°i ain't doin it°

With a sigh and a wave of your hand, you gave Olivia the okay to answer the question. She happily took your permission and ran with it, always the first to answer any questions you posed in class. If only the rest of these damn middle schoolers were as eager as she was.

“Penelope didn’t want to marry anyone else, so she gave them an impossible task,”

“Why does she always know everything?”

Marcus thought his comment was whispered just low enough that you wouldn’t hear him in the first row, but he was never quite that lucky. He quickly shut his mouth and looked anywhere but in your direction the second he caught sight of the disapproving look you were casting directly at him.

“You are exactly right, Olivia. Thank you for answering my question,” there were a few chuckles in the room at the obvious sarcasm laced through your words, as you hopped up onto your desk to relax and get a better look around the room full of kids. “Penelope knew the only person that could string her husband’s bow, was her husband himself. She needed to buy time, especially when these suitors only really wanted to be the ones to inherit Ithaca-”

There was a loud knocking on the door to your classroom that had been left open for the last 20 minutes of class, interrupting your words. You weren’t surprised in the slightest to meet the eyes of none other than Ryland Grace, the science teacher.

“Uh- sorry! Didn’t mean to interrupt important book talk stuff. Super important, you uh-you never know when Shakespeare will come up at your future desk job,” the cringe that Ryland physically did at his own comment was easy to see, even from across the room. He gave you a sheepish smile, his glasses barely hanging onto his face from their unconventional spot hanging off of one of his ears. The blonde held up the brown bag in his hand, and you could practically smell the food that rested inside. “I’m early, I’m sorry. Didn’t think you’d want to have a cold burger for lunch.”

“I told you!” Marcus still didn’t understand the concept of a whisper, leaning over to his best friend Jason at the desk beside him, slapping him on the arm. “They’re totally dating!”

“As if Mr. Grace could pull her,”

There was a chorus of snickers and laughter through the class, any semblance of order you might’ve had descending into chaos as every single one of your loveable, little shits just kept casting looks between you and Ryland, who still stood awkwardly in your classroom doorway with reddened cheeks.

Your face was surely no better, you were sure you could feel the heat that was emanating off of your skin, as you ran a hand down the burning skin of your face and wondered why you chose to teach these little menaces for the rest of your life. The world decided to be kind to the pair of you though, for once, letting the lunch bell save you from any further embarrassment from a group of 13 year olds.

“Please come to class prepared to actually answer questions tomorrow!” you called out over the hustle and bustle of the class as they grabbed their things, eager to scurry off to their lunch hour and finally eat. “Your unit test is at the end of next week, and I would prefer not to fail all of you.”

They weren’t listening, but by this point in the day you were hungry and didn’t have the energy to try and argue with them.

Any of that tiredness they brought to your bones? It disappeared the second you watched the way they all interacted with Ryland on their way out the door.

Big smiles, every single one of them excited to see the school’s favorite science teacher lingering in the doorway to their English class. You could just barely hear the tail end of one of Ryland’s terrible science puns, something about a hungry planet needing a ‘light snack’ that got a groan out of Marcus. All it did was bring a soft smile to your face, though, one that somehow softened even more at the quick, secret handshake Olivia shared with him before she was out the door.

Then, it was just the two of you, smiling like idiots as you locked eyes across the room again. And god, did you want that fluttering group of butterflies in your stomach to calm down for just a moment.

Having a crush on Dr. Ryland Grace, the former molecular biologist turned San Francisco middle school science teacher, was inevitable from the moment you turned up at the school for your first day over a year ago. Incredibly smart, amazing with kids, and so incredibly handsome you thought your heart stopped beating the first time you saw him–hell, Mrs. Doyle, the math teacher for over 5 years, said there were at least 4 other young teachers that absolutely had crushes on this man. You were far from the first.

He broke that perfect vision of himself you were building in your head within 5 minutes of meeting, tripping over his own two feet and knocking the stack of papers a mile high from the Principal’s hands, but you had only found it even more endearing.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he apologized again, long legs striding across the room and reaching your desk in a matter of seconds. “I had a free period before this, a-and you mentioned this morning you forgot lunch so I grabbed some for both of us-”

“Sal’s?” you questioned, pointing to the bag of foot now sitting on your desk with the familiar logo. “They’re, like, 10 blocks away. Why’d you go that far?”

“Because I know they’re your favorite,”

The flare of heat in your cheeks was instant. Ryland Grace, who rode a damn bike to the school every day, used his free period to ride 10 blocks away and pick you up lunch from your favorite spot, all because you mentioned offhandedly at 7 a.m. about forgetting your lunch for the day.

Well, he certainly didn’t do that for the four fresh out of college teachers that had crushes on him. You’d mentally consider that a hefty win in your book.

“How sweet of you to remember,” Ryland simply waved you off, head turned away as he passed your wrapped burger into your hands, taking up space on your desk chair while you stayed comfortable on top of your desk. “You even remembered tomatoes this time!”

“I forgot them one time and I never hear the end of it,” laughter was shared between you both for a moment as Grace took a bite of his own burger. “I caught the tail end of that discussion. Olivia answering all your questions like a champ?”

“Isn’t she always,” you shot back with another laugh, turning slightly on your desk to better face him. “I swear she’s the only one that I can ever get to answer any of my questions. She might be the only one that does any of my assigned readings.”

“To be fair, can you blame her?” Ryland’s words were muffled slightly by the food in his mouth. You couldn’t even contain the slight smile that grew as he managed to just barely catch the ketchup dripping off his burger before it could smear itself on the stack of papers that needed graded at your desk. “Shakespeare was just…so interesting. Couldn’t get enough of his stuff. Don’t know why your kids don’t want to read it.”

There was silence for a moment, your eyebrow quirked in his direction. The blonde stopped mid bite of his burger, looking back at you quizzically, trying to figure out what he had said wrong.

“You know we’re currently learning The Odyssey, right?”

“Yes?”

“I’ll let you think about that for a second,”

He did, just slowly blinking in your direction. He glanced at the chalkboard behind you, covering in little notes you’d made throughout the class discussion, before they flickered to the copy of the book that sat on your desk. That was finally when you saw the light bulb flicker on above his head, Ryland’s eyes shutting as he let out a loud sigh.

“...that wasn’t written by Shakespeare, was it?”

The laughter that bubbled out of you practically had you throwing your head backward.

“No, but I’m sure Homer won’t be too offended,” feet landing on the ground as you hopped off your desk, you gave Ryland’s shoulder a quick squeeze as you moved past him. “The attempt was cute, though, it was a good try.”

Cute. Why in the world did you let that one slip? You were practically cursing yourself in your head for that one, taking another bite of your burger as you worked to erase the whiteboard to prepare it for your next class. You didn’t dare steal a glance over at Ryland, in fear that your little slip-up was going to ruin everything.

There was only quiet for a moment before the single moment of awkwardness was gone.

“I promise you I know Homer wrote that. I swear!”

The desperation to believe him drew another laugh out of you. Sparing a glance in his direction, Ryland was giving you his best, exaggerated puppy dog eyes, begging you to believe him, as a smile just barely squeaked its way onto his lips.

“Right, of course you did. My mistake. Whatever you say, Ryland-”

“I mean it!” It was his turn to laugh this time, a sound that had those butterflies rattling around once more. “I was just…distracted.”

“Uh-huh, distracted,” as if you were preparing to scold one of your students, you turned to face him fully with a hand on your hip, eyebrow raised expectantly. “By what, exactly?”

If a human being could buffer, Ryland Grace always seemed to be constantly buffering. Your eyebrow remained raised, waiting for him to piece together his response. All he could do was open and close his mouth like a fish, before looking away and taking another bite of his food.

“Nevermind that, just finish your food before it gets cold. I did bike, like, three miles to get that thing,”

With a roll of your eyes that held zero malice what-so-ever, you made sure the blonde could see your next bite of your food, a satisfied smile on his face.

“Back to the previous topic,” you steered the conversation in another direction, wiping off the last bits of chalk on the board and writing down your next period at the top so that you could start the discussion on the reading over again. “I don’t understand why it’s so hard to get some of these kids to just read the content. They all pay attention in your class!”

“I heard Jason make a comment yesterday during class that Marcus has a crush on Olivia. Maybe they’re too distracted to read,”

You shot him a skeptical look.

“Marcus, crushing on Olivia? He was just making fun of her before you came in the room,”

Ryland averted his eyes, suddenly very interested in his ID badge hanging around his neck from his school issues lanyard.

“W-well, maybe he just doesn’t…know how to express his feelings,” he spared a glance up at you, seeing you were still watching, as he tripped over his words again. “It can be hard for boys–and men–of all ages, to…tell someone how they feel.”

“Well, I don’t know where he’s learning from, but making fun of the girl you like isn’t the right way to go about things,” you shot back.

“Then teach them!” Ryland sounded absolutely ecstatic, that light bulb over his head going off again as he looked like he’d come up with the world’s greatest idea. “Classic literature, there’s plenty of great love stories in there. Get his interest by teaching them about that, so he can learn from them.”

“Alright, give me an example then, Mr. Suddenly an Expert in Classic Literature,”

“Romeo and Juliet,” he said like it was the easiest thing in the world, balling up the remnants of his finished food and tossing it in the bag it came in. “Greatest love story ever told, so great Taylor Swift wrote a song about them.”

“Except they don’t run off and get married and live happily ever after, Ryland. Romeo thinks she is dead and kills himself with poison, and when Juliet realizes he’s dead she stabs herself,”

Ryland’s excitement fell slightly, his mouth forming a little ‘o’ shape.

“...oh,”

“Don’t think that’s what I want to teach young, impressionable pre-teens about love-”

“Daisy and Gatsby, then! He loved her so much he stood on that dock staring at the-the bright yellow light of a stoplight for her,”

“It was a green light and it was the dock light, first of all. I’m not even sure how you could be that off. Secondly, Gatsby is murdered at the end of the book and Daisy doesn’t even attend the funeral, she and Tom move away and pretend it never happened,”

Ryland’s eyes are shut at this point, his fingers massaging his temples and those glasses just barely hanging on from their place around his neck.

“...does anyone not die in these old books?”

The sound of your laughter permeates the room and you sweep over, collecting his trash and combining it with yours. You never even spared him a glance, though you could feel his eyes on you, as you swept the trash away with you to the other side of the room, his voice echoing across to you.

“I’m going to get lucky on one of these guesses!”

What Ryland Grace was really lucky about was how adorable you found him, and how head over heels you were for him, because his lack of literary knowledge was astounding.

❤︎

“I’m sorry, you’re trying to tell me that aren’t currently fucking the eye candy that is the science teacher in room 305?”

“Evelyn!”

Evelyn Doyle was in her late thirties, married since she was 18, and already had three kids with her high school sweetheart. Since you had transferred into Grover Cleveland Middle, you’d become fast friends and she had become a great mentor.

She had, sadly, caught onto your pathetic crush on Ryland Grace before you had even fully realized it, and was now ‘vicariously living through you’ as she always said.

“There’s not a single child left in this entire school right now,” she shot back, gesturing around her empty classroom, as she finished cleaning up anything her students had left around at the end of the day. You rolled your eyes at her excuse, perched on the edge of her desk. “Please, I’m tenured, what are they going to do?”

“I’m more so yelling at you for butting into my love life, once again,” was your reply through laughter. “Ryland and I are good friends, that’s it.”

It was her turn to laugh, finishing up her cleanup around the room before she joined you at her desk, packing her things away into her shoulder bag.

“Oh please, you keep denying that little crush of yours-”

“I never said I was denying that,” you cut her off. “Lord, you realized I liked him before I even did. But he and I aren’t anything besides friends. I’m not lying.”

Your pleas fell on deaf ears, like they typically did when you were around Evelyn. She simply waved your statement off, tossing her bag over her shoulder as you followed her out of her room and down through the quiet of the school hallway. The quietest the hallway ever was, in the hours right after students were sent home for the day. You’d rather be anywhere else, preferably at home, but these mandatory once-a-month staff meetings were unavoidable.

“Whether you’re telling me the truth or not, you have to understand why everyone thinks so–teachers AND students. I think even some parents think so!” The only response she got was an eyeroll, her shoulder bumping into your’s playfully. “He brings you lunch at least once a week, meaning he rides that dingy bike to get whatever you’re craving that day.”

“It’s usually just something random-”

“Constantly in your classroom, or vice versa,” she cut you off, and you quickly realized you weren’t getting a single word into this conversation. “I’m pretty sure Principal Marshall has considered, somehow, moving your classroom closer to his just so he’ll stop being late to classes because he’s busy talking to you.”

Okay…yeah, you didn’t have a retort for that one. Your classroom was on the opposite end of the school building from Ryland’s own, and yet every time he had even a split second he was somehow always leaning in your doorway. Even if it only resulted in a conversation that lasted all of a minute.

Many times those ended with your students having to remind him that the bell rang and he definitely had students in his own class unattended, waiting on their teacher. More than once he’d slipped as he tried to sprint back to his classroom from yours. It didn’t matter how short those little conversations were, though, because every second around him was precious to you.

“Awe, look at you blushing about it-”

You slapped Evelyn’s hand away, throwing her a look of disdain that didn’t really hold any true malice to it.

“Look, all I’m saying is the ball is in his court,” was the response you finally settled on as Evelyn propped the door of the small auditorium open for you to enter. “Ryland is nothing but friendly to me, so if he’s interested then he’s got to show me.”

“You’re acting as if you’ve made your own feelings clear, honey,”

“No, but I clearly don’t do a good enough job of hiding them,”

Speak of the devil: there he was. Ryland’s head shot up the moment the pair of you walked into the auditorium. Those damn glasses hanging down from one side of his face, framing his stubbled jawline perfectly. A smile lighting up his face the second those blue eyes found yours, gesturing to the empty seat beside him.

A packed auditorium, as you and Evelyn were the last ones there. Every seat up practically filled, and yet Ryland Grace sat among a crowd of people, eyes trained on you and a single seat saved for you amidst it all.

All you could feel was the heat in your cheeks, and the touch of Evelyn patting your back as she laughed, voice low but loud enough to hear as she shifted past you to find a seat of her own.

“Doesn’t have interest in you my ass,”

Her words swam through your head with every apology you muttered to the other teachers as you snuck past them in the cramped rows, happily taking the empty seat beside Ryland.

“You didn’t have to save me a seat, you know,” your voice held a hint of teasing to it, but it was soft. Filled with an adoration that you knew you were terrible at hiding. Luckily, Ryland was terrible at picking up on it.

“Wanted to sit next to you,” he whispered back as Principal Marshall began to drone on about updates neither of you particularly cared about. He leaned in close, a hint of his breath wafting over the shell of your ear as he spoke. “You make these slightly less boring.”

Close proximity to this man was your worst nightmare, and the cramped auditorium wasn’t helping. That single touch of his breath against your skin was enough to send a simultaneous shiver down your spine and another round of heat to your cheeks. His suit jacket covered arm rested on the shared armrest between your seats, the edge of his bicep ghosting against the bare skin of your arm with every little shift he made, tapping incessantly against the armrest.

The slight action made you smile. He never could sit still in these meetings, always hated them.

“Did anything fun happen in class today?” you kept your voice low, eyes trained on the principal, as your head tilted slightly over to Ryland so he could better hear you.

“Uh, if you count Madison telling me that she thinks the sun orbits the earth, then sure,” you had to stifle your laugh at that, casting Ryland a side glance as he grinned at you, doing a terrible job of whispering back at you as usual.

“How could she possibly think that?”

“You’d be surprised,” Ryland leaned just a tad bit closer, the side of his arm pushed up fully against your own. You could almost hear the smile in his voice without even having to look over at him. “The National Science Foundation estimates that 26% of Americans still think the sun orbits the earth.”

“Jesus, that many?”

“Well, 100% of them are stupid, so,”

Nasty looks from other faculty were shot your way that second you choked on your own breath, slapping a hand over your mouth in an attempt to stop yourself from breaking out into uncontrollable laughter. You gave them the most sympathetic look you possibly could, learning how to breathe normally again before mouthing sorry at them all.

Ryland didn’t care in the slightest for the warning look you shot him, a bright smile on his face as his eyes seemed to trail over every inch of your face.

“If you keep doing this in every faculty meeting, they’re going to separate us, Ry,”

“I met Madison’s parents for the first time last month for parent-teacher conferences,” he continued, ignoring your plea. Instead, he leaned in even closer, eyes locked on yours, and god it was impossible to look away. “They are, 100%, undeniably, part of the Flat Earth Truthers Club.”

You shook your head, a smile creeping back up on your lips. Ryland’s gaze could still be felt on the side of your face as you turned back to face the front, eyes focused back on the principal again in an attempt to pay attention to the meeting.

