HOUSEHOLD
Eldest daughter of two second-generation immigrants.
She lives with her parents, her dad's sister and her children.
Reader has two younger siblings - Adam and Aneesa.
Adam and Aneesa are twins, both 15.
Auntie Zahra (Dad's sister) and her two children, Zane and Maya.
Zane is 18 and Maya is 17.
BACKGROUND - Reader has always been educationally gifted which helped her get into better schools on a scholarship. She attended King’s Landing High School which you can assume is where she met the others. She’s always looked after her siblings and cousins since she hit puberty. She’s been an apart of many different social circles but never quite ‘fit’ in but she had two consistent friends - Keira Tyrosh and Duncan ‘Dunc’. Keira was the first person to willingly sit next to her in the cafeteria. Duncan accidentally hit her with a rugby ball as she was mid-ranting to herself on a field. She eventually made more friends, not to mention the ones that lived in her area. One day she’d be at a horse race surrounded by people in a completely different tax bracket; other times she’d be sat on a field way past her curfew surrounded by weed and vodka bottles.
HOBBIES - She’s loved painting ever since she was a kid. Anything with colours, anything that she could make, she’d spend hours doing. Although she didn’t have the time as she grew older, her hands would be full of mehndi and any other body part she’d get the chance to do. Dancing was her other favourite. Her mum had a CD case filled with all the different English and South Asian artists. R would put it into the dvd player and copy the movement of the dancers. There were many times her mum walked in on her copying vulgar dances but it wasn’t R fault that the Bollywood music videos were dirty. A hobby that she enjoyed before it turned into a chore was baking. She’d bake for her younger siblings, once an every few weeks they’d all have a decorating night set up by their mum but very rare now. Whenever there was an event or they went somewhere, R was the designated baker. Because what kind of south Asian family were they if they didn’t bring the sweet treat.
STYLE - I don’t think there’s a certain ‘aesthetic’ to the Reader. She used to try and force herself to fit in to the different cliques by changing what she wore. She spent a lot of money on clothes she never actually liked, she had just seen the other girls wearing it outside of school. But when she was back home, in her town, she felt out of place in those clothes. At home and at guests homes, she was told to wear traditional clothing out of ‘respect’ and ‘modesty. Basically meaning ‘I don’t care what you wear as long as you throw a scarf over your chest’. She started mixing up her style, traditional clothing and western because who said you couldn’t have both. Not to mention she saw a lot of the older girls in her family wear whatever they want and she thought they looked so cool. Dripped out in gold jewellery, cheap press on nails, a sleek eyeliner and Kajol smudged all around the eyes with a lipgloss from boots that was way past the expiry date.
WHAT’S ON THE INSIDE - R doesn’t drink, smoke, or take drugs. Yes, she goes through life completely raw. Well… not completely. She’s an avoidant. She leaves people before they can leave her. She doesn’t give someone the chance to love her because she feels she’s not good enough for it. She doesn’t see herself as a good person. She always think she can do better, look better, speak better, be better. She stays up till the she hears the sounds of the birds outside her window because that’s the only time everything feels quiet. Since she was younger, she suffered from hyper sexuality. From a young age, people desired her. But she’d be nothing more than that. Not someone they’d take home. Not someone they’d show off to their parents. Never that. Just some hidden dirty secret. She learned to not get attached. She thought if they wanted to use her, she’d use them first. She loves her siblings more than anything and she sees her cousins as apart of that. They’d always come first. No matter how exhausting, chaotic and fucked up her family could be, R could never leave them. Out of guilt or loyalty - she didn’t know yet.
LOVE INTERESTS? -
In highschool, You thought Aerion was the fittest lad you’d ever seen. People were intimidated by him but no-could deny he was beautiful. Until he opened his mouth and then you were entirely put off. He got under her skin and you had ‘accidently’ hit him one too many times. You were this close to being expelled until you parents made you apologise. Maekar (Aerion’s father) had slapped the smirk of Aerion when you came to apologise. Seems like they had that in common. Aerion had few friends but loyal. He rarely showed interest in anyone so you couldn’t he’d go out of his way to rile you up. The teachers said it was a ‘crush’. You considered it at first. Until you realised what a secret whore he was. I suppose he had some shame. Seems like they had that in common too.
Samuel Lannister. Every girl fawned over him. His blonde hair, sharp features, and charming personality. He was the apart of a ‘golden trio’. And he was the golden child out of it. Everyone loved him. His grandfather is the General of the Westerosi army and his father is a Lieutenant General. Samuel wants to join his uncle in the Royal Air Force. Remember the ‘not someone they’d take home’…. Yeah. But it was so great for the time it lasted.
Daeron Targaryen. Half of the westerosi girls were in love with him since he’d always be in the front page of a magazine cover. Usually for Drunk and Disorderly. He was another part of the ‘golden trio’ of his year. Him with his dirty blonde hair, bright blue eyes and tall physique, young girls everywhere crushed on him. You found him in the field in the middle of the an autumns night. You both spent a few hours talking. You assumed he was drunk as he always was. He wasn’t that time. He finished highschool two years before you. He never forgot you. Not after you started plaguing his dreams. Sometimes euphorically good and sometimes horrifyingly bad.
Damarion Martell. An exchange student from Dorne who is curious to see the world. Flirty, spontaneous and clever made him the life of the parties. You got lost in college on your first week, he offered to help you. You realised you were further than you thought from your class. You spent the time getting to know bits about each other, mostly him asking you straight-forward questions. When you reached the room, he told you he was in the same class. He in fact didn’t know where the room was, he just guessed along the way and took the chance to get to know you. He scares you. Not in that way. But in the way that makes you question more to life.
(I actually didn’t plan any of that out. I just sort of kept writing. Yeah so what we have attractive guys from rich backgrounds wanting us? If it can’t happen in real life at least I can write about it.) I’m not really sure what else to add but HERE IT IS. I’m sure there might be some plot holes and things I haven’t figured out but I’ll get to it!
HOUSEHOLD
Eldest daughter of two second-generation immigrants.
She lives with her parents, her dad's sister and her children.
Reader has two younger siblings - Adam and Aneesa.
Adam and Aneesa are twins, both 15.
Auntie Zahra (Dad's sister) and her two children, Zane and Maya.
Zane is 18 and Maya is 17.
BACKGROUND - Reader has always been educationally gifted which helped her get into better schools on a scholarship. She attended King’s Landing High School which you can assume is where she met the others. She’s always looked after her siblings and cousins since she hit puberty. She’s been an apart of many different social circles but never quite ‘fit’ in but she had two consistent friends - Keira Tyrosh and Duncan ‘Dunc’. Keira was the first person to willingly sit next to her in the cafeteria. Duncan accidentally hit her with a rugby ball as she was mid-ranting to herself on a field. She eventually made more friends, not to mention the ones that lived in her area. One day she’d be at a horse race surrounded by people in a completely different tax bracket; other times she’d be sat on a field way past her curfew surrounded by weed and vodka bottles.
HOBBIES - She’s loved painting ever since she was a kid. Anything with colours, anything that she could make, she’d spend hours doing. Although she didn’t have the time as she grew older, her hands would be full of mehndi and any other body part she’d get the chance to do. Dancing was her other favourite. Her mum had a CD case filled with all the different English and South Asian artists. R would put it into the dvd player and copy the movement of the dancers. There were many times her mum walked in on her copying vulgar dances but it wasn’t R fault that the Bollywood music videos were dirty. A hobby that she enjoyed before it turned into a chore was baking. She’d bake for her younger siblings, once an every few weeks they’d all have a decorating night set up by their mum but very rare now. Whenever there was an event or they went somewhere, R was the designated baker. Because what kind of south Asian family were they if they didn’t bring the sweet treat.
STYLE - I don’t think there’s a certain ‘aesthetic’ to the Reader. She used to try and force herself to fit in to the different cliques by changing what she wore. She spent a lot of money on clothes she never actually liked, she had just seen the other girls wearing it outside of school. But when she was back home, in her town, she felt out of place in those clothes. At home and at guests homes, she was told to wear traditional clothing out of ‘respect’ and ‘modesty. Basically meaning ‘I don’t care what you wear as long as you throw a scarf over your chest’. She started mixing up her style, traditional clothing and western because who said you couldn’t have both. Not to mention she saw a lot of the older girls in her family wear whatever they want and she thought they looked so cool. Dripped out in gold jewellery, cheap press on nails, a sleek eyeliner and Kajol smudged all around the eyes with a lipgloss from boots that was way past the expiry date.
WHAT’S ON THE INSIDE - R doesn’t drink, smoke, or take drugs. Yes, she goes through life completely raw. Well… not completely. She’s an avoidant. She leaves people before they can leave her. She doesn’t give someone the chance to love her because she feels she’s not good enough for it. She doesn’t see herself as a good person. She always think she can do better, look better, speak better, be better. She stays up till the she hears the sounds of the birds outside her window because that’s the only time everything feels quiet. Since she was younger, she suffered from hyper sexuality. From a young age, people desired her. But she’d be nothing more than that. Not someone they’d take home. Not someone they’d show off to their parents. Never that. Just some hidden dirty secret. She learned to not get attached. She thought if they wanted to use her, she’d use them first. She loves her siblings more than anything and she sees her cousins as apart of that. They’d always come first. No matter how exhausting, chaotic and fucked up her family could be, R could never leave them. Out of guilt or loyalty - she didn’t know yet.
LOVE INTERESTS? -
In highschool, You thought Aerion was the fittest lad you’d ever seen. People were intimidated by him but no-could deny he was beautiful. Until he opened his mouth and then you were entirely put off. He got under her skin and you had ‘accidently’ hit him one too many times. You were this close to being expelled until you parents made you apologise. Maekar (Aerion’s father) had slapped the smirk of Aerion when you came to apologise. Seems like they had that in common. Aerion had few friends but loyal. He rarely showed interest in anyone so you couldn’t he’d go out of his way to rile you up. The teachers said it was a ‘crush’. You considered it at first. Until you realised what a secret whore he was. I suppose he had some shame. Seems like they had that in common too.
Samuel Lannister. Every girl fawned over him. His blonde hair, sharp features, and charming personality. He was the apart of a ‘golden trio’. And he was the golden child out of it. Everyone loved him. His grandfather is the General of the Westerosi army and his father is a Lieutenant General. Samuel wants to join his uncle in the Royal Air Force. Remember the ‘not someone they’d take home’…. Yeah. But it was so great for the time it lasted.
Daeron Targaryen. Half of the westerosi girls were in love with him since he’d always be in the front page of a magazine cover. Usually for Drunk and Disorderly. He was another part of the ‘golden trio’ of his year. Him with his dirty blonde hair, bright blue eyes and tall physique, young girls everywhere crushed on him. You found him in the field in the middle of the an autumns night. You both spent a few hours talking. You assumed he was drunk as he always was. He wasn’t that time. He finished highschool two years before you. He never forgot you. Not after you started plaguing his dreams. Sometimes euphorically good and sometimes horrifyingly bad.
Damarion Martell. An exchange student from Dorne who is curious to see the world. Flirty, spontaneous and clever made him the life of the parties. You got lost in college on your first week, he offered to help you. You realised you were further than you thought from your class. You spent the time getting to know bits about each other, mostly him asking you straight-forward questions. When you reached the room, he told you he was in the same class. He in fact didn’t know where the room was, he just guessed along the way and took the chance to get to know you. He scares you. Not in that way. But in the way that makes you question more to life.
(I actually didn’t plan any of that out. I just sort of kept writing. Yeah so what we have attractive guys from rich backgrounds wanting us? If it can’t happen in real life at least I can write about it.) I’m not really sure what else to add but HERE IT IS. I’m sure there might be some plot holes and things I haven’t figured out but I’ll get to it!
there would be a class difference in my Akotsk!british2000’s fic.
I actually was inspired to create this because of the stories people around me have told me from when they were teenagers back in the early 2000’s.
And since I’ve been obsessed with this show since it came out, i thought it’d be interesting to mix them both.
⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆
I’d imagine the Targaryen Manor to be in the countryside. Cool, Elegant, Elite.
In the main house they’d have four floors, including a cellar. This is where Baelor Targaryen, and his wife Jena and their two sons -Valarr and Matarys- live.
Acres of land.
A garage which held cars with names you’ve never heard off. (Vintage)
A separation portion of the manor where Maekar (the youngest brother), his now deceased wife Dyanna, and their children -Daeron, Aerion, Aemon, Daella, Aegon and Rhae- live.
A garden with a basketball court, an indoor pool, a fountain, a bar, a barbecue area and not another house in sight for miles.
The Targaryens are royalty in Westeros. Basically like Englands royal family.
The Targaryen children’s allowance is around £50 a week, depending on their behaviour.
⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆
The Reader’s home is vastly different. Warm, Chaotic, Cultured.
A detached home which they privately rent.
The family consists of the Readers parents, two younger siblings - one boy & one girl. Her auntie (dad’s sister), and her two children. One boy (same age as Reader) and one girl (A year younger)
They live on a main street where the town markets is just a bus ride away.
The house consists of two floors and an attic.
Reader shares the attic with her younger sister.
Her dad owns a convenience store and her mother works with her sister at their tailor store.
Since the Reader and her cousin are the eldest, her allowance was ranged between £10-£15. The rest of the kids has an allowance of £5. These were all from child benefits that were sometimes not seen.
whoops - I forgot to introduce my character when’s she’s the most baddie one out of them all.
for some reason the hardest part is choosing a song.
for context - my akotsk!2000sau
I’ve been deciding between reader and OC? Because the only thing about her character that I can’t change is that she’s south Asian. But that’s not really reader friendly? Hm.
there would be a class difference in my Akotsk!british2000’s fic.
I actually was inspired to create this because of the stories people around me have told me from when they were teenagers back in the early 2000’s.
And since I’ve been obsessed with this show since it came out, i thought it’d be interesting to mix them both.
⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆
I’d imagine the Targaryen Manor to be in the countryside. Cool, Elegant, Elite.
In the main house they’d have four floors, including a cellar. This is where Baelor Targaryen, and his wife Jena and their two sons -Valarr and Matarys- live.
Acres of land.
A garage which held cars with names you’ve never heard off. (Vintage)
A separation portion of the manor where Maekar (the youngest brother), his now deceased wife Dyanna, and their children -Daeron, Aerion, Aemon, Daella, Aegon and Rhae- live.
A garden with a basketball court, an indoor pool, a fountain, a bar, a barbecue area and not another house in sight for miles.
The Targaryens are royalty in Westeros. Basically like Englands royal family.
The Targaryen children’s allowance is around £50 a week, depending on their behaviour.
⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆
The Reader’s home is vastly different. Warm, Chaotic, Cultured.
A detached home which they privately rent.
The family consists of the Readers parents, two younger siblings - one boy & one girl. Her auntie (dad’s sister), and her two children. One boy (same age as Reader) and one girl (A year younger)
They live on a main street where the town markets is just a bus ride away.
The house consists of two floors and an attic.
Reader shares the attic with her younger sister.
Her dad owns a convenience store and her mother works with her sister at their tailor store.
Since the Reader and her cousin are the eldest, her allowance was ranged between £10-£15. The rest of the kids has an allowance of £5. These were all from child benefits that were sometimes not seen.
context - dates with the boys🫦 Aerion + Daeron (NOT together)
may do this with more characters if i’m motivated.
purely self indulgent
*NOT EDITED
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1. early2000’sbritish!aeriontargaryen
In this, I do see Aerion taking you to ‘his’ spot for your date. A cliffside on a warm day, not too warm because he knows how irritated you can get. He’d take you in rain or shine but for the first dates he decides to be gentlemanly.
He tells you to wear comfortable shoes (you do not).
He tells you to dress accordingly (you don’t the first time).
But then you get used to it and spend an absurd amount at nike/adidas to ‘fit’ in. You mainly got it so you looked good. Aerion, on the other hand, prioritized his comfortability and it was unfair he looked good regardless.
After walking for what seems like hours, (it could’ve been but Aerion purposely parked right at the shortcut in slight fear you’d turn back - not that he’d ever say that out loud), you finally reach the peak and can see water stretching endlessly from the cliffside. You’ll settle down, Aerion would take a couple minute breather before already undressing. You feel like your feet are on fire and your calves burn so you practically face plant the grass. He would’ve usually started fishing but the weather was too warm to waste, not to mention the fear of boring you.
You had this man on a leash.
You follow him back down another way, reaching the cool water. You spend hours there relaxing, swimming, playing, splashing and messing around like children. You ask him to play mermaids with you, he gives you a ‘what the fuck’ look. You force him anyway. He turns the role-play sexual to no-one’s surprise, and maybe because of the warm and care free atmosphere or maybe that you’re madly attracted to him, you give in.
With Aerion, you feel alive. He brings you to a high, the kind of high that you can only come crashing down afterwards.
You take out your digital camera that was gifted to you for your 16th birthday and have been carrying it around since. However many ‘off-gaurd’ photos you take of him, he still looks annoyingly beautiful.
He’ll take your camera and tell you to keep doing what you’re doing.
You get a bit shy since you’re always the photographer.
He’ll make you feel confident. Sometimes too confident. And that scares you.
He builds a small fire as you walk around barefoot, taking pictures.
He pulls out a carton of drinks, and expensive looking snacks with that classic minimalist packaging - most likely from Marks & Spencer’s or Waitrose.
Two boxes of drinks in fact, one that looks more colorful with summer advertisement all over it and the other that looked like middle aged dads drank.
You bought something more suitable for a picnic.
Sandwiches, s’mores, his favorite snacks from the corner shop.
You watch the sunset, drink, talk about your families and the shared traumas you both have (that you’d pretend to never have had the next day)
He tells you he likes you like this.
You say you like him like this.
But you both know it won’t last so you savour it as much as you can.
⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆
2. early2000’sbritish!daerontargaryen
Daeron wants to impress you.
He first planned a 5 star restaurant serving foods with names you couldn’t pronounce and serving portions smaller than your palm.
You had come to understand his likes and dislikes as you both grew closer.
You didn’t want to be apart of the ‘facade’ Daeron put on as his duties as the eldest son, you wanted to be apart of his real life.
He wanted to prove to himself you that he could do/be more than the drinking and drugs.
He takes you to the planetarium.
You notice how he always wears clothes baggier than his lean physique, almost like he’s always trying to hide away or make himself seem smaller.
He compliments you. Always genuinely. He could pick you apart telling you each thing he loves about you. But he’d just dream about that instead.
He waffles on about all the different stars, planets and galaxies.
He realises he’s been talking too much so he waits for your reaction.
And instead of looking at him oddly or questioning ‘why does he know all this’ - you simply ask him more questions out of intrigue.
You see the light in his eyes, the way he tries to keep his cool but you see how even the littlest of effort on your behalf brings him joy.
You never wonder why there’s no-one else there. You were so wrapped up in him that everything else just seemed to fade away.
Awkwardly with his hands behinds his back, he follows you around.
He practically towers over you, even with your height.
You lie down under the projection room.
You’re both laughing your heads of over something you can’t even remember.
You’re both exploring the different rooms, filled with different colours and views that you could only dream off.
You take pictures of each other. Unfortunately, Daeron manages to hide his face in every one.
You say you want to remember these moments and him.
He takes photos of you so he can freeze this time before the inevitable happens.
After you’ve finished your tour he eventually leads you outside.
You see a small picnic set up.
Including two small canvases and paints.
You feel something that your brain doesn’t know how to handle.
The full moon is out, the sky is clear and the stars are brighter than before.
He tells you he doesn’t like to dream.
Which surprises you.
But after meeting you, he’s found a real reason too.
because who doesn’t want to be by the sea in the summer. (Half of them would much prefer the private pool at the Targaryen Manor but you force them)
Y/N’s shed
what was once a no boys allowed had now turned into a weed den. Courtesy of Aerion. Now the rule was, whatever happened in the den, stayed in the den.
The pavement where the local ice-cream van comes.
everyone runs out at the sound of the local ice cream van before the kids get there. Because what bigger kids are there than them. they were banned from other ice cream vans.
Duncan’s trampoline
which has been broken and fixed many times. Valarr and Keira had been caught there one too many times.
The rooftop above the pub.
Daeron claimed the apartment above was empty turns out.. it wasn’t. Come to think of it, they’re banned from a lot of places until the boys pull out the ‘Do you know who my father is?’ card.
One thing golden era Wattpad writers had going for them was that they knew the importance of a buildup. I'm of the opinion that the sexual tension is WAY more satisfying to read than the actual sex and quite frankly there is a serious lack of non smutty writing.
Like I really miss reading fics/ x readers that start from scratch. Meeting the characters, initial reactions getting to know them, the tension the jealousy the TENSION the freaking tension.
Looking and looking away when they get spotted, touches that feel like they linger but perhaps they didn't and they're both so hot for each other that they think it's wishful thinking. And I don't mean just sweet sunshine romances, darker works can have a buildup too but it seems like so much is just about getting to the smut instead of the psychological aspect.
summary: bobby has been missing for months, last seen with his manager and no other word. you’ve cried, you’ve put up posters, you’ve answered questions. and most of all you’ve waited. but one thing you didn’t expect, was when he actually came back..
a/n: his back and forth was kind of inspired by nikki from obsession (besides the wish stuff and it’s just the backrooms fucking with him) i wanted to make this more than just smut, so i hope you sexies enjoy !!
The morning the call came you felt it. It came early, far too early than a call should come. One that was normal.
The shift came first. The unease settling into your stomach, your hand hovering over the phone as the bedsheets shrugged down your body. The other side, his side, was empty, cool and dull where it once would have left you kicking off the covers from your legs. An annoyed groan coming from being shoved too far into the pillow. How you missed that noise.
Your fingers wrapped the cord with a desperate hesitation. Push and pull back before you finally plucked the courage to press it to your ear.
“So sorry for the late call. But you were the only contact.” A man’s voice comes through the speaker, tired and gruff, one you’d expect to hear from the movies. Like he was torn between duty and doing right and falling asleep where he sat.
“No.. it’s okay, what is it?” You spoke quickly, stuttering it out as sleep clings to your eyes, falling away every second the anxiety crept in.
The officer droned on, and from consistent lack of sleep and your cheek shoved hovering over the receiver, you’d hardly listened. You waited for words, something to make your ears prick up. And it came, slowly.
“There’s no simple way to put this..”
The breath caught in your throat, hitching and drafting in the cold. You didn’t say anything, you couldn’t, your heart thumped too loud in your chest and ears to do anything other than breathe. This was news. It could be anything, it could be bad, it could be—
“We’ve got someone you might want to talk to.”
A sound escaped your mouth, about to speak, about to ask, pushing yourself up onto your one arm.
“Miss it’s—“ Suddenly, his voice stopped. The other end crackling with static before settling to an anticipatory silence. And that’s when it came, tired and shaky, and all him.
“Hey baby, it’s Bobby..”
The phone suddenly weighed a ton, and it shook in your hand. You hadn’t finished what you were even about to say, the way you felt the sob erupt in your throat, before you sprung out of bed. It dropped back onto the nightstand with a clatter and you didn’t pick it back up. In fact you didn’t pick up anything. Only a hoodie that lay on the chair, his, no car keys.
He came back to you in arms of police. Slumped on a bench in a hallway after questioning in a dimly lit corridor with his hands in his lap. The hoodie they gave him was different to his own, the clothes he’d worn the morning he’d disappeared were gone. They stitched his face in two places, one across his nose, the other at his jaw, and bruises littered in other place, his hands twitching and feet tapping impatiently.
Bobby didn’t have time to speak, your had flung your arms around him as soon as you met eyes around the corner. He embraced you tighter, arms circling around your waist, and a hand holding your head into his neck. He felt thinner, his body sagging against yours as he fell into it. Your tears stained his shoulder, and his own fell into your hair, soft sobs wracking your bodies.
“God I’ve missed you..”
“Yeah, no kidding..” You mumbled through your tears, offering what smile could reach your face. Your fingers finding their way over his face as his does yours, taking each other in with a disbelief that makes your eyes grow wide.
No one else had been accounted for. Clark, Kat, even a mention of Clark’s therapist, Mary that he’d mentioned to you once on one of his drunken rants. The time he had shouted at you and Bobby to get out of the store far before closing time. That was months ago, weeks before they all had even gone missing. But you didn’t leave time to question it, and neither did the detective standing in the doorway.
He sent you both away with a curt nod, and a careful order to get him some rest and ‘take good care of him, he looks pretty banged up’. And he does, he looks like he’s been through hell. His face paled and sunken in, eyes dark around the edges, but his body is warm against you, gentle.
And he didn’t let go all the way home, didn’t even stop looking at you. His hand threaded through yours over the gearstick as you drove, the last hours of night falling around you.
He was here, he was home..
—
“You might want to slow down..”
“Mmhm.. no way.” His spoon scrapes the bowl with a screech and he shovels another spoonful of cheerios into his mouth. He eats the way a dog would. Shameless and happily. Though he’s never been much for manners.
Bobby, always in a rush. And he does it in a way that almost makes you forgive him on the spot. Flashing that soft grin with a mouthful you, and that twinkle in his eyes.
You hadn’t asked him what he ate there, where he was, and he didn’t tell you. He only began to speak of some of it in detail, the things he could remember, or rather the things he could put into words, after days.
But there’s blips in his memory. things that don’t add up.
