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fandomsonrequests · 1 year

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You could have it all (my empire of dirt)

2. it ain't the letting go (it's the things that you take with)

[Part 1] ↠ [Part 2] ↠ [Part 3] (soon to be added)

Western AU

18+

Jayce Talis x GN AFAB Reader

Word count: 12.6k+

Synopsis: Bounty hunter Jayce Talis should know better than to fall for his target. Unfortunately, he doesn’t.

Tags/warnings: western AU, mastrubation (Jayce), yearny Jayce, brief mentions of drugs (1800s cocaine products), Jayce epically failing at being a bounty hunter, reader being emotionally constipated, then emotionally diarrheic, then emotionally constipated again, Handjob (Jayce receiving), brief allusions to non-con (nothing bad actually happens), Jayce being a weepy confused mess, Dirty talk.

Jayce should hate you.

Correction — he does hate you.

Hates your eyes, their hunger, their heat, their knowing. Hates your smile, hates the shape of it, the confidence tucked somewhere neatly behind your canines. Hates your cutting wit, just waiting to be unloaded in one line that would make him weak in the knees. And he hates the shape of your lips.

Hates how wrong the shape of them looks on the bounty poster.

They’re flat and different and wrong, wrong, wrong. He knows, because they’ve been in places he hadn’t even dared putting his own hands, knows because they’ve sealed and sucked at his throat, his chest, and that wretched, lifeless stroke of ink could never hope to do the pleasure they’ve brought him justice. Could never do you justice, because you’re—

This is absurd. He should stop. Should put the damn paper away and have another go at finally falling asleep, maybe the third time’s a charm.

It’s not like he wants you to touch him. It’s not like his mind has been circling back to it the way a dog chases its tail, unending, unrelenting, stupid, pointless.

It’s just — the prairie’s desolate, the night’s quiet, the fire’s out, and he’s alone. Laying on his back in his generously large tent — generous enough for two if you squeezed together tight enough — and finding it achingly empty. Finding his hand achingly empty, so he fiddles with the button of his jeans, looks at your poster.

It’s not like he’s actually going to do anything. His hand just happened to — to drift there, really, and, well, you can’t exactly blame him for staring at your poster. In fact, you should count yourself lucky that he hasn’t hung it up somewhere and fired an entire round into your face. You’d deserve it.

It’s also not his fault that his thumb just so happens to slip, and, well, so does the button of his jeans, it just— it just slips out of its eyelet, and the zipper isn’t too far behind either. It just happens. He’s getting comfortable for the night. It’s not like he’s going to put his hand down his pants.

It’s not like the sight of you and your annoying, mean, stupid, no-good face makes the heat in his belly stir.

Is he—? No, no, he’s not. He’s not jacking off to the thought of you, he just… needs some kind of release to put him to sleep. He needs the rest. Especially after following your trail into Zaun and spending a good two days tracking you down, he’s going to get his hands on you soon, if he gets a good night’s rest. He’s sure. Sort of.

He’s got a vague idea about what you’ve been up to.

Marcus had come by for dinner last week, and complained about a break-in at the Ferros pharmacy his lawmen had found no leads on. The store had not only been robbed blind, but someone had knocked out the clerk and the two guards that night and had disappeared with all of the cocaine products on the shelves. Not a small or an easy job by any means.

The issue, Marcus had pointed out, weren’t just the missing wares and money – but the increase of violent crime in Zaun as a byproduct, since it appeared the stolen, potent cocaine products had found their buyers there, where cocaine had specifically been outlawed for that very reason.

Jayce’s professional opinion? This entire thing practically reeked of you.

You’d gotten the money you’d needed, and caused a distraction all in one fell swoop. With everyone’s eyes already off of you, you just needed to wait things out. Until your next strike.

Smart, simple, deceitful. It had to be you.

And he could’ve told Marcus that, could’ve given him the semblance of a lead he seemed to be so desperate for, but this was personal. Jayce had a score to settle, and this time, he would not fall for your tricks.

Wouldn’t fall for your voice, your hands, your tongue, your cunt (fuck, why is his mouth watering?), wouldn't let anything throw him off his game.

That’s why he inches his hand past the waistband of his underwear and takes his own, half-hard cock in his hand.

It’s a tactical choice.

He’d rather be distracted now, when he’s alone, when he can allow himself to be, than when he’s with you, and supposed to be doing his job. He won’t let you win again. Won’t lose sight of his purpose again.

This — getting off — is just a part of ensuring that.

Right.

That’s all there is to how his dick twitches when he looks at your poster. It’s a conditioned response, it has to be — the pleasure you’d wrecked him with had been so entirely new and potent that it can only be normal for his body to want to chase it. It doesn’t have to mean anything.

Yeah, that has to be it. He just needs to… distance you from it. Needs to recreate the experience on his own, so that his brain might stop gravitating towards you and stop acting like a cat in heat. Problem solved, it had been so simple, really, hadn’t it?

That’s it.

That’s right. That’s good. Good boy, that’s exactly what you need—

Oh, come on.

Jayce groans at the thought of your voice, encouraging him to do this with a ravenous but oh-so-pleased there you go, that’s an obedient boy as he drags his hand from root to tip. He knows you’d talk him through it, would praise him through it.

Dry. Utterly unlike your mouth, his hand is dry and callused and too warm and not yours. He persists regardless, gives his cock another near-chafing tug before he’s propping himself up on one elbow and spitting onto his tip, and oh, that’s better.

With the pad of his thumb, he rubs his spit into the petal-pink, soft skin. In an immediate response, his hips twitch up into his grip.

That’s much better.

A tingling spark of warm pleasure ignites in his lower belly, stroked to a small flame by the glide of his right hand and another glance at the poster he’s clutching in the left.

Maybe your lips aren’t true to life in that damn sketch, but your smile certainly is – a gnashy little smirk that promises trouble and delivers it through and through. You’d looked exactly like that when you’d told him you were going to take care of him; looked the same way when you’d lowered your mouth between his legs and sucked at his balls–

“Fuck.” He can feel his cock swelling in his hand with another jerk, now at full mast and red. The cold puff of his breath soothes the scorching heat of his flesh, hits his slick cockhead in a frigid wave of air that makes him shiver.

All because he’d looked at your dumb poster.

Jayce shouldn’t do this. It’s not— he’s doing the exact opposite of what he set out to do. He can only pretend it’s for the sake of relief for as long as he likes, because he knows, he knows he’s only going to ache once it settles in that the best fuck of his life was a one-time-thing.

But why think about that right now, if he can think about your tongue, your lips at his taint, sealing and sucking to turn his brain into mush and make his back arch at just the thought of it.

He needs it again. But his fingers aren’t as good as your lips, his fingers aren’t even as good as your fingers, but he still pops them into his mouth the way you had slipped your thumb in, parts his lips wide, lets his index and middle finger sink in all the way to his knuckles.

To think he hadn’t realized at the time how good it felt to be full. It’s blissful, how his fingertips lodge into the back of his throat and seem to pause his racing thoughts with just that.

Then again, there had been better things to think about when you’d fucked his mouth with your fingers, like the texture of your thumb, or the taste of your juices lingering at the tip of his tongue. It’s satisfying, to have his throat stuffed and utterly relaxed, before he pulls both fingers out and feels something akin to relief with the first breath that floods his lungs.

He wonders how his fingers would feel filling him up elsewhere, but lacks the gall to find out. Recreating the night spent with you sounds significantly more appealing.

In an instant, his hand shoots back down, cupping at his balls with the rest of his dry fingers, while the slick index and middle finger prod at his taint. It’s a hopeless, clumsy attempt at recreating your technique, but it’s enough. The careful circles of wet finger pads at his perineum urging the thick, languid warmth in his stomach into hot pressure, the squeeze of the rest of his hand at his sensitive balls, his cock pulsing, it’s enough.

