For Him
it’s all for him
warnings: explicit love
word count: 6k
Love doesn’t even begin to cover it. Love — the all-encompassing, all-consuming, above-all-else feeling. Love doesn’t feel adequate. Love doesn’t even come near enough to describe it. To describe what this is, what you feel, what he is to you. Love is a shallow word, a placeholder, a stand-in for something bigger, something you can’t name and never will. Will not be able to.
It was there, though. Love was there. From the first moment you felt him. The moment you touched him, and you wished, in the quiet, echoing depths of your soul, that you’d met him earlier. Earlier, because there will never be enough of him.
And maybe if you’d had another year, you could have settled for love. Another month, and maybe it would have been enough to fill the spaces he’s carved out of you. Another day, and maybe you wouldn’t be here, aching, wanting, needing more. Another minute, and maybe the hollowness wouldn’t ache so much. Another second, and you might have been fuller.
Fuller of him.
Because every second he doesn’t fill feels empty — even when they’re crowded with the thoughts of him. Those haunting thoughts of him. They are heavy. They linger. They never leave. Because you won’t let them. Because you can’t bear to let them go, even when they so desperately fight to dissolve. To let him go, even in your mind, feels unbearable. Because you can’t miss any more of him. You won’t allow it. It would hurt more than hanging onto those desperate thoughts.
And the thought of goodbye? Nothing’s worse than saying goodbye. Saying goodbye to him, even the him you keep stored away in your head. It feels a little bit like dying.
It feels worse than dying.
You don’t miss him. You can’t. He’s here. His body beside you, his warmth in the bed. But you still long for him, as if there’s a piece of him somewhere else, just out of reach. A part of him you’ll never touch.
If love’s not enough — will never be enough — then why? Why do you love him? Why do you love him so much that it splits you open and spills you out to make more room for him? Why do you love him when it hurts more often than it doesn’t?
But then, he stirs. A faint, lazy shift beside you, and your heart lurches toward him. His hair is mussed, dark locks curling over his forehead, and you can feel the warmth of his skin before you even touch it. His breathing slows, evens, and your chest tightens. You lean in, closer than close, lips grazing the shell of his ear.
There is nothing to be afraid of.
“I love you.”
The words come quiet, soft. You whisper them because saying them too loudly would only make it feel like acknowledging their insufficiency. Like shining a light on the void that still exists, even in love. So you keep them quiet and hope — hope — hope that they’re enough. At least for him. Enough for him to understand a fraction of what you mean. Of what it truly is.
Because it’s more than love. It’s greater than affection. Beyond. Beyond the hugs and beyond the words or the way you hold him. More. More than the way he holds you back, like the two of you are all that’s keeping the world from breaking apart. Because you’d fall apart without each other there. Holding it all together, together. Yourselves and the other.
“I think you’re supposed to say, ‘Happy Birthday.’” he murmurs, his voice slow and drowsy, still thick with sleep even though the sun hangs high in the sky.
Almost noon.
You glance up at him, his eyelids heavy, his lips curling into the faintest trace of a smile. The kind of smile that’s more reflex than effort, born out of his teasing rather than true amusement.
He doesn’t sleep well at night. He never has. He calls it wasting time, lying awake in the dark, restless, as if sleep itself is a thief robbing him of moments he’ll never get back. Time. Precious time. He treats it like gold dust, hoarded and spent with care, but never wasted.
And yet, come morning — or afternoon — he always regrets it. Always drags himself out of bed with a sigh, muttering about the hours he’s lost. Same guilt, same cycle. A war between the time he holds too tightly and the time that slips away.
Precious, precious time.
You smile faintly against his skin. “I don’t want to remind you you’re getting old.”
“You don’t want to remind yourself.” he corrects, his lips twitching into a knowing smirk. He’s always right, even when you don’t want him to be. Especially when you don’t want him to be. He’s always right.
“It’s okay, little love.” he says, and his voice wraps around you like a blanket never could, soft and warm but never suffocating. “I don’t mind it. But don’t worry too much. You’re making it sound like I’m eighty.”
“Sorry.” you whisper, and you don’t know why you’re apologising, but you do it anyway. You shift closer, nuzzling into his chest, inhaling the faint, musky warmth of him. Now that he’s awake, you don’t have to be so careful. No tiptoeing so as not to disturb. You can disturb him now, without feeling as guilty. He won’t mind.
