#it's only been...almost three weeks of that behavior...

No curtains, no shades. There's not even a half-effort of an old sheet hung up over the glass pane. And at night? When he can't sleep, and the moths circle the flickering porch lights, and you've got those blue or red or purple LED lights on…well.

Pope can see right into your apartment.

Can see you, watching TV on the couch or cooking boxed macaroni in nothing but a loose tank top and a pair of lace underwear.

He thinks you might be the only good thing about the apartment that Smurf forced him into only three days after he was released from prison.

It's been a long time since he's looked at a woman, you know. Longer since he's seen one as pretty as you.

He's not lacking self awareness or anything. Pope knows your open windows and ever changing LEDs aren't an invitation to stare, but…sometimes it feels like one.

You fall asleep on the couch most nights. Which is good for him, because Pope can't see into your bedroom.

Some things, he begins to realize, are a sort of chaotic routine.

You tend to fall asleep with your phone in your hand and scramble to find it each morning (it's always under the couch, beneath the hot pink throw pillow you kick off in your sleep).

You don't eat breakfast because you don't wake up early enough to (don't you know it's the most important meal of the day?). Most mornings, you wake up with just enough time to doll yourself up in the bathroom, prioritizing glittery eyeshadow and shimmering lip gloss rather than the sustenance of a bowl of cereal.

He doesn't know what you do for work, but it's something with an inconsistent schedule. You sleep until noon on your days off, which could be any day of the week, Pope learns.

Work doesn't stop you from going out, though. Saturday nights are reserved for those miniskirts and stiletto heels and all your giggling girlfriends who get ready on your living room floor with a hand mirror. You share perfume and makeup and clothes with them before you all climb into a shared uber.

A few times, Andrew finds himself tempted to follow you. He tells himself it's not like he'd be doing it for his own satisfaction. He'd just be doing it to keep an eye on you, that's all. You're a young girl (too young for someone his age). Don't you know there are predators out there?

But he never does. Because that would be weird, right? You don't even know him. But…he certainly starts to feel like he knows you.

You and your friends always stumble back to your apartment, sometimes falling up the concrete steps to the second floor. One of them will make pizza rolls or messy peanut butter sandwiches and you'll pass around cold bottles of water and spill electrolyte drink mixes on the kitchen counter.

You'll share your things with them even after the club, selfless girl. Passing out hair ties and makeup removing wipes and big t-shirts for them to sleep in. On one particular night, when most of them are passed out on the couch, legs and arms tangled together, Pope even watches you you share a kiss with one of them under pink LEDs.

That night, Andrew has to force his attention away. It feels way too close to the beginning of that porno Craig left open on the family computer years ago.

But this doesn't feel erotic. Watching your mouth move against someone else's doesn't elicit any warmth beneath the fabric of his jeans.

No, it makes Andrew...upset. Angry, even.

It makes him jealous.

He tries not to think about it again. Tries even harder (and fails, repeatedly) to give you some privacy on Saturday nights.

But Sundays…Sundays are sacred.

Both for you and for him.

So much so that he pulls out on a job when his brothers plan it for a Sunday. Tells them he has to check in with his parole officer that day. Lies to their faces, because he doesn't want to miss out on you.

Because every Sunday, without fail, Andrew gets to see you naked.

You start by cleaning your apartment. Wiping down the counters and vacuuming the carpet and dusting the top of the cabinets. Then you light the candle on the coffee table (pink champagne, he's pretty sure, after looking endlessly online to match up the glass container. Twenty six dollars. Four day shipping. Currently sitting unlit on his nightstand).

And when you're ready, you strip off all your clothes and discard them in the bathroom.

You put oil in your hair and nineties R&B on your bluetooth speaker. You paint your toes (usually white or black, occasionally an electric blue) and glue artificial nails with sparkling gems onto your fingers.

Sunday showers are the longest, Pope knows. Sometimes thirty minutes. And when you emerge from the bathroom, steam rolls out from the open door and you've got your hair wrapped up in a towel. You balance yourself with a foot on the edge of the couch and massage lotion into your skin first.

From top to bottom, moisturizing your entire body. And then you repeat the motion with an oil, and it's during this particular step that Andrew starts feeling a little lightheaded.

He'd bet you feel all smooth and soft and smell so fucking good. Maybe like vanilla or cherry or coconut. And, god. He wants to touch you. He wants to touch himself.

But he resists.

The first three times, anyway.

By the fourth Sunday, though…well. His cock gets so fucking hard in his jeans that it's leaking. Making a big fucking mess in his boxers. It hurts, you know?

And it's not like you'll know he's doing it. He's had a little over a month to perfect his setup—lights off, chair angled perfectly so if anyone glanced into his apartment they'd have to really look in order to see him.

So, he takes his cock in his hand and imagines it's your delicate fingers wrapped around him instead. Imagines it's his hands rubbing oil into your shoulders, over the swell of your breasts, pressing into your hips, squeezing at the supple flesh of your thighs.

He'd make sure to do it just how you like. And Pope wouldn't need to be told how to, either. Because he's spent so much time watching you now that he would just know.

He wonders if your head would fall back, wet hair clinging to your slick skin. He wonders if he pressed just right into that tender spot at the small of your back that you're always so gentle with if you'd moan or whine or whimper. Maybe even say his name.

Andrew cums at the thought alone, grunting low, lips parted, his release spilling over his hand and down the hard length of his cock.

The shame doesn't take hold of him for a while.

Not until later that night, when your hair is blow dried and you're dressed in a pretty silk pajama set. You've got some trashy reality show on the TV, and you're eating the pizza you had delivered right out of the box.

Andrew takes the moment to clean himself up. To change out of his clothes and into something more comfortable. He brushes his teeth and climbs in bed, but lays with his head propped up by an extra pillow so he can still see clearly out of his window.

He knows it's weird. He knows he shouldn't be staring at a naked girl who's probably half his age and doesn't know there's some fucking creep across the courtyard who watches her every fucking day. He knows he shouldn't be fucking his fist watching you put lotion on your skin. He knows he shouldn't be changing his plans with family or friends around your schedule, just so he can watch you a little longer.

He knows he should stop.

The problem, however, lies in the wanting.

Andrew's never had much. Not when it comes to women. But you…god. You're so beautiful, and so pure and so different from anything he's ever seen. You don't belong to anyone but yourself, and once he sees you, he finds it impossible to look away.

Things change late one Friday night.

Andrew gets sloppy. He gets comfortable, here in this routine he's created around you.

There's music coming from your apartment, some electronic pop ballad that's at a volume so loud he can hear it from across the courtyard (there will be complaints to the office manager tomorrow morning, he knows. But you don't have to worry. Pope will take care of it for you, baby. He'll make sure you can keep having your fun).

You're wearing just a lacy bra and a pair of linen sleep shorts. There's a seltzer in your hand, and you're singing and dancing like you've somehow summoned all the energy from the club right there in your apartment.

It's a beautiful sight, truly. You're so happy and carefree. The warmest ray of sunshine that he wants to find himself basking under.

Andrew gets comfortable, posture relaxing in the chair that now lives permanently in front of his window. He watches you dance around your apartment, the easy smile on your face reflected back on his own.

He thinks he could really take care of you. Keep you safe. Protect all that girlish whimsy that lives in your heart. He'd make you real happy, Andrew thinks. Would watch you dance with your friends at the club, leaning against the bar. He'd take you shopping and add more of those short dresses into your closet. He'd make you breakfast in the mornings before work and Christ—he'd buy you a set of fucking curtains.

Pope is so lost in the fantasy of it that he doesn't register in time that your dancing has slowed. And you've put your seltzer down on the coffee table.

And you're staring right back at him.

His heart kicks up, pounding against his chest. He knows he should move out of sight, shut his blinds, pass this off as a mistake, maybe even pretend he hadn't seen you.

But he doesn't do any of that.

He's frozen in time, terrified and exhilarated all at once by simply being perceived by you.

Pope just…stares.

It seems to be the only fucking thing he's capable of these days.

He expects you to flip him off or maybe come barreling out of the door and across the courtyard to confront him. Or maybe you'll scurry away into your room. Maybe you'll order a set of curtains online.

But you don't do any of that.

You just stare right back.

Andrew tilts his head curiously. It's an involuntary movement.

In the end, you're the first to look away. You pick up your seltzer, dump it down the drain in the kitchen, and then disappear into the bathroom to brush your teeth.

Your routine remains the exact same. You find your phone beneath the throw blanket on the couch and turn off the TV. You turn the kitchen light off and turn on the light above the stove instead. You grab a water bottle from the fridge, and then go to bed in your room.

It's not rushed, and you don't seem nervous or fearful that there's someone watching you.

And Andrew thinks to himself, see. This is why you need him. This is why you need someone looking out for you. Don't you know how dangerous he could be?

He would never hurt you, Andrew knows. But you don't know that.

He doesn't sleep that night. He doesn't sleep often as it is, but his mind is running too fast. Cataloguing all the potential scenarios in which you cut off all access he has to you, severing the comfort he finds in his new favorite, voyeuristic hobby.

And Andrew wouldn't—couldn't—blame you for it. He thinks that's what you should do.

You don't.

The following morning, your routine changes.

On the nights you fall asleep in your bed, you're usually dressed in a pair of jeans with gems decorating the pockets and a low-cut top by the time you emerge from your room.

But not this time.

No, this time you're still wearing the same clothes you'd fallen asleep in. A lacy bra and cotton shorts.

Andrew watches, freshly emerged from the quickest shower of his life, hair still wet, as you stand in front of the fridge to find the fizzy energy drink you'd brought home with you last night.

He watches you struggle for a moment to crack the seal open (Those pretty nails of yours. He could help you with that, you know). You take a slow sip, put the aluminum can down on the counter, and turn your head just enough to let Pope know you see him.

You know he's there, in the window. You know he's watching.

And then, painfully slow, you drag your shorts down your thighs. The fabric pools at your feet, and Pope loses all train of thought.

Because this is no accident. You want this. You want him to watch you.

Your bra is next. You reach around to unclasp it and soon after the lace joins the linen fabric on the linoleum floor.

Warmth blooms beneath his skin as he watches you press your hands to your abdomen, feeling your skin, running your hands up your chest and over the swell of your breasts.

You try and play it off like a stretch, lifting your arms above your head and arching your back.

Andrew knows it's not.

You get ready the rest of the morning like normal. And Andrew…God. He doesn't know what to think.

He knows he should stop this before it goes too far. He thinks it already has.

It's…it's weird, right?

Everything about it is wrong.

He doesn't want to stop, but he knows he should.

He tries, though. For what little it's worth.

Tries to busy himself building a fountain at Smurf's. Tries to find small jobs he can do himself to pass the time. He still thinks about you all hours of the day, though. Like a thorn stuck beneath his skin, aching when he moves just the wrong way.

He overhears Nicky explaining to Deran what an 'everything shower' is and thinks about your Sunday ritual. He walks into a hungover Craig making boxed macaroni in his boxers and thinks of you. Smurf lights a candle called pink cashmere and even though it's not pink champagne, it still makes him think of you.

The pretty little girl in the apartment across from his, who he finds himself certifiably, insanely, obsessed with.

One Thursday afternoon, Andrew returns home earlier than he'd planned. He tells himself he just wants to get a little glance.

Just one look. You know, to soothe the ache the thought of you brings. To see if maybe he imagined the weight of your stare.

What he finds, though, is somehow more concerning.

You're pacing your living room, cell phone pressed to your ear, still wearing jeans and your sneakers. There's tension in your shoulders and even though he can't hear the conversation you're having with the person on the other end of the phone, he can see that you're shouting.

It drags on for the better half of an hour. The pacing, the frustrated hand waving, the pinching of the bridge of your nose. Whatever it is, Andrew bets he could help with it.

He hates seeing you stressed. Thinks you should be living your fun, carefree life like normal. You shouldn't be burdened with…whatever it is that's got you so upset.

But it's not like he can go over and just ask.

So, he chooses a different path instead.

Gets the key to the office of the apartment complex from Smurf. Rummages through the paper files until he finds the lease contract linked to your apartment number.

Andrew thinks he should've done this weeks ago. He learns an awful lot about you this way. Like your name, which he begins to recite like a mantra in his head. He learns your birthday and, regretfully, your age.

But, most importantly, he discovers (and memorizes) your phone number.

And that same day, he returns to Smurf's with a torn piece of paper with the digits scribbled on it. He hands it to his nephew and says, "Need you to get a few phone call records. Can you do that for me?"

J furrows his brows in confusion. "Who's number?"

Pope shrugs. "No one," he lies. "Can you get the records or not?"

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, probably. Anything specific you're looking for?"

"I wanna know about a call that happened today. Around two or so. Lasted almost an hour. Just get me the number of whoever was on the other line."

J hesitates for a single moment, and then nods slowly. "Alright. I'll get back to you on it."

In the meantime, Andrew spirals.

The thought of you having a boyfriend never really crossed his mind until now. You don't really have men over. Just your girl friends.

But there are some Saturday nights you don't come home, stumbling in early Sunday morning instead with sunglasses on and your hair a mess. So, Pope thinks you very well could have a boyfriend and he never would've known it.

Pope tells himself if it is a boyfriend, he won't…he won't do anything. It's not his place to make decisions for you, right?

Still. You shouldn't let a man stress you out so much. Whoever it is, they're not worth it. You deserve better. You deserve more.

You deserve someone who knows you.

Less than two hours later, Pope gets a phone call from J, who explains that the person on the other end of that phone call wasn't a person at all.

It was your phone company.

Your stupid fucking service provider who just so happened to put an extra two hundred dollar fee on your bill this month, claiming data overages.

All that stress wasn't over a boyfriend. It was over money.

And money is something Andrew can provide.

He waits until you leave for work, locking up tight behind you. But that doesn't matter, not now. Andrew has a key to the office, which means he has access to the spare key to your apartment.

He is fully aware that he shouldn't be doing this, but ten minutes after you leave he unlocks the door and steps inside anyway.

Your apartment smells sweet. Like sugar and citrus. He wonders if you smell the same way, and the thought alone makes Andrew's mouth water.

He moves slowly into your space, fingers tracing over the TV stand, feeling the wood beneath his calloused fingertips. He straightens the crooked throw pillow on the couch and puts the lighter for your candle back into the tray on the coffee table.

Andrew knows he should just…leave the cash and go. He shouldn't be snooping around, invading your privacy.

But you left a knife point-side up in the strainer in the sink. And you could get hurt doing something like that.

And once he's already in the kitchen, turning the knife over so the sharp edge is down, well…what will it hurt if he opens a couple of drawers?

None of your silverware matches. Andrew finds this little fact sort of endearing. Messy and chaotic in the same way you are, but that's okay. Maybe he can fix that for you one day, too.

Your bathroom is cluttered. There's makeup products littering the porcelain sink and the cabinet mirror is left wide open. Andrew picks up a few different products to read the labels and finds lip liners and leave-in conditioners and powdered blush with pilled pigment on the counter.

He finds that lotion you're always using on Sundays and opens the lid. Andrew brings the container to his nose, inhales deeply, and feels suddenly too hot.

The scent of it is sweet, like you. There's notes of syrupy amber and warm florals and it has the muscles in his abdomen squeezing tight as he thinks about how potent the scent would be if he were between your legs, freshly oiled, calves resting on his shoulders as he licks and sucks at your clit.

His cock has been half hard since the moment he stepped foot in your apartment, but by the time he makes it to your bedroom?

Pope is aching.

Your clothes are strewn all over. There's t-shirts on the floor and jeans inside out near the hamper and a dress you'd worn two weekends ago lying on the edge of your unmade bed.

It smells like you in here, too. Even more so. There's less perfume, but Andrew swears he can smell the scent of your skin. Sweet and intoxicating, sending sparks of arousal straight to his groin.

Your bedside table has a lamp on it and three half-empty bottles of water. There's one drawer, and he pries it open and gives a slow exhale to see all the silk and lace inside.

Going through your underwear drawer is, quite literally, the very last thing someone like Andrew Cody should be doing.

He does it anyway.

Rummages around until he finds that little black pair you like to sleep in. He runs his fingers over the lace band, feeling the softness beneath the rough pad of his thumb. His cock is throbbing, even before he brings the fabric to his nose and inhales the scent of laundry detergent and faint mahogany from the nightstand and—there. The scent of you.

As close as he can get.

As close as he'll probably ever get.

He needs to leave. Andrew is painfully aware that this is crossing a line of a whole new degree. Levels above simply watching.

This is obsession. This is addiction. Sick and twisted and perverted.

Andrew does not leave.

He climbs into your bed instead. Kicks off his boots and discards his hoodie until he's in nothing but his jeans. He slips beneath your sheets—satin, and pink, and filled with the scent of your shampoo and your skin and—fuck.

His cock is leaking by the time he undoes his belt. Andrew reaches beneath your blankets and shoves his jeans down just enough to free himself.

And it's almost enough to blow his load right fucking there, when the underside of his heavy length brushes against the fabric of your sheets. It's almost too much, being in your room, in your bed, breathing in your scent.

But he resists. Grits his teeth and takes his cock in one hand and uses the other to wrap the soft fabric of your underwear around his aching length.

This time, there's nothing slow about the way he strokes himself to the thought of you. He's desperate for it. Release already clouds the edges of his mind and he needs the relief it'll provide.

His brain feels hazy and his vision blurs, just thinking about you, lying here, hand between your legs. He wonders how you touch yourself, if you just play with your clit or if you fuck yourself on your fingers.

The thought crosses his mind that you might be using more than just your hand, and Pope finds himself sitting up. He leans over the edge of your bed and sticks his hand back into your panty drawer, reaching to the very bottom, feeling around until the tips of his fingers brush over silicone.

His heart is beating fast.

It's a small thing. Pink, of course. With only a small, almost hidden power button.

Pope leans back in your pillows and turns the little vibrator on. It buzzes to life in his hand, and when he pushes the button again, the intensity ratchets even higher.

There's only three settings. He turns it to the highest one and imagines holding it against your swollen clit. He imagines you lying under him, thighs around his waist, hips bucking wildly, chasing the vibration that he gives and gives and then takes away.

He turns so he's lying face down in your sheets now, nose pressed into your pillow. Pope puts the vibrator between his cock and the soft expanse of his abdomen, and he feels the sensation everywhere.

He's still got your underwear wrapped around his cock, and he gives a tentative roll of his hips against the mattress.

The groan he lets out is guttural. With his eyes closed, he can imagine its not your panties he's fucking but you. The tight, wet cunt between your legs. He can imagine it's the curve of your throat he's got his nose buried in and not your pillow. He can imagine that sweet, intense vibration is reverberating through your pelvic bone, little toy pressed hard against your clit.

Pope tells himself he'd make it so fucking good for you. He'd bury his cock so deep you'd never forget the weight of it inside you. He'd whisper how beautiful you are in your ear and make you look him in the eyes while he watches you cum over and over and over.

His release is…embarrassingly fast.

A few rolls of his hips against your mattress and he's cumming into the lace fabric of your panties, the vibration of the toy milking him until he's so overstimulated it almost hurts.

Pope rolls over, turns the toy off, and buries it back in the bottom of your drawer. He gives himself a few more moments to gather himself. To catch his breath, to wipe himself clean (never mind the couple of drops that now stain your satin sheets. That could be from anything, right?).

He tucks himself back into his jeans, pulls on his boots and his hoodie, and tosses your underwear in the pile of clothes next to the laundry bin.

There's a pair of your jeans in the middle of the floor, away from the rest. One leg of the denim is inside out. Pope takes the cash from his wallet and tucks it into the pocket, leaving out just enough that he knows you'll notice it.

He leaves.

Locks the door behind him with the spare key.

Makes it halfway across the courtyard before he doubles back, lets himself back into your apartment and into the bathroom where he pockets one of the many different chapsticks on the sink.

It isn't until he's home, tucked safe back in his own apartment, that he realizes it's strawberries and cream flavored.

Andrew puts it on, swiping the transparent petroleum over his lips. He tells himself it's almost like kissing.

Later that day, Craig calls a family meeting. But you've just gotten home, and he knows you'll find the cash within a few minutes when you go to change out of your clothes.

So Andrew waits at the bottom of the stairs on his side of the courtyard. He can't see into your apartment from here, though. And he decides he'll only wait for thirty minutes.

He responds to text messages and opens his blank, photo-less Instagram (that he definitely didn't make only to look at your profile. The one filled with selfies under neon lights and bikini photos on the beach and mirror pictures in the dressing room at that one boutique in the mall).

Twenty nine minutes later, he hears an apartment door slam shut and looks up to see you.

You've got your bag over one shoulder and a grin on your face and the cash in your hand. Enough to cover the additional charges and a little extra, too.

You notice him at the bottom of the cement stairs and freeze, but you don't look…scared, like he expects. Maybe a little startled at first, but the tension bleeds from your face the moment you recognize him.

He should say something. Talk to you. Apologize, maybe, for staring at you.

But Andrew isn't sorry.

And he's never really been good at talking, anyway.

You tilt your head and give him the sweetest fucking smile he's ever seen. It's somehow innocent and knowing at the same time, and Andrew feels the corners of his mouth lifting in response.

Something passes silently between you. An understanding, maybe. You know he watches you, and he knows you know, but…you don't stop him. You just let it happen.

You smile at him from fifteen feet away.

And then you turn to leave, no doubt making your way to pay off that stupid bill that caused you so much unrest.

Pope watches you go, like always.

But this time, you glance back at him over your shoulder with…something lingering in your pretty eyes. Excitement, maybe. He can't be sure.

He needs to get closer.

During the family meeting, he isn't very present. His mind is so far away, stuck on you, that he just blindly agrees to whatever job they're doing next and trusts that it'll all work out.

When he returns to his apartment, there's a note stuck to his door.

A pink sticky note with nothing but a phone number and a heart with an arrow through it scribbled on the paper.

Your phone number, Pope knows.

He knows he shouldn't text you.

It's stupid and dangerous and god, you really shouldn't be giving your number to random men. He could be a creep. He could be a stalker or something.

His message just says,

Hello.

Your response is immediate, with no capitalization which seems quite…fitting for you. He finds it strangely endearing.

hey

are u the guy from apt 212 ???

Pope can feel that this is a bad idea already. But he's already here, and there's no going back now, is there? He doesn't want to hurt your feelings. He doesn't want to leave you on read and make you think he's not interested when the problem is the exact opposite.

Yes.

The typing bubble pops up, disappears, and appears again three different times before you send another message.

im gonna be home in like an hr

will u be watching ???

Always, he wants to say. Fucking always. He can't take his eyes off you, no matter how hard he tries. No matter how shameful it feels.

Andrew's hands shake as he types out a response.

Do you want me to be?

No hesitation this time. Your message comes through a second later.

uhmmm tbh yeah <3

He exhales a long breath. It doesn't feel real. Like he's imagining the entire thing. How could he not be? Why on earth would the sweetest, prettiest little thing want someone to watch her?

But the weight of his cell phone in his hand is real.

And the text message is real.

And this…this is real.

Then yes. I will be.

You don't reply, and Andrew's heart flutters in his chest as he takes his practiced position in the chair in front of his window and waits.

True to your word, you're skipping up the steps fifty three minutes after the last message is sent. You turn on those LEDs and and move about your apartment like normal, kicking off your sneakers and dropping your bag by the door. You change out of your clothes and put on a worn in t-shirt that's two sizes too big for you, but underneath…

Pope can see the sheer thigh highs you wear and the black, lace edge of them. He can see those strappy garters attached to them, but nothing else. The straps disappear beneath your shirt, leaving him wanting for more.

You're teasing him, Pope realizes.

He watches with bated breath as you lay on the couch, getting comfortable with the throw pillow against the arm.

And then, for the first time, Andrew watches you touch yourself.

You start slowly, hands roaming over your body, on top of the fabric, massaging gently at the inside of your thighs.

His cock's always hard watching you, truth be told. But this…

His skin feels hot. His lungs feel tight.

Your fingers curl around the edge of your t-shirt, and you pull it over your head to discard it on the floor.

Andrew hasn't seen you wear this set before, not even on those sacred Sundays.

It's pretty. Matching black lace. The bra is low cut and pushes your breasts up your chest, the soft flesh swelling over the top. The waistband of the matching panties is decorated in shining silver gems, laying so perfectly against your hips that he feels dizzy just looking at it.

The prettiest package, just begging to be unraveled by his big, mean hands.

You dressed up for him.

You dressed up for him.

Your hands start to move again, palming your breasts, pulling the lace down until they spill out of the top. Your nipples are so pretty that his mouth waters. He wants to kiss them, to feel the shape of them under his tongue. He wants to kneel over top of you and jerk himself off until they're covered in his sticky white release.

You squeeze your breasts until your nipples form pretty little peaks, and then your hands slide lower. Over your abdomen, and your hips, and then your thighs. You bring them slowly back up, only to slide them over the lace fabric of your panties, right down the center of your cunt.

Andrew thinks he could die.

He could fucking die, just looking at you.

Carefully, you unbuckle the chrome latch of your garter. The left side first, and then the right quickly follows. You leave the lace belt on, but hook your thumbs around the bedazzled lace of your panties and pull them down your thighs painfully slowly.

Your knees fall apart.

Pope swallows hard.

He can see everything from here. The seam of your thighs that he's dreamt about. The pretty shape of your pussy. The wetness that's gathered between your folds, slick and shiny with arousal. With want.

For him. It's for him.

His cock throbs so hard it hurts.

Pope doesn't touch himself. He can't. Can he? All you asked of him was that he watched.

That's what you wanted.

But wouldn't it be better if he was there? Wouldn't it be better if he could touch you, if he could taste you, if he could fuck you?

All you'd have to do is let him in.

Your fingers stroke gently over your clit in small circles, and he watches in awe as your lips part and your spine bends.

He can't hear your moans but god does he wish he could. Thinks about putting a little microphone in your lampshade the next time he sneaks into your apartment.

Your fingers drift lower, over your center, and slowly press inside.

Pope wants it to be him so fucking bad.

If not his cock inside you then his fingers. They're bigger. Longer. Thicker. They'd please you more. Reach places your fingers can't.

Maybe his tongue. He'd drink you right from the fucking source and cum in his jeans, probably. But he'd make sure to find that sweet, velvety spot inside you first and he'd spell his full fucking name over it with a pointed tongue.

Silly girl. Don't you know what he could do for you? Don't you know what he could do to you?

Pope squeezes the bulge in his jeans to try and alleviate the pain of his lust.

You fuck yourself with your fingers, stuffing in one and then two and then three, stretching yourself on them, slick dripping down the seam of your cunt. Your back arches when your free hand finds your clit, and he knows you're close.

He knows he shouldn't, but he searches frantically for his phone anyway and sends another text message.

I want to hear you.

You pause only long enough to grab your phone off the coffee table, read the text, and lay your phone on the arm of the couch behind you.

Pope's phone buzzes in his hand.

You're calling him.

He answers on the first ring, and the sounds that greet him are so erotic it steals the breath from his lungs.

You sound so pretty. So sweet and feminine, everything he's imagined yet somehow so, so much more. He's sure you can hear his heavy breaths on the other end of the phone, but Pope can't find it in himself to care. Can't think of much else besides the way you whimper and the sight of your fingers stuffed inside you.

"Oh, god—"

His inhale is shaky.

"I'm gonna cum," you choke out, words hazy with your moans. "I'm so close, I'm so fucking—hmm. Yes. What's your name?"

He almost doesn't hear you, so lost in the sight before him. Immersed in the euphoria of it. But then he says, voice a low, uncertain whisper, "Andrew."

Your spine bends and the fingers on your clit slow. "Oh my god. Fuck, Andrew—I'm cumming, I'm—yes, yes—god."