Enough to have his dick jerk so hard it hits his wrist, enough to have him throwing his head back in delight and peering down at your poster, imagining his touch is all yours.

That you’re occupying the empty space next to him, that you’re gently cradling his head with one hand and using the other to take care of him. You’d be kind, in spite of who you are — because you were kind, even then. Had told him multiple times to let you know if it ever was too much (as if it ever could be too much), had kissed him raw after he came a second time, had made him come a second time not because he’d asked but because you’d wanted to. Because just maybe, some part of you had cared that he enjoyed himself too.

Maybe you still do.

Maybe right now, you’d be teasing him for how his body reacts to your voice, you’d be smiling at his contorted face, then at his leaking cock, before you’d wrap your hand around its base and lower your lips to kiss away the thick drop on its swollen tip.

You’d lap at it, at the sensitive ridge of the underside of his cockhead — closing his eyes and circling his frenulum with his slick index is nearly enough to be convincing — and maybe… maybe you’d let him taste you after he comes for you.

Yeah. He’d fucking love that.

Maybe you’d let him feel you grind against his tongue, let him feel the warm gush of your orgasm in his mouth, let him bury his face into your waiting heat until there’s nothing but you in every crevice of his senses. Maybe you’d let him wrap his arms around your hips and kiss and lick your cunt until his lips and tongue buzz with raw, numb pain, until he knows nothing but the taste of you, your sounds, your slick, your warmth, all of you.

Fuck.

His other hand, lets go of the poster, reaches for his waiting cock. Three dry, overstimulating strokes do him in, have him coming so hard he’s rolling onto his side to avoid soiling his own clothes and his sleeping bag, have him curling in on himself, whining out his pleasure to the lone prairie. He can feel his orgasm pulsing all the way up his fucking spine, exploding at his brainstem, loud enough to drown his thoughts out in a pleasant, hot buzz and makes his ears ring.

“Hnn—!”

Jayce grips his cock through his peak, gives a few more strokes that stop just below his sensitive, swollen tip, before he finally lets go.

His body sags with relief, head still pounding with his racing pulse, breath still coming out in sharp, quick bursts, limbs tingling with a fuzzy, syrupy high.

Yeah, this is definitely going to put him to sleep.

He cracks his eyes open just enough to look down at his own shirt and pants — both unsoiled, thank goodness, because they’re his last clean clothes after a not so pleasant incident involving a pile of manure out in Zaun yesterday.

Not so unscathed, however, is your bounty poster, with three fat, stringy drops of cum splattered across it, from your shoulder, across your face, to the rim of your hat. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

His first instinct is to use his sleeve, but that’s hardly a viable alternative, so he rushes, instead, to smudge it away with his palm — somewhat successful, but the splatters are still very, very obvious, curling the paper where they’ve soaked it.

Normally, it would hardly be a big deal. He’d just head over to the Sheriff’s, get himself a new one. It’s just a piece of paper.

But right now? A ride from Zaun to that part of Piltover and back would take a day, at best. And who knows that the hell you’re capable of pulling off in one entire day? He’s hot on your trail, he can’t lose it because he— well, because he came on your poster. That’d be absurd. He likely won’t even need to use it, anyway.

It’s probably nothing worth getting worked up about. Caitlyn has told him multiple times that he’s prone to stressing out over things that end up bearing incredibly little importance, and this is probably one of them.

He should take advantage of the grogginess and get some much needed sleep instead of winding himself up about a cum stain.

—

He was right. There had been no use for your bounty poster, not when he’d spotted tracks of a lone horse and followed them, down into the forest quite a distance away from Zaun.

You’d made his job easy, stuck to the main trail leading through it, left heavy hoof imprints in the mud, like a treasure trail begging to be followed.

And you’d confirmed, very much so, that it was you he’d followed because you’d left your horse (a seemingly reliable, but skittish appaloosa), loaded up on a set of guns so varied that it could only belong to an outlaw, tucked away safely between the trees.

And you had left imprints in the mud, leading out of the forest. Jayce had dismounted off his horse not too far from yours and followed.

Followed them, all the way down to the Pilt offshoot passing through the valley, where he’d found your boots, neatly discarded beside the riverbank, and your clothes, folded and settled atop your boots to avoid the mud and oh—

Of course you’d be naked in a river.

Water splashes from ahead, where a willow tree hunches above the calm, trickling little waves and kisses its surface with droopy branches. And between them, a sliver of your skin peeks out.

His heart jumps up into his throat, comes tumbling back down heavily into his stomach at first, then, much to his dismay, dips further to pulse with heat in his groin.

All of last night’s hard work, gone to waste.

But you’ve not seen him yet, and that gives him the clear advantage he needs, and, not to mention, you’re naked — the tables have turned. His odds are good, for once. Karma is on his side, and revenge, although something he deems to be beneath him most of the time, will be so very sweet.

So Jayce advances, pushes the willow branches aside with the tip of his unshouldered rifle, sneaks up the precipice that should, by his estimation, overlook your naked form.

It does.

And gods, your back’s glorious in the filtered sunlight. Muscles flexing and bunching with vigorous movements of lathering soap across your front, skin sounding positively slick where you rub at it and for fuck’s sake he’s thinking about how you’d tasted and felt, soft and warm and ripe.

He shouldn’t, but he does take a moment to simply watch, and let his mouth pool and heart ache and lungs tighten before he raises the rifle once more, almost regretfully.

“Hands above your head.” Tone heavy and low, Jayce means business, makes a clear point of it by audibly cocking his weapon.

And you don’t even flinch. You don’t even turn around for that matter, either.

“Already back for more?” You tease — thank goodness it’s you (it’s not like hearing your voice is making his stomach clench). As your hands raise, water dripping down your arms, bar of soap clutched in one hand, Jayce swallows.

This is going to be much harder than he anticipated. In every sense of the word.

“Get out,” he replies, although his voice falls terribly, awfully flat when you do, water sloshing with as you turn around, turn towards him. “Slowly.”

And then you do turn to look at him, and there is nothing but coyness and a complacent grin on your face. You look at him not like prey caught, but like your bear trap has just snapped shut around his ankle.

And in spite of the fact that your unbotheredness should sound off alarms in his head, should make him worry, there is little for his shortwired brain to think about when you look as good in the afternoon daylight as you’d had in the low candlelight. Perhaps even better, now, with sun rays and shadows bouncing off your still soap slick skin.

“Slowly?” You repeat, grinning. “If I didn’t know you any better, I’d say you were hoping for a show, Mister Talis.”

He’s not. And even if he was, he wouldn’t— he wouldn’t give in to it. His demand is just a precaution.

“The only thing I’m hoping for is putting you where you damn well belong.”

When you chortle, amused, and take half a step closer, arms still raised, suds of soap dripping down your flexed forearm, fist clenched around the bar of soap, Jayce realizes last night’s release counts for nothing.

Focus. Focus.

“In your bed?”

Oh, fuck you. He should’ve known; should’ve expected it — why your flirty little question still makes his breath catch is beyond him.

“A prison cell,” he replies, although the mere thought of you rotting away behind steel bars makes his heart clench. What the hell is wrong with him? “Now get out, or I’ll shoot.”

“You mean the way you did for me that night? Twice?”

Fuck you.

“I’m serious,” he growls. “Out. Now.”

Your face drops subtly, but you regain your mental footing with dizzying speed.

“You wouldn’t.”

He hates how convinced of it you sound.

He hates how right you are.

“The poster said dead or alive,” Jayce insists, making a show of moving his index to rest atop the trigger. You don’t seem to take the bait. “Don’t make me choose.”

“I think you already have.”

