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waitimcomingtoo · 1 year

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Burnt Face and Second Base

Pairing: Peter Parker x reader

Synopsis: Peter can’t seem to stop accidentally hurting his crush

Masterlist

Peter opened his locker and hid behind the door so that he could stare at you without detection. All you were doing was printing something off a campus printer, but you made it look like an enchanting performance that had Peter captivated by your every move. Peter had been in college for three months now and found himself pinning for you for most of that time. You hadn’t spoken yet, but he held out for the day that you would.

“Who are you staring at?” Ned asked at full volume, making students passing by look and laugh at Peter.

“Would you keep your voice down? Jesus. Everybody heard that.” Peter whispered harshly and checked to make sure you hadn’t heard Ned. Ned followed Peters gaze and when he saw you, he smiled deviously.

“Oh. I know who you’re looking at.” Ned said as he raised his eyebrows up and down.

“I can’t help it. I love it when she wears her hair like that.” Peter sighed and leaned his cheek against his locker door as he continued to stare at you.

“You say that every day.”

“I know.” Peter sighed again and watched as you flipped your hair over your shoulder. You seemed to move in slow motion as you pulled your hair to one side so you could take a sip from the water fountain. Peter smiled dreamily as he watched you until you accidentally made eye contact. Peter quickly turned around so you wouldn’t see him staring.

“Do you think she ever stares at me?” He asked Ned.

“I think you’d know if she did. You know, since you’re always staring at her.”

“Ugh. You’re totally right. Why won’t she ever look at me?” Peter whined and shot another look at you.

“Have you tried speaking to her?” Ned asked. “Or are you hoping she’ll get the hint through your spider telepathic abilities?”

“Ned, for the last time, I do not have telepathic abilities. If regular spiders aren’t telepathic, then why would I be?”

“You say regular spiders aren’t telepathic with such confidence but how would you know? How do you really know?” Ned asked and shook Peters shoulders.

“Oh my God.” Peter groaned and turned back to look at you. He watched you laugh at something your friend said and wondered how amazing it would feel to be the one making you laugh.

“Do you think it could ever work? Do you think I could ever have a normal relationship with these stupid abilities?” Peter asked quietly as he stared at you.

“They’re not stupid, Peter.” Ned assured him. “I would kill to be telepathic.”

“I’m not telepathic.” Peter groaned and looked down at the web shooter that was peaking out from his sleeve. He knew it was unrealistic that he could ever have a normal relationship and sighed wistfully. Ned looked between you and Peter for a second and felt a pang of guilt of his friend.

“I think it could work. You and her, I mean.” Ned told him.

“You do?” Peter asked skeptically and shut his locker.

“Yeah. I do. Who says your abilities, telepathic or not, have to stop you from having a normal relationship? As long as you treat her right and don’t hurt her, it would work.”

Peter took a second and thought about what Ned had said and wondered if he was right. He’d never admit it to Ned, but the reason he never tried to talk to you wasn’t because he thought being Spiderman and being in a relationship at the same time wouldn’t work. It was because he was scared that the relationship could work, but would fail because of something that Peter did that had nothing to do with Spiderman. It was easy to blame his double life as an excuse not to talk to you instead of admitting that he was scared of messing it up on his own accord. That kept him from ever trying to ask you out but with Neds pep talk, he felt like it was worth a shot. He unlocked his locker again with a plan to write a note to you that he could slip into your backpack as you passed by.

“Thanks for saying that, man. I really hope I could make it work if I ever got the chance. Because I really like this girl. I would never hurt her.” Peter said as he swung his locker back open. He heard a clash, followed by a pained whine. Peter frowned and shut his locker only to find you standing right there with both hands over your nose.

“Y/n?!” Peter gasped in shock when he realized what he had done.

“Ouch.” You winced and pulled your hands away from your nose. Peter watched your eyes widen when you saw the amount of blood that had gushed out of your nose.

“Oh my God! I’m so sorry! I didn’t see you there.” Peter quickly apologized as he fumbled around his pocket for a tissue.

“Yeah, it really felt that way.” You said as you pinched your nose and tilted your head up to try and stop the bleeding. Peter pulled out a bunch of tissues and gently held them up to your nose as his other hand went to the back of your head. You made eye contact for a minute and you found the look of absolute panic on Peters face to be quite adorable. You smiled a little, but quickly stopped when it made your nose throb angrily.

“Ow.” You flinched and put your hand over Peters to hold the tissues in place. Peter gulped and felt his face flush at the first time the two of you had not only spoken, but made physical contact.

“I’m so sorry, Y/n. Can I take you to the nurse?” Peter offered.

“Yes please.” Your voice came out nasally due to your nose being pinched.

Peter wrapped one arm around you and kept the other on your nose as he walked with you to the campus nurse. He sat with you in the waiting room and gave you a fresh bouquet of tissues to soak up the still flowing blood.

“Is it bad?” You asked him, still not having seen yourself. You had blood all down your face and neck but Peter was not about to tell you that.

“No. It’s not bad.” He said unconvincingly. You gave him a skeptical look and pulled the tissues away to inspect the damage.

“Oh God. That’s a lot of blood.” You gulped when you saw the saturated tissue.

“Is it? I don’t think its that much.” Peter played dumb in an attempt to keep you calm.

“You said it wasn’t bad. I look like I just ate somebody.” You laughed and playfully shoved him.

“I was trying to make you feel better. Your nose looks like that “Can’t Help Myself” robot.” Peter smiled a little now that he had heard you laughing. It felt just as amazing as he imagined and hoped it meant you weren’t mad at him.

“Oh good. That’s my favorite artwork.“ You laughed again and it sent a flush to Peters cheeks.

“It is? That wasn’t too niche of a reference to make?”

“It probably was. But I understood it.” You shrugged. You and Peter looked at each other again as a comfortable silence settled between you. It wasn’t much, but it was a rare moment of feeling seen for the both of you.

“How’d you know my name, by the way? I heard you say it after giving me a face full of locker.” You asked Peter as he switched out your tissues for fresh ones.

“Oh, uh, I asked one of your friends what it was. Gwen told me, I think.” Peter admitted without looking into your eyes.

“You asked her what my name was? Why?” You laughed shyly and anxiously waited for the answer.

“Because I wanted to know it.” Peter said simply as he finally looked into your eyes. Your jaw dropped a little then closed in a smile. No boy had ever sought out your name before, at least not to your knowledge, so you couldn’t help but feel flattered by the gesture.

“Well now I want to know your name. Since you wanted to know mine.” You said with a teasing smile.

“It’s Peter. Peter Parker.”

“Thanks for taking me to the nurse, Peter Parker.” You said, sending shivers down Peters spine with the way you said his name.

“It’s the least I could do after giving you a face full of locker, as you put it.”

You smiled in delight at him using your words from earlier. You looked into each other eyes again but before you could say anything else, the nurse arrived.

“What do we have here?” She asked as she looked at you.

“I hit her with my locker.” Peter sheepishly admitted.

“It was an accident.” You added when you saw the way she looked at Peter. Peter found it sweet that you would jump to his defense after what he did it you.

“Jesus. How hard did you hit her?” The nurse asked as she removed the tissues from your nose to inspect it.

“Not that hard.”

“It was pretty hard.” You mumbled.

The nurse started to feel around your nose, making you wince in pain. You instinctively grabbed Peters hand and squeezed it every time the nurse hurt you. And every time, Peter was a blushing mess.

“Okay. It doesn’t look broken but it’s definitely gonna swell. Let me get some ice.” The nurse smiled sweetly at you and went into her office.

“Hey, at least it’s not broken.” You shrugged and gingerly touched your nose.

“I know. But still. I totally messed up your pretty face because I had to fling my locker open like that. I’m such an idiot.” Peter sighed and rubbed his face with his free hand since you had yet to let go of his other one. This just further confirmed his theory that he’d mess up your relationship just from being himself.

“You think I’m pretty?” You smiled shyly. Peters eyes flew open when he realized what he said and he had to think fast.

“You don’t?” He scoffed playfully, making your smile grow.

“Well right now I imagine I look like Carrie at the prom. Post pigs blood.”

“Hey, Carrie was hardcore. She was my first crush.” Peter shrugged, making you laugh. Peter smiled proudly at all the times he had been able to make you laugh.

“You’re a little weirdo, aren’t you?” You said, making Peters smile drop. You had meant in in an endearing way, but Peter hadn’t realized that.

“Oh, uh…” He trailed off as he struggled to find something to say. Before he could, the nurse came back.

“Here you go. Keep the ice on it and return it when it’s not cold anymore.” She instructed as she handed you an ice pack.

“Thank you.” You said as you carefully placed it on your nose, flinching from the cold.

“You can stay here for the rest of the period. You and your friend.” The nurse said before leaving you and Peter alone in the waiting room.

“Here. I don’t want your hands to get cold.” Peter said as he took the ice pack from you. He wrapped it in a napkin he had fished out of his backpack before holding it against your nose. The ice pack was more bearable now that it had the napkin buffer so you sighed in relief, all while finding it incredibly sweet that he was holding the ice pack for you so that your hands wouldn’t get cold.

“You don’t have to stay if you don’t want. I’ll be fine.”

“No way. I’m not leaving you after the crime I committed.” Peter sighed with guilt.

“Thanks.” You chuckled.

“For what? Smashing your face in with my locker?”

“For staying.” You shrugged and gave him another shy smile. Peter felt his face heat up so he pretended to be busy with the ice pack so that he wouldn’t have to look into your eyes.

“It’s the least I could do after hitting you with a metal door at full speed.” He mumbled in embarrassment.

“Yeah. Maybe.” You chuckled, secretly thrilled that he was staying. The two of you made eye contact again as you both wondered if something was happening here.

“So what class are you missing right now?” You asked him.

“Business ethics.”

“Business ethics? What’s that?”

“Fuck if I know. I just switch between different tabs on my laptop until the class is over.” Peter admired honestly, but you laughed thinking it was a joke. Peter felt his relax a little now that he knew you weren’t mad at him.

“What about you? What class are you missing?” He asked you.

“Intro to western art history.”

“Oh. Sounds fun.” Peter laughed sarcastically.

“It’s not. It’s a gen ed requirement. You’re actually doing me a favor by helping me skip it.” You told him.

“I’m glad you see it as a favor because I’ve never been more embarrassed.”

“Please. We’ve all hit someone in the face with a locker before.”

“Have we?” Peter said skeptically.

“Maybe not.” You admitted. “But it’s kinda my fault for standing so close to your locker.”

“Oh yeah. You were really close to my locker.”Peter realized. “Were you gonna come talk to me or something?”

“I honestly can’t even remember.”

“Because I gave you a concussion?” Peter joked it off but felt slightly disappointed that you hadn’t been coming up to talk to him.

“Probably.” You laughed, making Peter laugh as well.

You stayed in the nurses office until your ice pack wasn’t cold anymore and promptly returned to to her. You walked out of the office beside Peter just as the class period was ending.

“So I’ll see you around?” Peter asked hopefully.

“I hope you see me next time. Maybe you’ll open your locker a little slower.” You teased him, making Peter blush.

“Bye, Peter Parker.” You smiled shyly and squeezed his arm.

“Bye, Y/n.” He said softly as you walked away. You looked over your shoulder to wave at him before disappearing behind a building. Peter stood there and sighed as he replayed the entirety of your interaction in his head.

“How’d it go with Y/n? Did she make it?” Ned asked when he caught up with Peter later that day.

“Did she make it? I hit her with a locker, Ned. Not a bullet.”

“Excuse me for asking.” Ned mumbled.

“Sorry. I’m just a little distracted. Y/n called me a weirdo.” Peter recalled with a frown.

“Oh. That’s odd. In a good way or a bad way?”

“I don’t know. Is there a good way to be a weirdo?” Peter sighed, already knowing the answer.

“Maybe she meant it in an endearing way.” Ned offered.

“I hope so. It doesn’t matter anyway. There’s no coming back from hitting her with my locker.”

“Maybe there is. At least now you know you can never embarrass yourself in front of her more than you already did.”

“Oh yeah.” Peter smiled in relief. “You’re right. That takes a lot of the pressure off knowing the worst thing that can happen between us has already happened.”

A week later, Peter and Ned sat in the library as they prepared for an upcoming test. Peter hadn’t seen you since the locker incident and he was starting to worry that he’d completely blown it with you. You seemed to hit it off in the nurses office but now he wondered if you were just being nice and didn’t actually plan on ever speaking to him again.

“Dude, can you toss me my notebook?” Ned requested across the library table

“Which one?” Peter asked and rummaged through Neds backpack.

“The red one.”

“Okay. Heads up.” Peter said and threw the notebook to Ned. Peter had momentarily forgot that he was 10x stronger now from the spider bite so his casually toss ended up sending the notebook flying across the entire library with a perfect spiral. As if in slow motion, you started to walk in the direction of the airborne notebook with your earbuds in. People tried to warn you about the notebook heading your way, but you couldn’t hear anything over your music. Peter looked up just in time to see the notebook hit you in the eye and send you crumpling to the floor.

“Ah!” You called out as you put a hand over your injured eye.

“What?! Where did you even come from?” Peter shrieked in disbelief as he ran to you to help you sit up.

“I was coming to say hi to you.” You said in a pained voice.

“You were?” Peter stopped freaking out for a moment to smile.

“Yeah. Then the Fire Nation attacked.” You winced and took your hand away from your eye. You had a red mark going across your eye and the most bloodshot eye Peter had ever seen, but he tried to keep his face neutral so you wouldn’t freak out.

“That doesn’t look so bad.” He said with a high pitched voice, making you give him an unconvinced look.

“At least you missed my nose this time.” You said with a weak smile.

“I know. But I got you right in the eye. I’m so sorry.” Peter frowned as he helped you get up.

“It’s okay. I got another one.”

“Can I walk you to the nurse?” Peter offered.

“Well I definitely can’t see myself there.”

“I’m so sorry. I’ll take you there. Oh geez. I’m so sorry.” He continued to apologize as he wrapped an arm around your waist to help you walk to the nurses office. Peter couldn’t believe that this had happened a second time and knew his chances with you were 100% down the drain now.

“You two again? What happened this time?” The nurse asked when she saw you and Peter entering the office.

“I threw a notebook in her face.” Peter said with a defeated sigh.

“He got me right in the eye.” You said as you took your hand away from your eye.

“He sure did. Let me take a look.” The nurse said as she took a flashlight out of her pocket. It wasn’t painful, but you still grabbed Peters hand for comfort. He blushed at the action and gave your hand a squeeze to let you know he was there.

“Okay. Luckily he didn’t scratch your cornea but this is definitely going to bruise.” The nurse told you.

“Oh. Lovely.” You said sarcastically.

“First I made you bleed and now I gave you a black eye? I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say.” Peter said as he looked at you with guilty eyes.

“I don’t know what you can say either.” You shrugged. “I’ve never been in this situation before.”

“Um, black eyes are hot?” Peter offered weakly, making you laugh.

“They better be. What’s next? Are you gonna knock my teeth out?”

“Not on purpose.” Peter replied, making you laugh again. He laughed as well and soon looked into each others eyes as a comfortable silence settled between you. Peter felt the connection he felt the first time he had taken you to the nurses office and smiled shyly until he remembered something you had said.

“Hey, what did you mean the other day when you said I was a weirdo?” He wondered.

“Oh, you remember that? I didn’t mean it in a bad way. I hope you didn’t take it that way. I meant it in a good way.”

“Is there a good way to be a weirdo?” He asked skeptically.

“Of course there is. It’s you.” You said with a sheepish smile. Peter felt himself relax now that he knew you didn’t think he was too weird to talk too.

“Oh. Okay. Cool.” He smiled back just as the nurse came back.

“Here you go. Ice it and bring it back once it’s warm.”

“I know the drill.” You said as you got off the chair.

“I’ll walk you to class.” Peter offered as he held the door for you to leave the nurses office.

“Aw. Thanks.” You smiled as you pressed the ice pack to your eye. You sighed in relief and felt your pain melt away. The hand that wasn’t holding the ice pack bumped into Peters a few times on the walk to your next class but neither of you was bold enough to take the others hand.

“This is my building.” You said with slight disappointment once you reached your class.

“See you around?” Peter asked, hoping you’d make a plan to purposefully see each other.

“Don’t think I’ll be seeing much of anything for a while.” You chuckled and gestured to your eye.

“Right. Sorry again.” Peter apologized.

“It’s all right. Bye, Peter.” You waved and started going up the steps to your building.

“Bye.” Peter waved back, disappointed that you were once again getting away with no plans to see each other in the future. He hoped he’d run into you again soon, without injuring you this time.

The next time you saw each other came sooner than expected when you spotted Peter on line for a coffee shop on campus. You got behind him in line and tapped his shoulder.

“Hey Peter.” You smiled to greet him.

“Hey…” Peter turned around and trailed off when he saw the black eye he had given you.

“What?” You asked and insecurely touched your eye.

“Nothing. Nothing at all. You just look really pretty today. I like your hair like that.” He quickly recovered and tried not to look at the eye.

“Aw, thank you.” You smiled shyly. “I was wondering when I’d see you again.”

“Really? You were?” He asked hopefully.

“Yeah. I felt a little lopsided with just the one black eye. I thought you might want to throw a rock or a brick at me or something to even me out.” You teased him, making him feel a mixture of embarrassment from hurting you and excitement that you had an inside joke now.

“I’m so so sorry about the eye. I feel horrible. I would never hurt a girl or anybody and I-“

“Hey, relax. I’m just teasing you.” You assured him as you gave his arm and gentle squeeze. Peter looked down at your hand on his arm and felt his entire face turn pink.

“Oh. Right. Sorry.” He laughed timidly.

“I actually think the black eye makes me look hardcore. Like Carrie.”

“My first crush. You remembered.” Peter smiled in surprise.

“I did. Because it’s the weirdest first crush I’ve ever heard.” You laughed at him.

“Oh yeah? Who was your first crush?”

“The pizza boy in Home Alone.” You shrugged.

“What?” Peter laughed. “That’s way more obscure and weird than mine.”

“No way. The pizza boy from Home Alone didn’t kill anybody with his mind.”

“That we know of.” Peter corrected, making you laugh and lean into him. Peter felt his face warm up from the physical contact and was shocked at how well your conversation was going.

“Let me buy your drink to make up for the black eye. And the bloody nose. And whatever else I end up doing to you.” Peter offered when you moved to the front of the line.

“You really don’t have to do that.”

“I insist.”

“Aw. What a gentleman.” You laughed shyly and squeezed his arm out of appreciation.

“Together or separate?” The cashier asked after you and Peter ordered.

“Together.” Peter answered before shooting you a wink. You winked back and stepped to the side as you waited for your drinks. Soon enough, Peter was handed his hot chocolate you were handed your matcha.

“Thank you for paying. That was really sweet.” You said as you clinked your drink against his.

“Thanks for continuing to speak to me after I gave you a black eye.” Peter replied, making you laugh.

“What are you drinking anyway?” He wondered and nodded towards your cup.

“Matcha. Have you ever had it?”

“No. That’s the green one right?”

“Yeah, the green one.” You chuckled. “You want to try it?”

The thought of putting his lips where yours had been made Peters face flush and he nodded eagerly.

“Yeah. Sure.” He tried not to sound as excited as he felt as he accepted the cup. Peter took a big sip of the drink and was instantly met with a burning hot sensation on his tongue. He instinctively spit the drink out, which spewed hot matcha latte all over your face. Peter slapped his hand over his mouth while you scrunched your face from the hot liquid hitting you.

“Oh my God! I’m sorry! It was hot!” Peter quickly explained as he grabbed a bunch of napkins.

“I can tell.” You said dryly as you wiped the matcha out of your eyes.

“Let me help. I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize it would be that hot.” Peter apologized profusely as he dabbed your face clean with his wad of napkins.

“Yep. Hot drinks tend to be hot.” You smiled sarcastically as you wiped the matcha off your clothes.

“Oh no. I got it all over you. Let me help.” Peter offered and started to dab the stain he had made on your shirt. He put a hand on you to keep you steady as he dabbed at a particular large stain.

“Uh, Peter-“

“I can’t believe this keeps happening. I’m really so sorry.” He cut you off.

“Peter, can you just-“

“I swear I’m not doing this to you on purpose. It just seems like no matter what I do, I end up hurting you or burning you or-“

“Peter, can you get your hand off my boob?” You cut in, making Peter freeze. His eyes slowly moved to his hand and he realized that he had placed it directly on your boob. His eyes then went to his other hand, which had been wiping at your other boob to get the matcha off. Peter immediately held up his hands and took a step back from you.

“Oh my God. Oh my God. My hand, I didn’t-“

“It’s fine. You didn’t realize. It’s okay.” You cut him off to spare the embarrassment for the both of you.

“Oh my God. Oh God, I am so sorry. I didn’t even notice.“ Peter pan kicked and gripped his hair with his hands.

“You didn’t notice that your hand was on my boob?” You raised an eyebrow.

“Not that you’re flat!” Peter quickly explained. “I’m not saying you’re flat at all. You have really nice boobs. Not that I stare at them. But I felt them! But not on purpose. I was just trying to get the matcha off of you and I totally groped you. Right after spitting hot liquid in your face. Oh god. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. Really. I know it wasn’t on purpose. Just like all our other encounters weren’t on purpose.” You chuckled as you finished cleaning yourself up.

“Can I walk you to the nurse?” Peter offered weakly.

“I think I’ll be fine. I’m not sure she can do much for a burnt face and second base.” You shrugged, making Peters face turn bright red.

“I totally didn’t mean to go to second base on you. We haven’t even gone to first base yet.”

“Yet?” You raised an eyebrow, making Peter cover his mouth with both his hands.

“Not that I’m expecting anything from you! I didn’t mean it like that. I meant it more in a “no, not like this” kinda way like in New Girl season 2 episode 15 titled Cooler. That’s what I meant.” Peter said all in one breath.

“That’s the episode when Nick and Jess kiss, right?” You smiled shyly when you realized he was implying that he wanted to kiss you in the longest and strangest way possible.

“Damn. You really get my weird references.” Peter said, mostly to himself.

“Such a weirdo.” You chuckled. “Thanks for the matcha. And for the feel up.”

Peters burned a hot pink as you waved and walked away from him. Even after two embarrassing moments in a row, you were still being nice to him. If he didn’t know any better, he almost believed you liked him back.

A few days later, Peter sat on a bench on campus as he waited for Ned. He hadn’t spoken to you since the matcha incident, something he had still not been able to think about without it cringing. He didn’t want to hurt you again, but on the event of it happening again, he hoped he’d get your number next time.

“The vending machine is all out of Sprite so I had to get Mountain Dew. Do you know what flavor this even is?” Ned complained as he sat down on the bench with a can of Mountain Dew in hand.

“I don’t know. Mountain?” Peter shrugged.

“Interesting.” Ned looked at the can with a newfound respect before taking a sip.

“Well?” Peter wondered about the verdict.

“It’s definitely mountain flavored.” Ned nodded and took another sip.

“Ugh. I hate these shoes. The laces are way too long so they’re always untied.” Peter whined when he saw his untied shoelace lying on the ground.

“That one’s untied too.” Ned said once Peter tied his shoe.

“It is?” Peter asked and stuck his foot out to check. As fate would have it, you were walking by right as he stuck his foot out. You tripped over Peters foot and landed on the ground with a hard thud. Peter heard the noise but was scared to look down, having a sinking suspicion that it was you who he had just tripped.

“Please tell me that wasn’t-“

“Ow.” You groaned from the floor, cutting Peter off.

“Oh no. How does this keep happening?” Peter asked the sky before looked down to see you. Your face was scratched from the fall and you had a leaf stuck in your hair.

“Hey Peter. Nice to see you again.” You smiled weakly as you rolled over on the pavement.

“You too.” He nodded. “Is that a new top?”

“It is. I’m kinda whatever about it.” You said waved your hand back and forth.

“It’s nice. I like the sleeves.”

“So do I.” You smiled and held up your arm to admire the lacy sleeves of your shirt.

“Cool, cool. So um, did you ankle always bend that way?” Peter asked and nervously flicked his eyes to your ankle. You prompted yourself up on your elbows and looked down to see your ankle bending the wrong direction.

“Not that I was aware of.” You shrugged, the pain not hitting you yet. Peter immediately got down on the floor to help you sit up.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you walking by. I’m gonna take you to the nurse.”

“What else is new?” You mumbled as Peter slipped an arm around you.

“Here. I got you.” Peter said and lifted you off the ground with ease. He carried you bridal style in the direction of the nurses office.

“Is this really necessary?” You whispered when you noticed the other students staring at you and Peter.

“Yes. You shouldn’t put any weight on it until you know it’s not broken.”

“I guess so.” You shrugged and stayed silent for the rest of the walk. You wouldn’t admit this out loud, but being carried made you feel like a princess that had just been rescued from a tower. It was cliche and outdated, but it made you feel special. You looked up at Peter before resting your head in the crook of his neck, your way of silently thanking him for carrying you. Peter gulped at the action but felt too flustered to say anything to you.

“Hey.” Peter timidly announced his arrival as he carried you into the nurses office.

“Be fucking for real.” The nurse said and put her hands on her hips.

“She tripped over my-“

“I don’t even want to hear it.” She held up a hand. “Put her down while I get some ice.”

“Thank you.” You called as the nurse disappeared into the back. Peter carefully set you down in a chair and took his backpack off his back to give you something to rest your foot on.

“Make sure to keep her foot…” The nurse trailed off when she saw that Peter had already done what she was about to say.

“Elevated.” She finished. “Good. Let me take a look, baby.”

You gripped Peters hand as the nurse inspected your ankle and winced every few seconds from the pain. This was definitely the worse injury Peter had caused thus far and he could not feel worse about it. He squeezed your hand tightly before putting his other hand around it.

“You’re lucky this isn’t broken. It’s just twisted. I’m gonna give you this splint and some crutches. In the mean time, ice it and keep your weight off of it.” The nurse instructed as she wrapped your foot and placed it in a splint.

“Okay.” You nodded to let her know you understood.

“And do me a favor?” She asked with a smily.

“Yeah. Anything.”

“Stay away from each other.” Her smile dropped. “You’re clearly each other bad luck charm or something. How many more signs from the universe do you need before you realize you shouldn’t be around each other?”

You and Peter sat in silence as the nurse got up and left the room. You were both wondering if what she said was true because deep down, you’d both even thinking the same thing.

“Y/n, I’m so sorry.” Peter said after a beat of silence.

“You have to stop apologizing, Peter. It was an accident. They were all accidents.”

“I can’t stop apologizing. I’m sorry I can never be normal around you. Every interaction we have ends with you getting hurt because of something I did. It’s probably better that I just stay away from you for the rest of college. Which I really don’t want to do but if it keeps you safe from me, it might be the best option. So if this is our last encounter, just know that I really am sorry for all of it. I would never hurt you on purpose. I don’t know how it happened so many times. The universe must hate me or something. Or maybe it hates you. Anyways, I just have this big stupid crush on you but for some reason, I can’t stop hurting you.” Peter sighed and looked down at the ground.

“You have a big stupid crush on me?” You asked as a smile tugged at your lips. Peter perked up when he heard the hope in your voice. He looked up at you and saw that you looked happy about his confession.

“The biggest and the most stupid.” He admitted, making your smile grow.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” You asked him.

“Well most of our interactions happen in this room after I’ve severely injured you so it never really felt like a good time.” Peter laughed dryly.

“Yeah. Maybe not.” You agreed. “But at least I know now.”

“You do know now. Oh God. You know now.” Peter realized and started to panic a little. You could see him starting to freak out so you thought of something to calm him down.

“You wanna know how I think our first date would go?” You asked, pulling Peter out of his panic.

“How?” He asked as a shy smile crept on his face.

“I think it would be raining, since the universe hates us as we’ve established, and you would pick me up in your car and splash water on me as you pulled up to the curb.” You began. “And then I think you’d get out to open the car door for me like the gentleman you are and accidentally hit me with the door.”

“Yeah. All of that would definitely happen.” Peter laughed.

“Uh huh. And then you’d drive me to a restaurant and pull out my chair for me when we sat down. But you’d pull it out too far and I’d fall on the floor. Then we’d sit down to eat and you’d spill water on me. Or maybe spit your hot food into my face. I know you like doing that.” You continued with a teasing smile

“This is all very likely.” Peter agreed with you, growing fonder of you with every detail you added.

“I know. Then after we ate, you’d order us dessert and somehow, I’d be allergic to it. The one thing you ordered would definitely be something that made me break out in hives or go into anaphylactic shock or something. And after you walked me back to your car, you’d lean in to kiss me.”

“Yeah? And then what?” Peter hung on to your every word.

“You’d miss my lips and knock your head right into mine. And we’d both end the night with a headache. And maybe even a missing tooth.”

“I’d risk the headache for the kiss.” Peter smiled softly. “You know, one of my favorite song lyrics is, “I’ve got headaches and bad luck luck but they couldn’t touch you.” That kinda describes us perfectly. It describes how I feel about you, at least.”

“I don’t know that song.” You frowned. “I can’t believe I finally don’t understand one of your references.”

“It’s an old Fall Out Boy song.” Peter explained as he pulled out his phone and earbuds. “Here. I’ll show you.”

