seen from Singapore
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seen from Saudi Arabia
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Singapore
seen from Tajikistan
seen from Netherlands
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big doodle dump- top 5 are mostly neopets and bottom two are Pike, who i was waffling about whether he should even have any sort of indent to suggest a neck and then realized if he didnt have one, he’d be shaped like a P for Pike so no more neck
Can we get hcs for how the creepypastas would handle a s/o with a high sex drive? (Hoping to see Toby and Brian)
✦ . jeff the killer
“You horny again? …God, I love you.”
Down for it. Always. Jeff’s sex drive is already pretty high, so if you’re insatiable? He’s all in.
Teases the hell out of you for it. Calls you “needy,” “nasty,” or his “little addict.”
Will literally stop mid-argument to grab your hips and say, “This what you want instead?”
If he’s tired? He’ll still try. You might wake up to him lazily rutting into you like “Mmhm… just use me, babe.”
✦ . ticci toby
“You’re gonna wear me the fuck out… not that I’m complaining.”
Initially overwhelmed but very into it. Especially if you initiate with surprise attacks.
You grabbing his hoodie and pulling yourself into his lap? Instantly flustered. Instantly hard.
Grins through the overstimulation: “You just do-don’t stop, huh?”
Starts getting possessive if others take your attention. “No-Nobody can make you feel this good, right? Say it.”
✦ . eyeless jack
“You’re going to kill yourself with this pace. Slow down, little lamb.”
At first? Wary. Jack’s a methodical lover. He prefers intimacy with his control.
But the more he sees how much you crave him, the more addicted he becomes.
He’ll start structuring his day around your needs: food, hydration, meds, and then you.
Will make extensive use of restraints and edging you if your drive gets overwhelming—to help you last.
✦ . masky (tim wright)
“Jesus Christ—again?”
He’ll roll his eyes and sigh, but his bulge says otherwise.
Tim likes control. If you’re constantly pushing, he’ll flip it. Tie you up, edge you for hours, make you beg.
Pretends he’s annoyed, but will fuck you hard and rough like he’s been waiting for you to ask.
Post-sex cuddles are grumpy, but affectionate. “You good now? You better be.”
✦ . hoody (brain thomas)
“Keep tempting me and see what happens.”
Secretly obsessed. On the surface? Calm. Collected. But inside? Losing it.
He’ll act unaffected when you straddle him, then suddenly flip you over and wreck you unapologetically.
Loves when you initiate. Makes him feel claimed. Wanted.
Watches your stamina with fascination. He keeps score in his head. (He’s winning.)
✦ . ben drowned
“God, you’re gonna break my stamina… and my spine.”
Horny little gremlin. He’s all for it.
He will use your libido as an excuse to pause games, saying, “One quick round,” and then spending hours with you.
Suggests weird kinks constantly, “Let’s try while floating this time. C’mon.”
If you somehow wear him out? He’ll program a vibrator that he can control to keep you busy.
✦ . clockwork
“Didn’t we just go three rounds this morning? Damn, baby.”
She loves it. Will tease you endlessly.
Calls you “insatiable,” “hungry,” or “never satisfied.”
She’s dominant, so if you’re always begging? She’ll make you earn it with a slow, torturous build-up.
Sometimes just pushes you against the wall and says: “You’re lucky I’m not tired of you.”
✦ . laughing jack
“You really want another ride, sugar?”
Absolute freak. You being horny all the time? He thrives off it.
Turns every interaction into innuendo. Eating candy? He moans obnoxiously. You bend over? He claps like a kid on Christmas morning.
Loves overstimulation, sensory play, toys, and making you scream.
He gets competitive too: “Bet I can make you pass out before you make me tap out.”
✦ . slenderman
“You are…exceedingly demanding. But I will indulge you.”
At first? Cold. Distant. Annoyed.
But behind closed doors? A demon.
He’ll draw your desire out slowly, making you desperate before he unleashes.
Will use his tendrils, his voice, his control over your body and mind until you’re shaking and still asking for more.
“Desperation… It’s unbecoming. But I find myself eager to satisfy you.”
꩜ .ᐟ
Chapter 16: I Thought I Was In Love Before
Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV, Soldier Boy POV
Summary: When you decided to work with Butcher and his merry band of supe hunters to take down Homelander, you neve expected to be saddled with a sullen, grumpy, jerk like Soldier Boy when the job was done. The more you're around him the more you hate him, but you can't help but wonder, is he really as big a jerk as you think? Reader is a supe with plant powers. This takes place in an AU about a month after the end of The Boys Season 3, in which Butcher has let Soldier Boy continue to work with him on his team. (I'm real bad at summaries, please forgive me!)
Tropes: Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, Age Difference (Reader is in her 20s), Soft Ben/ Soldier Boy, Protective Ben/Soldier Boy
Word Count: 10.3K
Warnings: I'm going to label this 18+ because Soldier Boy (he's a warning and everyone knows it), IMPLIED SEX, Swearing, Mentions of Sex, Sexual Innuendo, Heavy Petting? Making Out, Nudity, Illusions to Sex, A little bit of self-deprecating thought. Ben/Soldier Boy might be a little bit OOC.
Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!
Internal monologue is in italics and is in first person.
Listen While You Read🪴: "I've Been Waiting For You" by ABBA
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A/N: This chapter is really just a whole lot of fluff and a bit of cheeky spice, that I couldn't help but write. I figured the two of them really needed just a chapter where someone wasn't being tortured, someone almost died, someone was hurt, or them fighting lol. ENJOY!
There were more flowers in your entire apartment than in New York City on Valentine's Day, and you were sure that come morning there would be more flowers in here than what grew on the East Coast in the middle of spring.
Roses exploded from the bush in the corner splashing pinks and coral petals onto the floor, Lily of the valley dipped from outstretched stalks, honeysuckle, lavender, and lilac smiled from the pots on top of your dresser, and the gardenia on your bedside table filled the room with the sweet-smelling aroma. Even the pothos vines that trailed along your walls were brighter and greener, creeping along to secure your curtains while the Jasmine vines that crept up the wall behind your bed shed the white blooms over where Ben and you were laying.
You were sure that you had Jasmine smashed against your skin and threaded in your hair, but you weren't complaining. There was nothing to complain about, not if every time Ben took you to bed was anything like what had happened over the past four hours.
The number of men you'd slept with was in no way extensive, you could count it on one hand, which meant you weren't drawing from a wide range of experiences, not to mention that it had been probably over a year since you'd slept with someone, but Ben easily blew them out of the water.
Usually after you were with someone, you'd compare them to Newton, only because it was the longest relationship that you'd had and really the only guy you'd ever loved. When you'd finally slept with Newton, you'd thought that because you loved each other the sex was supposed to be good… but each time you were disappointed.
You could remember every awkward fumble of Newton's hands on your chest, every slobbery kiss, every time he said that he was "too tired" to return the favor, and every single time you felt unsatisfied while he turned over happy and drifted off while you tried to think of a way to muster up the courage to tell him that you wanted to try something new or at least tell him that you weren't happy.
Not being happy with Newton seemed to be a recurring theme and you didn’t know why you’d stayed with him as long as you did. Perhaps it was because you thought that it was true love, just as Ben stayed with Countess because he thought that was what love was like.
Turns out the two of you had just been waiting to find each other, and you couldn’t have been happier.
Nothing about the way Ben touched you was awkward or hesitant, it was confident, practiced, and just rough enough to give you a glimpse of how strong he really was. The way he kissed you was all consuming, as if he wanted to drink you in, swallow you whole until there was nothing left of you, as if he couldn't help himself but crash into you.
And Ben refused to let you touch him, until after he'd made you fall apart more times than you could count, whimpering, gasping, and screaming his name into the warm air of your bedroom with your hands tangled in his dark hair.
Not to mention you'd never get tired of the moans and breathy groans of your name on his lips. It made you feel powerful seeing Ben that way and hearing him say your name like that. Knowing that you were able to do that to him, to make him feel good the same way that he made you feel like you'd transcended to another plane of human existence. And you didn't think that you'd be able to stop anytime soon.
It was enough to make you regret making him wait for as long as you did. Maybe a part of you thought Ben was all talk, that there was no way that he was as good as he said he was, but you didn't expect Ben to know exactly what you needed as if he could see inside your head. And even though Ben said he wasn't gentle and didn't think that he could "make love" to you, what he just did for four hours came close.
Because he had unmade you, destroyed you, and then the shattered remains that pieced back together after he took you apart cell by cell was filled with so much love and ecstasy that you didn’t know where it all came from.
You'd never felt this way about anyone else in your entire life. Just as Ben thought he'd loved Countess, you thought that you loved Newton, but the way you felt about Ben was nothing compared to how you felt about your ex.
You weren't sure if you'd ever feel this way about anyone else ever. At the back of your mind the realization that you could potentially live as long as Ben did was hovering there and the truth was that you could see yourself spending all that time with Ben. You could see yourself spending the rest of your life with him. He was the only one you wanted and you hated how long it took you to admit it to yourself.
But there was a little twinge of something deep down that worried you Ben couldn't commit 100%, and then Ben would do something uncharacteristically soft and it would make you believe whole heartedly that he could.