There were walls, and doors. An endless place where nothing made sense, and he wasn’t alone. The thoughts you conjure up look like something from someone on a bad acid trip, and for a while you wonder if it was. If someone laced some of his pot and he took off. But the look in his eyes says something different.
The look says others were involved, says that the evidence is all there, but even that couldn’t account for what happened. It’s real. And whatever, wherever he’s been, he doesn’t want to relive any of it.
You’ve seen it sometimes in mirrors and reflections. Where he passed by the bay window and stares too long in the bathroom. His eye, his body. It’s no different to how it’s always been, save for the bruises. But there’s the same slouch in his frame and swagger in his hips. But he pauses.
Almost inhumanly, like when someone forgets what they doing and have to counteract and rethink. But it’s more than that with him you notice, it’s like he’s recalibrating, like how a machine would.
Shut down, start again, think it over, and carry on.
It starts with small things. And then he becomes hyper fixated on you, and how you hurt.
He notices you flinch when you burn your hand on the stove. It’s nothing, just a quick sting, a sharp breath you barely mean to take back.
But Bobby sees it like it’s an emergency.
His eyes track your hand immediately, “That hurt.”
You shrug it off, turning to face him, “It’s fine, it’s just—”
“It shouldn’t be.”
The way he says it isn’t angry, but it’s final.
From then on, he watches. Not constantly, obviously, but it’s enough that you feel it. Like everything around you is learning you, like he is.
The next time you cut your finger, he’s already there before you even register it. He takes your hand gently, like he’s afraid of pressure itself.
“You don’t need this,” he says.
You blink. “Need what?”
“This.” He turns your hand slightly, studying the tiny line of red like it’s an error in something perfect. “Getting hurt and just… accepting it.”
You let out a breath. “Bobby, people get small cuts all the time.” His gaze lifts to yours.
It’s flat again. Focused.
“But why should you? Why should any of us?”
There it is again, that wrong kind of logic. His voice gets breathy then, almost like he’s about to break, tears under the laughter that comes from his mouth.
You try to laugh it off, try to pull your finger back, but he holds it in his, “Because that’s life.”
He tilts his head slightly, like the word “life” doesn’t translate correctly anymore.
“You had to adapt in there.. just to survive. It became everything.”
His thumb brushes just above the cut, small droplets beading with sting down your skin and you wince.
“And now you don’t have to adapt anymore.”
Your words register, but he doesn’t answer to them. Because it’s true, he doesn’t. Whatever that seems to mean.
“I’d take it away if I could.”
You go still.
“What do you mean?”
His eyes don’t move from your skin, and it tells you what he doesn’t say.
Your hurt, I’d take it all away if I could. I don’t know how, it doesn’t make sense, but I’d try. I’d try it all for you. I’d make being here count.
That lands wrong in your chest.
“Bobby… no. That’s not how it works.”
He finally looks up again.
And there’s something almost offended there now. Not at you, but at the idea that he can’t do that, that his brain is working far too fast for his thinking.
“I can take it away.. let me take it away for you baby.”
His hand raises to your cheek, your finger still clutched in his other, drawn right close to his face. It’s like it had something to give, and it’s almost him, it’s so close to being. It’s rushed and soft and careful, and it doesn’t know where to land. A finger slides through your hair, your breathing sharp as your finger presses to his lips, leaving a trail of blood.
“I’m better.”
The words crack strangely, and he’s repeating something he needs to believe.
For a second something flickers across his face. Confusion like grief, a fracture opening beneath the surface that leaves his smile appearing and disappearing in the same breath.
“I’m better,” he says again, quieter this time.
And God, part of him seems almost devastated by it.
Because whatever happened to him, whatever was taken apart and put back together wrong, it left one thing untouched.
You.
His eyes search your face with an intensity that makes your chest tighten.
You know that look.
Bobby used to look at you like that when he was in love. His jaw ticking and eyes blinking carefully. Now he looks at you like you’re the only thing keeping him anchored.
Like if he can just fix enough of the world around you, maybe the pieces inside him will stop rattling. Because he tries to silence it, he wants to so bad, he wants to take away every memory from that fucked up place. But he just.. can’t.
He leans closer, voice lowering, almost intimate
“I can make it better for you too.”
Your hand stays in his, threading through his fingers. But you realise, distantly, that this isn’t relief breaking through him.
It’s obsession.
Every time you wince, every time you get tired, every tiny hurt catches his attention and never quite lets it go. He circles back to them hours later. Days later. Asking if it still aches. If it’s gone. If he can help.
As if he’s collecting evidence, as if loving you has become tangled up with fixing.
And somewhere inside that fractured mind he’s decided that if you’re safe, if you’re comfortable, if nothing ever hurts you again, then maybe all of this was worth it.
Because that's when it dawns on you further. He hasn't let go since he came back. Not once. And now the way he holds you feels less like reassurance..
But it's still him. It's still Bobby, yours. And he reminds you of it. He reiterates it over and over everytime he sees the change in your eyes.
Because he does, he notices everything. The flicker of uncertainty, the gentle blow of your pupil with everything you can't name, the wanting, the longing. The fact he knows he's been missing for months and he left you alone, and that he is so sorry baby..
But he's here now. And he's good, great even, and he can prove it, he swears up and down that he can.
He just wants you.
And it’s not that you don’t. You do. You feel the want in every tug in your bones, every brush of his hand and breath at your ear. He’s been gone too long, the apartment empty and wrong. Now somehow it feels whole again. It’s sharper now, but hungry in all the ways it ever has been. When his teeth graze your throat and hands slide down your sides. They dig in. Searching, groping at the flesh, and his breathing is so ragged it consumes you.
You pull away. It’s instinct, it’s not want. Something creeping inside of you tells you it in harsh pangs in your gut.
He lets you, resting back into the kitchen counter, hands bracing there as he watches. His eyes follow you as you stand there, motionless and thinking. Bobby can’t read your mind, no amount of burning his gaze into your skull can do that, but the weight of it undoes you.
“I think you need rest..”
He just nods and lets you again. Allows you to lead him, and to take the first few steps as you turn away from him before he pushes mindlessly off of the counter. after you.
The bed is warm with both of you in it, the sheets pulled tight over your bodies in the first bit of normality you’ve both allowed yourself. He stills, splaying out on his back with one arm tucked behind his head in the pillows. You half expected him to fumble with his camera, mess about with it and keep the red light blinking for hours. Like he always has. But he doesn’t. Instead, his breathing evens out, an unusual slow.
But you curl around him anyway. He’s only just gotten home, the rest will come with time. For now your just thankful he’s even here, thankful for the fact he holds you even tighter, and you can hear the stuttering of his heartbeat in his chest, so calming that you surrender to it. The beating in your ears is a lull, its safety, its home. And he’s home. The tears almost fall again, welling at your eyes as you force them shut with a sting.
You don’t want to unnerve him, not after everything he’s been through. He deserves normalcy, and time, and this is it. So you push it down, swallowing it sharply until you succumb to sleep, fingers clutching tightly just to reassure yourself he’s there.
But Bobby hears it, the bobbing of your throat as you hold everything back. He doesn’t say anything, he knows better than to push. Because that’s it, he already knows.
He dreamt every space of time in there wondering, hoping, driving himself crazy just with the hope that he’d be in your arms again, and he is. He can’t seem to cry, even though he feels he could, but it claws deep in his chest, right where you lay, an empty void.
One they told him would be normal. That it’s common in his circumstances to feel an emptiness, a reintegration with society, particularly without knowing where, how and why can be difficult. It will be. But there was no telling how much.
Because where he went wasn’t on some crazy bender, it wasn’t a break from reality like the “kids these days and their down sides of smoking too much pot”. Where he went wasn’t Santa Clara. Where he went wasn’t anywhere at all, but he’d been there.
A place one you’ve been, you don’t truly leave.
The world around just seems surreal, like peeling back the chipped paint and cracked sidewalks would reveal everything. And maybe it could, after all it’s nothingness he fell into. His mind drifts as he stares up at the ceiling, fingers softly soothing at your back. He thinks of Clark, and Kat, and whoever else might have ever found that place. He wonders if they ever got out, or if the screams he heard were real, if the blood that caught under his nails and the dirt that sifted over his clothes were by his hands.
There’s no telling. But these hands, they hold you, that’s all he can think of. And they continue to rub at your back and comb through your hair. And because of it, somehow, some part of him feels together, and he’s able to for once close his eyes and feel sleep ways over him.
—
You try to ignore his words, the odd things they come out of his mouth, the things he mouths to himself when he thinks no one is looking.
But you can’t help it, it’s everywhere.
The first few days, he bounces back fast. He’s himself, and you’re certain he is. He’s bright and smiley, flashing you that grin even where it pulls at the stitches across his nose and chin. His hand folds into yours, threading through your fingers and curling at your knuckles and the kiss he pressed to your lips is tender.
But he has moments. Blips in his memory, like when he tells the stories of what he saw in there, he becomes jittery and lit of place.
You reassure him. You try. The store has been closed for further investigation, yellow banded tape crossed over every window and door. As if hadn’t cautioned out customers before, but that was the last place, the place where he disappeared. Even after all the pointing and the answers to the questions, he gives the detectives a direction, a complete map of what he saw. But they turn a blind eye, they don’t even look.
They just pave over the whole thing. Some even look at him likes he’s gone crazy.
You went through a wall?
Not through the wall, it’s.. listen, it’s a door. I don’t know how it works, but Clark, he showed me. It’s literally downstairs, the lower level I can show you.
Okay, that’s enough kid..
He patted him on the back, turning the pair of you away. They’d only called him back into questioning just to get a better idea, thinking that sitting down and retracing steps would work better than forcing him to speak the night he ran into the station.
Bobby never looked so angry, so ready to jump if you didn’t have your arm around you. He knows how it sounds, how stupid and crazy it sounds, and it really does. But he was there, he did go through the wall, and he didn’t come back until he found himself back months later. And that was only luck.
You watch him carefully. All the things he does. The checking, the overcompensating.. The way he wants to break back into the place, to show you everything on the camcorder, everything he picked up and that the police don’t want to hear. But how can he, because everytime he looks your way, the way he glances at you just to ask.
You don’t think I’m crazy do you?
—
The light reaches you before you can barely open your eyes all the way, rubbing them just to blink through the weariness. The bed dipped earlier but you thought nothing of it, just the steady warmth returning until it didn’t. You could hear him in the bathroom for a while, stepping back into the room with a creak in the floorboards, and he stopped for a moment. Watching.
But he didn’t come back to bed. And after a while, your body already wired, it kept you awake.
The static flickers on the tv, a dark greyish blue consuming the room.
His back faces you, his legs pressed over his knees from where he sits on the floor. Nothing plays on the video, just the grainy black and white shuffling over and over again with the noise over the top. Your steps reach the back of the couch, squinting just to see him properly.
“You scared of me now?” His speaks through the dark almost expectantly.
“Bobby what are you doing?”
“Answer me..”
“No I’m not.. why..” You answer gently.
“Then why’d you pull away.”
The shadow of his nose turns toward the light, golden strands of hair slipping into his eyes, leaving you out of view. But not unseen.
His gaze finds you anyway.
“When did I—”
“The other night. In the kitchen.”
Silence comes then, and his jaw works, chewing the inside of his cheek with everything pent up.
Like he’s chewing on something he doesn’t know how to swallow.
“You remember that?”
The question comes out quieter than you expect, but it’s not defensive, part of it is hopeful, part of it hungry.
You nod, only once and Bobby exhales through his nose. For a second his shoulders loosen, as if something had been handed back. Reassurance.
“You stayed.”
Your stomach twists. His voice seems smaller, shaky where he can’t seem to fully look at you, but he tries.
“Of course I stayed.”
His eyes flick over your face. Searching and searching. He’s looking for the moment you’ll take the words back, that you’ll call him crazy like the rest of them and leave him. But you don’t. And part of him knows that.
And he can’t let go of that, he never could before, and he wasn’t going to now. So he seizes it, rising for his feet in barely a blink and he’s in front of you. The static still mumbles on the tv, but it just shadows you both.
A hand clamps harsh around your waist, moving you in his grip to face him. His face is wet with tears, twinkling in the light where they remain following you.
“Bobby..?” You call out to him softly and he only presses into you.
“Shh.. it’s okay,” His breath hits your neck, breathless and snarling, but his face hardly moves. Your fingers brace around the counter he backs you both up into, his thumbs rubbing circles at your flesh where you don’t move away. You don’t pull away. You can’t and you don’t want to. But you feel the shift.
“I want you.”
His hand curls at the back of your back, backing you both into the edge of the couch, your legs hitting it with a thump. His mouth slides down to your ear, shaking you into his hold, pressing himself, his aching need into you. The motion makes you gasp, lips parting and he catches them, messy and wet with his own mouth.
“I want you to be mine again..” He mumbles against your lips, rolling the plumpness between his teeth.
“Bobby I’am yours..” His face comes into full view then, patterned by the moonlight breaking through the blinds.
“You promise ?”
His head falls back, body contorting around you, rocking back just to get a better look at you.
In this light, his canines just look that bit sharper, longer, glinting in the crackle of the tv set. The whites of his eyes keel over and roll back as they take you in, pupils blown in a black that covers the iris completely.
You don’t question it, something tells you not to. Some part of it is alluring, drawing you in like a dangerous honey, and you nod softly.
And that’s all he takes. In every way he can, in every way Bobby does. He collides. It’s slow but it’s desperate, his mouth consumes yours skillfully, tongue licking into yours as his hand circles to the back of your head.
“All mine.. just mine.”
He kisses you like that until your back hits the wall and your legs stumble, just so thy he can catch you into his arms. He wraps them around his waist, carrying you all the way, shedding your sleep shirt over your head and tossing it to the floor. There is an ache in the way he takes his time, gripping and tugging at every bit of flesh, kicking the door open with a careless groan.
You drop onto the bed with a huff, arms splaying out just for a moment until he’s on you again. His knees rise over your hips, squeezing you from the sides, caging you in.
His face goes blank where it drapes at your neck. Blue eyes faded to nothing but desire and primal hunger. And need. The primal urge is all too much, it consumes him, lights a fire deep in his belly and he knows in every shiver that creeps his spine, he has to have you. His hands hook around the waistband of your shorts, shrugging them off in one quick motion along with your panties, sliding down the thin fabric down your legs.
Then it’s all mess and warmth, the steady descent of him drowning in you, giving in to what he’s spent so long thinking of, dreaming of.
The sensation coasts down your body in waves, left by open mouthed kisses sucked over your skin. His lips press sweetly before they part, biting down roughly, catching you in his arms before you can pull back. The wince wracks your whole body, shivering under his touch as his fingers dig into the flesh of your navel, following the arch of your hips. It chases the feeling against you, the hard rip of teeth slicing into your skin, drawing red marks that bruise underneath it.
The one at your thigh drips languidly, acrid and tacky in thin droplets. Blood, your blood. And it’s his tongue that smoothes over it, soothing the wound where it opens, tears pricking your eyes where you become entirely undone. Your eyelids flutter, hands fisting the sheets around you and whatever else you can grab at.
He traces down where the trail follows, down across your thigh where the blood smears, down over the mound of your pussy where it mixes with your arousal, slick and dripping in your heat.
Bobby takes one longing look, one dark one shooting straight between your legs where you can see him. His touch is reverent, his mouth is hot right where you ache, and his eyes are completely blown black. Animalistic.
He delves in shamelessly, drinking you down with a long, flat suck through your folds, tongue dragging along your hole and circling at your clit.
“Taste s’good..”
He laps at you mercilessly, loud and unclean, claiming in a way that only comes from longing, or in Bobby’s case, devotion. His nose drags across your swollen clit, the skin rippling where you shake and tremble but he doesn’t let up. He devours you. Hands curl underneath you, tugging your further down onto him than even possible from the flesh of tour ass, your thighs fallen limp and curled over his back, the taut muscle flexing where he eagerly fucks you with his tongue.
His mouth closes over your pussy, rising just to catch where he sucks down hard on your clit, as it pulses and clenched around nothing.
“Good girl, so needy for it..” Wet muscle works its way into your hole, delving and lapping, feeling for where your moans pitch highest, working you there until you come undone. And you do. In hot pulses of pleasure that sift through your body, leaving your fingers tangled into his hair, holding and gripping as you rock yourself through his high. His tongue doesn’t relent, and neither does he, simply lets you chase the high until you’re dripping down his chin, sweet wetness that he slurps back into his mouth with a dark grin.
You whine out his name, eyes fluttering closed as your head lulls back onto the mattress. Something snaps again in him, harder this time, and unrestrained. One that leaves his fingers pinned around your wrists, shrugging the rest of his jeans down right to his knees.
“Open up your eyes.. look at me.”
Slender fingers cup your jaw, the other spreading your legs wider, thighs parting so he settles between them. He frees himself and his cock is dripping, twitching from where it sits so hard, an aching red and leaking from its tip. The sight makes you salivate, drenching the back of your throat near as much as your thighs.
“There she is..”
His hand wraps around it once, fisting it in a heavy pump that makes him groan, his throat bobbing as he rises back over you. The muscle of his biceps tick as they frame you, laying right beside your head, fingers flexing out to pat the strands of your hair. A delicate softness for all the depraved things he wants to do, that he’s compelled to do to you.
The tip of nose brushes your cheek, breath stuttering where he slides his hardness through your slick folds, resting himself with short thrusts on your pussy. The whine catches in your chest, your breaths mingling, and he looks down at you, and it takes a few blinks for you to notice. He’s really looking. Committing you to memory as if he’s seeing you for the first time all over again, his head tilts, only slightly, studying you once over.
His mouth claims your own, lips shoving into yours in a biting kiss, and then he gives in. He rolls his hips back to punch them into you, nestling right deep where you take all of him at once, stretching you deliciously to the limit.
“Oh, fuck..”
You gasp into his mouth, breath mingled with his own as his eyes squeeze shut, cursing at the clenching of your pussy around him, sucking him in greedily.
“I know, I know.. So good for me..” He rocks into you then, silencing your whines with his mouth, slipping his tongue so deep whatever is left of your faded mind swears it hits the back of your throat. His hips grind and ride over you until it punches deeper and consumes you.
“My angel, my girl..”
His cock drags inside of you, pounding over and over again until the breath is stolen from your lungs, constricted by his arm around your neck and the sheer weight of him pressing into you. biting into the back of your neck. Sweat coats your bodies, a sheen of arousal that grows hotter between you, beckoning him more, to give you more, to never leave your side again. And he vows it, pledges it into your body with his own.
Just like he won’t let you go.
His teeth bare sink into flesh without thinking, settling at the curve at of your jugular, not enough to tear, but enough to feel the pinch constrict. The tears fall over your cheeks, pattering in droplets right into where his mouth sits on your skin. He licks them away steadily right with the flick of his tongue, salt and sweat coating his lips with every other part of you that he’s collecting.
“Come on that’s it.. you got another one f’me yeah?” He rasps darkly, smirk pulling where his teeth graze your ear, smug and merciless.
Your whines keen into the sheets, shoved with a gasp every time he tugs you back onto him, mouth roaming relentlessly, restlessly where he can’t get enough of you. The feeling is too much, not enough, it’s burning hot where your skin slides together, his hips cracking into the curve of your ass just to drag further into your sopping pussy.
Your tits bounce with the force of his grinding, Bobby’s fingers pinching around to cup them, face pressing further down your body, curling over you. He growls low and guttural, suckling over every patch of skin he can find, “Shit.. take it baby, take all of me," His hands roam, scooping at the back of your thighs where they fall. He feels you falter, your thighs twitching and shaking, and he snags them, squeezing them as he shoves them up to your chest as he rises, moving you closer into him.
“Bobby.. fuck—“
He ruts into you at a pitiless pace, fingers pinching tight as they curl around your knees and legs, snapping right into your wet heat, and the whole of your body tightens. His thumb, or his fingers, you can’t tell, swipe over your throbbing clit, already too much and he circles, thumbing it in a rhythm that sends you over the edge. Your body leans forward, shooting up into him with a sharp cry of his name, heat bursting through your body, right deep where he kisses your cervix and all the way into your the tips of your toes.
Your pussy flutters around him, and the pulse is dizzying. He stutters, staggering where he tries to keep himself upright, fucking you through your high as it filters out, your hips spasming at the touch. He thrusts sloppily into you, slowly grinding down, rolling properly into you until he is collapsing.
He wants to keep you like this, to fill you, to do it over and over again until neither of you can take it. It burns in his chest, with every aching drag of his cock inside of you, and every loud ring of your moans in his ears.
“That’s it, that’s my girl..” His groan is hoarse, breaking at the edges where it’s rough, bordering on a whine as he shoves his face into your neck. His breath brushes your damp skin, inhaling your scent heavily, still suffering inside of you.
“Fuck I’ll..” His chest falls over yours, unhooking your legs carefully to lay down at his dies, “I’ll give you everything..” He punctuates with one last pump, stilling as his lips purse against you.
Neither of you seem to disconnect from one another, his arms releasing you just enough to curl around the back of you. The sleep that was lost before gently intoxicating you both in your bliss. He kisses at the back of your neck and your shoulder, the sheets swarmed over you and his arm that hands over your waist.
“I love you..”
Are the only words you hear, over and over again as he whispers them into your ear. You mumble it back softly with your eyes closed, falling back into the warm wall of his chest.
And only then does he drift, soothed at your side, where he belongs. Where he’s home.
—
Part of him wants back there, and it’s not conscious, it’s the twitch in his sleep and the tug in his peripheral. Part of him wants to take you with him. But he can’t, he won’t subject you to that, nor even to change it. So he holds you tighter, pulls you closer.
It’s more calculated than it once was, but it’s just as warm, inviting, sometimes too much. That you have to remind yourself to be careful, that he’s hurting and it’s going to take time.
But some things don’t change, they don’t change at all.
He was protective over it at first, scrolling through tape after tape just to jam up the roll so none of it could be seen again. Only the old ones came through, the soft memories, not the evidence. Screams and questions were replaced with gentle laughter and cursing when he’d drop it from zooming too close.
The camera sits in your hands, heavy and jarring. The noise whirrs sharply, echoing in the thin halls of your shared apartment, and you go to cover it, even though he’s out. You sent him on a grocery store run minutes ago, just before he slipped you a kiss through the screen door.
You flicker through every video. You wanted to see for yourself, to hear him out and find the evidence that you believe from him. But there’s nothing, and you go to put it down. You’re so close to. But then it comes up, flashing blue and broken before the colours come through.
It’s titled from back then. A week or so only after he went missing. Your eyes squint at the small screen just to get a better view, and it shakes you.
It’s Bobby. Yellow walls are tall behind him, like old wallpaper you’d find in an office, more like an abandoned one. The lights flicker and buzz around him, but it’s dark, only half of his face showing up.
“Okay. I’m not sure what this place is.. it’s fucked up. It took Kat, I don’t where where the fuck Clark is. I haven’t seen either of them.. But.. this thing, whatever it is keeps coming through. It’s followed me for days.. I don’t get it, it’s like it’s trying to be me. It mimics, and it.. changes.” A sharp crackle fills the audio, and all you can see is his face. It’s scared, panicked even, holding the camera with two hands just to keep it in hand.
You go to turn it off, clapping it in your hands just to get it to work again, but all you can hear is the buzzing, his voice following after his mouth moves.
“.. not me..”
The clip jumps, scratching along with the distortion of the video. Bobby’s face phases out, a loud beeping sound coming from the tape, until he comes back into view.
He doesn’t look panicked this time, in fact his face is relaxed, calm with an uneasy curve at his lips. He’s smiling. Not wide, but hopeful, soft like he’s looking right through the lens and at you. The sound doesn’t come through until the video fades, static covering the screen and a muffled,
TRANCE ✧ modern!aerion targaryen x egg’s babysitter!reader (part of the welcome to the family series)
✧ synopsis— Aerion Targaryen hates you. And you hate him. It is merely a simple fact of nature. But after weeks of riling you up and pushing you dangerously close to the edge— everything threatens to boil over at a party hosted by one of Valarr’s campus friends.
✧ warnings— enemies to lovers but they actually hate each other (kind of?), slowburn, very toxic dynamics aka aerion is severely immature but it’s ok we forgive him because he’s hot (and blonde), english is not my first language so potentially some sentences and grammar that make absolutely no sense, alcohol, mentions of substances and intoxication, smoking, uhm very messy kissing and graphic descriptions of blood
✧ word count— 14k
✧ author’s note— i’ve been waiting for this one. turn it up. seriously though haha tysm for being this patient with me, i know a lot of you have been waiting for this fic since april. it was really fun writing it though and i can only hope you enjoy reading it equally as much ! <3
. . . ♬ on the radio ; the cure by olivia rodrigo & haunted by beyoncé.
The blue light of your laptop was a cold, unforgiving sun in the dimness of your studio apartment. You were sprawled across the floor, the plush fibers of the taupe carpet pressing against your cheek, providing a strange grounding sort of friction against the drift of your thoughts.
Around you, the world felt static— a tableau of half finished coffee cups and a mountain of open tabs that hummed with a quiet, persistent buzz.
The emails sat in a neat, daunting row. A digital wall of obligations you weren't quite ready to climb yet.
“And then— Y/N! Are you even listening to me?” Aegon’s voice, tiny and sharp through the phone speakers, sliced through your temporary trance.
You blinked, your eyes burning from the screen glare as you shifted your weight, propping your chin up with your palm.
