Audrey

Pope wasn't sure if he hated the summer or loved it.

He hung out awkwardly in a chair by the pool, cold beer sweating in his hand under the glare of the early summer sun. San Diego had a habit of being hot nearly all year round, but there was something about the end of spring that had everyone and their mother calling the Codys for a party. Bikinis, drugs, old friends of his brothers he barely talked to. All in the name of summer. By noon the backyard already smelled like chlorine, sunscreen, cigarette smoke, and grilled meat from the burgers Deran was flipping on the grill. Music blared from the speakers mounted under the patio awning so loud it vibrated the large floor to ceiling windows of the house.

With J taking college classes too, there had been more people around. Pope always figured his nephew was more the loner type, same as him, even if girls seemed to flock to the kid anyway. But college had done something to J—it seemed to draw him out of his shell a little. He had more friends around the house, more nights out, more people filling Smurf’s backyard until Pope barely recognized half of them anymore.

That's how they'd met you, too.

You—just a friend of J's, you'd clarified more than once to Pope—who looked so fucking cute in that little red bikini you had on. He could just see the red ties of the bottoms poking from cutoff shorts with the frays brushing your thighs every time you moved. A can of Diet Pepsi sat in your hand with one of those little pink straws poking out the top so you wouldn’t ruin your lipstick. Pope always made sure they stayed stocked in the garage fridge, even if he didn’t spend as much time at Smurf’s house anymore. But when he knew the guys were throwing something, when he knew J would be here, he somehow always found his way back over. Because if J was here, there was a good chance you’d be trailing in behind him sooner or later.

But he often wondered what you and J truly were, no matter how many times you said he was a friend. Why were the two of you tied at the hip so god damn much? It made Pope's knuckles blanch when he thought of all the time his nephew got to spend with you.

Now you were standing across the yard with your head tipped back laughing at something J said while Nicky stood beside you smoking a shared joint, the end burning bright orange each time she inhaled. Smoke curled through the air around all of you, mixing with the sharp chemical smell of pool chlorine baking under the heat. Pope watched J lean down closer to hear whatever you were saying over the music and felt his jaw tighten hard enough to ache.

"Hey—"

He looked over to see Craig handing him a fresh beer. Pope hadn’t even realized the one in his hand was empty already, his knuckles white around the neck of the bottle.

He merely grunted, taking it from his brother.

"You look like you need something harder than a beer, but I know you better."

Pope's lip twitched, hardly stealing a glance at him.

Craig let out a low whistle. “What’s got your panties in a twist today, huh?”

Pope finally looked over at him then. Craig had his sunglasses shoved up into his hair, dark locks tucked behind his ears, blue eyes narrowed with curiosity and amusement.

"Go away." Pope said simply.

"Oh, now I really wanna know." Craig grinned as he sat down beside him.

Pope clicked his tongue against his teeth and twisted the cap off the beer, taking a long drink of the cold amber liquid while his eyes drifted back toward you again. By then the back gate was opening, and he watched your entire demeanor change.

First, it was your smile that slipped. Then your eyes flicked toward the guys coming through the gate, then over to Nicky beside you, and you murmured something to her, but Pope was too far away and it was so fucking loud out here to hear anything. His attention sharpened immediately anyway, ears pricking up like a mutt waiting for a command.

The guys spilling into the backyard were long and lean in only that college-kid kind of way. Floppy hair, muscle tees loose over wiry arms, sunburnt shoulders, a thirty pack of Bud Light swinging between them. Pope knew the type without ever stepping foot on a campus himself.

"Oh, shit." Craig muttered when he followed Pope's hardened gaze.

One of the guys had walked right up behind you, tossing an arm over your shoulders familiarly, and yet Pope saw your whole body go still under it. He couldn’t see your expression from here, only the way your head turned slightly toward Nicky. Across from you, J stood with his beer hanging loose in his hand, watching quietly, his face flattening out into that cold look he’d gotten better at lately. The Cody look.

"Easy, man. She's fine." he heard his little brother say beside him.

Pope felt like he was vibrating as he watched, ready to jump at any sign of this asshole giving you a hard time. He knew you could handle yourself too, but there was something about this guys confidence, how he thought he could come into his house and prey on his girl.

Pope stopped himself there. Not his girl. Not his house, really, either. He bit down on the inside of his cheek until his mouth filled with the taste of iron.

Then you slipped neatly out from under the guy’s arm, moving away from the group while lifting your drink toward the questioning looks they threw after you. Gotta get a refill. you called over your shoulder, as you walked away quickly.

But the second your back turned to them, your expression dropped. Plain annoyance sat across your face clear as day. Your shoulders folded inward a little while you crossed through the yard, weaving between people with your drink clutched against your stomach, making yourself smaller.

A little bit later, when you came back out into the yard with a new cold drink in hand, Craig was talking about some job he'd found—some mattress warehouse with a safe stacked with cash. Pope was only half listening. His attention snagged the second you stepped through the sliding glass door barefoot, little beads of condensation sliding down the side of your soda can onto your fingers.

You paused halfway across the patio, clearly intending to head back toward J, but the view of all those guys still talking around him seemed to make you pause. Your fingers tapped the side of the aluminum can in your hand, and then—to his surprise and horror—your head swiveled, and you were looking at him.

At Pope.

And now you were walking towards him. His heart lept in his chest.

Craig noticed immediately, straightening up in his lounge chair with that easy grin he wore around pretty girls.

"Hey—" Craig started, but you weren't even looking at him.

“Do me a favor?” you asked Pope quietly. He didn't even register the question—the answer would always be yes for you. He was nodding before he knew what you needed.

Your gaze flicked over your shoulder at the sound of footsteps coming across the concrete.

It all happened very quickly, and yet—he remembered it as if it was slow motion.

You bent toward him, fingers slipping around his wrist first, then into his hand—cold and wet to the touch from your soda—and his callouses scraped against your soft skin. You lifted his hand carefully, guiding his arm out of the way so you could turn yourself between and sit down onto his lap. The soft wash of your shorts brushed against the black denim of his jeans, your weight settling over his left thigh, and Pope stopped breathing for a second.

You—you were touching him. Sitting in his lap. In front of everyone.

His hand stayed where you’d moved it, hovering awkwardly over your hip, fingers flexing in midair, his brain choking on what to do next. He could smell your green apple shampoo when you leaned back into him, could feel the heat of your legs through his jeans.

Was this a joke? Had you planned to make fun of him? To show all your little friends how much of a freak he was?

"Just go with it," you whispered into his ear, your hand coming up behind his neck, manicured fingers delicately cupping his skin. Despite the heat, his flesh rose up in goosebumps. You were balancing your soda awkwardly in the other hand while reaching back for his still-hovering arm, guiding it around your waist yourself. Your fingers pressed gently against the back of his hand until he held you properly, as if soothing him.

Most of his palm landed against the rough denim of your shorts, but his fingertips brushed frayed fabric and warm skin underneath. The bare top of your thigh. He wouldn't let himself look at you properly— the skimpy red bikini top showing more skin than he could handle so close to him, bare shoulders shining with the glow of sunscreen and your chest dabbled with sweat. He swallowed thickly.

Your head turned towards the guys who were walking over, and the one in the middle—Asshole who put his arm around you—had stopped completely. His shoulders were tight, his glare ice cold.

But Pope was meaner. He knew how to do this, at least—how to play the guard dog, the meanest, eldest Cody brother. It was a role he slipped into easily, like second nature. The two of them stared at each other for a long minute.

Then J appeared beside the kid, clapping a hand onto his shoulder and saying something about putting their beer in the fridge. The group drifted away slowly after that, disappearing through the sliding door.

You let out a long sigh, your shoulders lightening as your fingers unlatched from Pope's neck. He missed the touch almost immediately.

"Thanks," you said.

Pope looked up at you. You were smiling gently down at him, casual as anything, but he soon realized that you weren't making any moves to get up. Your arm was still around his back, his still on the top of your thigh, but neither of you seemed eager to move away.

He just nodded stiffly. "Sure."

Your smile widened as the two of you studied each other. He watched you lift your soda, bringing the pink straw to your mouth. Pope did his god damn best not to let his eyes flit over your lips as you took a long sip.

He heard a huff of breath beside him suddenly.

"Well, that guy seemed like a dick."

You startled a little, turning your head like you’d forgotten Craig was still sitting there at all.

"Oh, hey Craig, I'm sorry—" you said, and you moved to finally get up, but Pope held on fast. He wouldn't let his baby brother take this from him.

When you looked back at Pope, your brows pulled together faintly in question. Something curious flickered there for a moment, but then your expression softened, like you understood anyway. You leaned down, lips to his ear, "Let me just switch sides, that okay?"

Pope's lips tightened. He suddenly became painfully aware of every awkward thing about himself. The way his hand probably sat too stiff against your waist. The fact that your breath sent a tingle down his spine, making his jeans suddenly feel too tight. And the fact he hadn’t said anything smooth this entire time. Anybody else would've known how to play this—smile, flirt a little, maybe make you laugh. But no, you were the charming one. The one who knew how to flirt, how to handle him.

So, he let go.

You kept your promise, only switching to his other thigh, letting his brother get an eye full of you now. You did the same thing again—bringing your hand around so you could take his, pulling it against yourself without even a moment of hesitation while you looked at the tallest Cody.

“Sick party,” you told Craig, lifting your drink in distant cheers. “How are you?”

Craig smiled back, all shiny teeth and charm as he held his beer up in salute, "I'm doin' good. What's up with your little friend?"

You rolled your eyes, "The guy has been trying to get me to go out with him for weeks." you sipped your drink again, eyes flickering over into the glass windows of the house, watching Asshole and his cronies from afar, "Except his version of taking me out is fucking me in the back his mom's BMW."

Pope was in the middle of taking a sip of beer when you said it, nearly choking.

"What the fuck did you just say?" he demanded. It was probably the most words he’d strung together to you all day. Hell, maybe all month.

But suddenly his head was making up different scenarios, none of them involving you in the back of Asshole's car, instead, he was wondering what the kid's head would sound like bouncing off the concrete when Pope's fist met it.

Your brows jumped a little at his reaction, but you only shrugged, unbothered. “He’s a dickhead. I’ve been trying to tell him I have a boyfriend, but he doesn’t believe me.”

"Do you?" Craig asked.

Pope thought maybe his little brother wasn’t completely useless after all.

He saw you shake your head in his periphery, and his heart, the traitorous thing, began to pound in his chest a little.

“No,” you admitted softly. “And I don’t think our little performance convinced him much either.”

Your gaze drifted back toward the sliding doors just as the group started filing outside again. Pope felt your body tense slightly on his thigh before you muttered a quiet, Oh, fuck my life under your breath. The asshole slowed when he passed, taking another long look at where you sat in Pope’s lap.

And Pope stared right back at him, lip curling.

Once they had gone towards the other side of the pool, he heard his brother say lightly: “I bet if you made out in front of him, they'd buy it.”

"Shut your mouth." Pope snapped, his hard glare turning on his brother.

But you barely seemed to hear either of them. You kept looking over your shoulder toward the yard, eyes skimming from Asshole to J and Nicky talking nearby, chewing lightly at your lip while you thought about something.

When you turned back to Pope and his brother, you had a funny look on your face.

Pope frowned slightly. “What's wrong?”

You hesitated, studying his face. You had lost that easy confidence from a moment before, fingers playing with your straw as you looked at him.

"Would that… ? No, no nevermind." you said, shaking your head. You cut yourself off by lifting your drink to your mouth again, shifting a little on his thigh in the process. The movement dragged your hip against him, making him painfully aware of just how much he was affected by your closeness.

Beside him, Craig made a strangled noise trying not to laugh. When Pope looked over, his brother was practically vibrating in his chair, eyebrows climbing halfway up his forehead while he grinned like a complete asshole.

"Get outta here, go—" Pope barked.

Craig finally lost the fight against his grin. He held both hands up in mock surrender while getting up from the lounge chair and walked away, shoulders shaking with mirth.

“Sorry,” Pope murmured once his brother was out of earshot.

He took another swallow of beer and leaned down to set the bottle carefully beside the chair, his movements slower now, more aware of you sitting there against him than anything else.

You shrugged, "It was…a good idea."

Pope's brows pulled together when he looked at you. God, you were so fucking close. The feel of your warm, soft skin against him, the smell of your apple shampoo mixing with sunscreen and the syrupy fake-sweet scent of the Diet Pepsi in your hand. He still couldn't believe you were sitting on his lap. Touching him. Pulling his arm around you as if it natural, like there wasn’t anything strange or dangerous about him to hesitate over.

And now you were looking at him with that look, something behind your eyes he couldn’t immediately sort out, and the fact he couldn’t sort it out made his stomach knot. As uncomfortable as he made people feel sometimes, Pope could still catch onto things. Patterns. He was always used to the way people acted, knew if they were lying because they started acting differently around him. But you never did that with him, and you never looked nervous around him like this before.

A thought occurred to him, one that made his stomach hurt even worse. Maybe you saw him for what he was—scary, mean; Smurf's dog made to heel and bark and bite when she commanded it. He became horribly aware of himself under your searching gaze—how tightly his hand was holding your thigh, how he could still just feel the top edge of your skin, your shoulder bumping into his chest when you'd shift.

And maybe you'd just realized whose lap you were in.

"Andrew…" you murmured, "Are you okay?"

He nodded.

You set your drink down in a hurry, cold aluminum knocking lightly against the concrete beside the chair before both your hands came up to his neck, fingers spreading against his skin as you tipped his face upward toward yours. Your touch was cold, wet from the soda.

"I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, I'm sorry."

You were touching him again. Both hands on his neck. Your face was so close to his. Noses nearly bumping. He could make out every clump of mascara around your eyes, your smudged lipstick. It made him nearly nauseous with want. Your eyes—they were worried. Why were you so worried to be around him now?

"I shouldn't have asked—or even—I don't know, Craig said it and for some reason I thought maybe—"

The gears in his brain finally started catching up after spinning uselessly for the last few minutes, thoughts grinding slowly into place one after another while he stared at your mouth moving so close to his.

What Craig had said… What had his brother said?

I bet if you made out in front of him, they’d buy it.

“You…” he managed finally, his mouth dry as cotton, heart thudding so hard it hurt. “Want to…?”

You licked your lips nervously, and the movement nearly derailed his thoughts again immediately.

"Not if it makes you uncomfortable. I just…” You sighed and glanced over your shoulder toward the yard. Your hair brushed lightly across his nose before you looked back at him again.

“I’m gonna lie to you and tell you it’s only to make this guy get off my back, okay?”

“What’s the truth?” he asked quietly, somehow finding enough nerve to force the words out.

Your teeth caught your bottom lip. “I just need you to tell me if it’s okay to do this—”

You leaned closer.

Pope’s hand moved before he could think better of it, wrapping carefully around your wrist to stop you there. So soft—the delicate bones of your joint in his rough hand.

"Y-yes but—what's the truth?" he echoed. He had to know. He had to.

You were hardly listening now, your attention splitting somewhere between him and the movement in the yard behind him, and Pope’s brain kept trying to grab onto something solid, some version of this that made sense, because he had to be out of his fucking mind to think maybe you meant what he desperately wanted you to mean. Maybe you actually—

But then your eyes flicked over his shoulder again, and Pope’s gaze followed yours automatically, catching the group of guys heading back across the patio towards you with J in tow, and suddenly your fingers tightened against Pope's face.

And then you turned into him, and kissed him.

You tasted like aspartame.

That syrupy sweet taste from the soda, like the waxy, cherry lipstick that you kept in your pocket. The smell of apple shampoo and sunscreen filled his nose while your lips pressed hard against his with a little gasp that went straight down his belly and into his dick. You didn’t kiss him shyly either. Pope could tell immediately you were trying to make a point, trying to push this far enough that anybody watching would understand exactly what they were seeing.

When he felt your tongue trace the seam of his lips, he didn't care anymore. He didn't care if this was some ruse to get Asshole off your back, he didn't care if you didn't actually like him, because fuck your tongue felt so good against his mouth. He was opening for you, tasting you back, and he could've sworn—under the noise of the music blaring, of the pool water splashing and people talking over one another—he heard a small, little helpless moan from your throat when he finally kissed you back properly.

His hands tightened around you immediately, both arms circling your waist to drag you closer against him until there was hardly any room left between you—your shoulder pressed tightly into his chest, a little awkward with the way you sat sideways across his thigh, but he didn't give a shit.

It felt endless and too short all at once, your tongues sliding together smoothly while you held his face so tenderly it made his throat tighten, and then little by little that tenderness started disappearing into want and hunger. Your fingers pushed into his hair harder now, nails scratching lightly at his scalp, making his breath stutter against your mouth.

“Holy shit.”

The voice cut through the air beside you like a gunshot beside him. The party seemed to rush back in all around at once—the sounds of people shouting scores for dives off the pool house, music blasting, the sliding door opening and closing.

And then you were pulling back, lips unlatching from his. To Pope’s immediate disappointment it was Deran standing there frozen beside the cooler with a beer halfway out of the ice.

He licked his lips automatically even as he glared at his brother, catching the lingering taste of you on his mouth, and when he looked up at you again your lips were swollen and shiny.

You glanced toward the group of guys across the yard, then Deran with a quick, oh-- hi, Deran, before looking back at Pope. Your hands were still around his neck, and you were leaning in again. But this time, your lips went to his ear.

“The truth is, Andy...” you murmured softly.

Pope felt another shiver move through him at the feel of your breath against his neck, and his grip tightened on your little denim shorts as you said, “…I've wanted to do that for a long time.”

And then, as if you'd merely said thanks, pope, bye! you were pulling away from him, brushing your thumb across his top lip, wiping away whatever lipstick you'd left him with, and you were standing from his lap and walking off through the yard like you hadn’t just detonated his entire fucking nervous system in front of half the party.

Deran let out a low laugh beside him before grabbing a pool towel from the chair nearby and tossing it at Pope’s chest.

“You’re gonna wanna sit there for a minute,” he said. “Wait out that, uh… problem.”