His cock twitches and when he tries to soothe it with another tight squeeze, he sends himself careening off the precipice of release instead. His head falls back and his once heavy breaths get stuck in his lungs. Pope rubs himself over his jeans, making a sticky, hot mess in his boxers, generating what little friction he can.

He watches you come down in real time. Not his dreams, not his imagination. He watches it happen. Watches that fucked-out, hazy look cross your face. Watches the tension in your muscles melt away, wishing he could kiss the junction of your throat.

Pope wishes he could worship you. Wishes he could clean you up and put on that trashy reality show you like and hold you against his chest, comforting you while your brain comes back to earth.

Instead, you lean up. Grab your phone and press it to your ear, staring right at him through his wide open window.

He doesn't know what he expects you to say, but it's certainly not, "Have you been inside my apartment, Andrew?"

For a second, he thinks about lying. Because there's no way you know, right? Not for sure. It's not like you have cameras or anything (he knows, because he checked).

But he doesn't want to lie. Not to you.

"I…might have been. Once, yes."

"Did you steal my chapstick?"

"You have ten of them."

He hears your laugh for the first time, and the sound is like sunlight in his chest. "You took the best flavor."

"I'm…I'm sorry. I'll return it."

"Keep it. I already got a new one," you say. "Cost me five hundred dollars, though."

So, you know it was him who left the cash, too.

Smart, pretty girl.

He doesn't say anything, too afraid he'll say something stupid or awkward the way he usually does. He doesn't want to ruin this moment. This absolutely perfect moment.

You smile at him, kiss your palm, and blow it towards your window. "Goodnight, Andrew."

He feels his face heat. "Goodnight."

Pope rides the high of it for days.

Can't shake the sight of you open and bare for him. Can't stop thinking about the sound of your moans or the way you'd said his name in the peak of euphoria. He fucks his first to the thought of it more times than he can count.

And Andrew's never been a really sexual person. Not unless it's with someone he loves.

But is that what this is? Love?

You've never met. Not really, not properly. How could it be something so intense? You don't know him. You don't know who he is or what he does. You don't know how he's hurt and maimed and killed.

Would you be afraid, finding out? Would you run to the police if you knew? Would you recoil away from him with terror in your eyes?

All things left unsaid. All things that may, very well, never be said.

Pope feels so uncertain with all of this that he finds himself resorting to fucking google, even. Search history littered with questions and Reddit threads that never provide any real clarity.

Define love.

Define obsession.

How to know if you're in love?

How to ask a girl out?

How to get over a girl.

Define voyeur.

Define fetish.

How big of an age gap is too big?

Apartments for sale on the east coast.

Pink champagne candle.

Strawberries and cream chapstick bulk pack.

You text him again a week after your exhibitionistic display.

do u wanna like go out sometime?? been thinking about u a lot

He's at Smurf's when he reads the message.

Pope doesn't even realize he's smiling until Deran slides a beer across the counter at him and asks, "What's got you all happy today?"

And Pope just shakes his head. Schools his features back into neutrality and says, "Nothing. Just won a bet."

He can tell his brother doesn't believe him, not even for a second. But thankfully, Deran doesn't push any further. He lets the subject go, but the question stays stuck in Andrew's head for hours.

It takes him a while to decide on a response. It's honest, and…mostly true.

We shouldn't. I'm a lot older than you.

Your response is a single, painful letter.

k

He doesn't respond to try his hand at damage control, even though he wants to. It's probably better this way, he thinks. Better that there's some distance between you. Better that you hate him and see him as the creepy neighbor he is.

But that Saturday night, when you return home, it's not with your friends.

Pope watches from his window as you guide a man up the stairs and into your apartment.

He's tall. Dark haired, with bright eyes and white teeth and a good smile. Closer to your age. Handsome like a man allowed into your space should be.

You're fumbling a little with your apartment key and Pope watches as the man stands behind you and slides his hands down the back of your thighs.

Thighs he should be touching. Thighs he's watched for months. Thighs that spread for him, long before this fucking loser ever laid his eyes on you.

He tells himself he won't interfere.

You're your own woman. You deserve to feel good, even if it's with…someone else.

And Pope knows he's just going to have to get the fuck over it.

He did it to himself, really.

He should look away.

But he watches instead.

Watches the two of you fall onto the couch. Watches another man kiss down the column of your throat and squeeze the supple curve of your ass over your sequined dress.

Your eyes find his from across the courtyard, and Pope's jaw clenches.

Putting on another show for him. Filthy, filthy girl.

And you're just going to give it to some random man? Someone who doesn't know you like Pope does? Someone who doesn't know how you like to be touched?

He needs to look away. Close his own fucking blinds for once.

But he feels frozen. Knowing this time, you're watching him. Looking for him. Goading for a reaction.

Pope watches the slow ascent of the man's hand. Promises himself he won't interfere. He'll just watch to make sure you're safe, that's all.

But the moment that greedy hand disappears beneath your dress, Andrew's moving. Throwing open his door and slamming it closed behind him. He crosses the courtyard and takes the steps two at a time.

His fist against your apartment door is incessant. He doesn't stop, even when he hears the uttered, male voice ask, "Who is that?"

When the door opens, it's you who stands in front of him, chin tilted up as you stare at him, pupils flared wide.

The man you'd brought home with you hovers over your shoulder.

Pope doesn't even look at him. He stares only at you as he says, a little snarl in his voice, "Tell him to leave."

"Dude, what the fuck? Who is this guy?"

Your lips curl at the corners. A devilish little smile. "Okay," you say, nodding, your voice soft and pliant. You turn your head to look at the man who stands behind you. "Sorry, but you've gotta go."

"You're joking," he responds flatly. "You said I could—!"

Andrew reaches past you and takes him by the collar, pulling him out of your apartment and slamming him up against the paneled siding. "I ever see you in this apartment again, I'll fucking kill you. You understand me?"

"Jesus fucking—yeah, okay. Alright. Sorry."

Pope isn't joking. Doesn't say it to scare him off but rather as a warning.

He lets him go and watches him scramble down the stairs. He doesn't turn back to face you until the little tool you used for attention gets in his car and drives away.

And when he does finally turn back to you…Christ. Your eyes are half lidded and full of lust. Pope's close enough this time that there's no mistaking it.

He should be a gentleman. Should take you out first. Bring you home and kiss you on your doorstep and leave you untouched.

He knows he should.

What he does instead is curl his hand around the back of your neck and pull you to him. He leans down, mouth hovering over yours, breathing in your panicky exhales. "This what you want?"

Your grin is immediate and undeniable. You nod and breathe out the word, "Please."

Andrew kisses you hard, crowding you back into your apartment. He kicks the door closed behind him and slides his tongue into your mouth, tasting you and groaning at the sweetness. There's mint and strawberry and you, his favorite flavor.

He feels drunk on it. On the taste of your tongue, the glide of your wet lips over his, the way your hands scramble and tug desperately at his belt.

"Fuck," he sighs, pulling back just enough to see you. "Open your mouth, baby. Wide. And stick out your tongue."

The way you immediately obey has his cock twitching. Good girl. So fucking good for him when he gives you exactly what you need.

Andrew licks the flat of your tongue once, delighting in the way you whimper in response, before bringing his hand to your mouth. He slides two fingers behind your teeth and orders, "Suck."

You do, lips closing tight around the digits, wet tongue swirling over his thick knuckles. He pushes them further down your throat, your eyes locked on his as he makes you choke on them.

"So fucking pretty," he tells you. "You always look so pretty."

Andrew pulls the straps of your mini dress over your shoulders, roughly tugging the fabric over your chest down to expose your breasts.

You're wearing the same lace bra you'd worn when you dressed up for him, he realizes. He can see the peaks of your nipples through the semi-sheer fabric, and leans down to lock his lips around the left one over the lace.

The fabric is rough beneath his tongue, a stark contrast to the softness of your skin. He sucks hard, spreading the wetness of his saliva over the lace. You push your dress further down your waist and over your hips.

Andrew slides his fingers out of your mouth, sticky and dripping with your spit. He brings them to his own lips instead and sucks them clean, watching your breath hitch and your eyes grow impossibly more hazy.

He lowers himself to his knees before you and his slick fingers work quickly at the straps of your heels, unbuckling them to free your pretty, white-painted toes.

Your hands find his shoulders for balance. "I like that you watch me," you tell him. "I think about it sometimes and it makes me so…god, Andrew. It gets me so wet."

He looks up at you from his knees, big brown eyes glassy and full of adoration. "Good," he says. "'Cause I'm gonna watch you a little closer tonight."

That pretty smile finds its way to your face again.

Andrew presses a sweet, chaste kiss to the apex of your thighs. Over your panties, right where he knows your clit lies beneath. He then stands to his feet, towering over you now without the added height of your heels, and presses you forward.

You take a careful step back, nearly losing your balance.

Andrew grins, taking another step, crowding you back towards your bedroom. He doesn't stop until the back of your knees hit the edge of your mattress.

You stumble backwards, falling into the plush sheets that he's all too familiar with. Lying on your back, propped up by your elbows, you stare up at him with wide eyes and he's reminded of a timid little animal caught in the trap of a predator.

Don't you know how dangerous he could be?

You don't look afraid. You actually look…eager.

Pope stands tall at the edge of your mattress. "Take off your clothes."

You do. Unclasping your bra first, tossing the fabric into the already existing mess on the floor. And then your panties follow, thumbs hooking around the fabric to drag it down your legs.

Andrew reaches around and fists the collar of his shirt, tugging it over his head. He feels warm all over, watching you greedily drink up the sight of him. He thinks he'd feel a little nervous, in any other setting. If it were anyone but you.

His sweet, filthy girl.

Andrew reaches into the half-open drawer of your nightstand, searching until he finds your vibrator again.

Your brows furrow as you watch him find it with practiced ease. "You went through my underwear drawer, too?"

"Did more than that," he admits.

You inhale like you're going to speak again, but the words melt to nothing when he tosses the small toy onto the bed beside you.

"Use it," Pope orders.

"What?"

He crawls onto the mattress between your legs, spreading them wide, laying your calves on either side of his hips. "Let me watch you."

There's a moment of hesitation, but you don't look nervous. Only…curious.

You pick up the vibrator and slide the pink silicone through your folds, spreading your arousal before you press the power button. You circle your clit with the tip of it a few times, teasing yourself.

When you turn the toy on, he can feel the vibration against his hands that grip your thighs. You let out a syrupy moan and turn the intensity higher, drawing tight circles around your pretty clit.

He watches you, eyes locked on the pink silicone between your legs. He watches your entrance flutter, tightening around nothing, begging to be filled. "Your pussy is so pretty," he mutters. "Do you know that?"

Your only response is a breathy whimper. You click the intensity up again, putting it on the highest setting, and Pope sighs when your legs begin to shake around him.

He wants to watch you make yourself cum. Wants another scene to fuck his fist to in the shower or in his bed or in his truck.

But he's here. Finally, finally here, in your bed, with you, and he can't help himself.

Pope grips your hips hard and pulls you closer, tilting your hips up into his lap. The vibrator falls from your hand at the sudden movement, but he's quick to return it to you. "Keep going."

You press the silicone back to your clit, and Andrew spreads you open with gentle thumbs. He gathers the spit in his mouth and lets it drip from his lips and onto the seam of your cunt.

And then he's sliding his middle finger inside of your entrance, curling it upwards, searching for that sweet spot that makes you writhe.

It doesn't take long. He's watched you. He knows just what you like and what angle to hit. And the second the tip of his finger presses hard against it, you fist your free hand in the sheets and curses fall from your sweet mouth.

Pope slides another thick finger inside, watching the way you squirm, feeling the walls of your cunt flutter around the swell of his knuckles.

"I'm gonna cum, I'm gonna—oh, fuck. Feels so good, feels so fucking—"

A long, throaty moan leaves your mouth, and he feels the warmth of your release pool in his palm. You're so slick that each wet thrust of his fingers echoes against the walls of your room.

He doesn't stop until you're twitching. Until you click the vibrator off and shove it away from you. And even then, he still gives a few, slow curls of his fingers inside of you. Not touching with intent, just…feeling. Memorizing.

Once you catch your breath, you lean up enough to find his eyes again. You say timidly, shyly, "I want…I want to feel you, Andrew. I want you inside me. Do you…do you want to fuck me?"

It's the most asinine question he's ever been asked in his fucking life. Does he want to fuck you?

He's thought of nothing else for months. Every night when he fights for sleep, it's the thought of you under him that puts him to bed.

It's such an impractical concern from his point of view that he laughs. Actually laughs, for the first time in years. "Oh, baby."

Pope takes your hands in his. He presses one to his chest, right over his heart, and the other against the hardness in his jeans.

"I have never wanted another woman as bad as I want you," he says truthfully. "But I…you…you deserve better than this. Better than me. You understand that, don't you?"

You shake your head. "You don't know me, Andrew. Not really. You don't know if—"

"No, no. I do. I know you're the kind of friend who would give the shirt off their back. The kind of girl who'd let her phone get cut off before asking for help. The kind of girl who gets up every morning and just…tries. Every day. And you fucking…you smile about it. You're good. You're so fucking good and I…"

He stops.

Remembers the last time he loved someone like this and how he'd made a stupid confession he should've taken to his grave and how it'd fucked him completely.

"You're what, Andrew?"

Pope swallows. "I'm...I'm a bad man. I've hurt people. I will…hurt people, I—" His voice cracks. He lowers his eyes, trying to turn away, unable to find the strength to face you.

But you take his jaw in your gentle hands and force him to look at you. Sweet, angel of a girl that you are. And then you say without a waver to be found in your voice, "I like who you are. Do you think I gave the man who watches me through my window my phone number because I want some guy I could match with on Tinder?"

He tries to slow the rapid pounding of his heart. He wonders if love is supposed to be like this. To feel like this. All consuming and terrifying and devastatingly hopeful above all.

You shake your head and tuck your legs beneath you, sitting up on your knees. He sits stone still as you lean forward and kiss his cheek, whispering against his ear, "I've been watching you, too, Andrew Cody."

Something shifts inside of him as you say it. Uttering his last name that he'd never given you, that isn't even on his lease because this is a fake apartment under a fake name to launder the money they steal.

Oh—sweet, smart girl. Smarter than he thought.

How silly of him to ever doubt you.

There's a newfound wildness in your eyes when they meet his again. An unveiling. Like he's seeing you for who you truly are for the first time.

And you're…god. So fucking beautiful.

And, yeah. Pope thinks he's been right this whole fucking time.

He's weird and wrong and sickly obsessed.

But you are, too.

Andrew takes you by the back of the neck and kisses you hard, desperate to taste you, to close what little physical space remains between your body and his. He pushes you back against the mattress and follows you down.

Your hands find his belt buckle before he does, and he stares down at you as your deft fingers pry the leather open and unbutton his jeans. He helps you push the denim down his legs until his cock springs free, heavy and leaking. Wanting for you, twitching as you take it carefully in your hand.

A groan reverberates at the back of his mouth. Your hands are so soft. Perfect and pliant. One day, he swears he'll show you how he likes to be touched. He'll let you sit in his lap and watch him stroke his cock for you.

But for now, he lets you touch him slowly. Experimental. Feeling the heavy weight of him in your palm. You spit on your fingertips and spread your saliva over his sensitive tip, flushed red and pulsing beneath your touch.

You lean back and guide him between your thighs, sliding the head of his cock through your syrupy folds and over your clit.

The moment you line him up at your entrance, Pope eases inside and you let out the sweetest fucking sigh he's ever heard in his entire life. Sweet and soft and so, so satisfied.

It's so beautiful. You're so beautiful. And you feel warm and heavenly and wet around him. He pulls out slowly, almost all the way, and then drives his cock back into your cunt.

You squeal and those sharp, acrylic nails dig into his spine. But your legs circle his hips, and so Pope does it again.

He fucks you hard. Claiming that spot at the back of your cunt, pressed right up against your cervix. He rolls his hips and presses his mouth to yours, swallowing up those desperate, carnal sounds he pulls out of our chest.

Sweet girl. Sweet fucking girl. He reaches between you and circles your clit. "My girl now," he says, words spoken against your lips. "You'll never need anyone else, baby. No one but me."

You nod, the velvety walls of your pussy squeezing around the hard length of his cock.

Andrew puts his whole weight on top of you, grinding himself between your thighs, giving you everything he has. Everything he is.

"I'm yours," you choke out. "I'm yours, I'm yours, I'm—"

It becomes a mantra. One that feeds his desire, in perfect sync with the rhythm of his thrusts. He watches your arousal begin to crest, nearing the summit, the muscles in your thighs twitching. "Look at me, baby," he says. "Tell me you love me when I make you cum."

You're so lost in it, head all spacey, that your eyes remain closed until he takes your jaw in a firm grip.

There are pretty tears in your eyes when you open them, but that smile on your face is present, too. He feels you pulse around him and your breath gets all shallow and then—

"I love you, Andrew, I fucking—oh my god please, please—I love you."

The words are music to his ears, tingling down his spine, leaving goosebumps in their wake. He thought the sound of his name in your mouth was beautiful but this…fuck. He could die.

Pope thinks he would. For you, he would.

He fucks you through it. Tastes your moans and says, "Yeah, that's it. Give it to me. Look so pretty when you cum for me."

He doesn't let his pace falter until your muscles loosen, until your nails stroke gently over his spin instead of leaving marks.

You pepper sweet kisses over his jaw, tongue sliding up the shell of his ear. "I want you to cum inside me," you tell him.

He's been fighting it the whole time, trying desperately not to blow his load before he'd at least gotten you there first.

But when you say that?

When you say, "Please, Andrew. Want you to give it to me. Want you to fill me up with your cum. Please. I need it."

He thinks about telling you that you don't have to beg. Not him, not for anything (especially this). But you just sound so pretty, begging for his cum, that he can't bring himself to do it.

So, he gives you what you want instead. Fucks his cum into you, groaning low in your ear, cock pulsing inside you. You feel so good wrapped around him it's euphoric. Otherworldly.

Your pussy grips tight, milking him dry, taking every last drop (he knows you're on birth control. Don't you know the women's clinic downtown keeps a spare key beneath the plant in front of their door?).

Andrew is careful when he slides out of you. And he wastes no time before kicking his jeans the rest of the way off and pulling you against his chest.

He pulls the blanket up around your shoulders and presses a kiss to your hairline. His voice wavers a little as he says, "Sorry if I…if I was a little rough."

You shake your head, pressing your nose to the divot between his pectorals. "It was perfect," you murmur against his skin.

Silence settles between you. Comfortable and easy, the sound of your breathing in perfect synchronization.

After some time you say, "I meant it, you know. Wouldn't have said it if I didn't. I really think I might be in love with you, Andrew. Is that…crazy?"

Yes, he wants to say.

But he feels it, too.

So instead he says, "You know, I don't…I don't have much experience with that sorta thing. Don't really know how to…to navigate it, I guess. But, uhm…yeah. Me, too."

He feels that smile of yours against his chest.

Andrew knows that this dynamic the two of you have created is weird.

He knows that.

But at least, now, he's not alone in it.

“Syluus,” you moan breathlessly, “S-Slow—mmngh—slow down. Bed’s going to break.” You wince when you hear it creak, knocking against your bedroom wall. 

“You don’t want that, dove,” Sylus purrs, “She doesn’t want that.” He rolls his hips harder, squeezing the plush of your ass so hard that he leaves indents in the shape of his fingers. 

“You know I can’t deny her, not when she wraps around me so fucking perfectly,” he groans, hiking your thigh up against his hip so he can angle deeper. 

“You’re impossible. W-What’s gotten into you?” you force the words out, your nails clawing into the thick ropes of muscles of his shoulders, whimpering when he purposely drags his pelvis against your clit. 

Sylus kisses your forehead, the tender gesture nearly enough to make you forget that he was knee deep in your guts trying to imprint his name into you. 

“I haven’t seen you in a week. You’ve been so busy saving the world from Wanderers,” Sylus says simply, his voice calm and steady as if he wasn’t buried inside of you. 

Your lips curl, and you tease, “You missed me?”

Sylus scoffs, his rhythm slowing for a brief moment, “Yes, terribly so. I’m not afraid to admit that.”

Your heart skips a beat, looking away shyly. But Sylus brings your face back to his, his grip on your chin gentle. 

“What, getting shy on me now, little bird?” Sylus chuckles, almost condescendingly. 

”That partner of yours gets to see this beautiful face more than I do. Don’t look away,” Sylus murmurs, eyes trained on your lips. He drags his pelvis intentionally along you, the coarse hair along the base of his cock working literal magic against your sensitive bud.

It’s not enough for you to miss the whiny undertone in his words though. 

“You mean Xavier?” 

Sylus’s pace falters, but he smirks still, raising an eyebrow at you, “Tch, you should only be thinking of me right now.”

”Y-You’re the one who—o-oh god—brought him up!” you say incredulously, finding the strength to gently smack his solid marbled chest. He catches your wrist before you can make content, bringing your fingertips up to his lips.

He nips at your hand in warning, his pace growing more forceful, as if telling you to watch yourself. His increased vigor makes your bed knock more violently against the wall, your eyes widening in fear.

”Sy, the neighbors are going to hear,” you whisper, knowing he wont listen to you anyway. He’d been forever trying to convince you to move in with him anyways. 

“Hm, right. They will.”

You’re about to question his cryptic words when Sylus hoists your legs up, folding you in half. At this angle, he can quite literally hammer into you with an entirely renewed enthusiasm, reaching parts of you that he knew were your absolute weaknesses.

Your eyes roll back with a pleasured squeal, crying his name repeatedly.

Sylus smirks, praising you, your own name sounding like honey as it dripped off his tongue.

“That’s it, my love,” he coos, “Think you can get louder for me?”

You physically can’t respond, eyes squeezed shut as Sylus drives into your g-spot repeatedly and unrelentingly. He’s big enough where the head of his cock brushes against your cervix, a pleasure mixed with just the slightest pain that makes you delirious. 

“Sy-lus,” you moan brokenly, unable to stop from practically screaming, “So deep—can’t…”

”You’re doing perfect,” he praises, whispering your name in a way that makes your stomach coil tightly, on the verge of exploding. 

“Sh-shit. All you have to do is focus on screaming my name, hm? I’ll take care of the rest.”

You whine at the thought of your neighbors hearing you, knowing first hand just how thin the walls were. Biting the inside of your cheek, you do your best to keep your sounds down.

And of course Sylus notices instantly. But instead of scolding you, he only fucks you harder–physically pulling the sounds out of you. The screams of ecstasy that he wants.

Screams that would undoubtedly be heard across the walls. And the ceiling,

“Just like that,” Sylus grunts, his crimson eyes nearly glowing with approval, “Think he can hear you, sweetheart?”

Your eyes, previously screwed shut in sheer pleasure, fly open as you register the implication of his words—his actions.

Sylus seems to anticipate your reaction, simultaneously bringing his lips over your nipple and his thumb to your clit—rendering you a wordless, squealing mess. 

You can’t see the way Sylus smirks against your breast with a dangerous satisfaction, his ruby eyes glowing with adoration and possession. 

“He might get to see you every day, but I’m the only one who gets to see you like this. So drunk off my cock that you can’t even open your eyes.”

His thumb moves faster, in perfect tandem with his claiming thrusts.

”He might get to hear them, but these screams are for me, and only me. Right, my love?”

You find yourself nodding obediently, willing to do anything to get him to shut up and give you the orgasm he’s holding just out of your reach. 

”Syluuus,” you plead shamelessly, words slurring, “F-Feels s’goood. Please!” Any attempt at being quiet had long been abandoned, your brain clouded only with thoughts of Sylus and the filthy mating press he had you folded into.

Sylus was a man of fierce passion, but this was entirely different. His beautiful eyes held a swirl of dangerous emotions, nearly as intense as the vigor in which his body pounding down into yours. Your nearing climax rings in your ears, blocking out the sounds of your mattress frame snapping, his thrusts masking the feeling of the wood smashing into the ground. 

He revels in your cries of pure ecstasy, satisfaction blooming in his chest as you grow louder with every thrust towards your release. Sylus’s vermillion eyes flicker to the ceiling of the bedroom, intrusive thoughts clouding his own building pleasure.

It’d be easier if he lived next to you as opposed to the unit atop yours.

With his lips at your neck, his thick body presses down onto you, angling himself deeper. As he brings your body to unprecedented heights, he whispers into the shell of your ear, voice husky and rough. 

”Can feel how close you are” he groans, your cunt attempting to wring his cock absolutely dry, “Want him to hear you cum for me?”

You whine, weakly shaking your head ‘no.’ Sylus only grins, his hips snapping into the plush of your thighs. 

”That’s too bad, kitten. Your dear partner is going to have to hear it anyway.”

xavier 沈星回

━ .ᐟ✧ WORD COUNT: 1,165

━ ✧.˖ WARNINGS: mdni, explicit sexual content, dark!xavier, mentions of sylus, standing sex, mentions of voyeurism, mentions of cum marking, hitting it from the back, sex against the window, slight choking

“You’ve been at the N109 Zone a lot this week.”

You can hardly comprehend Xavier’s words over the sheer intensity at which he’s driving himself into you, as if trying to carve you perfectly into the shape of him.

“Wh-What?” you pant, your voice pathetically shaky as your palms desperately steady yourself against the window he has you pressed against. 

The city lights twinkle beneath you, and you find yourself grateful that you’re more than ten floors up. Because the way Xavier had your naked body pressed into the cool glass pane, his chin digging into your shoulder as his hips snapped harshly into your ass?

If you were on a lower floor, anyone outside would undoubtedly see everything. 

But you’re starting to think that’s exactly what he wants. 

“The N109 Zone. You’ve been there almost every day this last week,” Xavier says, his words simple but his tone almost threatening. Not enough to scare you, but just enough to have your toes curling in excitement. 

“And?” is all you manage, your back arching against his abdomen when he presses you deeper into the window. In response, Xavier’s thrusts slow to a near stop, his hand gently wrapping around the base of your throat. You whine in protest, desperately rolling your own hips backward against him, chasing the pleasure 

His tender fingers stroke the sides of your neck, so softly and adoringly. It gives you whiplash when you see how dark his eyes have gotten, almost sinister. 

Gripping you gently, he pulls you toward him by your neck until your head rests on his shoulder and you can really see the intensity of his shadowy azure eyes.

“Have you been working with the Onichynus leader?” he asks, his thrusts unbearably slow and shallow. 

“Sylus?”

At that, Xavier snaps, his grip tightening and his pace quickening. Except it’s much more violent this time around–enough to have your body pounding into the glass and your head swimming with delirious ecstasy. 

The sound of another man’s name on your tongue while his cock was nestled against your g-spot? That fueled Xavier with a jealousy that bordered on insanity. 

“You did that on purpose,” he grunts unhappily against your ear. It’s nearly impossible to hear him over the sound of his pelvis pounding into your ass, the wet slaps resounding throughout the room. 

“Mnngh…W-What did I do?” you ask, struggling to speak.

Xavier’s breath is heavy against your shoulder, his fingers abandoning your neck and instead cupping your jaw, turning your face towards him, so he can really look at you.

Wordlessly, he pulls your face to his, taking your lips into his–bruisingly and possessively. As his tongue claims every inch of your mouth, his cock does the same, filling you out so completely that you find it difficult to breathe. 

“Do I need to be rougher?” Xavier grunts as he reluctantly pulls away from you, his lips shiny and cheeks flushed red. You squeak when his hand roughly cups your breast, kneading just how he knew you liked, but just a tad bit harder to make you scream.

“Do I need to remind you just how much you need me?”

He punctuates his words with a pointed thrust, his cockhead stroking roughly against your most sensitive spots. 

“How much you need this?”

The intensity and passion in which Xavier takes you against the window is enough to render you a wordless, moaning mess. The glass is nice and cool against your burning skin, fogging up as Xavier presses you deeper into it.