And even if Ben couldn’t say that he loved you the traditional way, you knew he did. You saw it in the way he held you, saw it in the way he brought you coffee, saw it in the way he walked with you to and from work, and you saw it in the way he cared for you.
There weren't any casualties tonight, except the shower curtain and the rod. The shower had been a good idea in theory to cool off and clean up, until you grabbed the shower curtain and ripped the rod from the wall when Ben twisted his hips in a way that made you see stars.
You suppose that you had instigated it, after you laughed at Ben's inability to fit in your shower, and Ben took it as a challenge, but your plants had been spared.
And you were happy that your headboard had survived, it was antique, and you loved it, but there were a set of divots in the drywall behind the bed that made you hope that Mike wasn’t home and had witnessed what had caused them.
Though you had a sneaking suspicion that Ben had done that on purpose. It wasn't a secret to you how possessive and jealous Ben was, especially not after the way you'd seen him act around Jake. It was a trait that you'd never found attractive until you met him.
But there was something about the Ben’s jealousy and his almost primal need to claim you in every way he knew how that made you want him even more.
You hear Ben mutter your name faintly, breaking through your internal monologue.
You weren't up for moving now, your heart was thunderous against your rib cage, your limbs felt like jelly, and there was a layer of sweat coating your skin. You were laying on your back in your bed where the two of you had ended up, staring up at the ceiling in your bedroom trying to catch your breath, with the sheets and blankets tangled and thrown haphazardly off the sides at your feet.
And despite everything you thought about Ben, you never expected him to want to be close after sex, but he was laying on his side beside you, looking at you with a worried expression. His hand probes along your right wrist to catch your attention.
“Hmm?” You breathe because you can't seem to form words at the moment.
"You doing okay there Petals?" Ben looks smug, but you can hear worry slip into his voice.
It made you smile to yourself, because as rough and prickly as Ben's outer exterior was, you knew how much he cared about you even if he was unwilling to admit it aloud.
You take in a deep breath to find your voice and calm your heart. “Are you asking if you broke me with your dick? Or if you killed me with the almost Olympic level sex?”
Ben chuckles, propping himself up so he could stare down at you, his dark hair is falling forward over his forehead, and he's studying you with his green eyes.
He looks handsome. Ben always did, but here in bed with you, he looked normal, happy, and content. After the shower, his hair no longer had all the product that had been in it for the event at Vought, and after how many times you'd run your fingers through it, it was more tousled and scrunched than usual, but you loved it. He looked more like him again, not like the man that Vought had dressed up for the event. He looked like the man you'd fallen in love with.
You wondered if Ben noticed and liked that you looked more like you now, well, you as if you'd run ten miles. You were sure that your hair was a mess tangled and matted against the pillows, your cheeks flushed, and covered in sweat.
How the fuck can he look so good after doing that for four hours? Its unfair. I probably look like I've spent the past four hours trapped in a tornado while Ben looks like he's ready for a photoshoot for Vanity Fair.
"Because I never wanted to go to the Olympics, but I wouldn't mind going with you every once and a while." You cough out a laugh, still trying to catch your breath.
"Only once in a while?" Ben smirks. "Because you sounded like you'd be okay going every night not to mention it sure looks like you wouldn't mind going." He gestures to the blooms strewn around the room, before pulling one of the small, white fragrant flowers from your hair.
"Shut up."
Ben only laughs at you, flicking the flower away . "We can go whenever you want." He trails his fingertips against your cheek, brushing back some of the hair that was stuck to the flushed skin. “But you're okay? Sometimes I lose control-.”
“Some women like that.”
“No, that’s not what I meant.” He rolls his eyes at you and the hand that pushed your hair away cups your cheek. “I don’t want to hurt you.” Ben's voice is soft and serious, his brilliant green eyes searching your face and then trailing down your naked body to look for injuries that you don't have.
Sure, you were a little bit sore, but it was a good sore, something that you wouldn't mind feeling all the time. The kind of sore that was satisfying to wake up to.
“Well when we first met-“ You begin to say, remembering when Ben had you by the throat and was preparing to rip you in half when he changed his mind and threw you across the room the day Homelander went on ice.
It was an odd first meeting and given how much Ben and you argued it seemed fitting that the two of you met how all great loves should, mid-fight.
You’d always wondered why Ben didn’t just kill you when he had the chance. It would have been one less headache for him to face that day. You remember looking into his eyes and seeing the anger and rage within, feeling just a feeling a shiver of fear skate down your spine when you realized it might be the last thing you ever do. It was honestly the only time that you'd ever been afraid of him. Pushing Annie out of the way had been worth it, knowing that you saved your best friend's life made your sacrifice worth it, but Ben hadn't killed you.
Ben swallows your next words, his lips moving fervently against your mouth, rough, with just a tickle of his beard against your cheeks. Honestly, your lips were already swollen and a little bruised, not to mention you had beard burn in a few places, but you weren't complaining and like hell you were going to stop doing something that felt so good.
“Don’t fucking bring that up again. I hate that I hurt you.” Ben winces when he admits it, but his hand gently traces the gentle curve of your throat, a frown gracing his perfect lips as if he can imagine the bruised handprint you had for weeks later.
You'd caught him looking at the mark sometimes whenever you were on mission in those weeks together, but despite how the two of you had met, you weren't afraid of Ben. Sure, he had tried to kill you, but you'd done the same thing, so you'd figured the two of you were even. Plus, Ben annoyed you more than he scared you, and you didn't believe for one second that Ben would hurt you on purpose.
Ben might have been rough, but you didn't believe that he would ever find pleasure in hurting you or that he would beat you into submission if you pissed him off.
“It’s our history Ben.” You smile raising your hand to push his hair back, brushing your thumb over his cheek in a gesture that makes his lean subconsciously into your touch. “You can’t change it."
He frowns with a sigh, the green of his eyes lightening in the light from your bedside table lamp.
"Why didn't you kill me that day?" You whisper. "You didn't know me-"
Ben's expression turns to something that almost looks like shame for a moment, before it hardens. "You didn't belong there."
"Where?"
"In all that shit. I could see it in your eyes. I-" His jaw tightens. "I'd never seen someone like you before."
"Like me? Is this when you go back to insulting me again?" You snort.
"No. I-" He bites back his next words. "I've met other supes before, the ones that you said act like gods, the ones like my bastard son but you were-.” Ben huffs out a frustrated breath. “I don't fucking know you were just different, and I didn't want to-" Ben looks conflicted as if he can't find what to say.
Although you usually found Ben’s awkwardness in conversations when they got too personal cute, a part of you broke for him. You wondered if he’d been like that his whole life. If Ben had lived in a world, where he couldn’t open to anyone without an internal monologue from an unseen entity telling him that he was being a “pussy.” You remembered what your grandmother said about Ben’s father, and it only made your heart break more for him.
You made a promise to yourself right then and there that even if it took decades you were going to make Ben comfortable telling you what he was really feeling and thinking. You wanted Ben to know that it didn't make him weak to express emotion that way, that you thought it didn't make him less of a man to talk to you.
Your hand slips from his cheek trailing to curve around the back of his head, bringing his face to yours so you can kiss him, pouring as much emotion as you can into it. "It's okay." You murmur against his lips with a small smile. "I understand."
"You do?" He looks surprised.
"Yes.” You nod, trailing your fingertips in his hair. “No one else has ever said that to me or cared to notice. I think I wanted to be a part of that world because of Annie, to be closer to her, but I don’t belong in it. Even after everything that happened with Elijah and Darren-”
“No, you don’t.” Ben doesn’t say it cruelly or with disdain or in a way to belittle you, instead he says it with a sigh, his hand finding your hip, trailing his thumb over the curve of your pelvis. "I want better for you than this."
"This?"
"You working for Butcher, working fifty jobs, coming back to this shitty apartment-"
You lock your arms around the back of his neck with a laugh. "We talked about this, I like our apartment."
Ben's entire body freezes where he's laying next to you, the thumb that was circling your pelvis coming to a halt. "You said our."
"Yes I did." You smile up at him, seeing the way his green eyes have brightened with the word. "The shitty apartment is half yours now."
"What a dream come true." Ben rolls his eyes. "At least at Vought it would have been quieter-"
"I think that Mike's screeching adds to the ambiance." You joke, loving the way his hair falls between your fingers and how Ben seems to lean into your touch before he can stop himself, that he reacts that way to you touching him just as you react to him touching him. But your smile turns sympathetic. "Poor Mike. I'm going to have to get him some noise canceling headphones-"
Ben's eyes darken to an emerald. "Let him listen, maybe he'll learn something. Plus, I did warn him my girl was kinda loud."
"Is that what I am?"
"Yes." Ben smirks. "Fucking finally."
You roll your eyes. "The way we started might have been rocky, but I like where we ended up."
“I do too, but I wish we had ended up here sooner.” His smile turns more into a smirk. Ben's hand grips your waist possessively, sliding you further across the bed towards him so he's leaning over you. “Told you it would be good. We could’ve been doing this since the day we met sweetheart.”
“Patience is a virtue.”