In the small, glowing rectangle of the FaceTime window Aegon—Egg— looked borderline offended. His shaved head an evidence of rebellion in a family that prized their silver-gold manes like religious relics. His face catching the light of his bedside lamp.
“Huh!” You shook your head, the motion making the room tilt for a fraction of a second. “I’m here, Egg. I’m listening, I swear.”
Egg sighed. A dramatic, heavy sound that seemed too weary for a boy his age. He rolled his eyes, the motion exaggerated by the camera angle. “Right. Sure you are. So, what did I just say? About Daeron promising to take me to that amusement park?”
You stared at him, your brain a chaotic, filing cabinet of unfinished assignments and to-be-attended seminars. “Uhm… well… I know it involved something about… the dornish puppeteers? Did they have a pop-up show near the ferris wheel?”
“See! I knew it!” He pointed a traitorous finger at the camera, his expression a mix of triumph and genuine annoyance. “You weren't listening. You were doing that thing which you do when my dad is talking and you’re pretending like you’re listening.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, okay!” You groaned, finally surrendering to the fatigue and letting your head thud back against the base of the velvet sofa behind you. Choosing to ignore his side remark for your own sanity.
You reached out, fumbling to perch the phone against a discarded thrown pillow so you could look at him without holding the device. “I’m just… I’m swamped Egg. College is kicking my ass. It’s a relentless cycle of deadlines, and your family… your beautiful, brooding, weirdly passive-aggressive family… they’re a lot to handle sometimes.”
You knew, logically, that you shouldn't be venting the intricacies of Targaryen interpersonal drama to the youngest member of the dynasty, but Egg was anything but a normal kid.
He was the sixth son of a fourth son. He was free to do as he pleased, yet he still carried the weight and prejudice that came with the Targaryen name.
“Tell me about it,” Aegon deadpanned.
He flopped onto his back, his camera swinging wildly to show a ceiling painted with a mural of the night sky— it was expensive, meticulous, and cold.
“They’re exhausting. Especially when Daeron starts drinking those ‘medicinal’ herbal teas that smell like a brewery.”
You didn’t even want to know.
“The point is,” you sighed, closing your eyes and letting the hum of your laptop anchor you, “I’m trying to keep my head above water, and I’m sorry if I can’t remember every minuscule detail of the amusement park itinerary. I’m trying to be a person, Egg. It’s harder than it looks.”
Aegon went quiet suddenly. Through the screen, his expression softened, his eyes losing that sharp, precocious edge.
He looked, for a moment, like a little boy who just missed his friend.
“I know,” he muttered, his voice dropping an octave. “I didn’t mean to be difficult. Much.”
“It’s fine,” you whispered, biting the corner of your lip, suddenly feeling guilty for dumping everything onto him.
You felt the familiar ache of your own position. The permanent babysitter, the girl who came over every friday, the honorary older sister who still had to submit invoices to a business manager at the end of every month.
You loved them, you truly did.
You loved the chaos of Kiara’s friendship and the way she navigated the social stratosphere with a grace you could only envy.
You loved Daella and Rhae, even when they were being impossible.
But you were an orbit away from their sun.
“Plus,” you added, the bitterness leaking out before you could stop it, “your asshole brother has made it his personal mission in life to make sure I don't have a single moment of peace on campus.”
You didn’t bother to censor the word.
‘Asshole’ was perhaps the kindest descriptor you had for Aerion Targaryen.
“Aerion?” Egg’s voice sharpened with genuine confusion and a flicker of something that looked quite like dread. “What’s he doing now? Is he being… weird again?”
You remembered when Egg had told you— about how apparently Aerion had drowned his cat in the well once. Looking at the dying creature with cold, detached eyes. A shudder ran through you, a cold finger tracing the length of your spine.
“Nothing direct,” you lied, though the lie felt thin, even from your own lips.
“Just comments. He’s always there Egg. In the student union, in the courtyard… leaning against that ridiculous car of his. He always makes these… remarks. About my clothes. About how I look like I’m constantly lost. About how I don’t ‘belong’ there.”
“Y/N…” Aegon sounded worried now.
“It’s stupid. He’s just a nepo baby with too much time and a god complex,” you said, trying to regain your footing. “He’s an asshole, and that’s just the natural order of things.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you have to take his offenses just because you’re working for—babysitting me,” Egg quickly corrected himself, his loyalty flaring up.
You bit your lip harder. That was the crux of it, wasn't it? You were the help, even if you were the help that got invited to Christmas dinner.
You were terrified of the day you might snap, of the day you might finally tell Aerion Targaryen exactly what you thought of his entire ‘brightflame’ persona, and subsequently find yourself without a job and a roof over your head.
Maekar, his father, was a fair man—hard, but fair, but you knew that blood was thicker than any employee contract.
“I know. I can handle it. Really,” you assured him, though your voice lacked the steel you wanted. You were tired of constantly being the resilient one, the punching bag.
Aegon huffed, clearly unconvinced, but he knew better than to push you when you were in this mood.
He rolled over in his bed, the rustle of his cotton sheets audible through the phone. “Well… anyway, I need to go. Maester Mellon is taking us for a ‘nature walk’ tomorrow. Which is just code for looking at dirt and pretending it’s interesting.”
“Ah. How academic. How very thousand eyes and one of him,” you snickered, referencing the old campus joke about the faculty’s surveillance.
“Shut up,” Egg grumbled, but there was a smile in his voice. “Goodnight, Y/N.”
“Goodnight, Egg. And don’t stay up late playing Minecraft. I can see your status on Discord, you know.”
“Love youuu! Bye!”
He didn’t even wait for a response before the screen went black, the call cutting off with a soft bloop.
The silence came abruptly after. The ‘I love you’ lingering in the air. A warm, soft thing that made the cold blue light of the laptop feel a little less clinical. You hated how natural it sounded.
He was the reason you stayed. This little boy and his ridiculous shaved head were the only thing currently keeping you motivated.
But tomorrow was Monday. Tomorrow meant the university campus. It meant navigating the labyrinth of ivory towers and the even more treacherous social hierarchy of the ‘great houses’ students.
“Oh, fuck me,” you muttered, pressing your fingers against your temples. A headache was already beginning to bloom behind your eyes. The humming of the fridge audiable in the background.
You thought of Aerion— the way he wore his arrogance like a tailored suit, and the way his eyes always seemed to find you in a crowd, tracking you with the predatory focus of someone who had never been told ‘no.’
You considered, just for a moment, the blissful possibility of staying in bed. Of letting the emails rot and the classes pass you by.
But then you thought of Egg’s laugh and Kiera’s frantic texts about the next big event, and you sighed.
You wouldn't give Aerion the satisfaction of your absence.
You’d show up, you’d take his insults, and you’d survive.
Because that’s what you did. You were the permanent babysitter, the girl who kept the dragons from burning down the house, even if it meant you got a few singe marks along the way.
Transitioning from the claustrophobic, blue light drenched sanctuary of your apartment to the sprawling, high-gothic grandeur of King’s Landing University always felt like a leap between two different centuries.
The previous night’s two hour digital marathon with Egg, his face a pixelated mess of adolescent indignity, felt like a fever dream by the time the morning sun hit the red brick facade of the Law building.
You were walking arm in arm with Kiera, your boots clicking rhythmically against the cobblestones that had been smoothed by centuries of entitled footsteps.
Kiera was a walking riot of color, as usual. A middle finger to the beige and navy minimalist aesthetic of the university’s elite. Her curls were a defiant, ethereal bubblegum pink, a nod to her Tyroshi heritage that she wore like a proud, neon sign.
She was draped in an oversized, custom hand painted silk coat that billowed behind her, looking effortlessly chic in a way that made the old money students in their barbour jackets look like they were wearing uniforms. All of them dulled in comparison to her.
"I’m telling yo Y/N, the look on Valarr’s face was priceless," Kiera giggled, the sound like wind chimes in the crisp morning air. She was recounting the latest scandal from the Breakspeare household.
"We were at this tiny, artisanal bistro very low-key, very ‘we’re not that famous'— and then Matarys calls. He sounds like he’s trying to describe the color of his own soul. Apparently, he thought those brownies in the fridge were just… well regular brownies."
You snorted, a stray lock of hair whipping across your face. "Matarys?” Your voice is filled with disbelief, imagining the straight edged, Dondarrion freckled, golden boy who apparently took an edible? By accident? How does that even happen?
"Accidentally, my ass. On purpose, maybe," Kiera deadpanned. "He told Valarr he was 'too scared of the ceiling' to call Baelor. Can you imagine? Calling the deputy of Targaryen corp who also happens to be your terrifyingly perfect father— to tell him the room is spinning? Valarr had to leave our dessert to go rescue him from a very intense conversation with a floor lamp."
"I think it's sweet that they trust each other like that," you noted, though a pang of envy flickered in your chest.
The Targaryens were a mess. A beautiful, sprawling, high functioning disaster, but they were a unit. Even when they were spiraling, they had someone to call. "I don’t think I’d have the courage to call anyone in that state. I’d just accept my fate and become one with the carpet."
"Oh, please," Kiera nudged you, her elbow sharp but affectionate. "You would’ve called me. Mostly because I’d probably be the one who gave you the brownie in the first place."
"True," you admitted, the tension in your shoulders finally starting to dissipate.
The campus was nothing short of electric today. Between the towering library and the ivy choked faculty buildings, a sea of white tents had been erected.
The KLU Student Body was hosting a massive charity drive for the urban renewal of Flea Bottom. The low income district that sat in the shadow of the university’s pristine hill. It was the kind of performative altruism the university adored; students in five hundred dollar sneakers selling cupcakes to 'end poverty.'
Still, it meant the atmosphere was festive rather than academic. No three hour seminars on ancient tournaments and conquests. No grueling geography tests on the tourist economies of the Summer Isles.
For a moment, you felt invincible. You were young, you were wearing your favorite thrifted leather jacket, and you were flanked by a woman who looked like a walking sunset.
"Looks like we have a penchant for trouble—" you started to say, the words light on your tongue. But as soon as the words escaped your lips, you wished they never had.
The scent is what gave him away. The sandalwood and expensive tobacco, and a sharp, metallic note of something like ozone. It was a fragrance that cost more than your monthly rent.
And the very air in the crowd seemed to shift, as if out of reverence.
Standing near the fountain, leaning against a stone gargoyle with a level of practiced arrogance that bordered on the divine, was Aerion Targaryen. A vision of monochromatic cruelty.
His hair, that signature Targaryen silver-white, was messily styled but perfectly maintained, catching the morning light like spun glass. He was wearing black dress pants that looked custom tailored to his lean frame and a crisp, white shirt with the top three buttons undone, exposing the pale line of his throat. His shoes were polished to a mirror shine, reflecting the dirt of the path he clearly felt superior to.
"Seven hells," you whispered, the invincibility of the morning shattering like dropped porcelain. "Just the thing I needed. My daily dose of arsenic."
Kiera’s upbeat expression flattened instantly. Her pastel brows furrowed as her eyes landed on her boyfriend’s cousin. "Oh. Him."
You tried to pivot, to blend into a group of passing freshmen, but it was too late.
Aerion’s gaze—a pale, violet-grey that felt like being stared at by a glacier— already snapped to yours. He straightened up. A slow, predatory smirk spreading across his face. He practically descended upon you.
"Not babysitting the impudent little rat today, are you?"
His voice was a smooth, melodic drawl, the kind of voice that belonged to a venomous serpent draped in silk, and was currently being used as a weapon. He didn't even bother with a greeting. To Aerion, you were a fixed point in the universe— a target.
"Aerion," Kiera said, her voice dropping into the clipped, diplomatic tone she used when dealing with the more volatile members of the family tree.
He offered her a shallow, mocking nod, his eyes never leaving yours. He was sizing you up, his gaze raking over your outfit, the slightly worn boots, the frayed hem of your jeans—with a visible, shimmering disdain. It was as if he were looking at a smudge on an otherwise perfect canvas.
"And you," he turned his focus to Kiera, his presence suddenly suffocating. "Not hanging off my dear cousin’s arm today, Kiera? Or has Valarr finally realized that your color palette is… shall we say, a bit too much for a future diplomat?"
Kiera visibly tensed beside you, her hand tightening on your arm. "Valarr is busy with the faculty. They’re organizing the fundraiser. You know, for people who actually need help?"
Aerion let out a short, sharp bark of a laugh. He looked at the charity tents with an expression of profound boredom.
"How lovely. Charity being organized by… charity cases." He leveled a pointed, malicious look at you. The implication hung in the air like a foul mist: You are the help. You are the Flea Bottom they are pretending to care about.
"If you have nothing nice to say, Aerion, you might as well take your expensive cologne and your bad attitude back to the economics wing," you managed through gritted teeth, your pulse hammering in your ears. "Some of us are actually trying to have a good day."
He stepped closer, invading your personal space until you could see the fine, silver lashes framing his eyes. "Careful," he hissed, his voice dropping to a poisonous whisper that only you could hear. "Remember, sweetheart, you still work for my father. One word about your… 'unprofessional' outbursts, and you’ll be back to working at the puppeteer shows without a paycheck to catch you."
"You have some nerve—" Kiera started, stepping forward to defend you, but you caught her hand.
Aerion chuckled, a sound of pure amusement. "Careful Tyrosh. Calm your little friend. We wouldn't want those wedding bells with Valarr to stop tolling before they even start, would we? Uncle Baelor is so very particular about the company his heir keeps."
The threat was veiled, but heavy. He was reminding both of you of the precariousness of your positions. Kiera was a girlfriend; and you were an employee. He was something neither of you would ever be. He was blood.
"Have a fun time, ladies," he added casually, slinging his hands into his pockets and stepping back.
He swept his gaze over you one last time, his eyes lingering on your lips for a fraction of a second too long before turning cold again. "Taking care of… blind children and narcomaniacs. It suits you. Very 'salt of the earth.'"
And with that he vanished into the crowd, his silver hair a beacon of light amidst the sea of brown and blonde. The scent of his cologne lingering like a physical weight, a reminder of the encounter that made you feel suddenly, violently small.
"What the hell is actually wrong with him?" Kiera muttered, practically dragging you away from the fountain and toward the arts and humanities building. "He’s getting worse. It’s like he’s bored of being a Targaryen, so he’s decided to try his hand at being a demon."
"Nothing’s wrong with him, Kie," you said, your voice shaking slightly despite your best efforts. "Some people are just inherently evil. It’s a biological trait. He was born with silver hair and a missing conscience."
"You really believe that?"
"Don't you?"
Kiera didn't answer. She just hummed a low, thoughtful note as you reached the sanctuary of the arts building.
Inside (to your relief) the atmosphere changed instantly. The clinical, cold air of the campus was replaced by the scent of turpentine, linseed oil, and stale coffee.
Tanselle was positioned in the center of the atrium, perched on a wooden stool that looked like it was held together by prayer and old paint.
She was a muralist by trade, but today she was doing 'quick fire' portraits for the charity drive. Her dark hair was pulled back in a messy braid, and a smudge of cerulean blue decorated her cheekbone. She was focused, her brush moving with a grace that made the chaos around her seem like background noise.
"Oh! Hey!" she greeted once she had noticed your presence, not looking up until she’d finished a delicate line on the canvas. "What’s up? I’m just finishing this one… it’s a portrait of a 'lost soul’ or something… I think the student just had a bad hangover."
"We ran into the devil on the way here," you deadpanned, leaning against a nearby table cluttered with jars of brushes.
From the shadows of a nearby pillar, a girl with fiery red hair and a look of permanent skepticism emerged. Rowan— she was holding a thermos that you knew for a fact contained more vodka than tea.
"You mean prince brightflame?" Rowan mocked, her eyebrow arching. "Did he set anyone on fire today, or was he just being his usual, sparkling self?"
"The one and only," Kiera sighed, leaning down to give Tanselle a quick, paint avoidant squeeze.
"Okay, enough about Targaryens. Especially the ones who think they’re God’s gift to the student union," you groaned, rubbing your temples. "I need to forget his face exists for at least four hours."
"What’s got your panties in a twist?" Rowan giggled, taking a long swig from her thermos. "Is it the insults? Or is it the fact that he looked particularly edible in that white shirt today?"
You stared at her, your expression flat. "Do not even finish that thought, Rowan. I don't care what the university policy is on student on student violence."
"Alright, alright, Seven Hells… no need to go all Maegor on me," Rowan grumbled, though she was still grinning.
She had an ongoing bet that your mutual hatred with Aerion was just a very long, very exhausting preamble to something else.
You hated that she even thought it. You hated even more that, for a split second by the fountain, you’d noticed the way the wind caught his hair.
"Anyway… on a lighter and happier note…" Kiera spoke up, leaning against another table of art supplies. "One of Valarr's faculty friends, some guy named Raymun, is hosting a party tonight at his off campus loft. It should be cool. Not too many nepo babies, good music, and an appropriate amount of booze. Valarr said it’s a 'no ego' zone."
“I'm in," Rowan said instantly, gleaming with newfound enthusiasm. “I have a constitutional right to be at every party within a five mile radius.”
“Um… yeah, sure,” Tanselle said, her voice a bit more hesitant as she cleaned a brush. “If I finish the mural for the atrium…”
"Don't worry, Tans. Duncan will be there," Kiera winked.
Everyone knew Duncan— the towering, incredibly earnest rugby captain who followed Tanselle around like a particularly large, loyal hound.
Tanselle flushed a deep, violent crimson, muming something about “not caring about rugby players” that everyone gracefully ignored.
“What about you, Y/N? You in?” Kiera turned her gaze to you, her eyes hopeful. "You need this. You’ve been buried in schoolwork and Egg’s drama for weeks. One night. No babies, no Targaryens, no responsibilities."
You mulled it over. You had a Yi-Ti translation due on Wednesday. You had three chapters of The Citadel Chronicles to summarize. And, you had a lingering headache from Aerion’s venom.
In the back of your mind, a small, cynical voice whispered that a party hosted by Valarr’s friends was a dangerous place for someone trying to avoid the ‘inner circles.’
But you pushed it down. You were with your friends. You were in the Arts Building and the sun was out.
“Sure,” you said, the word feeling like a victory. “To hell with the emails. I’m in.”
You didn't realize that in the world of the Targaryens, the 'no ego zone' didn't exist. And Aerion Targaryen was never the one to miss a performance.
The first thing that catches you by surprise is not the overwhelming, sweet haze of top-shelf Dornish cannabis or the sharp, botanical sting of expensive gin.
In a place that was supposed to be a temporary Friday night sanctuary— a casual, off-campus loft in the old industrial district, supposedly void of any high-end drama or old-money politics, and the insufferable nepo babies of the Red Keep quad— you expected paper cups and vinyl records.
Instead, you stepped into a room filled with exactly the kind of royalty you had spent the entire week trying to escape.
A party hosted by a close friend of Valarr Targaryen. You closed your eyes for a fraction of a second, cursing your own naivety.
How fortunate.
What had you honestly been expecting? A gathering of normal people? Students who actually worried about tuition and supermarket receipts like you did?
But the true shock wasn't the sheer, architectural immensity of the living room, with its polished concrete floors, exposed steel beams, and massive glass panels showcasing a panoramic view of the twinkling King's Landing skyline.
It was that sharp, jagged bolt of white light across the room. A head of messily perfect, silver-white hair that you had been praying to the Seven you wouldn’t see tonight.
And much worse, draped elegantly over his arm was Alicia Florent.
Alicia was widely considered the campus’s reigning deity of effortless glamour— excluding Kiera, of course, who occupied a stratosphere entirely of her own.
A finely manicured, diamond-ringed hand was splayed possessively across Aerion’s forearm, the dark wool of his designer jacket a stark contrast to her sunkissed skin. Her perfectly lined, glossy lips were curved open in a rich, musical laugh at whatever witty, venomous thing he was currently whispering into her ear.
She looked entirely, infuriatingly perfect.
Her makeup was a masterclass in high-end minimalism; a subtle, glittering shimmer danced across her eyelids and collarbones, looking so natural it defied the hours it must have taken to apply. Her clothes, a silk, emerald-green slip dress fitted her like a second skin.
It was obviously expensive, the kind of fabric that didn't wrinkle or catch, and you were suddenly, violently overwhelmed by a suffocating wave of inferiority.
She was a natural. A creature born to inhabit rooms like these, to drink from crystal flutes and look down on the rest of the world with a lazy, secure smile.
You desperately tried to tuck that jealous sense of inadequacy away, but it was hard when your own outfit suddenly felt like a joke.
The structured black crop top and matching silk skirt (which Kiera had practically forced you into, insisting you needed to show a little skin and live a little) now felt entirely too revealing. Under the invisible, judgmental gazes of the KLU elite, the fabric seemed to suffocate you. Making you feel exposed and clownish instead of gorgeous.
You felt like an imposter who had snuck in through the servant's entrance.
You forced yourself to shake off the feeling, taking a deep breath as you stepped further into the warm, bass-heavy atmosphere of the loft, hand in hand with Rowan.
Rowan, bless her, was a necessary shield against the room's collective snobbery.
She was sporting a vintage leather jacket slung effortlessly over a fiery, scarlet jumpsuit that perfectly matched her untamed nature. Her thick, red curls were propped into a flawless, artfully messy topknot on her head, and she moved through the crowd like a queen inspecting her subjects.
“Hi! Hello! Oh my god, babe, you look so stunning!” Rowan called out, waving to a group of arts students by the balcony. She was so painfully, beautifully natural at this— at being kind, funny, charismatic, and universally liked.
While she floated through the social waters with ease, you just stood there awkwardly, anchoring yourself to her hand and pinning a tight, plastic smile to your face, hoping no one would look close enough to see the panic in your eyes.
Tanselle and Kiera were a few paces behind you, following closely on your heels, looking equally shimmering and joyful.
The heavy, rhythmic thumping of the bass from the speakers couldn't drown out the sudden shift in the air behind you. You caught the faint, warm sound of Valarr’s deep voice as he approached their group.
Turning your head slightly, you watched as the heir apparent to the Breakspeare fortune greeted Kiera, his chocolate brown hair catching the amber pendant lights as he leaned down to press a tender, familiar kiss to her temple.
Right beside them, Duncan— the towering rugby captain who looked slightly terrifying but possessed the heart of a golden retriever— was already hovering over Tanselle.
He muttered a shy, earnest greeting, and even in the dim lighting of the loft, you could see Tanselle flush a furious, violent crimson.
You turned around fully just to shoot her an encouraging, all-knowing smile. She caught your eye, her blush deepening as she biting her lip, a silent plea for you to stop teasing her.
Before you could offer any more silent solidarity, Rowan was suddenly pulled to the side. The host of the party himself—Raymun Fossoway— had caught sight of her.
He intercepted your path with a wide, bright grin, and the immediate body language between them suggested they were much more familiar than you had previously realized.
“Hey,” Raymun greeted you, extending a hand to shake yours.
His grip was polite, but it was entirely clear that his brain had ceased to function the moment he looked past your shoulder. His eyes literally could not leave Rowan’s stunning, scarlet-clad figure.
You couldn't even find it in yourself to be annoyed. You got it. Everyone looked at Rowan when she entered a room.
You offered him a quick, polite greeting, gently squeezing Rowan's hand before letting it go. "I'll be totally fine on my own," you assured her in a quiet whisper, giving her a reassuring nod as Raymun already began pulling her into a conversation about some indie band.
“Okay, scream if you need anything!” She managed to let out before Raymun dragged her away towards some friends.
Turning away from the couples and the social butterflies, you looked toward the far side of the room.
You needed a barrier between yourself and the silver haired specter by the window.
Deciding to put some distance between yourself and the crowd, you began to weave through the sea of silk and linen, heading straight toward the crowded kitchen counter to grab a drink.
The kitchen was nothing short of breathtaking, a cathedral of high end consumption, dominated by a vast marble island that looked like it had been carved from a single cloud.
It was cluttered with an array of spirits that felt more like museum artifacts than party supplies— bottles of triple-distilled vodka and vintage Dornish reds with labels so ornate and script so archaic you could barely pronounce the names, let alone guess the price point.
You were in the middle of decanting a suspiciously shimmering liquid into what felt like a genuine crystal tumbler (half-convinced the glassware alone cost more than your monthly rent) when a sudden clearing of a throat vibrated through the air beside you.
Before you even turned, the scent hit you like a sensory ambush.
It was a suffocatingly sweet cloud of Ashai vanilla and sun-ripened strawberries— a fragrance so curated and polished it felt like walking into a high-end boutique in the middle of a summer heatwave.
It was the smell of someone who had never known the scent of a crowded subway or a cheap laundromat. It was the scent of a walking candy cane.
You turned, the heavy bottle still poised awkwardly in your hand. “Hm?” Your gaze collided with Alicia Florent.
“Hey.” Her voice was like honey dripped over velvet— painfully sweet and effortlessly melodic.
She flashed a smile that belonged in a Vogue editorial, her teeth so perfectly white and aligned they looked like a row of polished pearls. “Sorry,” she murmured, her voice dropping as a group of boisterous students pushed past, forcing her to press into your personal space.
Up close, the perfection was devastating.
Her blonde hair didn't just curl; it spiraled in a way that suggested a personal stylist had spent hours meticulously crafting a 'natural' look. Her eyes were two pools of shimmering, ocean-like blue crystals, framed by lashes so long they seemed to cast shadows against her high, sculpted cheekbones.
