#btwe

“You don’t have to come,” Severus said as he adjusted his robes, a look of resigned frustration as in the mirror he watched her behind him, applying a hint of colour to her cheeks that made her look much warmer than someone who would have tolerated him these past twenty years.

“I know,” she didn’t look round. Severus couldn’t help staring. Not particularly because he was in love with her, though he was, but because how often did Oriana wear makeup? His brows furrowed slightly. He decided he preferred to see her cheeks pink only when he’d put in the work for the rest of her skin to be as equally flushed.

Still, she was beautiful.

“So then you’re making a lot of fuss for something that will be painstakingly uncomfortable.”

“But that’s precisely why,” she hummed applying the finishing touch — a slight pop of colour to her lips. Again, he preferred the natural ways he made her lips red after some arduous kissing, “I’ll manage a few hours of it.”

Severus scoffed but when her eyes met his in the reflection, she smiled and went back to him, smoothing her hands over his chest and unnecessarily adjusting his robes for him. “You dress impeccably. But I still want to tidy you up, even if you don’t need it,” she had once said. He wasn’t sure if at the time he’d shagged her on the dresser and allowed her to tidy him up properly after, or if he’d internally combusted from the love she gave, or if he had rolled his eyes at her and suggested he didn’t appreciate the fussing.

He presumed it was likely that all three had happened. He couldn’t concur the order.

“I have evaded the anniversary gatherings for nearly two decades. You won’t want the attention and I expect I will already be somewhat of a spectacle...”

“I’m coming with you,” she argued, “it’s no secret that you’re alive. Unless you truly don’t want me there because you’re embarrassed by me, or you’re having some sordid affair with one of the Order members — which would give us a whole host of other issues to have to deal with—then I’m coming.”

Severus cocked a brow but she didn’t flicker under his sharp gaze. If anything he was sure a hint of a faint blush appeared beneath her makeup and he cupped her cheek, tilting her chin to him.

“Why the makeup?” He asked quietly, his lips a breath from hers.

“It’s an important event,” she said.

“Take off the lipgloss.”

“It’s lipstick,” she corrected, “and why? Don’t you like the colour?”

“Whatever,” he rolled his eyes, “take it off.”

“Not without good reason to.”

“Because I think as lovely as it looks on you, I do not need to be fearing evidence of it across my face.”

“That won’t be an issue if you don’t kiss me,” she reasoned, his heart fluttering as she rested against him.

“I plan on kissing you, however.”

Oriana huffed at that, her smile so warm he felt the heat of it in his chest. She picked up a wipe and gently dabbed the colour from her lips, “Is that better?” She held it up before him.

He answered with a kiss, slow and familiar, exhaling through his nose as she broke away whilst pulling his lip between hers.

“Unscathed,” she quipped, eyes on his suitably kissed but lipstick free lips.

He kissed her again, a little hungrier, a little more urgently, revelling in the soft sound that escaped her throat. He cupped her cheek tenderly, stroking her hair back from her face, and let her hands wander slowly lower until her finger tips trailed across the button of his trousers.

“Enough. We need to leave soon,” he told her, which made her smile.

“Fine,” she withdrew her hand and patted his chest.

“You truly don’t have to come for this,” he warned her more seriously as she turned back to the mirror, “it’s your worst nightmare and I wouldn’t hold it against you if you decided not to.”

“When you married me,” she began the final touches of tidying her hair. He was certain there wasn’t one strand out of place but he dared not mention that, “you knew that doing things for anyone but myself was not something I did easily. And, it still isn’t. But unfortunately, you also my priority. And as regretful as that is for me, it’s also insulting that you have both become that thorn, and that you are telling me not to come with you to something so important that honours you,” she took an unsteady pause before quietly saying and continuing with, “but not just you. I really don’t want to go to this thing. But nothing will stop me, either. Except for if you are having an affair.”

“I think we both know I’m not having an affair.”

“So it’s settled then,” she smiled sweetly.

Severus’s lips quirked slightly at that. He wouldn’t admit it out loud, but Oriana’s level of self assuredness and determination was nothing if not what he needed. He did not want to go to the Hogwarts reunion. He did not want the attention to fall on him. She had already decided she would remain as innocuous as possible, silent support for the man she had built an entire life with. Severus exhaled. One of the few things he enjoyed about the village by their home was that he was just Severus. Just her husband, just a father. In the village he could walk with her arm through his, listening to her babble on about muggle sweets she didn’t even like without being any more interesting than the next man they passed by.

But that safe little bubble was not where they were heading. Perhaps he had gotten a little too comfortable over the years, though it was more likely something akin to something Oriana would say. Something like; “you’re the least comfortable man I know. Even when you’re comfortable, you have one eye open. This is only hitting so much harder because you experience more than just the fear, duty, guilt and regret.”

“You’re in my head again,” he grumbled out loud to her.

“Good. Was I useful?”

“Annoyingly so.”

“Good,” she smiled, pushing no further.

The event itself was to be taking place at Hogwarts this year, but during the half term break. As they arrived, they were permitted in by a ministry official who took their names and gave Severus a stiff bow.

The grounds outside of the school year felt diffident. Empty of usual joy and wonder, while the weight of something the current students hadn’t yet been alive to see. Oriana knew few of those arriving at the same time, but some gave Severus looks and nods of appreciation, while others gave a wide, weary berth.

“I prefer those who don’t trust me,” he sneered as a small path cleared ahead.

Minerva was waiting in the foyer, greeting both former staff and students and the families of those involved. She had just been greeting the Weasley’s—the weight of their loss reverberating through Severus as her glassy eyes turned to them and she gave them a tight smile, blinking back her tears as they greeted her.

“How are you? I wasn’t sure you would come, Severus,” she said, her voice hushed quietly enough to evade those around them, “how is Soraya?”

“She had wanted to come but we thought it best she didn’t,” Oriana explained.

Minerva nodded and her lip quivered slightly, “it’s good to see you both. Now I’m aware the minister will be saying a few words, and he will be acknowledging everyone involved. It’s not mandatory to speak, as I expect you will know. But I’m to let you know that if you wanted to,—Oh! Edward,” her eyes wandered past them and Oriana’s head snapped round. There, the boy, now a young man, had just entered the castle with a somewhat reserved uncertainty that Oriana couldn’t help but smile at. Tears choked in her throat, and at her side Severus shifted slightly.

“Professors,” he nodded politely to the three of them.

He excused himself to see Potter; already inside and waiting for him, and Severus looked to his wife with a biting sting of sorrow for her.

“He looks more like him every time I see him,” Oriana said quietly, “it’s cruel I didn’t get to teach him”.

“Perhaps you could speak with him,” Minerva suggested, “he knows you and his father were close.”

Oriana gave a polite smile, the kind that said the conversation was over, then glanced back at the queue.

“We should head inside. We’ll see you later,” she smiled at Minerva, then went ahead to greet Filius.

“I’m even more surprised she came,” Minerva said quietly to Severus as he lingered after.

“I suspect it’s less about me than she’s been suggesting,” he offered, looking after her, “his name was in the prophet two days ago. She’s been quiet since.”

Hogwarts, for this afternoon, wasn’t just a school. Carefully done by the ministry, the muggle relatives mingled safely amongst magic, and information stands floated at each point of note worthy interest alongside memorials and paintings. Severus caught up with Oriana, finding her in one of the corridors with a sullen look on her face.

“How is it you can love and hate one place so much?” She asked quietly, “because this place took Remus from me. But it gave me you. But that’s only because it nearly killed you.”

Severus opened his mouth to speak, when ahead the Weasley parents rounded the corner and stopped when they saw them both. It wasn’t Severus they gave such a weary look to, though they did tend to keep their distance a little when they did see him, but Oriana felt the casting of judgment they’d never quite let go of towards her. She gave them an awkward nod in an attempt to be polite, and she stepped back quietly until they rounded the corridor.

“I’m going to find somewhere to sit,” she said tiredly, pressing her fingers to his arm for barely a moment, then drifted off down the corridor like one of the ghosts without waiting for a response.

The afternoon went by slowly. The great hall began to fill and the tables usually laid out in houses for students were now mixed with staff and muggles and families alike. Oriana sat across and slightly down from Severus. As the minister spoke, the room fell silent, but it was when names began to be read, she looked across at him as many lives he felt responsible were called and reflected the sorrow in his face. Perhaps it was the weight of his grief that almost distracted her from her own. But when they called Remus’s name, she tensed in her seat and felt the stab in her chest that made a soft gasp escape her. Severus’s eyes flickered to her then, just momentarily, his palm splaying on the oak wood as if the only gesture he could offer her.

It had been kept quiet over the years, Oriana’s involvement in Severus surviving. Whispers and rumours of how and why circulated from time to time, but few involved her at all. The rare instance it was asked how they met, they always said after the battle. It wasn’t a lie.

“I want to thank you all, today,” Kingsley spoke after each name had been read, the applauses and sniffles dying down, “for being here on the twentieth anniversary. Every one of you here played a role in defeating one of the darkest wizards our kind has ever known. The strength found in each other, and ourselves, in such trying times only prove further the bonds of working in unity. Now I don’t know, I can’t profess to know what will test us next. I only know that, working together, we have rebuilt one of our most sacred foundations within our world. Hogwarts has been, and will always be, a pillar of what separates the darkness from the light, and what has been, with what can be.”

Not a word was spoken through the great hall as Shacklebolt gave his speech. Heads bowed and eyes watered, and families and friends held each other close. For all Severus was not one for sentimental speeches, his eyes wandered to the witch listening attentively, spinning an old pocket watch in her fingers.

In twenty years he’d rarely seen her grieve in such an honest way. After all, she knew of the animosity there had always been between he and Remus, and he had never pressed to truly understand quite what it was she grieved. He thought of Soraya back home, and everything he’d inadvertently done for her before she was ever so much an abstract concept that would shape his years that came after.

By the time Hogwarts had been lit with fireworks and displays in the evening sky, he wasn’t alone in wanting to get home to be with his family. He met with his wife by the gates and without a word they slipped into a private carriage and began their journey home in silence. She took the seat by his side and rested her head on his shoulder, slipping her fingers into his hand. He held it tight, brushing his thumbs over her knuckles, then pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

“You never really talk about him,” he eventually said, ten minutes into their journey.

“Who, Remus? Well there’s not much to say,” she shrugged.