You stayed perfectly still as Peter placed his earbud in your ear and the other in his ear. You leaned your temples together as Peter hit play on the song. When you got to the part of the song with the lyrics, you looked over into Peters eyes. He looked into yours and felt his face heat up the way it always did around you. Since your heads were already pressed together, all you had to do was tilt your face to close the gap between you and Peter. You kissed him slowly and softly until your felt his hands cupping your face to pull you closer. Peter could barely believe what was happening after all the time he had spent imagining this every moment. He never thought it would happen after he twisted your ankle, but at least it was happening. When you pulled away, you smiled shyly at each other and laughed a little.

“Well, what do you know. That was completely painless.” You teased him. But that wasn’t entirely true for Peter. He touched his now burning lips and realized he smelled something all too familiar.

“Are you wearing peppermint chapstick?” He asked you.

“Peppermint lipgloss, yeah. Why?”

“Oh no.” He gulped and felt his lips start to lose all feeling.

“What? Is something wrong?”

“No. Nothings wrong. I’m just a little severely allergic to peppermint, is all. It’s fine.” Peter kept his voice calm as he frantically wiped his lips.

“What? A little severely allergic?” Your panic grew to match his.

“It’s fine. I’ll be fine.” He smiled to assure you but couldn’t hide the panic in his eyes.

“Are you sure? Your lips are swelling.”

“Tho ith my tongue. But ith okay. I really liked kithing you. It wath worth it.” Peter said through his red and swollen tongue and lips, only worsening his pain.

“Oh my God. Nurse! We need some help in here!” You called out as you held Peters hand to comfort him. The nurse came running back in and immediately sighed when she saw the two of you.

“Oh my Lord. How did you manage to hurt her again in the five minutes since I’ve left you? You haven’t even moved!” The nurse exclaimed.

“No, no, no. I hurt him this time. He’s having an allergic reaction to my lipgloss.” You quickly explained.

“Well how did he get your lipgloss on his…” The nurse trailed off when she put two and two together. You gave her an embarrassed smile while Peter passed out from the pain.

“You two are so nasty.” She shook her head. “I’ll go get some ice.”

Tag List 🏷️

@awesomebooklover17 @thebookwormlife @imanativeofswlondondahling @serendipitous-amor @tom-hollands-wifey

@whatareyouhidingpeter @takenbyheartstrings @ultrunning @imyourliquor-youremypoison @andreasworlsboring101

@letsloveimagines @peterparkoure @a-villain-vying-for-attention @justcallmehitgirl @jackiehollanderr @maryjanee23 @geeksareunique @emmamarshmellow

@unbelievableholland @flixndchill @sovereignparker @every-marveler-ever @undiadeestos @caelestii-e

@eridanuswave @fiantomartell @solarxmoonchild

@canyouevencauseicant @illwritetomorrow @thehappygrungelife @saysomethingspiderman @smilexcaptainx @quaksonhehe @kelieah

@seasidecrowbar @lovelessdagger @electraheart-3174 @unbelievableholland

@yourtypicalhotmess @horanxholland @thesuitelifeofafangirl @marshxx @heyheycharlatte @nooneinvitedfascistbarbie

@maybemona @alexxcorona113 @lethal-wisdom @xo-spidey

#peter parker fluff #peter parker x reader #peter parker imagine #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker angst #peter parker au #peter parker x you #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland fluff #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland x y/n #peter parker x y/n

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scudslut · 4 months

Text

A New Years Surprise 🎀

daryl x fem!reader

warnings: 18+, poorly written smut, oral (fem-receiving), unprotected p in v, porn with some plot lol

a/n: i know i’m a little late but happy new years everyone!:) thought i’d start off on the right foot this year with some Daryl lovin<3 also don’t mind my writing i’m just getting back into it so i’m a bit rusty:/

“God, you’re such a dumbass,” you muttered to yourself, cringing at the reflection staring back at you.

Currently, you were a mess.

Tonight was Alexandria’s supposed ‘New Years Eve’ celebration, like we actually had anything to celebrate or look forward to.

There were always those few people you’d come across over the years, that had somehow managed to keep track of the time passed and as it turns out, Alexandria’s people were very serious when it came to sticking to the old worlds holidays and traditions.

Hell, they’d host parties and backyard shindigs on a regular bases, no prompt needed.

It was bizarre, and even after a full year living here, you still weren’t used to it.

Deep down, a small sliver of you agreed that it was something special about this place. That it somehow kept the hopeful humanity glimmering inside the residents. But the larger, much more sceptical side of you, couldn’t help but notice the flaws of the idea and the dangers of false hope.

Or maybe it was just because you looked fucking ridiculous trying to play dress up.

Either way, you hated the celebrations.

This one in particular though, caught you off guard.

You hadn’t payed much attention to New Years before the world ended, and just assumed that would be the same now; but when you caught wind of the party, you felt your stomach bubble in excitement.

And for one reason only.

Daryl.

You knew Daryl was an absolute sucker for dainty dresses and lingerie and you hadn’t ever gotten the chance to wear something like that for him. But a few days prior, you had stumbled across a small shopping mall on run and found this adorable matching light pink set and had to stuff it away in case the opportunity to surprise him presented itself.

Well, here it was.

And man was that excitement rapidly turning into a full blown panic attack.

Running your fingers through your hair haphazardly, you studied your appearance in the mirror.

You’d only so far put on the lingerie and a small black skirt and you already felt confined and self conscious. The straps weren’t sitting right, the cups of your bra were too big, causing weird awkward gaps.

Sighing, you close your eyes in defeat, resting your head in your hands.

This was just awful.

You could already hear the beginnings of the party going, music and laughter flowing in through your slightly cracked window and it only caused you to sink further into yourself.

You felt your mind slip into your self deprecating thoughts as you began to tune out the world around you, missing the soft creaks of footsteps on the wooden floored hallway.

The door of your shared room was wide open, as it was only the two of you that occupied the small house.

Daryl took you in for a moment, leaning against the doorframe observing your defeated aura silently.

He immediately knew what was bothering you, he could read you like a book at this point. He crept up behind you, gently touching your shoulder as to not frighten you from your thoughts.

Jumping slightly, your eyes flew open and landed on those deep familiar blue ones you adored, staring back at you through the mirror.

His natural scent caught your nose and your body subconsciously began to ease, slumping back into his chest.

“Hey, I wasn’t expecting you home so early,” you whisper to him as you notice his eyes drift down your body.

You wrap your arms around yourself, not wanting him to see your failed attempt at a surprise and be disappointed.

You should have known he’d be quicker than you.

“Not so fast, baby,” he says, catching your arms before they can fully shield your torso from him and twisted you around to face him.

“It’s nothing, really Daryl, I-I don’t even know what I was thinking,” you mumble feeling your cheeks heat up in embarrassment.

That’s when you notice the dark, lustful glimmer in his eyes and awed expression clear as day on his features.

Oh. He likes it.

Heat pooled in your stomach.

Daryl bunches the fabric of your dainty skirt in his hand contemplatively, drawing it up ever so slowly and tucking it into the waist band to keep you exposed.

You could feel his eyes wander your skin, like soft breathy kisses, from finger tips to the dip of your collar bones.

Your breathe catches as you feel the faintest pressure on your dripping cunt.

“This all fer me?” He whispers, slowly sliding his middle finger from the wet patch on your panties to the tiny pink bow at the hem.

He finger dips into the waist when he doesn’t hear your response, and snaps it back against your skin.

“Y-yes Dar,” you gasp.

Of course it was for him, you were his and he damn well knew that, but he simply couldn’t help himself from asking time to time.

He continued to toy with the bow thoughtfully, letting his finger tips graze over the sensitive skin there. Over your hip bones, stomach, and down to your inner thighs, never allowing too much pressure so it felt like soft tickles.

He enjoyed to watch you pant and writhe. Liked the way your skin would erupt in goosebumps every place he touched.

He was a hunter after all.

He could spend hours playing with every detail of you, work you up until you have tears welling in your eyes and your cunt was practically pulsing.

Though you’d beg and plead for him to stop, to give you what you need, he knew you loved it.

And so did he.

Daryl Dixon was a tease.

“Wanted to surprise you after the party,” you manage to squeak out and his gaze finally meets yours.

“Did ya now?” he mocks, walking you backwards till the back of your knees hit the bed and you take a seat at the edge. He looms over you, thumb grazing your bottom lip and you simply nod back at him.

“Well, ya can be certain there ain’t gonna be no party anymore,” he growls, staring you down like you had offended him somehow.

He harshly grips your hips, pulling them till your ass was practically hanging off the edge and drops down to his knees before you, spreading your legs to make room for himself.

All you can do is watch him, mouth parted open as he manhandles you however he pleases.

“And where did ya find somethin’ so pretty, hm?” he questions gruffly, once again rubbing his thumb over the wet patch forming on your panties.

You lean back on your arms, dropping your chin to watch his movements.

“I-uh, on a run the other day,” you huff, your words stuttering in excitement and anticipation.

Daryl only hums in response, as he dips his fingers and pulls them to the side, exposing you fully to him.

He barely gives you a second to register his actions before he’s dropping his head between your thighs, licking a long strip across your soaked cunt.

Your body jolts in surprised pleasure, your right hand flying to grip his soft brown locks as he laps at your clit.

Moaning loudly, your hips rock into him as he continues to lick and suck, lost in the taste of you.

“Oh god,” you whimper. Your arms are shaking behind you, ready to give out any second as you watch Daryl devour you like you were his last meal on earth.

He always looked so damn pretty, eyes closed and entrapped between your thighs.

He lifts his head, groaning at the sight of you and begins trailing kisses over your hips and down your inner thighs.

“Sweet girl,” he mumbles between kisses, “always thinkin’ bout me, huh?”

Your eyes roll back as you sink to your elbows, overwhelmed by the pleasure.

“Asked you a question, baby,” he nips at your skin causing a soft sting.

“Always Dar,” you pant, rolling your hips into him again. Your body was pulsing with lust and Daryl could sense how needy you were for him, like it had been weeks without his touch and honestly, it felt like that for him too.

He was about ready to cum in his jeans at the sight of you alone. Legs spread for him, pupils blown wide while you panted and moaned noisily just for him to hear.

Trailing his lips back up, he grips your waist stilling your movements, “What do ya need from me, hm?”

Your mind blanks for a moment, surprised by his uncharacteristic generosity. He was never this quick to give you what you need, always wanting to drag your pleasure for miles and miles until each pretty sound you could possibly make filled his ears.

“Come on now, or do you want me to decide for ya?” he asks again and you quickly shake your head, grabbing him by the shoulders and scooting back until you both were at the top of the bed.

As he lands above you, arms on each side of your head, you finally feel him and how hard he already was.

Rocking into him suggestively, “You know what I need,” you whisper.

Daryl groans from the friction, dropping his head to your shoulder and rutting into you further, chasing your movements.

You hadn’t seen him this worked up and responsive in a long time, and god were you loving it.

You pull his head up to face you and crash your lips onto his, hands finding his belt trying to discard him of it as fast as you possibly can. Daryl’s a panting mess above you, “Baby are you tryna kill me?” he groans when he feels your hands brush against his cock as you attempt to rid him of his jeans.

All you can do is whimper into his mouth as you struggle, and he kicks them down and off the bed.

He grabs you hands and pulls them above you, pinning them down as he begins to attack your neck with bites and kisses.

“Please Dar,” you whine, “need you now.”

“I know baby, I know,” he coos, attempting to soothe you as he draws your skirt and panties down your legs.

You begin tearing at his vest, needing to feel him closer to you, as close as he could possibly get. You feel him chuckle against you, “So eager for me, are ya?” as he lines himself up with your aching core, teasing you even more.

Taking him by surprise, you crush his hips into yours, filling yourself to the hilt all at once. You gasp from from the mixture of pain and pleasure, as Daryl all but whines into your mouth.

“Oh shit, fuck me,” he groans as he begins to slam into you at a bruising pace. You claw at his shoulders, rocking your hips to match his fast movements.

“Just love this cock, don’t ya?” he grunts, lifting one of your legs around his waist to drive into you even deeper.

You felt your brain cloud over, unable to think about anything other than him, drunker on his cock than you’d been from any night of drinking you’d partaken to in the past.

“Don’t go dumb on me now, darling. What did I ask ya?” he repeats, slowing his hips to sensual rolls, so it only stroked that cord in your stomach but kept it from building any further.

“God yes,” you moan, matching his slow but absolutely delicious pace.

Daryl is a groaning mess in your ears as your bodies dance a synchronized rhythm together, moulding into each other like pieces of a puzzle.

His hand snakes between you two, finding your clit easily and he begins to stroke you gently, allowing the fire in your abdomen to build rapidly.

“Oh Dar,” you moan and Daryl only picks up the pace, chasing after his own high to experience with you. Your clutching to him for dear life as he pounds into you quickly, grunting and groaning quiet praises about how good you feel.

You can tell he’s close when his hips start to stutter and shake, losing his rhythm slightly and you finally feel the cord break.

Your body floods with ecstasy, cunt pulsing around him causing his high to come crashing over him with you. Waves of pleasure wash over you as you both come down, his hips slowing to a stop.

He rests his forehead down to yours while the both of you struggle to catch your breath. You feel Daryl start to chuckle against you and your eyes lazily drift open, “What?” you mumble, running your fingers slowly down his back.

“Never was a big fan of surprises before, but ya can bet your ass I am now.”

#daryl dixon #daryl imagines #norman reedus #norman reedus smut #the walking dead #daryl dixon drabbles #daryl dixon smut #twd smut #twd drabbles #daryl x reader

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lewmagoo · 3 months

Text

diamond cowboy | rhett abbott

description: in which a good ride comes with an even greater reward

pairing: rhett abbott x f!reader

warnings: 18+ only, semi public sex, unprotected piv sex, light choking, begging, overstimulation, creampie, dom/sub undertones

There was nothing like watching your man standing in the middle of the ring, breathless and sweaty, pride glowing on his face as thunderous cheering erupted around him.

He wasn’t one that craved attention on a regular basis. He preferred a quiet “good job” over dramatic praise. But after a good ride, that kind of over-the-top praise made his heart soar. He was on top of the world, king of the rodeo. The best fuckin’ bull rider there was.

But there was only one person in the crowd whose approval he searched for. Wild blue eyes flickered to the stands, scanning, hoping, and finally, he saw you. Jumping up and down in the stands, shouting his name, cheering for him.

His chest flooded with warmth. His face broke into a smile. He thumped his fist against his chest, right over his heart, and you placed your own hand over yours. You were so proud of him. He could see it written all over your face.

And that alone made it all worth it. The broken bones. The dislocated shoulders. The concussions. The blood, sweat, and tears that had gotten him to this point. As long as you were there, his biggest cheerleader, all was right with the world.

As he looked into your eyes, the deafening noise of the crowd seemed to fade into the background. “I love you,” you mouthed.

He grinned. “I know,” he mouthed back.

It was a good ride. His best ride. The ride that would advance his career and change the trajectory of your lives for the better.

It was amazing, how far he’d come. After he had left his family’s house and started his life with you, things had changed. He’d come into his own. He was no longer living in the shadows of his father and brother. He felt freer than he’d ever felt before.

It was only natural that he rode better, too. He had more energy to put into his craft, and it showed. He’d quickly climbed to the top of the rodeo circuit and was now entering into a fruitful riding career.

You were so unbelievably proud of him. Though watching him ride was often stressful, and seeing him sustain countless injuries made your heart ache, you wanted him to chase his dream. You’d never dream of trying to hold him back from it.

And it was worth it to see the joy on his beautiful face. He was glowing from the inside out. A diamond cowboy.

You knew he’d seek you out after he cleared the arena. You made your way down from the stands as quickly as you could, dodging friends who threw congratulations your way, praising your man’s victory. You shouted thanks over your shoulder, breezing through the crowd until you found yourself back behind the stands.

You kept moving, scurrying to the area marked riders only. You waited at the gate for a beat, knowing Rhett would emerge soon, and you wanted to be the first person he saw when he did.

You were vibrating with excited energy, bouncing on the balls of your feet, eager to catch a glimpse of him coming toward you. And then, finally, he emerged. Had in hand, as it had flown off during his ride, and he hadn’t bothered to put it back on. His hair was tousled, and he wore a big grin on his face.

As soon as he saw you, that smile went impossibly wider. He broke into a jog, reaching out to unlatch the gate, slipping through the opening with ease.

“We did it, baby!” He exclaimed, and you laughed musically as he wrapped his arms around your waist and spun you around.

“No, you did it!” Came your breathless response, after he set you back down. Your hands came up to hold his face, and you beamed up at him, your eyes shining.

He kissed you deeply. “Naw, there’s no me without you. I did it because I knew you were up there watchin’ me, cheerin' me on. We did it.”

You hummed, smiling against his mouth. “Alright then, I won’t argue with you, cowboy.” You let your hands rest against his broad chest, where you could feel his heart thudding like racing hoofbeats upon the ground.

His large, calloused hands gripped your hips, pulling you against him, his body warm and thrumming with adrenaline still. He kissed you again, his lips searing against yours, hot and needy.

He was always like this after a good ride. A live wire, sizzling and crackling with white-hot energy. You could see it in the way his eyes shimmered in the yellow light cast by the lights above you.

And you could feel it when he pressed his hips into you, a telltale hardness in his jeans that had your mouth running dry. The glimmer in his eyes darkened into something else.

It came as no surprise to you, because it wasn’t the first time it had happened. But it still pulled a surprised squeak from you, especially when he pushed you back against the fence, his weight leaning into you.

“R-Rhett!” You peeped, “here?!”

But you already knew the answer.

“Need you now, darlin’. All I could think about after I jumped off that fuckin’ bull was how badly I wanted to sink into this little pussy of yours and celebrate my victory.”

“But what if someone sees?” Your resolve was melting as he pressed hot kisses down your jaw.

“They ain’t gonna see,” he replied, “an’ if they do, then we’ll give ‘em a good show. I need my girl now. Can’t wait ‘til we get home.”

And how could you ever deny him? Especially when his teeth were nipping at your skin, and he’d managed to slide his thigh between your legs, already applying pressure where you needed him most, your panties the only thing separating your skin from touching the denim. You were grateful you’d decided to wear a dress.

Rhett leaned back, hand catching your arm. “C’mere.” Quickly, he pulled you after him, guiding you further from the gates. You soon found yourself between a set of trailers, shrouded in shadow, but only a few steps away from the main path, where anyone could happen upon you.

That didn’t matter, though. Not when his day old stubble was prickling at your sensitive skin as he kissed and licked down your neck, tasting you, savoring you. He breathed in deep, taking in the smell of you. The perfume he liked, mixed with your natural scent. It drove him wild.

You were pressed against the outside of the trailer, it’s cold metal sending a chill through the fabric of your dress. But you’d warm up soon enough.

Besides, you hardly had time to register the coldness when you felt Rhett against you again, hard cock trapped within the confines of his Wranglers, grinding against your lower abdomen.

He was so strong, teeming with virile energy, keyed up from the high of his ride. You felt your knees growing weak, knowing he could toss you around like a ragdoll and do whatever he pleased with you. It was a strength that came from holding onto thousand pound bulls, hauling bales of hay, and wrangling stray cattle.

You slid your hands along his defined arms, the muscle flexing beneath the fabric of his cotton shirt. Blue, like his eyes. You could hardly take the time to marvel at it, because his lips were on yours again, tongue slipping into your mouth. He tasted of the beer he’d downed before his ride.

Beyond you, you could hear voices, and the knowledge that anyone could walk past and see what you were doing sent a shiver down your spine, and warmth blooming between your thighs.

But again, you were distracted by the man before you, pawing at you, kissing at your skin, nipping at the flesh. Your head was beginning to feel like it was filled with static, your brain short-circuiting with each hot kiss and drag of his fingers.

And then, suddenly, he pulled back. “Hold on,” he mumbled, moving to reach into the breast pocket of his shirt. He slipped a small packet of wet wipes out of the pocket, and you couldn’t help but smile as you watched him quickly wipe his hands.

“You came prepared, huh?” You teased.

His eyes twinkled. “Sure did. I was anticipatin’ a win, figured I’d keep wipes on hand for afterward.”

“You’re a sly dog, Mr. Abbott.”

He smirked as he tucked the packet of wipes back into his pocket. “What can I say? Always gotta be ready to touch m’ girl. Ain’t about to get your delicate lil pussy all dirty with my filthy fingers now.”

You appreciated him for it. He tried hard to consider things like this. Making sure he was looking out for you, even in the little things, was important to him.

Your mind went blank, however, when he slid his warm hand down the front of your body, pushing past the fabric of your panties until his fingers struck gold. Already slick for him, your cunt accepted his fingers with ease. He circled your sensitive clit for a moment before he traveled lower, prodding at your entrance.

Two thick fingers slipped inside you. You whimpered, your knees almost buckling. He held you upright, his arm secured around your waist as he curled those digits within you. You kissed him feverishly, whining against his mouth, fire burning within you, licking at your skin, threatening to consume you whole already.

You couldn’t help but push your hips into his touch, humping his hand as he fucked you with his fingers. He sped up his movements, just so he could hear the sound of your wetness emanate from between your thighs.

“You dirty lil thang,” he drawled, eyes narrowing, much like a cat’s. “You fuckin’ love this.”

“Uh-huh,” you sighed in agreement as you pressed your lips to his jaw, sucking on the stubbled skin.

He moved his fingers faster, deeper, thumb coming up to encircle your now swollen clit. It was almost pathetic, how much of an effect he had on you. He’d barely gotten started and you were already losing yourself, your brain turning to mush at his touch.

He knew exactly how to angle his fingers to hit that spot inside you that made your toes curl. And then, all at once, he added a third finger into the mix, and your cunt stretched to accommodate it.

“Oh!” You gasped.

“Gotta get you ready f’r me, honey,” came his words, breathed hotly into your mouth.

“I am ready,” you wanted to say, but you were entirely speechless as he moved his fingers hard and fast, enough to jar your entire being. You were so wet, it was beginning to drip down his fingers and coat his palm.

He kept going, even as he lifted his other hand to unbuckle his belt. You might’ve marveled at the fact that he’d done it one-handed, if you weren’t so distracted by the way he filled you with his fingers.

Your head lolled back against the cool wall of the trailer, your eyes squeezed shut as you clenched your jaw, body shaking uncontrollably. Faster and faster he went, determined to make you fall apart before he even got his cock in you.

He shoved the fabric of his jeans aside, his boxers following, just enough to free his achingly hard cock. You could feel it against your hip, and it drew you back to the present as you gasped and reached for it. “Want it in me,” you pleaded, but he shook his head.

“Not yet. Wan’ you to squirt all over m’ fingers first.”

Whining, you sought out his lips again, and he kissed you languidly as he expertly brought you to that peak. You could feel it building like a storm cloud, threatening to open and bring forth a torrential downpour.

Your mouths were open against each other. You moaned into his, and he grunted into yours, so desperate to make you come, so eager to bring you pleasure.

And then, the tension released, and you squealed, legs buckling beneath you as you flooded his hand and your panties with the warmth of your release. Rhett growled, his eyes fluttering as he watched you come apart, trembling as he caught you with his free arm.

“That’s it, there ya go. Let it all out for me. C’mon, I know you got more in there. Give it to me,” he rasped as he continued to move his fingers.

You were making such a mess. You could feel it beginning to drip down your legs, but you couldn’t be bothered to care. Finally, Rhett gave you some reprieve, sliding his hand away.

You watched through hazy eyes as he sucked his fingers clean and murmured “fuckin’ delicious.”

He used the wetness on his palm as lubricant as he wrapped his hand firmly around his cock and gave it a few deliberate strokes. You couldn’t help but salivate over the sight. Even in the dim light, you could see how hard and swollen it was, blushing tip shimmering with molten arousal. You wanted it in your mouth. But there’d be time for that later. For now, both of you were desperate for him to be inside you.

“Turn,” he commanded, strong hands grasping your hips and turning you so that your back was facing him. He placed his palm against your back and gently urged you to lean forward. You placed your hands against the wall of the trailer as he shoved your dress up again and yanked your panties down your legs, just far enough for him to have access.

Then you felt him, sliding through your puffy folds. Hard and thick and thrumming with need. “You want it?” He gruffed.

“Yes,” you sighed, nodding eagerly.

“Really? Cause you don’t sound like you do.”

“Please, Rhett. I want it. I need it.”

He gave your ass a hearty smack, at which you jolted, gasping sharply. “Fuckin’ beg for it.”

He kept sliding the tip past your entrance, teasing you, never granting you what you desired so badly. “Pl-please, sir. I want your cock so bad, it hurts. I need you inside me, I need you to pump me full, please, please, ple—ah!”

Your final plea was cut short as he shunted his hips forward, filling you all at once. Your eyes watered at the stretch. Your toes curled. Your spine tingled. It punched the oxygen right out of your lungs.

“There ya go. That wasn’t so hard now, was it?” He pulled his hips back before thrusting forward again, and you couldn’t contain the yelp that left you.

Suddenly, his hand was clamped over your mouth. “Better keep quiet. Don’t want everyone t’ know what a slut you are, lettin’ your cowboy fuck you where anyone could see.” And then, “or, maybe you want that, huh?” Another deep thrust. “Want ‘em all to see how dumb y’ get when my cock is inside ya.”

If only they knew.

In reality, you were well aware that Rhett would never let anyone see you like this. You both got off on the thrill of it, but he’d never purposely put you in a situation where someone would see you like this. It was why you were pushed into the shadows against the trailer, in a secluded part of the rodeo grounds, and his body was shielding yours. No one could see you over the broad frame of his shoulders.

He’d protect you always, even in moments like this. Especially in moments like this. Your most vulnerable state. Strung out on desire, brain fuzzy with need, your inhibitions gone. This sight was for his eyes, and his eyes only. And you trusted him to watch over you when you were like this.

And what a state you were in. Mouth open, eyes shut, shivering under his touch as he held your hips tightly and repeatedly drove his cock into your velvety depths. One of his hands came around the front of your body, disappearing to the place where your bodies met. There, his deft fingers began tracing expert figure eights on your clit, and you threw your head back against his shoulder.

His free arm supported your weight, muscles bulging as he held you tight, making sure you didn’t fall. His grunts were low against the shell of your ear, animalistic in tone. Feral, in a way.

Under his breath, you could just barely make out the words “take it, take it, take it.”

And you did. Every inch of him. You’d be sore later, you knew you would be. But you didn’t care. Not when he kept hitting it just right, filling you with such ease and precision. His fingers at your little gathering of nerves had your vision sparkling with electricity, fizzling within the darkness of your eyelids.

You were still sensitive from your previous orgasm, so it came as no surprise to you that your body was already beginning to climb that peak again. This time it came from deeper within, a flame that had once been dormant, now burning intensely, spreading throughout your entire body.

The hand that was over your mouth lowered to your throat, and he fucked you even harder as he began to squeeze, fingers pressing into the sides of your neck. He wasn’t cutting off your airflow. No, he was slowing the blood flow, which left you feeling euphoric and lightheaded, as if you were outside of your body, watching him fuck you.

At that point, you were speechless. Couldn’t utter a coherent word if you tried. All that came past your parted, kiss-bitten lips were squeaks and moans, whimpers and gasps. There were no words to adequately describe the pleasure you were feeling.

With each push and pull of his cock inside you, you could feel his heavy balls tap against your slick cunt. The sound was lewd and filthy. This entire encounter was filthy. Your panties pushed halfway down your thighs, his jeans haphazardly bunched below his ass. It was a dirty, hurried fuck, and you both loved it.

With his fingers on your clit and his hand on your throat, you were plummeting toward your end, and he could tell. “That pussy’s squeezin’ me,” he gritted out, “you’re close, aren’t you?”

“Y-y-ye…s,” was all you could muster, as your eyes rolled back.

He slowed down only slightly, rolling his hips against yours, cock nestled deep. His fingers pressed more insistently against your swollen bundle, and your legs began to tremble.

He lowered the hand that was around your throat, instead bringing it down to grope at your bouncing breasts, fingers tugging at each nipple. It only added to the shock of bliss already running through you.

“C’mon, darlin’. Want y’ to come all over me. Make a fuckin’ mess.”

It was right there, just out of your reach, so close you could almost taste it. Warmth blossoming from your head to your toes, intense and all-consuming. Almost there, almost there, almost there.

“I said, come,” came the deep, commanding growl in your ear.

And you did. With a strangled cry, you fell apart again, body going rigid in Rhett’s arms as it washed over you. He held you close, grunting as your cunt pulsed around him. The feeling nearly sent him over the edge, but he refused to succumb to it just yet. He was determined to pull one more orgasm out of you before he came.

He gave you a moment of reprieve, letting you come down slowly from the glorious intensity, your body jolting with the aftershocks. You pressed your hot cheek against the cold exterior of the trailer, in an effort to cool down. You felt as if you’d burst into flames.

As the haze cleared from your mind, you became aware that Rhett had slowed down, cock nestled deep inside you, in an effort to stave off his end. The evidence of your orgasm had dripped down his shaft, toward his full balls, and it was driving him wild. The fact that he had this affect on you, that he could make you come repeatedly, did wonders for his ego.

You looked back in fondness at the time you’d first gotten together, and took time to explore one another. Rhett had a reputation. People thought of him as a man whoring cowboy. But in reality, that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

He’d only been with one other person before you. She was his first everything. First girlfriend, first kiss, first introduction to sex. She was all he’d ever known. He had no idea how wonderfully fulfilling that sex could be, because she, being a little older and more experienced than him, had never taught him.