Pope glared at his brother over the towel clutched in his lap.

but there's so much sincerity in your eyes as you shake your head and say, "nope, never."

he moves just slightly from where he sits on the edge of his bed. you're laying on top of the sheets, head on his pillow, looking like you belong in it far more than andrew ever has. "so you just...what? ...fake it?"

a sound leaves you. not quite a laugh but something close. "not...exactly?" you pick at the tab on the can of your seltzer. "well, i guess sometimes, yeah. it depends on the person."

"and what about..." andrew shrugs, blinking. "what about with me?"

you purse your lips and your eyes narrow the smallest bit. "don't do that," you say.

"what? it's a reasonable question, isn't it?"

for a second, you say nothing. you just stare in that way you sometimes do, attention stuttering over his features. the shape of his mouth, the curl of his lashes, the freckle just above his left brow that you've claimed as your favorite.

"no," you admit softly. "i've never faked anything with you, andy."

"but you've still never finished, right?"

you shake your head in dismissal and set your drink on his nightstand. "it's not about just that, though. not with you."

his brows furrow, and he tries to understand but can't quite wrap his head around it. he wants to ask for clarification, but there's a part of him that fears the answer.

but you see it, even without a word spoken. you see him, the way you always do. the way you always have. "i just like being close to you," you explain. "you always make me feel...i dunno. special."

"you are special," he says. it's not meant as a compliment. rather just truth. but it makes you smile, and pope finds himself wanting to say it again.

he lifts his hand from where it sits at his side, not much more than a twitch, nearly reaching for you out of instinct. but then he puts it back down again, unsure of himself, unsure of...this.

the space between you feels precarious. a new layer of naked truth stripped bare. another curtain pulled back.

you notice, but you don't push.

andrew tries again, heart racing fast as he sets his palm on the inside of your knee. “we could…would you want to…to try?”

a smirk pulls at the corners of your pretty lips, glossy and strawberry flavored (andrew knew, because he paid for that lipgloss at the beauty store you dragged him to a month ago). “you wanna try and make me cum?”

he shrugs and strokes his thumb across the top of your thigh. “if you want. i mean, no pressure anything like that but…it just feels wrong. like, unfair or something.”

“you actually want to?” this time it is a laugh that escapes you. a pretty, heartwarming sound he’s adored for as long as he can remember. “like…here? now?”

craig and deran’s party thrums with life just outside pope’s bedroom door. you’d come here for a little bit of peace, some respite. only to make a confession that unsettled him more than the noise. “why not?”

“what if i, like…you know. can’t.”

a crease forms between andrew’s brows. “well you have before, right? like, by yourself?”

your smile grows. “uhm…yeah. yeah, i have. i mean i can, but what if i can’t today. like, here.”

“then we try again later,” he answers simply. and then quickly amends, “i mean if—if you want.”

for a moment, you sit in the quiet together. you’re considering, pope knows. weighing the offer. his thumb still rubs tiny circles into your thigh casually. it’s an intimate touch but not sexual in nature, not suggestive.

not until you nod and say, “okay, yeah. we can try.”

and then he moves his hand upwards, slowly snaking his fingers between your legs. he presses against your hip, pushing you onto your back, and feels the metallic button of your jeans.

pope nearly pops it open on instinct but forces himself to slow down. tells himself he needs to take his time with this.

so he slips his hand beneath your top instead, cracking a small smile when you squirm as his fingertips ghost over that ticklish spot just a few inches below your rib. he finds the swell of your breasts and massages gently over the fabric of your bra.

you lean forward just enough to pull your top up and over your head, discarding it on the floor at his feet.

andrew reaches around your side and unclasps your bra, albeit a little clumsily, before adding it to the growing pile of your clothes.

when you lay back down, he follows you. presses his soft lips against the corner of your mouth first, a quiet asking for permission.

you turn your head to kiss him fully, lips parting to let him inside. andrew has never really felt good at much, but kissing you, specifically—he feels confident in. he's had a fair bit of practice, and knows just how you like it. messy and a little frantic, a clashing of tongues and lips and teeth.

you moan into his mouth and it feels like a victory. andrew bites harshly at your bottom lip, but he's quick to soothe the ache with his tongue.

he crawls further onto the bed, settling between your thighs, and moves his lips just a little lower. laying wet, open mouthed kisses down the curve of your pretty neck, over both of your collarbones, and sucks a blooming bruise at the side of your breast. easily covered, but still a tangible claiming. a mark of his possession.

he laves his tongue over each of your nipples, licking and sucking until your spine bends off the mattress. and then he moves even lower, littering kisses down your abdomen, breathing the scent of your soft skin deep into his lungs.

only now does he allow himself to unbutton your jeans, pulling the zipper down with his teeth. you're wearing a pretty, blue pair of panties beneath, and he presses a chaste kiss to your pubic bone over the fabric.

"god, andrew," you say, kicking your sneakers off at the end of the bed. "i love when you touch me."

he pulls away just a little, enough to turn his eyes up at you. you look so beautiful from this angle, he thinks. eyes glassy and pupils dilated, breathing unevenly. "m'gonna need you to talk to me. tell me what feels good and what doesn't," he explains. and then for good measure adds, "and don't lie to me. i'll know if you lie."

you give him the prettiest smile and then nod. "yeah…yeah, okay."

he doesn't waste any more time, hooking his fingers around the waistband of your jeans and underwear and tugging them down your legs.

pope is already hard as stone, but the moment you're bared to him everything changes. you're so beautiful, and all he wants is to make you feel good.

he presses a gentle kiss to your clit first, pushing your thighs apart to spread you open. then he drags his tongue through the seam of your cunt, tasting all the sticky wetness he's created, unable to quiet the groan that rumbles through his chest.

you let out a dreamy sigh and your head falls back as your hands come to tug at the roots of his hair.

pope takes his time; there's no hurried movement to be found. he lets his tongue grow familiar with every hill and valley of the shape of you, the stubble of his day-old facial hair catching on the inside of your thighs.

when he sucks your clit into his mouth—no teeth, just all tongue and lips and softness—you gasp for air and he can't help the pride that wells in him.

his fingers flex around your thigh, a silent urge.

and like the special girl you are, you quickly say, "good. feels…s-so good. that's perfect."

he takes it a notch higher, tongue flicking over the sensitive nerve endings.

this time it's not a gasp you give him but a sultry, real moan. so pope stays there, circling your clit with his tongue, spelling his name and yours and hoping it does something in the cosmos to seal the two of you permanently together.

the crease between your brows is telling. he squeezes again, a little harder this time, and pulls away only long enough to order, "talk to me."

"can you—" he seals his lips around your clit again, drool and slick coating his chin. "oh god. can you…your fingers, too. can you—?"

pope untangles his limb from around yours, finding your opening with practiced precision. he carefully slides his index finger inside you, humming in response when the intensity of your moaning grows.

he adds his middle finger in beside the first. you're already so wet that he encounters no resistance, pretty pussy taking him greedily. andrew curls them inside you, feeling and pressing against different spots, different angles, until—

"fuck—jesus christ, don't—oh my god don't move just stay right there, please."

he wants to praise you, to comment on how good you're being for him, how perfect.

but pope does exactly as you ask instead—he stays right where he's at, fingers moving inside you, tongue circling your pulsing clit. he can feel the silky walls of your cunt constricting around him, squeezing tight and pulling him in deeper.

you're trying. chasing it. but he knows it needs to happen organically. knows that if you try too hard, you'll get in your head about it and never fall over the edge like he wants.

the words vibrate against your clit when he speaks. "stop thinking."

you let out a dramatic groan. "but i don't know if i can," you whine. "i'm so—hm—i'm so close, but…"

pope pulls away completely now, because though spoken in frustration, your words are still direction. and he heeds it like a dog called to heel. "let's try something else, then."

he leans back on his knees and pulls his shirt up and over the back of his head. he flushes beneath your acute attention, eyes unashamed as they drink up his bare chest.

andrew unbuckles his belt and starts to shove them down his hips. "do you have a favorite…way? something that feels the best."

"oh, uhm…from—from the back, i guess?"

"you guess?"

"well, that's what feels good for me but it usually means…"

you hesitate, embarrassment shining bright in your eyes.

pope urges, "means what?"

"people don't typically…last very long when we—"

andrew playfully clicks his tongue, grips you around your thighs, and wrenches you down the mattress. he presses a kiss to the inside of your knee and says, "don't worry, i'll last. now turn over."

he says it with confidence because this is a task for him. and a man like andrew cody? he's thorough.

but that confidence wavers when you arch your back, hands extended beneath the pillow in front of you. the slope of your body is mouth watering. graceful and feminine and yet still so sultry and sinful.

and when he pulls his cock out, lines himself up at your entrance, and pushes in real slow?

he starts to get it.

it's almost too much. too good. you're so tight and wet around him and with his hands on the decadent curve of your ass and the sight of you laid out before him?

yeah.

he understands.

it doesn't take him long to find a good rhythm, thrusting his hips forward and burning himself deep. he settles on his knees , finding an angle that elicits a moan he likes. "how's that, hm? there?"

you nod with your face pressed against the pillow. the next instruction is a single word and spoken in a quiet exhale. "harder."

pope obliges. adds a little more force behind his hips, grunting low to fight off the blinding pleasure that threatens to coil up his spine. you feel so good. "touch yourself," he orders.

with a little effort, you wiggle your hand beneath you to find your clit and pope groans when he feels you clench around him the moment you do.

he watches with panting breath and sweat beading on the back of his freckled neck as the muscles in your shoulders move, working yourself up, being the perfect girl for him. the sight of you a feast of grandeur that he devours.

"oh, fuck—that's good. that's so good, andy, i—" a soft sound escapes from between your lips, the sweetest, most carnal moan.

pope knows you're close. he knows because he can feel it, the warm, silken walls of your cunt pulsing around his cock. your fingers keep circling your clit, pushing you just a little further towards the precipice of release.

but then—

"i need—oh my god—i need to kiss you. i won't be able to finish unless i kiss you, please—"

it nearly breaks him, in truth. the sight of your pretty pussy swallowing down his cock like it was made to take him while begging for something as innocent as a kiss.

no one has ever wanted him like that before. not like you do.

and it makes him feel…changed, almost. like he's been on one path his whole life and here you stand in the center of it, changing his course.

pope groans, the sound guttural, his hips stilling. he leans forward, chest to your back, and presses his mouth right between your shoulder blades. the small affection is slow and measured and intimate. he counts each of your panting breaths as the oxygen enters and leaves your lungs.

"hey," pope whispers, easing himself out of you. "c'mere." he gently tugs you upwards, offering the strength of his hands as support when you lean back on shaking legs. "turn around for me."

pope leans back on his knees and turns you so your position mirrors his, face to face. he just stays there for a moment, looking at you, into your pretty eyes, finding himself grateful for this night and this stupid party and that stupid song they played that you hate.

the energy that passes between you is…profound. honest and intimate and aware.

"you're so beautiful," he says, and he doesn't even mean to. it just slips out. "come here. come sit on my lap."

with a slow nod you say, "yeah. okay." you shift forward, anchoring yourself with your hands on his broad shoulders.

he supports you with one big hand on the small of your back, and uses the other to hold his cock steady while you sink onto him.

your moans are in perfect unison; a heavy, desperate sigh. when you roll your hips, andrew shakes his head and says, "no. let me."

he thrusts upwards, hard. stretching you open on his length, forehead pressed to yours.

"oh my—fuck, andrew that's—"

"touch yourself," he orders again. "and don't stop until you cum."

white spots cloud his vision the moment you do, feeling you tense up, tightening around him. he presses his forehead to yours and his nose brushes your cheek. each of your breaths become shallower, more ragged, ghosting across his lips and tasting of peppermint and the remnants of your raspberry seltzer. "kiss me," you say again.

he does. kisses you hard, tongue finding yours and claiming your mouth. he thrusts his hips up into you, swallowing your moans and and groaning low.

the thought crosses his mind, for just a second—that he might disappoint. because andrew cody realizes very suddenly that he might be in love with you, might have been in love with you for some time. and having you this close is enough to have his heart beating fast and his cock throbbing inside of you. he's not going to last.

he's not.

and then—

"don't stop," you whimper against his lips. "don't stop, don't stop, i'm gonna—oh god. god, fuck i'm gonna cum—"

"there you go. give it to me," andrew urges.

your nails dig hard into his shoulders. "cum with me. please, andrew—please, please—"

that white-hot coil around his spine snaps. you beg so prettily he can't hold it back, spilling his release deep inside you, sticky webs of cum right up against your cervix. he kisses you again, squeezing you tight against his chest. "you're so perfect," he whispers. "my perfect girl. did so good."

his cock quickly grows sensitive. but he doesn't stop moving below you until your muscles go slack and you collapse in his arms, face pressed into the crook of his neck.

you hum, the sound vibrating against his skin, lips wet with his saliva and yours. and then, so gentle and so quiet, you say, "thank you."

pope strokes his fingers over your spine, tracing each one of your vertebrae. he sets you down against the mattress, over the top of his wrinkled but still perfectly made comforter. he lays beside you, observing for a few moments. eventually, he admits, "i don't want you to see anyone else."

a smirk forms. "yeah? that right?"

"yeah." andrew's hand finds yours, fingers closing around your knuckles. "i figured…y'know. since we're making confessions tonight."

you laugh, the sound light and airy. but then silence settles and it feels…heavy. real. "okay," you say.

a crease forms between his brows. "okay?"

"i won't see anyone else."

carefully, almost experimentally, andrew leans forward. his mouth finds yours, lips moving like it's his first time kissing a woman.

he feels you smile and a moment later you ask, "does this make me your girl?"

and he thinks yeah. of course it does. you've been his girl far longer than he'd realized.

"yeah." andrew nods. "my special girl."

thank you for reading, i love you!!!

The man’s wet, ocean eyes flit between your face and the food in your lap. A rogue brown curl fell over his forehead as he nodded down towards you. “What’s, uh… What’s that?”

“My mortal enemy,” you answered gravelly, before turning away. “It’s a Pear Mille-Feuille… I thought maybe I could finally get it right before we closed…”

Carmy blinked owlishly at your profile. “…Well, did you?”

“Nope…” you answered through a heavy sigh, popping your lips together. “The pastry’s too soft. But somehow the pears are still overdone, so… I can’t win.”

Carmy looked it over with an inquisitive eye — the thin gold layers of puff pastry, all stacked neatly atop one another; pears poached to the perfect amber color; thick cream piped with a near impossible precision. It looked like something straight out of a magazine. And, if Carmy had to guess by how hard you were on yourself about the whole thing, it’s entirely likely you’d been published in one before.

“Well, it looks good, at least.”

“That’s only ‘cause you’re standing six feet away.”

Carmy scoffed a quiet laugh and found his breath coming more easily to him. “Here,” he offered, shoes scraping the worn pavement as he approached you. “Let me try it.”

Your head snapped in his direction. Your wide eyes raised to follow his form as he loomed suddenly over you, black blazer rippling in the cool, late-summer breeze. The night air filled suddenly with the scent of him — deep cologne, cigarette smoke, and nicotine gum.

“Wh…What?” you stammered.

“Sometimes you just need a fresh perspective, is all. Like, uh… A new pallet, you know?”

Carmy reached a tattooed hand in your direction, leaving little room for argument. You got the feeling that he must run a restaurant of his own as you passed him the ceramic plate, fingers trembling. You watched anxiously as he took the fork in his large hand and cut himself a slice of the pastry.

He shoveled it into his mouth — an explosion of butter, vanilla, pear, and caramel — the near-perfect balance of elegant and comforting. Just refined enough not to impose too much on itself. 

His cheek jut softly out as he chewed. He nodded to himself until the words caught up to him. “Yeah, this is… incredible, Chef,” he said through the mouthful, laughing slightly through his nose. The sweetest thing he’d ever tasted.

You didn’t believe him, not entirely, but the line in your taut shoulders relaxed slightly at his praise anyway. Sometimes, feeding others felt like a leap of faith. Sometimes, feeding someone felt like handing over a piece of yourself to them, and hoping they found something worth keeping.

—

Months later, Carmy realizes that there are only two kinds of things a person holds onto in this world — things they can’t bear to lose, and things they never meant to keep.

Mikey belongs perpetually in the first category. And, ever since you started working here, he’s begun to realize that you belong in the second. Maybe that’s why he felt himself on the verge of a panic attack for the third time today, ‘cause he was spending his evening excavating his brother’s office like an archeological dig, and found himself surrounded by both at once.

This office had belonged to Mikey, and would be the last thing that ever truly did.

Carmy thinks, knows, that’s why he put off cleaning it out for so long — like keeping it exactly the way his brother left it would preserve his ghost there in some way. This place was practically his tomb, made of four concrete walls faded to the color of old dishwater, an ancient desk so cluttered you can barely see its surface, and a bunch of dented filing cabinets that haven’t been organized in at least three presidential administrations.

They’re all half empty now, organized in boxes with Mikey’s frantic scrawl left on every crumpled receipt, invoice, and payroll record. Soon this office would match the rest of the place — clean, sleek, erased — and what’s left of his brother would be gone.

Carmy slouches against the cool brick with his arms propped on his bent knees, holding the last of Mikey’s things in a tattooed hand. A prescription pill bottle with the label scratched off, which he found while grave-digging through the cabinet drawers. He clutches it tight in his fist, holding the remnants of addiction as if it were his brother’s hand.

The grey, mildew-and-coffee-scented abyss of his grief is abated only by the sound of your laughter, which bounces off the concrete walls and finds him like the rays of milky-orange sunlight filtering through the stained window above his head, which turns his wild curls a more golden shade of brown.

His heavy ocean eyes lift and find you instantly — the way they always seemed to do — and his features flood with horror when he finds you with his sketchbook in your hands.

“What’s all this?” you wonder with a quiet laugh, beneath the subtle thwipping of the pages as you flick through them with your thumb.

Inside are random lists, phone numbers, and mock-ups for the restaurant, all in Carmy’s scrawled handwriting. Then you stumble upon a series of sloppy portraits — some of them of the others in the kitchen; most of them of you, like he was trying to capture you just right.

They feel like memories in some way, moments stolen when no one else was looking. They’re slightly messy, as if drawn by a loose and absentminded hand. It’s quite strange, looking at yourself from another person’s perspective. But even still, you don’t think you’ve ever looked so pretty, so alive, than on these pages of smudged ink.

