerful. Because maybe, just maybe, it’d be able to kill your real feelings.

–

They all ran, occasionally slowing down to help Spider. Neither Lo’ak nor Neteyam had their comms, as Lo’ak forgot his in the caravan and Neteyam’s got caught on a branch, making him break it to continue running, otherwise the Mangkwan would have gotten to them.

Varang didn’t exactly rush, her slender body moving with grace as she followed the scent trail of the Na’vi with the thunder. You ran along with your people, bows and daggers in hand as you could occasionally see a tail or a blue figure moving a few feet away- your prey.

You have occasionally seen these… Thunder weapons, in RDA soldiers. But had never seen how deathly they were, now that this blue boy had used it against your people, Varang wanted it, so her wish was your command.

Lo’ak helped Tuk and Kiri into the small river, Spider following close behind.

The flow of the water slowly began pulling stronger, Tuk’s smaller hands holding onto Lo’ak as the river threatened to separate them.

“What does dad always say?” Lo’ak said, watching both Tuk and his surroundings as they moved with the water, trying his best to lead the situation, since Neteyam had been wounded, an arrow going through his shoulder, the oldest Sully quietly wincing in pain, trying to keep calm.

“The Sully’s stick together” Tuk said, her eyes going from Lo’ak to Neteyam, worrying for her injured brother.

“You good bro?” Said Lo’ak, extending an arm to Neteyam’s good shoulder, Neteyam only nodding, but his face was already sweaty, a trail of blood mixing with the water as the flow forced them forward quite roughly.

“Sully’s never quit” Corrected Neteyam with a forced smile- prioritizing keeping calm even over the pain he felt.

“That’s right, Sully’s never quit” Lo’ak said, giving Neteyam  a subtle nod.

The small peace lasted only a few seconds before the pull of the water became too strong, dragging them like rag-dolls.

Back with the Mangkwan, you all stopped as the scent ended in the river. 

“I lost the scent, Tsa’hik” You said, frowning, kneeling in front of the feet-shapes in the mud, counting how many there were. What caught your attention was the much smaller one.

A sky-people foot.

“For what I can see, it’s 3 adults, a child and a sky-person” You said, standing up, your tail moving from side to side annoyed, ears drawn back.

Varang walked next to you as the other Mangkwan, investigated the area. Your ears moved up as you straightened your posture next to her.

“Well done, 'itetsyìp [Little daughter]” She said, her hand going to your hair, running a slender finger against your scalp. The affectionate nickname was only used when you were useful, and the way she said it held little to no feeling.

You nodded, and as quick as she had arrived next to you, she was already moving, pointing a finger at the direction of the river.

“Follow them!” She said, and all of you quickly obliged.

You had to be alert, your eyes wide open as you made sure to look in the mud and smell the scents in the air, to know where the fugitives had gone. While not told out loud, you knew it was a race against time- Varang’s patience always held a limit, and a not so large one.

The hours quickly passed as you continued, each muscle in your body stiff and stressed from the possibility of having lost them.

Varang wanted the thunder, and you were going to give it to her. Or else.

You could feel her eyes on you, daring to say the words.

We lost them.

You wouldn’t call this emotion fear, as it was something you taught yourself to not feel a long time ago, no, this would be dread. You knew failing had its grim consequences. The one you dreaded the most was having your kuru tortured. It was as if her claws digged into your brain and squished until the gray matter oozed between her fingers.

She had to set an example with you, show the Mangkwan that being her daughter did not mean you could get away with being weak, with failing. If anything, it’d make things worse, humiliating you in public as she used her kuru on you, seeing you struggle to not cry or scream as the other Mangkwan stared.

That’s why you needed to succeed. To prove you were what she wanted.

You’d spread fire all along Pandora just to prove yourself. May Eywa forgive you.

The mere thought of Eywa made you snap back to reality, almost as if scared Varang could read your mind- to find out your deepest secrets, the soft spot in your heart not reached by the ash, the small faith that refused to die.

Your eyes fixed on the mud, your whole body stopping as you saw the footprints again. Because of the water they were almost indistinguishable, but it was there.

You quickly kneeled next to them, raising your hand to catch the attention of the other Mangkwan. “They’re nearby” You said.

Deep into the forest, Spider hugged Kiri. For some reason, maybe Eywa’s blessing, maybe Kiri’s connection to said goddess, he could finally breathe.

Lo’ak had helped Neteyam take the arrow out of his shoulder. The wound wasn’t fatal, but the blood loss was taking a toll, making him dizzy and slow. To make matters worse, they had nothing to patch him up, with Neteyam’s arm on Lo’ak’s shoulder for support, they could at least consider Spider’s problem solved.

Before Lo’ak could ask if she could try helping Neteyam’s wound, the fire began raining.

The Mangkwan had arrived, and like a bird, you pounced over Lo’ak, screaming like a banshee, hitting him and making him fall.

Neteyam fell, being in no shape to fight, raising his arms, wincing at the sharp pain.

Kiri moved to protectively hug Tuk. You saw the Thunder that the male you landed over dropped.

The rest held their daggers, hissing, including the sky-person, who for some reason had no mask protecting his weak lungs. But they had no chance against your people. One by one they were unarmed and immobilized.

Your feet planted on the male’s back. He knew how to control the thunder- so Varang would be interested in him first.

Your eyes met the bleeding one, a Mangkwan already holding him by his kuru, as the others did the same, holding them out to Varang.

You let another Mangkwan grab the one you were immobilizing, and grab the metal weapon.

“Ma Tsa’hik” You said, lowering your head as you handed her the thunder. She wasted no time in taking it from your hands, her tail excitedly moving behind her as she lifted it in her hands.

As Varang spoke to the sky-person, you moved to see the injured male, who was with his eyes closed in pain.

From afar, Jake, Wainfleet and Quaritch stared at the macabre scene.

The Mangkwan were about to kill Spider, all to humiliate Kiri’s beliefs in Eywa.

But Varang wasn’t interested in that now. She wanted the thunder. You quickly moved beside the one that had fired it before, the one with the weird hiss.

“Show her thunder!” You scream at him as he refuses, saying something about no ammo. At his lack of complying, you smack him in the head.

“Kill the youngest” She orders you, and you grab your obsidian dagger, its sharp end reflecting the fire. You walk towards her, your eyes avoiding her.

They began screaming- but it was too late. Your tail flicked as you moved towards the hì'i 'eve [Little girl]. Your eyes moved for just a second to stare at the bleeding one. He looked bad. But before you could do anything, two shadows bursted in.

You were hit in the head, the punch making your ears ring and your world give a spin as you fell, the sounds of thunder making the whole sensation resemble kuru torture.

But your eyes saw one of the sky-people, now in Na’vi skin, point the thunder against Varang’s head.

You tried standing up, but your head felt scrambled up. “sa'nok [mother]!” You scream, not even realizing what you had said, too panicked to think anything other than Varang’s life being threatened.

That was probably the first time you called her mother.

Your hand extended towards her.

“DOWN!” The Na’vi with short hair screamt as he pulls harder on Varang’s hair, her making sounds between pain and laughter.

The Na’vi reunited in the middle. You recognized the one with dreadlocks. Toruk Makto. Your head slowly cleared up, and just in time as you saw Varang join her kuru with the one of the men threatening her life.

She screamt, and he did as well, dropping the thunder as he fell to his knees, all Mangkwan quickly going to attack again. You stood up to help immobilize them.

You moved over the one you had heard been called Lo’ak, your knees painfully digging in his forearms as you sat on his back, keeping him still with your body weight, another hand grabbing onto his kuru just in case.

“¡Dad!” He screamt as Toruk Makto was also kept still on the floor, weapons pointed at him.

–

You all danced in celebration, chanting and moving around the fire.

But you were interested in something else.

You walked towards the captives, staring at their bound forms.

“Toruk Makto, and his litter of half-breeds” You said, your tail high and curious. You hadn’t meant it exactly as an insult- mostly as a statement, but you were so used to hearing people describe them that way, it almost came out automatically.

“Tsa’hik said I could choose one and keep it as my pet” you said, walking between them, taking the chance to kick Toruk Makto in the jaw. Payback for punching the lights out of you before.

“Bitch!” Lo’ak said, making you growl. You walked among them.

You looked at Toruk Makto. “Too old” You said.

You moved towards the youngest. “Too young” 

Your path moved towards Lo’ak. “Too alien”

Then towards the sky-person. “Too ugly”

With a disinterested growl you ignored the woman with the demon nose.

Moving past the one with short hair, the one who had pointed the thunder at Varang’s head, you kicked him in the stomach. “Txanfwìngtu [Bastard]” You said with a hiss. “Just waist ‘till i get my hands on you, cupcake” He said with a pained growl.

Your eyes finally moved to the last one. The bleeding one, his face pale and body slightly shaking.

You had noticed him from the start. He struck out like a sore thumb, his factions perfectly Na’vi when all his siblings looked like a mix between races. That part inside you- the one you always hid made you let out a weird nose- you biting your lip to keep quiet, your hands turning to fists. He looked on the brink of death. And knowing Varang, she’d take the chance he’s weak to scalp him in front of his family.

“Toruk Makto’s oldest son.” You said as you kneeled beside him, your hand caressing his face. He was too out of it to even react.

“Neteyam, hey- look at me. Stay with me, son.” Toruk Makto said, his face etched with worry as he saw your hand on his face.

You ignored him as your hand grabbed this… Neteyam’s ankle, dragging him towards the firepit where Mangkwan still celebrated.

“Let him go! LET HIM GO!” Toruk Makto screamt desperately.

You ignored him as you dragged Neteyam towards Varang, who was dancing. You quickly swallowed down any sort of emotion that could betray you, and spoke.

“Tsa’hik. For the prize you mentioned… I want this man as my pet.” You said, lifting him into your arms, one hooking under his neck, the other under his knees.

Varang stopped dancing, and walked towards you, smiling. 

“If I grant this, you must know, he is not an equal, but a lesser. You will shape him, and keep him in line” She said, running her finger down Neteyan’s jaw.

You nodded, your smile mirroring hers. It was like the mirror you had been given- seeing Varang’s smile in front of yours. Except her side was cracked and bloodied. And yours not yet.

So now here you were, over your Ikran, the beast screeching as it saw the Ash Lands come to view. You lowered, one hand on the Ikran, the other holding the passed out man against you so he’d not fall.

As you lowered yourself onto familiar land, the Mangkwan that had stayed curiously moved to get a look at the passed out forest Na’vi in your arms.

You hissed, making them snap out of it and continue their chores as you walked towards your kelku.

Entering it, you placed Neteyam on the furs you used to sleep, the many hides there softly adjusting to his body. Your eyes softened as you stared at him, your hands moving to heal his wound. After all you were Tsakarem, you had been learning all your life how to deal with these kinds of injuries.

Unlike the many Na’vi in the Mangkwan clan, he seemed softer, rounder. You took your time as you prepared the herbs and applied them onto his wound, then using cloth to secure it to his shoulder. You cleansed the dry blood, and then traced the blue patterns of his skin with your finger.

Your palm had a tattoo like Varang’s, the tattooed skin pressing against his blue skin. Blue just like yours, except yours was covered in ash, grime and paint.

You lowered your head and sniffed his neck, right where his scent glands were. You let out a shaky breath as you looked down at him. He smelt so… Alive, like a plant that just bloomed- a stark contrast against your own scent.

Your hand moved to his jaw, moving his face until it was facing you, you could almost taste the layer of cold sweat on it. 

You moved back, his scent still on your nose. 

–

When Neteyam woke up, he instantly felt something was wrong.

For a second he thought they had been saved by the Omatikaya, and that the shadow sitting next to him was Mo’at, and at any moment Lo’ak would burst in just to pester him about how he managed the situation.

But… The Omatikaya didn’t reek of burnt meat and wood. The kelku was oddly dark and from the faint outlines he could see of the decorations, it seemed like bone structures, twisting until they looked like demons brought from sky-people religions.

His whole body felt numb and unnaturally relaxed. That’s when he realized he couldn’t move his fingers, or any limb at all.

Panic began festering in his mind, with his blurry sight he realized the figure next to him wasn’t Mo’at, or any Omatikaya. It was a Mangkwan.

Your eyes met his, and you raised your hand, the tattoo on your palm in front of his face, the black eye almost winking at him, or maybe it was the effects of the drugs?

“Relax, Toruk Makto’s son” You said, your voice distorted, but he could start to finally make the shape of you.

“You have been given special herbs that numb your senses. Your shoulder injury got infected. It is the only way to save you from the pain” You said, putting the mushed herbs on a wooden cup with some liquid inside.

You had heard from Varang that the other Na’vi’s had managed to escape. You weren’t even sure why you were still aiding him and keeping him. You had told Varang you could use him as leverage in case you’d need it. But deep inside you felt some sort of pull, something inside you that begged you to explore this new side of you.

Not new, no, but hidden. Something you had repressed so long ago, and now was slowly flourishing.

Neteyam let out an attempt to talk, but the drug was still too present in his blood. You lifted his head with one hand and the other placed the cup against his mouth. “Swallow” You said as you let the mysterious liquid into his mouth, him slightly choking on it.

“This is 'umtsa [Medicine]. It’ll help strengthen your body to fight the infection. Drink it all.” You said, your voice carrying an unusual soft tone in it.

“If you don’t get better, Varang will not see any purpose in you, and will scalp you.” You warned.

Neteyam couldn’t do anything, couldn’t fight, couldn’t speak, or even move his tongue to let out some sort of noise. The liquid slowly made his eyes feel tired, lids closing as the last thing he saw was your hands going back to tending to his wound.

Then everything went black.

His dreams were a chaotic mix. Sometimes he dreamt he woke up one day and the Ash Lands were empty, and he could just walk out of there with no issue- then they’d be realistic, where he fought for his freedom, his dad and mom arriving to help him. The Toruk ripping through Mangkwans as Neytiri’s deadly arrows rained.

Or sometimes his dreams would be him in a more quiet place, almost as if his mind was trying to give him a safe zone deep inside his head.

But he’d always wake up in the same spot. You had made him a small bedding in your kelku, a collar of bone and leather tightened securely on his neck, the sharp ends of the bones sticking out, so if he ever did any quick movement it’d pierce skin and hurt. He had his own sleeping place, layered furs on the floor, slightly small for his size, so he had to sleep curled up on himself. Whenever he did get some sleep, that is.

The collar had some sort of leash attached to it, letting him roam through a small portion of your kelku, just out of reach of what could be used as weapons. You had completely cleansed his space beforehand, leaving little to no decoration, no fire in reach. 

But you weren’t like other Mangkwan. The ones he saw in the raid were blood thirsty, desperate to hurt, to kill. But you’d simply stare at him, bring him food and water, and occasionally mutter a few words here and there.

Right now, you were cleaning his wound. Your hands moved softly against his skin, sitting cross-legged in front of him, a basket with different healing supplies inside. 

You applied a cold paste, its color hinting that it’s some kind of mud. The grim thought that it’s most probably one of the stolen goods from the Wind Trader Caravan pops in his head.

He flinched at the cold feeling over his healing wound. Making you frown.

“Do not flinch. Or else I can mess up” you warned. “You speak as if you care” Said Neteyam, testing the waters.

Your cheeks turned a subtle purple, but thankfully the ash and paint covered it. “You have no use if you’re dead” You answered, leaving the paste down in the basket and grabbing a long cloth.

The silent question hung in the air. Use for what? If you wanted to, you would have already forced whatever agenda you wanted to, but you never touched him besides checking his wound, and never spoke more than necessary.

This was so far your longest convo.

“So you can escape” You answered, letting out a tired sigh. Your hand slowly moved to his braids, giving him time to move if he wanted. He didn’t.

Your fingers moved from his braids down to his arm band, your fingers tracing the beads in it.

Your eyes got glossy. But no tears fell. “I will not keep you. I only lied to be able to heal you, so you’d not die in front of your family.” You confessed, one of the beads was rougher than the others, slightly scraping your finger.

“You have a family to go back to. Your siblings must miss you.” You added with a shaky exhale. The final words went unsaid; I do not.

“You’ll be punished once I escape." He said, not moving closer, but neither pushing you away.

“It’s nothing I haven't endured before.” you answered after a few seconds of silence. The moment was broken as someone called your name outside your kelku. It was Ofewl, the same man who had been trying to court you for a few months now, the same one who gave you the mirror.

You quickly let go of Neteyam as if burned, and taking the basket in your hands you stood up, giving him a last look before going outside to see why you were needed.

Closing the flap behind you, you meet Ofewl, the Mangkwan holding out a piece of Viperwolf hide. “I have traveled long to get you this, I skinned and prepared it myself” He said, bowing his head in respect as you took the rough skin of what once was a Viperwolf.

It was rough, dry- unlike Neteyam’s soft skin. You quickly snapped out of the thought as you gave Ofewl a nod, already preparing to turn around and go back to your kelku. But he stopped you, placing a hand on your shoulder. “I have spoken to the Tsa’hik, stubborn fnele [Woman]. She is pleased a man of my caliber is courting you.” He said, his hand making you turn around.

“Stop making things harder. You are fire, and I'm the grease that’ll help you expand it” He said. You slapped his hand away and hissed at him. “I do not need a skxawng to tie myself to” You said, hairless eyebrows furrowing.

“Because you have that na'rìng 'evan [Forest boy], is that right? The son of the great Toruk Makto, makes you wonder what other great things he has, since you spend all day in there with him” Ofewl said, the implication making your ears go back and your hiss to deepen to a dangerous growl. “Careful, Ofewl, or your kuru might end up in my belt” You said in a low tone, your tail angrily moving from side to side.

Ofewl raised his hands in mock surrender. “That’s what i thought” He said before turning around and leaving. You wanted to carve that smug grin out of his face, your hand itching to grab your dagger. 

–

As much as you hated to admit it, you began wishing Neteyam’s wound would heal slower. You had gotten the thought to apply something that would harm the skin, and slow him down so he’d spend more time with you, but you knew you couldn’t do that.

You had been sent to a raid party with some other Mangkwan. It was the usual, fight, kill, grab kuru’s, steal the goods then go back.

You had become so used to it, your body moved on automatic. But something stopped you, a branch creaking a few feet away. If you had not moved an inch to the right, the arrow that followed soon after would be lodged between your eyes. 

Its feathers were green and yellow. The other Mangkwan did not have the same luck, a few falling to the floor. Then, Toruk Makto appeared, stone axe in hand as he pounced over others, a few Omatikaya warriors following him. You quickly took your dagger from your belt, your eyes meeting the Toruk Makto’s ones.

He quickly began running towards you, recognizing you as the one who took Neteyam.

You snapped out of it and quickly got into position. Even then, he was stronger, his body heavier, his impact against you bringing you both to the floor.

Your dagger hit his axe, both weapons against each other, you using all your strength to avoid the axe making your face pulp. Realizing he was winning, you used your knee to hit him in the groin, making him fall to the side in pain. You quickly stood up, and without looking back ran towards your Ikran.

By the time you were already on the air, you noticed the deep gash on your shoulder, most probably done by the Toruk Makto from when he let the axe fall after you hit his privates.

But the adrenaline was still on your veins- the pain barely registering.

Arriving, the word had already arrived by another Mangkwan of the surprise attack.

The moment Varang saw you dismount your Ikran, her eyes widened and she quickly ran towards you, grabbing your face in her hands, checking for any injury, then seeing your shoulder, covered in blood.

Her face morphed into something you’d never seen before. Genuine concern. She frantically searched for any other wounds.

“Who did this!?” She asked, enraged, tail flicking angrily behind her, her grasp on your face tightened almost painfully.

“We were ambushed by the Omatikaya.” You answered. “No, I said, who did this?” She repeated, her hands leaving your face to grab your shoulder, moving it with the intent to make it hurt. You bit back a sharp hiss of pain, blood now seeping into Varang’s hands.

“Ieyil said Toruk Makto did it. He was with the Omatikaya.” Ofewl said as he walked closer, his gruff voice making the others shut up.

Ieyil was one of the Mangkwan women in the raid, she had been hit by one of the Toruk Makto’s mate’s arrows- you figured she managed to escape.

Varang’s hand shot up, and grabbed your hair. “You were foolish to let him that close” She said, her hand now turning to a fist painfully tugging on your strands. “Next time you’ll ride with Ofewl. Without him you are not to be let out” She said with a final hiss before turning around and leaving to go hear what the other survivors had to say.

You ignored Ofewl’s smug grin as you walked towards your kelku.

Entering, Neteyam was asleep on the furs- poor thing, you had drugged him before leaving. You could not risk him escaping before time, it’d only get himself killed.

By the time he woke up, you had already stitched up your shoulder injury, using the handheld mirror to properly see where you were cleaning now, your blue skin visible after having the paint and ashes cleansed from that part of your body.

With a groan he sat up.

“You drugged me… Again” He said, more statement than accusation- it wasn’t the first time you had done this.

You ignored his talking as you accidentally rubbed too hard against the stitches, making blood appear again, a drop running down your skin. You hissed in pain, his ears going up in curiosity.

“This is why you must leave soon. Your father, Toruk Makto, and your mother, his mate, are looking for you. Close, too close” You said, your tail moving side to side annoyed, your ears drawing back.

“You’re bleeding” He said as he stood up, walking towards you. “Leave it” You said, your tone harsher than what you intended. His hand found your wrist, grabbing it softly. Your eyes widened- how?

“You cut the leash” You said, surprised. Looking back, he had no collar anymore- it layed on his furs, cut in the middle, a shard of your broken mirror laying next to it.

He could have used that same shard to kill you, to run away and end anyone in his way. But no, he did not. Instead here he was, taking the cloth from your arms, and beginning to wrap it around your wound just as you had done with him at the beginning of all of this.

You went still- cheeks blushing a furious purple underneath the paint and ash. 

His hands then moved to the water basin in front of you, grabbing the wet cloth in there, and then moving it towards your face. You simply stared at him- “Neteyam.” You said in a whisper, your face lightly frowning, it was a warning, but you did not know what was the consequence.

He pressed it against your face, removing the paint underneath it. Each time he dipped the rag in the water, the liquid became more opaque, until your face was clean, blue skin just like his, luminescent freckles adorning your face, softly glowing.

Your eyes slowly moved to his lips. He noticed, his breath slightly breaking its rhythm.

“I see you” You said without even thinking about it. He moved an inch closer.

This was you. You had no barriers to hide yourself, you weren’t a Mangkwan, you weren’t Varang’s daughter, you were just a woman.

“Do not look at me like that” You said, blushing and embarrassed at his silence- trying to move your head away.

He let out a low laugh before moving closer. His forehead met yours, making your breath hitch for a second.

You closed your eyes, not knowing if you should press in for a kiss or simply enjoy this moment.

“I see you, not Tsakarem, not Varang’s daughter. I see you” He finally said.

Your throat felt tight, almost as if your vocal cords had tangled and you could no longer speak. “Then look away.” You said, feeling as if you didn’t deserve this. Why was he so kind? You could have perfectly stepped back, but you didn’t.

You could hear a faint laugh, then his nose against yours. You closed the distance, feeling his soft lips on yours, neither of you moved, simply savouring the tender feeling of pressing lips together.

You stepped back, mind set. Neteyam opened his eyes as you grabbed his hand and tugged him to your bedding furs, your tail up in the air, the tip moving from side to side.

You helped him sit down, and you followed him soon after, one in front of the other. You had no words- instead grabbing your kuru and presenting it to him. Your mouth moved as you tried to speak, but your mind was feeling too much to process it. But the offer was there.

“Tsaheylu.” You said under your breath, avoiding looking at him. Neteyam looked down at your braid, taking a steadying breath before bringing his own kuru in front of yours.

“Are you certain?” He asked, and your free hand moved to intertwine your fingers. “In case I never see you again… I…” You couldn’t finish your sentence, instead looking at him with glossy eyes.

No extra words were needed, the gap closed, the pink tendrils hugging and tangling together. You instantly felt a warmth feel you. You saw Neteyam’s life. Playing with his siblings, hunting with his father, taming his first Ikran, and so much more. So much life, so much laughter.

All he saw in yours was a constant pain- to be reduced to means to an end, but the small hope of a better life always there.

He felt what you felt the first time you took him in, how you’d mutter small prayings to Eywa for him to wake up.

The link was so strong, filling you both with warmth. It was almost impossible to not continue, your hands moving up to his chest, softly pushing him down as your lips met his.

You didn’t hurry- you finally felt calm. From the Tsaheylu you felt what he was feeling, a phantom warmth now on your chest where your hands were on his. As you moved your lips against his, you sat over his crotch, your hands going to undo the leather cords covering your chest. 

Neteyam let out a relieved sound as those came off- of course, he had felt the numbing pain from them as well the moment you connected. You took his hands on yours and placed them over your breasts, his fingers tracing the red lines from the pressure that the cords were making.

Your hairless brows furrowed and you let out a weak moan into his mouth as his fingers moved to your nipples, playfully pinching and rubbing them until they got hard, then palming your whole breasts with his big hands.

Your small mewls of pleasure were swallowed down by his mouth, his tongue now entering your mouth to properly taste you.

You broke the kiss, a string of saliva connecting your mouths. “I want to taste you, Neteyam” You said, slowly kissing a trail down his neck, him letting out small groans as your mouth reached his V-line.

You nervously stared at the bulge in there. You had never- done this before. Your fingers went to undo his loincloth, biting your lip as the flimsy fabric came off, his hard member slightly bouncing, a pearl of pre-cum beading at the tip.

Fuck. Has he done this before? You wouldn’t be surprised- he was attractive, and the son of Toruk Makto, on your part you had always denied any sort of intimacy with other Mangkwan men, not wanting to bare your true self to them through Tsaheylu, it didn’t help most of them were as sadistic as it gets.

You didn’t want to come off as inexperienced, and in your nervousness you took as much as you could in one go, making him let out a groan as his legs tensed, his hand hovering over your head, fingers grazing your hair.

He tasted musky, manly- not a bad taste, just very unique, the scent stronger the deeper you took him. 

You began bobbing your head slowly, drool running down his shaft, his salty pre-cum hitting the end of your throat, the tip flushed purple under your ministrations.

What your mouth couldn’t reach -as you weren’t experienced at all-, your hands did, jerking him off as your mouth sucked and licked.

Through the Tsaheylu you also felt the pleasure, your toes curling as your body didn’t stop getting hotter.

Neteyam guided you through it, muttering small praises, his hand caressing your head.

You couldn’t keep waiting. You needed him- so you stopped, taking deep breaths as you undid your loincloth, letting it fall down as you crawled back on top of him.

You looked down, seeing how his tip slid between your folds, your slick easing him in. You winced, the feeling not pain, but something uncomfortable as you began lowering yourself on him.

His hands went to your hips, thumbs rubbing circles on your skin as you finally got him completely inside- your pussy lips pressing against his hips, his cock twitching inside of you, the tightness feeling amazing.

He could feel the feeling of you losing your virginity, how his cock inside you felt, but you also felt how being inside you was. It was a stark contrast, both feeling alienated and welcomed.

Your hands moved to his chest as you began moving, biting your lip as the awkward feeling began feeling like a warm fire inside you, each thrust lighting it up more than the last.

Wet sounds filled your kelku, along with your mewls and his groans, Neteyam’s head throwing back as his hands guided your movements, his cock completely lubricated by your slick.

His hand moved from your hip to the blue-purple button over your folds, pushing the hood of your clit back as his thumb pressed on it, rubbing slow circles as he savored your moans.

The stimulation quickly made this fire inside you grow stronger, your legs trembling as after a few minutes you were cumming. Your insides became tighter, milking him for all his worth, and a few minutes after you, he was cumming as well, deep inside you. 

You stayed a few minutes on top of Neteyam, legs quivering as you felt his member soften inside you, a few drops of cum oozing out of your joined private parts.

You shakily moved to the side, your whole body still ectastiated from the prior activities. Your tail curled with Neteyam’s tail as you laid your head against his shoulder, rubbing your neck (where your scent glands are) against him, marking him up.

Your fingers traced patterns on Neteyam’s skin, your breathing slowing down as you felt like you were about to fall asleep.

You don’t think you’ve ever slept so well in your whole life.

Until a shriek pierces the calm. In a second you’re up, putting your loincloth and top on- 

A Mangkwan screams from outside.

“Omatikaya warriors coming!” you turn to look at Neteyam. Your heart was slamming against your ribs, you had to make a decision, fast. 

You could smell the fire from the Mangkwan’s arrows already, screams filling your ears as the floor trembled from the Ikran’s landing on Ash territory.

You grabbed your dagger and moved towards Neteyam.

“If Varang comes here- i… I’ll fight her” You said, finally seeing a chance to escape from all this. Your face frowned as you stared at the flap in your kelku, waiting for the imminent moment before Varang came searching for Neteyam.

But it was all  a stupid fantasy, and you knew it. You had your shoulder injured, so you could only use one arm to fight. But at least your death would give Neteyam enough time to escape.

ACT II

Acceptance is not the same as safety.

You wake to the sound of water moving through wood.

It’s not silence — Pandora never offers that, but a softer kind of sound. Water lapping against woven roots. The distant click and trill of reef-life waking with first light. Just the quiet circulation of tide, breath and life flowing through something that has learned how to bend instead of break.

For a moment, you don’t open your eyes.

You catalog sensations instead — the sway beneath you, gentle and rhythmic, like being rocked by something alive. The texture against your back is woven, organic, smelling faintly of salt and plant resin. Your mask hums softly, steady and reliable. Air fills your lungs without effort.

You’re alive.

That fact lands slowly and carefully.

When you do open your eyes, the first thing you see is the ceiling.

Or rather — the inside of something spherical.

The structure curves inward above you, layered and braided, strands of living fiber interwoven with shell and root. Light filters in through natural gaps, refracting blue and green like sunlight underwater. Shadows move gently along the walls, cast by passing bodies and swaying leaves.

A marui. 

You recognise it immediately.

You remember happening upon them when you studied in secret, piecing together fragments from stolen files, intercepted reports, whispered stories passed between scientists who knew better than to ask questions too loudly. Spherical, multi-level living pods nestled within the roots of mangrove-like trees. Built to sway with storms. Built to breathe with the sea.

This one is large.

Large enough to hold a family.

Large enough to hold you — though that feels temporary in a way you can’t quite articulate yet.

You sit up slowly. That’s when you feel it.

Eyes.

Not one pair but many.

They are everywhere — perched on upper levels, leaning against curved supports, seated in hammocks strung between living beams. The marui is arranged vertically, layers spiraling upward around a central open space, like the inside of a hollowed pearl.

And in the center of it all—

He lies there.

The warrior you saved.

