#c writes

1. The First Time

It’s always a little awkward after the sweat cools. Endorphins can only do so much. Stebbins makes animals from the shadows on the ceiling, brain for once perfectly empty as his hands trace warm, bare skin. It’s mindless; easy; an extension of the good feelings they’d chased to their inevitable conclusion.

There aren’t any words for it. His tongue’s made of lead, and the quiet settles like a blanket.

They lay like that for a while, just breathing and tangled up, but it doesn’t last. Hendricks peels away first, while Stebbins is still catching his breath. He twinges a little at the loss but keeps it off his face. His fingers curl in the sheets instead; he allows himself that much.

Hendricks cleans up with a fistful of tissues and dresses like a man who’s used to doing it quickly and in the dark. There’s a sureness to it. A looseness in his spine. He’s humming a little snatch of something, some song Stebbins doesn’t know.

“Casual?” he’d asked a few hours ago when Stebbins had finally finally bit the bullet, grew a pair, and suggested something. He’d grinned crookedly, laughing at his own private joke, “Yeah, B, I can do casual.”

Stebbins hadn’t believed it until now. Hendricks is so emotional in every other circumstance; den-mother and mother hen, constantly checking in, every feeling showing in his big dark eyes. It’s jarring to see something roll off his back without leaving a stain.

Well that’s...convenient.

Hendricks zips his jeans and bends to grab his shirt off the floor. There’s a mark on his shoulder his t-shirt covers that Stebbins doesn’t remember giving him. Embarrassment warms the pit of his stomach: usually he’s much better at controlling himself. That’s going to bruise.

“This was fun,” Hendricks says. His hair’s more fucked up than normal, mussed from Stebbins’ pillows and his hands, but he doesn’t seem to notice or care. He grins, and he’s loose and easy and casual. “You had fun?”

“You’d know if I didn’t,” Stebbins replies. He’s dead serious, but Hendricks laughs like it was a gag.

“Yeah, I figured.” God, he almost looks fond in this light. It’s something about his mouth, and his eyes. All soft.

Sex makes Hendricks smiley, that’s all, Stebbins decides. Smiley, and stupid. The same way it makes Stebbins pensive. It’s good information to have.

Hendricks fetches Stebbins’ water bottle from his desk and puts it in easy reach along with the Kleenex. His smile fades, even if the warmth behind it doesn’t. His weight shifts, shoulders drawing up. His right thumb works at the ring he wears on his index finger.

“So, til next time?” Hendricks is the one looming for once, but Stebbins has him in the palm of his hand. He tips his chin, half an acknowledgement, half a dismissal.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “I’ll find you.”

Hendricks doesn’t kiss him before he goes, which is good. It wouldn’t be casual of him at all. Hardly friends-with-benefits behaviour. He’d probably bite, too, Stebbins thinks as he pushes himself upright as the door clicks shut. Alone again. His lips sting and throb, hot under his fingers when he touches them.

Yeah. It’s a good thing. He’s had enough of being gnawed on for one night.

2. The Night Out

His pulse races like they’re about to be caught, even in the aftermath. His lungs heave for thin night air that reeks of hot garbage and Newport smoke. His knees hold, but it feels like a negotiation rather than a sure thing. He slumps back and lets the wall take his weight, sweat prickling under his arms and cold down his spine. The rough brick scrapes at his jacket and tugs at his hair when he turns his head.

Every sidelong glance he catches lands like a spark against his skin, a hot little jolt.

He looks away fast, but never for long.

Hendricks hums around a cigarette—what the hell is that song?—and the only reason he isn’t closer—too close, really, making Stebbins’ personal space his own again—is because he knows Stebbins can’t stand the stink of cigarette smoke. It makes his lungs itch.

He kind of hates that Hendricks knows that. That they’ve done this often enough that he’s being perceived at all.

Inside, their housemates are drinking and carousing and the music throbs loud enough to hear it in the alley out back. It’d been easy to slip away unnoticed. But uncertainty niggles: someone could see. Worse: someone could come looking.

The thought had been thrilling ten minutes ago. Now it just sours his stomach. He smooths out his shirt. Neatens his hair with steady fingers. Checks his fly for the fourth time. What they did feels like a brand on his cheek for anyone to see, but at least he can look put-together at a glance.