“I didn’t know you could draw.”

Carmy shrugs lazily with his pink mouth softly jutted, feigning an air of indifference despite the red tint speckling across his cheeks.

“I can’t,” he mumbles through a huff as he stands to full height again, bracing himself on the cleared-out desk beside him. He tucks the pill bottle into the front pocket of his slacks and clears his throat when he feels his pulse skipping there. “N-Not really.”

“Well, I beg to differ,” you scoff and turn another page.

Another scribbled portrait of you sits in the center, drawn in blue ink this time. You’ve got the eraser end of a pencil in your mouth and another sitting behind your ear, concentrating on coming up with a new dessert menu. You were captured quite beautifully, even in your subtle frustration. “I didn’t think I was capable of looking this good until now.”

“You look good all the time,” he dismisses quietly, curls swaying when he shakes his head at you.

He grimaces at himself right after the words spill from his lips, face flaring hotter when the expression on your face shifts slightly in response to them. He lacks the courage to meet your eyes as he looms before you, smelling of stale cologne and sweat from days of renovation.

“What do you, uh— What do you usually draw?” you stammer and pass the sketchbook back to him.

“I don’t know…” Carmy mutters. “Whatever’s, you know, on my mind, I guess—”

Your heart lurches in your chest, both at his words and at the office door slamming suddenly open across the room. Your heads snap to the side in tandem to find Richie towering in the narrow doorway. “Cousin, I swear to god, I’m about to fuckin’ lose it, man—”

“You’re so dramatic, Richie, jeez…” Sydney sighs as she walks past him and further into the newly renovated kitchen, to busy herself with actual work.

Carmy hangs his head and closes his eyes, digging his thumb and forefinger into the sockets in a quiet frustration. “I thought we agreed you wouldn’t come to me with any problems while I was in here—”

“I know that,” Richie shrugs. “It’s not a problem.

“—I don’t have time for this shit right now, Rich.”

“Well, it’s not a fuckin’ problem, Carm! What do you want me to say?” the older man repeats, louder now.

“It’s literally a problem,” Syd monotones from somewhere further inside the kitchen.

“Well, Ms. Know-It-All over here wants less tables in the dining room— says it’ll fuckin’… make it more systematic or whatever, I don’t know,” Richie rambles, gesturing wildly with his hands. “But I told her we’re opening a restaurant here. Not a library. More seats means more customers, which means more money— Which we’re slowly running out of, might I add!”

He turns over his shoulder to yell into the kitchen. You wince when his voice bounces off the bare concrete walls.

“Yeah, Syd’s right,” Carmy nods.

“Thank you!” the girl calls distantly.

Richie blinks slowly in offense. “…What?”

“Syd’s right—”

“No, I heard you—”

“Then why’d you say what—?”

“‘Cause you’re fucking with me,” Richie scoffs an emotionless, half-delirious laugh.

“I’m trying to be efficient here, Rich—”

“You’re all fucking with me—”

“We can turn over tables quicker if there’s less of them,” Carmy explains, much more calmly in response, though there’s a sudden bite behind his words that you don’t miss. He keeps one hand propped on his waist while his other gestures with the sketchbook between his fingers. “Which means more customers, which means more money, which… we are running out of…”

Richie laughs like it’s funny. “Well, that’s real funny, Carm, ‘cause I bet if I brought Claire-Bear in here, and she agreed with me — which she would, by the way — you’d change your mind like that—”

Carmy flinches when the man lifts his hand to snap in his face. He swats him away with a little more aggression than probably necessary. “Get your hand out of my face— What are you twelve?”

“Yeah, you’re mad ‘cause you know I’m right.”

Your head tilts to the side like an intrigued puppy at the foreign name, which you haven’t yet become acquainted with in your weeks working here. Your wide eyes dart between the two men in front of you. Your smile trembles slightly at the edges.

“Who’s… Who’s Claire-Bear?”

Carmy’s head snaps in your direction. His mouth parts, but nothing comes out for an embarrassing fraction of a second, as if he wasn’t entirely sure how to answer. Bringing her up in front of you feels wrong in a way he can’t explain.

“She’s uh… She’s— She’s no one,” Carmy stammers.

“Oh, please,” Richie scoffs, dark blue eyes flitting in your direction. “She’s his girlfriend.”

Your stomach sinks, even despite Carmy’s arguing.

“For the last time, she’s not my fucking girlfriend. Richie—”

“Well, not for lack of tryin’, cousin—”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Carmy repeats, this time only to you. There’s a solemn look in his light eyes, like he’s trying to make sure you really hear him. “She’s, you know, an old friend. A family friend. That’s all.”

“Oh,” Richie laughs. “I bet Claire-Bear would love to hear that.”

“Fuck off, Richie,” Carmy spits.

“Oh, there you are.” A softer, deeper, more foreign voice breaks through the boyish bickering in an instant. Luca appears in the doorway behind Richie — golden locks pushed over his forehead, physically built beneath his white undershirt, looking a lot less plagued by the chaos of the kitchen than the rest of them. His pink lips quirk into a smile at the sight of you. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you— I need an expert opinion on this lemon-blueberry trifle I’m trying out.”

“Yeah, put this girl out of her misery. Please,” Richie scoffs drily, then turns back to you with a warm, sympathetic hand on your shoulder. “I apologize for my cousin, Sunshine. I did warn you he could be a bit of an asshole—”

“Richie.”

“It’s… okay,” you murmur with a sheepish laugh, before glancing over at Carmy beneath your lashes in a sheepish look. “Are you… okay in here?”

Carmy’s expression shifts slightly, like he’s about to say the exact opposite of what he really means. He feels his chest stinging with a pinch of misplaced jealousy — because he knows you spent time in Copenhagen with Luca some years back, and the idea of someone knowing parts of you that he doesn’t feels a little like a punch to the stomach.

“Yeah,” he nods anyway, slightly strangled, like his body’s trying to keep him from saying the words. “Yeah, I got the rest of it. Go ahead.”

You flash the boy a smile that doesn’t quite meet your eyes as you go. Carmy watches you trail behind Luca out of the office and back towards the dessert station. Richie watches Carmy watch you.

“So about the tables—”

“Enough about the fucking tables, Richie!”

II. ORANGE BLOSSOM HONEY.

There were only two times in your entire life that you swore you’d never bake again: first, when you got your first scathing review that sent you on a downward spiral for longer than you’d like to admit, and second, when Ever closed down for good.

There was still joy in it, somewhere deep down, you just couldn’t find it anymore. Honestly, you had trouble finding it most days in most anything. Which is probably why Luca told you to give The Bear a shot in the first place.

“I’ll tell him you’re stopping by, alright?” he’d told you over the phone that evening. “Just talk to Carmy. See the place out. And if you hate it, I will personally fly myself across the Atlantic so you can say ‘I told you so’ to my face.”

“That sounds very expensive, Lu.”

“Well, it’d be worth every penny.”

So there you were, weaving through a restaurant that seemed more abandoned than not — as though someone had taken a perfectly good kitchen and detonated a small explosive in the center of it. Walls had been torn down. Floors were covered in sawdust. Extension cords snaked across the room like vines. The smell of drywall and fresh paint grew stronger the further you went.

For a moment, you worried that no one was inside waiting for you, and that you had accidentally committed a breaking and entering — until you spotted a curly-haired stranger hunched over a metal counter in the not-quite kitchen, scribbling at a notepad with his pen.

He glanced up at the sound of your footsteps, dark curls hanging over his eyes. A mixture of surprise and confusion flashed in his gaze, brows raising and lowering again.

You lifted a hand in an awkward wave. “Hi…”

“Hey…”

“I’m sorry. I let myself in— I… I tried to knock, but I guess you couldn’t… hear me…” You trailed off with a wavering smile, scratching anxiously at the back of your neck. “Uh, Luca was supposed to call you, I think...”

Realization flooded the sharp edges of Carmy’s face.

“Oh. Right,” he nodded. “Yeah, for the, uh...”

“Yeah…”

Carmy swallowed hard, tapping his pen along his palm, no more anxious than you are now. “Well, uh, I— I hope he warned you that we don’t have much of a kitchen yet...”

“Yeah…” you answered with a breathless laugh, eyes wandering across the spray-painted tarps hanging as makeshift walls as you strolled further inside. “I just… I thought he was exaggerating a little bit.”

A short laugh escaped him then as he rounded the counter in front of him. “Yeah, this is— basically a construction zone more than a kitchen at this point, so… Sorry in advance.”

“Well, if we’re sharing apologies, I’m sorry for not bringing a résumé,” you confessed sheepishly, struggling to meet the man’s gaze when he stood before you. The scent of paint and sawdust clung heavily to his navy sweatshirt. “I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want me working here.”

“C’mon. I know your résumé,” Carmy scoffed. “I’ve actually eaten your food before, remember?”

“The desert I was crying over at Ever, you mean?”

His lip twitched into a soft smile before he turned away, too shy to say this to your face:“Well, in my opinion, something that perfect is worth crying over.”

You grinned at the back of him, wider than you realized. “You’re still sparing my feelings after all this time…”

Carmy planted himself on the right wing end of the soon-to-be kitchen and turned to face you again. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but… This is gonna be our dessert station. Hopefully. If this entire place doesn’t cave in—”

‘Ours,’ he said, as if it were already yours in some way, too.

“—That’s a joke. Sorta,” he said, scratching at the back of his wild curls. He glanced up at you once more. “Have you tried making it again since we met?” he wondered suddenly. “You know that… pear… mill-fill thing?”

A giggle sputtered from your lips before you could stop it. Your hand flew to your mouth, as if you were trying to put it inside.

Carmy grinned shyly at having earned the pretty sound, despite his mild embarrassment. He fidgeted with the pen in his tattooed hands and gave you a sheepish look in response. “Help me out here…”

“It’s French,” you told him. “It’s mee-fwee.”

His brows lowered with a visible hesitation. “Mee… foy…”

“Close enough,” you laughed with a shake of your head. “And, to answer your question, no. I haven’t made it again. And I probably never will— I’m too fragile for another defeat.”

The grin that tugged at the corner of Carmy’s mouth then was brief, but no less genuine. “You will,” he said, like some kind of an oath, with so much conviction you couldn’t help but believe him.

—

“You seem happier here.”

Luca’s observation comes suddenly. His English-deep voice cuts through the soft quiet of the empty restaurant, renovated to near completion now. The two of you lie supine on the cool hardwood, the tops of your heads nearly brushing, as you put together Carmy’s newest splurge — which his uncle called “expensive, ergonomic, fuckin’ hippie tables.” You screw each bolt in by hand. You can feel your fingers threatening to cramp around the screwdriver clutched between them.

“Happier than Copenhagen, I mean,” he continues.

You scoff. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure any version of me is happier than I was in Copenhagen…”

“Oh, c’mon…” Luca lilts lowly. “I wasn’t that bad company, was I?”

“You know it wasn’t about you…” you mumble.

“Yeah,” he sighs. “I know…”

It was the fault of that goddamn critic, and the devastating review he left that seemed to compliment everything but your work alone.“The pear mille-feuille reads less like a dessert and more like a young chef begging for validation,” the publication read. “For all its technical accomplishment, the pastry never once feels human. It is difficult to imagine, dear reader, a pastry with so much insecurity baked into each of its layers.”

Your world seemed to shrink after that. The singular paragraph of disapproval lodged itself somewhere deep within your psyche, along with all the cynicism and sorrow that built a home inside you, too. Every other failed recipe somehow led back to it, and every success thereafter felt purely accidental — until, eventually, baking stopped being fun and started being the one thing most capable of hurting you.

It hollowed you from the inside out. You worked the kitchen like a ghost returning to its haunt. You wanted to quit, in virtually every sense of the word, and it was Chef Andrea who convinced you to stay — by sending you four thousand miles away to Copenhagen, that is, to remember a world without critics and service and non-stop perfection; to remember what it felt like to exist without constantly needing to prove yourself.

It was there that you met Luca, who taught you what it meant to approach food with curiosity again. And it was here now, in the bones of The Bear, that reminded you how to love the work again — the simple joy of making something with your bare hands and sharing it with the people who mattered most.

“I’m just glad you didn’t stop cooking…” Luca continues with a quiet grunt in the back of his throat as he slides out from under the table. “And I’m glad Chef Andrea sent you over to my neck of the woods.”

“Let me?” you scoff, tilting your head back against the floor to look at the boy upside down. “She practically forced me on that plane.”

“Best thing she ever did,” the boy croons with an air of sarcasm to mask his sincerity. He rises to full height and dusts his palms off on his slacks. “I’m headed out for the night… Need a ride?”

“I think I’m gonna stay here for a while…” you sigh.

“Suit yourself,” he huffs and walks away. “Just don’t overdo it.”

“Or what?”

“Or I will be very upset with you,” he deadpans with faux-solemnity.

“Oh, the horror!” you call to his disappearing figure, right before the door shuts behind him.

Silence returns when he’s gone. Your chest deflates with a heavy sigh, a held breath you didn’t know you were keeping, as you return to your work — twisting the screwdriver in your fist and reveling in the burn in your wrist, the only thing keeping you from thinking.

About that critic. About Copenhagen. About Carmy’s sketchbook, about Carmy and the girl called Claire-Bear.

You rise onto your elbows with a huff when you’re done, stretching out the aching tendons in your neck. You vaguely hear the kitchen door swishing open and shut again before a sudden voice calls out. “Oh, hey—”

The sound of Carmy’s voice startles you for a reason you can’t name. You sit further up on instinct and slam your head against the table with a whack that jostles one of the screws.

“Ow...” you whimper.

“Shit—” Carmy rushes to your side, catching the wooden top when it wavers. His long, tattooed fingers curl around the edge of it to keep its weight from falling back on you. He ducks his head to look at you, features twisting with a sympathetic grimace as you rub at your aching forehead. “Sorry… Didn’t mean to scare you…”

“You didn’t scare me…” you assure him weakly.

His mouth lifts into an amused half-smile. “No?”

You shrug, lips jutted in feigned apathy despite the newfound pounding in your skull. “Not even a little bit...”

Carmy’s grin widens, but he makes no further argument. He just crouches down in front of you and keeps the tabletop steady while you lie back to realign its leg. You spend the next minute or so screwing the loose bolts back into the blanched oak, hands going clammy around the screwdriver at the proximity between you now. The air grows considerably warmer accordingly, filled with the familiar scent of him — of cologne, garlic, and cigarette smoke. You have to keep reminding yourself to breathe.

“You, uh— You never told me,” Carmy starts suddenly, as if he’d been sitting on the words for some time and only now got the courage to say them. He swipes at his nose with the back of his free hand and mumbles shyly behind his fingers.“About, you know, why you almost didn’t come here… Why you went to Copenhagen...”

Your breath hitches faintly in throat. You hope he doesn’t notice. The screw twisting itself back into the pale wood above you becomes the most interesting thing in the room. “It never came up…” you answer quietly. “It was stupid anyway…”

“No, what the asshole critic said was stupid.”

You turn your head against the floor to flash him a playful look, hiding behind the veil of your sarcasm. “There you go again…”

“There I go again?” he echoes.

“Sparing my feelings.”

“No, I— I’m serious.” Carmy stammers with a breathless laugh. “And I know I’m right because I’ve had your stuff before.”

“Yeah,” you scoff and turn away again. “That stupid fucking pear dish that I still can’t get right.”

“No, it was, uh…” Carmy trails off and shakes his head, going distant with recollection. He rests the elbow of his free arm on his bent knee and drops his wild head into his palm. He digs his thumb and forefinger into his eyes as he struggles to recall the name. “It was, uh… It was the— the Bordeaux, I think?”

He lifts his head to glance down at you once more. Your arms fall to your lap, eyes narrowing in confusion as your lip twitches into a shock half-smile. “The Canalé de Bordeaux?” you repeat with much more ease.

“Yeah,” Carmy nods, brown curls swaying. “It was right before I took over here— when I was, you know, eating everywhere I could, trying to learn as much as I could, and I…” His mouth lifts into a distant smile; his eyes glaze over at the memory. “I didn’t even place it until you made it for the kitchen the other day… Don’t think I would’ve noticed otherwise…”

“That was… God, that was forever ago,” you say with a laugh of disbelief, rising back up onto your eblows. “I’m surprised you remember it now.”

“I remember everything,” Carmy shrugs.

“That sounds… terrifying,” you scoff.

“It is. Sometimes,” he jokes with a breathy chuckle. “But, I don’t know… Now I’m starting to think it’s not so bad…”

His light eyes lock with yours. You lose your breath almost instantly, chest aching as your lungs struggle to find it again. You feel like the distance between you has vanished in a blink; each of your breaths feels like inhaling him in some way. You feel like you can taste him, almost, and your mouth waters at the thought alone, parting for his on instinct.

With your heavy eyes settled on his glassy ones, you catch the soft blue of his irises flick down to your lips. You think he might kiss you. You want so desperately for him to kiss you. And you hate how badly you need it.

“I-I don’t think this is a good idea,” you hear yourself blurt.

Carmy’s brows lower in confusion as you scramble suddenly out from under the table. You rise to full height on shaky legs and place several feet of distance between the two of you, crossing your arms over your chest in a feeble attempt to soothe your racing heart.

Carmy rises slowly from his crouched position, blinking the lingering haze from his eyes. “Wha… What are you talking about?” he stammers with his hands splayed in front of him, approaching you again the way someone would a stray puppy.

“Because of, you know… Because of… Claire.” You whisper the name like it’s a curse of some kind.

The confusion etched on his features only deepens further. “Claire?” he echoes, face screwed. “Wh—What does Claire have to do with this? Claire is— Claire is nobody—”

“Does she know that?” you press, brows raised.

“Yes!” he answers without missing a beat. “Because nothing ever happened between us! Because nothing will ever happen between us! Because I— I’m not into her that way!”

“That… way?”

“Yeah,” he shrugs, tattooed biceps straining against the sleeves of his undershirt as he rests his hands on his hips. “You know, the— The way I’m into…”

He trails off when he catches himself. His adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows. His unwavering stare bores into yours as he weighs the words in his head, wondering briefly if he should say them aloud. His wild curls sway as he shakes his head to himself. “You know what. Fuck it. The way I’m— The way I’m into you.”