“Flat earthers are ridiculous. They’re just scared of science,”

“Well, you know what they say…the only thing they have to fear is sphere itself,”

There simply wasn’t enough time to clap your hand over your mouth and conceal your laughter, a split second of it breaking through the quiet of the auditorium. And Ryland? His smile was somehow even brighter than it was before, still locked onto your face, never having strayed once.

“Dr. Grace, is there something you feel needs to be shared with the rest of your fellow faculty?”

Principal Marshall’s voice was enough to knock Ryland out of whatever trance he seemed to have put himself in. Eyes wide as if he’d just seen a ghost, hands barely able to catch his glasses as they almost fell right off of his ear where they dangled, a burst of red spread through his cheeks instantly as his deer-like eyes locked onto the unamused principal.

“I-I uh, no. No, nothing, Principal Marshall,” he scratched at the back of his head, ruffling up his already messy hair, a nervous tick you’d picked up since the moment you’d met him. You simply buried your head in your head, eyes trained on your shoes and Ryland out of the corner of your gaze, terrified to look up at your fellow faculty that you’d already apologized to once. “Just getting super jazzed about faculty updates. Hard to keep it in here. I’m like a mushroom, getting all…hyphae…”

A collective groan sounded through the auditorium at the terrible biology pun that rolled off of him with ease. All you could do was smile into the palm of your hand.

“Please just…pay attention to the meeting, Dr. Grace, before I separate you and your other half,”

Other half. That’s not how she meant it, but it was impossible not to let your mind wander to the idea.

Early mornings. Coffee, the smell of eggs and toast burning in the kitchen. Ryland and his hair that was surely even more unkempt that early in the day. The guarantee that he definitely had about 120 science puns ready to go at any moment.

Late nights. Curled up on a couch. A movie, a shared blanket, warm in the embrace of his arms. The quiet of just being with someone that made you happy in ways you’d never felt before. The promise of another day with them on the horizon.

It was becoming increasingly harder not to think about Ryland Grace like that every day, of what a life with the awkward, endearing science teacher could be.

And as Principal Marshall continued her meeting, and your eyes met the blue ones that were already looking at you: soft, kind, a hint of something you couldn’t understand in them, you could only dream he thought the same thoughts when he looked at you.

❤︎

“Alright, who can tell me the day of the first human space flight?”

Not a single middle schooler, packed into the building’s planetarium, raised their hands at first. Many of them started whispering to each other, confused looks on their faces, but Ryland just waited with a smile on his face. A brave soldier from Mr. Harkin’s class, Damien, finally raised his hand.

“Uh, Mr. Grace? Wouldn’t that…be today?”

“Excatly!” Grace’s clap echoed through the room as he pointed toward the young kid sitting in the front row of seats. “International Day of Human Space Flight, commemorating the first human space flight by Yuri Gagarin. It was a trick question, and you passed my tiny friend.”

Were you excited about losing a chunk of your day to escorting your class to the planetarium, along with other classes in the building, for a special science presentation? Absolutely not, especially not with how terribly your class did on their last The Odyssey assignment.

When you found out that Ryland was giving the presentation during your allotted time? Suddenly, The Odyssey meant nothing to you. Not when you could watch Ryland teach, something he did so effortlessly.

The way he captured every single child’s attention with ease. That glowing smile on his face every time they answered a question right, and simply the way he seemed to love what he taught. You were captivated every time you got the chance to see him teaching the thing he loved so much.

“Yuri Gagarin was a Soviet cosmonaut who became the first person in space in 1961 aboard the Vostok 1,” the planetarium was lit up with the night sky, little stars reflecting down. You could almost see them in the students eyes, in their bright smiles as they looked up into the vastness of space. Your eyes trailed to Ryland, already looking at you with a soft smile of his own, before he cleared his throat and moved throughout the room, focusing back on the kids. “Over the course of 89 minutes, his ship traveled to a maximum altitude of 187 miles, as it orbited the Earth.”

“Wait, so we weren’t the first people in space?” one of your students, Lydia, called out. Ryland laughed, pointing over at her.

“No, we kind of sucked,” you rolled your eyes with a grin at Ryland’s statement, though it drew a laugh from all of the kids. “No, America had actually scheduled its first space flight for May 1961, so this was a huge blow to us. It really heated up the space race.”

“He really is good with them, isn’t he?”

Glancing over, Mr. Harkin had saddled up beside you on the edge of the room, head tilted toward you and voice low so as to not disrupt the lesson the kids were being taught. Your gaze drifted back to Ryland as he continued his lesson, eliciting more laughter from the kids. It only brought another soft smile to rest on your lips.

“He is, in a way that I just don’t understand,”

Those blue eyes you’d become so fond of met yours for a moment across the room, face illuminated by the light projecting onto the planetarium’s dome walls. The little grin he wore seemed to drop just slightly, gaze still locked on you but flickering every moment over to Mr. Harkin as he spoke to the students. Harkin’s elbow dug lightly into your side.

“Careful, you’re giving him major ‘heart eyes’ across the room right now,”

You did your best to conceal your laughter, shooting Harkin a look, Ryland’s gaze still felt on the side of your face even as you looked away.

“Why do I feel like I’m about to find out that every teacher in this school has a secret betting ring going on when it comes to Ryland and I?”

“I mean, it’s not a secret. Principal Marshall runs the damn thing,”

“Mr. Grace?” one of the youngest girls in the grade, Aurora, called out, raising her hand up to get Ryland’s attention. “My mom told me the other day that there’s 8 planets in our solar system. What happened to Pluto?”

Ryland went to answer when Mr. Harkin beside you laughed, capturing the attention of everyone in the room, as he shook his head at his young student.

“No, honey, scientists a couple years ago decided that Pluto wasn’t a planet anymore,”

Your eyes flickered to Ryland, who was already staring at Harkin from across the room as he tossed his little crochet earth back and forth in his hand. His response was a bit of a forced laugh.

“Well, your teacher isn’t wrong. Scientists classified Pluto as a dwarf planet a couple years ago,” he explained to the kids, eyes trained on the little crochet sphere in his hands. “But there’s 8 other very important, even closer planets that we should focus on. I mean, who really cares about a tiny, slow planet that takes 248 years to orbit the sun–honestly, he should just accept that he’s slowly falling into obscurity and stop trying to steal the spotlight.”

The room got quiet. Your eyebrow raised slightly, head tilted, as everyone just seemed to stare at Ryland, who had yet to look up.

“Uh, Mr. Grace?” some student in the back called out. “Why did you call Pluto ‘he’? Are the planets boys and girls like us, too?”

Ryland’s head shot up, as if he suddenly remembered he was in a room full of students. His eyes shot to you, his mouth opening, then closing, before he quickly looked away.

“I–well…planets don’t really…I’m not trying to misgender the planets, you know? That’s not for me to decide, that’s for them to–you know what, does anyone else have any other questions that aren’t related to Pluto?”

You really didn’t want to laugh at Ryland, but only he would be able to accidentally turn a lesson about space and planets into almost a lesson on bodily autonomy. He caught your eye, his widening just slightly and you could almost see his cry for help written across his face, but it only made your laughter worse.

It was little Madison that raised her hand next, speaking before she’d even been called upon.

“Are you sure the Earth isn’t the center of the universe?”

Ryland hung his head in shame, the shaking of his head evident from across the room as a few of the kids around laughed at the young girl’s comment. You were quick to shoot them a warning look, not keen to hand out any detentions today.

By the time your gaze turned back to Ryland, he was already looking at you. His gaze flickered to Harkin, then back to you, and it was like a light bulb had just flickered on the way his eyes lit up.

“Yes, Madison, I’m sure the Earth isn’t the center of the universe. And I can show you,” his long legs crossed the room in seconds, his body sliding between you and Mr. Harkin as his hands landed on your shoulders with a tiny little squeeze that sent your heart leaping through your chest. “But to do that, I’m going to need this volunteer that I’m not quite giving a choice.”

“It’s not volunteering if you didn’t ask, Ry!”

You exasperatedly tried to whisper to Ryland as he steered you across the room to stand before all the kids. He only shook his head as a bunch of your own students started cheering for you around the room, only worsening the red that coated your cheeks the second his hands had landed on your body.

“I need you for this,” he shot back hastily, positioning you in the middle of the room, standing in front of you. His body blocked the students from your vision, blue eyes boring down into yours, hands gently squeezing at your upper arms as you begged the blush in your skin to not be too obvious. “You trust me?”

A ridiculous question, because the only answer was yes. You gave him a nod, and Ryland’s smile only widened as he turned back to the kids in the room.

“Alright, kids. Your gorgeous teacher here is the Sun,”

Little oohs and awes sounded from the kids around the room at Ryland’s little slip in of the word ‘gorgeous.’ There was a sting in your bottom lip as you bit into it with your teeth, trying to contain your own smile. Marcus spoke up from across the room without raising his hand, as usual.

“Then what’s Mr. Harkin?”

“Oh, he’s Pluto,” Ryland shot back immediately, nodding his head. “Suits him.”

Laughter rang through the room, the young boys as rambunctious as ever. Ryland met your astonished look with a tiny wink of his own, one that forced a small laugh to tumble from your lips. Then, he began to slowly spin, walking around you in a circle.

“And I am the Earth,” he called out to the kids, and you could only hope he didn’t trip over his own two shoelaces. “The Sun holds 99.8% of the mass in our solar system, which means it’s packing some massive gravity.”

Ryland stopped spinning himself, still moving around you in a circle. He held his hand out toward you, and you slipped yours into it without hesitation, spinning in that circle slowly with him.

“Because the Sun holds such intense gravity, it’s actually pulling Earth into it. But, Earth has such high forward velocity that it actually keeps us moving sideways. Put these two together, and it keeps Earth moving in an almost perfect circle around the sun. Can anyone tell me another fun fact about our movement around the sun?”

The words went in one of your ears and straight out the other. There was no paying attention, not when Ryland’s hand held your own. Soft skin, just slightly rough around the edges, and those blue eyes were so soft, locked onto you as if there was nowhere else he wanted to look.

“Our speed changes!” Olivia called out from somewhere in the back, but you didn’t even try to look and find her. “When we’re closer to the sun in our orbit we move faster, and the further away we are, the slower we move.”

“Very good, Olivia!” Ryland called out, sparing just a quick glance over to the kids in the room as his hand held yours tighter, still spinning slowly together. “Madison, we also know this works because there’s other sun-like stars out there that are also orbited by planets. Like Tau Ceti, which has four Earth-like planets orbiting it.”

“Is the sun important for other things, besides just being the center?”

Ryland’s eyes flickered to you, and you watched as he paused. The slight hesitation on his face, the bobbing of his Adam’s apple for a moment, before those blue eyes locked onto yours and refused to look away.

“I-It is…for a lot of reasons. The Sun is the Earth’s entire reason for existing. The Sun gives the Earth life. The Sun is the reason the world is beautiful,”

Your breath hitched, eyes still trained on Ryland. There was something in his words, something in that earnest, raw look that he had written across his features as he looked at you that added a weight to his words. A weight that sent a tiny chill across your skin, raising the hair on your arms.

“Without the Sun…the Earth would be nothing,”

There was quiet across the room. Then, a couple snickers, followed by Olivia’s smug little voice.

“The Sun sounds beautiful the way you talk about it,”

“She is,” his voice was lower, softer than it was before. Until, he seemed to realize what he said, the red on both of your faces spreading further than before as his eyes shot wide. “THE SUN I mean! I-I’m talking about the sun, obviously, b-because this is a science presentation!”

Laughter rang through the room, little chants of your names mashed together coming from some of the kids as the bell rang and saved either of you from further embarrassment.

Ryland, being Ryland, chose that moment to finally trip over his own two feet. You pulled on his hand as hard as you could, saving him from plummeting to the ground as he instead just landed on his one knee.

“Make good choices,” Ryland commented lowly as some of the kids walked past the two of you, still snickering and giggling to themselves. You let go of his hands finally, simply resting it on his shoulder with a gentle squeeze. “Don’t uh, I don’t know, blow up the world during lunch or anything. Or pop those chip bags and give kids heart attacks, whatever you kids do these days.”

You laughed, stepping around Ryland as your kids lined up outside of the room, waiting for you. He shot you a sheepish smile from the floor, and your skin still burned with heat at the memory of his words as you looked at him.

“Every time I think you’re doing well with those kids, they manage to knock you down a peg,”

“Yeah, well, what’s new?”

When you met your class outside, you didn’t let them get a word in before you warned them not to say anything. You could still hear little comments talking about ‘shipping’ their English and Science teachers the entire way back to your classroom.

❤︎

Ryland Grace didn’t understand how he had ended up here.

Well, he did. Calling the leading scholar in his field a “staggering waste of carbon” at a UNESCO conference in Denmark was an easy way to get blacklisted from the field he’d studied in for many years in college. It was an easy explanation for how he ended up teaching middle school science at Grover Cleveland Middle in San Francisco.

Not that he had a problem with teaching! He actually loved it. Loved his kids, loved talking about science. He loved teaching the future little scientists of the world about why every facet of science was awesome. The pay wasn’t great, though.

Especially when it was the reason he rode a bike to school daily.

And there was currently the equivalent of a monsoon raining down from the sky onto the pavement, the reason he’d been standing at the front doors for the last 20 minutes hoping that the rain would simply let up. The heavens didn’t take pity on him, though, and it only rained harder and harder. His rain coat and bike were not meant to withstand heavy rain and damaging winds to this extent. 

Best cast scenario? It takes him a little longer to get home on his usual 20 minute bike ride than normal. Worst case? He crashes and dies, dead in a ditch covered in mud.

“Ryland, please tell me you aren’t thinking of riding your bike home in this?”

Then there was you. You were probably the single greatest reason why he loved teaching at Grover Cleveland Middle. If he ever had the unfortunate chance to meet that scientist from the conference again, he’d thank him this time for being a staggering waste of carbon, because it led him down a path to you.

“I can’t be that bad,” he tried to joke, waving you off as a crack of thunder seemed to shake the entire building, and his fake confidence faltered for a second. He glanced back at you, coat wrapped around your bag instead of yourself in order to keep its contents dry. “Just, you know…the slight threat of bodily harm.”

He really wished the path that led to you was less bumpy and full of himself looking like an idiot, but at this rate he’d take what he could get from the universe.

“Yeah, absolutely not,” was your immediate reply, head shaking as she fished your car keys out of the bag still covered with your coat. “I’m giving you a ride home, can’t risk the best science teacher’s life over a dumb storm.”

Ryland immediately shook his head, turning to face you beside him. He was not letting you risk your own life in the storm for him. If it really came down to it, he’d sleep at his desk. There was a change of clothes he kept in the bottom drawer, it wasn’t the first time he’d had to do it.

“I can’t let you-”

“This isn’t up for discussion,” Ryland snapped his mouth shut as you cut in once again, dangling your car keys up in front of him with a little shake. “I…care about you, okay? I want to know you are home safe.”

There was no stopping the immediate heat that filled Ryland’s cheeks, and he knew it. There was red blooming across your own, but Ryland shook all wishful thinking from his mind. The AC unit in this school was unreliable, you were definitely just flushed from the heat. No other reason.

Ryland decided he wasn’t going to put up a fight at this point, but he wasn’t going to let you do this without anything in return. He shrugged the yellow raincoat hanging over his own shoulders off as he kicked the glass door in front of him open, the muffle sounds of the torrential downpour now louder as droplets of water splashed into the front door. He held the jacket out, hanging it above your head to protect you from the rain.

“At least let me save you from getting drenched,”

“You’re going to look like a dog that just had a bath by the time we reach my car,” Ryland only smiled at your joke, and the little giggle that fell through your lips. The close proximity didn’t help as he held the jacket up around you.

“Actually, it’s not windy today,” he shot back with a grin, nodding out the propped open door into the rain. “That means if we run, I’ll be drier than if we walked, because the rain that’s hitting us from above is proportional to time. Though, the rain hitting us from the front is proportional to distance, and when running-”

“Ryland Grace, you are adorable when you get all science-nerd, but if we’re going to run…we should run,”

Ryland was thankful that you couldn’t see the renewed heat flooding his cheeks, as you were both too busy sprinting through the torrential downpour to the staff parking lot.

Being a gentleman (who was head over heels in love with you and too terrified to say a damn thing) was thrown out the window with how fast you were booking it to your car, the idea of shielding you from the rain with his jacket abandoned after just a moment booking it across the lot. He could feel the coolness of the water settling against his skin as it soaked through every layer of clothing he had, every few seconds having to furiously wipe at his glasses in hopes of seeing through them.

None of it really mattered in the end, not when he heard your laugh. The little shrieks of laughter as a particularly big drop happened to fall right in your eyes. Or the laughter as Ryland managed–in his signature fashion–to slip on the final step into the parking lot, and you had to double back in laughter to help haul him to his feet.

He’s spring clumsily through the rain a thousand more times if he got to see you smile like that. And that is why his kids always told him that he was definitely ‘whipped’ for you. Whatever that meant.