“I can’t believe we did that,” he says, and the disbelief still stewing in him irons it flat and harsh.

“I told you you’d like it.” Hendricks laughs. It pricks. He’s always hated to be laughed at. Hendricks sounds raspy and smoky and unbothered. He sounds like he just had a cock down his throat. He sounds like he liked it.

Heat rushes under Stebbins’ skin. He ignores it. Works his jaw. It twinges, sore from clenching. They’d had to be quiet, after all. Quiet, and fast. Anyone could have seen them.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.” Hendricks tips his head and grins, cut with shadow, sharp and vulpine. All-too-knowing. “You’re easy to read.”

“What.” He bristles.

“I mean, you also came in, like, two minutes, that tends to tip a guy off—hey!”

Stebbins grabs the loudmouth by his jacket and throws him back into the wall. The leather creaks in his grip, but he barely hears it over his thundering pulse. Someone could hear him. Someone could tell. They’re in public.

“Shut up,” he grits out.

Hendricks’ eyes are wide and dark for a second. But only a second. Something passes over his face too small and fast to read. Then he laughs to himself and shows his hands up by his ears. Empty, mostly: I’m no threat. Slowly, all flash, he takes a drag off his cigarette, cherry flaring like a dying star, and blows the smoke to one side. The line of his jaw cuts through the dark, rough with yesterday’s stubble.

“Okay,” he says. “You’re embarrassed. Noted. You don’t have to get pushy about it.”

Hot with—shame? Guilt? Something worse?—fever, it must be fever, Stebbins lets him go and steps back. He flexes his hands. He shouldn’t have done that. He’s better than that. God, he has to be better than that. His Mama raised him better, didn’t she?

He opens his mouth to say something. Anything. But away in the dark a door opens. Music and laughter and light spill out. Stebbins steps back into deeper shadow, heart hammering again, fear like ice-water in his mouth. The dumpster presses into his back, cold. There’s nowhere else to go.

“Chance, you out here?” Baker calls. He sounds happy and hammered and on a different planet entirely. Just some friendly martian dropping by for a chat.

Hendricks looks at Stebbins. The shadows make a mask of his face. Stebbins sets his jaw and looks away. His teeth ache and his heart pounds caught caught caught in frantic double-time. What if Baker tells? What if his father hears—oh god, his father—

“Yeah,” Hendricks calls back. “Yeah, Art. I’m comin’.”

No you’re not. You already did. Made a fuckin’ mess of yourself with my dick in your mouth and a hand between your legs whining about how good it felt and how bad you needed it—

The words rise up like bile. He swallows them. They settle viscous and mineral-flat in the pit of his stomach. The taste lingers.

Hendricks grinds out his smoke and flicks the butt away. He glances at Stebbins one last time; he smiles like nothing’s ever touched him. Like none of this matters at all.

Then he winks and walks away.

3. The Kinky One

“I didn’t enjoy that,” he says into the quiet after. It feels like an organ tearing loose.

The quiet is the only familiar part: there’s none of the usual release, the relaxation and mindless calm. His stomach churns, his jaw clenches. Clarity leaves him cold.

Hendricks hums sleepily and shifts, draped bonelessly across his stomach. He kisses Stebbins’ chest, his collarbone, his shoulder. Each little peck seems to rouse him more and more, until he’s propping himself up on his elbows to look Stebbins in the face.

There’s no judgment in his expression; no mocking contempt when Stebbins makes himself really look. There’s—concern. Maybe some curiosity. A furrow between his eyebrows, a quirk to his raw, red mouth.

“No?”

“No.” The words dry up behind his teeth.

Hendricks’ stare scours like August sunlight back home. Just staring at the ceiling doesn’t help. He needs to cut it off; blot it out. He adjusts his grip and Hendricks’ moves like wet clay. He allows himself to be molded and reshaped, his face tucked securely into the curve of Stebbins’s neck, his dark eyes shuttered.

There. That’s better. Stebbins breathes out.

Hendricks huffs a laugh. The fingers of one hand sink into Stebbins’s hair at the nape of his neck between pillow and skin and stay there, twitching. Petting.

“Okay,” he hums. He hooks a knee around Stebbins’; catching his legs the way he couldn’t his eyes. “You didn’t like it?”