“I love you too, just so you know.” he says, his voice soft, almost shy.
You press your ear to his chest, to feel, and listen, and then feel some more. His skin is warm and sticky, still, from sleep. Sticky enough that your ear almost gets suctioned on there and you can hear the steady, rhythmic beat of his heart beneath your cheek more than his voice.
Thumping.
B-dum. B-dum. B-dum.
“I know.” you say. Barely audible. You don’t want to risk drowning out that sound. Of his heartbeat. You close your eyes and let it fill you, every hollow, aching part of you.
B-dum. B-dum. B-dum.
Time feels cruel. You don’t say it, but you feel it. Time that keeps slipping through your fingers, dragging you both forward. But for now, there’s this.
For now, it’s enough.
It has to be.
“I didn’t get you anything.” you whisper again, even quieter this time, as though saying it aloud might further cement your failure.
Your breath feels shallow, as though the confession has siphoned all the air from your lungs. You can feel his chest rise and fall beneath you, his warmth enveloping you, but it’s not enough to quiet the churn of guilt in your stomach. Your hands fidget against the hollow in the middle, that perfect slope that you imagine deepens every time you lay on it, tracing patterns in the heat of his skin.
You didn’t. You didn’t get him anything because nothing felt like enough. If love wasn’t enough, how could a thing — a mere object, bought and wrapped and handed over — ever suffice? How could you trust that a trinket, something so tangible and small and fleeting, could carry the weight of everything you wanted him to know? What you needed him to feel? Everything you couldn’t say. If love wasn’t enough, how could you put your faith in anything else?
If love wasn’t enough, how could anything be?
“That’s fine.” he says. He’s impressively calm, unbothered, compared to your chronic restlessness. His fingers brush over your arm in slow, lazy strokes, as if to soothe you. He shifts slightly beneath you, adjusting his arm around your back. His fingertips trail lightly against your spine.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
But his reassurance doesn’t land. You can’t stop. You can’t stop the words from spilling out, your voice trembling, faster now, desperate to explain, disjointed and raw. “I just-” You swallow hard. Your throat tightens. You press your cheek harder against his chest. “You already have it all. I didn’t know what to get you that you couldn’t just…get yourself. And I- I ran out of time…time. I thought about it too long, and then I woke up today, and it was too late.”
“Sweetie…”
Your hands press against him, fingers curling slightly, clinging to the safety of his presence. You can’t look at him. You can’t risk it. You can’t risk seeing the disappointment that might linger in his eyes. The possibility of it burning in there would undo you completely, and you’re already teetering on the edge.
You keep your gaze fixed on his collarbone, unable to look up.
You can’t risk it.
“Sweetie, stop.” he says. He’s firm. The words slice through your spiralling thoughts.
You hear the barely there hiss of his breath, a flicker of frustration. And in that moment, your chest tightens, and the guilt surges forward. You fucked up. He exhales a soft huff that brushes against the crown of your head. You feel the faintest shift in his chest. You’ve said too much, and now you’ve ruined something.
Everything.
But then his arms tighten around you, pulling you closer. He wraps himself around you like armor. Firm, his hands warm against your back, his hold so secure that it feels like the world outside of him doesn’t exist. He wraps himself around you so completely. The kind of embrace that makes you feel small and safe, protected in a way that nothing else does.
He holds you tighter, tighter still, until the edges of you blur into him. He holds you so tightly you know you’d have to fight to escape. Until you know that escape is impossible.
Not that you’d ever try. You’d never want to.
“Sorry.” you murmur against his chest.
“No.” he says, sharp and immediate with an insistence that leaves no room for doubt. His hands move, one slipping up to the nape of your neck, his thumb brushing softly against your skin, the other splaying wide across your back. “No, no. You were right.” His voice softens and drops into something gentler.
You hesitate, confused, and your body tenses slightly against him. He must feel it, because his hand on your back begins to move in slow, soothing circles, the friction of his palm against your shirt creating a faint warmth.
“I have everything.” he continues.
He pauses, and the silence stretches out. And again, all you can hear is the steady thrum of his heart beneath your ear.
Beating.
B-dum. B-dum. B-dum.
The rhythmic pulse of life. It’s almost enough to drown out the self-doubt still clinging to you.