“I ought to have asked you. Put aside my own grievances and—“

“Severus, it’s fine. Really. I don’t want to talk about it,” she gave him a tight lipped smile.

“Fine,” he agreed shortly.

Exhaling softly, she nestled her head further against his shoulder and closed her eyes. She really hadn’t wanted to go today. She gripped his hand and turned to look out of the window, then after a few more minutes she said:

“You know the gist of it. And how we met.”

“I do,” he said a little softer this time.

“And that, before the battle, we argued. It was when things were getting bad with Voldemort and people were starting to fight. Well I had no intention to. I had work lined up in Munich to Morocco. If it hadn’t been for Remus I wouldn’t have been there that day. You would have died and I would’ve continued on in my own little world. Remus had known what I wanted. What I needed. And he knew that I went, in the end. And I’m so grateful that he didn’t die mad at me. But I was mad at him.”

“I survived because of Lupin?” Disgust laced his voice, but when she looked at him, it was more a mild disgruntled irritation. A humoured one at that. Because of course Severus already knew that part. He’d learnt that part many, many years ago.

“I’m afraid so, darling,” she cupped his cheek, smiling anyway, “I don’t regret going. How could I? But I always felt like I should have been there with him. That maybe if I hadn’t have been hiding away, then maybe it could’ve been different. I was still very much a coward.”

“You’re the biggest coward I’ve ever respected,” he told her then, “you’re an awful contradiction, too.”

“I have some unsavoury traits, I’m aware,” She smiled slightly.

“They’re incorrigible. However, we have managed to raise a child that befriends seemingly any other child in the vicinity, and she’s far too sure of herself. We should have done a little worse of a job. If it had been left up to me she’d likely be dead by now. Or at least wishing she were. You’re to thank that she isn’t.”

“You know it doesn’t turn me on when you do self-depreciating like that,” she said as she yawned. A grin lit up behind her eyes. Severus gave her a dry look, then settled back into his seat with a sigh, “you’re proud of her. And of you.”

“I am,” he admitted with a scoff. As the carriage fell silent between them once more, and she yawned again, she peered out at the little white lights glowing below, leading them home.

“I don’t think about her. Not as much anymore,” he said suddenly, breaking the silence that had washed over them.

Oriana took a moment to allow his words to sink in, and she looked back down at their joined hands. She had always been pale, and yet he managed to be impossibly paler.

“Lily?” She asked. She didn’t need to ask. They both knew it. He gave a stiff nod.

“I still see her. In you. In Soraya. I see her more in Soraya these days. It’s more often than not that I find myself thinking of how I’m not thinking about her. But is that too sentimental for you?” He asked wryly and she huffed, shaking her head.

“I’m glad you’ve found some peace with it,” she said honestly, not quite ready to let go of the genuine discussion the anniversary sparked, “Merlin knows you deserve it.”

He gave her a somewhat skeptical look, but didn’t argue. They could revisit sentimental talk in six months to a year, minimum. His eyes fell back to his feet and hers to the empty seats across from them, and for several quiet moments, there was nothing but the sound of the carriage rocking steadily through the sky. Then, Severus said,

“What on earth was that god awful tie Hagrid was wearing today?”

Oriana snorted, a grin forming on her face, “you saw it? I think it was some sort of dragon tongue and hippogriff feather… concoction.”

“I think everyone saw that,” he looked at her with a cocked brow, “I don’t think anyone could have missed it, in fact.”

“And to think you said my scarf would have been too much.”

“I apologise sincerely.”

The rest of the ride home went by silently. The weight of each other pressed side by side offered enough to balance the weight of the day, all without a word needing to be said.

When they got home, the cottage was quiet. Keeba was by the hearth with Ned, strings with jingling balls tied around her feet as the cat pounced eagerly. When Keeba tripped and Severus sneered in amusement, he looked to Oriana, her own grin masked behind the scolding frown and shove she gave him. They took off their cloaks and went into the kitchen, finding Soraya sat by candlelight at the island, reading, her head tiredly propped up on one hand and the other cradling a mug of butterbeer.

“We thought you had gone to bed,” Oriana greeted.

“I wanted to wait up. How was it?” She asked, her eyes following Severus as he eyed the baked goods on the bench.

“Lovely. It actually made me think of something I wanted to show you tomorrow,” Oriana said, “…have you been baking?”

“Figured I’d try my hand at it,” she shrugged as Severus picked out a scone.

Oriana’s eyes lit up, but as he bit into it, he grimaced slightly.

“I said I’d try. They’re inside out scones.”

Oriana furrowed her brows and picked one, humming in polite shock as she took a bite. Inside out was a word for it. They were, from the outside, slightly underdone. But the inside?

Severus thought of Hagrid’s rock cakes he’d been offering around many years ago, and wondered if Soraya’s scones could give them a run for their money.

“They are...” Oriana tried desperately to find something kind to say. Severus however, did not.

“Awful. Merlin, Soraya! Could you have at least inherited your mother’s skill for baking?” He scowled, the scones evidently triggering a reaction in him that in response, Oriana could only bite the inside of her cheek.

Soraya frowned, “I might be awful with ingredients, but I’m fairly competent with hexes. If you remember my first year...?”

“Don’t go threatening your father,” Oriana rolled her eyes. Severus, who was refusing to believe the scones were that bad, took another bite. It was just as disappointing, if not more so than the first. “Has Keeba had one? She might like them,” Oriana suggested hopefully.

“She did. But she didn’t.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. They’re that bad. Well, you’re back, so I’m going to bed. Night.”

“Night, darling,” Oriana smiled, kissing her daughter’s forehead as she got up from her seat. She finished her butterbeer and rolled her eyes as her father said nothing, just glowered in disgust.

“I’ll make some in the morning,” Oriana assured him.

“I don’t know whether I should be relieved she is as much a disgrace with food as she is potions, or more disappointed.”

“I don’t know, but I’m sure it’s the latter right now. But she is pretty good with a wand. And — oh. No… Crap!”

Oriana rushed to the sink where she found her best tin, evidently burnt and —

“Soraya!”

Soraya sucked in her cheeks and climbed into bed. She’d apologise for the burnt holes in the bottom of the muffin tin tomorrow.

—

The beach house had always been this way, home to many a wayward summer fling, fast friends made in childhood because her house has a pool, mom, can we stay over? and the old-timers, those you grew up beside in Pittsburgh, who knew you inside and out.

It didn’t feel quite as sweet anymore. Those fast friends and old-timers, all a little too busy now. A glass of wine and a meal and they’d head home, and left there, you’d be. It felt like your childhood was falling through your fingers, and you just couldn’t move fast enough to catch it.

Your parents had only stuck around for a few days. “You girls, promise us you’ll have fun,” They’d said, the bright, young part of their retirement meaning the beach house was just a stepping stone, a place to park their RV for a night or two.

“Who the hell is going to grill the fish? What even is the point of fishing at all, if dad won’t be here to grill the fish?” You’d asked, flabbergasted when they’d first announced their premature departure over dinner.

The table laughed, and your sister’s husband assured, “Don’t worry, kid. Sid’s pretty good with the grill.”

You sunk back in your chair, a childish pout threatening to weigh on your bottom lip at what felt like the hundredth hit of bad news you’d heard since your arrival at the house. Obviously you didn’t really care about the grill. However, everyone had kept mentioning Sidney, and his name coming up once again piqued your interest, if only enough to prevent your frustrated tears from falling.

“Oh! What time is his flight getting in? We might catch him before we leave, d’you think?” Your mother exclaimed, smile gleaming at the thought, full cheeks glowing red from the crisp white in her glass. Your father listened intently enough to the response— your mom’s attention span failing her when she reminded you to sit up straight, darling, you’re slumping again.

You topped up your glass, matching your mom, adjusting the little linen skirt you wore while you stood. Part of you was thankful: while they were busy discussing Sidney Crosby or their son-in-law’s team dynamics and what that meant for the upcoming season, they weren’t discussing your recent departure from college to do, what was it again?— you’d hold your breath every time you would explain the whole freelance photography thing to your family of academics, because, frankly, you didn’t quite know how to make it work, just that it was going to, because it had to.

Saying goodbye to your parents the next morning was only made easier by helping Sidney unload his luggage from the rental car. With the carry bag containing a few of his golf clubs slung heavy on your shoulder, you kissed your parents cheeks and wished them safe travels.

Your sister and her husband still sending off your parents, you showed Sid inside. Asking how his flight was and commenting on the weather came easily to you, after years of listening to your parents do it, yet your words rolled over Sid, who was undoubtedly tired (The flight wasn’t long, he’d explained, but it’s never fun, is it?).

When the tour found you both at the bottom of the stairs, Sidney asked, “Where do I sleep?” and, when your response tumbled from your mouth almost without your permission, you could’ve paid someone to euthanise you on the spot.

“Next to me.”

You were quick to backtrack, cheeks and ears growing hot.

“Like, the room. The room next to mine, Uh, just through there. I mean—  you can take the guest room upstairs if you’d like, but it shares a wall with, uh, I think they’ll be... kinda loud, maybe, so...”

Your heartbeat quickens at how much Sid seemed to be enjoying watching you flail. Crooked smile lighting his face, with a hand sinking into his pocket, he threw you a life ring.

“You’re alright, kid. I think I get it.”

He didn’t move towards his room, though, subverting your expectations. Your throat grew dry with the weight of his gaze on you, face still impossibly warm. He looked good, with stubble coming in thick, the collar of his shirt stretched out, letting you see a glimmer of thin, gold chain at the nape of his neck. Somehow he’d come into his own since you’d first met him just a few years prior, the man ageing like wine.

“Are you sure? I could keep talking,” You tried to jest, thankful when a second life ring yanked you from the intensity of the moment: your brother-in-law clapped Sid on the shoulder, asking how he’d been, and you took the chance to slip outside to help your sister mix drinks on the patio.

“Are you good?” She snickered in the most obnoxious older sister fashion, watching you clip your hair back, pulling it off your clammy skin as you exhaled heavily. She was somehow aware of whatever was happening in your own head a lightyear before you’d be allowed to find out.

You obviously weren’t totally naïve to the effect Sid had on you.

You’d only met him a handful of times, the first being during your sister’s wedding weekend, he a groomsman and you the maid of honour. Neither of you were fully comfortable standing before everyone you knew in that light, but both loved the bride and groom (and the prospect of an open bar) enough to deal with it.