He is placed deliberately in the heart of the pod. A woven platform has been constructed beneath him, broader and lower than the hammocks around it, as if the entire structure has quietly reorganised itself around his survival.

His color is wrong. 

That is the first thing you notice.

Not the bandages — those are unmistakably yours, layered clean and careful around his torso, your work unmistakable even in the filtered reef light. 

His skin is too pale.

Not the deep sea-greens of the Metkayina and not the vibrant tones of the rest of his family glowing with deep ocean blues, streaked with bioluminescent markings that catch the light. His color is muted. Washed out. Like the sea before a storm. Like the tide hasn’t finished deciding whether to keep him.

Alive.

But fragile.

His chest rises and falls in a slow, careful rhythm. You count every breath anyway, out of habit, out of fear without realising you’re doing it.

One. Two. Still there.

You exhale, slowly. 

Only then do you allow yourself to look back at them.

His family.

They do not hide their attention.

Neytiri stands slightly forward of the others, posture rigid, tail tight behind her. Her eyes are sharp like a predator, fixed on you with an intensity that borders on accusation. She doesn’t blink.

Beside her stands Jake Sully. The RDA’s favorite cautionary tale. The traitor. The symbol of everything you were never supposed to become. His stance is deceptively relaxed, but you see the tension in it instantly. He stands close to her, one hand resting on her thigh — not possessive or controlling but steady, like he’s grounding her. Or holding her back.

He is watching you too, but differently. Measuring. Calculating. A commander assessing a variable he didn’t plan for.

Lo’ak, in stark contrast, is terrible at hiding anything.

He’s perched on the edge of a lower platform, tail swaying freely, eyes bright when they meet yours. There is no suspicion there — only relief. Gratitude so open it almost hurts to look at. When you catch his gaze, his mouth quirks upward in something like a smile.

Then you register movement at the edge of your vision beyond the walls.

Heads poke through the living roots that cradle the marui. Faces appear between woven gaps. Children first. Then adults. Then more — drawn by curiosity, by rumor, by the presence of something that does not belong.

They are staring at you, eyes following you when you move. Trying to get a look.

The feeling hits you unexpectedly, sharp and old. For a brief, unwelcome second, it reminds you of home — of glass corridors and controlled environments.

A spectacle.

Like the cloned tiger back home — the one displayed behind reinforced glass, endlessly watched. Not for what it was, but for what it represented. Proof that something impossible could be owned.

You shove the thought away.

This isn’t the same.

And even if it were, you don’t blame them.

You are alien here. You are wrong. The wrong color. The wrong shape. The mask strapped to your face suddenly feels heavier, the soft hiss of air marking you as other, as human. You’re acutely aware of its quiet hiss, of the barrier between you and the living air around you. Pandora does not accept you. 

You are living on borrowed breath.

Borrowed time.

Voices murmur softly around you. Someone speaks nearby, low and measured. “…alive because of her.”

You don’t need to understand all the words to know what they mean. You feel it settle in your chest like a verdict. 

You swallow and lift your chin anyway.

The room hums with unspoken tension.

The warrior’s family are talking quietly among themselves in low urgent tones, the cadence of a family accustomed to making decisions under pressure. You don’t understand everything, but you understand enough.

She should not be here.

She is human.

She is RDA.

She could be lying.

Neytiri’s voice is unmistakable even when you only grasp fragments. Her distrust is sharp, immediate, absolute. Jake responds in calmer tones, grounding, reminding, weighing.

Your hands curl slightly into the woven bedding beneath you.

Your guilt rises like bile.

You don’t interrupt.

Not at first.

You wait until there’s a pause — until Neytiri’s eyes flick back to you, daring you to justify yourself.

Your heart pounds, but your voice does not shake.

“Rewon lefpom,” you say quietly.

Good morning.

The sound of their language in your mouth still feels strange — practiced in secret, whispered over stolen recordings late at night, repeated until the shapes of the words stopped cutting your tongue. It is not perfect.

But it is understandable.

That alone earns you their full attention.

You sit straighter, meeting Neytiri’s stare head-on. You don’t look away. You don’t soften your gaze. You’ve learned, in too many places like this, that weakness is a language everyone understands.

“I can reassure you that I will not go back to the humans,” you say, slowly, choosing each word with care. “Even if I do not stay here.”

A murmur ripples through the marui.

You continue, before anyone can cut you off.

“I expect nothing from you. Not protection. Not forgiveness.” Your gaze flicks briefly — just briefly — to the wounded body at the center of the room. “A place to sleep last night was enough.”

Your throat tightens.

You push through it.

“I know what humans have done.” Your voice drops, heavier now. “I know what I have done. What I was part of.”

Silence pursued whilst they listened.

“I have been planning to leave for a long time,” you finish. “In the dark. Quietly. I studied your language because I thought it might help me survive without causing harm. I thought… maybe I could stay out of the way.”

You let the words settle.

You don’t beg.

You don’t apologise again — not because you don’t mean it, but because apologies don’t undo burned worlds.

Something shifts.

It’s subtle. Almost imperceptible.

Jake’s posture eases just a fraction.

Neytiri’s eyes remain sharp — but now there is something else there too. Not trust.

But uncertainty.

And in the center of the marui, surrounded by the quiet judgment of his family and the steady breath of the sea, the warrior you saved lies unmoving.

Alive.

Waiting.

Unaware that the gravity of an entire future has just begun to tilt around him — and around you.

𓂃 ོ☼𓂃 𓇼𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚

The days passed in a quiet, measured rhythm. Neteyam remained semi-conscious, hovering somewhere between the faint awareness of his surroundings and the deep exhaustion of his body trying to heal. You stayed close, curled near the woven platform where he rested, hands ready on his bandages or gently brushing away loose threads, your ears tuned to every subtle shift in his breathing. Every flick of his tail, every shallow rise and fall of his chest, told you more than any words could.

The clan accepted your presence begrudgingly, always with eyes lingering a fraction too long—but they allowed it for his sake. No one could deny the truth: he was alive because of you. Proof enough that your intervention worked. That alone gave you a small slice of autonomy, though the weight of it was heavy on your shoulders.

You had obtained a paste from Neytiri, passed to you indirectly through Ronal, the clan’s healer. She had approached you hours after your arrival with the paste, her eyes sharp, watchful, distrust lingering at the edges. You suspected that Jake had quietly vouched for you; something he said must have softened her stance. You accepted the paste with a nod and whispered thanks, recognising the tiny act of trust it represented.

Your mind drifted back to your first meeting with Ronal and Tonowari. You had been brought before them formally, the rest of the clan standing in quiet observation around the edge of the clearing, tails and heads craned toward the proceedings. The air had been heavy with scrutiny, their gazes cutting, assessing.

Ronal had been openly hostile, arms crossed, eyes narrowing with suspicion at every word you spoke. She didn’t hide her distrust, her posture rigid as if every muscle were primed to strike at deception. You remembered the way she leaned slightly forward, the faint flare of nostrils as if she could smell your intentions, and the sharp edge in her voice as she asked pointed questions about your presence and your skills.

Tonowari, in contrast, had been a calm, steady presence, watching the exchange with measured patience. His broad shoulders and upright posture spoke of a leadership tempered by experience. Eyes like polished amber took in every detail of your movements, but without accusation—only calculation. There was a quiet power in the way he held himself, the sort of presence that compelled attention without needing to demand it. His deep voice, when he finally spoke, resonated with authority but also with a protective warmth toward his people, a balancing force to Ronal’s sharp intensity.

You had studied the two of them carefully even then, noting the unspoken balance in their partnership. Where Ronal struck with caution and pointed precision, Tonowari provided steadiness and protection. You thought, not for the first time, that they mirrored the bond you had observed between Jake and Neytiri—the same harmony of trust, leadership, and fierce devotion to family. You had admired that balance silently, wishing you could grasp even a fraction of it yourself.

Rushed footsteps broke your train of thought. 

It was Lo’ak. Lo’ak the youngest son, who first breached the silence between you and the family’s watchful eyes. He had approached quietly one morning while you adjusted a bandage, tail flicking with mild excitement, ears forward, eyes bright.

“I am Lo’ak,” he said in broken English, trying to match the syllables Jake had taught him. “Brother… older… he… Neteyam?” He gestured toward the platform where the wounded warrior lay, the soft rise and fall of his chest still uneven beneath your careful wrapping.

“Ne… te… yam,” you repeated slowly, letting the name roll over your tongue, testing its sound. “Neteyam.”

His face lit up, his tail flicking with delight. “Yes. Neteyam.” He stepped closer, curiosity twined with gratitude in the tilt of his head. Then, as if deciding English wasn’t enough, Lo’ak switched back to Na’vi, his words tumbling out in a slurry of questions. You caught fragments, enough to understand the gist, even though the rapid, inquisitive rhythm was unfamiliar.

He asked questions constantly, a flurry of them as he hovered near you while you worked. How did you clean the wound? Why did you wrap it that way? How did you know the cut wouldn’t get infected?

You found a surprising comfort in speaking to him. It had been days since you had conversed with someone who seemed to truly want to listen, someone who bore no judgment yet. You explained your methods carefully, teaching him the human ways of aseptic technique, avoiding infection, and monitoring for signs of shock or sepsis. His ears twitched at each explanation, eyes wide and attentive. You watched him absorb every word as if the knowledge were something sacred. Slowly, carefully, a thread of connection began to form. In the quiet of the Marui, amid the swaying roots and filtered reef light, you realised he—this boy, Lo’ak—was the first Na’vi who seemed to genuinely meet you halfway. Not suspicious, not interrogating, just… curious and grateful.

It was a small thing, but it felt like a lifeline.

In the following days, he returned with his younger siblings, Tuk and Kiri. Tuk’s curiosity was blunt, almost overwhelming, a bright gaze and unfiltered questions that bounced from topic to topic. Kiri, quieter and calmer, observed you like an old soul would a wandering traveler—curious, measured, and accepting. She asked little, but her presence was steady and her eyes lingered with a quiet recognition of your role.

You realised slowly that, as you tended to Neteyam, taught Lo’ak and fielded questions from the siblings, your presence had begun to weave itself into the rhythm of the pod. You were still human. Still other. Still alien. But here, among these blue and green figures of the Metkayina clan, you were allowed a measure of purpose, a space carved out solely to keep a life alive.

And Neteyam—semi-conscious, breathing shallowly—remained at the center of it all. Each careful movement of your hands, each whisper of instructions to the children, each measured touch over his bandages, was a quiet promise: you would not leave him.

𓂃 ོ☼𓂃 𓇼𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚

The room smells faintly of salt and antiseptic. Your gloves squeak softly as you rinse the shallow wound along his side with warm saline, careful not to tug against the tender tissue. Each movement is deliberate and precise — scrub, dab, inspect. His skin is the muted pale blue of the Omaticaya, the vibrancy of his normal color dulled by blood loss and trauma. Veins show faintly beneath the taut surface. The edges of the wound are clean, fragile but healing.

You reach for the paste Neytiri had passed to you days ago — reluctantly at first, with that unmistakable wariness only she could wear — and rub it into the tissue. It’s thick, earthy, smelling faintly of the forest and sea. You marvel again at its effectiveness.

Layer by layer, you wrap the bandages, keeping them snug but not tight, smoothing the fabric over his torso until it rests against him like a protective shell. Your stock of supplies is dwindling; the bandages, saline, and paste will barely last a few more days of dressing changes. You push the thought aside. He’s healing, steadily, beautifully — that is what matters.

You notice something else today. His family or at least those who have been silently observing, have slowly drifted back from the platform. Neytiri and Jake, who had always lingered on the edge, watching your hands and the way you worked, have left you alone granting you this space. The silence stretches across the pod, broken only by the quiet rhythms of the sea. It is peaceful, nurturing almost, like a melody. Hope stirs in you — maybe, just maybe, they trust you slightly more than before. But you remain realistic, ever the pessimist reminding yourself that a little trust does not erase years of caution, nor the weight of what you represent.

A soft hum escapes you as you work.

You don’t realise you’re doing it at first. It’s low and instinctive, a quiet melody shaped more by comfort than intention. The sound fills the Marui gently, sinking into braided roots and living walls, absorbed rather than echoed. A lullaby of sorts. You’re not even sure he can hear it yet.

But you notice the change anyway.

The rise and fall of his chest smooths beneath your hand. His breathing evens, slows, steadies when you’re near—when your voice is there, when your presence anchors the space around him. You adjust the bandages again, fingertips light and respectful of bruised skin and healing flesh.

You lean closer and whisper, almost instinctively, the name Lo’ak taught you days ago.

“Ne…te…yam.”

The syllables fall slowly, deliberately and fondly from your lips. You say it again, softer this time, letting the sound settle into the quiet between you.

His tail twitches.

Just slightly. A subtle curl, shy and unconscious. His ears flick toward your voice, pricking with attention. A faint smile touches his lips—so faint you might have imagined it if you weren’t watching him so closely.

You swallow.

You repeat it again. “Ne-te-yam.” Slow. Gentle. In tune with the steady rise and fall of his chest.

The name comforts you too. Grounds you. Makes this feel less like penance and more like purpose. You smooth his bandages again, carefully adjusting the wraps, letting the sound tether him — tether you both — in this fragile, quiet moment.

A thought stirs: he may wake soon. And with that realisation comes the decision. For the first time in days, you rise from the woven platform. You step lightly, almost reluctantly, toward the edge of the Marui. Your bare feet skim over the wooden planks as you leave the pod entirely. You need to find someone — Lo’ak, Jake, Neytiri — someone who can help if the worst happens.

The air outside is sharp with salt and morning light. You run carefully, silently, your heart thundering, praying the Metkayina may forgive your interference. Your presence here is still precarious. Conditional. Forgiven only because a life still breathes where it nearly didn’t.

But Neteyam — the steadiness of his breathing, the subtle flick of his tail, the faint smile at your voice is worth every risk.

𓂃 ོ☼𓂃 𓇼𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚

Neteyam does not remember pain.

Not the sharpness of the bullet, not the hot, searing ache that had stabbed through his chest, not the panic that had clawed at him as he fought to stay afloat in the open water. All of that is gone, blurred by the fog of weakness and blood loss.

What remains is kindness. The memory of hands — careful, warm and steady — moving over him with a precision that soothed rather than prodded. The rhythm of his name, spoken softly and repeatedly, curling around him like a tether he could cling to. The gentle wrap of bandages against bruised skin, the quiet hum that filled the space, sinking into the braided roots of the Marui, a lullaby of survival.

His eyes flutter open. Slowly. Exhaustedly. As if the act of opening them requires a negotiation between body and mind, between him and the fragile vessel of himself that remains. His vision swims, light cutting through shapes he cannot yet make sense of. The world feels… wrong. The air tastes of salt and something faintly earthy, and yet the familiarity of it all — the soft, swaying pulse beneath him is utterly meaningless to his scrambled senses.

He sees… nothing.

No figure bending over him, no soft voice echoing through the Marui’s living walls. Only the blur of light, the sway of shadows, the impossibly quiet drone of a world moving without him. His chest tightens. Panic floods in, sharp and uninvited.

He thrashes weakly, calling out in Na’vi, his voice raw, ragged and desperate. Not for his mother. Not for his father. Not for Lo’ak or anyone else. For her — for the nameless, faceless voice that had whispered life back into him, that had made his chest rise again, that had carried him from the brink of death upon rough waters that threatened to pull him in forever. 

“!…” His words crack, hoarse and trembling, echoing off the living walls, small against the immense space of the Marui.

His body refuses him. Limbs heavy, unresponsive, like roots grown into the floor. His hands claw at nothing. He is pinned by his own weakness, tethered to the bed of woven fiber, and the rising tide of panic thrumming through him.

Then —

“…Neteyam.”

Her voice. Gentle. Low. Reassuring. Perfectly her own, and yet somehow it has become a part of the air around him. The world tilts. His chest eases. His frantic, shallow breathing slows almost instantly.

Instinct overrides thought. Survival has a name now. Her name, or at least the voice attached to the warmth, the comfort, the safety. His hands reach without thinking, searching blindly for her. When they find her, when he feels the press of her arm against his, a tether of life he had been clinging to without even knowing it, he grips — firmly, desperately, like she is the only anchor in a stormy sea.

Behind her, a flurry of noise — a shout, laughter followed by cheers, the voice of Lo’ak — but he does not notice. Does not register this. There is only her. Only the soft, commanding cadence of her presence.

Even when his body finally surrenders to sleep again, weary from days of strain and healing, he does not let go. Fingers remain curled around her arm. A faint tremor runs through him, and yet there is an unspoken promise in his hold: he will not release her. Not yet. Not ever if he can help it.

The last thing he feels as darkness overtakes him again is the quiet certainty of safety, of survival — and it is tied irrevocably to her.

𓂃 ོ☼𓂃 𓇼𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚

You had answered him on instinct, voice already moving before your mind caught up. You hadn’t expected him to reach out again. Hadn’t expected the same strength in it—not after days of fevered stillness, of pale skin and fragile breaths. His hand is warm. Too warm still, but firm. Alive.

You don’t pull away.

Instead, you sink down beside the woven platform, careful not to jostle him, letting his grip settle where it has chosen. His fingers twitch once, then still. His ears relax slightly, flattening just a fraction in sleep. His tail—long and powerful even in rest gives a faint, unconscious flick.

You lift your free hand and check his breathing again, habit overriding thought. Count the rhythm. Feel the warmth of his skin beneath the bandages. You remind yourself that the wound is clean. Healing. Angry-looking still, but no longer weeping, no longer threatening to take him away from you—or from anyone else.

You exhale slowly.

“Easy,” you murmur, barely louder than the hush of water moving through the roots of the marui. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

The words slip out before you can stop them.

You realise, distantly, that this is the first time you’ve said something like that in a long time and meant it.

He doesn’t wake again, but something in him responds anyway. His grip tightens a fraction, just enough to remind you he’s still there. That he heard you. Or felt you. Or simply knew.

Minutes stretch. Then longer. You lose track of time entirely, the way you always did when you were deep in the work—when survival narrowed the world down to breath and pulse and the quiet space between disaster and relief.

At some point, someone kneels nearby.

You don’t look up immediately. You don’t have to.

Jake’s presence is unmistakable even without sound. A weight in the air. A steadiness. You sense him watching the way your hand moves, the way you don’t try to free yourself from his son’s grasp. You wait for him to speak.

He doesn’t.

Not right away.

When he finally does, his voice is low, careful, as if he’s learned—over many hard years—that moments like this can shatter if handled poorly.

“He wake up?” he asks.

“Briefly,” you reply just as quietly. “He was scared. Disoriented. That’s normal after blood loss and prolonged unconsciousness.”

Jake nods, eyes fixed on Neteyam’s face. On the faint crease between his brows that hasn’t fully smoothed even in sleep.

“He called out,” Jake says.

You hesitate.

“Yeah,” you admit. “He did.”

Jake’s gaze shifts to you then. To the place where his son’s hand is wrapped around your arm like you are something essential.

“For you,” he says. It isn’t a question.

You don’t try to deny it.

“I think,” you say carefully, “he associates my voice with… staying alive.”

That lands heavier than you expect.

Jake exhales through his nose, slow and controlled. You see something flicker across his face—something raw and unguarded that he doesn’t let linger. Gratitude, maybe. Or fear, delayed and sharp.

“He’ll remember you,” Jake says finally. “Even if he doesn't remember much else.”

You nod.

Silence settles again. Comfortable this time. Earned.

Jake straightens after a while, resting a hand briefly against the woven edge of the platform. A grounding touch. A promise made without words.

“Stay,” he says. Not an order. Not a plea. Just… acknowledgement. 

You do. 

You don’t ask how long you're allowed to stay.

Hours pass that way. The light shifts, filtering deeper blue and gold through the living walls as the sun sinks lower over the Eastern Sea. Somewhere outside, the village continues—life moving forward, as it always does. You hear distant laughter. The splash of children diving. The low call of someone returning from the water.

None of it pulls you away.

His sleep is thin, fragile, stitched together by exhaustion and the careful work of hands that knew how to keep him alive when his body no longer could. It is not the kind of rest he knows from long hunts or calm nights beneath the trees of the forest. 

But he sleeps.

His fingers stay curled around your arm even as his breathing evens out again, shallow but steady, each rise of his chest less strained than the last. There is tension in his grip—not panic like before and not fear—but insistence. He doesn’t let go.

Not when his family returns to quietly check on him. Not when Lo’ak can’t contain his relief and presses in close, whispering his brother’s name over and over like a prayer. Not even when his mother finally kneels beside him, fierce and shaking, one hand hovering uncertainly before settling against his shoulder.

He holds on.

As if, somewhere deep in his recovering body, something has already decided—

You are part of what keeps him alive now.

𓂃 ོ☼𓂃 𓇼𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚

You feel her before you see her.

It’s a shift in the air. A tension that presses in rather than announces itself. The Marui has gone quiet again—too quiet, as though even the sea beyond the roots is listening.

You look up from where you sit beside him.

Neytiri stands a few paces away.

She does not approach at first. She does not raise her voice or bare her teeth or draw a blade. That almost makes it worse. Her posture is rigid, grief held taut beneath her skin like a drawn bowstring. Her eyes are fixed on the place where her son’s hand is curled around your wrist, fingers locked there with quiet, unyielding insistence.

Neteyam sleeps.

He does not stir when she enters. Does not release you. His grip remains firm even in rest, as if your presence has been written into him somewhere deeper than memory.

You see it hit her.

The discomfort. The disbelief. The quiet, frightening reality that her firstborn—her son—has chosen you as his anchor. That in his unconscious state, something in him reached for you and has not let go since.

A human.

An RDA soldier, only days ago.

She swallows, jaw tightening. One hand flexes at her side before she stills it. You can almost hear the war inside her—gratitude colliding with fury, relief cutting against instinct.

Her grief is raw. Untreated. Still bleeding.

“You do not leave him,” she says finally.

It isn’t an accusation. It’s an observation. Her voice is low, tight around the edges.

“No,” you reply quietly. “I don’t. I-I won’t.”

Silence stretches between you. You do not look away. You don’t challenge her either. You simply remain where you are, one hand free, the other held fast by her son.

She steps closer then. Slowly. Carefully. Like someone approaching something that might break if startled. Her gaze flicks briefly to the bandages, to the careful layering, the clean edges. To the steady rise and fall of his chest.

“He lives,” she says. It sounds like a realisation she is still catching up to. “Because of you.”

You nod once.

Her eyes sharpen on you then. Not cruel—but piercing. Searching.

“Why?” she asks.

The question is not philosophical. Not ceremonial. It is bare and direct, stripped of pleasantries. A mother demanding the truth.

Why him.

Why my son.

Your answer comes slowly.

Not because you are crafting it—but because you realise you don’t quite know yourself.

“It wasn’t destiny,” you say at last. “Or prophecy. I didn’t know who he was.”

Her ears twitch faintly at that.

“I followed blood in the water,” you continue. “I saw someone dying. And I couldn’t—” Your voice falters, just briefly. You steady it. “I couldn’t let another innocent person die. I’ve seen too many. I’ve stood by too often.”

The words sit heavy between you.

Neytiri studies your face, searching for deception, for weakness, for something she can cut away. What she finds instead seems to unsettle her more.

Honesty. Imperfect. Unadorned.

She exhales sharply through her nose. Her gaze drops again to Neteyam’s hand around your wrist.

“You are human,” she says. Not a condemnation. A truth. “You were RDA.”

“I was,” you agree.

A beat passes.

“And I’m… sorry,” you add quietly. “I should have left sooner. I should have objected. I knew what was happening, and I stayed silent longer than I should have.”

She does not respond immediately.

You think—briefly—that she might order you out. You brace yourself for it. You would understand.

Instead, she straightens.

Her voice, when it comes, is quieter.

“You may stay,” she says. “For now.”

It is not forgiveness nor acceptance, but it is not rejection either.

Her eyes meet yours one last time—warning, wary, still burning with grief and love in equal measure.

Then she turns and moves to her son’s other side, kneeling beside him. Her hand hovers before settling against his shoulder, reverent, protective.

She does not tell you to move.

And when she stays, you stay too.

Together, in the fragile space between what has been lost and what has been spared, she pauses her open objection to your presence.

For him.

And for now that is enough.

𓂃 ོ☼𓂃 𓇼𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚

Jake finds you exactly where he expects to.

You are seated beside the woven platform, shoulder angled inward, body unconsciously positioned as a barrier between Neteyam and the rest of the world. Your fingers rest lightly near his arm, not touching now, but close enough that you could if he stirred.

Jake stops a few paces away.

He watches for a moment before speaking. Long enough for you to feel it.

When you finally look up, he’s standing just inside the marui, silhouette framed by woven roots and filtered sea-light. His expression gives nothing away. No anger. No softness. Just assessment.

He tilts his head once and jerks it subtly toward the entrance.

A wordless command.

Your stomach drops.

This is it, you think. The line had been reached. You’ve overstayed whatever fragile grace you were given and now you were being kicked to the curb. You glance once at Neteyam—still sleeping, still breathing steadily and the sight steels you even as it hurts. He’s safe now. Healing. He won’t need you much longer.

That had always been the price.

You rise carefully, making sure Neteyam didn’t stir, then follow Jake out without a word.

Outside, the air is sharper. Salt and sunlight and the distant sound of the reef breathing in and out. Jake stops a few paces from the marui, far enough that voices inside won’t carry.

He turns to face you.

For a long moment, he just looks at you.

Not like Neytiri does—not with fury or grief sharpened into a blade. He looks at you like someone looking at an equation they’ve solved before, in another life.

You think briefly about arguing. About saying you could help longer, that Neteyam still needs monitoring, that infection doesn’t care about politics or borders. But the thought dissolves as quickly as it forms.

You know you have no right.

“I understand,” you say quickly. Too quickly. “I won’t argue. He’s stable now. He’ll wake soon. I can—”

Jake lifts a hand, stopping you.

“What do you want to do?” he asks.

The question lands so unexpectedly that you almost miss it.

“…What?” you manage.

He studies your face again, then asks, almost casually:

“What do you want to do now?”

The question knocks the air from your lungs.

You stare at him, caught completely off guard. You had braced yourself for judgment. For exile. For accusation.

Not this.

“I—” You stop and swallow before you try again, “I don’t expect… anything.”

Jake exhales through his nose. “I didn’t ask what you expect.”

With his permission, the words come spilling out. “I was a medic, a doctor,” you say slowly. “Before they trained me to fight. Before they decided I was more useful that way.”

Jake nods once, encouraging you to continue.

“I treated RDA soldiers,” you go on. “Patched up men who went back out and killed Na’vi. Burned villages. Hunted tulkun.” Your voice stays even, but your chest tightens. “I watched it happen even though I knew it was wrong. And I stayed silent because being useful kept me alive.”

You meet his eyes.

“I survived by making myself necessary.”

You brace yourself for the judgment that should follow. For condemnation. For being told what you already knew — that survival isn’t enough, that silence is complicity.

Jake doesn’t give you any of that.

He studies you for a long moment, gaze distant in a way that tells you he’s not just looking at you—but through you. At something older. Something familiar.

“You know,” he says quietly, “I wore their uniform once. Took their orders. Told myself I was just doing my job.”

Your breath catches.

“I saw what they did,” he continues. “Saw it up close. “I was sent here on a mission,” he continues. “To learn. To infiltrate. To help them take this place apart piece by piece.” His jaw tightens. “I saw what the RDA was doing long before I stopped them. Long before I chose differently. Neytiri… she understands that too.”

He meets your gaze, steady and unflinching.

“And I think you stayed alive long enough to choose,” he says. “That matters.”

The words land heavy. Devastating in their calm.

Jake looks past you briefly, toward the marui where his son sleeps.

“Your choices don't erase what came before,” he adds. “But it’s the only thing that changes what comes after.”

Silence stretches between you, filled with the sound of water and wind and distant life continuing as it always does.

He straightens slightly, the weight of command settling back into his posture. “You saved my son,” he says finally. “That buys you time. Not forgiveness. Not trust.”

A pause.

“But time.”

You nod, throat tight. “I don’t expect forgiveness,” you state. “From you, from her. Or from anyone.”

Jake considers that.

“Good,” he says simply. “Don’t ask for it. Earn whatever comes next.”

Jake turns back toward the marui, then stops.

“One more thing,” he says, glancing over his shoulder. “He woke up again last night. Just for a second.”

Your heart jumps.

“He didn’t ask for us,” Jake adds. “He asked for you —asked for you again.”

And with that, he walks away—leaving you standing there, breath unsteady, the future no longer sealed shut… but not yet open either. In the distance, the ocean breathes quietly beside you — steady, patient, waiting.

𓂃 ོ☼𓂃 𓇼𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚

A few days pass after Jake’s conversation with you.

You stop counting them somewhere along the way.

The marui no longer feels foreign in the way it once did. The curve of its walls, the woven platforms, the quiet breath of the sea —it has settled into you, or perhaps you’ve settled into it. There is a strange inversion at work now: inside this space feels real, solid, anchored. Outside—beyond the braided threshold, beyond the watchful eyes and the open water—the world feels distant and alien. Like out there is the true world, and in here is the dream.

The sun had already risen when you move.

Light filters in through the living walls, refracted and soft, painting the marui in slow-moving blues and greens. You don’t look outside. You don’t need to.

You go to him first.

You always do.

Your routine has become instinctive. You kneel beside the platform, setting your supplies down with careful familiarity. Your hands move without thought now, memory guiding them where fear once lived. You unwrap the bandages slowly, methodically, mindful of skin and healing tissue underneath.

The wound looks good.

Better than yesterday. Pinked at the edges. Closed where it once gaped. You feel a quiet, private satisfaction at that — at knowing that your efforts had earned his recovery.

Then—

He stirs.

It is subtle at first. A shift you almost miss. His lashes flutter once, twice. You register it distantly, the way you register a change in breathing or a twitch of muscle—filed away for later assessment.

Then his eyes open.

Fully.

You see it happen.

And somehow it still doesn’t land.

Your hands still for half a second, mind lagging behind your senses. This has happened before—half-waking moments, drifting awareness, consciousness slipping like water falling through fingers.

Except this time, he doesn’t fade.

He focuses.

A beat passes. Then another.

And suddenly it hits you all at once.

Your breath catches sharply, eyes widening as reality crashes in. He’s awake. Awake awake. The finality of it sends a jolt through your chest, equal parts relief and panic, sharp enough to make you dizzy.

You don’t know what to do.

A ridiculous thought surfaces, unbidden and embarrassing: I don’t know how to be with him like this. As if there has been a relationship here at all. As if caring for an unconscious body, whispering his name, learning his breathing patterns, meant—

You almost laugh at yourself.