Your chest warms at his words. So furiously, it feels someone has taken a white-hot blade and pierced your sternum with it. You can feel the heart flaring in your face, too, as your mouth curls into a wide, slightly apprehensive smile.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Carmy nods firmly, though something in his gaze seems distantly surprised by his own forwardness. He scratches at the back of his curls and looks down at the table just beside you. “Are you, uh— Are we you good here?”

You nod rapidly until the words to speak catch up to you. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I think so.”

“Good,” he hums. “Do you… Do you need a ride, or…?”

You hesitate on instinct, nose scrunching sheepishly. “If it’s not too far out of your way…”

Carmy scoffs like it’s funny. “You’re never too far out of my way,” he says and turns on the heel of his sneaker to walk away, as if he hadn’t just taken all the breath from your lungs right with him.

III. ALMOND PRALINE.

Your hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

You pressed your back hard into the rough brick behind you, letting it snag against your chef whites in a feeble attempt to ground yourself. You tipped your head back for further assistance, and fought every instinct that told you to beat your skull against the concrete as your heart thrummed wildly in your throat — as though it were trying to burst through the delicate tendon there altogether.

Adrenaline soared through your veins. The starry night air refused to pierce through your burning skin, face burning red-hot while your fingers turned to ice.

You had survived a million dinner services much harder than this one, The Bear’s very first. You had survived Carmy’s anger, Richie’s shouting, and the entire kitchen learning how to operate itself. But it was the food critic that nearly killed you — the man who came in older than you remembered, greyer, and a little skinnier than you recall.

It took you a long moment to remember to breathe as you watched Fak seat him through the kitchen window. “I need you back at your station, Chef,” you heard Carmy telling you from the expo, though his voice sounded like it was coming from underwater. “Back at your station, Chef! Now!”

You listened, but your body seemed to work on autopilot. You broke out the baking sheet, the jelly roll pan, and the perforated pastry tray without thinking. You patted out the puff pastry and fired the pears like it was muscle memory to you. You had Richie deliver it to the man, on the house, and tried to expel the rest of it from your mind.

You forgot how to be human thereafter, hardly more useful than a fumbling ball of panic. Carmy told you to get out of the kitchen when you dropped a bowl of sourdough starter you’d been tending to for nearly two months. And now there you were, post-shift, with all the anxiety of a prey animal being hunted for sport.

And the worst part was, you couldn’t tell if you were terrified or exhilarated. Or both.

The heavy metal door beside you squeaked slowly open. A familiar voice broke through the memory. “There you are…” Carmy hummed as he walked out, chef coat hanging open, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows to reveal the expanse of his tattooed arms.

His wild curls were still damp from sweat and steam, glowing a more golden shade beneath the amber streetlights. The exhaustion of the shift seemed to carve into all the chiseled edges of his face. But his eyes were heavy with relief at finally being alone with you all the same.

You grew sheepish as he stood before you, struggling to meet his gaze like a scolded child. “I’m sorry, by the way. For… all that.”

Carmy shrugged and cupped his palm around the cigarette he pinched into his mouth. His lighter clicked a few times before it lit, basking his features in a flicker orange hue. “It happens,” he mumbled before inhaling the nicotine into his lungs. The grey smoke left through his nostrils a few seconds later as he flashed you a sterner look. “Just don’t let it happen again, Chef.”

You nodded once. “Heard, Chef…”

Carmy flicked the orange filter with his thumb. His eyes fell to your lap, where you wrung your hands together in a feeble attempt to keep them from trembling. Concern surged through his chest instantly.

“Jeez,” he mumbled.

Your eyes followed his form as he crouched to set the newly-lit cig to the sidewalk, leaving it burning there as he rose to full height again.

“What?”

“Your hands… You’re shaking…” He closed the brief distance between you and took your hands in his warmer, larger ones. The contact stole the breath from your lungs. You’re still getting used to touching him so freely. “God, you’re ice cold.”

You laughed breathlessly. “Because my nervous system is shot.”

Carmy began to rub the warmth back into your fingertips. His palms felt like velvet, calloused from years of burns and knives and hard labor. The gesture was so gentle that it made you feel the crying. Again.

“He liked it, you know,” he told you. “The critic, I mean.”

Your stomach fell as anxiety flooded your veins once more. “I appreciate the sentiment, Carm, but… You can’t know that…”

“No, he said it. Cousin cornered him on the way out— asked him about it,” Carmy confessed. “And after he answered, Richie defended you. Said the guy was an asshole, and that he was a pretty shit critic if he didn’t know what good food tasted like.”

Another startled laugh sputtered from your lips. “That means we’re definitely getting a bad review outta him, you know that, right?”

“Yeah,” he shrugged. “But it’ll be worth it.”

Quiet settled between you. The city grew louder on either side of you in its wake — wind whipping warmly down the alley, cars passing distantly, a train rattling against the tracks somewhere further away. Carmy still hadn’t let go of your hands; he just kept holding you there as his eyes flicked down to your mouth.

He spent a long moment just staring, as if silently trying to will some courage into his body.

Your lips curled slowly into a sheepish smile. “You gonna kiss me, Bear?” you wondered lowly, almost inaudibly.

He nodded for a moment, then pinched his brows to ask. “Do you want me to kiss you?”

“I always want you to kiss me,” you laughed.

His mouth twitched shyly. “Then get over here then.”

Your chest swelled when he urged you forward with a gentle tug at your hands. You pressed yourself to his chest as his mouth ducked down to yours, tasting of nicotine and garlic and boy. You moaned at the feeling of him against you, fingers twisting in his silky brown curls. His larger, tattooed hands splayed along your waist, a little less confident in comparison.

The metal door shrieked open once more with little warning. The droning of ten different conversations filled the air as the rest of the kitchen staff spilled out all at once. You and Carmy sprang apart quickly, losing any and all ability to play it off.

The conversation quietened in an instant. You turned away, wiping at your mouth with the back of your hand and refusing to meet their eyes. The three or more seconds of silence that went by felt like a lifetime, until—

“Pay up, assholes!” Richie shouted, fist pumping triumphantly in the air. He continued gloating through the chorus of laughter and groans of failure. “I knew you idiots were dating, and everyone acted like I was losing my mind! But the house always wins, baby!”

—

Carmy sat along the top of the booth with a plate of Canalé de Bordeaux in his lap. Family was your turn tonight, and you’d opted to make the first dish of yours that Carmy had ever tried for the rest of the kitchen. No one knows just how much tenderness is cooked into the caramelized crust and soft custard. No one, perhaps, other than Carmy.

His sneakers dig into the smooth pleather booth below as he props his back against the wall behind him. The rum-vanilla dish melts in his mouth as he surveys the bustling dining area, filled with his family and friends, some of whom were halfway strangers to him a few years ago. His eyes fall to you without trying as you deliver an alcohol-free dessert to a heavily pregnant Sugar. A distant smile tugs at his mouth as he watches your lips move with a conversation he can’t hear from here.

The soul music playing on the radio drowns out your conversation, but not the sound of Richie’s voice as he slides into the booth next to Carmy. His long, graceless limbs bump against the table as he goes, trying to cut a bite of dessert to shovel into his mouth at the same time.

Annoyance twists in the younger boy’s features on instinct. “I’m not cleaning that up if you spill it—”

“I’m not gonna spill it!” Richie argues boyishly, with his mouth full of food, as he settles into the booth a few inches from Carmy’s sneakers. He nudges the boy’s leg with his elbow. “And get your feet off my booth, you fuckin’ animal... Jeez, I don’t know what that girl sees in you…”

“You’re a fuckin’ asshole…”

“No, I’m serious!” the older man laughs with amusement glittering in his dark blue eyes. He shovels another too-big bite into his cheek and talks through the yellow custard clinging to the sides of his mouth. “I don’t know how you managed to pull that off, cousin— There’s no way you even know what to do with all that.”

Richie turns away, still laughing through his nose at his own stupid joke. He cuts himself another bite, already calculating a retort to Carmy’s inevitable argument on the matter — only one never comes.

The younger boy just stabs absentmindedly at his plate, distracting himself from the topic under the guise of forming the perfect bite.

Richie pauses with his own fork to his mouth. He turns slowly over his shoulder, brows raising to his hairline until four wrinkles line his forehead. “Oh, shit,” he scoffs after a few moments. “You don’t know what you’re doing, do you?”

“Shut up…” Carmy murmurs under his breath, taking another aggressive bite.

“Oh, c’mon! Don’t tell me you’re not gettin’ your dick wet, Carm—”

“Keep your voice down, fuck-o!” he spits through his mouthful, eyes darting anxiously to make sure no one else had heard him — that you hadn’t somehow heard him, from your spot all the way across the room, laughing with Sugar and Tina. Carmy turns away with a lazy shrug. “We’re just… We’re taking things slow. Not that it concerns you, FYI.”

“Well, FYI, you guys have been dating for months—”

“Oh, thanks for keeping track. I had no idea.”

“—And if she isn’t getting it with you, she’s gotta be getting it from someone else,” Richie rambles absentmindedly as he turns back to his plate. “I mean, I don’t even swing this way, obviously, but if I were a chick, I’d be all over that Luca guy—”

Carmy’s chest stings with a misplaced jealousy. He shouldn’t listen to Richie; he trusts you far too much for any of that. But maybe it’s his own lingering insecurity coming through — the cynicism that always lingers in the back of his head like a shadow, telling him that he’s unworthy of touching you, and then berating him for not being man enough to try.

He huffs. “Well, this is making me feel a whole lot better, cousin. Thank you.”

“I’m just sayin’!” Richie says, muffled through the dessert wadded in his cheek. “She’s obviously crazy about you, man— She looks at you like you hung the fuckin’ moon! I’m just sayin’, you know, trust your instincts. That’s all.”

“…Trust my instincts?” Carmy monotones.

“Yeah,” the older man shrugs. “You’re a chef. Isn’t that supposed to be, like, your whole thing?”

Carmy just blinks at him. “Your point?”

“My point is… She likes you. And you like her— I’m pretty sure half of Chicago knows that by now. So just… Stop getting in your own damn way before you ruin somethin’ good, alright? She picked you, cousin—”

Carmy leans back when Richie gestures too closely with his fork.

“So if you can’t trust your own judgment, at least trust hers.”

Richie’s words pierce him almost physically, giving him that surge of courage he’d been lacking these past few months with you. It makes him want to stop dissecting each of his feelings, for once, until they’re just lying there ahead of him, dead and useless.

Carmy’s light eyes narrow suspiciously. “You know… You’ve gotten, like, really good at giving advice since becoming house manager. You know that?”

“Yeah, I know, it’s freaking me out, too,” Richie deadpans, stabbing at his plate. “Sometimes I hear myself talk and I’m like, who the fuck said that?”

IV. PUFF PASTRY.

The first time you spent the night at his place, Carmy had a panic attack.

It started as a dream, or a nightmare, or maybe a memory. It played through static like an old film — Christmas Eve at the Berzatto house, beneath glowing Christmas lights and smoke from his mother’s cigarettes and something she burnt on the stove. He could smell the nicotine hanging in the hair, and the thick smell of tomato sauce, and Cicero’s expensive nose-stinging cologne.

Carmy was sitting at the head of the table, unable to move from his chair. The rest around him were empty, save for the one at the opposite end. Mikey’s seat. The ghost of his brother was laughing one moment, then screaming at him, then crying the next. Carmy was terrified — the kind of terrified he got as a kid when his mother got in another one of her moods — but he was comforted, at the very least, that his brother was here.

Alive.

Then the lights went out, for only a fraction of a second. And the Christmas lights were glowing again, but his brother’s seat was empty. And the silence was worse than the screaming.

Carmy woke with a sharp breath to a bedroom filled with a navy blue darkness. He rose to his elbows, chest aching as he waited, for a fleeting moment, for the Christmas lights to come back on. Then he realized that he was back in his bedroom, and his brother’s still dead; but you were beside him now, and that was enough.

As his eyes adjusted, he found you lying beside him, bathed in the dim glow of the muted streetlamp outside his window. You’d kicked off the sheets, revealing the expanse of your bare legs and the softness of your stomach from where your shirt had ridden up — one of his, which you wore with a plain pair of cotton underwear. Your mouth was softly parted; your breathing was even and slow.

He tried to match each of your exhales, but the panic dug deeper into his chest. His lungs refused to fill properly. His skin felt too tight. The air was too hot, but his teeth were still chattering. He couldn’t ask you for help if he tried.

The walls spun around him as he rushed immediately to the kitchen. He bent over the sink, gripping the counter hard enough to blanch his knuckles with one hand, while his other scooped handfuls of freezing water into his mouth. He was not sure how much it was helping.

The muscles in his back tensed when a warm hand settled suddenly between his shoulder blades. Carmy didn’t realize you’d followed him out until then; until he heard your voice in his ear, cutting through the wild pounding of his heartbeat.

“It’s okay,” you told him. “Just keep breathing. You’re okay. It’ll pass.”

His breath came easier to him after that. The kitchen soon filled with the sound of his trembling pants and the loud hissing of the kitchen sink. Carmy’s shoulders loosened slowly under your hand.

“Do you need me to do something?” you wondered quietly.

He shook his head, curls hanging over his eyes from where he was still hunched over. “No, I— I got it— I’m… I’m good now.”

He waved you off with a trembling hand. You couldn’t help but notice the way he avoided your gaze; the way he fought every instinct to tense again when you rubbed along his spine. You wondered if you were only making it worse.

“Do you want me to go—?”

“No,” Carmy blurted instantly. His head snapped in your direction. He blinked back at you with wet ocean eyes. “Please. D-Don’t go. I just— I had a bad dream. I’m okay, I swear.”

You didn’t look convinced, and, honestly, neither did he.

“No, you’re not, Bear…” you murmured gently, with a sleepy smile that bordered on sympathetic. But you didn’t ask him to explain the feelings he didn’t have the words for. You just stood beside him and asked if he wanted breakfast.

—

Carmy’s apartment always smelled different when you were in it. Less like an ashtray and more like warm sugar, and your fruit-sweet perfume, and whatever sweet treat you’d spent the service dreaming about. Tonight, it was homemade churros.

Carmy can smell it down the hall when he exits the bathroom. The shower steam mixes with that sweet cinnamon wafting from the kitchen — where he finds you standing at the stove, tapping a socked foot to the synth pop on the radio, and stirring a pot of glossy chocolate syrup with a wooden spoon.

“Only a psychopath spends all night cooking just to come home and cook some more,” he says to announce his presence as he leans against the doorway, replacing his uniform with a sweatshirt and a pair of plaid boxers. “You know that, right?”

“What can I say?” you grin as you glance over your shoulder at him. “You’re rubbing off on me, Bear.”

Carmy exhales a quiet laugh and spends a long moment just watching you, with all the attentiveness of someone who watched sunsets come or go or mapped constellations in the starry sky. You occupied his kitchen as if you’d been there this whole time, in a sweatshirt with the sleeves pushed to your elbows, big enough to hide the less-than-flattering underwear you’re wearing beneath it. You look like home, in every sense of the word.

“You know…” Carmy starts lowly, swiping at the tip of his nose with his thumb. “For a while there… I kinda thought I was done with all this…”

Your spoon slows as it slides along the bottom of the pan. “…What do you mean?”

“Cooking,” he answers. “There was a stretch where I couldn’t even look at a stove without… hoping it would blow up.”

He laughs at himself, though, admittedly, the words sound slightly more concerning leaving his lips than they did in his head. He swallows hard, grateful when you don’t press him on the matter. You just eye him with a carefulness that makes him shift his weight on his bare feet — uncomfortable at being so foreignly vulnerable.

He crosses his arms over his chest in a childlike attempt to hide, scratching along the expanse of his bicep. “Yeah, I, uh… I just— didn’t enjoy it anymore. I didn’t enjoy anything anymore.”

“What changed?” you press gently.

“You came around,” he confesses. “And I watched you learn to love it again— have fun again, and it made… realize why I loved doing what I do.”

Your mouth lifts in a sheepish half-smile. You turn away, grinning wide at the pot of dark chocolate below as it ripples beneath the spoon.

“Well, I probably wouldn’t have learned to have fun again if I didn’t start working at The Bear…” you tell him. “It’s very likely I would’ve stopped baking altogether. I mean, Copenhagen was great and all, but… you, and Syd, and Richie— watching all of you work… I feel like I could do this forever…”

Carmy’s eyes soften as he watches you. A strange emotion surges warmly through his chest and up into his throat. He feels like he could cry.

“Yeah,” he hums, half-strangled. “Me too…”

Your smile turns shy when you look back at him, nodding your head to beckon him over. “C’mere. Come try this.”

Carmy obeys instantly, as if every muscle and bone in his body was made to be under your command. You twist the spoon to gather the liquid chocolate and hold it out toward him, cupping your free hand beneath it to catch any rogue drizzles. Carmy’s pink mouth parts for a taste — the syrup is warm on his tongue, silky and rich as it coats his mouth.

A low sound of approval sounds in the back of his throat. His damp curls sway as he nods.

Your smile widens instantly, eyes crinkling at the edges. “Yeah?”

“Mm,” he hums. “Hell yeah.”

His smile falters slightly when your free hand reaches suddenly towards him. Your thumb brushes the corner of his mouth, gathering the bit of chocolate lingering on the corner there. You press the pad of it to his lips without thinking, and Carmy drags his tongue against it just the same.

The motion was more instinctive than not. He didn’t realize how charged the moment was until your eyes flickered with it — going glassy and heavy in an instant. Even still, you don’t part from his stare as you bring your hand to your mouth, licking the remnants of chocolate on your thumb that was more of Carmy’s spit than anything.

Carmy’s ocean eyes darken in a flash. The cynical, uncertain thing that lingered in him like a shadow seemed to vanish, as his racing heart lurched with an emotion that bordered on primitive. He decides not to think — to follow his instinct, as it were.

He ducks down to kiss you, hard, with the bridge of his nose smushing against the side of yours and his tongue licking into your mouth.The spoon in your hand clatters hopelessly to the tile floor when he urges you back against the counter with a pair of wide hands splayed along your waist.