You were barely nineteen, your gap year right about to end and your stomach turning at the thought of leaving Pittsburgh for somewhere out west. Still, you smiled in the photos and dutifully told your friends and relatives about the major you’d chosen, and Sidney asked questions whenever it was just the two of you at the head table, and he’d listened earnestly while you fumbled through your answers. When your nerves became evident through your lack of knowledge, Sid smiled and said you’ll figure it out, kid.

You’ll figure it out.

His words were simple, which, you thought, was why they stuck. And you did figure it out, after you let things blow up and barely dodged ruining your own reputation with the whole college-dropout thing.

You could only pray Sidney had taken down too many celebratory fireball shots on the wedding night to remember the conversations he’d held with the bride’s baby sister. You really didn’t want to have to explain yourself, now, to someone you still harboured a schoolgirl-status crush on.

“I’m peachy,” You assured, reaching for a lime and a paring knife. “’M at your service, Barmaid.”

You salted the rims of a few glasses before your sister demanded you make yourself scarce (You’re getting in the way, she said, remember what happened last time you tried to shake the cocktails?). You feigned forgetfulness at this, eager to help with the cocktails then, because you’d be useless when it came time to cook dinner later.

“I couldn’t get the strawberry daiquiri out of my hair for days, Y/N.” The men had slunk through the french doors soon enough to hear the end of the story.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have let an 18 year old in on cocktail night,” You rolled your eyes, turning up the drama for your own entertainment as you moved to walk inside, “I’ve grown up, I’ve learned. I’m a better person now,”

Zipping down the hall to your bedroom, you dug through one of your duffle bags for the novel you were halfway through and a swimsuit small enough to dodge the tan lines the last few hours of the day’s sunlight could threaten you with, and god knows you didn’t spare a single thought for anyone who would see you in that swimsuit.

When you step back outside, nudging the lurid rim of your sunglasses up your nose a little, the three people you’d left on the patio were bickering over how best to prepare the lobsters your father had left for dinner.

You watched as Sid was first to notice your return, his knee bouncing under the table. Offering him a small smile, you set your book down to pick up one of the highly ambitious cooking magazines they were carding through in search of a recipe.

“If we don’t get to see Sid’s apparent pretty good grill skills, I’m getting uber eats.” You cut in with a sigh after a pathetic flick through the pages, finally reaching over the table to steal a sip of your sister’s cocktail. “This is good, can I have it?”

Your sister didn’t dignify you with a response, or even a roll of her eyes, rather she turned to Sid to ensure he was up to cook.

“Can I taste?” You asked Sid when you rounded the table to move towards the pool, and he narrowly avoided sputtering on the sour, red liquid of his drink at the question, his mind thoroughly in the gutter, hating the things you, or, moreover, that bathing suit, were doing to him.

“M’hm. Yep.” He nodded after missing a few beats, handing you the tall glass. The man leant back in his chair, and pulling your eyes away from the way his thighs stretched was a feat.

You sipped quickly before setting it back on the coaster before him, a little put down by how he seemed to avoid your gaze completely when you thanked him.

“She does this, Sid. Next time she asks to taste your drink, set boundaries. She’s like a child, or a small dog. Gotta train her.” Your cheeks flushed a little at your sister’s dig, knowing she was out to make you sweat a little in front of the cool, older guy, like this was high school. You turn away, hoping nobody caught the ruddiness of your cheeks at her comment.

“If I drowned right now, I fear you would not save me.” You call back to your sister, stepping into the chill, blue pool water.

“Glad you know how to swim, then.” She bit, earning light chuckles from the men.

Rib-deep in the water, you tipped your head back to wet your hair before moving to the side of the pool, turning your attention to your novel, and spent that afternoon trying, really, really trying, to keep your eyes off of Sidney.

Sidney didn’t get to sleep for more than two hours on his second night at the house, before you were knocking at the front door, rousing nobody in the house but him.

For a moment, longer than he’d like to admit, he considered letting you stay out there, after you’d left your phone behind and dipped out quickly, barely describing where you were going, and foregoing any indication of when you’d be home. Your sister had spent a chunk of time worrying about you before she resigned with a bottle of moscato, sighing “If she dies, she dies.” and the men had laughed, but Sid knew she was concerned. He was, a little, too.

But, now wide awake in the stupidly comfortable guest bed, it became clear to Sid that your knocking on the door wasn’t going to let up anytime soon, and the happy couple upstairs couldn’t hear it at all.

Petty as he could be, he wasn’t about to sacrifice his own sleep to punish you. He pulled himself up, yanked a shirt over his head, and headed to open the front door for you.

“Hey, thanks, Sid.” You grinned easily, like it wasn’t 1am and you hadn’t just been drinking on the beach, catching up with all the neighbourhood girls and their college boys, the few who still came home for summer.

Sid barely grunted, running a hand over his face before sticking out an arm for you to grasp, waiting for you to reciprocate before he took you by the forearm to help you through the door.

“I’m a grown-ass adult, Sid—” He cut you off when you stopped to hiccup.

“This isn’t fuckin’ actin’ like it.”

Head hung and cheeks burning at his comment, you watched as Sid found your hand and placed it on his shoulder so you wouldn’t stumble while you stepped out of your tennis shoes. It took all you had not to squeeze that one spot, looking up at him while he, down at you, only the warm hallway light filtering through the foyer to let you see one another. Your thumb toyed at the ring of his shirt’s neck, baby blue fabric stretched taut over his tight body. Your palm bridged the crest of his trapezius, and temptation had your head spinning.

“If you track dirt through this house your sister will kill you. That’s if she doesn’t kill you, first, for worrying her like that.”

You didn’t respond. There were a lot of things you didn’t do, that you really wanted to, when Sid wrapped one of his warm arms around your midsection and made sure you walked a straight line down the long hallway to your bedroom. You didn’t cling to him, didn’t even let yourself glance at those goddamn grey sweatpants. Didn’t let your hand upon his shoulder fall to his back, to his hip, you didn’t.

And you definitely didn’t think about the pressure mounting between your thighs.

“Would you be into me, do you think?” You did ask, voice small.

Sidney, reaching for your door handle with his free arm, stopped at your question. Both his arms fell, like the muscles had simply opted out of function for a moment, and you stood there, so fucking close to him, and he stayed.

Would you fuck me. That’s what you wanted to ask. Take me for a night and don’t ask a single question about school or my friends or think about my sister when you say my name. Or, you wanted to ask, could you love me—  could you think about all of that and, still, take me anyway.

No liquid courage was enough to have you ask either of those things, though. So you settled for something smaller, more open-ended. Sid’s jaw fell initially, and you watched every muscle contraction, by the light spilling from his bedroom, as his expression hardened once more.

“Go to bed, Y/N.”

“Mr. Media-trained, I asked you a question!” You were playful, brushing your hair from your face, naively hopeful that you could shift the energy. Regardless of your attempts, his tone was steely.

“Yeah and I’m not answering it. Go to bed.”

Sidney could’ve sworn he felt his heart break when you stammered out an apology.

You clearly were a little out of it, and earlier in the day his teammate had murmured something about Y/N’s “uncharacteristic affection” for him while they had fishing lines in the bay, and with that little revelation, his heart skipped a beat and his throat felt tight, eyes flitting towards where you were lain out on the sand at the time, tiny white bikini top undone in the back.

Still, you were his best friend’s wife’s younger sister, so kind of his best friend’s younger sister, and some a decade his junior, and the reasons he couldn’t let his thoughts go there mounted quickly, but still, there you were. Cheeks pink, slack-jawed and glossy-lipped, and saying sorry simply for asking a curious question.

“Go to bed.” His voice broke to a whisper through it, and he didn’t say anything more before turning for his bedroom, crawling back under the sheets, his place still warm.

Sid’s brain was fucking melting.

You woke before 9am the following morning, found a text on your phone matching a handwritten note on the kitchen island— “Spending the day with some of the cousins, we should be back for dinner. feel free to take the paddle boards out, it’s gonna be a beautiful day x”

Something about the note wrung at your chest, not quite a betrayal or anything, but you wished they’d waited up for you. You supposed you mightn’t have deserved the courtesy after the little disappearing act you’d pulled the night before, but, still, it hurt a little.

Leaving the note at rest, you walked outside, bowl of granola in one hand with a cigarette lit between two fingers on the other. A little sun streamed in through the skylight under the patio, warmth rippling over one of your arms, gleaming off the spoon.

You tried not to think about what you’d asked Sid the night before, nor how you’d only had two beers and a shot down on the beach, which was not nearly enough liquor to excuse the question you’d asked him in the hallway. Really, you barely knew the guy. It was a moment of self-indulgence, and it was unfair of you to put him in that situation. Now, you could only hope he’d tagged along with your sister and his teammate, and you could lick your wounds, home alone, in peace.

You wouldn’t be so lucky.

Sid came outside not ten minutes after you, scruffing a towel over his hair, wet from the shower, and you could’ve screamed when he bid you good morning, kid, like nothing in the world had changed.

You didn’t even like cigarettes, but this one, rolling between your knuckles, gave your line of sight an anchor, so you didn’t look totally stupid while vehemently avoiding looking at Sidney.

If he’d have asked, you would’ve told him you didn’t smoke, really, you promise. Told him the ridiculous truth: you’d found the pack your dad left in the little office off the hallway a few summers ago, before his heart doctor made him quit. Like a little kid, you’d lit it on the stove and taken it outside where you took one drag and coughed the smoke back up, your body rejecting it, it along with the idea that maybe, after this summer, things would be different. You’d stand taller, and you’d know, all of a sudden, exactly how to be a grown-up, to be considered in the same circle as your own family.

But he didn’t ask.

“I don’t mind,” He said after you’d already squashed the cigarette, burnt almost to your fingers, against the limestone pavement, marring it black in a messy circle. He didn’t ask a damn thing, but part of you really wanted him to, so you could explain yourself, about the cigarette and about last night, and he wouldn’t think any less of you for any of it. Maybe that made you childish, you thought. The desperation you had to explain yourself, even to a person who, you thought, couldn’t have cared less.

A cool breeze stole the final wisps of smoke away and, in doing so, it took also the heat from your face and chest.

“Are you okay?” Sid spoke softly. He always did, but this time, eyes set straight ahead on the rippling pool, one of it’s corners sparkling in the morning sun, he meant to.

You wanted to actually scream now, because why would he ask you that?

“Yeah. Just try’na eat my granola.” You gave him a wry smile.

Sidney didn’t respond, and your spoon remained firmly stationed on the table, shiny and untouched.