“That I’ve never had.” Ben hesitates, something flashing through his eyes so quickly that you can't place it. “But you’re okay?” It comes out quiet, and you watch his gaze drop again to your body to check for injuries.
“No.” Ben’s eyes widen at your answer, before you smile and bring his face back down to yours, the words a breath upon your lips. “I’m better than okay, I’m with you.”
The look on his face breaks you, it's so honest, so unlike the usual hardened façade he wore that it made it difficult to breathe. It reminds you of the way your father looked at your mother whenever he'd get home from work, or when the two of them would sway back and forth in the kitchen to an ABBA song, and when he looked at her like she was his entire world and nothing else mattered.
You never thought that you'd want to see Ben look at you like that or that he would ever look at you that way, but now his green eyes are bright and happy, meeting yours and it made you feel so warm that you were sure you would just melt off the bed and into a puddle.
It was what you had imagined when you thought about falling in love with someone else, the past four hours had been exactly that too. It was the romance that you wanted, the one that you tried to use to block off Ben’s countless attempts to try and sleep with you.
And you couldn't have been happier.
"Are you okay?" Your smile turns more into a smirk. "No broken hip or anything? Because at your age I'd think that it's a hazard. Didn't think an old man could do any of that without serious injury."
Ben's gaze turns murderous, something dark shining in his eyes that makes your throat tighten. "You're gonna regret that Petals."
"Oh, am I?" You tangle your fingers in his dark locks, your smirk growing. It brought you joy to make him so angry, to annoy him as much as he annoys you.
"Yes." He growls into your mouth pinning you to the bed, his body caging you in against the tangled sheets and blankets. Ben's eyes are glinting darkly in the light and makes you lose all feeling in your legs. "You are."
A little while later, Ben traces your lips softly with his thumb as you try to catch your breath. You were honestly beginning to fade in an out of sleep, and there was a pleasant ache along your limbs that made you smile with every drag of his fingertips against your skin.
“Petals?”
“Yes Gramps?”
"Don't call me that."
"I think it's cute." You sigh. "I like how out of touch you are with everything. It's adorable."
"I'm not adorable." He huffs.
"Yes, you are Gramps."
Ben rolls his eyes, but then laughs under his breath as if he thinks it's ridiculous to try and stop you.
Good, he's learning.
“Will you say it again?” He whispers.
“Gramps?” You joke.
“No.” Ben sighs heavily and jostles your exhausted body to make you stop, but it only makes you laugh at him.
“Say what?”
“What you said before.”
“Ben, I can’t really remember where I am right now so I’m gonna need you to be a little more specific.”
“When we were at Vought.”
You press your lips together in concentration trying to understand what he means. You'd said quite a few things to him tonight, things that you'd moaned while gripping his shoulders so tight that you would have left bruises on anyone else, and you try to think of what specifically he could be talking about.
What does he mean- Oh.
“I love you.” You say it without hesitation, without looking away from his gaze, and without regret. You didn’t hate yourself for falling in love with him and you didn’t want to deny yourself of him anymore. Not when he was holding you close with a softness that Ben had said he was anything but, not when Ben took the time to care about what you liked, and not when Ben seemed truly happy for the first time since he’d been out of Russia.
Ben leans down to kiss you, but this time it’s not rough, it’s not him in a frenzy taking what he wants, it’s gentle and turns hungry the longer his lips are against yours, his hands roaming places along your body that make you sigh and reach up grip his shoulders as an uncontrollable moan slips from your mouth.
If it was always going to be like this you were sure that you’d become insatiable, but you were never going to admit that to Ben. As if you needed to stroke his monumental ego.
Plus, you had a feeling that Ben already knew that.
“Do you believe me?” You murmur against his lips, shuffling your fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, looking up at him with a gentle smile.
“Yes.” Ben whispers. “Because I know you wouldn’t lie about something like that.”
“I wouldn’t ever do that to you Ben. I want you to know that. And I wouldn't manipulate you into being something you're not-"
“I know.” He traces the soft angles of your face with his rough fingertips, sending goosebumps over your skin. “You’re nothing like her.”
He didn’t have to say Countess’s name for you to know who he’s talking about. The last thing you wanted was for Ben to believe that you were telling him you loved him to manipulate him to do something or become something he wasn’t.
“I hope not.”
“It’s what I like about you.” Ben continues. “You’re soft."
"Soft?" You raise an eyebrow trying to figure out if it was an insult.
He nods. "All the other supes I meet act like they have something to prove, but you-" Ben sighs. "You're different. You're kinder, even when you shouldn’t be.”
“Shouldn’t be?” You ask mildly confused.
“I-“ Ben hesitates as if what he’s about to say is difficult for him. “What you said that night at the fundraiser is true, I’m not this man. I’m not-“ His expression turns dark for a moment and you realize that Ben was about to say Jake’s name. Ben's jaw tightens and you can see how difficult it is for him to say what comes next. "But fuck Petals you make me want to be that man. I don't think anyone else ever has."
You could feel your eyes beginning to water with the emotion that swelled in your chest. You'd never heard Ben admit something like that, never heard him say that he wanted to be better for you.
“Ben, look at me.” You whisper cupping his cheeks to raise his gaze from your chin. “I don’t want Jake. I want you. I know what kind of man you are. I trust you-“
“But you shouldn't-“ Ben presses and it reminds you of the same thing he said to you before he took you to your bedroom.
“Why do you think that?”
“Because I’ve done terrible things. I’ve killed people, tortured others,-“
"I've killed people too-"
"Not for the same reasons. You killed them because they were going to hurt you."
You gently push his hair back from his face. “Ben?”
“Yeah?” He's frowning, eyebrows furrowed together, and you kiss away the frown on his perfect lips.
“I know you. I know about the things you’ve done. I’ve seen the darkest parts and I love you anyway. All the little pieces of who you are make you… you. You wouldn’t be the man I love if you didn’t have them."
“But-“
“No buts.” You squish his cheek and Ben gives you an annoyed look that only makes you snort. He was going to need to get used to your antics if he was going to survive living with you. “Everything you’ve done, the choices you made, the things that have happened to you, shaped the man I fell in love with and brought you to me. No one is perfect Ben. Everyone is flawed, it’s what makes us human. But sometimes the flaws are the best part. So please don’t hide who you are from me, because you think you have to. You’re not going to scare me away.”
“How can you say that when I’m so different than you?”
“Because you’re forgetting all the important parts I love about you.”
“Which are?”
“Well now it kinda feels like you’re fishing for compliments Gramps.” You joke and this time the ends of Ben’s mouth quirk up in a half smile. “You protect me, you take care of me, you always listen when I’m talking and you actually remember some of the things I say, you pay attention to what I like, you try to make me laugh with your disgusting sense of humor-“
“You know you like it Petals.” Ben smirks.
“And you annoy me.”
He shakes his head with a chuckle. “Doesn’t seem to be a good thing. Annoying you.”
“It is.” You giggle. “Because no one else annoys me quite like you do.”
“You’re so fucking weird.” Ben says, but it's not hostile, he says it with love, almost as if he can't believe how lucky he is.
“I love you too Ben.” You pull his face down to yours, cupping his cheeks with your hands and feeling the beard scratch and scrape against your palms.
“You’re unlike anyone I’ve ever met.” He murmurs, trailing his kisses down to your jaw.
“Pretty much everyone you’ve met is from another century so-“
Ben raises his head to glare at you. “You annoy me too.”
“And you see it as a good thing right?” You tap him on the nose.
“Fuck no.”
The bed shakes with your laughter, Ben is still leaning over you, his right hand pushed into the sheets next to your head, his body resting comfortably beside you. You could feel how warm he was, the weight of his body like a warm blanket, and you knew that you could get used to this. You wanted this life with Ben so badly it burned through your body like wildfire. It made your heart ache, just as it used to when you thought about having a romance like your parents, your grandparents, and Annie and Hughie. When you’d think about finding the person who seemed perfect for you in every way.
Funny, given that Ben seemed to be the opposite of you, but that was why the two of you fit so well together.
“You never listen to me, you always argue, you always find something I’ve done to complain about-“ Ben continues.
“Are you going back to insulting me? Because it wasn't exactly fun for me earlier when you yelled at me."
“Give me a fucking minute.”
You wait.
His voice shifts to something a little gruffer almost confused. “You don’t ask me for anything.”
It was probably the last thing you thought he was going to say. If anything, you thought he was going to say that you’re always covered in dirt.
"What?"
“Countess she always-“ Ben frowns. “She was always asking me for shit. Jewelry, clothes, a new car. I always got what she asked because I thought that’s what you do for someone you care about, but you always fight me whenever I try to buy something for you. I don't understand you."
"You've said that before-"
"I know, but it's true. I've never fucking understood you." He smiles when he says it.
"That's okay, you have time to figure it out."
Ben hesitates, his hand tracing your arm. "I guess you do too."
The comment is paired with another rare soft smile, the kind of smile that you wanted to make him have every day for the rest of your life, and you understood why he was smiling like that. Because Ben was allowing himself to be comforted by the idea that he wouldn’t have to worry about losing you, that he wouldn't have to be alone and that you would be with him for as long as he was alive.