“Right ‘ere.” he finally says, his voice breaking just slightly on the words.
And then he inhales, so deep you feel the tremor in him, the slow expansion of his chest pressing into yours, the way he seems to pull the air in as if it might just be the thing holding him together. He holds it in. Exhales slowly. Like he’s releasing something, letting it go into the space between you.
“I have you ‘ere.” he whispers. “That’s enough.”
You don’t move. You don’t speak. You just lie there, your body pressed against his, your hands gripping him. His words feel warmer and heavier than his body, sinking into your skin, and for the first time in hours — maybe days — it begins to ease.
Slowly, cautiously, you lift your head. You finally look up at him, chin resting on his chest — right in that special spot. When your eyes finally meet his, you see nothing but softness. There’s no disappointment there. No frustration. Just him. Just Alex, looking at you like you’re the only thing in the world that matters.
And for a moment, the ache eases.
You search his face, your gaze tracing the faint shadows beneath his eyes, the curve of his mouth, the messy curls that fall across his forehead. He doesn’t look away. He doesn’t blink. He just watches you, patient and steady, like he’s willing you to understand.
You do.
You let yourself believe him.
For a moment, you let yourself believe that you are enough.
So you watch.
You look, and you study, and you wish — desperately — that your eyes were fitted with tiny microscopes so you wouldn’t miss a thing. You don’t want to miss a thing. You want to memorise every detail, every imperfection, every fleeting expression that might escape you if you look away too soon.
Your gaze drifts to the corners of his eyes, to the faint wrinkles that fan out like delicate etchings. You start counting them, one by one, as you always do, wondering if there are more than last year, or even yesterday. You always count, and yet you never remember the last number.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Your eyes move to his forehead, and you study the lines there, the ones that seem a little deeper than they used to. They’re there constantly now, carved into his skin like tiny scars from years of raising his eyebrows just so. He says it’s to soften his expression, to make himself look less unapproachable to the outside world.
You think it’s ridiculous.
You’ve told him that before — how silly he looks when he does it, like he’s trying to imitate some wide-eyed, overly eager version of himself. You’ve teased him for it, and he’s laughed, but still, he does it.
He says his face falls weird when he’s neutral, and this, apparently, is the fix. You think it’s unnecessary. You like his face as it is — neutral, serious, tired, upset. Whatever he is, it’s fine.
Because it’s him.
It’s him, and it’s real, and you wouldn’t change a thing.
Your hand moves instinctively, your fingertips brushing against the faint lines there, on his forehead. You trace them gently, lightly, and harder as you’re trying to memorise their shape. He doesn’t flinch or pull away. He just watches you, patient as ever, his dark eyes soft and steady, as always.
“You’re staring again.” he says. There’s no real reproach in it. He doesn’t mind the spotlight when that spotlight is you.
“I know.” you murmur, not bothering to deny it.
He raises an eyebrow slightly, and there’s that look again — that playful tilt of his lips, the one that’s almost imperceptible, like he’s fighting the urge to smile.
“Am I passing inspection?” he asks, his voice laced with amusement.
You huff out a quiet laugh, shaking your head. “You always do.”
His expression softens further, the teasing edge fading. His hand comes up to rest over yours, his fingers curling gently around your wrist, holding you there against him.
“You don’t have to, you know.” he says quietly.
“Don’t have to what?”
“Look so hard. It’s like…like you’re afraid I’ll disappear if you don’t.”
The words catch you off guard, and for a moment, you don’t know what to say. Your hand stills against his forehead, and your breath hitches slightly, your chest tightening.
“I just…” you start, your voice trailing off as you search for the right words. “I just don’t want to miss anything.”
“You won’t.” he says simply, his thumb brushing lightly against your wrist. “I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”
You nod, but that ache in your chest doesn’t fully subside. Because time doesn’t care about promises, and no matter how tightly you hold on, it always finds a way to slip through your fingers.
“You’re struggling to breathe.” he announces, his steady voice pulling you back to yourself.
You hadn’t noticed until now, hadn’t realised how shallow your breaths had become, how your lungs felt heavy, like they were carrying too much. The moment he says it, the awareness hits you — harder and harder, a wave crashing over you, dragging you under.