The moment weighed heavy between the two of you. A tiny bird chased bugs at the edge of the pool, and it was the most interesting thing either of you had ever seen, at that point. The avoidance was wearing thin, though.

“I feel like I’m watching a lot of endings, and I don’t know what beginnings could possibly follow them,”

He looked at you, then, waiting for you to continue, and he didn’t need to prompt you to finish with words, for you could feel it. His arms crossed over one another and leant on the table, his upper body leaning forward, too, willing your continuation. Your whole body buzzed with it.

“I left college this year. Which I don’t regret, but I’m trying to be a grown-up, you know. I have a job and I pay my own rent, all of that. And then, like this morning, the family are doing things without me, and I feel like a little kid again, except I look around and nobody else is a kid anymore, just me, and I’m trying to control everything, and everything keeps slipping.”

“The playground’s empty.” Sid chuckled, a little bit bittersweet, and you knew he had some semblance of understanding, despite how stupid you’d felt when you finished rambling. He continued, “You get used to it. Eventually your hometown friends will start having kids, and you’ll go on vacations alone.”

“Or with your teammate and his wife.”

He laughed at that, if not because it was funny, then because it was sad.

You finally picked up your spoon, and Sid asked about your job, and there was no judgement behind his line of questioning, no waiting to compare it to what you could’ve done had you remained in college, because frankly, he didn’t even remember what you’d been studying. Too many fireball shots, you’d resigned, but really, he didn’t remember much of that conversation because it was so clear how little you’d cared about it at the time.

He smiled when you showed him some of your work, because it was good, but more because you were proud of it, and there came from him no undercutting sighs of “if that’s what makes you happy,” because it was what made you happy, and it was just that simple for him.

"I’m thinking of heading down to the beach. You wanna come with?” You asked when your bowl was empty, you bending down to pick up the discarded cigarette, lest your sister find it and actually wring your neck.

“No, no, you go. We’ve got a long day on the driving range planned tomorrow, I’ll take it easy today. I might go put a line in and see if I can catch us dinner.” He explained easily, thinking out loud with a hand scratching at the nape of his neck.

“Okay. Good luck.” You left him with a small smile and gaze thoroughly subverted from the flex of his bicep before you dipped back indoors, undoubtedly a little disappointed he wouldn’t be joining you.

“Trust you to be inside watching an old game on the prettiest day all summer.”

You, having entered through the back door silently, made your presence known as you entered the living room. You held a half-peeled clementine in one hand while you pushed your sunglasses up onto your head with the other, beach towel slung over one shoulder. “D'you catch us dinner?”

Sid drew his eyes from the television, brows raised, like he wanted you to repeat what you’d asked— first time he’d heard it, too invested in the play occurring onscreen, but, frankly, if he’d heard it a second time while looking at you, there was every chance it wouldn’t have sunk in, then, either.    

The way you looked, he felt like a fucking pervert just being in the same room as you, thinking like this. The daintiest gold chains around your neck, skin glowing, just a little sun kissed. And that bikini.

That stupid fucking bikini. Soft white fabric held together by mere strings. Setting your clementine and sunglasses on the coffee table, you knelt at the opposite end of the big, grey couch, and you had no clue, he thought, what that bikini had been doing to him since he got here.

“Fish weren’t biting. How was the water?” Sid asked, fist squeezing around the cold, wet glass of his beer bottle, training his eyes on the muted TV and nothing but.

“Warm. It was nice. I’ll have to take you down to my favourite spot sometime. It’s between these rocky outcrops away from the rest of the beach, so the waves are really gentle.”

He liked hearing you talk like that, with conviction, like you were confident in whatever it was you had to say, and he was lucky enough to have heard that tone from you a little more today.

Swivelling your hips a little to watch the game, you asked a few questions, ones with answers that felt like common sense to Sid, but, he realised, mustn’t be to someone without his years of experience on the ice.

He smiled when you commented on the game, excited to see how you were so excited to learn, and he’d answer you, speaking with his hands, leant forward on his elbows, propped against his knees, thick thighs flexing, dark gaze flitting between you and the screen.

You probably only took in about a third of the information he spat. How could you pay any more attention when he was sat there, just looking like that? The way the slightest movements in his wrists would be felt in the obscenely on-show muscles of his shoulders, where the white tee he wore fit just a little too tight, it could’ve sent you spiralling, had you let it.

And you kinda wanted to let it.

“Can you do me a favour, Sidney?” You asked at the very end of the second period, butterflies beating up a storm in your belly with a surge of courage given to you by watching the man smile like that, so effortless in explaining the way his game worked.

“Anything.” He’d responded without a second thought, foregoing asking what it was you needed, lest that end the two of you up in more trouble than he was sure you were already in, what with the things he was guilty of thinking about you.

Pulling the claw clip from your hair, you let your tresses fan over your shoulders, two tiny braids falling at either side of your face frame, and Sid’s breath was bated, watching you move towards him carefully, your eyes bright. You were awaiting protest, so thankful when it never came.

It started so slowly. Your head in his lap, neck bent back the tiniest amount over the crest of his strong thigh. His big hand was soft at your chin, thumb at rest just by your lower lip.

“I just need something, Sid.” You didn’t even fully know what you were asking for. He didn’t, either, but your soft sigh when his thumb dipped through your lips gave him some idea.

You tried bringing one of your hands up to feel him, even just a grip on his forearm would’ve been enough, but Sid chuckled lightly, crooning, “hands to yourself.” and you did as you were told, one arm locked at your side with the other lain across your own torso, your fingers gripping at your warm skin arbitrarily.

With the pad of his thumb rolling soft circles on the tip of your tongue, Sid allowed himself, for the first time since he’d arrived, to take you in wholly. Your eyes hooded and glassy, pupils dilated, your warm skin shining a little. Your swimsuit was still damp from the ocean, strings tied in bows, taut against your skin, goose bumps arising the longer his gaze lay on you. You pressed the softest open-mouth kiss to the side of his thumb, digit still teasing, lashes fluttering, and he sighed.

“You’re hungry, huh?”

It would’ve been so easy. So fucking easy for him. Slip one finger under the soft, stretchy fabric over your breast, push it to the side and this would go further than either of you had bargained for.

“M’hm.”

He didn’t, though. He wouldn’t. This was just… a moment. You needed this, needed someone else to sit in the driver’s seat for a second. He convinced himself he could be anyone, in that moment. You just needed someone.

And he pushed away the thought that maybe that fact fucking hurt him, because regardless, you needed this. And he needed to be there for you.

Pushing against your lower teeth with his thumb to cleave your jaw open further, he hollowed his cheeks and let his own saliva fall into your mouth, warmth running over your tongue, and your eyes rolled back a little before they fell shut, and you swallowed him down, taste of fresh lime from the neck of the beer he’d been nursing, now light on your tongue.

“Thank you.” You breathed, and Sid could’ve lost it on the spot.

When he moved his thumb from where it was playing in your mouth and replaced it with his index and middle finger, you choked back a moan.

“You can take it. I want to hear you.”

He pretended not to notice the way your legs fell open at that, one knee propped against the back of the couch, the other calf hanging off the side altogether. The tiny linen skirt you wore to feign modesty around the house was bunched all the way up over your hips, now. He couldn’t let himself look at those high-cut, baby blue bikini bottoms, not the way they left nothing to the imagination at the best of times, let alone when you were like this, your pelvis already grinding so filthily against nothing. None of those thoughts could be part of this, whatever this was.

“Pretty baby.” He murmured, and you hummed appreciatively, eyes falling shut while his thumb rubbed softly at your jaw, two fingers moving heavy on your tongue, open-mouthed. Your head tipped back to allow him in further, and your cheeks hollowed around him as you suckled, tears welling up with every tiny gag.

“Breathe, baby. Breathe around my fingers. You got it.” He coached you tenderly through the choking feeling. With his free hand stroking through the hair at the crown of your head, you sighed softly, burgeoning smile blooming through the openness of your mouth when he pulled out.

“Think you can take another?” He didn’t know why he asked— maybe it was a surrogate for how badly he wanted his same fingers stretching your cunt, or how desperately he wished it were his cock you were suckling so lovingly down your throat. Maybe he was just a little fucked up for getting off on this, seeing how far he could push and still have you take, take, take.

“Mm, really wanna try.” You nodded, excited to take just about anything he’d be willing to give you.

He felt bad for how hard he was in his swim trunks, just centimetres from your soft cheek, a crystalline tear sitting atop the skin there. You needed this.

Three fingertips caressed the tip of your soft, pliant tongue, and before they’d really passed your teeth by much, you gagged, proper tears spilling with the heave of your body. You didn’t need to say anything at all for Sid to remove the third finger but press the first two deeper, your cheeks hollowing while your tongue swirled and your hips bucked, entire body growing warmer, little more than a thrumming nerve.

“Maybe we try a third another time,” He assured, and again, your jaw fell slack with the bloom of a grin at the mere prospect of there being another time.

Sid’s hand, wet with your own saliva, wiped at the tears on your cheeks gently, moving you from blissed out to burning hot and acutely aware of the feel of his hands caressing you— that action, somehow even more intimate than him knuckle-deep in your mouth.

“Mm, Sid. Want your cock.” You were breathless and feverish, a hand finally crossing your body to tug at the drawstring on his dark shorts. He swats your hand away, bending down a little to spit in your mouth again, this time slightly faster, a little meaner: testing the waters.

When your little grin only grows, he presses on.

“What do you say?” He asks, strong hand holding your jaw in place to keep the eye contact, keep your jaw locked open.

You swallow, blinking hard.

“Thank you.”

You whimpered quietly when you heard a car pull into the driveway, Sid’s head snapping to the foyer, “What time is it?” He asked, like it mattered, because your siblings were home early regardless, and like that, the reverie was shattered entirely.

His hand withdrew quickly, gave your cheek a hard little tap and reached down to pull your skirt down, protecting your modesty. He helped you sit up, his big hands setting the skin on your bare back alight, your head still a little out of it.

“You’d wanna check you didn’t leave a wet patch on the couch.” Sid was almost grinning when you looked at him, your face blank.

“I’ll kill you. If I did it’d be your fault.” You glared across at him, returning to your post in the corner of the couch, reaching for the beach towel you’d let fall to the floor. You wiped down your face, the rough, salty fabric burning over your swollen lips.

“I’m going to shower.”

