𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: keys mckey x reader
𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: walter keys mckey realizes he's in love with his best friend. unfortunately, his best friend is busy chasing someone else.
𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: college au, friends to lovers, inexperienced!reader, mutual pining, idiots in love, yearning, lovesick keys, jealousy, unrequited feelings or are they?, angst with fluff, slow burn, eventual romance/smut
✰ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ✰ ⋆ ⋆ ⋆ ✰
A lot of people assume that Keys is smarter than his feelings.
Which is funny, because if anything, the opposite is true.
Walter McKey can untangle impossible code at three in the morning while surviving entirely on stale vending machine chips and whatever energy drink happened to be cheapest at the campus store. He can stare at a monitor for six straight hours and notice a single misplaced character buried under ten thousand lines of programming.
In five minutes, he can fix bugs most people don't even know how to find.
But realizing he's in love with his best friend?
That takes him an embarrassingly long time.
Years, actually.
Mostly because every time the truth gets a little too close, he explains it away.
Like, of course he wants to spend every second of every day with you.
You're his best friend.
That's what best friends do.
Of course he starts saving memes on his phone because he knows they'll make you laugh. Half his camera roll is screenshots he hasn't sent yet because he likes building up a little collection for when you're having a bad day.
That's normal.
Of course he shows up to class with your favorite breakfast sandwich without asking; he knows you never eat before your 8 a.m. lectures, no matter how many times you insist you will.
That's normal.
When he finds himself checking his phone at one in the morning because you mentioned going to a party, that's normal too.
Not that he’s a creep, stalking you or anything—you both have location sharing on.
Lots of friends do.
So maybe he checks it before bed if he knows you’re going to be out late.
Maybe he stares at the faint glow of his phone in the dark, watching the little circle with your picture drift across the map until it finally settles at your apartment.
Maybe the tight knot of worry sitting in his chest eases the second it does.
Maybe he sleeps better.
That's normal.
He's allowed to worry.
Friends worry.
When he walks into a crowded lecture hall and automatically scans for you before he even finds a seat, that's normal.
When he spots a sweatshirt in a store window and immediately thinks you'd like the color: normal.
When he buys two coffees and only realizes afterward that you're not actually there: normal.
When something funny happens during the day and the first thing that enters his mind is the sound of your laugh:
That's perfectly normal.
...Right?
The point is, he's got an explanation for all of it.
He's a computer science major. He runs on logic. Patterns. Variables. Inputs and outputs. Problems that can be solved if you stare at them long enough.
Feelings are just another system.
At least, that's what he tells himself.
Then Ethan shows up.
And suddenly all of Keys' explanations start throwing errors.
Because Ethan is, objectively speaking, kind of a douche.
A frat bro whose entire personality seems to consist of flexing in mirrors, lifting heavy things, and three different sports that all involve chasing a ball around a field.
Yet somehow, you're interested.
Which means every Friday night now consists of you sitting cross-legged on the floor of his dorm room, happily providing updates on Ethan Carter from Alpha Delta Whatever.
And Keys is discovering that he actually hates hearing about him.
A lot.
More than what feels reasonable, or healthy.
More than he can explain away with the same two words he always defaults to:
Just friends.
⋆ ⋆ ⋆
Keys is supposed to be studying for finals.
The laptop glows in front of him, three hundred lecture slides stacked into an exam that’s worth sixty percent of his grade, all of it waiting for him to care.
He reads the same sentence four times, retains none of it.
Because every thirty seconds, his attention drifts back toward you.
You're sprawled across the beanbag in the corner of his room, one he definitely didn't buy specifically because you liked sitting in it.
The late-afternoon sun filters through the blinds, laying thin stripes of light across the carpet. Every so often, one of those lines drifts over you, catching on your cheek or the edge of your smile before slipping away again.
A loose strand of hair falls across your mouth while you're talking. You puff air at it without looking up from your phone, still smiling, completely unaware of how beautiful you look when you’re not trying to be at all.
You don't notice him staring.
You never do.
“...it’s weird, ‘cause he’s actually kind of nice in person.”
Keys hums. “Mm.”
“And he invited me to that party next week. You know, the end-of-year one at Sigma Chi?”
Another hum, slightly delayed this time. “Cool.”
You slowly lower your phone.
“Dude.”
“What?”
“You're not even listening.”
“Yeah, I am.”
“No, you're not.”
“What? No, I am, swear.”
You narrow your eyes at him. “Okay. What’s his name?”
Keys freezes.
“...Chad?”
Your glare is instantaneous.
Unfortunately for you, Keys finds this particular expression incredibly endearing.
The way your nose scrunches, the tiny wrinkle that appears between your eyebrows and the annoyed huff you let out in barely contained disbelief.
It's adorable.
Which is probably a totally normal thing to think about your best friend.
“Chad? Really?”
“Shit, is it Brad?”
“Keys.”
“Okay, okay,” he laughs, holding up both hands in surrender. "In my defense, statistically speaking, there was a decent chance I was right."
“No, there wasn’t,” you counter, still glaring at him, though the corners of your lips betray you first. “And it’s Ethan.”
Keys grimaces. “That's worse.”
You blink once.
Then you reach forward without a word, snatch the nearest thing on his desk—a crumpled receipt—and fling it at him.
It smacks directly into the bridge of his glasses, bouncing off his nose.
His face scrunches up reflexively, eyes briefly crossing as he tries to follow where it landed.
“Hey!”
You burst into a laugh, bright and unfiltered, the sound of it filling the tiny space of his dorm room in a way that makes everything else feel quieter by comparison.
And there it is.
That stupid feeling.
That small lift he feels somewhere under his ribs every time he manages to pull that sound out of you.
It happens fast. Familiar by now, but never really less noticeable.
A feeling he's never quite managed to explain away, no matter how many times he's tried.
It's embarrassing, honestly, how much he likes it.
How your laugh can cut straight through whatever mental noise he’s sitting in and change the shape of it completely.
And despite the uncomfortable weight that's been sitting in his chest ever since Ethan entered the conversation, Keys can't stop the smile pulling at his mouth.
Because making you happy has always been his favorite thing.
Even when it costs him.
Maybe especially then.
He rubs the bridge of his nose where the receipt hit, nudging his glasses back into place.
He watches you grin from across the room.
The way your pretty lashes flutter in slow blinks as the last of your laughter fades out of you.
Then you glance back down at your phone with a soft hum.
“Ethan said they're renting a DJ.”
The warm feeling disappears so fast it almost gives him whiplash.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
And suddenly, that's all Keys can think about.
Ethan. Ethan. Ethan.
His mind racing, supplying comparisons he knows are unfair.
Ethan doesn't know your coffee order.
The extra pump of vanilla you ask for when you're exhausted. The way you always say you're getting a small and somehow leave with a large. The fact that you'll drink coffee that's gone completely cold because you get so engrossed in conversations you forget it exists.
Ethan doesn't know you hate thunderstorms but love the rain.
That you'll sit by a window for hours listening to it hit the glass. That every single time, without fail, you'll insist you're not sleepy right before falling asleep.
He doesn't know that when you're anxious, you start picking at the skin around your thumbnail.
Or that when you're sad, you rewatch the same three movies you've loved since middle school.
He doesn't know that you hate grape-flavored anything with a level of passion that's honestly a little concerning.
He doesn't know that when you're upset, the first thing you say is, “I'm fine.”
And that when you're really upset, you call him.
Keys knows all of those things.
He knows hundreds of those things. Thousands, probably.
Little pieces of you gathered over years of lectures and late-night conversations and random Tuesday afternoons that didn't seem important at the time.
And maybe that's what hurts.
Ethan's known you for, what, three weeks?
Keys has known you for four years.
Four years should mean something.
Shouldn't it?
So what does it say about him—about all those years, all the ways he’s come to know you—if you still look at Ethan the way you do?
And for the first time, Keys wonders if this is what “just friends” is supposed to feel like.
If everyone else’s friends take up this much space in their head.
He clears his throat, and drops his gaze back to the screen.
“I thought you didn’t even like frat parties,” he mumbles, pushing his glasses up his nose.
His voice is perfectly casual, eyes fixed on the blinking cursor in an empty word doc while he pretends to type something he isn’t actually writing.
You shrug. “I mean, maybe this one will be different.”
The cursor keeps blinking.
On. Off. On. Off.
His throat feels strangely tight
“Yeah.” He swallows. “Maybe.”
And in the silence that follows, he's forced to reckon with a truth he's spent years avoiding.
He doesn't actually care about Ethan.
Ethan is just a symptom.
What scares him isn't some frat guy you've known for three weeks.
It's the possibility that, one day, you'll stop being his person.
The person who gets your random 2 a.m. texts when your brain won’t shut off and you just need someone on the other end of it. The inside jokes that don’t make sense to anyone else. The “holy shit, did you see that?” look you send across a room when something funny happens, because you already know he caught it too. The late-night calls that start with “are you awake?” and drift into silence until one of you falls asleep first. The shoulder you lean into when you’re tired. The hand you squeeze in crowded parties when you feel overwhelmed.
Your safe place. Your home.
One day, he’ll stop being that person.
And someone else will take his place.
⋆ ⋆ ⋆
It won’t leave him alone.
The thought that one day, he won’t be the first person you reach for anymore.
So Keys does what he always does when something starts getting too loud in his head.
He overcorrects.
He buries it.
Finals prep becomes a kind of tunnel vision. He scrolls through lecture slides on autopilot, rewrites class notes in slightly different ways just to keep his hands moving, just to keep his brain busy enough that it can’t wander back to you.
Just friends. That’s the rule.
So he acts like it.
He sits a little straighter when you’re close. Keeps his replies a little too short whenever you text.
Just Friends.
And sure, he still shows up to study sessions with your favorite dining hall blueberry muffin and an extra bag of sour gummies—only because you get cranky when you're hungry and always end up stealing his.
Just Friends.
And sure, he helps you set up a study planner app on your laptop—something for exam tracking, color-coded and slightly over-engineered, because you started using sticky notes again and he can't stand how easily they fall off. He ends up fixing it twice when you click the wrong setting and everything rearranges itself—only because it’s easier than watching you struggle through something he knows he can solve in seconds.
Just Friends.
He saves your seat in the library with his backpack without looking up from his screen. Installs the plug-in that stops your tabs from crashing when you have too many open. Renames your files so they’re actually readable when you give up halfway through organizing them. Slides his charger across the table when your laptop hits ten percent because yours only works at a very specific angle.
Just Friends.
He walks you back from the library late at night even when you insist you’re fine on your own, your hands brushing in the dark, slowing his steps to match yours because he knows you hate walking fast.
Just Friends.
He practically lives in the library now. He’s pretty sure his bloodstream is mostly caffeine at this point, the rest denial.
Anything. Literally anything else.
It almost works.
Until it all goes to shit three days before finals.
You’re sitting cross-legged beside him on the floor between two shelves because all the tables were taken hours ago. Both of you are running on fumes, at that late-stage of studying where the pages go blurry and nothing really sticks anymore.
In hindsight, sitting this close was a mistake.
Shoulders pressed together, thighs bumping in the tiny gap of space between you.
He really should be studying.
He isn’t.
His laptop is open in front of him—half a presentation deck finished, a blinking cursor waiting in a paragraph he stopped reading ten minutes ago. He’s moved on to his coding assignment instead, because logic feels easier than thought right now. But even that isn’t going right. He keeps rewriting the same function, changing variable names that don’t matter, deleting lines just to put them back again.
He pushes his glasses up harsher than necessary, jaw tight, eyes narrowed at the screen as his fingers fly across the keyboard.
Delete. Rewrite. Undo. Redo.
Beside him, your hoodie shifts as you lean closer, grazing his arm. He feels it right away—the soft rustle of fabric, the familiar scent of your body spray—and his attention snags on it before he can stop himself.
You've stopped looking at your notes.
You’re looking at him.
He doesn’t look back.
“Keys?”
“Mm?” he answers automatically, still typing.
“Keys, can you stop typing for a sec?” your voice is quieter than usual. “I need to ask you something.”
“Yeah, hold on, I just have to—” he starts, eyes still locked on the screen.
Your hands slip into his space before he finishes his sentence.
They settle over his fingers, gently stilling him in place. Your thumbs press lightly over his knuckles, rubbing soft and slow, and his breath catches in a way he doesn’t manage to hide.
You’re close.
Close enough that he can’t escape anymore, nothing left to hide behind.
He swallows, eyes flicking down to where your hand is still covering his before forcing himself to look up at you.
The laptop light washes over your face in soft blue, catching on your lashes, the faint tension between your brows. You’re chewing on the inside of your cheek.
A nervous habit, he’d know it anywhere.
“Okay, so…” you start, chest lifting in a quick breath, like you’re trying to steady yourself before you lose your nerve. “I need to... ask you something.”
You inch closer, still not letting go of his hands.
“And you have to promise you won’t make it weird.”
That makes him pause.
“Make what weird?” he asks carefully.
“Just—” you frown, shaking your head a little. “Just don’t laugh, okay?”
His expression shifts immediately. Eyes sharpening, concern cutting straight through the exhaustion that’s been dragging him down for hours.
He’s tired, but he knows that tone.
It’s the one you get when you’ve been worrying about something for too long and finally run out of ways to deal with it on your own.
“Hey,” he whispers, softer now, brows pulling together as he studies you. “I’m not gonna laugh. What’s going on?”
Your gaze drops to your hands, thumb brushing over his knuckles again.
“So... hypothetically… if I needed to learn how to, um…”
You stop again, fingers tightening around his.
Keys is painfully aware that you're technically holding hands right now.
“...how to what?”
You swallow.
Then, like ripping off a bandage, you blurt it out all at once:
“I don't know how to give a guy a blowjob.”
And Keys’ brain does something it’s never done before.
It stops.
Whatever thought he had a second ago drops out of reach like it’s been yanked away. A hard screech, all the gears in his head catching at once and locking up the whole system.
Even running on two cans of Monster and finals-week delirium, he has absolutely nothing.
For a second, he just stares at you.
Then the heat hits.
It starts at the back of his neck, rushes up along his jaw, spreads straight to the tips of his ears. The pink flooding his cheeks is bad enough. Surely it can't get any worse.
warnings: established relationship knife play, making out, footjob if u squint, improper use of a knife handle, blindfold, nipple play???, idfk know what to warn you guys THERES A KNIFE?????? only a bit of blood is drawn and licked? p in v, creampie... er... consuming cum? :D
words: 9.9k (LMAO??)
summary: you told your boyfriend you wanna be freakier... he does his research
a/n: k. so this is for sab. she said "blaize three words. keys knife play" and i said hahahahaha okay... two months later we finally get here... LISTEN KEYS WOULD SOOOOO BE 0 to 100 SO I'M NOT FIGHTING ANYONE ON THIS!!! KEYS FUCKS. anyway. enjoy. rip my search history tho. and rip all the people i asked advice for this
r/relationship_advice
posted by u/keyskingdom_dev
my girlfriend wants to try new things in bed and i don't know how to feel about it
okay so. hi. i've never posted on here before.
me and my girlfriend have been together almost a year. which is honestly kind of crazy to think about because i still get nervous when she texts me first. anyway. things have been really good. like really good. i thought things were good everywhere if you know what i mean. she's never complained. i've never complained. i figured that meant we were on the same page.
but last week she brought up that she wants to try kinkier stuff.
and i said "oh cool" like an idiot, and then she went to bed and i sat on the couch for two hours.
i'm not upset with her. i want to be really clear about that. i'm just— i keep thinking, what if i've been doing it wrong this whole time and she was just too nice to say anything? what if what i'm giving her isn't enough? i really love her and the idea of her leaving because i'm somehow deficient in this area is genuinely making me spiral.
anyway. any advice would be appreciated. please be normal about it.