Get a grip.

Before you can decide how to move, how to speak, how to rearrange yourself into something appropriate—

He does it for you.

His eyes drift first, unfocused, scanning the space above him. The curve of the marui. The filtered light. His breathing deepens, steadies. Then, slowly, inevitably, his gaze finds you.

The moment his eyes lock onto yours, something changes in his expression.

He inhales.

Then exhales as his lips curve—small at first, then unmistakably into a smile. 

It strikes you how alert he looks despite everything. Worn, yes. Weak, certainly. But present. Anchored. As though his consciousness has snapped cleanly into place the moment he sees you.

His voice is rough, unused. Soft.

“You…” he murmurs in Na’vi. “Tìrey”. Thank you. The syllables are soft, shaped like a feather brushing against your skin. It’s familiar despite it being the first time you hear it.

Before you can respond, his hands lift—large, steady despite the tremor you know must live in his muscles. They settle on your shoulders, grounding, certain. He holds you there as if testing whether you are real. 

You don’t flinch. You don’t pull away.

Then his hands shift.

They rise slowly, reverently, cupping your face like it is something fragile. Something precious. Like you might disappear if he doesn’t hold you just so. Then, almost casually, his large hand moves down, settling atop yours. The warmth of his palm presses into yours, and before you can think to react, he draws your hand closer, tilting his head so your fingers brush the side of his cheek. He leans into the touch, the faint scent of him brushing against you.

You freeze. You don’t know what to do.

This is not familiar. You’ve tended to him, spoken softly while he slept, brushed bandages across his skin—but never like this. Never with this closeness. Never like he knows you the way only someone you’ve known for years would.

“…Hey,” you manage softly, the word barely more than breath. Your instincts scramble belatedly into place and you realise, with a sinking surprise, that all the Na’vi you’ve spent years teaching yourself has vanished in an instant.

Your cheeks burn red. Heat creeps up your neck, settling sharp and humiliating beneath your skin. You’re suddenly acutely aware of how close you are. Of his hands. Of your hand in his. Of the way you’re kneeling beside him like you belong there –like his mate.

His thumb stills against your hand.

There’s a pause — not awkward, not uncertain — but thoughtful. As if he’s listening to something deeper than the moment. Then he swallows, breath steadying.

“I think…” he says slowly in Na’vi, carefully and deliberately. “Eywa meant for you to be here.”

Your chest tightens.

“With me,” he adds quietly. 

Not as a question, not as gratitude, but as a fact.

You hear your heart before anything else. It thunders in your ears, loud and relentless, drowning out the distant hum of the marui, the sea beyond it, the quiet life continuing just outside this delicate moment. 

And as his cheek brushes yours, as his warmth presses into your hand, as his eyes hold yours with a softness that could unravel you, a sharp, undeniable wave of fear crashes through you.

The weight of it crashes into you all at once.

You were a doctor. Then, begrudgingly, a warrior. You were trained to follow orders. To be quiet. To blend. To make no waves so that one day you could leave without a trace. Connections were weaknesses in the RDA. Bonds were distractions. You survived by being invisible, by being small and unnoticed, by never letting anyone in.

And now this. This closeness. This knowledge in his eyes. This claim of familiarity. As if he expected your presence, your proximity, your hand in his.

You have no training for this.

No instinct.

No script.

Nervousness coils tight in your chest, sharp and unfamiliar, spiraling into something dangerously close to panic. It’s almost physical — a pressure, a pull — as if your body understands the threat long before your mind can name it.

This wasn’t the fear of violence you had become so accustomed to.

This wasn’t a fear of starting anew.

It was the fear of being seen. Of being chosen. Of being tethered to something or someone that could change you beyond recognition.

Your pulse stutters and suddenly you realise that it’s all too much. This isn’t something you can tend to, or bind, or heal with your hands.

Before his warmth can settle too deeply, you pull back.

Just one step — sharp and instinctive, but enough to break the moment. His hand slips from yours, fingers lingering in the space you leave behind, surprised by the distance. His brow creases and his expression shifts, searching and confused — not hurt, but something close.

Your heart is pounding as you realise, with a cold, sinking certainty that the dream-space of the marui no longer feels entirely safe now, nor entirely unreal. It feels… thin. Like a boundary that has already begun to give way.

Before he can speak again — before you can think better of it —you turn and leave. 

And you don’t look back.

You leave the marui in a rush, your bare feet carrying you out into the light, into the open air. The distance spreads between the two of you with each passing second, shielding you from the weight of his gaze. From the truth you’re not ready to face.

And you know, with a certainty that settles cold and heavy in your gut—

Whatever this was, whatever had begun here wouldn’t be simple.

And that terrified you more than anything the RDA ever trained you to survive.

ACT III

Neteyam had woken.

That fact rippled through the clan like a tide.

You did not stay for it.

You weren’t there when his family gathered in their marui, when voices rose in relief and quiet awe, when hands brushed his shoulders and foreheads pressed close in gratitude. You weren’t there when members of the Metkayina clan poured in to see him— to marvel at his survival, to murmur of Eywa’s will and whisper about the grace of her design. You heard it all from a distance: the hum of voices, the shift in energy, the way the pod seemed to breathe easier now that he did.

But you kept yourself away. You did not stay close, as you had before.

You didn’t sit at his side. You didn’t hover. You didn’t reach for his pulse or listen to his breathing or murmur his name like a talisman against loss. You blurred into the background, busying yourself with nothing in particular, pretending there was still something for you to do.

You hadn’t spoken to him.

Not since that morning.

Not since he had touched you like you were something precious. Like you were necessary. Like you were – you cut the thought off before it could finish forming.

It was ridiculous. You knew that. You were too experienced for this kind of fear. Too tainted. You had survived warzones, moral rot and the slow violence of the RDA. You had stitched bodies back together while the world burned around you because of the brutality of humans with no honor, keeping your hands steady no matter how loudly your chest screamed.

And yet here you were.

Avoiding a warrior because of the way he had looked at you. Because of what he had said. Because of how easily he had made something inside you feel seen.

You told yourself it was gratitude. Confusion. The lingering fog of near-death. That he would wake fully, settle back into himself, and whatever fragile thing had passed between you would dissolve into something sensible and distant.

You told yourself that over and over.

Neteyam, for his part, did not seek you out. He did not call your name. Did not ask for you. Did not corner you with questions or gratitude or anything that might force you to face him. He was thoughtful like that. But you noticed him anyway.

Always nearby.

Always just within the periphery of your vision – standing a little apart from the others, pausing mid-step when you passed. His presence was quiet, unassuming, but constant. When you glanced up, his head tilted slightly, eyes softening with something that made your chest ache – gratitude, gentleness, a warmth that never dulled. And when your eyes met, his mouth would curve into that same small, easy smile.

You always looked away first.

At first, you told yourself it was coincidence.

That Metkayina spaces were communal by nature. That paths overlapped. That it was only natural he might be nearby as you navigated a place not built for you. But the pattern persisted, subtle but unmistakable.

Wherever you went, he was not far.

Now that he was alert, responsive, fully himself, there was nothing left for you to do. No wounds to dress. No vitals to monitor. No justification for your continued presence. You were just a human standing out among the Na'vi, a wrong note in a song that had already resumed without you.

This world was unfamiliar to you. Its rhythms, its rules, its unspoken languages. You moved through it carefully, always aware of your difference, your borrowed air, your tenuous welcome. You supposed that Neteyam knew that. He watched with a quiet attentiveness that felt protective rather than possessive.

Then the pattern became habit. 

Something quieter and heavier than before. He was always there. Walking behind you. Sitting near you when you ate the offerings the clan had left. Waiting outside in the shadows while you prepare to sleep, the dark of the marui folding around him as if it were natural for him to be there.

Since he woke, you have been moved—silently away from the family pod to your own space. A marui, yes, but smaller, meant for one. Not unpleasant, but not expansive like the place you once slept and tended to him in. You recognise the gesture for what it is: a quiet suggestion that you are separate, that you are alien, that you should feel the distance between yourself and them, between yourself and their lives. A subtle mark of difference, a sign that they wanted you to consider leaving eventually.

And yet, before you woke each morning, he was already there. Always. Outside your sleeping space, waiting. Watching.

You thought briefly that he acted like a lost puppy. Silent, devoted, loyal beyond reason. Fierce in his quietness. A fictional being you had read about in books before Pandora. No one has such a companion now—not in the real, harsh world you came from.

You do not think, for a second, that to Neteyam it was anything deeper than gratitude—a patient’s quiet thankfulness for saving his life.

And yet, in the softest corner of his mind, the part that cannot yet name or understand, he feels something more. There is a pull in the way you move, the way you breathe, the way you exist in this place. It draws him, quietly, insistently, as though the reef itself were tugging him toward you.

Near you, the world shifts subtly. The weight that usually sits on his shoulders—the heavy mantle of being the eldest, the son who must always live up to the image of his father, loosens just enough for him to breathe. He has spent his life holding himself to impossible standards: keeping his siblings safe, mastering every skill, honoring every expectation. He has learned to place duty above desire, to silence the stirrings of his own heart in service of others. And yet, in your presence, he is allowed a small, fleeting freedom. A permission to be simply Neteyam, not the perfect son, not the warrior who could do no wrong. Here, with you, he does not have to measure every breath against the weight of legacy.

Even so, he does not understand this feeling, not fully. He cannot name the pull that draws him back to your side again and again. But he knows it in his body, as surely as he knows the forest. His chest eases when you are near. When you leave, the tension coils tight again, a reminder that the world still demands he be more than himself.

And so he simply acts without question, following his instinct that tells him to be near.

And so he waits. 

And so he follows.

He doesn’t know that you’re planning to leave. 

𓂃 ོ☼𓂃 𓇼𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚

As the days passed, the weight of your future ponders heavily on your mind, like a pounding headache threatening to burst. Even despite your conversations with Jake and Neytiri, the plan has always been to slip quietly away from the RDA to the place you had been secretly stocking over the years, hidden deep within the mountains. A place of solitude you had been quietly building, a life removed from war, from chaos, from orders.

But some things could not be learned alone. 

As you trail by the shallow pools, spurred by thoughts of your future, you hesitantly approach a Metkayina warrior to learn to ride a skimwing. You had found no manuals, no reports, no whispered instructions tucked away in the RDA archives that explained how to connect with an ilu, skimwing or an ikran the way a Na'vi warrior could. But if you were going to leave, truly leave, you cannot do it half-prepared. You needed to learn and you hoped they would be forgiving enough to teach you.

The warrior you approach turns as you near, expression already guarded. 

“Excuse me,” you said, voice soft but steady, careful. “I… I want to learn to ride. Could you teach me?”

His brow furrows, gaze flicking over your smaller frame and unfamiliar posture. He says something sharp in response, words clipped and edged with irritation, perhaps misunderstanding your words or your intent. You catch only pieces of it, but the tone is unmistakable. Calmly, you lowered your eyes, letting the tension roll off you without snapping back and without angering.

You lift your hands slightly instead, palms open, expression calm even as your pulse stutters. You begin to respond, steady and composed, already searching for a way to smooth the exchange—

—but you never finish.

Neteyam, as always, had been nearby, a silent watchful shadow. His brows furrowed the instant he heard the raised voice, the slight hardening of your stance, the ripple of discomfort that ran over you. He lingered no longer.

His hair swung as he strode forward, long legs striding towards the space between you and the warrior. In a single fluid motion, he stepped between the two of you, chest lifting, shoulders squared, every line of him taut and alive with intent.

His hand shoots out, a finger pressing against the other warrior’s chest, steady, immovable. “Back away,” he says, voice low but lethal, vibrating with quiet danger. “Now.”

The warrior freezes in surprise, unprepared by the intensity in Neteyam’s tone, the explosive protectiveness radiating from him.

You stare at Neteyam’s back, momentarily stunned by the speed of it all—by how quickly the situation has escalated because of you.

You instinctively reach toward him, touching his arm gently. “Neteyam—” you began, voice gentle, almost scolding at the chaos he’s caused. His ears lower, drooping slightly, but he doesn’t retreat. His body stays aligned with yours like a living shield.

You let out a small sigh as you step closer, touching his shoulder. “It’s alright,” you murmur. “I can handle it.”

He glances down at you, eyes catching yours, shimmering with something unspoken—devotion, tenderness and fierce protection. Nevertheless, through it all, you couldn’t deny the warmth that rose in your chest at his protective instinct, at the way he placed himself, choosing you over the judgment, over the misunderstanding, over the eyes of his clan.

The warrior mutters something under his breath and turns away, tension dissolving as quickly as it formed.

Around you, the clan resumes their tasks but not without notice. Some glance from one to another, whispering in low tones, their heads tilting in quiet acknowledgment. They see the way he remains close, attention undivided from you, how easily he places himself in your defense without being asked. And in that moment, the bond between you, fragile and complicated, becomes visible even to them.

They notice.

And you feel it too—the quiet, irreversible shift of something unspoken settling into place.

𓂃 ོ☼𓂃 𓇼𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚

You don’t argue with him there.

Instead, you turn and tilt your head slightly, a silent invitation. “Come,” you say, soft enough that it’s meant only for him.

Neteyam follows without question.

He falls into step behind you, close but careful, eyes fixed not on the path ahead but on your hand—on the way your fingers uncurl as you walk, on the small, human motions you never seem to notice. His chest tightens with every step. Since the moment he woke, since the haze lifted and the world sharpened back into color and sound, he has wanted this. Nearness. Proof that you were real. That you hadn’t vanished the moment he could stand on his own.

But you had.

You hadn’t sat at his side anymore. Hadn’t checked his breathing. Hadn’t touched his wrist or murmured reassurances while he drifted in and out of sleep. You spoke politely when you had to, distantly when you didn’t. The sudden absence of your care had left something raw behind his ribs, a dull ache he didn’t know how to name.

He wonders—briefly, painfully—if you simply stopped caring.

The thought hurts more than the wound ever did.

Without thinking, his hand lifts.

His fingers brush yours—hesitant at first, barely there, as if testing whether he is allowed. When you don’t pull away, when your pace doesn’t change, his breath stutters. He curls his fingers around your hand, gentle but sure, as though afraid that if he loosens his grip you might disappear again.

You feel it immediately.

Your head tilts a fraction but you don’t glance down. You don’t tell him to stop or pull your hand free. Instead, you give his hand a small and brief reassuring squeeze and let him keep holding on.

Neteyam exhales shakily.

He follows you like that, hand in yours, through winding paths and away from the noise of the reef. The chatter fades. The watchful eyes thin. Even the ocean seems to hush, the water smoothing itself against stone as if it understands you meant for this to be private.

You stop near a stretch of water half-shadowed by rocks, the tide lapping softly at the edges. When you turn to face him, he still doesn’t let go.

“Why are you always following behind me?” you ask.

Your voice isn’t sharp. It isn’t accusing. But it is careful—guarded in the way of someone who already suspects the answer but doesn’t want to hear it.

Neteyam falters.

He opens his mouth, then closes it again. His ears twitch, lowering slightly as he searches for words that he doesn't know how to say. He knows how to fight. How to obey. How to protect. This—this quiet, aching pull in his chest—is not something he recognises, or can name.

“It feels…” He swallows. “Wrong. When you are not near.”

He lifts your joined hands, just slightly, as if to show you what he means. “Here,” he says, pressing his free hand to his chest. “Like something is missing.”

You nod slowly—not in agreement, but in recognition. Understanding settles over you with a practiced, clinical certainty and calm.

Attachment, you think. Trauma. Gratitude tangled too tightly with survival. You’ve seen it before. In soldiers pulled back from death who cling to the medic who found them. In patients who wake with someone’s hands on their chest and mistake survival for destiny. Battlefield medicine forges bonds that run deep and fast—born of fear, relief, gratitude, and the fragile miracle of being alive at all. They feel like love. They can mimic it perfectly. But they are not the same.

This is trauma speaking, you tell yourself. A nervous system that learned your presence meant breath, meant life, meant safety.

It will fade, you think. With time. With space.

And yet, the idea of leaving, of disappearing too suddenly sits wrong in your gut. You know what abrupt absence can do to a mind already shaped by loss and pain. You fear the distance might wound him in ways you cannot stitch closed, even if his body has healed cleanly.

You stare at him, caught somewhere between disbelief and hesitation. 

“I do not know everything about you,” he admits. “But I know this.” His thumb presses lightly into your hand in a firm and grounding motion. “I want you. Not because you saved me.” 

A pause. Deliberate. Certain.

“But because you saw me—and I am still here because of it.”

Surprise etches itself across your face before you can stop it.

You look up at him, really look at him, meeting his gaze at last. You don’t answer. You don’t pull away. You don’t correct him or soften the moment into something safer and easier to explain.

And to Neteyam, that matters more than any words you could have given.

𓂃 ོ☼𓂃 𓇼𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚

Midday settles gently over the reef.

The sun hangs high, bright enough to turn the water into mirrors. The village breathes in its familiar rhythm. Sounds of quiet laughter, the soft slap of water against wood and the creak of drying nets being lifted and turned perked your ears.

Nothing feels wrong.

That, you know, is what makes it dangerous.

You are mending a torn strap with thread you scavenged weeks ago when the sound hits — sharp, jagged, wrong. A voice breaks through the calm like a spear through water.

“Sky people!”

Your chest tightens violently, air punching from your lungs as your mind snaps into clarity. Not panic but calculation. You know their tactics too well. A patrol this close to the reef means surveillance. Testing. Mapping. The quiet before something far worse.

You look up.

The Metkayina live beneath open sky. No canopy. No stone. No caves to vanish into. The reef is beautiful but utterly exposed.

Voices rise around you now, overlapping. Warriors reach for weapons. Mothers pull children close, ushering them toward the shallows. Someone drops a basket; fish scatter, flashing silver before vanishing beneath the water.

Then the first blast hits.

The impact cracks against the sea with a thunderous boom, water erupting upward in a violent column. The shockwave rattles the platforms, tossing bodies sideways. Screams cut through the air.

You spur to action without command.

You run because someone is already falling.

A young warrior is thrown clean from the edge of the platform, hitting the water hard and not resurfacing. You don’t hesitate — you dive.

The water swallows you, cold and brutal. You kick hard, lungs already burning as you reach him, fingers hooking beneath his arms. He’s limp and heavy, his armour and unconsciousness dragging him down. You haul him upward with a strength born of urgency, breaking the surface in a gasp as you drag him onto the nearest platform.

His breathing is wrong. Shallow. Erratic.

Your hands are already moving — tilting his head, checking his pupils, pressing fingers against his throat.

“Pressure,” you say sharply, grabbing the nearest warrior. “Here. Don’t let go.”

They stare at you for half a second too long, at the strange human barking commands, but something in your voice cuts through the chaos. They obey.

Another explosion rocks the reef.

A Metkayina warrior stumbles toward you, clutching his side, crimson blood dark against his fingers. Metal glints beneath torn skin — jagged and wrong. Shrapnel. You guide him down, rip the fabric screwed on his body without asking and bind them tight against his side, tighter than what feels comfortable.

He hisses.

“It has to be this way,” you tell him, already moving on.

You move again. And again.

You don’t stop. You don’t flinch when another shot screams overhead. You are everywhere at once—dragging, binding, directing. A Metkayina warrior stares at you in disbelief as you shove him back towards safety.

You adapt — human triage reshaped for Na’vi bodies. Longer limbs. Stronger hearts. Different pain thresholds. Same rules. Stop the bleeding. Keep them breathing. Don’t let shock take hold.

Another warrior is dragged free from wreckage, leg twisted at a terrible angle. You immobilise it with one swift precision, ignoring the way your hands shake only after you’re done.

Your palms are slick with blood that is bright red and dark crimson, mingling until it no longer matters which is which.

The skirmish ends as abruptly as it began.

The patrol retreats — distant engines fading, satisfied perhaps with what they’ve learned. The reef is left trembling, wounded but alive.

Only when the last echo dies do you feel it — the delayed tremor in your arms, the ache blooming along your spine, the sharp awareness of how exposed you still are.

Around you, the Metkayina watch.

They had known of you — the human who saved Neteyam. The quiet presence who kept in the shadows, spoke little, belonged nowhere. Trust, thin as sea glass, had formed around that single act.

Now it shifts.

They see the way you moved through chaos without fear. How warriors twice your size listened when you spoke. How you chose who needed help first and did not waver. How you did not look to the sky in terror or rage — only to the wounded at your feet.

Whispers ripple through the crowd.

Not praise. Not yet.

But recognition.

And through it all, Neteyam watches.

He had fought. He had defended. But more than that — he had seen. 

Seen the way you ran toward danger without armor or blade. The way your hands never faltered. The way his clan began to look at you differently, something like understanding dawning in their eyes.

There is awe in his gaze, unguarded and raw. Not the sharp admiration of battle. Something heavier. Something that settles deep in his chest and refuses to loosen its hold.

You not only saved his life, but stood to heal when others faltered.

And Neteyam knows with absolute certainty that he would stand wherever you stand. Without question and without hesitation. 

𓂃 ོ☼𓂃 𓇼𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚

The calm never fully returns.

The following day, another skirmish broke the peace again.

You are crouched again beside another fallen warrior, fingers slick with blood as you secure a final binding, when the air cracks.

Not the distant thrum of engines. Not the echo of retreat.

A second shot.

It is sharper. Closer.

Neteyam sees it. His eyes had darted frantically around to find you as soon as the silence broke.

He sees the spray of water explode behind you, sees the metallic glint spin through the air, sees the way your body jerks as something strikes flesh. A dull, sickening thud — not loud or dramatic, but unmistakable.

You gasp, more in surprise than pain.

Your hand flies to your side. Warmth spreads beneath your fingers. You stagger one step, then catch yourself, breath coming fast as you assess, already calculating the depth and gravity of the wound

Not deep. Not fatal. You’ve had worse.

But Neteyam doesn’t know that.

For a heartbeat, the world narrows to a single image: you, wounded.

Something inside him fractures.

He is moving before the sound finishes echoing.

He forgets the shouted orders behind him. Forgets the warriors regrouping, the defensive line reforming along the reef’s edge. Forgets his father’s voice — steady and commanding, cutting through the chaos.

For the first time in his life, he does not turn back.

Not because Lo’ak has gone too far ahead. Not because Tuk needs guarding. Not because duty demands it.

Because you are hurt.

He runs like he is drowning, like the only air left in the world is wherever you are. His stride eats the distance between you in seconds, heart slamming so hard it drowns out everything else. The disciplined warrior, the careful son, the perfect brother is gone.

What remains is instinct. Raw and unchecked.

“No—” His voice breaks as he reaches you. His hands are on you immediately, shaking as they skim over your sides, your back, your arms, searching for damage he cannot bear to find. His breath comes in ragged pulls, chest heaving like he’s the one who’s been shot.

You blink up at him, stunned—not by the pain, but by him. By the way his control has shattered so thoroughly it frightens you.

“Neteyam—” you start, steady despite the pain. “I’m—”

He doesn’t hear it.

His knees hit the platform hard as he pulls you against him, arms locking around you with desperate force. You feel the tremor running through him, violent and uncontrolled. His forehead presses to your shoulder, face buried against your chest, like he’s trying to anchor himself to proof that you’re still here.

A sound tears from him — broken and unguarded.

A quiet sob.

The reef goes quiet around you. Na’vi stop where they stand. Heads turn. Eyes widen.

They have never seen this from him. Never seen Neteyam Sully lose himself. Never seen the golden son abandon his post, forget the sky, forget the war, forget orders.

You are conscious. Breathing. Very much alive.

And that is what makes it so shocking.

You lift a hand slowly, carefully, touching his braids, then his shoulder. “Hey,” you murmur, soft but firm. “Look at me.”

It takes effort — visible effort — for him to pull back.

His eyes are wild. Wet. Fear stripped bare and no discipline left to hide it. Tears track freely down his cheeks, dark tracks cutting through the markings of his skin like inked lines, unashamed and unstoppable. He looks at you like he has already lost you once and cannot survive doing it again.

“I thought—” His voice breaks completely. He swallows hard, fingers tightening in your clothes. “I thought—”

You take his hand and press it flat against your side, guiding him. Letting him feel the truth of it—the shallow wound, the warmth of your skin, the steady rise and fall of your breath. Your other hand lifts, gentle despite the sting in your side, and you rest it against his back. You pull him closer, giving him the space he’s already claimed, letting him hide there if he needs to.

“I’m here,” you murmur, low and certain. “I’m still here.”

His grip tightens in response.

“I’m not dying,” you say quietly with a soft smile, hoping to dull the fear raging through him. “I know what this is. I promise.”

He doesn’t answer.

He had seen you fall.

Seen red bloom where it should not have.

And in that instant, a thought had taken root in him, cold and absolute. 

I will not survive losing her.

He bows his head again, forehead resting against yours now, breath shuddering as if his body hasn’t yet learned that the danger has passed. His tears soak into your skin. His grip never loosens, holding you like the only future he can imagine, the composure he has worn his entire life lying in pieces at his feet.

And something inside you shifts. A thin, aching thread of guilt tightens around your chest.

You had told yourself this was attachment—trauma tangled with gratitude, the kind of bond forged in blood and survival. You had seen it before. You had named it before. Ever the cynic, you had insisted it would fade. That the distance you had forced between the two of you was kindness. That the space you granted him was protection.

But as you stroke his back, slow and steady, heart aching in time with his sobs, you realise how wrong you were.

You had ignored him. You had denied him even the chance to speak his gratitude. You had decided for him what his feelings meant—because it was easier than believing they were real.

And you cannot deny it any longer.

You feel it now, clear and terrifying and undeniable: you want this. You want him. You want to stay, to learn his world, to take care of him the way he clings to you now—as if you are something precious, something irreplaceable.

And so you make a silent promise to yourself to go with it. With his feelings. With yours.

Behind you, the clan watches in silence. With something like understanding.

Neytiri stands a little apart, arms folded, silent. She has always known her son to be disciplined, precise, carrying the weight of his father’s name and expectations like armor. But this — this raw, unfiltered grief — is something else entirely. She sees the way his chest heaves, the trembling in his arms as they clutch you, the soft sobs escaping past lips that had rarely ever let out a sound of weakness.

And in that instant, understanding settles deep and sure in her chest. This was more than duty, more than legacy. More than the careful measures of warriorhood. He feels you. And he cannot bear the thought of your absence.

Jake sees it too. Lo’ak freezes, shock written plainly across his face. That this wasn’t just gratitude or affection, it was devotion. Fierce, consuming and unrelenting.

Whatever this is — whatever Neteyam feels — it is not rational. Not bound by duty or expectation.

It is the fear of almost losing you.

And he has never learned how to survive that.

𓂃 ོ☼𓂃 𓇼𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚

You stay like that for a long time.

You don’t rush him.

Don’t hush him.

Don’t tell him to be strong, or brave, or composed.

You simply hold him.

Your arms stay wrapped around his back, firm and steady, anchoring him where he’s collapsed against you. Your fingers move without thought, tracing slow paths through his braids, smoothing over the warm skin at the nape of his neck. You rock him just slightly—a rhythm meant for frightened children and wounded things. His sobs come sharp at first, broken and gasping, his body shuddering violently with each breath.

Then, slowly, they soften.

The tremors ease.

His breathing evens and steadies out with each breath.

Eventually, his grip loosens just enough that it no longer feels like he’s holding you in place out of fear that you will disappear. His forehead rests against your collarbone now, breath warm and damp against your skin, exhaustion seeping into his bones now that the fear has burned itself out.

The world resumes around you in fragments.

The wounded are moved.

Bindings are tightened.

Orders are murmured and obeyed.

The reef exhales cautiously, like it’s unsure whether it’s safe to breathe yet.

But you don’t move.

You stay there with him as the chaos thins, as the noise dulls to something distant and irrelevant. You stay until the circle around you loosens, until the watching eyes turn away, until the space opens again like a wave finally released.

Until it is just the two of you.

He shifts slightly in your arms, lifting his body slightly so that he can look at you. 

It’s careful. Hesitant. As if he’s afraid of what he might see in your face now that the moment has stripped him bare. His fingers move to brush near your wound to obtain proof, maybe, that you’re still here.

His eyes are red-rimmed, lashes clumped with tears he hasn’t bothered to hide. His expression is raw in a way that feels almost sacred, like you’ve been allowed to witness something no one else ever has. Shame flickers there now, quick and painful, settling in the wake of everything he’s revealed. Embarrassment lingers in the way his shoulders curl inward, guilt threaded through the last of his exhaustion — like his feelings are something heavy he’s set in your hands without permission.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

The words barely make it out.

You lift your hand without thinking, fingers sinking gently into his braids, palm resting warm and steady against the crown of his head.

“Don’t be,” you whisper. “It’s okay.”

Your voice is soft enough to be meant only for him.

But he doesn’t hear it.

Not really.

You feel his weight sagging fully against you, breath slowing further, lashes fluttering before falling closed. Sleep takes him not gently, but suddenly, like a body that has been running on fear alone finally giving out. Mental exhaustion claiming what fear and adrenaline can no longer sustain.

You realise that he’s asleep.

You look down at him then. Really look.

His face is peaceful now, or it would be, if not for the faint crease caught between his brows — a remnant of worry his body hasn’t yet learned how to release. His cheeks are still damp, tear tracks cooling against his skin, leaving darker shadows where grief had passed through him moments before.

The sky above has darkened while you weren’t looking. Twilight bleeds into night and in the growing dark, Pandora begins to glow.

So does he.

The freckled bioluminescent markings scattered across his face soften into light — pale blue at first, then brighter, pulsing gently along his face. Each one unmistakably his. A living constellation you could trace with your eyes alone. They glow more clearly now in the quiet, reflecting calm returning where panic once lived.

You think distantly and guiltily that he is beautiful.

Soft footsteps approach through the sand.

You lift your head to find Jake.

He doesn’t say much. Doesn’t need to. His eyes move from your face to his son asleep against you, and something unspoken passes between you. A small smile touches his mouth. A nod of acknowledgment. Gratitude, quiet and heavy with understanding.

He kneels beside you without speaking at first. He looks at his son, utterly spent, stripped bare by fear and feeling.

“Thank you,” he murmurs eventually, voice low. “I’ve got him.”

Carefully, he gathers Neteyam into his arms. Neteyam stirs once, brows pinching faintly, fingers curling unconsciously as he’s lifted, but he doesn’t wake. He only settles again, trusting, spent.

Jake turns toward the family marui.

You watch him go.

You stay where you are, unmoving, watching his retreating figure disappear into the shadows. You stay there long after the night swallows him whole. Your hands rest uselessly in your lap, slick with dried blood—his, yours, someone else’s—you don’t know. You don’t care.