Something inside ripped open and you felt your eyes begin to water with the weight of his words, because Ben was saying that he wanted to be with you as long as you wanted to be with him.
"Yeah." You breathe. "I guess I do."
You contemplate for a minute what he said about Countess asking him for things. "Honestly, I do like gifts, but I like gifts that mean something." You sit up, gently pushing him off you, so you can gesture to the bookshelf standing proudly on the other side of your bedroom, the one that Ben bought you at IKEA. "Like the bookshelf."
"I bought you a diamond necklace and you liked the bookshelf more?" Ben sighs incredulous.
"Yeah." You laugh. "I've needed a bookshelf for ages, but I never was able to afford one. Do you have any idea how long I've had piles of books? Years. And-" You shrug your shoulders, gently taking Ben's hand in yours, rubbing your thumb over the hardened ridges and rough patches. You couldn't go long without touching him, you were realizing that about yourself and now that you were finally allowing yourself to touch him you weren’t sure when you would be able to stop. "I've also always thought that spending time with someone else is more special than big extravagant gifts."
"Really?"
You nod.
"Why?"
"Because I think there's something wonderful about just existing with someone, of inhabiting the same space and doing nothing at all. Of sinking into someone and just being there." You could feel your cheeks flushing. "When we watch a movie or when we sit and read together or when you walk with me to the plant shop, I like things like that. Spending time together without expectations or a sense of urgency. Taking the time out of your day to be with someone else. And it doesn't have to be sex either-"
"Are you saying that you didn't like the sex?" Ben raises an eyebrow. "Because you certainly sounded like you-"
"No! I-" Your cheeks flush. "I liked the sex."
"Thought so." Ben smirks.
"You're insufferable." You roll your eyes at him, considering what to say next. "I know that it's a little different than the girls you've met in the past, and I know that it might seem a little strange, but you didn't have to take me to Vought to impress me or win my love or something."
Ben looks confused.
"I mean, if you'd shown up on my grandmother's doorstep with a giant box of greasy Chinese food, a cheap bottle of wine, and a small bouquet of flowers I would have been equally happy."
"Really?"
"Mhmm." You continue to trace your fingers over the palm of Ben's hand, loving the way it feels in yours. "You've got some big hands there mister."
"There isn't anything small about me Sweetheart, you know that. Got to see firsthand" Ben teases sitting up and leaning towards you with a smirk that makes you roll your eyes. He takes your free hand in his left brushing his thumb over the palm. "Yours are kinda small."
"Sorry sasquatch, we can't all have meat hooks."
"I like it." He murmurs.
"That you've got meat hooks for hands?"
"No, I like how small your hands are." He smiles crookedly at you in a way that makes your breath catch.
"Why?"
"Just take the compliment Petals."
"Well, no one has ever complimented my hands before so…"
"I'm sure that I can give a compliment to every part of your sexy body.”
"If you're about to start talking about my ass again, Ben I swear I'm going to lock you in a tree."
“Songs should be written about it. I’m just stating the obvious.”
You shake your head at him and continue to stroke your thumb over his palm while Ben does the same thing. He was being surprisingly gentle, holding your hand as if it was a fragile bird that could fly away at any moment.
“Why do you like my hands?”
Ben is quiet for a moment. “I don't know I kind of like how delicate they are, and I like how you always seem to have some dirt on them-“ Ben smooths his thumb over your palm. “I like how small they look in mine.” He mutters more to himself than to you.
“Ben?” You whisper.
He glances up, an ashamed look on his face. “Yeah?”
“I like how they look in yours too.”
“Really?”
You nod before you look back down at his hands with red cheeks. “I like how big yours are because they feel solid, strong, but also just a little bit gentle.” You could feel yourself blushing all over again. “When we first met, I didn’t think you could be, but you are.”
Ben scoffs.
“Stop.” You look up at him. “You don’t have to pretend right now, it’s just you and me.” You whisper, squeezing his hand encouragingly. "I know that you think that you have to be this tough, no feelings, jerk or playboy or toxic masculinity poster boy, but you don’t. Not around me. I love you and you opening up to me more is not going to make me stop or think less of you. You can tell me how you feel without me judging you."
The look in Ben’s eyes softens for a moment.
“I like the way you are when you’re around me.” You continue in a whisper. “You always seem softer and a bit happier.”
Ben doesn’t answer immediately, instead he continues to let you stroke along his hands. “I-um-I” He clears his throat. “I like who I am around you too.”
Your cheeks warm with his confession.
Ben clears his throat still looking down at your hand watching the gentle movement of your thumb against his skin. "Look, I-" He pauses. "I wasn't just trying to impress you."
"When?"
"At Vought."
"Then why-"
"I don't want you to worry about any of this shit anymore."
"What shit?"
"Paying rent, buying groceries that aren't name brand, walking because you can't afford a car-" Ben sighs. "Fuck, the day we went to IKEA, and you looked at the price of that couch, I hated how you looked and-"
"Ben it's okay. I budget things and it works out. I'm used to it-"
"But I'm not. It's not okay." His hand tightens in yours. "And I don't want you to worry about any of it."
"But-"
"No 'buts' Petals. "
"I don't want you to pay for everything all the time!" You shout.
"Why not?"
"Because it's your money-"
"Not anymore. You're my girl and that means you're not going to worry about any of it as long as I'm here."
"Do you think you're going to stay a long time?" You say it hesitantly, the part of you deep down that worried Ben couldn't be in an exclusive relationship rearing its ugly head all over again.
"As long as you want me here." The determination in Ben's eyes makes your heart stutter a beat, but there was just a little bit of something behind his gaze, something that looked like vulnerability, but it vanishes in the heat of his gaze.
"I'm pretty sure that I'm always going to want you here. It's too quiet without you."
“Then I’ll stay.”
Ben pushes you back against the bed, fitting his body over yours like a warm weighted blanket designed especially for you, kissing you with so much enthusiasm you're not sure that you remember how to breathe. You didn't understand how it could be like this, how you could feel this way about him especially after he annoyed you so much.
But just as he reaches down to grab your thighs to pull them up around his hips, your stomach growls loud enough to wake the dead.
Oh, holy fuck that is so embarrassing.
Ben hesitates and looks at you, your cheeks burning a bright red. "When was the last time you ate?"
"Um-" You clear your throat. "I mean I drank some of my latte earlier but-"
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
"What?"
"I should have known." Ben sighs and extracts himself from the embrace of your thighs, getting up from the bed, and muttering something under his breath that you can't understand. “You always do this.”
"Wait, where are you going?" You ask him as you sit up.
"I'm going to find my fucking phone and order a pizza." He says, running his hand through his hair almost a little angry.
“It’s okay you don’t have to do that-“
“Yes, I do. I mean, fuck Petals, why don’t you ever remember to eat?” Ben grouses.
“Because I have a lot on my mind! A few things happened today, and I was upset because you weren't in the apartment when I got home and-"
Ben leans across the bed to kiss you, securing his large hand at the back of your head. "I'm sorry that you were upset. I swear that I'm going to make it up to you."
"Ben I’m pretty sure that you’ve spent the last four hours making it up to me-“
"Not long enough." He winks in a way that makes your throat tighten. "But let me find my phone.”
"Okay." You reach for his shirt on the floor prepared to help him find it, but Ben's hand comes down to your wrist to stop you. “Let me help.”
"Don't bother getting dressed Petals. This’ll only take a minute." He says with a wide smirk. "And I'm not done with you yet."
You're not sure how you ended up on the couch naked and eating pizza, but somehow that's exactly what happens. When the pizza guy had been buzzed up, Ben had answered the door only wearing a pair of his boxers, his chest still sweaty and his hair tugged in two different directions, but Ben couldn't have cared less.
Honestly, you'd had to stop him from answering the door naked. The guy had no sense of shame, but you figured that someone who had founded Herogasm and spent at least seventy five percent of his week bed-hopping, had probably lost his sense of shame years ago.
Bean and Rex were now sharing the dog bed in the corner, a surprising turn of events, but you hoped that it meant the two of them had sorted out whatever sibling problems they were having.
Ben's arm was thrown over your shoulders, pulling you further into him while you ate a slice of pizza with your head leaning against his arm.
I could get used to this.
You exhale a happy sigh and cuddle further into him. Ben wasn't a cuddler, but he was allowing you to cuddle against his arm. But he seemed to be enjoying himself, eating his own slice while taking sips of a glass of whiskey that he was sharing with you.
Sharing was a relative turn because the one time he gave you a sip, you'd sputtered it all out and almost coughed up a lung while Ben patted you on the back as hard as he dared, laughing all the while at you.
And predictably when Ben and you were done, he pulled you onto his lap, and the only thing you could think of was how wonderful you felt. Being with Ben made you feel vibrant and alive in the best way. He made you feel beautiful and made you feel as if Ben understood you more than anyone else ever had. That he saw through what everyone else called weird or unusual and loved you anyway. It was all you wanted for so long, a man who saw every part of you that others sneered at and fell head over heels.