[1.2k comments]
.-.-.-.
posted by u/keyskingdom_dev
UPDATE: i took the test. she took the test. i need to sit down.
okay. i read all your comments. you guys are insane but also somehow helpful, which i wasn't expecting.
someone told me to take a BDSM test. several people actually. i did it. i answered every question as honestly as i could, including the ones that made me feel like i needed to close my laptop and go for a walk.
your predictions were right. vanilla. i'm a vanilla. i had to google what that meant and then felt embarrassed that i had to google what that meant. and what i’ve learned… is that i’m nowhere near freak city.
i showed my girlfriend expecting her to laugh at me and she didn't. she got this really soft look on her face and said she was glad i was "exploring my sexuality." which is a sentence that short-circuited my brain a little. then she took her phone out and showed me her own results and
okay.
i feel embarrassed that we've been together almost a year and i never once asked her about this stuff. like genuinely embarrassed. i'm a developer. i build entire open-world systems based on user experience and i didn't think to ask the person i love what she actually wants.
i don't know where to start. i don't think i can have sex with her until i figure something out. which she's noticed, i think. she keeps looking at me like she's trying to solve me and i keep asking her if she wants takeout.
send help.
[3.4k comments]
.-.-.-.
posted by u/keyskingdom_dev
SECOND UPDATE: three knives are on their way to my apartment and i need safety tips
hi. it's me again. i had another conversation with her.
she gave me a list. an actual list. which, honestly, very her. i love her. she color-coded it. i don't want to know what the colors mean.
bondage— okay. i can figure that out.
roleplay— fine, actually. i'm literally a developer for an open-world RPG. i do roleplay adjacent things for a living. this is the one area where i feel mildly competent.
knife play.
she put knife play on the list.
i laughed. like actually laughed out loud and she just looked at me very patiently while i got it out of my system. then she went to bed and i spent the next four hours going down a research rabbit hole that i'm not sure i'll ever fully surface from.
here is what i know: i'm not scared of it anymore. i'm actually— i don't know. i'm not going to say anything on a public forum.
here is also what i know: i have three knives arriving thursday and i need someone to tell me how to not accidentally kill my girlfriend. i love her quite a lot and i would like to keep her alive :c
okay that's all. safety tips please.
[6.1k comments] [🔒 post locked by moderators]
.-.-.-.
The dinner party is at eight o'clock, and you've been ready since seven fifteen.
Not because you're anxious— or not only because you're anxious— but because you made the mistake of watching Keys get dressed, and after that, sitting still felt like the only thing keeping you from doing something that would make both of you late.
He's in navy. A suit you didn't know he owned until he pulled it from the back of the closet last week, still in the dry-cleaning bag, and held it up with an expression that suggested he'd forgotten he bought it. The jacket sits across his shoulders like it was made for them— because it was, tailored somewhere along the line by a version of Keys who clearly had a fancier social calendar than the one you know, the one who shows up to your movie nights in quirky tees and mismatched socks and somehow still makes your chest ache a little.
His brown hair is swept back. Mostly. A few strands have already given up and curled back against his forehead, the same ones that always do, the ones you've pushed back absently a hundred times while he's reading over your shoulder or half-asleep against you on the couch. His glasses catch the light when he turns his head. His tie is navy too, knotted a little tighter than it needs to be, and you had to actively stop yourself from reaching up to loosen it.
He holds the door for you. His hand finds your back the second you step through it, palm flat against skin that the dress leaves bare, and it stays there the entire ride up the elevator to the penthouse.
It's been there all night.
That's what's making this hard.
The past month has been a quiet kind of distance— not cold, never unkind, just absent in a way you felt before you could name it. You'd change in front of him and he'd look at his phone. You'd find him at two in the morning in the blue light of his office, hands clasped in front of his mouth, staring at his screen like he was trying to solve something it kept refusing to give him. You told yourself it was the game. The pitch. The investors. Keys is a perfectionist in the way that means he doesn't sleep right before a deadline, and Axel Voss's money could fund two more years of development, so of course he was wound tight.
You told yourself you hadn't broken anything.
But now his hand is on your back, warm and large and present, thumb tracing slow absent circles against your spine like he doesn't know he's doing it— or like he does and doesn't want to stop— and you're standing in a penthouse in a plum satin dress trying to follow a conversation about projected market growth while every nerve ending in your back reports exclusively to that thumb.
He talks easily with the investors. That surprises people sometimes, that he can do this— Keys in a room full of money, fluid and unhurried, making Axel Voss laugh with something quiet and dry that you only half catch. His hand never leaves your back. When you drift to the edge of a conversation, his fingertips curl slightly, possessively, pulling you back in without interrupting his own sentence.
When they move to the dinner table, he pulls out your chair.
You sit. His hand trails away slowly, fingers catching on the halter strings at your neck on his way to his own seat, one finger looping around a bow before releasing it, and you stare at your water glass for a moment until your pulse decides to behave.
The food arrives.
Steak, for most of the table. The sauce pools amber and glossy in the low chandelier light, and the presentation is the kind you photograph and never actually recreate, perfect in a way that feels almost aggressive. You pick up your fork. Across the table, someone is talking about acquisition projections.
You look at Keys.
He hasn't touched his food.
He's looking at the knife.
Not at it the way you'd glance at silverware— studying it, the way he studies things he wants to understand, tilting it slightly in his hand so the blade catches the light, the steak juices sliding gold from the edge. His expression is the same one he gets in front of his monitor at two in the morning. Focused. Working something out.
"Well, McKey." Axel sets down his glass, clasping his hands with the particular energy of a man who finds himself very interesting. "Something wrong with the knife?"
Keys startles. His eyes go wide behind his glasses— caught— and he looks at you first, a quick panicked flash, before turning back to Axel. "Oh — no, I just—"
Axel is already waving a server over, pointing. Thirty seconds later the knife is gone from Keys' hand and a new one appears in its place, glinting clean under the chandelier.
Keys stares at it.
"Thanks," he says.
He drops it.
It happens fast— a soft clink against the marble, rolling toward the chair leg— and he makes a sound that is genuinely, helplessly awkward, an oh, oops that makes the woman across from you bite back a smile, and then he pushes back his chair and ducks down to retrieve it.
You glance down.
His jacket pulls taut across the width of his back when he bends, the fabric going tight across his shoulders, the shape of him so familiar and so unfair. The candlelight catches the line of his jaw as he reaches. You are wearing a very nice dress in a very expensive penthouse and you are staring at your boyfriend's back like a teenager.
You reach for your water glass.
And then you feel it.
It starts at your ankle— the very edge of the blade, not enough to cut, just enough to feel, a thin bright drag up the inside of your calf that your whole body decides to have an opinion about immediately. Your breath goes shallow. It traces up past your knee, following the inner seam of your leg with a precision that makes your fingers curl around the base of the glass, every nerve ending lighting up in sequence like a slow-pulled fuse. The satin of your dress pushes up with it, pooling at your mid-thigh by the time the blade reaches there, and you press your lips together and look straight ahead at the centerpiece and become very, very interested in the flower arrangement.
His hand grips your thigh.
Not gentle— certain, fingers wrapping around the inside of your leg and spreading you open incrementally, the way he does things when he's decided to do them, the knife tracing the skin between your thighs in long unhurried strokes like he has all night, like there are not six other people at this table discussing Series B funding. The flat of the blade is cool where your skin is hot. He moves it higher. Slowly. The tip grazes the hem of your underwear— a single pass, barely a whisper of contact— and heat floods the cradle of your hips so suddenly your thighs want to close around his hand of their own accord.
He doesn't let them.
His grip tightens. Keeping you open. The knife withdraws— an inch, two— and then his hand leaves your thigh entirely, unhurried as it arrived, and he straightens back into his chair with the recovered knife and slightly pink cheeks and the absolute audacity to reach for his water glass.
He swallows. Adjusts his glasses with one knuckle. Cuts into his steak.
You take a breath that you try very hard to make look like any other breath.
"McKey, did you want a fresh one?" Axel nods at the knife in Keys' hand.
Keys considers this with an entirely straight face.
"No," he says. "I'm good." A small, private curve at the corner of his mouth. "Five second rule."
Mild laughter around the table. Under it, his hand finds your thigh again— just the weight of it this time, thumb pressing once into muscle— and he turns back to the conversation like nothing happened.
You take a long drink of water. It doesn't help.
He eats the rest of his steak methodically, cutting each piece with full attention. You watch his hands and regret it. When the plates are cleared he sets down his fork, lifts his knife, and turns to look at you with dark, patient eyes.
He licks the blade clean.
Slow. Unhurried. His tongue flat against the flat of the steel, eyes holding yours the whole time, and then he does the same to the fork tines, one at a time, and sets it down on the plate like that was nothing, like you're not gripping the edge of the table with two fingers just to have something to hold onto.
"Wasn't dinner delicious?" he asks.
His voice is soft. His glasses have slipped slightly down the bridge of his nose and he doesn't push them up and the candlelight is doing something unreasonable to the line of his jaw and you want to take him apart with your hands.
You bite the inside of your lip.
"Yeah," you manage. "Really good."
Keys smiles at you— that dopey, unguarded smile, the one that has absolutely no business existing on a man who just did what he did, the one that made you fall for him in the first place— and turns back to Axel, fingers finding your knee beneath the tablecloth.
You're going to have a very hard time making it through dessert.
The city moves past the window in amber smears, red brake lights bleeding into wet asphalt, and Keys' hand is on your thigh.
That's it. His palm flat and warm through the thin satin of your dress, fingers relaxed like he put them there and forgot about them, and he's looking out the window with the quiet, settled expression of a man who has just won something significant and is choosing not to perform it. The car smells faintly of pine air freshener and leather. The driver has the radio on low— something soft and indistinct— and outside the city keeps happening, indifferent and bright.
You are not indifferent.
You are sitting very still with your hands in your lap and thinking about the flat of a knife against the inside of your thigh, and the shape of his jaw in candlelight, and the way he licked the blade clean while looking directly at you, and you are doing an absolutely terrible job of thinking about anything else.
He takes your hand.
He lifts it from your lap, turns it over, and brings it to his mouth. His lips press to your knuckles, warm and dry, lingering a beat longer than a casual gesture. You feel the slight exhale of his breath across your fingers when he releases. Then he laces his fingers through yours and rests them back on his thigh, and the weight of his hand over yours is steady and unhurried and somehow the most unbearable thing that has happened all evening.
"I've got a nice bottle of wine," he murmurs, low and close, and you feel the warmth of his breath at your temple before you feel the words. "To celebrate."
You smile. You rest your head against his shoulder— the wool of his jacket soft against your cheek, the smell of him beneath it — and in the rearview mirror, caught in a passing streetlight, you can see the small private curve of his mouth.
He knows exactly what he's doing.
When you arrive outside your complex, he gets out first.
The night air hits warm and close when he opens the door, the city still breathing around you— distant traffic, someone's music two floors up, the click of your heels when you step out onto the pavement and take his offered hand. He thanks the driver without looking away from you. His hand finds your back before the door swings shut— and it's different now than it was all evening, somehow, the same palm in the same place but the pressure of it more deliberate, guiding you toward the building entrance with quiet ownership.
The lobby is marble and cool air and the hum of fluorescent light.
The elevator doors open.
You step in together. The doors close. The numbers begin to climb.
You're aware of everything. Like the faint sound of the city muffled through the walls, the soft mechanical shift of the elevator cable, the heat radiating off his arm where it almost touches yours. You look at the door. Your reflection looks back, slightly gold in the polished metal, and beside you his reflection stands still and tall with his jacket sharp at the shoulders and his tie hanging loose from his collar.
You hear him swallow.
The sound of it, quiet in the small space, does something to you that it has absolutely no right to do.
In your periphery he reaches up and works his tie looser, one knuckle under the knot, his collar opening. His throat moves. He lets his hand fall and says nothing and looks straight ahead and the elevator is very small and the numbers are climbing very slowly and you press the ball of your foot into the floor through your heel and breathe.
The doors open.
He walks you to the couch like the apartment is somewhere you've never been.
"Sit," he says, low and easy, and something in the register of it moves through you like a plucked string, and you sit, sinking into the familiar give of the cushions, the fabric soft against the backs of your thighs. He disappears toward the kitchen and you listen to the sounds of him— the soft clink of glasses, the refrigerator seal releasing, the quiet pop of a cork— and you press your palms flat against your knees and wait.
He comes back with his jacket gone.
White button-up, sleeves folded to the elbow, the fabric shifting loose at his throat where the collar hangs open. He sets everything on the coffee table and crouches to pour, and the lamp light catches the amber of the wine as it fills each glass, and you watch his forearms— the flex and shift of muscle as he tilts the bottle, the knob of his wrist bone, the faint trace of vein— and take a careful breath through your nose.
He hands you your glass. His fingers brush yours in the exchange, brief and warm.
He settles at the other end of the couch. Back to the armrest, long legs stretching across the cushions toward you, head propped on one hand. The lamp throws soft light across the planes of his face— the glint of his glasses, the dark of his eyes behind them, the loose tie draped against his chest. He holds his wine loosely. He looks at you.
You look back.
You take a slow sip. He takes a slow sip. The wine is good. It’s rich and dry at the back of your throat, and the apartment is quiet except for the low ambient hum of the city through the windows, and you are both being extraordinarily civilized about this.
Your heels are still on. Deliberate. You're aware of them the way you're aware of a card kept close — the specific, familiar thing that makes his eyes track down and then back up with a particular quality of attention. So instead of tucking your feet under you like you normally would, you extend your legs across the gap between you and settle them in his lap.
His hand drops there on instinct.
Thumb moving across the straps, slow, tracing the buckle, the fine bones of your ankle, settling into the curve of your calf. The leather of your heel is warm from being worn all evening and his thumb moves against the strap like he's reading something written there. His eyes lift to yours. Drop to your legs. Lift again.
You hold his gaze.
And you brush the sole of your foot, slow and soft, across his crotch.
The breath that leaves him is thin and catches slightly on the way out. His jaw shifts. He lifts his wine and takes a measured sip and looks at the middle distance like he's considering a complex development problem, like this is purely academic, and you do it again— more intentional, a slow roll of your foot, watching— and his free hand grips the back of the couch. The fabric bunches under his fingers. His knuckles go pale.
The line of him pressing hard and obvious against his slacks.