Sid smirked at you, reaching for the clementine you’d abandoned on the coffee table. 

“Have fun.”  He stated, your back already to him. You had no time to respond before the front door swung open, and your brother-in-law nearly burst out laughing when he stepped inside first, seeing the TV— game somewhere near the end of the third period. You were halfway down the hall by then, heart racing in your ears.

“Come on, man!” He drawled, throwing his arms out at the sight of an ice rink on the television. “We’re on vacation!”

You heard them, faintly, from your bedroom, as you gathered up some clean clothes: your sister discussing a few potential afternoon plans, suggesting you all hire a few jet-skis or hit the driving range early. You heard it, but you barely processed it, still feeling your pulse throb in your throat, a kind of bliss enveloping you that you’d never quite experienced before.

The last thing you heard before you pulled the bathroom door shut, a comment from Sid that threw you back into a spin—  

Maybe it was worse that you talked. You traded anecdotes and laughed until your sides ached. He wanted to hear about even the dumb things, stories of losing friends while travelling in faraway countries during your gap year and getting tipsy to go grocery shopping at midnight during your time in college.

It was definitely worse once you made it to the place where two rocky outcrops gave way to a tiny beach, more pebble than sand, where the water gleamed cobalt, and swirled rather than crashed. There, you learned how much you liked hearing the chronicles of Sid’s times in locker rooms and tunnels, and going home to see his family.

It felt like you’d lived three chaotic lives, comparatively, to his single, hockey-centric one, but his musings bought with them a sense of steadiness. Sure, he didn’t have tales of Italian rooftops (and questionable hostels) to match yours, but, on that same note, you didn’t have stories of finding a minuscule slice of heaven in an empty rink (nor your parents sacrificing their lifestyles for your dreams). 

Your circumstances had been wildly different from his, yet your experiences were inexplicably similar. A different breed of the same pressure burdened heavily on the backs of both of you since childhood. He, to be something great, and you, to do something great.

And, the one fact that effloresced from the shot-for-shot trading of your experiences was growing clear: sometimes, you both wished the world around you would just slow down.

Once your ribs stopped hurting, the sun low in the sky when the laughter died, your chest felt bruised, because, you were realising, you didn’t want to talk to Sid like this. Not after the thing on the couch, the way you’d asked him to see you like that, to take you like that and he did, so tenderly.

If you talked, and if you laughed, you couldn’t feign nonchalance at the dinner table, keep your family none the wiser. You couldn’t fake it was just a sex thing, or a power thing, and act as though his quirks weren’t rapidly growing endearing, as if you weren’t watching him open up to you in real-time. 

If you knew how his mom kept safe a dried-up bouquet of flowers for each of his individual achievements, you wouldn’t be able to go back to not knowing. 

Once he’d told you those things, you couldn’t lie, tell yourself you didn’t care.

And, if you were smarter or stronger, maybe, once the jig was up and the lie was a bygone, you’d have stopped all this whatever it is in its tracks. Save yourself some trouble later on.

“What’re you thinking?” Sid asked quietly, propping himself up to look at you for the first time since you’d both thrown your towels down and lain, lazily, side by side. The dark sunglasses resting atop his cheeks made it easier for you to stand up and swipe down the backs of your thighs. Made it easier to move away from him. 

“A whole lot of nothing.” The side of your mouth quirked up in what you hoped would be taken for a show of assurance. 

You haven’t done anything wrong, you wanted to say. I just can’t afford to catch feelings for someone I can’t have.

Sid followed suit, brushing the sand from his trunks before shedding his shirt. He stood on the shore for a second, the ocean lapped at his ankles, tide at a slow rise while you stood there, too, back to him, shoulders tense as your arms were crossed. 

“Can I touch you?”

And, like that, there you were, in his lap again. All his. And, if that was going to work without shredding your heart to mere ribbons, you decided, it would have to be exactly as it was. His hands on you, nothing more, and you, all his, only ever for that moment.

His breath fanned delicately over the nape of your neck, and your skin tingled, ears ringing. 

“Please.”

The way the word left your throat in a powerless whimper felt a little pathetic, but when the back of his hand ghosted a stripe along your spine, you couldn’t bring yourself to care. You shivered despite the high sun’s warm bite, and the ocean’s coolness was felt all at once, soft peach fuzz prickling. 

With one hand settling on your hip, Sid’s hot, lax mouth fell to the crux between your shoulder and neck. Your shoulders softened with arousal imitating relief, arms falling to your sides.

His free hand came up to toy with the tie of your swimsuit at the curve of your back, a lone finger hooked underneath the string with no intention of removing it, but a reminder that he could. 

You pushed back into him, sighing when his tongue and teeth pressed against your neck with the clearest deliberation. 

And, if you’d felt how hard he was, Sid thought, you didn’t say anything.

His kiss was taken nearly as soon as it had been given, replaced gingerly with his forehead lulling against the back of your head, an arm draping itself around your body mindlessly. 

“You feel what you do to me, Baby?” He spoke low, broken with rasp.

Once again, he was here. Apologetic for that tightness in his trunks, and even more rueful now he’d put words to it, albeit in a sick, roundabout way. His face felt searing, and you sensed his trepidation. You could feel it in even the most diminutive shifts of his muscles. 

Your heart raced at it, brow furrowing. That all-too-familiar slipping feeling seeping in. Reaching for the forearm he’d lain across your ribs, you nudged it just a little lower, willing his big hand to the seam where your swimsuit bottoms met your skin.

“I love this, Sid. So much.” You stopped your voice there, lest the continuation you could’ve given discourage him. You could’ve told him, truthfully, how badly you needed him to take you. How, if he’d asked, you’d have gotten on your knees for him, right there. 

Moreover, you wanted to tell him that you hoped, desperately, that he was even half as into you as you were into him. 

(And maybe that tension in his shorts made you feel a bit more secure in those hopes, and a bit less like a charity case.)

Regardless of could’ves and wanted tos, Sid let your few words catch him, for they were all he’d needed to hear: 

whatever it was he felt, you didn’t mind. You’d grasp it, and you’d hold him in it. Maybe this whole thing was a favour, just a moment. But it belonged to both of you, now, equally.

He smiled, the burgeoning relief he felt teetering on overwhelming, and his hand splayed over your stomach, fingertips finally dipping underneath your bikini. 

“Anyone ever touched you here before?”

He hadn’t even cared about the answer, he thought. His goal, now, was nothing but to rile you up. Occupy your mind. After all, that objective was the genesis of this. And it was becoming nothing, really, if not a game the two of you were playing. 

Within these moments, were they to continue, Sid decided, it was his job to follow your lead: pull you out of yourself, safe at his side. And for now, all he wanted was to make you squirm.

You turned your head in hesitation, enough for your lips to find purchase below his jaw. His hand was static, not yet deep enough to feel where the wetness pooled. His thumb caressed your lower stomach, tiny strokes coaxing your answer forward.

“Don’t remind me about my ex right now,” You exhaled shakily, flustered smile against his skin wringing at his chest, just a little. “He never wanted to try it.”

Sid hadn’t cared about the answer at all, until the answer was no, not really.

“Fuck.” He spit, pressing a chaste kiss to your temple, mouth lingering there while his middle fingers skimmed over your clit, sending a jolt through you, relieving only an iota of pressure. The tiniest of moans broke in your throat as your brow furrowed, eyes crushing shut.

“’M gonna fuckin’ ruin you.” 

Before you could process his words, the way your body pulsed at them before they’d fully washed through your head, Sid withdrew completely. You watched in awe as the man took a step around you, wading a little way into the ocean.

“You’re fucking cruel.” Words you’d meant to jest came from you more akin to a whine.

“M’ not fingerfucking you on a public beach. Much less when it’s your first time.” He explained sternly and logically, the way you’d imagine he’d explain something to a rookie teammate on the bench, something which felt unfair and frustrating. He paraded an undercurrent of experience and confidence which reassured you.

Still, it didn’t satiate the slick between your thighs.

“You fingerfucked my throat on a... public-like... couch.” You tried to quip as though it’d convince him, but Sid only laughed. You watched (stupidly, you felt) with your hands on your hips as he sunk back into the water, cupping his hands to splash it over his rosy face, card his fingers through his hair.

“Whatever. I’m going home.” You finally huffed childishly, turning for your towel and tote bag. 

You could nearly hear it on his face: the crooked smile, an unguarded moment.  

“Y/N. Swim with me?”

He sounded bright.

Cruelly, it only reminded you of how, sex removed from the equation, he and all his unguarded brightness couldn’t be yours. 

Your chest felt open. You slung your tote over one shoulder, nothing but your phone and a half-empty water bottle swaying inside. 

“That’s probably not a good idea.” 

You tried not to sound sad about it. Raised your voice a little and said it with a smile, so he could hear you over the shuffling of rocks and sand and relentless water enveloping him. Still, all your tries couldn’t prevent the way Sidney’s grin fell.

He knew why. He really did. Perhaps the age difference could’ve been negligible, unique circumstances considered, but your family couldn’t. Sid knew how proud Letang was to play the role of your big brother, he had been since the very day things got serious with your sister. You were the closest thing he had to a sibling, even before the wedding had put it to paper, and he’d always held you in that regard. 

Kris had never told his teammates not to fall in love with his brand-new baby sister, but, in all fairness, he hadn’t thought he’d needed to: that kind of a thing was a given. And he’d never once even considered he’d have to have that conversation with Sidney, of all the guys in the entire league.

Knowing why you bent down to pick up your still-dry towel did nothing to ease the hurt when you did.

“I’ll see you when you get home, Sid.”

You tried on that ill-fitting smile once more and hoped he could tell, somehow, how badly you wanted to stay as you left.

When he got home things were so normal it hurt, waltzing in a little after dark with his towel cloaking his hips and shirt slung over one shoulder. 

You were alone, living room lights turned down a fraction on the dimmer with an old Pens game playing loud on the TV. With a knee tucked up to your chest, you scrawled messily on the notepad taken from the kitchen fridge, typically reserved for scribbling takeout orders and neighbours’ phone numbers, a page now marked with questions and exclamation marks and a shoddily drawn diagram of a rink, right at the bottom.

“Hey,” You started, pausing your shorthand to turn down the volume when you heard the door swing open. “Kris has shrimp going on the grill.” 

Sid tried skimming over it, the shred of irony he found here, you tucked up on the couch like this, room glowing by the light of a game on the television while he stood, damp and salty. The floridity of your complexion told him it wasn’t lost on you, either.