It wasn’t until he began a relationship with you that he learned how sweet that connection was. How pleasurable it could be. He was free to explore his fantasies, and learn how vitally important aftercare was.

Aftercare. Something he hadn’t experienced before. You had shown him how you needed to be cared for after sex, and in turn, you had administered care to him, as well. Your dynamic would switch, at times. Sometimes he was the dominant one. Sometimes you were. But no matter who bore what title, aftercare was non-negotiable for both parties.

You found that Rhett especially needed gentle reassurance after a particularly intense scene. He doubted himself sometimes, as a dominant. What if he was being too rough with you? What if he hurt you?

But you were always there to assure him that you trusted him implicitly, that you knew he’d never push you too far.

It had taken a while to build his confidence, but he’d come a long way since then, and now, the two of you had a healthy dynamic. It was why you both felt comfortable sneaking around like this in public.

“Y’ still with me, chickadee?” His breathless voice brought you back to the present.

“Y-yeah,” you managed.

He pressed a kiss to your shoulder. “Think ya can give me another one?”

You let out an unsteady sigh, leaning your head back against him. “I think so.”

Another kiss to your shoulder, his stubble nipping at your skin. “Okay, just need y’to hold on a little longer. ‘m almost there.”

“Mhm,” you whimpered, squeezing your eyes shut as you felt him begin to move again. Slowly at first, building his rhythm.

You were so sensitive, and impossibly wet, so much so that as he moved, the obscene squelch of your slick could be heard.

His fingers found their way to your throbbing clit again, and you jolted, entirely too sensitive. “Oh!”

His forearm wrapped around your middle, and he held you in place as he began to quicken his pace. Deep, hurried, sharp thrusts that stole the breath from you. You clawed at the side of the trailer, trying and failing to find purchase, in an attempt to hold on.

Rhett was so big and broad against you, his weight grounding you. In the moment, he was using you for his pleasure, even as his fingers continued to rub at you. He grunted and growled in your ear, rutting deep within you.

“Gon’ come,” he grunted, as your head lolled back against him and your mouth fell open. “Gon’ fill your cute lil pussy up, make you walk around with me runnin’ down your legs.”

“Pl-please!” You squeaked. You wanted it so badly. Walking around with his cum seeping out of you made you feel claimed. Like you belonged to him.

“Yeah?” He was growing breathless, fucked out, “that what you want? For me t’ stuff you full of me?”

But you could barely answer because he was hitting your spot just right, and you knew you were going to fall apart again. All you could do was tremble pathetically in his arms.

He shoved his fingers into your mouth, and you closed your lips around then, mouthing at the digits, using them to muffle your too-loud cries. Rhett’s moans in your ear made your head spin. Low at first, but growing in pitch until they were almost whimpers.

His mouth was open against your ear, breath hot and heavy. But you were distracted by the swell of his cock within you. Before you even realized what was happening, your third and final orgasm washed over you. It felt like your veins were filled with fizzy champagne. Deliciously warm, almost comforting, as it surged through you.

You whined deep within your chest, going limp in his arms as you reveled in ecstasy. A sleepy smile graced your features as you heard him gasp sharply, and seconds later, you could feel it. Warmth blossoming within you, seeping out around the edges, painting everything milky white.

“Tha-thank yo…uuuu,” you babbled, eyes rolling back as he gave you everything he had to give.

“Good fuckin’ girl,” he sighed, as you went limp in his arms. His own thighs were quaking, muscles fatigued from his ride, and from fucking you, but he remained steady as he caught your exhausted form.

Slowly, he eased his softening cock out of you, and you hissed softly at the feeling, knowing you were going to be sore later. But he was there to soothe you, loving fingers cupping your soaked pussy, applying gentle pressure.

“Here,” he hummed, pulling back to turn you gently. He hitched your leg over his hip as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the packet of wipes he’d used earlier. He was careful to wipe you clean as best as he could, in the dark lighting, and the awkward angle.

“I’ll finish cleanin’ you up at home, alright baby?” He promised. Sleepily, you nodded. With a soft smile, he kissed your nose. “Did so good f’r me.”

You giggled, almost loopy. “Love you,” you slurred.

He reached up to lovingly stroke your cheek. “Love you too, sweet thing.”

He helped get you looking presentable again, pulling your dress back to where it belonged, wiping the tears you hadn’t even realized you’d shed from your cheeks. “C’mon, let’s get home.”

He quickly pulled his jeans back up and buckled his belt before he bent and grabbed his hat, which you hadn’t even realized had fallen to the dusty earth. Then, a brawny arm was secured around your waist as he guided you out of the shadows. He checked to make sure the coast was clear, and after he was certain it was safe, the two of you made your way across the lot, to the place where his truck was parked.

Your legs were unsteady the entire way, so he had to hold you upright. You couldn’t help but laugh at yourselves. You felt like a couple of teenagers, sneaking around. In a way, it was exhilarating.

“You’re walkin’ like a baby deer,” Rhett teased as he led you to the passenger side of his truck.

“That’s your fault, sir,” you teased right back, jabbing your finger into his chest. “Acting like a sex-starved maniac.”

He grinned before he tipped his hat up and leaned down to kiss you. “Can’t help it. Get so pent up after a good ride. S’the worst when I’m outta town and you ain’t with me. Feel like I’m gon’ combust.”

“Good thing I was with you tonight then, huh?” You said with a good-natured smile.

He tapped your nose playfully. “Get in the truck, chickadee.”

With a mock salute, you climbed inside, and once you were settled, he shut the door behind you and came around to his side, climbing in and starting the engine.

You snuggled against his side the entire ride home, feeling rather sleepy after the events of the night. In fact, you managed to fall asleep for the remainder of the drive, waking only when he came to a stop in your driveway.

“C’mon now, sleepy girl. Let’s getcha inside so I can clean you up proper.”

He coaxed you out of the truck, and you held his hand as he led you up the porch steps and into the house. You let him take the reins, because you were much too drowsy to be of much help. He took you upstairs, and there, you climbed into the shower together.

The water made you somewhat more alert, and as he began to rinse you down, you stayed his hands. “Wanna take care of you too,” you said.

So, you took the time to tenderly scrub him down as well, wanting to show him love. You spent a long while tending to each other, relishing in the closeness, the intimacy. Both of you enjoyed aftercare immensely, even more than the sex act itself at times. It was a way to show reverence and appreciation to the other.

“You’re so good t’ me, baby,” Rhett lulled, and you hummed at his praise, kissing at his chest.

“You deserve it,” came your reply.

He hugged you close before he finally shut off the water. He leaned out of the shower to open the towel warmer you kept nearby. A device that he’d scoffed at in the beginning, claiming it was a ridiculous and frivolous waste of money. But he had to admit, he loved the thing. There was nothing better than getting out of the shower and wrapping up in a nice, warm towel.

He wrapped you in yours before he grabbed his own. Together, you set about completing your evening routine. Rhett helped massage lotion into your skin, and you did the same to him.

A little while later, all cozy in clean pajamas, you found yourselves sitting cross-legged on the bedroom floor, close enough that your knees were touching. A pint of chocolate ice cream sat between you both.

“How does it feel to be king of the rodeo?” You asked with a smile.

He shook his head. “You’re speakin’ too highly of me.”

“It’s true. You’re making a name for yourself, Rhett. Nobody even refers to you as ‘Royal Abbott’s son’ anymore. They see you. Rhett Abbott, Pro Bull Rider.”

Rhett’s eyes glimmered as he sucked a scoop of ice cream from his spoon. “It feels damn good. But like I said earlier, there’s no me without you. I’m where I am because you pushed me to be better. You showed me life was worth livin’. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.”

You tried to protest, but he shook his head. “You’re my saving grace, darlin’. Always have been, always will be.”

You couldn’t help the tears that welled in your eyes. Leaning forward, you stole a sweet kiss, too verklempt to utter a verbal reply. You loved that he could go from rough and tumble to tender and loving just like that. As if he hadn’t just taken you within an inch of your life at the very public rodeo grounds.

He was back to being your soft, gentle cowboy whose heart was often too big to fit in his own chest. But what he couldn’t fit within his rib cage, you held delicately in your hands, promising never to break it.

“I love you,” you spoke for what felt like the hundredth time that night. But you’d say it a hundred more without thinking twice about it.

“I love you more, chickadee.”

“I love you most.”

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#rhett abbott x reader #rhett abbott fanfiction #rhett abbott smut #rhett abbott fic

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miraclewoozi · 11 months

Text

DON'T SWEAT IT. - l.jh

Today — the first time in a small forever that he forgot to check the battery on his earphones (and subsequently had them die on him mid-workout) — Jihoon is forced to notice you.

pairing; lee jihoon x fem!reader. content; fluff / gym crush au / strangers to lovers / kinda idiots to lovers / smut towards the end (MINORS DNI). w/c; just a breezy 18k- and some change? warnings; swearing, this is only proof read once because if i read it again i was going to lose my mind. please let me know if i've forgotten any. smut tags under the cut ( not sure that this counts as a warning but a heads up: the gym weight units, whenever mentioned, are in kilograms not lbs because i’m british and the metric system, am i right? sorry if there are any other british-isms, i try really hard to avoid them/catch them on a proofread but there are inevitably some that have slipped through the net. )

note; gym-selfie jihoon, you will never not own my ass. ( screaming internally this is the first fic i've written since my dan + phil youtube era. i don't know what i'm doing. this has been in my wips for about two months. it's a bit all over the place. that's. literally just me. bon appetite. <3 )

smut warnings: making out, grinding, fingering (f rec), oral (f rec), blowjob started/implied (at the end), protected sex (be safe out there gang), little bit of biting, no huge power dynamics? reader & jihoon are both switches (and simps), some use of pet-names (good girl/baby).

—————

He first sees you around lunchtime on an otherwise unassuming Sunday.

As you walk in, the gym is wonderfully quiet. A handful of regulars mill about, making full use of the rare freedom of the machinery. One of the club’s personal trainers is marching an impossibly steep incline on a treadmill. It could just be any other weekend session in this criminally over-equipped and under-used gym: the town’s worst kept secret. But when the door slams shut behind you, his head jerks up; it, in this moment, is the loudest sound in the room. It’s sort of the only one he hears at all.

Today — the first time in a small forever that he forgot to check the battery on his earphones (and subsequently had them die on him mid-workout) — Jihoon is forced to notice you as he sits with dumbbells rested against his thighs. He catches his breath as he wonders who you are, if you’ve ever been to this gym before, why he doesn’t recognise you. Are you a new potential regular, maybe? Or just visiting the area and making good use of the cheap pay-as-you-go rates? Maybe, he considers, lips turning downwards in thought… maybe you’ve been coming here for a long time and he’s somehow just always been so in his own head that he’s never noticed.

The last, he thinks, is sort of unlikely. No. He would definitely remember a face like yours.

His heart rate slows more than he usually lets it as he finds himself watching you fill up your water bottle at the fountain, taking a long sip on your way over to one of the stairmasters. His brain blanks out when he realises that he’s not just looking anymore, he’s sort of staring, and swallows the saliva on his tongue hard, looking back at the mirror. He doesn’t want to be that guy. He isn’t that guy – he just got distracted by the loud noise, and this is exactly why he checks the damn battery on his headphones before he leaves the house.

The only problem is that now, he can’t remember how many sets he’s done. He lies back and stares straight into a slightly sketchy light-fixture, neglecting to pick up the dumbbells that he put aside for his next set of pushes. Jihoon adjusts the position of his shoulders against the bench, arches his back off it slightly, digs his heels into the spongy floor beneath them and pushes the ones still in his hands until failure.

Today, he finishes his routine and leaves the gym without allowing himself so much as another glance your way.

He neglects to notice that your eyes are avoiding him right back.

—————

You smile at him for the first time on a Tuesday. Not the following one – a week and a bit later.

Seungcheol is with him tonight. Jihoon prefers to train alone nine times out of ten: this is a truth widely acknowledged, accepted and respected among his friends. Gym time is his down time, his equivalent of movie marathons and comfort food, of face masks and glasses of wine. But it’s not a hard rule: occasionally, someone will ask to tag along and use one of his guest passes, and Jihoon very rarely says no. There are two reasons. One, he isn’t actually rude, contrary to approximately eighteen running jokes in the group-chat. But also, it adds a little bit of variety to his otherwise very set-in-stone regimen, and mixing it up doesn’t hurt. Like tonight, for example. Seungcheol is pulling him into the studio off the main gym floor, his own gym bag packed with boxing pads and gloves for them to play with.

Variety.

Jihoon grumbles a little at the idea, at first. He has a very love-hate relationship with cardio, favouring a simple steady-state run over everything else, and it just feels a bit against his moral code to use gym time for something like this. However, he comes to discover very quickly that smacking Seungcheol’s hands is very therapeutic; Jihoon knows he’s maybe getting a little too into it when his friend asks if they can switch around, grimacing and shaking out his wrist after a particularly beefy punch.

He agrees, albeit reluctantly, tugging off the gloves he’s wearing and pulling on the pads instead.

This half of the activity is considerably less enjoyable for Jihoon; he starts to cool down and loses his flow almost straight away and after about thirty seconds, his breathing is back to normal and he feels ready to go again. Even so, he does what he needs to do to be a good workout partner, and goes one step further into ‘good friend’ territory as he allows Seungcheol to vent about the bad day he had at work in-between hits, offering murmurs and looks of disgust when it feels appropriate. Suddenly, the impromptu request to come to the gym tonight makes much more sense, as does the slightly bizarre choice of activity, but Jihoon tries not to ask about it in too much detail.

They swing at each other for a few more rounds apiece, working up a healthy sweat and getting out a few frustrations as the hour wears on. On the last set, Jihoon switches out Seungcheol’s hands for a punching bag, putting a lot more of his weight behind every hit and really tiring himself out. By the end, his hair sticks to his forehead and his cheeks have flushed bright red; he only stops when he gets that weird, metallic taste in the back of his mouth that says he’s probably overdone it. Again.

“Hit the shower?” Seungcheol asks breathlessly as he finishes his last set of Russian twists and lies down flat on the floor, equally sticky and flushed all over.

Jihoon pats his face dry with his towel, shaking his head. “You go ahead. I’ll have one at home.”

He doesn’t give Seungcheol much of a chance to respond, already cleaning down anything he’s touched or managed to sweat on and riding out the high of the endorphins flooding his veins. Secretly, he hasn’t had a cardio session this high energy or this satisfying in a long time. He isn’t going to readily admit to that though.

“Nah, I’ll do the same,” Seungcheol agrees. He starts packing the gear he brought with him into his bag and they leave together after, heading towards the exit.

That’s when he sees you again.

He doesn’t notice at first; you’re stowing your things into one of the higher lockers, and you have your headphones slung around your neck as he walks past. It’s the sound of a song he vaguely recognises through your speakers that makes his head snap over from the conversation he’s in the middle of. They walk past at the moment you drop down from your tiptoes, and you flash a small (but insanely pretty) smile at Jihoon.

By the time he manages to process this fact, he’s already walked past you and you’re headed over into the main gym area, so even though he turns around to try and catch your eye, all he sees is your retreating figure. He stumbles over his own feet, not looking where he’s going, and just barely catches himself on Seungcheol’s upper arm before he actually does fall over. His older friend glances down at his bicep before he adopts a look that Jihoon has seen many, many times before: just never directed at him. His cheeks heat up further and he looks away.

“What was that?” Seungcheol asks, one eyebrow so far up his forehead that it’s disappeared almost entirely under his soggy hair. He looks so smug, so incredibly entertained. Jihoon wants to smack that expression off his face, immediately.

“Nothing,” Jihoon rushes, managing not to act on the violent thought even though he wants to. He clears his throat. “No-one. I-... they’re new, I think. I don’t know.”

Seungcheol lets out a soft laugh, pushing the door open for them both to leave through. “Yeah,” he scoffs, eyes glimmering with something Jihoon doesn’t think he likes the look of. “Nothing, my ass.”

—————

Three days later, he hears you speak for the first time.

Granted, you aren’t speaking to him – at least, not at first. But that’s not really what matters.

It’s late, and it’s a Friday night. Fridays are usually Jihoon’s days rest days, but sitting around his apartment had him feeling impossibly twitchy, with far too much energy to burn and no way to do so without leaving the house. And he knows that he needs to take days off, now and again. He knows that they’re good for recovery and that it’s healthy to take time to himself that involves not lifting weights. But what he also knows is that if he doesn’t manage to shake the weird buzzing feeling in his muscles, in his joints, in his veins, he’s never going to get to sleep. So, here he finds himself at almost 10PM, walking down the street to get to the gym.

To begin with, he doesn’t know (or really care) who it is that’s coming up behind him. He can hear quite clearly that the mystery person is on the phone, and that they’re in the middle of what seems to be a rather heated argument: his brain latches onto occasional words, phrases, curses. Every now and again, their voice drops to a deep, frustrated mutter and he cringes slightly, making a point to keep his eyes forward and down so as not to draw attention to the fact that this presumably private conversation has become everything but.

He touches his entry fob to the sensor on the door as he arrives and pushes it open. Jihoon uses the opportunity to stand still, to glance back at whoever it is that’s walked behind him for the past four and a half minutes, and his eyes come to land on you. He falters, noting how your eyes are a bit glassy and your cheeks are stained with what he can safely assume are tear-tracks. In this moment, he wants to run; he doesn’t want anything to do with that, and he certainly doesn’t want to hear any more of your call. It’s none of his business, and he feels plenty weird enough already with what he has overheard. But, for some unknown reason, he stays in place.

“No – no, you don’t get to-...” you hiss into your phone. “It was our fucking anniversary, you asshole.” Jihoon’s face tightens at that, lips drawn between his teeth and his eyes blowing slightly wide. You pass through the door in front of him, flashing a small smile as you go. Another smile, he thinks to himself, but he’d be an idiot to compare them in any way; this one is so dramatically dissimilar to the first, he thinks it could almost have come from a totally different person.

Unfortunately, there’s nothing ‘insanely pretty’ about it this time. Your smile is tight-lipped and exhausted, slightly apologetic. Maybe even forced. He does try to return a warmer one to you, but he doesn’t know if you notice.

“Look, I’m at the gym – we’re not doing this right now. I’ll call you later.” You hang up the phone with the kind of sigh that groans in the back of your throat.

A small part of him wants to take this moment and use it to ask if you’re all right, but an even larger part of him doesn’t. It isn’t because he doesn’t care. In a weird way, considering this is only the first time he’s clearly heard your voice and he knows absolutely nothing about you, he does care. But there are a few things that stop him. Not only are you a near-complete stranger, not only would he have no idea what to say to you if the answer happened to come out as a ‘no’, not only is he already coming over a little bit clammy at the thought of having a conversation with you… Jihoon isn’t stupid. He knows from the sound of your voice and the way you’re rather aggressively typing a message into your phone that it’s a ridiculous question.

You’re walking into the gym at 10 o’clock on a Friday night, your eyes literally brimming with tears. Of course you’re not all right.

He’s still standing in the open doorway mulling all this over, but Jihoon only realises when a gust of wind slaps over his calves and sends a draught not only through the reception area, but up the length of his spine. He comes inside fully as you close the locker you’re using – he notices, but he isn’t sure why, that it’s the same one as last time – and throws his things into the one he always uses. Two below and one to the left of yours.

It’s quiet tonight: just the pair of you and one middle-aged guy. Jihoon recognises him as the friendly man who seemingly knows everyone who comes in here – including you, apparently, judging by the way he strikes up a short but energetic conversation. When the other guy walks away, you clamp your headphones back over your ears and return to what you were doing before, occasionally bobbing your head or moving your lips in time with whatever it is that you’re listening to. Jihoon steals little glances at you now and again when you’re in-between sets, watching how you breathe deeper, how your skin glows with sweat as you tap your fingertips against your thighs.

He almost drops the bar he’s holding when you catch his eyes in the long line of mirrors. He turns away, swallowing hard, completely missing how your own gaze lingers.

Jihoon becomes so obsessed with not being caught looking at you again that he doesn’t even notice when you disappear off the gym floor completely. It’s only when he pulls his headphones off at the end of his session and glances around that he registers your absence: your third companion is long gone, and he assumes you must have snuck out without him noticing too. He settles the speakers back over his ears before pulling on an old zip-up, flicking the hood over his head to shelter him a little better once he gets outside. But he’s in no rush to get home so he takes his time, resting his bag between his abdomen and the lockers, replying to a few messages and clicking his tongue at some of the nonsense being spewed into the group-chat.

He isn’t sure exactly how long he’s standing there for, but he does know precisely what pulls him back to the world outside of the device in his hands.

To begin with, he doesn’t notice you approach, lost completely in his screen. He doesn’t hear your footsteps, or the way you politely clear your throat to announce your presence so he can move out of the way. He misses your moment of realisation that he’s listening to music and has no idea that you’re standing three feet behind him. He doesn’t even see you walk up next to him, your hair still damp from your shower and sitting loose over your shoulders.

It’s only when you try to reach over him to grab the last of your things that he snaps out of his trance. The fragrance of your body wash hits him first, and oh boy, does it hit him. Sweet, and delicate. Then, he gets something beautifully fruity: it’s not a perfume (it doesn’t smell like a perfume), but it’s you. Your shampoo, maybe? A conditioner? He can’t tell. Whatever it is, the combination of fragrances has him feeling like he’s been slammed into by a damn freight train. He drops his bag to the floor, freezing for a second, and then finally moves away just as the little door swings open.

“I’m so sorry,” he says hurriedly, tugging his hood down and pulling his headphones off completely. “I didn’t even think you were still here.” He can’t shake the smell of you, nor the feeling of your warm frame leaning so close to his own. God, why is his heart pounding like he’s just finished a round of sprints? Why can’t he breathe?

“No – hey, no, don’t be,” you rush, shaking your head. You finally succeed in pulling your coat free and start trying to get it on; Jihoon wonders if you often struggle to find your sleeves like this, if you’re always chasing them around like a puppy after its own tail. He does it too, sometimes. He gets it. It’s cute. “It’s okay. I was trying not to disturb-... I’m sorry.”

“You’re fine,” he tells you. For the first time, he’s able to smile back at you properly.

Why is it so hot in here, all of a sudden? Do they shut off the air conditioning after hours or something? He’s breaking out in a sweat.

“Call it even?” you suggest shyly, extending out a hand now you’ve managed to get both arms through your sleeves. He looks down at your fingers for a second before reaching to shake your hand once, a semi-firm grip securing the ‘deal’. (He feels a bit like he’s been electrocuted after, but he tries not to make that too obvious).

It goes awkwardly quiet for a moment then, and Jihoon wishes deeply that he had it in him to say something. Anything. But his brain has gone completely empty and apparently, all he knows how to do is stand completely still like a fucking statue. He shifts his gaze from you, to the wall behind you, to the carpet beneath his shoes, all the while tugging at the collar of his sweatshirt as if it might bring him a tiny breath of fresh air. The gentle sound of you clearing your throat has him looking back at your face again though; he assumes for a second that this is maybe you about to announce taking your leave. All the while, he’s cursing himself out in his own head for being totally inept, and he’s not entirely sure that it isn’t written all over his face.

“Alone, today?” you ask, idly fiddling with your zipper and succeeding in taking him by surprise. He really didn’t think you were going to continue this. And yet…

“Hm?” he questions.

You swallow before answering. “You… the last time, you were with a friend?” you explain, and now it’s your turn to look away. He wonders if you’re a little warm too, if he’s right in what he was thinking about the air-conditioning.

“Oh. Right.”

He nods. An annoying train of doubt in his mind wants to know why you’re asking about Seungcheol; if maybe it was him that you smiled at the other night, even though he knows your eyes weren’t looking up at the man he brought with him. He thinks maybe he should be used to these turns in conversation by now – you certainly wouldn’t be the first person to ask if one of his friends is available, after all – but somehow, he isn’t, and he has a slightly bitter taste in the back of his mouth as he goes on.

He really didn’t have ‘you being interested in one of his best friends’ on his bingo card for tonight, that’s for sure.

“Yeah. I think he’s with his partner, or… I don’t know. I don’t really bring other people, often. That was a one-off.”

You nod silently and Jihoon can’t quite get a read on what that means. He wonders if you’re upset at the revelation of Seungcheol’s partner, or maybe that he doesn’t tag along to every session. Or maybe, maybe, you were just being polite, and you don’t really care what his friend is up to that means he isn’t here. But whatever it is that you’re feeling, you do far too good a job at hiding it; he’s suddenly very overcome with the desire to run, again, except this time he might just bury his head in the sand too for good measure.

“How much were you deadlifting, just then?” you ask in the lull, just as he thinks he might have perfected the best way to say goodbye that doesn’t make him come across as even more of a tool than he probably already has. It throws him off kilter, but somehow, he manages to answer you in reasonable time.

“Oh, God… uh, one… 160?” He says uncertainly. “That’s not… I can do heavier-...” In his mind, he slaps his forehead. “Wait, no, that’s-... I mean, it’s true, but I didn’t mean-...”

You bite back your smile as he talks himself in a circle but Jihoon is too flustered to notice, convinced that he now sounds like every arrogant gym rat on the planet. God, he’s given himself the ick.

“I guessed you could,” you say.

Oh boy, this freezes him. Mid-thought, mid blink, mid-breath: he’s completely stuck. What does that mean? What does that mean? He only just manages to unstick his now suddenly dry tongue from the roof of his mouth, looking at you with surprised, confused eyes and parted lips. There aren’t any words on them, though. Like a deer in headlights, he just… stares.

“I mean, okay. Come on.” Your eyes visibly drop as you look him over, gaze lingering at his shoulders, his biceps, his waist. “You can get another twenty on that at least, right?”

He doesn’t know how to explain what’s happening to him, but if he thought he was burning up before? It was nothing compared to this, now. And there’s no way you haven’t noticed how everything from the base of his neck to the tips of his ears has suddenly started staining scarlet. He bows his head and pinches his lips tight, wrestling away the train of thought that appears as you drag your bottom lip between your teeth momentarily, still eyeing his arms. God, he’s never felt so overwhelmed in his life.

“Something like that, yeah,” he strains. He’s trying so hard to be nonchalant, even though he knows all of his personal bests by heart. Deadlift, 195kg. He hit it a few weeks ago: a couple of days before he first saw you.

“Mm. You can tell.”

Jihoon tries to shake off the compliment, but he fails. In equal measure he wishes you’d stop (he doesn’t know how much more blood can rush to his cheeks before he keels over) and never wants you to stop talking. It’s all going straight to his stomach, though, and he doesn’t remember having felt this specific brand of nervous and excited and stupidly shy since he was in high school.

He can hardly keep up. This is the danger zone.

Maybe it’s a bad idea that he says the next thing that comes into his head in a desperate attempt to change the conversation away from how much he can pull. But somehow, his voice doesn’t break when he asks, “are you parked far away?”

What? It’s dark outside, and this part of town isn’t exactly known for its upstanding citizens and pretty flowerbeds.

“Oh,” you say, eyes a little wide. “I’m-... just staying close-by. I walked here.” The space between his eyebrows must crease a little too quickly because you immediately hurry to speak again. “Really. It’s like… not even ten minutes. All main streets. It’s nothing.”

“Ten minutes longer than I’d walk around here at night on my own,” he says lightheartedly. In tone, at least. He’s actually completely serious.

You laugh at that; he lets out a chuckle, too. Now, Jihoon doesn’t believe in fairies but he thinks that if they were real, they’d giggle just like you do.

With a smile still on your face, you say, “what? A strong guy like you? Come on, now.”

Do you have to keep doing that? Fuck, he’s absolutely done for.

He tilts his head forwards, eyes closed, trying so hard to stop the muscles in his cheeks from lifting in a grin that it becomes a workout in and of itself.

“I mean it,” he says, taking what he hopes is a subtle breath to settle the fluttering in his chest. The next thing he knows, he’s leaning one shoulder against the lockers, a little reminiscent of every douchebag in every teen movie ever made. If he doesn’t think about it too much, he won’t cringe into oblivion until he gets home and replays this interaction over and over in his head instead of going to sleep. “Maybe I’ve just lived here too long. I might be jaded, but it’s still true.”

“How long is too long?” you ask.

“All my life,” he tells you.

“No way?”

“Mm.” A beat. “What about you?”

“I’m just staying with a friend, right now.”

“Oh, right.” He falls quiet again as he remembers the first time he saw you, remembers making the list in his head of all the possible reasons he hadn’t seen you before. The second was true, then.

Why does that feel like the worst possible scenario? He decides not to unpack that here.

“Maybe-...” you start, glancing down at your hands, which have been twisting in front of you for a few seconds now. Your chest inflates, filled with the words you’re about to speak, but only a breath comes out when you shake your head instead of saying them. “No, don’t worry. Scratch that.”

“Are you sure?” he asks, because he thinks that whatever you were about to suggest, there’s not much he would have said no to. He feels like it’s only fair to give you another chance to say it.

But you don’t.

“Yeah, it’s nothing.” You pause. “I… should probably get going.” He glances over your shoulder at the clock mounted on the far wall, squinting to see the time. 11:45.

“Shit. Yeah, me too,” Jihoon agrees. He didn’t realise it had gotten so late, so fast: he’s hardly ever out at this time. Lord, he already knows it’s going to be an open inquisition when he gets back to his apartment. His neighbours, Soonyoung and Seokmin, are about to have a fucking field day.