The second you had both jumped into your respective seats of your vehicle, doors slamming shut, there was only a moment of silence between the both of you. Ryland felt like his chest was going to explode, remembering why he always hated gym class, his heavy breathing mixed with yours as you both caught your breath, before you locked eyes over the center console.

Then the laughter resumed.

He held his hand to his stomach, feeling an ache settling in as he couldn’t stop his own laughter. Your’s grew slightly louder in his ear as you leaned over, trying to help him wipe at his glasses that were still covered.

“I was right, you look like a wet dog,”

Ryland’s only response was to shake his soaking wet hair like one, a simple reaction that earned yet another shriek of laughter from you and a light slap to his shoulder. You muttered something unintelligible under your breath, but Ryland found himself unable to tear his gaze away from your lips as you started the car and began to pull out of the staff lot. How soft they looked, the way the little beads of water running down your cheeks fell over them.

Whipped. He still didn’t get it, but he agreed wholeheartedly with his kids at this point.

There was no driving fast in this rain, especially when the windshield wipers were moving at their highest programmed speed and it still wasn’t enough. It was quiet in the car for just a moment as you pulled out of the parking lot, but Ryland broke it the second your phone had connected to the car’s bluetooth, music filling the space between him and you.

Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars.

“Frank Sinatra,” Ryland couldn’t help the growing smile on his lips as the familiar song flooded through the car speakers. He kept his eyes trained on the side of your face, watching the little smile grow on your own lips, eyes focused on the road conditions in front of you. “Old books and old music. Didn’t know you had such an old soul.”

“You calling me old, Ryland?”

“N-no!” Ryland immediately back track, hands flying up and shaking back and forth as his eyes went wide. “I might say some stupid stuff some–okay, most of the time–but I know better than to comment on a woman’s age.”

“I’m just teasing you,” he could thankfully hear the sincerity mixed in with the teasing lit to your voice. “But yes, I do enjoy some old music. Always been a big fan of Sinatra, especially this one.”

“It’s a nice song…just not scientifically accurate,” he caught the side eye that you threw his way for just a moment, another crack of thunder banging across the sky and almost shaking the car. Ryland couldn’t help but jump slightly. “Jupiter only has a 3.13° tilt to its axis, so it doesn’t experience seasons like we do. Mar’s would, though, because its axis is tilted at 25°, only 1.5° more than our own tilt…”

Ryland trailed off as the car rolled to a stop at a red light, and he caught you fully facing him this time with a bemused expression written across your face. His smile dropped just slightly as he let out a sheepish laugh, adjusting his glasses as they slid back down the wet bridge of his nose.

“...I went full science-nerd again, didn’t I?”

Your laughter drowned out the rain beating against the roof of the car as your attention returned to the road once more.

“You always do, but I happen to enjoy it very much,”

If only teaching paid more, because the commute to Ryland’s apartment was a lot shorter than his bike ride home every day from work. 

Parked in an open space across the road from the dimly lit apartment building, Ryland Grace hesitated with his hand on the handle of the door. His eyes swept out over the area around the vehicle, still being hounded with rain. The top of his road looked like the beginning of a river, the way the water was rushing down the small incline to pool at the bottom.

“Thanks…for this,” he gestured toward the weather right outside the card.

You moved to respond to him, when the weather alert on your phone propped up on your dashboard sounded out. Ryland could just barely make out the headline: FLASH FLOOD WARNING.

The roads were far too dangerous, and Ryland already knew from various conversations that you lived on the opposite end of town from him.

He…could ask you to stay for the night. Just for safety reasons, obviously! He was quickly trying to work through the pros and cons list in his head.

Pros: his only friend that just so happened to be the woman he’s been head over heels in love with for the last year would be safe and not driving in this storm.

Cons: his only friend that just so happened to be the woman he’s been head over heels in love with for the last year would be inside his tiny little apartment that looked like it had been hit by a separate hurricane than the one it felt like they were currently suffering through.

“I should probably get home-”

“Stay,” Ryland cut in, quickly continuing his words after his vague statement. “I-It’s just, the roads are bad, and you live on the other side of town. This storm is just going to get worse, and I-I’d hate to know something happened to you.”

You hesitated, he could tell, shaking your head.

“Ryland, I couldn’t ask you to let me stay,”

He hesitated himself for a moment, every feeling he’d kept bottled up for a year now threatening to escape past his lips. Instead, he settled on echoing your own words.

“I…I care about you. I want to know you’re safe,”

Moments later, he had his rain coat draped over your head as he rushed you inside his apartment to shelter from the storm.

Ryland’s hands shook the entire time as he put his key into his front door’s lock. The last time he had guests over…was never. His apartment was built and designed for him and his brain, scattered with notes and books and piles of arts and crafts that he worked on in order to decorate his classroom. It was not meant for visitors, especially not ones as pretty as you.

“Don’t, uh, mind the mess,” he mumbled, holding the door open and motioning after you, allowing you to take a step inside his apartment as he let out the small breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

Chucking off his sneakers, little puddles of water forming below them on the ground, his jacket found its way into a pile with them. Ryland wiped his hands nervously against the thighs of his jeans, the action doing nothing against the soaking went material, as he watched you take in his apartment.

The apartment that looked like it had been ransacked, at least partially. Stacks of books relating to a thousand different topics were stacked on the ground by the tv stand, on top of the coffee table along with the coffee cup he’d abandoned there early in the morning in a haste to get to the school, and and by his desk that had a stack of papers scattered around it after her strewn them about in order to find one specific slip of paper at 11 p.m.

It was a mess, and Ryland regretted everything.

“It’s not messy, it’s homey,” your reply sent a burst of heat through his skin as you turned to him with a bright smile, leaving your own bag and coat by his pile of wet items before gesturing to your own soaking wet clothing. “Do you maybe have something a little less…wet?”

He scurried away into his bedroom, trying to ignore that little section of his brain that took your comment in a MUCH different way.

His bedroom was worse. Ryland wasn’t letting you sleep on the couch, but he surely wasn’t letting you see his room in a state like this.

Clothing was thrown across the room and Ryland quickly ran about, shoving piles of clothing away into corners where he was certain you wouldn’t be able to see any of it. Throwing it into his closet and slamming the door before it could fall out, pushing it down in his laundry basket, kicking it under his bed so it was out of sight and out of mind, whatever he could think of.

“Great idea, Ryland,” he muttered to himself, pulling on a dry pair of sweatpants and a tshirt for himself, trying to shake the remaining water out of his hair as he rummaged for something you could wear. “Almost get the woman you’re in love with killed by letting her drive you home in a monsoon. Invite her to stay the night in your apartment that makes you look like an even bigger loser than you are. Amazing idea. A doctorate in molecular biology and this is the best you can do.”

You were waiting by the couch in his living room, just glancing around at everything with a smile, when he reappeared. Sheepishly, he handed the folded clothing over to you, hand running through his soaking wet hair as he pointed down the hall.

“You can take my bed for the night. Uh, just leave your clothes in the bathroom, I can throw them in the dryer in a bit. I can scrounge up something to eat in the meantime,”

“Thanks, Ry,” your hand reached out, squeezing his upper arm lightly, and he felt the heat in his skin instantly bloom under your touch. “For all of this.”

If it wasn’t for the giant crack of thunder that flickered the lights of the building for a moment and made Ryland jump out of his skin, he would’ve forgotten how to breathe again.

He rummaged through every part of his kitchen, desperately trying to find something that he could make the two of you to eat that also wouldn’t make him seem pathetic. All he could come up with…was a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a jar of jelly.

Yesterday. He’d stayed late after the end of the day to help in tutoring. He forgot to go grocery shopping. Ryland let out a sigh at his realization, back to his fridge door and head banging back against the stainless steel, hand running down his face and dragging against his skin as his glasses were knocked off, hanging off of one ear.

“Great,” he muttered into his palm. “Just absolutely freaking great, Ryland.”

Ryland Grace desperately wished he had the guts, the bravery, to just simply tell you how he felt.

From the moment he met you, when you had arrived for your first day at Grover Cleveland Middle, he was a goner. It had been a long time since he’d had a partner, his last one certain that he was too busy with his head in the clouds to pay attention to her, and she wasn’t wrong. But from the moment he looked at you, waving and smiling as you introduced yourself to all of the teachers that had gathered to welcome you, you were suddenly the only thing his brain wanted to focus on.

He had been so focused on you, too busy admiring every inch of you in silence, that in his typical clumsy fashion he tripped over his own two feet and knocked Principal Marshall’s papers out of her hand, spreading them five feet across the floor. But you’d joined him on the ground, laughing lightly to yourself, as you helped him clean up the papers, and Ryland knew he was a goner for you.

It only continued every single day, getting worse, and you somehow became his friend. His only friend, if he was being quite frank. So he tried to hide the way he really felt, too scared to mess anything up. He’d rather have you in his life in any way he could, then mess this up and lose you forever.

Keeping those feelings in was getting increasingly harder in the last few months. Which explained why he’d traveled cross town just to get lunch from your favorite place, or compare you to the sun and basically called you his entire reasoning for living in front of a bunch of children-

Either Ryland was going to blurt it out at some point, or he was taking these feelings to the grave with him.

“Peanut butter and jelly? Sounds like we’re eating like royalty tonight,”

He shouldn’t have looked over at you. He really, really shouldn’t have. Leaning against the opposite wall of the kitchen, hair still damp and dripping onto the cheesy “I had potential” shirt he’d been gifted by one of his students the following year. Sweatpants that were bunched up around your ankles so that you didn’t trip over the length, waist tied in as tightly as possible so they didn’t just slide right off your hips.

Ryland Grace had never thought it possible that you could look more gorgeous than you did every day, but he stood corrected. He felt more in love than he ever had just looking at you right in this moment.

“Sorry, I don’t exactly…live a life of luxury,” Ryland awkwardly laughed as he spoke, pulling out two sad paper plates from the cabinet next to him and flashing them in your direction, shaking them lightly in the air. “Hope this doesn’t ruin my perfectly curated image.”

His eyes followed you as you brushed past him, humming to yourself with a little grin. You fumbled through every drawer in the kitchen, looking for something, when Ryland quickly popped open the one right next to him, showcasing his small selection of utensils. You flashed another heart-stopping grin at him before digging out two knives from the drawer.

“That image cracked a long time ago, Ry. Like that time you let Marcus perform some chemical reaction and got the fire department called to the school,”

The tall blonde groaned to himself, rubbing at his temple as you pushed past him to throw some of the bread down onto the plates and crack open the jars of peanut butter and jelly set out.

“That was one time!” he tried to defend himself, saddling up beside you as you passed him one of the knives. He almost completely missed the opening of the peanut butter jar, eyes too transfixed on the sight of you in his clothing. It was still up in the air if his heart was actually working correctly yet. “I learned my lesson very quickly not to let him handle any more chemicals.”

“Don’t worry. I made the mistake of doing popcorn reading when we were working on The Outsiders. Marcus seemed to end up with every single instance of profanity in the book, which he would yell at the top of his lungs,”

Ryland snapped his fingers, glancing down at you at his side with a teasing smile.

“You know what? That explains that really loud ‘HELL’ I heard across the school a couple months ago. I was so sure that it was going to shatter the windows of my classroom,”

“Oh, shut up! It wasn’t that bad!”

Your laughter permeated the air, elbow digging into his side as you spoke. And when your eyes locked with his, and Ryland got the perfect look at every square inch of your face, he could see it so clearly in his head.

Mornings just like this, where you’d both struggle to get out of the warmth of the blankets. The way he would surely annoy you with his very disorganized morning routine, but he’d make up for it with coffee already set out for you, just as you liked it. The lingering moments by the door, too wrapped up in each other because you didn’t want to leave the peace of this space, even though you were going to the same place.

Late nights, curled together on the couch with some movie playing on TV that neither of you were particularly paying attention to. Whispered words, laughter shared. Kisses that lingered, hands that trailed-

Thunder broke Ryland from his spell, thoughts gone in a flash. He was back in his dingy kitchen, with you just inches away, staring up at him as the picture of true beauty.

“T-This is nice,” he cleared his throat, turning back to his sandwich as he spread his toppings along the bread, heat blooming across his cheeks again. It always did around you. “Making dinner with someone…no matter how sad the dinner is. I haven’t done this in awhile.”

“Right,” your voice responded after a momentary pause. “Sarah, wasn’t it? You were dating her when we first met. What, uh…what ever happened to her?”

“Oh, we broke up a long time ago,” Ryland waved the comment off, shaking his head. “She just, uh, thought my head was too far in the clouds. Didn’t think I wanted to be down here on Earth. She wasn’t wrong. It was for the best, though. She hated…all of this. The rundown apartment, the lack of a car, my love of science. She just never understood it. I was just…too much for her. But she’s with Mark now, so I’m sure she’s happy.”

Ryland chose not to mention that his last relationship had been dead long before it officially ended, the pair not having seen each other in well over a month by that point. If his math was right, which it usually was, Sarah had started dating Mark before she’d even broken it off with him.

He also failed to mention the relief he felt inside when she had called it off, knowing his heart had belonged to you the moment your eyes had locked with his.

Fingertips just barely ghosted over Ryland’s cheek, and he froze in place. Eyes trained on the plate in front of him, he could feel the way your hand curled around his cheek. The way your thumb glossed over his skin, back and forth, and the way your other fingers barely grazed over the shell of his ear. He couldn’t help the way he instantly leaned into the touch, a touch he hadn’t felt in so long.

Ryland turned his head, still resting in the palm of your own, to look you in the eyes. You gave him the softest smile, hand trailing across his cheek and ghosting over his jawline. His eyes watched it move, the way your fingers gently curled around the frame of his glasses dangling precariously from his face, and placed them gingerly back where they belonged, resting on the bridge of his nose.

His breath caught, your body so close to his, as your hand trailed back down and rested on his chest for just a moment, your own gaze flickering to its resting spot while his gaze stayed on your face.

“You are never, and will never be, too much, Ryland. Not for the right person. They’ll love every part of you. The clumsy parts, the nerdy parts, every part that makes you…you,”

The Sun. That’s what you were to Ryland Grace. He meant every word he had said in that planetarium that day, driven by the rare jealousy of seeing Harkin that close to you. 

The Sun was the reason Earth had life. Without the Sun…the Earth would be nothing.

Without you…well, Ryland Grace had accepted long ago that he didn’t understand what it was like to truly live until he’d met you.

Your eyes flickered for just a second, and Ryland took in an audible breath, swearing they settled on his lips for just a second. The apartment was quiet, except for the hum of the fridge and the pattering of the rain against the living room windows.

The moment shattered with yet another terribly timed clap of thunder, your body jolting away from his, focus turned back to the counter in front of you, face hidden from his wide eyes.

“Y-you know…I can’t tell you the last time I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich,”

Ryland shook his head, smiling slightly to himself at the little stutter in your own words, turning back to finishing his own food as well. But the moment still lingered in his head, the heat that bloomed from where your skin touched him still lingering.

“Since peanut butter is banned in school for allergies, probably awhile,”

“I almost forgot that rule a couple weeks ago and almost packed peanut butter crackers,” you joked back, before Ryland heard you snap your fingers. “Oh! Speaking of work, did you put yourself down to volunteer for the school dance next week?”

Sandwiches finished off, Ryland packed the ingredients away and stashed them back in their appropriate spots, laughing awkwardly to himself.

“Hah, uh, no I didn’t. I chaperoned last year and kind of left covered in punch, became the kids’ favorite ‘meme’ for a week afterward since one of them got a picture of it,”

He turned back to you. Leaning against the island counter, holding your sad little sandwich in your hands, face still lit up red as you smiled toward him.

“I think so far it's me, Doyle, and Harki, plus Principal Marshal and I think Katie and Dawson from the front office. We could really use another teacher,” he swore the fluttering of your lashes was on purpose just to kill him and his resolve. “Sign-up? For me?”

Well, there was no universe in existence where Ryland said no to a request like that.

Rejoining you at the counter, he held his own sandwich in his hand, reaching out and tapping it against yours as if you were sharing a toast.

“For you? Totally,”

Even as you both took a bite of your sandwiches, eyes still locked together, Ryland felt as if something had shifted in the air. Your eyes were still as kind, your smile still bright, but it felt like there was a new weight to your gaze as you looked at him.

And he swore–and hoped–for just a split second, that your eyes had just flickered down to his lips again.

❤︎

The student council had outdone themselves with this end of the year dance.

As you stepped through the main doors of Grover Cleveland Middle’s building, the smile on your face grew immediately at the sight before you. The walls were lined with little fairy lights, little styrofoam planets hanging down from the ceiling at various lengths, glow in the dark stars right around them and glowing. Silver streamers hung around the fairy lights, with the check in desk decorated with tons and foam and lights behind them to look like twinkling lights in the clouds.