Your chest tightens, and the sting in your nose starts to surface, hot and sharp. Your eyes feel like they’re being pressed from the inside, the pressure swelling until you can’t ignore it anymore.
“Don’t cry, my baby.” he whispers, a plea as much as an attempt at comfort.
But it’s too late.
The cracks in you deepen, widening into fissures that can’t be held together anymore. The tears come, spilling over before you can stop them, before you can even think to try.
He tries. He always tries.
He wipes at your cheeks with the pads of his thumbs, murmuring soft reassurances, holding you closer, tighter, like he can somehow stop the flow through sheer force of will.
But it doesn’t work. He knows it won’t work.
So, finally, he lets it happen. He lets you break, lets the tears fall freely, lets the overwhelming weight of it all pour out of you. Because it’s too much.
It’s too much love, too little time.
And when love feels like this, when it swells so big it aches, clothing is just another barrier. A suggestion, for that reason, never an imposition.
He breaks it down with clumsy hands, fumbling with the neckline of your shirt, pulling it over your head in a movement that’s more desperate than it could ever be classed as graceful. He doesn’t pause, doesn’t hesitate, just keeps going until there’s nothing between you but skin.
The moment you feel him — him — warm and solid, the familiar press of his chest against yours — it hurts a little less.
You press yourself against him, a wet cheek against his shoulder, hands clutching at his back because you’re still afraid he might slip away. His arms wrap around you again, this time even tighter, to the point it almost hurts. It hurts. But not as much as not having him hold you. His hands spread across your bare skin like he’s trying to hold you together, to keep the fissures from splitting into something irreparable.
He doesn’t speak now. There’s nothing left to say. He just holds you, lets you cry into him, lets the warmth of his body seep into yours, lets the moment stretch out until the edges of your pain start to dull.
And in his silence, you feel it. The unspoken truth. The promise that doesn’t need words.
The fissures won’t turn into holes. Not with him here. Not with the way he holds you, the way he keeps you from falling apart completely.
You can breathe again.
And you can breathe him in again.
Ah, there it is. That sweetness. It clings to him, a scent that feels like home. It soothes. It’s calming you.
But now…now, he’s restless.
You feel it first in the subtle fidgeting of his fingers against your skin, then in the shifting of his limbs, the tightening and untightening of muscles as he tries — and fails — to settle. The closeness that was comforting moments ago has turned into a puzzle, the edges too tight, the pieces overlapping awkwardly.
“Oh.” you gasp softly. He’s restless all over, his body betraying him.
“Sorry, girl.” he mumbles, his voice tinged with embarrassment. His hands move hesitantly, unsure whether to pull you closer or let you go. “I didn’t mean to. It- it’s just… you’re naked. Almost. It just…”
“It’s…” you start, but you trail off.
“I’m sorry.” he repeats, firmer this time, like he needs you to believe him.
Why would he be sorry?
It’s only…natural.
“Who are you?” you ask suddenly, pulling back just enough to look at him, your eyes narrowing in mock suspicion.
He blinks, startled, but before he can answer, you lean in again, pressing a kiss to the dip in his collarbone.
“Just me.” he says with a nervous giggle. His cheeks flush, the color creeping up his neck, and you feel his chest rise sharply beneath your palms.
He’s so fucking cute when he’s like this.
“I don’t know you.” you tease.
You’re purring.
Up now, your knees bracketing his sides, your hands splayed across his chest. His breathing quickens further, his flush deepening as he looks up at you. From his point of view, there’s something there. A spark, a shift, something playful. But your eyes are still red, rimmed with the remnants of tears.
And yet, he can’t help it.
Not when you’re like this, pressing up against him, leaning over him, commanding his attention so effortlessly. His eyes flicker over you, wide and unblinking, like headlights catching something fragile in the dark. He knows he should look away, should steady himself, but he can’t.
He can’t. He can’t. He can’t.
A palm reaches out, hesitant at first, then bold. It cups you, warm and engulfing, his fingers splaying instinctively, mapping every inch of you. The other joins.
“Security! Security!” you call out dramatically, a breathless laughter.
The corners of your eyes crunch as you smile, betraying any hint of real fear. The peaks of your skin, hot beneath his squeezing fingertips, send a rush of heat between you both, and you feel his hand falter for a split second before tightening its hold.
The act of innocence.