You pull your bottom lip between your teeth. You keep going— unhurried, a rhythm now, watching the way his hips make the smallest involuntary tilt toward you, the way his breathing has changed, shallower and quicker at the edges, the way he's gripping the couch. His wine glass is half raised and not moving. A muscle in his jaw jumps.
He finishes his wine in one swallow.
Sets the glass on the table with a quiet click.
You stop.
Here it is, some part of you thinks. He'll stop. He hasn't wanted—
He turns back. His brow furrowed, his eyes dark, his hand still warm on your calf.
"Why'd you stop?"
Quiet. Genuine. Slightly wrecked.
You smile. You start again.
His head drops back— just a degree, just enough— and a low sound escapes him before he catches it, his hips rolling up once to meet the pressure of your foot, twice, his fingers flexing helplessly on your calf, and then something in him makes a decision.
His hands close on your knees.
He parts your legs and slides between them, in one smooth movement, settling on his knees like he has all the time in the world, the loose tie swinging forward from his collar. He looks down at you with a slow smile, unhurried and dark-eyed, and reaches to take the wine glass from your hand. Sets it beside his on the table.
Then he brackets you in.
Both palms flat on the cushions beside your thighs, the tie hanging between you, his face close enough that you can smell the wine on his breath and feel the warmth radiating off him. He is so much larger than he seems when he's hunched over a keyboard.
His nose nudges yours.
"Hi," you breathe.
He laughs, low and soft, and the vibration of it passes through the small space between you like a frequency. "Hi." His hands come up— wide palms cupping your face, thumbs at the hinge of your jaw, thumbs that could feel your pulse if they wanted to— and he kisses you.
Soft, first. Just the warmth of his mouth, the slight catch of his lower lip against yours, the exhale of his breath.
Then his hand slides down your side— the curve of your waist through the satin, the flare of your hip, down to the hem riding up your thigh. His finger finds you through the thin fabric and grazes, once, barely, a ghost of a touch, and you make a sound into his mouth that you immediately wish you could take back and would never actually take back.
"I've missed this," he murmurs. His mouth moves against yours when he speaks. You feel the words more than hear them. His hips press forward and the hard line of him presses into your stomach and your fingers curl into his shirt, the cotton warm and slightly wrinkled and smelling like him.
You pull back. Look at him— his flushed cheeks, his slightly fogged glasses, his mouth. "Whose fault is that?"
The flush deepens. He pushes his glasses up with one knuckle. Takes a small breath. "I'm sorry." He presses his mouth to your jaw, unhurried, the slight wet warmth of it. "I just had a lot to think about." His lips trail to your neck and he takes his time there— open-mouthed, slow, the edge of his teeth barely grazing your pulse point before his mouth seals over it. You feel it all the way down your sternum. "Wanted the next time to be good."
You go still.
His head comes up when you take his face in your hands.
"What do you mean?" you ask.
He blinks. His eyes do their thing— the quick dart left, back to you, off to some invisible middle distance, back to your face— the expression of a man rapidly auditing everything he just said.
"Well," he starts. "You know." He shifts on his knees. The fabric of his trousers pulls across his thighs. "After what we talked about, I wanted— I wanted you to enjoy it. I wanted it to actually be—"
"Baby." You look at him. "Did you think I asked for kinkier sex because I wasn't enjoying the sex we already have?"
He clicks his tongue. His mouth opens. Closes.
"...Yeah," he says.
You laugh— the disbelieving, incredulous, helplessly fond kind— and pull him in by the back of his neck and kiss him, and he makes a small surprised sound before kissing back, his hands finding your waist. "It's always good," you tell him, between kisses. "It's really good, it's great, it's—"
"Yeah?" He pulls back just enough. His eyes searching yours, wanting it to be true.
"You're good." You kiss him once, plainly, on the mouth. "Keys. You're good."
Something moves through his face like weather. The uncertainty of the last month traveling through and out of him, some long-held tension releasing in real time, and he looks at you like you've returned something he thought he'd lost. Then his eyes go dark.
He kisses you like he's been waiting to.
Slow and deep and thorough. His tongue licking into your mouth, tasting of wine and wanting, and you open for him because there's nothing else to do, and he takes his time with it the way he takes his time with everything he actually cares about. Long, languid strokes of his tongue against yours. His hand in your hair, tilting your head back. He sucks on your bottom lip— gently, drawing it out between his teeth, feeling the give of it— and then the top, and you are holding fistfuls of his shirt and breathing through your nose because your options are limited. The kiss is wet and unhurried and thorough and obscene and when he finally breaks it the string of saliva between your lips catches the lamplight before breaking, and you are both breathing in the same hot close rhythm, mouths barely apart, his glasses slightly fogged.
Keys sits back on his heels.
His voice is different now. Low and even and settled into something sure.
"I think we should move to the bedroom." Not a question. Not a suggestion. He's already rising, already extending his hand for yours. "I have something to show you."
He walks you there with his mouth at your spine.
Hands on your shoulders, lips moving down your bare back in slow reverent kisses, each one warm and slightly damp, and you look at the dresser while he does it— the black cloth folded precise and flat in the center, edges aligned.
You'd noticed it before you left. You'd had a dress to get into and you'd let it go.
His hands settle warm on your shoulders. His mouth finds the curve of your neck.
"Go on," he says softly, his breath at your ear, low and close and certain. "Look."
You pull back the cloth.
Three knives catch the low amber of the bedroom lamp— each one different, laid out in careful, deliberate order. The blades glint. The handles sit flush and even, and the cloth beneath them is folded without a wrinkle, and you understand all at once that he did this before dinner, that he laid them out before he straightened his tie and held the door open and pressed his hand to your back, that every moment of the evening— his thumb on your spine, the knife beneath the table, the way he looked at you when he licked the blade clean— was intentional.
His lips find the nape of your neck.
Warm. Unhurried. Like the knives on the dresser are perfectly normal and he has all the time in the world.
"Keys?"
"Hm." Not quite a question.
"What are these?"
He moves to your side, hand still at your back, and reaches out with his free hand to pick up the first one— a slim, dark-handled blade, narrow and elegant. "Okay so this one," he starts, in the particular tone he uses when he's about to explain something he has researched extensively and is slightly too excited about, "is a safety knife. The edge is designed to exert pressure without piercing, which means for surface dragging it's actually—"
He picks up the second one.
"And this one has a tanto point which I know looks more aggressive but structurally the tip geometry actually gives you more control when you're—"
You kiss him.
Soft and warm and right in the middle of his sentence, your hand at his jaw, and he makes a small surprised sound before melting into it— the way he always does, like every time is still slightly unexpected, like he hasn't caught up to the fact that you want to. When you pull back he blinks at you through his glasses.
You're smiling. You can't help it.
"So," you say. "That's what dinner was about."
He laughs— short, a little caught, looking off to the side with his hand coming up to push his glasses up even though they're fine. "I— well. I did research. Because you brought it up, so I figured—"
"I was expecting maybe handcuffs." You tilt your head. "Not straight to—"
You bite your bottom lip. Look at him.
Then you pull him in— slow, deep, your fingers at the back of his neck— and when you feel him lean into it you move your mouth to his jaw, the sharp line of it, then down to his throat where his pulse lives, and you feel it jump under your lips.
"Show me," you say against his skin, low and soft, "what you've learned."
The difference between show and tell. He knows your voice when it does this— the drop in register, the particular quiet of it. You feel him straighten. Feel his jaw tick against your lips.
His knuckle brushes your cheek. Then he steps behind you.
His mouth finds your shoulder first, the blade of it, then moves inward between your shoulder blades, pressing warm open kisses down your bare back. His foot wedges between yours, nudging them apart— casual, unhesitating, like rearranging furniture.
"Pick which one." Low and sharp at your ear.
Your stomach turns over. Heat pools deep at the base of your abdomen, a slow gathering ache, and you feel his hand slide between your thighs from behind without hesitation— his fingers pressing against the fabric of your underwear in one long, certain stroke.
"Keys—" His name comes out broken and wanting.
His hand stills completely.
"I said choose." A beat of silence, his breath warm at the back of your neck. "Or I won't continue."
You swallow. Your eyes move across the dresser, the three knives glinting, each one different. You point to the middle one. Sage green handle, the blade medium-length and slightly curved, warm-toned in this light.
"Pick it up."
Your hand is not entirely steady when you reach for it. The handle is smooth and cool against your palm, lighter than it looks, and your back arches involuntarily as Keys' right hand snakes around your front and back under the hem of your dress— his fingers trailing up the inside of your thigh in one slow deliberate path, the pads of his fingertips dragging against the sensitive skin there, unhurried as if he's reading the terrain and finding it satisfactory.
His hand slips beneath the waistband.
His fingers graze you— once, barely— and your hips rock toward him.
His free hand clamps onto your thigh. Stopping you completely.
"Nope." Almost amused. "Show me how the knife looks against you."
You exhale shakily. Bring the blade up toward your chest, watching it catch the light, and in the mirror above the dresser you can see him watching you— his dark eyes tracking the movement of your hand, his pupils blown wide, black swallowing hazel, his mouth parted just slightly.
His finger slips inside you.
You gasp. It’s a sharp bright sound, and he kisses your shoulder once, sweetly, like a contradiction.
"So wet," he murmurs against your skin, soft and wondering, like he's noting something privately.
Then he swirls his finger, slow and thorough, stretching, and the sweetness of it doesn't distract you from what his hand is doing at all, and you sigh out something that doesn't resolve into a word.
A second finger.
The thing about Keys— the specific, devastating thing— is his hands. You've always known this in a background sort of way, watching them on a keyboard, watching them pour wine, watching them cut a steak with quiet precision. Long fingers. The kind that know how to apply pressure. He uses both now, curling slightly as he finds his rhythm, and you react to it immediately, a full-body answer, your free hand flying to grip the dresser's edge.
He sets a pace.
Steady and deep, his fingers working in and out of you, and then his thumb finds your clit— not precise, not yet, a sloppy circle that is nevertheless catastrophically effective— and the electricity of it shoots from your hips up your spine and short-circuits something in your brain. Your head falls back onto his shoulder. Your knees lose their opinion about bearing weight. The knife in your hand trembles.
His other hand covers yours.
He tsks.
And then the knife is no longer in your grip. It’s lifted smooth and easy, and you feel the chill of the flat of the blade against the side of your face. Slow. Moving from your cheekbone downward, the cool metal a shock against flushed skin.
You open your eyes.
In the mirror, Keys is watching himself do it. His mouth is open slightly. His brow is drawn together in concentration, or want, or something that lives in the space between them. His throat moving as he swallows, his Adam's apple dipping once. The blade drifts lower. The edge comes close to your throat and his arm tightens around you from behind, and you watch him watch you, and his fingers curl.
You arch.
"Careful," he says, low and even, barely above a breath. "Wouldn't want you to get hurt, do we?"
He punctuates it by thrusting his fingers faster, his thumb pressing harder against your clit, and the moan that escapes you is genuinely embarrassing and you cannot bring yourself to care. Your hips roll toward his hand despite everything and pleasure builds in thick gathering waves at your core, tightening—
"I don't want to ruin such a pretty face."
His breath is hot against your neck, the words pressed into your skin, and something about the register of his voice— low and dark and certain, so far from the man you know— undoes something in you completely. Your arm shoots back. Your fingers find his hair and grip, pulling, and your head presses hard into his shoulder and his name comes apart in your mouth in two broken syllables.
He works faster.
The flat of the blade traces down the length of your arm, the one thrown back around him— cool against the heat of your skin, following the line from your shoulder toward your elbow— and he hits that spot with his fingers again, the one that makes your vision go briefly white at the edges, and you wriggle, whole-body, a helpless squirm—
The hiss leaves you before you feel it.
A small bright sting at your bicep. Not pain exactly but a sudden sharp awareness of it, immediate and clarifying.
You catch his eyes in the mirror.
You watch the panic move across his face in real time— his brow snapping together, his jaw tightening, his gaze dropping to the tiny bead of blood welling at your skin. Barely a nick. It barely broke surface. But you can see his thoughts written plainly across his expression, the self-directed alarm of someone whose entire preparation was in service of not doing that one thing—
You grind back against his hand.
A broken sound, low in your throat. Keep going. I'm fine. Keep going.
He goes still.
He looks at you.
You hold his gaze in the mirror and rock your hips again, and watch him wrestle with it— the worry and the wanting— and then his expression settles into something else. Something with an edge.
He frowns.
"Told you." He dips his head and his mouth closes over the small nick— warm, his tongue pressing flat against your skin, licking it clean in one slow stroke. Then a kiss, pressed directly to the spot, his lips lingering. "This is why we stay still, honey."
The word lands soft and devastating. Honey. Like a reprimand wrapped in something tender.
Your fingers tighten in his hair. You press back against him— the hard line of him through his slacks unmistakable, heat and want and the undeniable evidence of exactly what this is doing to him— and a cry tears out of you when he removes his fingers–– sharp. Sudden. Bereft. Your hips chasing something that's already gone.
"K-Keys—"
He moves fast.
One hand at your waist, spinning you— the room swinging— your back meeting the edge of the dresser as he walks you into it, one smooth decisive motion. The sage-handled knife comes up, the flat of the blade cool and certain beneath your chin, tipping your face up.
You look at him.
He looks back.
His glasses are slightly askew. His collar is open, his tie hanging loose, his white shirt untucked on one side. His cheeks are flushed and his eyes are black and he is looking at you with the focused, patient, unhurried expression of a man who has done his research.
"I told you to stay still." Low. Even.
The blade is cool against your throat. His eyes don't move from yours.
"You'll come," he says quietly, "when I think you're ready to."
He straightens.
One hand comes up to adjust his glasses, and you catch it— the slight tremble in his fingers as he pushes them up the bridge of his nose. Just a flicker. A tell. The composed, dark-eyed stranger who has been running this show all evening still has Keys McKey living inside him, and Keys McKey is a man who spent a month on research forums and ordered three knives and laid them out on a dresser because he loves you and was nervous about it.
You hold onto it for approximately two seconds before the tip of the blade touches your throat.
It moves slowly. A millimeter of pressure at a time, tracing down the column of your neck— not the edge, just the tip, a single point of cool steel that your pulse hammers against like it's trying to meet it. your breath goes shallow and your chin tips back and you watch him watch the knife move.
His jaw is set. His eyes track it with the focused, careful attention he gives things that matter.
Down your throat. To the hollow at its base. Then lower, following the line of your sternum, into the valley between your breasts, the blade cold where your skin is hot, the contrast of it pulling a soft involuntary sound from somewhere low in your chest.
He reaches the halter.
The tip catches the fabric— a light tug, lifting it slightly away from your skin— and he holds it there. His eyes finally lift from the knife to your face.
"I think," he says, quiet and even, each word deliberate, "if you know what's good for you—"
A pause.
The corner of his mouth moves. Just barely. A flicker of a smirk, there and gone, like he can't help it, like Keys is still in there behind all that composure and finding this at least a little bit funny and refusing to let it win.
"—you should take this off."