He maneuvers your chin so that you’re facing the reflection again. He kisses your shoulder, deceptively tender, as he murmurs your name. The push and pull between tenderness and roughness confuses your brain, only making your body more receptive, more pliant, to him. 

“Oh god—Xavier!” you moan unabashedly, your forehead falling forward to lean against the window. Xavier smiles, thoroughly pleased at the sound of his name leaving your beautiful lips. 

But he was a greedy man and he wanted more. 

“Look at me,” he commands gently, saying your name with so much conviction and possession that you're wracked with a violent shiver. He tilts your chin up again, so that you come face to face with him in the reflection, the city lights outside blurring. His fingers are soft against your skin, his grip demanding.

Xavier’s glassy cerulean eyes bore into yours through the reflection, misted with a dark and raw possession that you’d been seeing more and more of lately as Xavier opened his heart to you. A look that made your instincts tingle with the need to escape. 

And yet your body only tightens with excitement, sucking Xavier further into you, wanting him harder–deeper.

But it’s still so effortlessly Xavier–pure and soft. It made your heart clench with adoration while your core tightened with desperation. 

His intense eyes burn into your naked form, fingers forcing you to watch him, as he speaks again, “The next time you go to the N109 Zone, I’m coming too.”

You’re about to protest but Xavier cuts you off, “I know you’re perfectly capable. That’s not why.” His words come out shaky and soft as you get painfully tighter, inexplicably turned on by his possessive nature. 

“If you’re going to be walking around the N109 zone with him, you’re going to do it with my cum dripping down your thighs.”

You gasp, your stomach tightening at his filthy–completely serious–words. Xavier smiles into the mirrored window that’s now fogging up with your combined torrid breaths. 

“Do you like the sound of that? It feels like you do, angel.”

Xavier glances at you again, looking absolutely ethereal with the city lights twinkling behind his reflection. But he’s starting to look just as disheveled as you, his blonde hair strewn messily, his pale cheeks dusted pink, beads of sweat trailing down his muscles. 

As you get distracted in the way his burning cock literally reshapes your gummy walls around him, Xavier grabs a gentle fistful of your hair, forcing you to level with him. 

“Tell me you want it, please.”

His commanding words are tinged with just an inkling of insecurity, his blue eyes nearly begging with yours through the damp glass. 

You push yourself off the glass, leaning back against him, knees buckling when he gets deeper. 

Xavier wraps a secure arm around your chest, holding you effortlessly in place. In this position, he buries his face into your shoulder, his eyes still peeking over, trained on you. 

Laying your head back against him, you cradle the back of his head with your hand. Maintaining eye contact, you somehow find the coherence to appease him, knowing he’d go insane without your reassurance, no matter how ridiculous what he was asking was.

“W-Wan’ it Xav,” you moan through the force of his thrusts, “Anything you give me, anything you want. 

Xavier noticeably falters, his breaths becoming alarmingly ragged, azure eyes darkening to a deep navy instead.

“Then, let’s start right now.”

zayne 黎深

━ .ᐟ✧ WORD COUNT: 1,120

━ ✧.˖ WARNINGS: mdni, explicit sexual content, marking + hickeys, improper evol use, dry humping, mentions of caleb, zayne on top, praising

Zayne wasn’t a jealous man.

At least that’s what you’d thought—what he’d made you and everyone who knew him believe. 

He was wildly successful in his career, self-assured in himself, and secure in your relationship. 

And yet, the way he was sucking bruises into every inch of your burning skin, with the clear intent to mark and claim–where everyone could see, said otherwise. 

“Zayne—!” you cry out as he bites a particularly mind-numbing hickey into your collar, his skilled tongue soothing the sensitive skin as his teeth graze against the forming bruise. 

“Hm?” is all he murmurs. But he doesn’t let you continue or clarify, because the next thing you know, he’s rolling his bare erection against your moist slit, purposely letting his own leaking tip rub against your throbbing bundle of nerves. 

With your eyes squeezed shut in burning anticipation, you can’t see him, but you can hear the faint smirk in his voice. 

“What is it, sweetheart?” his lips are suddenly at the skin under your ear, pressing soft kisses into the spot he plans to mark you next. 

“You know what,” you whine, “Not so high up.” Even you can hear how half-hearted your plea is. You loved the rare occasion Zayne made it known exactly what he did to his favorite hunter, his most crucial patient, behind closed doors. 

But you’d gotten so familiar with Zayne’s straight-edged professionalism that you were used to him leaving signs of himself on your body that only you’d be able to see. Areas that only the two of you would know he’d been. Where his lips had been. 

“And why is that?” he chuckles, letting his lips ghost along your pulse, as if warning you what was to come if you didn’t plead your case. 

You gasp when he grabs the base of his cock, purposely letting himself brush against your soaked entrance, but not letting himself enter–much to your dismay.

“H-Have to go to—ngh—go to Skyhaven tomorrow,” you whimper, “Meeting with Caleb and the F-Fleet to discuss Wanderer activity.” 

Zayne pauses at your words, his entire body tensing ever so slightly as he presses himself forcefully into you, his muscles twitching against you.  

Ah. 

He collects himself instantly, his teeth nipping at your pulse in warning. 

“Oh?” he says, as if he didn’t already know you’d be seeing Caleb tomorrow, likely having gotten your mission schedule from the Association. Doctors often had access to the files of all Hunters that were under their care.

“Even more reason to send you off with a few gifts for the Colonel.”

If his jealous possession didn’t turn you on so damn thoroughly you might’ve rolled your eyes and teased him. Tease him that he’d said the childhood rivalry between him and Caleb was one-sided. That he’d said he was above that petty jealousy. 

But with Zayne’s cock wedged so tortuously between your legs, a burning path of love bites trailing from your neck to your breasts, his warm breath at your ear–you couldn’t bring yourself to do anything but moan for more. 

“You sound beautiful,” Zayne whispers thickly into your ear, before his lips descend and latch onto the soft skin above your nipple, “So perfect like this. Spread out for me, begging for more.”

He pulls away, a string of saliva connecting from his lips to your heaving chest, his mouth pulling into a faint smirk at the pretty little marks he’s left all over your soft skin. The sense of satisfaction he feels from watching your quivering form, chanting his name like a prayer. The satisfaction he got from knowing that he’d be the only one to see you like this, feel you like this. Now and forever. 

The satisfaction from knowing that anyone who saw you would see exactly how thoroughly you belonged to him.

He shifts to give himself better access to you. To the spot between your legs that was reserved only for him.

Zayne positions himself, his tip at your aching entrance, his body coming down to hover over you, his face inches from yours. His eyes bore into yours, the gold flecks shining as he takes in your flushed features. His magnificent woman.

His fingers trace your jaw, carving an icy path down every beautiful mark, every searing claim. You yelp at the feeling of his Evol laced fingertips, body arching at the hypersensitivity of his frosty digits. But Zayne only presses you back down into the mattress.

“Tell me, love,” he whispers, his voice husky and gravelly with need, “Who’s the only one who gets to see you like this?”

Feeling rebellious, you refuse, “I’m not feeding into this ridiculous del–” You’re cut off by your own scream as Zayne’s fingertips close over your nipple, using his Evol to make his skin colder than it normally was. He repeats his demand, saying your name so tenderly–a stark contrast to his unforgiving touch that your body yearned for.

“Tell me.”

“Y-You!” you squeal as Zayne rolls your sensitive tip in his skillful torturous fingers. 

“Who’s the only one who gets to hear you make these perfect little noises?” This time he punctuates his question by bringing his frozen fingers to your clit, pressing down, simultaneously holding your body down as it arches.

“Anngh–you. Only you! P-Please–!” you beg, not able to take the hypersensitivity, but not wanting him to pull away. 

“So good for me,” Zayne murmurs, pressing his cock into you, just barely stretching you out, “And only me, right beautiful?”

Your eyes widen at the feeling of just his thick tip inside you. Your body arches, trying to receive more of him. He gently pushes you back down, his palm flat against your stomach. 

You whine at his blatant denial, using your legs to try to trap his body against yours, pulling him closer so he had no choice but to push deeper.

“Oh g-god, yes!”

But Zayne remains steadfast, his strong muscled body unmoving. Instead, he gently grips your chin, bringing your eyes up to his.

“Say my name.”

Zayne thrusts shallowly, forcefully pulling the words from your lips and making you spill exactly what he wanted to hear.

“Nnngh–only yours, Zayne!” His name rolls off your tongue like music, earning you a low growl of approval from the man just barely inside you. 

As if to reward you, he pushes himself fully inside of you, all the way to the hilt. He falls onto his elbows, rolling his hips with a passionate intensity that has you calling his name–over and over. With a torrid groan of your name, he desperately presses another blossoming bruise into your pulse. Right where everyone could see it.

“That’s right sweetheart. And everyone will know it.”

rafayel 祁煜

━ .ᐟ✧ WORD COUNT: 1,190

━ ✧.˖ WARNINGS: mdni, explicit sexual content, marking, spanking, kinda mentions of voyerism, raf on top but from the back, messy make out

You were a relatively flexible person.

By no means did you have the range of a gymnast or a professional dancer, but all things considered, you were decently limber for the average woman—dabbling in the occasional yoga and pilates. 

But that did little to prepare you for the arch Rafayel was forcing you into, his hand gently gripping your hair for leverage, the other pushing you down lower. 

He’d purposely put his massive ornate gold-rimmed mirror in front of his bed, forcing you to watch as he mounted you savagely from behind, his hips desperate to paint pretty flowering bruises into the plush of your ass.

Rafayel normally punished you with the silent treatment, or overt sass. But now?

He was punishing you with his insatiable body.

“You better not do that again,” the purple-haired artist groans from behind you, his voice much more demanding than you normally ever heard from him. His hips snap into you, your combined arousal dripping down the back of your thighs.

You can only moan back, every nerve end in your body burning with the pleasure delivered from Rafayel’s thick length inside of you, rendering you unable to think or speak clearly. 

Unsatisfied with your lack of response, Rafayel tugs gently at your hair, forcing you to level with him in the reflection in the mirror. He looks devastatingly handsome, his purple wavy hair tousled, like he’d run his hair through it several times. His soft, blemish free, skin a beautiful shade of coral. The sapphire in his eyes eclipses the soft pinkish corals, as he gives into primitive instinct, making them nearly entirely blue.

“Tell me you won’t do that again.”

You whine, even in your cock-drunk state, you know exactly what he wants you to say. 

Rafayel was just wrapping up a guest lecture circuit for the local universities, particularly their fine arts departments. He’d asked you to be his “assistant” to the last one, claiming he needed his precious bodyguard there if any of the students tried to kidnap him for ransom. 

During a portrait exploration exercise, a student had asked you to model for his sketch. It seemed innocent enough, and you didn’t want to make Rafayel look bad by denying a student’s genuine request–being his guest on campus.

And apparently Rafayel did not like that.

“Raf–!” you rasp, doing your best to speak through the torrent of passionate thrusts, your broken voice barely audible over the lewd sounds of his skin slapping against yours. 

“S-Slow down,” you whimper, unable to speak coherently, answer his demand, if he was fucking you this passionately. 

“That’s not what I asked for, pretty girl,” Rafayel murmurs, his own voice nearly broken over how perfect your gummy walls convulse around him. 

You squeal when he presses his palm harder down on the small over your back, making your ass arch even higher for him.

“You’re in no position to be making demands,” he pants, the hand in your hair abandoning your head to grab a fistful of your soft ass. He kneads it tenderly, eliciting a cry of pleasure from you, before releasing it.

Thwack!

Your eyes widen, a squeal erupting from your lips as Rafayel’s hand comes down to meet your rear in a harsh spank. 

“Come on, baby,” he groans your name, halfway between a growl and a whine. 

“W-Was jus’ a portrait sketch,” you reason, catching his heated gaze in the mirror. His perfectly arched eyebrow raises at you.

“You think I care?” Rafayel mutters, smacking your ass again, only this time it’s softer. Not punishing, but rather claiming. With the sole intent to mark you up. His.

“Unngh–you asked me t’come!” you slur, your entire body jolting with the force of his body pounding against yours.

“Yeah, to be my pretty little TA,” Rafayel protests, “Not someone else’s fucking inspiration!”

He slumps over you, forcing you deeper, his chest lightly pressed against your upper back, his lips pressed into your shoulder, nipping gently.

“Ngh–knew I should’ve kept you under my podium,” he grumbles, only half joking. 

You give him a pointed look in the mirror, your face covered in sweaty strands of hair. Rafayel props himself above you with one arm, the other tenderly sweeping your hair out of your face. So he can see you properly. 

You were his. Only his.  

Even if it was just some unsuspecting university student. 

Rafayel grabs your chin, turning your face so he can kiss you. You crane your neck towards him, letting him capture your lips aggressively, possessively. 

It’s anything but a gentle tender kiss, but rather a dark claiming one. One where his tongue explores every inch of you, his teeth nipping your lips, swallowing your exquisite cries of pleasure. 

When he pulls away, a string of saliva connects you to him. His fingers still gripping your chin, he turns you back to the mirror. 

“You’re my muse. No one else gets to use you, innocent sketch or not.”

You nod submissively, inexplicably turned on by his jealous and possessive demeanor. Rafayel smiles at you through the reflection, a heated promise in his bi-colored eyes.

“Fuck—just like that, need to memorize every inch of you like this,” he moans, stroking your hair unbearably gently. As if he wasn’t rutting into you so viciously that his entire bed shook, the expensive wood legs of the frame scraping against the silk rug. 

“You—mmmf—always say that,” you tease him, “Surprised you haven’t—ngh—haven’t created an entire map yet.”

Rafayel gives you an unamused look, his bottom lip jutting out in that adorable Rafayel grimace.

”A map? No,” he lowers himself back to your shoulder, letting his warm breath tickle your neck. He leans his head against yours, his hips rolling like the tides of the ocean. Except maybe during a tsunami. 

He laughs when you nearly collapse, his angry tip hitting your g-spot. He catches you, hooking his arm under your stomach before you can lose that beautiful arch. 

“Raf—!” you moan, “Can’t…Can’t take much more.”

“Easy, cutie,” he kisses your ear, slowing his movements much to your dismay. It stifles your impending orgasm, making you whine in frustration. 

“D-Don’t tease Rafayel!”

He lets out a breathy laugh, giving you a single languid thrust before slowing again. 

“Well I can’t have you tapping out juuuust yet,” he smiles into your neck, taking a deep inhale of your pheromones, the left side of his chest burns as your scent clouds his brain. 

“I need more time, if I’m going to commit this image to memory,” he whispers predatorily into your ear, directing your face back to the massive mirror. The image reflected is so unbearably lewd.

Rafayel’s muscles ripple as he quite literally mounts you. You look so filthily undone beneath him, your skin flushed and shining with sweat, lips swollen and slick.

”Going to make a mural of you, exactly like this,” Rafayel grins wickedly, delighted by the way your eyes widen with horror, before rolling back into themselves. “Cheeks flushed, perfect ass up, hair disheveled…All for me.”

He gives you another gentle spank, your poor cheek reddened and marked.

“Think that will inspire him?”

caleb 夏以昼

━ .ᐟ✧ WORD COUNT: 1,417

━ ✧.˖ WARNINGS: mdni, explicit sexual content, slight improper evol use, mentions of zayne, against the wall sex, kinda leash use, caleb puts his dogtag in reader’s mouth, hickeys, brat taming

Against the setting sun, Caleb’s silver dog tag casts dancing flashes of light on the wall of his bedroom. Sunsets in Skyhaven have always been so much more magnificent. The floor to ceiling windows allow the waning sun to paint the entire room in a brilliant orange glow, the light bouncing off the necklace he never took off. 

The necklace that was now swinging wildly against your own naked chest with the force of Caleb’s desperate, forceful movements. 

”C-Caleb, o-oh god,” you cry, nails digging painfully into him, an angry trail of red welts already littering his muscled back. He hisses at the sting, but it only makes him more feral, his pelvis slamming so violently into yours that the wall behind you nearly tremors with his raw strength.

“Yeah? Finally being sensible, princess? Ready to be a good girl for me?” Caleb grins, his words lacking any real bite, balancing you in one hand as he moves your hair to one shoulder.

You whine in indignation, knowing exactly what brought about his sudden attitude. 

A certain raven haired surgeon you both knew all too well. 

It would be adorable if it wasn’t making him so damn animalistic right now. But who were you kidding—you loved it. Loved him like this. 

“Y-You were in important Fleet briefings all day,” you pant through the moans, his cock spearing up into you as he holds you firmly to the wall. 

He presses ravenous kisses to your jaw, his fist balling as it propped himself against the wall. “And? All you have to do is ask and I’ll have someone stand in for me.”

“You’re the Colonel–mmngh–you can’t just drop your duties every time I n-need someone to pick me up!”

“Fuck– so damn tight,” Caleb groans, leaning his forehead against yours as he ruts into you savagely, “and who says I can’t?”

There’s a childish and challenging lilt to his gravelly voice, squeezing your ass with his right hand, leaving flourishing bruises behind. If that arm couldn’t feel you, it’d sure as hell leave reminders he was there. 

Your eyes roll back, from the pleasure or Caleb’s ridiculousness, you’re unsure.

“It was right next to the hospital,” you whine, squealing when Caleb takes your nipple into his mouth, rolling it gently between his teeth, “Mmngh–Zayne was a-already there!”

Caleb’s rhythm doesn’t falter for a second at the sound of that name rolling off your tongue. In fact, it seems to only make him more determined. More feral.

He holds your jaw in his fingers, his violet eyes glowing with a cautionary sparkle. The cool metal of his dog tag rattles against your bodies, pressed together and slick with sweat.

“I would’ve been there too. If you called me,” he murmurs petulantly, his face transforming into that classic wet-puppy face that Caleb so expertly used to get his way with you. 

But the contrast of his adorable face to his downright filthy thrusts helps you stay clear-minded against his charms. Well, as clear-minded as you could be when he was being like this.

“Caleb, you’re being unrea—oh god!” you whimper, his fingers meanly pinching your clit, purposely trying to make you lose your train of thought, “U-Unreasonable!”

He pulls your chin to him, enveloping you in a feverish kiss, no doubt trying to get you to give in to his jealous little whims. When he pulls away, he tilts your chin up to look into the burning galaxy in his irises. 

“You’re my girl. Call me next time, okay baby?” His tone, commanding–nearly a growl, betrays his deceptively sweet words. 

You continue trying to reason with him, clawing desperately at the thick ropes of muscles in his back, “You w-were in Skyhaven! Would’ve been—angghh—been waiting for hours!”

Caleb presses warning kisses into your neck, his teeth nipping hard enough to leave marks. He takes one of your hands into his, intertwining your fingers slowly. 

”Personal aircraft. Did you forget? Even after you rode me that one t–”

You whine in embarrassment, cutting him off with a poignant roll of your hips, “Ngh–Caleb! Y-You can't possibly fly a whole ass plane to Linkon every time Zayne tries to–” 

Caleb interrupts your words with a growl, hips slowing down tortuously. His fingers wrap gently around your neck, his head tilted as he stares down at you. 

“Really? You’re going to keep saying his name when you’re crying out for me? For this?”

To punctuate his lightly veiled threat, he ruts particularly viciously, your entire body sliding up the wall. He presses against you so tightly that you shudder, the cool metal of his necklace like ice against your singed skin. His hand brushes along your naval, where he can feel his cock hammering in and out. He presses down, eliciting a beautiful scream from you.

“God, you’re such a brat today,” he growls heatedly in your ear, his hand abandoning your stomach, threading with your fingers again. He raises your joined palms above your head, pushing them into the wall, giving him a bit more leverage as he tries to use his cock to make you forget anyone’s name but his.

Particularly that of your beloved doctor. 

“I’m the brat?!” you say incredulously. He cuts you off, hammering until you can nearly feel him in your throat, but you don’t stop, “Y-You’re the brat! Still letting Zayne get under y–mmmf!”

Irritated at your unending talk of Zayne, his dog tag still swinging annoyingly with the force of his thrusts, Caleb cuts you off again. Using one hand to balance you, his free fingers place the tag of his bouncing silver necklace in between your lips. The cool metal brushes against your tongue and you whine as he squeezes your jaw, making it difficult to release it. 

“Only name I want to hear from you is mine,” he murmurs, voice deceptively soft. He smirks when your eyes roll back, his tag still between your pouty lips. Something about the sight of you, his claim in your mouth, your eyes nearly white with the sheer force of pleasure only he can give you? It sends him dangerously close to losing all control.

Caleb’s fist slams into the wall next to your head, gasping out a string of expletives, his hips stuttering with the overwhelming emotions he feels when he looks at you. Taking a deep breath, he tries to collect himself, not quite ready to give you your release. His fist softens, stroking the chain of the necklace as it dangles from your mouth toward his chest. 

“You gonna be good?” he coos your name, his smooth, heated voice doing little to betray how dangerously close he is to coming undone into your impossibly tight heat.

You give him a rebellious glare, your eyes saying no. You were this close to being cock drunk and giving in to enabling his possessive behavior, but you did your damned best to hold onto your pride.

Caleb chuckles darkly, freeing your chin which lets you drop the metal tag from between your teeth. He catches it in his fingertips, stroking the damp steel, his wordlessness feeling almost sinister.

You yelp when your neck is yanked towards him, close enough that you can feel his threatening breath against your lips, a dangerous glint in his eyebrow-shadowed eyes.

At first you think it’s his Evol, both his hands still occupied–one gripping the dog tag and the other gripping your ass. But at the slight sting at your nape, you realize you’d completely missed him slipping the gifted necklace over your neck. That he probably with his Evol.

And now he was using it like a leash, pulling you toward him like he owned you. 

You gasp when he tilts his head, still gripping the necklace gently, your back slamming into the wall as he fucked into you with renewed vigor. He inhales your choked breath as his own, wanting to consume you entirely. 

With his Evol, he holds you flush against the wall, using one hand to guide you with the pull of the silver jewelry, the other cupping your cheek, thumb stroking your jaw. 

“I hope you don’t have any more plans this weekend. Especially not with Zayne.”

His hand slides from your jaw to your neck again, squeezing in a way that has not only your throat constricting but also your cunt, in pure thrill.

“We’re going to be here until the only name you remember is mine. Now be a good girl and be quiet, yeah?”

© aeyumicore 2025.

.ᐟ✧ THIS IS MY ONLY ACCOUNT. I WILL ONLY POST ON THIS ACCOUNT AND AO3. i am not @/aeyumicores or @/aeyumiicore or any variations of my blog name.

You'd been on the guest list before, your brand had collaborated with half the houses present tonight alone, but this year felt different. 

This year, you weren't just a designer in attendance. You were the fiancée of one of Prada's youngest ambassadors, and the whole world knew it.

You'd spent the entire morning preparing. Not because you needed the time, you could throw together a look in twenty minutes flat, a skill honed from years of running your own label, but because the outfit required precision. 

Every detail was deliberate, every accessory a statement, and if there was one thing you refused to do, it was to show up to a Prada event looking anything less than editorial.

The fuzzy grey high-neck winter jacket was your own design, a prototype from your upcoming fall-winter collection that you'd finished stitching at two in the morning the night before. 

The thick scarf wrapped around your neck was a mix of blue, white, grey, and brown plaid patterns, hand-woven by a small atelier that was run by the sister of your online friend in Scotland that you'd been supporting since your brand first turned a profit. 

The black mini-skirt was deceptively simple, a high-waisted silhouette that hugged your hips just right, the hem hitting mid-thigh. 

Your brown winter boots were lined with shearling, practical but polished, the kind of footwear that said you understood the assignment: fashion first, frostbite second.

But the highlight, the pièce de résistance, was the tights.

Black polka dot tights. 

Tiny white dots scattered across the sheer black fabric, close enough together to form a pattern but far enough apart that you could still see skin underneath. The dots caught the light differently depending on the angle, shifting from stark white to almost pearlescent when you crossed your legs. You'd spent an embarrassing amount of time deliberating over them, holding up pair after pair in front of your full-length mirror until Riki had finally wandered into your studio, chin resting on your shoulder, arms looping around your waist, and murmured, "The polka dots. Obviously."

You were also wearing a pair of black-framed glasses, rounded, slightly oversized, with thin metal arms, that Riki had gifted you on your six-month anniversary. He'd picked them up from a vintage shop in Harajuku during a tour stop, tucked them into his carry-on between his passport and a half-eaten pack of melon bread, and presented them to you in the back of a van with his manager yelling at him to hurry up. 

The frames suited you in a way that made his chest tight every time you put them on, which was precisely why he'd bought them. Your hair was curled at the ends, soft waves framing your face, and your bangs were clipped back with two small silver clips, half-moon shaped, another one of your designs. White fuzzy earmuffs sat over your ears, the kind that looked like they belonged on a snow bunny in a 1960s ski film.

When you finally emerged from the bedroom, Riki was leaning against the kitchen counter, scrolling through his phone with a glass of water in his other hand. He glanced up, did a full double-take, and then just — stopped.

His phone slipped. Not all the way, not dramatically, but enough that he fumbled to catch it, his fingers closing around it a second too late, and it clattered against the marble countertop with a sound that made you wince.

"Riki—"

"Don't move."

"Huh?"

"I said don't move." He set his glass down carefully, deliberately, like he was afraid any sudden movement would shatter the image in front of him. His eyes dragged over you slowly, from the earmuffs perched on your head to the glasses sitting on the bridge of your nose, down the column of your neck wrapped in plaid, the grey jacket, the mini-skirt, the polka dot tights, the boots, and something in his expression shifted. His lips parted. His throat worked. He looked, for a moment, like a man who had just realised he was thoroughly, devastatingly out of his depth.

"You look," he started, and then stopped. Swallowed. Tried again. "You look unreal."

"You already said that when I tried on the jacket last week."

"I meant it then and I mean it now." He pushed off the counter and crossed the kitchen in three long strides, his hands finding your waist like they were magnetised to the spot. He dipped his head, pressing his forehead to yours, and you could feel the warmth of his breath fan across your lips. "The tights," he said, voice low. His fingers skimmed down your side, over your hip, settling at the bare strip of thigh between your skirt hem and the top of your boots. "The tights are going to be a problem."

"Ow, you don't like them?"

"I like them too much." He kissed you then, soft and slow, his thumb tracing circles on the outside of your thigh where the polka dots pressed against your skin. When he pulled back, his eyes were half-lidded and there was a faint smudge of your lip gloss on his bottom lip. "We're going to be late."

"You started it."

"I'm aware." He smiled, the smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes and showed the slight overlap of his front teeth. "Come on, baby. Car's waiting."

Riki's outfit was, by his own admission, "an attempt at restraint." A black puffer jacket with a fur-trimmed hood that made him look like he'd stepped out of a streetwear lookbook, a white sweater peeking out from underneath the hem and collar, baggy denim jeans that sat low on his hips in that effortlessly cool way that only he could pull off, and his trusty pair of winter boots, the same ones he'd worn to three different fashion weeks and refused to replace because, in his words, "they're broken in perfectly." Around his neck was a striped blue scarf that you were eighty percent sure he'd stolen from your dad's closet last Christmas, but you didn't have the heart to call him out on it because he looked so damn cozy wearing it.

The estate was beautiful in the way that only places with old money could be, ivory walls and wrought-iron gates, gravel paths that crunched underfoot, and a sprawling garden that had been transformed for the event. 

Heaters stood at intervals along the walkways, glowing orange against the early evening dark, and sheer tents had been erected over the main areas, their fabric catching the golden light of the chandeliers suspended within. 

The air smelled like pine and expensive perfume, and everywhere you looked, someone was wearing something that cost more than a semester of tuition.

You and Riki entered together, his hand resting on the small of your back, and the cameras erupted. Flash after flash after flash, a wall of white light that made your glasses reflect like mirrors, and Riki's grip on you tightened, not out of possessiveness, but out of practice. He'd learned to guide you through crowds like this, his body angling to shield you from the worst of the surge, his hand a steady anchor against the chaos.