You felt a sudden, sharp pang of grounding reality; you totally understood why Aerion had her anchored to his side.
She was a goddess crafted from old money privilege and premium skincare.
You stood there, feeling like a low resolution glitch in a high definition movie, holding the glass bottle with a grip that was far too tight. You were painfully aware of the contrast— her glittering, effortless grace against your own sense of being an intruder in a world built for people like her.
“Oh, I just came over to grab us a drink,” she said, her smile widening as she registered your wide eyed, deer in headlights expression.
The ‘us’ hung in the air like a territorial flag.
It was a subtle, sharp reminder that while you were here as a guest of a friend, she was here as a part of the dynasty. People like Alicia Florent and people who spent their weekends parsing complex Yi-ti sentences and babysitting the youngest Targaryen did not inhabit the same social stratosphere.
It was just a biological fact of campus life.
She let out a soft, airy giggle— a sound that was probably practiced to perfection— and reached for a gold-labeled bottle of Arbor Gold. “Do you mind?” she asked, her gaze flicking down to your hand, noting that you were essentially guarding the bar.
“Right… um, sorry,” you stammered, your face heating up as the ice in your glass rattled.
You cleared your throat, the unknown liquid in your cup sloshing dangerously as you stepped back, yielding the marble altar to its rightful priestess.
You didn't wait for her to say anything else. You pivoted, ducking your head and weaving your way through the press of bodies, heading toward a shadowed, secluded corner of the loft near the floor to ceiling windows.
You decided then and there to leave the expensive drink-mixing to the expensive nepo babies; you needed the darkness of the corner to hide the fact that you suddenly felt very, very visible.
You bumped into people muttering quiet little ‘sorry’s’ and ‘excuse me’s’ until you finally found the heavy glass sliding doors that led out to the expansive terrace.
You needed air. You needed to escape the suffocating sweetness of Alicia’s strawberry scented perfection and the low, heavy hum of bass that was beginning to rattle the inside of your skull.
As you stepped outside, the climate shifted instantly.
The cool, midnight breeze of King’s Landing clipped at your bare shoulders, a welcome shock to your system. Below the loft, the sprawling, chaotic expanse of the metropolis hummed with nocturnal life.
You could hear the faint, distorted sounds of the city filtering up to the penthouse level— distant shouts from the entertainment district, the aggressive honk of car horns, and the low, rhythmic wail of a siren echoing somewhere down in the valleys of the concrete jungle.
Above it all, the towering skyscrapers of the financial sector gleamed like sharp, metallic monoliths, their glass windows reflecting millions of tiny, artificial lights against the dark canopy of the sky.
It was the quintessential Westerosi dream: a glittering, cutthroat paradise built on old money and modern ambition.
You leaned your weight against the sleek, black iron railing, closing your eyes as you took a deep, centering breath. You let the crisp night air fill your lungs, hoping it would cleanse the dizzying haze of the Dornish wine and the residual contact smoke from the living room.
Out here, the party was beautifully muted. The thumping bass became a dull, rhythmic heartbeat against the glass, and the loud, overlapping conversations of the KLU elite drifted away into the wind.
For a few fleeting seconds, suspended high above the streets, you felt entirely untouched by the hierarchy inside.
A movement in the far corner of the terrace caught your eye. A couple was deeply entrenched in the shadows, draped over one another on a low outdoor sectional. They were clearly drunk, murmuring slurred, lovey-dovey obscenities into each other’s ears, entirely oblivious to the world.
You squinted at them for a fraction of a second, rolled your eyes with a quiet shrug, and walked purposefully toward the furthest, most isolated edge of the balcony, seeking whatever true peace you could salvage.
Then, the heavy glass door hissed open behind you.
You didn't turn around. You assumed the amorous couple had finally taken their business indoors, or perhaps another drunk freshman had come out to throw up over the side. You remained still, staring out at the golden grid of the highway below, until the air around you changed.
The wind shifted, carrying that familiar, dangerous fragrance— sandalwood, rich tobacco. Your breath hitched in your throat.
Before you could even process the sensory warning, a lean, broad-shouldered frame leaned onto the railing right beside you.
Up close, the first things that caught the ambient light were his hands. His long, aristocratic fingers were loosely gripping the cold metal of the railing, adorned with an array of heavy, intricate rings.
They were beautifully crafted jewels, shaped into coiled dragons and sharp, jagged scales that caught the neon glow of the city lights. They were forged from dark, smoky Valyrian steel— the ultimate heirloom status symbol, modernized for a prince who wore his legacy like brass knuckles.
The irritation began to simmer in your chest, a biological knee-jerk reaction to his very existence. Your spine instantly straightened into a rigid, defensive line.
"Come out here to make my life a living hell again?" The words slipped past your lips before you could stop them, laced with a bitter, cynical venom.
Perhaps it was the cheap courage of the alcohol flowing through your veins, or maybe you were just entirely exhausted by his games, but you didn't care that you were speaking to your employer's volatile son with complete disrespect.
But to your absolute shock, the sharp, cutting retort never came.
There was no dry remark about your attitude, no poisonous reminder that he could have your contract terminated before sunrise. Aerion remained perfectly still.
He just stared straight ahead into the sprawling labyrinth of the city lights, his expression unreadable, as if entranced. With a slow, deliberate movement, he reached into the inner pocket of his tailored jacket and pulled out a classic, crumpled pack of Marlboro Reds.
You stood there silently, utterly dumbstruck by this newfound, quiet iteration of him.
Your gaze involuntarily drifted to his side profile. In the dim, ambient wash of the terrace lights, his features looked sharp enough to draw blood— the perfect curve of his nose, the slight clench of his jawline, and that notoriously messy, silver-white hair that somehow always managed to look effortlessly styled.
A sudden, sharp click broke the silence as he flicked open a matte-black lighter. The small, orange flame illuminated his face for a second, casting long shadows across his high cheekbones.
He inhaled deeply, taking a slow, heavy drag before letting the gray smoke curl lazily from his lips, wrapping around the space between you like a shroud.
You watched the way he held the cigarette between his fingers— so delicately, almost gently, as if he were tracing the fragile skin of a lover. It was a vulnerable, quiet posture that felt entirely out of character for the brutal, arrogant boy you encountered on campus.
You cocked your head to the side, your eyebrows furrowing as you silently questioned what kind of psychological game was unfolding.
"If you keep staring at me like that, I'll have to assume you like what you see." His voice was a low, gravelly rasp, rough from the smoke but dripping with his signature, lazy arrogance.
The tip of his cigarette glowed a fierce, angry orange as he took another slow drag. His violet-grey eyes never shifted from the concrete jungle below, but a slow, maddening smirk was beginning to tug at the corner of his mouth.
You let out a sharp, breathless scoff, though to your own horror, a strange sense of comfort washed over you at the sarcastic remark. It was predictably, entirely Aerion.
"You are so incredibly full of yourself," you muttered. And for the first time since you had met him, your words felt less like a defensive shield and more like a tease.
You blamed the wine. You blamed the heavy midnight air, the glittering skyline, and the infuriatingly perfect way the neon lights reflected in his pale irises. There was absolutely no logical way you were enjoying Aerion Targaryen’s company.
"You'd be profoundly bored without it," he bit back smoothly, finally turning his head to look at you.
When his gaze locked onto yours, it felt like a physical shock. His eyes were sharp, electric, and possessed a dark, hungry intensity that made the air in your lungs feel dangerously thin.
"You know, Aerion," you sighed, leaning back against the railing and trying to maintain your grounded, deadpan demeanor despite the sudden hammering of your pulse, "you are, without a doubt, the most irritating person I have ever encountered in my entire life."
"Say that again," he whispered. The shift in his tone was instantaneous. Something dark and predatory flashed in the depths of his eyes.
And you would have rather labeled yourself entirely delusional than admit that his lean frame had just gravitated toward yours, his shoulder brushing against your leather jacket as he leaned in close.
"What? That you're the most irritating person I’ve ever—"
"No," he snapped softly, his jaw clenching with a sudden, rigid intensity. "My name." He clarified.
You froze, your mouth hanging slightly agape as you stared at him. The sheer, magnetic weight of his presence was overwhelming. You swallowed hard, your mind racing as you finally relented to the gravity of the moment.
"Aerion," you spoke, the syllables falling from your lips more deliberately this time.
You tasted the weight of his name on your tongue, weighing the vowels as if testing a dangerous secret. It felt dizzyingly, terrifyingly intimate. No, you hate him. You absolutely despise his entire existence.
Suddenly, Rowan’s laughing voice flashed through your mind from earlier in the afternoon—You two just have too much mutual attraction. It’s chaotic chemistry, simmering until it bursts.
You forced yourself to clear your throat, aggressively pushing those chaotic thoughts into the darkest corners of your brain.
"So…" you began, desperate to fracture the suffocating tension that had built up between your bodies. "Where exactly is Alicia? I’m surprised she let you out of her sight for more than thirty seconds."
You wondered how the campus goddess had managed to lose her prize. Aerion's arm candy usually followed him everywhere at events like this, not necessarily because he possessed a genuine shred of affection for them, but because they served as a pristine status symbol.
"Inside," he said flatly, as if the answer were entirely inconsequential.
At the mention of the blonde girl, his silver brows furrowed with a brief, visible flicker of annoyance.
"I thought you liked her?" You shrugged, nervously fiddling with the rings on your own fingers, desperately trying to quell the strange, fluttering sensation that was beginning to bloom in the pit of your stomach.
Aerion watched your hands, tracking the nervous movement of your fingers before he straightened his posture.
He cleared his throat, the flashing silver face of his luxury watch catching the moonlight. "She’s…"
He cocked his head to the side, letting out a quiet, self-deprecating laugh that sounded entirely uncharacteristic. He nervously racked a hand through his white hair, his fingers disrupting the perfect mess of his strands as if he were genuinely struggling to find the right vocabulary.
"She's just…"
"Alicia," you finished for him, your tone flat.
"Yeah," he murmured, his voice dropping into a register that sent a shiver down your spine.
He turned his head fully now, his violet eyes locking onto your face with a dangerous, undisguised hunger.
"Don't look at me like that," you whispered, the words small, a desperate attempt to swallow the rising anxiety in your throat.
"Like what?" he chuckled, the sound rich and low against the background hum of the city.
"You know exactly what I'm talking about. I hate you, Aerion. Remember?" you reasoned, trying to remind both him and yourself of the boundaries.
"You say that like you're trying to convince yourself," he murmured. He shifted his weight, turning his torso fully toward you now, completely invading your personal space.
Before your brain could formulate a cohesive, defensive response, his hand rose.
His long fingers reached out, the cold, heavy metal of his Valyrian steel rings brushing against the hypersensitive skin of your jawline as he gently tucked a loose strand of hair behind your ear.
His touch was agonizingly slow, a gentle contrast to the volatile persona he usually was.
"Let's just say…" he whispered, leaning down until his lips were mere inches from your ear, his breath a warm mix of heavy tobacco and expensive alcohol against your skin. "I vastly prefer you when you're not playing house for my little brother."
He was so incredibly close you could feel the heat radiating from his chest. Your mind snapped under the proximity, an embarrassing, violent heat crawling up your neck.
What kind of twisted game was he playing? He had to be mocking you. This was undoubtedly another one of his cruel, depraved psychological experiments to see how easily he could break you—
The electric moment was violently shattered by the sharp hiss of the sliding glass door opening once again.
"There you are!"
Alicia’s glittering, emerald-clad frame stepped out onto the concrete terrace, her voice bellowing over the quiet hum of the night.
She was looking directly at Aerion, her glossy lips pouted in exaggerated annoyance. "I've been looking for you literally everywhere, everyone is in the lounge."
Aerion made a low, frustrated noise in the back of his throat— a guttural, irritated sound as if pulling his weight away from your body physically pained him.
He straightened up, his demeanor instantly freezing back into its familiar, icy mask.
"Is everything… okay out here?" Alicia asked innocently, her ocean-blue eyes flicking curiously from Aerion's rigid posture to your flushed face.
She seemed entirely devoid of jealousy. In fact, the absolute absurdity of person like Aerion Targaryen harboring a genuine, consuming interest in a girl like you was clearly a concept so laughable she didn't even possess the capacity to entertain it.
To her, you were just the girl who watched Aegon. You were part of the background scenery.
You quickly cleared your throat, desperately trying to construct a normal sentence before the silence became incriminating. "Yeah. Um, we were just chatting about—"
You didn't even get to finish your lie. Alicia reached out, her manicured hand wrapping tightly around Aerion's forearm, physically dragging him toward the glowing warmth of the interior.
"Oh, perfect! Well, you can finish your little chat another time. Valarr is looking for you in the kitchen, they’re opening the good bottles."
With that, she began pulling him back toward the glass doors. Aerion aggressively shood her hand off his arm with a sharp flick of his wrist, but he was already trailing reluctantly on her heels, his compliance a necessity of the crowd inside.
Just before he crossed the threshold back into the roaring noise of the party, he stopped.
He looked back over his shoulder once, his pale, violet-grey irises catching the harsh glare of the neon signs.
"You're trouble," he murmured, his voice carrying a strange, low weight that felt dangerously pleasant.
You swallowed the remaining panic in your throat, anchoring your heels into the concrete. "You'd be bored without it," you managed to fire back, throwing his own line right back at his chest.
Aerion shook his head, a genuine, quiet huff of a laugh escaping his lips before he turned and vanished into the sea of silk and gold.
The glass door hissed shut behind him.
You let out a long, shuddering breath you hadn't realized you were holding, your fingers tightly gripping the iron railing as your knees felt suddenly, dangerously weak.
You stared blindly out at the twinkling lights of the King's Landing skyscrapers, the scent of sandalwood and tobacco still heavy in the midnight air.
What the hell had just happened?
The heavy glass door slid shut behind you, cutting off the crisp midnight breeze and plunging you back into the sensory overload of the penthouse.
The sudden spike in temperature, the thick scent of luxury perfumes competing with expensive cannabis overwhelmed you once again, and the sheer volume of the bass rattling through the hardwood floors.
You needed to drown out the memory of the balcony. You needed to dance, to drink, to find Kiera or Tanselle— literally anyone who could act as an anchor to reality before your thoughts completely spiraled into dangerous territory.
Like a neon beacon of hope in a sea of unknown faces, Kiera’s familiar head of bubblegum pink curls caught the light near the edge of the sunken living room. She was leaning against a sleek minimalist pillar, gesturing animatedly with a tiny martini glass as she talked to Valarr and a guy you didn’t recognize.
"Hey," you said, stepping into their orbit. A sudden, nervous energy carried you forward, your heart still beating a little too fast from your encounter outside.
The trio turned toward you. Kiera’s face lit up instantly, her eyes bright and slightly glassy— a telltale sign that she had been indulging a little too heavily in the free-flowing liquor.
She held her martini glass at a dangerously loose angle, the clear liquid sloshing near the brim. You didn't worry, though. Valarr was right beside her, his hand already resting protectively at the small of her back. He always looked out for her.
"Y/N!" Kiera beamed, throwing her free arm around your neck in a sudden, bone-crushing hug. She was definitely more intoxicated than she’d let on via text earlier. "You made it! I thought you died on the balcony!"
"Whoa, whoa, careful, love…" Valarr’s deep voice intervened smoothly.
With the practiced reflexes of a seasoned athlete, he leaned across, his long fingers gently but firmly catching the stem of the martini glass just as it slipped from Kiera’s grip. He wasn't fast enough to stop the liquid entirely though, as a splash of the gin sloshed straight onto the front of her silk top.
"Oh, shit," Kiera grumbled, staring down at the damp fabric and sighing in deep frustration at her own clumsiness.
"I'm going to go get this cleaned up," she mumbled, pouting as she gestured vaguely toward the corridor where the guest bathrooms were located, her legs a little wobbly beneath her.
"Yeah, and you’re not going anywhere alone in this crowd," Valarr pointed out, a tender, amused smile breaking across his handsome features. He looped an arm around her hips, effortlessly guiding her through the dense press of people. Before they disappeared, he offered a polite, apologetic nod to you and the remaining guy. "Excuse us for a minute."
You shook your head, a fond smile playing on your lips as you watched them go. Valarr really was the golden boy of the Breakspeare line— so effortlessly smooth, attentive, and diplomatic. He would make an incredible politician one day, exactly as his father Baelor intended.
Your eyes broke away from the retreating couple when a quiet throat-clearing sounded across from you.
You snapped your attention back to the stranger left standing in Valarr's wake. He was someone you had genuinely never seen before—not in the crowded lecture halls of the law building, not in the quiet, dusty corners of the study halls, and certainly not hanging around the high-end sports cars parked in the Red Keep quad.
He was blonde, but not the striking, otherworldly silver-blonde of the Targaryen dynasty. His hair was a softer, warmer shade of honeyed gold, messily strewn about his head in a way that suggested he had spent the day outdoors rather than in front of a mirror.
He possessed a wide, incredibly friendly grin that immediately crinkled the corners of his eyes. He was like a golden puppy. Lean and approachable, he wore a simple, well-fitted white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms and a pair of crisp, dark trousers. He looked entirely… safe.
"Hey… sorry for the chaos," he said, holding out a hand toward you. "Didn't even get a chance to introduce myself properly amidst the martini crisis. I'm Art."
You reached out and took his hand. When your fingers gripped his, you were caught off guard by the sheer warmth of his skin. There were no heavy, cold Valyrian steel rings biting into your palm this time. Just a normal, human touch.
"Me and Valarr are in the same political science major," he clarified, his smile widening as you exchanged names.
"Ah, right. You're Kiera's best friend," Art said, a look of recognition dawning on his face as he gestured toward a slightly quieter corner of the loft where a low leather bench sat empty. "Shit, Valarr mentions the two of you all the time when we're studying."
"He does?" You giggled, letting him guide you away from the main traffic of the walkway.
"Yeah… I mean, mostly he talks about Kiera. The man is completely, painfully down bad for her," Art laughed, scratching the back of his neck.
“Sound about right.” You bit back, sitting down beside him, you couldn't help but notice how entirely different his presence felt compared to the one on the balcony.
Aerion’s presence was a suffocating, atmospheric weight that demanded your entire cognitive capacity; it was all sharp edges, dangerous tension, and dark gravity. Art, on the other hand, felt like a sunny afternoon.
He was entirely down-to-earth. As you fell into easy, comfortable small talk, you learned he didn't come from a millionaire tech empire or an ancient political dynasty. He played tennis on a scholarship, had two younger siblings, and his parents actually owned a commercial dairy farm in the Reach district outside the city.
"Though, I have to say," Art added, leaning back against the bench and throwing you a playfully roguish look, "Valarr definitely left out the detail that Kiera had such a stunning best friend."
It was a textbook, slightly cheesy pickup line, and you couldn't help but swat his shoulder teasingly. "Oh, shut up," you grumbled, though a genuine laugh escaped you.
"What? I'm just stating facts!" he defended, his eyes twinkling with amusement.
"So, you're a literal farmer?" you asked, leaning in, trying to make sure your voice didn't sound judgmental. It was just so rare to find someone at a KLU party who knew what manual labor felt like.
"What's so funny about that?" he laughed, throwing his hands up in mock surrender. "I mean, I help out around the property when I go home for the holidays. I get the milk from the cows, mend the fences… why are you laughing so hard?"
"Nothing, nothing…" You shook your head, pressing a hand over your mouth as a breathless wheeze escaped you. "It's just… it's so incredibly Tom Sawyer of you. I didn't think guys like you actually existed at this university."
"Hey, it builds character," he grinned, his face completely open and relaxed.
You had to admit, you were having a surprisingly wonderful time. Art was easy to talk to, kind, and genuinely funny.
Yet, despite the effortless flow of the conversation, a traitorous, intrusive little voice in the very back of your head refused to go quiet.
No matter how much Art made you laugh, a part of your mind was still lingering on the balcony. Your skin still felt hyper-sensitive where Aerion’s smoky Valyrian steel rings had brushed against your jawline. You could still taste the phantom scent of Marlboro Reds and sandalwood in the back of your throat.
More than once, a prickling sensation washed over the back of your neck—that heavy, unmistakable feeling of a pair of eyes drilling into your spine.
But every time you casually glanced around the crowded room, hoping or fearing to catch a glimpse of silver hair, you found nothing but strangers. You're being delusional, you told yourself severely. He's with Alicia. He doesn't care about you.
At one point, Rowan walked past the lounge area, her hand securely laced with Raymun’s. When she caught sight of you chatting and laughing with the handsome, honey-blonde boy, she stopped dead in her tracks and shot you a massive, exaggeratedly knowing wink. You aggressively shook your head at her in return, your cheeks heating up as she giggled and let her host boyfriend pull her toward the bar.
"Anyway," Art said, drawing your attention back to the bench as he shifted the topic. "We were supposed to be discussing our interpretation of the Citadel Chronicles for Ashford's seminar. Did you actually manage to parse through the third volume's syntax? Because I'm convinced the author was having a stroke there.”
"Oh, the syntax is a nightmare," you agreed, glad for the academic distraction. "I had to stay up until three in the morning just trying to translate the regional economic data from the old port city—"
Before you could finish your sentence, a sharp, violent sound tore through the thick atmosphere of the loft. The sound of something crashing.
It was the unmistakable, explosive shattering of glass, heavy and resonant enough to cut right through the booming bass of the speakers. The music didn't stop, but the collective volume of the party’s laughter and chatter dropped instantly, replaced by a sudden, tense silence.
"What the hell…" Art muttered, his friendly expression instantly flattening as he stood up from the leather couch.
You rose immediately to follow his lead, your heart doing a strange, protective drop in your chest. Across the vast penthouse, a frantic murmur was breaking out. A large, dense crowd of students was already shifting, turning their heads and eagerly gathering near the wide archway of the kitchen entrance, voices rising in a sudden flurry of excitement and dread.
The easy, golden warmth of your conversation with Art dissolved like mist. You didn't even think; your boots were already moving, stepping off the leather bench and driving you toward the kitchen archway.
Art’s hand shot out, his warm fingers brushing against your wrist in a frantic attempt to anchor you, to keep you from running straight into the blast radius.
"Y/N, wait—don't get close to that," he warned, his voice low and tight with a regular guy's instinct for self-preservation.
You shooed him off with a sharp jerk of your arm, your eyes locked on the shifting geometry of the crowd ahead. "I’m fine, Art," you muttered, your focus completely consumed by the sudden shift in the room’s temperature.
"I'm not your fucking mate!" another voice roared, high-pitched and vibrating with pure, unadulterated adrenaline.
Around the kitchen perimeter, the KLU elite were already adopting their positions. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, holding their gold-rimmed glasses and designer clutches, their faces schooled into expressions of practiced, aristocratic judgment.
They acted horrified, wrinkling their noses as if violence were an urban disease beneath their tax bracket, but their eyes were wide, glittering with a sick, parasitic entertainment. Hypocrites, you thought. Every single one of them.
"What's happening?" you demanded, nudging the shoulder of a girl in a sequined top whose view wasn't blocked by the wall of tall rugby players currently forming a human barricade.
You didn't need her to answer. As if responding to the sheer force of your arrival, the crowd parted just enough to afford you a clear, unobstructed line of sight.
The pristine, grey-veined marble of the kitchen counter was no longer an altar for expensive wine. Aerion Targaryen had a guy pinned by the throat against the high-gloss white subway tile of the wall. His lean, tailored frame looked entirely predatory, his shoulders squared as he leveraged his weight to lift the other student an inch off the floor.
Before your brain could even process the visual, a sickening, wet crack echoed through the space, a sound so brutal it seemed to stop the music altogether. Aerion’s knuckle, adorned with those heavy, coiled Valyrian steel rings, had collided squarely with the guy's nose.
An ugly, violent crimson bloomed instantly across the boy's face, cascading like a ruptured river down the front of his pristine white linen shirt.
You gasped, the sound catching in your throat along with a collective, horrified ripple that shuddered through the entire throng of spectators.
It was a stark, grounding reminder: all the nepotism in Westeros, all the multi-million-dollar trusts, the high-end private nannies, and the legacy admissions didn't make the children of world leaders and corporate dynasties any less savage than regular street thugs when the veneer cracked. Underneath the tailored silk, they were still beasts.
"Oh, you're fucking dead, Targaryen!" the guy barked, his voice choked on his own blood.
With a desperate, adrenaline-fueled surge, he managed to writhe his neck free from Aerion’s bruising grip. He didn't retreat; he lunged forward, sending a wild, heavy punch flying straight toward Aerion's jaw.
Some of the girls near the front shrank back in genuine horror, while a few of the more intoxicated frat guys from the sports faculty were outright beaming, too boozed up on top-shelf liquor to realize they were witnessing a potential lawsuit in real-time.
Through the shifting shoulders of the crowd, you finally spotted Raymun Fossoway trying to force his way to the front of his own kitchen, his face pale with the realization that his security deposit was currently being smeared across the walls. Rowan was trailing tightly behind him, her fiery red topknot slightly disheveled, her eyes wide and worried as she looked for you.
"Aye! What the fuck is happening here?" Raymun yelled, throwing his arms out as he finally breached the inner circle.
He shoved himself physically between the two crashing bodies, his hands pressing against their chests to stop them from completely tearing each other apart. "What the hell has gotten into the two of you? Knuckleheads! This isn't a fucking boxing ring! You've got a problem with each other, take it outside to the gravel!"