“It was fine in the moment,” Stebbins decides. The words come slow. He works to find more.

It had been...a long day. A long week. One thing after the other, heavier and heavier until his patience felt frayed to snapping in the summer heat and none of his usual tricks were working.

The sex had been an offering. An outlet. Hendricks’ cocky grin paired with the easy surety in his voice: “Bad day? Take it out on me then. I’m not gonna break.”

Stebbins had grabbed at the excuse with both hands, but in the aftermath he’s...unsettled. Bite-marks litter Hendricks’ shoulders and neck, bruises and scratches darken his hips and thighs and every other place Stebbins’s hands fell, and that’s only the damage he can see. Did he use enough lube?

Christ. He didn’t even prep him, too worked up to bother with a shred of common decency or a scrap of patience once his pants came off. He’d barely gotten the condom on, and even that had mostly been muscle memory.

“Ouch,” Hendricks laughs, here and now. “Damned by faint praise.”

“You were fine.”

“Only fine?”

“Stop fishing.” Hendricks grins against his throat, caught. Stebbins forces out some bare-faced honesty. His Mama would be so proud. “I don’t like feeling out of control like that.”

It’s more honest than he wanted to be. But Hendricks only hums, encouraging, and kisses his pulse-point. His lips linger. He really is all mouth.

There are more words but he can’t say them. Even admitting it feels—wrong. It had been good, in the moment. Better than good. He’d been vicious and satisfied and every noise he’d yanked from Hendricks’ throat had been another little victory soothing his stung pride. In the moment he hadn’t cared about anything but glutting the hunger that hollowed him out. Hendricks was secondary. He could have been anyone. Stebbins had reduced him to a wet hole and an eager throat and he’d felt good about it.

Am I a bad person?

Probably not. But the worry persists.

“Okay,” Hendricks says with a yawn. “So we won’t do it again.”

“What?”

It can’t be that easy. Hendricks had been into it—eager for it, even. It had been his idea in the first place. But he lets go of the possibility of a repeat performance as easily as he does anything, with an open hand and a shrug.

“Mm. Yeah. If you’re not into it then we can skip it.”

“But...”

The cold tip of Hendricks’ nose nudges the underside of his jaw. “What’s the point in doing it if we’re not both having fun?”

“You’re not,” it doesn’t make sense. It’s like he doesn’t care at all about being disrespected, being reduced. “...upset?”

“No?” He shifts like he means to get up and Stebbins panics. He tightens his grip and keeps Hendricks where he put him in the first place.

Hendricks stays.

He goes boneless, actually, which sets a little satisfied flicker dancing behind Stebbins’ ribs that he doesn’t want to look at too closely. Or at all.

“I asked you to. It was fun, but—what?”

“Fun.” Stebbins scoffs. “Did you even get off?”

He’s expecting annoyance, a prickle of displeasure at the reminder. Hendricks withdraws when he’s upset. He withholds. Stebbins braces for the chill.

Instead, Hendricks laughs breathlessly and shoves his arm in his face.

“Are you kidding?” he asks. There’s a perfect ring of teeth going dark on his forearm, imprinted deep into the skin. It’s already starting to bruise black and red. The arm drops. So does Hendricks’ voice when he tips his head and puts his mouth to Stebbins’ ear. “I came hands-free on your cock, biting down so I wouldn’t wake half the house.” Then a tease: the sting of teeth against the lobe before Hendricks drops his chin and tucks back into his neck.

“So if that’s what’s bugging you, knock it off. I had a great time. I’m a freak, but that doesn’t mean I’m an asshole. If you don’t wanna do it like that again we won’t. There’s nothing wrong with the way we normally fuck. Obviously.”

Obviously.

He makes it so easy. Stebbins swallows hard.

“Okay,” he says. He starts to sit up, looking for his clothes. He’d thrown them off to wherever-the-fuck before, and the oversight annoys him now. “I’ll be right back. Stay here.”

Hendricks sprawls out like he owns the bed. He bled on it. Maybe he does. He’s scratched and bitten and bruised and well-fucked, but he grins up at Stebbins, all teeth, like he’s won something. “Aw, you wanna take care of me?”

“Shut up.”

“You doo-oo,” he sing-songs.