Behind you, the chocolate continues to simmer.

V. SPICED PEARS.

The first time Carmy had tasted any part of you was at Ever.

It wasn’t long after Mikey died, and he was making his tour around the city to try new food — seeing what changed and what hadn’t — and trying to take his mind off all the rest. He sat alone at a small square table, finishing up his lemon chicken piccata, when another plate was slid suddenly in front of him.

“Oh, I— I didn’t order this,” he stammered.

Then his eyes lifted to find Chef Terry standing before him, with a smile much gentler than he remembered.

“This one’s on the house,” she’d told him. She did not mention the death of his brother, but Carmy knew that was likely why she came over. “Figured you might appreciate something with a wee bit of alcohol in it. I had our pastry chef whip it up for you—” Her eyes flickered with warmth at the mention of you, who Carmy had not yet met. “I’m quite proud of that one.”

She left him with a pat on the back and nothing more. Carmy eyed the dessert before him, studying it.

The burnished bronze pastry sat on the small plate ahead of him like a tiny piece of architecture. The caramel on the ridged exterior gleamed in the candlelight. The shell cracked audibly beneath his fork, a delicate snap that most chefs spend weeks trying to perfect. The inside yielded immediately — golden custard oozing from its center.

Carmy scooped a bite into his mouth, and his world stopped for a fraction of a moment.

The deeply caramelized sugar hit his palate like a memory; a taste of nostalgia accompanied by a satisfying crunch. The silken custard melted on his tongue, rich with vanilla and warm with dark rum. A brittle shell followed by an impossibly soft heart.

Carmy thought, at the time, that it was the sweetest thing he’d ever tasted.

But it wasn’t.

—

You were.

His face burns hot between your thighs, which tremble on either side of his flushed cheeks from your previous orgasm (that he gave you with two of his fingers, a lot quicker than you’re willing to admit to.)

“Can you take another?” he’d asked, right after pulling his hand out of your underwear and licking your cum off his fingers, which glistened down the knuckle. You whined at the sight of it, half-scared at the warmth still lingering in the pit of your stomach. “C’mon. Let me taste it, yeah?”

You lift your head from the pillows to watch the boy slink down your body, still wearing all of his clothes despite you lying half-naked in the center of his unmade bed. He slides your panties to the side with a pair of tattooed fingers and licks a fat stripe up your pussy, from your pulsing hole to your already sensitive clit.

Your whine fills the lamplit bedroom as your hips buck to follow him.

Carmy pulls off wearing a barely-there half-smile. “Good?” he asks, for the hundredth time or so since you started.

“Yes…” you moan, head tipped back.

And then he starts eating you. Like eats you, eats you — with his mouth wide and his broad nose smushed into your clit. He’s led by nothing more than primal emotion and pure instinct as he laps all the honey you leak for him. The lewd wet noises of his mouth are only slightly muffled by your contented sighs and his own moans, as he rocks his hips against the mattress in a feeble attempt to relieve the ache in his boxers.

Your fingers tighten in his wild curls, as though you mean to pull him off of you, though your hips chase his tongue all the same. His lips latch on your clit, sucking the delicate button, and you cum with a drawn-out sound you didn’t know you were capable of making. He pushes your knees to your chest with a pair of wide hands to milk the orgasm from your pulsing confines.

“No— No more,” you whine feebly, watching with a pained sort of look as he continues licking at you. “It’s too much, Carm—”

“Just let me taste it, baby,” he says, half-muffled against you.

He’s wearing your glittering cum down to his chin when he crawls back up your body. It’s a mess of awkward, tangled limbs as you drag his sweatshirt up his torso from the hem while he reaches into his nightstand for a condom (a feat made more difficult by the fact that the box is still wrapped in its plastic). He kneels between your thighs, open and wet, and tucks his heavy balls under the hem of his plaid boxers.

You watch him as he rips the foil open with his teeth and rolls the latex on. Your eyes trail down his tattooed torso — over the sparse brown hair along his sternum and down to where it trails along his stomach in a thin line. His cock is heavy in his fist, glowing crimson with desire at the tip and leaking drops of pearly-white.

You should tell him that it’s been a while for you — long enough that you’re not sure if you can take something so thick — but you don’t want to stop the momentum you have going, not even for a second. You just curl your arms down and over his shoulders, palms splayed along his sweat-slick back, and fall back with him when he leans down over you.

His gold chain brushes your chest as he ducks down to open his mouth against yours. He rolls his hips forward and back, gliding his cock through your velvety folds, before piercing you fully.

There’s a fleeting, burning sensation as your cunt stretches around him — which quickly floods into a warmer, fuller feeling when he’s seated fully inside you, with his tuft of coarse hair pressed mercilessly against your throbbing clit.

“Oh, fuck—”

Carmy’s words sound less pleasured and more terrified.

Your eyes snap open. You catch a mere glimpse of his profile as his lips smudge along your burning cheek. “You okay?” you ask through panted breaths.

“Y-Yeah. I just—” The words come out strangled and half-muffled against your neck. “It’s just… been a while for me. I can’t— I can’t move.”

A delirious grin tugs at your mouth. You rake your nails gently along the expanse of his spine, until he shivers on top of you. “You can move, Carm,” you tell him.

He laughs breathlessly, though it comes out more like a punched-out breath. “I can’t, babe. I— I really can’t.”

“It’s okay if you’re close,” you murmur gently, smearing your lips along his flushed cheek. “You already made me cum— twice. This is about you feeling good, too, you know?”

Carmy makes a strangled noise, as if your words had hit him physically somehow. He lets himself go at your permission to feel good and rolls his hips against you. There is little rhythm or precision to his thrusts. They’re shallow and quick and a little sloppy, never pulling all the way out, as he buries his moans into your neck. The bed creaks below you like it might break.

“Fuck,” he groans like it hurts him, like he’s half-scared of his own orgasm.

“That’s it...” you coo in his ear. “I know you’re close, Carm. It’s okay. Just cum for me—”

“Fuck!” It comes out like more of a whimper this time, because he’s trying to calculate how long it’s been — two minutes, if that — but his brain’s too fogged and his stomach is starting to cramp from how hard he’s tensing to keep the feeling going a little longer.

Carmy doesn’t warn you when he cums. Not that you need him to. His heavy body just tenses on top of you, forearms shaking beside your head. You exhale a contented sigh when you feel him pulsing inside of you. “There it is…” you whisper in his ear. “Give me all of it, bear. C’mon. Doing so good for me…”

As your hands rub soothingly along his spine, you feel his bare shoulders shaking a little harder than before. It’s like he’s laughing to himself, or crying maybe. Then you feel something warm and wet drip along your neck.

“Bear?”

“Fuck—” He clears his throat when his voice breaks, lifting one hand to wipe at the tear running down the bridge of his nose. He laughs wetly at himself. “Fuck, I’m so lame. I’m sorry.”

“Are you okay?” you whisper, as if anything too loud might break him.

“Yeah, I’m good,” he assures you, sniffling as he pulls slightly off of you. “It was just— a lot, you know?”

“Yeah,” you nod.

“I wasn’t lying when I said it’s been a while for me.”

“Wow,” you hum sarcastically. “You’re telling me the anxious-avoidant chef who keeps his jeans in his oven isn’t absolutely drowning in ass? In this… very illustrious bachelor pad?”

His laugh is more humorous this time. “Fuck you.”

“You already did,” you remind him with a cheeky grin. “Unless you’re askin’ for round two— which I’m not opposed to.”

His mouth twitches into a more sincere grin. His glassy eyes soften further as they dart across your features, memorizing the wrinkles beside your squinted eyes and how your smile sits a little crooked to the left.

He shakes his head, ocean eyes still a little wet, as he smooths his fingers over your temple to brush away an invisible strand of hair there. “You’re gonna kill me, you know that?”

“Oh, but what a sweet, sweet way to go,” you croon as he ducks down over you again.

But if loving you is a slow death, why does kissing you taste like salvation?

The screen door claps against the frame, rattling the loose hook in its eye, and the house takes the sound into itself with a long wooden shiver.

Outside, the pasture has gone dark at the edges, the mares moving in pale, restless shapes beyond the fence line, and the butchered hen lies wrapped in paper against your hip, still warm enough to leave its damp weight through the cloth.

The kitchen smells of iron, cornmeal, lamp oil, and hot wood, all of it made heavier by the wet breath of summer pressing against the windows. Blood has soaked through your apron in stiff patches. It darkens your knuckles, clings under your nails, and slicks the inside of your fingers where the washbasin has not yet had its turn at you.

Remmick sits at the kitchen table with supper cooling in front of him, fork laid across the plate like a prop in some poor play. Cornbread, beans, and a slice of onion sit untouched on the plate, though he had taken care to move his fork once or twice as if the habit of eating could make him seem less unnatural.

He's been better at pretending lately.

Better at wearing a man’s shape around your house.

That pretense slips the moment he sees your hands.

His eyes lift first, then hold. His mouth goes wet. The change comes over him with shameful quickness, a stillness so complete the whole kitchen seems to lean toward it. His fingers curl against the table, nails scraping once, soft and desperate, and he swallows as if something in his throat has gone dry despite the shine already gathering on his lower lip.

“Bring me the basin,” you say, setting the wrapped hen near the stove, “and stop staring like you’ve never seen blood in this house before.”

A sound catches in his throat, too low to be a laugh and too eager to be shame, but he rises quickly enough, chair legs dragging hard across the boards.

Months ago, when he first came to your land, you would have taken that quickness for threat and reached for the shotgun you kept by the pantry.

The first night he came to you, pale as a corpse in the moonlight and smiling like something raised wrong from the marsh, you had been in the stable with your sick mare, her flank hot beneath your palm and her breath sour with fever.

He had stood beyond the open doors with rainwater silvering his hair, asking after the road to the nearest town, then begging for a cup of water in a voice too soft for a man who looked as though he might open his jaw and show you a wolf’s hunger.

You had given him directions and your flask because you were not cruel, then told him to leave because you were not a fool.

Night after night afterward, he returned to the porch with some new misery tucked under his tongue; a stone in his boot, dogs in the distance, fever in his head, a weakness in his knees, any excuse that might win him a chair by your fire.

You let him speak to the locked door until dawn thinned the trees and drove him away.

Then he came bleeding.

You think of it now when he brings the basin from the sideboard and sets it down too near you, close enough that his sleeve brushes your elbow.

That night he had sagged against your porch post with one hand pressed to his ribs, shirt torn, mouth trembling with a pain you later understood he had chosen for himself.

Mercy had gotten him across your threshold. Mercy, and your own hands, and the foolish human pity he had learned to pull from you like a thread from cloth. And after mercy came habit, then want, then the strange arrangement of a dead thing living in your house as if marriage vows had been exchanged under the kitchen rafters instead of hunger.

He mended fences after dusk, hauled feed in the bruised light before sunrise, kept his hat low and his hands busy, and in return he crawled into your bed each night because he begged so sweetly for it, and because his body never held heat unless he stole yours.

By the time you found him in the yard one night with one of your hens torn open between his hands, his mouth red and his fangs hooked deep into the limp, feathered body, you had already let him kiss you. You had already let him climb into your bed. You had already slapped him once for nearly putting those teeth in your throat while his cock was inside you, and watched him go rigid with hurt, hunger, shame, and pleasure all tangled together until he looked as ruined as any sinner caught at the altar.

His hand hovers over yours, not touching, but every part of him strains toward the blood.

“Remmick,” you warn.

“I know,” he says, though his voice has gone thin and ragged. “I know, I know, I only—”

“You only what?”

He looks from your hands to your face, and the lamplight makes something red move behind his eyes before he blinks it back.

His tongue touches the corner of his mouth. He looks wretched with wanting, dressed in the same shirt he wore to mend the smokehouse latch, the sleeves rolled past his forearms, his suspenders loose, his hair damp at the temples from the heat. There's dirt beneath his nails, a smear of dust along one cheekbone, and for all his sweetness around the house, for all the way he carries himself when he wants to seem harmless, the sight of blood has peeled him down to the thing you know he is.

“Please,” he whispers.

“You’ve had supper put in front of you.” You tilt your head, searching for any changes in his expression.

His eyes flick toward the plate with no interest at all. “That is supper for a livin' man.”

“And what are you?”

The question strikes him low. In the tremor that moves through his mouth, and in the way his gaze drops from your face to your fingers again. “Whatever you tell me to be.”

The answer is pretty, pathetic, and practiced only because every true thing in him has begun to sound like begging.

You lift your hand and let your bloodied fingers hover near his mouth, and his lips part.

The sight of it sends a slow warmth through you, power sinking into flesh.

He has torn through men, animals, God knows what else, and yet in your kitchen he waits for permission with his cock already swelling in his trousers because you might let him lick chicken blood from your hand.

“Open,” you tell him.

Remmick obeys with such speed that his shame seems to arrive after the hunger, following it across his face in a red wash. His mouth closes around two of your fingers, hot and wet, his tongue moving with careful greed over the dried blood.

He sucks gently at first, trying to make a show of restraint, but the effort fails as soon as the taste reaches him.

His lashes lower. His breath shudders. Drool gathers where your fingers press his lower lip, and the sound he makes around you is obscene, a low, grateful hum that vibrates through the bones of your hand.

You watch him take what you allow, watch the stain disappear from your knuckles, watch his hands grip the table because he knows better than to seize your wrist.

That lesson had taken several nights to settle into him, several bruises, several warnings, and the pleasure of it still lives in the way he trembles when you call him greedy.

“You’re filthy,” you murmur, easing your fingers deeper until his throat works around the pressure. “Sitting here drooling over chicken blood like I starve you.”

His eyes lift, red flickering deep behind the brown, and the word filthy nearly finishes whatever restraint he has left.

His hips press once toward nothing. A thick shape pushes against the front of his trousers, plain beneath the lamplight, and when you glance down at it, he gives a muffled whine that turns wetter around your fingers.

You pull back slowly, but his mouth follows before he catches himself, lips chasing the taste, and then he does it: the smallest tilt of his head, the slightest flash of ragged fangs, an attempt to catch your thumb and nick the living blood beneath the skin.

Your palm cracks across his face before his teeth can close.

The blow rings through the kitchen and leaves him turned with one hand braced against the table, mouth open, cheek already flushing beneath the mark.

He breathes hard, almost panting. Shame folds through his expression, but pleasure rises with it, sick and immediate, his body betraying him so plainly that his eyes squeeze shut. His fingers flex against the wood as though he needs something to hold or he might sink to the floor.

“I told you not to bite me,” you say, quiet enough to make him listen.

Remmick nods quickly, his voice rough when he answers, “Yes.”

“You tried anyway.”

“I was only—” He stops himself because the lie would insult you more than the disobedience. His throat works, and the red print on his cheek deepens. “I wanted more.”

A slow look down his body makes him shift like he can hide what the slap has done to him. “And now look at you.”

His gaze drops, and you follow it without mercy. His cock strains against his trousers, obscene and thick beneath worn fabric, the front of him tented as plainly as if he had meant to show you. He looks down at himself and makes a sound that is almost pain.

“One little slap and you’re fit to spend in your pants.”

Humiliation bends his head, but it does not soften the hunger in him. If anything, it makes him worse.

His lashes flutter, his lips part, and a shine of spit gathers again at the corner of his mouth as though the slap has loosened something in him that hunger alone could not.

You take the clean side of your thumb and press it to the reddening mark on his cheek. He leans into the touch like a whipped dog seeking the same hand that struck him.

“You’ll fetch water so I can wash,” you say, letting your thumb drag once along his cheekbone. “Then you’ll go sit in the bedroom and wait for me. You will not touch yourself.”

His face twists with need. “I can’t—”

“You can.”

He nods slowly, too eager and too miserable and, when he turns for the pump, his gait is wrong with arousal, stiff through the hips, one hand hovering near the front of his trousers before he snatches it back like he remembers your command by pain alone.

By the time the basin is filled and your hands are clean, the water has turned a cloudy brown-red that seems to grieve him when you pour it out.

He watches the blood vanish into the yard through the back door, his jaw tight, his gaze hollowed by want, but he goes where you send him.

The boards in the hall complain under his steps, and you take your time with the kitchen because you know every ordinary sound will torment him. The knife is washed and dried. The wrapped chicken is set aside. The apron comes off stiff with blood and hangs from the nail by the door.

In the bathroom, you clean yourself with warmed water by lamplight, dragging the cloth over your arms, your throat, the sweat-slick hollow between your breasts, the places where blood had soaked through the cotton and touched skin.

The house is quieter there, close and damp, yet you know his hearing catches the water wrung from the cloth, the shift of your dress loosening, the soft fall of your stockings.

Letting him imagine is its own punishment, and you enjoy it more than you care to name.

The bedroom is dark except for the low lamp on the dresser and the moonless weight at the window when you finally step inside.

Remmick's sitting on the edge of the bed with his suspenders hanging loose, shirt open down the chest, hair damp at the temples from a sweat his body has no honest reason to make. One hand grips his thigh. The other is pressed over the bulge in his trousers, just holding himself through the fabric as if pressure alone might keep him from splitting apart.

His gaze lifts to you, then drops to the thin shift clinging to your freshly washed skin, and the sound that leaves him is half-starved.

“You touched yourself,” you say, crossing the room slowly.

“I held it,” he answers, breathless with the need to explain. “Only held it. It hurt.”

“Poor Remmick,” you say, and the false softness of it makes his hips twitch beneath his hand.

He stands before you reach him, crowding close but not quite touching until your eyes give him leave.

His hands settle at your waist with a tremor. His mouth lowers to your shoulder, kissing through the shift first, then nudging the loosened neckline aside to taste skin.

The kisses come wet and scattered, down your throat, along your jaw, over your cheek, each one leaving a shine behind. He is always too messy when want has burned through his manners, too open-mouthed, too eager, too grateful for anything your body allows him.

When you catch his chin and make him look at you, his pupils are wide, his lips swollen from biting back whines.

“I said not to touch yourself,” you remind him.

“I only held it,” he says, pleading already. “I swear, I only—Christ, I needed something.”