“A space theme?” you called out as the two kids in front of you ducked away from the registration desk. Evelyn Doyle finally looked up from the sign-in sheet, grin growing as she took in the sight of you and rounded the desk. “I hadn’t heard anything from the student council on the theme, but they did well.”

“Nevermind the theme, you’re finally here!” you laughed as you threw her arms around you, reciprocating the hug, before her hands landed on your shoulders in order to get a good look at you, eyes trailing you up and down. “And look at this dress, oh my god!”

The deep yellow dress fell right around your knees, the fabric light and airy as it swooshed through the air with every move you made. Buttons lined the front down to the tie around your waist, leaving just enough room for the little gold necklace resting against your collarbone. You thanked yourself for choosing a short sleeve option, already feeling the heat in the building from how many kids were all packed in and dancing together.

“Thank you,” was the sheepish reply you gave your friend as she let you go. “I’m sorry I’m late, I caught one of my student’s parents in the parking lot and they turned it into a mini parent-teacher conference, sadly.”

“Not a problem,” she waved the comment off, gesturing toward the doors of the gym just off to the left of you both. “Just get on in there, have some fun, and keep those slow dancers at least 12 inches apart at all times.”

If the hallways were gorgeous, the inside of the gym shone even brighter. Bathed in blue and purple, even more little lights twinkled around the room, hung off the walls, the ceilings, and on every surface they could possibly find. Moon and star decals, made by the art students, hung off the walls and from the ceiling, almost glowing under the lights.

Your eyes trailed over all of your children, scattered throughout the room, already having been dancing for at least thirty minutes. The smile on your face grew as you watched each one of them, gathered with their friends as they danced together in groups, or even stood off to the sides and just observed from beyond the dimly lit dance floor.

Mr. Harkin had been stationed at the punch table, and you could hear him from across the room warning these middle schoolers not to try and spike the punch. You could only giggle to yourself, shaking your head at his antics, before your eyes swept over the crowd once more-

The music seemed to stop in your ears, breath hitching, the second you laid eyes on him across the room. Ryland Grace.

He wasn’t in anything fancy. A nice pair of jeans, the worn pair of black dress shoes you’d seen by his apartment door that night. A dark green shirt was tucked into his jeans, adorned with a worn, navy blue suit jacket overtop, and those same glasses almost falling off the bridge of his nose as he spoke animatedly to Olivia.

Ryland looked good. Too good, in your eyes.

For just a second, he looked up, and his eyes happened to meet yours across the room. You thought for sure you’d forgotten how to breathe.

Whatever had happened that night, in the silence of his apartment with only the beating of the rain against the windows and the roof as a witness, had shifted something. From the moment your fingertips had ghosted along his skin, your hand had rested against his chest, and you’d been close enough to see the specs that danced in those ocean blue eyes of his up close, nothing had been the same.

Like the little bubble you had been existing in with your harbored crushed had finally popped. Like a toe had dipped just slightly over a line, and there was no going back from then on.

You always blushed around your friend, every time he’d manage to fumble his way through a comment that borderlined on a kind-of-not-just-friendly compliment. But since that day just a week or so ago, every time he has been within a few feet of you, your face lit up like a hot summer’s day.

Moments where he’d find a second to linger in your classroom door, held a new weight to them. Sharing lunch together, fingers just barely brushing for a second as you both reached for your food, to moments when you’d simply be walking together down hallways, back of hands brushing along each other’s but no one making any moves to stop it from happening.

Something was different, and you weren’t sure you wanted to go back to how things were before. Not after touching his skin, or existing in his orbit like that. Not when you’d seen the side of him beyond these school walls.

You were in love with Ryland Grace. You had been for a long time. And, finally, you were done trying to pretend that there wasn’t at least a small chance that he felt the same.

“I need your help,”

The heated staring contest between you two was broken by the sound to your right. You turned, just to see Marcus standing directly beside you and reaching up to pull on the sleeve of your dress. His hands wrung together, foot tapping incessantly on the ground, and you immediately knelt down in front of him to get a better look at his face that he was trying to hide from you.

“Marcus? Honey, what’s wrong?” you asked gently, hands coming to rest on his arms as you tried to get him to look at you.

“I…I like Olivia,”

Oh. It was one of those problems. The anxiety you felt in that moment finally washed away, an easy smile falling to your lips as you took a quick glance over in Ryland and Olivia’s direction, the former’s eyes still locked onto you from across the room.

“I did hear a rumor about that. Olivia is a great girl,”

“She is,” he said quickly, finally looking at you. His nerves were basically written across his face. “I-I’ve been really mean to her. I didn’t mean to be.”

“I know, honey. Sometimes feelings can be confusing,” you stood up, hands on your hips as you looked down at him with a smile. “Do you want to dance with her?”

“I do,”

You held your hand out toward him with a smile.

“Then why don’t we start by going and apologizing to her?”

With Marcus’s hand in yours, you confidently led him across the room, eyes locked back onto Ryland’s as you approached. He stood with Olivia at his side, who was talking his ear off, a dopey looking grin on his face as he nodded to whatever she said as he continued to watch as you approached him.

“Dr. Grace, I’m sorry to interrupt you and Olivia,” you announced yourself to the pair with a grin of your own, hands on Marcus’s shoulders and you lightly pushed him forward. “But Olivia, there’s something that Marcus here wants to say to you.”

The young boy shuffled awkwardly forward, hands wringing together again as he stood in front of his crush.

“I, uh, I wanted to say I was sorry. For being really mean to you. I didn’t mean it,”

Olivia’s eyes went wide, as she too shuffled uncomfortably for a second. Ryland saddled up to your side, the pair of you sharing a glance as you watched the interaction happen right before your eyes. His hand graced over yours lightly, and it took everything in you not to reach out and lock your fingers with his.

“Oh! It’s, um, it’s okay. Thank you,”

“Say, Marcus?” Ryland called out to them both, catching the boy’s eye and gesturing toward Olivia with a wink. “What do you think of Olivia’s dress?”

“I…I think she looks really beautiful,”

That comment finally seemed to catch Olivia off guard, her eyes wide in shock as she giggled nervously.

“Oh! I…thank you, Marcus. You look really nice too,”

“Thank you,” his posture seemed to straighten out at Olivia’s reaction, like seeing her accept his compliment gave him the confidence he needed. “Do you want to dance with me?”

Olivia shot you and Ryland a look, and you both immediately gave her a thumbs up. Then, your happy eyes could only watch the two pre-teens awkwardly shuffle away together to the dance floor, not daring to meet the eyes of the other.

“Look at us, playing matchmaker for middle schoolers,”

“I think they did that for themselves, we just helped,” you laughed, turning your head. The laughter died on your lips the second your eyes met with Ryland’s, voice low and breathy as you whispered to him through your smile. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he whispered back just as breathily. His hand came up to the back of his head, running through his hair for a moment, and you could see the red and pink hues that lit up his cheeks. “I got worried when I didn’t see you. I was ready to call you.”

“You could’ve,”

“I’ll remember for next time,” he shot back, hands finding their way to rest in the front pockets of his jeans. His eyes moved back over the crowd, finding your two young students once more. “I’m proud of him for that. That…must have taken a lot of guts to do.”

You followed his gaze, landing on the pair as they danced together, laughing and talking like old friends.

“Like you said before, it can be hard for boys to express their feelings. All he needed was to pull up his big boy pants and ask her,”

Ryland laughed beside you.

“Yeah…I should probably follow in his footsteps,”

You glanced back to him, seeing him already watching you. A single eyebrow raised toward him quizzically, even though your heart felt like it was ready to beat directly out of your chest.

Ryland’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again, as if he were trying to force out words that he couldn’t quite seem to get right. You didn’t even realize you were holding your breath, hoping inside that whatever he wanted to say would address the weight that seemed to be hanging between your gazes.

“Stay here,”

There wasn’t even time for you to respond before the tall blonde rushed away, almost tripping as he dashed over to the DJ booth across the way from the makeshift dance floor. He whispered something to the DJ, and you could see the thumbs up he got in return, before he rushed back over to you, panting slightly.

“Ryland?” you questioned softly, the man who held your entire heart without knowing it standing just a foot in front of you with a nervous grin on his face. “What did you just do?”

As if on cue, the song changed, and familiar lyrics floated through the room, bouncing off the walls.

Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars

“I’m pulling up my big boy pants,” he responded with a nervous laugh, his hand outstretched toward you. “And asking you to dance with me.”

Nothing else existed the second that you slid your hand into Ryland Grace’s without hesitation, letting him pull you in. You weren’t in the school, not in a room decorated for a middle school dance, and certainly not surrounded by middle schoolers and a bunch of faculty that had placed bets on you both.

It was just you and Ryland Grace. That’s all you wanted it to be.

Your arms found a place to rest around his shoulders, fingertips just barely brushing past the strands of hair that tickled the back of his neck. There was a fluttering in your chest the second that his hands made their way to your waist, curling around the divet just above your hip bone, pulling you into him just by another inch.

In other words, hold my hand. In other words, darling, kiss me. Fill my life with song, and let me sing for ever more.

"I didn't tell you yet…,” his voice was soft, words whispered just between the two of you in a crowded room. “But you look beautiful,"

"You don't have to flatter me, Ryland,"

"No, really, you look-"

"Like a banana in this yellow dress?"

He paused. His tongue poked out, running along his bottom lip, and you could see the nervous bob of his Adam’s apple before he spoke again.

"...like the sun,"

You are all I long for, all I worship and adore.

Oh. That fluttering in your chest was back, and suddenly, you weren’t at a middle school dance anymore. You were back in that planetarium, spinning in circles. And this time, there were no doubts in your mind. You were the Sun, and he was the Earth. And what was the Earth, without its Sun?

"Ryland-"

"I wasn't lying,"

You cocked your head.

"...about what?"

"That I knew Homer wrote The Odyssey,"

That drew a short laugh from you, but you could still see the nerves that were laced through Ryland’s smile.

"Right, you were just distracted,"

"I was. By you. I'm always distracted by you,"

In other words, please be true. In other words, I love you.

You took a deep breath. He’d crossed the line for you, thrown himself onto the other side, and was waiting for you with open arms. It was just a leap of faith.

“I’m always distracted by you, too. Since the day we met,”

The song faded away, melting into the next. There could’ve been eyes on you both, either from students or from faculty, but nothing would break either of your gazes away from the other.

Ryland took a quick look around the room, before his hands took hold of your own, bringing them down between you both. He gave you a grin, one filled with more happiness than you had ever seen–and you knew your own matched his perfectly–before he tugged you toward the doors of the gym.

“Come with me,”

“Ry, we’re supposed to be chaperoning!”

“I don’t see Principal Marshall anywhere. What’s the worst she could do, fire us?”

“Quite literally, yes!” you shot back with a laugh.

Ryland only shrugged his shoulders, tugging you again, and you didn’t even try to fight back. Your feet simply moved with him.

“Worth it,”

Hands clasped together, fingers intertwined, your laughter echoed off the walls of the empty hallways as Ryland Grace ran you down them, a destination clear in his mind. Every few seconds he’d look back, just smiling at you as his eyes trailed over every single inch of you, before you’d yell at him to look at his own feet before you’d both be sprawled across the linoleum floors.

The door to his classroom was open as you flew inside, hand slipping from his as you caught yourself on the projector cart sitting in the middle of the room. Spinning on your heel, you caught his eye just as he shut the classroom door behind him, and the silence enveloped you both once more. Finally alone, no prying eyes to watch.

The momentarily confidence that seemed to seize hold of Ryland dissipated in that moment. He wiped his hands against the front of his jeans, chuckling awkwardly as he took a few steps toward you.

“What was your plan here, Dr. Grace?” you teased, taking a couple steps toward him as well, too high on the feeling of everything you’d just finally realized. High on the feeling of finally not denying what your heart knew long ago: you and Ryland Grace were never just friends.

“I’m not going to lie,” he shot back, coming to a stop just in front of you, barely an inch or two separating you. “I hadn’t thought this far ahead.”

“Then stop thinking,”

No one had leaned in first. It had been both of you, as if drawn together like two magnets, as your lips finally found one another's.

Goosebumps rose across your skin as Ryland Grace’s mouth moved against yours with an ease that shouldn’t exist between two people that have never kissed before. It was like a perfect dance between two partners that knew each other better than anything.

Your lips never left his, moving against his as if you couldn’t believe you had deprived yourself of this for so long, as your hands wound around his shoulders. Fingers curled into his hair, finally carding themselves through the blonde strands that felt so soft between your fingers.

The slightest little moan, enough to send heat coursing through your body the second you heard it, slipping from Ryland’s mouth into your own. His hands grasped at your hips, winding around your back to press into your lower back and tug you as close as humanly possible, as if he was a starved man that craved to touch you in any way that he could.

His lips were soft, a feeling that you knew you were going to crave for the rest of your life now that you’d had a single taste of them. You pressed further into him, a small mewl tumbling from your own lips and swallowed by his mouth as you pressed every inch of yourself into him, desperate to hang onto the moment in case the world would be cruel and wake you from this dream moments later.

The need to breathe was what finally separated you, but not far. Ryland’s forehead pressed to yours, his breath fanning out across your skin. His hands still gripped at your hips, holding him to you, as yours stayed carded through his hair, nails gently scraping at his scalp as you chest heaved as it tried to level your breathing back to normal.

“If I haven’t made it clear already, you’re my best friend,” his words were breathy, accented by the way he was still trying to catch his breath. But his smile was bright, his eyes almost shining, as he looked down at you. “And I’m completely in love with you. Literally, since the moment we met.”

You laughed, trapped in this little bubble with him, as your hands slid from his hair to instead cup his cheeks. The tip of your nose just barely brushed against his, and he bumped his right back against yours without hesitation.

“I’m completely in love with you too, Ryland Grace. Since the moment you tripped over your own two feet,”

The sound of your laughter filled the empty, dark science classroom again as Ryland’s hands came to scoop you up around your thighs, spinning you in relentless circles. All you could do was hang onto his broad shoulders and smile, his lips peppering a thousand kisses to every inch of skin he could possibly reach.

The Earth needed the Sun, like how Ryland said he needed you. The person that makes it all worth it, that makes the days brighter, that makes this short little life worth it.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

You pretend you don’t know, but he’s not that good at hiding it. Your underwear doesn’t just grow legs and walk off by itself. Before you were dating, Dean used to steal it used, clenching your panties in one fist and beating his cock with the other. He’d smell that little wet spot and moan your name against the fabric, the arousal and need in his chest just managing to outweigh the shame. Once you’re together, you start just passing them into his hands without a word. The day you let him eat you out through your panties, then keep them after? One of the best of his life.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

Dean’s the first to call himself a whore, as if it doesn’t bother him in the slightest. And it didn’t used to. Sex was for fun, to feel good, to forget about the pain and—for once in his damn life—do something useful for someone else. But after you, it’s different. The experience was just practice, just building up to this. To knowing exactly what women like, exactly what makes them feel good, and using his mastery to turn you into a pretty little puddle beneath him. He’s a champion, and you’re quickly the only game he wants to play.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

There isn’t really a position Dean doesn’t like—he can make anything feel good, and he takes pride in it—but his favorite position soars above the rest of the already high standard. When he’s got you in his lap, brows pressed together, mouth slack and easy to kiss, it’s close to heaven. Your boobs bounce and push against his chest, your ass wiggles in his massive palms, and your cunt hugs his cock just right at the angle. You can ride him until you get whiny, and he can pin you down and fuck up like an animal, watching your face go slack with pleasure, your eyes glazing over and tiny moans of his name falling from swollen lips. You cling to him, and he holds on back, keeping you just as close as you’ll allow.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

Dean lets you set the tone, every time. He’s just happy to be there, and he can make anything work. If you need to be treated like lace, he’s serious and gentle, murmuring low praise and worshiping every inch of your body. If you fall into bed after a date or climb on top of him in the middle of a movie, he’ll tease and joke until you’re whining and glaring at him under lidded, glossy eyes. His shit eating grin won’t fall until you’re screaming his name, and it turns smug and proud. He knows you love it, when it’s easy. He loves it too.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

He tries to stay groomed, but life on the road makes it hard. Even when he gets to settle in the bunker for a week or two, shaving isn’t very high on the list of priorities. He does his face because a beard is hard to maintain, and basic maintenance around his cock to keep it clean, but not much else. The look of the tool doesn’t matter much. He knows how to use it right either way.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

When it was just hookups, he sometimes wouldn’t even bother to learn the right name to moan. It wasn’t about being vulnerable or romantic, it was about being a fleeting, passing ship that lent another some warmth. A shadow of intimacy, to stead over the gap in his chest from sinking too deep. But then he had you, and even when you’re play fighting before sex or giggling while he fingers you stupid, there’s a thin layer of adoration under every single kiss and touch. It’s rawer and sharper in the dead of night, when he cradles you in his lap and presses his face against your neck, or folds himself over your body and drives in with slow, torturous thrusts. He’ll never say it allowed, but that’s how he loves you. With a real good show and undying attention, whether the sex is rough or slow or quick in the bathroom, it’s all just to be close to you.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

Sam used to joke about him taking long showers, but he had no idea. Dean tries to ignore his cock when it gets demanding—when you’d bend over in a skirt or brush past him in the hall—but he started feeling like a teenager with no damn control, and he’d storm into the bathroom to care of himself, quickly and brutally. It gets better after you start dating, but sometimes you have to be apart. Then old habits return, and he finds himself kicking Sammy out of the motel room just so he can pull out a picture of you and jerk himself off.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

There are more of them than he cares to count, but three stand out above the rest. There the only three that can still make Dean, of all men, blush. 