But it’s already long past the time he usually goes to bed, so he asks his next question anyway. He still can’t shake the thought of you walking back on your own at this hour. “Do-… you need a ride?”

He’s not sure if you actually consider it, or just wait a moment before you answer just to be polite. Either way, you end up shaking your head.

“It’s okay. I’ve-… got a call to make, so.” Your voice is a little quieter, lips tweaking up into a regretful half-smile, and Jihoon curses in his own head. How had he forgotten about that? “Thank you, though. Really.”

“Don’t mention it,” he says. “Just… get back safe.”

You smile and nod, taking a step towards the door and Jihoon does the same. He reaches the exit first and holds it open for you; when you’re both out in the street, he suppresses a shiver and looks in the direction of where he left his car earlier. Feeling the full force of the cold, it crosses his mind to ask again if you’re sure about walking home, but you’re already pulling a beanie down over your still damp hair and tapping something into your phone, so he doesn’t say anything.

“I’ll see you around, uh-…” you start to say, only looking back up when you falter, realising that this is the first time you’re about to use his name and it occurs to you both, at the same time, that you haven’t done this part, yet.

“Jihoon,” he introduces himself, lips quirking into a side-smile. His gaze is expectant and you respond to it perfectly.

“Y/n,” you introduce yourself.

“See you around, y/n.”

You split off in the opposite direction to where he’s heading. Before he clamps his headphones over his ears for the short walk up to his car, the last thing he hears is the retreating sound of a dial-tone.

—————

He doesn’t see you then for two whole weeks.

For the first couple of days, he only idly notices; it’s not a big deal — it’s not like you’re always there when he is, and he’s sure it’s the same vice versa. But he notices your absence, nonetheless. By the end of the first week, he casually wonders if you’ve had a change in schedule. Maybe you’re on a different working pattern, something that means you can’t be there on Monday and Thursday evenings and at 11:45am on Sundays.

It’s not weird. He only knows this because prior to that first conversation, acknowledging you as you crossed paths by the free-weights became part of his routine. It’s fine that he sort of misses those little interactions, isn’t it?

Maybe you’ve decided to start training ridiculously early in the morning instead? He tried that once. Never again. It then occurs to him, in the middle of a self-enforced rest day as he sits in the dark nursing a headache, that perhaps you’re not well. He sort of wishes he’d had the guts to ask for your number the last time he saw you, now: he thinks he’d check in, see if you were okay, ask how work was going or something.

Deep down he knows he’d probably actually just be staring at a blank text thread with a ‘casual’ message typed, tweaked a few hundred times, and ultimately unsent. But that’s fine. It’s the thought that counts.

The next time he sees you isn’t even in the gym, at all. It’s a Sunday afternoon — he finished his morning session, went home, showered, and headed back out into town after some lunch with a few errands to run. He finds himself spoiled with the luxury of a spare few hours to kill and dips into his favourite coffee place, thrilled beyond belief to find that it’s not obnoxiously busy and that there’s only one other person in the queue waiting to be served.

Oh, he thinks when he looks up from his phone and sees a vaguely familiar set of headphones sitting on top of a definitely familiar mane of hair, standing right in front of him. Oh, shit. It’s you.

Jihoon goes back and forth with himself over it but ultimately decides he probably doesn’t know you well enough to just say hello out in the wild like this, so even though the urge to do so strikes, he holds himself back. It’s agonising, though. He really wants to.

You step forward to order and he’s typing out a reply to a message in his, Seokmin and Soonyoung’s three-way group chat, in which he’s literally been fighting for his life as of late. He made the mistake of mentioning you in passing a few days ago and ever since, he’s had to vehemently deny that he has developed his first gym crush, insisting that actually, he’s just made a friend. They don’t believe him, because of course they don’t. That would be far too reasonable. Seokmin says that Jihoon wouldn’t be blushing just from saying your name if you were really ‘just a friend’. Soonyoung argues Jihoon wouldn’t have mentioned you at all.

“I’m so sorry — bear with me, just-…” your voice is quiet but Jihoon hears you apologising to the cashier in front of you, and it snaps him clean away from the tiff he’s having with the men who live in his building. He glances up and you’re elbow-deep in the bag over your shoulder, red in the face with your bottom lip pulled between your teeth. He turns his head slightly and sees the small hand-written sign that says the card machine isn’t working, and they’re cash only, today.

He can hazard a guess at your predicament.

After another few seconds of you trying to find whatever it is you’re looking for in your bag, he starts feeling bad for you. This, right here, is his own worst nightmare. Should the roles be reversed, he thinks he would’ve just turned around and walked out. It’s exactly why he doesn’t bother with backpacks and satchels day-to-day: if it doesn’t fit in his pockets, he doesn’t take it out with him. The system isn’t perfect but it has saved Jihoon a decent amount of public distress.

But the roles aren’t reversed, and he has his wallet already in his hand, so… he only gives himself a few seconds to wonder if it’s appropriate before he does the stupid thing anyway.

“Don’t worry — I’ve got it,” he says, stepping around you, pulling out the cash to pay for your order. You’re dumbstruck when you look at him, head tilted to the side. The person stood behind the counter glances at you, then at him, and back at you; you don’t see this, however, because your eyes haven’t left Jihoon’s face since he appeared — as far as you’re concerned — out of thin air.

“I can’t ask you to…” you start to protest, but your hands have stopped fishing around and he’s moving the cash further towards the barista, who hesitates just a second longer.

“You’re not asking. I’m offering. I’ve got you.” He says this with such finality that you quite literally can’t argue with him. The lady behind the counter accepts the cash and you nod, shyly, mouthing a thank you. He orders his own drink — an Americano, nothing exciting — and you both go to stand at the other end of the counter while you wait.

“Hi,” you finally say, and Jihoon can’t help but give a small chuckle.

He doesn’t have anything hugely witty or creative in his arsenal, though, so he comes back with a matching, “hey.”

“How… have you been?” you ask.

“Can’t complain, really,” he says. “Are you okay? I haven’t seen you around for a few weeks.” Oh, God — the second the words are out of his mouth, he wishes he could take them back. Why did he have to add that last part? Why didn’t he just leave it at the question?

“Yeah — about that,” you breathe, ducking your head to conceal the heat that’s spreading over your cheeks. “You know how I said I was staying with that friend?” He nods, and you continue. “I was waiting for some stuff to get sorted out with an apartment and it all finally got resolved, so… I’ve been moving my stuff over to a new place.”

Jihoon feels his heart sink for a moment, but he keeps his expression pleasant and engaged. His fingers threaten to give him away as they fiddle with the aglet on the drawstring of his sweatpants.

“Sounds tiring,” he says lightly, and you laugh again, nodding. It’s odd, having his heart taking residence low in his stomach and somehow also in his throat, all while hammering away at a mile a minute. All the caffeine in the world couldn’t have this effect on him. “Is it going okay so far?”

“Yeah.” You nod. “It’s a process, but… it’ll be worth it.”

The barista behind the counter announces herself by clearing her throat and slides your drinks across the marble surface with a little glimmer in her eye. Jihoon picks them both up, extending yours out to you. There’s a pause (in which he swallows a large helping of self-doubt) as he glances to the door, working through several combinations of his next words in his mind before he looks back at you.

“Do you… maybe have ten minutes to sit with these?” He asks. You light up immediately, not even checking the time on any of your devices, nor the wall clock behind your head. He doesn’t let himself think about why it makes him giddy that you’re accepting the offer, just like that.

“Yeah — yeah, sure.” You smile, walking through the lines of tables and sliding into one of the big, comfy chairs by the window. He unzips his jacket and slings it over the arm of the other chair before settling in himself, his long fingers wrapping around the to-go cup. The drink warms his perpetually cold palms and he sighs sweetly.

“You must be excited to get into the new place, then?” he asks after taking a sip, letting it heat him up from the inside. It could be argued that this job is already being taken care of, but Jihoon is not about to go there.

“Oh, God yes.” You nod, relaxing back in the seat with your own cup. Jihoon subconsciously leans a little forward in tandem. “It’s been fun staying with my friend, but…” You pause, lips slightly parted, before going on. “Okay, a warning: I’m a terrible person for this, I know. She’s done me a huge favour, letting me stay there — but I can’t deal with how untidy she is. It’s driving me nuts.”

A chuckle bubbles in Jihoon’s chest, cheeks starting to ache as his smile grows and grows. It hasn’t fallen since he sat down opposite you, and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, any time soon. “That bad?” he asks.

“You have no idea,” you groan, covering your face with one hand. He wishes you hadn’t — he thinks you look quite lovely when you’re all lit up like this. “She doesn’t clean her dishes after she eats — she piles them up in the sink for like, three days. I don’t think she’s used the vacuum the entire time I’ve been there. I keep finding wrappers and packets and mismatched socks everywhere —”

His snort of laughter rolls off the back of his throat rather ungraciously and he settles back into his chair. You gently bump his ankle under the table with your foot, beaming at him. “I’m serious! I can’t live like this, Jihoon. I can’t!”

The more you speak, the less he can control the fits he’s descended into, and his abs start to ache after a while; there’s desperation in your voice but it’s just wrapped up so cutely in your lighthearted frustration and decoratively tied together with your sunshine smile… he can’t help it — he’s in pieces. It’s okay though, because you’re laughing too: it makes him think of fairies again, and he can picture you with dainty, intricately patterned wings under the soft lighting in the café. He wipes the corner of his eye with the heel of his hand as he starts to calm down, taking a few deep breaths all the way into his stomach.

“You’re so much stronger than I am,” he says.. “I couldn’t deal with that.”

“You know, I had a feeling you’d be a clean person, too,” you say, sipping at your coffee again. “I mean… I’ve never seen you use the gym showers, so I wasn’t sure, but…”

“Hey,” he says, mock-defensively. “I don’t trust the locks, okay? I shower at home!”

Your cup is lifted to your mouth and he can only see you from the nose upwards, but by the creases at the corners of your eyes, he knows you’re concealing a smile behind it as you nod back at him.

Ten minutes turns to twenty and then somehow becomes thirty — Jihoon starts feeling like you’re someone he’s known for years, and not just the person he accidentally ended up paying attention to in the gym just a couple of weeks ago. He bounces off you and you bounce off him. Both of you have long-since finished your drinks, too: there’s no real reason for either of you to still be here.

Except the obvious.

“So, the apartment,” Jihoon says, leaning forwards again with his elbows resting on his knees. “Is it…?” He makes a few circular gestures with his hands with which he tries to imply something to the effect of ‘local’, or ‘nearby’, but he can’t quite bring himself to say that out loud. You seem to catch on though. Somehow.

Then again, you did say — a few subject changes ago — that Jihoon is on your wavelength. Maybe that’s it.

“About… a fifteen minute walk from here? Give or take,” you say, and his eyebrows shoot up his forehead so fast it’s like they’re on strings, being controlled by someone else. He doesn’t realise for a few seconds, by which point he isn’t even sure how to relax them.

“No way?” he says, trying to feign nothing more than an idle interest. Obviously, he’s soaring.

“Yeah. I’ll want to get back training soon, too, so there’s some incentive to get this done quickly. I miss it,” you tell him.

Jihoon comes out with what he says next without thinking. His mouth is moving before fully engaging his brain. It’s the coffee jitters. Apparently.

“Well, if you need any help with anything, I’ve got a car.”

“You’re too sweet,” you say. “I really couldn’t put you out like that, but…”

“You wouldn’t be,” he assures you with a shrug. “If I’m not working or in the gym… I’m never really that busy. It’s up to you, but-… I’d be happy to.”

You bite the inside of your lip for a moment, apparently mulling this over, before wiggling in your seat to pull your phone out of the front pocket of your jeans. You unlock the device and hand it over on a ‘new contact’ screen.

Jihoon goes completely stupid: he thinks his brain stops functioning as he takes it to put his number in — for a moment, he’s staring dumbstruck, struggling to even remember the order of the digits now he’s under pressure, but it comes back to him eventually. His thumbs dart across the screen and he checks, double checks and triple checks that he’s typed it right before placing it back in your waiting palm.

His fingertips brush against yours and it tickles, sending small shockwaves up his arms and straight into his chest. You smile down at your phone before glancing up at him.

“You need an emoji,” you tell him, and he raises an eyebrow at you.

“Huh?”

“Everyone in my contacts has one — I’ve been doing this since I was in high-school. You need to pick one, too.”

“Oh, uh-…” Jihoon swallows, and for some reason he’s completely forgotten every single little emoticon option there is. He draws a blank. “I can’t — you pick one for me. I don’t know.”

You narrow your eyes at him for a second, pouting your lips as you seem to scroll through the endless options. Now and again, you look up at him, as if trying to see what best fits him before you continue your search. He waits. And waits. And waits. He’s about to throw in an admittedly useless suggestion of some sort of boring animal when you turn your phone around to show him what you’ve chosen.

Jihoon, the contact name reads. And there’s the little angel face next to it.

“Oh, come on,” he says, blushing deeply. “You can’t be serious.”

“I totally am,” you say proudly, turning it back and pressing to save it. He hides his face in his hands. “If you won’t pick your own, you get what you’re given. You did this to yourself.”

“Wow,” he chuckles weakly, sliding his hands up into his hair and raking it back off his face. Your eyes move quickly across every inch and boy, does he notice. You shrug in response and test it, sending the same little emoticon to him. He blushes harder when it comes through and he saves your number into his own phone before placing it face-down on the table.

More than an hour after buying your coffee, Jihoon stretches his arms above his head and checks the time on his watch. He frowns slightly, not sure how the afternoon got away from him so fast, and lets out a sigh.

“I think I need to get going,” he says reluctantly. Leaving you is absolutely the opposite of what he wants to do, actually. Alas, “I have some friends coming over tonight.”

“Yeah — yeah, of course,” you smile, leaning to one side to pick your bag up off the floor. “No worries.”

You both move to stand up and he throws his coat over his arm, leading the way out. He holds open the door for you to leave first, then follows you outside into the afternoon sun.

“It was really nice to see you,” you say, turning to face him.

“You too,” he agrees. “Text me if you need anything, okay? But actually do. Don’t just say you will?”

You laugh sweetly. Fairies. His ears might have actually caught fire this time. “Okay, okay. I promise. I’ll text you — thank you.” There’s a pause, but only a tiny one. “And for the coffee, too.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he insists, waving it off. You shake your head. He thinks your hands are twitching when you stuff them into your pockets but he can’t be sure. Your breath definitely stutters, though.

“No, really. Um… next one’s on me?”

He blinks, and blinks again. Next one? The next one? He feels like he’s malfunctioned and been forcibly rebooted. The next one?

“I-…” he starts, his throat dry. “Yeah, okay. If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.” You nod, smiling with — what he doesn’t realise is — relief. “I’ll see you around, okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah — I’ll see you, y/n.”

—————

Jihoon has no choice but to admit defeat to the group chat that night when Seungcheol and Jeonghan come over for a takeout.

Within minutes, his oldest friend is asking about the girl from the gym — he’s been just as relentless as Seokmin and Soonyoung in quizzing Jihoon, except it’s slightly harder to deny to Seungcheol because he did witness, first-hand, the way you had his friend tripping over his own feet with a single smile. At first, Jihoon tries to shrug it off. Play it down. Change the subject. He doesn’t mention that he’s actually spoken to you since he and Cheol trained together, or that he accidentally bumped into you and paid for your coffee, or that you stayed talking with him for as long as you did. He definitely doesn’t say that you exchanged phone numbers.

He absolutely won’t confess to being smitten.

All Jihoon willingly admits to is that from what he’s seen of you around, you seem nice, and with a roll of his eyes he does agree that he thinks you’re attractive. He gets a bit of a glare later in the evening when Jeonghan asks if he’s thought about where he wants to take you on your first date, and Jihoon tells him to stop asking stupid questions and eat his chicken before he eats it for him. But all in all he thinks he evades the worst of it pretty well. For now, anyway — he knows their pestering isn’t going away any time soon.

Especially not when, on their way out, Seungcheol leans close and whispers that whatever is going on with his gym crush, it suits him. Jihoon jabs him on the arm and the two men leave, laughing brightly.

It’s about an hour after his friends have gone home, having washed the dishes and cleaned up his apartment that Jihoon is sitting on his living room floor doing a few lower body stretches before he turns in for the night. He finds himself tapping into your text thread — not for the first time this evening — and skimming over the short conversation you had earlier. You messaged him when you got back to your friend’s place to thank him for the third time, and Jihoon replied back telling you that if you didn’t stop being silly, he was never going to respond to you again. Your reply came in the form of a “:(“ and his was a simple “:)”. That was it, but he’s been thinking about the exchange ever since.

He’s not sure why. Nor is he certain what about that has him looking down at the messages and grinning like a fool in his apartment, alone, at 10:30pm on a Sunday night. He could probably take a stab in the dark at what it means, though. He rubs at the back of his neck with one hand as he changes conversations and types out a short message with the other.

jihoon: fine. you’re right.

seokmin: ?

soonyoung: probs true, does need context

jihoon: about the gym girl. you’re right.

soonyoung: OH

seokmin: Hahahahahaha

seokmin: Yeah, you’re definitely the last to know, dude

soonyoung: fr even chan and hansol know atp lmao

jihoon: they what?

jihoon: how do they know?

jihoon: they don’t go to my gym! i haven’t seen them in weeks!

soonyoung: because we told them?????

seokmin: So, we might have told everyone

jihoon: blocking both of your numbers immediately.

seokmin: Hey! We’re just glad you’ve accepted it

seokmin: When do we get to meet her?

jihoon: blocked.

Well, great, Jihoon thinks as he fights the urge to lay face down on the floor and let the laminate cool his searingly hot cheeks.

At least he’s admitted it now.

He’s vaguely confirmed in writing that maybe he has a bit of a thing for you — it’s out in the open and at minimum, two of his friends know that it’s real. Straight from the horse’s mouth. Fingers. Whatever. No doubt by morning, all of his friends will have found out. The point stands that he hasn’t confessed to something like this since he was approximately sixteen years old, so whatever you’re doing to him, whatever this… is, it matters.

So, he asks himself, standing up off the hardwood floor and stretching his spine, arms locked behind him and pushed back as far as they can go. He turns off all the lights, checks the front door, goes through the motions to get himself ready for bed. So… what the fuck am I supposed to do now?

—————

Come Monday evening, he’s about ready to hit the roof.

As far as bad days go, Jihoon thinks he’s in the running for one of the worst ever. He slept awfully, tossing and turning through the night despite the usual winning combination of freshly washed bed sheets and his white noise machine drowning out the occasional disturbance from the street below. He wakes up two minutes before his alarm is due to go off, only to discover he fell asleep before plugging his phone in to charge overnight, and it’s sitting at a very risky 13%. The gel he uses to keep his hair off his face at work has gone weird and only does half a job, strands tumbling back in front of his eyes the second he goes to leave his apartment, very nearly forgetting his keys. Then, to really put the cherry on top, he sees that — at some point between getting home yesterday and now — someone has scraped his car while parking up next to him. There’s a large scratch right down the passenger side, with no note nor reliable CCTV in his apartment’s parking lot to confirm who it was, and of course, the space is currently empty.

All this before he even gets to work.

He fundamentally knows that starting the week off with a bad attitude will only lead to a really shitty remainder, but when Vernon sends his routine ‘Monday Motivation’ booster message — “you’re going to have a great day, today!” — into the group chat, Jihoon responds with a crude photo of his middle finger, right in front of the massive scuff on the bodywork of his Hyundai. Jeonghan replies with an ‘oof’, Wonwoo with a ‘yikes’, and Joshua, ever the comedian, sends a picture of Garfield lying face-down captioned ‘Mondays’ that nobody replies to. All responses feel kind of appropriate. But he pockets his phone without sending anything else, sighing again; he locks the car and checks the handle just in case before he finally heads into the building.

It’s going to be a long day. He just has to get through it.

Things don’t necessarily improve. He ends up in and out of meetings all day, so when 5 o’clock rolls around and he’s on his way out the door, he’s feeling a bit like he’s done nothing of actual value. Just, for some reason, thinking about you and tapping out a catchy beat on the top of his desk as he pretends to pay attention to useless presentation after useless presentation. But it’s still somehow been exhausting on his brain and on the drive back to his apartment, Jihoon feels so drained that he contemplates skipping the gym altogether and going straight to bed. This internal argument takes up most of his journey, but it does keep him occupied during the rush-hour traffic if it does nothing else.

Nothing has ever been fixed by ruining a perfectly good routine, however — so no sooner than he’s back in his apartment, he changes out of his button-down and trousers and into his regular gym gear. His protein shaker is ready on the counter for when he’s home again, the lights are off, his bag is on his shoulder and the door is locked. He pushes against it a few times, checking out of habit, despite the fact that his only neighbours on this floor are Soonyoung, Seokmin and an elderly couple with a cat they’re not technically supposed to have. Nobody tells, though, because Boots has become everyone’s emotional support animal. The only actual security threat is Seokmin maybe stealing something from his fridge, but he’s only ever satisfied after the third test anyway.

A quick warmup and a few easy stretches later, Jihoon sets about his business. Mondays are for training legs (and often, as a result, incapacitating himself for the rest of the week), and these workouts are always some of his most intense.

So intense, in fact, that he’s sweating buckets and cherry red when he steps away from the squat rack, tugging up the hem of his t-shirt to dry his face, a brief flash of his toned abdomen on full view. He’s just about catching his breath when he glances in the mirror, and his knees nearly give out when he sees you walking in. You lock eyes and smile at him in the reflection as you start to walk towards him.

It’s not just any smile, but he’s way too flustered to notice.

He spins around to face you, mortally embarrassed that you definitely just saw that, but in a weird way… kind of elated? You drop your headphones to sit around the back of your neck to greet him as you get closer. He pushes his hair back off his forehead and tries to act as cool as he can, but Jihoon suddenly becomes incredibly aware of everything about himself in this moment: his posture, how his arms hang by his sides, the exact positioning of his feet. The fact that he’s breathing pretty deeply, that his pulse is so loud in his ears that he can see your lips moving but can’t quite hear what you’re saying.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit — you’re talking. Focus. He needs to focus.

“Sorry — what was that?” he asks, eliciting a soft laugh from you.

“I like your shirt,” you repeat, a fraction clearer. Jihoon glances down at himself, at the same sweatpants and tight black workout top he wears in here several times a week, and looks back at you with a raised eyebrow. God, he lets himself think for half a second, entertaining his own stupidity with the idea that you’re finding this as hard as he is, too. Maybe I’m not alone in this.

“Oh?” he says. “Um — thank you?”

“How’d it go with your friends last night?” you ask, hardly skipping a beat, and he’s a little thankful that you skim over his poor attempt at gratitude for a compliment he isn’t sure he deserves. Instead, his confusion wraps itself around the fact that you actually remembered what he was doing last night. Hell, even he’d forgotten in the heat of the day he’d had, but you remembered. He’s sweating over it a little and briefly wonders what the chances are of the gym floor opening up and swallowing him whole.

Slim, he decides. But not zero.

There’s hope.

“Yeah — yeah, it was nice,” he says, internally kicking himself for overthinking this so much that he’s apparently lost his ability to speak. In the space of 24 hours, he’s gone from giggling over coffee with you to completely weak just at the sound of your voice. It should be easier here, if anything — this is home turf for him. His comfort space. He supposes the tight fit of your gym clothes accentuating your hips and thighs isn’t helping matters, and neither is the wide neckline of your own t-shirt exposing your throat and a collarbone. But still. He’s not a teenager. He should be able to handle a little bit of skin.

He clears his throat, rolling his head side-to-side. Focus. “Sorry — I’m-… I just didn’t expect to see you back here so soon.”

“Yeah,” you chuckle. “I-… couldn’t stay away. Missed it a little too much.”

“I get that,” he concurs, willing his eyes not to drop down your frame to a newly exposed area of skin just around your waist, your t-shirt riding up as you adjust your bag on your shoulder. “It’s good to-… have you back, anyway.”

“Good to be back,” you agree. “Hey — can you leave that set up for me, when you’re done? I’m on legs today, too.”

Jihoon doesn’t want to say that he knows Mondays are your leg days, as well, so he doesn’t. Even if it is true. He wonders if you would find it odd that he’s remembered. “Sure,” he says with a small smile, which you return. Just as you’re about to walk off to drop your things into a locker, he pipes up again. “I mean — hey, if you wanted a spot, or to-… do, you know… anything…”

“Are you asking me to train with you?” you ask, eyes bright and smile wider than he thinks he’s ever seen it. This is torture. He’s not even lifting anything and his heart is about to burst out of his fucking chest — God, maybe this was a bad suggestion.

“I-…” he starts, but he lets the breath out of his lungs and shrugs his shoulders. “Yeah. I am.”

“Give me two minutes,” you agree, hurrying off to put your stuff away and fill up your bottle.

He manages to squeeze another set of squats in before you get back, which is sort of a miracle seeing as how his knees have gone completely weak ever since you arrived. He’s scrolling through his playlist as you cross the gym floor on your way back to him, but he looks up and smiles as you approach.

“You go ahead — I’ve just finished.”

He knows he’s really fucking done for when, after the first round, you add plates onto the bar to out-lift him. All before he’s even positioned himself behind you to be a good spotter.

Jihoon doesn’t go down without a fight though, and things get a little competitive from there. Both of you throw some of your favourite (see: most agonising) exercises into the mix over the course of the hour, taking it in turns on the equipment and creating a session that just about has him able to move by the time you’re finished. You talk to each other when you’ve got the breath to do so, otherwise focussing on your workout with more intensity than either of you remember training with for a long time.

And so what if he has to turn away from you once or twice to compose himself when breathless whines spill from between your lips on your last few reps, the sheer effort of the movements pushing your muscles to their absolute limit? So what if he feels his entire body run a thousand degrees every time you sweetly encourage him to manage just one more? So what if his palm stays tingling for fifteen seconds every time you high-five him for a set well done?

You slide out of the hamstring curl machine with a deep breath and legs like two sticks of jelly at the end of the session, and he holds a hand out to steady you as you regain your ability to weight-bear.

“You okay?” he asks, and you nod, patting what’s exposed of your chest and neck with your towel.

“Yeah. Yeah — just… fuck.” You laugh, laying your hand over the top of his and squeezing. Only for a second — not even, only for a breath — and really just to let him know that you’re okay to stand on your own, but Jihoon feels a bit like he’s been electrocuted straight up his arm all the same. “You don’t come to play, do you?”

“Says you,” he scoffs, only now moving his hand from your upper arm. “I was wrong about you — you’re insane. Clinically insane.”

Using the paper towels he went to gather while you were finishing up, he wipes the machine clean as you stretch out your now slightly exercise-swollen thighs.

“I was just gonna finish up on one of the stairmasters,” you tell him, taking a long sip of your water. His eyes widen to the point of comedy, eyebrows high on his forehead. You snicker at his horror, the rim of your bottle hovering tantalisingly over your bottom lip. “What?”

“That’s-… got to be a form of masochism,” he says, exhausted just at the idea of marching up the never ending staircase even for a minute. You almost choke on your mouthful of water, only just swallowing it in time before a sudden, uncontrollable laugh erupts from your chest.

“How?!” you ask, covering your mouth with your hand. Just like yesterday, the urge to pull your arm away, to reveal your hidden smile strikes him. He doesn’t act on it, but he wants to.

“What do you mean, how? Why would you put yourself through that after what you’ve just done?” It’s completely lighthearted, and the rush of heat on your cheeks intensifies at the cocktail of shock and awe in his gaze.

You shrug your shoulders once. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just better than you.” The way the tip of your tongue teasingly sits between your teeth as you grin at him sends bullets of adrenaline through his veins and Jihoon runs his hand over his face.

For about three seconds, he tells himself he isn’t going to take the bait. He’ll lose, he’ll admit it — he’ll put his hands up and say you’re absolutely, definitely better than he is, if it means he doesn’t have to push through a round of cardio after surpassing every single one of his physical limits. But God, he thinks you look completely irresistible standing there challenging him like this, your hands on your hips. His eyes don’t leave yours and yours don’t leave his; both of your chests stutter, just a little bit, and he can see your smile grow in his periphery.

How the fuck is he supposed to walk away?

“Ten minutes,” he concedes, matching your footsteps as you start to walk backwards towards his least favourite line of equipment in any gym, ever. “And you’re definitely getting the next coffee, now.”

——————

That Friday, you finally text him again.

His muscles have just about returned to a working state and Jihoon is quite proud to say that he has regained the ability to sit down without needing something to hold onto. He got home from work, showered the day away and has just settled down into the sofa to start on the book Wonwoo has been on his ass about reading when his phone vibrates on the side table. He reaches over for it, trying to figure out which of his friends might be trying to get hold of him early evening on a Friday, and already going over excuses in his head as to why he can’t go out to do whatever they’re inviting him to. But when your contact name flashes up on the screen, every single thought disappears from his brain.

y/n: hey :)

y/n: just out of interest, how good are you at assembling furniture?

He furrows his brows at this. There’s a very obvious answer, which is that he’s not. He doesn’t want to reply saying so, though, so he goes for what he thinks is the next best thing.

jh: well…

jh: what are you trying to put together?

y/n: a bed :(

y/n: today’s your rest day, right?

y/n: can i bribe you with dinner after? :)

Oh? His brain stalls, fingers hovering over the keypad. He can literally see your face forming a little pout before growing into a hopeful grin in his mind’s eye. He doesn’t see how he could ever say no.

jh: apparently yes, you can.

jh: text me the address? i’ll leave in 5.