“What’cha writing?” He asked on his way to the fridge. “If you don’t mind sharing.” 

You swallowed around your tongue, face hot. 

“Just a few things I don’t understand. I tried googling some of them but all the articles are written for, like, sports bros. So I was gonna ask Kris, or you, if you want to answer them, maybe,” 

So much for keeping it at his hands on you, nothing more. 

You wanted to scold yourself, roll your eyes at your own behaviour and just how tangled your feelings were becoming. You’d flicked the TV on when you’d arrived home, and a game queued up from earlier in the day played, and for probably a hundred reasons, you couldn’t bring yourself to turn it off. 

Sid couldn’t help it, the blushing like a high school freshman, the hand which came up under the delicate chain below his throat, fidgeting with its tiny links. 

“Of course I’ll answer them.” He said, soft-toned as ever.

You smiled at him, across the room, shuffling to find a glass in the cabinets, crease in his brow reading determination.

You liked him like this, you thought. He wasn’t an NHL superstar like this, half-dressed and still warmed by the sun under downlights, front office staff and media all so far away that they couldn’t touch him, no matter how badly they wanted to.

“The game’s not over yet, so I’ll hold you to that, later, when my list is done.” You breathed smoothly, put at ease by the coolness he was showing, like he’d entirely forgotten you’d been at the beach at all.

Mid-morning, at the kitchen island, you argued an absolute lost cause with Kris and Sid. 

“If they penalise it, players won’t slug the puck, like, halfway across the country just to kill time, basically. It means it’s not worth it for the players.” Your sister tossed down the magazine she’d been clutching in the living room and closed her eyes, exasperated by just listening to your determined vexing. 

“Jesus. Neither of you could’ve just said that ten minutes ago?” You stressed back at Kris and Sid with a roll of your eyes, a dramatic flick of your hands.

Maybe you were playing it up, and maybe you’d understood perfectly fine what icing was the first (or, like, the second) time they’d tried to explain it. But the fingers rubbing at Sid’s temples while he slumped over the counter were a bit like a reward. To have thrown him off his game (and turned a few grey hairs out of him) felt like some kind of comeuppance following the way he’d slighted you on the beach.

You were having too much fun to really hear the steady pull up of cars in the drive out front. Referring back to the notepad in your hand, about to open your mouth once more, your sister lifted a pointy finger at you across the room and warned, “Drop it, I swear to God,”, and you did, if only for her sanity, instead opting to watch her move towards the front door.

You sat in the kitchen, leathery barstool clammy on your thighs, as a patchwork of hockey players and their partners rolled in, Kris and Sid equally beaming at the surprise organised by your sister. The players represented a few teams scattered over the league, and catch-ups weren’t common at all, let alone ones without the looming pressure of a game or high-profile, highly-strung event. 

The piling in of people for the weekend felt nice. The walls would vibrate with the clamour and booming voices and laughter, and there were too many people for the number of bedrooms or patio chairs, but it felt like a surrogate family, strangers or not.

At the bottom of the stairwell, Sidney, ever the gracious leader, had traded away the comfort of his guest bed in exchange for the pull-out couch before anyone had even asked. 

You glared at the back of his head for that—  for bringing that insane idea to fruition, as your sister stared blankly at you in your peripheral, awaiting a similar foregoing of your bed to allow another of the couples some privacy during their weekend stay.

“My bed is so comfy,” You started, petulance grinding to a painful halt when you, once more, met the eye of your sister, who stood there with a harsh crease in her brow, head tilted in a way which put the intrinsic fear of your mother into you. 

You finished quickly: “Which is exactly why you should enjoy it, Nathan.”

If growing up with your family had taught you the mastery of one thing, it was faking one killer smile. Kris caught your eye, mouthing an endearing thank you alongside a smile more genuine than your own, which sweetened the deal a little. Partly because you liked Kris, but more than that, because you liked having Kris owe you favours, being that he was the only other person here well-versed in the language of your sister.

Once the newer guests had settled, drinks flowed in the yard (we can day drink, right?!, one of the ladies gleamed, already popping the prosecco). You stood at the kitchen counter before you joined them, mind mulling over nothing at all while you found rhythm in slicing lemons, content in listening to the muffled music and laughter chiming through from outside.

Sid, after moving the last of his luggage away to the office to allow one of the couples a little more space in the guest room, entered the open-plan living room. 

“Hey,” He begun, pulling your attention, quirking your brow over your shoulder. He had a feathery stack of bedding scooped up under one arm, and had started folding it over the arm of the sofa. He continued.

“Are you on birth control?”

You nearly choked. 

At the question itself, obviously, but moreover, the casualty with which he’d asked it, like there wasn’t a pack of people just past the glass doors which broke the patio from the living room. Like it wasn’t broad daylight, he wasn’t folding the eiderdown, and you weren’t minding your business, in an oversized tee, chopping fucking lemons, taken so very off-kilter by him.

You glanced over your shoulder, eyes wide. He looked at you like he’d asked something weightless, waiting patiently for an answer. You didn’t respond for long enough that he felt the need for elaboration.

“We’re sharing a room now. Thought I’d be precautious.” 

He simpered, and the enthusiasm with which he’d offered away his guest room started to make some sense.

“Sharing the living room, Sid. I’ll take the little sofa.” Your voice occupied a strange midpoint between exasperated and trembling, and you returned to your chopping board while he began to pace for the door, his bed linen stacked neatly. His hand lingered on the iron door handle, sight flitting back over the expanse of space between the big, grey couch, and the little velvet loveseat you apparently intended on sleeping upon. 

You let your mind wander to the potential for the total breakdown of whatever this was, which would occur if you were to be found in bed with Sid when morning light broke and someone came down to brew coffee.

But, you also thought about the reward if you weren’t found out. With the imagining of that reward tucked away somewhere dark, you called to Sid before he stepped outside:

“I am, by the way.”

By mid-afternoon, you’d downed two spiked lemonades to help pull you precariously out to join the party. Kris’ friends were intimidating, somehow equally in the offseason, when they were mix-matched with their guards down, than when they were uniformed soldiers prepared to dazzle thousands on the ice.

It was warm outside, one of those weird days where the breeze sticks to your skin and makes it tough to breathe. Clouds rolling in the distance thickened the briny air: you could smell the storm coming, the salt and grass mixing with the pavement intoxicatingly.

You’d not had any complex interaction with Kris’ friends since the wedding, when you were a smidge shorter and a smidge shyer, and of course, that shiny college acceptance letter from somewhere hard to get into was how your family introduced you.

Nathan Mackinnon seemed to be the only one who remembered anything about you at all, now, and maybe that little extra mile shouldn’t have surprised you. 

In the earliest hours of the morning following the ceremony, your face numb and brain surging, one of the bridesmaids had pointed a lazy hand to Nate in a back corner, still a little uncomfortable in this glitzy world and it showed, and, she slurred, he’s been eyeing you up all night.

Now, you wondered, whether things might be different had you crept over to the corner occupied by Nate and asked him to dance. Maybe you could’ve wound up looking across the table at him, here, and Sid, sat beside him, head tilted back hungrily, would be meaningless. Maybe.

Things would’ve been simpler. It would’ve made sense, you and a guy closer to your age, playing on a team closer to your college, a little further from Kris and your sister, not one of Kris’ closest friends. It sure as hell would’ve made a lot more sense than whatever feelings flurried about your head, now, years later. 

But, that night, in a whirl of powder and heady perfume at that velvet-foiled table, Nate didn’t matter. You were busy talking to Sid.

For all your flaws, now, you were relatively good at cards. But, God, you were thankful you weren’t playing with cash. It’d only taken Kris emptying your pockets one time (on your birthday, no less) for you to learn one lesson: hockey players play a lot of card games. On planes, buses, in hotel rooms. He’d bought all your drinks after taking your money, but no amount of top-shelf tequila could patch up your pride after the beating you’d taken at that green felt table.

Your dwindling chips were serving as a painful reminder of that night, but there was a sliver of hope left, maybe. It was just you and a stupidly smiley Nate left, his stack only a few chips taller than yours.

You felt the hope abating when Sid tapped Nate’s shoulder and leant in to whisper something, bravado puffing his tanned shoulders, the slightest of smiles on that tender mouth.

Whatever that something was, it must’ve been good.

“All in.” Nate sucked in a sharp breath, neck red from the rum and coke by his hand.

The company around the table was spring-loaded, grasping their drinks in wait.

“What the fuck?!” You gaped, giving yourself away, and the table went up in playful jeers. 

You tucked your cards to the table, face down so nobody caught the off suited two and four you’d held strong with for, probably, far too long, and ran your hands down your face for a juncture, someone moving to reshuffle the cards as you rubbed your temples, eyes scrunched.

“Count me out of the next hand. I’m going to be a sore loser over there, in the pool.” You sulked, pushing your chair back from the table. Your thighs clung stickily to the mesh when you stood, shirking away from the disappointed babbling with an apology you didn’t mean. 

“Good hand, Nate. You had me going for a while there.” You smiled even if you didn’t fully believe it, the sportsmanship of your father barrelling back to you.

“I’m gonna apologise for that one,” Sid commented, a pitiful excuse to follow you away from the table after you’d already stepped into the pool, knee-deep and peeling your shirt from your body. 

With your hands hooked on the limestone lip at the water’s surface, wet chin against the warm, dry pavement, you watched Sid pace over.

“What the fuck did you say to him?”

If you weren’t halfway livid with Sid, there’d have been something unreal about the angle you had on him right there: the mounts of his bowed legs in shorts just a little too short, curving through the view of taut abs— why was he still shirtless, again? It’d been hours since they were in the pool. You’d be lying to say you weren’t at all contented by it. 

His dark eyes were gleamy, reflecting the glowing below him, and while he looked straight down at you, the angles of his face were made sharp by the water’s ripples. And yet, you were halfway livid, so none of that mattered. Kind of.

“Just told him you were trying not to smile.” 

Your stomach pitted.

“Whatever.” You scoffed quietly, glancing back to the table where the group was absorbed in a new game. The trifling curiosity ate you quickly. “How would you even know that?”

Sid looked around the yard, avoiding your eye.

“Your temple flexes when you clench your jaw, which you do when you’re stopping yourself. From showing anything, not just smiling.”

If you’d thought about it for more than a second, it would’ve made your heart burst, the way he’d noted such an incredibly insignificant thing. But, again, there were more pressing things to concern yourself with. 