Ben deepens the kiss, groaning into your mouth as his hands tighten on your hips hard enough to leave bruises, but you don't care. Everything about him felt right, the scruff of his beard scratching against your flushed cheeks, the smell of his shampoo (really yours) floating through the air with every breath you took of him, the soft pillow of his lips urgent as if he wanted to drink you in breath by breath and never come up for air, the rough trail of his calloused hands over your soft skin, and the hardness of his body molding around yours in the best way as you sat on top of him. You didn't feel self-conscious or uncomfortable, you couldn't, not when each time Ben touched you with a reverence as if wanted to savor you, to run his hands over every inch and discover new places that no one had ever been, and make you feel things that no one ever has or ever will.
You're so absorbed in Ben that you don't hear the jingle of keys in the lock of your front door, but you do hear the startled scream.
"What the fuck!" Annie screams as she enters the living room.
"Holy shit! Annie what the fuck are you doing here!?" You screech, diving off Ben and ripping the crocheted blanket off the back of the couch to cover yourself.
Annie had seen you naked before, what she hadn't seen was Ben naked or Ben and you having sex.
Oh, will the nightmare never end?
"I was just coming to find you! I was worried!" She shouts, her hand covering her eyes, but it was too late. You knew that she'd seen everything. And you mean EVERYTHING.
Well, it can't get any worse.
"Hey Annie did you find her and- OH HOLY FUCK!" Hughie exclaims as he enters the apartment behind Annie and immediately slaps his hand over his eyes so loud you can hear the sharp slap of his hand against his face. "I didn’t see anything!"
"Can someone shut the door before Mike comes in here and 'doesn't see anything either!'" You snap, clutching the crocheted blanket tighter against your chest. It was doing little to cover you, due to the wide spaces in between the granny squares, but it was the only thing big enough to cover all of you.
Because that's exactly what this situation needed, my neighbor coming in and getting everything on his Christmas list when he sees me naked on my couch.
"Why try to hide it baby?" Ben shrugs, leaning back against the couch not bothering to cover himself. "I want everyone to see what they can't have." He winks.
You smack him in the face with one of the couch pillows before shoving it into his lap. "You're not helping Ben." You wave a hand and a vine hanging on the back of your door shuts it with a slam.
"What?" Ben leans towards you with a salacious grin. "My girl is fucking gorgeous, should be the star of every wet dream-"
"Ben, I swear I will tie you up and-"
"But we already did that Petals." He grins. "I wouldn't mind doing it again-"
The wave of heat that travels through your body has nothing to do with embarrassment.
"Please do not finish that sentence." Annie interrupts, her hand still covering her eyes. "I'm already scarred for life."
"Join the club." Hughie mutters.
"You wouldn't have been scarred for life if you had just fucking knocked!" You shout at your friend. "Why are you here?"
"I was worried when you ran to the elevators and Ashley finally let me leave that ridiculous party! I tried to call you and you didn't answer, I went up to Ben's apartment and you weren't there, I called your grandmother and she said that she hadn't heard from you, so I figured you were here!"
"You called Di?" Ben asks.
"I was desperate!" Annie sighs. "I wanted to make sure she was okay-"
"Uh-huh well, you can see that she's fine and we were in the middle of something. Unless the two of you want to get another eyeful of my girl's perfect ass, you should clear out-"
"Ben!" You smack him on the shoulder.
"Absolutely, Annie let's go-" Hughie begins to say stepping backward with his hand over his eyes. He gropes through the air blindly trying to find her, but he comes up empty.
"Wait!" Annie removes her hand from her face, giving Ben a once over and not bothering to hide what she was doing.
"What do you have to wait for?" Hughie asks still reaching out for Annie with his eyes closed.
"Annie for fucks sake-" You groan, but Ben seemed to like all the attention.
She gives you a thumbs up. "I want details tomorrow."
It was more of a high five moment and you both knew it, but you weren't going to give her the satisfaction.
"ANNIE!" You huff face blushing an even brighter red. By now you were sure that you were as red as the strawberries that were hanging on the plant on your kitchen table.
"Bye babe!" Annie says cheerfully, pulling Hughie out the door behind her and slamming it.
"I'm going to kill her." You mutter under your breath, but Ben laughs.
"You're going to talk me up right baby?" Ben purrs wrapping his arm around your waist to pull you into him again. His lips fall to your ear, biting your earlobe before he murmurs. "Tell her all about how good I was?"
"Keep talking and I'm going to tell her that I had to fake it for four hours." You threaten.
It was an empty threat, like hell you were ever going to forget what Ben had done to you. And of course, you were going to tell Annie everything tomorrow over coffee or maybe over wine.
Definitely wine. I’m going to need to get a little bit drunk to cope with the thought that Hughie just saw me naked.
"Aww don't be like that Petals. We both know that you didn't fake anything."
“That you know.”
Ben’s gaze turns dark. “Oh really?” His grip on your waist tightens and he starts to pull the crocheted blanket away from your chest.
“Wait.” You say before you get distracted.
“What?” Ben pulls back. "What's wrong?"
"Annie called my grandmother, which means that she may have tried to call me." You look around the room for where your phone could be. It's between the couch cushions behind you and when you look at the screen you see that your grandmother had tried to call you twice, just as you suspected.
"So?"
"She called me. She must be so worried." You push the call button.
Your grandmother answers on the first ring. "Hello?"
"Hey Gran, I'm sorry I didn't pick up. I was-"
"You don't have to explain. I know that you must have been preoccupied." The way she says preoccupied makes your entire body flush bright red.
Oh, sweet baby peony, please tell me that my grandmother didn't watch Ben and me having sex.
"Please tell me that you didn't-" You begin to croak.
"I didn't mean to." She breezes, and she doesn't sound ashamed. "But then Annie called, and I was worried about where you were so I looked ahead a bit and-“
"Oh, for the love of lemon cream pie." You groan, curling up into a ball because that seems the right thing to do after you've found out that your grandmother had a front row seat to see what Ben and you over the past four hours.
The couch shakes beneath you, and you realize that Ben is laughing. You raise your head to glare at him.
"Looks like the cats out of the bag Petals." He croons.
"I will kill you." You narrow your eyes at him.
"Sweet Pea, I was alive when Ben went to yearly herogasms, there really isn't anything I haven't seen." You hear your grandmother say.
"That doesn't matter." You groan, pulling the crochet blanket over your head in shame. "This is mortifying."
"Petals it's okay." Ben rubs your back, but it's not helping. "I did some of my best work, and you really did some-“
"Please do not finish that sentence."
"Honey, I didn't see too much." Your grandmother soothes. "But I am happy you called, because I want to speak to Ben for a moment."
You hold up the phone from underneath the crocheted blanket, remaining inside your cocoon of shame.
I'm never going to be able to look her in the eyes every again. Holy fuck why me? Why me!? I’d rather Mike walk in here while Ben and I were fooling around on the couch.
"Di, what's wrong?" You hear Ben say into the phone, but you don’t come out of your cave.
"What's wrong?" Your grandmother asks calmly. "Oh, let me think for a second… You're a complete MOTHER FUCKING IDIOT!" Your grandmother shouts it so loudly that you could hear it vibrating through the room.
You peel back the crocheted blanket on your head to look up at Ben who seems just as surprised at your grandmother's insult.
"Wait a minute, what did I-"
"No! No talking!" She shouts. "I couldn't have been any clearer, could I? Maybe if I'd hit you over the head with a frying pan it would have cleaned out your ears! Or given your brain a good shake."
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"What am I talking about?! I told you what you needed to do. I told you that you needed to come here and what did you fucking do? You broke my granddaughter's heart and went right back to Stan Fucking Edgar!"
Ben's eyes shift to yours and you swear you can see a flicker of regret spark behind his gaze. It makes you reach out and take his free hand, squeezing it to ground him here with you. You knew that Ben felt bad about leaving you like that, you heard it in his voice when he talked to you back at Vought, had seen the regret in his eyes when he told you that he ‘should have been there.’
"That's not-" Ben says half-heartedly, his gaze still on you.
"No! It's exactly what happened."
"Stop anticipating what I'm going to fucking say!" Ben snaps.
"And you stop interrupting me!" Your grandmother shouts back.
"But-"
"Benjamin, you better not fuck this up, because if you do, I will fuck you up." The threat hangs heavy in the air. "Now put my granddaughter back on the phone."
Ben huffs something under his breath and hands you back the phone, fuming. You give his hand another apologetic squeeze.
It was embarrassing enough that your grandmother had seen Ben and you having sex, but now you were mortified that she had yelled at him. You understood that they were friends, but Ben was still your boyfriend.
"Gran you shouldn't talk to him like that." You say into the phone, leaning into Ben's bare shoulder to show him that you weren’t angry with him. "He's apologized and it's okay-"
"It most certainly is not okay." Your grandmother says. "And somebody's got to talk to him like that, so it might as well be me."
"But Gran-"
"No buts sweet pea." She interrupts. "Now I know the two of you are busy today, but I would like you to come out here next week."
"Next week?"
"Yes. It's the annual town fall festival and I've got about a million things to bake, and I could really use the help." Your grandmother states. "Plus, Annie's mother is driving me up the wall about it and it would be nice to have someone here to make sure that I don't kill her."