"Poor you," you repeat.

His hips push forward before he can stop them, the hard length of him grinding against your thigh. He chokes on the sound that follows and tries to pull back, but you keep him there with your hand on his jaw.

“You like being pitied?” you ask, letting your thumb rest at the corner of his mouth where spit has gathered. “You like being made small?”

The shame in him answers before he does, running down his throat in a swallow. “I like when you say anything to me.”

The answer is so bare that it would soften you on another night. It does soften you, somewhere deep and unwise, but you do not let it reach your hands.

You stroke your thumb over the red mark on his cheek, and he turns into the touch with such helpless hunger that your own body answers, heat blooming between your thighs.

“Get on your knees, then.”

Remmick sinks down so fast the floorboards creak beneath him, hands sliding to your calves, face tipped up with a hunger that looks nearly devotional.

Your back settles against the wardrobe as you gather your shift in one fist and lift it, the old wood cool and solid behind your shoulders.

When he leans forward, you raise one thigh over his shoulder, making room for him between your legs while his hands come up to steady you at the hips. He stops with his mouth hovering inches from you, breathing against your inner thighs while he waits, and the restraint costs him badly enough that his fingers dig into your skin before he catches himself and loosens his grip.

His eyes flick up for permission, and when you give it, he falls on you with a groan that nearly buckles the leg still planted beneath you. His mouth is hot, wet, and shameless, licking into you with the desperation of something denied too long.

He drags the muscle through your slickness, circles your clit, then sucks with enough care that his fangs never touch, though the danger of them stays present in every breath. Drool slips down his chin and cools against your thighs while his hands clutch under your shift, holding you open as he eats you like praise might be found there if he works hard enough for it.

Your fingers push into his hair and pull him closer, and he makes a grateful, muffled sound, tongue circling your clit before flattening, then dipping lower to taste where you are opening for him.

His nose presses against you. His fingers dig bruises into your hips. He breathes harshly through it, rutting once against nothing before he catches himself and stops, shaking with the effort.

“No,” you say, tightening your hand in his hair. “You don’t get to rub yourself on my floor like a dog.”

The words break a rough sound out of him, humiliation moving through him like fever, and he moans into your cunt as his tongue flattens against your clit again, then slips lower while two fingers stroke up the inside of your thigh.

Your free hand braces against the wardrobe, and he feels the shift of your weight, feels the way your raised thigh tightens over his shoulder. He always knows when he has done well, and he turns ravenous with the knowledge, licking you with long, desperate strokes until pleasure gathers low and heavy in your stomach.

“That’s better,” you say, breath thinning. “Good boy.”

The praise wrecks him worse than the insult. He pulls back just enough to gasp, “Again.”

You look down at him, at the wet shine all over his mouth and chin, at the way his eyes have gone glassy with need.

“Earn it.”

Remmick earns it with his tongue, with his mouth, with his fingers sliding up the inside of your thigh only after you nod.

When he presses two of them into you, they go slow at first, crooked carefully, finding the place that makes your breath catch. He watches your face as he does it, his mouth still working your clit, eyes almost fever-bright with the pleasure of being used.

The room thickens around you, close and hot, the lamp smoking faintly on the dresser, the quilt twisted on the bed behind him, the open window letting in all the wet green rot of summer.

You can hear his fingers moving in you, and you can hear him swallowing your pleasure as if he is starving for that too.

Your orgasm gathers, and he seems to sense it before you tell him, pressing deeper, sucking softer, giving you his mouth as steadily as he can while his own body shakes.

Pleasure rolls through you hard, making your hand fist in his hair, your thigh tightening over his shoulder as you bow against the wardrobe and come on his tongue.

He groans as if your pleasure hurts him sweetly. His fingers keep moving until you shove at his shoulder, oversensitive and breathless, and even then he kisses your inner thigh once, twice, wet open-mouthed kisses that beg forgiveness for stopping and permission to start again.

By the time you pull him up, Remmick’s mouth and chin are shining. His cock strains so heavily against his trousers that the fabric is damp at the front, and the sight of your pleasure on his face has made him glassy-eyed rather than proud.

He looks debased, beautiful, and miserable with restraint.

You rub your thumb over his slick lower lip, and he opens for it without instruction, tongue touching your skin with a shiver.

“You did that well,” you murmur.

Praise hits him harder than the slap. His eyes flutter, and his hands curl uselessly near your waist, not daring to grab. “Again,” he whispers, though it is unclear whether he means the praise, your mouth, or the chance to get between your thighs until he stops shaking.

“Bed,” you tell him, and he nearly stumbles in his hurry to obey.

The mattress gives under you with a familiar rope-and-frame complaint as you lie back, shift bunched around your hips.

He kisses you on the way down to it, or tries to. His mouth finds yours in broken, greedy attempts, too eager to be smooth.

You taste yourself on him, salt and heat beneath the faint copper memory of the chicken blood he had cleaned from your fingers.

He whimpers when your tongue touches his. He whimpers again when you bite his lower lip hard enough to warn him but not hard enough to bleed.

Remmick’s hands make poor work of his buttons. He is too aroused to be graceful, too eager to be quick, and by the time he gets his trousers open, his cock springs heavy and flushed into his palm.

He grips himself once by instinct, then snatches his hand away at the look you give him. The remorse on his face is immediate, but he doesn't cry; his eyes only shine, wet at the edges, his mouth tightening as he fights the ache.

When you finally part your thighs, the expression on his face changes so sharply it borders on pain as he climbs over you with care, one hand bracing near your head, the other gripping the base of his cock because even now, with permission, he's trying not to spend too soon.

The head of his cock drags through your wetness, and his face tightens as if the pleasure has teeth. He pushes in slowly because you told him once that you liked to feel him try not to lose himself, and he remembers the things that torment him.

When his hips finally settle flush against yours, his forehead drops near your collarbone with a low, broken moan.

“No teeth,” you remind him, turning his face away from your throat with two fingers at his jaw.

“No teeth,” he repeats, voice rough. “I know.”

“And no coming until I say.”

Remmick’s whole body tenses above you, then obeys by force of will alone.

He begins with slow strokes, dragging out of you almost to the tip before sinking back in, the rhythm careful and reverent until care becomes impossible.

His mouth moves everywhere it can safely go: your shoulder, your jaw, the curve of your breast through the shift, the place beneath your ear where he trembles from keeping his fangs away.

Each time his hunger gets too close, he turns his face aside and curses softly into the pillow.

The restraint makes him rougher through the hips, less polished, more desperate, and the bed starts to knock against the wall in a steady wooden pulse.

“You’re trying so hard,” you say, nails dragging down his back.

The praise makes him shudder, and one thin tear slips free despite his effort to hold it back. It cuts down the slapped cheek, catching the lamplight before disappearing near his jaw.

That's all he gives you at first, that single sign of being split too wide by pleasure, shame, and obedience. He doesn't fall apart the way he has before—he keeps moving, breathing hard through his nose, mouth open and wet, eyes fixed on your face because looking away would feel like failing.

“You like being kept like this,” you say, wrapping your legs higher around his waist. “Being made to wait. Being told no. Being put in your place.”

His hips stutter, eyes squeezing shut, and the next thrust goes deeper. “Yes.”

“Say it proper.”

“Yes,” he says again, hoarser, his hand fisting in the sheet beside your head. “I like it.”

“You like being treated like something that needs training.”

A sob catches in his throat. He thrusts harder, then whines when you tug his hair in warning.

“Careful,” you say. “Don’t get stupid now.”

“I am stupid,” he says, the words falling out in a rush, all dignity gone. “I’m stupid for it, I can’t think when you smell like this, when you open for me, when you look at me like that."

The answer pulls a sound from you before you can swallow it.

Remmick hears it and gives you that angle again, his body learning yours in the filthy, faithful way it always does.

The room fills with him: the slap of his hips, the damp heat of his mouth against your skin, the faint copper ghost of blood still hidden somewhere in his breath from your fingers.

Your hand slides between your bodies when the second climb starts, and the first touch of your fingers to your clit makes you tighten around him so suddenly that he chokes.

“Christ,” he gasps, eyes dropping to where your hand moves, hips rolling into you while your fingers rub tight circles over your clit.

His mouth hangs open, drool shining on his lower lip, and his cock jerks inside you each time your body clenches around him.

You touch yourself harder, matching the rhythm of his thrusts, using him and your own hand together until pleasure spreads hot and heavy through your belly.

Remmick's breathing turns ragged.

“That’s it,” you breathe, gripping his shoulder with your free hand. “Right there. Don’t change it.”

His jaw locks with the effort of keeping the pace.

The bedframe hits the wall harder, rain beginning at the window in a sudden silver rush, and the scent of wet earth rolls through the room with the smell of sweat and sex.

He drives into you exactly as ordered while your fingers work your clit, and the second orgasm breaks through you in a deep, pulsing wave.

Your back arches from the mattress, your thighs tightening around his hips, your cunt clenching hard around every inch of him.

Remmick makes a strangled sound and nearly follows, his rhythm collapsing into short, frantic thrusts before he catches himself.

“Not yet,” you say, still shaking from it, your hand leaving your clit to grip his face.

Agony flashes across him. His eyes go wet again, and this time the tears gather because he's too close, because your body is still gripping him, because obedience has become almost unbearable. “Please,” he says, the word cracked and low. “Please, please—I can’t hold it—”

“You can hold it until I tell you.”

His mouth trembles, but he nods, fucking you in broken strokes that keep him buried deep without letting him finish. Every muscle in him strains. His fangs show, not from threat but from the force of clenching his jaw, and he turns his face away from your neck as if the very sight of your pulse might break him.

You stroke his cheek, softer than before, and that gentleness ruins him more cleanly than cruelty.

“You did well,” you tell him.

The first true sob comes then, quiet and torn up, his face crumpling with relief before pleasure swallows it. “I tried.”

“I know.”

Remmick comes with a hoarse cry, hips driving in deep as his body bows over yours.

His cock pulses hard, filling you with heat while his breath breaks against your mouth. A few tears spill down his face at the force of it, not the endless weeping of earlier nights but something sharper, dragged out of him by release and the awful sweetness of permission.

He keeps whispering your name into the damp space between your mouths, each repetition less like speech and more like surrender.

You hold him through it, fingers in his hair, nails resting against the marks you left on his back, and his weight lowers carefully once the last tremor leaves him.

After the storm opens fully over the fields, the bedroom settles into a humid dark sweetened by rain through the window and the low smoke of the lamp.

Remmick stays buried in your warmth, softening by degrees, his face tucked near your collarbone without touching his teeth to your skin. The monster in him has not gone anywhere. It lies quiet under his skin, fed and chastened, listening to the blood in your throat with the same devotion he gives your voice.

You know what he is, what he had planned when he first crossed your threshold bleeding on purpose, what he could still make of you now that the house has accepted him.

He could turn you whenever he chose if you grew careless enough to let him.

He knows it too, and maybe that's why he clings to obedience so fiercely, why his mouth trembles when you stroke his hair, why the palm-mark on his cheek seems to comfort him as much as it shames him.

“You hit me hard,” he murmurs, voice rough against your skin.

“You earned it.”

A faint shiver moves through him, and even spent, he presses closer, seeking your heat like an animal crawling toward a hearth. “I know.”

“If you try to bite me again, I’ll do worse.”

Remmick’s lips touch your shoulder in one careful, toothless kiss, and his answer comes low, reverent, and still a little hungry. “Yes, ma’am.”

Rain batters the sill, the pasture disappears beyond the dark glass, and the blood has long since been washed from your hands, though its memory remains in the damp shine of his mouth.

You let him lie there, half corpse and half supplicant, the devil you allowed inside because mercy had once looked too much like need.

When his arm tightens around your waist and his breath slows against your throat, you do not tell him to move.

© 2026 all rights reserved — flixpii.

If anyone had asked Eddie Munson to describe you, his answer would've been embarrassingly simple: quiet, pretty, funny when you actually spoke, and an absolute menace on rhythm guitar.

You'd been Gareth's best friend since elementary school, which automatically made you part of the group years before Eddie ever showed up. Somewhere between band practice in Gareth's garage and late-night drives to nowhere with cheap gas station snacks, you'd just... become one of them.

You usually sat with your combat boots kicked up on an amp, cigarette hanging lazily between your fingers while Jeff and Gareth argued over chords and Eddie rambled about whatever had caught his attention that week.

Sometimes horror movies. Sometimes a new Metallica album. Sometimes some insane campaign he'd spent six straight hours writing instead of doing homework.

You'd just listen, smile every now and then. Throw in the occasional dry comment that made everyone laugh harder than anything else said that evening. Then go back to quietly restringing your guitar.

As far as Eddie knew, that was the extent of it. He knew you liked metal. He knew you preferred your coffee black. He knew you kept a denim jacket covered in patches draped over the back of Gareth's couch because you were over there so often.

He knew you could play Iron Maiden riffs cleaner than half the guys he'd met. He knew he had the most pathetic schoolboy crush on you imaginable. He also knew Gareth would never let him live it down if he acted on it.

So he didn't.

He flirted just enough that everyone thought that's simply how Eddie talked to girls. He'd throw you a grin. Call you sweetheart. Offer you the first beer. Let your shoulder bump against his when everyone piled onto the couch.

Nothing serious, nothing obvious. Nothing that would risk screwing up something that already worked. Because having you around was better than making things awkward and losing you altogether.

You, meanwhile, had somehow convinced everyone you had absolutely zero hobbies beyond music, which was exactly how you preferred it.

Nobody knew about the stack of fantasy novels hidden underneath your bed. Nobody knew about the little notebook full of campaign ideas. Nobody knew about the afternoons you'd spent reading through Gareth's Player's Handbook after he'd accidentally left it at your house when you were fifteen. And absolutely nobody knew that after borrowing it once, you'd gone out and bought your own.

Then another, and then another. By now you owned enough books that your bookshelf looked suspiciously like a tiny game shop. Not because you actually played; you'd never had the courage.

You just liked learning about it. The stories. The worlds. The maps. The mythology. You found it fascinating. But somewhere along the line, quietly reading had turned into quietly memorizing.

Which was why, every time Hellfire met in the theatre room after school, you intentionally sat just far enough away that you couldn't hear very well.

Because if you could hear...You'd start correcting people, and nobody likes that person. So you kept your mouth shut. It worked for months.

Until one rainy Thursday when band practice got canceled because Gareth's parents wanted the garage cleaned out, leaving the entire group with nowhere to be. Hellfire happened to be meeting.

"You should just stay," Dustin insisted.

"You literally sit here anyway."

"I'm not playing."

"You don't have to."

Jeff chimed in from somewhere behind him. "Yeah, just hang out."

You looked toward Gareth; he shrugged, "Might as well."

So you settled into one of the empty chairs against the wall with a comic book you'd barely read a page of while Eddie started spinning another one of his ridiculously elaborate campaigns.

You weren't trying to pay attention; you really weren't. But you couldn't help overhearing bits and pieces. Names you recognized. Places you recognized. Monsters you recognized. And honestly? He was really good.

Animated. Creative. Completely invested. Watching him practically stand on top of the fake throne to voice an evil wizard was charming enough that you forgot to hide your smile.

Then it happened. "So naturally," Eddie declared dramatically, "the basilisk's gaze instantly petrifies all three of you permanently—"

You physically looked up, and your eyebrows pulled together, lips parting. No. No, no, no.

You looked back down at your comic. You could ignore it. You should ignore it. Dustin was already reacting. Mike was planning around it. Lucas looked mildly horrified.

You squeezed your eyes shut. Stay quiet. Stay quiet. Stay—

"...Actually..." The word slipped out before you could stop it.

Every single head turned toward you. You immediately wished the floor would open beneath your chair.

Eddie blinked. "Hm?"

You stared at your comic. "...Nothing."

He tilted his head. "No, c'mon."

You sighed through your nose. "...A basilisk's gaze doesn't permanently petrify you."

Silence. "It can," Eddie answered carefully.

"It can…but not instantly."

You paused, rethinking your life’s choices, but decided to follow through. "It requires you to fail the saving throw."

Dustin slowly looked between both of you like he was watching a tennis match.

Eddie folded his arms. "...Okay."

You already hated this.

"And how exactly do you know that?"

You mumbled the answer.

"What was that?"

"...Monster Manual."

"What?"

You looked up reluctantly. "The Monster Manual."

He stared, and you stared back.

"...Page seventy-three."

Absolute silence. Jeff's jaw slowly fell open. Gareth looked at you, a mix of suspicion and pride forming. "...Since when?"

You rubbed the back of your neck. "I don't know."

"You own a Monster Manual?"

"...Yeah."

Eddie's voice got quieter. "...Anything else?"

You made the mistake of answering honestly. "I've got most of them."

He blinked. "Most... of them."

"The books."

"The books."

"Yeah."

He looked genuinely speechless. Then, very carefully, "...Name five schools of magic."

You frowned. "There are eight."

His eyes got wider.

Without thinking, you started listing them. "Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, Illusion, Necromancy, Transmutation."

By the time you finished, Eddie was staring at you with an expression somewhere between existential crisis and complete infatuation.

He looked over at Gareth, looked back at you, then looked at Gareth again.

"You've been hiding this from me?"

You blinked. "I didn't think anybody cared."

"Cared?"

He sounded personally offended. "Cared?"

You shrugged helplessly. "I don't actually play."

"So?"

"I just read them."

"So?"

"I like lore."

"So?"

"I didn't think it mattered."

Eddie dragged both hands down his face, then looked at you again with something that almost looked pained. "I have spent three years desperately searching for people who voluntarily read sourcebooks."

You looked confused. "...Really?"

"And Gareth has apparently been gatekeeping the coolest girl in Hawkins."

Gareth immediately defended himself. "I DIDN'T KNOW EITHER."

Eddie looked back at you. Then, with complete sincerity, "Please join Hellfire."

You laughed.

"I'm serious."

"So am I."

"No, seriously." He leaned across the table. "I am literally begging you."

You couldn't help smiling. He looked completely smitten, like something had clicked into place. Like the cute girl he'd been trying not to flirt with too much had suddenly started speaking his favorite language.

And judging by the ridiculous grin spreading across his face, you had absolutely no idea what you'd just done to him.