“Y’know getting me beat in poker isn’t going a long way in convincing me to fuck you tonight.” 

You’d not known whether the closely-gathered crowd at the table could hear you across the lawn, but, at that point, you didn’t care. You peeked over at them, awaiting any indication they’d heard your dig. If this was how you were caught, you hoped it’d be funnier than it was controversial, but still, you watched. 

Sid didn’t miss a beat. Your body, once soft and liquid, turned rigid in an instant.

“Somehow I don’t think you need any more convincing.”

Long after dinner, after good-nights and still-hollow plans for tomorrow (the driving range missed us today, I’m sure of it, someone chaffed), Sid and Letang sat on the patio, the two of them. 

Listening to Steve Mears’ voice at the lowest volume on the surround sound, you found yourself there again, lime tang stuck to your tongue, amber lights turned down. One of their beers you’d stolen from the cooler sat on the coffee table, barely a mouthful gone before it lost its wet chill. You never really liked beer, more liked the way holding the bottle made you feel.

“You won’t finish it,” Kris had ribbed with a smile, watching you retrieve the bottle. 

“I will.” You swore, palming a few waxy lime wedges from a small dish on the table.

And, in the way that older siblings are meant to be, Kris was right. You poured it down the sink, listened to it gurgle as Sid and Kris came inside for the night, still laughing from something said behind the glass doors.

“What’d I say?” Kris pointed at you, grin growing on his mouth despite his hushed tone, the threat of waking the house looming.

“Shut up,” You replied, pointing the neck of the bottle at him like a threat, only making him laugh. “Maybe if you bought better beer I’d finish it when I steal them.”

“Less than half, right?” Kris pressed on, smiling, your resignation his glorious win. “You drank less than half?

A stupid, grousing little part of you felt warm, not at the banter, but more so, at Sid stood off to the side, bearing witness to it. Like on the first day, when your sister had made you sweat a little in front of him, made you feel like a kid again. 

The cool, older guy, watching you shrink, trying to prove yourself and failing. That stupid, grousing little part of you regretted grabbing a beer at all. But, whether or not Sid had picked up on your sudden disquiet, you didn’t know. It didn’t matter. The hand he slid against the curve of your back as he passed you, remaining a little too long, maybe, the weight of it pulled you back to yourself, drained all your feelings of smallness.

When Kris went to bed, the click shut of his bedroom door upstairs rang through like a starter pistol. Neither you nor Sid spared a word. You brushed past one another in the hallway, in and out of the bathroom to brush teeth and dress down, and pretended the intensity in the room hadn’t grown tenfold. 

Everything wound, coiled tight like a spring, waiting for something to give. 

You nearly gasped when Sid spoke first, felt it in your chest, his placid timbre.

“We didn’t end up getting past icing today.”

He eyed the notepad that sat on the coffee table fondly, all its smudgy ink. 

Half the tension gone, you scoffed.

“It just sounds fake!” You said, throwing a hand out at the TV despite the intermission on screen, the game long ignored, anyway. He helped you reel out the sofa bed wordlessly, toss out creamy sheets, and he pretended he didn’t see the way you were brooding, brow furrowed. 

“I really do think the game could be more interesting if there was a little more chaotic, pointless scurrying back and forth.” You finally collapsed on the bed, duvet puffing up around you, unbearably soft against your skin. 

Sid resigned to the place beside you, chuckling softly, “We don’t need to argue about this again.”, both of you wilfully ignorant to the magnitude of you in his bed, there, in his space like you belonged there (and maybe, by some measure, you did).

“Sid.”

He looked at you, just-hooded gaze knotting you inside. Your eyes were big, looking up, melting him. He swallowed hard before his head tilted in acknowledgement, breath on hold.

“Do you wanna touch me?”

“What?” He asked, voice buoyant, as though you’d started a joke. For a moment your throat went dry, starry eyes forever away, waiting for some kind of mocking you’d not known from Sid, but it didn’t come, of course, it didn’t. 

Lifting a hand to your hairline, to your jaw, instead, he stroked, drew a soft line.

“I thought the poker thing killed my chances.”

Elation teetered in the centre of your throat. Poker was a million miles away, everything was.

“You’re on thin ice.”

“I’m used to it.”

You caught the brittle shell of the joke but his index finger, now curled with a knuckle bent against the seam of your lips, reigned a lot more alluring. 

He started with two fingers, tempting your tongue, mouth lax and forgiving, waiting on an unspoken cue from Sid, something more. The quick press of his thumb up into your lower lip edged your mouth shut around him, and in doing so, pulled from him a sigh as you sucked, eyes drifting shut.

Your chin tilted up to follow the gentle motions of his hand, infatuated by how his breaths were growing shorter, more audible. 

His wrist twisted carefully as his hand thrust, drool collecting at his joints lewdly, soft suction hardening behind the press of your plush lips. 

He gulped, blinked slow. For a second Sid allowed himself to see you the same way he had just a day prior, this same place, occupying this same space in his head. 

Under auric light, even the most overt of the curves of your body lustred, soft from your nightly routine. Sid loved your eyes, the way they’d blaze when you spoke of something you cared for, and now, looking up at him, despite your lashes weighing heavy with lust, you still mouthing at his fingers hotly, he swore that blaze was almost the same.

For all he wanted to acquiesce his best senses telling him to stop it all, everything, right now, Sid couldn’t bear to pull his eyes from where they met yours. With his brow knitted as ever, the tight space under his ribs burned.

At a particularly hard drive of his wrist, you drew in a hard gasp around him, hips mindlessly gyrating, searching for something more than your silken sleep shorts. 

The sight of you, for how endearing and mind-numbingly pretty and dully burning it was in his torso, also mounted in him an urgent need, a fresh sense of arousal, you and those blazing, begging eyes. 

“You know anyone could come out here and see you like this. Yet you don’t seem to care, do you? Do you wanna tell me why that is?” 

He withdrew his hand, touching your cheek where a limpid tear had branded its track. Your eyes fluttered open. You didn’t know what to say. Everything you wanted to say hung behind your teeth, remained shapeless in your mouth, your jaw agape.

“You can be honest, Baby.” He told you earnestly, brushing your hair from your face, the lock shadowy against your skin, only aglow by a few dimmed bulbs in the kitchen, a sick reminder of the publicity of your location. 

“I want it,” You start, swallowing hard. “Really fucking badly, Sid.” 

Your fingertips sunk into his wrist beside your head, thumb resting at where you could feel his pulse, fastening beat keeping you firmly on earth. You looked at him, followed the glowy orange line along his side profile where the washy golden light backlit his skin. 

“Want what? What is it you want so badly?” 

His voice was so soft, tiny smile ruminating. He was fucking with you. He had to be fucking with you, playing dumb like this. Really, though, Sid needed to hear you call this for what it was: something more than a favour, more than a moment. 

He needed to know that he wasn’t imagining it all. The bottom of the stairs, and the patio table, sitting on the sand at the beach— that the sum of these seconds was something more than just this, family be damned. 

He didn’t think his heart could take this otherwise, whatever was about to happen, what had already happened.

“I want you, Sid. I need you to ruin me.” 

At that, maybe unwisely, Sid kissed you, the weight of your words not lost on him. 

It was mellow and chaste, as if he was testing the waters at first, perhaps a little afraid you’d stop it. When your hand found his throat for leverage, his kiss quickly hardened. He dropped his hip against the bed so he was on his side against you, one elbow to leverage his upper body, and you could feel him, even in the places your bodies didn’t meet. 

As the softness of your tongue met his in sync, your fingers followed suit at the waistband of his sweats. A tentative hand dwelled there, and the warmth of your mouth left him for a bare second.

“Can I?”

“Yeah, Baby.” 

Then you licked your palm and your fingers were below his waist, finding the hot, sticky tip of his length. He kissed you again, quick and open on your mouth, cut off by the loose glide of your hand down his warm cock, fingers barely ringed around the thickness.

You could hear the blood battering in your ears at the sound he made, a sharp hiss of air through his teeth while he watched you, trying to keep his eyes open: he didn’t want to miss any of this, needed to remember. The throbbing in your gut matched your pulse, growing heavy there in your lower belly, your pelvis surging thoughtlessly.

A little exploratory, you swiped a soft thumb over the head, smiling breathlessly when his hips kicked up. You revelled in the tiny reactions from him, the speeding up of his breath, chest surging. He clasped your wrist before you had the chance to push it much farther, changing his mind on a dime.

“Another time,” He said at your displeased little hmph. He pulled back up to his knees, resting on his haunches beside where you lay. 

“You keep saying that.” You quipped. “What if there is no other time?”

You could’ve gone cold at the inflamed words now hung in the air between you. You hadn’t even really known what they’d meant before you said them, didn’t what you meant by them, if anything at all. He didn’t let you go cold, though. Didn’t let the moment falter. 

He grabbed your jaw, squeezing just enough to open you up, mouth red and glossed. 

“Tongue out,” Is all that came, bypassing your annotation, the way it nipped at him. Still, you wanted this, your body trembled with it, all that want, so pent up. You stuck your tongue out as instructed, taking him down when he spit eagerly, a chill running down your spine to join with the beating in your belly, between your legs, where his free hand had begun flirting with the inseam of your shorts. 

The nipping at him only grew tenfold when your head lolled into the weight of his hand, captivated eyes glittering up at him, looking like he’d just told you he loved you for the first time. You stuck out your tongue again, proof you swallowed it, and Sid nearly folded.

Your legs spread further in anticipation as his fingers drew down your torso, and you found yourself mouthing at the hand now held on your jaw, thumb bridging over your lips heavily.

“I love your mouth.” His voice wavered some when your teeth found purchase around his fingertip.

“But, I think,” He pressed on, four fingers finally tugging your shorts and panties to the side, “I’ll like your cunt more.”

You gasped to save yourself making a noise any cruder, shivering at his words. The air, cool and moving, was a relief on your centre, but Sid didn’t give you time to appreciate it before he had a lone finger run the seam of your pussy, garnering some of your slick before rounding your clit. You moaned through lips crimped shut, face screwed up in a way so stunning it threatened to ruin the man above you.

It was one finger at first, dipping tentatively, daring you to say something, to breathe, even.