All you can feel is the echo of his weight gone from your arms, the space he’s left behind, the ache of having witnessed him so unguarded, so openly devoted, and having let him leave believing he was alone in it.

All you can comprehend is the weight of knowing his feelings were never fleeting — and you understand with terrible clarity that your restraint had not been kindness at all.

And the guilt presses into your ribs, sharp and unrelenting with nowhere left to go.

𓂃 ོ☼𓂃 𓇼𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚

That night, sleep refuses to come.

You lie awake, eyes fixed on the woven ceiling of the marui, pale silver casting through the openings above by the twin moons of Pandora. Your thoughts circle endlessly, heavy and insistent. You think of the way he chose you without hesitation, without doubt, while you stood there so carefully guarded, your uncertainty laid bare between you. You think of the quiet loyalty in his eyes, and of the distance you put between it and yourself.

You tell yourself you were being careful. Rational. Responsible. That you were doing the right thing—that giving him space was kinder, that feelings like his needed distance in order to soften, to fade.

But they hadn’t faded.

They had endured.

The realisation settles heavy in your chest, doing nothing to ease the ache already there.

Then, softly—so soft you almost think you’ve imagined it—

Your name.

You lift your head.

He stands just inside the threshold, half-lit by moonlight, broad shoulders tense as if he’s unsure whether he’s already gone too far. As if bracing, as if he’s expecting impact. His ears tilt back slightly, uncertain. He doesn’t step closer. He waits.

You see it in him – the caution. The quiet restraint he has learned around you. He looks like someone who has prepared himself for rejection and walked into it anyway.

Slowly, hesitantly, he reaches for you.

Not touching. Not yet. His hand hovers in the space between you, suspended and cautious—because you have never given him permission. Because he has learned, with you, to hesitate.

And for the first time, you don’t think.

You reach back.

Your fingers close around his hand and you pull him toward you.

A sharp inhale leaves him—surprised, breath catching—but he doesn’t resist. He leans into the pull, follows it eagerly, as though he’d been waiting for this exact invitation. He comes down beside you, careful at first, testing the ground beneath him. As though this moment might dissolve if he moves too quickly. Then closer still, until the space between you disappears entirely.

In the quiet of the marui, you cling to each other.

There are no demands in it. No urgency. Just the simple aching need to be close. His body is warm against yours, solid and real, and you feel the tension bleed from him the moment your arms come around his shoulders. But even as he relaxes, there is something fragile in the way he holds you, like he does not quite trust this. Like he is waiting for it to be taken back.

He stills suddenly.

His voice is barely more than a breath when he speaks.

“…Can I—” he starts, then falters and swallows. “I want… I want to be near you, with you. Can I?”

His question is delicate and careful, like he’s afraid of your answer. He watches you like you might disappear.

Your chest aches.

You lift a hand, gently, and touch his face. Your fingers brush along his cheek, tucking loose braids back where they’ve slipped into his ears. You cup his jaw, thumb warm against his skin, grounding him. Letting him feel that you’re here. That this is real.

“Yes,” you say softly. 

Relief shudders through him visibly. His forehead dips closer, breath unsteady as he leans into your touch. For a moment, you simply hold him.

And then—you speak again.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper at last. He freezes.

The words feel fragile as they leave you. “For ignoring you. For pretending I didn’t see you. For making you feel anything less than important.”

His arms tighten around your waist, firm but gentle, anchoring you.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs, voice low and steady near your chest. There is no accusation in it. No resentment. Only reassurance.

But you shake your head faintly.

“No,” you whisper. “It’s not.”

You swallow, fingers curling into the skin of his back, grounding yourself in the steady warmth of him. “I was afraid,” you whisper. The words come slowly, carefully, like stepping onto thin ice. “Of this. Of you.” A small, broken breath slips free. “Of letting myself want you when we are from such different worlds.” You hesitate, forehead resting lightly against his hair. “It didn’t feel fair to you—after everything I’ve done, after aligning with the RDA. I’m sorry.”

Your voice softens even more, nearly swallowed by the quiet. “You didn’t deserve that.”

For a moment, silence stretched between you. There is only the sound of his breathing, deep and steady against your chest. 

“I thought,” you continued softly, “that if I stepped back, it would protect you. That your feelings would fade if I did not encourage them.” You swallow. “I told myself it was … because I saved you. That you were holding onto me because I was there when you woke. Because I meant safety. Not because you truly—” Your voice thins. “Not because you truly chose me.”

A small, wounded sound leaves him. You feel it where his forehead rests against you. Silence settles between you, vulnerable and exposed.

“…Are you sure?” you ask at last, the question barely more than a whisper. “About this. About me?”

He hums softly, a sound that vibrates through you, warm and certain. His head tilts, pressing closer, as if the answer is something he feels rather than thinks.

“Yes,” he says, without hesitation. 

He lifts his face just enough for you to see him, eyes shining in the low light – earnest, unguarded, almost fierce in their certainty. “I am sure, I am certain.” he continues, voice gentle but unshakable. 

You search him. For cracks. For hesitation. For the flicker of confusion you’ve convinced yourself must be there. You find none.

“I am not confusing survival with destiny,” he says quietly, without wavering as if he can see the fear moving behind your eyes. “I know what it is to survive.” His hand presses flat against your back, grounding. “This is not that. I chose you and I will keep choosing you.”

Something inside you softens completely for the first time.

“I want to be near you too,” you whisper. He stills again. The words seem to undo him more than anything else. “I want to learn about you,” you continue, your voice gaining quiet strength. “Not just as a warrior. Not as what everyone expects you to be.”

Your fingers slide slowly through his braids.

“I want to know you. The things no one asks about. The things no one else sees. The parts you keep for yourself.”

His breath catches.

“I want to be part of your world,” you say, softer now, the confession resting between you like something tender and luminous. 

Then, almost shyly despite everything you’ve already laid bare, you ask, “Will you show me your world?”

The question surprises even you. It carries more weight than you intended—an unspoken thought of staying, of choosing something other than solitude for the first time since he woke.

His heart flutters. He looks at you as if you have just handed him something sacred.

“I would love nothing more,” he says, voice rough with emotion. Then, softer he adds in Na’vi, “Yawnetu.”

Beloved.

The word settles between you like a promise, a vow.

Emotion swells in your chest before you can stop it. You draw him back down against you, arms wrapping fully around his shoulders. He shifts willingly and eagerly, shuffling closer until his head settles against your chest, fitting there as if he’s always known the shape of you. You can’t help the small smile that curves your lips when he snuggles closer, arms slipping more securely around your waist. He shifts and shuffles until he finds the perfect place, clicking into you like the final piece of something unfinished—like a puzzle you had finally allowed him to complete.

Your hand lifts again, fingers sliding through his braids. They slip beneath your touch like water, familiar and soothing. You stroke his back slowly and feel his body relax under your touch.

A quiet sound leaves him, content and relieved. His lips curve into a smile you can feel rather than see. His tail flicks once—an instinctive, betrayed movement—before curling up and around the both of you, loose at first, then secure.

You lie like that in the quiet, breath syncing with breath, heartbeats slowly finding the same rhythm. The world outside the marui fades. The doubts quiet. The war, the plans, the future—all of it softens at the edges.

Minutes pass. Maybe more.

Sleep, it seems, comes easily after all—once your body finds his.

You used to taunt Steve for this kind of thing during training runs and team building events, and he’d tease you right back. That boyish smile would give way to something a bit more wicked and an unnamed heat would pool low in your stomach at his crack in composure. You had been sure he was only days away from asking you out - some very proper invitation to the pictures with an assurance that he would drop you back by a reasonable hour, most likely. But then you got a promotion and came under his leadership.

Now, his virtue is just exhausting.

He moves through missions like he’s got some do-gooder checklist in his head, and you can feel him watching every corner you cut. He doesn’t have to say a word (though he often does); the disapproval is baked into the air between you. Whatever spark had been building between the two of you got buried somewhere between all his rules and all the ways you’d break them.

A side-mission from Fury here, a refusal to wait for backup there - and suddenly you two are enemies. Or adversaries, at the least

You remind him frequently, in the throes of fiery screaming matches that make the rest of the team avert their eyes, that this is the way SHIELD trained you. He is the one going against the grain, not you. But it doesn’t seem to matter to him because his trusty moral compass never points him wrong, it would seem. 

Things have gotten so bad by now that you think Steve, patient and tolerant as he is, might have even considered requesting that you be transferred if you weren’t so damn good at your job. 

And you are good. That can’t be denied.

But there’s something about working with Steve that makes you great. When you’re not at each other’s throats.

You move around each other on missions as if performing choreography that only you two have rehearsed. You’ve saved his ass more times than he has ever acknowledged or thanked you for, but he has done the same for you. You have a deep understanding of how he works, mind and body. He keeps his moves varied as a rule, but you have learned to read the minute shift in his centre of gravity before he strikes, the smallest drop in his hips that means he’s about to duck, the tightening of his frame before he lunges. Equally, you know when he’s running multiple scenarios behind his eyes, when he’s processing angles before he commits.

It makes you his best possible partner on the field and the biggest pain in his ass in training.

“You’re up,” Steve mutters to you while Sam limps to the corner of the room, grumbling something about how next time Steve needs to stop dragging this shit out before he gets a leg cramp.

You haul yourself up slowly, moving to the centre of the gym with exaggerated languor just to piss him off, rolling your shoulders as you go. His sweat is making his white t-shirt entirely transparent, the thin fabric sticking to his defined pectorals and torso. He shakes his head, spraying sweat over the mat. It should be kind of gross, really, so you’re a bit disgusted by how hot it is. You see his jaw tick with impatience, and you begin to stretch your calves, too.

“You couldn’t have done this while you were waiting?”

“And risk seizing up again while you played with your food?”

“Just because I don’t use full force, it doesn’t mean I’m ‘playing with my food’,” he says, frowning at you in that disappointed-teacher way of his “Every time you all fight a super soldier, it makes you better. I use more force every time.”

You say nothing, only because you’re cautious about baiting him too much ahead of the ass-whooping you’re about to get. You roll your shoulders one more time, looking up at him.

“Let’s go.”

Steve lunges, coming at you hard and fast. A blur of muscle flies past your eye-line, fist cutting into the air where your jaw had been just half a second before. The force of it sends a gust that moves wisps of your hair and the speed of your dodge sends your boots skidding across the mat. You raise an astounded eyebrow at him and he shrugs with a tight smile. 

On days like this, when his restraint is frayed and he is too irritated to be sanctimonious, you are reminded that he can be a little bit fun.

When you slide by his guard again, your eyes catch his for a fraction of a second before he lands a surprise hit to your abdomen that pummels the wind right out of your pipes. You groan but stop yourself from bowling over right into his knee that comes shooting up for you. You see him bear left and you glide away in the opposite direction.

“Testy today,” you say, but you can’t hit the patronising tone you are aiming for. Your voice comes out scratchy from the knock you took. He says nothing but leaps at you again.

You lean back and dodge the hit but go sprawling to the floor. Before he can pin you, you sweep a foot under his. It’s not enough to knock him in itself but he blunders for a bit and with one more kick, you send him to his ass. You get a foot in his side and hear Sam hoot in delight as he clears out of the training room with the remaining agents.

Steve’s on his feet in a flash, but by then, so are you. There’s a glimmer of something on his face, like surprise or maybe excitement. You try not to get too arrogant.

And it’s a good thing you don’t. Because after five minutes of hits and dodges, he has you on the ropes again. You’re giving it as good as you’re getting but you don’t have his stamina or pain tolerance. You can feel your equilibrium slipping, movements getting sloppy. You’re over-balancing, tumbling instead of landing.

There’s something about the current between the two of you today that makes you want to win in a way you never do with Steve. You had never even really seen it as a competition before, safe in the conclusion that he and all his serum-amplified testosterone will have you beat eventually. It was always a matter of if, rather than when.

But Steve is coming at you properly today, not pulling his punches (as much), not giving you the space to recover before he’s on you again like a hound on fresh blood and it’s making a sort of swooping adrenaline sing in your blood. 

You don’t think too much about it, sweeping behind his back and hooking a leg over his. The serum means you don’t have enough strength to bring him down, but the confusion makes him stumble. With two hands on his shoulders, you climb his broad frame, boots digging into flesh, hands ploughing through his hair. He reaches a hand back to peel you off with bruising strength, but you have an iron clasp. His fingers dig into your t-shirt with almost enough force to pull it clean off.

You eventually reach the peak of him with immense difficulty. You are able to lock your thighs around his broad neck and curl your knee around his throat, squeezing hard. It’s not enough. His hands are pulling at your legs, but he’s not tapping out. You can only hold this grip for a matter of seconds, before your muscles loosen, and Steve will have your tired body pinned.

Impulsively, you dive backwards, head swooping down towards the floor. The force of it sends Steve flying back with you and you vaguely feel three taps - a victory - against your thigh before you both hit the floor. 

You crash hard on your back. Your head takes a small bump to the mat and black dots dance behind your eyes for just a second, but your ass and shoulder blades take the brunt of it. It’s far from the worst injury you’ve received in training, but it’s been a while since you’ve received more than a hit. You take a few deep breaths to centre yourself, groaning once air returns to your body. Only then do you realise that Steve’s head is planted firmly on your lower stomach, neck still pressed up between your thighs. You scramble away with what you hope is a collected suavity, all bones and muscles shrieking in opposition to the sudden movement. 

When Steve spins around, you know you’re in for it.

“What the hell was that?” he spits, picking himself up from the floor. His eyes are blazing, hands on his hips while he looks down at you where you are sprawled out on the mat. You close your eyes and let out a long, deliberate sigh - precisely the response you know will drive him crazy.

“That was me winning, Steve,” you say, ignoring your groaning limbs to pull yourself up. He does not offer you a hand up.

“No,” he said, voice strained and thick with irritation. “That was you trying to get yourself killed. Are you insane? You could have a concussion.”

“I know a concussion from a small bump,” you say, brushing him off with a limp hand. You move over to get your water, trying not to stagger. “Don’t be dramatic.”

“This is your problem, you know that? You always think you know best and everyone else is just dramatic or not seeing your vision, or whatever it is. You’re a good agent, but that’s not enough. You’re going to get yourself killed some day and it won’t be some great, heroic gesture like you probably think. It will be something stupid like this.”

His speech might have made a mark on you if it had been the first time you had heard it. As it stands, you just roll your eyes and take a sip from your bottle to look busy. The water mixes with blood from where you had bitten the inside of your cheek. It tastes bitter and metallic going down.

“God, you’re-”

You glance warily at Steve, wondering whether he is about to curse at you for the first time since that mission in Moscow. He swallows it. “You don’t listen.”

You shrug with a smile, watching his face go from a blushing red to a deep crimson. His eyes narrow and he spins around, broad back tensing as he storms out of the gym.

“Steve?”

He stops, twisting ever-so-slightly.

“You not gonna congratulate me on my first ever win?”

You think he might have given you the finger if he was anyone but himself.

You do end up grumbling your way over to the med bay eventually, but only because Steve threatens to suspend you from any further missions. You turn out to not have a concussion so you feel perfectly justified in scowling at him days later from across the quinjet the whole way to the shipyard two states away.

The air is warm despite the February frost splotched on the grass below. The hour is getting late; the setting sun turns the lakes and rivers a deep orangey red.

You hadn’t expected Steve to bow down or apologise, but you did expect him to ignore you. Instead, he’s watching you with a detached curiosity, like you’re some rare lab specimen or an interesting insect. 

“I know you’re not seriously mad at me for sending you to the med bay,” he says. “Because that would be insane.”

“They did a whole medical evaluation, Steve,” you snap at him. “I was in there well over an hour. All for fuckin’ nothing because I’m healthy as a horse, apparently.”

“Well you missed your last mandatory check-up. So you’re welcome,” he says, his lips stretching into a handsome little smirk.

You frown. You are usually the one provoking him and you’re not overly fond of how it feels to be on the receiving end. You can feel Steve’s eyes on you, heady and pleased. He’s leaning back with his arms crossed, lofty thighs spread open with an abnormal arrogance. One that would not be on display if the rest of the team were with you.

You can fully appreciate his size from this angle, the fabric of his t-shirt straining against his biceps, his wide shoulders holding strong like an impenetrable wall of muscle and brawn. He looks particularly good when he smiles - even if it’s at your expense. He could have passed for a Gladiator, or some Greek god in another universe - the kind whose likeness would be captured in marble for future generations to marvel at and admire. It wracks you how unfair it is that he can be so irritating but still look like that. 

Have you thought about him bending you over? Sure. Many a time. But you still can’t stand the guy.

“You still seeing that guy in R&D? Uh- Mark, or whatever.”

You give him a side-glance. Steve doesn’t forget anyone’s name. He is the kind of guy to be introduced to a hundred-man team and be asking Lucy for a debrief and thanking Jim for the coffee the very next day. You think he might be on a first-name basis with everyone he’s ever met. So you know that he knows his name his Mike.

“No,” you mumble. “We broke up last month.”

“Why?”

“None of your business, Rogers,” you say. You’re trying to appear unbothered, but you’re a little rattled. Your teeth are grinding. “What about you? Any dates recently?”

“A couple.”

“And how were they?”

“Good.”

You scoff. “You talk this much with them? Your chattiness might scare them off.”

“The ladies I take on dates might not have the same preferences as you, you know,” he says with a raised eyebrow. Your lips twitch at that term - ‘ladies’. How old-school.

“No, I’m sure they love one-word answers and taciturn grumbles.”

“I’ve had no complaints.”

Your mouth opens and closes stupidly. The shells of your ears prickle with heat as Steve just grins wider, shifting his hips to lean further back. He looks so goddamn cocky, so punchable. You wish you could take a picture and show him to all those trainees you had heard refer to him as a ‘golden retriever’. He seems more like a Mastiff to you; huge, stubborn, impossible to deal with.

You purse your lips together, eyes dropping to his army dog tags. The chain droops down his tanned, fabric-clad chest, the tags sitting neatly in the deep groove between his pectoral muscles. 

“Why did you and Mike break up?”

Your cheek twitches up. “So you do know his name.”

“Tell me.”

You turn your gaze away from him to watch the sun set out the window, even if it makes your retinae burn. “My fault, mostly. I don’t really, uh- know how to do it.”

“What? Relationships?”

“Yeah, I guess. I’m not used to having to let someone know when I’ll be home or making sure I have time for them between back-to-back missions. I blame my career choice.”

“Maybe you just didn’t care enough.”

Your eyes snap back over to him, eyebrows shooting straight to your hairline. “What?”

“I’m just saying. It’s not your career choice. Lots of people in this line of work have relationships that they prioritise.”

“What, you’re suddenly Dr Phil or something? It’s not like you know the ins and outs so don’t-”

“Dr Phil?” A cute little line forms between his brows.

“He was this-” You pause, heaving a frustrated breath out your nose. “You know what? Never mind.”

“My point is,” Steve continues. “I think you would want to do all those things for someone you cared enough about, even when it’s difficult. It wouldn’t be some tick-the-box.”

All traces of arrogance are gone from Steve’s expression, only genuine interest remaining as he scans your face like he’s trying to solve some puzzle. It makes you uncomfortable - you would prefer for him to laugh at you or lecture you.

“I could be dating Brad Pitt and I still would not care enough to answer a text about what’s for dinner when I’m busy.”

He frowns. “Who is Brad Pitt?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

The walk to the shipyard is quiet. Silent, if not for the steady scratch of Steve’s boots grinding against the gravel. The hum of the quinjet dulls the farther you walk.

You may not particularly like Steve, but you appreciate him at times like these. You couldn't be more perfect mission partners for each other if you tried. The way you fall into your posts quickly and seamlessly, giving each other the space and silence to focus on preparing for the mission while also trusting that you will speak up if the situation calls for it. 

Your methods and routines are practically identical. It’s almost a shame that the moment things break open, that quiet alignment shatters.

Steve holds a fist up, signalling you to stop. You do, falling in behind him. You’re not sure what he’s hearing, but you trust him implicitly when he makes the motion for you to duck behind a flatbed truck. You press yourself against the cool metal and Steve plunges in after you, his warm chest and stomach caging you. Hardly a second later, you hear what he had - a door clanging open, boisterous voices spilling out, all speaking over each other in Russian.

Steve meets your eyes, gives you a silent signal and you nod, moving out from behind the truck as silently as a deer and blending into the night. You weave through the shipping containers with practiced alacrity. You don’t need to look to know Steve is right behind you; you can feel him.

You split angles without having to speak. Steve covers the high runways while you sweep the lower lanes between cargo. The night has cooled and the wind is vicious now, needling the hulls of the half-empty freighters and blowing the hook block of the crane overhead until it swings like an unsteady pendulum over the flooded pier. Steve is keeping close. His hot breath feels sharp on your neck against the biting wind. 

You get within five hundred feet of the main electrical substation before you’re spotted. A pair of guards open fire from the building behind you, spraying an uncoordinated bouquet of bullets in your direction. You find cover effortlessly and huff with humour at the sloppy execution. They had just revealed that they are aware of your presence without allowing you to get close enough for a good shot.

“Idiots,” Steve mutters, as if he’s genuinely disappointed. You smile up at him, almost expecting him to say something about how he expected better from them.

You easily dodge their fire as you advance leisurely and safely, winding in and out from behind shipping containers. You decide that you’re not in the mood to go at it with Steve today, so you take his lead even if it’s significantly slower than how you would choose to do this yourself. You don’t worry about the shots that get too close - whatever you can’t dodge, Steve fends off with his shield.

You are out of the gunmen’s range when you make it to the ladder that leads up to the platform you need to get to, but you have no doubt they are headed your way. You go first, taking your gun from its holster, aiming it upwards, and heaving yourself onto the ladder. The iron bars are slick with seawater and heavy fuel oil; you have to grip tight so you don’t slip. 

You’re making careful progress up the ladder with Steve behind you, eyes pointed upwards for any sign of unwanted company. The metal feels slithery beneath your fingers and it takes you an extra few seconds to climb each step. It’s shuddering under each step and you wonder vacantly whether Steve’s weight will make it collapse.

You don’t have much time to prepare for the gunman that approaches above you. Your fingers are still clumsily fidgeting, trying to aim your gun while also grasping the slippy bar of metal. You get your shots off at the same time; yours hits, his does not.

What it does do, though, is make you dodge. Your body bears left, foot skidding on a rung of the ladder and suddenly you’re slipping downward, stomach swooping as your body collides with Steve’s.

He scarcely reacts, catching you with one arm, using little to no exertion. His fingers clamp around your waist, steadying you. For a fraction of a second you both freeze - your breath catching, his jaw tensing, bodies flush together, faces inches apart. Every hard plane of his body is pressed up against you. There is a throbbing warmth low in your stomach.

“You good?” he asks, breathy and deep.

“Move,” you say, voice tight, shaking out of his grasp and climbing up once more. He sighs and mutters something under his breath but you can’t make it out. Your heart is galloping, your pulse thundering in your ears.

You barrel over the platform, and go running towards the tower just as another guard reaches the door, attempting to get to the breaker panel before you have the chance to disable it. He locks the door behind him but Steve kicks it in with a crash. You slide low, sweeping the guard’s legs. Steve disarms him before he can even hit the floor. 

There’s no need for discussion as you both fall into your respective roles. The room is oppressively grey and layered with multiple wires, but you find your way to the breaker panel. You work on planting the shutdown device on the primary switchgear while Steve holds off reinforcements, laying enough suppressive fire to keep three guards pinned behind a forklift.

You’re more aware of his presence than usual while you work. He sits like some nagging instinct in your head, telling you to look. You know if you do, all you will see is his back, a heavy fortification of muscle and hard lines and sweat. You don’t need that kind of distraction. Your nerves are already fried from the uncomfortable consciousness of how his body felt pressed tight against yours.

You step back, watching the disruptor activate and the power shut down around you with a whining drone. The grey space becomes black and for just a split-second, yourself and Steve stand alone in the dark, no sounds pervading the room except your laboured breaths. The street lamps outside have extinguished - the bullets outside pause while the gunmen assess their situation.

Steve moves, shattering the stillness. He grips your wrist and pads quietly out the door, taking full advantage of the blackness to make a discreet getaway. You grab your wrist violently out of his grip but you follow him silently. You can’t see anything very well, but you think he might roll his eyes.

The shipyard is drowned in darkness, the only light the thin silver sheen of rain on metal. You move with Steve between the towering containers, keeping low. Every small sound seems deafening now - the clink of a loose cable swaying in the wind, even your own breaths.

A pair of guards drift close, their flashlights slicing through the blackout. You flatten against the cold steel wall, willing yourself still as the beams skim past, bright enough to catch the rivets beside your cheek. When the voices fade, Steve breaks across an open stretch at a quick, silent sprint. You follow. 

You’re not sure why you do it. It’s usually Steve’s job to scan the high ground. His serum-enhanced eyesight can catch movement long before you can. But Steve is preoccupied with sweeping for guards on ground level, so you do it instead out of pure intuition. And you see it: a sharp, unmoving glint on the crane platform above.

Your pulse spikes.

There’s a shooter. 

You had caught sight of him too late to find cover. You are out in the open. You can’t see the shooter well, but you know who their target will be and it’s not you. Steve is too far ahead to be able to warn him in any sufficient way.

In a moment of complete and utter instinct, and maybe more than a little stupidity, you raise your gun and shoot. You miss. 

The shooter turns their attention to you now. You fire another, miss again. 

The hit slams into your shoulder so hard, it immediately steals your breath. You stagger forward, fingers going numb. The gun drops from your clasp.

You try to breathe, but the pain is sharp and choking. Your vision wavers from blood loss and the sheer, overwhelming burn tearing through you. Steve’s gun cracks somewhere to your left but the sound bends around the pain, distant and warped. You can’t lift your arm. You can’t even unclench your jaw.

You wait to feel the blood clot around your wound but it’s slow and reluctant. You hold on for one more second, and then blackness swallows you.

The only thing that you’re aware of when you open your eyes is the pain. Not the cold, harsh light of the hospital. Not your family and team members that sit around you, looking morosely at the floor and bouncing their legs. Not even that Steve is absent.

For some length of time that feels very long, you exist in that state; slinking in and out of consciousness. But the pain never disappears, not even the bouts of darkness. In those moments of oblivion, the pain goes behind a cloud, but it always returns with a violence. You get to know this in a vague sort of way, feeling dumbly grateful when the pain is at bay but never being so naive as to think yourself free of it.

Although you will later find out it is only two days, it feels like a small eternity before you can clear the film that feels like scum from your throat and croak anything out. You must not be of fully sound mind yet or maybe the painkillers are making you loopy, because the first thing you say to the room, crammed with familiar faces, is; “Steve?”

You’re assured by someone - Maria? Natasha? - that he got you out. That he’s ok.

And then that grey cloud descends once again. The pain and the haze return.

It’s not that you care that Steve doesn’t come to visit. 

It turns out that your wound is just a through-and-through shot to the top of your shoulder. One centimetre in any direction and the bullet might have lodged itself firmly into your neck or paralysed your arm for good. The area is packed densely with muscles and nerves so you are wreaked with pain, but as it stands, it did no permanent damage.

So, really, there is no need for him to visit. And you definitely don’t care. You just think it’s bad leadership is all. You would have showed up for him if the roles were reversed, no matter how much of a pest he is. Would have sent a card. Even a text, at the very fucking least. 

You leave the hospital after the dullest week of your life. You hadn’t, until that point, realised how tangled your life purpose is with your career. You feel rabid after just a day or two of consciousness, restricted to your bed with no files to review, no cases to crack open. Just you, a few beat-up novels you had been meaning to get around to reading, and whoever decides to drop by to see how you were doing.

Maria lets you know that you are required to take another two weeks of leave before returning to work. Standard policy. Your requests to be forwarded files related to your ongoing cases are rejected. You can’t even enter the building to go to the gym.

In the absence of anything better to do, you watch films back-to-back. Try some recipes you had earmarked. Visit the new museum that had opened in the next block over. Wait to hear from family, friends and colleagues. But not Steve. You’re definitely not waiting to hear from Steve. 

You’re not usually great for following orders but you follow the doctor’s instructions closer than you have abided by anything in your entire life. By the time you return to HQ, the pain in your shoulder has flattened to a dull ache and you have formed a resolution to try to find some sort of hobby outside of work. You had no idea your real life is that grim.

Maria meets you with a distant smile at reception.

“Welcome back,” she says pleasantly, turning to walk with you through the building. Quiet conversation, the rustling of paper and the heavy clicks of agents suiting up covers the space you walk through. “We’ll do a mini induction and then I’ll let you get to it.”

Maria’s office is pristine. The door clicks shut behind you, muting all murmured voices outside. Everything looks recently straightened, recently dusted, recently organised. Sticky notes, task lists and cables are perfectly spaced out into their correct positions. The files stacked on the shelves are bound and appear to be in alphabetical order. You picture your home office space with a dim sort of shame as you sit down in front of her.

“How is your shoulder?” she asks without much interest.

“Much better, thank you. Should be able to get back out there now.”

She opens a cabinet in her desk and pulls a bloated yellow file. “That won’t be possible. We have made the decision to transfer you to another team. You’ll need a few weeks to catch up on the ongoing cases.”

“Another- what?”

Your brain is whirring, trying to catch up with what Maria just said. She doesn’t reply, just watches you buffer.

“You’re really taking me off the team on my first day back? Am I being punished for getting shot?”

“Not punished, no,” she assures you patiently. “You’re not being demoted, your day-to-day won’t even change very much but you’ll be working under Romanoff now. It was just decided that you would be a better fit somewhere else.”

“Decided by who?” you ask, even though you know the answer.

“By the leadership team,” she replies diplomatically.

Your gaze narrows on her but she is unperturbed. The sound of the seconds ticking by on the clock are suddenly deafening. You’re engaging in a sort of silent stand-off with her and you’re certainly not winning. 

“Where is he?” you ask at last.

“On assignment.”

“When will he be back?”

She smiles at you tightly and you realise she can no longer tell you. You’re not on his team anymore.

A wild instinct runs through you; you feel you might be a few seconds away from stomping your feet like a child, shouting at her that it’s not fair! and he started it! 

Instead, you huff out a harsh breath and snatch the file up from the desk. 

The hour is late and night is spilling through the windows. Yourself and Nat are the only ones left in the room; maybe the only ones left in the building. She lounges against the opposite row of lockers, boot propped up, grinning like you hadn’t just run a mission that by all rights should’ve ended in a four-page incident report and at least one formal reprimand.

“We are a match made in heaven,” she says with a dreamy sigh.