Cockwarming until the sun comes up. Holding you around him until you’re dripping and wiggling and whining his name, until he’s so hard it hurts and ends up just rutting into you like a dog. It’s not the filthiness of the act that gets him, but the intimacy of it. You’re so close he can’t tell where he stops and you end, and it makes him so dizzy he almost loses control. He’d trade a life to keep you like that all the time. Soft and completely, totally his.

The first time you call him sir, he almost feels something in him shift. He’d always said he didn’t get that kind of shit—sex was supposed to be give and take, not just a girl doing everything for him—but then he had you below him, babbling the word by sheer accident, and his cock twitched like it had been jumpstarted. He liked it. He liked it too much. He’d follow you like a dog to the end of the earth, but right here, when he was making you feel good, he was the one in charge. He had a handle over the situation, you trusted him to be in charge of you like this, and that tiny whimper of sir made him lose his goddamn mind.

And the breeding kink he tries to hide. He’s not trying to baby trap you, or reduce you to just a body for him to knock up, but the idea of it makes his mouth water. Fucking you so good a little bit of him sticks. Forcing his cum into you until you’re stuffed up, your eyes rolling back in your head from the pleasure. Making you round and glowing with his baby, letting the whole world know just how well he treated you. You notice it, because you always do, and son of a bitch, you encourage him. You let him press his hand flat on your stomach so he can feel his cum spurting into your heat, you cling to his shoulders and moan when he asks if you like it, and he can’t help it. He wants you good and bred. He wants you to be his.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

He wouldn’t call himself an exhibitionist, but there aren’t many places he won’t do it. As long as it’s not a crime and you’re comfortable, the bathroom in a police station is as good to go as the kitchen in the bunker. However, there’s nothing he loves more than his bed. A good mattress, the sheets sticking to your skin, the smell of you all around him, it’s almost enough to get him hard all on it’s own.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

The list is so long, he stopped trying to understand it a long time ago. There are the simple things—your mouth around a banana, the curve of your ass, your fingers tracing the line of his jaw, when you get mouthy and bratty and he wants to drag you over his knee or pin your to the wall—but then there’s… other stuff. The time you shoved him and spat in his face after a fight, and he was seconds from splaying you out on the table, squeezing your jaw with one hand and fingering you with the other, all while rutting against your leg like an animal, kissing away the drool when dribbled down your chin. The other time you drove baby for five seconds, and he made you pull over so he could eat you out in the backseat. He’s starting to think it might just be you. He doesn’t really care, either way.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

When he was younger, Dean would try anything once. The benefit of that is that now he knows what he really doesn’t love. He doesn’t get piss stuff or age play, but he doesn’t count himself one to judge. The one time he let a girl tie him up, he ripped his hands out of the bonds and had a knot in the top of his chest for a week after. Life is hard enough as it is, and as fun as a lot of that kind of stuff looks, there can be too many deep, serrated scars in him for it to feel good.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

While he’ll never say no to getting some head, the only sight better than you on your knees with his cock in your mouth is you flat on your back, grabbing at anything you can reach as he tongue fucks you into oblivion. He thinks he could live and die between your legs, your pussy gushing on his face and his name falling from your lips. And he’s good at it. He knows he’s good at it. He’ll shoot you a wink before he kisses his way down your body, because he knows you’re never even try to resist him. Once he convinced you to sit on his face, and he’d never known anything closer to heaven.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

He can read and match the tone well,  depending on what you want. When he’s rough, he bullies his cock into your like a drill, making the bed creak and tears spring into your eyes from the almost overwhelming pleasure of being fucked over and over and over like some sweet little doll. When he’s slow, he’s slow, taking his time to make your feel every thrust, every kiss, every brush of his fingers over your clit. But even when he’s slow, he drives into you with the force of a man falling into a black hole. He can’t help himself. The way your gummy walls squeeze him just feels too good, to not make them clench and flutter around him.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

If you’d let him, Dean would just fill the whole day with quickies. Wake up and fuck you between the sheets, get breakfast then have a second meal between your thighs, interview a few vics and cradle your head while he drive, pulling off to the side when you suck his cock a little too well, and his vision starts to go blurry. Sometimes he’ll spend a whole day teasing you, just to try and get you to start it. It’s a great victory, if you drag him into a supply closet to bang one out. It’s all he’s ever wanted in the world.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

Anything once really did teach him to know what he liked, so at this point it’s more indulging any risks you’d want to take. He knows his lines, and he’s more than willing to help you find yours. If you shyly ask him to tie you up or wrap a hand around your throat or fist you, he’d have to be a madman to tell you no.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

Even at his age, Dean counts himself impressive. He might not be pulling the day long marathons he did in his twenties, but he can go the whole night if he keeps the focus on your pleasure, which he finds easy to do. If you make him cum in your mouth or hands, he’ll dedicate as long as he needs to teaching you a few lessons and opening you up, before he’s hard and ready to go again. Once he’s in you, though, he’s no chump. He can hold himself off for over an hour on the best of nights. Sure, there were the few cases when you were just too soft and pretty and he couldn’t stop himself, but you found it hot anyway. The loss of control, just from looking at you, you’d never felt more beautiful. And it wasn’t like he didn’t make it worth your time.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

He’s tried a few toys on himself, but they’re all complicated, and he lives with his damn brother. Knowing each other’s porn habits is bad enough, the idea of sex toys getting exposed makes him feel a little sex. He’s got a perfectly good hand, and a hot girlfriend, and that’s all he’s never going to need. If you want him to pull out that vibrator you keep in your nightstand, though, he’s never going to protest. Watching you come apart—your thighs rolling against the head of the toy and your mouth hanging open—is always too good an opportunity to pass up. The toy might be the one giving you the pleasure, but Dean’s the one holding it. He’s the person you’re crying for when you cum, and he usually gets to fuck your already swollen pussy after. Doesn’t get much better than that.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Some might call him a monster. And the some is you. You didn’t know how much you could get worked up, until Dean came around and showed you. Through the day he’ll make you flush with little comments, then trace his fingers over your inner thigh in the car, making you flush and pant before he just kisses your cheek and walks away. And you thought that was bad, until he actually got his hands on you, and you learned how much the asshole loves edging. Getting you so wet and flustered your almost sobbing for him, whispering dirty praise until your face is burning, somehow keeping you on the edge with teasing touches, even as his cock drives right into that gummy spot inside of you. He says you’re too adorable not to tease. You roll your eyes, but never ask him to stop. It’s always, just a little, too good.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

The mouth on him should be worthy of a lawsuit. Between the moaning and grunting, the strangled, rumbling sound he makes when he pushes himself inside of you, and the deep, filthy dirty talk, you think you might just be able to cum from his voice. It’s not fair, but Dean doesn’t play fair, and you don’t want him to. One day, when you’re brave, you’ll ask him to test the theory. He’ll oblige, and you’ll certainly end up right.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

Dean’s never in it for himself. If his partner wants him to hand over control, he’ll do it, but it’s never going to be what he prefers. He spends every day of his life begging for the people he loves to listen to him, for once in their damn lives. He’s got a grip over his own world, even if his hands shake on the worst of nights. It’s not liberating for him to be degraded in sex when all he’s known is bruises and spit from the people who were supposed to love him. He wants to be trusted more than he’s ever going to be able to say, to be the only person you turn to for pleasure, to take his hands and mouth and body and have them feel safe for just one, one fucking person. He might be in control during sex, but it’s still all about you, and that’s exactly how he likes it.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

He doesn’t get his confidence from nowhere. For a while—before you—it was sort of the only kind of confidence he had. Dean didn’t count himself for much, but no one could deny their own eyes. The size of him is one thing—long enough to hit spots you didn’t know you had, veiny and uncut and almost pretty—but the girth- It makes your mouth fall open, the first time you see it. You’re not sure you can stretch that wide, and when Dean tells you that you will, sweetheart, you almost roll your eyes. But, damn him, he’s right. You mold around that thick, big cock like a glove, and feel him in every inch of your body.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

If anything, he only gets worse with age. In his younger days, fucking was something he could work himself up to almost any day of the week, even if he wasn’t sure he wanted to an hour ago. A pretty girl and a good drink, the engine could get itself going. Then you came along and made him feel things, and then he let you get close and start making him eat well and drink water and go for stupid walks, and suddenly there isn’t a second that’s enough. If life didn’t get in the way, he’d never let you leave the bed.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

He’ll push through the exhaustion for some proper aftercare, but the moment he’s sure you’re good, Dean’s out like a stone. He doesn’t sleep well under any other circumstance, but you work him hard, then let him use you like a human body pillow, and he finds the closest thing he knows to peace, right there, with you in his arms.

✦Dean Masterlist - Main Masterlist - read on AO3!✦

✦Author's Note: i think about him. all the time <3✦

"the salt is getting expensive," sam remarked, shaking a nearly empty plastic container over the rim of a heavy iron skillet. he was wearing a faded flannel shirt and a look of mild concern, his brow furrowed as he tried to scrape the last few grains of coarse salt into the pan. he wasn't looking at anyone in particular, just focusing on the breakfast hash he was attempting to salvage in the small, dimly lit kitchen of the motel.

"just buy the bulk bags from the warehouse," dean mumbled from the table, though his eyes were closed and his voice sounded like it had been dragged through a gravel pit. he was slumped in a vinyl chair, one arm draped over the back and his chin resting on his chest. he looked less like a man who had spent the last forty-eight hours tracking a nest of vampires and more like a discarded piece of laundry.

the motel room smelled of old carpet and cheap pine cleaner, a scent that had become the unofficial fragrance of their lives. sunlight filtered through the gaps in the heavy curtains, casting long, golden strips across the peeling wallpaper. sam turned the stove off with a click, the sizzle of the potatoes dying down as he glanced at his brother. dean didn't move; he just let out a long, rattling sigh and drifted back toward the edge of consciousness, his breathing slowing into a heavy, rhythmic cadence.

eventually, the room fell quiet as sam stepped out to grab some coffee, leaving the silence to settle like dust. dean had shifted, migrating from the chair to the bed, and you had shifted with him. he was out cold, dead to the world in a way that only happens when the adrenaline finally drains out of a person's system. his head was a heavy weight against your chest, his breathing deep and steady, his forehead pressed firmly against your skin.

you lay there in the stillness, your hand hovering just a hair above the line of his jaw. you didn't touch him, not yet, but you traced the air, following the curve of his chin and the slight, unconscious dip of his mouth. in the light of the day, he looked different. the hard, jagged edges of the man who walked into dark forests with a shotgun and a scowl had smoothed over. the tension that usually lived in the bridge of his nose had vanished, leaving behind something soft, human, and devastatingly quiet.

it was the stillness that did it. the way his chest rose and fell in a slow, trusting rhythm that he only ever surrendered to when he was certain no one was sneaking up on him. you watched the way his eyelashes cast long, feathered shadows against his cheekbones, noting the faint, jagged scar near his temple that usually looked like a badge of war. but here, in the dim amber light of the motel room, it just looked like a flaw in a piece of art. he wasn't a soldier or a weapon right now; he was just a man who liked old cars and cheap burgers, exhausted to his very marrow.

then, the weight of it hit you. the sudden, sharp realization that this peace was a fragile thing, held together by the thin thread of a lucky break. you thought about the things that lived in the dark, the things that didn't care about the softness of a sleeping face or the way he held you like you were the only thing keeping him anchored to the earth. a cold knot of anxiety tightened in your stomach, twisting tight and hard. you imagined the door of this room swinging open one last time, and dean walking through it, not coming back. you imagined those green eyes; usually so full of fire and stubbornness; looking at you with a quiet, final goodbye.

the thought was so heavy it felt physical, a pressure in your lungs that made your breathing hitch. you tried to stifle a sob, but the sudden shift in your posture caused the mattress to creak. dean stirred, the rhythmic breathing breaking as he shifted his head against your chest. for a heartbeat, you expected him to bolt upright, hand reaching for the silver blade under the pillow, his eyes wide and hunting for a threat.

instead, he just blinked. his eyelids fluttered open slowly, his pupils dilated and hazy with sleep. he looked up at you, his expression vacant and soft, the world slowly coming back into focus. when he saw the shimmer of tears in your eyes and the intensity of your gaze, his brow furrowed, not with suspicion, but with an immediate, instinctive concern. without a word, he shifted his weight, sliding his arm around your waist to pull you flush against him, tucking your head under his chin.

"hey..." he whispered, his voice a low, sleep-roughened rasp that vibrated against your skin. "what's wrong? i've got you."

you let out a long, shaky breath, the kind that felt like it was releasing a pressure valve in your chest. the terror of the what if? didn't vanish, but it dimmed, eclipsed by the sheer, tangible reality of him. he was warm, he smelled of old leather and soap, and he was solid. you didn't want to tell him about the sudden image of him walking through a door for the last time; you didn't want to burden his exhaustion with the weight of your fear. instead, you leaned forward, pressing your forehead firmly against the center of his chest.

you closed your eyes and listened. beneath the cotton of his t-shirt, his heart was beating—a steady, rhythmic thrum that served as the only truth that mattered in that moment. it was a slow, powerful sound, a reminder that he was here, he was breathing, and he was alive. the anxiety that had coiled tight in your stomach began to unfurl, replaced by a heavy, grounding sense of security.

"nothing," you whispered, your voice still thick with the remnants of those unshed tears. "just looking at you."

dean let out a soft, huffing sound, half-laugh, half-sigh, and tightened his grip on you. he didn't question the intensity of your expression or the way you were clinging to him as if he might evaporate if you let go. he simply understood the gravity of the silence. he shifted slightly, nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck, his stubble grazing your skin in a way that made you feel anchored and seen.

"you're weird," he murmured, though the words were devoid of any real teasing. he sounded sleepy, his voice still thick with the haze of a deep slumber, but there was a tenderness in the tone that he rarely showed the rest of the world. he shifted his hand, his thumb tracing a slow, soothing circle on the small of your back, as if he were calming a frightened animal.

he stayed like that for a long time, the two of you cocooned in the quiet of the room. the world outside the motel door continued to turn. sam was probably halfway through a cardboard tray of coffee, the impala was collecting dust in the parking lot, and there was likely another town somewhere with a strange history and a missing person's report. but inside the circle of his arms, the clock seemed to stop. the frantic pace of their lives, the constant vigilance, and the weight of the family business felt like a distant memory, something that belonged to a different version of the man currently holding you.

dean shifted, his chin rubbing against the top of your head as he let out a slow, contented exhale. he wasn't a man of many words when it came to the things that actually mattered, but the way he held you; firm, protective, and unwilling to let an inch of space come between you, spoke louder than any confession. he knew you were shaken; he could feel the lingering tremor in your shoulders, and though he didn't ask for the details, he adjusted his hold, pulling you closer until you could feel the warmth radiating off his skin.

"i'm not going anywhere," he murmured, his voice now a bit clearer but still laced with a lingering sleepiness. he didn't know the exact image that had flashed through your mind, but he knew the ghosts you both lived with. he knew the particular brand of fear that came with loving someone whose job description involved walking into the mouth of hell. his thumb continued that slow, hypnotic circle on your back, grounding you in the present, reminding you that he was solid and he was here.

you shifted your head slightly, looking up at him. his green eyes were no longer hazy; they were clear and focused, searching your face with an intensity that felt like a physical touch. there was a flicker of the old dean there; the stubborn, fierce protector; but it was tempered by a softness that was reserved only for this bed, in this kind of silence. he saw the last remnants of the anxiety in your eyes and leaned down, pressing a slow, lingering kiss to your forehead.

"better?" he asked softly.

"much better," you whispered, the tension finally draining from your limbs. you let out a long, shaky sigh and tucked your face back into the crook of his neck, breathing in the scent of him. the panic that had gripped you moments ago hadn't vanished—it never truly did in a life like this—but it had shifted from a sharp, stabbing pain to a dull hum, something manageable as long as you could feel the rise and fall of his chest.

dean let out a low grunt of satisfaction, his muscles relaxing back into the mattress. he didn't move to get up or check his phone for a new lead; he just stayed there, anchoring you to the present. the silence of the room was interrupted by the distant sound of a car door slamming in the parking lot, likely sam returning with the coffee, but the noise felt miles away. for the first time in weeks, the urgency of the hunt didn't feel like a weight on your shoulders.