With that, you still comply, approaching him ever so slowly, as he’s asked. It’s tantalizing, has him focusing at least half his mental capacity on not getting hard as you approach the riverside, and the water level slowly reveals more of you with every forward step.

Water clings to your collarbone, to your chest, to the part of your tummy he’d been aching to nuzzle against. Pearls down the flesh of you, drips off the grooves of your muscles like paint off a fresh masterpiece. And you’re smirking. Fuck you, you’re smirking.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” you coo, tone so saccharine it’s clearly fake. It takes Jayce a quick downward glance at himself to understand you can’t be referring to his bodily reaction. Not yet, at least. “I’m guilty of that just as much as you are. Why do you think I left you tied to that bed, instead of putting a knife up to your throat?”

Water sinks below your hips, below — below, fuck, below the middle of your thighs, lingers at your knees, and then you’re there, right there, close enough for the nozzle of his rifle to nudge your hairline. And — and the rifle’s shaking, he’s shaking, goddammit, too taken with the mouthwatering sight of you to even think.

You’re looking up at him from where he’s standing, still on that precipice, and he can’t understand how he’s standing above you, and yet feels so terribly below you.

“We both have a weakness for each other, Mister Talis.” Your head tilts with the statement, expecting a confirmation that does not come; not verbally.

It’s in the hitch of his breath, the way his index slips away from the trigger, the way his grip around the rifle tightens. You’re winning this confrontation; you are naked, unarmed, and still winning. How and when did he sink this low?

“My only weakness was trusting you that night,” he spits.

Your nose scrunches, and you give an unimpressed hum.

“One of your many weaknesses is not being able to stop thinking about that night,” you reply.

He tries for an unimpressed laugh. It comes out high, airy, nervous.

“And how do you know that?”

Everything about you — from the leaf-filtered sunlight catching in your damp lashes, to the way your smirk smoothes into a smile — is soft, genuine. “Because I haven’t, either.”

It’s disarming, in the most literal sense possible.

You haven’t. Either. It reverberates in his skull, and it’s only on the third mental echo of it that his heart begins to burst.

He’s been on your mind, maybe not as hauntingly and as obsessively as you’ve been on his, but you’ve thought of him, yearned for him, the way he’s yearned for you. It both soothes and strokes the flames inside him to new heights, you want him, you want him, you want him. You want him, too.

Not that he gets to give you a peace offering — and he shouldn’t, either — because you’re perking up at the distant sound of hooves. Bending just enough to peek through the willow tree branches, Jayce spots three armed silhouettes in the distance, mounted atop well-fed horses, the kind you don’t see much in Zaun. Definitely Marcus’ men.

Fuck. Now what? If they come any closer, it’s a matter of when, not if they spot you, the both of you, him standing high and mighty on the riverside, and you, stark naked and—

Fast, far too fast for him to process, you toss your bar of soap into the grass, place one foot against the slippery root of the precipice he’s standing on, just enough to boost yourself up to firmly grasp his belt with both hands, and, with your weight and momentum, yank him into the water with you.

Jayce drops his rifle and falls ungracefully, face-first, with a sound that sounds embarrassingly similar to a squeak, into the hip-deep water. Heaves as he’s dragging himself up and blinking the water out of his eyes for a few long, awful seconds, mind spinning with what the hell kind of maneuver you’re trying to pull right now, before your weight crashes against him once more, pushing him back. And his boots are slipping on the stony riverbed, ankle giving below his weight and your impact, bending until it hurts.

Jayce doesn’t get to groan about it, not as his back is shoved against the very precipice he’d been standing on seconds ago, and your hand comes up to cover his mouth, and you — you’re pressing him against the earthy wall behind him with what feels like your entire weight.

It shouldn’t feel this good to be manhandled. Fear, pain and confusion aside, he’d be a shameless liar if he claimed his stomach didn’t flip at being shoved into the dirt, or at how you press one thigh between his, forearm braced against his collarbone.

“Shh,” you whisper softly against his ear, hand at his chest descending, stopping at waist, rubbing a soothing circle into the skin below his ribs. His spine tingles, from the press of your naked chest against his soaked shirt — his nipples are hard, he hopes you can’t feel that — to the puff of your breath at his neck.

He could break free, if he wanted to. He could even call for help, if he wanted to.

He just doesn’t.

Jayce nods in compliance, but your palm still presses hard against his lips. You’re not taking any chances. It’s dreadful to think that if you had not chosen to make sure he’d stay quiet and hide, he would’ve vouched for you to Marcus’ men with little hesitation.

Not because he likes you, or because he cares, of course. This is just a matter of pride. You’re his to catch, not Marcus’. The fact that you might return his feelings shouldn’t throw him off his game – because by now, he knows you’re a fantastic liar. It doesn’t matter that you’ve been thinking of him, not after you embarrassed the soul out of him that night, and soaked him to the core now. Capturing and turning you in is long overdue.

Besides, retaliation aside, it’s also his responsibility.

The moment those incompetent bastards are gone, he’s getting the job done. For now, though, he’s going to savor the press of your thigh against his half-hard cock, and hope you don’t notice how he rocks into it once, just barely. Just to taste.

If you do, you don’t point it out. But you meet it with a nudge of your thigh, barely a forward twitch of it that has him wondering if it was a conscious choice on your part or not. It doesn’t matter, though, not when the press of his own jeans is flush against his cock, and leaves him brainless and desperate. He doesn’t dare grind again, simply settles for the mind-numbing pressure where he needs it, lets himself throb into the contact. You huff when he does, but your expression is unreadable.

The pounding of hooves grows louder ever-so-softly, then fades into the late afternoon buzz.

No wonder they’re useless at their job. How they didn’t think to check out the anything-but-subtle splashing sound he’d caused with his fall is beyond him, but, well, Marcus’ men have never been thorough.

He’s never been so thankful for that.

But now it’s time to do his job. And he’s anything but thankful for that.

“They’re gone,” you say, hand falling from his mouth, the other still pinning him to the wall along with the thigh placed between his legs. He could break free. He should break free, he needs to–

Your thigh moves, a slow drag forward, until your torso settles against the cradle of his hips, providing a maddening, slow friction against his cock. Unbidden, his hips twitch forward, chasing the heat. It earns a delicate, but no less devious smile from you, and the hand at his hip slides forward, to the front of his soaked shirt, then inches downward. “Look at you – already hard again. I’d expected more resistance after having a gun pointed at me, Talis, but you’re just terribly weak, aren’t you?”

He may be weak – especially for you – but he won’t fall for your tricks again.

If you reach your destination, he’s a goner. And he can’t have that.

“Don’t. Touch me.” His fingers are around your wrist in an instant, wrenching your hand away although he wants nothing more than to feel it trail into his pants, stroke him off better than he ever could, have him come undone until it hurts; he’s still got a semblance of mental clarity, and he’s hanging onto it for dear life. He can’t let you do that again. Not if he wants to do his job, not if he wants this (albeit pleasurable) torment to come to its end.

It’s only while you open your mouth to answer that he realizes he’s still got your wrist in his hand, and that he could twist it behind your back with ease.

And it’s only once he does so, then steps forward to gain the necessary momentum to incapacitate you, that his already painful ankle gives below him, and he takes a second nosedive into the river water.

For fuck’s fucking sake.

Jayce barely manages to brace his fall against the riverbed with both hands, coming up a spluttering, dripping, defeated mess.

Strangely enough, your hands find his shoulders, and he takes the help you offer without so much as a second thought. Your grip slides under his elbow on one side, the other his waist, steadying him on his way up, soaked all over again, awkwardly hovering his hurt foot off the ground like a terribly ungraceful version of a flamingo.

Embarrassing.

You’re letting an amused chuckle slip, but are kind enough to not make any other observations.

“Easy there, Talis. You alright? Twisted your ankle?”