He changes out of his basketball shorts and hoodie in record time, abandoning Wonwoo’s book on his couch in favour of attempting to look at least somewhat presentable for you. He tugs on a pair of jeans that he hasn’t touched in about 6 months and one of his nicer t-shirts instead, even going as far as to spritz aftershave on the column of his throat. You’ve sent him your address and he makes to leave, doing his regular essential item pat-down on his way out the door. He puts your new apartment into his phone as he crosses the parking lot, stupidly delighted to discover it’s only 7 and a half minutes away from where he lives, and settles into his car with a series of deep exhales.

The breathing exercises don’t achieve much. His head is still spinning when he parks up in the street by your new place and lingers just outside the building. He sends you a text to say he’s arrived and you reply saying you’re on your way down. You appear in the lobby just a few minutes later.

“Hey,” you greet him warmly, crossing the space and putting your arms around him in a hug. He goes limp for a fraction of a second before his arms slide around you, too. God, he hopes you can’t feel his heartbeat right now. He thinks that the effect you have on him should be considered dangerous. But whether you can or not, you tighten your arms to squeeze him once before you unwind them from around his neck and step away.

“Hi,” he says, feverish from the tops of his ears all the way down to his toes. His hands find his pockets as you take a few more polite steps back.

“Thank you so much for this.” Your bottom lip finds temporary home between your teeth before you’re nodding back towards the stairwell. “I’m on the third floor. Follow me.”

He does. He walks up the stairs behind you as you ask about his day at work, and he tells you that he thinks today has probably been one of the best he’s had in about 2 months. When he asks how your day went, you turn your head back to look at him and stumble on the next step, gently laughing and saying that you think you’re at your tether’s end with D.I.Y, but it’s been pretty good otherwise. By the time you reach your floor, his thighs are aching, a bit of residual fatigue from your session earlier in the week making it a little harder than it ought to be. He can’t imagine how you’ve coped every day since then; if his own building didn’t have an elevator, Jihoon thinks he’d have been sleeping in his car.

You give him a little tour of the apartment, and he stands next to you at the window as you point out where you were staying with your friend a few blocks away. He thinks the view is seriously pretty in the evening light, enchanted by how he can see the tops of the slightly lower buildings and the street below, lined with neon storefronts and currently alive with shoppers and bar-goers, but… He cringes at himself for thinking it, but the view through the glass is nothing compared to the one he has inside.

You’ve started to put up a few decorations and knick-knacks around the place too. He doesn’t know you very well, but he still thinks it’s very you — all of it, and he likes them. Even with the room full of boxes and half-unpacked cases, there’s so much personality in it already. Charm. He brushes off your attempts to apologise for the ‘mess’, as you called it, despite everything being neatly pushed out of the way of the main space. It’s easily tidier than any other mid-move apartment he’s ever been in.

“Did you want a drink?” you ask him, walking over to the refrigerator and resting a hand on the door. “I’ve got wine, or-… anything, really.”

“Just some water would be great,” he says appreciatively, and a few seconds later you’re handing him a bottle, turning another one over in your hand. “I really wouldn’t be much help after a couple of glasses, trust me.”

“Does this mean you are good at it, then? Before a drink?” you ask him. Is it hope in your voice? Or do you somehow know how hopeless he is, and are you teasing? He can’t tell. Regardless, clearly his evasion earlier wasn’t quite as successful as he hoped it would be.

“About that…” He chuckles, taking a sip from the bottle and glancing sideways at you. “I’m sure between the two of us, we’ll figure it out.”

“My knight in shining armour,” you say with a laugh, closing your fingers around his wrist and leading him through the door to your bedroom. You’ve managed to separate all of the individual pieces, but you haven’t made any real progress otherwise. He settles himself down on the floor and reaches for the assembly manual, pursing his lips as he looks at the little baggies of screws and bolts and various other things he doesn’t know the names of.

“Okay.” He frowns, looking back up at you where you’ve kneeled down a couple of feet away. You’re grinning innocently back at him, but Jihoon’s lips are more aligned with a pout. “You maybe should have mentioned that the instructions are in Swedish.”

——-

Ignoring the fact that you can’t understand the directions printed on the flimsy little pieces of paper, you get to work. It’s… an interesting process, but somehow between the pair of you, you successfully manage to assemble the bed in just under two hours by mostly following the diagrams (and having to backtrack several times because Jihoon managed to miss a few steps). At three minutes to nine, you’re both finally standing up off the floor, stretching out stiff joints and tight muscles; the bed is fully assembled and made up with your sheets in the centre of the room, headboard against the back wall, the lamp you set on the dresser casting a pleasant orangey glow on every surface.

“We did it,” you say, a little in shock, a lot exhausted, and absolutely starving. At least, that’s what he assumes you’re feeling, because it’s what he is. “We actually did it.”

“I mean, you did most of it,” Jihoon says. It’s true; at a point, he was just handing you the pieces you asked him for and holding parts steady so that you could fit them together. But if you want to call it a joint effort, he isn’t going to stop you, and the roll of your eyes tells him that you do want to call it that.

“Shh. You helped,” you scold him, bumping his upper arm with your elbow. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“If you say so,” he chuckles, taking another sip of his water. Jihoon isn’t sure he believes you, but the way you’re challenging him to argue further with your tongue pressed against the inside of your cheek scrambles his brain. Any remaining argument dies on his lips. “We make a good team.”

“We do,” you agree, expression shifting into a shy smile, bumping his arm again, your elbow lingering against him for a second longer. “Come on, I think I promised to feed you, too. What are you in the mood for?”

A movie has been playing in the background for about an hour by the time your food arrives and you’ve eaten everything. Jihoon relaxes back against the cushions of the couch and you’re settled comfortably next to him: there’s plenty of space on either side of you both, so there isn’t really any need for you to have your upper arm basically pressing against his, but Jihoon is too comfortable to say anything and you certainly aren’t making any attempts to move away. You shift your legs after about ninety minutes, bringing them up underneath you so your thigh is pressed against his now, as well, and you’re twisted slightly so you’re physically facing him but your head is still turned towards the TV.

Everywhere your clothed body touches him is scorching, and he wonders if maybe he should’ve worn a thinner t-shirt, or at the very least something a little less heavy on his legs. His jeans, slightly tighter around the thighs than perhaps would be their peak level of comfort, are clinging to him everywhere and he’s so aware of himself, so aware of you, of your sweet body wash, your fruity shampoo, every single one of your breaths… He’s cursed people out for breathing too loudly around him before, but he thinks he could replace his white noise machine with an eight hour track of just this and he would sleep like a fucking baby.

One of your elbows is propped against the top of the cushions behind you and you’re resting your head in your palm, and (not for the first time this evening) he glances sideways to look at you. They’ve been fleeting glances thus far, only stealing fractions of a moment before he turns his attention back to the TV. But this? This is the wrong moment. Entirely the wrong fucking moment because as his head turns, so does yours, and you catch him in the act. Fuck, if he thought he was burning up, before? He’s pretty sure he’s somehow just descended straight to the second circle of hell, greeting all the other lusty sinners like old friends. Several of his thoughts tonight have been considerably impure, and in this half second of blistering eye contact, they all come rushing back.

The universe is really testing him this evening, and Jihoon is stumbling. It feels like any minute now, he’s going to explode.

He straightens his spine and looks back at the TV, trying to force his eyes to focus even though he’s completely swallowed by the feeling of your arm straightening across the back of the couch, your fingertips grazing over the skin at the bottom of his hairline. He can feel your eyes still on him, your gaze burning into his cheek, no doubt following as his tongue darts out subconsciously over his lips. But he can’t quite help himself, can’t get the image of how sweet you looked out of his head; he clears his throat quietly and looks over at you again, coming over almost completely blank the second he notices the glimmer your eyes hold when they’re trained on him.

Any. Fucking. Minute.

“Jihoon, I-…” you start to say, and he turns himself a little bit so that he’s facing you better, completely forgetting about the movie now. That’s not a great loss: he couldn’t explain the plot even if he tried. “I don’t know if-… you can tell me if I’ve read you wrong…”

“You haven’t,” he hurries. Relief starts to ease the tension between your brows, before you scrunch them again and cock your head to the side. “I’m sure you haven’t, I mean.”

In this new position, one of his legs is bent and sitting up on the couch beneath him and you’ve adjusted your own posture to accommodate. Your knee sits just over the top of his, more of your impossible body heat radiating through his clothes, and he glances down at the site of contact before he looks back at you.

“I just-... I don’t know, I think I knew I was interested in you from the first time I saw you, but the last few weeks especially…” You’ve been rehearsing this. He can feel it. It’s written in your eyes, holding the weight of the words you’re struggling to say, and behind them he can see cogs turning as you try to get the words in the right order. (He knows how that goes, because he’s been trying to figure out how to tell you, too.) He nods, urging you to keep going.

“I can’t get you out of my head. I really like you.”

He short-circuits, then. Even though part of him knew what you were going to say, hearing it out loud flips a switch inside him and he stops functioning. Blinking at you slowly, lips parted, heart racing – he feels as if his brain has been sucked clean out of his ears and is floating somewhere way above his head. Way outside of a contactable range, way beyond any level of rational decision-making. Jihoon knows what he wants to say, of course – he knows that he wants to say that he likes you, and that he has for a while, and that maybe you should let him take you out on a date or something, but all of that sits just behind the barrier of his teeth, so…

He leans forward and kisses you, instead.

He almost can’t believe that he’s only wanted this for as short of a time as he has; it feels like it’s been building inside him for so much longer. Relief floods through his veins, the emotional dam finally breaching. It only lasts a few seconds, but with his lips pressed to yours and yours pressing back, the static in his brain goes quiet, the movie falls silent: everything stops, except you. He thinks you could’ve been carved from stone around each other — he thinks something just feels so inexplicably right. Your hand tightens in his hair and he gasps softly as he pulls an inch back, eyes heavily lidded and looking straight at you through his lashes. You move forward, leaning your forehead against his, and the feather-light hold he has on your chin slides up to your cheek instead.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know how to-…” he says after a long, long moment of remembering how to breathe, how to blink, how to exist in your space without combusting on the spot. He still isn’t sure he knows how to do any of those things, especially not now he can see every single line of your face this close. He’s trying, though. “But — shit, I’m crazy about you.”

You kiss him, then, harder than before, colliding in a mess of half-finished breaths and bumped, stinging noses. His other hand comes up to sit against your rib cage, yours pressing into the material of his t-shirt over his chest. He smiles and parts his lips as yours move against them, your tongue gently sweeping into his mouth, finding his own; a soft, low moan tickles the back of his throat, his fingertips curling slightly to tighten his hold.

Jihoon isn’t sure how you end up on your knees, straddled astride his legs with one of his hands tucked between your thigh and calf, the other on the curve of your ass — he just knows that he doesn’t mind one bit. You’re warm and comfortable, the arch of your back pressing you into him deliciously. He’s kissing you like his life depends on it (he really fears that it might), and you’re doing the same back, licking against his tongue and rocking slightly with every separation and reconnection of your lips. He feels your fingers brush at the hem of his t-shirt and slip just underneath at the same moment as you pull away from him, and he’s so dazed, so fuzzy, so lost in you that he can only tilt his head back to stare up at your face. In your current position, you’re towering over him. It’s easily the best view he’s ever had.

“Can I-…?” you ask breathlessly. The new roughness to your voice goes straight to his cock and he has to restrain himself from bucking his hips upwards.

“Yeah,” he says, leaning forward slightly to try and aid you. Your hands tug at the bottom of his shirt and peel it up over his chest: he raises his arms slightly and soon, you can toss it to the unoccupied side of the couch. He shivers slightly as he relaxes back, both at the chill in your unheated apartment and upon noticing the way you’re staring down at him. It’s addictive.

“Oh my God,” you whisper, jaw a little slack, smoothing your hands over his shoulders to feel every ridge of hard-earned muscle. You travel down his arms, over to his chest, down his stomach… Jihoon sucks in a breath, your warm hands absolutely searing against his skin, and his abdominals tighten beneath them. Tilting your head, you press a line of kisses down the side of his neck, your lips brushing against one almost unbearably sensitive spot when you continue. “Fuck, you’re so hot.”

He smiles bashfully, rolling his head to the side and giving you all the access you want. Your lips tickle euphorically against him as he tugs you flush against his chest, both his hands now tightly pressing against your ass, fingers kneading the muscle concealed by your pants. You’re sitting right over his clothed cock and he’s reasonably sure he can feel your pulse between your thighs, letting out a soft grunt when you roll your hips deliberately down into his own. Your kisses travel to the swell at the curve of his shoulder before moving back up to his lips, where he meets you with a fire that he’s never kissed anyone with, before.

“Says you,” he murmurs into your mouth, your teeth clashing, his hips pushing slightly up off the couch. Just enough to make you sit back from him, just enough for Jihoon to open his eyes and look at you. His hair, thoroughly scrunched up and pulled around by your desperately gripping fingers, fans out at all sorts of angles and his chest has taken on a rosy hue since you last looked at it. With swollen, shiny lips, glossy eyes, breathing deep, he looks completely blissed out, like a man who could unravel beneath you if you moved just right. All from a little tongue action. He’d usually feel embarrassed, but it’s hard to when you’re the person on top of him; to be honest, neither of you would mind much if he did.

You’re pushing yourself up and off him before he can really get his bearings and an audible whine of despair parts his lips at the loss of your weight against his cock. Fuck, these jeans were a bad idea: he’s straining against the denim so much that it hurts, and there’s a near perfect outline of his hard-on. He stops pouting the second you take hold of his hand and tug him upright, though, your eyes dark and determined and intense. He thinks he might faint, actually: from standing too fast and feeling as though all the blood in his body is pulsing through his aching dick, he has to take a moment to stop the edges of his vision going dark before you’re pulling him through to your bedroom.

Something flips inside him the second you have him there. Jihoon, who was more than happy to sit beneath you and let you take all the control in the living room, is pushing you back onto the mattress by your shoulder and slotting himself between your parted thighs the moment the door is closed behind him. He’s past the point of wanting you, now: he needs you, and he needs you to need him, too.

And God, do you. You prop yourself up on one elbow, staring at where he’s now leaning over you with wide eyes and your bottom lip drawn between your teeth. He bends down and kisses along your jawline in response, nipping gently just below your ear. Your back arches up and in a flash, one of his hands is beneath you, snapping open the clasp on your bra with a few slides of his fingers.

“Wh-…” you start, giggling and panting at the same time. He smirks against your pulse point.

He flattens his tongue against you and licks a salty bead of sweat off your skin. “What?”

“Had no idea you could-…” You’re cut off by a gasp as one of his hands slides under your sweater, slipping beneath the garment he just unfastened. His fingertips graze over your breast and a pleading sob escapes you. His smile grows even wider. “You were so…”

“So what?” he prompts, pinching your nipple between his thumb and forefinger. Another one of those beautiful sounds breaks the air above you. He does it again, massaging your breast with the palm of his hand. “Come on… talk to me.”

“So good,” you gasp, lying down flat and tilting your head back against the pillows. He rocks forwards to press his cock against you again and your thighs tighten around his hips, one leg hooking around his to keep him there. “So-… fucking good.”

You’re so impossibly irresistible to him, especially like this, and he sits up, settling on his knees to look down at you. Jihoon doesn’t even get the chance to move his hands towards the hem of your sweater to tug it off you though: you’re already grabbing it yourself, crossing your arms to pull it over the top of your head. He can see your bra now, and hell, it’s pretty even if it is just hanging off you. Baby pink and lacy. He thumbs over the material as he helps you pull it down your arms, briefly letting himself wonder if-…

“If only you’d been patient enough to see the set together.”

Oh, so you can read his mind now, too?

You glance down to the small space between your bodies and his eyes follow, lips slightly parted, a heavy sigh on his breath. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck — he wishes he had. Even imagining it, he’s throbbing.

“You wear all this for me?” he asks, hands creeping up the insides of your thighs. You nod up at him and he smiles down at you. “Fuck. I bet you didn’t even need my help tonight at all, did you?”

You’re bucking your hips now as his thumb brushes, agonisingly slowly, over your clothed cunt. One arm has come up to cover your face: for the first time, he acts on his impulsive need to see you shy, see you needy, and leans over you to gently pull it away and pins your wrist down against the mattress. He kisses you, his fingers on the other hand pressing slightly more firmly to where he’s pretty sure your clit is.

“Y/n, you’re so pretty. Let me see you.”

“I didn’t,” you admit, voice wobbling as he works you up so much you’re actually soaking through not just your pretty underwear, but the leggings you’ve had on all night, too. He can feel it against the pad of his thumb and he raises his eyebrows for you to continue. “Just… really wanted you to come over…”

“Mhm. I know,” he soothes, bending low again and kissing down towards your chest. His lips purse over one of your nipples and he sucks it up into his mouth, flicking his tongue over the bud. He releases your wrist with the hand currently taking most of his weight and leans on his elbow, teasing your other tit with his fingers. The weight of it in his palm has him murmuring soft praises against your skin, telling you over and over how good you feel. You push up onto your elbows to try and press him closer — when his teeth tug just slightly, you’re about ready to beg.

“Jihoon, please,” you murmur. He short-circuits, again. Goes blank. His name has always sounded so much sweeter on your tongue, but this? This? Oh, he doesn’t know if he’s ever going to recover. That sound is going to stick in his head for days, months, forever, if he has anything to say about it. But even if his brain isn’t working, his body moves on autopilot: he sits up and hooks his fingers under your waistband, pulling your pants down your legs and discarding them onto the floor.

He’s staring between your thighs with zero functioning brain cells and literal galaxies in his eyes, trying to figure out what cosmic miracle brought someone like you into his life, how on Earth he’s ended up between your thighs. The question is so overwhelming in his mind that he barely notices that you’re moving, at first. Jihoon doesn’t know what causes you to try and bring your thighs together — if it’s shyness or arousal, desperation, a search for friction? — but he stops you as soon as he realises, laying a hand on each of your legs, pinning your knees down now, instead.

“Keep your legs wide for me?” he asks, to which you punctuate a nod with an assenting hum. “Good girl.”

You’re so wet that when he strokes two fingers over your covered pussy, pressing the fabric of your panties into your heat, they come away thinly coated in the arousal that’s seeped through them. He brings his fingers to his lips then, eyes fluttering as he licks your slick off them. You taste otherworldly and he doesn’t hesitate to tell you so with a groan.

“God,” he murmurs, tugging at the waistband of your panties with his other hand. His eyes ask if you’re ready — if you’re sure, and when you nod down at him, he pulls them off completely too. His middle finger slips between your folds, collecting the wetness dribbling out of you, and he drags it slowly upwards towards your clit. He repositions himself again, leaning down over you with his head at your neck, the heel of his hand resting against your lower abdomen. He draws small circles over the bud, laying open-mouthed kisses at your collarbone and listening to the gorgeous sounds you make, learning what you like, following each gasp and moan and chasing as many of them as he can draw out of you.

At the same time as you start rocking your hips up to meet his hand, your nails scratching gently against his scalp again, Jihoon slips his finger down from your swollen clit to press it inside you. You gasp, high-pitched and needy, your cunt spasming around his finger and pulling it in deeper. He’s only in up to his second knuckle but the way you keen for him has him pushing further until it’s buried inside your pussy completely.

“S’this okay?” he asks, but he knows your answer thanks to your vocal responses to him already slowly easing his finger in and out, in and out. You nod your head almost aggressively as he glances up at your face, your eyes squeezed tightly shut, jaw tense, throat bobbing as you swallow hard.

“More — please,” you say not long after. A breath hitches in your throat when he does exactly what you ask, pressing the heel of his hand against your clit and positioning another finger at your entrance. He flexes his wrist slightly to get comfortable, pumping both fingers into you now, and he curls them upwards at just the right time to make your back arch off the bed. “Fuck — mhm, just like that—…”

He moves down your body slightly, reattaching his lips to one of your nipples as he fingers you deep and slow. He’s in no rush: Jihoon thinks he could do this all day and just deal with the RSI later on. You look so unbelievably hot with your face scrunched in pleasure, your thighs quivering as you fight to keep them apart like he asked you to, with your hips twisting down against his hand to try and get his fingers deeper and faster. When he lowers himself all the way down, settling completely between your thighs, he flicks his tongue out over your clit and your back arches up off the bed with a gasp.

“Don’t stop,” you whine, all high-pitched and rushed, both syllables merging into one hurried sound. “Fuck, fuck — please, don’t stop.”

“I’m not going to,” he murmurs, keeping pace and rhythm as he works you towards your high. God, he thinks there couldn’t possibly be anything in the world more sexy than watching you come undone from this angle. Your chest rising and falling in stuttered breaths, your hips rocking down against his hand, your pussy right on his mouth. Just the thought of it has his cock jumping in his boxers. “You gonna come for me, huh?”

“I-…” you start, releasing your death-grip on the bedsheets to bring a hand to cover your face. He clears his throat deliberately — perhaps it’s sort of closer to a growl than a cough — and he thinks maybe you really can read his mind, or maybe you’re learning that he wants to see every inch of you (especially like this), because a second later, it’s tangled up in his hair and holding him in place. “Y-yeah, fuck, I…”

“Good girl,” he coos again, and that breaks you. Your pussy tightens around his fingers and you feel yourself convulse, muscles clenching and releasing as you go over the edge with a cry. He eases you through your climax, tongue laving over your clit, fingers slowing but not stopping inside your cunt until your thighs close around his head in your oversensitivity. He takes the hint, then, and he slowly pulls away, sucking his fingers clean of your arousal while you take a few breaths to recover.

“Oh, my God,” you sigh as he moves back up and starts pressing small pecks over your chest and collarbones, your fingers lacing through his hair again to pull him up to kiss you. You groan softly at the taste of yourself on his lips, and can’t blame you. He still isn’t over it, either.

“You’re so gorgeous,” he tells you in-between kisses, one hand supporting the back of your neck to keep you close. “So pretty. So sweet. So good.”

“Shh,” you giggle, but he doesn’t. Just about every adoring adjective Jihoon has in his arsenal is murmured against your lips until you’ve gathered enough strength to get up on your knees and push him back onto the mattress, fumbling with the button of his jeans.

He groans at the relief as you tug them down over his hips and thighs. “We don’t have to do anything else if you’re—”

“Shh.�� This one’s a little more insistent, and he makes a show of clamping his lips back together. “You wore the tightest jeans on the planet, had your cock on-fucking-display for me all evening, and you think I wanna stop now?”

His jaw falls slack at the words that come out of your mouth. The incredulous way with which you say them has him involuntarily bucking up into nothing. Your expression matches his when you finally get his jeans all the way off and his thin, black boxer-briefs are the only barrier between you. The outline of his cock strains against them, tenting the fabric: Jihoon doesn’t miss the way you lick over your lips before glancing up at him through your eyelashes. It’s your turn to give him the look, now, asking that this last part is okay, with your fingertips hooked underneath the elastic waistband. He nods feverishly up at your heavy gaze.

“Please,” he groans, lifting his hips so you can pull them off. His length springs free the moment they’re pulled low enough, slapping back against his abdomen, sitting pretty against his toned muscles, thick and veiny and red-tipped. Desperate. His underwear joins the pile of clothes down the side of the bed as you throw one leg over him; sitting across his thighs, you take his cock into your hand, giving it a few gentle strokes. He fucks up into your palm when you squeeze your fingers around it.

“I need you so fucking bad,” you murmur, head spinning, and Jihoon isn’t in much of a better state himself; he’s fighting to keep his eyes open, fighting to keep his breaths coming. He sits upright, one arm behind him for support, and kisses you hard as you continue to tug at his length.

“Need you, too,” he breathes, shifting so he has both arms around you. In a swift movement, muscles rippling, he lifts you off him and turns you over so he has you sitting on your now impossibly scrunched comforter.

He finds home back between your legs as you reach over into the drawer at your bedside and fumble around for a few seconds. He hears a little clatter and a rustling and when your hand resurfaces, you’ve pulled free a small foil square. You don’t even give him a chance to lean forward and take it; you’re ripping it open and looking up at him with the biggest doe-eyed stare he thinks he’s ever seen. He nods at the silent question, a grunt tumbling free as you roll the condom down his length. This is the most pathetic little bit of contact and he’s fighting demons.

“Okay?” he asks, shuffling back a little and giving you space to lie down flat on your back. You nod up at him, already wrapping your arms around his shoulders.

“Mhm, just-... take it slow?” you ask him, anticipation rendering you already a little breathless. “S’been a while.”

A grin blooms all the way from his lips to his eyes and he leans down to kiss you again, positioning his tip at your hole and pressing forward just enough to tease.

Your thighs tighten around his hips and he pushes himself further inside you with a stuttered groan, agonisingly slowly, inch by inch. He stills every few seconds, both to give you the time to adjust and so that he can take a steadying few breaths and not collapse at how good you feel wrapped around him; he stops pressing his hips forward before he’s fully sheathed inside your pussy and you let a whine slip, the stretch slowly easing.

“You can move,” you tell him, laying a kiss to his chest. “I’m okay.”

Jihoon gives a soft laugh. Oh, he wishes this was just to be polite, but no. He’s in real danger of losing control any second. “Yeah, this isn’t for you, baby.”

“Oh?” you ask. You clamp around him and he gasps at the tightness, hips jerking forward until he’s buried up to the hilt. Fuck, there’s a bruised cervix if you’ve ever had one; a high-pitched whine erupts out of your lips and he ducks his head down to your ear.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “You just-... fuck, you feel so good.”

“Mm, says you.”

It’s another moment before he thrusts with intent, though. But when he does? When he pulls out halfway before sliding all the way back inside you, losing and regaining the feeling of your heat enveloping him entirely, hearing your gasps against his collarbone? The invisible reigns holding him back unravel and he settles into a slow but intensely deep rhythm, guiding your legs around his waist. You hook your ankles behind his back and somehow, you suck him in deeper still, your bodies touching everywhere they possibly can, so impossibly close.

The arm not holding his weight slides beneath your hips and raises them just a little. Now, at this angle, every time he rolls into you he grazes against your sweet-spot and you’re reduced to an incoherent mess within a few minutes. Good, he thinks, because he’s not doing much better, himself.

You hug him tighter after one particularly well-angled thrust, sinking your teeth into the muscle of his shoulder. He hisses at the sting, and your lips part as if you’re about to apologise but he doesn’t give you the chance to; he bumps your nose with his own to ask you to lift your head slightly, before he bends down and kisses you hard.

“Do that again,” he gasps, almost all of his weight against you as the hand not around your hips comes up to rest on your cheek. When your brows tighten, he swipes his thumb over your spit-covered, swollen lips. “Please. ”

So, you do.

Maybe not as harshly as the first time, but your teeth find his collarbone and you suck a bruise into his skin, drawing from him the highest pitched sound you think he could possibly make. He squares his jaw, ducking his head back down, biting on his bottom lip before he has no choice but to speak.

“I’m close, y/n,” he confesses, fucking into you slower, trying to stave it off for a few more seconds, his hips stuttering. “Can-... can you give me one more…?”

You nod, the knot in your stomach already growing tighter and tighter with every movement he makes, and when one of your hands unwinds from around his back to slide between your sweat-slicked bodies, he moves slightly away, letting you reach down.

It’s the sight of two of your fingers finding your clit and rubbing your favourite movements out on yourself that takes him past the point of no return, his cock sliding in and out of you messily, desperately, chasing the high that he’s right on the brink of. He kisses and nips just below your ear, breathy groans tickling your neck, and your high-pitched whine tells him you’ve hit your orgasm just as he starts to spill his into the condom, gushing around him, your walls fluttering and milking him for all he’s worth.

—

You offer for him to shower first – an offer he gratefully accepts. While you’re taking your turn afterwards, Jihoon hunts down a fresh duvet cover in your room; he changes it, grabs you a glass of water for when you’re done, and sits on the edge of his bed with just the towel wrapped around his waist, scrolling through his phone. He looks up with a bright grin as the door opens and you emerge through it in your pyjamas, glowing from the light behind you, stray droplets of water clinging to your arms.

You pause gently rubbing your hair dry with the towel, eyes brightening when you see him. “You didn’t have to do all this,” you say, and he pushes a hand through his own still damp hair with a laugh.

“It was the least I could do,” he counters. You raise your eyebrows at him, crossing the room to sit opposite him. He drops his phone down onto the mattress. “I couldn’t leave and make you change them yourself.”

“Leave?” you ask, picking up one of his hands and playing idly with his fingers.

“I mean, it’s getting pretty late, so…” he says. “I probably need to get going at some point.”

“Or…” you say, tongue darting out over your lips. “Maybe you don’t.”

Jihoon looks down at your hands, then back up at you. Are you suggesting what he thinks you are, or has he still not quite come back to himself from earlier? It’s hard to say if the look on your face is hope, or something else.

“Are you… asking me to stay?” he asks.

“Only if you want to,” you tell him. He lifts your hands up, pressing a kiss to one of your knuckles, then using it to tug you closer to him until he can plant one on your own lips. “I’ve probably got an old t-shirt you could sleep in.”

“Of course I want to.”

So you slip away from him to go rummaging through your drawers, trying to find the promised article of clothing. The whole time, he’s awestruck. Jihoon can’t take his eyes off you.