It turns out that running for Congress isn't all sunshine and rainbows, especially when you have a past as colorful as Bucky's. And it seemed like you were the only person who knew that he never wanted to do those things, that he was forced into taking the lives of all those people. Or maybe all these people did know, and just enjoyed throwing it back in his face to get a reaction from him.

You couldn't even count on your hands the amount of times someone whispered the words "Winter Soldier" around the two of you, as if it was a failing on Bucky's part. He didn't ask to fall off a train, be kidnapped and tortured, and turned into a killing machine. And people knew this—he'd been cleared of his transgressions for years now. They just didn't have the common decency to keep their comments to themselves.

"Are you sure that you want to go to this banquet tonight? I'm pretty sure most of the people that are going to be there have all but submitted their ballot." It wasn't that you didn't think Bucky could manage to change their minds; you knew better than anyone how charming and persuasive he could be. In truth, you just didn't want to leave the house tonight. The Food Network was calling your name.

"It can't hurt to try." Bucky says, shooting you a knowing smile. He knew this was a very poor attempt at getting him to cuddle in bed with you, and as much as he wanted to give in, he had a job to do. "When we get home, I'll run you a nice bath, pour you a glass of wine, and we can relax for a bit. How does that sound, baby?"

"Let me get this straight; you're going to spend all night kissing the ass of everyone we come into contact with, but when we get home you want to spoil me?" You laugh as you adjust his tie, shaking your head in mock disappoint. "What happened to putting yourself first, Mr. Barnes? You know how important self care is to me."

"That'll be Congressman Barnes to you soon enough, Mrs. Barnes." He mutters as he stares down at you, his metal arm wrapping around you to bring you closer.

"Careful, Bucky. Don't start something that you know we can't finish; we have to be out the door and in the limo in like 5 minutes." You say, waving a teasing finger at him.

"Hm, and how do you expect me to keep my hands to myself when you look this good?" Bucky's arm tightens ever so slightly around you, and if this were any other time, you would've taken the bait and tore his clothes off. But the two of you had business to attend to, and if you had to suffer, so did Bucky.

"Nice try. Come on, we need to get going." You say as you grab your clutch, ignoring the dramatic groan coming from behind you.

"I hope you know that you're going to pay for that later." Bucky calls as he watches you walk down the steps.

As much as you hated to admit it, you weren't having the worst time at this gala. The space was decorated beautifully, unlike some of the previous ones that you'd been to. You'd seen kindergarten classrooms that were less garish. And they were serving the good alcohol, so that was always a bonus.

You were standing off to the side while Bucky talked to one of the other candidates—one of the men who probably only ran to uphold his "family legacy" at the demand of his mother and father. The family legacy that has kept New Yorkers down and out of power for years, if you had to guess.

Usually, Bucky could handle your average pompous asshole. But you could tell that even this one was starting to get to him; his jaw was locked, he hadn't even opened his mouth in at least 3 minutes, and he was holding onto his glass of whiskey.

You could save him, theoretically. But being able to sit back and watch as he tried to keep control of the situation? Well, that was a much more fun option. So you stayed rooted in your spot, swirling an olive around in your half empty martini glass.

"Isn't he just so handsome?" Someone said as they came up to stand on your left. You look over to see an older woman, probably in her mid to late 50s, ogling your husband. As if she could ever have a shot at him.

"He is." You state simply, deciding to humor her a little. "Wouldn't it be nice to have someone in Congress that isn't covered in wrinkles and grey hairs?"

"Hey, greys and wrinkles aren't all that bad." She says with mock offense. "Although, I guess I wouldn't know. I froze my face before I hit 30, just to make sure of it."

Alright, maybe this lady isn't all bad. "So, is that handsome man over there the one you plan on voting for?" You ask as you gesture towards Bucky.

"I'm not entirely sure yet. His policies are solid, especially for a first time runner, and he seems hellbent on making sure that he makes a change." The old woman paused, tilting her head almost thoughtfully as she looked at Bucky. "But I'm just not sure. I mean, how can we trust someone who's been through all the things he's been through to not…fall into old habits? I mean, can brainwashing like that ever truly be undone?"

If this had been a couple years ago, those words would have gotten to you. Not because you believed them or you hadn't heard people say them to or around you a dozen times, but because Bucky had said them to you on multiple occasions. When he first came off the ice in Wakanda, he didn't believe that he could really be fixed.

"You shouldn't be thinking of it as something that needs to be fixed." You'd told him. "Think of it more so as you returning to your old self. The you who would step in between Steve and that week's bully without a moment of hesitation."

But it had worked. You knew it did, because Bucky would still make you test it sometimes. Just to make sure.

So when you responded to her, it came from the mouth of James Buchanan Barnes' biggest supporter, because you had seen all the work he had put into making sure he never turned into that person again. "I can assure you, he has everything under control. If something were going to happen, don't you think it would have happened by now? There is nothing for you to worry about; if Bucky is elected, there will be zero chance of him harming anyone. I can promise you that."

"My, that was quiet a response." The lady says with a chuckle. "What are you, his campaign manager or something?"

"Actually, she's my wife." Bucky says as he comes up to your other side. You'd been so focused on this lady and her unwanted commentary, you'd taken your eyes off of Bucky. "You wouldn't mind if I stole her for a quick dance, would you?"

"Of course not." She says, waving a dismissive hand. As if she hadn't spent the past few minutes implying that your husband would fly off the rails and start killing people in the middle of a congressional meeting. Bucky shoots her an appreciative smile, taking your glass and setting it on the tray of a waiter passing by before grabbing your hand and pulling you towards the dance floor.

"You looked like you were about to pounce on that lady, doll. It's a good thing that I got there when I did, or that would've seriously hurt my chances of winning this thing." He jokes as the two of you step onto the dance floor. "What was that all about?"

"Just an old lady who had no idea what she was talking about." You shrug, letting Bucky take the lead in your dancing. "Nothing to worry about."

"Oh yeah? That's not what it looked like. At least, not from where I was standing." Bucky says with a smirk. "Come on, tell me what she said that's got you all so worked up."

"I am not worked up." You say defensively, not missing the way his eyebrow raises. "Okay, fine, maybe I am a little worked up. But I already didn't want to come to this stupid event tonight, and having to stand there listening to her act like the Winter Soldier was going to come out and strangle her to death made me a little angry. So what? I'd say that it's perfectly normal to get upset when someone calls the character of your husband into question."

Bucky shakes his head, and if you didn't know any better, you'd think he too was upset by this news. But you did know better, so you could tell from the look on his face that he was trying his hardest to hold back his laughter. "I thought that you would be used to those stupid comments by now, baby. What happened to the girl that used to tell me to block all of that bullshit out?"

"She's on vacation." You grumble as Bucky spins you around. When you fall back into him, his arm wraps around your waist to pull you closer.

"You just have to let this stuff go. Like water off a duck's back, you know?" At your unimpressed look, he looks at you and smile. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Because that's something that only grandpa's say." You say with a snort. "I know that you're like, over a hundred years old, but you don't have to sound like it too."

"Careful, young lady. You're already on thin ice because of earlier, remember?" He says as the two of you sway to the rhythm of the slow song.

"Oh no, I'm shaking in my boots." You say sarcastically as you roll your eyes.

Bucky chuckles and shakes his head, looking down at you with thinly veiled desire. "Yeah, you're going to regret all of this sass later on tonight."

"Are you sure that you're going to make it to later tonight? I'm pretty sure that we're a couple hours past your bedtime, Mr. Barnes. You might fall asleep during the car ride home before you can even make good on your promise."

You were well aware that you were digging your own grave this at this point, but you didn't really care. After all, that was what made nights like these fun for you.

After the night comes to a close and you and Bucky say your goodbyes, you practically shove him into the limo, ignoring the smug look on his face. "Jesus, doll. I'm not completely indestructible, you know that, right?" He says with a laugh as you climb on top of him.

"Shut up. Do you know how hard it is to have to stand there all night, watching you talk to all those people? I don't know if you know this, but you're really fucking hot, and I have a hard time keeping my hands to myself at these events." You ramble, your fingers struggling to undo his tie.

Bucky scoffs, shaking his head as he reaches up to put a stop to your hands, placing your arms around his neck instead. "Wow, I appreciate the nice words, doll. It's so great to be looked at like a piece of meat."

Your eyes roll involuntarily at that, and you attempt to get back to what you were doing when Bucky pinches your thigh. A noise of pain comes out of you, and you're about to voice such pain when Bucky gestures his head to the open partition that's meant to be separating the two of you and your driver.

"Excuse me, sir, could you roll up the partition, please? My husband and I need to have a private conversation." The saccharine tone of voice you'd been using the whole night comes back pretty easily, despite how desperate you are to be doing something much more fun.

"No problem, ma'am." The driver replies curtly, his hand rushing to push the button that would put some separation between him and whatever you and Bucky were getting up to in the back of his limo.

You wait until the divider is fully closed before turning your attention back to Bucky, smiling down at him like a kid in a candy store. "Now, where were we?"

"You were looking at me like I'm a piece of meat." Bucky quips, laughing softly at the way you glare at him.

"I am not looking at you like you're a piece of meat," You say as an almost manic sort of grin tugs at your lips. "I'm looking at you like you're my very handsome husband. Which you are."

"You really know how to make a guy feel special, don't you?" Bucky asks sarcastically as he runs his thumb over your knuckles. "Why don't we slow down for a bit, okay? We are not having sex in a limo right now."

"And why the hell not? It's not like we haven't done it before, you know." You remind him as you trace your finger down his jaw. "There was that one time, on that mission in France a few years back. And then there was that time we had a quickie while Sam was in that meeting dealing with something. Don't tell me that you've gotten boring in your old age, James."

"I am far from boring, and you know that, sweetheart." Bucky had that look in his eye—the one that said that he was still holding back, but the strings of the rope keeping him there were slowly starting to snap. After all, he wasn't always the most patient man on the planet, especially when it came to you and your body. And you knew exactly what buttons to let that part of him loose.

"Well you're not being any fun right now." You grumble as you card your fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. "It's late and there's traffic outside, which means that there is more than enough time for us to do something, James."

"Don't call me that, that's not fair." Bucky says as if the name physically pains him.

"Why not? It's your name, isn't it?" You tease. You knew more than anyone how much he hated being called by that name. He said that it made you sound like his mother, back when she would scold him—and Steve, because where Bucky went, Steve went—for tracking water in the house or for spending their last dime on something frivolous.

"Don't get smart with me. You're already in enough hot water as it is, so I wouldn't push your luck if I were you." Bucky warns as he trails his hands along your sides.

Any other time you might have finally taken the hint and backed off, but not tonight. You just knew that if you pushed a little harder, maybe even begged a bit, you could get what you wanted from your husband. It was just important that you played your cards right.

"Fine." You sigh, slumping against Bucky's body and resting your head on his shoulder. "Just wanted to have a bit of fun, you know? It was a long night tonight."

Bucky looks you up and down, his eyes narrowing as he assesses you. If he saw through this whole act of yours, he didn't comment on it. Bucky was a lot of things, and he could usually hold out for longer. But when you had a pout on your lips and those pretty little lashes of yours fluttered? There wasn't much he could do to deny you what you wanted, no matter how hard he tried.

"God, you're killing me here, doll." Bucky groans as he flips the two of you around so that you're sitting on the seat. You yelp in surprise, gripping onto his shoulders as he lowers himself down between your thighs. "This will not become an every time thing, you understand me? No matter how much you beg and plead."

"Yes sir." You say, hiding your triumphant grin by biting down on your lip. Bucky glares at your teasing, but chooses not to comment on it. Instead he hikes up your dress, humming in approval when you lift your hips so he can remove your underwear. You watch as he kisses up your left thigh, nearly getting to your core before switching to your right leg and repeating the process, slower this time. He always loved to take his time when it came to eating you out; said that there was no need to rush when he had something so precious right there in front of him.

"Are you always so wet for me?" He murmurs as he nips at your thigh. It was a useless question; one that you both knew the answer to. How could you not be constantly aroused when you were around him?

"I meant what I said earlier about you being really fucking hot." Your giggle is cut off by a low moan as Bucky finally presses a kiss to your lips, the feeling of his warm breath already overwhelming you.

"Pleasure to be of service." Bucky hums before licking a stripe from your hole to your clit. Your legs twitch in response, pressing against his head as he dives deeper.

A whine falls from you, your hips canting upward in a silent plea for more. More touch? More pressure? More what, you're not really sure. But you're feeling needy at the moment, and Bucky is the only person who can satisfy your desperate needs at the moment. His name gets caught on your lips as he sucks on your clit, your head resting on the back of the seat as he does it again and again. "If you don't stop, I'm gonna cum."

"That's the goal, sweetheart." Bucky says with a smirk as he flicks his tongue just right, watching in thinly veiled satisfaction as your eyes roll into the back of your head. "Come on, doll, I know you can. Why don't you give me a little taste?"

There's a fuck you sitting right on the tip of your tongue, but you know that being a brat won't get you what you want right now. And right now, that coil in the pit of your stomach is painfully tight, but it's close to snapping. You just need a little bit more from your husband to set it free. Your hand reaches down and tangles itself in Bucky's hair, pressing him hard into your cunt.

"More." You beg—or would plead be the better word? It doesn't really matter, because Bucky seems to know exactly what you mean. He always knows what you need to be thrown off that ledge.

A combination of licking, sucking, and nipping comes next. It could all happen in minutes, or it could have all happened in a mere matter of seconds, but it doesn't matter. When you cum you have to remind yourself that you and Bucky aren't in the comfort of your own home, because if not for the way you were biting your lip, you'd know for a fact that the driver would have heard the moan that clawed it's way out of your throat.

"God, you always looks so beautiful when you come undone for me." Bucky says, giving you one last lick before getting up and sitting beside you. Your head falls onto his shoulder as you try and catch your breath, Bucky's arm wrapping around you.

There's a few moments of silence as the two of you collect yourselves. "Thank you." You whisper, pressing a kiss to Bucky's cheek.

"I hope you know that we're continuing this when we get home." He says as the fingers of his metal arm trail up and down your arm.

"Yeah, I'm counting on it. You look like you could use some release." You tease as your hand brushes against the very obvious bulge that is threatening to rip his pants in half.

Bucky groans, the hand on his knee tightening slightly. "You just can't help yourself, can you? You always have to push your limits."

You shrug, an unrepentant smile on your face as you grab his hand and lace your fingers together. "It is a hobby of mine, yes."

As soon as you and Bucky stumble into your apartment, his jacket comes off and your dress is ripped off your body. A soft laugh floats between the two of you as your back is pressed against the wall. "Careful, careful. We don't need anymore noise complaints from Mrs. Lovett."

"She'll be fine." Bucky dismisses as he taps your thigh, signaling for you to jump into his arms. Once he has you properly settled in his grip, he starts trailing kisses across your collarbone, pausing to suck on your skin every so often. "Besides, there are more pressing matters that we need to attend to at the moment, Mrs. Barnes."

"Oh yeah? And what might those matters be?" You ask with a giggle as you tilt your head back. Rather than answering with his words, Bucky pressed himself against you so that you could feel just how much he craved you.

"Is that enough of an answer for you, doll?" He questions as he starts carrying you towards the bedroom. The door barely has time to shut behind you before he's throwing you on the bed and climbing on top of you, his arms pinning you in on either side of your head.

You don't even give him the chance to say something else, pulling him down by his shoulders and smashing your lips together. This isn't a soft kiss—it is one of need, want, passion, devotion and everything that comes in between. The two of you kiss like you could very well die tomorrow, and you want this to be the last thing you remember about the other.

"It's not fair that you're still so clothed, and I'm laying here naked." You point out when the two of you finally break the intense kiss. "Why don't you get naked too?"

"Would that make you happy, doll?" Bucky asks with a smirk as he pulls back slightly. "Because you know that I'd do anything you wanted if it made you happy."

"It would make me very happy, Bucky." You whisper, watching as Bucky slowly undoes the buttons of his shirt and slips it off his shoulder. A soft sigh comes out as his chest comes into view, and you have to fight every bone in your body to stop yourself from reaching out and touching him. Before he can undo the buckle of his belt, you reach out and place your hand over his. "Let me help you with that."

Bucky's gaze intensifies as he watches your hands undo his belt, a hum of approval coming out when you also undo the button of his pants. "So helpful for me, sweetheart." He murmurs, his hand cupping your cheek and pulling you in for another kiss. This one is much softer and slower, like he just remembered that there was no need to rush through any of this; you had the whole night ahead of you.

He pushed you back down again, keeping a hand on your stomach so that you would stay still while he removed his pants and his boxers in one motion. Most people wouldn't see a dick and have the first thought that came to their mind be about how pretty it looked, but you would. Especially when it was Bucky's—it was almost as if it was handcrafted by the gods to be everything you could ever want and need in a husband. The way it curved slightly upwards and to the right, the way it twitched whenever you so much as breathed near it, the tiny bead of precum that traveled from his tip and down his shaft.