No, absolutely nothing is alright. Ankle aside, you’ve taken his already shattered pride and pretty much turned it into fine powder.

“Yeah.”

Jayce Talis. Piltover’s defender. Soaked fucking wet. Can’t stand on two legs anymore. Holding onto a criminal for dear life.

He’s not turning anyone in like this, much less you. Not when his entire calf and foot pulse at the slightest pressure, and anything more than a half-step makes him want to tear his lungs out in a scream.

“Nice try though,” you console, patting at his soaked shoulder. Asshole. “Let’s get you to shore, hm?”

“I can do that by myself just fine,” he grits out.

“You sure?”

What do you care? You’ve just caused all of this!

“Yes,” he hisses, not so much because he’s sure, but because he can’t stand the idea of taking any more of the help you’re offering.

So you let go, turn around, and drag yourself back up the precipice with little effort. Not that he would’ve minded if you took a little longer. You’re not… you’re not a bad sight at all. Even less so with your muscles at work, with your ass on display. He wants to trace the curves of your frame, wants to… god, he wants to lick the droplets pearling down your shoulder blades. Wants to follow their trail, lower, wants to tuck his chin between your legs and beg you to let him have a taste again, please, just once, or at least just smell you.

Fuck.

Atop the ground, you turn to look at him, expecting. So he limps his way to the precipice, steeling himself mentally.

It seems bigger now that he only has one leg to rely on — daunting.

Goddammit.

If there’s anything smaller than fine powder, he’s just discovered it.

“Actually,” Jayce forces out, voice meek and going meeker still as you turn around and smile, “I could use a hand.”

It’s within his reach before he can get to lament the fact that he’s asking a criminal for help.

“C’mon, pretty boy,” you snort, planting your feet into the soil. Your nickname sounds far from being a compliment, and more like a taunt. “Let’s get you outta there.”

—

��As much as I appreciate the lovely sight, you oughta put some clothes on, sweetheart. Gets real cold around these parts after sunset.”

Scoffing, Jayce looks away, then scoots a little closer to the fire you’d so kindly lit while he’d taken off his clothes and hung them up to dry. It’s still beyond him why you did that, when you could’ve easily just hopped onto your stallion and galloped off into the sunset, with another successful getaway under your belt. Sticking around, helping him – surely, you realize it’s a risk. Or has he lost his edge that much?

It’s beyond him how you’d wielded your nakedness much like a weapon, and why now that the roles have switched and he’s wearing his birthday suit while you’ve slipped on a pair of jeans and a loose shirt, he feels at a disadvantage. It’s frustrating.

You always come out on top, regardless of your odds.

“I’m not naked for you, sweetheart,” he hisses, sulks in on himself. Just to conserve some heat, mind you, not because you make him feel small with just a sideways glance and a smirk. “If it weren’t for my ankle, you’d be tied up and on the back of my horse already.”

“Right,” you grin.

When you cock a brow, skeptical, he sighs, then gives in. “If you have to know, I’m all out of clean clothes.”

You shrug. “Put them on anyway. Trust me, I won’t be put off by the chocolate stain on your other white shirt.”

“Trust me, this isn’t about putting you off.”

The words come out sharp and mean, and he fully expects you to say something fitting in return. Maybe even pack up and leave. It’s not like he could stop you. He’s not even sure if he can make the ride to Piltover tomorrow, not unless the swelling in his ankle goes down a miraculous amount.

It’s fine. He’s still got enough supplies in his saddlebags. He can wait out the healing of both his ankle and his pride in solitude, then return to Piltover and, for the first time in his life, admit to having failed.

God. He’s failed.

He’s failed, he’s cold, he’s hungry, he’s all out of clothes, he can’t even set up his tent for tonight in this state, and— and you’re still right here. You could’ve left, could’ve spared what little there’s left of his finely crushed pride, but no, you’ve decided to get both his and your horse, and set up camp here for tonight.

To torment him, he’s sure.

He just wants to be alone right now. Is that too much to ask?!

“Here. ‘S my only one.”

Fleece drapes atop his left shoulder, then his right, scratchy but thick nonetheless. You pull it around his shoulders tight, until both sides meet in front of his chest.

A blanket.

Surprisingly, you don’t take the opportunity to touch his exposed skin. Not more than necessary, your intentions aren’t predatory in the slightest as your hands run up and down his now fleece covered arms in an attempt to generate warmth.

A thank you scratches behind his teeth, but he decides against it. After all you’ve done to him, a scratchy fleece blanket won’t cut it.

“‘S not a chocolate stain. It, uh— manure,” he blurts instead. He doesn’t know why he’s telling you this. “My only other clothes are covered in manure.”

He appreciates that you try your very best not to laugh. It takes you a few seconds of hesitation, enough to get up and walk to your horse in the meantime, before you finally dare ask.

“Dare I even ask why?”

“No.”

He’s not about to say he hadn’t been looking and tripped into one while chasing down a Zaunite with a packet of Ferros cocaine gum in their hands.

“Street brawl gone awry,” he replies, because he feels like he owes you this, at least. He owes it to himself, however, to spare what little he has of his dignity, so he adds: “I won though.”

“Mm,” your hum sounds complacent, satisfied. “I hear Zaun’s been unusually rowdy lately. Wonder why.”

Like you aren’t the very cause of it.

Asshole.

“I know it was you,” Jayce shoots back. “You robbed a Ferros pharmacy. And stole all the cocaine products to cause a distraction down here.”

You watch him for a moment, entranced, before your eyes widen and light up brighter than the sparks of the crackling campfire. The grin you crack is delighted.

“You figure all that out by yourself?”

He nods, scoffs, and pulls the blanket back up around his shoulders. It’s nowhere near big enough to cover the entire expanse of his back, but it’s certainly better than being naked. “The Sheriff’s lawmen haven’t even considered it might be you.”

Your head tilts. “And how did you?”

Jayce shrugs. He’s not about to tell you he spent an embarrassing amount of time mulling it over, thinking that it all seemed exactly like your brand of trouble. It’s much easier to write it off as a lucky hunch. “‘Twas a… guess.”

“I think,” you say, “that you should give yourself more credit for your smarts.”

It’s absurd that the compliment gets to him.

He’s been called strong, useful, he knows he’s a threatening array of qualities made for catching people like you.

But it’s rare to hear a kind word about anything that lies below his strength.

Still not enough to warrant a thank you, though.

“If you’re hungry,” you change the subject, turning to search for something in your horse’s saddlebags, “you might have to wait a little while longer. This spot don’t seem like a good one for fishing, but I’ll have a go.”

Oh, for god’s sake.

He can’t believe he’s doing this.

“There’s uh…” Jayce clears his throat, pulls the blanket tighter around himself to keep another wave of goosebumps from forming. “There’s two cans of soup on Topacio. Left saddlebag.”

“Topacio?” You ask.

“My horse.”

Your laugh rings out clear and pretty over the crickets. “Oh, no, I figured. I just…” you pause for a moment to coo something soothing to his horse, before you clasp the leather straps open. “I never heard that name before.”

It’s embarrassing to think that he’s so eager to explain the meaning behind his horse’s name, when he knows damn well you wouldn’t care. Nobody does, he knows, because he’s had people ask about things he cares about deeply just to make conversation, and found himself ranting for ten minutes straight. He knows, because he has a talent of picking up on the disinterested glances only when it’s far too late.

So he says nothing. Because he’s probably said too much already — and even if he hadn’t, he will.

You return with the two cans, place them both in front of him, then plop down next to him with an exhausted sigh.

“One’s for you,” Jayce says, rolling it your way. “For… the uh, blanket.”

You take it without fanfare, but with a thankful smile no less, and crack it open easily.