“Jesus fuckin’ wept, Hendricks.”

His raspy laughter chases Stebbins from his own bedroom.

He doesn’t entirely hate it.

4. The Afterparty

“Did Barko actually need help?”

Stebbins doesn’t startle at the sound, just makes a questioning noise in the back of his throat without opening his eyes. Hendricks hadn’t been sleeping, just curled boneless in their little blanket nest, so it was no surprise he’d broken the quiet. He doesn’t move at all, except to open his mouth. His breath fans hotly against the hollow of Stebbins’s throat, raising goosebumps.

His hair’s a soft mess against Stebbins’s fingers. He closes his fist, tugging, thinking aimlessly of a second round. He could go again. They’ve got time. They could make time.

Hendricks moans—fuck, what a pretty noise—and refuses to be deterred.

“Barkovitch. Ye high. Bottle blond. You’ve met.”

“Unfortunately.”

Under the quilts, Hendrick’s back hitches in a quiet laugh. His palm slides along the curve of Stebbins’ waist, heavy and sure. Even his rings are warm. “Before. You said he was asking for me, but I couldn’t find him when I looked.”

“Oh. That.”

The sound of the party filters up through the floor, distant as stars. Something shatters. Someone laughs. Music throbs. The attic is a world unto itself, cool and quiet, dark but for the glow from the streetlights filtering in. Falling snow diffuses the light into something soft and hazy.

“He didn’t need you when I found you.” A pause. Someone screams like they’ve been shot on the ground floor. It’s not Stebbins’ problem. He just came so hard he can’t feel his legs. He flexes his toes. Or at least, he hopes he does. He tries to count his toes. One, two, three... “He might now.”

“Now why would you do that?”

“Figured it’d be true enough soon.”

“Okay,” says Hendricks. His chin digs into Stebbins’s ribs. “And what happened to Jason?”

“Who?”

“You know who.”

“You sure?”

“The one with the dark hair and dimples. And the arms.”

“You liked his arms?” Stebbins opens his eyes just to squint at the ceiling. Shadows stretch long fingers into strange shapes. He frowns.

“Ha. So you do know who I’m talking about.”

Stebbins lets the silence settle. Hendricks scoffs wryly and starts to rise. The cold rushes in.

“Careful, B. Sending me on a wild goose chase to scare off the guy I was talking to doesn’t seem very casual. You’ll make me think you actually like me or something.”

His throat clicks when he swallows. He burns every place they touch and freezes every place they don’t.

“Or something,” he agrees.

+1: Whoops, You’re Dating

The sheets are warm. He stretches out an arm hopefully across the mattress, searching. Realization comes too soon:

The bed’s empty.

He’s alone.

Fuuuuuck.

“Well that was a poor showing,” he groans into the pillow. Humiliation washes him from the inside out. What am I, sixteen in the back of my mom’s pick-up truck again? God. Fuck. No wonder he bolted.

“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far. I take it as a compliment, really.”

Stebbins rolls over. The clock says he’s been dozing forty-five minutes; the thought doesn’t make him cringe for once. The curtains are still drawn tight, but rain taps at the window. Hendricks sits at his desk, jotting something down in a notebook with a chewed up pen. He takes up space like its his right; like he’s comfortable here; like Stebbins’ things are his things.

He’s still wearing that old shirt, washed thin and soft and shapeless. Property of Jefferson Athletics Department faded across the chest. It’s too big on him; the stretched-out neckline sags to reveal a lovebite on his collarbone and a nicotine patch nearer to his shoulder.

It doesn’t spark the same frenzy it did earlier: Stebbins, blindsided; Hendricks sleep-rumpled, in Stebbins’ bed, wearing his clothes. But, Christ, he’s only flesh and blood.

“You look cold over there.”

“Do I?”

“Freezing.”

“It’s May.”

“Record snowfall last week.”

“Yeah, in Montana.”

“Aren’t you the one that says that sickness abides no man?”

“Doesn’t sound like me.”

“You sure?”

Hendricks grins down at his notes like Stebbins can’t see him. It’s such a stupid smile it drags at the corners of Stebbins’ own mouth in sympathy.

“Chance,” he rasps.

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“I mean no. You have a look.”

“What look?”