The apartment is silent except for your breathing.
You hold his gaze.
And you reach behind you.
Your fingers find the tie at the nape of your neck— the same strings he'd been playing with all evening, in the car, at the dinner table, fingers looping and releasing like he was thinking about this exact moment— and you pull the bow loose, slow, watching his face while you do it.
His throat moves.
The fabric goes slack.
The dress pools at your feet.
Satin whispering down your body in one smooth fall, settling in a plum circle around your ankles, around the heels you're still wearing, and you are standing in maroon lace and lamplight and nothing else. You have always been easy in your own skin with Keys, but the knife is in his hand and his face is unreadable and his eyes are moving over you with the slow, thorough attention of someone taking inventory, and the room is cold in a way that has nothing to do with the temperature.
Your arms begin to cross over your chest.
The tip of the blade presses to the center of your belly. One point of cool steel, light, immovable.
"Nuh-uh." His voice is low and even. His eyes stay on your face. "Let me see you." The tip traces a small idle circle against your skin. "Wanna figure out what to do with you."
The heat that moves through your stomach at that has nothing to do with embarrassment anymore.
Your arms fall.
He looks at you. All of you, unhurried, like he's memorizing something. Then the knife tilts toward the bed.
"Sit."
You go.
The mattress gives beneath you and you settle at the edge of it, and Keys stands over you— the full height of him, white shirt open at the collar, tie hanging loose, the lamp throwing gold across one side of his face— and he smiles at you.
One moment. Warm and private. Entirely him.
Then he turns back to the dresser, picks up a different knife, and comes back to the bed.
He moves behind you. His knees bracket your hips, his weight settling warm, and his mouth finds your neck. It’s open, slow, the heat of his breath arriving before his lips do. The sounds he makes are unguarded and close, low and wanting. His chest presses against your back and lower down you feel him hard against you and you arch without deciding to, your spine curving into the solid warmth of him, and the groan it pulls from his throat is the most honest sound you've heard all evening.
The blade slips under the band of your bra.
He pauses.
"This looks expensive," he mutters, his lips moving against your shoulder.
It is. He knows exactly how expensive it is. He bought it. He bought all of it, the bra and the panties and the heels and the dress now crumpled on his floor, because you sent him a link once and it arrived the next morning and neither of you ever said anything about it.
He doesn't wait for an answer.
The blade catches and pulls and the fabric parts. It’s a clean rip, your tits bouncing slightly. The breath that leaves him at the sight is brief and stuttered and swallowed quickly, like he caught himself.
His hand moves the remaining fabric aside.
His nose nudges against your cheek— soft, unhurried, the gentlest thing in the room right now— and he presses one kiss below your ear. Goosebumps chase each other up your arms in a wave, every fine hair rising, your body reading the tenderness of it as its own kind of threat.
His palm spreads flat across your stomach. Travels upward. Wraps around your throat. No pressure, fingers loose, the weight of his hand a collar of warmth, and with the other he brings the knife to your tits.
He traces your nipples with the edge.
Slow. Watching. His chin at your shoulder, his eyes tracking your face in the mirror across the room as your body answers him— the way they harden under the cool metal, the soft gasp that slips out before you can close your mouth around it, the way your thighs press together and find nothing. His hand at your throat tightens by a fraction.
His thumb finds your lower lip. Opens you.
He kisses you and it is nothing like the careful, checking-in kisses from the couch— this is all tongue and heat and intention, licking into your mouth with the patience of someone who has made a decision and is in no hurry to finish making it. When he pulls back the sound it makes is soft and obscene and he moves away from you entirely and you whine, audible and undignified, before you can stop yourself.
You turn to look at him.
"Lay down."
You hold his gaze as you move.
Hands and knees first, crawling up the length of the bed and then you roll onto your back and he's already there. Straddling your hips, his weight grounding and warm, both hands wrapping your wrists in one careful motion and pinning them above your head. His face hangs over yours. His lips brush the corner of your mouth— barely— and you chase them and he lets you almost reach before pulling back, the smirk flickering at his mouth again, the knife resting cool against your cheek.
His nose nudges yours.
He shifts lower, straddling your thighs, and the knife begins its slow path down your body— more pressure now than before, the edge tracing from your collarbone to your sternum in a firm bright line, dragging sensation in its wake that your whole body lights up to receive. He releases your wrists.
"Stay still for me." The register of his voice has gone somewhere quieter and more certain, the particular tone that lands behind your sternum and stays there. "I know you can be good." His tongue drags across his lower lip. "Can you do that?"
"Y-yes."
He raises an eyebrow. Already moving, smirking, pushing down on your hips, widening you. He kisses right beside your pussy and inside your thigh,his teeth grazing your inner thigh in a brief sharp nip that makes you flinch against the mattress.
"Yes, Keys. I promise."
His nose drags along the hem of your underwear. A kiss pressed just above your center, right where the lace is damp, and his exhale is warm through the fabric and you feel it everywhere.
"And you promise to tell me stop if you want me to stop?"
"Yes. I promise. Please — please just—"
He sits back on his heels.
"Watch," he says.
Your head lifts. Your hands stay. You watch him bring the knife to the side of your underwear— a pause, one breath— and then he cuts. The fabric gives in one sharp motion and you whimper at the sound of it, at the flat of the blade pressing against you through the remaining lace and dragging down in a slow deliberate pull. The second cut. The fabric snaps free and falls away.
The blade hovers.
He presses it flat against your center and drags. Up, down, a slow measured stroke that makes your fingers curl into the pillow— and then light taps, rhythmic, against your pussy. you are pressing your lips together so hard they go white, your heels digging into the mattress, holding yourself still through sheer stubbornness.
The knife drifts lower. Barely parts you. Your head drops back.
He reaches up. One hand, fluid— the tie loosening from his collar in a single pull— and through the open buttons of his shirt you catch a glimpse of his chest, the dark hair there, the flush spreading down.
The knife taps once against your center.
"Sit up."
You sit. He leans forward and the tie comes up, and the world goes dark and soft and immediate. His mouth finds your ear.
"This okay?"
"Yes."
He ties it. His fingers move through your hair, smoothing it back from your face.
"Tell me stop if you need me to."
"I will," you breathe.
His large hands lay you back— warm and careful, guiding— and your wrists find their place above your head again without being told. The darkness makes everything else louder: the rustle of fabric, the soft clink of his belt, a pause, the thud of it meeting the floor. The bed dips. His mouth presses soft against your center. One kiss, unhurried, almost sweet then followed by a few slow passes of his tongue over your clit that make your whole body shudder, wrung out and wanting more at the same time.
He moves up your body.
His chest brushes yours— the sparse hair there, the warmth of his skin, and he's shed the shirt but kept the slacks, the leather of the belt gone but the fabric still rough against the inside of your thigh as he settles over you. He grinds against you once, slow, and the sound that comes out of you has no shape to it.
The knife finds your ribs.
Not the edge— the flat, pressed firm against your skin, dragging from your ribs to your sternum in a line of cool pressure that your nerve endings receive like a current. Down your stomach. Across the curve of your tits. Your skin maps every millimeter of it. Beneath the blindfold, every sensation doubles. The steel and his mouth arriving in sequence, lips pressing warm into every path the blade has drawn, teeth catching the skin at your hip, your inner thigh, the back of your knee as the knife travels lower. The threat of the edge and the warmth of his mouth are the same language. Your body stops trying to tell them apart.
The handle presses against your entrance.
A soft wince— the fullness of it, the strangeness— and his hand moves to your hip immediately.
"You can take it, baby." Low and even, his lips against your shoulder. "We both know you can."
Shallow at first. Patient. His thumb finds your clit and the combination of it drags a cry from somewhere in your chest, your hands fisting the pillow, knuckles aching. He angles it — searching, methodical— and when he finds the right place your thighs try to close around his hand.
His palm lands flat on your knee. Holds you open.
Tears prick at the corners of your eyes. The pleasure builds in thick stacking waves, a tightening that starts deep in your stomach and radiates outward with each pump, each precise circle of his thumb, your own sounds reaching you from a slight distance—
"Keys—" Your voice cracks on the second syllable. "I'm — I'm so close—"
His thumb tightens its circles. His pace quickens.
"Keys— I'm going to—"
Everything stops.
The handle withdraws. His thumb lifts. The absence is so sudden your whole body arches into nothing, hips rolling against empty air.
"Please—" The word comes out broken and small. "Baby, please — why—"
"What did I tell you, hm?" Quiet. Patient. Not unkind.
You swallow. Your throat works around it. "You'll finish when you want me to."
"Yes."
The flat of the blade comes back to your throat.
"That's my girl."
It lifts. His lips replace it— soft, warm, held there for a breath— and then the bed dips as he moves off it. You go still. You stay still. You listen to the room: his breathing, the faint sounds of the city below, the particular quiet of him standing nearby and watching you hold yourself in place for him.
He comes back.
His mouth finds your center again— soft, careful, a few slow passes that make your thighs tremble— and then his hands are moving up your body, relearning it, warm and unhurried, and his mouth finds yours. The kiss is wet and deep, his tongue moving against yours, and you taste him and breathe him in and grab onto any part of him you can reach. His mouth moves to your jaw, your throat, your chest, taking his time, no hurry anywhere in his body.
His hand moves between you.
The tip of him against your entrance— a light tap against your clit that makes you whimper— and then he presses forward and buries himself inside you in one slow, full stroke.
The sound you make isn't a word. You're not sure you have any left.
His hands settle at your hips and he moves— deep, steady, each thrust rolling through you— and you can feel him everywhere, the stretch and heat of him, the slight throb that tells you the entire evening has wound him as tight as it's wound you. Your hands fly to his arms, his shoulders, gripping whatever you can find.
"Feels so good, Keys— fuck—"
His thumb finds your clit. Lazy, imprecise circles— barely working for it— and it doesn't matter because the buildup of the entire evening— the dinner, the knife under the table, all of it— has reduced your threshold to almost nothing. Your walls tighten around him and he makes a low rough sound that he doesn't try to swallow.
"I can feel you." His fingers dig into the soft inside of your thigh, keeping you open, keeping you there. His voice drops to something softer. "Cum for me, honey. It's okay. I've got you."
And there it is.
Not the knife. Not the blade or the blindfold or any of it— it's that, the I've got you, the Keys who will do anything for you, who spent a month on research forums at two in the morning because he wanted to get it right, who is somehow both the man holding a knife to your throat and the man who asks the Uber driver to have a good night—
The feeling crests and breaks.
You cum with your nails in his skin and his name on your lips, your heels pressing into the mattress, the wave moving through you long and complete. He works you through it without stopping, thumb maintaining its circles until your thighs are shaking and you're pulling at his wrist—
He pulls out. Shifts your hips in one smooth motion— your leg tossed over— and slides back in from behind, the new angle pulling a sharp sound from both of you. One large hand gripping a fistful of your ass.
You writhe.
"Hold still." A grunt against the back of your neck, breathless, his hips snapping forward. "Let me finish."
His pace builds— one hand at your hip, one palming your tit, the room filling with the sounds of it, skin and heat and his breathing going ragged— and you are already climbing again and you reach to find him.
"Need to see you." Wrecked, honest, wanting. "Please."
The hand at your chest disappears.
The blindfold tears free.
Light floods in. The amber lamp. And his face— his face— flushed dark and completely undone, glasses knocked sideways, his mouth open and pink, sounds falling out of him that he has entirely stopped trying to manage. His eyes find yours and even now, even here, even like this, something in them goes soft.
You tip over the edge again. He follows. His hips stuttering, rhythm collapsing into something sloppy and desperate— your name first, clearly, and then a scatter of words that don't cohere, syllables breaking apart as he shudders through it, burying himself deep, his whole body trembling with the effort of holding himself up by your waist.
The room settles around you both.
He’s panting, chest moving up and down. Outside, the city hums its indifferent low note.
He reaches up and pushes his glasses back to the bridge of his nose with one finger.
His tongue finds the corner of his mouth. He looks thoroughly, completely wrecked— hair mussed, shirt somewhere on the floor, cheeks dark— and he shifts. He repositions you until he can see all of you again. His gaze travels down and goes still.
His large hand settles warm and heavy at the base of your stomach.
He reaches to the nightstand. The knife catches the lamplight as he picks it up, and he brings the edge close, carefully, and gathers, spreading it on your pussy at first. Slowly, his eyes tracking the movement with the same focused attention he gives everything he cares about. He holds the blade up. Examines it. Then he looks at you, something dark and wondering moving through his expression, the faint beginning of a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth.
He does it again. Both sides.
Then he sets the knife down and looks at you and crooks two fingers.
You sit up, moving to him, folding your legs to the side, watching his face for the explanation. His hand cups your jaw. His thumb opens your mouth— pressing inside briefly, warm— and he withdraws it and brings the knife up instead, and you understand.
You lean forward and press your tongue flat against the blade— metallic, warm from his hand, the salt and spent of both of you— and then you feel him lean in too. His tongue alongside yours on the flat of it, his eyes tipping up to find yours over the blade.
Together.
You both sit back. Swallow.
He reaches out and wipes the corner of your mouth with his thumb— slow, absent, like he's thinking about something else— and then he kisses you. Once, soft, his mouth and yours slow and tenderly sweet.
"Let's get you cleaned up," he says quietly.
He sets the knife on the nightstand. Looks at it for a moment. Looks back at you and that dopey smile breaks through again, helpless and warm and completely Keys.
"And then after," he glances at the nightstand, back to you, "we should look into ordering those handcuffs."
Later, he's on his back with one arm tucked behind his head and the other around you, your cheek pressed to his chest, rising and falling with him. His heartbeat has slowed to something easy.
His thumb moves in a slow absent arc across your shoulder. Up and back. Up and back. The same motion he's probably been making all night without knowing it, muscle memory, some part of him always finding the nearest patch of your skin and staying there. His glasses are on the nightstand. Without them his face looks softer, younger.
You tip your head up to look at him.
His eyes are already closed, his lips slightly parted, his chest moving in the long even rhythm of someone almost asleep. A curl has fallen back against his forehead. The flush hasn't fully left his cheeks.
You settle back down against his chest and listen to his heartbeat and say nothing, because nothing needs saying.
His thumb keeps moving. Up and back. Up and back.
That night, you decide, you love your boyfriend quite a lot.
Doctor McKey might scold you for inability to take things easy, but that might just be because you're his favourite patient.
pairing: doctor!walter mckey x figure skater!reader
words: 3.3k
contains: fluff, idiots in love, likely inaccurate medical descriptions, doctor!keys!! i repeat, DOCTOR!KEYS, female reader, no use of y/n, she/her pronouns for reader.
author's note: request by 💫 nonnie | another one for the 3k special and i am on my knees thanking you for this request. this was my proper first keys fics and i am so glad that it was for doctor keys! i adored writing this one!
taglist | masterlist | 3k special masterlist | requests page
When Keys looked up at the triage board and saw ‘Figure skater – Possible stress fracture – Room 12’ he knew almost instantly it was you.