——————

He wakes up next to you for the first time on a Saturday morning. His sleep-fogged brain registers lying on an unfamiliar mattress, tucked beneath new bedsheets, eyes fluttering open to take in a room he doesn’t quite recognise at first. Part of him wonders if he’s still dreaming. When he rolls over onto his side, and his eyes land on the curve of your shoulders, the fall of your hair down your back, he has to ask himself the same thing again.

All of last night must’ve been a dream, he muses, smiling shyly to himself and watching your frame rise and fall with every slow breath you take. There’s no way you really told him you liked him, too. There’s no way any of it could have really happened.

“Y/n?” He asks in the gentlest of whispers, only wanting to stir you if you’re awake already. When there’s no response, he moves a tiny bit closer to you, hesitating before he slips his arm around your waist and settles with his chest pressed against your back. A wildly insecure part of his brain tries to argue that just because you wanted what happened last night, that doesn’t mean you want all of this now. Maybe you only wanted to sleep with him, or maybe you’ll have changed your mind somehow now the sun’s come up. He considers moving away again, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling until you wake up and he can have a real conversation about where both of your heads are at with everything, but he barely gets a chance.

Those thoughts are silenced almost immediately, his brain falling quiet the second you roll over in his arms. You bury your head in the valley between his pectorals, tucked away from the world beneath his chin. His arms tighten around your sleep-warmed body.

“What time is it?” You ask. He contains a shiver at the softness of your voice, bliss running the length of his spine. Jihoon thinks that he could get used to this.

“I don’t know. Early, I think,” he murmurs, and you whine softly, burrowing deeper against his chest. “Go back to sleep.”

“Not if you’re awake,” you say. He’s not entirely convinced you can stick to that promise, though, with the way you yawn and he feels your eyelashes fluttering.

“Don’t worry about me,” he tells you, the tips of his fingers ticking against your side. He ducks his head, pressing a kiss to your hair. A soft hum rumbles in your throat and he can’t hold back the smile that spreads over his lips. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”

True enough, you fall back asleep curled up against him and Jihoon, to the sounds of your slowing breaths, drifts off too. A few hours later, at a far more reasonable time, you wake him up with a press of your lips to the tip of his nose.

Innocent, exploratory kisses grow heated in the warmth of the sun that streams through your blinds. Hands start to travel, sleep clothes get discarded, and you have him lying on his back, pressing kisses down his chiselled stomach when his phone starts to vibrate on the floor next to the bed.

He groans at the distraction, again as you shuffle up to sit on your knees and look at him expectantly.

“Are you gonna answer that?” you ask, the tips of your fingers grazing his thighs. He shakes his head, no. “Come on, Jihoon. It might be important.”

“Not important enough,” he sighs.

“At least see who it is,” you laugh. Despite a huffed protest, he props himself up on one elbow, leaning over the side of the bed and glancing down at his phone screen.

Seungcheol.

The arrangement to go for a run this morning comes rushing back to Jihoon, who slaps a hand to his forehead and reaches down to grab his phone off the floor, looking at you apologetically.

“Give me two seconds,” he says, and you grin wickedly up at him, ducking low to press a kiss to one of the lines that disappears down into his boxers.

“Take all the time you need.”

He answers the call frowning, flopping his head back against the pillows.

“Hey, look – I’m really sorry,” he starts to say, but Seungcheol’s voice cuts him off almost straight away.

“Jihoon, where the hell are you? I got to your apartment and your car wasn’t here, and Seokmin said he didn’t hear you come home last night. We all thought you’d died,” he hurries. Jihoon can picture the expression on the other man’s face perfectly, which is pretty unfortunate seeing as how you’ve moved to start palming his hardening cock through his briefs.

“I stayed out,” Jihoon says, a little wobbly. “I can’t make the run, someth-... shit.” You press an open-mouthed kiss to the outline of his length, the heat of your breath through the fabric sending him into overdrive. “Something came up-...”

The line goes silent for a second, and his breath stutters as you do the same thing again. Each press of your lips is euphoric agony, and he’s really not hiding this as well as he wishes he could. One look down at you tells him that you’re very proud of that.

“Dude,” Seungcheol gasps, snickering suddenly. “Tell me you’re not with a girl right now.”

“Shut up. Go away,” Jihoon grunts. “I’ll call you later.”

“Oh my God, is it gym girl? Did you finally-...”

“Bye, Cheol,” he hurries, hanging up before his friend can say anything else. He drops his phone onto the mattress, fake-glaring down at you and shaking his head. “You’re the worst, you know that?”

“Yeah?” you ask, pulling at the waistband of his briefs to tug them down his legs. “Let me make it up to you, huh?”

#woozi smut #svt smut #seventeen smut #lee jihoon smut #woozi x reader #lee jihoon x reader #??? how do i tag anything lmao #running away now it's nearly 2am lmao BYE #j writes.#*

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sirenologyyy · 4 months

Text

RIGHT SIDE OF MY NECK!

neteyam x fem!metkayina reader

✧ summary : a certain sully boy can't admit he's smitten by one of the daughters of the olo'eyktan, but why would he? he's calculated and discerning and she's everything he wished he was.

✧ warnings : swearing (that's pretty much it LMAO)

✧ author's note : neteyam's 15, reader is older than tsireya by a year or so, some much needed lo'ak and neteyam brotherly bonding (after the trauma inducing hellscape that was atwow), lo'ak talking like a regular teenage boy, and in honor of it being December again, may i present to you, a neteyam fic that has been rotting in my drafts since April 🤩

A gravelly groan escapes your lips as your hands managed to shield your face, almost to hide yourself from the undisputable truth that you, along with your Tsireya, and your older brother Ao'nung had been roped into the evident mess that was to teach the children of Toruk Makto the ways of the Metkayina.

You weren't as prejudiced as Ao'nung, sneering at the Sully children whenever he'd run into them, so meticulously influenced by your mother's dislike towards Skypeople, let alone the Omaticaya.

You weren't as welcoming as your younger sister, who had greeted them with big grins that only further accentuated her dimples and her devout willingness to help Toruk Makto's family in any way she could. While you had resorted to mirthless smiles and polite nods whenever you'd come across one of them, it was unnatural, yes, Ao'nung was quite unfair with his treatment towards them, yes, but Tsireya's overall cheer and joviality was something you could not for the life of you reciprocate.

You were fine with them being here, although you couldn't say the same for most of your people.

The only real thorn in your side was the oldest.

Neteyam.

Oh how your blood boiled whenever you'd spot him in the crowd. Always so eager to help, so eager to please, so perfect, so good, it made you want to punch the living daylights out of him... Well, only slightly, that may be an exaggeration. Your hate for him might be particularly irrational but valid in all the worst ways.

"Can't you tell them I've been bitten by something?"

"No" Tsireya snorts.

"I've slipped collecting coconuts and dislocated my ankle"

"Stop moving so much sister, or I will mess up your hair"

It was like he was so anxious about keeping up the golden boy facade, what a show off, you thought. Going out of his way to help any way he could, helping carry baskets of dried fish across the village, pushing heavy boats off to sea, weaving baskets, seeing to the ilus, even the tsuraks at one point. It infuriated you. What did he had to gain?

If there was one thing you despised, it was try-hards.

And Neteyam Sully was the bane of your existence.

"Oh!" You had exclaimed, snapping your fingers. "You can tell them I have fallen off my ilu and got ripped apart by an akula"

Tsireya laughed. "Yes, like they would believe me"

With another scoff, you stare st your sister through the mirror, so engrossed in the braiding technique you'd requested for her to do on your hair. "I don't see why you're bringing me into your affairs sister, it is clear as day you only want to help out the Forest People because you like the way that boy kept looking at you yesterday"

Tsireya tugs at your half-finished braid, making you swear and rub at your head, bringing Tsireya some amusement out of this. "Now, be quiet, be still, let me do my job"

With a sour mood, you allow Tsireya to thread the shells you requested she put in, sitting up straighter. "Your job in being an absolute bitch?"

Tsireya sighs again, feeling her slump in frustration behind you. "Do you think it is so easy a job for me to constantly deal with your attitude?"

A smirk comes to your face as Tsireya knots your braid off. "Don't worry, all your efforts will be seen by Eywa, she might even make the boy tell you your hair looks nice today"

"Enough, Y/N" Tsireya says, standing up from her seat.

You stood as well, hooking your arm around Tsireya's as you left your pod. "Oh let me have my fun"

A dozen morbid thoughts suddenly flood Tsireya's mind. "If we do that I am afraid there will be nothing left of Awa'atlu when you are finished"

When you arrive, you immediately spot both the brothers sitting on the edge of the woven platform, their long legs dangling just above the water. They looked to be so immersed in a conversation that neither of them noticed you or Tsireya approach them, only when they were about 4 feet apart was when you clicked your tongue against the roof of your mouth.

"Oh great mother, is it just the two of you?" Says you, making both the boys stand up like springs.

"No, our sisters are coming, they aren't exactly good at being early to things" says the younger one, his eyes flicking to Tsireya every now and then, making you dizzy trying to hold eye contact with the boy.

"Hey Tsireya" He finally says, nodding at her sister who laughs again. It took everything in you not to start dry-heaving in front of them.

"Why do you sound so disappointed?" Neteyam wonders, another smirk playing at his thin lips as he looks at you.

Your forehead creases. "I am nothing of the sort, what about you? What has gotten you so chipper?"

"Nothing all that special, really" He replied, not even convincing himself.

You heftily exhaled through your nose, moving away from the group and walking up on the platform, taking one of the seaweed bands on your arm to bunch your hair up just to get it out of your face. Once you'd pull your hair through the band the final time, you turned around just to see Neteyam's head turn away, almost like it was a chain reaction.

You placed your hands over the dip of your hips, facing the odd group. "Now, where has our dear brother wandered off to? It's almost noon and he is nowhere in sight"

This makes the rest of them look around for Ao'nung, even the two brothers who you'd assumed wanted nothing to do with him after your brother had showed his blatant contempt towards them after he'd ridiculed them during their arrival.

"He must still be with Rotxo and the others, we must be patient" says Tsireya.

Your mind remained closed, throwing your hands up in the air only for them to land on her hips with a thwack. "We both know Ao'nung does not move like the tide, he is too stubborn, too hard in the head " you found yourself saying, prodding a finger at your forehead.

"Patience, sister" Tsireya admonishes calmly, making her way towards you as you placed your hands on the identation of your woven skirt. "We must not rush things, we allow things to come to us at their own pace"

"Alright, alright" you tell her half-heartedly.

"Hey! Sorry, are we late?"

You turn her head to spot the two Sully sisters jogging up to the beach, the youngest out of all of them went straight for Neteyam, watching as he scooped her up with no hesitation. "Where in Eywa's name were you two?" Neteyam wonders, eyeing his sisters curiously.

The older girl rolled her eyes, pointing her chin at the youngest. "Couldn't decide on which skirt she wanted to wear"

The little girl pouts. "I didn't know which one I wanted!" She protested, her ears drooping down.

"She had two to choose from" the older sister groaned. Eyes finding yours as her grin widens, you chuckle to yourselves, having sisters was never a dull moment.

You two had bonded over that when you first helped her with her chores, although she seemed reluctant at first she accepted. Neither of you got anything done as you both found that snacking on dried seaweed and exchanging stories about your lives proved to be more fun.

"Maybe he isn't coming" says Neteyam's younger brother, subtly inching towards Tsireya while keeping everyone under the impression that he was trying to find Ao'nung just like she was, but in truth, all he wanted was to stand beside her. Tsireya didn't pick up on it at all, being the oblivious person she was, but Neteyam did, quietly chuckling to himself as he puts Tuk down, watching as she sprints towards the sand at full speed.

You shook your head at the sound of Tsireya's giggles and walks off the diving platform as well, making your way towards the beach to stretch your legs, walking along the coastline trying to kill time. That is until something tugs at your skirt, you turned around to see who it was but then looks down to see Neteyam's youngest sister, proudly holding a small conch shell in her hands, beaming up at you.

"They look just like the ones in your hair!" She exclaimed, a gigantic grin spreading across her face as you crouched to her level, taking the shell from her hands to study it. "It's a light purple, you don't have any purple shells yet"

"You're right, I don't have any purple shells in my hair yet do I?" You say in genuine amazement, holding it up against the sun, feeling the little girl scoot closer to you, but the shell had suddenly started to sprout 6 legs and you dropped it, startled by the animal and by the little girl's scream, you watch as it scurries back into the water, gone forever.

You turned back to the little girl who was visibly upset, another frown slowly forming on her face before you placed your hands on the little girl's shoulders. "Hey, we'll find another one around here somewhere, don't be upset"

She huffed, her shoulders rising and falling. "I didn't know there was something inside it, I really didn't"

You shook your head. "Neither did I, we both didn't know" you assured the younger girl, cupping her round face as her frown slowly started to shift into a smile. "Look, if we need to do this properly and find shells for my hair, I'm gunna need to know your name"

"Tuk!" She says. "My name's Tuk!"

"It's very nice to meet you Tuk"

"Really?" She giggled as you nodded. "What about you? What's your name?"

You beckoned her closer with a simple gesture of your fingers as you whispered your name into her ear.

"You've got a very pretty name" Tuk whispers as well, hiding her face behind her hands as she giggled.

"So do you" You had whispered all the same.

Tuk then looks back at the diving platform, and then back at you. "Y'know I think my brother is staring at you"

"Oh yeah? Why do you think that is so?"

The little girl scratches her head. "I don't know, he only stares at things he thinks looks nice or looks weird"

You grinned. "Does your brother think I look nice or weird?"

Tuk blinks. "I don't think you look weird"

"Would he think that?" Ka'leia emphasized.

"Probably" Tuk replies honestly, looking back at the diving platform again. "Why else does he keep staring at you?"

It made you think, it made your mind spiral into the bottomless void of memories in which you had caught a pair of warm amber eyes catch yours, and every time you did it made your heart stutter, however unfortunate it may be. "I'm not so sure either"

"Neteyam's weird" Tuk deduced.

You snort. "Yeah, he's weird"

Silence settles between you, but not for long as Tuk takes your hand and pulls you up. "Can we go and find shells now? Then we can put them in your hair! Then you'll look pretty!"

"Am I not pretty now?"

"No, not really" says Tuk, swinging your interlocked arms back and forth as her wide eyes scanned the sand.

"No?" You wonder almost scandalised, "alright " you nod.

You and Tuk spent a good couple of minutes digging holes on the beach to fish out the shells that had been buried underneath the sand, conch shells, shards of shells, fossils, rocks, bits and pieces of coral, if it was pretty enough for Tuk's standards she's adding it to her pile.

5 minutes later you're following her around with an armful of tiny shells, half the beach full of holes from Tuk and her makeshift shovel that had originally been a branch, with her screaming in delight when she's spotted another one, hurriedly running to you to add it in with the rest.

Lo'ak abruptly places his hands on Neteyam's shoulders, purposefully trying to scare him but Neteyam does not flinch at all. "Yo bro, you got a staring problem or something?" He wonders in English, stepping beside Neteyam to look out into the beach too.

"You done flirting with Tsireya?" Neteyam shot back.

Lo'ak huffed. "Pfft, me? Tsireya?"

"I know your tell, your tail's a dead giveaway"

Lo'ak laughs, punching Neteyam's shoulder, finally making the older boy turn to face him. "Yo! Shut your ass up!"

Neteyam chuckles. "No one else here understands English bro, we're fine!"

Lo'ak shook his head. "I'm not worried about the Metkayina, I'm worried about that devil right there" He says, pointing at the beach.

Neteyam looks at the direction where Lo'ak was pointing. "Who? Tuk?

"She's got spot on hearing, incredible memory," Lo'ak listed. "If I'd have known how much of a tattletail she'd be I'd have abandoned her in the forest when she was a baby"

Neteyam frowns, laughing. "Yes, and when I'd get home I'd find your extra finger in my stew"

Lo'ak grimaces, almost gagging as Neteyam wiggles one of his fingers at him. "Disgusting!"

Neteyam cackles loudly, watching as Lo'ak covered his mouth. "You're overreacting!" He tells him.

"Nah bro, you don't get to fill my mind with those kinda thoughts" Lo'ak says.

Neteyam places a hand on his back. "Face it baby bro, i'm in your head"

Lo'ak pushes it away, chuckling. "Lay off!"

"Will you two ever go a day without fighting eachother?" Kiri asks, giving them a look.

"Not sure" says Lo'ak. "But I wouldn't hold my breath"

Kiri rolled her eyes and Lo'ak turns to Neteyam again. "If Ao'nung isn't coming then we might as well fetch him, if you catch my drift"

Neteyam shakes his head, his braids swishing from side to side. "No, we will do no such thing"

Lo'ak half shrugs, already moving away. "Fine, if you won't then I will"

Neteyam grabs his arm, stopping his brother in his tracks. "Hey, what did dad say?"

He pretends to think. "Not sure, something about you being the next poster boy of the clan?"

Neteyam flicks a finger on Lo'ak's forehead, making the younger boy hiss. "No, you skxawng, he wants us to be on our best behavior, and I don't want to be stopping you from pulling another shitty stunt that'll get you in trouble"

"Fine" Lo'ak says. "I'll go check up on Tuk," He tells Neteyam unconvincingly, scratching the side of his head. "What's up with you and wanting to stay on the beach?"

Neteyam's jaw tightens. "There's nothing that's keeping me here except my promise to dad"

"Uh-huh" Lo'ak nods, eyes flicking to you and Tuk. "Nothing or no one?"

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

Lo'ak frowns, pretending he understood. "She's pretty hot"

Neteyam pays him no mind, only scoffing.

"She still avoiding you?" Lo'ak asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Yes, and I can't seem to find the reason why" Neteyam huffed.

Lo'ak snickers. "Maybe it's cuz you're coming off a little too strong"

"I don't know how else I can get her to talk to me without her insulting every fibre of my being or making up some excuse to leave, I've tried everything" He replies desperately, causing Lo'ak's eyes to go wide, a whistle leaving his mouth. "Damn that bad??? What the hell did you do to her to make you hate her this much?"

Neteyam rakes his face with dread. "I don't know baby bro, but you have no idea what I would do to find out the reason why"

His brother was too down-bad to be saved, Lo'ak knew that much, looking across the beach as he studies you with his little sister. Neteyam looks at his brother, his eyes seemingly trained on you as it flicks up and down, he slaps his brother's arm. "It's rude to stare"

"Yeah, go tell that to them" Says Lo'ak, pointing at a handful of Metkayin boys passing by, giving you stolen glances as they talked amongst themselves, chuckling and hooting.

Neteyam's eyes narrow into slits. "They're irrelevant, we must not let ourselves become like them"

Lo'ak glances at him, clearly unconvinced. "Yeah, okay, so stop looking"

"Fine, I won't" Neteyam replies quickly, watching Lo'ak turn around and walk to the edge of the platform. But he dosen't stop looking, he hated himself for it for it and the way that it was practically eating himself alive.

Wasn't it such a simple task? To turn his head around and look somewhere else? Well it should be, but Neteyam couldn't bring himself to pry his eyes away from you, you, oh Eywa. Your eyes were the colour of the sea, your hair shiny and black, your smile making his stomach twist itself into knots, your laugh making shivers run up his back, the way you dressed alone would make people turn heads, but your attitude was what drew Neteyam in.

You didn't feel the need to keep up this respectful facade, treat him like a guest because it was expected of you as the daughter of the Olo'eyktan, no, you treated him the way you thought of him.

You were rude, you were impolite, and you were blunt, because you didn't like him. You didn't feel inclined to tolerate him just like what was expected of you. He wished he was that brave.

"'Teyam! 'Teyam look what I got!" Tuk squealed as the pair of you walked up the diving platform carrying mountains of shells on your palms. "Y/N told me she and 'Reya could put these in my hair after diving lessons! Isn't that cool?!?"

"Oh Tuk, you didn't force her into braiding your hair did you?"

Tuk looks back at you for moral support. "But she said she would-"

"-Neteyam let her be, if she wants me to braid her hair then I'd be happy to" you had jumped in, siding with Tuk whose ears flicked upwards at her statement. "I hope it isn't too infuriating that I favour your sisters over you"

Neteyam wanted to scoff, but instead stifles it with a tight smile. "Nonsense, my sisters have that effect on everyone" He tells her, looking at Tuk. "Don't you?"

Tuk simply gives him a giggle, a swift nod, and then runs to Kiri, shouting her name over and over again before the older girl groans in acknowledgement. "Here," you say, handing him a conch shell with yellow and brown patterns ruminating on its surface.

"What's this for?" He wonders.

"Your sister practically dug up the entire beach, you deserve at least one" you chuckled.

Oh. He stares at the shell in your hands, then looks back at your face. "If I take this does this mean we'll be friends?" He asks, a sly smile breaking on his face.

"Oh you wish" You reply, smirking as you narrow your eyss at the boy. "Taking this won't change anything"

"Yes it does," He replies as a matter of factly. "this is the longest conversation we've ever had without you leaving or insulting me"

"No it dosen't" You shook your head, insistent. "I'll still hate you after this"

He hums. "I think I can live with that," He smiled. "I did get a gift from the daughter of the Olo'eyktan after all" He laughs when he hears you scoff.

You leave right after he takes it and right before he could say thank you. Walking off to find a basket to store more of Tuk's shells in.

Neteyam looks at the shell in his hands, about 2 and a half inches long, smooth, shiny, perfect, it was perfect. He loves it. He closes his fist, a smile breaking on his face before he could even relent it, a light purple tinting his cheeks as he places the shell in one of his pockets.

#avatar the way of water #neteyam sully x reader #neteyam sully x y/n #neteyam sully #neteyam x reader #neteyam x you #atwow neteyam #neteyam x metkayina!reader

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holllandtrash · 8 months

Text

long live | daniel ricciardo

pairing: daniel ricciardo x driver!reader (epilogue to fragile line)

long live the walls we crashed through i had the time of my life with you long, long live the walls we crashed through how the kingdom lights shined just for me and you

time passes and feelings may fade, but the memories never will word count: 7.7k (im so sorry) warnings/tags: time jumps like always, angst and heartbreak but it's not all sad this time, or is it?

four years later

“Daniel Ricciardo, 2025 Formula 1 World Champion, The Honey Badger,” James Hinchcliffe put his arm around the fellow commentator, “Tell us what you know.”

“What I know, Hinch,” Daniel repeated, taking a dramatic look up towards the clear sky. “What do I know?”

They didn’t need to act like they were friends for the camera, James and Daniel had grown close in a short time, ever since Daniel put down the helmet and picked up a microphone, Replacing the racing overalls with a suit and tie. He had the personality to be a motorsports commentator. No one was surprised when he was announced as Sky Sports newest reporter following his Formula 1 retirement.

And James, a fellow retired driver himself from the IndyCar side, a Canadian with the humour and the banter that could keep up with Daniel, they were truly one of the best duos when it came to motorsports broadcasting.

They weren't often together, though. Daniel stuck to Formula 1. James was a regular for IndyCar. There were only a handful of races where they came together and the Indianapolis 500 was one of them.

They were a comedic duo last year at the 2026 running, it only made sense to bring Daniel back again this year.

“Who’s your money on?” James asked. The question was innocent enough, proposed to most people who didn’t have an association with any team.

Daniel had his answer. Before the race weekend started he had an answer. Before the season started he had an answer.

But he hesitated.

Or, maybe froze was a better word. Daniel froze when he dropped his gaze from the sky and looked further down the pit lane. They didn’t plan on standing a few slots away from the number 6 car of Arrow McLaren, but that's where they found themselves.

Daniel froze when he spotted the familiar face sitting on the bench in the pit wall, looking at the data on the screens and nodding along with the engineer as he spoke. Daniel froze, because even though he knew exactly who was driving that car, he still wasn’t prepared for what he would do when he saw the driver.

When he saw you.

You guys had agreed, long ago, that there would be no more interactions. That your careers, your lives, would be better if the other stayed as far away as possible.

Daniel knew that even now, four years later, he had no right to talk to you, to talk about you. He knew that at this point, it was for the best that ties were still cut, that the conversations didn’t happen. It had been over a year since your last interaction, he was in no position to change that.

And he tried, desperately, over the years to follow the rules you agreed on. You as well kept your distance, you had to.

But you were only human. There had been a few slip ups over the years.

For the remainder of the season, after the Austin race, you both had stuck to your word. You stopped giving the world the moments they were waiting for. You refused to interact with each other, you forced yourself to stop caring.

It grew easier with time. The 2024 season was challenging in itself, but with Max and Daniel fighting amongst each other in a league of their own, you knew you couldn’t fight them in a McLaren. All you could do was make the most of what you had.

Lando and you had a strong opening those first few races. McLaren was third in the constructors for a short time until other teams started to catch up, filling in the holes of their designs.

You quite literally didn’t have time to care about Daniel when you were so focused on the rest of the grid, your actual competition. Ferrari, Mercedes, Aston Martin even. Your upgrades were no match with theirs and by the end of the season, it was disappointing to look back without a podium to reminisce on. Lando scored two, one in Spa, the other in Singapore. You did well, but not well enough to bring home a trophy.

2025 was…different.

In many ways. Firstly, the McLarens showed consistency as the season continued. You and Lando were always top contenders for points.

Secondly, Daniel was giving Max a run for his money. He had a bit the year prior, but this season was far more competitive. You, like everyone else, was dying to see who would pull through and score that first place trophy at the end of the day, but you had to hide your desires for it to be Daniel.

You still hadn’t spoken. You had successfully veered away from any accidental interactions. His name stayed out of your mouth and at this point, everyone on the grid knew there was a disconnect. You both had gone out of your way, this year and in 2024, to assure there would be no media appearances together, no driver conferences, nothing that the online world could twist.

But you couldn’t do anything about still being happy for him. That would never go away. You would always want Daniel to succeed. You just couldn’t be watching the screens when he podiumed. You couldn’t go out with him and the others to celebrate. You couldn’t wish him a congrats in passing like Lando could if you were walking down the paddock.

Daniel felt the same. While the love was gone, there was nothing he could do about those proud moments. He wanted you to make a name in this sport, to make history. He wanted you to be someone and even though he once wanted to be at your side while you planted your roots, he couldn’t.

Except that one time when he physically was at your side.

There was a mistake in the media pen scheduling on that Thursday in Miami. From what you knew, Daniel was supposed to be in the press conference and you’d be one of the ten unlucky few that had to stand under the Miami sun in the football field, talking about how you were looking forward to this race when in reality you personally thought this was the worst race on the calendar.

But it was too hot to complain about anything other than the heat and how you needed to change shirts as soon as the media pen segment was over because the breathable material of your papaya polo was anything but breathable.

You had barely stepped into the roped off circle to join the other drivers when you heard your name being called. Glancing over your shoulder, it took a second to realise that the call was coming from a young girl running in your direction. Her paddock lanyard flailing over her shoulder as she sprinted, one hand held onto her McLaren hat so it wouldn’t fall off.

“She can’t be here-”

“Piss off, she’s fine,” you weren’t even sure who you interrupted, but you didn’t give the risk of a reprending a second thought as you stepped forward to meet the young fan.

She was small, and you weren’t a professional when it came to guessing the ages of kids but you would put her somewhere in the range of six and eight. Maybe?

You knelt down to be more at eye level, “Hi darling, what’s your name?”

“Cara,” she answered, slightly out of breath. There was a gap in her teeth from where she must have just lost one, but it didn’t affect her grin at all.

“Hi Cara,” you smiled at her, only then noticing she wore a shirt with your last name on it. Glancing over your shoulder, you saw an older gentleman running towards her. “Is that your dad?”

Cara looked and then nodded, but she didn’t care that she had completely abandoned him and given him a heart attack. “I saw you last year here. You finished fifth, my dad took me to watch. He says you- he says that you’re the only girl driver.”

“I am the only girl driver,” you confirmed, pouting slightly. You brushed your hand over her shoulder to smooth out the material of the shirt, “That should change soon, don’t you think? All of these boys need to be put in their place and I can’t do it alone.”

“I can join,” Cara suggested. The carefree optimism was a rare sight at one of these race weekends, but you admired it in Cara. She was too young to know the difficulties of being a female in this field and hopefully by the time she grew up, there were less walls for her to climb over, just doors to open.

“You can join,” you nodded at the idea, laughing slightly, mostly because her dad had caught up to her and he was more out of breath than she saw. You smiled at him but looked back at Cara, “Do you race?”

“Yes!”

“No,” her dad answered, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Not yet, at least. We’ve signed her up for karting this summer, we’ll see how it goes.”

“I can already tell you’ll be a natural,” you told Cara. Watching her face light up was probably the most rewarding feeling you’d get all weekend.

“I want to be like you. I want to win races, I want to win a championship!”

“You know what Cara, I can’t break every record, being the first girl driver. So I’ll save the championship one for you, how about that? I want to see you become the first girl to win the championship.” You gave her arm a squeeze and then stood up, turning your focus to her dad.

He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring and although you couldn’t make assumptions that he was single, the greying hair at a fairly young age and the bags under his eyes told you that he was mostly likely the main caretaker for Cara.

“She’s got dreams,” you said.

He nodded, but smiled proudly, “That she does.”

You didn’t want to speak negatively about this industry in front of Cara, you didn’t want to crush her dreams, but you also didn't want her to grow up and be hopelessly disappointed either.