The injured student spat a massive, dark dollop of blood straight onto the polished concrete floor, the fluid landing right between Aerion’s polished shoes and Raymun’s sneakers. "Tell this prissy, silver-headed fuck—" the guy choked out, but he never got to finish the insult.
Aerion was already lunging again, his eyes entirely void of reason, his silver-white hair flying wildly around his face like a localized storm.
"Aerion!"
Alicia’s shrill, high-society shriek cut through the chaos like broken glass. She was hovering near the pantry, her perfect makeup ruined by lines of frantic tears, her emerald-green dress looking suddenly crumpled and tragic.
You couldn't tell how long the exchange lasted. You didn't know how many blows had been traded before the room went dark or how much structural damage had been inflicted on the loft.
All you knew was that you stood entirely paralyzed, your boots glued to the floor as the crowd shifted around you like a turbulent sea.
Finally, the sheer mass of Duncan the Tall moved into the frame. The rugby captain utilized his massive, broad frame to physically lock his arms around the bleeding student, pulling him backward with a strength that brooked no argument.
Simultaneously, Valarr materialized from the corridor, his jaw tight and his expression dark with a profound, weary frustration. He grabbed Aerion by the shoulders, using his own formidable leverage to drag his cousin back into the center of the room.
"Don't fucking touch me!" Aerion snarled, his voice a guttural, animalistic hiss as he violently wrenched his shoulders out of Valarr's diplomatic grip.
"Hey—" Valarr stepped into his line of sight, his tone remarkably level, his hands raised in a calming gesture. He didn't look shocked. He looked tired.
This was clearly a regular occurrence in the private annals of the Targaryen family tree— a realization that both baffled and horrified you. "Calm the hell down, yeah? Look at me. Breathe."
Valarr tried to talk some sense into him, but Aerion just let out a cold, mocking scoff, his chest heaving as he turned his back on his cousin. He swept his glacier-like gaze across the circle of onlookers, his eyes burning with a terrifying, unhinged malice.
"What are the lot of you staring at?" he barked, his voice slicing through the residual murmurs until the room went completely dead silent.
Alicia stepped forward, her manicured hand reaching out to touch his arm, her voice trembling as she begged him to stay, to let her clean him up. Aerion didn't even look at her. With a brutal, dismissive jerk of his shoulder, he shrugged her off as if she were nothing more than a nuisance, leaving her standing under the harsh kitchen LEDs.
As he turned toward the main exit, the light caught his face fully for the first time.
A nasty, jagged cut was bleeding freely on his upper lip, and an ugly, dark purple bruise was already beginning to bloom across his aristocratic cheekbone. He stormed out of the kitchen, his heavy boots echoing like thunder against the concrete as he headed straight for the apartment door, leaving a vacuum of stunned silence in his wake.
"What the actual fuck…" you heard Art mutter under his breath from beside you.
You hadn't even realized he had followed you to the front until his shadow fell over your shoulder. He shook his head, staring at the blood splatters on the subway tile with a deep, visceral disgust.
"That guy is a literal lunatic. A straight-up textbook psychotic. Who even does that at a house party?"
Valarr ignored Art entirely. His brunette hair was slightly mussed as he rubbed a heavy hand across his forehead, his eyes locked onto the heavy oak door at the end of the foyer that was still vibrating from being slammed shut.
"Shit," Valarr muttered, his diplomatic composure finally cracking as he looked at Raymun. "He shouldn't be driving like this. He’s furious, he’s bleeding, and he’s probably got half a bottle of gin in his system."
You knew exactly what Valarr was thinking. Aerion was headed straight for the parking garage below the building. He was headed for that ridiculous, midnight black Porsche— the one he drove around campus like an extension of his own volatile ego.
Valarr let out a heavy, stressed sigh, his fingers palming his forehead as he calculated his options. "Shit… I can't leave Kiera, though. She's completely wasted in the bathroom, I can't just drop her—"
"It's fine," you said.The words cut through the air before you could even formulate the conscious thought to speak them.
You surprised yourself, the sudden steel in your voice catching Valarr’s attention immediately.
Your brain, the logical, self-preserving part of you, was screaming at you to stop. What are you doing? You should stay here. You should be in the bathroom with Kiera, holding her hair back while Tanselle or Rowan helped. You should let Valarr handle his own dysfunctional family. They were blood; they shared the same ancient, volatile lineage. It wasn't your job. It wasn't your burden.
But your feet were already shifting.
"I'll go after him," you let out, the declaration sounding final, leaving no room for argument as you turned your back on the kitchen and began walking purposefully toward the front door.
"Y/N, wait!" Valarr barked behind you, his long stride breaking into a forward movement to catch your hand, but you were already too fast.
You slipped past the threshold of the lounge, dodging a group of stunned freshmen who were already slipping back into their idle chatter and high-society gossip, moving as if the violence had been nothing more than a mid-party performance.
"Is this chic fucking insane or what?" Art’s voice drifted over the crowd, his tone laced with absolute bewilderment as he watched your retreating back. "Does she have a literal death wish…"
You didn't look back to see his expression. You had no idea what had just taken control of your body.
You had no idea what kind of silent, stupid, magnetic force was pulling you out of that safe, warm apartment and driving you toward the elevator. All you knew was that the image of the blood on Aerion’s lip and the unhinged, self-destructive look in his violet eyes had burned themselves into your eyelids, and you couldn't stop walking until you hit the cold concrete of the hallway.
On the way down in the elevator, the silence of the steel box was deafening, a stark contrast to the roaring chaos you had just left behind. You were biting your inner lip so hard that the sharp, coppery tang of blood began to bloom on your tongue.
Your breathing was erratic, coming and going in shallow, jagged bursts that rattled your chest.
What the hell were you thinking?
You had seen the way he treated Alicia— a girl who actually belonged in his gilded world—and he had all but discarded her like an afterthought when the adrenaline hit. What could you possibly say to him that she couldn’t have?
You were the babysitter. You were the help. You were probably the absolute last person on this earth Aerion Targaryen wanted to see right now. Why had you stormed off like that? Was it some sick, deeply buried savior complex deciding to kick in, or were you just a massive, incomparable idiot? Probably the latter.
You repeated it like a mantra against the steady descent of the elevator floor: You're an idiot. A big, fucking idiot. Did you have some pathological need to fix every single broken, tragic Targaryen that crossed your path? You weren't hired to heal their generational trauma. You weren't supposed to care.
But all the logic in the world evaporated the moment the elevator doors chimed, sliding open to reveal the subterranean chill of the lower parking level. Your feet moved of their own volition, carrying you forward like a heavy weight on a mechanical track, utterly out of your control.
The moment you stepped out into the open air of the perimeter lot, a violent gust of wind hit you like a physical wall, whipping your hair across your face.
The night was dark, illuminated only by the sickly amber glow of a single, flickering sodium-vapor streetlamp. Your boots clicked a frantic, echoing rhythm against the damp asphalt as you rounded the concrete pillar.
And there he was.
Aerion’s lean frame was practically shaking with a terrifying, kinetic fury, his silhouette dark against the polished, obsidian paint of his Porsche.
"Aerion!" you shouted into the wind, your voice cracking slightly but carrying across the empty lot, rendering your presence entirely unavoidable.
"What the hell..." he muttered under his breath, pausing with his hand resting on the driver's side door. He spun around to glare at you, his features twisted into something feral.
"Leave me the fuck alone, Y/N. Get away from here." He barked the order, already pulling the heavy key fob from his pocket, his knuckles raw and scraped, his split lip still oozing a dark line of red.
"No!" you interjected, closing the distance between you, defiance anchoring your heels against the pavement as he cursed under his breath, fumbling with the car door.
"Are you completely deaf or just plain stupid?" he bared his teeth at you, his violet eyes flashing in the dark like a rabid dog backed into a corner. "I don't want you here. Get out of my sight."
"No," you cut him off, your voice rising to match his, your own frame shaking with a sudden, matching fury. "I am not letting you get into that car with fucking alcohol instead of blood in your system. You're going to wrap that expensive piece of metal around a tree, or worse—"
He let out a harsh, mocking snarl, stepping away from the car to face you fully. "And why the fuck would you care, huh? Don't stand there and act like you give a single, flying shit about what happens to me. You said it yourself tonight—I'm the most irritating, insufferable—"
"Shut up for once in your miserable life, Aerion!" you thundered, the sheer volume of your voice surprising even the wind.
"Just shut the hell up, will you? You treat me like absolute garbage for months. You make my life a living hell on campus, you spew your poisonous, elitist shit at me every time I breathe the same air as you—and then all of a sudden, you’re touching my face on a balcony and acting like..."
You swallowed hard, the word catching in your throat. "Acting like a complete lunatic! And then you get yourself into a bloody brawl in a kitchen. You have no right—you have absolutely zero right to do this!"
Aerion seemed violently taken aback by the outburst. The vicious retort died on his tongue, and if you hadn't been so entirely consumed by the white-hot rage vibrating through your veins, you might have noticed the way his pale irises instantly hazed over, darkening with a sudden, predatory intensity that looked like he wanted to devour you alive right there on the concrete.
"Not every single thing on this planet is a game revolving around your ego, okay?" you continued, your chest heaving as you stepped closer, entirely disregarding the danger. "Because if you get in that Porsche and you fucking die tonight, you're not the only one who has to suffer the fallout. It's about your family. It's about Valarr, and your father, and Aegon—"
"Oh, so this is about Egg now?" he mocked, his voice dropping into a bitter, venomous drawl as the alcohol loosened his filter. "What, do you get some sick cosmic thrill out of playing house? Acting like a fucking mother? Let me remind you of something, sweetheart—you will never be his mother. You can never replace her. We had a mother. She's dead. She’s ashes." He spat the words, the raw, unhealed trauma of Dyanna’s passing oozing out of him like poison.
"Are you even hearing yourself, you fucking hypocrite?" You let out an incredulous, bitter laugh, shaking your head. "This has nothing to do with me trying to be a mother or trying to replace Dyanna—"
Aerion physically winced at the sound of her name, his jaw tightening into iron as he raised a warning finger to your face. "Don't you dare say her name—"
"No! This is about you!" you shouted over him, refusing to back down. "This is about the kind of men that poor little boy has to grow up watching! Take this with every single bit of bitter salt that you can, Aerion Targaryen, but your family is a magnificent, catastrophic mess. Your father, Daeron, you—all of you! And instead of protecting Aegon, instead of helping him and loving him like a normal, decent older brother should, you torture him! He is terrified of you, Aerion! He looks at you and sees a monster!"
Aerion shook his head slowly from side to side, a manic, disbelief coloring his features as he tried to block out the truth of your words. "That's a bunch of absolute bullshit... and we both know it..."
"No," you thundered, stepping directly into his space until the scent of his metallic blood, stale gin, and Marlboro Reds completely enveloped you. "No, it is the absolute, undeniable truth, Aerion. It's the truth and you know it. You're just too much of a pathetic coward to look in the mirror and admit it to yourself."
"A coward, huh?" He let out a low, dangerous sound, his head tilting as the blood from his split lip smeared across his chin. "Is that what you're calling your employer's son now? You have some serious fucking nerve."
When you finally managed to catch your breath, your heart stopped. A slightly crooked, dark grin was playing on his bleeding lips. He wasn't furious anymore. He was fascinated. He was thoroughly, intensely enjoying the sight of you screaming at him, loving the fact that you were tearing him down to his very bones.
He leaned his hand forward, his fingers twitching.
“Don't you dare touch me,” you breathed, practically jumping back a step as if his very skin were made of burning coal.
“You'd absolutely hate how much you'd like it… and you know it,” he muttered, his voice dropping into a smooth, resonant register that possessed not a single shred of doubt.
And the worst part—the absolutely terrifying, sickening part—was that unwelcome, coiling heat instantly spreading through the pit of your belly again, betraying every logical thought in your head.
"If you're waiting for me to apologize for what I said, don't hold your breath," you snapped, trying to steel yourself.
"Good. I'd hate for you to pass out from lack of oxygen before I win this argument," he countered smoothly. He was unfuckingbelievable.
"Aerion..." you warned, your voice trembling slightly as you realized the distance between your bodies had vanished again. "You're standing too close."
"Say the word, and I'll stop... but don't lie to me," he whispered, leaning in dangerously, agonizingly close.
You could see the dark, drying blood coating the edges of his Valyrian steel rings. "We're completely alone out here. No one from the Red Keep has to know. No one from the campus. Just this once..."
He dared to raise both hands, his long fingers structuring themselves on either side of your face. His grip was firm, entirely unyielding, but possessed a strange, controlled gentleness that ensured it wouldn't leave a mark. It was an utterly, undeniably possessive hold.
"What is wrong with you?" you spat, a volatile cocktail of frustration, tears, anger, and deep-seated want bubbling to the surface as your hands came up, closing tightly over his wrists to pull him away. "Is this just another one of your sick, depraved games? A bet with your friends?"
He shook his head, the accusation seemingly inflicting a flash of physical pain across his features. He licked his dry, bleeding lips, his eyes locked onto yours.
"Why, Aerion? Why do this?" you demanded, desperate for a shield, refusing to let him win this easily. You needed a reason. You needed to understand how a guy who had made your life a living purgatory suddenly looked at you like this. "You spend months threatening to ruin my fucking life, and then you—"
"Because I don't know how the fuck to get you to pay attention to me, okay, Y/N?" he suddenly growled through gritted teeth, the raw, unfiltered truth ripping out of him with a force that clearly cost his pride everything.
"You are always focusing on someone else. You're always hovering over Aegon, or Daella, or Rhae, or fucking Daeron. You look at my father, you look at Valarr, you look at every single person in that house—except me. You look right through me."
"So you justify bullying me because you were fucking attention-seeking?" You almost barked an ironic, disbelieving laugh against his chest.
"No," he stepped in even closer, his torso pressing against yours. "'M not justifying a single thing." His thumbs began to slowly, deliberately caress the sensitive skin of your cheekbones, the contrast of his cold steel rings against your burning skin making your mind go completely blank.
"You're blushing," he pointed out, a wicked, triumphant grin cutting through the blood on his face. You didn't even think he could see it under the dim, orange wash of the streetlamp, but you felt it—the violent, coiling warmth spreading across your face.
"Shut up," you muttered weakly. "If you wanted me to kiss you," you breathed, refusing to break eye contact, your fingers tightening on his wrists, "you could have just said so from the beginning."
A dark, raw sound escaped the back of his throat at your words, every single ounce of his practiced aristocratic self-restraint shattering into nothingness. "You know exactly what you do to me, don't you? You always have," he accused.
"Careful Targaryen," you bit back, one last desperate defense. "Someone might actually think you want me. We are absolutely not supposed to do this."
He threw his head back, letting out a sharp, mocking laugh as if the concept of rules were an utter joke to his bloodline. "Since when has that ever stopped a dragon?"
And with that, the tension snapped.
He lunged forward, his hands sliding from your face to grip the back of your neck, pulling your body flush against his own as he dragged you into a searing, cataclysmic kiss.
Aerion didn't just kiss you—he devoured you. It was a feral, consuming force, as if he wanted to eat you alive and pull your very soul into his lungs.
A heavy, desperate groan broke against your mouth as your hands finally released his wrists, your fingers threading wildly through his silver-white locks, pulling him impossibly, painfully close. The kiss was all sharp teeth and bruising tongue—a violent, chaotic battle of wills that you had no intention of letting him win easily.
You bit down hard on his lower lip, wanting him to feel at least a fraction of the agonizing mental torment he had inflicted on you for months.
Instead of pulling away, his grip on your waist only tightened, his fingers digging into your hips as he let out a dark, breathless sound, clearly thriving on the depraved, aggressive nature of the embrace.
It was a kiss fueled by alcohol, adrenaline, months of toxic friction, and pure, unadulterated lust. It tasted like gin, Marlboro Reds, and the coppery tang of shared blood—it was filthily disgusting, entirely wrong, and undeniably the greatest kiss of your entire life.
Your entire universe narrowed down to the heat of his skin. Your body was completely intoxicated by his scent, your brain entirely incapable of forming a single coherent thought. The world outside this parking lot didn't exist. Rowan, Kiera, Valarr, Aegon—they were all casualties of a fire that was currently burning you alive.
"Aerion..." you panted against his lips when the sheer lack of oxygen finally forced the two of you to pull back an inch, your foreheads resting together as you gasped for air.
"I can feel your heartbeat..." Aerion muttered, his voice a low, ragged purr. He leaned down, pressing his lips directly against the frantic, hammering pulse point on your neck, tracing the skin with a terrifying reverence. "Is that for me, love?"
"I've wanted this... since the very first moment I met you," he admitted against your skin, his hands never ceasing their frantic caress.
"Could have fooled me," you bit back, though the words lacked any real venom. You looked up at him with a newfound, consuming obsession, every shred of your logic and self-respect scattered on the pavement.
You couldn't bring yourself to care about how messy, dangerous, or ruinous the morning would be. The morning.
"You can go back to hating me in the morning..." Aerion whispered, his violet eyes locking onto yours with a desperate, heavy gravity. "Just let me have you. Just give me tonight."
"Is this really all you wanted from me?" you questioned, your fingers gripping his shoulders.
"No," he shook his head, a dark, dangerous sincerity settling over his features. "I wanted more."
Of course he did. Aerion Targaryen wanted everything. He wanted all of you, his greed an insatiable, genetic trait that was engraved into his very marrow. It was apparent in the way he carried himself, in the way he fought, and in the way his lips moved against yours.
"I always knew there was a fire in you," he murmured, his gaze tracing your features with an obsessive, terrifying devotion.
He leaned down, his lips brushing the shell of your ear as he muttered something in low, rolling High Valyrian that you couldn't fully translate, though the cadence made your skin prickle. "Ñuhon," he whispered against your skin. Mine.
You swallowed hard, the taste of his tobacco and liquor still heavy on your tongue. "Don't stop," you muttered fiercely into his cheek as his heavy hands slid down to grip your hips, pulling you back into the dark shadow of the Porsche. "Don't you dare stop."
You had no idea what the hell was happening anymore. You had no idea what this would do to your job, to your life, or to the fragile peace you had built.
Because when the sun came up, everything would be undeniably, irreversibly altered.
Or perhaps, that was the thought that terrified you the most. Monsters like Aerion Brightflame didn't change their nature over the course of a single night.
And even if he spent the next few hours worshipping you in the dark, it didn't mean he wouldn't be ready to tear you to pieces when the morning light rose.
▓▓▓▓▓▓ CLASSIFIED // M.E.G. INTERNAL // CLEARANCE LEVEL 4 REQUIRED ▓▓▓▓▓▓
Colloquial Designation: "Better Bobby"
DOCUMENT ID: MEG-ENT-0000-DOSSIER
CLASSIFICATION: LEVEL 4 — RESTRICTED
COMPILED BY: Dr. ██████, Entity Research Division
DATE OF COMPILATION: ██/██/198█
LAST REVISION: ██/██/199█ [SEE ADDENDUM F]
REVISION STATUS: ONGOING — FILE NEVER CLOSED
⚠ DISTRIBUTION WARNING ⚠
This dossier contains information regarding an entity classified as APEX-UNDEFINED. Unauthorised access, reproduction, or verbal dissemination of the contents herein constitutes a Class 3 security violation. Personnel found in breach will be subject to immediate reassignment to Level ███. This is not negotiable.
If you are reading this document and do not possess Level 4 clearance, stop immediately. Close this file. Walk away. Forget the designation. This is for your safety.
SECTION 1 — ENTITY SUMMARY
Designation: Entity 0
Colloquial Name(s): "Better Bobby," "The First," "It" (field teams), ██████████████ (designation rescinded, see Incident Report 0-14)
Primary Domain: Level 0 (unconfirmed territorial claim over full sublevel network)
Secondary Sightings: Levels 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 14, ████, ██████, and the Poolrooms (unverified)
Threat Classification: APEX-UNDEFINED
Containment Status: UNCONTAINED — ALL CONTAINMENT ATTEMPTS SUSPENDED INDEFINITELY
Behavioural Profile: UNPREDICTABLE / ADAPTIVE / SAPIENT (CONFIRMED)
Entity Kill Count (Est.): Unknown. See Section 5.
Human Kill Count (Conf.): █████
Human Kill Count (Est.): ███████ [DISPUTED — SEE ADDENDUM C]
NOTE FROM DR. ██████, ENTITY RESEARCH LEAD:
It should be on record that the designation 'Entity 0' was not chosen for taxonomic reasons. It was assigned because this entity predates our cataloguing system. We did not discover it. It was already here in what we class as the Backrooms. It may have always been here . The number is not a ranking. It's an admission that we do not know where to place it.
SECTION 2 — PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
2.1 — Primary Manifestation
Entity 0 presents as a young Caucasian male, early-to-mid twenties, consistent with the physical appearance of one Robert "Bobby" Franklin (see Personnel File MEG-P-██████, Status: ACTIVE/DISPLACED). The resemblance is exact in approximately 94% of documented sightings. Remaining sightings note minor deviations: incorrect eye colour under different lighting, subtle asymmetries in facial structure that do not correspond to Franklin's known features, and—in three separate reports—a "wrongness in the joints" that observers struggled to articulate.
Franklin himself has been interviewed extensively regarding Entity 0's use of his likeness. His testimony is included in Addendum A (SEALED). He has requested, on multiple occasions, that M.E.G. ██████████████████████████████████. This request has been denied.
2.2 — Secondary Characteristics
Entity 0 bleeds a black, viscous fluid when injured. Lab analysis of recovered samples has returned ████████████████. A second analysis returned entirely different results. A third analysis caused the spectrometer to ██████████████████████████████████. Testing has been suspended.
Entity 0's body temperature registers approximately 4.2°C below ambient room temperature at all times, regardless of environmental conditions. This remains consistent even in the Poolrooms (if sightings there are verified) and the thermally unstable zones of Level 5.
When Entity 0 believes it is unobserved, field teams have reported the following:
a) Complete cessation of respiration for periods exceeding 45 minutes.
b) Head rotation beyond normal cervical range (estimated 190° in Sighting 0-22).
c) Standing perfectly motionless in a posture that does not account for gravity. One researcher described it as "standing the way a photograph of a person stands. Not wrong. Just not alive."
d) Brief episodes of what appears to be the entity's eyes changing colour—from the documented blue to solid black. Duration: 1-5 seconds. No agent has been close enough to confirm ████████████████.
e) ██████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████ for approximately nine hours. When Agent ██████ attempted to approach, ██████████████████████████████████. Agent ██████ has requested a transfer. Request granted.
2.3 — True Form
Unknown.
We do not know what Entity 0 looks like. We know what Bobby Franklin looks like. Entity 0 has never been observed without this disguise. Whether the Franklin appearance constitutes a "disguise" or has become the entity's actual physical structure is a matter of ongoing—and increasingly heated—debate within the department.
Dr. ██████ has proposed that Entity 0 may not have a "true form." That it may be, at a fundamental level, a thing that IS other things. This hypothesis is ████████████████.
SECTION 3 — BEHAVIOURAL ANALYSIS
3.1 — Unpredictability Index
Entity 0 has been assigned a Behavioural Unpredictability Index (BUI) of 9.7 out of 10. For context, most Backrooms entities operate between 2 and 6 on this scale. The Skin-Stealers register at 5.1. The Hounds at 3.8. A completely random number generator would score 10.0.
Entity 0 scores a 9.7 because it is not random. It is making decisions. We simply cannot determine the framework.
Documented behavioural range includes:
Allowing a wanderer to pass through Level 0 entirely unmolested, even appearing to clear a path by relocating other entities beforehand (Sighting 0-09).
Killing a wanderer. Method: ██████████████████████████████████. No apparent provocation. (Incident 0-03).
Sitting cross-legged in a hallway for an estimated 72 hours, staring at a wall. (Sighting 0-15). Purpose: unknown.
Engaging a Class 5 entity in what can only be described as combat. Entity 0 won. ██████████████████████████████████. The Class 5 entity has not been sighted since.
Humming. (Multiple sightings.) The melody does not correspond to any known song. ████████████████ has suggested it may be original composition. This is ██████.
Laughing at nothing. (Sighting 0-19.) Duration: four minutes. Laughter matched audio profile of Robert Franklin exactly.
██████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████ ████████████████. All seven members of Exploration Team Kilo were recovered alive. None will discuss what happened.
3.2 — Evasion Capabilities
Entity 0 does not want to be found. When it is found, it is because it has chosen to be.
M.E.G. has deployed tracking teams on fourteen separate occasions. Results were as follows:
Operation: LAMPLIGHTER
Duration: 6 days
Result: Entity evaded all contact. Team reported hallways "rearranging" around them.
Operation: NIGHTJAR
Duration: 11 days
Result: Entity sighted once. Made direct eye contact with lead tracker from end of hallway (est. 200m). Smiled. Vanished.
Operation: SILKWORM
Duration: 9 days
Result: No contact. Post-operation analysis revealed entity had been following the tracking team for the final four days.
Operation: TIDEPOOL
Duration: ██ days
Result: ██████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████ ████████████████ ██████ ██████████████████████████████████ ████████████████. All further tracking operations suspended by order of ██████.
3.3 — Intelligence
Entity 0 is sapient. This is no longer debated.