You snort. “Tell that to the clean-up team.”

“Let them file a complaint,” Nat says, waving a dismissive hand. “Clean exit, no casualties, minimal property damage. Made decent time too.”

“Mm.”

It had gone well. Better than well. Nat works like you do - zippy, instinctive, a little unhinged when the situation calls for it. There had been no questioning glances when you made a split-second decision, no screaming matches in lieu of a debrief. Your third mission back was a big fat success. You should be overjoyed.

But as you wipe the shower-water from your skin and peel your top on, all you can summon is a hot, directionless anger. Or, maybe not entirely directionless.

Because for the most part, you can direct it towards Steve. Your shoulder has mostly recovered with only a mild stiffness left to show for it but you’re still suffering from a wounded pride. The fact that he didn't bother to check up on you and requested a transfer after you quite literally risked your life for him is bad enough. But he’s been a ghost to you in the three weeks since you returned to work. 

That first week, he had been on assignment in Hungary. You had gone on a hunt for him as soon as word got around that he was back, but he was nowhere to be found. All his usual conference rooms were vacant and he had clearly started training elsewhere. You have not been able to track him down in the weeks since and you have no doubt in your mind that his sole intention is to avoid you.

Because he feels guilty for what had happened? Or maybe because he doesn’t want to have to thank you? You’re not sure. But you’re pissed.

And not just at him either. At yourself too. 

Because, alongside that anger, there’s an uncomfortable hollowness tugging at you. You bring it with you everywhere you go. It weighs you down like a chain. He won’t vacate your brain no matter what you do and you can’t quite deny that maybe you might miss him. Just a little.

The anger is not the worst of it; it’s that other thing - the tiny, shameful spark fluttering under your ribs when Natasha lets you rove free instead of testing you, challenging you, making you better. It’s the way your life feels just a bit emptier without someone to tease and provoke.

And it’s humiliating, because - seriously? How original. You really had to go and join the queue of people pining after the tall, hot, golden-boy with perfect manners and stupidly earnest eyes and muscles so perfect that only scientists could have sculpted them. Brilliant. Groundbreaking. As if you don’t already hate him enough without adding that to the mix.

“I was gonna drag you for a drink but the energy you’re giving off right now is rancid,” Nat says, walking towards you with her towel in hand. She snaps it at you but you jump out of the way before she can make contact. “You’re so pissy all the time since you got transferred.”

“I’m not pissy,” you snap, obscurely aware that you’re proving her point.

“Why do you even care? You and Rogers fight like dogs. You never wanted to be part of his team in the first place.”

You’re purposely avoiding her gaze, but you know the exact look that Nat is giving you based on her tone alone and you hate it with a burning passion.

“I don’t care. It’s just not fair, but it’s whatever.”

She sighs, picking up her duffle bag and flinging it over her shoulder. “I’m gonna leave you to whatever this is,” she says, waving her hand vaguely in your direction. “Get eight hours tonight and try to come back less cranky.”

She walks out, hips swinging, and you wait another moment or two before following suit. 

HQ feels different at this time of night. The overhead lights seem a shade too bright without bodies moving through them and your footsteps sound sharper against the floor. The whir of a printer on standby and the buzz of a monitor stand out more. Clean, white light is shining on empty desks. 

There is a weight on you as your make your way through the carpeted corridors, passing empty offices and meeting rooms. Nat is right - you are pissy. You’re so goddamn angry and mortifyingly upset, crucifying yourself with mental images and memories you would do anything to be rid of. You had always been mildly curious about those feelings that you observed in movies, the ones all your friends used to rave about when they met someone they fell head over heels for. You have dated, have even been in a few serious relationships. But you always knew there was a big gap between what you had witnessed and what you had experienced.

You wish someone had told you how stupidly painful and embarrassing it could be. You would have tried harder to steer clear of it.

You almost think that you’re imagining the picture of Steve in the meeting room to your right, framed by the semi-frosted window in the door. For just a split-second, you think it might be another one of those humiliating daydreams. But no - he’s burning the midnight oil; his neck is craned over a file, a small lamp pouring light over his handsome features.

You’re not one to question your instincts. You hurl the door open with an aggression that has Steve’s head snapping up in shock, pen falling from his hand, mouth parting. You listen to the door tumble closed before you realise dimly that you have no idea what to say to him. You’re floundering a little, but you keep your expression steady.

He breaks the silence first.

“You’re here late.”

“Just wrapped an assignment with Nat,” you say, hand on hip. “Turns out we make a pretty solid team. It’s refreshing.”

His jaw ticks, but he gives nothing else away. He looks back to his papers, as if dismissing you. “Glad to hear it.”

That’s it? That’s really all he’s giving you?

You can feel fiery heat crawling up your neck and you try to stop the furious shake in your hands. Composure is becoming more difficult to maintain and you know that you’re about a second away from bursting but his gall is astounding. He really has nothing else to say? After everything?

“You got me kicked off the team.”

“You didn’t get kicked off anything,” he sighs, leaning back in his seat. His eyes are travelling your form warily, like he isn’t quite sure where you’re going with this. “You got transferred.”

“Yeah, transferred out of the team.”

“I thought you would be happy,” he says wryly. “You were always complaining about having to work with me. I think you even said you’d rather work with Natasha a few times.”

“I am happy!” It comes out as a bark. You’re embarrassed by your petulance even though you can’t cork it. You know that you’re acting like a child. Steve’s lips are creaking upwards, his eyes lit up in amusement.

You clear your throat. “I am happy,” you repeat, in a low, controlled voice this time around. “It just feels a bit ungrateful is all.”

The way Steve’s poise breaks, superior grin twisting itself into a snarl, is hugely satisfying. You are self-aware enough to know that you’re being hugely immature, but it just feels so good to drag him down to your level. 

“You think I should be grateful that you almost got yourself killed on a mission?” he snaps, standing up from the meeting room table and walking towards you. You meet him half-way, until you are inches from each other. Your neck stiffens with how it bends up to meet his enraged eyes. Your body is humming with this familiar rhythm, as if fighting with Steve is the only thing that makes you feel alive.

“Well, I got shot saving you, so yes - I would say that’s a pretty good reason to be grateful,” you snap back, eyes narrow.

“Don’t be dense.” His voice is tight and poisonous in a way you have rarely ever heard before. “That was a really fuckin’ stupid decision and you know it. You took a bullet for the super-soldier with accelerated regenerative healing and a vibranium shield. Does that sound like a good decision to you?”

He sounds more furious than you have ever heard him in your life - and you have made him mad more times than you can count. He had cursed at you. He hasn’t done that since Moscow.

“I knew what I was doing,” you spit back with equal fury. “That shooter had all the time in the world to get into position; they would have been aiming for your head and they would have hit their mark, too because you weren’t paying enough attention to raise your shield. I knew that pulling them over in my direction meant that they would shoot me but they would have less time to aim. Just because you think I’m stupid doesn’t mean I am, you jerk.”

He is struck dumb momentarily, brows furrowing and lips pursing in thought. You are close enough to see the twitch of his mouth, to feel his disgruntled puffs of breath against your skin. Contentment slithers up your spine. Seconds tick by in silence; Steve pensive and stoic, you smug and satisfied. You have won this round and decide to go out with a bang.

“But I guess I should be thanking you because I have a new team lead now who trusts my judgement and doesn’t pick a fight every five minutes. So thank you. And go to hell.”

You turn on your heel, already halfway into your stride, and his hand shoots out so fast it must be instinct - large, calloused fingers closing around your arm before you’re even finished the pivot.

There is a second where he just glares hard. His blue eyes eat up every inch of your face. 

And then your body meets his chest and his lips are instantly on yours in a heady explosion of fire - it’s a violent, fervid thing and you surprise yourself with how quickly you return his passion. You had imagined this moment in the last few weeks - in all your dirtiest daydreams, you made him sweat it out a bit, even beg. But maybe you can make him beg later - you had missed him too much to turn him away now.

Your lips move like it’s another one of your fights, faces pressed against each other in a messy battle of lips, tongues and teeth. His hands travel to your hips and pull you flush against him while you fist his crisp blue shirt, folding wrinkles into the perfectly ironed fabric. 

Your feet leave the ground as he lifts you with irritating strength, pushing you onto the meeting room table and settling himself between your legs. His sheer power - the way he can lift you like you’re absolutely nothing - makes heat pool in your tummy, something stirring low. You’re pushing your lips against his fiercely, channeling all the pent up anger from the past number of weeks.

He isn’t gentle. He’s rabid as a stray dog. His fingers grasp harshly onto your hips with bruising strength. Despite the fact that you’re already pressed up against him, he tugs you tighter to his body, like close is not close enough. You can feel the large swell of his cock against your thigh, hard as a rock, and you have to stop yourself from adjusting your position and grinding down on him. You’re eager enough to do it, but he can't know that.

Your hands travel around his chest and shoulders, fingers delving into every curve of muscle there. He feels so big and broad against your touch and it turns you on so much that it almost pisses you off.

“You’re such a dick,” you gasp, the sound muffled against his lips.

“I know,” he says back between kissing, his mouth not moving from yours.

“Didn’t even visit me in the hospital.”

“I know.”

“I hate you,” you say, aiming for a sharp tone. It comes out breathy. He’s still kissing at your mouth, lips moving wildly - out of sync and jumbled.

“Shut up,” he grunts, hand going to your lower back and pushing your pelvis forward so you grind against him. An embarrassing whine rips itself from your throat as pleasure sparks through you, lighting up your body. You grind down again, addicted to the feeling, and Steve groans against your lips, hips jerking up.

It prompts something filthy; the two of you still fully clothed, bucking and grinding against each other like feral animals. There is a delicious throbbing in your core, your entire body crying out for more of him. His left hand is still on your hip, encouraging your body to continue grounding down against his hard cock through layers of cotton, but his right hand moves up to grab your jaw with a possessive force. You are giving it back to him too, hands clutching and grasping at him with a brutality.

He pulls away to lift your top over your head, eyes levelled at you with a burning intensity. His pretty blues are darker now, less earnest.

“Steve, we’re in the office,” you object, fingers reaching out to grab it back. He tosses it to the floor before you can.

“Don’t care,” he says, reattaching his lips to yours, fingers crawling to the waistband of your trousers. “Gonna fuck you right here.”

Your stomach clenches. It’s a strange role reversal. You’re not accustomed to being the one who stops and thinks about things before acting - that’s always Steve’s remit. You should be concerned that his perfectly constructed control has been tossed out the window, but it only makes you more excited. You know that there is something dangerous deep underneath each layer of restraint that Steve exercises. You have always known you’re better at digging it out than anyone else in this world. When you do, it’s a beautiful thing.

How can you do anything but give in?

Steve’s fingers play with the button of your jeans, popping it open with an effortless tug before he slides them down your legs along with your shoes. You’re left in just your underwear, splayed open before a fully-clothed Steve Rogers like you’re some sort of offering. He watches you with dark eyes, something between worship and hunger enveloping his features.

His eyes zero in on your bra-clad breasts. “Take it off,” he says, voice strained, and you reach up with urgency to unclip it, tossing it carelessly somewhere across the table.

“Suddenly so good at taking orders.” His hand reaches up to palm your breast, the other playing with the waistband of your panties. Your body arches to his touch involuntarily. “Should have done this months ago. Might have made you behave.”

He can probably tell you’re about to say something snarky, because his lips meet yours ferociously yet again and what would have been a rude retort turns into a moan when his thumb presses down on you over your panties.

Steve pulls away, eyes catching yours with surprise before dropping down to your core, covered in a thin layer of now-transparent fabric. “You’re soaked through,” he breathes, awe colouring his tone. “See how wet you are for me?”

Hot humiliation floods your face. “Fuck you.”

He gives you a slow smirk, eyes glinting. His tongue pokes out to wet his lips, leaving them glossy and shiny, and you realise he enjoys this as much as you do. His head dips down, lips just brushing over your neck, breath caressing your skin, before he’s lathering kisses there. He hooks his fingers over your underwear and yanks it down aggressively. You watch it cascade down your legs pathetically, chest heaving with the pressure of his lips under your ear and his fingers sliding down your stomach torturously slow. 

His fingers just graze over your wet heat and your blood is singing in your veins. You feel overpowered by him in the most mouth-watering way; his large frame trapping you, caging you in. He presses two fingers in, harsh and sudden, and you gasp.

“You get so turned on fighting with me, don’t you sweetheart? I knew it. Knew you were getting all wet every time I raised my voice at you. You pretend you don’t like me but you love when I boss you around.”

You want to slap him, but he’s right. And you consider that if you do, he will stop. His fingers are so big and calloused inside you and it simply feels too good to ever stop. You’re breaking into a sweat while he pumps in and out of you, your slick spilling onto his perfectly tailored work slacks while your walls clench around him.

When his other hand reaches down to grind down on your clit with vigorous strokes, a burst of white-hot pleasure works its way through you, licking up your spine. You pull hard at his hair, looking for anything to anchor yourself and hear him hiss a moan against your neck. The sound makes you clench around him and his fingers pump into you with renewed roughness in response.

You’re absolutely ruined. He has turned you into a complete wreck. You can no longer deny how badly you want him nor how much you need this; you don’t even try anymore. Your hips are wiggling down, trying to take him deeper. You have lost all semblance of shame, too taken up by the pleasure that his fingers are delivering you.

“Look how desperate you are,” he says, eyes caught where he is filling you. You don’t want to look down, shame working its cruel way through you at his taunting, but he grasps your jaw, tilting your head downwards. His fingers are warm and wet with your slick.

His two fingers are enough to stretch you out - they almost look too big for your hole. You shudder at the sight of them sliding in and out, knowing his cock will stretch you out all the more. Steve’s staring at your pussy like a man who is starving.

His fingers pull out from your heat quite suddenly. You’re hazy and confused until he lowers to his knees on the ground in front of where you are perched on the table. Your eyes connect in a moment of explosive intensity. His pupils are blown wide and when yours begin to flutter shut, he pinches your thigh gently in warning. You are forced to stare while he lowers his face between your thighs, eyes gleaming.

“Gotta taste you,” he says, almost to himself, and then that stupid fucking mouth that pisses you off so much every single day meets your cunt.

The sound that comes out of your mouth is unintentional and would be entirely mortifying if you were thinking straight. Your head falls back, eyes shutting. He pinches your thigh again, harder this time. 

“Eyes on me, sweetheart.”

You eyes spring back open, twitching as you fight the instinct to squeeze them shut. He holds your gaze captive while licking a messy stripe up your folds. You can feel sweat collecting at the top of your forehead at the sensation. He is ravenous and unrelenting, sucking on your clit before soothing it with soft kisses. Exploring your folds with his lips. Dipping his tongue inside and gently nipping, testing your limits. 

He’s eating you out in a way you never have been before; it’s not some repetitive flick of the tongue against the clit, picked up from porn and designed to make you cum as fast as possible so he can get the hell up and get his own rocks off. Steve is learning you, watching your expression closely to see what makes your breath catch. You feel him grin against your pussy as a moan slips out reluctantly when he drags his teeth over the hood of your clit, offsetting the pleasure with the tiniest bit of pain. He groans when you lose control and your eyes roll back in your skull.

He pulls back just a few inches and you watch him spit a thick glob of saliva straight onto your cunt. He’s still holding intense eyee-contact with you when he runs his fingers through your slit, mixing your wetness with his own. It’s sliding down through your ass and onto the table, reminding you exactly where you are. The fact that you are doing this in a meeting room in your place of work makes it seem even dirtier. 

He shoves two fingers back into you without warning and your hips buck. He continues to mouth at your clit in the most beautiful patterns and you truly feel like he is doing this purely for himself, like he’s enjoying it as much as you are.

He sucks hard, sliding your clit into his mouth and you’re not in control of the words or sounds that spill out of you. You’re telling him how amazing you feel and how fucking good he’s eating you, but you realise you might have fucked up because you can just feel his arrogance. It’s pissing you off. You need to remedy it quick.

“Maybe I should keep you down here like this all the time, Steve. What do you think? Can’t bitch at me when your mouth is busy. And you’re just so good at it too.”

You can feel the smug smile melt into something more sinister. His eyes grow darker, but he never moves them from yours. He continues to lap at you, but his mouth is more aggressive now - a stormy sort of warning. You ignore it. 

“Bet you’d let me put you on your knees after every mission if I wanted.” Your voice is coming out a bit too breathy for the sort of control you’re aiming for, but you continue regardless. “Keep you there for hours if I need to.”

Steve is standing up faster than you can register, a rough scowl painting his face. “Fucking brat,” he grunts, voice low. Your pride does not allow you to complain about how close you were to coming on his tongue.

He’s unbuttoning his shirt with rapidity and you get the message, part terrified and part exhilarated by what’s to come. You go to work on his belt in the meantime, clumsy fingers frantically unbuckling so you can yank his trousers down his legs. 

Steve shrugs out of the sleeves of his shirt, you almost groan. It is just so utterly unfair. It’s not like you’ve never seen him in this state before - missions sometimes require you both change clothes in less-than-ideal settings. But seeing him in this context, a thin sheen of sweat coating his pecks, an enormous bulge in his underwear that you know you have inspired; it’s unearthly. It’s only for you. You want him in wicked, sinful ways. And you’re determined to have him.

You try to hide the shake in your hands as you reach towards his underwear. Time slows down as you pull down it down to reveal his cock - what had been a frenzied blur of limbs and clothes patters off into cautious movements, heavy breaths.

You actually groan when you see it; standing tall and fucking huge, slightly curved, subtle veins running lines up to the tip. A pearl of liquid has collected at the tip, smudged on the swollen head. It’s so pretty, you can feel your eyes becoming a bit hazy. The light in the room seems to ripple and bend around it.

Your fingers reach out tentatively, dragging down his length. He hisses, hips jerking up to your touch when you wrap your fingers around him. You can barely wrap your hand around it and you’re startled by how small your hand looks in comparison.

“You think you can take it?” Steve asks you.

“I can,” you confirm with certainty.

“Let’s see about that, sweetheart. I think I might break you,” he returns and you wonder vaguely whether Steve is just baiting you, taking advantage of all your stubbornness to make sure you push yourself past your limit.

His body brackets yours again, leaning over your body to give you a filthy kiss. His mouth is absolutely dripping with the evidence of your arousal and his own spit. You can taste yourself on his tongue, mixed with something that is pleasant and categorically Steve Rogers. His lips move hot and dirty against yours, tongue pressing in on yours while his cock nudges your entrance. You gasp against his lips.

“Yeah?” he murmurs against your lips. “You ready for me?”

You nod furiously and he reaches down to fist his cock. You feel his thick length begin to nudge at your entrance, the head slipping in slowly. Your cunt pulses with anticipation as you feel the sweet ache of him breaching you. You let out a low whine, caught somewhere between pain and pleasure, as he pushes in further, the thickness of him stretching your walls.

It’s a tight fit. He gets just less than half-way, before your pride breaks and your hips jump away from his at the burn. His jaw twitches, blue eyes fluttering closed for just a second.

Steve reaches down to stroke at your clit and the rush of pleasure makes you loosen up just enough for him to notch in a few inches further. “C’mon, sweetheart. Thought you said you could take me.”

“I can,” you say, the words pattering off into a whine. “Just big, is all.”

“Sure is,” he says, pushing in further and smiling wickedly at you. “And I’m gonna make you take it all, baby. Gonna make you feel it here.” His fingers press down hard on your tummy.

His cock is stressing its size inside you, hitting places previously untouched. You can’t quit believe that he still has more to give you but he does. You’ve never felt anything like this before, never had anything this big inside you and it hurts in the most delicious way.

“Fuck,” Steve spits, breathless. “Yeah, okay, I think you can take me all the way. Just a little bit more, sweetheart. Let me in.” 

If he hadn’t eaten you out until you were an inch from nirvana, you’re not sure this would be possible. But as it stands, he bottoms out and you feel like you’re floating. Your hips are twitching, unsure whether to escape or grind down harder.

“Squeezing me so tight, baby. Think you were made for my cock,” he hisses, his face tightening with a primal need. “You okay?”

You’re not sure that your vocal cords are still working so you just nod and listen to his deep breaths. Your back arches when he presses sloppy kisses to your neck while you adjust to him. It feels as if he is moulding you around him.

Your fingertips drag down his back and he shivers, jerking his hips forward involuntarily. “Sorry- ah, fuck-” he groans, face clenched tight.

He withdraws a couple of inches, cock dragging through your walls, before slamming himself back in. He looks down at you like a kicked puppy when he hears your strangled gasp. “Feels too good. Gotta- agh. Can’t help it, sweetheart. I’m sorry.”

You like this side of him, you think idly. You had seen Steve in many different moods, but never like this. Apologetic and pleading. He is a boulder above you; 6 foot something of pure brawn, but begging you so nicely to take his cock. “I know it’s big but you’re such a pretty little thing for me. Have to move.”

You still can’t talk so you nod at him in encouragement and watch relief pour over his face. He kisses you again with intention, bucking his hips into yours with beautiful friction. You are stuffed so full, it feels like he’s everywhere at once. This whole thing is becoming far sweeter than you were expecting.

Steve finds a leisurely, pulsing rhythm as he rocks himself into you, lathering kisses over your lips in a way that is entirely too romantic for the setting. He rubs tantalising circles on your clit, helping your walls to relax into him - helping you let him in until you find your voice, babbling about how much you want him and how good he’s making you feel.

You’re becoming aware that he owns you now; that maybe he always had. He thrusts into you with a beautiful sort of reverence and you know that you are ruined. Sleeping with anyone else would feel like a brutal punishment after you felt him like this. 

A noise from outside - the faint tread of boots on the ground - makes you both stop cold. Steve freezes completely, his dick coming to a stand-still inside of you. They are faint but getting closer by the second. Your eyes meet Steve’s wide ones. He starts looking around the room. at your intertwined bodies. You can see him assessing the situation, working out solutions, but a smug part of you notes that he still doesn’t pull out of you. He dick doesn’t soften; you actually feel it twitch inside you.

Your pussy jumps at the realisation that he’s excited by it. Maybe he doesn't even know it yet, but he is. You know it by the way his hips give involuntary, shallow thrusts. By the way his pupils grow impossibly darker.

So you do what any sane woman would do with Captain America’s cock buried deep inside her. You grind down. 

Steve eyes snap back to yours with astonishment. He looks wild; entirely out of control and somewhat furious. He brings a hand to your hair, tugs it with a warning that you don’t pay any heed to.

You grind down again, this time removing your right hand from his broad shoulders and bringing it slowly down to your clit. You rub and squeeze there, using his cock to get yourself off. The way his eyes are burning as he watches you only makes it so much hotter. You feel yourself approaching your peak. 

The steps get louder until you see a flash of cherry red pass the window and you know it’s Natasha. She’s on her way back to the locker room, perhaps to check if you’re still there. You don’t stop moving on his cock even as she passes by you and the locker room door swings open and shut.

“Are you insane?” Steve spits in a low whisper. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

You just smile back at him because you can see his eyes growing hazy. You not sure he even realises that he himself has begun to thrust into you again. A flush is working its way up his neck and you wonder whether it’s anger or arousal. Maybe both.

You’re halfway through a moan when the door to the locker room swings back open and Natasha begins walking out again with a huff. Steve’s hand goes up to cover your mouth, so large it almost envelopes your entire face. He’s giving you look like he’s disapproving of this development but he doesn’t stop fucking you.

Natasha’s footsteps stop for a split-second. You feel a disinterested sort of confusion, too wrapped up in the way Steve’s cock feels as it drags through your walls. 

Something spasms between your legs and you realise you’re about to cum. Your blood freezes. You feel Steve tense, breath snagging in his throat. You’re sweating now - praying that all those gasps you can’t mute are not audible from outside.

You hear Nat let out a long, irritated sigh from outside, but you’re too far gone to even care about the consequences anymore. You squeeze around Steve’s length once and then your eyes are rolling back into your head while she resumes moving down the hall. As she approaches the glass window of the door, you try to crouch, as if that would prevent her from seeing your and Steve’s very naked bodies as he fucks you through your orgasm. You can see the faint shadow of her figure sliding across the frosted glass. For one horrifying second, you’re sure Nat will glance in.

But she doesn’t. She keeps walking, footsteps fading with distance until the hallway is left silent again and your pussy is squeezing with aftershocks.

“You’re seriously fucked up, you know that?” Steve asks, but there’s more awe in his tone than malice. “You really get off knowing someone could walk in here and see me fucking you?”

You don’t even know how to answer him. He’s given you no time to recover from your orgasm, fucking into you again with a renewed vitality. You’re overly sensitive, the pressure of his massive cock inside you bullying your sensitive hole. It shouldn’t feel good, it should be too much too soon - but it’s not because it’s Steve. And you don’t think you could dislike anything that he chooses to do to you.

“You wanna be fucked like a whore? Fine,” he says, pulling his cock out of you with lightning speed and flipping you around on the table so your ass is arched up for him. He takes a second to look at you, squeezing at the skin of your ass, dragging his thumb all the way up from your clit, past your wet heat and through your ass. He’s mumbling something unintelligible. You clench and shudder, a moan breaking out through your lips.

When he fists his cock and presses into you again, all that slow romanticism from earlier is gone. He is fucking you hard and fast, his thick cock pressing into a heavenly spongey spot that you didn’t even know existed. “Fuck Steve!” you cry out, ass working its way back on him of its own volition.

“Such a fucking brat. Couldn’t even wait patiently for me to fuck you for one minute. Too desperate for my cock.”

You want to argue that he was also fucking you, but your brain is not working fast enough to come up with the words. All you can focus on are his dirty words, the obscene squelching noises of him filling you, and how it feels to be taken by him.

“Maybe I should punish you for that. Always so disobedient. Maybe I’ll leave you high and dry here, fill you up and not let you cum.”

“Try it,” you growl, brain suddenly fully operational. “I’ll make you regret it.”

You hear him huff a laugh from behind you. “You’re adorable. Fucked out on my cock and still think you’re in charge. I’ll make you cum sweetheart, but only because I want to see you fall apart. Next time you won’t get this lucky.”

His cock hits a spot inside you that almost makes you see god. His hands are so tight on your hips as he fucks himself into your body that you’re sure you’ll have bruises tomorrow. You hope you do.

“That’s it, isn’t it baby? That’s your spot. Fuck. Maybe I should reward you, now that I think of it. All my sweet girl wanted was to get caught getting fucked by me. You just wanted to show everyone that you’re mine. Want everyone to see me fucking that attitude right outta you.”

Being called his coils your stomach in a way you’d rather not examine. Instead, you twist your head back and scowl. “Fuck you,” you spit, voice strangled.

He chuckles again, but it’s strained. He’s pounding you with a force that you feel all the way up to your belly, all the way up to your teeth. You know you’re not far from coming again and neither is he.

“Is my pretty girl gonna cum on my cock again?” he asks, patting and squeezing your ass encouragingly. You nod, eyes squeezed shut, not even sure that he can see it from his angle. A desperate whine escapes.

“Good fucking girl. ‘Cause I’m about to come inside you. Want you walking out of here with me dripping out of you. Gonna fill you up so good, keep you topped up for every mission. Make you mine.”

That sends you tumbling over the edge, white-hot pleasure soaring through you. Your cunt clenches down hard on him and you feel him burst, spilling sticky ropes of cum into you. He groans loud, telling you how good you are for him while holding your hips with a bruising power, fucking into you violently. He shudders behind you, and eventually his aggressive thrusts patter out and slow into shallow jerks. 

Dark spots are exploding behind your eyes for a while as you come down, chest heaving as Steve drives his cum back into you slowly. You feel your mixed spend dripping down your thighs, spilling onto the wooden floors below. Steve hisses as he steadily pulls himself from your tight heat. He stops momentarily while he, presumably, watches his cum drip out of your hole. 

And then he reaches down to grab his underwear. He wipes it across your privates and thighs as a makeshift towel. It is decidedly not romantic, but the fact that he’s willing to go home in soggy underwear just to clean you up makes your chest tighten with affection regardless.

Steve begins to dress but it takes you another minute to gather the strength in your limbs to haul yourself up. Your hands are shaking as you yank up your panties and try to buckle your bra. Steve is fully dressed now, watching you intensely, thighs spread out on an office chair.

You’re feeling slightly awkward in a way you never do around Steve. You’ve never been short of quips or insults to throw at him, but the air has changed now and you’re not sure where you stand or how to navigate this.

You have just tugged on your jeans when Steve leans forward to grab your hips, pulling you onto his lap. You hadn’t realised that you were waiting for him to do it until he does. You go with no objection, curling into his chest. It feels strangely natural for how combative you’ve always been with him. He nuzzles his face into your neck with a shy affection. 

“I’m sorry for requesting the transfer. I regretted it immediately after if I’m honest.”

“Why did you? It was kinda fucked up, Steve. And you didn’t even come to visit me when I got shot. It hurt my feelings because I would have been there for you.” You can’t even look at him when you say it. You are vastly uncomfortable being this vulnerable with him, but you suppose if there’s ever a time for venturing into uncharted territory, it’s now. Steve was right about what he said regarding your past relationships - you just never cared enough before. But you do now.

“I stayed there until you were stable,” he says. “I was just so angry that I couldn’t even look at you. The idea that you risked your life for me killed me. I hate the way you risk so much on missions. It makes me feel like I can’t protect you.”

“But sometimes you can’t, Steve. I know I should be less reckless. Being away from you for the last few weeks made me realise that. But I have to be able to make my own decisions too.”

“I know. I know it’s just part of what happens on missions but I can’t deal with you getting hurt for me. Not with you. Because I…”

He swallows hard, eye downturned. He fidgets against your thigh and it makes your heart ache. You’re feeling embarrassingly gushy, watching him be this fragile and open. You’re taken off guard by it.

“Because you want me?”

He gives you a tight, sad sort of smile.

“I want you so bad, I’m not even sure ‘want’ is the right word for it anymore.”

You’re fighting a goofy grin but it’s beaming out of you like sunshine. You kiss him nice and slow, feel his lips move ardently and reverently against your own. Your heart flutters where it presses against his chest, as if trying to fly its way closer to him.

You pour every ounce of your adoration into the kiss and feel Steve's grin against your lips as a response.

You pull away only when your phone buzzes with a text.

NAT: so i see you’re out of the doghouse

NAT: and now i need to find a new partner. goddamn.

But even if you didn’t owe anyone an apology, you didn’t want the attention.

Especially not in the outfit you were wearing.