It started small: a little less space between you on Gareth's couch. Conversations that accidentally stretched long after everyone else had wandered into another room. The realization that if Eddie had a campaign idea, your opinion was one of the first he wanted.

At some point, it became completely normal for Gareth to call your house and ask if he could come over to work on music, only to show up twenty minutes later with Eddie in tow and an armful of graph paper, dice, and notebooks.

Band practice would last an hour; campaign brainstorming would last four.

You'd all end up around your bedroom floor or the dining room table with pencils scattered everywhere, Eddie pacing barefoot because he'd inevitably kicked his shoes off halfway through explaining something.

"No, okay, listen," he'd insist, waving his hands around wildly. "Imagine the town thinks they're cursed because people keep disappearing into the woods."

You'd be scribbling notes already. "They're not disappearing."

He'd stop. "No?"

"They're being taken."

"By what?"

You'd chew on your pencil for a second. "They think it's a monster."

"But?"

"It's not."

He'd grin. "But?"

"It's a druid."

His eyebrows would shoot up. "Oh?"

"They're taking people because something older is waking up underneath the forest and they're trying to keep them away from it."

"That's why you're my favorite."

Gareth, without missing a beat, would throw a crumpled piece of notebook paper at him. "You are so unbelievable."

"What?"

"You don't even hear yourself."

"Hear what?"

"'That's why you're my favorite.'" He mocked. 

Eddie would look genuinely confused. "I meant campaign-wise."

"Mhm."

"I did."

"Mhm."

Jeff would snort from wherever he happened to be sitting. You'd duck your head to hide a smile while pretending to be very invested in your notes.

Eventually Eddie would wander over anyway, leaning over your shoulder to look at whatever you'd been writing. His hair would brush yours.

His hands would be slightly closer to yours against the table. He'd smell faintly like cigarettes and weed and that cologne you complimented one time, and he refused to wear a different one since. 

"Holy shit."

You'd glance up. "What?"

"This is so much better than what I had."

He'd snatch your notebook. "Eddie."

"Nope."

"Eddie."

"This is mine now."

"You can't just steal my ideas."

"I absolutely can."

He'd flip another page. "You drew maps?"

You'd immediately reach for the notebook. "No."

He'd lift it over his head. "You drew maps."

"Eddie."

"You color-coded the districts."

"Eddie."

"You made economic systems."

"Oh my god, give it back."

He'd be laughing too hard to defend himself as you reached for it, nearly climbing over him in the process. Somewhere behind you, Gareth would let out the most exhausted sigh known to mankind.

"Jesus Christ."

Neither of you would even notice. You'd finally grab the notebook back, smoothing out the bent page with exaggerated offense.

"You suck."

"I know."

"You bent it."

"I'll buy you another."

"I don't want another."

"I'll buy you five."

"They won't have my notes."

He'd soften immediately. "...Good point."

Then, almost sheepishly, "I'm sorry."

You'd just smile. "It's okay."

And somehow that stupid little interaction would live in his head for days afterward.

The problem was that spending more time around Eddie wasn't making your crush go away; it was making it catastrophically worse.

It was one thing to think he was attractive from across Gareth's garage while he played guitar. It was another thing entirely to watch him get excited over stories.

To watch him grin when you challenged one of his ideas and immediately start building on yours instead. To watch him get genuinely delighted when you beat him to a fantasy reference. He really listened to you. Like, actually. 

Half your conversations started with him saying, "Wait, what do you think?"

Nobody had ever asked you that so often before. It made your chest hurt a little. Then there were the little things.

He always sat next to you. Always offered you the first slice of pizza. Always saved you the root beer because he'd noticed it was your favorite after seeing you pick it out exactly twice.

One afternoon, he disappeared for ten minutes while everyone argued over music. When he came back, he tossed something into your lap. You looked down: a little pewter dragon pin.  Nothing fancy, probably from the flea market. Its wing was chipped, and one eye had faded paint.

"I saw it and thought of you."

Your heart nearly stopped. "It's cool."

"I figured you'd put it on your jacket."

You smiled so hard your cheeks hurt. "I will."

He looked suspiciously pleased with himself. Across the room, Gareth watched the exchange happen in complete silence before rubbing both hands over his face.

Jeff noticed. "What?"

Gareth looked at him. "I can't do this anymore."

"Do what?"

He pointed between the two of you. "This."

Jeff looked over. "...They're talking."

"They're in love."

"They're discussing dragons."

"They're discussing dragons in love."

Jeff started laughing, then Gareth stood up dramatically. "Eddie."

"Hm?"

"You know you can just ask her out."

The room went completely still. Eddie looked genuinely horrified. "What?"

"You heard me."

"No?"

"Ask her out."

He immediately looked at you, then away again so quickly it almost gave you whiplash. "I am not asking her out."

"And why not?"

"Because she's your best friend."

"So?"

"What if she says no?"

You looked down at your hands, and Gareth threw both arms into the air. "And what if she says yes?"

Eddie looked personally offended by the suggestion. "Don't mess with me."

"I'm literally not."

Jeff had gone completely silent, clearly realizing something much larger was unfolding.

Gareth pointed at you now. "And you."

Your head snapped up.

"When are you gonna tell him?"

You nearly choked. "Tell him what?"

He stared. "Oh, don't even."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You look at him like he personally invented the damn game himself."

Your face instantly went hot. "I absolutely do not."

"You absolutely do."

"I don't."

"You do."

"I don't."

"You literally smile every time he walks into a room."

"I smile at everyone."

"You do not smile at Jeff."

Jeff looked mildly offended. "Hey!"

You buried your face in your hands. "This is awful."

Gareth groaned loud enough to shake the walls. "I swear to God, one of you has got to grow a spine."

Eddie looked over at you. You peeked at him through your fingers. The second your eyes met, both of you immediately looked somewhere else.

Gareth stood there for another few seconds before muttering to himself and grabbing his jacket. "I'm going outside."

Jeff followed. "Me too."

The door shut behind them. You were still looking at the floor while Eddie was rubbing the back of his neck.

Finally, after what felt like forever, he spoke. "...For what it's worth..."

You looked up.

"...I don't think he's completely wrong."

Your stomach did a complete somersault. He looked terrified; you probably looked exactly the same. Then, somehow, despite both of you being objectively hopeless at this sort of thing...

You both started laughing. The nervous, embarrassed kind that comes out when there's nothing else left to do.

"So..."

"So."

Then both of you started talking at exactly the same time.

"I'm sor—"

"I didn't mea—"

You stopped, he stopped, and you both laughed again. Eddie shook his head, looking down at the floor with the kind of smile that only appeared when he was genuinely embarrassed.

"I've fought people with knives, and somehow this is scarier."

That made you smile. "I don't think Gareth was supposed to say all that."

"He definitely wasn't."

"He looked like he was gonna explode."

"He has looked like that for weeks."

Your eyebrows pulled together. "Weeks?"

Eddie looked up, immediately realizing he'd said too much. "...Maybe."

You studied him for a second. "You knew?"

He let out a long sigh. "I knew he thought something."

"And?"

"And I kept telling him he was making it up."

"You did?"

"Mhm."

"And was he?"

He looked at you for a long moment before quietly admitting, "...No."

Your heart gave one heavy, impossible thud. He looked back down almost immediately.

"I just figured..." he started, picking at one of the rings on his fingers. "I don't know."

"You can tell me."

He laughed softly to himself. "I figured I was reading into things because I wanted to."

He shrugged. "You laugh at my jokes."

"They're funny."

"You always sit next to me."

"So do you."

"You remember everything I tell you."

"So do you."

"You still have that stupid dragon pin."

You instinctively looked down at your jacket hanging over the chair across the room. It was still there, pinned right over your heart.

You looked back at him. "...Of course I do."

His ears turned pink as he smiled to himself. "I kept thinking maybe you were just nice."

"And I kept thinking you flirted with everybody."

"I do flirt with everybody."

"I know."

"But not like that."

You looked at him. He was still staring at the floor. Quietly, almost too quietly to hear, he added, "Not like you."

He took another breath. "I didn't want to make things weird."

"I didn't either."

"I didn't want Gareth to think I was making band practice complicated."

"I didn't either."

"I didn't want to screw up the friend group."

"I didn't either."

That earned another little laugh from both of you. It was almost ridiculous, months of overthinking condensed into a handful of matching sentences.

He shifted a little closer on the couch. "...Can I ask you something?"

You nodded, but he hesitated anyway. "If Gareth comes back in here and starts laughing at me, I'm moving to Canada."

You couldn't help smiling. "I don't think you’d make it that far."

"I've got enough gas money to reach Ohio."

"Fair."

Then he just blurted it out. "...Would you maybe wanna go on a date with me?"

No dramatic speech, no rehearsed line, no confidence. Just Eddie, visibly terrified, trying to act like his entire future wasn't hanging on your answer.

Then your mouth betrayed you before your brain could. "...I thought you'd never ask."

His eyes got impossibly wide. "...Really?"

You laughed. "Eddie."

"No, seriously."

"I'm serious."

"You mean yes?"

"I mean yes."

"You actually mean yes?"

"I do."

He blinked twice. Then covered his face with both hands. "Oh, my God."

You could hear him laughing behind them. "Oh, my God."

He dragged his hands down slowly, looking somewhere between relieved and completely stunned. "I had a whole backup speech."

"You did?"

"It was terrible."

"I would've liked to hear it."

"No chance."

"Please?"

"It somehow involved dragons."

You laughed so hard your head dropped forward. "I absolutely believe that."

He looked at you for another second before another thought visibly crossed his mind. "Oh."

"What?"

"So..." He scratched at the back of his neck again. "This is kind of embarrassing."

"What is?"

"I didn't think you'd actually say yes."

"So you don't have a date planned."

"...Not exactly."

You bit back a smile.

"I had approximately seventy-three fantasies and zero logistics."

"I appreciate the honesty."

He thought for a second, then suddenly snapped his fingers. "Wait."

"What?"

"The open-air market."

"The one over by Main?"

"Yeah,” he smiled. "My uncle goes every few weeks."

"I've never actually been."

"You haven't?"

You shook your head. 

"They've got old records and books and weird antiques and flea market junk and people selling handmade jewelry and all kinds of random stuff."

He was getting animated now, talking with his hands the way he always did when he got excited. "And this old guy that always has boxes of fantasy novels for like fifty cents."

Your eyebrows lifted. "Oh?"

"And another booth with vintage band shirts."

"Oh?"

"And there's usually a food truck with cider donuts."

"...Eddie."

"What?"

"I already said yes."

"I know."

"I'm just making my case."

"You don't have to."

He grinned. "So..." His voice softened. "Tomorrow morning?"

You smiled. "I'd like that."

"You would?"

"I would."

"What time?"

"Whenever you pick me up."

His grin somehow grew even bigger. "Nine?"

"Nine."

For another second, neither of you moved, just smiled at each other like two complete idiots. Then the front door flew open. Gareth walked in carrying two sodas, took one look at the way you were looking at each other, and immediately stopped.

His eyes narrowed. "...No."

Neither of you said anything. He looked at Eddie, he looked at you, and then he looked back at Eddie once more.  "...No."

Jeff stepped around him. "What?"

Gareth pointed dramatically. "They're smiling."

Jeff looked. "...Yeah?"

"The weird smiling."

"They smile."

"No."

He pointed harder. "The smile."

Jeff watched for another second, then slowly grinned. "...Oh."

Gareth closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "...Did one of you finally grow a spine?"

Eddie looked over with a smile he couldn't suppress if he tried. "...Maybe."

Gareth stood perfectly still, then set both sodas on the coffee table. Then walked over and hugged you. Then hugged Eddie.

Then immediately pushed him away again. "If you break her heart, I'll kill you."

Eddie nodded solemnly. "Fair."

Gareth looked at you. "If you break his heart, I'll kill you too."

You nodded just as seriously. "Also fair."

He looked between the two of you one last time before throwing both hands into the air. "Jesus Christ."

Jeff laughed. "What?"

"I HAVE BEEN WATCHING THIS FOR SIX MONTHS."

He turned toward the ceiling. "THANK YOU."

And somewhere beside him, Eddie's hand quietly found yours for the very first time. He didn't make a joke. Didn't look at you. Didn't say anything at all.

He just laced his fingers with yours like he'd been wanting to for a very, very long time. You squeezed once, and he squeezed back.

The next morning, you were standing on your front porch at exactly 8:58 when you heard the familiar rattle of Eddie's van coming down the street. Not that you'd been waiting by the window or anything…definitely not.

The van pulled into the driveway, and before it had even fully stopped, you could see Eddie leaning across the passenger seat.

The door swung open. "Good morning."

You laughed. "It's nine in the morning."

"And?"

"You look entirely too excited."

He grinned. "I got a date."

Your stomach immediately betrayed you. The stupid thing was that you'd known Eddie for years now. You'd spent countless afternoons with him. Late-night band practices. Movie marathons. Campaign planning sessions.

Yet somehow, the word "date" made everything feel different.

You climbed into the passenger seat and immediately noticed the stack of cassette tapes scattered between the seats. "You cleaned."

"I did not."

"You absolutely did."

"I moved things."

"Eddie."

"The important garbage is still here."

Neither of you had to struggle for conversation. You talked about music, about the campaign you'd been helping him write. About the ridiculous argument Jeff and Dustin had gotten into over whether dragons or vampires were cooler. By the time the market came into view, you'd spent half the drive laughing. 

The open-air market occupied an old fairground lot just outside town. Rows of tents stretched across the grass. People wandered between booths carrying coffee cups and paper bags. Music drifted through the air from somewhere. The entire place smelled like baked goods, fresh grass, and sunlight.

"This is cute."

Eddie looked weirdly pleased by your approval. "Right?"

You followed him through the aisles, taking your time. Every booth seemed to have something different. Old records. Handmade jewelry. Vintage books. Antiques. Hand-painted signs. One tent was entirely dedicated to old movie posters. Another sold homemade candles.

A woman was knitting behind a table full of scarves despite the weather being far too warm for scarves.

"This place is amazing."

"I know."

"You come here often?"

He shrugged. "Sometimes with Wayne."

You stopped at a table full of records while Eddie flipped through another crate beside you. Every couple of seconds, one of you would hold something up.

"What about this?"

"No."

"This?"

"Absolutely not."

"This?"

"Now we're talking."

It felt easy, like everything else did with him. Eventually you reached a booth covered in old band shirts hanging from racks.

Your eyes immediately lit up. "Oh, my God."

You were already digging through them. Most were faded, some had holes, and a few were clearly older than both of you combined.

You found a Black Sabbath shirt and held it up. "Eddie."

His eyes widened. "No way."

"It's my size."

"That's illegal."

You immediately bought it. He found a faded Dio shirt twenty minutes later and looked just as excited.

"You are absolutely getting that."

"I don't know."

"Eddie."

"It's kinda expensive."

It was eight dollars. You stared. "Eddie."

"Okay, when you say it like that."

You rolled your eyes. He bought the shirt, and you continued wandering. At some point, your shoulder started brushing his when you walked. 

Then you found the books, a whole tent full of them. Secondhand fantasy novels stacked in crooked towers. Leather-bound collections. Old paperbacks. Forgotten adventures.

You immediately disappeared inside. Eddie smiled before you were even fully gone. Of course this would be your favorite booth. He watched you crouch beside a stack, completely absorbed within seconds.

Your fingers carefully turned pages. Your eyes scanned titles. You smiled when you found something interesting. And God, maybe it was pathetic. But he could've stood there all day watching you be happy.

Instead, he wandered a few booths down, and that's when he saw the flowers. A little elderly woman sat beneath a striped canopy surrounded by buckets overflowing with blooms. Sunflowers. Wildflowers. Daisies. Lavender. Tiny pink roses. The entire booth looked like something out of a storybook.

Eddie wasn't really a flower guy, at least he hadn't been. But then he spotted a small bouquet sitting in a glass jar. Nothing fancy, just a handful of wildflowers tied together with twine. It looked like something someone had picked during a walk.

For some reason, it immediately reminded him of you. The woman caught him staring.

"Got a girl?"

Eddie immediately looked away. "No."

She smiled knowingly. Then glanced toward the book tent where you stood.

"Honey."

He groaned.

The woman laughed. "That one's cute."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah."

"You should buy her flowers."

"What if she thinks it's weird?"

The woman gave him a look. "Son."

"Yeah?"

"She's here with you at the crack ass of dawn, isn’t she?"

Fair point.

Five minutes later, he was walking back with the bouquet hidden awkwardly behind his back. You still hadn't noticed him. You were standing in front of a shelf with three books pressed against your chest, completely focused.

"Find anything good?"

You looked up immediately. "Look."

You handed him one. Then another. Then another. By the end of your explanation, you were smiling so hard that he almost forgot what he'd been doing. 

"Oh."

"What?"

"I got you something."

Your eyebrows lifted. "You did?"

He suddenly felt sixteen years old. "Yeah."

Then he awkwardly revealed the bouquet, and immediately regretted every decision he'd ever made.

"I saw them and—"

You froze. "Oh."

His heart dropped. Maybe it was stupid. Maybe flowers were too much. Maybe—

"Oh, my God." You looked genuinely shocked. "Eddie."

Your expression softened into something so sweet it nearly killed him. "They're beautiful."

The relief that hit him was immediate. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." You carefully took them from him.

"They reminded me of you." The words slipped out before he could stop them.

You looked up, and his face immediately turned red. "That sounded cooler in my head."

A laugh escaped you. "No."

You glanced down at the flowers again, then back at him. "It's actually really sweet.".

The crowd continued moving around you. People walked past. Music drifted through the air. Yet somehow it felt like the entire world had narrowed down to that tiny space between you. And somewhere in the distance, a vendor yelled that fresh cider donuts were ready.

Eddie immediately pointed. "Okay."

You laughed. "What?"

"Before I say something embarrassingly romantic and ruin my reputation—"

"You don't have a reputation."

"I absolutely do."

"You really don't."

He grinned. "Cider donuts?"

You looked down at the flowers in your hands. "Lead the way, Munson."