“I don’t mean to…” he says, his voice dipping low, a rasp threading through his words. He tilts his head back against the pillow, his eyes half-lidded, the corner of his mouth twitching. “I’m just a tortured artist, baby.”
“Yeah?” you challenge, shifting your hips, enough to feel the friction between you both.
“Yeah.” he breathes.
Hips roll.
Heat intensifies.
The wetness that once blurred your vision now pools low, deep, undeniable. It seeps into the space between you, pulling you both into its gravity.
He groans softly. And…God! It’s so beautiful…his grip on you tightening as his body moves in sync with yours. His gaze never leaves you, even as his lips part, his breath hitching with every shift, every roll, every press of your skin against his.
You smile, a wicked, knowing smile, and lean down until your lips are just a breath away from his. “Tortured?” you murmur.
“Always.” he whispers, his words swallowed by the heat between you as his hands guide you closer, closer, until there’s no space left at all.
“Is that solely a bad thing?”
It strikes him harder than you intended. His body stills, his breath catching as he processes what you’ve just said. He doesn’t answer right away, his silence stretching out, heavy and charged, while you wait.
You’re hesitant in your approach, your fingers hovering, dancing lightly across his skin.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
A rhythm that mirrors the beat of your heart. You’re waiting, always waiting, for his sign.
And then it comes.
A nod. Another squeeze of his hands on your breasts.
Green light.
You move, reaching in just barely, your fingers brushing against the warmth of him. He’s sticky already.
“I think…that…suffering is necessary.” he says, his voice uneven, halting. His legs twitch beneath you, begging to squeeze together, to curl inward, but he can’t. You’re holding him down without even trying, just by being there, your weight and presence enough to pin him in place.
“In order to- to access the high levels of feeling- fuck-” His voice cuts off, his words swallowed by a sharp intake of breath.
He can’t.
His right hand quits its job of squeezing, abandoning your chest to join yours below. His fingers wrap around yours, warm and insistent, guiding you, begging you, leading you.
“Of love.” he finally concludes, his voice trembling.
Love.
It echoes in your mind, that single word reverberating.
“Profound…” you start, leaving the word open, unfinished, unsure of how to follow it.
Your hips shift, your body moving instinctively, rubbing yourself against his thigh in time with the rhythm of your holding hands. The sensation sends sparks shooting through you, but your focus stays on him, on the way his breath hitches, on the way his fingers grip yours tighter.
He’s soft there, on his thighs. The skin is plush and fluffy in a way he rarely shows to anyone but you. It’s intimate, that softness, a vulnerability he keeps hidden from the world but offers to you without hesitation.
“…ness.” he completes.
Profoundness.
It feels bigger than the moment, bigger than the two of you, and yet it’s tethered here, grounded in the heat and closeness of your bodies.
His hand tightens over yours, guiding you with more urgency now, his movements less controlled, more desperate. His eyes lock on yours, wide and glistening, and you can see everything in them — his need, his fear, his devotion.
And love. Always love.
You lean forward, lips brushing against his ear, and whisper, “Show me?”
A command, a plea, a promise all wrapped into one. And he does.
“I can count this as my present…if it makes you feel better.”
His fingers toy with the bow on your panties, that delicate little detail that always seems to fuck with his head. It’s so small, so dainty, so perfectly out of place between the rough pads of his fingertips. His hands aren’t particularly big, but somehow, you make them feel enormous. You make him feel enormous.
Almost…wrong.
You nod, your breath catching, and the sight of you offering yourself like that — open, willing, waiting — pulls a groan from deep in his chest.
“God…” he breathes, the word dragged out.
The way you give yourself to him. Every time. All the time. It feels so wrong.
It feels like the only thing that’s ever been right.
His hand dips lower, and he rubs the tip of himself over the fabric that clings to you, already damp, already sticking to every curve and dip of your shape. Now it sticks to him too, and the friction of it, the teasing pressure, makes his jaw clench.
You shiver, your body trembles as you try to hold yourself steady, but it’s too much.
And yet, not enough.
Your legs weaken, and you drop back down onto him, pressing yourself against his lap with a need that borders on desperation. The heat of him, the solidity, the sheer realness of him, makes your breath stutter.
It’s too much-
It’s not enough.