"Over here, Mr. Nishimura!"

"Miss! Miss, over here! The tights—who designed them?"

"Are those your own brand? Can you confirm—"

You smiled, tilted your chin, let the cameras capture the outfit from every angle. Riki did the same beside you, effortless, practiced, the product of years in an industry that demanded you be both accessible and untouchable. But just before you stepped past the photo wall and into the venue proper, he leaned down and pressed his lips to your temple, and the resulting shutter sound was deafening.

"You're killing me," he muttered against your hair.

"Behave."

"No."

The event was the kind of thing that looked effortless but required an exhausting amount of social choreography. You and Riki had been seated at different tables, his as Prada's ambassador, yours as the founder of your label, and while the tables were only about twenty feet apart, the distance felt insurmountable in a room where every conversation was a negotiation and every smile was a calculated move.

You handled your end with the ease of someone who'd been doing this since she was nineteen, when your grandmother's old sewing machine had been your only investment and your kitchen table had been your cutting room. 

You shook hands with buyers, charmed editors, laughed at jokes that weren't funny, and somehow managed to compliment someone's shoes without lying. 

Your grandmother had raised you to be warm, to hug people when you met them, to touch their arm when you laughed, to lean in close when they spoke so they knew you were listening. It was second nature to you, as automatic as breathing, and in the fashion industry, where everyone was accustomed to a certain degree of frostiness, your affection was disarming.

Which was how you found yourself in conversation with a man whose name you hadn't quite caught, something French, maybe, or Belgian, who had apparently designed the installation's centrepiece and was very keen to tell you about it.

"Your work is extraordinary," he was saying, his accent rounding out the consonants in a way that made everything sound like a compliment. "The way you construct silhouettes—it's architectural. Structural. I see a lot of myself in it."

"Oh, thank you!" You beamed at him, genuine and bright, because you appreciated any kind of comparison to architecture. Your grandmother had been a seamstress, yes, but she'd also been the daughter of a carpenter, and she'd always told you that building a garment was no different from building a house, you needed a strong frame, good materials, and a steady hand. "That means a lot coming from you. The centrepiece is incredible, by the way. The use of negative space—"

He stepped closer. You didn't notice. You were too busy gesturing at the installation, your hands painting shapes in the air the way they always did when you were excited about something. He reached up and adjusted the clip in your bangs, his fingers brushing against your hairline, and said, "This was falling. I fixed it."

"Oh! Thank you," you said, smiling. "These clips are tricky, they slip sometimes—"

"Your glasses too. May I?" And before you could respond, he was sliding them further up the bridge of your nose, his fingertips grazing your cheek, and you blinked at the proximity but didn't pull away because why would you? He was being helpful. He was being nice. That was a thing people did — they helped each other. Your grandmother had always said that kindness was free and should be given freely, and you'd lived your whole life by that philosophy.

Across the venue, Riki was in the middle of a conversation with a Prada executive about an upcoming campaign, and he was doing an admirable job of appearing engaged. 

He was nodding at the right moments, asking the right follow-up questions, even managing a convincing laugh when the executive made a joke about a rival house. But his attention was divided. It had been divided since the moment you'd separated, his eyes tracking you across the room like a compass needle finding north, and right now, that needle was spinning wildly.

He saw it all.

He saw the man lean in too close — close enough that his breath was probably visible in the cold air between your faces. He saw the hand that reached up to fix your clip, fingers lingering a beat too long against your hair. He saw the way the man adjusted your glasses, his touch drifting from the frame to your cheek like it belonged there. He saw the way you smiled up at the man, bright and completely, heartbreakingly oblivious, because you were you, and you assumed the best in everyone, and it had never once occurred to you that someone might be using the excuse of helpfulness to touch you in ways that made Riki's blood pressure spike.

His grip on his champagne flute tightened. The glass was sturdy, Prada didn't skimp on glassware, but he could feel the tension in his knuckles, the fine tremor of restraint running through his forearm.

"Nishimura?" The executive's voice cut through. "You had thoughts on the Milan venue?"

"Sorry, yeah." He dragged his gaze back to the conversation, forced his expression into something neutral. "The Milan venue is great. The lighting is the main thing—we need to make sure the—"

The man had his hand on your shoulder now. Your shoulder. He was leaning down to say something near your ear, his thumb rubbing small circles against the wool of your jacket, and you were nodding along, completely unaware of the way his eyes were tracing the line of your jaw, the curve of your neck, the dip of your collarbone visible above the high neck of your jacket.

Riki smiled through it. He smiled through the next conversation too, and the one after that, and the one after that. He smiled when a photographer asked for a solo shot, and he smiled when a stylist complimented his scarf, and he smiled when a fellow ambassador asked about the ring on your finger, visible now that you'd taken your gloves off to accept a drink, because what the hell could he say? That he wanted to cross the room, slide his arm around your waist, and tell every man within a ten-foot radius to back the fuck off? That he wanted to bite the spot where that stranger's thumb had touched your shoulder? That he was actively restraining himself from doing something that would end up on every gossip account by midnight?

He could practically see the tweets already. 

Oh my god.

PRADA’S NISHIMURA RIKI CAUSES SCENE AT PRADA EVENT—JEALOUS BOYFRIEND OR JUST BAD TEMPER? followed by a thread of clips taken from unflattering angles and captioned with takes so hot they could melt the ice on the garden paths. 

He could see the think pieces, the psychoanalysis, the stan Twitter wars between people who thought he was justified and people who thought he was toxic, and neither side would be right because neither side knew the truth — they didn't know that you were the most oblivious person on the planet, that you thought everyone was just being friendly, that if someone flirted with you using the subtlety of a sledgehammer you'd probably just think they had great posture.

So Riki stayed where he was. He smiled. He networked. He kept his grip on his champagne flute tight enough that the tendons in his hand stood out like cords, and he watched, and he waited, and every time the man touched your shoulder, three times, he counted them, three goddamn times, he filed the number away like a brand seared into his memory.

By the time the event wound down, Riki had shaken approximately forty hands, smiled through approximately sixty conversations, and consumed approximately four glasses of champagne on an empty stomach. 

He was tipsy, not sloppy, not sloppy enough for anyone to notice, but just enough that the edges of things had gone soft and warm and his tongue felt loose behind his teeth. The buzz was pleasant, distracting, a buffer between his brain and the image of that man's hand on your shoulder that he kept replaying like a scene he couldn't stop watching.

You found him near the exit, adjusting his scarf with one hand and his phone with the other, and you slipped your arm through his like it was the most natural thing in the world. "Ready to go, baby?"

"Yeah." His voice came out rougher than intended. He cleared his throat. "Yeah, let's go."

The car was waiting — a sleek black sedan with tinted windows, booked privately through the service Riki always used when he didn't want the company van's driver to overhear whatever half-coherent conversation would inevitably happen on the ride home. You climbed in first, pulling your earmuffs off and shaking out your hair, and Riki followed, immediately reaching for the partition button to close off the driver's compartment.

Then you were on him.

Not in a sexual way, not consciously, but in the way you always were when you'd been apart from him for more than an hour. You pressed yourself against his side, your cheek finding the curve of his shoulder, your fingers walking up the front of his puffer jacket to fiddle with the zipper pull. You pressed a kiss to his jaw, then another to the spot just below his ear, and you could feel the way his pulse jumped under your lips even though his posture remained carefully, deliberately relaxed.

"I missed you," you murmured against his skin. "The event was so, so long, baby. I kept looking over at you."

"Did you?" His arm came up around your shoulders, his thumb rubbing a slow circle against the curve of your arm. The gesture was affectionate, automatic, but there was something in the rhythm of it that felt… off. Like a metronome that was slightly out of time. "I was watching you too."

"Were you?" You smiled against his neck, your nose brushing the collar of his sweater. "Did you like how I handled the Barneys buyer? I think I got them to commit to the spring line—"

"You seemed pretty busy." The words were casual. Too casual. The kind of casual that was constructed, deliberate, a mask placed over something sharper. "With that guy."

"What guy?" You pulled back just enough to look at him, your brow furrowed. Your glasses had slipped down your nose again, and you pushed them up absently. "Oh—you mean the installation designer? He was super sweet, Ki! He helped me fix my clip, and he had really interesting things to say about textile architecture. Did you know he studied under—"

"He was flirting with you."

The car took a turn, and the glow of a streetlight swept across Riki's face, illuminating the hard set of his jaw, the slight furrow between his brows, the way his eyes were fixed on the window instead of on you. You stared at him, blinking.

"He was what?"

"Flirting. With you." Each word was clipped, precise, like he was biting them in half before they could escape. "He touched your hair. Your face. Your shoulder—three times. He was leaning in so close I could practically see his dental work."

"Oh." You sat back slightly, processing this information the way you processed most social cues with a delay long enough to be endearing and a little bit tragic. "He was... flirting? With me? But he was just being nice. He fixed my glasses, Riki. Who fixes someone's glasses if they're not being nice?"

"Someone who wants an excuse to touch your face," Riki said flatly. "Someone who sees an opening and takes it because you're too sweet to notice that he's not being nice, he's being interested, and there's a difference, and you—"

He stopped himself. Exhaled through his nose. His jaw worked, the muscle there jumping, and you watched the tension ride through his frame like a current, shoulders rigid, fingers flexing against your arm, the tendons in his neck taut. He looked like he was physically holding something back, and the realisation hit you like cold water.

"Baby," you said softly, reaching up to touch his face. "Hey. Look at me."

He did. His eyes were dark in the low light of the car, the amber of the passing streetlamps catching in them intermittently, and there was something raw there, something unguarded that made your chest ache. You'd seen Riki walk for ten thousand people. You'd seen him navigate boardrooms and red carpets and interviews with the ease of someone who'd been trained to be likable since he was fourteen. 

But this — this was different. 

This was your Riki, the one who got sulky when you ate the last mochi, the one who practiced his confession in the mirror for three days before actually saying it, the one who was sitting in the back of a black sedan with champagne-warmth in his veins and jealousy sitting heavy and obvious in his chest.

"I'm sorry," you said, and you meant it. You were sorry — not for being friendly, because that was who you were and he'd never ask you to change, but for not noticing, for making him sit through that, for being the kind of person who could have a man practically draw her a map to his intentions and still think he was just being polite. "I didn't realize. I would've—I should have—"

"It's not your fault." He said it quietly, firmly, and his hand came up to cover yours on his cheek, pressing your palm against his skin like he needed the warmth. "I know that's just how you are. I know you don't see it. That's not—you're not the problem, okay? That bitch is the problem. I just—" He exhaled again, sharper this time, and his eyes fluttered shut. "It drove me insane. Standing there, watching him touch you like that, and I couldn't do anything. I couldn't just walk over there without it being a whole thing, and I knew if I said something it'd be everywhere, and—"

"Ki."

"—and he just kept touching you, and you were smiling at him, fuck, and I know you didn't mean anything by it, but you're mine, and—"

"Riki."

He stopped. Opened his eyes. Looked at you with that expression you'd only ever seen in the privacy of your shared spaces, hungry and soft and a little bit desperate, like he was standing at the edge of something and needed permission to fall.

"I'm yours," you said simply. "You know that."

"I know." His voice was rough. The champagne had loosened something in him, stripped away the careful composure, and what was left was raw and wanting. "I know. I just—need to remind myself."

The rest of the drive was quiet, but it wasn't the comfortable kind. 

It was the kind of quiet that hummed with tension, that filled the space between your bodies like static electricity, that made every point of contact, his hand on your thigh, your head on his shoulder, his thumb tracing absent patterns on the inside of your wrist, feel charged and significant. 

You pressed more kisses to his cheek, leaving faint traces of lipstick like signatures, and he let you, his eyes half-closed and his jaw still tight, and the offness you'd sensed earlier crystallised into something you could finally name.

He was jealous. He was jealous, and he was tipsy, and he was holding himself together with the kind of restraint that was fraying at the edges.

The house was warm when you walked in, you'd left the smart thermostat on before you left, and the heat had been cranking for the past four hours, turning the space into a cocoon against the winter chill outside. 

You kicked off your boots in the entryway, your feet finding the hardwood in just your tights, and you were reaching for the zipper of your jacket when Riki's hands found you.

Not your jacket. 

You. 

His arms wrapped around your waist from behind, his face pressing into the curve of your neck, and his entire body folded into yours like a building collapsing in slow motion. 

He was heavy, taller than you by nearly a head, broader across the shoulders, all long limbs and lean muscle, and when he let go, he let go, his weight sagging against your back until you staggered slightly under the pressure.

"Whoa, hey—"

"You're mine." The words were muffled against your neck, damp and warm, and his arms tightened around your waist like he was trying to press you into himself, eliminate any space between your bodies. "You're mine, and he was touching you, and I couldn't—I wanted to—"

"I know, baby. I know." You turned in his arms, your hands coming up to cradle his face, and he looked at you with eyes that were glassy and dark and so painfully honest that it made your heart crack open. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should've noticed, I should've—"

"Don't apologize." He shook his head, his hair falling across his forehead in that way that always made you want to push it back. "Don't. It's not—it's not your fault. You're too good. You're too good and people take advantage of it and it makes me—"

He broke off, his throat working, and something shifted in his expression. 

The whine was still there, the babyish, I-need-complaint pout that he wore when he was feeling small and wanted to be coddled, but underneath it, something else was surfacing. 

Something harder. Hotter. The jealousy that had been simmering all evening was reaching its boiling point, and the warmth from the champagne was fanning the flames.

"Enough." His voice dropped. Not angry, never angry with you, but firm, decided, the kind of firm that brokered no argument. "I've been patient all night. I've been good. I've smiled and shaken hands and let that man put his hands on what's mine without saying a word, and I'm done being patient."

Your breath caught. "Riki—"

"I need to mark you." He said it like a confession, like something he'd been holding behind his teeth all evening and could finally release. "I need to mark you, doll. I need to see my marks on you so that the next time someone thinks they can touch you, they'll see them and know."

He kissed you then, not the soft, reverent kisses from the car but something deeper, harder, his teeth catching your bottom lip and tugging until you gasped into his mouth. 

His hands were everywhere: cupping your jaw, tangling in your hair, sliding down your back to grip your hips and pull you flush against him. You could feel the heat of him even through the layers of your jacket and his puffer, the hard line of his body pressing against yours, and the champagne on his tongue was sweet and sharp and made your head spin.

"Up," he muttered against your lips, and then his hands were under your thighs, lifting you like you weighed nothing, and you wrapped your legs around his waist and your arms around his neck and held on as he carried you down the hallway to your bedroom.

He kicked the door open, not hard enough to damage it, but hard enough that it bounced off the wall, and laid you down on the bed with a care that contradicted the urgency of his movements. You sank into the duvet, your hair fanning out across the pillows, and he stood over you for a moment, chest heaving, eyes dragging down your body like he was committing every detail to memory.

"Keep the tights on," he said, and his voice was hoarse.

You blinked up at him. "What?"

"The tights." He sank to his knees at the edge of the bed, his hands finding your ankles and sliding up reverently over the smooth fabric dotted with tiny white polka dots. "Keep them on, baby. I have... plans."

His fingers traced the pattern, pressing gently into the sheer fabric, feeling the warmth of your skin beneath. The polka dots were like Braille under his fingertips, tiny raised dots that he read like a language only he knew. 

He pushed your mini-skirt up, baring the expanse of your thighs, and the sound he made, low, guttural, somewhere between a groan and a growl, sent a shiver racing down your spine.

"God, these tights." He pressed his lips to your knee, then to the soft skin above it, the fabric of the tights a whisper-thin barrier between his mouth and your skin. "Do you have any idea what you've done to me tonight? Walking around in these—looking like that—and then letting some other man put his hands on you—"

"I didn't know—"

"I know you didn't, doll. That's what makes it worse." He kissed the inside of your thigh, open-mouthed and hot, and your breath hitched. "You're so trusting. So sweet. You think everyone's just being nice, and meanwhile I'm standing across the room watching some guy memorize the shape of your body through these—" He bit down. Not hard enough to hurt, not yet, but hard enough that you felt the pressure of his teeth through the thin fabric, and you let out a startled, breathy sound that was half gasp and half moan.

"Riki—"

"He touched your shoulder three times." He bit down again, harder this time, and this time there was no mistaking it, he was leaving a mark, his teeth indenting the skin of your inner thigh through the polka dot tights, and the contrast was devastating: the delicate pattern of dots, the dark fabric, and the red bloom of a bruise rising underneath. "Three times. I counted. I counted every single time his hand made contact with your body, and each time I wanted to break his fingers."

"Baby—"

"Three." He bit down again, higher up on your thigh, and you arched off the bed with a cry that you muffled against the back of your hand. The pain was sharp and bright, but it faded almost immediately into something warm and throbbing, and when you looked down, you could see the mark already forming, a dark, mouth-shaped bruise against the polka dot fabric, the white dots like witnesses to the claim.

"Two." Another bite, on the other thigh now, and his tongue swept over the mark after, soothing and wet and obscenely hot through the tights. You were trembling, your fingers twisted in the duvet, your glasses askew on your face, and he hadn't even taken off a single piece of your clothing.

"One." The last bite was the hardest, placed high on your inner thigh where the skin was softest and the tights were stretched thin, and you felt the sting of it all the way down to your toes. He pulled back to admire his work, and the sound he made, low, satisfied, almost predatory, made heat pool in your stomach. Three marks. Three whole ass bites. One for each time that man had touched you, each one a brand that would darken over the next few days into deep, mottled purple.

"Perfect," he breathed. His fingers traced the marks, pressing lightly, watching the way your breath stuttered. "You look so pretty with my marks on you, angel. So pretty. And everyone's gonna know. Not that they'd see these—" He dragged his thumb over the bruise on your inner thigh, and you whimpered. "But I'll know. And you'll know. And every time you move your legs tomorrow, you're going to feel them and remember that you're mine."

"I'm yours," you whispered, and you meant it with every cell in your body.

He smiled at that, not the sharp, possessive smile from before, but something softer, something that cracked through the jealousy like sunlight through clouds. "Yeah," he said, and his voice was gentle even though his hands were still pressing bruises into your thighs. "Yeah, you are."

He reached for the waistband of your tights then, hooking his fingers under the elastic and dragging them down your hips slowly, pressing open-mouthed kisses to every inch of newly exposed skin. The tights peeled off like a second skin, the polka dots sliding away from the bruises he'd left, and he tossed them somewhere over his shoulder without looking. 

Your underwear followed, a scrap of black lace that he pulled down with his teeth, and the visual of it, Riki on his knees, his eyes dark and fixed on your face, his mouth dragging lace down your thighs, was enough to make your breath come in shallow, desperate pants.

"Ki, please—"

"Please what?" He settled between your legs, his breath warm against your inner thighs, his lips ghosting over the marks he'd left. "Tell me what you want, doll. You have a mouth for a reason."

"Your mouth. Please—I need—"

"What do you mean by please?" He pressed a kiss to your inner thigh, dangerously close to where you needed him, and his tongue darted out to taste the mark he'd left. 

The sensation was electric, warm and not nearly enough, and you squirmed beneath him, your hips lifting off the bed in silent pleading.

"I need your mouth on me. Please, Ki. Please, baby."

"Good girl." The words vibrated against your skin, and then his mouth was on you, and you stopped thinking entirely.

He was thorough. 

He was always thorough, Riki had never done anything half-heartedly in his life, and that included this, but tonight there was an edge to it, a hunger that bordered on desperation. His tongue was hot and precise, mapping every fold and curve with the focus of a cartographer charting new territory, and when he found the spot that made your back arch off the mattress, he stayed there, circling and pressing and sucking until you were making sounds you didn't recognise.

"Riki—oh god—Ki—"

He groaned against you, the vibration of it shooting through your body like a shockwave, and his hands gripped your thighs hard enough to leave fingerprint bruises alongside the bite marks. 

He was making noises too, low and guttural sounds that were half-moan and half-growl, the kind of sounds that came from a man who was losing himself in the taste of you, who couldn't stop even if he wanted to, who was drunk on champagne and jealousy and the sweetness of your body on his tongue.

"You taste so good," he murmured against you, his voice wrecked. "So fucking good, angel. My doll. Mine."

"Yours—ah—yours, baby, I'm—"

He didn't let you finish the sentence. His tongue flattened against you, broad and wet and relentless, and he licked into you with a determination that made your vision blur. Your glasses were completely fogged now, the lenses clouded with heat and moisture, and you reached up blindly to pull them off, tossing them somewhere on the nightstand, and the world went soft and dark at the edges. Not that you needed to see. You could feel every stroke of his tongue, every press of his lips, every sharp inhale he took between your legs like he was breathing you in.

The orgasm built slowly, a tightening coil in your lower belly that wound tighter with every stroke of his tongue. You could feel it approaching, cresting, your thighs shaking around his head, your fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him closer even though closer was physically impossible—

And then he stopped.

You made a sound of protest that was embarrassingly close to a sob, your hips chasing his mouth, but he pulled back just out of reach, his hands pressing your thighs down against the mattress. "Not yet," he said, and his voice was steady even though his lips were swollen and glistening and his chest was heaving. "You don't get to come yet."

"What—why—"

"Three." He said it simply, and the meaning crashed over you like cold water. Three. Three edges. Three denials. One for each time that man had touched your shoulder, one for each moment Riki had watched from across the room and done nothing. This was the reckoning.

"Riki, I can't—"

"You can." He pressed a kiss to the inside of your knee, gentle and reassuring. "You can, and you will. Because I asked you to. Because you're mine, and you're going to take what I give you, and you're going to be good for me. Can you do that, doll?"

Your eyes were stinging. Your body was thrumming with unresolved tension, every nerve ending screaming for release, and he was asking you to hold on, to wait, to endure. But the way he was looking at you, soft and dark and so full of love that it made your chest ache, made it impossible to say no.

"Yes," you whispered. "Yes, I can be good for you."

"My good girl." He smiled, and then he was moving, shedding his puffer jacket and pulling his sweater over his head, revealing the lean lines of his torso, broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist, and the faint definition of his abs. He was beautiful. He was always beautiful, but like this, dishevelled and hungry and looking at you like you were the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth, he was absolutely devastating.

"Come here," you whispered, reaching for him, and he went.

He kissed you as he settled over you, his weight pressing you into the mattress, and you could taste yourself on his tongue, sweet and strange. His hands worked at the remaining pieces of your outfit, the jacket, the scarf, the mini-skirt, until you were bare beneath him, your skin flushed and dotted with the marks he'd already left, and he pulled back to look at you again.

"You're so beautiful," he said, and his voice cracked on the last word. "So fucking beautiful, and you're mine. Say it again."

"I'm yours, Ki."

"Again."

"I'm yours. Only yours. Always yours."

He kissed you harder, his hands roaming your body with a reverence that bordered on worship. He traced the curve of your waist, the swell of your hips, the dip of your collarbone, his touch feather-light and burning. "This body," he murmured against your jaw. "This body is mine. Every inch of it. Every curve. Every mark." 

His lips found your breast, his tongue circling your nipple, and you arched into the wet heat with a broken moan. "He can look all he wants. He can fix your glasses and adjust your clips and touch your shoulder until his fingers fall off. But at the end of the night, this—" He bit down gently on the swell of your breast, and you keened. "—this comes home to me."

"Yes—yes, baby, always—"

"Open your mouth for me, doll."

You did, without hesitation, without question, because you trusted him with every fibre of your being and because the look in his eyes right now, the raw and naked need, made it impossible to do anything but surrender. 

He shifted, his knees bracketing your shoulders, and you watched through half-lidded eyes as he freed himself from his jeans, the hard length of him bobbing heavily against his stomach.

He was big. 

You'd never gotten used to it — the first time you'd been together, you'd actually laughed, because what else were you supposed to do when confronted with something that looked like it belonged in a textbook? He'd been mortified until you'd explained, and then he'd been insufferably smug about it for approximately five weeks. Now, though, there was no laughter — only hunger, only want, only the desperate need to feel him in whatever way he'd give you.

"Tap my thigh if it's too much," he said, and his voice was gentle even though his hand was shaking where it gripped the headboard. "Okay?"

"Okay."

He pressed the head of his cock against your lips, and you opened wider, your tongue darting out to taste the salt of him, and the sound he made, a sharp, bitten-off groan that he tried to swallow and failed, sent a pulse of heat straight to your core. 

He pushed in slowly, inch by inch, giving you time to adjust, and you felt the stretch of him, the weight, the girth, the way he filled your mouth until your jaw ached with the effort of accommodating him.

"Fuck," he breathed. His head fell back, the long line of his throat exposed, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed hard. "Fuck, doll, your mouth—"

You hummed around him, and his hips jerked forward, pushing himself deeper, and you fought your gag reflex bravely, your throat fluttering around the intrusion. He noticed, he always noticed, and his hand came down to cup your jaw, his thumb stroking your cheek in a gesture that was so tender it made your eyes water.

"You're doing so good," he said, and the praise washed over you like warm honey. "So good for me, angel. Taking me so well. My perfect girl."

He started to move then, shallow thrusts at first, letting you set the pace, but gradually deeper, faster, his hips rocking into your mouth with a rhythm that was steadily losing its restraint. 

The sounds he was making were obscene: low, rumbling moans that came from somewhere deep in his chest, punctuated by breathless curses and fragments of your name. He was vocal always, had been since the very beginning, the first time you'd been together he'd been so loud that his neighbour had pounded on the wall and he'd just laughed, breathless and unashamed, but tonight, with the champagne stripping away his inhibitions, he was practically singing.

"Ah—fuck, yes—just like that, doll—your mouth feels so—god—"

His hand fisted in your hair, not pulling, just holding, and his thrusts grew more erratic, his breathing more ragged, and you could feel him getting close, the way his muscles tensed, the way his moans pitched higher, the way his thighs trembled against your shoulders. 

But he pulled back before he could finish, his cock slipping from your lips with a wet sound that made you both groan, and he was breathing hard, his chest heaving, his eyes squeezed shut like he was physically holding himself together.

"Not yet," he said, more to himself than to you. "Not like that. I need—I need to be inside you when I come. Need to feel you."

He moved down your body, settling between your legs again, and this time when he kissed you, it was slow and deep and tasted like the two of you mixed together. 

You could feel him hot and hard against your stomach, the slick of him smearing across your skin, and you reached down to wrap your hand around him, but he caught your wrist and pinned it above your head.

"Patience," he murmured against your lips, and you whimpered because patience was the absolute last thing you had right now.

"I've been patient," you protested, and your voice came out wrecked, raw and hoarse from his cock in your throat and the moans you couldn't stop making. "Please, Ki—I've been so good—"

"You have," he agreed, and his free hand was sliding down your body, over the curve of your hip, between your legs, and his fingers found you dripping and swollen and so achingly sensitive that even the lightest touch made you jerk. "You've been so good for me, baby. My perfect, perfect girl. You deserve a reward, don't you?"

"Yes—please—"

He entered you in one long, slow thrust, and the sound you both made was identical, a broken, desperate moan that harmonised in the quiet of the bedroom. 

He filled you completely, the stretch of him bordering on too much and then settling into something that made your eyes roll back in your head, and he held himself there, buried to the hilt, his forehead pressed against yours, his breath coming in ragged pants.

"Feel that?" He rolled his hips, a slow grind that pressed against every sensitive spot inside you, and you sobbed. "That's mine. You're mine. Say it."

"I'm yours—fuck—I'm yours, Ki—"

He started to move then, really move, and the pace he set was punishing. Deep, hard thrusts that drove you up the mattress, each one punctuated by the slap of skin against skin and the wet sound of your bodies moving together. He was relentless, his hips snapping forward with a precision that spoke of barely contained control, and each thrust hit something inside you that made your vision go blank.