You didn’t mean to put on anything eye-catching, but laundry day had come and gone without mercy. Between leading three straight days of exhausting freshman orientation–clipboard, whistle, and all–and trying to get your textbooks, syllabi, and housing situation in order before classes began, your options had run out. So you’d thrown on a slightly-too-tight zip-up hoodie, your college’s emblem half-hidden under the worn zipper, and the only clean bottom you had left: a black skirt you hadn’t touched since the first day of summer.

It rode a little higher than you remembered, and paired with your bare legs and sneakers, it was far from inappropriate, but in a room where everyone else was in jeans and sweats, it made you feel seen. And not in a way you liked.

You spotted a half-empty row about midway up the lecture hall, three seats in from the aisle, and made a beeline for it, holding your skirt down as you made quick strides towards the spot that had your name written all over it. The weight of dozens of eyes prickled against your skin, but you kept moving, zeroed in on that opening like it might swallow you whole and hide you from the ogling stares.

Bob was seated near the end of that row.

His notebook was open, half a page of densely packed notes already filled in with that small, impossibly neat handwriting of his. A mechanical pencil twitched in his right hand as you approached–still mid-spin from the distraction you had caused. He looked like someone who took school seriously, but not obnoxiously so. His light brown hair was cropped short and a little mussed on the top, as though he hadn’t quite decided whether to tame it or not–or the wind got to it and messed it up on the way to class.

He was wearing a white t-shirt–simple, fitted just enough to hint at the softness of muscle underneath, but crisp in that way cotton gets when it’s been folded with care. Not stiff, but starched just slightly from the wash, like maybe he had just done his laundry the night before. His jeans were a classic blue–not faded or overly worn, but comfortably lived-in. No rips or frays.

His glasses were perched low on the bridge of his nose, the thin metal frames glinting faintly beneath the harsh overhead lights–almost silver against the warm tones of his skin. They sat just crooked enough to suggest he’d pushed them up one-handed without really thinking about it. Lenses wide and clear, catching reflections of the whiteboard, but not enough to shield the way his eyes flicked toward you the moment your footsteps slowed beside him.

He looked sun-kissed from the dying summer–like August had clung to him a little longer than it should have. His skin was a shade deeper than it would be in a few weeks’ time, golden along his forearms and the high points of his face, like he’d spent the end of break outside–on rooftops, maybe, or walking alone down sidewalks still radiating heat. His lips were a touch dry, his knuckles faintly rough. But he looked steady. Bright-eyed and well-rested. Like he wanted to start the semester with good intentions and achievable goals.

You stopped just beside him–hovering for half a second, your bag shifting on your shoulder as you nodded toward the empty seat a few spots in.

”Sorry, just gotta get by,” You murmured, voice low and unassuming.

Bob looked up fully then and immediately shifted forward, pulling his legs in without hesitation. His knee brushed the underside of the desk as he tucked himself close to make room for you, the motion smooth but stiff like he hadn’t quite expected you to speak to him. Or maybe he hadn’t expected you to sound like that–soft, a little breathless from the walk up the gauntlet of steps, but still sharp.

You moved past him in one fluid step whispering a thanks, then your scent hit him.

It wasn’t overpowering. It wasn’t the cloying kind of perfume that lingered too long in a hallway. It was just…You. Soft and sweet, but grounded–like vanilla left to steep in warm skin, the subtle warmth of almond or cream trailing just behind it. Lotion maybe. Something gentle. Something worn, not sprayed on. Like it had been absorbed into your hoodie, your neck, the backs of your knees in the early September heat.

But then there was something brighter, just beneath it–like sugar and citrus had melted into the mix. Not sharp. Not tart. Just the idea of lemon. A barely-there twist of brightness that reminded him of the first sip of a drink on a hot day. Cool. Balanced. Memorable.

It made Bob lose all his grip on the pencil in his hand, and made him straighten slightly, as his eyes glanced over to you slipping into the seat three down from his, holding your skirt against yourself so it didn’t ride up when you settled. When you shifted–once, just enough to adjust your bag or maybe smooth your hoodie–his eyes dropped quickly to your legs.

Bare and warm-looking in the stale lecture hall light. The skin smooth, catching little glints of reflection in a way that made him stare too long before he realized what he was doing.

His gaze jerked back up, and his pencil fell out of his hands. He fumbled to catch it before it rolled off the desk and clattered to the floor, and somehow he barely managed to do it. He cleared his throat so quietly that it didn’t even echo under the dome of the lecture hall. And then he exhaled once, trying to shake off the heat that creeped up his neck, fingers curling tight around the side of his notebook.

You didn’t look at him. Not once.

Not even when you pulled out your pen and your fresh, untouched notebook and started scribbling quick, efficient notes in handwriting he couldn’t quite see. Not even when your fingers fidgeted once at the hem of your hoodie like you weren’t sure if it was covering enough. Not even when you tilted your head slightly to the left, exposing the faint shape of your jaw and that one stubborn wisp of hair behind your ear.

You didn’t look back.

But he couldn’t stop glancing.

Every time there was a lull in the lecture–every time the professor turned toward the whiteboard or paused to answer a question from across the room–Bob’s eyes slid sideways. Just for a second. Just to check.

He told himself it was just curiosity. That he hadn’t seen you around before, and that this class wasn’t usually the kind that brought in new faces. Not Advanced Theoretical Physics. Not on day one. And especially not someone like you.

You didn’t fit the mold–not in the way you moved, not in the way you sat. There was a presence to you, even when you were quiet. Like you weren’t just taking space–you owned it. It made him curious. It made him distracted.

It made the last half of his notes nearly unreadable.

He’d rewrite them later. He always did.

But he’d still remember the scent you left behind when you passed him. The subtle trace of sweetness and skin-warmed citrus that had settled in the air like something meant to haunt him.

And he’d remember that you never once looked back.

—————————

You didn’t speak to Bob until the third week of classes, when you got your first ‘mini’ test back and got hit with the harsh realities of the choice you had made in picking Advanced Theoretical Physics for your upper elective.

You got a 68. You had never got a 68 in your life.

Not in high school, not in your other college courses, not in anything that involved formulas or numbers or mental gymnastics you were usually proud to be good at. Being an engineering student was supposed to make classes like this feel natural. Calculation, logic, technical problem solving–it was your bread and butter.

But this? This was humbling.

You stared down at the note the professor had written in red just beneath the grade:

”Revisit your derivations–conceptual understanding needs tightening.” You didn’t even know what the hell that meant. You had studied everything possible to prepare yourself, you knew you had been on the right track, there was no possible way this was the right grade. Your jaw flexed, and you tapped your pen once against the corner of your desk before you forced yourself to still.

You tried to breathe through the sting crawling up the back of your neck, the tightness that formed just under your ribs. This wasn’t even a midterm–it wasn’t supposed to matter. But to you, it did. You prided yourself on being able to handle anything. Being the kind of student professors leaned on. A leader. Someone who could run orientation like a sergeant and still ace quantum mechanics in the same week.

And here you were. With a 68 circled at the top of your page like a slap.

You let the paper fall face-down across your notebook and sighed hard through your nose.

Then you glanced over.

Three seats down, Bob was sitting quietly, glasses low on his nose again, flipping his test booklet over to the back like he wanted to get one more long look at it before class officially started.

You caught a glimpse of the front page as he did–and there it was. Written in the same red your grade was given in, unmistakable in the overhead light.

97.

Clean, confident. Circled big enough to make a statement.

He didn’t look smug about it. Not exactly. But there was something in the way he stared at that number, his brows lifting faintly as if confirming to himself, Yeah, that sounds right. His lips were pressed together in a close-lipped smile, the kind people wear when they’ve worked hard and know it paid off. He tapped the eraser end of his pencil against the bottom of the page once. Then again.

Pleased as punch.

You didn’t mean to keep staring–but it was hard to look away.

His black t-shirt was tucked just barely into the waistband of his jeans today, like he’d rushed to get dressed but still managed to look clean and composed. His hair looked softer, freshly washed maybe, curling a little more than normal without any product in his hair. The sun-kissed flush along his cheekbones hadn’t faded just yet, but it was slowly revealing little patches of paleness beneath it. The silver frames of his glasses caught the light again as he leaned slightly forward, flipping to a fresh page in his notebook to take pre-class notes even though nothing had started yet.

He was…Prepared. Calm, and clearly good at this.

And you were not evidently.

You sat back slowly in your seat, gaze flicking toward the whiteboard, but your mind was still racing. Not with formulas. Not with panic. But with something slower, more deliberate.

You needed help. That much was obvious.

And unfortunately–or maybe fortunately–the only person who hadn’t fumbled through the last three weeks with shaky handwriting and unsure eyes was sitting just three seats away.

Then…You made a decision you never thought you would be making in a class you expected to be good in.

You were going to ask him for help.

It went against every fibre in your being–the pride you carried like a shield, the belief that if you just studied harder, dug deeper, figured it out on your own, you’d make it through. That’s how it had always worked before. You didn’t need tutors. You didn’t ask for things.

But your test score was still burning a hole through your notebook, and Bob Floyd was still sitting three seats down, calmly annotating equations while half the class looked like they were on the verge of weeping. He definitely had the highest mark and there was no denying that, and you had to pick his brain to see if you could emulate the same genius level thinking. Maybe there was a secret to it all, and he would somehow share it with you so you could make a quick recovery and still grasp honours at the end of the semester…At this point you’d take even the craziest solutions to save yourself from another embarrassing mark.

So…You waited until the end of the lecture.

It took everything in you not to bolt out the second the professor dismissed the room. You always left quickly–efficiently–avoiding the post-class shuffle of students with questions or headphones already in. But today you stayed seated, even as the sound of backpacks zipping and notebooks slamming shut rose around you like thunder. You didn’t move, just flicked your pen closed and kept your eyes on the spiral binding of your notes until most of the room had emptied.

You packed up faster than usual, sweeping your things into your bag in quiet, practiced movements–but you left your test out, folded once, red ink still just barely visible beneath the crease. Your hands felt warm. A little clammy. The kind of nervous energy you hadn’t felt since your very first midterm in undergrad. But you stood anyway.

Bob was still at his desk, leaning forward, transcribing the last few formulas the professor had scribbled across the bottom corner of the board. His notebook looked the same as always–clean lines, small print, mechanical pencil pressed tight to the paper like he didn’t know how to be imprecise.

You made your way down the row, test in hand, and stopped just short of his space. The words were already forming in your mouth, even before he noticed you.

You cleared your throat. “Hey… Sorry to bother you. You’re Bob, right?”

His head snapped up fast, and his eyes locked onto yours like he hadn’t expected you to actually exist this close.

“Uh–yeah,” He replied, “Yeah. Bob Floyd.”

You’d caught him off guard. You could tell by the way he blinked, like he had to reset. His mouth parted slightly, lips soft and chapped in the middle, and then–almost as if he remembered he was supposed to be someone in this moment–he cleared his throat and sat up straighter.

“You’re…Y/N? Right?”

You nodded. “Yeah.”

He held out his hand, a little unsure. “Nice to meet you.”

You hesitated for a beat–because it wasn’t every day someone in a physics class offered a handshake–but you took it. His palm was warm and dry, his grip a little firm at first, like he hadn’t meant for it to feel that strong.

His fingers were long. His nails clean, almost manicured in a way that surprised you. His thumb brushed yours briefly, and for a second, the contact lingered just a little too long.

You let go, and Bob rubbed his hand on the knee of his jeans as you both sat in the pause that followed, air slightly charged.

You weren’t wearing anything special today–just an old cropped t-shirt that rode up when you lifted your arms and a pair of low-slung sweatpants that had long since given up trying to cling to your hips. A hoodie hung open over it all, soft with wear. It wasn’t much. Just lazy comfort. But something in the way Bob’s eyes dropped for half a second–just below the hem to a flicker of skin at your waist–told you it wasn’t invisible either.

He gulped again, trying to recover from being caught.

You cleared your throat. “So, uh… I was wondering if you offer tutoring or something. I kinda bombed that first mini quiz.” His brows lifted over the rim of his glasses–an expression halfway between surprise and amusement.

“I…I don’t offer it or anything,” He said, already fumbling a little, “But I can help, if that’s what you’re looking for…How bad did you do?” He asked, trying not to assume the worst, but knowing there was a possibility he was going to see a fairly bad mark, judging by the conversations that happened behind him when the tests were handed out at the beginning of class. You flipped the test open toward him, and he stared at the 68, a smirk drawing up on his lips. He let out a short, soft laugh through his nose, more of a warm exhale than anything mean.

”I mean…It’s not great, but I’ve seen worse.” You raised your eyebrows at him and smirked faintly.

”How comforting.” You mumbled. He shifted in his seat, thumb rubbing across the corner of his notebook like he wasn’t sure what to do with his hands. His gaze didn’t meet yours directly; it just hovered somewhere around your shoulder, your mouth, and your hair. He was still absorbing the fact you were in front of him asking to be tutored.

“I can definitely help you bring your grade up. It’s early enough in the semester to get it back on track.” He explained. Something in his voice steadied–like the gears in his brain had finally clicked into place. Like this was territory he knew how to navigate. Structure. Process. Solutions. A small smile tugged at your lips. A breath of relief rushed through you before you could stop it.

“Thank you so much,” You replied. And then, already leaning in with eagerness, “When can we get started?” Bob paused, chewing on the inside of his cheek as his eyes flicked slightly upward–thinking, scanning the mental file cabinet of his day.

“We could do today…You could meet me at the library,” He suggested, after a second, “I'm free after four.” You wrinkled your nose a little, already shaking your head.

“The library’s kind of a distraction for me,” You admitted. “It’s always too loud–someone’s always coughing or typing like they’re in a race. Even the reserved study rooms…I don’t know, it never really works for me.”

Bob tilted his head a little, listening closely, waiting for you to present a different option.

You hesitated for just a second before offering, more carefully now, “If you feel okay with it…We could study at my dorm? It’s definitely quieter. And there’s not much to get distracted by.”

You didn’t say it with any kind of tone. No flirt, no implication. Just facts. Just a space.

But Bob’s throat tightened anyway.

His mind, helpful as ever, immediately conjured the image–your dorm. What it looked like. What it might smell like. You curled up in your desk chair, with your hair pushed out of your face, sleeves rolled, and a half-empty mug of tea or coffee next to an open binder. Maybe your bed was still unmade. Maybe there was a bottle of lotion on your nightstand in the same scent that clung to you now, soft and sweet and skin-warmed.

He swallowed.

Hard.

Not because he had any ulterior motives. Not because he thought anything would happen. But because it had been a long time since he’d been invited into someone’s space like that. A woman’s space. A woman like you–all sharp eyes and soft smiles, casual comfort and effortless pull.

“Yeah,” He agreed, clearing his throat and nodding. “Yeah, that’s totally fine. If you’re comfortable with it.”

“I wouldn’t have offered it if I wasn’t,” You said easily, and the way you said it–so certain, so casual–made something tighten low in his stomach again.

“Okay,” He replied, and he finally looked at you. His blue eyes were steady behind his glasses, a little glassy from the fluorescents, but locked on yours. “Just email me your dorm number. I’ll bring the notes, you bring the test, and we’ll make a plan.”

You grinned, and god, it hit him like a sucker punch. Like something he hadn’t braced for.

“Deal.”

And then you turned, backpack swinging over one shoulder, hoodie hem swaying against your hips as you made your way back up the aisle.

Bob sat still for a moment. Longer than he meant to.

He hadn’t even packed up yet.

It took him another ten seconds before he finally exhaled, shoved his pencil into the spiral of his notebook, and muttered to himself under his breath–

“…Way to make this hard for yourself…You dummy.”

————————

Your dorm wasn’t anything glamorous–but it was yours, and that made all the difference.

When you unlocked the door and pushed it open after class, you were immediately met with the familiar scent of fabric softener and the faint citrus-vanilla from the reed diffuser you kept on the dresser. The room was small, technically a single dorm, but it was just enough space for you to carve out your version of comfort. Still, as you stood in the doorway, backpack slipping off one shoulder, you looked around and immediately thought that there was no way in hell it was going to stay like this, especially with a guest coming over.

You dropped your bag near the door, and got to work immediately.

The bed was first. You hadn’t made it this morning–just rolled out with your alarm still going, one arm flung across your eyes as you reached blindly for your phone, groggy and unwilling to admit the day had started. The sheets were still tangled, your navy-blue comforter half-slid to the floor, the corner twisted around your foot in your sleep. You tugged it all back with quick, practiced tugs, smoothing the fitted sheet until the last of the sleep wrinkles vanished under your palm.

Your comforter had a faint rip in the seam on the left side near your hip–stitched up once, badly, with mismatched thread. You’d done it the second week of your freshman year, the night you’d fallen asleep sobbing after a brutal call with your high school boyfriend, and woken up the next morning tangled so tightly in the blanket that it tore when you got up. You never fixed it properly. You kind of liked the scar.

You fluffed the single throw pillow you used for your head–an old one, pillowcase faded with soft clouds printed across pale blue fabric. Not the prettiest, but it felt like home. And the long body pillow you always fell asleep hugging–cream-colored, with one end slightly more smushed than the other–went right in its usual spot against the wall. A comfort thing. You didn’t sleep well without it.

Then you moved to your desk.

It was more shelf than desk, sure–but it held your brain in neat, tiny pieces. Notes, sticky tabs, a single battered wire basket for loose paper, and a coffee mug you never drank out of that just held highlighters, lip balm, and the same pair of scissors you’d had since high school. You stacked your textbooks neatly–physics, mechanics, one painfully dry thermodynamics manual–and slid your notebook on top, flipping it to the most recent page so Bob wouldn’t see your chaotic post-lab scrawl from earlier in the week.

There was a Polaroid pinned to the corkboard just above the workspace–one of you and your best friend from home, taken in your kitchen during winter break. You were both in pajamas, mid-laugh, a sliver of frosting from a baking experiment smeared across your nose. You paused for a moment, fixing the pin to straighten it, and sighed.

Your reed diffuser sat on the corner of the dresser–three pale wooden sticks soaked in a warm citrus-vanilla scent that reminded you of summer mornings and freshly folded laundry. The bottle was nearly empty now. You should’ve replaced it weeks ago, but you kept putting it off. There was something comforting about the familiar scent, even as it faded.

Near it sat a tiny glass tray shaped like a shell, where you kept rings you barely wore and two hair ties you always reached for. One had stretched out completely, the elastic barely holding together–but you refused to throw it away. It had survived too many late-night study sessions, too many chaotic mornings before class. It had history.

You lit your desk lamp–the one with the soft yellow bulb, not the bright blue-white you hated. It cast a glow across the room that made it look gentler, less like a dorm and more like a nook carved from a novel. Cozy. Private. You turned off the overhead light and stood there for a second, letting yourself just look. The soft shadows, the freshly made bed, the diffuser’s scent hanging lightly in the air.

You sigh, satisfied with your work, eyes scanning over the room once more. Everything was in its place. Not perfect, maybe–but it looked lived in, cared for, warm. It looked like you.

With that final breath of approval, you turned toward the door tucked just beside your dresser–the greatest stroke of luck you’d had all year.

An attached bathroom.

Single dorms were hard enough to land as a second-year, but a single with a private bathroom? That was near mythic. Your RA had called it the “housing lottery jackpot,” and you hadn’t argued. No communal showers meant no mildew smell clinging to your towel, no forgotten flip-flops, and–best of all–no awkward small talk with girls brushing their teeth beside you at midnight.

You stepped inside, shutting the door behind you with a soft click, and reached for your phone on the counter. 3:30 PM. Forty-five minutes, give or take.

Bob said “after four,” but something told you he wasn’t the type to be late. You weren’t sure if that meant he’d be early–but either way, you weren’t risking being caught in your towel when he showed up at your door.

Without much thought, you tugged your clothes off in a few quick motions and tossed them into the hamper tucked beside the sink. The hoodie fell in a heap, the fabric heavy with the day’s wear. Your cropped t-shirt was damp at the neckline, your waistband creased from sitting through the afternoon lecture. It all smelled faintly of the campus and the late-summer air–sun-warmed concrete, paper, and the barest hint of classroom chalk.

You flicked on the fan and twisted the shower knob until the water reached the right balance of hot–just shy of scalding.

Steam bloomed in the narrow space like it had been waiting, curling along the top of the curtain and fogging the mirror in soft, slow layers. You stepped in, letting the heat rush over your shoulders in a way that made your muscles go slack and your eyelids flutter briefly closed. You weren’t indulging, not really. You just needed to rinse the day away–strip it off like a second skin, let the tension from your shoulders drain down the tiles and vanish with the suds.

While the water beat down over the back of your neck, your thoughts began to drift.

Even though this was just a tutoring session–just notes, formulas, and a second chance at a first impression–it felt bigger than that.

You hadn’t brought a guy into your room in months.

Not since you’d drawn that invisible line in the sand–the one that said: this space is mine and mine only. Not since you started guarding your time, your energy, and your peace. You weren’t a prude–far from it. You weren’t closed off either. You just…Stopped inviting chaos into your life. And sometimes, chaos looked like someone else’s backpack thrown on your floor, someone else’s hand on your thigh or under the waistband of your sweatpants, or someone else’s voice asking, “Do you mind if I crash here tonight?”

You didn’t miss it.

But still–when you looked Bob Floyd in the eyes and suggested your dorm like it was no big deal, like it didn’t mean anything–something in your chest had fluttered. Not panic. Not excitement. Just a shift.

A crack in the routine.

Now, standing under the steaming pulse of your shower, with the scent of citrus shampoo rising like vapor and the water cascading down your spine, you realized you hadn’t really prepared yourself for that part.

Bob Floyd. In your dorm. Sitting on your bed, or at your desk…Breathing in your space.

You didn’t think it would be weird. He didn’t seem like the type to make things uncomfortable. If anything, he seemed like the kind of guy who’d knock twice even after you told him the door was open. He was polite. Mild-mannered. A little tightly wound in a way that made you think he probably alphabetized his class folders.

But you didn’t know him.

And it was dawning on you, as you tilted your face into the stream and let it blur your vision with heat, that this was only the second conversation you’d had with him. Two conversations, and now you were inviting him into the most intimate space a student could have–your dorm. Your bedroom. Your sanctuary. A place where your throw blanket still held the scent of last week’s laundry, and where your pillowcase had that faint stretch of mascara from the night you fell asleep before washing your face.

What if he thought it was messy?

What if he thought you were messy?

What if he saw the tangled cords beside your bed or the half-finished cup of coffee on your nightstand and assumed you were the kind of person who couldn’t get it together–even when your whole reputation said otherwise?

What if he looked at your 68 again, and thought you were dumb suddenly?

You hated that thought most of all.

You weren’t dumb. You knew you weren’t. You were sharp, resilient, calculated when it mattered–and still, you wondered if he’d already made up his mind about you. Academic ego like his–97s without breaking a sweat–probably came with an equally inflated sense of who could keep up. Maybe he was too polite to say it, but what if he thought you were just another pretty girl in a hard class, grasping for help she hadn’t earned?

You scrubbed your hands over your scalp trying to shake the thought loose, because it didn’t matter what he thought.

Right?

You’d asked for help. That was the whole point. And he’d agreed. He’d said yes without hesitation–well, after a small nervous stammer, but still. He’d seemed open. Kind, even. And if you were being honest with yourself–and not just stewing in self-preservation–you didn’t think he saw you that way. Not as dense. Not as helpless. If anything, he seemed genuinely surprised that you’d asked him at all. Like he hadn’t expected someone like you to even talk to someone like him.

You rinsed the last remnants of soap and shampoo off your body, letting the moment pass.

You weren’t going to overthink this.

He was coming over, he was going to sit down. You were going to go through your test and try and work through the incorrect answers, maybe laugh once or twice, and you’d be one step closer to not failing this class.

That was it.

You shut off the water, the sudden silence deafening in the tiny bathroom.

Steam clung to every surface. You wiped your hand across the mirror, catching your own reflection looking back at you–a few beads of water dripping from your hair, over your collarbones, down over your breasts, the light reflecting off of them like little glowing orbs.

You wrapped yourself in a towel, padded out onto the tile, and toweled your hair dry with slow, deliberate motions. You’d keep things light. Professional. You’d study. You’d ask questions. You’d nod along when he explained something that made sense. And then–

You paused.

Then maybe…Maybe you’d ask what his secret was. The 97. The sharp notes. The calm in his hands. The look in his eyes when he first saw you walking up those lecture hall stairs. Not because you wanted anything from it.

But because part of you was just…Curious.

You stepped out of the bathroom wrapped in the last traces of damp heat, the steam still clinging faintly to your skin like a second breath. The scent of your shampoo followed you into the room–light citrus, clean warmth, a kind of quiet comfort–and you padded barefoot across the tile, leaving soft marks on the floor that vanished almost as soon as they appeared.

Your eyes flicked to the digital clock on your nightstand.

3:55 PM.

Of course it was. Right on the edge of too early, which meant Bob would probably be here right on time–maybe even five minutes ahead, just to be polite. Just to prove he meant it when he said he took this seriously.

You crossed the room in quick, practiced steps, flipping through your clothes without ceremony. You didn’t want to overthink it. You couldn’t overthink it. You were still a little warm from the shower, your skin flushed and hair damp, and the last thing you needed was to feel sweat pooling under a too-thick hoodie while trying to understand whatever theoretical mind game was about to come your way.

So you grabbed a soft t-shirt–a light heather grey, already worn thin in spots from too many washes–and a pair of black workout shorts that hit mid-thigh. Functional. Comfortable. No-nonsense. You pulled them on in a few quick motions, not bothering with makeup or overthinking how the shorts made your legs look in the soft afternoon light that filtered through the slits of your blinds. It wasn’t about that.

You hung up your towels quickly on the hook by the door, turned to your desk, and yanked open the middle drawer with a quiet clatter. Your whiteboard markers were all crammed into a cup at the back–caps loose, labels fading. You pulled out four of them–blue, green, red, and black–and lined them up on your desk next to your notebook like you’d planned it that way all along. Some kind of subconscious need for control, maybe. Or maybe you just didn’t want Bob to see you fumbling for supplies mid-conversation.

Then you reached for the test. The test. The damn 68, still folded and creased and red-inked like a bruise on paper. You slapped it onto the desk with a sigh, the sound small but sharp in the quiet of the room. Your hands slid to your hips. You stared at it for a long second.

This was where it would start. Hopefully where it would turn around.

And then–just as your breath settled and you were about to pull your chair out–

Knock knock.

Two firm taps.

Not tentative. Not obnoxious. Just…Precisely delivered. Like he’d rehearsed it.

You sighed. Not from dread–but from inevitability. From the knowledge that this, right here, was the moment it would all shift. You rolled your shoulders once, exhaled through your nose, and crossed the room in five brisk steps.

You pulled the door open.

And there he was.

Bob Floyd stood just outside, backpack slung over one shoulder, a black three-ring binder hugged awkwardly to his chest like he didn’t quite know what to do with it. He had changed. He was wearing a navy t-shirt that clung just enough to his chest to remind you that he was broader than he looked seated in a lecture hall. His jeans were dark again–clean, cuffed slightly at the ankle because they were a little too long for his legs–and his sneakers looked freshly wiped down, as if he’d paused just outside the dorm building to rub them clean against the concrete.

His glasses were perched on his nose again, slightly fogged at the corners from the outside humidity. His hair was still a little mussed, like the wind had gotten to him–or maybe he’d run his hand through it on the walk over. His eyes met yours instantly, wide and a little unsure, like he was trying to memorize the moment.

“Hey,” He said, and it came out just a little too soft.

You leaned against the doorframe, one hand curled around the edge of it, the other still resting lightly on your hip. You didn’t mean to look casual–but you did. Warm skin. Damp hair. Legs bare in your shorts. You were dressed like comfort, like late afternoon, like a version of home he wasn’t expecting to see.

“Hey,” You returned. A small smile tugged at your lips. “Right on time.”

“I–uh, yeah.” Bob adjusted the strap on his backpack like it gave him something to do. “Didn’t wanna be early. Or, you know, too early. But also didn’t wanna be late.”

You stepped aside. “You’re good. Come on in.”

He hesitated just slightly before crossing the threshold, like he was stepping into a space that demanded a kind of reverence. And maybe, in a way, he was. His eyes swept the room instinctively, slow and deliberate–not nosey, just observant. His gaze skimmed over the bed, the desk, the glow of the warm lamp light, the closed bathroom door. Then back to you.

You watched him take it all in. The details. The neatness. The quiet hum of your diffuser still at work in the corner.

“This is…Nice,” He said finally. And he meant it. “Like, really nice. Kinda cozy.”

You smirked like you hadn’t been panic cleaning for the past hour or two, “I try.”He nodded once, still a little awestruck, like he wasn’t entirely sure how he’d ended up here.

“Smells good too…Like you baked something.” You raised an eyebrow at him and gave a small laugh, motioning behind him.

”It’s just my diffuser.” Bob’s gaze drifted toward the thin plume of steam rising from your dresser, his face going slightly blush.

“Oh…” He blinked. “Didn’t notice that.”

The corners of his mouth twitched upward in a sheepish little smile, soft and crooked. He ran his palm over the front of his jeans like it might smooth over the awkward pause that followed.

You glanced over your shoulder at him, brow arched.

“Well,” You started, already moving toward your desk, “You can sit anywhere you’d like. I’m just gonna pull my whiteboard out so we have somewhere to work.”

He opened his mouth–maybe to respond, maybe to stall–but you cut in before the silence could return. “Do you want anything to drink? I’ve got water, Sprite, or…” you paused with a shrug, “an emergency stash of energy drinks if you’re into heart palpitations.”

Bob let out a short laugh, ducking his head as his fingers scratched the back of his neck. “Water’s good, thank you. Do you… need any help with anything?”

You shook your head with a quiet chuckle, already crouching to slide the whiteboard from behind your desk. “It’s all good, I got it.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure,” you replied with a grin. “Just get comfortable.”

Bob hesitated for a beat–then nodded once and toed off his shoes with quiet care, tucking them neatly beside the frame of your bed. The soft creak of your mattress followed as he eased himself up onto it, adjusting his binder across his lap. He settled back against your pillows like someone trying not to disturb a shrine. His back met the wall in a slow, deliberate lean, shoulders squaring before his legs stretched out in front of him, one knee bent just slightly.

You were still crouched in front of your desk, tugging the whiteboard forward and flipping the eraser out of the marker tray with practiced ease. When you stood and propped the board upright against the far wall–angled so you could sit beside the bed and still reach it–Bob’s gaze caught on you again.

He wasn’t proud of it. But he couldn’t help it.