“It’s not easy for girls in this sport,” you told him. “But if she’s serious, if both of you are, look into working with Mary from Victory Speedway, located out in Tampa. She’s got contacts with F1 Academy as well. They’re goal is to make it easier.”

“Thank you,” he nodded, holding out his hand to shake. “And thank you for talking with Cara. Both of us are big fans, you truly are inspiring.”

You chatted for a bit longer, ignoring Oliver who was at your side reminding you that you had media duties. They could wait. A photo with the girl that seemed to be your biggest fan and maybe one day your predecessor, couldn’t wait.

No one really heard what you spoke about, the other drivers had their own obligations in the media pen.

Daniel, though, he listened.

He was standing right near the entrance when Cara had run up. He had watched you bend down to chat with her, making her a priority opposed to the reporters. He was less than two feet away as he overheard your conversation and when you turned around, ready to get the media day over with, you met his eyes.

For the first time in a long time, you didn’t look away.

Daniel wanted to tell you he admired that conversation, the hope you installed in the young fan. He wanted to tell you that you made a great role model, for not just girls but all aspiring drivers. He wanted to say a lot of things to you.

He settled on a question, “You’re not trying to win the championship?”

This was the first time you had spoken in months and it wasn’t even in private. It was quite literally in front of cameras, reporters, people with audio recording devices and microphones. You opened your mouth slightly only to lock up, giving him an apologetic look because you both knew better than to be having any sort of interaction.

You turned to face the first reporter, ignoring Daniel’s question completely. He just nodded to himself and walked to his own spot, keeping you in the corner of his eye.

This young reporter, though, was also curious, having overheard what Daniel asked.

“You’re not vying for a championship? Does Zak Brown know this?” He asked with a soft chuckle.

You shrugged and gave him a smile, “I mean, every driver's dream is the championship, but it’s not my goal currently. Your goals can, and should, be different than your dreams. And yes, Zak knows this, don’t you worry.”

“Your goal then, what is it?”

You inhaled, thinking to yourself for a second, “I’ve got a few and I have a good team supporting me while I work towards them. First would be to make as much history as I can, set as many records while I have a spot in Formula 1 and then I want to help other female drivers break them.”

“You want your records to be broken?”

“If it means getting more females into Formula 1, then yes.”

Daniel, who was in the middle of trying to listen to the reporter in front of him, smiled as he heard that. It was a very you response. He leaned forward, gripping the railing a bit because he completely misheard his own question and needed him to repeat it.

“And your other goal?” The young reporter asked you.

Your lips curved into more of a devious smile, deciding to keep that one close to your chest. “Do you have any questions about the race this weekend? Or are you trying to write a biography on my life?”

Daniel was dying to know what it was too. He spent the rest of that media session racking through the memories of you, there were a lot, trying to think if you ever had that conversation. You must have, right? So why couldn’t he remember?

When all of you made your way out and back to the paddock, Daniel ignored the voice in his head telling him to just let it go. He completely drowned it out as he jogged up to your side, refraining from reaching out and brushing his hand over your elbow to grab your attention. Instead he just said,

“Hey.”

You glanced up, instinctively stepping to the side as you walked to put more space between your bodies.

“Hi,” you breathed out, pulling your eyes off of him and on the Red Bull motorhome that was coming up. This conversation would be short, he’d have to go back inside. You’d be fine for ten seconds, right?

“So what-” he cleared his throat. This shouldn’t have been awkward but it was. After so long of not even glancing at each other, there were new lines painted between you. Daniel didn’t know how to navigate them, and honestly, neither did you.

“Triple Crown, Dan,” you answered, knowing that's where he was going when he opened his mouth.

The Triple Crown. Monaco. Indy 500. 24 Hours of Le Mans.

He took a second to process that goal, not having expected it in the slightest. When he nodded, you could see the hurt in his eyes, only there was less pain and more distance. He didn’t know you like he thought he did.

“I never knew you were aiming for the Triple Crown.”

“You never asked.”

He had trained you, helped you become the best athlete you could be. He had introduced you to the right people. He acted as a mentor, but the conversations you had about racing were limited. There was a lack of communication in that sense because why bring work home with you?

But that was the wedge driven between you. Had you talked about racing, contracts, your futures, you would have never found yourself in that McLaren contract scandal that ultimately broke you two up.

He nodded, because what else could he say to that? You gave him a soft smile and told yourself to keep walking, to move to the other side of the paddock as Daniel headed into the Red Bull motorhome.

You don’t interact again until Monaco. Daniel now knew winning this race meant more to you than others. Winning this would be one third of the Triple Crown checked off and as much as he was gunning for the podium, thankful for his P2 starting position, he saw that you were starting fourth and took a breath of relief. You had a shot.

Daniel wasn’t sure what came over him when he saw you in the paddock after qualifying. Maybe it was because you not completely shutting him down in Miami gave him a strange surge of confidence to approach you again, or maybe it was because he was ignoring all the voices in his head to just keep walking. Whatever it was, Daniel saw you chatting with a member of Sky Sports and as he walked passed, patted your shoulder in a congratulatory manner.

You paused whatever it was you were saying and turned in his direction, just in time to see him give you a smile and a thumbs up as he continued on his way. You returned it, but that small interaction had you stumbling over your words for the next two hours.

Not because you were smitten, you were past that. You didn’t look at Daniel anymore and lose your train of thought, you didn’t get lost in a daze and allow everything else to fade around you.

But he didn’t seem to let go of you completely yet, and you could work with that. You could be civil. You could be neutral during race weekends, as long as it didn’t go further than the friendly smiles and minimal chats.

It shouldn’t have been hard to keep the conversations short, you hadn’t actually had anything meaningful to say to each other in over a year. When you ran into him after the race on Sunday, after he claimed the title of Monaco Grand Prix race winner for a second time, you should have just said congratulations and kept walking.

But Daniel saw you as he was propped up against the side of the Red Bull motorhome and then he stood up straighter, almost inviting you to walk up to him. There were no cameras around anymore, the majority of the paddock had gone home so you felt safer, sort of. If the world hadn’t lost their minds at the clip of him patting your back yesterday, you could talk to him now.

The Red Bull engineer he was with said his goodbyes and smiled politely at you as you approached, stopping at a safe distance.

“Another Monaco win under your belt.”

“So it seems,” Daniel tried his best to not look too proud of himself. You could see his dimples poking through. You wanted him to not be holding back, you missed his grin but gone were the days when he didn’t have to refrain with you.

“You deserve it,” you nodded, glancing over your shoulder out of habit. You were scared of any stragglers with iPhones, but no one around seemed to care that you and Daniel were talking. You were drivers, it shouldn’t have been a strange sight.

“You deserve it,” Daniel playfully shot back. “I mean, I couldn’t just hand it over this year though, despite your Triple Crown goal.”

“Oh but next year? You’ll let me have it then?” You asked, eyebrows raised. It was a joke, a small tease, but Daniel’s smile slipped and you caught it. You caught it and you stepped forward, hand flinching because it would be moments like this where you’d want to reach for him but you couldn’t do that anymore, could you?

Daniel tensed. Now it was his turn to look anxiously around, “I might not-” a sharp inhale passed through his lips, “Yeah I might not be here next year.”

You scoffed because that idea was preposterous, “Oh shut up.”

“No it’s true,” Daniel said, but his smile told you that he wasn’t sad about it. “You know how your goal is the Triple Crown?”

“Yes.”

“Mine’s the championship, sweets.”

You weren’t given an opportunity to react to the nickname because he continued on explaining without missing a beat. Either he didn’t see the way saying sweets affected you or he didn’t even notice he said it because even after all this time, it still came naturally to him.

“There’s a clause in my contract,” he said. “If I win the championship this year, we can renegotiate. I can leave, I can- I can retire. The way I want to.”

You didn’t know how to process this.

Daniel belonged in Formula 1. He fought so hard for his seat, he was a mess when he was left without one and now there was a chance he’d be gone?

And even though you were only eight races in, already he was leading the driver standings over Max, not by much, but he was. There was a strong possibility Daniel could take the championship home at the end of the season.

You couldn’t say what was on your mind. You couldn’t say, selfishly, I hope you lose the championship. You couldn’t say that it was impossible to imagine the paddock without him because even those few months when he wasn’t racing, he was still there.

“We’ve still got a few months to go,” Daniel’s voice broke you from your thoughts, trying to move to a brighter note because that’s just who he was. “But this could be good for you. You’ll have a real shot at winning Monaco next year. But I mean- you technically already won Monaco.”

“That was F2.”

“I think it still counts.”

“I think I’ll win it again, just to be safe.”

Daniel liked that response, he liked how confident you were that the win was coming. He nodded and he really would have liked to talk to you more about this, about his potential leave, about your success, but when he was called from across the paddock you didn’t hesitate before saying goodbye. The conversation was long enough.

Things seemed lighter between you after that.

You didn’t stop yourself from being visibly happy when he was doing well. You laughed if you overheard the stupid shit he said in the paddock. You didn’t make a big deal about it when you two were signed up for the same press conference session. Granted, you still sat on complete opposite ends of the couch, but you sat there with a smile because you liked hearing Daniel talk about the lead he still carried in the standings.

Spa was the turning point for you two.

While you hadn’t taken any more steps beyond paddock conversations and friendly interactions, what was Daniel supposed to do when you both ended up on the podium together? Him on top, claiming first, you right next to him on the second step?

You both held back when you climbed out of the cars. He opted for a friendly pat on the back even though he wanted nothing more than to bring you in for an embrace. You had podiumed once already this season, but not with Daniel. You stood between the two Mercedes drivers back in Austria but now you were there, with Daniel at your side, both of you beaming.

You were proud of yourselves. You were proud of each other.

Both of you had dreamt of this moment, standing next to each other on the podium. You still remembered that conversation years ago, trying to imagine what it would be like to hear the cheers for both of you.

‘You’ll have to do a shoey.’

‘Only if you win. I’m not doing one if I win.’

You had shared this dream when you were in love and even though that wasn’t the case anymore, the dream was still very much alive. Because of that, it almost didn’t feel right.

It felt sort of unfulfilling, despite you being handed a heavy trophy.

But this was a moment that you would remember for the rest of your life. All of your accomplishments were held very close to your heart but this one meant more than you could put into words.

Hands shaking, crowd going wild, you were on top of the world and you were standing next to the man you used to be in love with. You glanced to the side to watch him, not able to stop yourself from smiling wide and then wider still as he held his head high like a hero.

Daniel was larger than life.

He always would be.

You tried not to let yourself think that this might be the only chance you’d get to stand here with him. This win only pushed him further ahead in the championship and you were, seemingly, the only one who knew this year would be his last if he ended up winning.

You had to hold onto this moment. It wouldn’t come again.

To everyone watching at home, this was the start of a new age with you and Daniel. Fans could see the way you two interacted, the sheer joy you had for each other, something they hadn’t seen since you still raced in F2.

To you, this was the beginning of the end.

Finally, you and Daniel were getting to a place where things could be good and in a few short months, he’d be gone.

You couldn’t think about it more, not when you felt champagne being sprayed in your direction. You were late to the game and popped yours after Daniel and Max had, but you still joined in with the celebration.

You laughed when Daniel took his shoe off and poured some of the bubbly liquid into the sole. He laughed when you refused to drink it, both of you ignoring the fact that if you were still in love, if you were still together, you would have done the shoey with him.

Daniel was content with the nod. He knew you were happy for him, the same way he was happy for you. But neither of you could show it the way you wanted to.

The championship win was decided at the second last race of the season, Qatar.

You didn’t have a good weekend, and you knew this. You took responsibility for the poor qualifying, the bad performance, for all of it. But you were distracted, unable to keep yourself from thinking about Daniel because if he won this race, he won it all.

And then he’d walk away.

You were conflicted. You wanted to see Daniel take home the win but selfishly, you wanted him in Formula 1. You always wanted him in Formula 1.

So when he crossed that line, ahead of Max, ahead of the rest of the grid, when he did celebratory donuts and stood on the podium with his chin held high, you stood on the sidelines and ignored how you used to wish for a day like this, wished for a day where he would be crowned the Championship Winner.

Daniel Ricciardo. 2025 Formula 1 World Champion.

It had a nice ring to it.

That’s what you told him that night when you were out at dinner and saw him sitting with a few members from his team just a few feet away. You weren’t surprised to see him at the establishment, it was exclusive, it was way overpriced and it was where many drivers went prior to going out and partying.

You avoided his eyes that evening, scared that if you’d meet them you’d be forced to accept the reality that he really was leaving. At least, you know, if you didn’t look at him, you could live in your own little world where he wasn’t gone just yet.

You were genuinely annoyed when you bumped into him after leaving the toilets. The hall was dim, narrow and there was quite literally nowhere for you to go when he turned the corner and stopped walking when he saw you.

“Hi,” you swallowed, anxiously smoothing out the skirt you wore, even more anxiously trying to avoid his eyes.

“Hi,” Daniel slid his hands into his pockets. His Enchante shirt clung to his skin due to the heat, but you told yourself you weren’t allowed to look at the way his little curls stuck to his forehead.

“You, um-” you held your hand out. “Congratulations, really. Daniel Ricciardo. 2025 Formula 1 World Champion. It’s got a nice ring to it.”

He laughed and nodded along, “Yeah, yeah, thank you.”

When he leaned against the wall, you realised you were stuck. There was no getting out of this conversation. No escaping this reality.

It didn’t help that the rest of the dining room faded behind him. The people, the sounds, the light, it was just Daniel.

Just Daniel and just you.

How it always should have been.

How it would never be again.

You opened your mouth, intent on saying something else about his win but all that came out was a shaky breath and a choked back sob that triggered the tears you didn’t even know were building. It was quiet, but it was desperate and it was painful and Daniel didn’t hesitate before stepping forward and wrapping his arms around you, pulling you into his chest. Your cries were muffled against his shirt and Daniel stroked your back and then your hair, holding you tight against him.

You were happy for him, really. If anyone deserved this win, it was him but god you were devastated because up until now, you didn’t realise you still held this much love for him. Up until now, you didn’t realise that even after everything, you still needed him.

You needed him.

“What am I going to do without you on the grid?” You asked, your voice was already quiet but it was even more so muffled as you spoke directly into his body.

Daniel chuckled, it vibrated through his chest. “What you’ve been doing this whole time, sweets. You’ll make history. You’ll put the rest of the guys in their places. You’ll be the driver I know you to be.”

It took a few seconds, maybe a few minutes actually, of just standing there and crying into his chest until you snapped out of it. You weren’t dating anymore, your conversations now didn’t last longer than five minutes, it was embarrassing to be losing it in front of him, because of him.

You stepped back and wiped your eyes, “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t- I just-”

“I’ll miss you too, Y/N,” he breathed out.

You nodded, because if you tried to say anything else you would be crying again. Daniel held his finger up and walked into the toilets to grab some tissue for you. It took another minute for you to be able to trust your voice again.

“I can’t believe you’re really leaving,” you dabbed at your cheeks, knowing you’d have to go back to the hotel to fix your make up before going out again.

“I’ve got things lined up,” Daniel shrugged.

“Care to share?”

He tried to hide his smile and failed miserably, “Just don’t be surprised if I show up at the track next year with a microphone instead of a helmet.”

That was about as much he would say as his deal with Sky Sports wasn’t yet official.

But now you felt more like an idiot for crying about him leaving if he wasn’t even actually leaving. You’d still see him. He’d still be around. You could work with that.

Daniel could still be proud of your accomplishments, even if he was on the sidelines.

He was, however, a little conflicted when you won the last race of the 2025 season.

You made history in Abu Dhabi. The first female driver to win a race. This was a wall you had spent years trying to crash through and now there you were. On top of the podium, on top of the world as confetti fell to the ground around you, champagne sprayed in all directions.

This was your moment.

Your win, your first win and all you wanted was Daniel up on that podium with you. As happy as you were to celebrate with Max and George, you couldn’t deny something was missing.

Because you really could never cut yourself off from Daniel completely, could you? You could try, you could attempt to distance yourself, you could stop the interactions and you could tell yourself you didn’t care but you were right that day you told Lando that Daniel was your missing piece.

So it made sense that you were at a bit of a loss for words when he showed up at your hotel room that next morning.

You invited him in, despite being slightly hungover. He didn’t care that your clothes were spread all throughout the room, but he did smile at the sight of your trophy on proud display on the table before you had to give it to your engineer for safe travels.

“So this is it,” you sighed, sitting down on the far side of the couch. Daniel sat down as well, the opposite side, arm stretched along the back of it.

“This is it,” he agreed.

“When does the news drop?”

He clicked his tongue, “Tomorrow.”

“Who’s replacing you?”

“Not sure,” he scratched the stubble along his jaw. “My guess is Lawson or possibly Palou.”

You sat in silence for a while, thankful that it wasn’t uncomfortable because it easily could have been.

But you both grew this season.

You could both admit now, being in love and being drivers was an unattainable dream.

But you could be drivers and you could still have love for each other.

You reached across the couch, a gentle smirk playing on your lips as you nudged his arm, “So what are you going to say about me?”

Daniel dipped his head back and laughed, “What do you mean?”

“You know,” you shrugged. “Like when you talk about us drivers on Sky Sports. What are you going to say about me?”

“I’m going to say that not only did you steal my seat, but you stole the glory of my last race by winning.”

You rolled your eyes, recognizing the sarcasm but you were thankful his words weren’t malicious anymore, “I thought we were past this. I didn’t steal your seat, Dan.”

“No, but I don’t think I can joke about it on air so this is my last chance.”

You reached behind you and grabbed one of the throw pillows, smacking it against his chest. You chose to look at this playfully, instead of it as the inevitable end.

And Daniel needed a second to think about your question anyway, so the joke was just a way to stall. Honestly, he was a little surprised that he hadn’t already thought about it considering you were on his mind more than you should have been.

He cleared his throat and adjusted himself on the couch cushion. You could see that he was struggling to come up with a good response and you didn’t mean for this. You didn’t want him to think he had to choose his words carefully.

“Hey,” you whispered, shifting closer to him, “Promise me something.”

You met his eyes, his dark brown eyes that once had such a strong hold over you. You looked at him and remembered why you fell in love with him in the first place. In this moment, it was hard to remember why you ever wanted to stop loving him.

Had you stopped loving him? Did that day really come?

You could have love for someone and not be in love with him anymore, but you didn’t think you’d find yourself in a position where you had to differentiate between the two. You thought, you knew, you would always be in love with Daniel that to sit here and think that maybe, possibly, you didn’t anymore, felt like a betrayal.

He was supposed to be the one that stood by you through it all. The good, the bad, the wins, the losses. It wasn’t supposed to end with you two sitting on the couch and admitting that this truly was over.

It wasn’t supposed to end like this, but you always knew it would.

Fate stepped in and whether you liked it or not, it was forcing you into a goodbye, into an acceptance that your lives would no longer be intertwined, that you couldn’t go back to the way things were.

“Anything,” Daniel spoke softly. Maybe one day he would have said, I’d promise you the world, if you asked, but that seemed a little too forward for the moment.

“Be honest, Dan,” you told him, your hand finding his over the edge of the couch. Your thumb brushed against his fingers and both of you fought the urge to just connect them further. “Tell them my name, but tell them how I got to Formula 1. Tell them it was you, that you helped me pave the way, that you helped me make a name in this sport. Don’t just point to the pictures of me, point to the ones of us. Now that you’re done with racing, I don’t care about the assumptions, the rumours, any of it. Tell people how it really was you and I, how we were the team that should have been, that never was, please, because even though I know-”

You paused, taking a second to swallow the lump at the back of your throat. You glanced at your hand and maybe it was you or maybe it was him, but your fingers started to interlock. Your eyes stayed glued to the touch as your last admittance filled the air between you.

“I know I could have made it to Formula 1 without you, but I can’t put into words how thankful I am that I didn’t have to.”

Daniel nodded, because he agreed with you. He knew you could have gotten here without him but he too was grateful he was by your side for the start of it. He agreed that you two really were the team that never was but should have been. He nodded and agreed that he would say all of those things.

But you knew that he wouldn’t.

Those words were for him, not the rest of the world.

He would tell people that you shined on top of the podium. He would say that the crowds went wild, louder for you than any other driver.

And he would never say that he had any part of shaping your career. Despite you knowing he did, despite the whole world knowing he played a detrimental part, Daniel didn’t hold onto those connections when you went on to race in 2026 and he stood in the commentators box.

He stayed neutral, surprisingly.

It helped that he didn’t interact with many drivers or if he did, it was never you. He did talk about you, but only about your performance on the track. His colleagues knew not to bring up your past, not when the only thing that mattered was how well you were doing in the present.

He had some thoughts when you announced you were making the switch to IndyCar at the end of this season, but mostly because you made that announcement before the Monaco Grand Prix, before you claimed the win you were chasing, before you could check off one third of the Triple Crown.

He wanted to pull you aside and question why you were making this choice but he couldn’t. He also couldn’t call you out publicly on air like other reporters had.

All he could do was hold his breath after you qualified P2 in Monaco. He sat on the edge of his seat, struggling to do his job, struggling to commentate on the race because the second you made the move to overtake Max and it worked, Daniel had to leave the room.

He had to leave because he knew that if you kept the lead, if you won, he couldn’t celebrate the way he wanted to with cameras on him. Instead, he watched from the privacy of a separate media suite. The broadcast was a few seconds delayed but at least he was able to cheer and be visibly proud of you and not have to hold back when you crossed the line ahead of Max.

You won the Monaco Grand Prix, in a McLaren of all cars, and now he knew what you were gunning for next.

The Indy 500.

Signing that Arrow McLaren deal ended up being the right move after all.

“Who’s your money on?” James Hinchcliffe asked him as they stood on the pit lane where the teams were preparing for the greatest spectacle in racing. The question was innocent enough, proposed to most people who didn’t have an association with any team.

Daniel had his answer. Before the race weekend started he had an answer. Before the season started, he had an answer. Despite knowing you were still far from winning the Indy 500, his money would always be on you.

You looked up from where you sat on the Arrow McLaren bench and you smiled at him.

You were having a pretty good season, for a rookie. With O’Ward and Rossi as your teammates, you knew you couldn’t compare, but they were good people to have on your team, in your corner. They helped you, guided you through the shift from Formula 1 to Indy and you could be proud that in a grid of 26 drivers, you were 11th in the standings.

“Not betting on anyone, James,” Daniel answered, but his eyes were still locked on you and his smirk said otherwise. “It’ll be a good race.”

He could say your name, he wanted to. But Daniel stayed as far away from your life as he could because you decided on it a long time ago and nothing that happened since told him that you’d be going back on that decision, that you wanted him back in your life.

He might not have been a driver anymore, but you still were. So he was content with being civil, neutral. He was fine with the friendly smiles and if an old photo of the two of you circulated every now and again, well, he didn’t hate it.

He sat with the rest of the Indy commentators during the race. He shared his honest opinions throughout and he, along with the other reporters, praised Alexander Rossi for taking home his second Indy 500 victory, eleven years after his first.

But that was not the Arrow McLaren driver he wished was celebrating in Victory Lane.

Daniel waited until his job was done, but he knew he had to find you before the day ended. He wanted to congratulate you on finishing twelfth. That was something he was proud of and he hoped you were as well.

It would only go up from there. The Indy 500 was still an achievable goal.

He found you in the paddock. It wasn’t hard. You stood out, even in the crowd of people. He waited off to the side and watched you take photos with young girls, young fans that resembled that one girl in Miami, all of them looking up to you and thanking you for paving the way for them, for other females in motorsport.

It was by chance that you looked over your shoulder and saw Daniel standing there. He nodded, wordlessly assuring you that he could wait, to take your time with the fans.

He ended up waiting almost fifteen minutes.

Eventually, you started to approach him. Daniel stood up straighter, having been leaning against the Penske trailers until you were done. You still had your racing overalls on, but unzipped and hanging loosely on your hips. The black fireproofs under the papaya looked good on you, but Daniel hadn’t let himself appreciate your appearance for years, he couldn’t start now, even if he really wanted to.

“Hey,” you called out when you were only a few steps away.

“Hey yourself,” Daniel chuckled. When you finally stood in front of him, he was sort of expecting to see a sliver of defeat, but you were happy. You may not have won the 500, but you had a good run and there was always next year. Plus, you still had the rest of the season to finish. The season wasn’t over, you could still make history in this sport.

You crossed your arms over your chest and glanced around, jaw clenched until you finally worked up the courage to meet his eyes.

“So,” you inhaled a breath. “You’ve got some time on your hands now that you’re retired, right?”

Daniel wasn’t sure where this was going but he laughed and nodded, “Somewhat, yes, but I do still work race weekends.”

“But Monday through Wednesday?”

He pondered it for a second, just for dramatic effect. “I’m fairly open.”

You nodded, hoping for that answer.

If you were being honest with yourself, this was a conversation you wanted to have with Daniel since he announced his retirement almost two years ago, you just never knew what the outcome would be.

You felt a bit safer now, knowing that he was based out of the UK and your races were only North American. If he hated where you were going with this, well, it was rare you’d be crossing paths so soon afterwards.

You just had to blurt it out.

“Ever thought about being a trainer?” You asked. “Or a manager? Mentor even? You know- my last mentor walked out on me-”

Daniel cut you off with a booming laugh, “Walked out? Really? Is that what you tell people?”

Him playing along with your humour felt like a weight off your shoulders, “Only if they ask.”

Daniel, finally, didn’t have to refrain himself anymore. He felt confident enough to drape his arm over your shoulders and walk with you down the paddock. For once, he didn’t care if people looked or recorded and secretly, he hoped they did.

All he wanted was to be at your side. All he wanted was for the world to know he was proud of you, that, if you asked, he’d be back in your corner.

And you were asking.

“So you need a mentor?” He repeated. “A trainer?”

Your hand slipped around his waist. It was natural, comforting, right.

“Well, I need to win the 500 eventually and then I need to get into Le Mans. I can’t do it alone.”

Daniel looked at you, wearing that stupid grin you missed so much even if you had memorised it the first day you met. You missed him, despite hearing his voice on the broadcasts and seeing him in the paddock. You missed him, he was your missing piece after all.

Daniel looked at you, and you knew, you weren’t alone.

__________________

the end ♡

taglist: @torossosebs@whatthefuckerr@jspitwall@oconso@tsarinablogs@landowecanbewc@somanyfandomsbruh@christianpulisic10@storminacloud@sunnytkm23@formula1mount@azxulaa@icarus-nex@spideyspeaches @moonvr @destourtereaux @baw-sixteen @cinderellawithashoe @love4lando @alesainz @blueanfield @itsmeempar @vellicora @simple-soul-searcher

for some reason im struggling to add people to the taglist, i deeply apologise

#daniel ricciardo x you #daniel ricciardo x reader #daniel ricciardo #danny ric #dr3 #f1 fics #formula 1 x you #daniel ricciardo imagine #daniel ricciardo au

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clementine-thedestroyer · 6 months

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Kinktober day 19/20: Housewife/domesticity kink + service - John Price x reader

Warnings/tags: Fem!reader, being married and a bit of being a house wife. Mentions of pregnancy at the end. Reader is also slightly a clean freak coded/gets hyper focused on cleaning- because who doesn’t, tbh. Fluff, then smut at the end.

Price’s favorite things about coming back from deployment.

Of course Price looked forward to coming home- seeing his wife after a deployment was what kept him going through the roughest parts of his job. But- in addition to the obvious reason of just missing his wife- Price had a particular fondness for those first nights back.

When he walked in, your eyes would light up- and he’d almost always find himself nearly tackled by your hug. He’d always laugh, wrapping his arms around you and squeezing you tight as he teased you for your enthusiasm.

During that first hug, he wouldn’t let go immediately. He’d press a kiss to the top of your head- keeping his lips against you for a moment longer- just to breathe in the comforting scent of you. He’d keep one of his hands wrapped around your shoulders, and the other one either nestled against the small of your back or dip of your waist. If you were wearing a shirt, he’d slip his hand under the fabric to run his rough, calloused hands over your soft, warm skin.

If it were up to Price, he would keep you wrapped tight in that bear hug the whole night- or at least till he decided it was time for him to scoop you up and take him to the bedroom. He’d only (reluctantly) let you go once you mentioned that dinner was going to burn.

On the nights when Price first got home, you’d always fuss over him. You’d insist that he sits down- bringing him a beer and making sure to take care of him as best you can.

You’d always try and press the TV remote into his hand, telling him to sit back and relax while you finished dinner. But he’d just smile and shake his head- content to watch you hurry around the kitchen and worry your sweet little head off over dinner. It was one of the few times he’d let himself give into your worrying and fussing- he might as well enjoy it.

He’d sit back and light a cigar, eyes following your ass and admiring the way the tie of your apron cinched around your waist. He’d smile at the way you bit your lip and frowned when you pulled dinner out of the oven- adoring how desperate to please you would get on nights like this.

He may even let you work yourself up about it, probably chuckling at the way your brow furrowed when you find a spot you’d missed while doing your regular before-price-gets-back-from-deployment cleaning spree: something he had, to no avail, tried to assure you multiple times was not necessary, and only discovered the existence of upon getting back a few hours early, planning to surprise you, and found you half way inside the oven. You were cleaning it, you said- although Price was a little concerned by the fact that you’d apparently been at it for nearly two hours.

At this point, he realized that there was nothing he could do to stop you, and just found it cute that you’d get yourself so worked up over getting everything perfect for him.