“Your fingers are,” You stopped to finally exhale, fearing your lungs could’ve exploded, “Bigger than mine,”

He chuckled at that, and tried his best not to let the image of you, your own fingers between supple thighs, working yourself over, distract him. Instead, that coaxing smile still on his mouth, he crooked his finger and eased in a second. You pulled your forearm over your face instinctively to cover your mouth as the pleasure forged and tightened, but just as quickly, Sid knocked it away, collecting both your wrists in his one free hand and holding them still.

“You gonna be a good girl? Stay quiet?”

His thumb nudged at your clit, wrist oscillating the tiniest amount to let him rub circles at your g-spot. You could’ve sworn you saw stars, vision gone spotty after you forced your clenched-shut eyes back to him where he watched you, even-faced, still expecting a response.

Your tongue poked out to wet your lips and you gulped, trying to compose yourself somehow. As if that was even possible like this.

“Yes. Yeah, I am.” You managed.

“Perfect.”

Your cunt fluttered at the inkling of praise, and Sid sighed a breathy laugh at your reaction, riling you up a little, hand moving faster, rubbing at that one delicious spot inside you with his thumb still trained on your clit, stroking attentively. 

“Please, Sid.” Your body squirmed and strained thoughtlessly and your hips bucked, hands struggling against the firm grip he held on your wrists. 

“I don’t know what you’re asking for.” His voice was shot, eyes dark. “Need to be more specific for me to give you what you need,”

Just like that, your resolve dissipated, need overtaking. 

“I need you to fuck me, Sidney. Need your cock inside me. I can’t take it any longer. Please put it in.” 

Your muscles tensed around his fingers once more, a soft thigh brushing against him, you enveloping him. His hand thrust slowly forward once more to nudge your sweet spot, now starving your clit of any attention at all. Your legs pressed tight around his wrist, writhing and bucking and trying. 

“You want me to put my cock in you, Baby? You want me to put it all in? Push it all the way inside until you can’t think about anything else?”

His voice got away from him, muttering sternly before he had the chance to vet his words. He could feel your reactions everywhere, sure his skin lay over white-hot coals, it was the only explanation for his roiling nerves. He loved what his unchecked words were doing to you, the way your mouth was split, whimpering from your throat, brow knitted, your body flowing with all of it, everything.

“Nothing else, Sid,”

Sid knelt back, hand leaving your cunt only to sweep your shorts and panties down in one motion. He watched in awe as your legs fell asunder for him once more, his shaky hand rubbing at the silken skin of your shin closest to him. You wanted to frame it, the look on his face in this light, all doe-eyed elation and awe, and you felt tight and pleated inside, seeing him like that, the anticipation overwhelming.

“Nothing but how stretched out you are, huh? How deep you can feel me inside you?”

You were sure he was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen.

He gripped one of your legs, lifted your hips over the palisade of his thighs and shifted your body so he was situated between your knees, and you bit back a reaction to just how hot it was, the way he could throw you around at will. You watched him strip his shirt and ruck his sweats to his midthigh, and didn’t bother masking the drop of your jaw at the sight of his cock, leaking and heated, all for you. 

“Please, Sid. Please. I need it. Nothing but you.”

You looked like a fucking painting, halo of hair thrown out around your face, all glistening and rosy. And who would he be, now, like this, to deny you what you needed? 

He could’ve finished on the spot when the first swollen inch popped in— your hot, dripping walls choking him, blowing his mind. Both hands encircled your midsection, bracing himself while pressing you into the mattress as he rocked forward, filling you wholly. 

You sobbed nonsense into your own palm, fingers dug into your cheek so you wouldn’t whine too loudly. Your other hand came up under the shirt bundled around your ribs to tease at one of your nipples, quickly followed by Sid shoving the shirt up entirely, putting your tits on show for him. 

For all his elated doe-eyes had first roused you, nothing could’ve prepared you for this, his slack-jawed smile as he watched your cunt stretching around him obscenely. His hair, longer from the summer, curled and stuck to his forehead, sweat beginning to bead along his temple.

The first time you choked out his name, after his instinctual reaction to press you harder had subsided, he flipped you over with a hand on your hip, cock barely gone for a second before you mewled for it, helplessly empty without it.

You’d begun to say something quickly forgotten when Sid spoke and your blood felt bitter.

“Put your fingers in your mouth when I fuck you. I want you to remember.”

You let out a needy cry, head reeling like you could feel the chill flood from your brain to between your legs, remnants of your clipped orgasm building once more.

You did as you were told and eased your own two middle fingers over your tongue with the side of your face pushed into the bed. Sid made easy work of pulling you back into him by the flesh of your thighs, fingers heavy and rough, tearing a muffled yelp from around your fingers. He manoeuvred you so smoothly, nudging one leg to bend at the knee, opening you up for him, and crawled up closer to you while kneading the flesh of your thighs with greedy hands.

“You comfy?” Sid asked lowly, kindly, pulling your swimming mind back up, your desperate hands moving to seize fists of the duvet beneath you. The consideration bloomed in your abdomen. 

“Yeah, Sid.” 

With that reassurance, he inched forward, the hot head of his thick cock catching at your slicked entrance.

You were fucked, you thought, if someone came out here while he had you like this, nudging back inside you gently with the slightest shifts of his hips, stretching you slowly. 

There would be no hiding this. Something dark in you liked that thought: the idea that they’d know, whoever they were, that you were Sid’s. They’d see it and they’d know, even if it were only for a moment.

Cock finally fully seated in you, he reached forward with a hard sigh, brushing your hair from the sliver of your face he could see. The motion, the steady uptick of his body had him rubbing impossibly deep within you, coaxing a noise that was all head and throat, so pretty he needed to hear it again. 

“Pretty Baby,” 

You pushed back on him at that, trying to meet the calculated moves of his pelvis, heighten their intensity. Reciprocating, Sid found a steady, deep rhythm. An arm coiled around your hip, lifting your body the slightest amount, and his flexors pulsed against your lower abdomen, rubbing over your clit delicately.

You could’ve cried, a stunned moan probably a little too loud, circumstances considered, breaking from your mouth. You could feel the pressure mount in your pelvis fast, and Sid must’ve felt it, too, your heat ticking around him.  

“Hold it, Baby. Hold out for me,”

His thrusts were slow and hard and deep, and you vaguely registered his hand digging into the flesh of your ass, but you could only maintain focus on the fingers at work over your dripping pussy, where his cock railed into you, messy and raw.

“Please, Daddy. I need it. Please let me cum,” You were outright begging now, with little regard for how pathetic you must’ve looked (nor now into it Sid was, eyes pinched shut and head ripped back), and even less regard for the words leaving your mouth (Where the hell had daddy come from, anyway?). Sid had never really considered he’d like it, but now, from you, fuck.

You caught it, for a moment in your periphery, the hard column of Sid’s throat like stone, chin tipped. It took all you had not to swivel and push yourself up, take his skin in your mouth. Instead, you pressed your hand down, down, down, brain whirring, fingertips meeting his between your thighs. 

The stretches of space where his skin flattened heavily against yours, clammy and titillating, were growing to be too much. 

“You can let go, Baby. You’ve been so good.” 

Your body stuttered, muscles pulling. His hand between your thighs, rubbing soft, quick strokes at your clit didn’t stop for a moment, his body surrounding you, pressure everywhere at once in the most extraordinary way. At the crest of your orgasm, blinding heat flowing through you with your mouth pressed into the bend of your elbow to muffle yourself, you thanked him again and again, eyes scrunched shut, your tight heat milking him.

“There she is, atta girl.” His grunted words kept the feeling rolling, your skin tingling all over while your muscles throbbed, reaching fiercely to push his rutting hand from your clit to suspend the overstimulation, you both straining disbelieving laughter, curtailed by the contraction of your muscles around his cock cutting a filthy noise from his throat. 

His rhythm stammered barely a moment after, hands coming to the thick of your thighs and squeezing so severely, as all he’d done to hold out his own release collapsed, the feel of you falling apart at the seams beneath him, tautening around him, and your voice wrecked, still choking on your thanks, all of it too, too much. 

Sid hummed at the keen of his name that fell from you as he pulled out carefully, running a gentle hand over your ass. He could feel his cheeks heat up at the view of his cum leaking from your sopping cunt, burying away the borderline confusing feeling that it could’ve been the sexiest thing he’d ever seen, he ever would see, you looking so much like his. Dry-mouthed, Sid hiked his sweatpants back up and grasped for his shirt somewhere on the floor alongside the bed to save the duvet. God fucking forbid he have to explain the stain.

Propping yourself up a little higher on your hands and knees, your fingers came to your core, face, impossibly, glowing even deeper at the evidence of him there, adding to the aftershocks still trembling between your hips. 

Sid groaned quietly at the sight of you, a little unsteady and still affected before him, with two fingers pressing back into your sensitive pussy. You whimpered as your thighs buckled, pushing his seed back in messily. Sid’s shirt was bundled tight in his hand, the same one he then used to turn you back over sharply, tired giggle falling from your lips as your back collided with the bed.

With a nervy smirk, you propped yourself up on an elbow and ran your tongue over your fingers, sucking them clean and humming at the heady taste.

“You’re gonna fuckin’ end me.” Sid strained and shook his head, mind blank of all other thoughts. His smile prevailed, though, over the arousal stirring in him once more. He nudged at your knee as soon as he managed to snap out of that feeling, opening you up for him, and you shared shallow smiles following your little yelp as he pawed over your used pussy with the soft cotton.

Following the passage of a breathless moment, the pair of you sat across from one another and his hand came to yours, lifting it to toy with your fingers, caressing the knuckle where your teeth had scraped, comparing the insignificant marks to the ones he had, matching them.

When the warmth of his hand on yours began to roil in your chest, you stood up, both hands on Sid’s shoulders to steady your spent body. With a tenderness that had your cheeks full with a stunning grin you simply couldn’t help, Sid helped pull your panties back on, followed by your sleep shorts, and he let his hands remain on your hips, a quiet savouring of the moment, disallowing its inevitable slip for a while longer.  

“I’m gonna go clean up a little,” You murmured after a few beats, one hand collecting under his chin in a messy fist to nudge his eyes up to yours. Sid hadn’t realised his eyes were screwed shut at all until it took a moment to coax them open, the glow of your complexion a sweetener.

You whispered, “I want to kiss you again,”, and his eyes fell back to his lap, that tiny devastation creeping in.

"Are you sure that’s a good idea?” 

The air left his mouth slowly, like the drawing out of heavy nectar. It killed him to say it, to remind you of your sensibilities. 

You didn’t want to remember them, either.