It’s surprisingly refreshing to eat around someone who has no notion of etiquette whatsoever. Sure, him and Caitlyn don’t abide by it when they go on their little camping trips, and he sure as hell doesn’t abide by etiquette when he’s eating by himself, but something about seeing you chug the soup with a complete lack of inhibition, unlike any Piltovan ever could is… entertaining. In a refreshing way.

He slurps away at his soup in silence, watches as the flames start to die and you make quick work of feeding more dry branches into it, wordless.

The quiet is far from threatening.

With how high and hot passion had run between the two of you that night, he hadn’t expected to find lull anywhere near you. Even less so at your side.

It’s… nice.

No, he shouldn’t— it’s not— he’s not enjoying the company of an outlaw. It’s just an observation.

“Y’know, Jayce,” you speak up from across the campfire, a smug little grin flashing white, “the light in the saloon never did your eyes justice.”

His heart shoots up into his throat, and Jayce actually has to suppress a breathy, subtle little gasp.

You don’t miss it.

He knows you don’t, because you chuckle, victorious and ravenous all at once, and his skin glows hot, from the tips of his ears to his chest.

That’s one way to combat the evening chill. He’d rather not think about any others right now, lest he gets hard under the blanket you’ve lent him.

“Save your cheap compliments for an idiot that’ll actually believe them.”

“I meant it,” you counter, meeting his gaze with lidded, but no less focused eyes that soften the exact same way they had when you were dripping, standing behind the barrel of his gun. “I remember when you first looked at me, all wide-eyed and eager, thinkin’ they looked much like a doe’s.”

His heart soars, to the point where he can hear blood rushing somewhere behind his eardrums.

Like a doe’s.

You’d have no way of knowing the significance that word carries. It’s not just about the characteristic fawn-tremble softness that permeates him and bleeds into everything he does, says, thinks. It’s that his mother used to cup his face and kiss his forehead and endearingly call him cervatillo when she wiped the tears from his eyes. Back when he was still allowed to be weak, when he still was weak, all bruised up and gangly legs and thin arms and ruffled hair and awkward, toothless smiles.

Back when the achy tenderness of his nature was considered a feeble thing time would solve, not something he had to remind himself to bury. It’s both terrifying and soothing that you spot it with such ease. Terrifying because he knows you will use it however you deem fit to suit you, soothing because you understand it, and you handle it — handle him — in ways he's long given up on hoping for.

No-one’s ever said anything about his eyes since his mother. And absolutely no one's compared them to an animal’s so delicate. No room for tenderness when there needed to be strength, duty, ruthlessness.

He hadn’t realized how much he’d been aching to hear something like this. Your compliment brings with it an aftertaste so bittersweet he can’t help but savor it, in spite of how his throat goes uncomfortably tight.

“You alright, sweetheart?”

Jayce blinks, swallows the knot in his throat he hadn’t even realized formed. “What?”

“You’re tearing up.” You’re not mocking him, you’re not even stating a fact, you just say it like you care. Like it matters to you that something hurts, like you want to make it better, like he’s important. “What’s the matter?”

Why do you have to make this so difficult?

“Nothing. ‘S the smoke,” he lies, “I’m just… sitting too close to the fire. And I’m tired. I should— I should set up my tent. And sleep.”

Relying on just one leg to get up is no easy feat. He manages, he always does, but by the time he’s standing, swaying ever so subtly from putting most of his weight on one foot, he starts reconsidering sleeping under the stars.

“With that ankle, you ain’t setting up anything,” you joke, ever-observant. “Want me to help?”

“No.”

“Wanna share my tent? I could keep you nice ‘n warm.”

God, that’s tempting.

“Absolutely not.”

You shrug, the soft hurt behind your nonchalance hits his chest with an annoying, painful twang. Why does he care?

Why does he care?

And why does he want to say yes so desperately?

“Alright,” you say. The way you lean back on your elbow and stretch out your legs is a practiced emulation of detachment. “Offer still stands, though.”

In your dreams.

–

“Oh, come on.”

The first few raindrops hitting the back of his neck feel much like the punchline of a very bad joke.

A very bad and awfully cruel joke.

As he’s kneeling beside the scattered components of what should’ve been his tent in less than ten minutes' time, Jayce realizes that today’s torment is far from coming to an end.

There’s no way he’ll be able to set this damn thing up while limping, naked save for the blanket loosely wrapped around his shoulders, shivering so hard he can feel his own teeth clattering, and while it’s raining.

Great. Now what?

“Talis.” The flap to your tent opens audibly, and you poke your head out with a sigh. “Swallow what’s left of your pride and get in here.”

Finely crushed pride should be easy to swallow. Turns out it isn’t. It sticks to the roof of his mouth like a handful of flour.

“I-I’ve got this,” he replies, “just a few more minutes and I’ll–”

“I wasn’t askin’.” For a criminal, your threatening voice sounds much more like scolding, rather than intimidating. “Now c’mon.”

He’d like to turn you down. You’ve already had the upper hand in far too many instances today, and he’d hate to grant you another, but what choice does he have?

So he awkwardly shuffles away from what should’ve been his tent, makes his way over to yours, where you await with a victorious little smile. You even generously offer your hand for support, which he ends up taking as he maneuvers through the tight space, and finally settles on the ground.

“Jesus, you’re cold,” you mutter, staring at where his hand rests in yours, huffing out a frustrated breath.

What do you care? Why do you care? What does his comfort matter, when you’ve left him tied to a bed for hours a little over ten days ago?

“‘S fine,” Jayce grits out, yanks his hand from your hold. Hastily, he tugs the blanket off his shoulders, and drapes it across his torso instead. “I’m fine. Let’s not pretend this is more than an unfortunate circumstance, yeah? Because what happened the last time we shared a bed isn’t happening again. Not after what you did to me.”

Part of him regrets flopping down on his side, facing away from you. He can’t make sense of your sigh, can’t tell if it’s angry or disappointed.

“What I’ve done to you? You were going to turn me in,” you reply. “I was lookin’ out for myself. A lifetime in captivity is, by far, worse than spendin’ one night tied to a bed, sweetheart. Get over yourself.”

Jayce turns to look at you over his shoulder. Get over himself?! After how you’ve abused of his trust, after you robbed him blind, after, after–!

“You humiliated me.”

Your grin is venomous. “You seemed to quite enjoy it at the time.”

Asshole.

Bastard.

The— the goddamn audacity!

“That’s it, I’m leaving.”

Jayce is sitting up before he’s realized it, dead set on not spending another second in your proximity. He doesn’t care what he has to do; put on manure covered clothes, limp through rain, hell, he’ll even crawl if he must, he doesn’t care, he’s not–

“Hey, hey, hey, I’m sorry.” Your hand wraps tight around the wrist he’s propped against the ground, and your thumb rubs a soothing circle into his pulse point.

An apology? That’s… new.

A step forward, or just a new trick you’ll be using to win the upper hand once more?

Your gaze darts from his hand to his face in a frenzy, settles into a worried frown once he finally sits back down.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” you repeat it like the first time you said it didn’t hit him like a wall of bricks, “‘Twas just a joke, I didn’t mean– Just… stay.”

Stay? That’s a ridiculously high demand after you robbed him and left, with his heart, money and dignity. He hates that it should be outrageous, that he should be outraged, but that he rather finds himself growing warm and soft and pliant instead.

“Why?”

God, he’s weak.

Your smile is devoid of all its familiar coyness, shines with something new and tender and unsettlingly genuine. “I wanna make it up to you. Y’know, for your sprained ankle n’ all.”

Oh.

Of course it’s about you feeling less bad about the damage you’d done. It’s never about him, is it?

His shattered pride is by far a more pressing issue than his ankle, but, fine. Fine. He’ll let you have this. Just because he’s so terribly generous. Not… because his chest warms at the fact that you might be worried about making it up to him. This isn’t about him. He needs to get that through his head.