It was nothing short of perfect, and it was all yours. Forever.

"Never seen anything prettier than when you're all laid out in front of me like this." He whispers into your ear as his hand travels up your legs, the cold metal of his fingers settling on your clit and drawing small circles. He swallows the gasp that comes from your lips with his mouth, his body pressing against yours.

"Oh, fuck." You whine against his lips, raising your hips up in hopes of getting some more pressure. "Bucky—"

"Shh, I know, baby. I know. I just need to work you open a bit more, okay? Don't wanna hurt you." His words are meant to be reassuring, but all they do is make you whine even louder.

"Don't care, just want you." You grumble, wrapping your legs around his waist and flipping the two of you over. Bucky lets out a noise of surprise, his hands shooting out to your hips to make sure you don't topple over.

"You can't just be patient for two minutes, can you?" Bucky asks with a scoff, but it's clear from the smile that sits on his lips that he's not particularly upset about you taking control.

"I've been patient all night long, I think I've earned some kind of reward." You say with a huff as you wrap your hands around Bucky's shaft and give it a few pumps, biting your lip at the way Bucky's breath catches in his throat.

"Alright, yeah. That seems fair—fuck, doll. You're gonna make me cum if you keep doing that." He groans as his eyes screw shut. You giggle, rubbing your thumb along his tip as your other hand joins the first one on his shaft.

"What was it you said earlier? Something about working me open?" You pretend to think about it, tilting your head slightly before speaking again. "Think of this as my version of doing that."

"You're going to pay for this later, and I won't be as kind as I was earlier." Bucky warns as his grip on your hips tightens.

"Oh, honey. I'm holding you to that." You say as you line him up with your entrance before sliding down. The two of you moan as you become one, Bucky's head falling back into the pillows while you place your hands on his chest to steady yourself. You take a moment to adjust to his size—had he somehow gotten bigger?—before starting to rock your hips, your mouth falling open as quiet sighs and curses escaped you.

"Fuck, doll, you feel like heaven." Bucky grits out as he aids you in rocking yourself back and forth. You were definitely going to have bruises in the shape of his fingers tomorrow morning, but it would all be worth it if it meant you could be reminded of this moment. "No place I'd rather be right now."

"Me either." You manage to choke out as your start moving faster, your clit rubbing against the hair at the base of Bucky's dick. Everything just felt so good; it was all too much, but not enough at the same time. You wanted more, but you knew that you wouldn't be able to get what you needed without more of Bucky's help. "Can you…?"

"Can I what, doll?" He asks with a raised eyebrow. He wasn't stupid, he knew exactly what it was you were asking for. But you'd been so insistent on taking what you wanted, and he was going to make you do some begging before giving into what you wanted. "I thought that you could handle all of this by yourself?"

On a different night, at a different time, you would have fought back. You would've given him some lip, and showed him just how much you could handle on your own. But this wasn't any other night, and you'd been so worked up all night long, and he was right there, looking like sin incarnate with that stupid grin and his perfect hair. Swallowing your pride just this one time wouldn't kill you.

"Please? Feels good, feels so good, but not enough." You whine as your hips momentarily halt their motions. Bucky tsks, using his hold on your hips to make you start moving again.

"Did I tell you that you could stop?" He says scoldingly, removing his hands once you return to your previous pace. "You wanted this so bad, no way you're stopping now. In fact, I'll just lay here until you can make yourself cum."

You knew from past experience that that wasn't just an empty threat; Bucky could restrain himself all night if that's what it took. Stupid fucking super soldier serum. You couldn't pout and plead your way into getting what you wanted tonight, unfortunately.

With a whine that you would almost certainly deny later, you readjusted your position on Bucky's lap so that you could get more comfortable, focusing on getting him deeper inside of you so that he'd hit that spot inside of you that desperately craved attention. This new stance and new focus put more attention on your clit, the feeling of Bucky all around you creating a sense of pleasure that you knew like the back of your hand.

"There you go, good girl." Bucky whispers mockingly as he trails a hand up your thigh. He chuckles at your almost pained noise as his hand makes contact with your skin. "I can feel you tightening around me, you know? It can't possibly feel that good, can it, doll?"

Tomorrow morning, you were going to make him pay for that smug look in his eyes right now. But currently, you were too preoccupied by the fact that he was so deep inside you there was a chance he would never come out. "Bucky, please. I promise, I'll be good—I'll be so fucking good, just help me cum!" You plead as your fingers scratch down his chest.

Bucky finally seems to take pity on you, rolling his eyes as if this was the biggest inconvenience before flipping the two of you over once more so he was hovering over you. "How can I deny you when you beg so prettily when you need something from me, hm?"

There's barely any time for you to form a response before Bucky hooks one of your legs up and over his shoulder with one hand, the other one finding it's place against your neck. His hips snap against yours, the pace almost punishing.

"Fuck!" You shout as you throw your head back, your fingernails digging into his shoulders as he speeds up. He knew just what to do to send you over the edge, and you were forever grateful for that.

Moans, whimpers, sighs, and curses all fell from your lips, but you couldn't make out exactly what was being said. The scent of sex mixed with Bucky's cologne and your perfume was simply too much for you to handle all at once, and that familiar swirl in the pit of your stomach was building up once more.

"So fucking perfect for me, sweetheart." Bucky grunts as he tightens his hold on your neck, watching the way your eyelids flutter shut and your mouth falls open once more. "No other way to describe it, other than utterly fucking perfect. And all mine."

"All yours, Bucky." You repeat once he removes his hand from around your throat. Your own hands scratch down his back as that feeling that you've been chasing comes back, your words almost stuck inside you. "Gonna cum."

"It's okay, you can cum. Cum for me, doll, come on." Bucky whispers as he trails his kisses from your forehead, to the tip of your nose, to your cheeks and your jaw, and finally to your lips. The hand that slides between of you to give your clit a little extra attention is the straw that breaks the camel's back, an orgasm so powerful that the corners of your eyes fill with white spots. You can distantly feel Bucky's load spilling out of him and into you before everything fades away.

When you come to a few minutes later, Bucky is slowly lowering the two of you into the tub in your en suite bathroom. Your head lolls back against his shoulder as you slowly blink away the fuzziness clinging to your vision.

"Well, well. Look who's back." Bucky says with a soft smile, his arm wrapped around your midsection. "You passed out on me there for a bit, had me all worried."

"I'd say that I was sorry, but we both know that that would be a lie." You say with a cheeky grin, earning a snort from the man behind me. "You should be proud of yourself, honestly. The sex is so good it made me pass out for a couple minutes."

"And squirt." Bucky adds casually as he reaches for your favorite soap. You whirl around, sending warm water splashing out of the sides of the tub.

"I what?" You shriek, jaw dropped as you stare down your husband. He just shrugs, as if he was sharing the morning's weather report with you. "But we just changed the sheets." You whine as you turn and lean against Bucky's chest.

"We just had mind blowing sex, and you're worried about the fact that we have to change the sheets again?" Bucky asks incredulously before pressing a kiss to your shoulder. "And you have the nerve to call me old."

"Well, that's different. You're like, over a hundred years old." You counter with a small smile. "I just don't like changing the sheets or doing laundry."

"If it bothers you so much, I'll change the damn sheets." Bucky says with a scoff as he puts some soap on the towel and begins washing your back.

"Such a perfect husband. What would I do without you?" You tease, adjusting so that Bucky can clean your back properly. Although, it wasn't a joke. Bucky really was the perfect husband to you, and you wouldn't trade him out for anything or anyone else.

Because when it came down to it, you loved him more than you had ever loved anyone else.

He is obsessed.

It starts small, the first time he rests his head against your stomach. You’re both on the couch after a long mission, exhausted and half-limp with it. You’re sitting upright, back pressed into the armrest, scrolling through something on your phone while he stretches out along the length of the couch. He shifts closer without asking, metal hand warm and steady as it hooks around your thigh and tugs you in.

“Buck,” you murmur, distracted.

“Shh.”

And then he just… folds.

He slides down until his head is resting squarely in your lap, cheek pressed to the softness of your belly. Not flat against bone. Not sharp edges. Just warmth and give and comfort. He exhales like he’s found something sacred.

You freeze. “What are you doing?”

“Using my pillow,” he answers simply, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Your stomach flips. “You have like six actual pillows.”

“None of them are this good.”

His flesh hand splays wide over your side, thumb brushing the slight dip where your waist curves inward before swelling out again. He gives a little squeeze—absentminded, affectionate—and settles his full weight there.

You’re hyperaware of it. The weight of his head. The scratch of his stubble through your shirt. The way his nose presses just slightly into you when he breathes.

“I’m squishy,” you mutter.

“Exactly.”

He sounds downright pleased about it.

You expect him to move after a minute. To tease you and then roll away. But he doesn’t. He stays. His shoulders loosen. His fingers trace lazy shapes along the underside of your belly, reverent and slow.

“You’re so soft,” he murmurs, voice dipping lower, rougher. “Don’t know how you walk around like this without me glued to you all the time.”

Heat floods your face. “You’re ridiculous.”

“I’m serious.”

He turns his head slightly and presses a slow kiss right through your shirt, just below your navel. The sensation makes you jolt.

“Buck.”

“What?” he asks innocently, but there’s a smile tugging at his mouth. “Can’t appreciate my girl?”

It’s the way he says it—my girl. Like he’s claiming treasure.

You shift, suddenly self-conscious. “You don’t… wish I was smaller?”

The question slips out before you can stop it. You hate that it does. You hate that it’s even in your head.

He goes very still.

Slowly, he pushes himself up onto his elbows until he’s looking at you directly. His eyes are blue and sharp and entirely serious.

“Smaller?” he repeats, almost offended. “Why would I want less of you?”

Your breath catches.

He sits up properly then, hands coming to frame your waist. He doesn’t hesitate. Doesn’t soften his grip. He squeezes—firm, grounding.

“I love this,” he says, sliding his palm over your belly openly now. “Love how you feel. Love how you fit in my hands. Love how I can lay my head here and hear you laugh and feel it.” He presses his ear back against you demonstratively. “It’s my favorite sound system.”

A startled laugh bursts out of you.

“There it is,” he says smugly. “See? Worth it.”

You swat at him lightly, but he catches your wrist and brings your hand to his hair instead. Encouraging. Guiding. Like he wants you to get used to this.

“I like that you’re soft,” he continues, quieter now. “I spent decades surrounded by hard things. Cold things. I don’t want that anymore.”

His cheek presses back into your belly, slower this time. Intentional. He rubs his face there shamelessly, like a cat claiming its spot.

“You’re warm,” he murmurs. “You’re comfortable. You’re real.”

Your fingers slide through his hair without thinking, nails scraping gently at his scalp. He melts instantly, breath shuddering out of him.

“And I like that I can do this,” he adds.

He wraps both arms around you and tugs until you’re practically folded over him, his face buried fully against your stomach now. He nuzzles, exaggerated and greedy, and then presses a series of soft kisses along the curve.

You can’t stop smiling.

“You’re obsessed,” you accuse softly.

“Yeah.”

No denial. Not even a pause.

“I am.”

His hand slides under your shirt this time, skin to skin. His palm spreads wide over the softness there, thumb tracing lazy circles. He watches your face carefully as he does it, gauging every reaction, like he wants to memorize the way you respond.

“I like that you’re soft enough for me to sink into,” he says, voice dropping slightly. “Like that when I grab you, I actually get to hold something.”

Your breath goes shallow.

His touch shifts from playful to deliberate. Fingers pressing deeper. Appreciative. His lips follow the path of his hand, kissing along your belly slowly, like he’s mapping it.

“You know what my favorite part is?” he asks quietly.

“What?”

He lifts his head just enough to look at you, eyes dark now, but still tender.

“That you don’t hide from me.”

Your chest tightens.

“You let me love you like this,” he continues. “You let me touch you. Lay on you. Hold you. And I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”

He slides up your body then, kissing a path from your stomach to your sternum, to your collarbone, until he’s hovering over you on the couch. Big and solid and entirely devoted.

“And if you ever start thinking you need to be smaller,” he adds softly, brushing his nose against yours, “I’m gonna remind you that I need exactly this.”

His hand drifts back down, settling possessively over your belly again. Like it belongs there.

Like you belong there.

You pull him down into a kiss before you can overthink it, arms wrapping around his shoulders. He smiles against your mouth, satisfied, and then deliberately shifts so he can rest his head back where he started.

Pillow reclaimed.

You roll your eyes, but your hands find his hair automatically.

“Comfortable?” you tease.

He sighs like a man who has found heaven.

“‘Red’ to stop completely.” You tap his wrist; the plates whir soft as he lets you. “Yellow means I need you to slow down or change something, not stop.”

“Good.” The metal fingers turn just enough to cradle your touch without catching. “What if I ask you for numbers?”

“Zero is nothing. Ten is too much. Keep it between… six and eight while we build?”

He nods again. “No surprises. First contact will be here.” He brushes two knuckles under your collarbone. “Then here.” He skims down the centerline of your chest, not touching your breast, just letting the promise of proximity sit there. “We can go lower if you want it. And we’re avoiding…” He waits.

“Neck and face,” you say. “And I want to keep my inner thighs for your hands.” Your cheeks heat. “Both of them.”

The quickest ghost of a smile. “Copy that.” He glances at the table. “Wax type is paraffin blends with a low melt point; I tested them already.” There’s a flash of old habit, mission brief cadence, fact then contingency. “We’ll build the heat slowly. You tell me if the scent is too strong. If you arch away, I’ll anchor you. If you flinch toward the flame, I’ll move it. I will not let you chase it with your hands. I will not let you come apart without me saying so. Clear?”

You’re already floating, held together by the way he speaks. “Clear.”

His jaw works once. He reaches for your hand, flesh this time, thumb pressing into the soft between your knuckles. “I need to hear you say you can answer me when I ask you how you’re doing.”

“I can answer you.”

“And you want this.”

“I want this.”

“Good girl.” It lands like the first warm spill. Your breath hiccups; his eyes flick to your mouth, then back to your eyes like he promised himself not to push too fast.

He rises, presses a kiss to your temple, and then he’s in motion: strike of a lighter, the candle flames blooming one by one. He warms the oil between his palms, rolls your shoulders with sure strokes, works down the line of your spine with his flesh hand while the metal plates rest cool over your hip to remind your body of north. He moves slowly, deliberately, narrating what he’s doing without breaking the softness of it.

“Okay,” he murmurs as he eases your top over your head, the fabric rasping over your skin. “Lie back for me.” He tucks the folded towel beneath you to catch the wax, the edges crisp against your sides. The apartment light is low enough to make the candle flames brighter; it paints gold along the curve of his jaw. “Hands?” he asks.

You lift them, offering. He gathers your wrists and places them above your head on the pillow, not binding you, just arranging you there, his palm covering your hands for a second so you feel the weight. “If you need them, you take them back,” he says. “Otherwise, keep them where I put them.”

“Okay.”

He kisses the center of your chest like a benediction and then the world narrows to his breathing and the soft sound of wax shifting inside tin as he tips it, testing the temperature against the back of his hand. He’s meticulous: he waits, counts silently, blows once, and then tilts.

The first drop lands just below your collarbone. It’s not a drop so much as a full note, the heat a small sting, the texture laying down like a seal against your skin. Your back arcs. Your mouth opens around a sound that feels like relief and shock braided together.

“There she is,” he says, quiet pride threading through it. The vibranium plates slide in after, cool and sure, gliding over the new mark with a pressure that makes you shiver. The heat turns from sharp to singing. The cold takes the edge and clarifies the rest.

“Color?” he asks.

“Green,” you manage, eyes hot and unfocused.

“Number?”

“Six.”

He hums. “Good.” He tips again.

This time he paints a line from sternum to the point where your ribs divide, measured, steady. He follows it with the cool path of his metal hand, mapping the warmth up with the chill down, like he’s drawing coordinates only he can read. You feel yourself settle into the rhythm his body sets, pour, lift, soothe; inhale, hold, exhale. Your brain stops grabbing at the edges of things and slides into the structure he offers.

“Count with me,” he says softly. “Three breaths. Big ones.”

You do. You fill your lungs with air that smells faintly of the wax, cotton, cream, and him, which smells like old leather, a hint of clean steel, and the ghost of whatever soap he uses. On the second exhale he drags the back of his metal fingers lightly along the underside of your breast, not touching anything he promised to avoid, but flirting with the border so your whole body leans toward him.

“Bucky,” you whisper.

“I know,” he says, a smile in the sound, and then he pours a small constellation across your left shoulder, peppering you with heat, and answers each star with the kiss of cold.

You lose the room for a while. The apartment recedes to candlelight and Bucky’s voice, to the cadence of “Color?” and the hum of his approval when your answer stays steady. He’s not rushed. He’s not trying to drag you somewhere. He’s building a scaffolding underneath you, rung by rung, and settling you on it like you can climb higher if you want and he’ll be right there if your foot slips.