"Oh okay." You frown and the thought of leaving Ben. The two of you had just finally worked it all out and now you were going to have to go back to Illinois. But you couldn't leave your grandmother high and dry. She needed you there and you loved your grandmother. "Well, I guess Ben can take care of Bean and Rex-
"I want to go." Ben interrupts you.
"Really?" You look at him surprised. "It's not something that you'd-"
"I want to go." He says firmly and this time it's Ben that squeezes your hand.
It made you smile, because you could see that Ben wanted to spend time with you even at something that he'd probably hate every second of.
Fuck, I love him so much.
"Okay. We'll be there." You reply to your grandmother, but you don't look away from Ben.
He's got that soft smile on his face, the one that you want to make him have every second for the rest of your life. You were sure that the same smile was mirrored on your own.
"Perfect. Now get back to doing whatever it was that you were doing, and don't forget to call me when you figure out what day you're going to start driving over."
"Drive? Wouldn't we fly?"
"Nope. For some reason you convince Ben that a road trip will be fun." She says knowingly and you realize that she's seen the future again. “Something about experiencing America in the 21st century.” You can imagine her waving her hand around as if she can’t quite understand.
"That's going to take some getting used to." You groan and wonder how much she had seen of your life. "Gran?"
"Yes, sweet pea?"
"Thank you. For everything."
"You're welcome." You could hear the smile in your grandmother's voice.
She didn’t need you to explain what you meant, she knew that you were talking about last week when she comforted you and tried her darndest to tell you that Ben and you were meant to be together. She had always been so patient with you, and you knew that she loved you just as you loved her. Going home was never a chore or something you dreaded. It was something that filled you with warmth, something that made you feel like you belonged, and the home was filled with the love your grandmother infused through the air with her thoughtful actions and kind words.
"I love you." You smile.
"I love you too sweetie. I'll see you next week."
You sit there in the silence for a moment, lowering the phone from your ear, before you look up at Ben.
"You okay Petals?" Ben drags the crocheted blanket away from your body, before he pulls you onto his lap.
"Yeah. I am." You smile, wrapping your arms around the back of his neck to secure him against you. "Can you promise me something?"
"Anything." His hands settle comfortably on your hips, but Ben doesn’t look away from your face.
"That you won’t leave like that again." This time you reach down and pull his right hand up to your chest, directly over your heart so he can feel the gentle beat through his skin.
'Like-"
"Go all radio silent and take all your stuff and just vanish into thin air." You clarify. "I didn't like that. It scared me and I-"
Ben's other hand cups your cheek, pulling your face to his before you can finish your sentence. You can feel how sorry he is, how much he wants to make it up to you. You know deep down that Ben didn’t mean to do that to you, that he only did it because he was trying to push you away, but that didn't make it any less okay.
"I promise." He says into your mouth before nipping at your sore bottom lip and easing the pain with a sweep of his tongue against the soft flesh. "I won't leave like that again."
"Good." But instead of kissing him again, this time you press your forehead into his shoulder with a soft sigh, cuddling into him.
"Tired?" Ben's hand begins to circle at the base of your spine.
"Mhmm. You wore me out old man."
"I thought you were faking it."
"I wasn't faking all of it." You press a kiss into the shadow of his jaw, holding on to him. You wondered if Ben was okay with how clingy you were but given his hand placement you didn't think that it bothered him.
"Thought so." Ben chuckles. "Petals?"
"Hmm?" You hum into his skin, tightening your arms around his neck. He was wonderful and warm in the best way, like the perfect heating pad. Not to mention the way his muscles tensed around your body made goosebumps flicker over your arms. You could feel a wave of happiness and contentment crashing over your head, the longer you cuddled into him.
"Will you promise me something?" He mutters into the top of your head.
"Of course."
He’s quiet for a few moments. "That you won't leave either." Ben whispers it so quietly that you're not sure that you heard him correctly.
You pull back just a few inches to look him in the eye. He looks a little ashamed, and you can practically see the internal self-deprecating monologue inside his head, his face scrunching up in disgust. He opens his mouth, probably to take it back-
Your lips meet his, gentle, unyielding, pouring every emotion you have into it, your hands finding the strands of hair at the nape of his neck to hold him closer to you. You wanted Ben to understand that you would never judge him for that, that he could be vulnerable around you without consequence. And you wanted him to believe how much you loved him and how much he meant to you.
Ben moans into your mouth, pulling you tighter against his chest, your body molding against his in the best way, in the way that Ben only could. His hands were everywhere, trailing warmth in their wake, making the tiredness that you had felt minutes ago fade as you began to burn beneath his calloused palms.
He tasted good, he smelled good, and he felt so damn good that it made you feel like you were catching fire one cell at a time, burning until there was nothing left but stardust.
"I promise Ben." You whisper against his mouth before he swallows the words whole. "I promise that I'll never leave as long as you want me here."
He hesitates, hands stilling on your hips. An odd look crosses his face.
"Ben? What's wrong?" You cup his cheeks, worried about him.
"I-" He swallows, but looks frustrated with himself.
"It's okay." You whisper, brushing your lips against his, understanding exactly what it is that he's trying to say. "You don’t have to say it. I know. I love you too.”
And you did know. You knew that it was difficult for him to admit something like that, but you didn’t care. You knew that Ben loved you as much as you loved him, and that was enough for you.
You settle back down against his chest, holding him close to you.
“Come on Petals, let’s go to bed.” He murmurs into the top of your head.
“Can we just sit here for a few minutes?” You whisper into his throat, nuzzling into his warmth.
Ben’s hand gently trails along your back, holding you steadily on top of him. “Yeah. We can do that.”
And you wondered if Ben liked this as much as you did, if there was a piece of Ben that longed for the quiet moments you loved so much, and the quiet moments when it was just the two of you and no one else.
You feel him press a kiss to your hairline, and it’s enough to send you off into the sweet relief of sleep, swallowed and enveloped in Ben’s warm embrace.
A/N: Just a lovely bit of fluff and a little spice 😉. I really needed to just write a soft Ben and a reader enjoying their time together. 😊 There will be one more chapter that is a little bit of a time jump, but I think it will wrap up the series wonderfully! But don't worry, it won't be the last time I write for this reader and Ben. I have a mini-series planned and a few one-shots planned!
As always thank you so much for reading! Reblogs, Likes, and Comments are not required but are always appreciated. I love hearing what y'all think! If you'd like to be added to the taglist for this series let me know!
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Love in Motion: The Tour
Track 7: A Mistake
18+ MDNI | popstar-bodyguard!Joel Miller x fem-popstar!reader (called 'Misty') | series | 1.7k
Misty is back again for the North American leg of the Love in Motion: The Tour. 6 cities, 14 shows, each with its own challenges and events that only bring her and her new bodyguard closer.
Genre fluff, angst, eventual smut, popstar bodyguard AU, no outbreak AU
TW/CW innuendos, no Y/n (uses her stage name only: Misty), OOC Joel Miller (because it's important for the ✨plot✨), profanities, age gap (no specific age, he's just older than her)
Note there's no taglist for this series
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If your iPad were as flimsy as a piece of paper, it'd probably had been torn a long time ago from how many times you kept erasing and redoing your album concept sketch during this flight alone. In fact, if you had been in the confines of your own room back home, you'd probably already thrown a fit by now. Even Ben who sat next to you clicked his tongue in annoyance as you once again gritted your teeth and erased your process.
"Do you need help?" he asked.
You sighed, forcefully put down your Apple Pencil, letting it stick to the magnetic part of your iPad. "I have a rough idea for the next album concept, but I don't know how to execute it."
"Well, drawing is never your biggest forte." Ben shrugged after you shot a glare at him. "Just telling you the truth. You're best at singing and mediocre at drawing."
"Whatever." You waved a dismissing hand at him. "You're supposed to be helping me."
"With drawing?"
"Yes," you deadpanned. "With brainstorming. Duh!"
"Spill. Tell me what you have."
"I want it to be party themed."
Ben raised an eyebrow. "Party? That's too basic and you're not doing basic."
You rolled your eyes. "I know. The party won't be basic."
"Because?"
Your face broke into a grin. "Because there will be you, and the rest of the crews, and Joel. Basically it'll involve everyone."
Ben raised an eyebrow again, but this time not in doubt, but in intrigue. "Have you asked the others?"
"I was meaning to ask you to ask the others."
"And Joel, too? Your grumpy bodyguard who's only here temporarily?"
Ben sighed, his fingers kneaded the lines on his forehead. "You know what? I'll leave you to it. Tell me more about the concept."
"So, partying. Can be a house party, maybe a house party. Imagine it like the typical college kid's party. The crews and you will be 'dancing' in the background, all blurred faces. The focus is on me, and Joel."
"And Joel?"
"Yep."
"You said this is a college kid's party. Joel is not exactly college age anymore. Also, Joel as the main character here?"
"I said 'like'. And none of us are college age anymore anyways. It'll have this nostalgia themes over it and the songs will also talk about that. I need someone with experience to be my love interest."
"College love?"
"First love."
Ben went silent for a few seconds that you interpreted as him thinking over it. All the while, you were looking at him, hoping he'd say yes.