His frame slackens, and so does your grip around his wrist, lingering up his arm as he settles back down. Still facing away. He’s not going to give you the satisfaction of seeing his pout when you let go of his arm, and move away to a respectful distance. As much as the tent allows.

It stays at that. Laying next to each-other a distance far enough to not allow more than the occasional graze, but close enough to hear your breath, close enough to hear how it slows.

Nature isn’t usually this quiet. Certainly not quiet enough to hear even his own breath, much less someone else’s. There’s nothing to distract him from the truth, from how his stomach turns and lungs swell with an urgent, subtle warmth and yearning and want. Almost everything he’d wanted to have the night you’d left him in that saloon is right behind him, yet terribly out of reach.

Your warmth, your breath, your skin, waiting and giving and warm and your sheltering arms, wrapped around him tight, tight enough to make him forget about what awaits and what’s expected of him outside of them. What he wouldn’t give for that.

What he wouldn’t give up for that.

At just the thought of arms wrapped around him, of a chest pressed up against his back, of– of you, breathing at his neck, instead of at the other side of the tent, his body gives an involuntary shiver, potent enough that it’s audible in his exhale.

“Still cold?”

Dammit.

“No, just, uh,” unable to come up with an eloquent lie, Jayce sighs, shakes his head. “‘S nothing. Sleep.”

“I could hold you, you know.” You clear your throat after you say it, suddenly uneasy with the prospect of it. Or perhaps shy? You’ve never really been that, and you’ve done much worse than just hug. He doubts this is enough to work you up into anxiety. “To share some body heat.”

It’s a punch to the gut.

You say it like it’s easy, like one night spent together isn’t the root cause of all your problems, like holding him isn’t going to lead to more of them.

He should know better. He does know better.

He doesn’t need to get his hopes up just to have them broken all over again – one time was enough, thank you very much.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” he snarks.

It’s unintentionally cutting.

“That’s alright sweetheart, no pressure.”

You don’t deserve to be talked to like that. Well— you do, because you’ve left him and humiliated him that night, but… it’s still not fair. You’ve given him your blanket, let him share your tent, and stayed for his sake. You’ve tried to make up for how you’d left him that night, and even though it still hurts to think about it, he can understand why. Behind all that buttery smoothness and salacious want, you had to be cautious.

And, besides, some warmth doesn’t sound half bad.

It doesn’t have to lead to sex. Right? It— it can just be exactly what you’d suggested, a sharing of body heat, and maybe a taste of the tenderness he’d craved so desperately after you’d left.

He wants that.

And there’s nothing wrong with just that, is there? It’s functional, it’s in his best interest to snatch up some warmth.

“Alright. Fine,” Jayce blurts. The pause he’s faced with after he’s spit out the words makes the heat in his stomach turn to anxious lead, weighing down in his gut as he awaits your response.

You snort out a laugh, confused. “What?”

“I meant that it’s fine for you to uh… share some body heat. You can— you can hold me.”

You hum, and when he turns to steal a glance at you over his shoulder, you’re fixating him with a wicked smile.

“I know I can, sweetheart, but do you want me to?”

Of course. Of course you would pull this, why did he think you’d make this easy? He’d deluded himself into thinking you actually wanted to help, when you so clearly just wanted to find a new way to torment him.

Why does he always do this? Always takes the bait, always—

The purpose of warming him up seems terribly distant when he damn near freezes at your arm snaking between the groove of his waist and the ground, while the other reaches to take his hand in yours, and oh, your chest seams to his back, warm and soft and your heartbeat is right there, a soft little thudding between his shoulder blades, nowhere near wild enough to match his raging one.

“Relax, I was jokin’.” He can feel your chest rumble with a little laugh. “How’s this, hm?”

The proximity between your lips and his ear makes him shiver in earnest now, entire body flooding with goosebumps that have very little to do with the cold.

It is working, if the heat zinging down his spine and gathering in his stomach and chest is anything to go by. And the slowly building pressure in his cock, scorching and gradually swelling into pleasant, pulsing hardness.

He doesn’t know what this makes him. A hypocrite, probably, for promising himself he would not want anything more while his body and subconscious are begging for it. Or an idiot, for thinking he'd be able to turn down whatever you offered, when he’s hanging onto every word, every inhale-exhale, every back and forth brush of your fingers.

Most of all, though, he’s scared. Scared to want more, scared that he does want more, and scared of what’ll happen if he ends up finding exactly that.

“Yeah,” Jayce croaks out. He has to squeeze his eyes shut to muster up enough brainpower for a second, marginally more eloquent response. “It’s fine.”

“Just fine?”

Jayce doesn’t answer.

He can’t answer, because he knows for a fact he won’t get out anything more than a shaky rendition of an affirmative word, or, worst case scenario, will wheeze out a soft, hushed whimper.

The hand that holds his starts rubbing at his palm, before it urges it into a lax fist, which you lift up to his shoulder, just enough to tuck your chin atop his collarbone and blow out a warm gust of air against it. The hand you’d wrapped around his waist is used as leverage to press the cradle of your hips up against his ass, steady but certain in how you smother him with your heat in spite of the fact that his frame is considerably bigger and wider than yours.

The texture of your jeans is rough against his bare ass, your breath tickles that one blissful spot right behind his ear, your hand, splayed atop his tummy, scratches gently at the first few hairs of his happy trail, and he doesn’t know what this is, doesn’t know what you want it to be, doesn’t even know how he should–

“Breathe, you’re stiff as a board.”

You don’t mean— no, of course you don’t, there’s no way you could know, because you’re not… You’re still touching his stomach. Right. And he’s clenching it.

“Sorry.”

With a fortifying breath in, and an exhale so thorough it makes his lungs ache, he finally goes as lax as he can in your hold. It’s a fabricated, forced kind of relaxation, but it seems to satisfy you regardless. Your smile is palpable at the back of his neck.

Your fingertips twirl the thick curls between his hips, and your lips — still split into a smile — press a fleeting kiss to his nape.

“There you go.”

That… is not helping.

At your saccharine praise, his hips give a twitch forward, the tip of his half-hard cock nudging the scratchy fleece just enough to have a soft moan catching in his throat. It’s hardly even contact, but it’s more than enough when he’s been throbbing, untouched, for torturous minutes. You notice. Of course you do.

“Oh?” you purr at the back of his neck, more of a delighted remark rather than a question. “What’s that, Talis?”

He doesn’t know why, out of all the things already rubbed up against him, particularly hearing his last name rubs him the wrong way – but it does. Has his stomach flipping with a new, heavy kind of heat, borne of both frustration and desperate need. He hangs onto the anger to navigate his foggy, pleasure-wired thoughts and come up with something to deflect from the obvious.

Not that it works.

“Stop calling me that.”

You steady him with the hand at his tummy, reel him back in, back against you, before your palm, callused, flattens and presses its heel into the skin below his navel.

“What would you prefer?” You ask, sweet enough that even Jayce — usually terrible at picking up on social cues — can tell it’s fake. You inch closer, pressed up so tight your heat permeates him down to his spine, before you whisper, taunting, “Pretty boy? Sweetheart?”

Jayce’s hand finds yours in an instant, wraps loosely around your wrist, realizing, to his utter terror, that the tension making his chest feel unbearably tight is not between him and you, but within himself.

You’re going to give him everything he’s been aching for, and he’s not sure he wants it.

That won’t matter, though, because he clearly doesn’t have much of a say in this, does he? He can tell by how greedily your hand still inches further and further down, can feel it in how you grip his chest in the other, can feel it in how indulgently you squeeze, until your nails indent his pectoral and your fingertips brush the curls at the base of his heavy cock.

You’re going to take what you want. It all comes down to whether he’ll let you or not.