The soft sheen on your legs caught the warm light from your desk lamp, the moisture from your shower still clinging in subtle streaks across your skin. Your shorts were tight–they were the kind that followed the natural dip of your thighs when you bent forward, holding you in all the right places. Every angle pulled his attention. The curve where your hip met your waist, the shadow along the back of your knee when you adjusted your weight. You were only wearing a t-shirt and shorts, nothing scandalous, nothing remotely calculated–but Bob felt like he was seeing something private.

Like you’d invited him into something sacred and forgot to mention just how much of you lived here.

He cleared his throat and glanced out the window beside your bed, the blinds slatted just enough to let in the softest touch of late afternoon sun. The light was golden. Low. Hazy in the kind of way that made everything look suspended in time.

He told himself to focus. On the equations. On the test in your hand. On the notes in his binder.

Not on the way your legs moved when you crossed the room again, not on the lotion-sweet smell of you that lingered now even stronger than it had that first day in class, and not on the sight of you–relaxed and warm and totally unguarded–in a way he hadn’t seen before.

You crossed the room with a bottle of water and handed it to him without fuss, and when your fingers brushed, he felt the jolt of it deep in his chest.

“Thanks,” He said quietly, cradling the bottle like a peace offering.

You gave him a smile. Not teasing, not knowing. Just kind. Grounded. Unbothered.

And that made it worse somehow. Made it harder not to stare. Harder not to wonder what this was becoming, and how much trouble he was in already.

Because he could memorize equations. He could build models, ace problem sets, and calculate theoretical orbital mechanics in his sleep.

But none of that had prepared him for you.

You didn’t sit right away.

Instead, you hovered just beside the whiteboard for a moment longer, the test clutched in your hand, thumb brushing over the red mark like maybe you could fade it out with friction alone. But Bob waited patiently–quiet, composed, the bottle of water still nestled in his lap like he didn’t quite know what to do with his hands yet.

You held the test out toward him. “Alright, let’s see how bad it really is.”

Bob offered a faint, crooked smile as he took the folded packet, careful not to smudge the corners with condensation from the bottle. He flipped it open to the first page, eyes scanning the first problem set. His gaze moved quickly–but not dismissively. He was reading, really reading, lips parting slightly as he traced your work with his eyes.

Then his brows lifted, just a touch–not surprise, but curiosity.

“Can you…” He glanced up at you, the glint of his glasses catching the light again, “show me how you got this answer? Go through it with me…I just want to pick your brain first. See your logic a bit.”

You hesitated, just for a beat.

Not because you didn’t remember how you got the answer. You did. You remembered every painful minute of trying to pull it out of thin air, piecing together old lecture notes and half-remembered formulas from late-night readings. But the thought of speaking it out loud? Of saying it in front of him?

That part felt…Vulnerable.

You bit the inside of your lip for a second, eyes flicking from the board to his face, then back again. Then, without a word, you bent down and picked up the black marker.

Bob leaned forward just slightly, shifting the binder onto the mattress beside him as you uncapped it with your teeth and started writing on the board. The soft squeak of dry erase on the surface filled the room.

“Okay,” You said finally, your voice steadier than you expected, “So the question was asking about particle behavior in a non-inertial reference frame, right? So I assumed we were supposed to use the rotating frame model the prof showed us last week. The one with the centrifugal and Coriolis corrections?” Bob nodded slowly, eyes locked on the board, on your hand.

You started to draw–carefully, neatly, the way you always did when trying to make sense of something. A circle. A line to represent the radius. Arrows for velocity, angular acceleration. You wrote out the base equation next to it, then began working through your substitutions.

“I plugged in the knowns here,” you continued, underlining as you spoke, “and then tried to isolate the pseudo-forces…but I think I misapplied the coordinate system. I used polar, but I think the solution assumed Cartesian.”

Bob made a small hum in the back of his throat–soft, thoughtful. You glanced back at him.

He was watching you. Focused, engaged. Almost the look a professor would give when they saw potential flickering just beneath a student’s mistake, and that made your throat tighten from the nerves that began to bubble over in your stomach.

Bob shifted again, the mattress dipping softly beneath his weight as he leaned forward, one hand braced on the bed beside his binder. “No, that’s good,” He murmured. “That’s actually really good. You weren’t wrong to try it that way. I think the issue’s just here–”He reached for the red marker from your stack, uncapping it with a soft click.

“See how you treated this term?” He pointed gently toward a partial derivative in your equation, careful not to touch the board. “You factored it like it was independent, but because it’s nested in the rotating frame, it still has angular dependence. That’s what threw the rest off.”

You blinked at the board, then at him.

“Wait…So if I’d just accounted for the cross-product instead of canceling it…”

“You would’ve landed within the margin of error,” He finished, smiling softly. “Easily a B. Maybe even B+ depending on how much partial credit he gave.” You stared at your own math like it had betrayed you and then slowly dropped your hand to your side, still holding the marker.

“That…Makes so much more sense,” You said, voice a little quieter now. Not embarrassed. Just a little humbled.

Bob stood up slowly, the mattress giving a soft groan beneath him as he rose. His steps were quiet but sure as he moved to stand beside you at the whiteboard, marker still poised in his hand like a baton he didn’t quite realize he’d taken control of. You stepped slightly to the side to give him space, though your shoulders still nearly brushed.

His voice came low, steady, as he started to rewrite the middle portion of your equation. His handwriting was sharp and balanced–blocky print with just a hint of slant, the kind of penmanship that spoke of hours spent copying down formula after formula with care.

“Your approach wasn’t bad,” He started, glancing at you just briefly before continuing, “Seriously. You just went too fast on the middle step, that’s all…And honestly?” He let out a breathy, half-laugh. “That’s the part that gets everyone.” You let out a quiet, half-aware chuckle–more breath than voice.

“Well…Evidently it doesn’t get you. You’re the one that got a 97.”

Bob flushed immediately. The back of his neck went pink first, then the tips of his ears. He ducked his head as he kept writing, though his next words carried a little laugh of their own.

“I’m a physics major,” He said. “So I better be getting that mark or else I’d be needing a refund from the school.”

You let out a real laugh at that–light, short, amused–and crossed your arms loosely over your chest, watching him scribble through the rest of the correction with a kind of practiced rhythm.

“No wonder you’re so good at this…” You muttered, more to yourself than him, but loud enough for him to catch.

Bob’s head tilted slightly toward you. “What’re you majoring in?”

You scratched the back of your neck, mildly self-conscious. “Engineering.”

He paused–just long enough to let the silence feel deliberate–and then let out a short, knowing laugh. “Ahh. Now it makes sense.”

You raised a brow, narrowing your eyes in mock warning. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You guys are chronic overthinkers,” He stated, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

You scoffed, uncrossing your arms. “And you guys aren’t? Please. Look at all the work you need to do just to get a simple solution. Two extra diagrams and four substitutions just to prove a particle moves left.”

He rolled his eyes, the kind of eye roll that had barely any edge–just enough sass to keep the playfulness alive. “Least if I took an engineering course, I’d still hit an 80 on the tests.”

You blinked at him. “Wow. Bold of you to assume you’d survive statics.”

Bob turned toward you a little more, raising an eyebrow, eyes glittering behind the faint reflection on his glasses. “I’d thrive in statics.”

“Oh, really?” you said, grinning now. “You think you would have a handle on it?” He cleared his throat lightly and gave you a soft smirk, the corner of his mouth curling.

“Maybe if I had the right tutor.” You blinked once. And then…Smiled.

He turned back to the board and finished the last line of the solution with a soft swipe of the marker.

“There,” He said, voice quieter again. “That’s how I did it.”

You stared at the board, then at him. The space between your shoulders eased a little. The knot in your chest began to loosen.

”Well…That’s one question down…At least I know where I went wrong…” Bob nodded, tapping the cap of the red marker softly against his palm.

“Let’s go to the next one.”

You reached over to flip the test packet to the next problem set, fingers skimming over the thin paper before tugging the top page aside. The math was already crowding your vision–variables stacked in tight lines, subscripts nestled between integrals and force vectors–and you let out a breath as you raised the black marker again.

He stepped back slightly to give you room, standing just behind and to your left. You could feel the warmth of him, the quiet energy he held so close to his chest, just skimming your shoulder. You swiped the board clean with the eraser in a few broad, practiced strokes until nothing remained but the faint sheen of leftover marker ghosting the surface.

“I’m gonna admit,” You started, glancing at him from the corner of your eye, “I winged this one. So I’m definitely not gonna have an explanation for it.”

Bob shrugged, unbothered. “Then solve it,” He said casually. “Or attempt to. I’ll guide if you need it.”

There was a subtle shift in his tone–something a little less guarded, a little more drawled than usual. A slight southern cadence that lilted through the last few words, soft but present, like a warm hush pulled from somewhere deeper than lecture hall confidence. You felt your cheeks heat slightly at the sound.

Still, you nodded. “Alright.”

You started from scratch–no notes, no copying, just your best attempt. The marker glided smoothly under your hand as you worked through the logic piece by piece, pausing every few steps to reassess. You murmured quietly to yourself as you went, instinctively talking through the math aloud, and Bob said nothing–just watched. You could feel his eyes trace the path your gaze took, from the top of your diagram down through the first few steps of your math. Then–

“Nope. Wrong,” He interrupted, it came gently but firmly.

You blinked at the board, your hand frozen mid-step, and let out a quiet sigh. “Why?”

He stepped forward again, lifting the red marker. He didn’t correct it for you–just circled one specific term, the ink smooth and patient.

“This,” He pointed out, “You forgot to convert the mass into angular components. You treated it like a point mass.”

Your stomach sank just slightly. Not out of shame, but frustration. You dipped your head and started erasing that line.

“Sorry,” You murmured, almost under your breath.

“No need to apologize,” Bob said immediately, softer now. “Though I’m hopin’ this stuff sinks in…”

Your eyebrows knit, and you turned your head a little toward him. “Do you think it won’t?”

He shrugged, the barest lift of his shoulders. “It takes a while to apply the theory. Knowing it in your head’s one thing…Applying it to a random question is something else…But being able to fix your own mistakes is the first step to understanding things a little better to apply things properly.” You nodded once, pressing your lips together. Then you went back to work, quieter now, more deliberate. He watched you fall into the rhythm of the solution again, only stepping back when you didn’t seem to need his guidance. You could feel his eyes flicking down toward the test for a second before he moved behind you.

You heard the soft scrape of his hand over the textbook as he grabbed it from your desk, flipping it open with a practiced flick of his thumb. Pages whispered past each other as he navigated straight to the chapter you’d been tested on–like he’d memorized the structure without even meaning to. His eyes scanned the problems, fingers tapping the margin of the page as he skimmed.

By the time he turned back around, you were capping the black marker with a little sigh of effort. “I think I got it?”

Bob came closer again and tilted his head to read your work. His gaze moved from line to line, his mouth twitching just slightly before he nodded.

“Yeah. Yeah, you got it.” You caught the smile as it crept over his face–unfiltered this time, soft and a little proud. He adjusted his glasses with one hand, pushing them up the bridge of his nose before holding out the textbook toward you, with his thumb slipped between the pages.

“Try number twelve,” He said, the corner of his mouth still lifted. “New problem. Same concept. Let’s see what you remember.” Your eyes scanned the paragraph of setup–classic physics problem: rotating frame, non-uniform mass distribution, some sly attempt to catch overconfident students slipping past the conversion factor. You clicked your tongue once and let your focus shift back to the whiteboard, grabbing the green marker this time.

He watched you move–quiet, efficient, no hesitation as you picked apart the language of the question, breaking it into manageable parts. You leaned your hip against the desk just slightly, skin catching the late-afternoon light in the softest gleam. Your fingers danced over your phone screen, pulling up the calculator, thumb tapping with precise rhythm as your eyes flicked between the numbers and the formulas.

Bob didn’t even try to pretend he wasn’t staring anymore.

There was a faint shimmer along your shoulder from where the light met your skin, a dewy glow from the shower that hadn’t fully faded. You were chewing softly on the inside of your cheek, eyes narrowed in concentration, and he thought–briefly, helplessly–that he could watch you solve problems forever if it meant watching you like this.

You didn’t say anything. Not for the full ten minutes it took you to work it through.

You just calculated, and wrote, and thought. You whispered a few fragments to yourself as you filled in a diagram at the top right corner of the board, then traced your logic through in smooth, deliberate steps. You stepped back finally, the marker hanging loosely from your fingers, your other hand planted lightly on your hip.

You turned slightly toward him.

“Well?” You asked. “What’s the verdict?”

Bob blinked–once, hard. Then blinked again.

“Right,” He replied quickly, moving forward, the textbook now tucked under one arm. He studied your work for a moment, leaning in just enough to squint at one portion of your substitutions. His lips pressed together.

“You did most of it right,” He murmured, pointing to a midsection of your math. “This part’s good…But you forgot to apply the correction here–” He tapped gently on a bracketed term near the top. “That throws the coefficient off. Still–partial credit would be earned. It’s not like you’d lose all the points.”

You let out a breath and nodded. “Got it.”

Bob uncapped the red marker again and leaned forward, elbow bent as he carefully scribbled a correction in the margin beside your step. His handwriting was still annoyingly neat, even in red, even when rushed. He talked you through it slowly, the pace gentle but firm, breaking down the terms like a translation instead of a reprimand.

Your arms crossed as you leaned against the edge of the desk, chin tilted toward him slightly. He didn’t rush, didn’t sound superior–he just…Taught. Like he wanted you to understand it, not just memorize it.

You smirked.

“You should become a professor with the way you teach.”

Bob glanced over his shoulder at you, an amused little tilt to his head. “Why? Am I boring you?”

You let out a real laugh this time, low and warm and amused. “No. Not yet, at least.”

He turned a little more to face you, one hand still holding the red marker.

“Don’t speak too soon,” He warned, the corners of his mouth pulling into a slow, boyish grin. “I’m sure I’ve got a lot more opportunities to do that.”

And even though the whiteboard still glowed behind him, filled with formulas and diagrams and half-solved questions, all you could see was the quiet crinkle at the corner of his eyes, and the way his voice–soft, sincere–almost sounded like a promise.

————————

Bob’s elbows rested on his knees, fingers loosely laced, binder long forgotten beside him on the bed.

You were pacing.

Again.

Back and forth in front of your desk, your physics textbook open in your hands like it might suddenly say something different if you glared hard enough at the chapter title.

“I don’t understand,” You huffed, fingers tightening around the spine of the book. “We’ve been working through these questions almost every night for the past two weeks. I’m getting them very close to right when I do them here. I know what I’m doing on the whiteboard, I’m getting partial credit in class–but then I sit down during the quiz and it’s like…Like my brain just decides to take a smoke break.”

Bob watched you quietly from the bed, his gaze flicking down briefly as your shirt lifted with your movements. The hem rose just enough to show the waistband of the boxer shorts you’d thrown on after your shower, the edge of soft cotton skimming the top of your thighs as you turned in another sharp step.

He didn’t say anything. Not at first. Just watched. Like he always did when you got worked up–like his stillness might balance out your storm.

You dropped the book onto your desk with a soft thud, dragging both hands through your hair before planting them on your hips in frustration.

“I mean, it’s ridiculous,” You muttered. “I can do it here. I’ve done it. You’ve seen me do it. What the hell happens between here and the classroom?” Bob leaned back slightly, hands now braced behind him against the bedspread, one leg bent, the other stretched long.

“Do you feel anxious when you’re writing the test?” He asked, tilting his head just a little.

You turned to look at him, brow furrowed.

“It’s a normal amount of anxiety,” You said flatly. “What, are you about to tell me that’s why I’m still not doing well on quizzes? A little test stress?”

He shrugged, his lips quirking upward like he knew he was about to toe the line. “Could be,” He replied simply. “Or…Maybe you just need some kind of…Positive reinforcement.”

You narrowed your eyes. “Positive reinforcement?” You repeated slowly, curious and suspicious of how he was bringing up the topic.

He nodded, straight-faced. “Affirmations. Encouragement. Rewards. You know. Psychology stuff.” You crossed your arms, the motion slow and deliberate, as you turned fully to face him. Your hips settled just to one side, weight shifting into that slightly challenging posture–the kind that said you weren’t going to let this slide, but not in the way he should be afraid of. Your head tilted a little, eyes narrowed like you were sizing him up. Watching.

Noticing.

And God, was he blushing.

Not a violent flush, but that creeping kind–the kind that started at the tips of his ears and crawled slowly down the sides of his neck like embarrassment blooming from the inside out. He wasn’t meeting your gaze now. Just staring down at the binder on his lap, his thumbs rubbing over the edge of the plastic like it had something important to say.

You didn’t say anything at first. Just stared. Took him in.

The soft slope of his shoulders where they leaned back into the pillow. The subtle indent his jaw made when he clenched it without meaning to. The flush of red creeping into his cheeks, all while trying to keep that composed, helpful tone–like he was still just your tutor and not someone who thought about kissing you when you leaned too close during derivatives.

The silence held for a beat too long.

Then you spoke.

“So you’re trying to condition me?”

Bob’s head snapped up, and his eyes met yours–wide, startled, and already bracing for the tease he knew was coming. But then, to your surprise, he laughed. A real laugh. Short and soft and so genuine that it made the tips of his ears go even redder.

“N-No!” he said quickly, shaking his head, that lopsided smile overtaking his face. “Jesus–no, I wasn’t–conditioning you?”

You smirked, keeping your arms crossed like a challenge. “It kinda sounds like you’re conditioning me.”

He laughed again–this time accompanied by a quiet snort he couldn’t quite swallow down fast enough. It made your grin widen.

“I’m not trying to train you like a dog,” He commented, wiping a hand down his face with mock-exhaustion. “I just meant…If you associate physics with something good, maybe your brain will stop freaking out every time you’re handed a test.”

You blinked at him once. Raised an eyebrow.

“So…” You started, slowly, carefully, “You’re trying to open my third eye for physics?”

Bob looked at you. Deadpan. “That’s not what I said.”

You stepped closer, a teasing lilt curling into your voice now as you gestured with one hand. “No, no, I think that’s exactly what you said. You want me to transcend. Find academic Nirvana through external praise.” He rolled his eyes.

”Okay. Now you’re just twisting my words.” You raised your eyebrows.

”Am I?” You grinned. He gave you a look. A very Bob look. One part fond, one part I walked into this with my eyes wide open and it’s too late to leave now. But the pink still hadn’t faded from his cheeks.

You leaned your hip against the edge of the desk again, bare thighs catching the warm glow of your desk lamp, watching the way Bob’s eyes flicked toward your legs and then immediately back up again.

“Alright, Professor Floyd,” You said lightly, “I’ll bite. What kind of positive reinforcement are we talking about here? You handing out gold stars? Stickers? Should I bring a report card for you to sign?” Bob cleared his throat. It was soft but unmistakable. A nervous reflex that made him sit up a little straighter on your bed, one hand rising to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose even though they hadn’t really slipped.

“I mean…” He trailed off, eyes fixed on some distant point above your shoulder. “I was thinking more like…A kiss.” Your entire body stilled, hands still loosely clasped in front of you from your teasing posture, your weight half-shifted against the desk. A beat passed–just long enough to wonder if you’d misheard him. But then his eyes flicked back to yours, just for a second, and the heat in his gaze made it impossible to pretend he hadn’t said exactly what you thought he did.

You could feel your cheeks warm–instantly, helplessly–heat blooming beneath your skin like it had been waiting for the right moment to spill forward. But you masked it with a slow raise of your eyebrows and a smirk, playful but laced with that sharp new curiosity curling low in your gut.

“Yeah?” You said, voice softer now. You shifted your weight and tilted your head. “A kiss? That’s what you had in mind?”

Bob’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. Hard. His eyes flicked to the space beside your head before dropping to the floor–then back up to you, like he was trying not to look too long but couldn’t help it. He shifted on the mattress, fingers brushing over the edge of the binder like he needed something to hold onto. “I-I mean…It was just an idea. One of…Several.”

You stepped closer.

“Is that what you’ve had in mind this entire time?” You questioned, voice low, the smile on your lips laced with something sweeter now–teasing, but sincere. “Kissing me?”

Bob let out a nervous little laugh, breath catching as he tried to string together a reply. His knuckles were pale where they gripped the binder now, eyes flicking toward your legs again before jerking back up to your face.

“I–no, I mean, not… I never really got that idea till today,” He muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. “I just thought—I don’t know. It might help.”

You took another step forward.

“You sure about that?” you asked, the words curling in your throat like heat, low and just a little amused. Now you were standing directly in front of him, and the change in height made it impossible not to notice how he looked up at you–head tilted back slightly, wide blue eyes tracking your every move. His glasses slid a fraction down his nose, but he didn’t dare lift a hand to fix them.

His mouth opened and closed once before he found his voice. “I personally…Think it might work,” He murmured.

Your eyes flicked down to his lips–soft, parted slightly, flushed–and then back to his eyes. He was blinking slow now, like your presence this close was physically slowing his thoughts.

You bit your lip. Slowly. Purposefully.

“So you’re telling me,” You said, almost whispering now, “That you want to reward me with kisses…Whenever I get a question right?”

Bob exhaled through his nose. His legs had parted slightly where he sat, not intentionally–but enough to suggest his body was reacting faster than his brain. He nodded once, tentative but clear. His voice dropped lower, barely above a whisper.

“I could…Do a whole lot more than kisses,” He said.

The second the words left his mouth, his eyes widened slightly, like he hadn’t meant to say that out loud. Like he hadn’t even known he was capable of it. His fingers fidgeted with the edge of the binder, his spine curving slightly forward as if he could fold himself up to hide from the boldness that had just escaped him.

Your breath caught–just barely–and something about the way he said it, almost reverent, almost pleading, sent a shiver down your spine. You watched his throat work, his chest rising and falling in subtle, shaky breaths.

He wasn’t cocky. He wasn’t teasing you back with confidence.

He wanted you.

Desperately.

You leaned in, closing that last bit of space between your knees and the edge of the bed until your thighs brushed his. The binder slid from his lap onto the comforter with a soft thud, forgotten.

“Yeah?” You murmured, voice warm, velvety, almost indulgent. “You think you could do more?” Bob nodded, slowly–eyes wide, lips parted, breath coming a little uneven now, fanning over your face.

“If you’d let me,” He said quietly, “I’d do anything.”

The words landed between you like a weight, heavy with longing, trembling with truth.

And you believed him.

Because Bob Floyd didn’t say things he didn’t mean.

He didn’t play games. He didn’t flirt to win. He offered, quietly, completely–like giving a piece of himself to someone felt holy.

Your hands moved before your mind fully caught up, instinct carrying you as you lifted them slowly–deliberately–and rested them against the sides of his neck.

He was warm.

The kind of warmth that radiated from beneath the skin, the kind that felt like it could seep into your palms and settle somewhere inside your chest if you let it. His skin was soft under your thumbs, his pulse fluttering just beneath one, and when your fingers brushed lightly over the edge of his jaw, you felt the tiniest hitch in his breath.

Bob stilled.

Completely.

The kind of stillness that only came when something sacred was happening–like he didn’t want to risk breaking the moment by breathing too loud.

And then you leaned in.

Not rushed. Not hungry. Just slow–measured. Confident in the space he’d given you. Confident in the way his knees shifted to make room for you between them, in the way his lips had parted already, waiting, hoping.

Your nose brushed his cheek softly. His glasses tilted just slightly from the nudge, slipping down the bridge of his nose in a slow, unbothered drift. You felt the ghost of his breath over your mouth, shaky and warm, and then–

You kissed him.

Gently. Just once. Lips pressed to his like the start of a sentence that would take its time to finish.

Bob breathed into it–exhaled a soft, shuddering hum from the back of his throat that vibrated against your mouth. His hands came up slow, tentative, like he didn’t want to assume. But then they settled–one sliding to your lower back, warm and careful, the other ghosting over your hip before stilling there.

And then he kissed you back.

Really kissed you.

Slow at first. So slow it made your knees weak.

He lingered on your upper lip, plush and steady, then pulled back half an inch and tilted–just enough to brush your bottom lip between his with soft, seeking pressure. His lips moved with purpose, not urgency. Thoughtful. Intent. Like he wanted to memorize you in pieces, to map the shape of your mouth one breath at a time.

You made a soft, involuntary sound into him–a quiet, pleased little “mmm”–and he kissed you again like he needed to drink it in. His thumb pressed lightly against the small of your back, grounding him, grounding you. Every motion of his mouth was reverent, restrained, and dripping with a kind of intimacy that made your skin burn.

You pulled back just an inch–lips brushing his, breath warm between you.

His eyes fluttered open slowly, lashes sweeping against flushed cheeks. His pupils were blown wide behind his fogged glasses, lips pink and slightly parted, his chest rising and falling with careful, controlled breaths. He looked dazed. Unmoored.

You smiled.

A quiet, knowing smile, and let your thumbs brush the sides of his jaw.

“Better go get the next question right, huh?” You whispered, teasing but breathless. “Gotta meet my end of the bargain.”

And just as you started to pull back, maybe to reach for the marker again, maybe to hide the way your heart was slamming against your ribs like a drum–

Bob’s hand on your lower back pressed just slightly.

“Wait,” He murmured, voice low and husky now. “How about we suspend the studying for now?”

The words came quiet. Careful. But you could hear the edge beneath them–that hunger he’d tried so hard to suppress now curling softly around the syllables.

You arched an eyebrow at him, still close enough that your noses brushed.

“Hmm…” You started, a smirk pulling at your lips. “Now you’re just going to end up distracting me.”

His eyes flicked down to your mouth. Then back up.

You ran a finger gently down the side of his neck, your voice warm and teasing.

“Let’s stick to the plan…” Bob exhaled slowly. Like it took everything in him not to pull you back in.

His hands didn’t move. But he nodded.

Barely.

And when you stepped away and turned toward the whiteboard again, you could feel the heat of his gaze trailing after you–like he was trying to sear every inch of the moment into memory.

———————

By the second correct answer, you were setting a timer for yourselves.

Ten minutes. That was the new rule.

Ten minutes per problem, per kiss. No exceptions. No shortcuts.

Because the last time you’d leaned in for one–intended to be short, controlled, just enough to make good on the deal–you’d ended up in his lap. His hands had slipped under your shirt almost instinctively, like they knew where to go before he consciously gave them permission. And when his palms flattened against the small of your back, warm and strong and bare, your breath had hitched in a way that surprised you.

Not because it was too much.

But because it was exactly what you hadn’t realized you’d been needing.

His fingers pressed into your skin–not harshly, not possessively, just enough to ground you. Like he couldn’t believe he was touching you and needed to memorize the shape of your body with his hands before you slipped away again. You’d gasped into his mouth, not even meaning to, and felt him inhale like the sound had gone straight to his chest.

And then you kissed him harder.

Your fingers tangled in his hair, wrecking the neatness of it with the kind of carelessness that only came when heat outweighed hesitation. You pulled, just a little–testing, exploring–and he moaned softly against your lips like it cracked him open. His glasses were crooked by then, fogged from your shared breaths, and neither of you bothered fixing them. The world could stay blurry if it meant this stayed sharp.

Somewhere in the haze, Bob’s shirt had come off. You hadn’t meant for it to escalate. It had just…Happened. One minute your hands were sliding beneath the hem, feeling the heat of him, the tension in his abdomen, the ridges of muscle that lined his stomach, and the next, the shirt was gone. Flung off to the side without a single graceful motion. You hadn’t even looked where it landed.

He was solid beneath you. Not chiseled in a gym-rat kind of way, but strong in that natural, everyday way. Like he was built for work. His skin was sun-warmed with just a pinch of colour, a faint line of tan cutting across the middle of his arms where T-shirts always stopped. You touched him like he might disappear. He held you like he never wanted you to.

And God…He was good.

Surprisingly good.

Not in the way of someone who practiced, but someone who paid attention. Someone who kissed with focus. With reverence. Like your mouth was an answer he’d been solving toward for weeks. He kissed like he studied–slow, thorough, intentional. His tongue was gentle at first, coaxing. His teeth grazed your lip once, barely, and you swore you could feel it in your spine. When he kissed you the second time–after the next problem, when your timer dinged again–you already knew it wasn’t going to stay brief.

And it didn’t.

He pulled you in with hands that were just slightly rough from calluses and pencil grooves, fingers curling tight around your waist, your ribs, like he needed to feel you under his hands. And when he slipped those same fingers under the hem of your shirt again—this time slower, surer–you let him. You wanted him to. His touch wasn’t greedy. It was searching. Savoring. Like he was learning every inch of you the way he learned his formulas.

And you didn’t realize how touch-starved you’d been until then.

Until the heat of his hand met the curve of your spine, and you arched into him like your body had been waiting for permission. Until he kissed down the side of your jaw, slowly, reverently, and you felt the hum of it in your chest. Until your own hand traced the broad slope of his shoulder, down over the rise and fall of his ribs, and found nothing but steady strength and gentle restraint.

You didn’t say it out loud–but he could feel it.

The hunger in the way you kissed him. The gratitude in the way your hands explored him. The desperate edge that slipped into your breath every time you whispered his name between kisses like it wasn’t something you’d meant to do.

And maybe it wasn’t about physics anymore.

Maybe it never really was.

Because as Bob pulled back, breathless and flushed, his glasses still askew and hair mussed into soft waves from your fingers pulling and tightening, he looked at you like you’d changed something fundamental inside him. Like you’d opened a door he didn’t know was locked. Like he couldn’t stop even if he tried.

Your timer buzzed again in the background. Neither of you moved.

“…You got that one right,” He whispered, lips brushing your cheek “Think you deserve…A break.” You let out a breathless little laugh, your chest still rising and falling with the aftermath of the last kiss. Your hair was a bit mussed from his hands, your lips slightly swollen from the soft, reverent press of his mouth–and you were dizzy, absolutely dizzy with the way he looked at you.

“Bob…” You murmured, voice playful, warm, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’ve got some sort of ulterior motive.” Bob, still slightly breathless, hand still planted firm and reverent on your thigh, sat back just a little. Enough to give you a look. One of those boyish, guilty-but-not-really guilty grins that curled slow at the edges and made your heart skip.

He pressed a hand flat to his bare chest, wide-eyed in mock innocence.

“Me?” He said, lips twitching. “No…Definitely no ulterior motives here. I’m just…” He leaned in again, close enough for his breath to dance against your jaw, “Trying to do something I’ve been thinking about for a long time.” Your brows lifted, pulse tripping.

“Oh?” You murmured, teasing but curious. “And what’s that?” He pressed a kiss to your jaw–so gentle it nearly didn’t register as a kiss at all. Just warmth. Just intent. Then another, lower, slower, right beneath the curve of your ear. And then:

“Going down on you,” He whispered.

The words landed hot, like they’d been spoken directly into your bloodstream.