“Are you kidding me?” He mutters to himself as the charge nurse Monica hands him your file with a knowing smile. “Really? Her, again? Can’t I go to Trauma 3 instead?”
Monica glances up at the board and then looks back at Keys, amused. “You’d choose a motorcycle accident over a pretty figure skater?”
Keys clicks his against the roof of his mouth because he knew Monica had a point. He had a rough morning in the ER which included a chest puncture from a stab wound, an open fracture and a drowning victim that they hadn’t been able to save. A possible stress fracture would be a breath of fresh air in comparison to the morning he had.
But the thought of treating you for yet another figure skating-related wound irked Keys. Especially when he had told you only three weeks ago to take things easy after you had come in with inflammation on your ankle. In fact, he had told you countless times to stop being reckless, to stop trying to perfect your lutz jump or whatever it was called when you needed to rest your swollen ankles, to not push yourself any more than you needed to. But did you ever listen to him? Evidently not.
“Fine,” Keys says with a forced smile at Monica. “But only because I’m a good doctor. Because I care about all my patients.”
“Some more than others,” Monica mutters quietly. Keys pretends that he hadn’t heard her as he walks towards Room 12.
Ever since you had started figure skating professionally almost four years ago, you had visited the ER around twenty five to thirty times, give or take. Between sprains, swollen muscles, gashes, cuts and one or two concussions, you knew the ER department like the back of your hand. You knew the doctors, the nurses, the trainees, the cleaners, the receptionists and of course you knew Doctor Keys.
When you first met him he had still been a student doctor, having just finished medical school. You had sustained a small laceration on your leg and Keys had been the one to stitch you up. You had talked his ear off about how you had gotten into ice skating after watching Ice Princess when you were a kid, how you had bought your first pair of skates at fourteen and had never looked back. Keys didn’t quite understand why you would choose such a dangerous hobby and had told you to bear more careful next time. You had come back barely a week later with another, slightly bigger laceration.
For some unknown reason, maybe fate, maybe it was simply Monica’s strange sense of humour but whenever you came into the ER, he was always your doctor. And so, you had built quite the rapport with Doctor McKey. You teased him, he scolded you for being reckless and the cycle continued—another injury, another lecture, another promise you’d be back soon. The whole department was aware of it too. Keys had even once overheard Nurse Martinez and Doctor Bennett discussing a bet on how many injuries you were going to sustain that year and how long it was going to take before Keys finally lost it.
But he hadn’t. Not yet.
“There’s my favourite doctor,” you greet Keys as he walks into your room with a smile that doesn’t entirely cover up the pain you were in.
Keys hums in acknowledgement, though his ears turn a little red at your words. That was another thing about you—you teased him relentlessly. Monica called it flirting, Keys called it annoying.
“You know, I did tell you this might happen if you didn’t rest your ankle,” Keys comments, unable to stop himself from doing so as he approaches your hospital bed to have a closer look at your ankle. He could see that the flesh was swollen, tender.
“I know but I wanted an excuse to see you,” you say with a bright smile before you tilt your head to the side. “Did you get new glasses by the way?”
Keys pauses, hazel eyes flickering over to you as a faint flush begins to creep up his neck. You were wearing a grey zip up hoodie but your skating costume beneath was peaking out—Keys could see the obnoxious glittering orange material that you had worn a couple times before.
“I did,” he answers, his ears remaining that signature red as pushes up his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
“They’re cute,” you tell him. “Suit you.”
Keys decides to ignore you. Though of course you notice the way the flush had spread up to his cheeks
After a gentle assessment, Keys confirms that you had a stress fracture. If he was honest, he was pissed off about it. You hadn’t listened three weeks ago when you had come into the ER with inflammation. You had continued to be your usual, reckless self and now you were at risk of chronic pain or permanent damage to your ankle if you didn’t rest for at least eight weeks.
“Eight weeks?” You echo, your playful facade faltering for the first time as Keys notices the genuine panic in your eyes. “But this is my job! I have a competition soon, I can’t take eight weeks out—”
“—either you take eight weeks out or you risk never being able to skate again,” Keys tells you bluntly. “Your choice.”
For perhaps the first time in four years, you look genuinely worried. Terrified even and Keys starts to feel bad for being so direct with you as he watches the way your fingers curl into the sheets of the hospital bed and how you look away from him with a tight jaw.
Keys hated to admit that he cared about you way more than he wanted to. That he felt a tightening in his chest whenever he saw the words ‘figure skater’ on the triage board. That the reason he got so short with you sometimes was because he wanted you to listen to him, wanted you to take what he said seriously so he didn’t have to worry about you anymore.
And there was a part of him that felt as though he failed you every time you showed up to the ER, every time you had to wait in the waiting room for hours on end. That was the part of himself he didn’t want to think too much about, didn’t want to think about why he cared so much about a patient. Why he cared that your eyes were now slightly glassy as your gaze fixed determinedly on the call bell.
“Look—I know it sucks and I know you love your job but if you put any more stress on this ankle by doing anymore Axels or Solcows—”
“—it’s Salchow—”
“—whatever it’s called. You do more of that? You’re going to cause some irreversible damage and I wouldn’t want that for you.”
You swallow, worrying your bottom lip between your teeth before you turn to look back at Keys.
“So eight weeks?” You repeat in a quiet voice.
“Eight weeks,” Keys confirms with a small nod and sympathetic smile. “Rest as much as you can and make sure to keep it elevated. Ice it when possible. If you need to take anti-inflammatory medication I can prescribe you some to save you a trip to the pharmacy and an ACE wrap would be preferable.”
“That’s a long list, Doc,” you say with a small smile. “But I’ll try to remember. I promise.”
Keys nod, trying not to think about the way that small smile had made his entire day.
“I’ll get some medication for you and a nurse will be over soon to wrap your ankle,” he tells you. “Don’t go anywhere.”
You snort with laughter and it’s a struggle for Keys to not smile at that sound.
“Can’t anyway,” you say. “Doctor’s orders.”
You stay in the ER for the next three hours, waiting for a nurse to become available to wrap your ankle, waiting for your prescription to be ready and finally waiting to be discharged. In that time, Doctor Keys had checked up on you six times. Not that you were counting.
“Don’t you have other patients you should be checking up on?” You ask him with a smile the seventh time he walks into your room to check your vitals for no apparent reason. “I don’t want there to be a HIPAA violation because you’re worried I’m going to burst into flames or something.”
Keys goes red—now that you had called him out for it, he was beginning to realise just how much he had been checking up on you.
“As far as I’m aware, bursting into flames isn’t a symptom of stress fracture,” he murmurs. “But what do I know? I only went to medical school for like five or six years.”
It took a moment for you to realise that for once, Keys was being indulging in your playful teasing and it was so endearing to you that you couldn’t help but smile. You open your mouth to continue the tennis match of playfulness when a nurse walks in.
“Oh sorry, Doctor McKey,” the nurse says with a nod. “I have her discharge papers here.”
“Oh,” Keys says, smiling at the nurse who hands him the papers. “Cool. Thank you, Nurse Richards.”
“I’m free to go?” You ask as the door closes shut behind the nurse.
“You’re free to go,” Keys confirms with a nod, ignoring the pit in his stomach at the thought of you leaving.
You manage to manoeuvre yourself off the hospital bed, hobbling a little to keep weight off your ankle as you grab your skating bag from the nearby armchair.
“Is someone picking you up?” Keys asks, watching your ankle carefully as you swing your bag over your shoulder. He knew your skates were in there from how heavy the bag looked. “Like your parents? A friend? A partner?”
Keys knew that the last suggestion had been loaded and that you could see right through him but you didn’t comment on it.
“No, I was just going to get an Uber,” you tell him.
Keys should have left it there. Should have told you to rest your ankle and sent you on your way. But instead, Keys opened his mouth and said something he almost instantly regretted.
“I could take you back home,” he says so suddenly that he surprises even himself. “Um, I have my lunch coming up so—I don’t mind taking you back home on my break.”
Why did he open his mouth? Why did he just offer to drive you home? Why did you have to look so damn pretty in that—
“Okay,” you say, forcing Keys out of the spiral he had been out to descend into. “Yeah. If that wasn’t a problem then—that would be great. Thank you, Doctor McKey.”
“It’s Keys,” he says gently. “Please, call me Keys.”
It was no surprise to you whatsoever that Doctor McKey—Keys—drove a Toyota Prius. It also didn’t surprise you that his most listened to artist was Noah Kahan or that the last playlist he had listened to had been called ‘Calming Mix’.
“Can you stop going through my Spotify?” Keys asks you, face red as his eyes remain on the road while you flick through the app on the screen in his car.
“You said I could be in charge of the music—”
“—you’ve also been trying to find a song for the past five minutes—”
“—in my defence, I am high on pain medication—”
“—you had one Advil like an hour ago—”
The back and forth between you and Keys carries on for the entire car journey to your apartment. In the end, you selected Staying Still just as Keys pulled into your street.
“Thank you Doc—Keys,” you say when his car finally stops. “You really didn’t have to.”
“I know,” Keys says with a curt nod. “But I wanted to. An Uber from the hospital would have been extortionate.”
“Sure,” you say with a small laugh as you reach for the door handle. “Well—I’ll see you in eight weeks for the all clear.”
Keys watches as you open up the car door, watches as you go to step out and—
“Do you mind if I stop by to um—to check you’re doing okay?” He asks you in a slight panic because all of a sudden, eight weeks was too long to not see you. “Bring you groceries or…whatever you need.”
You had half climbed out of his car at this point but you pause at the question, turning to look back at him with a smile tugging on the corners of your mouth.
“Is this in a professional context? Like are you gonna bring a stethoscope or—”
“—no,” Keys shakes his head, feeling his face burn as he wonders what the fuck he was doing. “No stethoscope."
“Shame,” you tell him with a wry smile. “I like the whole McDreamy thing you got going on.”
“Mc—what—”
But instead of answering, you finally climb out of his car before limping towards your apartment door. And Keys begins to wonder what the fuck had he just done.
Keys waits a respectable amount of time—four days—before he first shows up at your apartment door with his arms full of groceries. He had spent way too much time and way too much money on the grocery shop for you but he told himself it was all in aid for your recovery. That he was being a good doctor.
But then he kept showing up. With groceries, with pizza from that Italian palace he knew you liked and one time, with some cupcakes he had “accidentally” bought too many of. And after the first few visits, you began to invite him in—for dinner, for a few episodes of whatever TV it was that you were watching. And Keys was happy to note that you were actually listening to his advice—that you were resting, keeping your leg elevated as much as you could and that you hadn’t been skating since the trip to the ER.
It had been six weeks since then and Keys was over every couple of days now. You found that you had memorised the sound of his car pulling up outside your apartment. You found that those days Keys came over had quietly become your favourite. And Keys found himself thinking of excuses to visit you. He sometimes left his jacket on your couch just to come over the next day or because he had found a TV that he knew you’d like and needed to tell you about it immediately.
It was a Friday night and Keys had a difficult day in the ER. You didn’t ask what had happened but you had heard about the fatal car crash that had occurred in the city earlier that day. The one that had killed an entire family. And so, you had suggested trying to make pizzas from scratch. It had gone horribly but Keys had managed to crack a smile for the first time that day.
You beam when you see it and you can’t help yourself. Because Keys had been so good to you over the past few weeks that you wanted—needed—to say thank you. And so, you set down the dough you had been kneading with your hands for the past few minutes before you lean towards him, your lips aiming for his cheek.
But at that exact moment, Keys turned his head—likely to ask you to pass the sauce or the olives or whatever, you don’t find out—because instead of your lips landing on his cheek—they plant themselves directly onto his lips.
The millisecond or so that your lips were pressed together, you find that his were soft. Pillowy. Ones you wanted to melt into.
But the accidental kiss lasts barely a second before the both of you pull away as though scolded.
“Oh god,” you gasp, your face hot as you stare at Keys with wide eyes. “Oh my god—I’m so sorry! I was trying to kiss you on the cheek but you turned and I—”
“—no, no, no,” Keys says hurriedly, his face so red that he was almost the same colour as the tomatoey sauce as he raises his hands in surrender. “Don’t be sorry! I mean—it was an honest mistake. A big, big massive mistake—”
You laugh but it doesn’t meet your eyes as the words big, massive mistake settle somewhere in your gut. Oh god, you felt awful for making him so uncomfortable but you didn’t know what to say as he backed away from you a little. And so, you tell yourself that the best thing to do was laugh it off.
“Wow,” you say with a forced laugh. “Didn’t think you’d hate the idea of kissing me that much.”
You say it as a joke—you mean it as a joke but your tone makes it sound like anything but. Keys also stops kneading the pizza dough while you look away, not wanting him to see the look of disappointment on your face.
But before you could even think about returning your attention back to your half-made pizza, both of Keys’ large hands are suddenly resting gently on either side of your neck.
“Keys? What are you—”
Whatever you had been about to say is lost as Keys pulls you in. You barely have time to register what exactly was happening before his lips meet yours purposefully this time and suddenly? Nothing else matters.
His lips were still soft, still pillowy and they were gliding against yours as though they belonged there. You melted into him, your hands finding their way into his hair as his glasses pressed uncomfortably into your face. But you didn’t care—not as you felt his warm tongue dive into your mouth in a move that left you feeling hot all over, that left the blood running through your veins humming.
Keys kissed you like he never wanted to stop, not caring about the flour that was now in his hair from your hands. And likewise, you didn’t care about the flour that was now all over your neck. Not when kissing Keys felt this good. Not when his thumb gently traced over the skin of your neck as he deepened the kiss further, tilting your head back ever so slightly as you clung to him.
It was the sort of kiss that could have lasted for hours. But the sound of the pizza cutter that had been perched precariously on the edge of the kitchen countertop clattering to the ground was the thing that finally pulled you both apart.
You were both breathless, flustered and both unable to stop yourselves from smiling.
“I don’t remember that being on my treatment plan, Doc,” you tease him.
Keys rolls his eyes but he’s smiling. He leans in to gently press his forehead against yours, licking his bottom lip as his eyes shift between yours. “You make me sick sometimes, sweetheart,” he tells you before leaning in to press a gentle, sweet kiss to your lips. “But good thing you’re the cure for it too.”
Your stomach warms at his words and it’s impossible not to beam at his words.
“Maybe I should get stress fractures more often if this is the sort of treatment you deliver.”
Keys shakes his head before pressing a kiss to your forehead. “Absolutely not. I’m wrapping you up in bubblewrap to keep you out of harm's way.”