Because you’re out to sate your hunger. This isn’t about him, never was about him. All of it — your choosing to stay, to talk to him, to look out for him — is faux kindness; hadn’t been anything more. He’d just deluded himself into believing otherwise, believing you, because he aches for it. Aches to be held not so that his body can be of use, aches to be held because he matters, because you care — but you don’t.

You take his cock in your hand and hum with delight at how he throbs, desperate and rhythmic like his heartbeat. His stomach drops, leaden with the realization that he’s nothing more than meat between your molars, but his body accepts it regardless, because it will suffice, it has to. Unwilling, unbidden, he thrusts into your fist, whimpers at the chafing grip of your hand on his buzzing nerves.

“You seemed to quite like being called a whore the other night as well, didn’t you, Talis?” Your voice muffles at the back of his neck, sinks into his brain like warm lightning, paralyzes thoughts, enables muscles. His spine bows for you, willing, as you stroke his foreskin back with the meat of your palm and press your thumb to his weeping slit. Your index rubs at the underside of him, nearly abrades in its certainty to hit the exact spot where his nerves burn at the slightest touch.

The bow of his spine is undone promptly, in favor of curling in on himself from the pleasure-pain, sensitive spot rubbed raw with the white slick testament of his own body’s disobedience, his desperation. “Oh, darlin’, look at you, you’re leaking. All for me.”

“Please—“

He’s not even sure what he’s begging for. Less? More?

“Shh, I know,” you soothe, although you don’t have the slightest fucking idea.

How could you? If you knew how he burns for tenderness, if you had any idea that the noxious, synthetic affection you pour into every touch is toxic, you’d stop. But you don’t know, or you don’t care, you’re only rubbing him raw into an orgasm that feels taken, rather than given.

You’re using him.

Jayce has half the mind to startle when you nudge his jaw, your sweaty cheek against his, your hand unrelenting in its pace and rhythm, wringing his nerves dry of all pleasure. Your tongue licks at the corner of his mouth, surprisingly tender, a taste of what he longs for. You’re husky when you say it, almost like you ache for it, too, slick at the edge of his lips. This is about as close as he’s ever seen you get to begging.

“Kiss me, sweetheart.”

So he does. Always rushing to please, to do as demanded not because he stops to consider the implications of it, but out of sheer habit.

He pays the price for acting on muscle memory.

The first brush of your lips paralyzes. Has him going lax in your arms, feeling much like a rabbit in a spearhead’s deadly embrace – pliant and soft. Having no choice but to soak the sugary-bitter poison you so greedily feed into his mouth with the push of your tongue, even if it’s making him ache.

It’s laughable that he can’t even understand why something so warm and devouring makes him hurt, until there’s a zing of phantom pain in his wrists and a less phantomatic one in his chest – and he realizes that you’d kissed him like this before you’d left. Kissed him raw and genuine and then left him, tied to that bed, hurting and confused and alone and used.

And you’re going to do it again. Because that’s all you do, isn’t it? Take, and take and take.

He can’t let you keep getting away with it.

“S-stop,” he stutters out, fist going tight around your wrist, although you halt before he can force you into it regardless.

The lack of contact feels just as wrong as its presence had.

“You alright?”

No. Nothing’s alright. From the painful, needy throb of his cock, to how his stomach and chest and throat go concave and tight and heavy and you don’t care; because if you did, you wouldn’t be doing this, you wouldn’t—

“Hey, Jayce—“ The hand at his lower stomach brushes up, presses to the space between his chest and stomach, right between his ribs, almost like you know that’s where it hurts the most. But you don’t, you couldn’t.

“Don’t touch me,” he hisses, for a second time tonight, although this time he sounds considerably less angry and more like he’s rupturing at the seams. Feeling like a startled animal, he scrambles to face you, and puts some much needed distance between you.

You’re confused. That’s the first thing he notices — head tilted, brows furrowed, eyes wide — you’re staring at him like he’s a problem you can’t quite figure out, but you’re not— you don’t seem angry. You look him up and down, eyes lingering on his fists, clutched tight to the point of bony whiteness. If they weren’t, they’d be shaking.

You reach out to settle one hand atop his knuckles, but you don’t force more contact than just the near-hovering brush.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

What’s wrong?! You’re acting like you care, touching him like you don’t, and he wants— he doesn’t fucking know what he wants, doesn’t know he should want because he doesn’t know what you want, he just knows he doesn’t want this.

Putting all of this into words is a distant dream. Jayce settles for silence, the heavy and alarming kind that has you shifting closer, reaching out.

Instinctively, he flinches away, hand shooting away from yours, down to… his hip? His gun. Where his gun would be. Should be.

At his reaction, you stop, retrace the distance you’d tried to close moments ago.

That helps. Somewhat. It shifts the stifling weight from his stomach to his chest, anxiety to guilt.

“Jayce?”

Your tone pitches up high at the end of his name, and if he didn’t know you to be such a ruthless criminal, he might’ve classed your tone as guilty. But someone like you isn’t capable of that sort of thing. It’s something you’ve long had to discard to make it where you are right now.

It’s not fair that you still pretend you feel even a semblance of it. It’s not fair of you to use him, leave him, belittle him, try to use him again, kiss him like nothing happened, and then say his name like you’re genuinely worried.

He doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve to be thrown around and picked back up whenever you so desire to have your fun with him, he doesn’t deserve to be talked to like he matters just to be coaxed into submission and give you what you want.

“Will you just tell me what’s wrong?”

Everything’s wrong. You’re pushing every right button to weasel yourself back under his skin, because that’s what you do, don’t you? You have him figured out, you’ve had him figured out since the moment he shivered at the first word you addressed to him, and now you are going to abuse of that knowledge, because that’s all you know how to do.

Because you’re a criminal.

Because you don’t bother with the intricacies of emotions or even just the simplicity of giving a fucking shit.

“You don’t get to do that,” he says, can’t bring himself to meet your gaze even though he’s fuming. “You don’t get to treat me like this and then, and then just—!”

“What?” You ask, head tilting. “Treat you how?”

There is no malice behind your inquiry, at least not as far as his gut tells him. He’s not inclined to believe it – his instinct has failed him one too many times when it comes to you. Regardless, it just doesn’t make sense. He’s just had the most embarrassing outburst since the day he’s passed puberty, and you’re trying to understand, rather than kick him out of your tent?

Why won’t you just make him leave? It’d be a panacea to all of this, it’d make everything so much less complicated, much easier, but you won’t. Why?

“Jayce,” you say again, not any less gentle than the first time. Why? “Talk to me.”

Maybe talking to you and helping you realize he’s got all your cheap, predatory tactics figured out is enough to finally put a pitiful end to this. You want him to talk? He’ll talk.

He now understands how cats feel when they hack up a ball of fur. The sadness and loathing build in his throat, threaten to form a know that’ll go straight to his already watery eyes and do him in. But the words can be hacked up, and his tongue can be unstuck from the roof of his mouth, and then the truth comes easily.

“You used me,” he finally spits out. Jayce’s voice goes strangled and quiet on the second word, and he realizes it’s — above all else — shame that weighs it down. “And you left. And— and now you’re pretending none of it happened, pretending you care, and I— I was stupid enough to buy it once, but trust me, I’m not—“

“You didn’t want this?”

You swallow thickly, the hand you’d touched him with shooting up to your chest, prodding at your own collarbone, almost curling in on yourself. Almost.

He doubts that someone like you is even capable of genuine displays of guilt, after all you’ve done, guilt does not seem like something you could afford, but this — watching him like the thought of having touched him against his wishes makes you hurt — this comes quite close.

And it’s absurd, overwhelming and flattering in a way that leaves his mouth feeling sticky and dry that out of all the heinous things you’ve committed, it’s him you’ve deemed worthy of your contrition.

Jayce is going to throw up.