It understands English. It understands Mandarin, Spanish, Arabic, and—following an incident with Exploration Team Foxtrot—fluent conversational Japanese, despite never having been observed in the presence of a Japanese-speaking wanderer. A comprehensive linguistic audit conducted in 198█ was abandoned after Entity 0 responded to a deliberately obscure dialectal prompt in ██████████████████████████████████. The full list of confirmed languages is maintained in Addendum B. It is not short.
It also understands tactical positioning. It understands, based on Operations NIGHTJAR and SILKWORM, the concept of irony.
What must be emphasised—and what continues to unsettle the department—is how dramatically Entity 0's cognitive profile diverges from every other catalogued entity. Most Backrooms entities operate on recognisable behavioural loops. The Smilers hunt. The Skin-Stealers mimic. The ██████ feed. Even the more complex entities can be understood as sophisticated biological (or pseudo-biological) systems responding to stimuli: hunger, territorial instinct, predatory drive. They do what they do because something in their construction compels them to do it.
Entity 0 does not appear to be compelled to do anything.
It does not hunt for sustenance. It does not hunt for pleasure. It does not, as far as we can determine, hunt at all. Its kills appear to be decisions, made for reasons that change depending on context and that we have failed to model despite years of behavioural data. Other entities are, for lack of a better term, animals. Complex animals. Dangerous animals. But animals still.
Entity 0 operates with what can only be described as intentionality. It makes choices. It weighs outcomes. It has, on at least two documented occasions, changed its mind mid-action, which implies an internal deliberative process that no other entity has demonstrated.
This is what makes it dangerous. Not the strength—though the strength is considerable. Not the evasion capabilities—though those are unmatched. The danger is that Entity 0's internal workings appear to be orders of magnitude more complex than anything else in the Backrooms, and we do not understand them. A Wretch is dangerous the way a bear is dangerous: powerful, aggressive, but ultimately predictable. Entity 0 is dangerous the way a person is dangerous. It thinks. It plans, adapts, and learns. And it does all of this inside a body that can tear a Class 5 entity apart in ninety seconds.
The obvious question—and the one this department has been circling for the better part of two years without satisfactory resolution—is why. Why is Entity 0 so far beyond its peers? Two hypotheses currently hold majority support:
Hypothesis A (Dr. ██████): Entity 0's cognitive superiority is a function of age. It was here first. It has had longer to develop, to complexify, to evolve whatever passes for intelligence in Backrooms entities. Under this model, Entity 0 is not fundamentally different from other entities, it is simply older. The designation "Entity 0" is, in this reading, more literal than intended. It is t he first. Everything else came after. Everything else is younger, simpler, less finished.
Hypothesis B (Dr. ████████): Entity 0 is not smarter because it is older. It is smarter because it wanted to be. Something in its composition—its origin, its structure, whatever animates it—possesses a drive toward learning that other entities lack. It doesn't just react to its environment. It studies it. It chose to wear a human face. It chose to learn human language. Not one. Dozens. It chose to understand tactical positioning and irony and the specific way Robert Franklin leans against walls. Other entities absorb. Entity 0 pursues. If this hypothesis is correct, the follow-up question becomes deeply uncomfortable: what is it learning toward? What is the curriculum building to? What does an entity that has spent ██████████████ years teaching itself to be more look like when it decides it has learned enough?
Neither hypothesis has been confirmed. Both are ███████████████.
Researcher's note: I have been asked, off the record, which hypothesis I find more frightening. The answer is (B). It's always (B).
SECTION 4 — TERRITORIAL BEHAVIOUR & DOMAIN
Level 0 (otherwise known as "The Threshold") is, by consensus, Entity 0's domain.
This is not an official M.E.G. designation but a practical observation. Entity 0 moves through Level 0 with a freedom and familiarity that no other entity displays. It does not navigate the space. It inhabits it. Hallways that shift and reconfigure for wanderers appear to remain static in Entity 0's presence, or, more disturbingly, reconfigure according to its preference.
There is a growing body of evidence—currently classified under Review Protocol ██████—suggesting that Level 0 may not simply be Entity 0's territory. It may be its ████████████. This hypothesis was first proposed by Dr. ██████ in 198█ and was initially dismissed. Following Incident 0-11, in which Entity 0 appeared to ██████████████████████████████████ ████████████████ an entire corridor, the hypothesis has been upgraded to "under active consideration."
Entity 0 has been sighted on other levels, but these incursions appear purposeful and temporary. It always returns to Level 0. One researcher described this pattern as "a predator checking its territory lines," though others have noted the behaviour more closely resembles ████████████████.
SECTION 5 — INTER-ENTITY BEHAVIOUR
Entity 0 kills other entities.
This requires emphasis because it is, within the context of Backrooms ecology, abnormal. Entities compete for territory aggressively. Entities avoid each other. Entities engage in dominance displays. Sometimes they have been observed working together to hunt and kill wanderers. Entities do not, as a rule, destroy each other with the kind of systematic, almost casual efficiency that Entity 0 demonstrates.
Confirmed Entity 0 kills:
1x Class 5 Entity (undesignated). Method: ██████████████████████████. Duration of engagement: approx. 90 seconds.
5x Hounds. Simultaneous. Entity 0 did not appear injured afterward.
17x Skin-Stealer. Entity 0 appeared to take particular ██████ with this kill. Duration: ██████. Research team observing from concealment requested psychological support afterward.
██████x ████████████████. Circumstances: ██████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████. See Section 6.
1x entity of unknown classification. Entity 0 was observed speaking to it before killing it. Words were inaudible. Lip-reading analysis suggested ██████████████████████████████████. Lip-reading analyst has since resigned.
Few entities engage in aggression toward Entity 0. The implication of such is clear: within the Backrooms ecosystem, Entity 0 is an apex predator. Other entities tend to avoid it. Some—including the Hounds, which fear nothing else in our catalogue—have been documented actively fleeing its approach.
There are, however, notable exceptions.
The Howlers appear to be, at minimum, a genuine physical threat. They have engaged Entity 0 on at least three documented occasions. The encounters were violent and protracted in a way that Entity 0's other kills are not. During Incident 0-09, Entity 0 was observed sustaining visible damage. The first and only confirmed instance of an entity injuring it in combat. The black fluid was extensive. Entity 0 killed two Howlers, but it took ██ minutes, and afterward it remained stationary in the corridor for nearly two hours. Whether this constituted recovery, pain, or something else, we cannot say. But it did not move, and field team noted it was not humming.
More concerning is the entity's documented behaviour regarding ████████████████████████████, tentatively catalogued as Entity ██████, sighted exclusively on Levels ██████ and ██████. We have very little data on this entity—three sightings total, all partial, all from significant distance—but what we do have is this: during Sighting 0-46, Entity 0 was transiting a hallway on Level ██████ when it stopped. Abruptly. The tracking team reported that it stood perfectly still for approximately ninety seconds, head tilted, and then turned around and walked the other way.
Entity 0 has never, in our observational history, retreated from anything.
What Entity 0 is protecting, or hunting, or maintaining through this behaviour remains unknown.
SECTION 6 — THE COMPANION
⚠ CLASSIFICATION: LEVEL 4 EYES ONLY — SUBSECTION RESTRICTED TO SENIOR RESEARCH PERSONNEL ⚠
6.1 — Initial Sighting
During Operation SILKWORM, tracking team reported an anomalous observation that did not pertain to the primary mission objective. Entity 0 was sighted in a hallway junction on Level 0, sublevel ██████. It was not alone.
A human female was observed walking alongside Entity 0.
Estimated age: ███. Physical description: ██████████████████████████████████. She was wearing ████████████████ and appeared to be in good physical health. She was not restrained, and was not visibly distressed. She was, by all observable measures, walking with Entity 0 voluntarily.
Entity 0 was walking between the female and the nearest dark hallway.
The tracking team leader noted this detail three times in her field report, underlining it twice. I am including it here because the behavioural implication is significant: Entity 0 was positioning itself as a barrier between the female and potential threats. This is protective behaviour. This is not something Entity 0 has ever displayed toward any other human in our records.
6.2 — Subsequent Sightings
Ref: S-31
Level: 0
Observation: Entity 0 and Companion seated against wall. Entity 0 appeared to be keeping watch while Companion slept. Entity 0 was humming.
Ref: S-34
Level: 2
Observation: Companion observed navigating. Entity 0 following. Unusual. Entity 0 does not typically follow. It leads or it ██████.
Ref: S-37
Level: 0
Observation: Entity 0 observed retrieving ██████ and presenting them to Companion. Companion laughed. Entity 0 displayed what appeared to be satisfaction.
Ref: S-41
Level: 3
Observation: Two Hounds approached Companion's position. Entity 0 intercepted. █████████████████████████████. Companion did not appear surprised by the violence. She waited. When Entity 0 returned, she handed it ██████ and they continued walking.
Ref: S-44
Level: ██████
Observation: ████████████████████████████████ █████████████████████████ ████████████████. Observation team was withdrawn immediately. Dr. ██████████ has classified this sighting at Level 5. I have not been told why.
6.3 — Identity of the Companion
The Companion has been tentatively identified as █████████████████████████, a civilian reported missing on ██████████. Missing persons report was filed by Robert Franklin. Notably, █████████████████████████ was in a relationship with Robert Franklin at the time of disappearance.
The implications of this connection—that Entity 0 selected a companion who was romantically involved with the individual whose appearance it wears—are not lost on this department. Theories range from predatory luring strategy (see Dr. ██████'s analysis, Addendum D) to ██████████████████████████████████ to something far more ████████████████ that several senior researchers have declined to put in writing.
6.3.1 — Anomaly: Erasure of Civilian Records
During routine cross-referencing with surface-level contacts, research staff discovered that the Companion's missing persons file had been closed. Not resolved. Closed. Reason listed: ████████████████. The filing officer has no memory of processing the closure.
Subsequent investigation revealed a broader pattern. The Companion's lease has been reassigned. Her workplace has no record of employment. Her university transcript exists but is flagged as a clerical duplicate with no corresponding student ID. Photographs in which she appears have not been removed: she is simply no longer in them. The physical prints are unaltered. The space where she stood is just empty. As though no one was there to begin with.
This is not normal. Wanderers who enter the Backrooms leave gaps. Families search. Records persist. Missing persons cases go cold but they do not evaporate. In ██████ years of documented Backrooms disappearances, we have never seen evidence of a wanderer being actively erased from the surface world.
Something is removing her. Not killing her. She is alive and accounted for in the Backrooms. Removing the idea of her. The evidence that she existed at all.
The obvious question is whether Entity 0 is capable of exerting influence beyond the Backrooms. The less obvious and considerably more unsettling question is why it would want to. If Entity 0 is erasing the Companion's surface existence, the implication is not destruction. It is permanence. You do not erase someone's way back unless you intend for them to stay.
This has been flagged as a Priority 1 concern. Dr. ██████ has requested that Robert Franklin be monitored for signs of ████████████████. Request granted.
6.4 — Behavioural Implications
Entity 0, in the presence of the Companion, behaves differently than in any other documented context. Specifically:
a) Aggression toward other entities increases by an estimated 300%. Entity 0's territory, already dangerous, becomes functionally impassable when the Companion is present.
b) Unpredictability decreases. Entity 0''s movements become more structured, more purposeful, more oriented around the Companion's location. For the first time in our observational history, Entity 0 is behaving in a way that can be partially predicted.
c) The entity has been observed performing behaviours with no survival utility: adjusting the Companion's blanket, standing in specific positions to block fluorescent light while she sleeps, █████████████████████████████████. These behaviours have no precedent in our entity catalogue.
d) Entity 0 has not killed a human since the Companion was first sighted. Correlation is not causation. But the correlation is ██████.
SECTION 7 — RESEARCH & CONTAINMENT PROPOSALS
7.1 — Proposal: Use the Companion to Study Entity 0
STATUS: UNDER REVIEW
The Companion represents an unprecedented opportunity. Entity 0, which has evaded every tracking operation, every surveillance deployment, and every research team we have sent into Level 0, has voluntarily anchored itself to a single human being. Its movements are, for the first time ever, partially predictable. Its behaviour, for the first time, has an identifiable variable: her.
Proposal 7.1-A (Dr. ██████████): Establish covert observation posts along confirmed Companion travel routes. Do nott engage. Do not approach. Observe only. Use the Companion's presence to map Entity 0's behavioural patterns, territorial boundaries, and, if possible, communication methods.
Proposal 7.1-B (Dr. ██████): Make contact with the Companion. Offer extraction. If she accepts, observe Entity 0's response. If she declines—and this is the part of the proposal that generated significant debate in committee—ask her to serve as a voluntary research asset. She has closer access to Entity 0 than any M.E.G. (or outside) operative has ever achieved. She is, in effect, already conducting the field study we have failed to execute fourteen times.
Proposal 7.1-C: ██████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████ ████████████████. This proposal was submitted anonymously. It has been rejected. The author is encouraged to identify themselves to their supervisor immediately.
7.2 — Proposal: Use the Companion to Contain Entity 0
STATUS: REJECTED (SEE BELOW)
If Entity 0 will not leave the Companion, then controlling the Companion's location is, theoretically, controlling Entity 0's location.
This proposal was rejected for the following reasons:
We do not know whether Entity 0's attachment to the Companion represents affection, possession, predation, or something outside human behavioural pattern. Assuming it is exploitable is assuming we understand it. We do not.
If Entity 0 perceives the Companion's removal as a threat, its response is unpredictable and potentially catastrophic. Given its documented combat capabilities—including the destruction of a Class 5 entity in under two minutes—the risk to extraction personnel is classified as ██████.
The Companion may not be a hostage. She may be there voluntarily. If so, forcible extraction raises ethical concerns that this department is not equipped to adjudicate.
██████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████ ████████████████. If this turns out to be accurate, containment is not merely inadvisable. It is ███████████████.
NOTE FROM OPERATIONS DIRECTOR ██████:
I'm going to be blunt. We have spent years and ██████ operatives trying to understand Entity 0. We've tried to catalogue its kills, map its territory and even document its evasion capabilities. And in all that time, the single greatest advance in our understanding of this entity has come from a civilian girl who, as far as we can tell, wandered in through a door that shouldn't exist and started treating an apex predator like a stray cat.
She has learned more about Entity 0 by being near it than we have learned in fourteen operations. I'm not comfortable with what that implies about our methodology. I'm even less comfortable with what it implies about Entity 0's capacity for selective trust.
Recommendation (to be forwarded to every agency looking into this Entity): observe. Do not intervene. Do not extract. Do not, under any circumstances, threaten the Companion's safety within Entity 0's perceptual range.
I've seen what it does to things that threaten what belongs to it.
I don't want to see what it would do to us.
SECTION 8 — OPEN QUESTIONS
The following questions remain unanswered. They are listed in order of departmental priority. Personnel with relevant information are instructed to report to Dr. ██████ immediately.
What is Entity 0? Not what does it look like. Not how does it behave. What IS it?
What does it want with the Companion? Protection implies investment. What is the return?
What is the entity's relationship to Level 0 itself? Is it an inhabitant, a guardian, a ██████, or something we do not have terminology for?
Why Bobby Franklin? Of all possible appearances, why this specific individual? Is is merely due to Companion's prior history with Franklin or █████████████?
The Companion has been in the Backrooms for an estimated ██████. Standard survival expectancy for an unaffiliated civilian without supplies is 1-3 days. She is alive and healthy. How? And more importantly, why?
██████████████████████████████████?
During Sighting S-44, observation team reported ██████████████████████████████████ ██████████████████████████████████. If this is accurate, does Entity 0 possess ████████████████? And if so, has the Companion been ██████?
Is Entity 0 capable of love? (This question was submitted by Junior Researcher ██████ and was initially struck from the record. It has been reinstated by order of Dr. ██████, who noted, and I quote: "It's the only question that actually matters.")
END OF DOSSIER
File Status: OPEN — NEVER CLOSED Next Mandatory Review: ████████████████
"We have been studying Entity 0 for years. I am no longer certain it has not been studying us for longer."
— Dr. ██████, final departmental memo before ████████████████
▓▓▓▓▓▓ UNAUTHORIZED REPRODUCTION OF THIS DOCUMENT OR DISTRIBUTION IS GROUNDS FOR IMMEDIATE TERMINATION OF M.E.G. MEMBERSHIP ▓▓▓▓▓▓
I absolutely loved your last Dean story!! I was wondering if you would be able to write about a reader who has never been able to finish, with herself or anyone else, and dean helps her learn.
Beautiful writing!
I would've done that sober
Pairing: Dean Di Laurentis x childhood best friend!reader
⟡ Main Index | ⟡ Archive for Earth-66
a/n: Well that was long, but such a delight to write and soooo so sexy
Classification: Smut +18 | Talks of ex's and sexual dysfunction/insecurity, emotional vulnerability, recreational drug use (NOT DURING SEX), dry humping/grinding, getting caught, fingering, tension and arousal descriptions, orgasm, praise and partial undressing/lingerie.
Word count: 12k
Divider by me ;)
You sat across from the fire pit in the boys’ backyard, elbows resting on the armrests of your chair while the flames cracked softly in front of you both. The night air had turned colder hours ago, but neither of you had gone inside. Dean kept talking and you kept letting him or trying to.
Every time he opened his mouth, you exhaled slowly through your nose as if physically releasing air might stop you from interrupting him.
“He’s an arrogant son of a bitch,” Dean repeated for probably the fifth time that night. He took another drag from the blunt before passing it toward you, smoke curling past his lips as he leaned back deeper into the chair.
“That’s what pisses me off the most,” he continued, staring hard into the fire like your ex-boyfriend personally offended him. “He had no clue what he was doing in the relationship from day one and still had the confidence to ask you out.” His jaw tightened slightly. “Usually I respect delusion like that, but that guy’s a fucking disaster.”
You accepted the blunt with a quiet sigh.
Dean had been ranting for nearly a week straight now. Anyone overhearing him would’ve assumed he’d been the one publicly dumped in the cafeteria instead of you but he’d been there when it happened, front row seats to your ex fumbling through excuses while half your friends sat frozen around the table pretending not to listen. Maybe that was enough for Dean.
Now, instead of being out partying with the rest of the team, he sat outside with you night after night, sharing weed and acting personally victimized by your breakup.
“Dean,” you finally interrupted, tone firm.
He stopped talking immediately.
You inhaled slowly before looking over at him through the smoke, holding his gaze while you exhaled. “It’s okay.”
Dean’s expression flattened instantly. “We have very different definitions of okay.”
His eyes drifted back toward the fire for a second, replaying the memory again. You could practically see it happening behind his eyes, the cafeteria, your expression and your ex stumbling through his speech.
“You should’ve let me talk to him,” he muttered.
“What good would that have done?” You brought the blunt back to your lips, inhaling before handing it over again. “It’s not his fault.”
Dean’s head snapped toward you so fast he nearly dropped the thing. “The fuck does that mean?”
You almost rolled your eyes at the offense in his tone. Instead, you looked away toward the fire again, watching orange light flicker against the patio stones.
“I’m lost here,” he scoffed. “Is being wrapped around another girl at a party three hours after dumping you not a dick move now?”
A laugh slipped out of you before you could stop it. “Dean,” you said gently, finally turning your head toward him again. “I think I’m the only person who wasn’t surprised by the breakup.”
His brows furrowed.
You shrugged one shoulder lightly. “He just beat me to it.”
“Oh.” The word left him quietly. Dean looked away immediately afterward, dragging a hand over his mouth while he gathered his thoughts before glancing back at you. “That’s the first time I’m hearing about that.”
He passed the blunt over again.
You took it carefully, staring down at it between your fingers for a second before answering.
“Yeah, well...” You inhaled deeply, smoke burning pleasantly in your lungs before you let it back out slowly. “You’ve got other business to worry about.”
Dean huffed out a laugh instantly. “You are my business.” The certainty in his voice made your lips curl before you could stop them. “So start talking.”
He always did that. Dean had this way of making honesty feel inevitable. The two of you talked about everything, always had. He knew things about you your closest friends didn’t. Hell, he’d bought condoms for you the first time you planned on sleeping with someone because you’d been too embarrassed to walk into the store yourself.
You moved deeper into the chair, pulling one leg beneath you while you searched carefully for the right words. “Um…” You inhaled again, then blurted it out before your brain could stop you. “I suck at the sex thing.”
Dean’s face twisted immediately in disagreement as you passed the blunt. “Bullshit.”
You laughed softly. “No, seriously. I do.” You rubbed awkwardly at your neck before continuing. “Turns out not being able to cum eventually becomes an issue when your partner realizes you never actually have with them.”
Dean’s expression changed instantly. Every conversation you’d ever had about sex clearly started replaying in his head at once because confusion hit him violently.
“But you told me–”
“I lied.” The words came out easier than expected. You shrugged lightly, though your stomach still tightened. “I’ve been lying for years...Faking it until I got tired of faking it and started bruising egos.” A humorless smile tugged briefly at your mouth. “Including mine.”
Dean stayed quiet now so you stared into the fire instead.
“I just…” You exhaled slowly. “I don’t think sex is really my thing.” Your shoulders lifted. “I like the idea of it. I enjoy parts of it…but everyone talks about this huge explosive ending and I just…” You shook your head. “Don’t get there…naturally people stop believing you when you say it was still good.”
Dean watched you carefully. “Was it?”
“The sex?” You let the silence drag for a second before shrugging again. “I think so.” Your lips twitched faintly. “It was good enough to build better stories around afterward.”
Dean stopped smoking entirely after that. The blunt burned slowly between his fingers while he stared down at it, suddenly looking far more sober than either of you probably were. He looked like he was trying to organize his thoughts before speaking again.
“How about alone?” The question came softly, carefully.
If you didn’t know him so well, you might’ve mistaken the look on his face for pity. Thankfully, you did know him, which meant you recognized concern immediately.
You shook your head slowly. “That’s why I’m saying it’s not his fault.”
“It’s not yours either,” Dean argued as he flicked the rest of the blunt into the fire pit before continuing. “It just hasn’t happened yet.” His voice softened further. “Doesn’t mean it never will.”
You let out a slow breath, eyes closing briefly as the weed finally started loosening the tension sitting on your shoulders. “It’s definitely not from lack of trying.”
You could feel him staring at you even with your eyes closed.
The silence stretched comfortably after your confession, softened by the crackling fire and the distant chorus of crickets surrounding the backyard. The flames had started dying down, wood collapsing inward with quiet snaps while smoke drifted lazily into the cold night air.
Dean still hadn’t looked away from you. “So what now?” he asked finally.
You swallowed slowly, still keeping your eyes shut. For a second or maybe an entire minute, Dean genuinely thought you’d fallen asleep mid-conversation.
Then your lips twitched. “Celibacy.”
The offended sound that tore out of him made your smile widen. You heard him trying to hold it back too, which honestly made it funnier but this was Dean. Subtle outrage had never once existed in his body.
“Think I’d look hot as a nun?” you asked lazily.
“You’d look hot in a banana costume wearing clown shoes six sizes too big,” he replied instantly. “And you’re absolutely not dropping out of Briar to become a nun. End of discussion.”
His tone came out firm enough to sound ridiculous considering he had absolutely no authority over your life whatsoever.
You finally peeled your eyes open to look at him. The weed had settled into your bones now, leaving you heavy and relaxed against the chair. Dean looked hazy too, hair falling perfectly while the firelight flickered warm across his face.
“You’re not giving up because some five-eleven idiot couldn’t be patient long enough to figure you out.”
You grinned. “He’s six-one.”
Dean scoffed. “He tried out for the Hawks freshman year. Trust me, he’s five-eleven.”
Your brows lifted. Dean kept going without needing encouragement, already slipping into that protective streak he pretended wasn’t there. He always collected information about people around you, quietly filing it away for future use whenever he deemed necessary.
“He was wearing lifts during tryouts,” Dean added smugly. “One bad pivot and the guy almost snapped an ankle.”
A laugh escaped you softly.
“If you wanna stop having sex altogether, God forbid–”
“You should become a priest,” you interrupted.
Dean barked out a laugh, tipping his head back. “Yeah,” he nodded. “It’d probably take a year and a half to cleanse my sins.” He pointed toward himself loosely. “And that’s assuming I don’t burst into flames the second I walk into a church.” His eyes drifted back to you. “Can I continue now?”
“Yes, Father,” you replied through a chuckle.
Dean shook his head, smiling despite himself before settling deeper into his chair again.
“If you really wanna do the celibacy thing, fine.” He shrugged dramatically. “I’ll support you. We’ll find support groups together and hold hands through the trauma.” His mouth twitched. “Though personally, I’d go through withdrawals first.”
“How solidary of you.”
He nodded solemnly. “Exactly. Plus I can probably add it to my extracurriculars somehow.”
You laughed harder at that, shoulders shaking slightly as you leaned back into the chair. “You’re so fucking stupid.”
Dean watched you carefully while you laughed. The sound came out lighter than anything he’d heard from you all week, chest rising and falling unevenly while your eyes squeezed shut again for a second and suddenly the conversation stopped feeling funny to him.
Because underneath the jokes, underneath the weed and the teasing, he kept thinking about what you’d actually said earlier. About you trying and nothing happening.
Dean loved sex. Everyone knew that much about him but you did too or at least you loved wanting it, loved feeling desired, loved the intimacy, the heat and everything wrapped around it and now all he could think about was how frustrating that must’ve been for you. Wanting something everyone else talked about so easily only for your body not to cooperate no matter how hard you tried.