You laugh but you have a feeling that he wasn’t joking. Because there was no way Keys was letting his favourite patient ever get hurt again.
the over all vibe… cock warming 🙂 (I just found out what this is) OR (or both up to you) passionate to more aggressive
cock warming with keys
short one shot, more fluffy than smutty, mdni
you really can't be blamed for wanting to be close to your boyfriend after spending so much time apart today! all you have wanted since the moment he walked through the door is to stay by his side and get all of his attention, and maybe it is a little silly, but you can't help the way you feel. after waiting for him to come home for hours all you want now is to be with keys, to feel his touch and see his face.
you can't help being a needy girlfriend.. now everything you need is to have keys near you and to feel his warmth, the familiar smell of his cologne the feeling of his arm around you and his quiet sighs and breaths. it is all so comforting that it makes the loneliness you felt earlier go away in just a few seconds.
you jump into his lap while he is still working on his computer, but it does not bother him at all. he just moves a little on the bed so you can sit comfortably and then puts his arm around your waist, it is something he does so naturally that it makes you feel warm and tingly.
since you are both tired you do not do much except put your arms around his neck and give him kisses. sometimes you leave marks on his skin but they are so small that you can only see them if you look closely. uou do not want him to be embarrassed at work after all!
for a while you are happy sitting like this. uou rest your head on his shoulder, listen to the sound of him typing on his keyboard, every now and then he rubs his thumb on your side, squeezes your waist, which reminds you that even though he is working he is still paying attention to you.
this should be enough for you.. after a while of sitting close to keys and smelling his scent you start to feel a little restless. at first it is subtle- you just move around in his lap a little bit, you shift your weight from side to side, try to figure out why you feel this way.
maybe you just missed keys more than usual today, maybe spending the day apart made you want to be closer to him more than usual. whatever the reason you find yourself wanting attention from keys.
after a moments you decide that you just need keys to be closer to you. you do not want anything from him. you just want him to pay attention to you instead of his computer. you want him to look at you hold you and remind you that he is finally home and not going away again for a time. atleast that's what you tell yourself..
"baby…" you say softly pulling, on the sleeve of his hoodie as you bury your face in his neck.
when he just hums in response and keeps working you let out a sigh and hold him even tighter. "i need you…" your voice is muffled against his skin.
he laughs away and puts one hand on your waist gently pulling you back so he can look at your face. the smile he gives you shows that he already knows what you mean.. for some reason this makes you want to be even closer to him. he puts one hand on your waist so he can pull you from the crook of his neck and look at your face, big hand sliding up your sweater to rest on your stomach. "right now? you're so needy, just let me finish this up, mkay?"
"i just want you inside, you don't need to do anything..!" you pout, looking up at him with those big eyes he can't say 'no' to and inside you already know you won. you can't help the little giggle that leaves you, making you bite your lip to muffle it and hide your smile.
he adjusts his glasses, putting his laptop aside for a minute as his hands move to slide your sweatpants and panties down in one smooth move, rubbing at your hip softly. you quickly grab him, pulling his pants down and staring at the forming bulge before you take off his boxers too. you move your hand to his dick, stroking him softly as he lets out a soft sigh.
you wait until he's fully hard in your hand, and he lets out a shaky breath as he grabs his laptop, knowing he has to focus on his work again even with all the distractions you're giving him right now. you push yourself up with your hands on his chest and sink down on him slowly, letting out a soft whimper that's mixed with keys' groan.
you fight the urge to start moving, running a hand through his hair and closing your eyes and letting yourself relax and feel better- you needed this since the morning, since the second keys got back from work and you got a whiff of his cologne.
cock warming with keys doesn't usually turn into sex, it's more of a passionate need to be close to eachother in the most intimate way possible. even though you move sometimes and tease him on purpose you both just rest there like that, his hand sliding up your body every few minutes.
you can feel how soaked you are around him, your wetness dripping down your bodies, leaving yours and his thighs already sticky. you whine quietly, placing your hands on his shoulders and leaning back to look at him. you move your hands to his cheeks, wanting his attention on you and not on that stupid laptop of his. "come on, keys..! you have better things to do than stare at that dumb screen.."
he just shakes his head and gives you a small peck, fighting the urge to buck his hips into you, but he's staying strong. his fingers keep clicking against the keyboard, and to your own surprise you start getting sleepy at some point. you rest your head against his chest and your eyes start fluttering closed.
and when you wake up in the morning, he's still inside you, and now you're resting on your back when he starts slowly moving his hips. the perfect way to start the day with your lovely keys.
a/n: well im back and idk if i wrote what i was supposed to but here it is! ts so short im crying
juls, 22, she/her, english is not my first language.
masterlist
keys mckey x reader
blurbs
tit fucking with keys (+18)
mini-series (+18)
the one with the rude neighbour: your neighbour gets tired of your constant loud noises and decides to take matters into his own hands.
the one with the elevator: three weeks after keys showed up at your party, you cross paths again and share an elevator ride.
the one with the very thin walls: keys tries to ignore the distracting noises coming from your apartment, but can't help listening to you having sex with someone else.
the one with the forgotten keys: when you accidentally get locked out of your apartment in the middle of the night, knocking on your annoying neighbors door becomes your very last option.
hi! i’m juana, I'm 22 years old and english is not my first language.
my ao3 my twitter my strawpage
i'm currently writing for a couple of joe keery's characters: steve harrington, kurt kunkle and keys
my requests are open for one shots or blurbs but not multichapter fics right now.
masterlist:
walter "keys" mckey
smashingkeys69 collection (+18 mdni)
steve harrington
Heaven (angst and fluff): you left Hawkins in search of who you are after promising your best friend, Steve, that nothing was going to change. But somewhere along the way you lost each other. Now it's been two years since you've been gone and it might be time for some explanations.
on the desk (+18 smut no plot): your boyfriend takes you on his desk
kurt kunkle
pathetically yours (+18 mdni): Kurt and you have a little routine. He picks you up, you drive to the park, you fuck, he drives you back. But maybe there’s a little something more growing there.
the grand finale (+18 mdni): kurt and you had been planning TheLesson for months. But even if it starts good, not all is as it seems.
victory royale (+18 mdni): you reconnect with an old family friend.
pairing: keys mckey/f!reader
wc: 3700
tags: fluff, meet cute, a LOT of gamer talk, one (1) smooch
prompt from @cpnsteverogers: 🥺 Maybe a meet cute with Keys this 4th of Key-ly weekend? A new retro arcade bar recently opened up where Keys meets reader and they really hit it off ❤️ something cute, sweet, and nerdy af?
a/n: yet another love letter to myself. :') thank you for letting me indulge.
&&
“I might meet the love of my life there,” you said, ignoring the way your sister rolled her eyes at you.
“Yeah, because women always meet guys who are husband material at bars.”
“Lots of people have,” you argued, though you had no empirical evidence to back it up.
“I mean, yes, I will go with you, if only to make sure you don’t end up drooling over the wrong nerd in a fedora.”
“I avoid men in fedoras like the plague,” you replied.
Your sister rolled her eyes at you. “I remember—”
“That was in high school,” you said. “And I dumped him after he said m’lady.”
“So what time are we going?” she asked you, finishing up folding the towels she’d just pulled from the dryer and picking up the stack, heading over to the linen closet in the hall.
“After dinner?” you replied. “If you don’t mind me staying.”
This time, she rolled her eyes. “You practically live here anyway.”
“Only because my game room isn’t set up yet. I need this bar.”
“And you need me as your wingwoman,” she said. “Chinese ok for dinner?”
You grinned. “You know who you’re talking to, right?”
&&
Sue’s—the new retro barcade that was currently hosting its grand opening—was a short walk from your apartment. Your sister had made you stop at your place on the way so she could steal some of your clothes, not wanting to look like a normie (her word, not yours). You’d told her it didn’t matter what she wore, but that didn’t stop her from taking your Kingdom Hearts 2 t-shirt and tying it up into a cute crop top.
You, however, had opted for your Ms. Pac-Man shirt because the bar was literally named after one of the ghosts and you were nothing if not a sucker for a gimmick. After a quick couple of pregaming shots, you two made your way to the bar, actually a little surprised that there was a line to wait on.
“Your people come out in droves for this kind of shit,” your sister said, and you just laughed a little to yourself.
“Yeah, well, we like to be let out of our enclosures on occasion,” you joked back, and she just rolled her eyes, stepping forward as the line moved, and after a few minutes, you were actually let into the bar itself.
It was dimly lit inside, but not too dim to be able to see, red and blue lights washing everyone and everything out, but the decor was great. Vintage arcade games lined the back wall, a pool and air hockey table were adjacent to the bar on either side, and you even saw a door to a separate room with a sign reading “PC방” above it. That sounded promising and kind of fun—but it was packed, and so you made your way to the bar instead.
A couple of cosmos later, and you were eyeing the retro Street Fighter II console while your sister was pushing you off of your stool.
“I’ll be right here,” she said, slapping her phone down on the bar and opening up her crossword puzzle app.
“So much for wingwoman,” you said, slinging your bag over your shoulder and making your way to the token machine. You fished a $10 out of your wallet, took one of the Sue’s Bar + Arcade branded cups to fill with your tokens, and then made your way to the Street Fighter game.
Just as soon as you placed a hand on it, someone else did at the exact same moment, and you sighed inwardly, because you’d definitely gotten there first, and you didn’t feel like getting into an argument with some douchebag about it.
“Oops, sorry,” the other person said, and when you lifted your eyes to his face, you found him smiling at you. He even retracted his hand.
“No problem,” you said, taking that to mean he was about to step away, and leave you to play as God herself (Chun Li) in peace.
“Well,” he said, and you tried not to roll your eyes in a way that was super obvious and allow him to see. “I’ve kinda been waiting for this game to open up all night.”
You shrugged. “I won’t be long. I want to go play Contra after,” you said, pointing over the guy’s left shoulder to another console.
He looked, and then turned right back around. “Would you believe that was my next stop too?” He smiled again, and you noticed, as the overhead lights shifted from red to blue, the freckles on his cheek, the way his eyes crinkled a little.
“No shit,” you said, a little smile making itself known. But just a little one.
“Nope,” he said, and you watched as his smile faltered a little, obviously unsure of how to progress the conversation. That tracked for a guy in a barcade.
“Well,” you said, plucking a couple tokens out of the cup you’d settled onto the console. “What if we play this together… and then move over to Contra?”
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Yeah,” you said, then held out your hand, introducing yourself.
He took it, shaking your hand, then spoke. “I’m Keys.”
“Keys. Really?” you asked.
“Really,” he said, keeping a straight face, and you just laughed quietly.
“Ok, gamer,” you said, “let’s go.”
You chose, of course, Chun Li, while Keys went with Dhalsim.
“I’ve never seen anyone pick him before,” you commented, and Keys just smirked over at you.
“I’ve played a lot of Street Fighter in my day,” he said. He reached into the chest pocket of his shirt and pulled out a pair of glasses, slipping them on. You bit your lip, because he looked even cuter with them on. “Just watch.”
And you did. Because he schooled you. You were no slouch when it came to the game either, and even though you’d decided on best two out of three, it didn’t even matter—he wiped you in all three games, because you’d insisted on the third after he won the first two.
Sighing heavily, you rested your arms on the edge of the console and pressed your forehead to it, scowling to yourself because you didn’t want him to see how upset you were.
“Hey, c’mon,” Keys said, his voice soft even though he had to speak loudly over the din of the bar. “I didn’t want to go too easy on you… figured you wouldn’t appreciate that.”
“No, it’s fine. I just—I’ve never had my ass so thoroughly handed to me before,” you said, straightening up.
Keys gave you a small smile before he spoke again, leaning his hip on the game. “Could I also maybe… pay for a drink to be handed to you?”
“You want to buy me a drink?”
“Least I could do,” Keys said, “for destroying you. In a video game, I mean.”
“Yeah, ok. True.” You picked up your cup of tokens and followed him over to the bar, sitting opposite your sister. When you looked over, she was watching you, and she waggled her eyebrows at you, nodding approvingly as Keys removed his glasses and slipped them back into his pocket. You subtly flipped her off as Keys ordered a Guinness (draft, not bottle), and then he turned to you, his hand accidentally nudging your upper arm as he did.
“Ack, sorry,” he said, and it brought you back to high school when you guy friends would touch you unintentionally. Half awkward, half endearing. “What did you want?”
“I’ll just have a cosmo,” you said to the bartender, and Keys grinned.
“Pink like Sue,” he said, as the bartender filled a glass with beer for Keys, then stepped away to go mix your drink up.
“Only at first,” you replied. “She turned purple later.”
“Very true,” he said, sipping his drink. “So—you’re into retro games, clearly… Street Fighter and Contra. What else do you like to play?”
“A little bit of everything,” you replied, nodding to the bartender when he placed your cocktail in front of you with a napkin. The garnish was an orange peel, cut into the shape of one of the Pac-man ghosts. “I dabble, I guess.”
“Dabble,” Keys repeated. “In everything, really?”
“Kind of!” you replied. “Shooters, visual storybooks, walking sims… dating sims.”
Keys smirked. “Like the Arcade Spirits kind of dating sim, or the HuniePop kind?”
“Who showed you my Steam library?” you asked, and at that, you both laughed. “No, try Dream Daddy.”
“I think you can tell a lot about a person by their first dream daddy and their favorite dream daddy,” Keys said.
“Oh yeah?” you asked. “Who are yours?”
“First was obviously Mat,” Keys said. “But favorite? I dunno, there’s just something about Hugo.”
You lifted your drink to your lips, nodding as you took a sip, pondering deeply. “Ok. Yeah, I think you’ve just shown me a side of yourself no one else in here knows.”
“What about you?” he asked, leaning on the bar.
“My first was Craig,” you said, and he scoffed. “What! You have eyes. He’s cute.”
“He is…good-looking,” Keys agreed.
“And my favorite is Robert.”
Keys sucked his teeth. “Yeah, ok. I know you now.”
“Whatever,” you said, grinning into your cocktail. “Now that we’ve bared our souls, let’s just enjoy our drinks.”
You may have imagined it, but he moved a little closer, just a touch.
&&
“I am telling you,” you said, as the two of you wended your way through the crowd toward Contra. “Chris Redfield punching a rock is stupid.”
“Chris Redfield punching a rock, yes, would be stupid,” Keys agreed, as you reached the game, currently occupied by another player. He stepped up and placed a token on the console, signifying that he wanted to play next. “But he punched a boulder.”
“That’s what makes it so dumb,” you said vehemently, and Keys just nodded along as you went on your diatribe. “He’s a regular guy. He might be STARS or whatever, but they’re just regular guys.”
“Do you think Leon could punch a boulder?”
You stopped, biting the inside of your cheek. You’d told him just a few minutes ago how Leon was the ideal guy in the Resident Evil franchise, how he had it all: looks, one-liners, personality. Even in the newest installment where he was 30 years older and more grizzled, you’d still let him hit. (And then you felt absolutely mortified about saying that to a guy who you’d just met.)
“Shut up,” you said, and Keys laughed.
“I’m taking that as a yes,” he said, as the guy currently at the Contra console died, using his last life, and then ambled away from the machine.
“Thanks,” you said after him, because he could very well have chosen to play some more but let you and Keys have the machine.
You both slotted tokens in, and since this was a co-op game, kept your conversation going.
“I’m an Ada guy myself,” he said.
“You would be,” you replied, running your character through the sidescrolling game.
“You like Claire?”
You scoffed, picking up a powerup in the game so your gun was better. “Try Countess Alcina Dimitrescu,” you said, and Keys hummed approvingly. “Or, honestly. Heinsenberg.”