"This is mine," he gritted out, his hand sliding down to grip your hip hard enough to bruise. "This body—this pussy—all of it. Mine. Not his. Not anyone else's. Mine."

"Yours—only yours—baby, please—"

"Please what?" He shifted the angle, hitching your leg up over his hip, and the new position let him sink even deeper, and you heard yourself make a sound that was barely human, high and thin and desperate. "Please let you come? Is that what you want, doll?"

"Yes—yes, please, I need—"

"You need to wait." He thrust into you hard, and you screamed, and he swallowed the sound with his mouth, his tongue sweeping past your lips in a kiss that was all teeth and desperation. "Three, remember? You've had one. You need two more."

"I can't—I can't take it—"

"You can. You will." He pressed his forehead to yours, his eyes dark and molten, and his voice dropped to a whisper. "You're so strong, doll. So perfect. So beautiful. You can take anything I give you, and you'll thank me for it. Won't you?"

"Yes—yes, I'll thank you—thank you, Ki—"

"Good girl."

He kept moving, and you kept climbing, and just as the coil in your belly was about to snap for the second time, he pulled out. Stopped out of nowhere. 

The emptiness was unbearable, your body clenching around nothing, your hips chasing the friction that had been so cruelly denied, and the sound you made was a full-bodied sob that echoed off the walls.

"I know," he said, and his voice was gentle even though his hands were shaking. "I know, baby. I know it's hard. You're doing so well. Just one more."

"One more," you repeated, like a prayer. "One more. I can do one more."

"My good girl."

He pushed back in, and this time the thrusts were slower, not gentler, not by a long shot, but more deliberate, more controlled, each one a calculated assault on your senses. His hand found the spot between your legs, his thumb pressing in tight circles, and the sensation of him inside you and his fingers on you was too much. You were shaking, tears streaming down your temples into your hair, your hands fisted in the sheets so tightly that your knuckles were white.

"You're so beautiful like this," he said, and his voice was reverent, worshipful, like he was looking at something holy. "All teary and desperate and mine. Nobody else gets to see you like this. Nobody. Not the designers, not the buyers, not the men who think they can put their hands on you at events. This—" He thrust deep, grinding against you, and you keened. "—this shit is mine."

"Yours—only yours—Ki, please—"

"Please what?"

"Please let me come—I can't—I'm going to—I need—"

"Not yet." But his voice was strained, his own control fraying, and you could see it in the way his jaw clenched, the way his thrusts were becoming more erratic, the way his moans were pitching higher and more desperate. 

He was close too, you could feel it in the tension of his body, the way he was fighting his own release alongside yours, and the realization that he was denying himself as much as he was denying you made something hot and tight twist in your chest.

"Ki—"

"One more, doll. Give me one more. You can do it. I know you can."

He changed the angle again, deeper now, impossibly deep, the head of his cock pressing against your cervix with each thrust, and the pleasure was so intense it bordered on pain. You were beyond words now, beyond coherent thought, reduced to a creature of pure sensation, every nerve ending firing, every muscle trembling, your entire being focused on the point where his body met yours.

He pulled out again.

The third denial was the worst. Or the best. You couldn't tell anymore. You were sobbing openly, your body wracked with tremors, your thighs shaking around his hips, and when you reached for him, your hands were so weak that you could barely grip his shoulders. The orgasm that had been building for what felt like hours was hovering just out of reach, a wave that had crested but hadn't yet broken, and the frustration was so acute it was almost its own kind of pleasure.

"I can't—" you wept. "Ki, baby, please—I can't take another one—please, I need to come—I need—"

"I know," he said, and this time his voice broke on the words. "I know, doll. You've been so good. So perfect. So patient. You took all three so beautifully. My good girl. My perfect, perfect girl."

He thrust back in, and this time there was no stopping. No pulling out. No denial. Just the relentless, punishing rhythm of his hips and the pressure of his thumb on your clit and the sound of his voice in your ear, low and rough and so full of love that it made your chest hurt.

"Come for me," he said, and it was a command and a plea and a prayer all at once. "Come for me, doll. Let go. I've got you. I've always got you."

You came.

It hit you like a wall of light, blinding, all-consuming, every muscle in your body seizing at once as the orgasm that had been denied three times finally, finally crashed over you. 

You were aware of screaming his name, of your nails raking down his back, of your body arching off the bed so violently that he had to pin you down with his weight, and the pleasure was so intense that for a long, terrifying moment, you couldn't see or hear or think, you could only feel, every cell in your body exploding and reforming and exploding again.

He followed you over the edge a moment later, his hips stuttering, his breath catching, and then he was spilling into you with a groan that seemed to come from the very marrow of his bones. 

You felt the warmth of it, the pulse of him inside you, the way his body shuddered with each wave, the raw, animal sound of his release, and it triggered another smaller orgasm in you, your walls clenching around him in aftershocks that made you both gasp.

He didn't pull out. He couldn't. His body had given out the moment the orgasm hit, and he collapsed on top of you with his full weight, his face buried in the crook of your neck, his breath coming in ragged, shuddering gasps that you could feel against your sweat-damp skin. 

You held him, your arms wrapping around his back, your fingers tracing the scratch marks you'd left, thin red lines that would be visible tomorrow if he took his shirt off, and you pressed kisses to whatever part of him you could reach: his temple, his hairline, the shell of his ear.

"I love you," you whispered, and your voice was wrecked—raw and hoarse and barely audible. "I love you so much, Ki."

"I love you too." His voice was muffled against your neck, thick and slow and sleepy, the champagne and the orgasm hitting him all at once. "I love you more than anything. You know that, right?"

"I know."

"Good." He pressed a lazy kiss to your pulse point, and you felt him smile against your skin. "Mine."

"Yours."

The silence that followed was warm and comfortable, the kind of silence that could only exist between two people who had just dismantled each other completely and were now lying in the wreckage, too spent to move but too content to care. The heater hummed in the corner. The snow was falling outside the window, visible in the glow of the streetlight, and somewhere in the distance, a car alarm went off and was ignored.

Eventually, Riki shifted, just enough to lift his head and look at you, his eyes heavy-lidded and soft and so full of affection that it made your heart do something embarrassing in your chest. 

"Hey," he said.

"Hello to you too."

"Are you okay?"

"Mm." You stretched, wincing at the soreness that was already settling into your muscles, and you shifted your legs experimentally, and that was when you saw them.

The marks.

What the fuck.

You propped yourself up on your elbows, looking down at your body, and the sight that greeted you made your breath catch. 

Your inner thighs were a patchwork of bruises, the bite marks from earlier, already darkening into deep purple and blue, overlapping and intersecting like some kind of abstract painting. 

Your hips were fingerprinted, ten small crescents where his hands had gripped you. 

Your breasts bore the faint impression of his teeth, and your collarbone — well. It looked like you'd been attacked by a very determined vampire.

"Oh my god," you breathed.

Riki followed your gaze, and the satisfied smile that spread across his face was entirely unapologetic. "Oh my god?" he repeated, his tone incredulous. "That's all you have to say?"

"Riki, there are—there are marks everywhere."

"That was kind of the point, doll."

"I know, but—" You shifted again, wincing as the bruises on your thighs pressed against the mattress, and then a thought struck you that was equal parts mortified and relieved. "Oh, thank god it's winter."

Riki raised an eyebrow. "Thank god it's winter?"

"So I don't have to head out in shorts twenty-four-seven," you explained, gesturing at the constellation of bruises decorating your thighs. "I mean, can you imagine? I'd walk into the office and my team would think I'd been attacked by a wild animal."

"A very handsome wild animal," Riki corrected, and you laughed.

"A very handsome wild animal who can't control his teeth," you amended.

"I control them just fine. I placed every single one of those marks with intent." He pressed a kiss to your shoulder, then another to the mark on your collarbone, his lips warm and lingering. "And besides, baby, you won't need to worry about shorts. I just washed and prepared your maxi skirts, especially the denim one your mom reworked, so thank me later."

You stared at him. "You did what?"

"Washed your maxi skirts." He said it casually, like it was the most normal thing in the world, like he hadn't just confessed to doing your laundry — which he never did, not because he was unwilling but because you were particular about the way your garments were handled and he'd once shrunk a cashmere sweater and you'd made a face so tragic that he'd sworn off laundry duty entirely. "The denim one is hanging on the back of the bathroom door. I air-dried it like you showed me. And the grey wool one is in the closet, third hanger from the left."

"You, Nishimura Riki, washed my skirts. By hand. And air-dried them."

"Yes." He blinked at you, all innocent and earnest, like he wasn't lying there with love bites covering his throat and your lipstick still smudged on his jaw. "Is that... is that weird?"

"No." Your voice came out thick, and you realised with a start that you were getting emotional, over laundry, of all things, but it wasn't really about the laundry, was it? 

It was about the fact that this man, the same man who had marked you like a territorial wolf not fifteen minutes ago, had also spent time carefully hand-washing your skirts because he knew, somehow, that you'd need them. That he'd thought ahead. That he'd taken care of you in ways that were quiet and domestic and so fundamentally him that it made your eyes sting again. 

"It's not weird," you said again, softer this time, and you cupped his face in your hands and kissed him, slow and deep and full of a love so enormous that you couldn't possibly contain it. "It's the opposite of weird. It's the most thoughtful thing anyone has ever done for me."

"Now who's being dramatic," he murmured against your lips, but he was smiling, and you could feel the way his chest expanded with the kind of quiet pride that he'd never admit to out loud.

"Thank you, Ki."

"You're welcome, baby." He shifted, pulling out of you with a wince that matched yours, and the absence of him left you feeling empty and cold and aching in ways that were both physical and emotional. 

He reached for the duvet, pulling it over both of you, and gathered you against his chest like you were something precious and breakable and infinitely worth protecting.

"Hey," you said, your voice muffled against his skin.

"Hm?"

"Next time someone flirts with me at an event and I don't notice, you have my full permission to come over and be insane about it."

He laughed, the kind that shook his whole body and made the bed creak. "You're going to regret saying that."

"Probably." You smiled against his chest, your fingers tracing lazy patterns on his skin. "But at least I'll have the maxi skirts to cover the evidence."

"The denim one especially," he said, and you could hear the grin in his voice. "Your mom did a great job on it. The hem is perfect."

"You’re so weird."

"You love it."

"Yeah." You pressed a kiss to the centre of his chest, right over his heart, and felt it beat steady and strong against your lips. "Yeah, I really do."

Outside, the snow kept falling, blanketing the city in white, and inside, under the warmth of the duvet and the weight of each other, you fell asleep to the sound of his breathing and the knowledge that tomorrow, when you pulled on that reworked denim maxi skirt, the marks on your thighs would press against the fabric like a secret — yours and his and nobody else's.

When Riki handed you your glasses from the nightstand the next morning, his fingers lingering on the frames just a moment too long, you thought about the way he'd looked at you when you'd put them on the night before, like you were the only person in the room, in the city, in the world, and you smiled, and you didn't bother wondering whether the man from the event would reach out, because it didn't matter. 

None of it mattered. 

The only hands that would ever touch you like that, the only hands that had the right, were the ones currently reaching for the coffee maker, still clumsy with sleep, still wearing the scratch marks on his back like a badge of honour.

"Hey, baby?" Riki called from the kitchen, his voice rough with morning and fondness.

"Yes?"

"The tights—are they hand-wash only? Because I may have like… thrown them on the floor last night, and I want to make sure I don't ruin them when I pick them up."

You laughed, bright and so full of love it hurt, and you padded barefoot into the kitchen, your bruises hidden under the oversized sweater you'd stolen from his closet, and you kissed him until the coffee went cold and the snow outside melted into slush and the whole world narrowed down to this: his mouth on yours, his hands on your waist, his heart beating against your palms.

"Hand-wash only," you murmured. "Cold water. Lay flat to dry."

"I'll add it to the list," he said, and he smiled, the one that was just for you, and you thought, not for the first time and certainly not for the last, that you were the luckiest woman alive.

And the polka dot tights, when you finally retrieved them from the bedroom floor, were perfectly fine, ready for the next event, the next outfit, the next time Riki would look at you across a crowded room and know, with absolute certainty, that you were his.

Just as he was yours.

⭐ ⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

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💿 ࿐ . . moonlight by kali uchis

✷ NOTE : thank you all so, so much for reading ! i hope you enjoyed this little world for a while ♡ all of this is purely a work of fiction & doesn’t reflect reality at all . . likes, reblogs, and feedback are deeply cherished and very, very appreciated on here !

There were, conservatively, one thousand things you wanted to tell Frank Langdon in the ten months he was gone in rehab.

Realistically, it was closer to a million. Possibly a billion. The number started snowballing around week three and never stopped, just stacked itself up like the seventy-six unread emails currently rotting in your inbox under the subject line Friendly Reminder!!!

You wanted to tell him about the coffee shop that opened two blocks from your apartment in month one.

A tiny, overly priced place with exposed brick and a chalkboard menu and oat milk in little ceramic pitchers, and how you’d gone in excited and came out with something called a lavender haze latte that tasted like drinking a candle and cost fourteen dollars.

You stood outside afterward holding it in both hands, blinking at traffic, thinking, Frank would have something horrible to say about this place.

He would call it stupid. He would say lavender belongs in cleaning products.

You would accuse him of having no whimsy.

It would’ve been perfect.

You wanted to tell him about the plant you’d bought in month two because you read somewhere that having something alive in your apartment was good for your mental health and how it had died in month three despite what you could only describe as over enthusiastic care. 

You wanted to tell him about the movie you’d seen alone in month four.

You wanted to tell him about how your upstairs neighbor had gotten a dog in month five. A large dog. A loud dog. A dog that sounded, at three in the morning, like it was dragging a full-grown man across hardwood floors.

And how your best friend got engaged in month six and married in month seven in a courthouse three blocks from the hospital.

You wore a brown bridesmaid dress that he would have found hideous.

In month eight you cut bangs. In month nine you grew them back out, because apparently you are not built for radical reinvention, just small, glittery delusions of it.

And in month ten, your brother called, two years clean now.

All you could think about was Langdon and whether he would sound the same.

None of that, of course, makes it anywhere near him.

Because you know yourself. You know you are not built for the unobtrusive support that a situation like this requires.

You are built for other things. You are confetti and volume and love that announces itself when it enters a room. 

You are the person who cries at discharge reunions and leaves affirmation Post-its on lockers in looping cursive and once spent forty minutes making a get-well card for a man you spoke to for six.

You are color and over-involvement and “just checking in!!! 💕” at exactly the wrong time.

Your brother had spent the better part of his early twenties disappearing in increments so gradual you’d almost missed them.

Almost.

You’d seen enough, toward the end, to know something was wrong, and you’d responded the way you respond to everything. Which was with overwhelming, well-intentioned, catastrophically misguided love.

Calling too much, showing up too often, making yourself so present in his orbit that he’d finally, in a moment you still think about more than you should, looked at you with exhausted eyes and said you make everything harder, you know that?

He hadn’t meant it, or he had, or it had been the addiction talking, or it had been him.

You never fully sorted that out. 

You only sorted yourself into categories.

A lot. Possibly too much, if your brother had been even partially correct in the things he’d said during the worst of it. And perfectly lovely when the world is stable and mutual and fun.

But when someone is clawing their way back to shore? When the water needs to be still? You are a wake. You are ripples. You are motion.

And motion, no matter how well-intentioned, can look like danger to someone trying not to drown.

Which is why you’ve been floating around ER like a porcelain figurine set too close to the edge of the shelf since Langdon came back eight days ago.

You meant to act normal, to slide back into the old rhythm as if ten months were nothing but a scheduling error, but instead you swung so far toward composure that it hardened into distance.

Calling him Dr. Langdon with a formality that made the nurses visibly confused, dropping his coffee and leaving before he could say thank you, finding extremely urgent reasons to be in other parts of the hospital whenever he was stationary for too long.

You, the person who once followed him into a supply closet mid-argument because you refused to let him win on a technicality, are now treating him like a volatile chemical spill.

Contain. Do not agitate. Maintain distance.

“The compression bandages are backordered until Thursday. Again. And — are you even listening?”

You are, in theory, a participant in this exchange with your favorite charge nurse.

In practice, your entire consciousness is fixated on a scuff mark on the counter that has abruptly become the most compelling object in the building.

You are not, under any circumstances, allowing your gaze to drift toward the main corridor where he might appear. 

You are running probabilities instead. Three corridors. One potential Langdon sighting.

Corridor A is likely. Corridor C not so much. Corridor B leads to the stairwell he takes when he avoids the elevator, because elevators are a thing for you and apparently also a thing for him and that shared vulnerability is a landmine.

“Yup,” you hum, transferring the lollipop to the other side of your mouth because if your mouth is full, you cannot blurt something you’ll regret.

Like, for example, So how is he? Or Has he been… okay? Or Does he look tired to you?

You want to ask Dana if he’s coping. If he’s sleeping. If he’s eating. 

You let the sugar dissolve slowly instead.

“That’s the third time this quarter,” Dana continues, steady and unimpressed. “I need you to flag it with supply before end of shift. Not tomorrow. Today.”

“Already on my list.”

“It wasn’t on your list this morning.”

“It’s on my list now.”

Dana lifts her head slowly, the clipboard dipping just enough for you to see the full, unfiltered skepticism assembling across her face like storm clouds over a very specific, very pink horizon.

Her gaze flicks to the lollipop. Back to you.

“Where’d you get that?”

“Pediatric stash.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m cold and my blood sugar is low,” you say, like that settles it.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“It answers the important one.”

She exhales through her nose. 

“It’s for kids post-procedure.”

“And I am post-something,” you reply, because if the last ten months don’t qualify as a procedure then what were they? Surgical removal of delusion. Metaphorical incision. Sutures pending.

Dana narrows her eyes like she’s about to connect dots you would prefer remain decorative.

You smile anyway. Cherry red grin. Sugar blooming sharp against your tongue.

Emotional trauma counts. Sugar is medicinal. These are facts you have decided. If pediatric patients get comfort candy after invasive events, then you absolutely qualify. Your heart has been under anesthesia for eight whole days.

You gather your things, tucking loose forms into place. “Okay so I’ll get the supply flag first thing and then —”

“The secondary intake tray,” Dana says quickly, eyes darting over your head.

You falter mid-sentence. “— start on the Tues — sorry, what?”

“Secondary intake tray,” she clarifies, clearing her throat awkwardly. “It’s backed up.”

“I cleared it this morning.”

“It’s backed up again.”

You frown. That doesn’t track. You are very good at your job. You take pride in not missing things. Things don’t simply… repopulate.

Dana is still not looking at you. She’s looking slightly to the right. Slightly behind you.

You brow furrows. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Her mouth twitches. A shrug.

“Don’t know what to tell ya, kid.”

“Dana, that’s not —” you start, already stepping forward like you can physically tug her back by the edge of her scrub top and demand adult supervision. “ — helpful,” you finish weakly to the air, watching her retreating back as she rounds the corner without so much as a glance over her shoulder.

“Hey.”

You yelp.

Then spin at full velocity and immediately almost knock yourself unconscious on a metal supply rack because apparently you are committed to dying in the most humiliating way possible.

Except you don’t.

Because a hand shoots out and braces against the shelf with a sharp metallic thud just before your skull makes contact. You feel the whoosh of air as your hair brushes his wrist, your breath tumbling out of you in a soft gasp.

Langdon stands there, close enough that the world narrows sufficiently. His arm angles above your shoulder, creating a small, accidental shelter around you. A human parentheses.

Neither of you moves. 

This close, you can see the tiny flecks of lint clinging to his navy scrubs. The deep, inky blue that makes his skin look warmer, his shoulders broader. 

Fucking Dana.

“Thanks,” you say, the lollipop knocking awkwardly against your teeth. “For the — yeah. The hand thing.”

“Mm.”

“I was going to be fine, for the record,” you add. “I have a very hard head.”

“I know.”

Does he mean stubborn? Resilient? Reckless? Does he mean you talk too much? That you barrel into things without looking?

You decide, strategically, not to investigate.

“You know, most men just ask for my number instead of —” your eyes flick up to his, the smile already there, already doing the thing it does, “ — pinning me to —”

You think about the water. Stillness. Wake. Motion. Drowning.

So the word dies mid-air like you’ve bitten down on it too hard.

“Sorry, um, yeah, thanks again,” you murmur, composure snapping back into place like a cardigan buttoned too tightly, “I have to go log some requisition forms.”

He stops you from moving, caging you in further, bicep tightening to the right of your face.

“Pinning you to —” he says, almost mildly, like he’s genuinely invested in your unfinished thought, “— whatever surface is most convenient?”

You take the lollipop out of your mouth because something in your chest just dropped and you need full oxygen.

The tables, you think distantly, have turned. Spectacularly.

In a way that feels karmic because you have been on the delivering end of this for two years and somehow failed to anticipate what it would feel like to be on the receiving end of it from him specifically. 

Tongue like sandpaper. Heat crawling up your neck. Every coherent thought evacuating the premises in an orderly single-file line.

Is this how he feels? When you do your thing, when you say the things you say, when you look at him the way you look at him? Does it feel like this?

Probably not. This is probably just the baby blues working on you.

The jawline, the forearms, the stupid unbothered competence of him, the crush you’ve been nursing like a part-time job for longer than you’re willing to put a number on.

“Forms,” you say. “I have to go log —”

“You said that already.”

“I’m reiterating the point,” you reply quickly. “For emphasis. It’s a completely valid rhetorical —”

His hand closes around the lollipop stick between your fingers and lifts it away.

“Hey!” You reach for it immediately. He holds it up just out of reach, not mockingly, just enough to make you aware of the proximity required to reclaim it. “That’s — okay, very funny, can I have that back, that is a choking hazard in the wrong hands —”

“Sure,” he says easily. “Talk to me first.”

“About what?”

You’re not stupid. You know exactly what about. And he’s not stupid, he’s arguably the least stupid person in this building, which is why you knew he’d notice. 

You just operated under the wildly naive assumption that noticing and confronting were two entirely separate categories of human behavior.

That there would be a little more distance between observation and confrontation, a buffer wide enough for you to assemble something articulate.

“About you. You’ve been… off,” he continues, choosing the word like he doesn’t want to make it heavier than it already is. His voice lowers on the last part, a half step down, conscious of the open hallway around you. “With me.”

“Off,” you repeat, like the word is unfamiliar to you. “That’s — I mean, I wouldn’t say off that’s such a strong adjective. Maybe you could say temporally misaligned.”

“With me,” he reminds you.

“Yes, but contextually,” you press on, because if you keep talking maybe you can outrun the implication. “There’s been significant planetary congestion lately. Mercury, Venus, something is in opposition to something else, and when that happens it can create this weird atmospheric pressure that makes people instinctively recalibrate their interpersonal radius.”

“Interpersonal radius,” he deadpans.

“Yes.” You nod with full conviction. “Like gravitational fields. It’s physics adjacent.”

He watches you without interrupting, which is frankly the worst possible choice he could make because now you have room to continue.

“And I just think it would be irresponsible to ignore cosmic warning signs,” you finish, slightly breathless. “So if I have been momentarily… radius-adjusted, that is not off. It’s just planetary compliance.”

He watches you for a long second. 

“Or,” he finally says, “you could just tell me what’s actually going on. And if it’s the thing I think it’s about —” he pauses, just briefly, “ — if this is about the pills, just say so. If you don’t want to be around someone with that kind of history, that’s — I get it.”

“Frank.”

His name comes out with more feeling than you intended.

“No. Absolutely not, that is not — no.” You can hear the desperation in your voice. “My brother went to rehab. Did you know that? You didn’t know that. He had a whole — it was bad, and I missed it, and then I saw it and I handled it the way I handle everything because I don’t have a great history of pacing myself and I suffocated him and I didn’t want to do that to you and —”

You stop speaking and for a second you don’t even register why, until the echo of your own voice catches up to you and you hear what you just said the way he must have heard it.

Unfiltered and personal and too much. 

The blood leaves your face in one long sweep, drains all the way down to somewhere around your kneecaps, and then reverses course and comes back with compounding interest, flooding back up in a wave so thorough you can feel it in your ears. 

You were supposed to be controlled. I

nstead you have handed him a piece of your worst fear with absolutely no packaging, no warning, no flattering lighting to soften it. 

You can feel yourself wanting to pull it back, to laugh it off, but it’s already out there, sitting between you in plain view.

“That’s not what this is,” he says after a moment.

“What?”

“That’s history,” he continues. “This is you deciding what I can handle without asking me. You don’t get to preemptively protect me from yourself. Especially not based on something that had nothing to do with you in the first place.”

“That’s not what I meant,” you say, almost defensive now. “I’m not trying to manage you. I just — I know how I can be.”

You have relocated your gaze to a point near his collar. Specifically the second button. It is a very neutral button. It has no opinions about any of this.

“I know exactly how you can be and I don’t have a problem with it. What I have a problem with is you avoiding me. I don’t want you different.”

“You say that now,” you mutter.

“I’m saying it consistently.”

The words hit you in a place that has been braced for impact. You’ve been preparing for boundaries. For a version of him that came back with sharper edges and less tolerance for pink stationery and overenthusiastic check-ins.

You had assumed, with the certainty of someone who has loved difficult people before and learned what it costs, that there would be a list. Of things that were too much now. Of habits and tendencies and particular varieties of you that didn't fit into the life he was carefully rebuilding.

You had built the whole picture. You had pre-grieved it, even.

You swallow. “Okay.”

The word comes out unadorned, unqualified, the smallest thing you've said all conversation, and somehow the most honest.

A door opening instead of a speech about doors.

He raises an eyebrow. “Okay as in we’re done pretending we’re coworkers who’ve never spoken? Should I expect the innuendos to resume at full capacity?”

Heat creeps into your cheeks before you can stop it.

“I don’t just flip a switch,” you say, lifting your chin slightly like that will restore authority. “There’s a warm-up period.”

“Of course,” he says, a flicker of something pressing at the outmost corner of his mouth. “No pressure.”

“…Can I have that back now?” you ask, nodding toward the lollipop.

He looks at it like he forgot he was holding it.

And then, without breaking eye contact — without so much as a flicker of hesitation, without the decency to look even slightly sheepish about what he is clearly about to do — he lifts it and puts it in his mouth.

“That’s not —” you start.

“Choking hazard,” he says around it, calm as ever. “Wrong hands.”

He steps past you, brushing your shoulder just barely as he goes.

“Log your forms,” he adds over his shoulder.

You don't move for a moment.

The hall continues without you. The noise, the motion, the relentless forward momentum of a place that does not pause for anything.

You think you might be okay. You think, for the first time in ten months, you actually might be.

You also make a small, private note that the next time Frank Langdon puts something of yours in his mouth without asking, you are going to say something about it that will require him to take a very long walk and reconsider his life choices.

You're a patient person. You can wait.

In hindsight, she’s been relatively good at overlooking you, not that it’d been intentional to begin with, but Vi knows a lot of people. Too many, she feels sometimes. So it's easy for you to slip through the cracks when everyone’s vying for even a shred of her attention.

Perhaps it’s what piques her interest when your orbits finally do collide. Because, admittedly, you know all about Vi. Know that she’s probably one of the most valuable players on the uni’s hockey team (she’s an absolute beast on the ice). Also know that she’s a biomedical physics major and actually incredibly smart. But most of all, you know that not only is Violet a flirt, she’s a player.

Not necessarily that you’ve ever really been on the receiving end, but mostly because her reputation precedes her and you’ve seen it all from a distance. Can't not when the decorated hockey star is such a charmer whether she intends to be or not. Vi has girls both certain and questioning stumbling for a single glance.

You often think it’s pitiful, but it’s not like it’s really your problem.

Until it is.

It all starts at The Afterparty.

Hours after a big victory in the first game of three that solidifies whether the university hockey team participates in the championships, Violet is the star of tonight’s celebration.