“You know what look.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“A scheming look. And I’ve got stuff.” He gestures with the pen, then puts it back in his mouth.

“Stuff.” He will not be jealous of an inanimate object. He will not. He has standards.

“Uh-huh.”

“Sounds important.”

“You’re such a dick,” Hendricks laughs. “Drink your tea and leave me alone, Romeo. I’ve got a sonnet to finish.”

There’s a mug on the bedside table, still steaming. A lemon-wheel bumps against his lip when he drinks. It’s bitter and sour and perfect. He settles against the headboard, pleased. Cradling the tea between his hands, he slowly shifts the blankets down his legs. The door’s locked and the air’s warm, the knot of tension pulsing behind his right shoulder-blade has unravelled entirely. He’s as close to relaxed as he ever gets.

He lets his attention settle where it wants. Hendricks doesn’t look up from his notebook. That’s okay. Stebbins can wait.

Stebbins can be excruciatingly patient, if the need calls for it. If grinding himself down to the bone can’t get him what he wants, sometimes waiting will do the trick. In the mean time, he drinks his tea, and shifts minutely to the best possible angle to lounge comfortably. Could he be doing something else? Yeah. But he wants to be doing this instead. Free will, and all that. Maybe living with these lunatics is rubbing off on him at last.

The thing is:

He knows exactly what he looks like naked. Better than that, he knows exactly what it does to Hendricks to see it displayed.

The mug’s half-full by the time Hendricks glances up, stops, and blinks. He wets his lower lip, all eyes.

Stebbins smirks. He shifts his knee a fraction. Hendricks’ gaze lights on his ankle, touches his knee, drags up the length of his thigh, up and up, and it takes an age to catch him. He bites his lip.

Hendricks’ eyes are very dark, when they eventually pour into his.

“How’s the sonnet?” Stebbins asks.

“Oh, fuck you.”

Hendricks tosses aside the pen and rises. He crosses the room in three strides, and seeing him worked up about anything is always entertaining. The smirk Stebbins wears flickers into something shit-eating and undoubtedly pleased. He sets aside the mug before a lapful of Hendricks can knock it out of his hand entirely.

“Such a dick,” he mutters and drags Stebbins into a kiss.

He’s had worse.

✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿✿

connor didn’t know that you would be home. to be fair, you had told him that you were not getting off work until late that night. he was going to surprise you with flowers, a new sweat-set, and a kindle; yours had broken last week.

you heard the garage door open, and saw him come in, sweat soaked and looking like a gift from god from his afternoon skate.

“oh, hey, sweetie!” he stated, a shocked look on his face.

“hey!! i got off work early today!!”

“that’s… great!” he cringed.

a frown forming on your face, you asked, “why are you acting like you don’t want me to be here?”

“well… i don’t want you to,” he paused, realizing his mistake, “no, no, no!! i am so glad you are here. i was just going to surprise you whith this.” holding up the bags, he smiled, “surprise!”

“you’re joking…” you see the kindle peaking out of the bag, enticing you to get closer to your hot boyfriend, even hotter knowing the things he does because he loves you, “did you really—“

“yea. i did. i love you, and you love your kindle. why wouldn’t i get it for you?” he was confused. why wouldn’t he buy his girlfriend something she loved. he could spend the money, which he had a lot of, and he wanted to see you smile.

“but… why? my exes—“

“am i your exes?”

“well, no, but—“

“but nothing. i did it because i love you,” he drifted closer to your lounging body on the couch, “i love your smile. i love your laugh. i love the way your eyes light up when you start a new book. i. love. you.”

your eyes start to tear up, “really?”

“really, really,” he looked at you with love, searing a permanent place in your heart, “i will always love you. forever. and ever. and ever.”

“can i tell you something?”

“you can always tell me something. anything.” he looked at you as if you were the center of his whole world. you had never had that kind of love before.

“i— i love you, too…” you looked at him, waiting for a response, “i think i have for a while, i was just too scared to tell you.”

connor came and sat beside you. he kissed away your tears, telling you how beautiful you were. he always told you, but he didn’t have to. you could always tell how beautiful and loveed you were, just with the way he looked at you.

his lips had made it to yours, mumbling a soft, “i love you so much, sweetie,” before gently crushing his lips to yours.