His smile was so bright it almost rivaled the morning sun. And for maybe the first time in his life, Eddie couldn't think of a single place he'd rather be

The funny thing was that absolutely nothing changed after you and Eddie started dating. And simultaneously, everything changed.

Band practice still happened in Gareth's garage. Hellfire still met every week. You still spent entirely too much time arguing over music and fantasy novels and campaign mechanics.

Eddie still stole your fries. You still stole his jackets. On the surface, very little was different.

Except now Eddie could kiss you whenever he wanted, which turned out to be a problem. Because Eddie Munson was possibly the most physically affectionate human being to ever walk the earth. You discovered this approximately forty-eight hours into the relationship.

It started innocently enough. A hand on your lower back. His arm around your shoulders. His knee pressed against yours whenever you sat together. Normal boyfriend things. Then it escalated…rapidly.

Somehow Eddie always needed to be touching you. Not in an overbearing way, just constantly. If you were sitting beside him, his hand would find yours without him even realizing it. If you were standing next to him, he'd hook a finger through your belt loop. If you were walking somewhere together, his arm would automatically settle over your shoulders.

Movie nights became nearly impossible because he'd slowly slide lower and lower until his head was in your lap. You'd look down halfway through a film to find him completely comfortable, stealing handfuls of popcorn and using your thigh as a pillow.

"Eddie."

"Hm?"

"You have your own seat."

"This is my seat."

"No, it isn't."

He'd just smile, close his eyes, and settle in deeper. Hopeless, absolutely hopeless. Then there were the kisses.

God. The kisses. Eddie kissed you constantly. Not because he was trying to be smooth. Mostly because he genuinely seemed incapable of stopping himself.

The top of your head. Your cheek. Your temple. Your shoulder. The back of your hand. Sometimes he'd walk into a room, kiss your forehead, and then continue whatever conversation he'd been having as though nothing had happened.

The first few weeks, it caught you off guard every single time. Months later, it still made your heart do stupid little flips. One afternoon you were helping him organize campaign notes at his trailer. You'd been focused on a map for nearly twenty minutes when suddenly—

Mwah.

You looked up. "What was that for?"

He blinked. "What?"

"You just kissed me."

"Yeah."

"Why?"

He looked genuinely confused. "You looked cute."

Then immediately went back to writing, as if that was a perfectly normal explanation. Which, for Eddie, it apparently was. Wayne found the whole thing hilarious.

"You know," Wayne had said one evening while watching Eddie practically drape himself across you on the couch, "for a fella who spent years actin' tough, you sure turned into a sap."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Wayne pointed; Eddie was literally entirely in your bubble. 

"And now?"

"I'm comfortable."

"You followed her into the kitchen earlier because she went to get some water."

"I was thirsty."

"You don't even like water."

Eddie opened his mouth, closed it, then looked at you.

"...That's not the point."

The truth was that Eddie had spent so long convincing himself not to cross the line that once he finally could, all that affection had nowhere to go except directly toward you.

And honestly? You loved it. Because underneath all the teasing and dramatics, he was impossibly sweet. He remembered everything, every little thing.

Your favorite candy. Your favorite records. The books you'd mentioned wanting but couldn't find. The exact coffee order you got at the diner. One time you casually mentioned liking a specific fantasy author. Two weeks later, he showed up with a battered secondhand copy he'd found three towns over.

Another time you'd complained that your hands were cold. The next day he brought you a pair of fingerless gloves he'd found at the market. They were hideous and completely ridiculous.

You wore them all winter.

Ironically, your first kiss had been nothing like what you’d expect.

It had happened a couple of weeks after the market, after band practice. Everyone else had left. Jeff had work. Gareth had dinner. You'd stayed behind to help pack up equipment while Eddie finished putting away cables.

The garage had been quiet, just music playing softly from an old radio. You'd been sitting on an amp while he rambled about a campaign idea. Something about dragons, obviously.

At some point, he'd stopped talking, and you'd looked up and realized he was already looking at you.

"Eddie?"

"Hm?"

"You stopped talking."

"I know."

You smiled. "That's unusual."

His laugh had been nervous, which should've tipped you off immediately. Then his eyes dropped to your mouth, only for a second. And suddenly your stomach was somewhere near your shoes. Neither of you moved. Neither of you looked away.

Then Eddie had done something completely out of character. He asked quietly, almost as if he wasn't sure he was allowed, "...Can I kiss you?"

You remembered the way your heart had nearly exploded. The way he'd looked terrified. The way he'd immediately started backtracking when you didn't answer fast enough.

"I mean—you don't have to—I was just—"

You kissed him before he could finish. Mostly because if you'd let him keep talking, he probably would've apologized and fled the state.

For a second, he froze, as if his brain needed a moment to process what was happening. Then one of his hands found your jaw, and suddenly he was kissing you back. Soft and careful, like he couldn’t quite believe it. 

Months later, Eddie still brought it up sometimes, usually when he wanted to annoy you.

"You know."

You immediately knew that tone. "What?"

"You kissed me first."

You rolled your eyes. "Here we go."

"I'm just saying."

"You literally asked."

"Technically."

"You were halfway through a panic attack."

"Technically."

"You would've talked yourself out of it."

"Possibly."

"Definitely."

He laughed, then leaned over and kissed your cheek. "Good thing you saved me, sweetheart."

By the time you and Eddie had been dating for about seven months, Hellfire had developed a new problem. Or, more specifically, Eddie had developed a problem. And that problem was you.

"Okay," Dustin said, pointing accusingly across the table. "This is bullshit."

The entire campaign immediately ground to a halt. Eddie looked up from behind his DM screen.

"What is?"

"This,” Dustin gestured wildly.

"Define this."

"You giving her special treatment."

You nearly choked on your soda.

Across the table, Mike immediately nodded. "Thank you."

Lucas pointed. "Finally somebody said it."

Eddie looked genuinely offended. "I do not."

"You absolutely do."

"I absolutely don't."

Jeff snorted. "You absolutely do."

Even Gareth joined in. "Dude."

Eddie looked around the room. "You guys are insane."

Then slowly looked toward you. "...Back me up."

You immediately betrayed him.

"Oh, no." His jaw dropped. "You too? Babe."

The entire table collectively groaned; even the nickname irritated them now.

"Babe?" Mike repeated. "You call her babe in-game too."

"It slipped out once."

"It happened three times last session."

"That's not important."

"It kind of is when you're talking to a barbarian."

Eddie pointed dramatically. "None of you have evidence."

The room exploded. "No evidence?"

"Dude!"

"You literally gave her a dragon."

"It was a baby dragon."

"It was still a dragon."

"It was injured!"

"You let her keep it."

"She nursed it back to health."

"You gave her a dragon."

"...Okay, maybe the dragon thing wasn't helping my case."

"THANK YOU." Dustin practically stood up.

The truth was that they weren't wrong. Eddie tried to be fair; he genuinely did. But every time he sat behind that DM screen, all logic immediately left his body.

You'd mention some random piece of backstory you'd thought of at two in the morning, and suddenly there was an entire side quest dedicated to it.

You'd casually mention that your ranger grew up near the ocean. Next thing everyone knew, there was a mysterious coastal kingdom appearing in the campaign.

One time you'd joked that your character liked collecting shiny rocks. Two sessions later, Eddie had created an entire magical gemstone subplot. The man had no self-control, and everyone knew it. 

Especially Gareth, who had spent months witnessing it firsthand. The latest offense had happened approximately twenty minutes earlier. The party had entered a ruined cathedral.

A dangerous encounter, lots of enemies, high stakes. Or at least it should've been. Unfortunately, Eddie had described a hooded traveler sitting alone by the fire.

A traveler who immediately recognized your character. A traveler who apparently knew your character's family. A traveler who had information specifically relevant to your backstory. A traveler who somehow only wanted to talk to you.

The entire table had immediately erupted. "NO."

"Dude."

"Again?"

"This is ridiculous."

Eddie had tried defending himself. "It makes sense narratively."

"No, it doesn't."

"It absolutely does."

"It absolutely doesn't."

Now, twenty minutes later, they were still arguing about it.

"I just think," Mike said, crossing his arms, "that maybe the rest of us deserve emotional character development too."

"You have emotional character development."

"When?"

"You got stabbed."

"THAT'S NOT CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT."

Jeff nearly fell out of his chair laughing. Meanwhile, you were actively trying not to laugh, which wasn't helping.

Eddie noticed immediately. "You think this is funny?"

"A little."

The rest of the session dissolved into more good-natured ribbing until the guys finally started packing up their dice and minis, trading complaints about favoritism all the way out the door. 

Gareth shot you both a knowing look as he left last, muttering something about "not wanting to know what happens next."

You started gathering scattered papers and pushing chairs back into place, the faint scent of dry-erase markers and lingering pizza still thick in the air.

Eddie watched you for a moment from the end of the table, that familiar wicked little smile tugging at his lips. Then he rounded the table, coming up behind you as you reached for a stray miniature.

His arms slid around your waist, pulling your back flush against his chest.

"You look like this," he murmured, lips brushing the shell of your ear, "and they still act shocked I can't keep my hands off you." His voice dropped lower. 

"Can't really blame me though. Look at you, sitting there all session like you weren't thinking about what I’d do to you once they left."

You shivered as his mouth found the side of your neck. He kissed the sensitive spot just below your ear, then scraped his teeth gently over it, sucking lightly until your breath hitched.

One of his hands splayed across your stomach, fingers slipping under the hem of your shirt to trace slow circles on your skin.

"Eddie," you warned, half-laughing, half-breathless. "We’re supposed to be cleaning up."

"Mm, we are," he said against your throat, kissing lower and more open-mouthed. "I’m just… multitasking."

His other hand slid down to grip your hip, pulling you back against the growing hardness in his jeans. 

"Been hard half the session thinking about bending you over this table. You know that?"

You turned in his arms, intending to tell him to behave, but his mouth crashed into yours before you could. The kiss was messy and eager, all tongue and teeth, the kind that always left your lips swollen. 

He backed you toward the edge of the massive wooden table, hands roaming under your shirt until he cupped your breasts, thumbs teasing your nipples through your bra.

"Fuck, baby," he groaned into your mouth. "Need you. Right here. Been dying to feel how wet you get for me after I’ve been staring at you all night."

You gasped as he lifted you onto the table, shoving aside papers and a few forgotten dice that clattered to the floor. He stepped between your spread thighs, grinding against you as he tugged your shirt up and off. 

His mouth returned to your neck, sucking marks you’d have to hide tomorrow, while his fingers worked your jeans open.

You reached down to palm him through his pants, earning a low, wrecked sound from deep in his chest. "Eddie…someone could come back."

"Let ‘em," he muttered, nipping at your collarbone as he pushed your jeans and panties down just enough. "Let ‘em see how fucking perfect you look when I’m buried inside you." 

He dropped to his knees briefly, pressing a hot, open-mouthed kiss between your legs that had your head falling back with a moan. One quick, filthy lick, then he was back up, freeing himself from his jeans and lining up.

He pushed in slow at first, savoring the stretch, eyes locked on your face. "That’s it," he breathed, voice strained. "Take me so good, like you were made for this." 

Once he was fully seated, he gave you barely a second before he started moving; deep, rolling thrusts that made the table creak beneath you.

Your hands fisted in his hair, legs wrapping tight around his waist as he fucked you harder, the drama room filled with the wet sounds of skin on skin and your shared, ragged breathing. He kept kissing your neck, your jaw, whispering filthy praise between thrusts.

"Love how you squeeze me… fuck, you’re dripping down my cock already. My perfect girl."

The angle had him hitting that spot inside you with every snap of his hips. You clung to him, nails digging into his shoulders through his shirt, chasing the building heat. Eddie’s rhythm faltered as he got close, one hand slipping between you to rub tight circles over your clit.

"Come on, baby," he panted against your mouth. "Want to feel you come on me. I’ve been so good to you all night."

The combination of his words, his fingers, and the relentless drag of him inside you sent you over the edge with a cry.

He followed right after, burying himself deep and groaning your name like a prayer as he spilled inside you, hips jerking through the aftershocks.

For a long moment, you stayed tangled together, foreheads pressed close, catching your breath in the quiet room. Eddie kissed you softly, peppering kisses all over your face, jaw, and neck. 

You laughed breathlessly, tugging lightly at his curls. "We’re never going to finish cleaning up at this rate."

"Worth it," he said, already leaning in for another kiss.

well, hey! hope you all enjoyed ;) i have an inquiry for you all. going forward with requests, would you prefer...

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Comfort. Safety. Things Andrew has spent most of his life circling without ever quite touching.

When his body finally stirs into consciousness, he doesn't open his eyes. Instead, he feels. 

Under the soft heat of the morning, something warm pressed against his side. Soft, familiar. It’s your body tucked against him, an arm draped around his waist, a leg over his, your face resting in the crook of his neck. 

He can feel your soft breaths on his skin.

In, out. In, out. 

He counts each one, eyes still closed. 

One, two. One, two.

He isn't entirely sure how much time passes. A minute. Ten. Maybe more.

The rhythm settles somewhere deep beneath him, in that place where, over these last few months, something soft and molten has taken residence in his chest, unfurling beneath his ribs, spreading to heart. Finding solace there. 

Andrew does not consider himself to be a man that smiles, that shows happiness through the muscles on face very often, not that he used to feel much of the emotion in the first place. Happiness was something that was something fragile, something transactional, something that could disappear the second he looked directly at it. 

But now, he feels it. That flutter of joy he rarely ever felt with Julia, then momentarily with Cath, with Lena. And it’s brought on, by you.

The woman who lies tucked against him, trusting, her body pressed into his.

The course of the past few months has brought about stolen smiles, hidden beneath a soft snort, or pressed into your lips, smiling against your mouth.

He remembers your voice, the first time he'd let the muscles in his face soften, let them hold that gentle upturn.

“You’re so, so pretty Andrew.”

He'd fluttered his lashes, looking down, a pink hue spreading across his cheeks. Blushing. 

Now, smiling is that much easier. Natural. The way it always seems to be around you.

Slowly, Andrew shifts closer, just enough that he can feel more of your warmth. He inhales the scent of your hair, of your skin. Pockets of intimacy he only allows himself when your eyes are closed.

Andrew closes his eyes and rests, lets your breathing guide him into that soft space between sleeping and being awake, that quiet place where warmth glows steadily beneath his chest.

In, out. In, out.

You feel his chest rising and falling under you, his breathing even, as you open your eyes.  Seeing the peace on his face. The permanent tension that usually sits across his shoulders has disappeared, his jaw relaxed, mouth slightly parted.

You feel it bloom in your chest, love, swelling and beating. This man, who's spent every waking moment surrounded by violence and pain, is allowing you to rest against him, an arm wrapped protectively around you even in his sleep.

Carefully, you lift your head, brush a curl from his head. 

Then, unable to help yourself, you lean forward and press a soft kiss against his temple. 

Then the creases near his eyes.

Across his cheek.

His jaw. 

You detangle yourself from his arms, shifting yourself over him, one hand resting on the bed beside him, hovering over his face. The other remains in his curls, thumb brushing gently against his temple.

His nose scrunches slightly, brows furrowing.  

You smile, pressing a kiss in that crease.  

His eyes finally begin to flicker open, tinged with sleepiness, the sort that's rested, calm.

They find yours immediately, your face hovering over his, close. 

The furrow disappears, lips tilting up. Both his broad palms come up to encase your waist.

"What're you doin'?" he asks, voice gravelly and rough with sleep. 

You grin wider. 

"Counting your freckles.”

His eyes widen, morphing into that puppy-eyed confusion you adore. Your heart aches softly at the fact that he has never been privy to such mundane intimacy.

"Yeah?" 

You nod. 

"You have so many. They’re so pretty, Andrew."

And there it is again, that word only you seem to use to describe him with. Pretty. 

A faint blush creeps across his face, pinkening the apples of his cheeks. 

"Why?"

"Because I wanted to."

The simplicity of the answer catches him off guard, loosens something tight in his chest. You say it as though it's obvious. As though spending your morning sprawled over him, counting freckles and pressing kisses into his skin, is the easiest choice in the world.

The hand buried in his curls moves gently, slow circles against his scalp. His eyes flutter. He lets out something resembling a whimper.

"How many?" he asks quietly.

"Hmm." You tilt your head, pretending to think. "Maybe a hundred."

His eyes drop down to your mouth, his palms gripping your waist tighter. 

"Think there's more than that.”

The words come out soft, shy. Hesitant. Still unfamiliar with this kind of intimacy even after all these months. But you've learned him. You've learned the language beneath his words, the way he hides meanings behind mundane words and questions, things he wants but struggles to ask for.

And right now what he wants is obvious.

So, you lean down and kiss his forehead again. 

Then his cheeks. 

His nose. 

The corners of his mouth.

Your hand trails down to cup his jaw.

Immediately Andrew leans into it, nuzzling deeper into your palm, eyes staying on yours. He exhales softly, the sound almost a sigh.

Your heart aches, the good kind. 

"My Andrew," you murmur, the words slipping out softly.

Andrew goes still. His lips press together tightly the way they do when he feels too much, that burst of something uncontrollable inside his chest. Too much. Usually anger, or jealousy, or grief.  

For the first time, he allows himself to recognise it for what it is. Adoration.

He’s never been anyone’s before, not in the way you call him yours. 

He's been Pope - the man who's Smurf’s son, his brothers' older brother, Julia's twin. Pieces of himself given away his entire life, bound by blood or circumstance.

But this is different. This is the first time somebody has come along and chosen him. Chosen him to be theirs.  

Out of everybody in the world, you looked at Andrew, at his bruised hands, his scars, at everything broken and battered inside him, and said mine.

The realisation settles warmly inside his chest, in that space only you occupy, spreading until he can feel it beneath every rib, in his heart. 

He tilts his head up, bringing a hand to the back of your head and guiding you closer, until your mouth is hovering just above his.

“Yeah?” he whispers. "Yours?"

You smile softly. 

“Yeah, Andrew. Mine.”

Then he kisses you, a slow press of his lips against yours, lazy and unhurried, but filled with all the tenderness he can't make his mouth utter aloud.

You sigh into his mouth. He smiles into your lips. 

And for the first time in his life, Andrew finds that he doesn't mind belonging to someone at all.