"Look, it'll be perfect for a sort-of-sequel for Love in Motion," you argued again when Ben didn't say anything.
"How so?"
"Well, Love in Motion is talking about crush and stuff. So if my next album is talking about nostalgia to that crush, wouldn't that be great?"
"Do you really want a sequel?" Ben raised an eyebrow.
"Not really. Just that the concept kind of makes sense to be a sequel."
Ben let out an audible sigh that you could hear despite the loud engine noise of the plane. "I'll talk to the company. Nostalgia to your first love. What about the songs?"
"I'm working on it."
"You better have a rough idea for the tracks before we present it to the company. And even better if we can start recording the demo before that."
You nodded, a feeling of satisfaction bloomed in your chest. "Okay."
"You also need to convince Joel. I ain't doing that."
"I know, Ben," you dragged his name on purpose, mind already filled with ways to coerce Joel into agreeing.
Turned out, persuading Joel wasn't as easy as you thought. Had this been someone else, you'd probably only need a few minutes and they'd say yes, partially because it would be an honor to be a popstar's love interest. But this wasn't just anybody else. This was your grumpy, much older, bodyguard who had seen first hand what fame entails.
"I don't do photoshoots," Joel argued. "I'm not photogenic."
"You won't show your face on camera, I swear. Maybe just the side of your face, but that will be blurred, too." You stared deep into his eyes, hoping that he'd relent.
But his eyes were still as hardened as ever. He wasn't convinced and your effort of trying to convince him didn't impress him at all. "Look for someone else. Someone better."
You narrowed your eyes at him as a frown started to appear on your face. "Define 'better'."
"Younger, for starters," he answered without a beat.
"What?" you incredulously asked. "I want you because you're more experienced than those younger guys. I want you to give me pointers."
"I don't have experience with photoshoots."
"Not the photoshoots. The nostalgia thing. Were you even listening?"
"My point still stands. I'm not an expert in nostalgia."
"Yeah, right, because there are people who are experts in that," you deadpanned.
"I'm serious, Misty."
"And you think I don't? It'll be fun, I promise. And your face won't be shown. And the other crews will be there, too." Truth to be told, Ben hadn't shared the info to the rest of the crews, but you knew convincing all of them would be easier than convincing a guy named Joel Miller.
"But I'm only working here temporarily."
"Some of the crews are interns," you pointed out.
At that, Joel let out a long sigh, eyes went anywhere but meeting yours.
"What do you say?" You were partially hoping that his sigh was a sigh of defeat, that he'd finally relent.
"I can't change your mind, can I?"
"You can't." You flashed him a grin, once again winning against him.
With convincing Joel had been crossed out from your to-do list, you still had to sketch the tracks that would go in your new album. And that was much more difficult than persuading Joel.
If you weren't busy with soundcheck and concert, you'd spend your time rotting away in your hotel room, mind trying to find whatever idea you could put down on your iPad for your new songs. You were so invested in sketching out your new songs, recording bits of the lyrics or melody you already found, that you didn't realize the knock on the door that gradually got louder and louder.
Only when you heard that usual gruff voice you were pulled back to the present. "Princess, open the door."
Dropping whatever you were doing, you opened the door and came face to face with your bodyguard. His hair was damp, probably just finished taking a shower. His shirt fitted nicely around his wide shoulders and thick biceps. You couldn't help but admit that this was a very nice distraction for your current state of mind.
You gasped when you realized how stupid you must've looked in front of Joel. You wore an oversized tee that fell just a little over your ass. Your hair was a mess from running through it so many times and your lips were chapped from biting and licking it. You automatically covered your face. "Don't look! I'm ugly. I don't have makeup on."
"What are you talking about?" he gruffly said.
"I don't even have my fake lashes on," you answered, still hiding your face from view with your hands.
"Fake lashes? Really?"
"Yes! Really."
"It's not that serious. I've seen you with a bald spot before."
That response got you letting your hands fall to your sides as your eyes glared at him. "We never talk about my bald spot ever again." Your hand went to the bald spot that formed after that airport incident instinctively, as if touching it could make it grow faster.
Joel shrugged. "Anyway, why are you still awake? Look at the time."
"Huh? What time is it?"
"It's literally 2 am."
"Oh." You totally forgot to check the time.
"You just got off a show and tomorrow have a flight to catch. Go to bed."
"This is my chance to brainstorm for my new album."
"Do it tomorrow when we're flying. You'll have all the time in the world."
You opened your mouth, about to protest. But instead of an answer, you suddenly let out a huge yawn unceremoniously in front of your hot bodyguard who was still as hot in the middle of the night as he was during the day.
"Alright. That's it. You sleep now." Without waiting for your permission, he stepped inside your room. He took a hold of your arm, gently but firmly, and pulled you towards your bed. He pushed your shoulders gently, intending to make you lie down on your bed.
"Wait."
Joel sighed but stopped pushing you nevertheless. "What?"
"I can't sleep just yet. I have to finish that ASAP." You pointed at your iPad on the desk.
"Finish it tomorrow." He firmly pushed you down onto the bed, forcing you to lie down before tucking you in. "I'll be checking in later to see if you're actually sleeping or not." He pulled the cover up to your shoulders as if you were a little kid who couldn't do it yourself.
For a split second, when he was still hovering above you, you swore you felt that butterflies in your stomach that people had been talking about. Except, what you felt was more like your heart had dropped to your stomach and causing commotion there instead of butterflies. And when his eyes met yours, your heart stopped beating for a second and air was pulled from your lungs, making you feel dizzy but strangely also safe and content at the same time.
Your heart worked back to normal when Joel suddenly cleared his throat while standing straight back up. He headed to the light switch and were about to flick the lights off when your voice stopped him.
"Does that mean you won't sleep the whole night?" you said. You hated how your voice was small, meek, and weak, things that you swore you weren't, but it seemed like Joel didn't care how you sounded like as his fingers flicked off the light.
In the darkness, you could only see the silhouette of his back. He stood so quiet and still, you thought he wouldn't answer your question. But right before he stepped out of your room, he said, "I will if you need me to."
Without any other words, he closed the door behind him, plunging you back into the darkness of your room.
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okay deancas family au because fuck you they can all be happy give me a break
dean aka dad (emma, ben, jack). coaches jack's teeball league and refuses to let anyone but emma drive the impala because she is the only cautious driver who treats his baby right. a mechanic with a passion for car restoration.
cas aka dad (claire) and daddy (jack). likes drawing his family and taking care of the garden outside. has been banned from being in the car while dean teaches the kids to drive because (newly) human cas is a screamer. stay at home dad because they commit credit card fraud and do not need two incomes.
emma aka em (dean) and emmie (jack). twenty-two and enrolled in a college a few hours away. working on a career in social work because of circumstances related to jack's adoption. same height as cas and she mocks him for it every time she visits home.
claire aka clairebear (dean). nineteen and working full time at the same carshop as dean. has wrecked her car several times and is barely allowed to keep driving every single time. will never admit that she used to draw grumpy cat fanart as a teen.
ben aka would rather die than have another nickname. seventeen and freaky good at baseball. goes to therapy weekly and now insists that claire and emma try it as well. didn't like jack at first but bonded with him by cheating at family game night (jack is just distracting enough for ben to snatch some extra cash in monopoly)
jack aka jack attack (ben and claire). five and utterly incapable of eating any food that adults eat, dean has to make him special alphabet soup more than half of the week's dinners. was adopted due to his birth dad going off the rails and (his technically uncle) cas taking him in. do not give him sugar or he will not sleep for the next forty-eight hours.
bonus!
uncle sam aka sammy (dean). jack always insists he climb sam because he's so tall. has been made to let emma and jack braid his hair. is always dedicated jack carrier at the zoo because, well, he's the tallest and jack sees the best from sam's shoulders.
aunt eileen aka aunt ellie (jack). taught the rest of the kids sign language and volunteered to come in and show some kids at ben's school basic sign. makes a killer burger that dean will never admit is better than his but knows is better than his. loves tricking dean into wearing plaid so she can get a picture of her husband and brother in law twinning (both sam and dean despise this but cannot seem to avoid it)
while I'm here actually, what are your thoughts on the rest of shatter squad. We all know Raymond is best boy but what about east/phase and one and axel and the other one
Like most people I found the actual Zero show to not do much in terms of drawing me to the characters.. Danielle and West's story was kind of interesting but the execution was very poor. The thing that saved the characters in my eyes was the Family Shatters series (how BAD do you gotta fuck up for a parody mini series of your own show to be better then the original??) I like them WAY more now.
Apart from Ray I'm a big fan of Axel. Normal character that is slowly being infected by all the weirdos around them is one of my favorite tropes, he reminds me of Ben Wyatt from Parks and Rec. West is great too, even if he's like a less goofy Sarge every show needs a grumpy old man that's also everyone's dad. No strong opposition opinions on One but I like her enough. Danielle is alright too, I always thought the hollow echo thing was kinda dumb but family shatters did a few fun things with it.
The whole viper team was great, Zero works WAY better as an unserious villain (his original motive was cartoonish anyway) and diesel just kinda being there semi-peacefully was very entertaining.