The thought sat badly in his chest. Dean looked down at the dying fire for a second before his eyes lifted back to you.
“Use me,” he blurted out.
Your laughter faded gradually after his words, the smile still lingering at the corners of your mouth while your eyes settled back on him even more carefully this time.
“What do you mean?”
Dean didn’t even hesitate. “I’ll be your last resort,” he repeated easily, like he’d already thought this through far more than he probably had. “Aren’t you always telling me to make myself useful?”
You narrowed your eyes, blinking slowly through the haze settling heavier behind them.
“What exactly are you suggesting?” You rubbed at one eye with the heel of your hand. “Because I’m starting to think I hallucinated that sentence.”
“I hold my weed better than you,” he reminded you smugly.
That part, unfortunately, was true. Dean leaned forward in his chair, elbows resting against his knees now, all lazy amusement gone strangely sincere beneath the teasing.
“You wanna quit? Fine.” He shrugged. “Quit when you’re actually out of options.”
A quiet huff left you, somewhere between disbelief and laughter. “Didn’t realize Six Flags counted as an option.” Your lips twitched faintly. “I hate rollercoasters.”
Dean nodded decisively. “Then I’ll go out of business.”
“You’ll close the park?”
“I’ll shut the whole thing down,” he promised solemnly. “Just so you can ride the teacups.” The grin spreading across his face warned you half a second too late. “Remember when you threw up on the–”
“Yes,” you cut him off immediately, flat and horrified. “I remember.”
Dean laughed anyway. Full-bodied, warm and entirely too pleased with himself as he pointed at you. “You were crying,” he accused through the laughter. “You kept saying your stomach hated you–”
“I was fifteen.”
“And dramatic.” He added. “But so cute…less mouthy too.”
“You held my hair while I threw up into a trash can behind the funnel cake stand.”
Dean’s laughter softened slightly at that memory. Back then he’d been genuinely terrified something was wrong with you. He’d hovered beside you the entire night looking pale enough to pass out himself while you recovered on a bench wrapped in his sweatshirt. Now he just looked fond.
You glanced away first, eyes dropping back toward the dying fire while your thoughts started turning over his earlier suggestion again despite yourself.
It could go horribly. Actually, no, it would go horribly. There were at least seventeen reasons this crossed every boundary imaginable. You already hated rollercoasters, hated fast turns and hated giving up control over literally anything involving your body and Dean…Well, Dean was Dean.
Confident, experienced, annoyingly good-looking and unarguably good at sex if campus rumors counted for anything and unfortunately they definitely did. You hadn’t exactly conducted research firsthand but after years of hearing stories from girls around campus, the reviews were embarrassingly consistent.
“You really think that highly of your dick?” you asked finally.
Dean shrugged lazily against the chair. “Nobody said anything about using it.”
That made your eyes snap back to him fully. “And if nothing works?” you asked quieter this time.
The question slipped out more honestly than intended because suddenly you weren’t thinking about sex anymore. You were thinking about aftermaths, about what happened if this ruined things between you. Dean had woven himself into your life years ago so naturally that imagining him gone felt impossible now.
You genuinely didn’t know how you’d survive losing him too.
Dean studied you for a second and for once the confidence in his face softened into something steadier. “Then we fail,” he decided.
You swallowed.
His grin returned slowly afterward, softer around the edges. “Fail with me,” he corrected. “Fail better.” He pointed between you both lazily. “Fail together.”
A laugh escaped you despite every effort not to give him one.
You rolled your eyes hard enough to make him grin wider, shaking your head while the weed continued smoothing the sharp corners off your thoughts. The night air no longer felt cold against your skin and embarrassment had slowly stopped existing somewhere during the conversation. Maybe that was the dangerous part and not Dean’s suggestion but how easy it suddenly felt to consider it.
You didn’t bring it up again for the rest of the night and neither did Dean.
When the rest of the guys stumbled back into the house loud and half-drunk sometime after midnight, he changed back into normal so smoothly it almost irritated you. He made sure you had food, water, your charger and then bullied one of the sober freshmen into driving you home while standing outside by the car until you pulled away like he always did.
You slept absurdly well afterward.
A heavy sleep and dreamless night, the type that glued you to the mattress the next morning until sunlight was already cutting aggressively through your blinds. By the time you shuffled out with an oversized hoodie you were certain was your ex’s, your phone was buzzing with unread texts from Dean sent hours earlier, probably before morning practice.
You ignored every single one and it wasn’t because of regret. Embarrassment simply crawled into your chest somewhere between the first and third spoonful of cereal and decided to settle there permanently.
The entire conversation replayed so clearly now that you were sober. “Use me,” You nearly groaned into the bowl.
Three hours of class helped, at least temporarily. You sat near the back of the massive amphitheater classroom while your professor rambled enthusiastically about the new book he’d conveniently written himself and would definitely require students to purchase before midterms. You probably would’ve absorbed more information if you weren’t scrolling mindlessly through Instagram the entire lecture.
The doors behind you opened quietly midway through class.
You barely paid attention at first since nobody descended the stairs toward the lower rows and a second later the seat beside you groaned softly under someone’s weight.
You recognized the cologne immediately.
“How hard do you think you need to scrub for that scent to leave your skin?” you whispered without looking up.
Dean grinned beside you, leaning closer enough for warmth to brush your shoulder as his eyes dropped toward your phone screen.
You locked it quickly and finally looked at him. “You’re not in this class.”
“I see your phone works perfectly fine,” he replied.
The professor thankfully dismissed class early before you could answer, students immediately growing louder as backpacks zipped and people exited the space.
You stood quickly and started gathering your things. “Did you need something, Di Laurentis?” you asked flatly.
Dean remained seated on purpose, forcing you to awkwardly climb past him to leave the row. The asshole looked entirely too pleased with himself while you muttered under your breath and stepped over his legs.
The second you reached the aisle, he stood and followed.
You walked fast, actually, aggressively fast. Dean almost struggled to keep up at first, his legs clearly still wrecked from morning practice while you marched out of the building like escape itself was the objective. He finally caught you outside near the steps leading toward the quad.
“We need to talk.”
You slowed at last before turning toward him. “What we need is space,” you corrected, motioning firmly between your bodies.
Dean looked down between you both thoughtfully, then took exactly one step backward.
You almost laughed, especially because he looked unbearably smug afterward, standing there grinning in the middle of campus like he deserved a reward for basic listening skills.
“You’ve gone to New York with me enough times to know I don’t need more space,” he pointed out. “But fine.” His expression softened slightly afterward, amusement fading as he studied your face more carefully. “What’s going on?”
Of course, he was right. Dean practically crawled into people’s personal bubbles recreationally, so the fact he’d backed off at all made it harder to flee the conversation entirely.
You exhaled slowly. “We said stuff last night.”
He nodded once, blinking at the tension written all over your face. “Yeah. That’s usually how conversations work.”
“Stuff you might regret,” you clarified.
Dean’s brows lifted before a quiet laugh escaped him. “Regret?” He pointed toward himself loosely. “C’mon. It’s me.”
His voice gentled slightly after and the worst part was he looked relieved, because apparently the phrase ‘stuff you might regret’ translated in Dean’s brain to ‘good, she’s not upset’.
“I would’ve said that sober,” he assured you.
His eyes stayed fixed on yours while your attention darted briefly around campus before returning to him again exactly like he knew it would. Dean stepped closer instinctively, lowering his voice enough that the passing students around you blurred into background noise.
“You want me to repeat it?” he asked quietly. “Let me help you cum.”
Your stomach tightened at his tone of voice. “It might not work,” you reminded him softly.
You hoped your face conveyed the actual problem because this had never been about his ego. Dean could survive failure, he’d probably laugh through it, so that wasn’t what scared you.
Dean shrugged anyway, maddeningly calm. “What if it does?”
“And what if it doesn’t?” Frustration finally slipped into your voice. “Dean, I don’t want us to get weird.” You shook your head hard once. “I don’t need ‘optimistic Dean’ right now,” you muttered. “I need ‘realistic Dean’, so pull him out of your ass.”
“You already are weird,” Dean corrected easily, smiling down at you. “I accepted that years ago.” His grin widened then. “Actually, I encourage it.”
You rolled your eyes, though the corner of your mouth betrayed you.
“Let me try,” he insisted again, the confidence in his voice should’ve irritated you more than it did.
Instead, you found yourself studying him in silence, searching for something off in his expression. Some sign this was ego, curiosity or boredom disguised as concern but he just looked…earnest. Enthusiastic, sure, because he was Dean and apparently incapable of approaching anything halfway but not creepy about it and maybe this was partially your own fault.
You’d spent years talking openly with him about sex, relationships and attraction. About wanting something good someday instead of tolerable, about how when you were old and exhausted with kids running around, you still wanted a partner who looked at you and wanted you back because you were almost certain you’d still want them too.
Dean remembered everything you said…unfortunately.
You sighed heavily. “We need rules.”
“Fine.” He agreed so fast it almost startled you. Dean straightened afterward, nodding once with ridiculous seriousness like the two of you were entering business negotiations instead of whatever disaster this actually was.
You almost reconsidered your next words. Almost.
“No kissing.”
Dean’s shoulders visibly dropped. “Why?”
“Because!” you hissed. “And if we’re doing this, you don’t get to question the rules.”
His face twisted in disbelief. “We’ve kissed before.”
You crossed your arms tighter. “That was different.”
Dean scoffed softly. “We were literally each other’s first kiss.”
Again, he was right. You weren’t just each other’s first kiss either, a few firsts existed between you both scattered through years of friendship and growing up side by side, all except for sex. There was awkward teenage curiosity, truth or dare disasters and one regrettable spin-the-bottle incident Garrett still occasionally referenced against your will.
Which was exactly why kissing now felt dangerous. This couldn’t spiral into some ‘why didn’t we do this sooner’ conversation. It needed boundaries and structure, something detached enough that neither of you accidentally ruined the friendship orbiting underneath all this and selflessly, you also didn’t want the group dragged into the fallout if things exploded.
“We’re adults now,” you said firmly. “So no kissing.”
Dean stared at you for another second before exhaling dramatically.
“Okay,” he relented…Too easily, which immediately made you suspicious he’d already started planning arguments against it for later.
“I’ve also thought about what you said last night,” you continued carefully. “About Six Flags.”
Dean’s brows lifted.
“And shutting down the entire park feels unfair to you,” you explained. “Potentially devastating, honestly.” Your lips twitched slightly. “So you can still hook up with other people if you want. I genuinely don’t care.”
Dean actually looked offended. “Didn’t realize I needed permission.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No, I don’t.” His voice sharpened for the first time since the conversation started. “But no thanks.” He shrugged once. “It makes this more exciting anyway.” A grin tugged briefly at his mouth again. “I’ve got one ride right now and that’s all I need.”
Your face scrunched at his words. “Does weed somehow make you an even bigger asshole?”
Dean ignored that completely. “I’m not doing anything with anyone else until we’re done here,” he repeated firmly. The teasing disappeared entirely from his voice that time and there was no smugness either, just certainty.
You quieted automatically when a group of students passed nearby, a few of them recognizing Dean instantly and greeting him as they crossed the quad. He responded absentmindedly without taking his eyes off you once.
The second they moved far enough away, you continued. “Why?”
Dean’s expression softened at the question. “Because I need you comfortable,” he answered simply. “And I need you to trust me more than you already do.”
You groaned. “Oh my God,” you muttered, dragging a hand down your face. “You’re making this weird.”
He grinned at your reaction while you grabbed his sleeve and started pulling him further across campus before more people stopped to talk to him. Dean let you drag him along without resistance, looking far too entertained by the whole thing.
“We don’t even know how long this will take,” you pointed out.
“My fist works perfectly fine in the meantime,” Dean decided easily.
You looked up at him so fast your neck almost hurt.
Dean pressed his lips together, visibly trying not to laugh at the pure disbelief written across your face. His head tilted slightly, hair strands falling over his forehead while he watched you stare at him like he’d just confessed to tax fraud.
Your gaze dropped away first.
Contrary to what everyone on campus believed, Dean didn’t actually need constant hookups to survive. He liked the reputation, liked exaggerating it even more whenever it annoyed you enough to argue back or laugh at him but underneath all that, he could handle himself perfectly fine.
Unfortunately for you, he seemed almost smug about proving that now.
“Can I add rules too?” he asked.
You sighed dramatically. “Sure.”
The two of you kept walking through campus side by side, your pace slower now that the conversation had moved on from terrifying to merely humiliating.
“No scheduling things specifically for this,” Dean decided. “If it happens, it happens.”
You blinked once before nodding slowly. “Yeah. Okay.” Relief actually loosened something in your chest at that. “That’s good. I’ll stress less.”
Dean glanced sideways at you, probably pleased you agreed so quickly…Except his rule immediately created entirely new problems.
“Uh…” Your steps slowed slightly. “How do you…” You scratched awkwardly at your eyebrow. “Take it?”
Dean stopped walking altogether. “How do I take what?” he asked carefully. “My coffee?”
You groaned. “No.” Your hand motioned vaguely between the two of you in a series of gestures that explained absolutely nothing. “Like…how do you like it?”
Dean’s brows lifted as realization hit him almost visibly.
You looked away at once. “Fuck,” you muttered under your breath. “Do I need to be clean shaven constantly or not?” Your voice lowered progressively through the sentence while your eyes darted around campus to make sure nobody nearby overheard you discussing grooming preferences in broad daylight.
Dean stared at you for half a second too long before answering.
“Y/n.” The seriousness in his tone made your eyes flicker back toward him. “The day I tell you what to do with your body, you better knock me unconscious.”
Your mouth parted slightly.
“I’ll literally kneel for it if that makes it easier,” he continued firmly. “Do whatever makes you comfortable.”
And he meant it. Dean would enjoy it either way, obviously, but that wasn’t what mattered to him here. What mattered was getting you out of your own head long enough to actually enjoy yourself instead of performing comfort for someone else.
You blinked slowly at him because suddenly your ex’s comments replayed in your head with uncomfortable clarity. Little preferences disguised as jokes and suggestions repeated enough times to become expectations and judging by the expression tightening briefly across Dean’s face, he’d realized exactly where your question came from too.
That only made you feel worse somehow. Your attention drifted toward the students moving around campus nearby.
You suddenly wondered if people would notice eventually. The same way older women always claimed they somehow knew when girls became sexually active. Weird comments about posture and confidence, wider hips and glowing skin that sounded fake until suddenly you became the target of them too.
Your stomach tightened faintly. “What are we supposed to tell people?”
Dean barely hesitated. “To mind their own fucking business.”
You snorted softly.
He looked over at you again, entirely serious despite the amusement still lingering around his mouth. “Just like I’m doing mine.”
The rest of the week passed almost painfully normal.
There were parties, late-night food runs, afternoons sprawled around the boys’ house while someone yelled at a video game in the background and hockey games while Dean acted exactly the same as always. You spent time with Hannah and Allie between classes and after them, listened to Garrett complain dramatically about assignments he’d started twelve hours before they were due, watched Tucker cook enough food for six grown men while Logan disappeared upstairs with company more often than not.
Nothing changed.
Dean still touched your shoulder when he walked past you, still stole fries off your plate and still looked at you too long whenever you laughed at something stupid and somehow that made the entire thing worse because half the time you genuinely convinced yourself you’d imagined the whole conversation by the fire pit entirely.
Maybe the weed had made you both insane and none of it was real.
You sat curled up on the floor of the boys’ living room later that week with your knees tucked to your chest, a notebook balanced across your thighs while formulas blurred together across the page. Your back rested against the couch and the TV played quietly in the background though neither of you actually paid attention to it.
Dean sat opposite you in the armchair, long legs spread comfortably while he hunched over his own notebook with far more concentration than anyone would expect from him or maybe not because he took hockey so seriously. He took school seriously too, despite pretending otherwise whenever possible but unfortunately for you, he also looked unfairly good doing homework.
You tried focusing on your own work, tried hard. Instead, your eyes kept lifting toward him between equations, your brain repeatedly snagging on the memory of everything he’d said days earlier and the fact neither of you had taken any of it back…or done a single thing about it.
“What’d you get for number three?” Dean’s voice pulled you from your thoughts but still didn’t look up from his notebook.
You blinked down at your own page, trying to remember where your brain had abandoned the assignment entirely.
“C,” you answered eventually. “But I’m not confident about it.”
Dean hummed thoughtfully. “I’ve done the math twice and I keep getting B.”
You reread the problem slowly, trying to force your attention into place. “Then it’s probably B.”
Dean finally looked up at that, one brow lifting. “You’re admitting you’re wrong?”
You snorted softly. Honestly, it was extremely possible. Your brain hadn’t functioned properly all week because you kept thinking about him offering himself up like some absurdly confident science experiment.
“Don’t need to dig through my family tree to know I’m not descended from Isaac Newton.”
A smile tugged slowly across Dean’s mouth as he leaned back in the armchair. “If you are,” he said, eyes dragging over your face, “I’m glad the ugly recessive genes skipped you.”
Your nose scrunched instantly. “What kind of compliment is that?”
“The kind I’m hoping gets you over here to help me.” He motioned you closer lazily with his pointer and middle fingers.
You sighed before setting your notebook on the coffee table and padding across the room toward him. The house was quieter this late afternoon, though not empty. Hannah was upstairs with Garrett, Logan had disappeared into his room hours ago and Tucker was outside training.
“Let’s see,” you murmured.
You bent slightly over Dean and the notebook resting on the armrest, attention dropping fully to the equations scattered across the page. The movement loosened the collar of your shirt enough for cool air to brush your skin.
Dean noticed and his throat cleared quietly.
Your attention remained on the notebook while his eyes betrayed him completely, dropping for one dangerous second to the visible lace of your bra before forcing themselves back upward toward your face instead.
Dean had promised himself he’d take this slow and naturally because the second he acted weird about it, you would too. You’d overthink every movement, every look and accidental touch and unfortunately for him, you’d always been terrifyingly good at reading him.
He moved the notebook slightly farther from you as one hand settled carefully against your hip, guiding you.
You reached automatically for the notebook before he moved it entirely out of reach, successfully grabbing it just as he tugged you forward enough for your balance to tip. A second later you settled directly onto his lap, knees falling naturally to either side of his thighs.
You blinked once. “Smooth,” you muttered, adjusting yourself carefully without looking at him. “I’ll give you that.”
Dean grinned openly now. You balanced the notebook against his chest like it was a table and reached backward for the pen loosely held in his free hand. His fingers brushed yours before letting go.
“Should be a five,” you corrected while marking over the equation. “Not a seven.” Your brows furrowed slightly. “Your handwriting’s gotten worse over the years.”
“You still read it.”
“I’m not the one grading you.” Your eyes lifted straight into his.
You’d sat on Dean’s lap before, during packed car rides, group trips and random stupid moments over the years where proximity stopped mattering because he was just Dean. This didn’t feel like that, not even close.
“Not in math,” he said quietly.
Only one of his hands touched you still, resting warm and steady against your hip like he was making a conscious effort not to overwhelm you. Whether it was intentional or not, it worked. His eyes drifted downward slowly toward your mouth.
“You should be rating everything else though.” A grin ghosted briefly across his lips. “Pretty sure Six Flags has customer surveys.”
You shook your head once, slow enough that your hair brushed lightly against your cheek. “No ride, no survey.”
Dean’s mouth twitched. His legs spread slightly wider underneath you then, subtle enough that you still felt the change as the apex of your thighs aligned more directly with his. The hand on your hip tightened enough for you to notice. “Go on then,” he murmured.
Your gaze dropped before you could stop it, down to the visible tent pressing insistently against the front of his sweats. Heat climbed your throat immediately.
“Interesting moment you picked,” you muttered softly, eyes flicking briefly toward the rest of the house.
You felt comfortable there. Comfortable enough to leave clothes behind, to wander into the kitchen without asking and to nap on the couch when you got tired during movie nights but knowing the others were still around somewhere made your pulse jump harder instead of calming it.
Dean noticed. “Just focus on me,” he instructed quietly.
Not ‘look at me’, just ‘focus’ which you could do.
You looked at him, seeing the genuine curiosity and lack of judgment in his eyes and for the first time, the wall you'd built around your sexuality felt more like a shield and less like a cage.
Slowly, tentatively, you moved as the gravity of the moment pulled you toward him. You settled your weight directly onto him, feeling the distinct, blunt shape of his cock through the layers of your clothes. He wasn't fully hard yet, just a semi-firm pressure against your clothed pussy but it didn't make you recoil. In fact, it sent a low thrum of anticipation through your nerves.
The air between you grew thick, charged with a tension that felt heavy enough to touch. You remembered your own rule: no kissing. So, you kept your face inches from his but you didn't close the gap. Instead, you focused on the sound of his breathing, which had hitched the moment you sat down. You could feel the warmth of his breath ghosting over your lips, a teasing, invisible touch that made your skin prickle.
Dean’s hand still hovered near your waist, trembling slightly but he didn't grip you. He seemed to be fighting every instinct to pull you closer, respecting the fragile boundary you had set.
"I'm gonna keep my hands off," he whispered, his voice strained and rough. "You just keep moving. Take whatever you're comfortable with."
He pulled his arms back, resting them flat against the seat beside him, leaving you in complete control. The sudden lack of physical contact made the friction between your pelvises feel even more intense. You knew what you were doing, you had enough experience to know how your body worked, even if the 'explosive ending' always eluded you. You began to rock, a slow, tentative grind that pressed your pussy firmly against the length of him as a sharp, jagged exhale escaped his lungs.
You felt him react instantly, the semi-firmness beneath you surged, his cock thickening and hardening rapidly against your center. You rolled your hips in a circular motion, aiming for the sweet spot, feeling the dampness beginning to soak into your underwear. You were getting wetter, the friction creating a sliding, sensual heat that radiated upward into your stomach.
"You still okay?" he breathed out, voice barely a murmur.
You simply nodded and tried to focus entirely on him, wanting to give him something perfect, something that would leave him breathless. You pushed down harder, grinding your clit against the hard ridge of his dick. You watched his face, head falling back against the headrest, leaving his throat exposed and pulsing but he forced his eyes to stay open. He wanted to see you. He wanted to witness the way your expression changed as you found a rhythm that worked.
The intimacy was suffocating in the best way. There was no kissing to distract you and no wandering hands to break the spell, just the raw, rhythmic pressure of friction. You could feel the heat radiating off his thighs, the way his chest heaved in time with your movements as your own breathing became ragged, mirroring his, the sound of your synchronized gasps filling the quiet space.
You felt a small, involuntary moan escape your throat, a soft sound of pleasure that made Dean’s hips jerk upward instinctively, trying to meet your descent. You pressed closer, your mind racing, trying to synchronize your pleasure with his but as the tension built, a familiar frustration began to creep in. You were so close to that peak, that elusive edge but the more you focused on his perfection, the more you felt yourself slipping away from your own. You wanted it, you wanted to break through the ceiling you'd lived under for years and the frustration made you grind harder, more desperately.
You were just beginning to lose yourself in the friction, your body humming with a desperate, electric need, when the spell was shattered.
The heavy thud of footsteps hit the wooden porch outside, then came muffled voices.
Tucker.
The sound slammed into you like ice water dumped straight down your spine.
You jolted backward instantly, panic snapping through your body so violently that your balance disappeared completely. The friction, the heat, the dizzy haze clouding your brain shattered in one humiliating second as you scrambled away from Dean in pure instinct.
Dean’s hands had actually stayed off, so when you lurched backward, there was nothing anchoring you in place, no arm catching your waist or grip steadying you. You slipped right off his lap in a graceless tangle of limbs and landed hard beside the chair with a muffled curse, your pulse hammering violently against your ribs.
Dean moved at the same time you did. One hand grabbed the nearest couch pillow and yanked it straight into his lap while the other instinctively reached toward you, fingers brushing empty air because you were already halfway onto your feet.
The front door opened and you froze.
Your breathing came embarrassingly uneven as you tried forcing your body back under control, thighs trembling faintly from the abrupt stop, nerves buzzing so hard beneath your skin it almost hurt. Dean leaned back into the chair with his head tipped toward the ceiling for one brief second, chest rising sharply beneath his t-shirt while tortured frustration flashed openly across his face before he forced himself together enough to look toward the entryway.
Tucker walked in distractedly, phone pressed to his ear while he kicked the door shut behind him with his shoe.
“–No, because that’s not what I said,” he argued into the phone before finally glancing up.
Dean’s voice came out rough and annoyed. “Can't you knock?”
The irritation in it made your eyes widen and before thinking better of it, you reached over and smacked lightly at his arm which made him look offended for half a second.
Tucker’s brows pulled together slowly as his gaze moved between the two of you…You standing there awkwardly and Dean spread out in the armchair with a pillow aggressively covering his lap.
The TV was still playing, forgotten in the background too.
“Wait,” Tucker muttered into the phone, eyes narrowing slightly. “Hold on.” He lowered the phone away from his ear and motioned vaguely around the living room. “I live here,” he pointed out flatly. “If you two wanna study in complete silence maybe turn the TV down or go to the library.”
Your mouth pressed into a painfully tight smile.
“Hey, Y/n.” he greeted, much more gently.
“Hi,” you replied weakly with an awkward nod.
Tucker gave you one more lingering look before wandering toward the kitchen, already returning to his phone conversation while opening the fridge like absolutely nothing life-altering had just occurred in his living room.