Your breath hitched audibly. You swore you could feel your pulse flutter in places you didn’t think could react to words alone. Heat pooled low in your stomach like syrup spilling into something hollow. Still, you managed a quiet, almost incredulous laugh, voice tightening as you tilted your head to look at him again.

“Now I need to know,” You said, fingers threading back into his hair, “How long you’ve been thinking about that.” Bob let out a soft laugh, one hand splaying open against your hip, the other bracing himself still, like he needed to keep steady before he admitted anything to you. He kissed down your neck again, slower this time–each inch of skin passed over with the kind of devotion that said this wasn’t some spur-of-the-moment confession.

And when he reached the collar of your shirt, where the fabric hung loose from earlier tugging, he nosed at it gently. Not greedy. Just wanting more.

You tugged lightly on his hair, not to stop him, but to coax him to pause–just enough to get him to look up.

“Hey,” You said softly, a smile tugging at the corner of your lips. “How long have you been thinking about doing that?”

Bob’s eyes flicked up to yours–blue and wide and already glassy with the weight of how badly he wanted you. And then his face turned a shade deeper, that telltale blush painting up his cheeks and crawling behind his ears.

“Since…” He paused, like the words were too embarrassing to say. “Since the first day of class. When you came in late…Dressed in that skirt.”

You blinked, lips parting slowly.

“The black one?”

He nodded, eyes darting to your mouth like it might give him the courage to keep talking.

“It rode up just a little when you walked past. And you sat a few seats down and didn’t look at me once. And I–” He broke off for a second, laughing nervously. “I dropped my pencil because of how you smelled and how your legs looked and because you didn’t even notice me looking.”

You stared at him.

Then grinned, slow and wicked.

“Well,” You murmured, leaning in again until your lips were just barely brushing his, “Guess it’s a good thing you’re getting your chance now.” Bob exhaled a shaky breath–one of awe, of disbelief, of absolutely overwhelmed want.

And then he kissed you again.

The kiss that followed was nothing like the first.

It was deeper. Hungrier. Your lips opened beneath his without hesitation this time, and he drank in the permission like it was oxygen–his hands curling tighter around the backs of your thighs before lifting you effortlessly into his lap. You gasped softly against his mouth as your knees bent around him, your weight settling against the solid warmth of his thighs, your hands sliding up the broad slope of his bare shoulders.

He kissed you like he’d waited for this.

Like every moment you’d spent leaning over equations, brushing fingertips, trading teasing words had led to this exact point–and now he had you here, soft and open in his lap, your legs bare and warm against denim, your breath stuttering into his mouth every time he tugged you closer.

His hands slid beneath the hem of your t-shirt again, palms hot against your back, and this time he didn’t hesitate. The fabric peeled upward in one smooth motion–up, over your ribs, brushing your chest–until you lifted your arms and let him tug it off completely. He tossed it somewhere behind you, neither of you looking to see where it landed.

His eyes dropped.

The moment he saw what you were wearing underneath, his breath hitched—and for a second, he didn’t move. A soft cotton sports bra in a worn, dusky pink–simple, comfortable, a little faded from wash after wash–but the way it hugged you? The way it molded to the curve of your breasts, straps digging gently into your warm skin?

Bob Floyd looked like he’d forgotten how to speak.

He swallowed once. Then again. His glasses had slipped slightly lower on his nose, giving him that boyish, dazed expression he got whenever something completely wrecked his train of thought. You watched his eyes trail over you, caught between reverence and want, and then–

He hummed. A soft, breathy sound from deep in his chest. Something unfiltered. Something warm.

Then he looked back up at you.

And kissed you again.

His hands gripped your hips now, anchoring you down in his lap like he didn’t want you to shift an inch. He kissed you harder–open-mouthed, deep, letting out a quiet groan as your hips rocked forward ever so slightly. He didn’t say anything. Just let the noise fall between you, ragged and raw, swallowing your gasp as he shifted his grip and guided you until your back hit the mattress.

The room spun gently with the motion, soft yellow light from the lamp catching in the lenses of his glasses as he leaned over you. His body followed—broad shoulders, warm bare chest pressing down as he settled between your legs. He braced his hands on either side of your ribcage, framing you like a question he couldn’t stop asking. His eyes searched your face for just a second, but you nodded–softly, wordlessly–already reaching for him again.

He dipped his head.

Kissed your throat.

Then lower.

And lower still.

He took his time.

Every press of his lips trailed down the line of your collarbone, across the top swell of your breasts where the fabric cut gently across your skin. His glasses slipped again, nearly falling off–but he didn’t stop. Didn’t even lift a hand to adjust them. He kissed you through the blur, lips brushing the tops of your breasts like they were something sacred.

You let out a quiet sound–half gasp, half moan–and threaded your fingers into his hair again. His tongue flicked out, tasting the salt of your skin as he groaned softly against you.

“Are you always this sensual?” you whispered, voice thick, dazed, breathless.

Bob let out a quiet sigh, like your question made something in him ease and deepen at the same time.

“Let’s just say I love giving…” He murmured, kissing the center of your chest. “…A lot.”

The way he said it–low, quiet, honest–made your legs clench involuntarily around his waist. Your mind flooded with images far too filthy for someone as sweet as Bob Floyd to inspire.

But then again, the way he looked right now–glasses fogging, lips red and glistening, his chest moving in slow, hungry waves with every breath–maybe he wasn’t that sweet after all.

His fingers reached for the thin straps of your bra.

“Hope you don’t mind,” He whispered against your skin, lips still pressing hot kisses between every word.

You shook your head quickly. “I don’t mind at all…”

With a reverent kind of care, he slipped the straps off your shoulders. One. Then the other. His fingers brushed your arms on the way down, the backs of his knuckles ghosting over your skin like he was memorizing it. Then–slowly, carefully–he tugged the fabric down, baring you to him inch by inch.

His breath hitched.

Your breasts, soft and flushed from heat and touch, rose with every breath you took. Bob didn’t reach for you right away. He just…Looked. Let himself take it in. His hands slid up your sides again–rougher now, purposeful–and when they cupped the curve beneath your breasts, his thumbs brushed upward, stroking slowly until your nipples tightened under the attention.

His glasses fogged completely.

Still, he didn’t take them off.

He leaned in and kissed the soft mound of your left breast, then your right, each kiss dragging slower than the last. His lips were gentle, his hands firm, and when he finally brushed the tip of his tongue over your nipple, your hips bucked without warning.

“God,” You whispered, your hands fisting in the sheets beside you. Bob just smiled. Quietly. Like he knew exactly what he was doing.

“Sensitive?” he murmured, lips hovering just over your nipple again, breath warm and teasing.

You shook your head slowly, fingers curling into the sheets. “I call it anticipation.”

His low laugh rumbled against your skin. “Didn’t know we were calling it that now… but okay.”

Then he kissed you again–this time firmer, lips wrapping around your nipple with a slow, aching pull that made your hips twitch beneath him. His tongue was wet and warm, lapping slow circles around the soft peak before closing over it again, sucking just a little deeper now–just enough to make you moan quietly, enough to send a thrum straight between your thighs.

His hands didn’t stop, either–broad palms sliding up and down the sides of your ribcage, thumbs sweeping in careful, reverent passes. He alternated between breasts with the same kind of concentration you’d seen in study sessions: deliberate, measured, like he was solving you.

And when he finally pulled away, lips red and glistening from worship, he blew a soft, chilled stream of air across your saliva-slick nipple–then the other.

Your entire body arched. He watched it happen with wide eyes, completely entranced.

Then–without a word–you sat up.

He blinked in surprise, hands still resting on your sides as you reached behind yourself and unhooked your bra the rest of the way, slipping the fabric down your arms and flinging it off the bed. The second it landed somewhere behind you, you laid back down–bare, flushed, and completely open.

Bob’s breath hitched hard. His glasses had slipped lower again, fogged beyond all reason now, and he still hadn’t touched them. He didn’t even seem aware of the state he was in–just that you were laid out beneath him, chest rising in unsteady waves, eyes soft but daring.

He exhaled shakily.

And then he moved lower.

He kissed the center of your sternum once, then again, trailing down past your navel with slow, reverent care. When he reached the waistband of your boxer shorts, he paused. His hands came to rest just above your hips, fingers curling slightly under the band.

He looked up at you, eyes glassy and dark behind the silver frames.

You nodded–slow, sure.

That was all he needed.

He pulled the fabric down just an inch. Then another. Just enough to reveal the top of your hips, the soft line of your lower stomach. His lips followed–kissing each inch as it was exposed, trailing warmth into places that had never felt this kind of attention before. The contrast between the heat of his mouth and the cool air made your thighs twitch, and he hummed softly against your skin.

“God, you’re beautiful,” He whispered. “You don’t even know, do you…”

You didn’t respond. Couldn’t, really. Your fingers were tangled in the sheets again, breath catching every time his lips brushed lower, every time he said something in that breathless, reverent voice that made you feel like he was seeing you for the first time.

When he reached the base of your hips, he gave the waistband a firmer tug, and you lifted your hips to help him–knees bending slightly, thighs parting as he pulled the shorts down your legs. He slid them off with practiced care, and you watched as he tossed them aside with the same nonchalance he’d flung his shirt–like every barrier between you was one more step toward something sacred.

He paused there.

Just knelt between your legs for a second, hands resting on your thighs, eyes locked on yours like he needed to anchor himself before continuing. Then–without saying anything–he pushed your thighs up gently, spreading you open just enough.

His mouth pressed to the inside of your knee.

You gasped.

It wasn’t just a kiss. It was a claim. A promise. His lips lingered there for a second, and then they moved–trailing up the inside of your thigh in slow, wet presses, each one firmer than the last.

“You’ve got no idea,” He murmured against your skin. “How long I’ve wanted to do this… How many times I’ve imagined being between your thighs just like this…”

His teeth grazed the sensitive skin just above your inner thigh, and your hips jerked slightly at the contact. He didn’t move away. Just kissed the spot he’d grazed. Then again. Higher this time.

“Wanted to take my time with you,” He whispered, voice low, breath hot. “Make sure you know what it feels like when someone actually wants to do this…” Your hands gripped the comforter.

“I want to hear the way you sound when it’s good. When it’s real. When it’s slow…”

He kissed the top of your inner thigh–right at the edge of where you needed him most.

Then, finally, he glanced up–his glasses slightly crooked, cheeks flushed, mouth slick with his saliva and swollen.

“I’m gonna take such good care of you,” He said softly. “You’ll never forget it.”

His tongue moved with devastating precision–slow, savoring, like he had all the time in the world and wasn’t about to waste a single second.

He started with a kiss-low, just at the edge of your folds, then dragged his tongue up in one long, warm stripe that made your legs twitch. You gasped, hands flying instinctively to his hair as he groaned into you, deep and low, like he’d been starving for this.

“Jesus–Bob–” You whispered, voice cracking on the edge of a moan.

He didn’t answer. Just licked you again, slower this time, tongue flattening against you with such gentleness it made your stomach tighten. Then he did it again. And again. Until the room dissolved into heat and breath and the wet, obscene sound of him eating you like you were the only thing he’d ever wanted.

And maybe you were.

He used his mouth like a worshipper—like this wasn’t about getting you off, but about tasting everything he’d been dreaming of for weeks. He kissed your clit softly at first, then circled it with his tongue—just enough pressure to make you cry out, just enough to leave you chasing more. Your hips rocked against his mouth before you could stop them, and instead of pulling back, he moaned again, deeper this time, and grabbed your thighs—holding you open like a man possessed.

His fingers dug gently into your hips as he sucked on you now, lips wrapped around your clit with wet, deliberate pulls. His glasses were fogged beyond saving, the lenses glinting in the dorm light as they slipped further down his nose. He didn’t stop. Didn’t lift his head once. Just kept tasting and kissing and groaning like your body was the only thing he needed to study for the rest of his life.

You whimpered.

“F-Fuck, Bob–too good–”

That finally earned a reaction. He groaned again, louder, like your words were gasoline, and then–God–he slipped two fingers between your thighs, slick with your arousal, and pushed them in with a slow, practiced ease.

Your back arched.

The stretch was perfect. His fingers curled immediately, searching for that spot–and finding it like he’d mapped it out ahead of time. His mouth never left your clit, tongue flicking faster now, suction intensifying just slightly, just enough to send a full-body tremor through you.

“C’mon,” He murmured between strokes, voice ragged, lips brushing against you with every syllable. “That’s it… Just like that. Let me hear you.”

You did.

You let go of any remaining shred of restraint and moaned–loud, broken, lost to the rhythm of his fingers and the warmth of his mouth. Your thighs shook, your body tightening, unraveling. The dorm room felt like it might dissolve around you.

“G-Gonna–”

“I know,” he whispered, breath hot, eyes glassy as he looked up at you from between your thighs. “Go ahead. I got you.”

And then he did something devastating.

He sucked harder.

Curled his fingers deeper.

And moaned into you like your orgasm was his reward.

You shattered.

Your hands clutched his hair, your legs tensed around his head, and your breath broke into a stuttering cry as he licked you through it–never stopping, never letting up. He worshipped you all the way through your high, his mouth messy, eager, lips slick with you as he kept kissing, kept groaning, like your pleasure was the only thing that mattered.

When you finally slumped back, shaking, panting, spent–he didn’t move right away.

He kissed your inner thigh.

Then again. And again.

Then trailed up your body with soft, slow presses of his mouth, leaving a trail of your own taste on his lips as he made his way back up. His chest hovered over yours, his weight warm and solid, and when he finally kissed your mouth again–full and deep–you could taste yourself on his tongue.

And he let you.

Let you feel it.

Let you know exactly what he’d just done to you.

He pulled back from the kiss, hovering above you, mouth swollen from all the work he had done, lips slightly parted. He looked wrecked in the most beautiful way–hair mussed from your fingers, flushed cheeks, chest rising with the weight of restraint.

Then, like a flicker of light through the haze, he let out a breathy laugh. Quiet. Disbelieving. Joyful.

You laughed too–soft, breathless, dazed–your palm dragging slowly down his bare chest before reaching up to push his glasses back up his nose. The lenses had slipped almost entirely off his face, smudged and misted at the edges. You caught the little fingerprints and streaks near the bottom and smiled, chest still heaving slightly as you murmured:

“Where…The hell did you learn that?”

Bob’s laugh deepened this time, short and warm, his entire face flushing deeper crimson. He covered his face with one hand for a second, then dropped it to your waist, eyes shining with both amusement and bashfulness.

“From…My past partners?” He said, half like a question, half like a confession. “I told you I’m a giver. I may look timid but…As you can tell, I know my stuff.”

You grinned, your heart skipping at how proud–but still modest–he sounded. You leaned up, catching his mouth in another kiss, slower now, languid. He hummed against your lips, eyes fluttering shut as his hands pulled you just a little closer.

“Bit surprising,” you whispered against his mouth.

He nodded, kissing you again, hands smoothing down your sides. “I know.”

And it would’ve stayed gentle, dreamy, lazy like that–until your hand drifted between your bodies.

You hadn’t been trying to tease. Not really. But when your palm brushed over the thick bulge in his jeans, the way his breath hitched immediately had you curling your fingers lightly around him, just enough to feel the weight of him. The heat. The hardness pressing insistently behind the denim.

You smiled, eyes soft but mischievous. “Your turn?”

But to your surprise, Bob flinched—barely, but it was there. His hand caught your wrist gently, not to push you away, but to pause.

“It’s okay,” he said softly.

You blinked, your palm still resting against him. “What?” You tilted your head. “You don’t… even want to have sex?”

“It’s not that,” he said quickly, eyes darting to yours before lowering again. “I just…It’s really okay. You don’t have to.”

You sat up slightly, just enough to bring your faces closer again, concern slipping behind your smile.

“Are you…” Your voice gentle. “Are you nervous?”

His lashes fluttered. A breath stalled in his throat. And that was all the answer you needed.

You reached for his cheek, thumb brushing gently beneath his eye. His skin was hot, his jaw tight, but he leaned into your touch like he needed it.

“Bob,” You said softly, a smile curling into your voice. “How can you be nervous after you just gave me the best orgasm of my life?”

That made his eyes shoot open–just a little. You watched his expression shift. Like he’d heard something he hadn’t expected. Like praise landed harder than touch ever could.

“Seriously,” you continued, your voice warm and slow, “That was unreal. No one’s ever touched me like that. Not like they wanted to. Not like they were…Memorizing it.”

His mouth parted. You didn’t miss the way his breath trembled now. His hips shifted slightly against yours, and when you glanced down, you could see he was getting harder from your words alone.

You kissed the corner of his jaw. “You’re incredible, Bob.”

A sound left him–barely a sound, more of a low exhale, like it physically knocked something loose in him. His hand tightened slightly on your waist.

“You made me feel so good,” You whispered. “Safe. Wanted. Perfect.”

His eyes closed, lips parting with a shaky breath, and his hips rolled the tiniest bit into your palm. You could feel how much he wanted it now. How much he wanted you. He just hadn’t known if he was allowed.

And God, the way he responded to praise–it made something ache inside you.

Your foreheads rested together, breath shared in the quiet space between words, between heartbeats.

“Let’s do it together, hm?” You murmured, your voice warm and coaxing–softened with affection, laced with intent.

Bob let out the tiniest breath of a laugh, and his lips brushed yours as he smiled. “Okay.”

The word was nearly a whisper, but it carried weight–an unspoken trust folding itself into the syllables.

You leaned back just enough to reach between your bodies, your fingers brushing against the button of his jeans. He inhaled, shaky and quiet, watching you as you popped it open, then tugged the zipper down. The sound broke the hush of the room, loud in the stillness.

Bob shifted, lifting himself up just enough to hook his thumbs into the waistband. He wriggled out of his jeans with a little bit of awkwardness, and when the denim bunched at his ankles, he kicked them off with a grunt.

You both laughed. Low and breathless, the kind of laughter that came when something was too intimate not to be a little bit funny.

His glasses slid further down his nose.

“Sexy,” You teased, bumping your knee gently against his side.

He rolled his eyes–blushing, flustered, but grinning–and settled back between your thighs, his hands bracing himself on either side of your hips now. The closeness allowed you a better view of him, and you didn’t waste the opportunity.

Your gaze drifted downward. His boxer briefs were tented–straining. You could see the thick outline of him pressed against the fabric, the darkened patch of wetness at the tip where he was already leaking.

Your hand slid slowly down the middle of his torso–over the soft rise and fall of his stomach, the faint ridges of muscle, the trail of hair beneath his navel. Bob held perfectly still, his breath shallow, watching you.

When your fingers ghosted along the inside of his waistband, just above the swell of him, he sucked in a breath through his teeth.

“Tease,” He muttered, voice tight.

You didn’t deny it.

Instead, you slid your fingers a little deeper. Tugged the fabric down just enough to expose him.

He sprang free with a soft, needy sound escaping his throat.

Your eyes widened slightly.

He was…Big. Thick, flushed, already glistening with precum. The head was ruddy and swollen, shiny with need, and your stomach fluttered at the realization that he’d gotten like this just from pleasuring you.

He looked desperate.

You wrapped your fingers around him slowly, your palm sliding up his length with soft pressure. His breath hitched immediately, head tilting back slightly. His glasses slid another fraction down his nose, but he didn’t move to fix them–just closed his eyes for a moment, his chest lifting in a shallow, shivering inhale.

You stroked him again–long, slow, deliberate. Your grip was just firm enough to make him twitch, your thumb swiping over the slick bead at his tip.

His hips bucked. He gasped, and then let out a shaky laugh.

“Sensitive?” you murmured, lips tugging into a knowing smirk.

Bob’s head dropped forward a bit, cheeks flushed to hell. His voice cracked slightly.

“N-no…Anticipation.” He corrected jokingly, using your own words against you.

You laughed softly. So did he.

But you didn’t stop.

You kept stroking him, slow and sensual, your hand gliding up and down the length of him, savoring every tremble in his thighs, every shift in his breath, every twitch of his fingers against the mattress beside you. He was fully braced now, arms trembling slightly as he rocked into your touch.

His voice came out thin, frayed at the edges.

“I’m really…Really not gonna last if you keep doing that, and…” He swallowed hard, voice dropping to a whisper, “And I really do want to have sex with you…”

His eyes met yours. Wide. Pleading. Vulnerable.

Like he wanted to say more but couldn’t figure out how.

You leaned up slowly, hand still wrapped around him, lips brushing his ear.

“No need to beg…” You whispered, voice thick with heat. “But if you want to come inside me, Bob…Then you better hurry up and get these off.”

His whole body jolted.

A groan–low, raw, helpless–escaped him.

His boxer briefs were gone a second later. Pushed down and kicked away without a single thought, like he couldn’t bear another second of distance.

He came back over you with reverent slowness–climbing the length of your body like he was rediscovering it inch by inch.

His bare chest skimmed yours, warm and solid. His hips dipped low, the hard length of him brushing against the inside of your thigh, and your breath hitched at the contact.

“God,” he whispered, voice raw as his lips brushed against your neck. “You feel so good already.”

You arched into him just slightly, your hands finding his shoulders–broad and warm beneath your palms, still trembling faintly from restraint. His glasses were fogging again, slipping lower, but he didn’t seem to notice. Didn’t care.

He kissed the side of your neck.

Then your jaw.

Then your cheek–lingering there with a kind of gentleness that made your stomach twist.

And then he kissed your mouth again. Slow. Sweet. Deep.

You moaned softly into him.

The tops of his thighs pressed flush to the backs of yours now, his cock resting heavily between your legs–leaking precum that smeared slightly against your inner thigh as he shifted to fit himself against you perfectly.

His hand rose to your cheek, cradling it, thumb stroking lightly against your skin as he pulled back just enough to speak.

“You sure?” He asked softly, voice shaking with the weight of everything he was holding in. His eyes searched yours, pupils blown, cheeks flushed.

You nodded. Slow. Certain.

“I’m sure,” You whispered. He let out a shaky breath, then he reached down between the both of you, eyes never leaving yours.

You felt the warm glide of his knuckles against your folds first, then the soft, slick drag of his cock as he slowly ran the tip of himself through your arousal.

Your breath caught.

He swirled it over your clit once, twice–just enough to make your thighs twitch.

And God, the way he looked at you while he did it.

Eyes locked. Lips parted. Worship written into every line of his face, made you feel dizzy.

“You’re so wet,” He murmured. “You feel…Unreal.” You whimpered, your nails digging lightly into his shoulder as your other hand wrapped tighter around his bicep.

“Bob…” You whispered, voice already trembling. “Please.”

He leaned down, pressing a kiss to your lips–soft and slow and steady.

Then–finally–he began to push in.

You both moaned.

The stretch hit immediately, slow and burning, a delicious ache that made your spine arch and your mouth fall open.

“F-fuck,” Bob gasped, his forehead dropping briefly to yours as he sank in inch by inch. “God, you’re–you’re so tight. So warm. You feel so good…Wow…” Your hips shifted, trying to take more, and his hands immediately gripped your thighs, grounding you.

“Easy,” He said, kissing the corner of your mouth. “I got you. Just breathe.”

You nodded, your head swimming.

He pushed deeper.

You could feel every inch–every throb of him, every shudder in his breath as your walls stretched around him.

“Just like that,” He murmured. “Doing so good. Taking me so well.” You whimpered, and the sound cracked open something in him.

“You like that?” He whispered, kissing your cheek again, his hips rolling just the slightest bit deeper. “You like hearing how perfect you feel around me?”

“Yes,” you gasped. “God, yes, Bob–keep talking–please–”

“Fuck,” He breathed, his voice breaking again. “You’re gonna kill me.”

He rocked forward the last inch with a soft, helpless moan. Your body trembled beneath his as you adjusted, your thighs hugging his hips, your hands gripping him tightly. Bob groaned into your neck, voice ragged.

“God…You’re perfect. I swear, you’re–Jesus, I don’t even know how to describe this–” You turned your head, catching his mouth again in a deep, desperate kiss. You could feel him trembling above you, his muscles taut, breath stuttering with the effort of staying still.

“You feel so fucking good, Bob–so full–so deep–” His breath hitched.

“Say that again,” He whimpered, “Please.”

You kissed his neck, your voice thick with heat.

“You fill me up so good…God it feels amazing.” Bob let out a deep moan.

Then he began to move.

Just a tiny thrust at first–barely pulling out before pressing back in, the friction slow and hot and devastating.

Your mouth fell open.

His lips ghosted over your cheek as he whispered, “Gonna make you come on me just like this…” Your back arched at the words, your cheek bumping against his glasses. “You like the sound of that?” He added. Your fingers curled into his shoulder blades, nails dragging softly over warm skin as you nodded, breath catching on a moan.

“Yes…Yes, please.”

The quiet plea cracked something open in him.

He kissed you again–mouth hot, searching, needier this time–and his hips began to move.

Slow at first.

A deep roll forward, dragging his length out almost completely before easing back in, the friction molten, smooth, aching. You gasped into his mouth, your body lifting slightly to meet the next thrust. Bob groaned–low and husky–and pulled back just enough to look at you.

His pupils were blown wide, sweat dampening the hair at his temples, glasses fogging up again from your breath. Still, he didn’t take them off. He looked wrecked. Gorgeous. Reverent.

“God, you feel…” He whispered, voice thick and ruined as he rocked into you again, a little harder this time, “So good…So tight around me, baby–oh god.” Your breath stuttered. The nickname, unintentional or not, hit low and warm and made you clench involuntarily around him.

He felt it.

He swore softly–“Jesus”–and dropped his head to your shoulder, the next thrust coming sharper, more instinctual.

Your hands roamed—up his back, over the rise of his shoulders, down to his hips where your fingers dug in just slightly. He kissed your neck between thrusts, then bit gently just beneath your ear, and the second his teeth grazed your skin, you gasped.

Your body clenched again.

Bob moaned, full and broken.

“Fuck, that–You like that?” He murmured, voice hot and desperate against your ear. “You like when I do that?”

“Y-Yeah,” You whispered, trembling, lips brushing the shell of his ear. “You feel so good, Bob…You’re hitting every part of me.”

He groaned–long, low, filthy in how soft it sounded. His hips began to move faster now, deeper, each thrust dragging a moan from your throat, and his hands slid beneath your thighs, hiking them higher around his waist so he could sink in even further.

“God, you’re perfect,” He praised. “You’re so perfect for me. Every inch of you–I swear–fuck–”

Your head fell back against the pillow. You were gasping now, barely able to respond, but you tried. You wanted him to hear it. You wanted him to know.

“You’re so good at this,” You panted, voice trembling. “So good at making me feel good–God, you’re incredible, Bob–”

His whole body stilled for half a second, as if praise struck something too deep.

Then he moved faster.

A rougher thrust–still controlled, still measured, but heavier now, thicker with want. He let out a moan against your neck, raw and hot, and your back arched at the sound.

You could feel him everywhere–his chest brushing yours, his lips at your throat, his hands gripping you tight like he needed to feel every part of you at once.

You cried out, hips lifting into his, clenching around him with every thick, slick stroke. He felt it. Groaned again. Slid one hand up your body to cradle the side of your face.

“Look at me,” he breathed, voice hoarse.

You did.

And the second your eyes locked, his pace stuttered–just for a heartbeat–like the sight of you, soft and dazed and open beneath him, was enough to make him lose rhythm.

Then he started thrusting again. Deep. Steady. Hot.

“I want you to come on me,” He whispered, voice cracking with the weight of it. “I want to feel you come again–want to hear how good it feels.”

Your lips parted. Your thighs trembled.

“Bob,” You gasped, desperate now. “You’re so good–please don’t stop–please–”

He kissed you again. Deep. Desperate. All tongue and breath and heat. His thrusts got heavier, faster, until you could feel your climax curling up your spine like a fuse.

“You’re close, aren’t you?” He murmured, hips stuttering with restraint. “I can feel it, baby… You’re so tight–so fucking wet–come for me–please–“

You shattered.

With a cry that broke in the middle, your walls clenched around him, waves of heat and release rolling through you so hard your vision blurred. Bob moaned your name–ragged, reverent–thrusting into you a few more times before he groaned loud against your shoulder and came with a shuddering, broken gasp. Bob’s entire body tensed as he came–his cock pulsing deep inside you, hips stuttering against yours in involuntary thrusts as thick, hot ropes of cum filled you.

You felt everything.

The way his muscles tensed above you, taut and trembling. The low, broken sound he made as he buried his face in your neck. The way his arms curled tighter around your waist like he needed to hold onto something to stay connected to consciousness

“F-Fuck,” He choked out, hips giving one more weak, slow push. His release was hot and endless, spreading warmth low in your belly as his body finally started to give in. His breathing was ragged, the heat of it ghosting over your skin. He didn’t pull out right away.

Didn’t move at all for a long moment.

Just slumped forward, his bare chest sticky against yours, the last tremors of orgasm still rolling through him. His forehead pressed into your shoulder, and you felt him exhale with all the weight of a man undone.

Even the frames of his glasses were warm.

You let your arms slide around his back, hands splayed wide across the muscles there, sticky with sweat, anchoring you both. The only sounds in the room were your shallow, echoing breaths, and the soft hum of a distant hallway light buzzing just outside your dorm door.

Bob’s weight against you felt right. Heavy in the best way. Settled. Natural.

Your fingertips traced slow, thoughtless patterns over his back as you both lay tangled together, letting the afterglow settle around your limbs like warm syrup. Your heartbeats synced slowly–yours still fluttering, his gradually calming.

And then–

He shifted.

Lifted himself slightly on one trembling arm, the other brushing your hair back from your forehead. His cheeks were flushed, his lips pink, and his glasses crooked beyond saving. His smile was dazed. Soft. Glowing.

He leaned in and kissed you again. A soft kiss. Lingering. The kind of kiss that said thank you, and also more, and also stay.

When he pulled back, still breathless, still inside you, he murmured:

“We’re gonna have to start going to the library to study.”

You blinked. Confused. Flushed and blinking at him through the haze, your breath still catching a little in your throat.

“…Why?” You asked, voice hoarse but amused, one hand reaching up to gently smooth the short, light brown strands of his hair that were now sticking out in every direction.

His smile widened–lopsided and boyish, just a little cocky.

“Because we’re never going to get any studying done if we’re near a bed…” He murmured, pressing a kiss to your jaw. “The temptation will be too strong.”

You laughed–light, breathless, your chest shaking under his with the sound.

“Well,” You teased, trailing your fingertips down the curve of his back, “There goes that positive reinforcement idea, then.”

Bob leaned in and kissed your cheek. Then the tip of your nose.

“I’m sure we can figure out a replacement,” He replied, “Something that can be done in public spaces.”

You burst out laughing.

He did too.