She’d sunk the winning shot, and for that she’s being poured shot after celebratory shot. By eleven she’s practically hammered and it’s when her teammate, Ellie, and the captain, Abby, finally show up.

The three of them together, drunk, is like a minefield of obnoxious laughter, dirty innuendos, and rowdy behavior.

And for a while it’s funny, has Vi feeling like she’s on cloud nine, but eventually, the drunken high begins to evaporate and she starts to feel a little overwhelmed.

The spotlight shifts and even though Vi typically preens under the attention, she’s grateful to finally breathe.

With a plastic cup full of water, she’s sliding the back door open and stepping out onto the back patio to take in the cool air for a breather.

She makes a move towards the stairs, but nearly jumps out of her skin when she registers the silhouette at the base of the steps.

“Jesus, fuck,” Vi hisses to herself. “You scared the shit outta me.”

You don’t even spare her a glance over your shoulder, just take a sip from your drink.

“Sorry,” you hum passively.

She catches her breath, doesn’t even bother to ask permission as she drops all of her weight next to you.

The step creaks under pure muscle.

Her strong legs stretch out, elbows settling back against the step up as she waits. And waits. And waits.

The amount of silence that lapses is unusual, uncharacteristic for Vi, especially so because people are typically babbling enough to fill the void when it comes to her.

But you just sit there, nursing your beer and staring up at the stars. The moon hangs half in the sky, softly illuminating the planes of your features.

It’s her first good look at your face and Vi’s definitely drunk, but the immediate thought that comes to her mind is pretty, pretty, pretty. Undeniably and painfully pretty. And not Caitlyn pretty, the only girl she’s ever really used as a benchmark, but intimidatingly so in your own right. Makes her swallow hard, throat bobbing as she watches you unapologetically.

“It’s rude to stare, Violet,” you say simply, eyes finally flitting to meet hers.

Her breath catches in her throat, earthy flecks dancing in your moonlit irises. God, your eyes. Framed by thick lashes and round as you look up at her.

“You know who I am?” she asks stupidly as if point fives of her face aren’t blown up into memes and plastered all over the house.

“Who doesn’t?” you ask, breathing a puff of humorless laughter as you crush the can in your ringed fingers.

And perhaps you got her there, but Vi’s feeling exceptionally small under your gaze despite usually filling out a room. Something about you makes her shrink.

“I— fuck,” Vi stumbles, cheeks red because you’re looking at her with an indecipherable gleam in your gaze that has her squirming. “What’s your name?”

She cringes at herself, rolls the piercing in her nose once, twice, for comfort.

You laugh again, a little more genuine this time because, from a distance, the athlete’s usually so suave, undeniably gorgeous and composed. Right now, the girl in front of you only ticks one of those boxes.

“________,” you offer.

She weighs the name on her tongue, decides she likes it a lot, and tries to shake off whatever this feeling you’re giving her is.

“And you go to school here?” she asks.

You nod once.

“Neuroscience, fourth year.”

“Huh, we’re in similar fields, but I’ve never seen you around,” Vi observes. Because she’s certain she’d bookmark a face like yours, absolutely no doubt about it.

“We had organic chemistry together sophomore year with Dr. Talis,” you say matter-of-factly, like you’re not blowing her mind right now. “And I’m auditing Medarda’s biometry class this semester.”

Vi’s floored.

“Wait, wait, but...” She’s trying to piece the puzzle together, but her brain’s still a little fuzzy, equal parts from the alcohol, but also because she’s caught a whiff of your perfume and you smell so sweet.

“I pop in every once in a while,” you tell her. “But I tutor in that time slot every Tuesday and Thursday, only really go when I don’t have any appointments.”

“Hold on, this is nuts,” Violet says, body easing to face you. You flinch because she doesn’t realize she’s practically yelling. “There’s no way, I definitely would’ve remembered you if that was the case.”

You hum, corners of your lips quirking as you shrug your shoulders.

“Doubt it,” you counter. “I’m nothing particularly spectacular.”

“Nothing particularly spectacular,” Vi repeats under her breath.

And under normal circumstances, she’d be flirting up a storm right now, trying to charm her way into getting you to bite, but this is one of the first semblances of normalcy she’s experienced in a while. No ulterior motives, no exaggerated kindness, no outright asking her to fuck.

Suddenly your phone lights up in your lap and you’re turning your attention to the device.

“DD duties call,” is all you say as you make a move to stand up.

No, this can’t be all she gets from you tonight. Not when she’s been narrowly missing someone like you for the past four years and you’re just now coming to light.

The dormant liquid courage bubbles and Vi’s gently grabbing your wrist to pull you to a stop.

“Maybe I’ll see you around?” she asks, steely eyes liquid as she stares up at you.

You eye the scar on her lip, gaze lingering there before flitting to meet hers.

“Maybe.”

Vi decides that she needs to see you again.

You’d left her with crumbs this past Friday night and she’d spent the better part of the weekend trying (and failing) to cross paths with you again.

“Jesus, you’re down bad,” Ellie chuffs Monday morning on their walk to the campus coffee shop.

“You don’t understand,” Vi defends. “She’s so...so...”

“So?”

“Different, I dunno,” Vi sighs, fiddling with the strap of her backpack as they walk. “We didn’t even talk about much, but that was the most normal I’ve felt around someone in a while.”

Her teammate snorts.

“Probably the gayest thing I’ve heard you say,” Ellie deadpans. “She isn’t immediately trying to munch and you’re already in love. Pathetic.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Vi scoffs as they approach the coffee shop, inside packed full with half-functioning college students so early in the morning. “Trust me, if you met her, you’d—”

The words die in her throat because halle-fucking-lujah, the universe or god, or whatever has answered her every prayer this past weekend as she clocks you a few paces ahead in line.

Ellie follows her friend’s line of vision to find exactly what she’s staring at and she lets out a low whistle when her gaze finds your frame.

From a completely aesthetic standpoint, she can see why Vi’s immediately hooked.

“Hah,” she makes a noise in her throat. “Okay, so maybe it makes sense.”

Vi can’t help but stare because, if it were possible, you were far prettier under the warm lighting of the cafe’s ambiance. The curls of your hair frame your face beautifully and it’s so fucking cute how focused you are on your phone.

“Hate to break it to you, though. That girl’s way out of your league,” Ellie says like it’s common knowledge.

“Wow, way to boost my ego,” Vi mutters drily.

“Just being realistic,” Ellie argues. “If you bag her, she’s easily the hottest girl you’ve been with.”

And Vi can’t really contest that, not when the proof’s in the fucking pudding.

Her body’s moving of its own accord and before she can register her own actions, she’s mumbling quiet s’cuse me’s under her breath as she squeezes between patrons to close a bruised hand over your shoulder.

You nearly jump out of your skin, fumbling with your phone as an earbud falls out.

“Shit, sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you,” Vi says quickly.

Your gaze snaps to her, brows furrowing almost imperceptibly before your expression settles.

“Violet,” you acknowledge.

And she realizes that she didn’t really have a game plan coming up to you so abruptly. Had been so focused on actually just seeing you again, that she hadn’t thought through the rest of it.

The way you stare up at her is thoroughly disarming because she doesn’t have the shield of night or alcoholic courage to carry her through it.

“Can I help you?” you ask, but not unkindly.

“Oh, uh, I...” She chances a glance over her shoulder to find that Ellie is watching her from a few customers away, eyebrow cocked and smirk testing. She word vomits before she can think of a coherent thought. “You mentioned tutoring...the last time we talked.”

You don’t even bat an eye.

“I did.”

“You’re also auditing Medarda’s biometry class.”

“I am.”

“I’m...I’m not really doing too hot in Medarda’s right now,” Vi says, brain nearly short-circuiting and freezing up because, lie! She’s doing phenomenally in Medarda’s session and, truthfully, she’s just downright scared to ask you to hang out.

Especially when you look up at her like that.

You shift and she’s swallowing down around nothing.

“Hmm, can’t have that, can we?” you hum.

Vi could melt.

“No,” she breathes out a laugh. “Can’t.”

“You can sign up for a slot through the library’s website,” you say after you weigh the thought.

Vi’s pausing, staring at you like a deer caught in the headlights.

“So I can get paid?” you fill in.

“Oh, right,” Vi chokes. “Right.”

You give her a soft smile before plugging your earbud back in, leaving Vi to rejoin her obviously amused friend.

“You’re fucking joking!”

The librarian gives you and your incredulous roommate a look from the circulation desk and you return it with a sheepish smile from where you’re tucked by a wall of looming floor-to-ceiling windows.

“Maddie,” you whisper.

“You’re telling me that The Violet asked you personally to tutor her?” Maddie asks you, leaned over the tabletop with wide eyes.

“Yeah, cornered me at Brew House this morning and asked me to tutor her in Medarda’s class.”

“Just that?” she asks. “Nothing else?”

You look around in disbelief.

“Uh, yeah?” you scoff. “What else would she want?”

“What else would she— are you serious?” Maddie leans back in her seat, arms crossing over her chest as she gives you a plain look. “You know all about Vi, you’re actually gonna play stupid?”

“Oh, come on.” You roll your eyes. “You’ve seen the girls Violet’s fucked, right? Kiramann? The blonde from the tennis team? She’s got a type and you know it.”

It’s Maddie’s turn to roll her eyes and you see the exasperated groan she’s staving off.

“None of that self-deprecating bullshit—”

“It’s not self-deprecating!” you argue. “Not everyone wants to fuck Violet, Maddie. Put me in the number one spot.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Don’t start.”

“All I’m saying is that anyone with eyes can see that Vi’s hot as fuck. That being said, you’re also hot as fuck. Not only that, but rumor has it, she gives the most toe-curling—”

You’re rolling your eyes again, gaze fluttering out the window momentarily only to find that, speak of the devil, Violet’s approaching the library with a skip in her step.

Maddie stops her spiel to trace your gaze and nearly falls out of her seat when she finds the object of your conversation is advancing, fast.

“No fucking way,” you whisper to yourself, pulling up your tutoring log on your tablet to find that, yup, Violet has most-definitely taken your advice and signed up for a tutoring slot.

If the time reads correctly, you’ve got three minutes before she’s due to be taking Maddie’s seat.

Your friend is grinning at you mischievously, stuffing her backpack quickly to vacate the space across from you.

“Un-fucking-believable,” you scoff, slumping back in your seat.

“Tell me how it goes,” she giggles, slinging her bag over her shoulder as she stands.

“Maddie,” you warn.

“Love you, see you at home!”

Violet’s strolling into the library just as Maddie leaves through the other doors and try as you might make yourself small in the open air near the research center, her gaze falls on you as soon as she enters.

“Hey,” she breathes once breaches your vicinity.

“Hi.”

A moment lapses before you’re nodding towards the seat before you.

“We can get started whenever you’re ready.”

Right. Right! Vi’s mentally cringing, pulling the chair out with a squeak and dropping onto the worn cushion.

Her eyes are locked, watching as you pull the biometry textbook from your little messenger bag.

“Any particular areas you’re struggling in?” you ask, flipping to a clean sheet of paper in your notepad and clicking open your pen.

Vi combs her brain, tries to think of anything she’s not really grasping in Medarda’s class, but she’s been acing all the exams with flying colors, so she spits out the first thing that comes to mind.

“Logistic regression, probably,” she answers.

“In relation to...?” You tilt your head and Vi’s breath is hitching.

“The Confusion Matrix,” she answers, even though she knows all about it.

It’s only when you start breaking it down from the bare bones that she realizes that she could listen to you talk for-probably-ever.

You obviously have a great understanding of the subject if the way you deconstruct the relationship between sensitivity and specificity (or whatever the fuck) is anything to go by, and she doesn’t realize that she hasn’t even blinked until you’re glancing up at her.

“Am I making any sense?” you ask softly, taking in the almost confused look on Violet’s face.

“Huh?”

Vi snaps out of it, cheeks coloring pink when she notes the way you straighten in your seat.

“Am I going too fast?”

“No, no!’ Vi practically shouts before chancing an embarrassed gaze around the library to find a few wandering eyes. She clears her throat and tries to relax. “No, you’re doing great. I get it.”

You don’t seem convinced, but the faster you get through the material, the faster Violet can leave and you can finally catch your breath.

Because maybe Maddie’s a little right. That while you know, one hundred percent, without-a-doubt, that you and Violet are cut from two different cloths and that you ultimately won’t mesh, there’s still a sliver of want that settles somewhere confined in the pit of your gut.

You don’t know how long you continue before you notice that sun has begun to set in the horizon, but Vi’s effort is unwavering. She’s probably on her tenth practice problem by now and so far, she’s only flubbed once.

You decide to fold your cards first.

“O-kay,” you say, sucking in a sharp breath as you roll your shoulders and squeeze your hands shut so tight your knuckles crack. “This is a good stopping point, don’t you think?”

No, Vi could keep going forever if it meant hearing you talk all night, but the little G-shock wristwatch winks the time and she realizes that the two of you have been going at it for going on two hours and you’re probably exhausted.

“Yeah, sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you so long,” Vi says sheepishly. “Thanks a lot for your help, I...”

You look up from where you’re shuffling your papers together, pausing when she hesitates.

“I really appreciate you. I know you probably help dozens of people every week and—”

She stops talking when she sees you crack what seems to be the first genuine smile she could get out of you since Friday.

“It’s my job, Violet,” you tell her. “I’m happy to help.”

And she’d done well enough during the tutoring session, had a successful run with the practice problems. You were confident it was just a one and done. Perhaps served as a review for the upcoming exam Medarda had posted on the class page.

But then you see her name in the final time slot on Thursday, don’t really think much of it until you’re tabbing to next week’s schedule for shits and giggles. Tuesday and Thursday are booked through again, her name highlighted in yellow.

You minimize the calendar and pull up the aggregate schedule only to find that every 4 o’clock slot every Tuesday and Thursday’s been booked until the end of the semester.

You refresh for good measure.

“Oh, you’re so shitting me.”

You don’t know what kind of joke this is, if Violet thinks that this is funny, but you’re not amused.

Especially when you’re stalking all the way to the athletic hall, ignoring the wolfish stares from shameless student athletes to whip into the women’s hockey team’s reserved conditioning space.

You find her benching near the center of the room, Abigail Anderson spotting her while the rest of the team engages in various workouts and exercises.

A hush ripples over the weight room as you approach the hockey star, standing at the end of the bench where her knees are bent. One of Abigail Anderson’s eyebrows quirk up as you stand there with your hands on your hips and you hope the chill that runs down your spine as she checks you out doesn’t visibly vibrate your body.

When the barbell nearly crushes Vi’s chest on her last rep, Abby’s quick to help her re-rack and takes the biggest step back as Vi sits up.

Her expression falls and her face pales when she locks eyes with you, your features severe and gaze stony.

“Oh, hey,” she squeaks.

Truthfully, she hadn’t really pinned you as the type to be confrontational. Thought she’d have enough time to build a strong enough story as to why she booked out all of your tutoring sessions when in actuality she panicked when Ellie started grilling the fuck out of her about being a fucking pussy and begging her to just ask you out.

“You have some explaining to do, Violet.”

And she should definitely be embarrassed, not at all turned on, but she can’t help it as she gulps. Because when you stand before her like this, she can easily admit that she’d die for a private version of the view.

The silence in the weight room is palpable and you want to back down, but if this is some running joke and Vi’s going to make a show of humiliating you in front of her teammates, then you’d give her a show.

“Violet.”

Someone in the back snickers, another whistles, and Vi’s cheeks go red.

She’s standing, sweaty hands closing around your biceps as she spins you around and quickly guides you out of the conditioning room and out of her teammates’ line of ogling sight.

“V—”

“I’m sorry,” Violet splutters. “I’m just not really confident in Medarda’s class right now and I don’t trust myself to study alone, plus you’re a really good tutor and—”

“You do realize that those tutoring sessions are added to your tuition, right?” you ask incredulously. “It’s fifteen dollars an hour.”

Vi’s smile is crooked.

“That’s what my scholarship’s for,” she grins.

“Don’t you think that’s a bit excessive?” you try again. “I feel that before an exam for a little refresh is fair, but this would be like relearning the material after every class, all over again.”

“If it’s taught by you, I’ll take it,” Vi says quickly, and you pause because what does she mean by that?

You don’t really have much rebuttal left even though you’d marched up here with a fire under your ass. Vi’s looking down at you with a softened edge in her gaze and she’s wearing nothing but a pair of black sweatpants and sweat-soaked grey tank that reveals swathes of ink that curls up her arms and disappears under the fabric of her shirt.

She breathes out a small laugh when she notices the way your eyes dance.

“Anymore concerns, cupcake?”

Your gaze snaps to hers and her grin widens when she sees you fidget, little pet name obviously eliciting a semblance of a reaction from you.

“N-No,” you stammer.

“Great, see you tomorrow?“

You swallow.

“Okay,” you agree. “See you tomorrow.”

Violet pops into the library at four on the dot.

Her hair’s wet from an obvious shower and you smell her, warm like honey and cedar as she takes the seat across from you.

“Afternoon, cupcake,” she greets, slinging her backpack into the seat next to her.

You give her a warning look, but she just flashes you a toothy smile and nods towards the opened biometry textbook before you.

“What’s the lesson today, Teach?”

And this feels an awful lot like mocking, but you can’t be sure, not when Vi’s been somewhat respectful, sweet even.

“What do you know about the the sigmoid function?” you probe.

“Jack shit,” she laughs.

And maybe you’d find it endearing if the entirety of the situation wasn’t still absolutely mindfucking you at moment.

“Can I ask you something, Violet?” you ask, leaning back in your seat as you cross your arms to level her with as an intimidating look as you can.

“Sure, anything.”

“Are you messing with me?” you ask. “Is this some joke you and your friends are playing? Because I can’t really think of an outcome that would be funny.”

And you’d like to say that the look of horror on Violet’s face is consolation enough, but you know how being loved and being popular can make people act sometimes.

Vi contemplates telling you the truth, that she’s too chickenshit to ask you out, that getting close to you in any other way scares the fuck out of her. That maybe getting you to tutor her will segue into some form of friendship that’ll allow her to ease her way in. And maybe she’s going about it the hard way, but maybe Vi also likes a challenge.

“No jokes, just bad at statistics,” she says weakly.

You’re silent for way longer than comfort allows before you turn your attention to the textbook and Vi’s letting out a breath she doesn’t realize she’s holding.

“Fine,” you give in. “Let’s talk about sigmoid function and practice some applications...”

Vi’s happy to listen, goes through your preselected practice problems with ease (and maybe fucks up a value or two here and there to really sell her need for you). But the sun’s going down again, and it’s nearing six when Vi folds her hand this time around.

It comes in the form of her stomach grumbling in the emptying library and she looks up at you in embarrassment as you crack the first smile of the evening.

“Hungry?” you ask.

“Starving,” she replies dramatically, leaning so far back in her seat, her knees bump yours under the table.

Your toes curl at the contact, heart skipping when she doesn’t make a move to reposition herself.

“Have you eaten yet?” she asks, eyes looking everywhere but yours.

“Not since breakfast,” you admit.

“You like pizza?”

“Only the good kind,” you challenge.

“Beautiful,” Vi hums, shuffling her papers into her textbook and chucking it back into her bookbag. “I know the best place.”

Valentino’s is a hole-in-the-wall right outside of campus, a short walk from the library that Violet leverages as a way to get to know you outside of being lectured about statistical curves and correlation.

“Did you grow up around here?” Vi asks once the waiter sets two glasses of water down between the two of you.

You shake your head.

“No, grew up on the east coast and decided I needed a break from my life there,” you admit easily.

It’s almost as if the facade of professionalism fades away, melting to reveal you.

Vi’s desperate for more.

“As in?”

You look at her for a moment, wonder if you should divulge because you’re not really sure if Vi would get it, but she watches you like she’s hanging onto every single word you say, so you’re spilling.

“My dad died when I was little, left me and three other siblings with my Mom,” you offer. “And I love my siblings. Love my mom. She’s been a great parent, better than great actually, but most of our family disowned me when I came out and it was easier to run away than to deal with it.”

Violet’s expression falls, a furrow settling deep between her brows.

“Wow, I’m, uh, I’m really sorry to hear that,” she says, and she sounds sincere. A long moment lapses before she’s adding, “for what it’s worth, I think that’s very brave of you.”

And you seem a little surprised at the sentiment.

“Thanks.” You smile. “That’s sweet of you to say.”

Vi could turn to goo in this dimly lit booth, stained-glass wall sconce casting a warm glow over your pretty face.

“You—” She sniffs, changes the subject because she doesn’t know if she can do this on an empty stomach. “You like pineapple on your pizza?”

“Oh yeah,” you confirm proudly. “It’s a hill I’ll die on, I’m not sorry.”

“God, marry me now.”

She doesn’t realize she says it out loud until you’re bursting into a fit of laughter on your side of the booth.

“So this is something we can agree on?” you ask, head tilting in the way that makes Vi want to grab your face and taste you.

“Oh yeah,” she parrots instead. “One hundred percent.”

Valentino’s becomes routine just as much as Vi seeing you at four every Tuesday and Thursday becomes routine. It’s always after the Thursday session (because they have a three dollar slice from 6 to close) that you and Vi cram yourselves in the same booth near the kitchen and giggle over half a Hawaiian pizza.

“...And my little sister blew up her science project in the fourth grade—”

You choke on your bite, eyes wide as Violet recalls Powder’s little mishap that sent the entire gymnasium evacuating despite the tiniest fire.

“Now she’s about graduate and start school for chemical engineering,” she says, obviously proud.

“She seems like a smart girl,” you observe, if the countless stories Violet shares with you is anything to go by.

You figure being related to someone as great as the new friend you’ve made also speaks for itself.

“The smartest,” she agrees. “I’m proud of her.”

“I’m sure she’s proud of you too,” you assure her. “You’re a good big sister.”

And it’s in these moments that Vi realizes that she’s in far, far deeper than she initially gave stock. Because these past few weeks, she realizes that there’s a lot more to your big brain and your pretty face. You’re an attentive listener, way funnier than she could have anticipated, and just a lot more laid back than you let on.

That much she finds out after the two of you graduate from emailing with silly sign-offs to exchanging phone numbers and texting. It starts off rather irregular, a coffee order here and there, maybe a TikTok that Vi swears is funny, you just have to watch it all the way through! But then she starts texting you when she’s bored, when she’s in class, before practice, after. Even pops the question that’s been niggling at her since she met you: on a scale from 1 - 10 how down are you to smoke?

Like cigarettes?

no, weed, dummy.

Oh. Hmm. 7. 10 if I’m drunk.

She could not wipe the smile from her face even if she tried.

And then she gets the invite.

Ellie swears it’s her in.

“Jesus Christ if you even consider me a friend, you’ll bang,” Ellie calls from the couch.

“It’s just tutoring,“ Vi argues.

“Yeah, at her place,” she scoffs. “At least test the waters, maybe cop a feel.”

“You’re a pig,” Vi snorts, making sure her laptop and all of the worksheets Medarda’s assigned over the course of the week is in her backpack.

“You’ve been wet dreaming over this girl for months.”

“Fuck all the way off.” Vi’s face warms because her best friend isn’t necessarily wrong.

You’re too hot for your own good, but you don’t even know it and Vi thinks she could die sometimes. Especially when you wear your favorite pair of jeans, the ones that hug the swell of your ass just right. Or swipe on that shimmery lipgloss she swears makes your mouth look edible.

If you were willing, Vi would be all over you, but thinking about taking advantage of the fact that you trust her enough to invite her into your space feels a little grimy.

“Whatever, bang, don’t bang,” Ellie says nonchalantly. “Blueball yourself for all I care.”

Vi rolls her eyes, slings her bag over her shoulder before sliding on her shoes and leaving her friend on the couch with a resounding click.

You live off-campus, maybe a ten minute drive, in a cozy little complex near the suburbs. Your roommate, Maddie, a chipper blonde with a bob, is all too eager to leave when Vi arrives.

“Hi, sorry we couldn’t meet anywhere else,” you apologize as you let her into your space. “Even if the library wasn’t closed, the vet said I have to monitor Pip for the next 48 hours.”

Vi raises a brow.

“My cat,” you clarify.

“Oh.” Vi doesn’t know why she suddenly feels like she’s intruding as she hesitantly toes off her shoes and follows you down the hall.

But she does take the opportunity to take you in in all your glory; all cozy and cuddly in an oversized sweatshirt, plaid pajama shorts and mismatched egg socks.

Cute. So fucking cute.

You spare her a glance over your shoulder and she’s clearing her throat.

“We don’t have to have a session tonight," she says, stopping at the threshold of the living room. “I would’ve understood if you had to cancel.”

You shake your head, give her a soft smile that has her knees feel like jelly.

“S’okay,” you assure her. “A promise is a promise.”

And you do start off studying, shoulder to shoulder in front of your coffee table, but then Pip crawls from his little hiding spot under the TV console to curiously nose along Vi’s feet and she’s a goner.

“He’s so sweet,” she practically wails as he paws at her thigh and nudges against her arm so that he can climb into her lap.

You warm at the sight, can’t help but snap a picture, much to Violet’s dismay.

“Stop,” she laughs. “That picture can’t see the light of day.”

“Why?” you whine, making a show of climbing onto your wooden coffee table to get a funny top down photo of the hockey star with your cat. “You and Pip look so cute together.”

She feigns a scowl even though her shoulders shake with laughter.

“I have a bad boy image to uphold, sweetheart.”

You snort, reach into her lap to scratch behind Pip’s ear, and her heart melts, body warm from her ears to her toes.

“Is he sick?” she asks cautiously, petting him softly.

“Just a little,” you say. “Something some rest and medicine won’t fix.”

It’s how the two of you end up on the couch, study materials long forgotten as Animal Planet plays in the background. Pip’s moved to lounge atop the covers draped over your lap and you’re blowing your nose into a tissue as an especially sad segment about baby animals being rejected by their mothers finishes.

Vi knows she shouldn’t laugh, but you’re too fucking cute and she can’t help but coo at you.

“You can’t tell anyone about this,” you hiccup.

“What, that you’re a big soft baby?” she teases.

“Vi,” you whimper.

And something in her brain tickles because she can’t recall a time you’d ever called her by her nickname, only ever referred to her as Violet and nothing else.

She resists a smile.

“Okay, okay,” she gives in. “Lets change the subject.”

You make a noise of agreement as you cuddle your sleepy Pip.

“I actually wanted to ask you something,” she says, arm slung over the back of the couch, fingers a hairsbreadth from your figure.

Test the waters, cop a feel.

Vi’s not particularly into the idea, but the opportunity’s right there in the way wisps of your hair falls from its hold. Her fingers move of their own device, tucking the strands behind your ear.

She feels you still for the slightest, most imperceptible of moments, but then you’re relaxing, letting her fingers brush from your ear down to your shoulder, then back to where it rests on the back of the couch.

“You doing anything on Saturday?” she asks, really hopes you’ll say no.

“Not that I know of,” you say without second thought.

Not that you really need to. Your tight circle of friends are all alike, tethered to their hobbies and their homes.

“I have a game on Saturday,” Vi starts, fiddling with a little hole in the cushion. “If you wanted to come.”

You don’t agree or disagree immediately, and Vi’s scrambling to soothe over any potential discomfort.

“You don’t have to if you don’t wanna, of course,” she says quickly. “I just— I thought you might be interested in going and I’d really like to see you there and—”

A small little laugh puffs from your lips.

“Of course I’ll go,” you agree easily.

Vi deflates in relief.

“Great,” she sighs. “Awesome.”

Vi doesn’t know why she invites you. More so, she doesn’t know why she tells her teammates that she’s invited you because now they’re whooping and hollering in the locker room, towel-whipping her and sing-songing that their star player’s gonna get laid.

Doesn’t know why she invites you because as soon as she glides on the ice, she’s searching the stands high and low for your familiar figure. When she clocks you nestled in the middle with your roommate and another friend she vaguely recognizes, her heart’s soaring and her stomach’s twisting in knots.