The second he was no longer looking, your eyes snapped back toward Dean, his were already on you, wide and still dark with frustration and lingering heat and approximately ten other emotions you absolutely did not have time to unpack right now.
You hurried toward where you’d abandoned your bag near the couch and started shoving your things inside far too quickly.
Dean muttered a curse under his breath behind you as the fridge door opened again. “Wait, wait, wait,” he whispered urgently.
You ignored him completely, nearly dropping your belongings while trying to zip your bag shut.
“You don’t have to leave,” he continued quietly, unable to stand for reasons both of you were painfully aware of. The pillow remained trapped over his lap while he leaned forward slightly, voice dropping lower. “Stay for dinner.” Then louder, “Right, Tucker?”
From the kitchen, still mid-conversation, Tucker lifted a distracted thumbs up without even looking over. Of course you could stay, you were always welcome there and it somehow made this infinitely worse.
“Y/n, c’mon,” Dean tried again, even softer this time.
You finally looked at him, at his flushed face and the way he still looked wrecked from you despite the interruption.
Your stomach flipped painfully. “You can text me that survey of yours,” you muttered.
Dean groaned quietly at the reminder, watching as you grabbed your bag and headed straight for the front door before your embarrassment could physically consume you alive.
You didn’t say goodbye or looked back. You slipped outside into the cold early evening air and shut the door behind you, immediately dragging in one huge breath like you’d been underwater too long.
Fresh air hit your lungs sharply, cool and tensionless.
Your legs felt weird as you walked down the porch steps and somewhere beneath the embarrassment sat an even more irritating realization. You needed to change your panties and somehow, you still hadn’t come.
For the first time in your academic career, you were thankful exam week existed.
The chaos of midterms had given you and Dean something else to focus on besides the fact you’d nearly climbed him in the middle of his living room while Tucker casually walked through the front door. Between study sessions, essays, last-minute cramming and the general emotional collapse that overtook Briar every semester, things had settled back into something manageable.
You and Dean had talked afterward, though absolutely not alone.
He’d insisted on meeting in a crowded coffee shop near campus where old women typed aggressively on laptops and students cried quietly over textbooks in the corner booths. Dean had spent most of the conversation reassuring you Tucker didn’t know anything, swearing repeatedly that if Tucker had known, the entire hockey house would’ve heard about it within twelve minutes. More importantly, he’d made sure you still wanted this and despite the embarrassment, the frustration and how badly your body still reacted whenever he looked at you too long, you did.
“Are you seriously not coming?” Allie paced dramatically across the apartment while speaking, changing outfits for what had to be the fourth time in under an hour. Both you and Hannah tracked her movements from the couch like spectators at a tennis match while she disappeared into her room only to emerge seconds later wearing something slightly tighter each time.
Hannah finally peeled her attention away from Allie to look at you instead.
“She’s right,” she agreed. “Exams are over. Maybe partying would actually help.”
You smiled lazily from your spot curled into the couch cushions, blanket draped across your legs while exhaustion sat heavy behind your eyes.
“What’ll help me is eight uninterrupted hours of sleep,” you informed them. “Which I plan on pursuing aggressively the second both of you leave.” Your mouth twitched slightly. “Now see some boys and make questionable use of your mouths elsewhere.”
Allie barked out a laugh loud enough to echo while Hannah groaned.
“When are we finding your rebound?” Allie asked as she finally settled on an outfit and bent down to tug on her boots.
“It’s too soon,” you decided immediately.
“It is,” Hannah agreed with a firm nod. “She doesn’t wanna think about men right now and we’re respecting that.”
You pointed gratefully toward her. “See? Emotional maturity.”
“Sure,” Allie snorted. “I’m still passing your Instagram around tonight though.” She grinned wickedly while crossing toward the couch. “You can decide what to do with the options later.” Before you could answer, she leaned down and squeezed you tightly against her side. “Don’t wait up for us.”
You watched them drag out the goodbye process intentionally, moving toward the door with exaggerated slowness like they expected you to suddenly change your mind and throw on heels at the last second.
You sighed and stood from the couch, physically herding them toward the exit. “Just go,” you laughed while they protested loudly.
“We tried,” Hannah reminded you with a smile while Allie opened the apartment door. “We’ll send you the address anyway.”
“I won’t change my mind.”
“You say that now...”
You waved them off anyway and finally shut the door behind them once they disappeared down the hallway already talking excitedly about shots and music and whatever terrible decisions the night would inevitably produce.
Silence settled across the apartment immediately afterward.
You exhaled slowly…now what? You considered your options while wandering aimlessly through the living space. You could curl up on the couch with your laptop and a movie or crawl into bed and disappear beneath blankets for twelve straight hours like a Victorian woman with mysterious exhaustion. Or…Your thoughts drifted elsewhere automatically, toward your room and the drawer beside your bed.
You grimaced slightly. Maybe tonight was the night you tried again, actually committed to figuring yourself out instead of giving up midway through frustration like usual. You’d bought enough toys over the years based entirely on optimistic reviews and late-night curiosity alone.
Were they even charged? You were approximately two steps away from your bedroom when knocking sounded at the front door.
You groaned at the sound. “Did you guys forget your condoms again?” you called out while turning toward the entrance. Honestly, it happened often enough that the assumption came naturally now.
You unlocked the door and pulled it open. Then blinked at who you saw. “Dean.”
Dean stood casually in the hallway wearing a baseball cap and dark sunglasses despite the fact it was nighttime indoors, which might’ve worked better if he wasn’t also carrying an enormous black bag beside him.
“I always carry condoms,” he informed you smugly.
Your face scrunched instantly as his answer only emphasized how thin the apartment walls actually were. You narrowed your eyes at him while glancing suspiciously down the hallway.
“Why aren’t you at the party?”
Dean lowered the sunglasses enough to properly look at you over the frames.
You looked soft tonight, comfortable. Wearing sweatpants and an oversized shirt, hair messier than usual from lying around all day. The sight quickly made something warm settle low in his chest.
“Because I’m here with you.”
“No,” you corrected. “You wanted to be here with me.” You pointed vaguely toward campus. “Past tense…You should currently be at that party.”
“No can do.” Dean slipped smoothly past you before you could stop him, nudging the apartment door shut behind him with his foot.
Only then did you fully notice the bag. It was large, rectangular, black and rigid with no visible branding whatsoever. It completely ruined the whole incognito outfit.
Your eyes narrowed harder while Dean looked far too pleased with himself.
“I come bearing gifts,” he announced, then he walked straight toward your bedroom like he paid rent there.
“How did you know I didn’t go to the party?” you asked while following him toward your bedroom.
Dean set the bag carefully onto your bed before finally turning around, fingers hooking beneath the brim of his cap as he pulled it off. The sunglasses followed next, revealing eyes already fixed on you with far too much satisfaction.
“I have my sources.”
You grimaced again. “That sounds vaguely threatening.”
“Hannah asked me the other day to convince you to come out tonight.” He shrugged casually. “I didn’t.”
You crossed your arms. “Who says I would’ve agreed anyway?”
Dean smiled instantly. “Me.” The confidence in his answer came without hesitation. “I’m very persuasive.”
You rolled your eyes before your attention dragged back toward the massive black bag sitting suspiciously at the foot of your bed. “What is that?”
Dean glanced over his shoulder toward it. “Our entertainment for tonight.” His mouth twitched slightly. “Well…mine.”
You narrowed your eyes harder at him before stepping around him toward the bed. The bag gave nothing away from the outside, rigid and sleek and annoyingly mysterious.
Cautiously, you reached inside and your fingers brushed lace first. You blinked then slowly pulled the item free into the light between you both, pinching it delicately between two fingers like it might suddenly attack you.
“Lingerie?” you asked, genuinely confused.
Dean nodded once. “I had to get rid of the boxes,” he explained. “Turns out Agent Provocateur packaging isn’t exactly subtle.”
Your eyes widened immediately. “Agent Provocateur?” You stared at him in disbelief before looking back into the bag. “Are you insane?”
One by one, you started pulling more pieces out. Black lace…cream silk and tiny straps. Things so soft they barely felt real against your fingertips.
Dean watched your growing expression carefully and only then seemed to realize he may have gone slightly overboard. “I got lost on the website,” he admitted. “And then there was free shipping after a certain amount which felt financially irresponsible to ignore.”
You straightened slowly, still clutching one lace bodysuit in your hands while looking at him like he’d lost his damn mind.
“Explain to me,” you said carefully, “how exactly this counts as entertainment.”
“Besides the obvious?”
Your stare sharpened. Dean exhaled quietly before answering, his tone softening as the teasing faded from his expression.
“When you were on my lap the other day…” His eyes flickered briefly toward the floor before returning to you. “You stopped focusing on yourself after a while.”
Your fingers tightened slightly around the lace.
“You started trying to get me there instead,” he continued gently. “Like you were more worried about proving something than actually feeling good.”
Heat crept onto the nape of your neck because he was right. Dean noticed everything.
“And I get it,” he added quickly, voice staying careful. “Probably instinct. You wanted me to enjoy it.” His mouth twitched faintly. “Which I definitely did, by the way. Don’t start doubting that part.”
You stayed quiet while watching him and actually listened instead of acting on your urge to flee.
“Tonight,” he said after a beat, nodding lightly toward the lingerie scattered across your bed, “the lingerie can be for me.” His eyes moved back to yours. “So the rest can just be yours.”
The room went quiet afterward. The plan had probably sounded more coherent in Dean’s head at one in the morning while online shopping half-awake with his laptop balanced on his stomach but somewhere beneath the absurdity of it, you understood what he meant.
Lingerie wasn’t only about someone else seeing you in it, women bought it for themselves too, to feel pretty, desired and confident. Sometimes just to stand in front of the mirror and reclaim something private but eventually, with partners, it often became performative too, something shared and visual. Dean was trying to remove that pressure from everything else.
Your gaze drifted slowly back down toward the pile of lace but you still weren’t entirely sure what happened next. You tried things on and then, what?
Your voice lowered slightly. “What kind of mind games are you playing?”
You hoped it didn’t sound accusing because it wasn’t meant to. You were just struggling to process the fact Dean had seen through you so clearly after one failed attempt, that he’d gone and actually thought about it, considered it and returned with something tangible instead of empty reassurance and blind confidence.
Dean shook his head immediately. “No games.” His voice stayed soft and patient, ready to leave the second you told him this was too much. “Let’s just give it a shot.”
Silence stretched again before you finally reached for a pair of panties instead. The lace slid smoothly through your fingers as you lifted the panties between you both for further inspection.
Dean’s eyes dropped instantly and despite himself, one very clear thought crossed his mind.
‘Yeah. Definitely one of my favorites.’
“How do you even know these will fit?” you asked honestly. The fabric looked expensive enough to disintegrate if handled incorrectly, soft lace brushing against your fingertips while you inspected the tiny details stitched into it.
Dean opened his mouth…closed it and opened it again. “I’m…observant?”
Even he sounded unsure of the answer.
Your lips twitched as you bit back a laugh while digging through the pile until you found the matching bra, then gathered both pieces in your hands.
“Observant and persuasive,” you mused while backing toward the bathroom. “Let me know when there’s something substantial to add to that list.”
Dean nodded solemnly like you’d given him serious criticism to reflect on. “Will do.”
The bathroom door clicked shut behind you and the second it did, Dean exhaled sharply and looked down at himself...for fuck’s sake.
He adjusted himself miserably through his pants while staring at your closed bathroom door in defeat. Lately everything about you affected him differently, your voice, your teasing and the way you looked at him for half a second too long depending on the day.
It was becoming genuinely embarrassing.
Dean barely moved from the spot you’d left him in.
He stayed planted near the foot of your bed, one hand dragging occasionally through his hair while his eyes remained fixed on the bathroom door like staring hard enough would somehow let him see through it. Every few seconds he twitched awkwardly in his pants, dealing unsuccessfully with the consequences of occasionally hearing your hums through the thin wall while knowing exactly what you were changing into behind it.
Inside the bathroom, you stood frozen in front of the mirror for far longer than necessary.
You tried very hard not to think about how closely Dean must’ve paid attention to you over the years to somehow get the sizing exactly right because it fit perfectly.
The lace sat snug against your skin without pinching anywhere, soft black patterns curling over your chest and hugging your hips beautifully. The bra lifted your breasts enough to make your posture straighten instinctively while the matching panties rested low against your hips, delicate enough to feel expensive but comfortable enough not to make you tug at them every two seconds.
You looked good, not just tolerable under dim lights or acceptable after strategic positioning and reassurance and maybe that was what scared you most because now you had to walk back out there and let someone else see it too.
With one last glance toward your reflection, you finally reached for the doorknob and stepped back into your room.
Dean looked up immediately, the reaction was almost embarrassing.
He stopped breathing for half a second entirely, eyes dragging over you slowly enough to make heat climb straight into your throat. He barely blinked while following your movement across the room as you drifted toward your full-length mirror, fingertips lightly tracing the lace resting over your shoulders before moving lower toward the small details connecting the cups together.
The silence stretched thickly.
You kept looking at yourself mostly because looking directly at him felt dangerous right now, even as he moved behind you slowly without touching. He was just standing there close enough for warmth to gather along your back while his eyes followed yours through the reflection. Wherever you looked, he looked too, until eventually your gazes met in the mirror.
You swallowed. “What do you think?”
Dean inhaled deeply through his nose. “I think,” he said slowly, “Six Flags might be going out of business soon.”
Your brows lifted immediately before a quiet laugh escaped you despite yourself.
You turned around to face him fully then, stepping closer until only inches separated you both. Your hands settled carefully against the center of his chest, fingertips brushing lightly against the fabric of his shirt while you looked up at him.
Dean held your gaze steadily, too steadily, sometimes it genuinely felt like he could read your thoughts if he stared long enough. “What do you think?” he echoed softly.
You hummed quietly, eyes flickering downward toward his mouth before lifting back up again.
“I think…” Your hands began sliding slowly down his chest, fingertips grazing over the hard planes beneath his shirt one inch at a time. “Maybe…” Your voice softened further as your palms drifted lower. “I could show you something I actually know how to do.”
Dean’s jaw tightened as your fingers brushed the bulge straining against his pants.
“With my mouth,” you finished quietly.
You didn’t move afterward and neither did he.
In your head, the logic made sense. Dean already thought you were beautiful, so you didn’t need him witnessing your frustration firsthand too. You could give him something good instead, something you knew how to control.
For one dangerous second, he looked like he was genuinely considering it. Then Dean exhaled sharply and turned you around instead, guiding you gently back toward the mirror until your back rested against his chest.
A startled breath caught in your throat as your ass pressed unintentionally against the hard outline of his erection.
Your eyes met his again through the reflection.
“I don’t doubt you can do those things,” he murmured near your ear. “All of them.”
One of his hands settled carefully against your waist while the other slid slowly downward, fingertips brushing beneath the waistband of your panties enough to make your stomach tighten.
His eyes never once left yours in the mirror. “So why do you?”
The reflection showed the two of you, a study in tension and longing. You could see the intensity in his eyes, the way he watched you not just with desire but with a focused, intentional kind of devotion.
His hand didn't push further, he stopped before his fingertips brushed the outer lips of your pussy, leaving a teasing spark of contact. He held himself there, gaze locking onto yours in the mirror, waiting. He wasn't going to take a single inch more without your explicit permission.
You felt your heart hammer against your ribs, chest heaving. You looked into his eyes and gave a small, shaky nod.
The moment you did, he slid deeper. His fingers glided through the slick already gathering between your thighs, parting you with a gentle pressure that could’ve made your toes curl. He didn't rush, he navigated the wet lips until his fingertip found the small, swollen bud of your clit. He began to circle it slowly with agonizingly steady rotations that sent ripples of electricity shooting straight to your core.
"Tell me what you see," he whispered, voice a low and gravelly vibration against your ear.
You swallowed hard, voice trembling as you focused on the reflection. "You...you touching me," you breathed.
As you spoke, you watched your own body react. Your breathing picked up, turning into shallow, jagged gasps. In the mirror, you saw your breasts heaving, the nipples peaking and hardening into tight, sensitive points through the lace of your bra. As if reading your thoughts, Dean’s other hand reached around, his fingers finding one breast and gripping it. He massaged the hardened peak, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger and you let out a sharp, involuntary swallow, head tilting back slightly.
"And what's at the end of me?" he asked, voice humming with a dark, sensual curiosity.
"Me," you whispered, the word barely leaving your lips.
"What else?" he pressed, fingers continuing that relentless, circling motion. He was forcing you to stay present, stripping away your ability to hide in your head or focus on his pleasure. He wanted you trapped in your own skin.
You stared at yourself, hyper-aware of every inch of your anatomy. "Beauty marks," you murmured, noticing the small moles on your thighs and torso that you usually ignored.
"And here?" he asked, his thumb flicking the tip of your nipple.
"Hardened nipples," you gasped, eyes fluttering.
"And on your skin..." he prompted, his fingers quickening their pace, the friction against your clit becoming more insistent and demanding.
"Goosebumps," you whimpered. You could see them breaking out across your shoulders and arms, a physical manifestation of the arousal peaking within you.
The sensory overload was dizzying. Every time you named a part of yourself, the pleasure seemed to intensify, as if acknowledging your own body was unlocking a door you'd kept bolted shut. Dean’s fingers were no longer just circling, they were fluttering, vibrating against your most sensitive spot with a precision that made your hips instinctively buck back against him. You felt the wetness flooding out of you and coating his fingers, making the sounds of his touch wet and explicit in the quiet room.
You tried desperately to keep your eyes locked on his in the mirror but as the pleasure climbed, the world began to blur. Your eyelids grew heavy, the edges of your vision darkening as the sensation centered entirely on the point where he was rubbing you. You started to moan, the sounds raw but still shy, escaping your throat without your permission. You pushed your backside harder against the rigid length of his erection, craving the friction, the completion.
The tension in your lower belly coiled tighter and tighter, a spring winding up to the point of snapping. You were right there, on the precipice, the beginning of an orgasm shimmering just out of reach. Your breath became a series of broken sobs as your body trembled in anticipation. Was this it?
"I think...I–" you started, voice breaking as the first wave of a climax seemed to form but just before it solidified, just as you were about to believe it would, Dean abruptly pulled his hand away.
The sudden void was shocking. You gasped, body jolting from the abrupt loss of stimulation, the orgasm denied at the very last second of creation. You were left vibrating, aching and halfway undone but before you could process the frustration, he gripped your waist and turned you around in his arms so you were facing him.
Your eyes were wide, glazed with lust and confusion, chest heaving as you looked up at him.
"What the hell are you doing?" you asked, voice a breathless wreck.
Dean didn't answer immediately. He just looked at you, taking in the desperate hunger in your eyes. He gripped your hips firmly, knuckles white and began backing up toward the bed, pulling you with him.
"Trusting you to do it first," he murmured.
As the back of his knees hit the mattress, he let himself fall back, laying flat on his back and spreading his arms wide, leaving himself completely open and vulnerable to you.
You climbed over him, your movements determined, fueled by a desperate, humming need that had been wound tight in the mirror. You braced your knees against his sides, feeling the hard muscle of his thighs beneath you and planted one hand firmly on his chest. Beneath your palm, you could feel his heart hammering a frantic rhythm, a mirror to your own. With a renewed sense of determination, you slipped your other hand beneath the fabric of your panties, your fingers finding the slick, swollen heat of your pussy.
As you began to touch yourself, you closed your eyes for a moment, repeating the litany he had forced you to acknowledge in the mirror. You focused on the hyper-awareness he had instilled in you, turning that mental lens inward. You found your clit, already engorged and sensitive and began to circle it. Your breathing became ragged, each exhale a shaky shudder that vibrated through your entire frame.
You opened your eyes and looked down at your hand on his chest. You watched the way his pectorals heaved under your touch, his skin flushed and warm. Then, you felt his hands slide up your legs, his large palms gripping your thighs firmly. The sheer intensity of his gaze, the way he watched your every movement with a hunger that felt almost tangible, made a low moan escape your throat.
You had never reached this point before, never felt this close to the edge of something so profound. The pleasure was a rising tide, threatening to pull you under.
"Be patient," Dean breathed, his voice a low, grounding rumble that seemed to vibrate through the mattress and into your bones. "Listen to your body."
You nodded, eyes locked onto his and focused entirely on the sensation. You ignored the noise in your head, everything except the friction of your own fingers. You kept your hand working at a speed you liked, a steady, rhythmic pressure that built a coil of tension in your lower belly. You began to squirm, hips rocking in a slow, undulating motion against your own hand, chasing the spark.
In your haze of arousal, you shifted, pressing your soaking wet clothed cunt directly onto the rigid length of his erection through his pants. The sudden, blunt pressure against your clit sent a shockwave of pleasure through you and you let out a loud, uncontrolled moan. Dean groaned in response, a sound of pure, tortured restraint as he kept his hips from jerking upward to meet you.
You quickly lifted your hips again, holding them high in the air, body arching as you fought to maintain the rhythm.
“Holy fuck,” You were so close now, the world was narrowing down to the point where your fingers met your flesh.
"Attagirl. That's it," Dean whispered, voice thick with praise. "You're doing so good. Just like that...look at you, taking it all in. So fucking worth it."
His words were like fuel to the fire. The praise made you bolder and movements more frantic. You pressed harder, your fingers fluttering with an urgency that bordered on desperation until the tension reached a breaking point, a white-hot spark that suddenly ignited into a roaring flame.
The orgasm hit you like a physical blow. Your head snapped back, your spine arching as the first wave of pleasure crashed over you. Your lips parted and an unreal, unabashed sound, a high, keening cry of release slipped out of you, echoing through the room. It was your first time ever coming and the sensation was overwhelming. It didn't just peak and fade, it rolled through you in long, rhythmic pulses that seemed to last forever, shaking your entire body, leaving your muscles twitching and your mind a complete blank.
Dean didn't move. He looked at you, completely mesmerized, eyes wide and unblinking. He watched the way your throat worked as you gasped for air, the way your breasts heaved and the way your body shuddered under the aftershocks. Beneath you, his cock throbbed and twitched painfully against the constraint of his pants, a visible manifestation of the agony and ecstasy of watching you shatter.
As the waves finally subsided, leaving you limp and floating, you collapsed onto his chest with a sultry whine, skin damp with sweat and breathing heavy and synchronized with his as you caught your breath.
The silence of the room was thick, charged with the lingering electricity of the moment.
You swallowed hard while still catching your breath, voice a mere whisper against his skin. "Is it too soon to say that was the best orgasm I've ever had?"
Dean let out a heavy, uneven breath beneath you, the sound shuddering straight through his chest and into yours. Only then did his hands finally leave your thighs. Slowly, almost cautiously, they slid upward along your sides until his palms settled against your back.
Gone was the restraint that had kept his fingers tense and controlled earlier. Now he touched you lightly, almost reverently, fingertips drifting along the curve of your spine over the lace while he tried to steady his breathing. Every few seconds his hands flexed against you instinctively, like he still couldn’t quite believe what had just happened.
“Definitely the best one I’ve ever had,” he murmured.
His voice sounded wrecked, dizzy, like simply watching you come apart on top of him had pushed him somewhere dangerously close to losing it himself.
You lifted your head slowly from where it rested against his chest, pushing up enough to properly look at him.
Dean blinked up at you lazily, pupils completely blown.
You swallowed once. “Did you…?”
The question barely finished forming before Dean’s expression morphed into something sheepish and amused all at once. He swallowed too before nodding once against the mattress.
Your eyes widened slightly as his hand slid upward from your back, fingertips brushing softly along your jaw while he looked at you with an expression so openly fond it almost hurt to hold eye contact with him.
“Am I still not deserving of a kiss?” he asked quietly. Half joking, half absolutely not.
You hummed thoughtfully like you were genuinely considering it. “You want a cookie and a gold star too?”
Dean’s grin spread slowly across his face, matching yours instantly despite the pleasure still weighing down his features. “Better than the survey.”
You laughed softly through your nose before finally leaning down the rest of the way.
The kiss was warm, searing and long overdue.
Dean’s hand moved instantly to the back of your head, holding you in place like he’d been waiting weeks to finally do exactly this. It started slow for approximately two seconds, soft lips parting against yours carefully, almost disbelievingly, before weeks of tension snapped apart all at once.
You melted into him with a breathless sound as his mouth pressed harder against yours.
Dean kissed like he did everything else, thoroughly.
His thumb pushed lightly beneath your jaw, tilting your head back enough for him to deepen the kiss, tongue sliding against yours slow at first, exploratorily, before the restraint he’d been clinging to all night dissolved completely. The taste of him, the warmth of his mouth and the low groan that rumbled out of his chest when you kissed him back with equal desperation made your stomach tighten all over again.
The kiss quickly turned messy, hungry. You could barely catch your breath between them, mouths reconnecting instantly every time you pulled apart for air like neither of you could tolerate the distance anymore. Dean’s grip tightened on your hair as his other hand spread wide against your back, dragging you flush against him while his tongue swept against yours again, deeper this time, making heat rush straight through your body.
So much for rules.
Seems like Six Flags had just been privatised for a single Agent Provocateur wearer…indefinitely.
a/n: Comments, likes and reblogs really do mean the world and help more than you know! More stories will be added to the archive soon, so stay tuned for new content. Thank you so much for reading! 🤍