Keys glanced at you. “How could I possibly measure up?”
You looked at him sharply, shocked that a guy who hadn’t even known how to ask you to play Street Fighter with him was being so brave now. Must have been the liquid courage of the beer.
“Well, you’re real, for starters,” you said. “So that’s like, several ticks in your favor.”
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Yeah,” you replied. “Big time.”
Contra went great actually, and since no one was waiting for you after you’d both lost all of your lives, you started another game, the two of you working exceptionally well, in sync, and you got to the end of the game before both of you died one final time, the “Enter Token” message flashing on the Start screen again.
“Damn,” Keys said, but before he could keep talking, your sister popped up at your elbow.
“I’m gonna get out of here,” she said, looking Keys up and down, then turning back to you. “You good?”
“I’m good,” you replied, giving her a hug and a kiss goodbye.
“You coming back to my place?”
“Not sure yet,” you said, which was maybe a little too telling, but whatever.
“All right. Have fun. Be safe,” she said, then pinched your elbow before she walked away.
“My sister,” you said, by way of explanation.
“I could tell,” Keys said, leading you away from the game over to the section of the bar featuring claw machines. “You look uncannily alike.”
“Because it’s so dark in here,” you said, watching as he pulled out a handful of tokens from his pocket and fiddling with them in his hand as he scoped out the machines. “She’s way older than me.” And she would kill you if she ever heard you say that.
Keys smirked, then took a step toward a machine, turning back toward you to make sure you’d follow. You did. You watched in silence as he poked the inside of his cheek with his tongue, concentrating deeply as he put in the required number of tokens, moved the hook, nudged it again a little more, a little more, a little more—then slapped the button to lower the claw.
With bated breath, you both watched as the claw lowered down into the jumble of Kirby plushies, and because it had been quite expertly placed, hooked perfectly around one of the round little bodies and clamped down on it, lifting it into the air. For a moment it looked like it would fall out—but no, down he fell through the chute and into Keys’ waiting hand.
Your expression changed from pleased to surprised as Keys handed the plushie to you.
“How’d you know I like Kirby?” you asked.
He shrugged. “Everyone likes Kirby.”
You took it, hugged it. “Thank you,” you said. “I have plenty of tokens left over, too. I can try to win you something.”
“Maybe next time?” Keys said. “The lights in here are getting to me.”
“Oh,” you said, because again—you weren’t sure if he was angling or just informing you he wanted to leave. So, you took matters into your own hands. “Well, I have normal lights at my place. Like, warm white, low wattage. Super easy on the eyes.”
Keys nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Would you also happen to have, like, a Nintendo Switch?”
“I would,” you said.
“With… Mario Kart?”
“Of course,” you replied.
“Well,” he said. “I guess you convinced me to hang out with you some more. To be clear, it’s because you have a game I like.”
“Right,” you said, heading to the bar to close out the tab you’d made earlier with your sister. “Obviously, duh.”
The walk back to your apartment wasn’t overly long, but a few steps out of the barcade, you felt Keys’ fingers brushing against yours. Without acknowledging them, you turned your hand to his and let him take it. His hand was warm and soft, and as he laced his fingers in between yours, you turned and hid your face in the Kirby plush, because oh my god.
Your apartment was a very recent acquisition—you’d moved in like, literally, two weeks ago, and so everything was still shiny and neat and clean. The spare bedroom hadn’t been set up yet but all of your gaming stuff was in there.
“You can grab a drink if you want,” you said, gesturing to the kitchen, “I’ll be right back.”
You heard the refrigerator door open as you made your way down the hall, grabbing the milk crate that held your Switch stuff, and by the time you’d picked it up and turned around, Keys was silhouetted in the doorway. He reached in, flicked the light switch, and you saw his eyes widen.
“Holy shit,” he said. “You’re like… hard core.”
“I stream in my spare time,” you said. “Been a rough couple weeks without it.”
“I bet,” he replied. “If you want any help setting your stuff up… just let me know.”
“Thank you,” you said, “but for now, I need to kick your ass off Rainbow Road.”
His grin widened but his eyes narrowed. “Oh, you think so.”
“There will not be a repeat of Street Fighter,” you said. “I swear on my Atari 2600.” You jerked your chin to the side, where the retro console that had once belonged to your dad sat atop your otherwise empty desk, a place of honor since it was the only thing unpacked.
“Loser pays for dinner,” Keys said.
“It’s like… 10:30,” you replied.
“Breakfast then?” he asked.
You were so taken aback by his proposition that you scoffed, laughed, and then said, “You know what? Sure. Impress me and maybe I’ll let you buy me breakfast.”
“Wait… so I have to buy even if I win?”
You nodded. “Yup!”
Keys scoffed, but it was more of a laugh than anything else, and he took the milk crate of game paraphernalia from you as you led him back to your living room area, which was immaculate because you spent more time at your sister’s place than you did here. You’d slept at her apartment at least five nights since you’d moved in.
Despite your attempts to elbow Keys out of your way and set up the switch yourself, he didn’t let you, instead uncoiling wires and plugging things in, and so you just went to your kitchen and grabbed a drink for yourself, since you’d clocked that he’d already helped himself to a can of Monster, a wonderful choice after you’d both had alcohol. You grabbed the pitcher of iced tea instead and poured yourself a cup, carrying it back to the couch, sitting down and watching the boy you’d brought back here on a whim set up your video game console for you.
“You an Animal Crossing guy?” you asked.
“Eh,” he said. “I played during the pandemic but fell off of it. You?”
“Still logging in every day.”
“You have to show me your island,” he said.
“Maybe later,” you said. “You’re not getting out of this ass-kicking I’m about to bestow upon you.”
Keys smirked, coming to sit beside you on the couch, handing you one of the controllers and settling in, his knee absolutely resting against yours. You chose to ignore it because he was not going to psych you out using physical touch as psychological warfare.
“Let’s do best three out of five. First one’s a practice race,” you said, starting up the game.
“Sounds fair,” Keys agreed, and when you came in 1st and he came in 6th in the practice round, you felt much, much better about things.
But because the universe could not let you exist peacefully, you ended up tied with two races each after the practice round you’d given yourselves. You’d both already decided to have Rainbow Road as your last race, so it kept getting pushed back as you won, or as he won, and so race 5 was the lucky one. You selected Rainbow Road from the map screen, and then locked the fuck in as Keys took one last swig of his Monster, your tea all but forgotten and surely no longer iced after being out on the floor beside your couch for so long.
It was tense: He picked up a blue shell almost immediately, but you purposely held back just enough to keep yourself out of 1st place. You pulled out in front of Luigi (both of you laughing a little at the stankface he shot you as you passed) and once you heard the chime indicating that the shell was close to you, you eased back—a risky move—but Luigi shot past you, taking the blue shell in your stead—and you continued on your way, in 1st place leaving Keys no way to stop you, unless he managed to get another blue shell.
He didn’t—and you crossed the finish line moments later, 1st place in the race, and besting him three out of five.
“Fuck yes,” you half-shouted, tossing your controller to your side, where it bounced a little on the couch.
“That was slick,” Keys admitted, putting his controller down too, knocking back the rest of his room-temperature Monster. “You are the better racer.”
“You’re the better Street Fighter, and we’re both cracked at Contra, so I guess it all evens out.” You looked over at him, shifting yourself to face him but also settling a little further back on your couch.
“So, what do you like for breakfast?” Keys asked.
You glanced at the TV, the endgame race screen still playing, your character (Toadette) speeding around the raceway, victorious. You looked back at Keys, reaching out to put one of your hands on his knee, then leaned in and closed the distance between you, taking his lips with yours in a kiss, soft and sweet and innocent, not anything more than just something new and tentative, trying it out.
He kissed you back, though, parting his lips just a little against yours, pulling back just to move back in, his hand covering yours on his leg, the other moving to your thigh, skimming up just enough for you to know he was into it, but not necessarily wanting anything more.
“I guess you’ll find out,” you whispered in response, and he smiled, giving you a short peck on the cheek before pulling back.
“Can I see your island now?” he asked. “I assume there’s an arcade area.”
“Right next to the museum,” you said. “Nothing like checking out some deepsea fish and then going next door to play Brake Tapper.”
“Couldn’t agree more,” Keys said, stretching his arms along the back of your couch.
You grabbed your controller, switched to Animal Crossing, and then—in a move that you wouldn’t have considered if you didn’t get such good vibes from Keys—settled yourself against him. His arm moved down to hold you instead, his hand on your hip, as you gave him a tour of your own little slice of (virtual) heaven.
CW: cussing, reader calls Gator daddy (affectionately / non sexual), soft & vulnerable Gator, slight religious tone with Baron - country sweetheart (based off the movie),
Word Count: 4,421
Likes and Comments are greatly appreciated. Reblogs are a writer's best friend :) 💙
A/N: I hate that Keys' is the shortest but there's so much we don't know about him it was hard to write
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Steve Harrington
Announcing To Him: The sound of Steve's car pulling into the driveway makes your heartbeat quicken
He's finally home from baseball practice. You take a deep breath before holding the sign against your stomach. Taking your usual place when you greet him at the door
"Hey, sweetheart. I'm home" Steve tosses his hat off and places the keys in the key bowl. Already leaning in to kiss you
"Baby, sweetheart, most beautiful woman in the world, please don't take this the wrong way, but when did you get boxy and square?"
You laugh, "That's not me."
"Then what is it?"
"I don't know. Maybe you should check?"
Steve eyed you suspiciously, pulling away to notice what was between you
"Care to explain why you have a mini message board between us?"
You shrug, "No clue. Maybe you should read it."
"Ok," Steve takes the board, "You're going to be a daddy." he reads.
The board falls to the floor as he looks at you. Your grin widely holding up a onesie that you had hand-sewn the words little nugget on. Steve gets on his knees, giving a million and one kisses to your stomach
"I love you so much already. I promise you I'm gonna be the best daddy to you. You're gonna be so spoiled." He talks to your stomach
You run a hand through his hair, smiling. He wraps you in a hug, pulling you tight against his chest
"You're gonna be the best mom ever. I already know, and you're gonna look even more beautiful than you already do. You're gonna look so round. So full of my baby. Everyone's gonna-"
You gently tug on his hair, "Sweet and loving words. I already know about your breeding kink, ok?"
He laughs, "Sorry. I'm just so happy.....and horny. But mostly happy."
You kiss his cheek
"It's not fair we only get to do this twice." Steve pouts
"Twice?" You raise an eyebrow
"Four times. Robin, everybody else, my parents, and your parents."
"Ok, so three times with people that matter," he corrects himself, "And again with my parents."
"I promise it gets easier every time you do it." You joke
"It's not fair, I didn't get to announce it." he pouts
You raise an eyebrow at him, "You can tell everyone else. I just wanna be the one to tell my parents."
He sighs, "That's not what I mean."
"What do you mean? I made the announcement for you... like three seconds ago."
"I know, but I wanted to be the one to tell myself I was a dad" He pouts
You laugh, "I'm sorry, but how would that have happened? I take the test, find out it's positive, call you to the bathroom, and stay quiet until you say 'Steve, you are the father'?" You tease
He cringes, "God no! Well....maybe?"
You playfully slap his arm
"Next time, I promise you'll get to find out with me. I'll take the test, and we'll read the result together."
Announcing To Friends and Family: It was just like the old times, Friday Night Movie Night at The Harringtons.
Way too many snacks, soda, a lot more alcohol since everyone was legal now, pizza delivered from the local restaurant, and an endless option of movies everyone had suggested while you and Steve were planning the event
"You sure inviting her over an hour early isn't a problem?" You ask Steve as you decorate the sign
"For Robin? No. It lessens the chance she runs into anyone and invites them over early with her, and it gives her enough time to calm down and come up with some excuse for other conversations before she inevitably goes mute or spills the beans."
You place a hand over your heart. "You really wanna make this special for her, huh?"
"Yeah, she's my best friend.... and she's gonna be the closest free babysitter aside from your parents." He places a kiss on your head
"And Dustin is coming over how early?"
"Thirty minutes. I told him fifteen minutes, but we all know how he is."
You nod, college really made Dustin grow up and manage a timely schedule
"Are we keeping the same sign for Aunt Robin and Uncle Dustin or changing it?"
"You can stop asking when we're having a baby now for Dustin and Robin." Steve reaches over and adds the heart pin to the board
"We're changing our names to Mom and Dad for the rest of them, and we lose the heart, maybe."
"Maybe." You lean up and press a kiss to his lips
"You sure the video camera is set up and at a good angle?"
"Yeah. I triple-checked it and even talked to Jonathan earlier this week to make sure I had everything set up properly."
"Was that a good idea?"
"I was nice to him. We're friends now, remember?"
You roll your eyes, "That's not what I mean and you know it."
"It's not like I gave him any real details about why I was using it. He probably thinks we were making a sex tape or something."
Your eyes widen in horror at Steve's words
"If he even thought anything of it. You know he's been busy filming? Wait, no, is he casting?"
The sound of three loud rhythmic knocks on the door ends your conversation. Robin again saving Steve from himself. You grab the sign off the bed and take Steve's hand in yours
"Let's go set this up, and we'll go greet our Robin" You say with a smile
You both walk out of the bedroom and into the kitchen. You place the sign where you'd usually place the pizza and lean the sonogram pictures against it while Steve walks over to the video camera
"Holy shit." He says
You freeze. "What? Is something wrong?"
"No. It's just - this camera and this angle. Babe, it makes your ass look really good."
You shake your head as you giggle
"Just press play and let's go greet Robin, and maybe you can get some later, Mr. Harrington."
"I pressed play before I walked into the bedroom," He admits, "I didn't wanna miss you setting it up for them."
A blush now obvious on both your cheeks. Yours from the horror of realizing that when your kids watch this video, they'll have to watch all of that just to see the family's excitement. Steve's blush because it finally hit him how special this moment was, how much you meant to him, how you were starting a family, and how great your ass really looked in your jeans.
Another three knocks
"I'll go get the door." Steve says
"And there she is, my favorite -" Robin pauses as she walks into the kitchen
"We're -" Steve cuts you off by placing a kiss on your cheek
"Just read the sign, Rob."
"No, I - I read it. That's why I stopped greeting your wife." She says, mouth still agape
She reads the sign again as tears start to fill her eyes. You leave Steve's grasp and hand the sonogram pictures to her
"You're gonna be an Aunt Robin! Aunt Rockin Robin!" You say as tears fill your own eyes
"Oh, my god. Oh my God. Congratulations" She says as the tears fall and she walks over to Steve, giving him a tight hug. Your heart swells at the scene in front of you
"I'm so sorry. I know I should've hugged you first. You're the mom, but you don't -" she wipes away her tears
"Neither of you can look at me when I say this, especially you, Dingus," she glares at him, hoping the nickname and glare would stop the tears, but it only made it worse
"But you don't know how long he's wanted this, especially with you. I'm happy. You both deserve this." She hugs you tightly
Steve wraps his arms around both of you. Pulling away to wipe away his own tears, "You're the first person we told."