He exhales sharply, his hands flying to your hips to hold you steady, to keep you from sliding away, but his grip isn’t tight enough to stop you from moving. It never is. You grind against him, the thin barrier of fabric doing nothing to dull the sensation, and his head falls back against the pillow with a muffled curse.
“Fuck, baby…” His voice is strained now, thick with the weight of everything he feels but can’t quite say.
The bow beneath his fingertips feels almost absurd in contrast to the heat between you, but it grounds him somehow. He tugs at it gently, watching it stretch and twist, and the sight of it makes his head spin. It’s delicate, almost too delicate.
Like you.
He knows better. You aren’t fragile. You just let him treat you like you are. It ruins him every time.
You both need more.
His hand slips lower, finding the edge of the fabric, and with a slow movement, he pushes it to the side. The wetness there makes him shiver, his breath catching as he lets his fingers toy with you for a moment, drawing soft, stuttering sounds from your lips.
And then, finally, he pushes himself in.
Slowly.
You wince, your body tensing, and the ache is back. That familiar, consuming ache — the one that feels like it starts in your chest and radiates outward, like it’s eating you alive.
The closest of closeness.
The most you could possibly get.
And you still feel so utterly empty.
He notices, of course he notices. He always notices.
“It’s okay, baby, it’s ‘kay…shhh.” he whispers, like he’s trying to soothe a wild animal — you feel like one. His hand comes up to cradle the back of your head, pressing you gently into the curve of his neck. “I don’t like to think of people…of…I don’t want to think of you suffering. But then you do.”
His hips roll, slow and measured, and the stretch of him inside you makes your breath hitch. It’s too much and not enough all at once, and you don’t know how to reconcile the two.
“You breathe at such a rate that you’re bound to suffer, sweetie.” he murmurs, his words almost lost in the rhythm of his movements.
“I…I don’t know if it’s pain or pleasure.” you choke out, your voice muffled against his shoulder. Tears sting at the corners of your eyes, and you sniffle, clinging to him, to the only thing keeping you from falling apart completely.
His pace is so slow, so tender, that it hurts in its kindness. Every thrust feels like a question, every withdrawal like an apology.
“Reality is pain,” he says, his voice breaking slightly, “but we bring out the pleasure, in each other, with each other.”
You can feel it in the way his hands roam your body, always searching, always reassuring. But even as he speaks, you can tell he’s fighting his own demons. His mind flickers through the darker corners of himself, the parts he tries to keep hidden. He wonders if he’s hurting you more than helping you, if his presence in your life is a blessing or a curse.
You, meanwhile, can’t stop cataloging him.
The way his jaw clenches and unclenches with every thrust. The beads of sweat gathering at his temple. The soft, almost imperceptible tremor in his voice when he whispers your name.
You wonder if he feels it too — that emptiness. If he’s trying to fill it the same way you are, with this act, with this closeness.
You wonder if it’s working for him.
Because for you, it’s both too much and not enough.
You press your lips to his shoulder, kissing the damp skin there, tasting salt of sweat and tears, and heat, and him.
“Do you feel it?”
His movements slow even further, his body stilling for a moment.
“I feel everything.” he finally says. His hands tighten on you, pulling you closer, as if that’s even possible. “You make me feel everything.”
So you kept offering yourself to him. Because it was the only thing that made sense. Because in those moments, when words failed him, when he avoided eye contact like the answers were buried somewhere else, he’d offer you the deeper meaning of his touch.
He was avoidant, yes. Could be classed an asshole, if you wanted to simplify it. He wouldn’t talk. Not too often, not too much.
Unless he did.
When he thought you needed it so desperately that you wouldn’t make it out without the explicitness, without the explanations. He’d relent. He’d offer you a sliver of his mind, a glimpse into that labyrinth of thoughts he kept so well-guarded.
And sometimes, those words would only make it worse.
It’s hard to overstate. The impact he had.
Has.
The chokehold.
“Tighter.” Your voice is a rasp, your breath already unsteady, but you say it anyway. His hand rests on your throat, not pressing yet, just holding, and you arch into the weight of it. “Tighter.”
His gaze sharpens. There’s something unreadable in his eyes. A pause. A moment of hesitation. Then his grip tightens, and the air between you seems to still.
He turns pain into something beautiful.
“Take me.” you whisper, your voice a low, almost imperceptible plead. His fingers begin to move.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Against your neck, as if testing the rhythm of your pulse.