Of course, he wouldn’t let you stay worked up. Especially on nights like this, he was sure to kiss and praise you all he could. And at the end of the night, you’d always find yourself pressed firmly into the mattress underneath your husband. With Price’s fingers laced together with yours as he thrust slow and deep into you, murmuring against your skin about how perfect you were- how you didn’t need to try so hard to please him, not when just your smile brightens his entire day.

As his thrusts would stutter and he neared his release, his voice would go rougher and he’d suck a hickey beneath your ear and behind your jaw bone- making sure to tell you how much he loved you, how lucky he was to have such a sweet little wife. He’d tell you how he was going to fill you up with his cum and give you a couple of his kids, how he was gonna make you a momma so you’d hopefully stop worrying your pretty little head off over keeping the house spotless- “calm ya’ down a bit” as he put it.

Kinktober 2023 Masterlist

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teamatsumu · 7 months

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kinktober 2023 -> day 7

orgasm denial - matsukawa issei x reader

word count: 873

warnings: regular smut warnings, daddy kink mentioned, slight degradation, swearing

kinktober masterlist

You knew you deserved this. You had been teasing him all night after all. In some capacity, you were even looking forward to it. It had been a long time since you had acted out enough that it warranted a punishment from Issei. And now you realized that time had probably dulled things in your head. Because you had forgotten just how brutal Issei’s punishments could be.

Two hours. It had been two hours of what felt like every emotion and sensation known to mankind coursing through your veins. You had been touched subtly, sweetly, like a ghost whispering against your skin, enough to make you shiver and get riled up, enough to make your nerves buzz in excitement. And you had also been touched roughly, hard, strong hands spanking and slapping at sensitive skin, nails scratching and fingers fucking so hard and fast into you that you had lost all semblance of sanity.

At this point, your vision was swimming. Partly from your tears, and partly from your head being pressed so hard into the mattress that it left you cross-eyed. Your ass was propped up in the air by his other hand, the one not holding your head down, but instead holding your hips up with a grip so bruising you were sure it would leave deep purple marks on you tomorrow morning. But fuck, you couldn’t bring yourself to care about the next morning. You could only focus on one thing, and that was your weeping pussy stretched out over your boyfriend’s huge cock, drilled into submission and with no signs of stopping.

“I-Issei-” You gasped when he hit a particularly deep spot, another tear escaping from your eye and running over the bridge of your nose, only to fall on the sheets under your head. “Issei, plea-”

“No.” Came the nonchalant reply.

Your face scrunched up in disappointment, fingers twisting around the sheets as you laid still, taking the pounding you were getting like a good girl. You wanted, no needed, to cum so bad, but you couldn’t. Not until Issei allowed you to. You knew what would happen if you came without his permission. If this was already messing you up so bad, you couldn’t even imagine what he would do to you if you came without his approval.

You let yourself cry and moan as Issei kept fucking you slow and hard into the mattress, trying not to focus on how fucking good he felt or how close to the edge you were. You sighed when he draped himself over your back, his bare body providing such a welcome feeling against your shot nerves. He hummed into your shoulder, laying a soft kiss on the skin, such a stark contrast to the absolute havoc he was wreaking below your pelvis.

“Issei…” You tried again, clenching around him. You were so overstimulated, you just had to beg. You knew from experience that it wouldn’t be long until you couldn’t hold back anymore, not if Issei continued to shove his cock into you at the same pace.

“Stop asking, baby.” Came his reply, voice raspy against your ear, his breath hitting your skin enough to make you shiver. He thrusted hard and held himself there for a few seconds, letting you appreciate how wonderfully he stretched you out. Your jaw went slack.

“You know you don’t deserve to cum.” He continued, the hand on your head now tangling in your hair, tugging just a bit. “Not after that show you put on in front of my friends. You think they couldn’t tell that you were just tryna rile me up? They’re not stupid, you know? And neither am I.”

“‘M sorry.” You whimpered, barely forming coherent thoughts, but feeling fresh tears prick your eyes regardless. “‘M sorry, daddy. I was just-”

“Being a brat? Wanting attention? Acting like a whore?” His words didn’t sting, in fact they turned you on more and made you tighten around him, and you heard his sharp intake of breath.

“You don’t get anything tonight, babygirl.” He concluded, one hand slipping between your body and the bed to pat at your clit, making you yelp. You were so sensitive, even the slightest touch sent you spiraling. “Tonight, you’re gonna let daddy use your whore body for himself, and if I feel like you deserve to cum after that-” He disengaged from your body and straightened, hands gripping your hips in preparation, “then maybe I will consider it.”

Then, he began fucking you in earnest, pounding your limp body into the bed, reveling in the sounds of your mumbled ‘thank you’s, grateful just at the thought that maybe he would let you cum. He couldn’t help the little smirk that spread on his face at the sound, the notion that even his consideration for letting you cum sent you into a mumbled mess of grateful words, his cock throbbing inside your tight little cunt.

He had trained you well.

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@bxbyyyjocelyn @thisbicc @lazuliquartz @dreamayy @kuroosluthoe @true-form-hoe @akumakitsune21 @cham0mil3-and-h0n3y @samisfunky @universal-s1ut @msbyomimi @dohwaesu @leothesquishy @n0tmykays @tsukiran @reyofsunshinelol @bleach-your-panties @galaneiaeris @leyra-giovanni @erenspersonalwh0re @peachesncats @soapsoftheworld @iwannabecamiloshovel @vintagevict0ria @smithieandy @moonlit-mizukage @snazzyturtles

A/N: For those whose tags arent working, im sorry! I tried and for some reason, your names wont show up in the mentions :( another way of being notified is to turn on my blog notifs for @teamatsumufics . I only reblog my fics there so it serves almost like being in a taglist!

#matsukawa issei x reader #matsukawa issei #matsukawa issei smut #matsukawa issei x you #matsukawa issei x y/n #matsukawa issei fanfiction #matsukawa issei imagine #haikyuu fanfiction #haikyuu imagines #matsukawa x reader #kinktober 2023

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billthedrake · 1 month

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ACCOUNTABILITY (PART TWO)

Jim felt deeply ashamed. There was the shame that he'd caved to his baser sexual urges. Even when he having conjugal relations with his wife, the married father imagined he was fucking some nubile 19 year old porn chick from the Hot Guys Fuck video. Then, as Jim got closer and closer to cumming, Jim imagined a hot, jacked college dude in bed with them, hot masculine hands touching his body while he fucked. The very forbidden notion made him cum like gangbusters. And kept him hard after.

But the real shame came from the fact that his son had more willpower than than him. After the two escalated their infractions on the Covenant Watch app, Ryan stopped looking at porn. Cold turkey, stopping as quickly as he started. There were some exchanges of eye contact between them, almost like Ryan was apologizing silently for stopping the little game the two were playing.

Jim never felt prouder of his boy. He'd imagined his role as a father was to lead his family by Christian example, and here his eldest was taking that role for him. It was humbling as hell, but Jim McCready also realized that humility was part of the church's teachings. His Ryan had led him astray almost to teach him that lesson.

And it was reassuring to have his world returned. Family life. Church twice a week, dinners together, soccer practice for the younger kids, football games on Friday.

Thanksgiving Eve was the big end of regular season for Ryan's team. Practically a high holiday in their small town. It was a close game, which only made the victory that much more thrilling. On a Ryan McCready TD catch no less.

It was a storybook end to his son's high school football career, which is what made the notifications on his phone bright and early Thanksgiving morning that much more of a surprise.

Covenant Watch showed 92 infractions.

"Fuck!" Jim thought to himself, almost saying it out loud. He was mad at Ryan, genuinely mad. This wasn't dipping his toes into sin, it was wallowing in it. And Jim was mad that Ryan was doing this only because the teen expected his father wouldn't do shit to stop him. Jim was angry he'd been made accomplice to this, because of his own weakness.

Jim slipped on some casual clothes and made his way to his study. He wasn't sure he could use the excuse of checking work emails on Thanksgiving morning, but he needed privacy.

Every video was a gay porn video. Jim began clicking on each link. There were ones of jocks with coaches, and ones with two college-looking guys fooling around. There were amateur hookup ones, and some gloryhole cocksucking vids. Jim was lightheaded as he watched each one.

He wasn't going to get through 92 of them, or close. He didn't have time. And he was too turned on. He quietly lowered his sweats and spit into his palm. He went back to one of the coach and jock ones and pressed play. Four tugs was all it took for the man to send his cum flying all over his desk.

"Fuck!" he grunted as he came down. He grabbed some Kleenex to wipe off and clean up. He felt out of control, like a teenager, like Ryan, but strangely the intense emotions of guilt were gone. A good orgasm will do that for you.

Even when his son came down for breakfast, sleepy from what was clearly a late night stroking off, Jim didn't feel self conscious. Ryan and he had more in common than he ever expected. Jim wondered if he'd have to have a talk to check in with his son.

Ryan took a private moment later that morning to lean in and whisper to his father. "I needed to treat myself after winning the game last night," he said. "Hope that's OK, Dad."

Jim McCready was in full accomplice mode now. Ryan knew he wasn't going to say anything or do anything. And the comment was as much to save face for Jim as anything.

Still, the father didn't want to let on that anything bothered him. If Ryan was gonna make Jim his accountability accomplice, he was gonna lean into it all. "With that catch buddy, you probably earned more than 92 dings."

Ryan was surprised, at first. But then broke into a smile. "That was pretty awesome, right?"

Jim clipped his son's strong back with his hand, a paternal pat of affection. "Insane, Killer..." Jim winked. "Doesn't mean you don't get out of helping out your mother today, though."

Ryan laughed. One of his duties was to help with the prep and cleanup for his mom for Thanksgiving dinner. He was kind of her go-fer for the morning. "I'll get dressed."

***

Jim felt like he'd handled it well. This was just Ryan's hormones spiking. The kid would get over his kink soon. Find his willpower again. Hopefully settle down with a steady girfriend, though Jim's doubts there were starting to nag him.

Besides, he had his own hormones out of control. He found himself with an alone moment and idly pulled out his phone. "Two can play at this, kiddo," he said quietly and pulled up Pornhub. Selected Gay setting and searched for "coach." Some of the thumbnails looked fake. 28-year old "jocks" with 30-year old "coaches." Fake sets, fake clothes. But one was real enough. Hidden camera, dim lighting, real bodies. The jock was of age, Jim reflected thankfully, but maybe a college freshman or sophomore. Bent over a standard-issue metal desk and getting railed by a beefy coach, zip up top and whistle around his neck and naked from the waist down.

Jim McCready was hard as a rock. Even after jerking off that morning, his dick pressed a thick ridge in his jeans. He didn't have time to watch more than this and over the next four minutes he forgot he was doing this to taunt Ryan. He was caught up in the fantasy and his own bodily response to watching two men fuck.

"Fuck," he hissed as he closed the vid and slid the phone back in his pocket. He was hyperventilating. He reached down to grip his boner, trying to pinch it into submission. Thinking about his work stresses or the friendly wager he had with his buddies on the Cowboys and Lions games that day.

When he was presentable, he made his way back to the family room. The younger kids were watching some movie on TV, and the domestic scene made Jim feel another pang of guilt. He had a wonderful family, a devout family, and here he and Ryan were sinning. Not just sinning, but enjoying their mutual sin.

But the father let his attention drift into the movie.

"Hey Dad," Ryan's voice said from behind him. Jim turned to see his strapping son standing there, car keys in hand. "Mom wanted me to go pick up some milk at the convenience store... need anything?"

Jim used to chastise Ryan for going out underdressed for winter weather, but the kid seemed not to have a normal relationship to cold. It might be Alabama, but it was still November. Only now the father was glad to see Ryan in just shorts and his FCA t-shirt, the gold cross necklace matching his father's. Maybe it was the way Ryan's clean-cut image hid a truly naughty side.

"I'm good, buddy," he said, trying to take his eyes off his son's lean, tall, muscular body.

Jim was still processing his thoughts after Ryan left when he felt his phone vibrate. There was a text from Ryan.

"Good taste."

It was cheeky and impertinent and just the right thing to write to turn Jim on. Somehow Ryan's text arrived right before the Covenant Watch notification. "Video watched: Pornub, Coach fucks player after the game"

Jim McCready's heart pounded. He slyly looked to make sure the family was engrossed in the TV before he typed a reply. "I would have thought 92 would have been enough for you, kiddo." Gently chastising but mostly playful.

Ryan's reply was immediate. "I'm 18, Dad. What do you think?"

Jim's throat felt tight. He was getting horny. Again. The idea of Ryan getting off multiple times a day fueled his imagination. "I think I should be stricter with you," he wrote back. Jim couldn't tell if he meant it tongue-in-cheek or earnestly.

Ryan didn't reply. Hell, for all the times he'd told his son not to text and drive, he should have been happy. But Jim worried he'd put an end to his game. And he hated that he wanted it to continue.

Ryan picked it back up when the father least expected it. There was always a flurry of activity in the McCready household as the kids helped their mother bring all the food to the table and as Jim poured the water glasses at each place setting. They were just sitting down when Ryan appeared, face flushed. His son was up to something, Jim knew, and from the buzz in his pocket, Jim had a good idea what.

"Let's say grace," he said. Then he led the family in prayer.

The meal was sweet torture for Jim. Keeping his good-father poker face on while they ate and talked. He didn't feel boner-horny but that kind of nervous energy horny. And Ryan's flitting eye contact had something else going on. The kiddo was nervous.

And when they'd finished up, Ryan offered to do Jim's normal task of cleaning up. "You go watch the game, Dad," he said. "I got this."

Jim's wife gave a look of pleasant surprise. Jim returned it the best he could but he had a feeling Ryan had an ulterior motive.

The women in the McCready household would watch Auburn football but had no use for the NFL. So Jim's wife and their two daughters got ready to go out to the park for a post-meal walk. They were always making talk about eating too much and needing to walk off their meal.

They'd barely left when Jim checked his phone. The Covenant Watch notification read: " Video watched: XVideos, Gaycest, Sauna Time." The father looked over at his two boys. Mitchell was engrossed in the game. Ryan was pretending to be, while sneaking glances over at his dad.

Jim gulped. His heart raced. This was so wrong.

Slyly he picked up his phone again and typed out a text to Ryan. "Can't wait to watch it buddy." Blushing as he did.

Ryan smiled as he read it. And quickly typed back a reply. "It's really good, Dad."

Jim was throwing hard. He didn't really want Ryan to see his boner, and he definitely didn't want Mitchell seeing it. With a lewd thought the father realized his younger son would probably grow into the studly jock looks Ryan had. But that was a ways off.

The dad slid the phone into his pocket and waited for a commercial break. His hardon had almost gone down. Almost. He stood up from the couch and made his way to the restroom. He probably didn't have a lot of time, but he needed to watch this, at least part of it.

His heart was in his throat he was so excited. The title promised the taboo material, but surely this wasn't gonna be what Jim thought it was? As he clicked and watched, it was. There wasn't any explicit dad-and-son dialogue, but the two guys were clearly cast that way, in a sauna, getting hard with each other, before sucking each other.

Jim wanted to stroke. But he was already taking longer in there than he should. If Mitchell hadn't been around, he thought with a shudder. With a pinch at the base of his prick, he willed himself into a softer state then stuffed his meat back into his briefs.

His face was flushed when he returned. Ryan noticed and had a grin. Mitchell was oblivious.

"Good?" came Ry's text.

Unconsciously, Jim nodded. But he typed anyway. "The best I've seen."

Ryan gave a darting glance over to his little brother. The jock was enjoying the sneaking around, Jim knew. Jim couldn't tell if he enjoyed that part too or if it was just uncomfortable torture.

A message came in on Jim's phone. "I've thought about that for a while."

Jim hadn't. But he knew he would now, and the idea Ryan had perved on him only made the idea hotter. "Yeah buddy?" he typed, now getting into the flirtation.

"You have no idea Dad." Ryan's cocky expression was giving way to a shy one.

Jim grinned now. "Maybe you can tell me sometime."

"I'd like that sir."

Jim McCready was boned now. Full on hard. He angled his body so Mitch couldn't see. But he spread his legs so Ryan could.

The high school senior smirked and did his own manspreading. There was a hard ridge riding up his son's loose shorts.

Just then the front door opened, the sound coming in from the other room. The women were back.

***

Ryan woke up late. He'd stayed up edging before finally shooting a huge load. It wasn't quite 92 videos this time, but it was a couple dozen. And some incest porn stories. He was a little mad at himself for even denying himself porn before.

He had to laugh at his morning wood now. His father had actually eyed up his cock. And shown his own. Ryan leaned up in bed. Plenty of time to take care of his needs later. Maybe he and Dad could tease each other some more. Ryan was VERY surprised at how this had escalated. Maybe the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree.

And, as he checked his phone, there were 117 Covenant Watch infractions. Most incest themed, at least the top listings. Ryan didn't bother to scroll through them all.

"Fuck!" he gasped.

He got dressed and made his way down to the kitchen. It was empty and he could see why. It was 10 AM. His mom and sisters liked to hit the Black Friday sales. Ryan wandered through the house. He had a good idea where his father was. Indeed as he approached his father's study, he saw the door cracked. He gave a quick knock.

"Come in, buddy," came his father's voice.

His dad was seated as his desk, in his preppy polo shirt that molded to his fit muscular upper body. From where Ryan stood he wasn't sure what his father was wearing below the waist, but the man's hand was down at his crotch, clearly jerking off while he held the phone in his other hand.

Jim looked up at him with a horny look. "Mitchell's over at his friend's, the girls are gone... it's just us, Killer." The tone was jocular but with a raspy edge to it.

"Yeah?" Ryan asked. The implications setting in.

Jim nodded and with a fateful motion he set down his phone and stood up. The man was indeed naked beyond the polo, and a thick hard ridge of dad meat stood up, a slight curve to the otherwise ramrod straight boner.

"Fuck!" his son gasped. Any retreat of his morning wood was giving way to a renewed hardon.

Jim's heart raced. This was so wrong, and he couldn't even believe he was doing this. Showing off his cock to Ry. But the young stud had worked him up, enraged him as surely as waving a red flag at an angry bull. The father's libido was now out of control. "You wanted to see me, right?"

Ryan nodded. He'd been the one to push the envelope so it was wild to see his father take the initiative like this. Silently he pushed his own shorts down, over his matching teen boner.

"Nice..." Jim grinned. "You're hotter than those porn dudes," he added.

Ryan could barely speak he was so horny. "You, too. I mean... fuck!"

Jim walked around, slowly, his thick hard paternal dick waving some with his steps. "We got a few hours alone, buddy."

Ryan was moving toward his dad, too. Was this really gonna happen? The touch of his father's hand on his hip was the first indication it would. Then a second later, their dicks touched, two McCready cocks making contact.

"God help me, son," Jim hissed as leaned in and turned his head just slightly before his lips pressed against Ryan's.

The jock was light headed as he felt his father's tongue trace his lips, then press into Ryan's opening mouth. It was his first french kiss was a dude, and it was his own dad. The videos of incest had been hot as fuck, but this was on another level. Pure mindblowing thrill. He hissed back and started feeling up any bit of his dad's body he could.

Jim was doing the same, humping Ryan's hard crotch and feeling up the kid's bare ass. "My room or yours buddy?" the man finally asked with a bedroom voice Ryan had never heard from his father. It was one that could have barely imagined. Sultry, deep, and playful.

"God, yours, Dad," he hissed. It was SO wrong to fool around in his parent's bed, and yet that's what Ryan wanted.

Jim grinned at that and gave Ryan's rump a light slap. For 18, the kid had an amazing rump, muscular and thick. "Naughty boy," he hissed. "My room it is."

Ryan's heart was pounding double time as his Dad led the way. Jim had an incredible ass, too, meatier and thicker with age. But his father was in shape and still a total stud. The two stripped down completely before the man sat on the bed's edge and pulled Ryan's cock body toward him. They kissed in that position a second, before Jim grunted and used his strength to leverage his football jock son up and on to the mattress.

Ryan was seeing a new Jim McCready, and feeling his father in all the man's nakedness too, as Jim climbed on top of his son, kissing and mauling every inch of the younger flesh.

"Dad," Ryan grunted. So turned on, but his mind racing a million miles an hour. "We could get caught."

"Fuck yeah we could," Jim growled before covering his son's mouth with his own. Again, that deep tongue kiss, more urgent than before. Jim McCready was full-on enraged with lust and it was rubbing off on Ryan. The older man had a grin when he finally pulled back. "But we're probably not gonna."

Already his was using his legs to push his son's legs apart. "You cherry, Ry?" he asked in a throaty rasp.

Ryan nodded. He was nervous but harder than he'd ever been in his life. Feeling his dad's body, seeing his dad's cock, and witnessing his dad's sexual hunger. That gold cross necklace a reminder of his father's outstanding public persona, a contrast to the sin they were committing now. "Yes, sir."

That answer made Jim's nostrils flare in excitement. Already he was reaching over for lube in the nightstand. It didn't get a lot of use. His and Kelly's sex life was normal, vanilla, and while Jim resorted to masturbation some he kept his habit in check. At least until lately.

"You can say no anytime, Ryan," he said, the father role returning, even as he applied the liquid to his son's jock hole.

"I want it, Dad," Ryan answered, his body breaking into goosebumps to feel his Dad's finger circle then penetrate his tight sphincter. He looked down at where Jim's arm was wedged between his spread legs and back up into this dad's hungry eyes. "I'm scared," the teen added. "But I want it."

Jim nodded. His finger pressed in and out slowly. "I got ya buddy. I just want this SO bad." He leaned in and kissed his boy while he fingered Ryan with a second digit. Then a third.

They didn't extend the foreplay. They were too worked up, and they'd been building up to this for the last 24 hours.

Ryan wish it didn't hurt, but the penetration stung.

"There, buddy," Jim said, the softer side of his bedroom voice coming out. "I'm inside in ya, Killer. Inside my son."

"Fuck, Dad," Ryan gasped. The psychological side of the incest fuck was winning out over the physical sensation.

More dad dick was sliding in him. "This is what you wanted right? What you wanted when you first sent me those videos?"

Ryan pulled his legs wider. Trying to accept his father inside him. He needed every inch of his dad now. "I don't know. Is this what you wanted when you set up the accountability buddies thing?"

Jim bottomed out and wildly kissed his son again. Not a protracted kiss, but deep. He pulled back with a leer on his face. Already his was pumping Ryan, fucking him. "I had no fucking idea, Killer. No idea how depraved I was."

"I like you depraved, Dad." Ryan said, maybe louder than he should. But they had the house to themselves. Hopefully.

His dad's hips pumped faster. The physicality of the cock thrusting in and out felt good to Ryan, the harshness turning into a pleasant intensity that made his ass and cock and hole buddy buzz.

"You got it, Ry. Gonna be hard to keep my hands off you." The man was losing focus, the pleasure and tightness of Ryan's ass getting him close so soon. He paused and reached over for the lube again. He'd watched this in the videos, the bottom jerking off while getting fucked. He wanted his son to get off, too, like one of those porn dudes.

The second Ryan's hand wrapped around his lubed prick, the sensations in his ass felt night and day different. No longer challenging, every movement of his father's cock, whether small or deeper, made his cock feel more pleasurable.

"Go for it, buddy," Jim urged. Fucking faster, leaning in more to gaze down into Ryan's youthful handsome face. The father was gonna cum any minure, any second, but he hoped his son would get there too.

"Fuck me Dad!" the jock cried, his toes curling and his body entering a deep O.

"God yeah, Ry! Shoot it!" Jim watched in excitement as heavy ropes of white cum shot out and landed on Ryans' mostly smooth ripped torso.

Three more hard shoves was all it took for Jim to unload. Ass fucking was so different than sex with Kelly. Jim was addicted.

The father and son made out, clinging to one another while the dad's prick slowly softened and retreated it.

Jim was in tender lover mode as he stroked Ryan's hair and held the boy close. "So.. I got your cherry...."

"Yes, sir," Ryan said. It was wild the number hormones did on you, the teen thought. Making you hard charging one minute, clingy the next. He'd experienced this with girls, but with his dad it was a hundred times deeper. "I'm glad you got it."

"I'm going to hell," Jim said, half a joking comment but the religious misgivings were real and coming on strong.

"It'll be worth it," Ryan said softly. "Please... don't freak out on me, Dad."

Jim gave a smile and patted Ryan's warm chest. "OK, no freaking out, buddy. Promise." He looked up at the clock. "We have maybe two hours. Wanna get showered off?"

Ryan nodded. He was glad his father helped him up off the bed. The jock felt surprisingly drained from the sex.

The energy came back as they shared a shower, though. Sudsing and rinsing each other. Kissing each other beneath the spray. Getting hard again. Jim held his son and pulled the wet warm athletic body toward his. The kid was right. Hell would be worth it. His hands snaked down to cup Ryan's bubble ass, a finger digging in naughtily.

"How you doing down there, Killer?" Jim asked, concern but also flirtation in his voice. The father felt very honored to have taken his stud son's anal virginity.

Ryan gave a soft grin. "Empty, sir."

Jim let out a soft grunt. He kissed Ryan, harder, then pulled off and turned the football jock around.

Ryan knew what was happening and he wanted it. Who knows how often he and Dad would have the chance for this. He braced one arm against the tile wall and reached back to pull one cheek apart, letting his father in.

Jim was fuck hard now, and quickly sudsed up for lubrication. The entry was easy now, Ryan now learning how to relax.

Ryan grunted a grunt of pleasure. His dad hit some amazing spot deep inside him. "Yes," he hissed just as he felt his dad's lips kiss the back of his neck.

"It's like fucking honeymoon sex," Jim growled. Thrusting into his boy once more.

It was a thrill to hear his dad curse and get that bedroom voice. But Ryan's head also went to the idea of his dad fucking his mother on their honeymoon. Maybe that's when Ryan was conceived...

Their pairing was less verbal as the men communicated with their bodies. Jim's slow but urgent pump in and out of Ryan's ass, the father's hands caressing and holding the jock's wet muscle. Ryan arching his back in just the right position to be taken.

Jim came alone this time. His muscular middle aged body thrusting more spasmodically into his son's smoother one, the grip around Ryan's torso getting tighter and more possessive as he nutted inside his son's bare ass for a second time. Then the soft kisses and relaxation returning.

"God, Dad," Ryan whined. He so turned on. He never wanted this feeling to end yet he also needed to get off.

There was that light smack again as Jim withdrew. "Turn around," came the back of an order.

Ryan complied automatically, showing off a hardon that was matched in size and shape to his father's. Not a twin, but clearly related.

Already Jim was crouching down in the shower, the spray soaking his hair as he leaned in and swallowed his boy's prick.

"Yeah!" Ryan gasped. He was so primed it wasn't going to take long. Just six or so bobs of his father's mouth on his cock did it. Ryan was spurting hard and heavy into Jim's craw.

The jock didn't know what to expect but he watched as his dad clearly swallow it all. The man had a proud look on his face when he finally stood up too. "All right, let's get dressed. I better air out the bedroom too."

Ryan was concerned that the post-nut business-like vibe was his Dad's way of feeling guilty. Or dealing with the guilty. As he went back to his room and got properly dressed, Ry felt like he should be feeling guilty himself. But he wasn't. He went to his father's study and gathered his and his dad's shorts and brought them and his father's phone to him.

"No one can fucking know," Jim said. Not harshly but clearly needing to say it.

"Of course, Dad. Jesus."

Jim smiled and patted Ryan's arm. "You've certainly grown into a fine looking man."

Ryan grinned back. He could see a glint in his dad's eyes. "You wanting round three, sir?"

Jim laughed. "Can't fucking risk it, buddy. But yeah..."

An idea occurred to him. "Why don't you keep a watch?"

That got the dad excited. "You mean?"

Ryan nodded. So Jim stepped to the bedroom window, where he could peer out onto the driveway.

Meanwhile his son knelt down and started unzipping his father's jeans. The dick was plump and firmed out completely in Ryan's fingers.

"Oh yeah, buddy," Jim hissed. Ryan had about as much technique as he did - not a lot - but it didn't matter. His kid was eager and the idea of getting a Ryan McCready blowjob had Jim getting close in due order.

"I'm gonna blow," that bedroom voice hissed. A warning.

Ryan kept at it, though, sucking a little faster and trying to take another inch of his dad's cock into his throat. The whole experience was incredible. He didn't even know if he'd enjoy sucking another guy remotely like he did his father.

The cum shot wasn't heavy. Just a spurt and some dribbles. But Ryan was tasting his dad's cum for the first time. Sweet and briny. He knew he'd want more in the future.

He finally backed off to see his dad grinning down on him, even as the man was already tucking himself back into his jeans. "That, young man, was amazing." He looked out the window. "Fuck!" he grunted.

Ryan didn't need to be told. He got up and made his way down to the family room. He turned on the TV and found some ESPN channel, right before he heard his mom and sisters walk in.

"You're dressed," his mother said when she saw Ryan. "I thought you might sleep in the whole day." Then, "Where's your dad?"

Ryan shrugged, playing dumb. "I don't know. In his study, maybe."

Already his sisters were rushing past with shopping bags, acknowledging their older brother, but barely.

Ryan's phone buzzed. He saw he had a message from his friend Kyle. But the latest one was from his father. "Thank you, buddy. I owe ya."

Ryan smiled. Then another message came in. "James McCready, Covenant Watch app removed."

"You dog," Ryan quietly said to himself. Then proceeded to remove the app on his own phone.

#drakestories

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