---
"Hey guys! I'm home" Dustin calls out as he lets himself in, surprisingly showing up only 20 minutes early
His words already making your eyes water again
"We're in the kitchen" Steve calls out
A hand around your waist to help keep you steady as you hide your face in his shoulders
"I hate being emotional."
"Sweetheart, you've always been emotional. I love that about you. The only thing now is you can't hold back your tears."
"Hey. Where is everyone?" Dustin's eyes widen in panic as he sees you crying
"What happened? What's going on?"
Robin taps loudly on the sign. Dustin doesn't even read it. He just glances at the sonogram pictures, you crying, and puts the pieces together
"Holy shit." He grins, "Congratulations."
He walks over and hugs both of you
"Can't believe you're gonna be a dad and you're gonna be a mom."
"And you're gonna be an uncle. Uncle Dusty Bun." You tease
"Are you guys ever gonna let that go? It was one nickname."
"And a song" Robin reminds
"Oh, my god. I forgot about the song! That's it, movie decision made. We're watching The NeverEnding Story" You sing the title
Dustin runs a hand down his face than points his arm accusingly at Robin, mirroring Steve "Serious?"
Steve just laughs
"Dusty Bun and Rockin Robin are gonna be our kids' aunt and uncle. Who would've thought?" Steve asks
"You. I mean, you put so much thought into this. The video camera. Their special sign."
Steve's cheek burns pink again
"We were gonna notice the sign change anyway," Dustin says, reaching into the fridge for a beer
---
"How does that look?" You ask, showing off the redecorated sign as Dustin helps Steve and Robin with the finishing touches
"I like it. It looks good."
"Yeah"
"When did you find time to buy shoes and a onesie?" Steve asks
"They were in the store when I went to buy the onesie I used to tell you, and I just had to buy them."
"What onesie did you use to tell him?" Dustin asks
You reach for the onesie that was in your back pocket and pull it out
"That's cute. Little Nugget."
"Thank you. They didn't have any onesies that said little nugget so I had to sew it on."
"That's the onesie you should put next to the sign. It's cuter, and it matches your and Steve's vibe more" Robin smiles
"That's Nancy." Steve says as she knocks
"It's actually all of us. Except for Dustin and Robin" Nancy calls out
"I'll get it" Dustin says as he leaves the kitchen
"All of us except for Rob - oh, hi Robin." Nancy smiles
"Why's everyone in the kitchen?" Mike asks
"Did something happen?" Max asks
"Just walk into the kitchen." Dustin says, leading the group
Steve had adjusted the sign so it was the first thing you saw as you walked in. Everyone reading the sign before walking up to the kitchen table to congratulate both of you
"I was wrong about the sex tape.... I think." Jonathan says as he leans in closer to Nancy
"Sex Tape?" Mike asks
"Oh, God. There was no sex tape" Steve says as he runs a hand down his face
"Y'know, since you're having your first out of six nuggets, all their names should start with n. Nathan, Naomi, Natasha, Nadine, Nicole, and Noah." Nancy teasingly suggests
Steve's eyes light up immediately
"I'm shutting that down. When we choose a name for the baby, I want it to come naturally. I don't wanna stress about it or look in the books specifically for N names."
"And I'm just saying Henderson could work as a good first name. Or something like Henry Harrington."
"I like Robert. Rockin Robert Harrington."
You shake your head, laughing, "Why couldn't they have had this argument when it was just us?"
~🦋~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~🦋💙🦋~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~🦋~
Gator Tillman
Announcing to Him: With Gator, there was no right way to tell him.
In your mind, there only seemed to be a million and one wrong ways. Would he be the one running away this time?
You sigh nervously and talk to your stomach, "You better make labor easy. Your daddy is gonna be worth shit."
"Labor? Daddy?" Gator says from the hallway, his footsteps getting closer
Damn this echoey old house
He walks over to you and gently rests his hands against your hips
"You sure it's mine?" He asks, but you can sense the smile that's tugging on his lips
"That mean you're staying?" You ask honestly
"Don't know, mama. Why don't you tell me properly and we'll see."
"If it wasn't for our rings, I'd slap you right now."
He smirks, "And we'd both enjoy it."
You roll your eyes
"Gator Tillman, I'm pregnant. We're having a baby."
"How long've you known?"
"Couple weeks. Took some tests at home." You reach for the sonogram photos on the sink countertop. "Didn't wanna get our hopes up til the doctor confirmed it." You hand the pictures to him, staring at him to see his reaction
"Can I pick you up and spin you around?"
You laugh and nod. Half a second later, Gator's arms lift you into the air and spin you around excitedly. He places a kiss on your stomach before gently placing you down. His lips met yours in an excited yet gentle kiss
"God damn." He has the biggest grin on his face since your wedding day, "My wife's carrying my baby."
Announcing to Friends and Family: "I like that one." Gator says from over your shoulder, where he had secretly been looking at Pinterest ideas with you
"I thought you didn't care what we did?" You tease
"Never said I didn't care. I said it was up to you." He corrects
You grimace, "You really like that one?"
"Yeah, it's....nice?"
"One in the chamber." You laugh as you read "Alright, we'll do it, but those guns better be empty, and you're handling them."
"You know how to handle them too."
"Yeah, but you taught me all of that in case of an emergency." You remind him.
He nods and goes to set everything up as you decorate the sign and grab the sonogram pictures
---
"Daddy, bring me your clean work boots!" You yell from the front yard
"Daddy?" Gator smirks as he hands you his boots.
You inspect them and smile happily. You place them near the cruiser. An advantage of being the sheriff's son is that you could bring home your cruiser. He probably shouldn't, but just this once, you're glad he did.
"Just practicing for when the baby gets here. They can hear us, y'know?" You try to play it off
"I could get used to that." He kisses the top of your head
"We're thrilled to say Daddy's backup is on the way." You read the sign before placing it down on the cruiser. You pull out the wooden cop badge with blue and black circles to move back and forth
"Isn't this so cute? It even says Tillman" you show Gator excitedly
He smiles
"I'm proof that mommy can't resist daddy in a uniform. Love that. We're getting that onesie in every size." Gator smirks
"I thought you'd like that one."
"Maybe we should throw in my thigh holster, huh? Show what really made the baby get here."
"Don't you dare. And don't you even think about wearing that around anymore. I don't need anyone staring at what's mine." Your hands grip his thigh tightly before sliding down to palm his dick
"That holster is staying off until the baby gets here - when I can fight whatever bimbo that thinks about looking at what's mine." You grumble. Gator ruffles your hair and kisses the top of your head, secretly loving this new possessiveness the pregnancy had brought out in you
---
"Daddy, bring me your cowboy hat!" You call out again
"Cowboy hat?"
"Yeah, that one you wear around the ranch."
"Oh. Oh." He raises an eyebrow, "How'd you know 'bout that. Only wore it ......" He pauses to think, "Once."
You frown, "I know."
"So much for save a horse ride a cowboy" You mumble as he hands you the hat
"Where'd you get the boots?" He asks, looking over the display
"They're mine. Figured it's only fair since we're using your hat, your cruiser, your guns, a lot of your stuff, that we'd include something of mine for my favorite announcement."
He nods and wraps his arms around your waist, holding you flush against his chest. "I love you."
"I love you too, Gator... so much."
---
"You sure this is how you wanna announce it?" Gator asks
You nod, "Yeah. The whole town's gonna be gossiping about it anyway, so might as well make the information public."
You scroll through your photo album, choosing the photos that had the best lighting and looked the prettiest
"....And done," you turn the phone around to show Gator
Three simple and perfect photos - the cowboy hat, the cruiser, and Gator's announcement choice. No caption
He smiles proudly, "I love you, and I love our baby. Our family."
"We love you too."
There's a small pause as you pull away from him slightly, "What about Roy?"
"I'll tell him and Karen tomorrow before church. He can't react badly cause it'll be in front of everyone, and they'll know before the church gossip tells them. Simple."
"You want me there?"
"Near me, not by me. Might start crying tears of joy if you're standing right by me, and that ain't something men do" he rolls his eyes as the words leave his mouth
You know those words aren't his but his father's. You've heard Roy say it around the ranch, along with other things you wish you could forget. You lean up to place a gentle kiss on his lips
"Besides, I only like you crying for me." You say against his lips
He chuckles
A few minutes later, your phone goes off, and you ignore it, assuming it's just family and friends congratulating you. A sweet thing, a kind thing, but not something that mattered when you were cuddled in Gator's lap.
But when he hands you your phone, you know it's something important, something he wants you to see, something he wants to show you without being vulnerable enough to ask. Your eyes met his as you opened your phone. Your breath gets caught in your throat as you see his post.
It's simple. Five different bullets lined up from biggest to smallest with his metal gun box serving as the background and the words "We're having a bb" typed out in a cursive font, something very not Gator-like but so you. There's no real caption, just the ";)" emoji
"Gates," You cry out, tears filling your eyes, and a hand over your mouth
"You're my wife. You're having my baby. You're carrying my baby. I want the whole damn world to know." He says in the softest voice you've ever heard, forehead resting against yours
~🦋~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~🦋💙🦋~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~🦋~
Keys McKey
Announcing To Him: "Keys, Something's wrong with my switch," you pout as you walk into his gaming room
"What's going on with it?" He asks
"I don't know. I was playing a game, and the screen froze, and now the whole system is unresponsive. Fix it please?" You hand him the game console
Keys takes it from you "Babe, what even is this? It doesn't even look like a real game. The screen just says in crappy wannabe video game text New Player Unlocked."
His words make your pout turn real because, yeah, it was shitty wannabe video game look but you tried your best. It's not like you're an MIT genius like him. You start to sink into his lap
"Gotta be careful what games you put on here. Some are scams that just screw up the system, and some, well, some are just so idiotic it makes me wanna cry."
"That coming from the dirty stripper cop?" You ask
"Only in the game and it's for work."
He rests his head on your shoulder
"Just watch me, ok? I want you to know how to fix it in case I'm at work or something the next time this happens."
You nod. His hand secures onto the controls as he 'fixes' your game. Suddenly, the video displays the words on the screen, which are replaced by sonogram images. The very last photo with the words I'm proof my daddy isn't always playing video games.
Keys' eyebrow knit in confusion, "That's weird. I've never seen that -"
All the color drains from his face. Your switch fell out of his hands and barely missed the ground because you caught it in time. The second the game is securely on his desk, he pulls you closer to him. Leaving kisses all over your face. One hand on your back to hold you securely, and the other on your stomach
"We're gonna be parents. You're gonna be the most amazing mom ever!"
~🦋~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~🦋💙🦋~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~🦋~
Baron Lamram (Country Sweetheart)
Announcing To Him: As much as you loved Baron, you know it could take him a minute to connect all the dots, so when the test came back positive, you knew right away that you needed a clear and consistent way to tell him.
The idea came to you at your doctor's appointment, something crafty yet cute and clear enough that he'd get it. A quick stop at a craft store on the way home, and your plan was in action. You sat down at the kitchen table, writing out the word in Sharpie before carving it into wood, then drilling four holes and adding some rope to hold the test.
"Hi, Daddy. I know we haven't met yet, but I already know I love you. I can't wait to meet you." You read the words out loud, tears forming in your eyes.
The sound of Baron's bike being thrown on the ground brings you back to the moment, but still a sign that Baron was having a bad day. Your smile only grows when you realize that you have the perfect news to cheer him up. You quickly hide the sign behind your back as the front door opens
"Hi, handsome." You greet
"Hi, sweetheart." Baron greets, his tone exhausted but still offering you a smile
"Rough day?"
He nods
"Well, I've got some news that'll cheer you up."
"You do?"
"Mhmm."
You stand in front of him as he sits down on the couch. You don't say anything as you hold the sign in front of you.
"Hi, Daddy." Baron reads, "I know we haven't met yet, but I know I already love you. I can't wait to meet you."
His eyes meet yours and you laugh when you see his eyebrows are knitted in confusion. You reach into your back pocket and pull out the sonogram pictures from earlier today.
You hold the picture in front of him, "We're having a baby Ba-"
You are cut off by Baron leaning in and kissing you. His arms wrap around you and pull you into his chest. One hand holding onto the pictures and the other tangled in his hair.
"We're having a baby," He cheers excitedly. He lifts you up in the air and twirls you. You laugh excitedly
"Ok, I think I'm gonna puke if you spin me around anymore, baby." You warn
His eyes widen in horror as he quickly puts you down, "I'm so, so sorry."
His eyes are searching yours to make sure you're ok, and a hand is gently resting on your stomach. Your hand reaches to caress his cheek
"It's ok. We're ok."
Announcing to Friends and Family: "Are you sure you're ok with this?" Baron asks
You nod, "Of course. Your mama deserves to know too."
He kisses your cheek and smiles. You look at him affectionately
"You sure I can't carry the basket? It's light."
The basket that once held the food from your picnic is now filled with 2 bouquets of flowers, a small bouquet of baby breaths, Baron's childhood stuffed bear with a yellow ribbon now sewn onto it, an outfit you had purchased earlier today, and the sonogram pictures. He immediately shakes his head.
"You're already carrying my baby. That's enough."
"Baron" You scold, leaning against him for support as your legs turn to jelly
It wasn't anything vulgar. You have both said dirtier things to each other in bed, but that was in the comfort of your own home. So to hear him say something like that out loud made your face warm up and sent heat to your core
"I'm sorry, honey." He kisses your cheek, "But I promise nobody heard."
You giggle as you finally reach Mama Eda's gravestone
"Hi, Mom."
"Hi, mama." Baron greets, laying down the blanket and helping you onto the covered grass
You rest your head against his shoulder as he places the basket on the other side of him
You smile, "Got some really exciting news for you."
Your eyes met Baron's, a silent reassurance that he should be the one to tell her. Your fingers intertwine as he kisses your hand
"We're having a baby! My wife's having a baby, mama." he says excitedly
There was a boyish wonder in his eyes and a huge grin on his face as the words left his mouth. He gently pulls you closer to him, letting you quickly invade his space.
You rest your head in the crook of his neck and place a hand on top of his heart. The sound and feel of his heartbeat slowly put you to sleep as you listen to him talk to his mom. Before you can actually fall asleep and have Baron carry you to the car, you lift your head up, sitting straighter
"Help me up, please?"
He nods and quickly lifts you up in his arms before placing you down on the ground
"Everything ok?"
"Yeah...yeah. Happy tears I promise" You wipe away your tears
"I just wanna give you and mama your privacy and your moment. I'm gonna head to the car and wait and try not to fall asleep." You softly laugh
"Ok. If you do, I'm carrying you into the house. Don't wanna wake you up cause you need your sleep."
You don't argue, you just nod. Kissing his lips and his cheek before saying goodbye and heading back to the car
"Thank you, mama."
Baron places the Baby Breath bouquet and a flower bouquet in front of her grave, "Thank you, Mama, for my baby and my wife. I know you sent them to me"
He looks at you as you get into the passenger seat of the car, patiently waiting for him
"A-and thank you Lord. I know you sent them my way too."