“You asked me to hold you, sweetheart, I assumed you—“ your sentence falters to a halt once the word is out, and there is regret and understanding and revelation all across your face and maybe — just maybe — you do care. Do you? “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed.”

Jayce has to look up to the tent’s ceiling, swallow back a sticky-suffocating mixture of vomit and tears.

He can stomach skinning animals, can stomach the feel of teeth cracking under the pound of his fist, can stomach the guts pouring out of a gash he slashes across a criminal’s abdomen but this is where his body draws the line? At a goddamn apology?

“You should’ve told me, sweetheart, I would’ve stopped–”

“So stop now.”

“What?”

“Stop acting like you care about what I want, because we both know that’s a lie, stop pretending whatever’s between us isn’t wrong and stop— Just stop.”

You briefly watch him in silence, caught off-guard by the outburst. He can’t exactly blame you for that — he’s just as surprised.

He’s not— he’s not like this. He’s level-headed, he’s smart, he’s resourceful, can (usually) hold his own. But you bring out the worst in him, in all ways. Make him terrified and brainless and lusty and unfocused and pliant and needy.

“Alright,” you say, and it sounds less like a verdict, and more like an agreement. “What do I… would you prefer if I left you alone in here?”

He’s never wanted to answer yes and no to a question so much. Much to both his dismay and relief, there is no choice to be made. There never is — not when it comes to him.

This isn’t a matter of preference. Of course it isn’t— nothing in his life ever was. It’s all circumstance; sometimes he has to wonder if he even has a hand in anything at all, when his entire life feels like an unrelenting river current he fell into. Becoming a bounty hunter, a protector, leaving home, abandoning his wants to become who he needed to be, there had been no choice in that. He’d done it all because circumstance demanded it, and now… well, now is pretty much the same thing, all over again.

Jayce scoffs. “Where would you go? It’s raining. And this is your tent.”

You don’t have an answer, and neither does he.

“Stay,” he decides, not because he wants you to, but because alternatives are scarce. “Just don’t—“

His voice sticks to the back of his throat, right behind his tongue.

Don’t what?

Don’t touch me even though I so desperately want you to? Don’t talk to me even though I cling onto your every word, no matter how sharp or soft? Don’t act against my wishes, even though I have no idea what they are?

“No funny business,” you interrupt. “You have my word.”

Jayce has no idea how much an outlaw’s promise is worth. He’s about to find out.

And he does. You keep it with uncharacteristic determination, you don’t say another word, don’t touch him, don’t even move. If it weren’t for the muted sound of your breath, you might as well be gone.

And it hits Jayce that he doesn’t want that.

Doesn’t want you gone even though he should, because it’s the right thing, the logical thing to want. Your leaving, regardless if it implied locking you up or you getting away, would solve half of his problems, if not more of them.

Except for his longing.

And, as it turns out, that takes priority.

Because Jayce is weak, he peeks at your form over his shoulder, and his five o’clock shadow scratches the fleece blanket as his head turns. Your eyes slide open at the sound, catching him red-handed.

And you smile again.

That’s the last thing he sees before he turns away again, and you stick to your goddamn promise, because you don’t speak or touch or laugh or do any of the things he really wishes you would do right now.

He’s hopeless.

You make a sound, a little cut-off consonant that dies before it even leaves your mouth properly, and Jayce turns to look at you again.

“What?”

“Was gonna say somethin’,” you tell him. “But I remembered I promised you otherwise.”

“I doubt that after all the robbing and crime, a promise is where you draw the line.”

You smile. “I gave you my word, T— Jayce.”

“Give me… the rest of them, too.” He sighs. Weak. “What were you going to say?”

“Well, I was gonna say, that… for what it’s worth,” you pause for a moment, still hesitant, “if I hadn’t figured out you were the Jayce Talis then, that night wouldn’t have ended the way it did.”

It’s a question he shouldn’t ask, and one he wouldn’t need to ask if he had half of Cait’s capacity to read people, but he needs to know.

“How… would it have ended, then?”

“I don’t tend to stick around until dawn.” You swallow audibly. “But I would have liked to, for you.”

And Jayce knows that’s a lie, the same way those nomadic merchants passing through Piltover set up shabby shop at the market and ask his name, then tell him it’s a good name, a strong name, fit for someone like him, that they like him and they’ll make him a special offer. It’s cheap, transparent manipulation, and still it works, because it makes his heart leap a fraction. But it’s a lie.

“Sure,” Jayce snarks, because he can’t really come up with anything better. “Stick around for what? Another quick fuck before you left for good?”

You hum like you’d been expecting his answer. “Not without asking you when you’d like to see me again.”

And that shuts him up for good. Weighs and sticks heavy and bitter and pungent on his tongue like tar because he doesn't want to believe it, but tastes sweet after he swallows, because he does believe it. You say it like it’s a simple, single truth, and he can’t help the way his entire being tingles with delight.

You would have wanted more of him.

“You’ve got all night to come up with an answer,” you add, smug, before you shift to turn away from him, too. “Take your time.”

You’re not wrong.

He does.

—

He doesn’t. He does have the whole night at his disposal, and your question has him warm and awake and alive even though he tries so desperately not to be.

And now he doesn’t have all night at his disposal anymore because he wakes from what little sleep he’d fallen into, and judging by how his bones ache like they’re going to crumble, the rest had neither been of quality or quantity.

So much for sleeping on a decision.

Jayce tenses what feels like every single muscle in his body, then, without giving his size too much though, flops onto his back.

And it hits him only after he does so that he should’ve been very much crushing you under his weight, had you been there.

But you’re not.

The spot next to him is empty.

You’re gone.

Sticking around until dusk his fucking ass. What’d he even expect? A kiss on the forehead and breakfast in bed? How typical of him to get his hopes up so very high that they shatter, how naïve of him, how deluded—

He wouldn’t be surprised if you’d taken everything and just left him with your shabby excuse for a tent and his naked horse. What’d he even expect from a criminal?

You’ve fooled him again and he’s let you. And you’ve used him, of course you have, because you don’t know anything else aside from that, do you?

And in spite of it all, Jayce, in all his wishful thinking, still wants to believe you’re there, sitting beside the dead campfire and waiting for him as he crawls out of your tent.

But you’re not.

Topacio — his horse — is still very much there, and so is his gear, and his still damp clothes, and his satchel. Once he slips into his sticky jeans and slightly less sticky shirt, Jayce reaches for the satchel, prepared for the worst.

But it’s still as full as it had been yesterday.

No, that’s wrong. It’s fuller.

Your bounty poster is folded, around— around something. As he unfolds it, a wad of cash slides out, and Jayce manages to catch it before it spills from the paper and hits the mud.

It’s the exact amount you’d stolen after the first night you’d spent with him, all there. All tucked into a folded piece of paper, which you’ve hastily scribbled onto:

I don’t want to make your job any more difficult than it has to be, Jayce. As of the moment I am writing this, I promise you — and you have seen how much my word is worth last night — that I will not cause you any more trouble. Not in Piltover, at least.

I will, however, be visiting next month. I do want my tent back. What we do in it after you return it will be up to you.

Jayce swallows thickly when he notices that there is, unfortunately, something written on the backside of this paper: big, bold letters and numbers are visible through the paper, and so is what seems to be a dried stain — oh. Oh, fuck. Of course you’ve found it.

This piece of paper is the bounty poster of you with the obvious smear of his semen across your face. Before Jayce gets to agonize about not ripping the poster into shreds or using it to fuel his campfire, another scribble catches his eye.

Right below where the paper curls with his dried cum, you’ve written in pencil:

I will be missing you just as fondly.

#ITS FUCKING OUT YES #JDJSJSJDJJSJDJ #CONSUMES #INJECTS INTO MY VEINS #dicax-asina

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