Intuitive. Always.
Then he takes.
His free hand finds your jaw, thumb pressing against your lower lip until your mouth falls open. He’s watching you, watching the way your body responds to him, the way your chest rises and falls in its shallowness.
Knuckles knock against your teeth as he slides his fingers inside, pads pressing against your tastebuds, filling the space until you’re choking on him. Nails scrape against the back of your throat, and you gag, tears springing to your eyes.
Impactful.
“Good girl.” he murmurs. Like velvet over steel. The praise is quiet, but it ignites something primal in you. You whimper around his fingers, and he groans, barely holding himself together.
He watches the tears spill over, watches the way your lips stretch around him, and something in him snaps. His hand tightens further on your throat, cutting off just enough air to make you feel weightless. To make you float in that space between pleasure and pain. Until you can’t tell them apart. Until you can’t settle on either one.
You grab at his wrist, not to pull him away but to anchor yourself to him. Because…he’s everything. Your air, your gravity, your entire world condensed into the roughness of his touch and the way he looks at you.
“Breathe, baby.” he says. His hand loosens slightly, giving you just enough to draw in a shaky breath around his fingers. “I’ve got you. Always.”
You believe him.
You have to.
He is your only salvation from this pain. The doer and undoer. Cause and effect. The wound and the salve.
And the aura of him remains, remains…
Remains.
“Oh-”
“Fuck-”
The words tear from both of you in unison. A tangled cry. You’re unravelling together. And it feels like the closest you’ve ever been to him. And yet…it still isn’t enough.
His hands grip your hips tightly, fingers pressing into your flesh. He thrusts deep, every movement a combination of tenderness and force, as though he’s pouring everything he can into you, trying to fill the empty spaces you both know he never fully can.
At this moment, it feels like he could.
He drags against every nerve inside you, heavy and thick, and you feel the way he throbs, the heat of him building, threatening to spill over. It’s overwhelming, the way he stretches you, the way every inch of him feels. He moves with an unsteady rhythm now, hips stuttering, his breath hot and ragged against your neck.
You’re both trembling. You can’t tell where your body ends and his begins.
“Shit…” he gasps, voice strained, breaking, as his pace falters. He’s so deep now, the tip of him brushing places that make you cry out.
Again. And again. And again.
That make your body tighten around him, pulling him even closer. It’s messy now, desperate. He’s losing himself inside you.
“Fuck, baby, I-” His voice catches, and then he’s gone.
You feel him twitch inside you, sharp and insistent, and then he’s spilling, warmth flooding you in waves. It’s a slow, pulsating release, and you feel every surge of it, every shudder that wracks his body as he empties himself into you. He presses as deep as he can go, burying himself completely, as if he could carve a place for himself inside you, as if he could leave a part of himself that will never fade.
He’s soothing from the inside. A plea for forgiveness he can’t bring himself to ask for aloud. He gives you little pieces of himself — small, fragmented traces of his love, his essence, his everything.
And it’s insufficient.
It will always be insufficient for the vastness of your longing, for the endless craving that gnaws at the edges of your soul. He feels it too. You can tell by the way his hands tighten on your waist, by the way his forehead presses against yours, like he’s trying to fuse the two of you together.
He knows.
He can’t help but feel that way, that what he gives you will never be enough. But what more can he offer than this? Than himself?
The peak caves slowly, unbearably, and it’s not just pleasure — it’s everything. It’s love and desperation and grief for the moments that slip through your fingers.
It’s heartbreaking.
So you smile.
You don’t mean to do it. You don’t even realise you’re doing it until you see the reflection of it in his eyes. But it’s there — a soft, almost involuntary curve of your lips that speaks to something deeper than words.
You don’t have to keep smiling.
But you do.
Because this is the best thing.
The best he can give you. The best you can take. The best the two of you can be in a world that feels like it’s always working against you.
And when the peak finally crests, when your body shatters around him, you don’t stop smiling.
Even as the tears spill over. Even as the ache in your chest sharpens. Even as the world starts to creep back in, threatening to pull him away from you.
You smile, because for this fleeting, fragile moment, he’s yours…
Yours. Yours. Yours.
…Completely.
He gives you a great desire to love.
a/n: Happy Birthday, Al.