Vi’s never nervous, but somehow you bring out the worst of it.

It only takes a few moments, though. The blare of the horn snaps her back into her zone and she leaves all the noise off-rink. In this moment, all she knows is cutting ice, dodging the other team’s most aggressive players and sinking shot after shot.

It’s nearing the end of the second period when she finally glances at the score.

5—4.

The opposing team’s giving them a run for their money and this is probably one of the tightest matches they’ve played all season. She takes a moment to find you in the stands again, and you’re right where she left you, eyes already glued to her as you hover over the edge of your seat.

She hadn’t realized it before, but you’ve got her number painted on her face and another surge of warmth layers over the exertion.

You give her a thumbs up and she feels like lightning.

They reset and she’s off, like a streak of light in the night sky, she’s shuffling the puck towards the goal.

Then you see the navy uniform barreling towards her, voice caught in your throat as Vi gives the puck one last shot before that damned Jersey Number Six shoves her so hard, she’s flinging into the rink’s wall.

The horn chugs, signaling the end of the second period and the stands erupt in a ceremonious cheer as the playback reveals that Vi had sunk the puck before time.

“Fuck yeah!” you cry out, shooting to your feet to clap your hands.

Vi ignores the instigating chants to fight, only really pays attention to your little dance of excitement as she shakes off the other player and rejoins her team for intermission.

“Fuck, Vi, you got it bad, huh?” Abigail Anderson’s spearheading the teasing once they all return to the locker room at the end of the game.

Vi’s body heats at the thought, isn’t really in the business of denying it anymore, because, you know what? Yeah. Vi’s got it so fucking bad for you, she doesn’t even know what to do with herself. You’re her first thought, her final prayer, and everything in between.

So all she does he shrug, can’t help the grin that splits her lips as she rubs her towel through her sweat-damp hair.

She’s the first one out of the locker room, dressed in some sweats and a pullover, towel slung around her neck as she steps into the tunnel. Your contact’s pulled up, and she’s ready to fire off a text asking where you want her to meet you, but she stops short to see you already leaned outside of the change room’s doors.

“Hey, cupcake,” she murmurs, smiling hard when she finds the smudged number 5 still chalked on your face.

“Hi, Violet,” you return shyly, hands clasped behind your back.

She hears the telltale whoosh of the locker room doors, the chattering of her teammates as they poke their heads out into the hall to be nosy, but she’s guiding you along, throwing a wink over her shoulder as the two of you fall into step.

“Thank you for coming,” Vi says after a moment. “You being here really meant a lot to me.”

You don’t know if Vi’s always been this sentimental, but just never given the opportunity to showcase it, or if she’s just buttering you up, but you can’t help but beam at her with pearly teeth and dimpled cheeks.

“God, Violet, you were so good!” you say excitedly, a little skip in your step. “You were in the rink, skating circles around them, like this, and like this.”

She bursts into laughter as you start speeding down the tunnel, dodging garbage bins and jumping up into the air to click your heels.

Something falls out of your little fannypack when you land, and Vi’s crouching down to pick up the tulle baggie to find a little beaded bracelet with a gold clasp that reads puck off.

“What’s this?” Vi asks, and you stop your shenanigans to turn your attention to her.

When your expression falters and you’re running back to her at full speed, she’s holding the baggie up just a little too out of reach for you, grin smug.

“Is this for me, sweetheart?” she asks presumptuously, even though her heart’s thrumming hard in her ribcage.

You’re on your tiptoes, chest pressed against hers, and god, please! is all Vi can think when your head tilts up, a little defeated knit between your eyebrows.

She milks the fuck out of whatever this is, arm banding around your waist as she returns the baggie to you.

“Maybe,” you whisper finally.

“Maybe what?” Vi teases.

“Maybe it’s for you,” you respond, free hand coming to rest on her chest.

“And what do I have to do to get it?” she asks, voice low.

It makes your body jolt hard as a shiver slinks down your spine because there she is, the insufferable flirt who knows exactly what to say to have your brain turn to mush.

You seem like you’re contemplating for a moment and Vi’s breath is hitching in her throat, wondering if you’re willing to play this cat and mouse game with her.

You smile, something glinting in your warm eyes.

“Puck off.”

Your giggle is maniacal as you slip away, leaving her temporarily stunned before she chases you down the tunnel. And she should expect your speed, especially because you’ve got legs, but it takes her a moment to catch up with you when her practice bag’s thumping on her back like that. Her calloused fingers are closing around the flesh of your hips in no time and she’s pulling you back into her arms.

“Cough it up, sweetheart,” she huffs.

You whine.

“It was supposed to be a surprise,” you counter.

“Gimme, gimme, gimme.”

And you give in because Violet’s made you weak. She’s holding out her wrist as you free the multi-colored bracelet.

You barely clasp the closure in the ring before Violet’s stumbling into you, a big burly girl from the other team shoulder checking the fuck out of her.

“Nice job standing in the middle of the walk way,” she bites.

Violet only snorts a laugh.

“Whatever, good game,” she calls.

Whoever she is, stops, levels Vi with a deadly look before her gaze flits to the bracelet you’ve just fixed around her wrist to you who stands frozen into place as the tension crackles between them.

“Cute,” she observes and your skin prickles. “Let me take her for a spin?”

“Violet,” you warn when her shoulders square and she takes a step forward.

She looks torn between walking away and beating the shit out of whoever this instigator is, but one of her teammates is shoving her along.

“Leave it.”

Whatever that was shatters the moment between the two of you and Vi’s taking in a deep breath as Abby trails behind the two of you.

The girl whistles for good measure and you throw a dirty look over your shoulder.

She winks.

You’ve still yet to find out who hosts these parties, but this time around gives you a weird sense of deja vu as you climb the steps with Maddie in tow.

You and Vi had parted ways at the rink, not before extending you an invite to the celebration later in the evening.

You should come, I can pick you up.

But per usual, DD duties call, and you’d smiled up at her despite the lingering pressure from the prior confrontation and promised her that yes, you’d absolutely be there.

Maddie squeals from the step below as you climb the front porch, breaths coming out in puffs of steam.

“You look so hot,” she says excitedly.

You giggle nervously, sure hope you do because you’re freezing your ass off!

“Yeah?”

Maddie gives you an incredulous look, eyelids powdered with glitter and gaze lined charcoal. She’s looking extra cute tonight too and you know that the two of you could fall into an endless cycle of teasing because a certain someone’s probably inside tonight.

“If she doesn’t fuck you before the night ends, I will,” Maddie teases, and you’re warming unceremoniously at the thought.

Because maybe you’ve been thinking about it a lot more recently despite only going into this trying to get through these tutoring sessions and dipping. Especially as of late now that Vi’s made it a habit to FaceTime you after practice, on your walk to the library, dripping sweat and chest heaving.

You’d always seen the appeal, but now you feel it.

You smooth down your asymmetrical skirt and Maddie steps up to adjust your tits in your lowcut lace blouse just as the door swings open to reveal none other than Violet.

“Oh—” Her voice catches as she takes you in.

Maddie gives your ass a little swat and Vi’s gaze is following the movement as your roommate pushes past her to slip inside.

“I was— I was just about to step out. To, uh, to call you,” she stammers.

You breath out a little laugh.

“Here I am.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. “Here you are.”

Jesus, fuck Vi could burst into flames right now. Your boots hug your thighs and Violet’s not gonna lie, she really wishes it were her head squeezed between—

“You look...” Hot, so fucking edible, downright fuck— “...really nice.”

You smile, but you can’t help the way your teeth chatters.

“Fuck, shit, you’re probably cold,” she curses, warm hands closing around your shoulders to pull you inside. “Why didn’t you wear a jacket? You’re gonna get sick.”

I wanted you to want me.

“Guess I just forgot,” you say quietly.

She looks like she wants to scold you, but instead, she’s pulling down her coat, a big black work jacket, hanging from the banister of the stairs around your shoulders and you’re relishing the residual warmth that lingers there and her familiar scent.

“Can I get you a cider?” she asks. “It’s still warm.”

It hits you as her fingers curl through yours, that Vi’s truly nothing like what you initially thought. She’s sweet, and she’s respectful, and she’s everything you could ever hope for.

You freeze at the thought, and Vi’s glancing at you when she’s tugged to a stop.

“You okay?” she hums.

Your eyes search her face, gliding over the scar on her lip and the one slit through her eyebrow. The gold hoop pierced through her nose glints under the lowlight and her thick lashes flutter as she looks down at you.

You give her a smile that doesn’t quite reach your eyes because wow, you’re in deep.

“I’m okay,” you assure her, give her fingers a squeeze for good measure.

When she finally secures you a mug of steaming cider, she’s guiding you to her group of friends that occupy the living room.

You only recognize Ellie, her best friend and her roommate, and Abby, the captain. Everyone else is a jumbled mix of names and faces and you stick close to Vi as she settles into the left corner of the couch.

You make a move to sit on the armrest, legs crossed and hands folded around your mug, but Vi’s spreading her legs and pulling you into her lap before you can effectively protest.

Her warmth immediately engulfs you and it takes every ounce of self control not to curl up into a ball in front of all her friends and classmates.

As they recap the game and catch up with each other, you remain hushed, eyes flitting from person to person as they speak. Toes curling whenever Violet’s voice vibrates in her chest as she talks big about sports and the hot teams this season.

You’re caught off caught when Ellie’s directing a question towards you and you barely register.

“What do you like to do?” she asks you.

All eyes audibly shift to where you’re cozied up in Vi’s lap, cider empty and abandoned on the side table.

“Uh.”

Your words are lodged in your throat because you’re so used to talking Vi’s ear off about your interests (namely, Animal Planet and your son Pip), showing her your little craft projects you like to do in front of the television on a weekend evening (you’d taken a break from the scarf / hat combo you were knitting to finish the bracelet you designed for Vi), and yapping about some obscure film you’d watched while finishing said projects.

But here, now, you don’t know what to say. Not when this isn’t your typical crowd and you don’t know what to expect from her friends.

Vi must feel your hesitation because her digits are slipping into her jacket, fingertips ghosting the small of your back as she presses a palm against your spine to smooth the tension there.

It’s okay, is a silent insinuation.

You give her a look from the corner of your eye before you turn your attention back to Ellie.

“I don’t do much,” you offer honestly. “Just starting my old cat lady duties early, I suppose.”

Ellie laughs benevolently.

“You have a cat?”

“Yes, his name’s Pip, and he’s basically my kid.”

“Cute,” Ellie coos. “You got any pictures?”

And you seem to light up, spare Vi one more glance as you dig in her coat pocket to produce your cellphone, charms jangling as you power it back on to show Ellie the lockscreen.

“I contemplated naming him Toothless from—”

“—How To Train Your Dragon!” Abby fills in from across the couch. “That’s such a good ass movie.”

It warms Vi to the bone, seeing you and her friends nerd out. Seeing them put in the effort because they know she likes you and seeing you reciprocate because, well, you’re you, and you just need a little warming up.

She doesn’t know how long you and her friends chat for until you’re shifting a little and turning your attention back to her.

“Can you show me the bathroom, please?”

Her gaze flits to her circle, and they’re smirking, obviously under the impression that this must be some sort of code the two of you concocted.

She ignores them, and most importantly she ignores the way her pulse jumps when you stand from your seat and perch between her legs, offering both of your neatly manicured hands to her.

This is getting fucking ridiculous.

The bathroom is tucked under the stairs near the front of the house and she stands post outside the door as you finish up.

It’s only when you’re poking your head outside the door sheepishly that she stands up straight.

“Can you help me with my zipper?” you ask timidly.

She puffs a laugh, slips in through the space you crack for her to find you holding the two sides of your skirt together.

And she knows she shouldn’t look, but the space allows her to see the pink lace of your panties. She’s shoving her tongue in her cheek, focusing on lining up the seams and pulling up your zipper as you hold the fabric taut.

“Thanks,” you whisper, looking up to see that Vi’s impossibly close to you in this cramped little powder room.

“Anytime, sweetheart,” she croaks, leaning against the counter as you wash your hands.

She thumbs the hem of your skirt absently.

“I like this,” she admits, gaze trailing up to meet yours. “You look pretty.”

Your ears burn, unable to meet the smolder of her steely eyes. You’d probably find that her pupils are blown wide if you did. Instead, you’re watching her mouth, lips stained cherry and tongue coming out to wet the dry patch.

You hold your breath as you reach across her for the hand towel, but her hands find your hips, teetering into dangerous territory as she moves almost close enough to slip her hands under your skirt.

“You’re not gonna say thank you?” she asks, watching you through hooded eyes.

A nervous giggle bubbles.

“Thanks, Violet,” you murmur.

“‘Course,” she agrees easily. “You gonna wear it again?”

You bite.

“If you ask nicely.”

She licks her lips again, body flexed as you allow her to press you closer. One of your hands splays on the counter behind her, the other brushing over the blooming bruise on her jaw.

“Can I?” she husks.

You don’t need to ask for clarification, not when her nose is nudging yours and your breaths are mingling.

“Yeah,” you sigh. “Pl—”

The door rattles with the ferocity of whoever’s knocking on the other side.

“Hurry up in there, I gotta piss!”

To your dismay, the two of you don’t talk about Saturday night. And things’s aren’t particularly bad, but something’s definitely shifted and it’s driving you nuts.

Vi’s on the ice practicing the following morning and after classes on Monday, so you wait for your session with bated breath on Tuesday. You try extra hard despite every voice of reason telling you that you’re reading into it too much.

Vi smiles at you easily as she drops into the seat across from you, pulling out her biometry textbook without so much as a peep about the fact that the two of you almost kissed in whoever the fuck’s bathroom that was over the weekend.

You’re staring, hard.

Because that familiar feeling’s coming back. The seedling of doubt that had rooted in the beginning about Vi’s intentions with you. She’d done a good job of weeding it out over the weeks, of dismantling whatever image you’d built of her in your head, but it plants itself again.

She’s squeezing your hand across the table and your gaze flits down to her rough fingers. That’s when you notice it, the bracelet, still fastened where you clasped it on game night.

You relax a fraction.

“Everything okay?”

You smile, something small.

“Yeah, good,” you assure her.

The rest of your tutoring session is uneventful, goes off without a hitch. And you’re shameless in admitting that you hate to see her go as she walks you to your car in the student lot near the library.

You’re grasping at straws, clearing your throat before she closes your door for you.

“Uh,” you squeak. “Do you want to come over?”

Vi’s pausing, hand still on the edge of your door as her lips twitch.

“Like right now?”

You nod because you’ve already pulled the trigger.

“Like right now,” you confirm.

She checks her wristwatch, sighs heavily because fuck yes, she’d love to come over right now, but Anderson and Williams are expecting her for a strategy meeting with the coach and—

“Sorry,” you say quickly. “You don’t have to, I know we only really—”

She pinches your cheek before tucking some of your hair behind your ear.

“I can’t tonight, sweetheart, I’m sorry,” she says. “But tell you what, if you’re willing to free up your Friday night, I’d really like to plan something.”

Your heartbeat skips.

“All yours,” you say without missing a beat.

Vi’s grinning wide.

“Perfect, drive safe,” she bids. “See you tomorrow.”

And you don’t know why you’re so fucking high strung, not when Vi hasn’t done anything to make you doubt that this isn’t all in your head, but it only gets worse as the days go by.

It doesn’t come to a head until Thursday, when your tutoring slots are miraculously empty until Vi’s and you receive an email from Medarda to meet in her office after her string of lectures.

“Afternoon,” the older woman greets, smiling warmly at you as she lets you into her office. “Just wanted to check in with your audit and request any feedback you have.”

You think for a moment before shaking your head.

“Nothing in particular that I can think of,” you say easily, then add with a laugh, “feel like I’ll be a professional by the end of the semester.”

“Why do you say that?” Medarda chuckles as she logs into her computer.

“I have a student sitting every Tuesday and Thursday for tutoring in your class,” you reveal.

She gives you look crossed between surprise and amusement.

“Really?”

“Yeah.” You giggle at the distant memory of Vi’s expression in the weight room. “She seems to be picking it up well enough, though.”

“Huh, every Tuesday and Thursday?” she asks, fingers flying over her keyboard. “I must be doing something wrong.”

“I’d hardly say that,” you say. “When Violet booked all my sessions, I thought it was a joke, but I think she’s just really dedicated to doing well.”

“Violet?” Medarda repeats, hands stilling over her mouse.

“Yeah, Violet, on the women’s hockey team?”

Your professor’s eyebrows twitch.

“Why would you— huh. Weird,” she comments.

“I admit it was a little strange, but—”

“Violet’s a consistent top scorer on the exams,” Medarda shares. “She’s been top of the class since the beginning of the semester.”

And it’s like the world stills as she reveals that information, fragile pieces shattering as the gears start turning in your brain and you try to put the puzzle together.

You glance at the clock, find that you’re due to meet Violet in half an hour.

“Uh, if you’ll excuse me,” you say politely, try to ignore the concerned expression etched on your professor’s face at your sudden departure. “It was nice chatting with you. If I think of anything feedback-wise, I’ll be sure to email you.”

And you’re running.

Vi’s in the locker room after practice, toweling off after an extra long shower because she’s been looking a little extra forward to seeing you today, but perhaps that’s everyday as of late.

She’s hooking the bracelet you gave her back on when her phone vibrates and she’s practically diving into her locker when your text tone bleats.

sweetheart: I have to cancel your session this afternoon. I’m sorry.

Her expression screws up.

everything ok? can i do anything for you?

sweetheart: Personal things to take care of. I’ll see you next week.

I’ll see you next week.

But what about tomorrow? She’d been working so fucking hard on tomorrow, on finally pulling her head far enough out of her ass to ask you to give the two of you a shot.

She sets her phone down, slumps down on the bench as she turns her wrist and takes in the smooth glass beads of the bracelet.

She sighs. Hard.

You hole up all weekend long, put your phone on do not disturb, and try your best to get whatever this is out of your system. But you’re a slave to your emotions and you can’t help but check your messages every time you know Vi’s free.

It’s a single text on a Saturday night, one that surprises you because you know she has practice now that the big game’s fast approaching.

violet <3: hey sweetheart, just checking in. i know you said you had a few personal things going on, but i’m here if you feel like you need someone <3

You’re texting back before your better judgement can stop you.

Just been a little stressed. You wanna come over?

.

.

.

Then you add, We can smoke.

Vi’s sending you three running emojis and you crack a smile at your screen before realizing that you need to shower.

You lay out some clothes beforehand, ultimately settling on last Saturday’s skirt.

Vi’s giggling as you fumble with the wrapper, rolling it with clumsy fingers because, truthfully, you don’t do this often, but she shuts right up when you don’t break eye contact as the tip of your tongue slides across the seam to seal the joint.

She’d picked you up with a Sprite and a slice to split from Valentino’s, throat drying as you bounded down the stairs in the same fucking skirt that had her touching herself after she’d gotten home from the party, guilty and wound tight. Now the two of you are tucked away behind some abandoned strip.

“Ready?” Her voice rasps as you pop the end between your lips and she brings the lighter to ignite the end for you.

It burns as you inhale and Vi’s thighs squeeze together involuntarily. She’d smoked with you twice before, both times on the roof of your apartment building and at a reasonable distance. But now, she knows what your body feels like, almost knows what your lips taste like.

You take a few more puffs before offering it to her and the smoke begins to plume to fill the space of her little coupe. It’s moments like these, tucked away from prying eyes, that it’s just you and Vi.

Not Vi, the supposed womanizing hockey star, or you, the nerdy homebody tutor. Just the two of you, two souls trying to get through university and carve your paths.

“I aced Medarda’s exam this week,” Vi says softly, jay pinched between her fingers as she watches you with lowering eyes.

“Oh, yeah? I wonder why,” you quip in return, face impossibly close to hers despite the console between you.

“I have a smartypants tutor that does an especially good job when she’s motivated,” she answers.

Your cheeks flame, but you don’t back down. Vi’s been extra good at pushing your buttons and flirting hard as of late, and maybe you’re a little more than willing to receive and reciprocate, but the two of you have been toeing the line, yet neither of you have taken the leap.

This moment, however, feels like it could be it. Like you’re going to find out what the fuck all of this even is.

“I have to meet this tutor of yours,” you play along. “She sounds like a miracle worker.”

“Among other things,” Vi teases, sucking in the smoke and blowing it through her nostrils.

“Like?”

“She’s also funny as fuck,” she hums. “A big baby when we watch Animal Planet.”

You narrow your eyes at her and Vi lets out a little laugh that makes your toes curl.

“Uh-huh?”

“She’s really fucking pretty too,” she says quietly.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she affirms. “Kind of pretty that makes you wanna do bad, bad things.”

You smile falters as a shiver rips down your spine and before you know it, Vi’s putting out the joint before climbing in the cramped backseat of her car to spread her legs.

Doesn’t even give you a moment to process before she’s pulling you on top of her and allowing you to settle comfortably in her lap. Her hands run up your thighs and disappear under your skirt to grab the fat of your ass.

You breathe out a little giggle as your slender fingers come up to cup her jaw.

“Think my tutor’ll be mad at me?” Vi murmurs, nose brushing yours. “‘Cuz I really, really wanna kiss this pretty girl in my lap right now.”

You let out a broken little sigh when her hips buck.

“Maybe she’ll forgive you,” you whisper. “I know I would.”

And that’s all the affirmation Vi needs from you before she’s taking the plunge and slotting her lips with yours; kissing you with so much fervor, you’d think she needs you to breathe. She tastes like mint and weed and you can’t get enough.

Vi’s all-consuming, her kiss a delicious mix of teeth and tongue. And, god, her hands. Rough and calloused, but gentle in the way she explores your body. It isn’t until she’s snapping the band of your thong and her fingertips ghost the seam of your sticky heat that you’re hyper-focusing.

“Mmmph, Violet, Vi—” Your voice cracks as she breaks from your lips to map a series of kisses from your jaw, to the juncture behind your ear, down the column of your neck. “Wait.”

She stops, hands pulling from under your skirt like you’ve burned her. And perhaps you have, branded nearly every part of her because she can’t really think of a sound moment if you’re not there.

“Sorry, sorry,” she shudders as the arousal ebbs through her tightened body. “I—”

I’m caught up. I’m losing it, and it’s all your fault, and—

“Violet,” you swallow, fingers toying with the collar of her varsity sweatshirt. “I have something to say.”

Her throat bobs and her grey eyes gleam like ash in the lowlight of the backseat of her car. The windows are smoked out and it’s exceptionally warm, equal parts sexual tension and another thing Vi can’t quite pinpoint.

“Yeah, anything,” she assures you, hands resting on your waist instead. “You can tell me anything.”

One of your palms settles over her chest, right where her heart is and you suck in a sharp breath.

“I— uh, I really like you, Violet,” you admit quietly. “A lot more than I think I’ve ever liked someone in a long, long time.”

Oh.

Oh. Here it comes, the big fat rejection. The coming to your senses.

“But?”

The look on your face is devastating and Vi’s scared.

“I have to know that if I give you a chance, you won’t abuse it,” you hiccup, and wow, that’s definitely not what she expects you to say, but fuck does it leave a sour taste in her mouth.

“Abuse it?” she repeats, face crumpling.

“Violet,” you sigh.

“Abuse what?” she husks.

“I know you—”

“Do you?” she scoffs, a wave of irritation washing over her as she looks you with disappointment. “What gave you the idea that I would ever even dream of taking advantage of you giving me a chance?”

“You don’t necessarily have a spotless record, Violet,” you say, voice edged. “And I know that I’m not your usual—”

“Not my usual what?” The venom in Vi’s tone is uncharacteristic, but this is not at all how she expected tonight to go and she’s frustrated. “Not my usual type? You internalized all this shit that people say about me even though I’ve been trying to get you to see me for months.”

Emotion clogs your throat because a small part of you knows that Vi’s right. She’s never given you an outright reason to doubt her interest in you, but it all just seems too good to be true.

“Sue me for wanting to protect myself,” you choke, climbing out of her lap and back into the front seat. “Especially because I know that you don’t actually need help in Medarda’s class.”

And that catches Vi off guard. You see as much in the rearview mirror when she pales.

She clambers back into the driver’s seat.

“Who told you that?” she asks, not even bothering to deny the fact.

“I mentioned that I was tutoring you in passing when Medarda asked for feedback on her class,” you respond, crossing your arms over your chest. “She asked why I’d be doing that when you’re top of all her sections.”

Violet’s voice is stuck in her chest.

“And then your past hook ups parade around campus like a reminder that—,” you cut yourself off, obviously hurt after bottling this all up. “And it isn’t any of my business, nor are we anything enough for me to plausibly upset—”

“Yes, I lied,” Vi admits quietly. “But only about one thing.”

Your breath catches.

“You’re right, I don’t need help in Medarda’s class. I lied about being clueless and I signed up for tutoring even though I didn’t need it,” she says.

“Why?”

“You know why,” Vi huffs. “From the moment I met you, I knew.”

It’s a glaring insinuation that makes you crack.

“No one ever says it out loud, but I know what everyone thinks,” you choke. “Violet’s fucking that loser?”

“You really believe that?”

“God, Violet, I don’t know what to fucking believe,” you cry out. “My life’s fucking fine and dandy and then you show up and make me fucking question everything I—”

Vi lets out a humorless laugh, can’t even look at you and it could make you sick.

“You’re so fucking loved by everyone, even those who won’t admit it,” you croak. “And you’re incredible at everything you do, turn everything you touch to gold, and I’m just...”

Vi’s brows furrow.

“You’re what?”

“I’m me,” you whisper meekly. “I’m just me and you’re you, and I just don’t see what makes me so different.”

And Vi realizes that she’d read it all wrong.

“Look at me,” she says softly, fingers tracing your jaw.

You knuckle your tears away, make a petulant noise in your throat.

“You wanna know why I booked all your stupid tutoring sessions?” she huffs. “Because I really fucking like you, ________. And it’s beyond wanting to fuck you even though god knows I’d fucking die if you let me. It’s so much more than having you physically. Because I’ll take being just friends with you if it means having you around. I don’t give a shit about anything else but you.”

It’s the most sound declaration you hear from the girl in the semester you’ve known her and it makes you cry.

“You make me feel so fucking normal and you remind me that I don’t need to be anything else but me,” she breathes. “And I get where you’re coming from, I hear you. I just really hope you hear me too.”

“I do,” you whisper. “I’m just—”

Vi squeezes your thigh, takes your hand in hers and brings your knuckles to her lips.

“Let’s get you home, okay?” she offers gently.

Vi only has one more game before the championships and she won’t lie and say that this limbo with you has her feeling like she’s going to be ill.

You’d cancelled her tutoring sessions this week, told her that maybe the two of you needed to spend some time apart and that she was clearly doing a number on you. So she agrees, tries to give you space to work through what’s weighing on you.

sweetheart: Good luck at your game tonight, Violet. I’m rooting for you.

She really wishes you’d be there, but she knows you need the time alone.

thanks, sweetheart. i appreciate you.

“Alright Vi, we have fifteen til puck drop,” Ellie says carefully, has been front row to everything transpiring between you and her best friend.

Vi tucks her phone away in her backpack, unhooks your bracelet from around her wrist and fastens it to the handle of her bag, and grabs her stick from the rack before she lets her teammates jostle her into the tunnel.

And she wishes she could lock in, clear her head and get into the game, but all she can think about is you.

It’s a narrow victory once the game ends, but she can’t find it in herself to celebrate, especially not at the kickback afterwards because fucking Sev and her assholes are there.

“Where’s your little dime piece?” she taunts.

“Fuck off,” Vi warns, obviously not in the mood.

“Shame,” she whistles. “She looks like a fucking weirdo, but she sure does have a fat ass—”

Ellie’s fist cracks so hard across her jaw.