When he finally asks, “Lower?” your ‘yes’ is so immediate it makes him laugh, low and pleased.

He slides the towel down, exposes your stomach like it’s a revelation. “Look at me,” he says, and you do, and the urge to hide evaporates. He tilts the tin, and the first trail lands along the soft curve beside your navel, a heat that writes you open. The cold of his palm follows, smooth and sure, and then the metal, and then his mouth, warm again, just the faintest press of lips to skin that’s almost dry. You tremble.

“You take marks so pretty,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “Like you were made to be touched in lines and layers.” She trusts me, she trusts me, don’t waste it. He hears the thought in his own skull, one of those clean, tinny sets of words that pop and vanish without echo. He’s grateful for the simplicity. His whole nervous system loves the rules. He loves them because they let him love you.

“Number?” he asks when you make a sound that sharpens.

“Seven. Seven and a half.”

He nods, tips less, aims higher. When he pours again, it’s on a breath, not a gasp. You find the difference between flinching and reaching, the small decision to meet it halfway. He sees it happen, that choice, and the pride that moves through him is a physical thing. He palms the metal spoon in the ice water without looking and lays the cool circle down in the center of your chest like a coin, watching the way you exhale around it as if your body was made to respond to a signal.

“Hands still good?” he asks.

“Good.” You swallow. “I like that you tell me what you’re going to do.”

His smile is a crooked flicker, there and gone. “I like the way you listen.” I like the way you come back to me each time like the world makes sense here. He tests the next candle, a shade deeper in color, a fraction hotter. His voice softens. “This one’s warmer. I’ll lay it thinner, more distance. If I see you chase, I’ll ground you. If it pushes past eight, we go back down. Nod for me.”

You nod. He pours.

It does push, the heat is more insistent, a thin ribbon that lands and blooms into ache like a flower opening too fast, beautiful and nearly violent. Your breath hiccups. Your back arches, up, not away, and his metal palm is there, flattening gently just under your sternum, pressing you back into the cushion with a steady, anchoring weight.

“Breathe. With me.”

You do. He watches your ribs expand under his hand. He watches your face, not your body, the way a pilot watches instruments when the horizon blurs. He waits the exact number of seconds it takes for the heat to turn into sing, then glides the cold in to meet it, and you make a sound that is pure relief.

“Color?” he asks.

“Green,” you say, breathless, softer. “Seven. Good seven.”

He eases his weight away but keeps his hand there like a ballast. “That’s my girl.”

The words curl along your spine and settle there. You can feel the wax cooling on your skin, thin plates, smooth edges, the occasional drag where it caught a hair, but it doesn’t feel messy or careless. It feels like a map of decisions the two of you made together. He breaks a small edge near your sternum and peels a strip free, slow enough that the tug registers as a separate sensation. He watches your eyes when he does it, sees the flash of sharp that turns quickly into warm.

“Okay?”

“Okay,” you say. “Do it again.”

He does. He alternates, heat, cold, peel, until the world resolves into rhythm again. Your thighs press together without you thinking about it; he sees it and his mouth tightens just the smallest fraction. He sets the tin down and moves between your knees, one hand, flesh, on the inside of your thigh, the barest pressure, the clearest boundary.

“This area is for my hands,” he reminds you, voice low, like it’s a secret he’s telling you. His thumb draws a slow circle in the tender muscle there, a promise and a warning at once. “And I am very patient.”

You make a noise that would be a complaint if it didn’t sound so much like gratitude.

He laughs once, breathy. I can be patient because you’re here. Because there’s not a rifle in my peripheral, because I chose the candles and the angles and the way the light would hit your skin. The thought moves through him like a train through a station; he watches it pass and doesn’t get on. He is here. He is here and you are here and the only thing he has to do is follow the plan he made to be kind to both of you.

“Roll for me,” he says, gentling you onto your side. He tucks the towel, palms your rib cage with the metal hand, and pours a small, steady line along the outer curve of your breast without crossing what he promised to keep for later. The heat lands, you hiss, he presses the cool in, and your body melts into the couch like the two sensations cancelled gravity.

“Number?”

“Seven. Maybe a good eight if you kiss it.”

He huffs. “Brat.” He kisses the cooling line anyway, his mouth soft and reverent, and your whole body flares like a wire catching current. He holds your gaze when he lifts his head. “Beautiful.”

The word makes you blink, surprised, like you forgot there were adjectives that weren’t just about what you could endure. You swallow. “You’re good at this.”

He shrugs with one shoulder, as if the compliment slides off him easier when he makes a joke of it. “I like hobbies where I can be precise.”

He shifts you again, coaxing rather than repositioning. Your back hits the towel; the ceiling presses low, candlelight flickering in the small draft from the cracked window. He warms more oil between his palms and pours it into the valley between your collarbones, rubbing slowly until your skin shines, his hands a matched set, one warm and human, one cool and whirring, both yours. He keeps the oil light where the wax lies, gliding around the plates he’s made like he respects his own work.

“I want to try something,” he says. “You’ll like it if you listen.”

Your pulse trips. “Yes.”

He takes a pillar candle, brings the flame closer to your skin without pouring, moves it in a slow circle so you feel the heat of proximity before the heat of contact. He watches you learn the difference, tracks the exact moment your breath changes when your body decides the promise is its own kind of sensation. Then he tips, just a few drops, off-center, and follows instantly with the flat of his metal palm, pressing the heat down as if he can fuse sensation to bone.

Your head falls to the side, a gasp pulled from somewhere deep. He does it again, a variation this time, heat to your sternum, cold to your left side, and again, heat in a scatter over your stomach followed by the spoon from the ice jar pressed like a coin to your navel. Your hands grip the pillow above your head just to hang onto something, but you don’t pull away. You’re inside the discipline with him now. You can feel his focus like a harness slipping over your ribs and settling there.

“You’re taking it so good, baby,” he says, awed. “Good. Stay with me. Color?”

“Green,” you breathe, a laugh in it because it’s true. “Eight.”

“Then we hold here.” He sets the candle down, palms your hips with both hands, one warm, one cold. “What do you want?”

You look at him. Your body is a choir of signals: ache, hum, edge, need. He is the conductor. You hand him the baton. “I want you to tell me.”

He exhales, something like gratitude and something like hunger threaded through it. “I’m going to take some of this off you. I’m going to make you feel it. And then, if you ask me nicely, I’ll give you my hand.” He squeezes your hip with the flesh palm, firm enough to tell your body where to put its attention. “Which one?”

“Both,” you say, reckless, sincere.

His smile is small and devastating. “Greedy baby. We’ll see how polite you are.”

He breaks the wax at your sternum again and peels it slow, the tug registering like a new note in the chord you’ve been listening to. He follows the path his own hands laid down earlier, heat then cold then peel, until your breath is a steady climb toward a peak that he will not let you crest without permission. He watches your mouth, your throat, the way your eyes go glazed then snap back sharp when he says your name.

“Eyes on me,” he murmurs.

You bring them to him. “Yes.”

“That’s it.” He strips another strip, hums when you shiver. “You take pain like a prayer,” he says, almost wondering. “Like you’re not asking it to save you. Like you’re just talking to it.”

“I’m talking to you,” you say, and his breath starts to come faster, almost imperceptibly, the only giveaway in a man who could hold still under artillery. Talking to me. She’s talking to me. Keep the structure. Keep it clean.

He sets the candles aside, caps the tins one by one, orders the field back into its box. It’s a small ritual and it matters. When he comes back to you, kneeling between your knees again, the room feels nearer. The quiet has weight.

“Ask,” he says.

You swallow. “Please,” you say, already breathless, already gone pliant in the way he makes you. “Please touch me. Please make me come.”

“Hands stay where?”

You tip your chin at the pillow. “Here. Above my head.”

“Good.” He leans forward, mouth at your ear, voice a rough scrape of velvet. “You don’t move them. I’ll do the rest.”

He starts with the cold, because he’s a bastard and because he knows your body loves to be confused. The metal hand cups you through your underwear, he left them there on purpose and now he makes you wait, the fabric a boundary that exists because he says it does. The chill sinks in and you arch. He hums. Then his flesh hand slips beneath the waistband, palm hot, fingers sure, and the contrast makes your eyes flood with stars.

“Open,” he says softly, and you do, thighs falling wider around him as his shoulders press your knees apart. He explores like a map he’s been given but wants to redraw with his own pencil, no rush, no fumbling. He finds slick and heat. He finds the angle that makes your hips lift even when you’re trying to be good. He finds your rhythm and puts a hand on it like a drummer catching a beat someone else started on a table.

“There,” you whisper, and he answers with pressure that makes your spine bow. The metal hand slides lower, the cool plates pressing gently along the crease of your thigh, a second set of instructions.

“Keep breathing,” he says. “Numbers?”

“Eight, eight point five, oh, my god.”

He smiles against your throat, lazy just for a second. “You’re very precise when you’re begging.”

You laugh, helpless, sharp, then bite it off when he tightens his focus. He circles your clit with the pad of his finger in a motion so deliberate it feels like writing; he writes you into a corner and then back you out at the last second, refusing to let the pressure spike into something too steep. He slips two fingers inside you, slow and inexorable, and your body takes him like he belongs there, because at this point it would be stranger if you didn’t. The metal hand brackets the outside of your thigh, grips hard enough to ground you.

“Hands?” he asks.

“Here,” you gasp, wrists pressing into the pillow. “Here, I promise.”

“That’s my girl.”

You shudder. Your nerves are a riot of wax-stung skin cooling, oil-slick warmth, the deep ache of being filled, the relentless tender focus of his attention. He fucks you with a rhythm that dovetails with your breath, slow, building, and patient, and each time your muscles flutter around him, his voice drops half a step lower, like he’s answering a call.

“Color?”

“Green,” you say, on a tattered breath. “Please, Bucky.”

“Say it.”

“Please let me come. Please, I need you. Need to do it. Please.”

“Look at me.” You drag your eyes to his. The city hums faintly behind the walls, a reminder the world is still doing what it does, but in this room there is only him. He holds you there for one beat, two, the way a lifeguard might hold a swimmer’s cautious gaze before submerging together.

“Come for me,” he says, and you do.

It breaks like the clean snap of a branch, like the clean peel of wax off skin, sharp and then warm everywhere, heat rolling outward, your body fusing every line he drew into a single bright plane of sensation. Your hands stay where he put them. Your mouth opens around a sound you don’t recognize as yours. He keeps you there, holds you through it, talks you down with soft vowels and the anchor-weight of his metal palm on your thigh.

“That’s it. That’s it. Breathe, pretty girl. Come back to me. There you go.”

You sag. He slows his fingers, eases them out like he respects the work they did, and then he’s moving deliberately again, cap on the oil, towel up another inch to catch anything else, underwear down and off with the shears (you yelp, he grins, both of you breathless). He pours you a glass of water with the hand that still smells faintly of candle smoke and holds it for you while you drink.

When your vision steadies, he’s looking at you like the ceiling might lower itself to listen in. You reach for him without moving your hands, which is ridiculous and makes him laugh quietly before he leans in to meet your mouth.

The kiss is not a prize. It isn’t something you had to earn. It’s a check-in that turns hungry and then back into a check-in because he makes it be. He pulls back and rests his forehead against yours. “You still with me?”

“Yeah.” Your voice is wrecked in a way that feels like you got exactly what you asked for. “Yes, James.”

The name shakes him a little, like you leaned into a place he forgot was soft. He exhales into your mouth. “Good.” He kisses your nose. “You want another?”

You blink. “Another…?”

He smiles, slow, sinful. “Orgasm. Or I can run you a bath and peel the rest of the wax off in the tub. Or I can lay you on your stomach and just—touch the marks I made until you fall asleep.”

Your body answers before your brain does, a low, unambiguous ache. “Can I…” You swallow. The words feel shy and enormous at once. “Can I have your mouth?”

He goes still. Then he nods, once, like he’s decided not to talk for a minute because his chest is full of a very quiet joy and if he breathes wrong it will get loud and he doesn’t want to scare it. “Hands stay where they are,” he says. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

He does. He always does. He arranges you like art, slides down the couch, settles his shoulders beneath your thighs so you feel the breadth of him anchoring you to the world. The metal hand is a bracket on your hip again, the flesh one splayed gentle on your belly, the thumb tracing the edges of wax he hasn’t peeled yet, reminding your nerves of every place they can light up. When he lowers his mouth, he’s reverent and greedy in equal measure. He opens you with his tongue like he’s reading, finds the line he wants to underline, then writes his name in careful cursive until you’re arching off the towel.

He doesn’t rush. He gives you the same structure as before, creases and edges, pattern and breath, and he climbs with you, every muscle in his shoulders working under your legs. When you start to pull your hands down without meaning to, he lifts his head, breathless. “Where do your hands go?”

You whine. He laughs softly. “Up, sweetheart.” When you obey, he gives you what you asked for, the cool of the metal plates pressing to the inside of your thigh just as his mouth seals over you, and the confusion, the wonderful, impossible confusion, throws you again.

You come softer this time, less break and more flood, and he hums against you like he knew it would be that way. He rides you through it and then rests his forehead briefly to the meat of your thigh, breath cooling the damp there, gratitude quiet in his posture.

After, he cleans you gently, wordlessly. He warms a washcloth and drags it along your skin. He breaks and peels the rest of the wax with the attention of someone removing glass from a wound, careful, patient, pausing when you make the small sounds that mean wait. He talks about nothing for a minute so you can feel the world return without having to fetch it: the Knicks lost by two, the neighbor’s new dog barks at the elevator, he tried a new coffee place and the espresso was too bitter but the girl at the counter had a nice laugh.

You smile at him, loose and cockeyed. “You’re good at this part too.”

“I like this part,” he says simply. “I like watching you come back.”

He carries you to the bathroom even though you could walk, sets you on the closed lid while the tub fills. The light in here is softer, blue around the edges. He nudges the fan on to move the steam. He tests the water with his flesh hand, then with his metal one, and adjusts the tap for a temperature that suits both, because he can do that. He spreads a towel on the floor where his knees will go.

“You’re a sap,” you say, affectionate.

“Yeah, yeah.” He tucks a curl behind your ear. “Get in.”

You sink into the heat with a sound that feels like sleep and waking at the same time. He joins you on the outside, kneeling, sleeves shoved up. He dips the washcloth and wrings it out and then runs it slowly over your chest where the wax drew its temporary constellations, tracing the places that are pinkest, pressing kisses in their wake. The tenderness is not a separate act; it’s the other side of the same coin.

“Do you ever…” You trail off. He looks up, patient. “When you’re doing this, does it make the noise quieter?”

He knows what you mean without you explaining. He considers the ceiling for a second, then blows out a breath. “It makes the noise…polite,” he says, surprising himself into a huff of laughter. “Like it knocks before it comes in.”

You laugh, a small bright thing. “That’s very Midwestern of your trauma.”

He grins, head dropping. “Oh my God.” He kisses your knee to hide his smile, then sobers. “It helps that you’re loud in here.” He touches your sternum, the center of you. “That you tell me when it’s good and when it’s too much. That you don’t make me guess.” That you don’t punish me for wanting rules. The thought sits in the room like a friend who doesn’t overshare. It’s easy to be in the same space with it.

“I like your rules,” you say, quiet. “I like the way they hold me.”

He swallows. “Me too.”

When the water cools, he stands and wraps you in a towel, tucks you against his chest while you drip on his floor and he doesn’t care. He gets you into one of his soft shirts and a pair of shorts you can fold the waistband on twice. He steers you back to the couch, still warm, still smelling faintly of wax and oil, and tugs you into his lap like gravity is a suggestion he ignores.

You tuck your face into his neck. He rubs your back with the flat of his metal hand in slow, sure sweeps, the cold plates now just cool, comforting, the whir a lullaby. His flesh hand finds your hair and cards through it until your eyes slide heavy. The candles are out. The room is dim. The quiet is bigger and kinder than when you arrived.

“Thank you,” you murmur, because gratitude feels like part of the ritual too.

He kisses your hairline. “You don’t have to thank me for taking care of you.”

“I know.” Your lips curve. “I like doing it anyway.”

He exhales, a sound that feels like setting something down he’s been carrying a long time. “Yeah,” he says. “Me too.”

You drift. He holds. The radiator ticks once and then falls silent. The city keeps humming but it’s a distant thing. The marks on your skin will fade by morning; the memory of heat and cold and the voice that kept you in the middle will not. Bucky breathes you in like you’re the first fresh air after a long tunnel. He catalogues the small aches in his knees and the damp at the collar of his shirt where your hair soaked through and the quiet in his head.

She trusts me, he thinks, simple as a fact. I can be careful for her.

His arm tightens once with the force of it, not enough to wake you, just enough to tell his own body: this is the structure now. This is the ground.