“She told you to fuck off,” she hisses.

Sev spits the blood in her mouth on the toe of Ellie’s shoe, fists bunching the collar of her sweater.

“Keep that fucking energy on the ice because I’m gonna wipe the floor with your fucking pissbaby team.”

You wake up on Monday morning to a text from Vi and a handful of notifications from Instagram.

violet <3: can i see you this week?

You open Instagram.

sev.94 has requested to follow you! sev.94 has sent you a message request!

Your brows furrow, opening the message request hesitantly. There’s a few DMs and a video from this Sev person.

sev.94 hey pretty, sorry to text you like this. sev.94 just thought you should know the kind of person your little girlfriend is sev.94 sent a video. sev.94 i don’t really do relationships, but i’d take your mind off of it if you let me.

You’re playing the video, quality grainy and audio blasted. You don’t know what you’re looking at at first, it’s dark, and there’s so many voices. But you see skin, see the outline of a girl’s naked back, delicate and arched in pleasure.

You think this Sev person’s just fucking with you, playing some stupid joke with a shitty punchline as someone’s hands snake around to palm the flesh of the unnamed girl’s ass, but then you see it.

The bracelet.

Vi going to lose her shit for two reasons.

(1) Because you haven’t responded to her message despite your read receipts being on, and (2) she can’t fucking find the bracelet you’d gifted to her.

She’s barging into Ellie’s room, shirtless and hair dripping.

“Jesus, fuck, do you knock?” Ellie hisses, buds she was in the midst of grinding scattering across the floor.

“I can’t find the bracelet she gave me,” Vi says quickly.

Ellie’s face scrunches.

“Huh?”

“The bracelet ________ gave to me,” Vi says. “I hooked it on my backpack before practice on Saturday but it’s not there anymore.”

Ellie’s expression morphs, eyes narrowing in thought.

“Maybe you misplaced it,” Ellie offers. “Regardless, we practice tonight, I’ll help you look for it.”

Vi’s chest is tight, doesn’t want to admit that the stupid little bracelet means way more to her than she lets on. She only ever takes it off when she’s on the ice, won’t risk losing it when she’s got a target on her back and everyone plays rough.

It turns out to be futile when they enter the rink and she retraces her steps only to come up empty-handed.

This, she realizes, is the start of a very long week.

You should’ve seen it coming, really. Don’t know why you tried to psyche yourself into thinking that Vi could ever really want something with you when the world’s her fucking oyster and she can have anything she wants.

And you want to feel bad when she texts you intermittently through the days, checking in, offering to meet you, anything. But part of you is angry, unforgiving, tired.

You could’ve gone the rest of the school year unscathed if she’d just left you the fuck alone, but she pried and she tugged and she settled, and she made a home inside of you and you hate that you let her.

xxxx: i really miss you.

You block her number, block her social media, and even though finals are imminent, you now know that Vi’s been playing you for a fool this whole time and you cancel every last one of the sessions she’s booked.

You hope she’d get the message, figure that you’d caught onto her little game and aren’t willing to play anymore, but she doesn’t, that much is clear when you’re finishing up your two thirty session and find her stalking into the library just as the student leaves your table.

“Are we going to talk like adults or are you going to keep acting like—”

You don’t entertain a response, just pack your bag and sling the strap over your shoulder because the tears are bubbling and you don’t trust yourself not to break.

“Seriously?” Vi bites, hot on your heels as you throw all of your weight against the library doors and suck in the icy air.

“Leave me alone, Violet,” you warn.

“No, fuck that,” Vi spits, hand closing around your bicep. “You don’t— You don’t get to make me fall for you and then try to leave with no explanation.”

“Fuck you,” you whisper.

“What?”

“Fuck you, Violet,” you hiccup, yanking your arm from her grasp and putting as much distance as you can between the two of you. “I hope you and your friends got a good laugh out of it.”

Her face is screwing up and if she wasn’t confused before, she’s definitely confused now.

“Listen, I can’t fix something if I don’t know what’s wrong,” Vi argues. “I’m so fucking lost right now.”

You hate how believable she is. How the thought of hurting you seems so inconceivable to her. But that grainy video was clear enough.

“I hate you,” you murmur. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.”

Your name comes out broken, like you’ve wounded her. But you’ve officially folded your hand, won’t dare look her in her eyes because the both of you know it’s not true.

The championships roll in fast like a tide and neither your or Violet are ready for it.

You hear they’re live streaming the game, it’s the most anticipated one in the season. Piltover Stallions against the Zaun City Tigers. A part of you wishes you could support them, but then you’re starkly reminded that you’re a laughingstock amongst them.

The library on a Friday night is as quiet as can be, the hum of the fluorescents background to the voices in your head that are loud. You’re so engrossed in the study material that you don’t realize someone’s making a beeline for you until they’re knocking on the tabletop.

Ellie Williams stands before you in all her lean glory, hands sunk in her pockets as she stares down at you.

“Aren’t you supposed to be playing?” Your tone is clipped, disinterested because you believed that you and Ellie could be friends once upon a time.

“Coach sat me out because I socked one of those dickhead Zaun City Tigers in the mouth last weekend.”

You humph.

“Listen, we don’t have much time left, so I’m going to make this short and sweet,” she says. “Whatever happened between you and Vi is obviously personal and that typically would have nothing to do with me, but she can’t get her shit together because all she can think of is you.”

“And that’s my problem because...?”

“I know that Vi comes off a certain way, but she’s my best friend, like my best friend in this entire shithole of a world, and she’s—”

“No offense, Ellie,” you cut her off. “But if Vi sent you here to plead her case, I think that’s pathetic and—”

“Okay, well maybe if you shut up for three seconds and let me get to my point—”

You close your textbook and shove it in your backpack before standing to signal the end of the conversation.

“Whatever, I don’t have time for this.”

Ellie watches you walk away, takes in a deep breath because wow, you’re a bitch when you’re mad, but she absolutely gets why Vi is whipped.

“Violet’s in love with you.”

And that statement makes you freeze. Tears cloud your vision as your fists tighten around the strap of your bag.

“If you fuck someone else while you’re in love, I want nothing to do with it,” you bite.

Ellie’s brows shoot up.

“Whoa, what?”

“Violet fucked someone else as soon as things got tough, and if that’s the kind of person she is in love, I’d rather be alone,” you say stiffly.

“Respectfully, there’s no way Vi’s interested in getting pussy from anywhere else with how down bad that bitch is for you, but even if she was, I spend over seventy percent of my day with her and know that all she’s been doing the past two weeks is moping over the fact that you handed her ass to her on a silver platter.”

“There’s a video.”

Ellie’s brows must be mingling with her hairline right about now.

She reaches a palm out.

Show me.

You open the DM from sev.94, watching as Ellie’s expression morphs from morbid curiosity to disbelief, to a quiet rage.

She’s handing your phone back to you and grabbing you by your forearm.

“She’s fucking dead.”

When you enter the rink, the ice is tense.

It’s the middle of the second period and the game is tied 3—3.

Your eyes comb the playing area, can’t find Vi’s jersey number in the mix, but finally settle on her on the bench, shoulders terse and obviously on edge.

She doesn’t clock you yet, had given up on the idea of patching things up with you after your last conversation.

“Vi’s been missing her bracelet since practice on Saturday,” Ellie’d told you on the way there, then pulled out her phone to show you the photo she’d taken of Vi passed out in nothing but her boxers on the couch the night of the last game, fucked up and sad. “We went out for like an hour after the game, but that was it. Vi was too fucking in her head.”

The girl from the tunnel, the one who’d been taunting the two of you, you piece together, has been the one behind it all, stirring the pot.

Throughout the end of the second period and all through intermission, Vi doesn’t notice you, too busy trying to get off the fucking bench to survey the crowd.

It’s only during final puck drop in the third period that their coach finally gives in, smacks the back of her helmet and tells her to make him proud that she lifts her head up.

And there, front and center of the student section is you.

Her eyes are wide, body frozen in place as she tries to figure if you’re just a figment of her imagination, but then the horn’s blaring and she’s having to zone back in.

At this point in time, she doesn’t give a fuck if they win or lose, she just needs to get to you.

“Your little bitch looks cute tonight,” Sevika comments wolfishly. “Bet she tastes as good as she looks.”

Vi easily intercepts her pass, cuts between two players as she shuffles it along with practiced precision. She sends the rubber flying and the goalie narrowly misses block.

“Maybe if you played as good as you ran your mouth, you’d wipe the floor with my pissbaby team you big bitch,” Vi calls, resetting in their corner.

And perhaps you’re her good luck charm, the only thing she needed to see to get back into it, because Vi reignites. The adrenaline pumping through her veins fuels every shot, and soon the timer’s buzzing.

7—5.

The roar is deafening, but you’re all she sees in the ocean of cowbells and pompoms.

She barely inches forward before something arcs through the sky and lands before her feet.

Her bracelet.

You watch from the sidelines, the final confirmation as Vi picks up the loop and launches herself at Sevika.

The crowd cheers.

Fight, fight fight!

You don’t know how many swings Vi gets in, just know that she’s flashing you a bloody smile before she skates off the ice.

Ellie emerges from the locker room and you’re perking up.

Most, if not all, of Vi’s teammates had come and gone and you’d been waiting patiently, anxiously, for her to emerge since the end of the game nearly an hour ago.

“She’s the last one in there,” is all Ellie says before strolling off.

“What if...what if she doesn’t want to see me?” you ask hesitantly.

Ellie chuffs a little laugh, doesn’t bother turning as she calls from halfway down the hall, “Find out for yourself, sweetheart.”

Vi’s pulling a tank top over her head as soon as you enter and your cheeks bloom when you catch a split-second of her tits.

She glances up at you, nose bruising and lip busted.

“Hey,” she spares you, stuffing her uniform and skates into her gym bag.

“Hi,” you squeak.

A pregnant pause as you take her in, hesitant to close the distance between the two of you.

“Didn’t think you’d make it,” she observes.

And you don’t really have a bullshit response, know that you had every intention of staying as far away as humanly possible, so you settle on humming your agreement.

“Ellie told me,” she starts. “Why you lashed out on me.”

You swallow.

“And part of me gets it, I really do,” she continues, “but I also thought you had more faith in me than that.”

“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “Fuck, Violet, I’m so sorry.”

“I told you to free up Friday night a few weeks ago,” she says, shuts her locker door and slumps down on the bench behind her. “I was going to tell you everything, officially ask you out, but then all that shit happened and it caught up to me.”

You take a step forward, and then another, and another until you’re standing in front of her.

“You have to know that I would never do something like to anyone, but especially not to you,” she says softly, taking your hands in hers.

“I know.”

She brushes her lips against your knuckles, pulls you in closer so that you’re standing between her legs.

“You’re right,” she continues, voice hoarse. “I don’t have a spotless track record, but I meant it when I said that I don’t give a shit about anyone else but you. I would give you anything I can if you let me.”

Your hands rest on her shoulders, her chin resting against the plush of your belly as you look down at her, speechless.

“That night, in the car, you said that you didn’t see what made you so different.”

“I don’t,” you admit.

Vi stands, caging you between strong arms as she drops her face into the hollow of your neck. You shiver when you feel her lips press to the skin there.

“We could start off with the obvious.”

One of her hands rests on the small of your back, pulls you flush so that the only things that separate you are the flimsy fabrics of your clothes. The other grabs a handful of your ass.

“I meant it when I said that you’re the kind of pretty that makes me wanna do bad things.”

You gulp, thighs squeezing as her lips part and she bites.

“Vi.”

“You got a giant brain,” she laughs breathily, fingers coming around the fiddle with your belt.

She kisses you, mouth hot and breath warm. It’s better the second time around, no doubt obscuring you from truly indulging.

“Pl—ease.”

“You’re kind and you’re selfless, and you’re my sweet, sweet little crybaby.”

“Violet,” you sigh breathlessly. “Listen to me.”

“Yeah, sweetheart?”

“Fuck me,” you pant. “Please.”

Violet nearly runs two red lights and whips into your neighborhood on two wheels.

The two of you are stumbling up the stairs and she’s spanking your ass on the last step as you fiddle with your keys and try to find the right one under the dim light of the complex hall.

Violet’s already unbuckling her belt as you turn the key, nearly taking you down as she shoves you inside and up against the front door.

“Maddie home?” she breathes.

“Out of town,” you answer quickly, kicking off your sneakers and pulling your sweater over your head. “Visiting her family upstate.”

“Perfect,” Vi hums. “I’ve been fantasizing about fucking you on your couch.”

“Oh–”

One of her rough hands comes to cup your tit over your bra, her tongue laving over the other while her free hand makes work of the clasp.

You walk her back to the couch, stand between her knees as she flops back into the seat. Her arms spread over the back as she settles in, legs widening to give you ample room to strip.

Her eyes never leave yours as you easily unclasp your bra and shimmy out of your jeans, leaving you in nothing but a tight pair of little lace panties and pink socks that has Vi wet.

“C’mere,” she rasps, pulling you to straddle her lap.

Her lips immediately latch onto one of your pebbled nipples, tongue hot as her hands wander.

“Fuck.”

“Tell me what you want,” she husks, biting down on the swell of your breast.

And having Violet this close, her touch excruciatingly featherlight and tempting, you wind tight.

“Want you inside of me,” you whimper, fingers fixing around her throat. “Please.”

“Yeah?” she eggs you on, lips brushing yours as her palms settle on your ass. “You want me to fuck you?”

You nod eagerly, hips rolling in her lap as her breath pitches.

“Vi.”

Her nickname puffing from your lips makes her crack. You’re wound in her arms, face in her neck as she peels your thong taut, away from your waiting cunt, and runs her fingertips from your slit down to your clit.

“F...F—uck,” you sigh.

“Holy shit,” she marvels, licking her lips when she easily glides through your folds. “You’re really fucking wet.”

You grind down against her, clothed clit catching against her belt buckle. The cool metal sends a jolt through your pussy and you’re moaning loud in her ear.

And Violet really wants to take her time with you, wants to milk the first time she ever gets to fuck you for as long as she humanly can, but she’s still fully dressed and you’re practically naked, perfect tits pressed to her chest and fat ass in the palm of her hand.

She shifts you further into her, so that she can peek over the arch of your back as she sinks her middle and ring finger three knuckles deep into your needy heat.

“Ah, fuck, Violet.” Your voice breaks as she starts pumping into you, your arousal coating her fingers and the sound of her easily slipping through your pussy reverberating through the living room. “Fuckfuckfuck.”

She kisses your jaw, litters them until she’s catching your lips and licking crudely into your mouth.

You cry out when her fingers slip out.

She’s leaning the both of you forward, easing you from her lap and onto the couch as she takes a moment to shuck her shirt off and pull her belt through the loops in one tug.

You watch her through it all, the way the trim muscles of her biceps and shoulders flex as she leans over you, takes you by the ankles and yanks you until your ass is half-hanging from the edge of the couch.

She kneels before you, strips you out of your thong.

You don’t miss the way she shoves the soiled fabric in her jeans pocket.

“Jesus,” she breathes, gaze fluttering between your eyes and your pussy. “You’re so fucking pretty, sweetheart.”

Your toes curl at the praise, fingers closing around where Vi’s holding your legs apart.

“You know how bad I’ve been wanting to taste your pussy?” she rasps, gathering the lewdest amount of spit to dribble onto your clit. When you don’t answer, she’s freeing a hand to slap your slit.

“Nnngh, fuck!”

“Think I’ve always wanted to have you,” she admits. “But it was that stupid party fucking party and that stupid fucking skirt. God, I would’ve fucked you in that skirt if you let me.”

“Yeah?” you whine breathlessly. “Tell me.”

She’s stuffing you again without warning, curling her fingers in a way that has your back arching off the couch.

“Would’ve bent you over that sink and made you watch yourself while I ate you out,” she says easily.

And it’s so fucking delicious, the nasty shit Vi’s saying to you while she pounds your aching heat; the way she finally gives in and tastes you, sucking on your clit like she’s starved and you’re the only thing that can sate her hunger.

Your fingers curl through her hair as you teeter dangerously over the edge, nails grazing her scalp and tugging when she hits the spot deep inside of you that has you keening for more.

“I’m gonna fuckin’ cum,” you choke. “Holy fuck.”

You feel Vi grin against your pussy, watch her with a slack jaw and half-lidded eyes because the sight of her between your legs in your moonlit living room has your insides twisting hard.

“C’mon, sweetheart,” she encourages you. “Cum all over my fingers. Wanna see you gush.”

“Hah, h—” Your thighs tighten around her head, fingers curled so hard in her hair, she moans in a mix of pleasure and pain. “Don’t stop, Vi, please.”

She moans into your cunt, savoring the heady taste of you as you practically ride her face.

The sound that fills the room is downright filthy, the sight that Vi beholds when she peeks from where she’s devouring you equally so. It’s picturesque, the way she has you writhing. A sheen of perspiration glistens over your flesh as she eats you out and it’s a perfect mix of her tongue and her fingers that send you soaring over the edge.

It’s a pitched whine that echos, the staccato of your shaky breathing that sings like music in her ears as you cum. And hard.

Her lashes flutter against the skin of your inner thighs as she peppers kisses there, her lips slick with spit and arousal.

“Fuck, babe,” she whispers. “That was...”

She can’t really choose a specific word, is just mind blown at the fact that she’d just made you cum so hard and so fast. It makes her tense and tingle, a smug wave of pride washing over her as she starts mouthing a trail from your belly, between the valley of your tits, up your throat, to finally press a chaste one on your lips.

You taste yourself first and foremost, but then you taste everything she’s ever wanted to say to you, all the unspoken words and the things she’d been too scared to share. Feel it in the way her hands are roaming, squeezing, caressing.

You breathe a disbelieving laugh, peck her lips again when she pulls away to brush your hair from your face.

“Vi—” Your breath hitches and your eyes glaze.

“I know, I know.”

You wrap your arms around her shoulders, legs hooking around the narrow of her waist as she bears your weight and picks up your boneless figure.

“I’m not done with you yet, sweetheart.”

The sun is warm against your skin when you wake up the following morning, your bedroom bathed in an orange glow.

You feel bone tired, body sore and muscles tight as your arm sweeps the other side of the bed in search of balmy skin, but instead you’re met with cool sheets and swelling dread.

You sit up quickly, find that you’re still naked, and take a moment to asses your bedroom. The bathroom door’s cracked, light off, and everything else is exactly where you left it.

Everything except Vi.

Oh, you think to yourself.

Almost don’t want to leave your room because your empty apartment will be confirmation enough that Vi really did get the last laugh in the end.

But you force yourself out of bed, shrug on an oversized t-shirt before finding the living room just as still as it had been before the two of you had barreled in the night before and she’d left her mark on you.

The only sign that the entire thing wasn’t just a figment of your imagination was Vi’s belt strewn haphazardly on the coffee table.

You feel hollow, almost numb, and even if a persistent part of your brain was consistently telling you that you should’ve known better, the tears well in your eyes because you’d really hoped Violet was different.

You knuckle the tears away angrily, mind racing far too fast to register the door quietly unlocking and the soft footfalls coming down the hall.

“Babe?”

Your gaze snaps up.

Like a vision, Vi’s standing in the doorway, a handful of plastic bags in tow. She’s wearing her clothes from last night and the puffs under her eyes make her a little worse for wear.

She sets the bags down on the eat-in, rounds the couch to take you by the shoulders.

“What’s wrong?” she worries. “What’s going on?”

You hiccup, crumpling in her arms because you were so fucking scared.

“Thought you left,” you croak.

Vi breathes a sigh of relief, blowing out a hollow laugh because her girl’s such a baby.

“You have jack shit in your fridge,” she teases lightly. “How am I supposed to make you a five star breakfast with greek yogurt and carrot sticks?”

You whine.

“Don’t care about breakfast,” your muffled voice sounds from where your face is pressed in her chest. “Just wanted to wake up to you.”

Violet groans.

“You’re so cute,” she laughs, kissing the top of your head.

“I wanna go back to bed,” you mutter petulantly, emotional whiplash making your eyes droop.

“You’re not gonna let me make you breakfast?” Vi picks, smoothing the hair from your face.

Your eyes catch the bracelet refastened around her wrist and you grin softly, taking her fingers to press a kiss to her palm.

She could combust, gaze gooey as she watches you watch her.

Yeah, Vi has a huge problem.

One that’s particular, and overarching; one she doesn’t think she can go without.

And frankly, she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Nobara and Yuji shared one brain cell, but they weren’t complete idiots. Sure, the two of them would have to be put on a leash if it wasn’t for Megumi watching them 23/7, but they actually ‘weren’t that bad’ (in Megumi’s words, not theirs)

One of the worst best things about them was that they’d notice every single change in behavior. Even the slightest nudge in your routine would send them digging.

Unfortunately for Fushiguro, these two nosy assholes were his best friends, and when he started acting ‘off’, they started nagging him non-stop.

They had been trying to get him to open for the entirety of their friendship, but this boy would just not crack. All their attempts only ended in failure, with him waving them off or punch Yuji over the head.

“Fushiguro, c’mon! What is with you, man?” Yuji whined, annoying as ever. Megumi could only groan as they followed him around like toddlers looking for their mother. He only wanted peace and quiet, and his friends were the exact opposite.

“You’re moody, but never this moody.” Nobara nudged his shoulder, and in return she got a sharp glare from Megumi.

“I am not moody.” He shoved his hands into his pockets.

Truth be told, he was moody.

Usually they’d get a couple words out of the boy during their conversations, but today? All they got was that infuriating emotionless expression he had when he didn’t want to talk to anybody. The most they got was a nod or a head shake.

“Just tell us! What is with you, goddammit!?” The brunette huffed, blowing a piece of stray hair out of her face. Yuji took a couple steps away from her, not wanting to be on the other end of her hammer.

“Nothings up with me.” That was the last thing they had heard from him before he slammed the door to his dorm room right in their face, so hard it shook the door frame.

“What a dick..”

The grumpiness carried on for another two whole weeks. It got to a point where he wouldn’t even leave his room, only seeing him during training or class time. Whenever they made advances at the boy, he’d whip around and disappear into his dorm at the speed of light.

His grumpiness didn’t make things easier when the trio was sent on a mission. Their task was so exorcise a couple of grade three curses, so they had a lot of free time on their hands.

By free time, it just meant Nobara maxing out Gojo’s credit card and Yuji eating more food than his body can handle.

They sat in a quiet corner of one of Yuji’s ‘pit stops’. They had gotten used to his grumbly, almost irritated demeanor by now, so the two had stopped prying.

At least, that’s what Megumi thought.

He sighed, pushing himself out of his seat. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

He gave them a look that screamed ‘you two better not run off. If you do, I will not hesitate to leave you behind’.

The moment he was out of view, they got ahold of all his belongings that he had left behind. They had a strict time limit of two minutes and thirteen seconds before he’d be back to kill them.

They went through everything they could, his jacket, his phone (they couldn’t figure out the password, so now he’s locked out of his phone for ten minutes), this weird ass bag that they did NOT want to open-

His wallet fell open as they were rummaging through his stuff, and they both froze.

A simple polaroid of the two of you, although it was more of you, half of his face out of the frame like he was trying to escape the picture. There was a tiny hint of a smile on his face even.

You looked carefree. They both knew that you’d never truly outrun your duties as a special grade sorcerer and the higher ups, so seeing their friend beam like a child warmed their hearts.

Wait.

He had a polaroid of you. In his wallet.

They both gave each other that look.

Everyone had always questioned the relationship between the two of you. The sneaky glances, standing too close to one another, sharing your snacks- hell, panda caught you sneaking into his dorm room one night. No one thought too much about it, but this?

Now this was not any regular ‘friendship’.

They tucked everything back into place just in time for him to slip back into his seat, not knowing what they had been doing instead of focusing on eating their food.

“Hey guys!”

The group of first and second years looked up.

You and Yuta.

“Oh my god, [Name]!” Nobara jumped up from her spot at the bleachers. She immediately clung onto you, already fake crying.

You and Yuta had been sent on another long mission to exorcise a couple of special grade curses. Why they needed you both? You weren’t sure, but the two of you had each others backs, and you both returned without a scratch.

“Okay okay, get off her. They both need a break.” Maki grabbed Nobara by the back of her shirt, tugging her back.

As the group greeted the both of you, and with Yuji for some reason being oddly excited to hear about the curse you exorcised, Megumi stood off to the side. He had his arms crossed, and was staring straight into your soul.

You had felt his eyes on you the moment you got back. You gave him a tired smile as you got dragged away by Maki and Nobara, telling him to meet you in your room later.

Much to Megumi’s dismay, everyone else had heard it. It started a string of endless teasing, even from toge, who let out a very scandalized ‘tuna salmon’.

“Aww, you two are so cute together!” Yuji slung an arm over his shoulder, cooing at him like he was a baby. Both Yuta and Toge nodded in agreement, embarrassing Megumi further.

“I’m going to punch all of you…”

“But how would that keep us safe?”

Megumi’s head snapped up. Now he was listening.

“What did you say?”

Yuta looked away, feigning innocence. He only shrugged. “[Name] may or may not have shown me your texts…”

“[Name]…” He groaned, slapping a hand over his face like it would hide how red it was getting.

On the other hand, you were in the middle of showing Maki and Nobara those very texts. They had their noses glued to your phone screen, consuming as much info they could.

To nobody’s surprise, he was already waiting for you in your room when you got back from being tossed around by Maki and Nobara, their questions over flooding your brain. The moment you slid your door open, you were greeted with him standing in the dark. You felt your heart drop to your ass.

Despite the initial shock, you softened when you saw the way he pouted, not meeting your eye.

“Hi, megs.” You whispered. He always complained about how he hated it when you called him different nicknames, but the blush dusting his cheeks said otherwise. You reached your arms out to him, inviting him back into your arms, where he always found himself going back to.

He reluctantly wrapped his arms around your waist, melting into your touch almost instantly. He hummed in content, feeling that familiar sense of satisfaction. He inhaled your scent like he was trying to memorize it, like it would be the only thing he’d remember if you disappeared.

Something along the lines of cinnamon and vanilla. You were warm, the heat of your body slowly warming up his cold fingertips.

“You were gone for so long…”

You snorted. “It was only for two weeks, gumi.”

“Two weeks without my girlfriend…”

You could only giggle softly at his antics. Your soft chuckles were music to Megumi Fushiguro’s ears, really. If he had to choose to listen to a single sound for the rest of eternity, it would be your laugh.

You only ever laughed around him. Anywhere else you’d have to be the serious, special grade sorcerer, the face that had been on billboards. With him, it was… different.

And it would always stay that way.

He carried the memory of you around like his own personal pocket watch. You were like a tiny entity that would pop into his mind no matter where he turned.

It wasn't like he could help it. It's just that no matter what he did, something would always remind him of you. Even the simplest things.

Someone accidentally bumping into his shoulder? That's just what happened the first time you two met. Both of you were being dragged around by somebody, the memory was so fuzzy because he never focused on who it was. He only remembered the moment you accidentally knocked into his chest, muttering a soft 'sorry.

Wind blowing in his face? The memory of you dragging his hand through the crowd last May came to mind. Yuji and Nobara and run off somewhere to get food, leaving the two of you to stare at the cherry blossoms in your shared comfortable silence.

He couldn't even look at the colour blue without thinking of you. You two were sat outside after a long day of training, and you had been trying to guess his favourite colour. Truth is, he didn't even have a favourite colour, but when you mumbled the colour blue, something about the colour started speaking to him in a way it never did before.

So really, who could blame the love struck boy?

a/n: was gonna make reader a kyoto jujutsu high student but then again I love her too much to make her apart of the fraud squad (FOR LEGAL REASONS THIS IS A JOKE‼️‼️‼️)

I hate this one ITS SO SHITTY so whoever voted for the one SQUARE UP /j✌️

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