Tbh if you're one of the majority that hated rvb0 I recommend the family shatters series (to my knowledge it's still on youtube) it's not perfect but it actually made me love the characters more then the real show did
Fix You - Chapter 10: Here Comes My Girl
Gif by @azertyrobaz
Pairing: Frankie “Catfish” Morales x Fem!Reader
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Read on A03
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Chapter Summary: Wildflower comes face to face with the reality of severe trauma, and confesses what else is on her mind
Word Count: 9K
Rating: E, 18+
Chapter Warnings: Legal age gap (10+ years), cussing, consumption of alcohol, smut, P in V, blood and gore, gun violence, mentions of suicide, PTSD, mentions of death
A/N: The spark has been reignited!! Hallelu!! That being said, this chapter is tough, but it ends so so sweet. Please heed the warnings. This story has always been heading in the direction of dealing with serious topics and PTSD. I’m not going to shy away from it or the things the U.S. military has done in other countries. If you need to skip this one, I completely understand. If it offends you, okay, but I’m not changing my mind. I hope I did all this justice! No beta, we live and die like Oberyn Martell.
Suggested Songs: “I Found a Reason” by Cat Power, “Everlong” by Foo Fighters, “Here Comes My Girl” by Tom Petty, “Better” by SYML, “Falling in Love” by Cigarettes After Sex, “Zombie (Acoustic)” by The Cranberries
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Fuck it’s hot. Extremely hot. So hot that you have to bounce on tiptoes as you make your way across the sand. Hot enough that when you want to swim you pretty much have to book it to the shoreline to soothe your feet. Dry, oppressive heat, though still much preferred over the humid stickiness that usually blankets this state. It’s Florida, what can you expect?
July Third finds you sprawled out on the beach, soaking in the aggressive rays of the sun after your last dip in the cold ocean. Frankie is passed out face down on his towel next to you, Will and Dali sunbathing on your other side. Santiago’s sitting in the sand in front of you, helping you quietly with your Spanish workbook as he plays with the sand, covering and uncovering his legs.
“God dammit, I keep mixing up vosotros and nosotros.” You throw your pen into the sand and heave a sigh.
“Don’t get frustrated. You’ll get it, you just have to keep speaking it.”
“I’m already calling you enough.” You chuckle.
“I’ll never say no to a phone call from you Gorgeous, you know that.”
Over your shoulder you hear an exaggerated sigh, drawing your attention away from Santiago and your work. Benny is scrolling through his phone absently, his leg bouncing with unused energy, a small frown flickering across his lips. He’s been off lately, you’ve noticed. More restless, a tad grumpy. Barely noticeable, but you see it just the same. He looks up from his phone and grunts.
“Will.”
“Mmmph.”
“Wanna play frisbee?”
“Not really.”
“Well lets do somethin’.”
“Ben, I’m chillin’ right now. Leave me alone.”
Benny huffs, and looks away. You glance up from your work to watch the exchange, normal for two brothers, but there’s something more lurking behind the words this time. A shadow of anger, then something else flitting across Benny’s features. He picks his phone back up and resumes fiddling with it.
“Hey Pope.” He looks up at you from where you’re huddling together. “Would you want to walk with me, with Benny?”
If you thought anyone had the ability to read minds, it would be Santiago. Perhaps it’s with everyone, maybe just the bond that has grown between you in the past few months, he always seems to understand what you’re implying without having to outright say it. He smirks and pats you on the leg. “That’s a great idea.”
You turn to Benny. “Hey, wanna walk down on the beach with me? I want to stretch my legs a bit.”
Benny’s face perks up, a step closer to the usual bursting enthusiasm you love so much. “Yea, alright.”
You get up and brush errant sand off your thighs, turning to look down at Santiago slyly. “Pope, wanna come?” He plays along and agrees, and you ask Dali to tell Frankie where you’ve gone if he wakes up. He’s too dead to the world to be bothered. Santiago pops open the cooler to grab some beers for the three of you to enjoy while you walk and you head off quickly down the beach, angling closer and closer to the water until your feet are relieved by the cool lapping waves. You joke and chatter of nothing of substance, occasionally chasing down a shell in the shoreline or checking out a pretty girl. Benny is still quiet, for him anyways, shuffling along kicking sand and shells alike with a sour expression, not contributing too much to the conversation.
It’s pissing Santiago off. “Alright, Benny. What is your problem? You’re being a downer.”
Benny sneers. “Nobody wants to fuckin’ do anything anymore.”
“What? What the fuck are you talking about?” Santiago halts, the sand digging slightly in his feet as he rounds on Benny and forces him to a stop. You hover next to them.
“I dunno, it’s just annoyin’ that everyone is paired up and doesn't want to do anything except be with their girlfriends now.”
Santiago shifts, glancing briefly at you. “Well, I don’t have a girlfriend.”
Part of you feels a little annoyed at Benny for the insinuation. You’re dating Frankie, obviously he and you are included in Benny’s complaint. You feel your hackles start to rise, but then a sudden thought pricks in the corner of your mind. Something you remember Frankie saying to you before.
No, I’m glad you’re getting close with Benny, baby. It’s good for him to have someone to hang out with, especially since Will has a girlfriend now.
You place your hand on his arm. “Benny, is it possible you’re lonely?”
He scoffs and mutters softly. “I’m not lonely.”
You look at Santiago, testing the waters if he is on board with you pressing forward. He doesn’t give you any indication you should shut up. God dammit. You hate this. Benny is usually your little ray of sunshine, you’ve never heard him sound so dejected before. “…Well, if you ever are, you should call me.”
“You got Fish.”
“No, Benny, really. Call me. You’re my friend too. I like spending time with you. It’s not out of pity. It’s not a favor.”
Benny rolls his eyes and turns to look at the waves, his lips twitching around as he processes what you’re saying. There’s no insult there, nothing to bristle against, nothing to challenge. He turns back to you with a half-smile, chucking you under the chin like he always does. “Yea, alright. Thanks.”
“I'm here too, you asshole.” Santiago chimes in, making the two of you laugh.
You decide to turn back and return to the cabana. You’d walked about half a mile and your calves were burning from keeping yourself steady in the unstable sand. Benny takes your hand in his as you walk, a soft squeeze telling you what he couldn’t say. It takes some time, but by the time you get back to the rest of the group, he’s almost back to himself again.
“Hey baby.” Frankie greets you as you sit down next to him, giving you a hello kiss. You greet him back and get settled on your blanket. “Are you learning Spanish?”
Shit. You’d left out your book when you went for that walk. You meet his eyes, he looks so adorable and soft right now, the dopiest smile on his face. You feel like you could almost melt into the sand and be whisked away by the sea. “Yea, um...dammit. I kinda wanted it to be a surprise. Pope’s been helping me too. I just thought...you know...maybe I should know it.”
Frankie eyes Santiago in his periphery before looking back at you. He’d woken up not long ago to find you gone, noticing your open workbook with your little handwritten word conjugations as he reached for the cooler. Cooler abandoned, he couldn’t help but peruse through your work to see what you were working on. It made his chest burn, clenching sharply as he realized what it was.
He wants to say something, something, he can't believe you’re doing this for him, how touched he is, how much he loves you, how much he hates his fucking brain for always jamming up and being incapable of forming the words he wants to say. Instead, he kisses you. You hum against his lips as he deepens the kiss, gripping your waist in his hands and pulling you into his lap until Dali and the guys start amicably jeering and teasing.
“Oh fuck off.” He growls. You giggle, your mind reminding you of that first night you’d kissed when you could hear them catcalling as Frankie swept you down the hall.
Eventually the sky is peppered with a few large billowy clouds, enough to cool the sand so you can stand on it for more than two seconds. After seeing who could chug a beer the fastest, the guys do decide to pick up a game of frisbee, and you and Dali plead yourselves out of it to watch and have some girl time. Frankie attacks your face with sloppy kisses before they head a little ways away for some space. After a few minutes of arguing, they split up into two teams, Santiago and Frankie versus Will and Benny.
“You guys are adorable.” Dali teases, eyes sparkling as she turns towards you. “Everything going well?”
You beam. “Yea, it honestly is. I’m kind of shocked actually, that we just...fit so well. How about Will?”
Dali hums, a soft smile playing over her full lips. But there’s a twitch at the corner, something off. “Yea, I really like him. But…” You raise your eyebrows and scoot closer. “Do you...does Fish ever get...weird with you? Sometimes? Randomly?”
You furrow your brow, chewing on your lip as you think. “Weird like how?”
“Like...suddenly getting real distant, but then being fine later?”
“Oh. Yea, he does sometimes. It’s probably soldier stuff, I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”
She nods. “Yea, I figured. It just seems like he’s...keeping me at arms length. Like he’s keeping me from getting closer to him. I just wondered if Catfish was the same. It seems like you two are really close.”
“Will has always been pretty reserved, at least to me. I don’t think it’s you. I hear him tell Frankie how much he likes you all the time. Maybe he just isn’t ready to talk about some things yet.”
Dali takes your hand. “You’re probably right. Thanks.”
“Of course. Just be patient and let him come to you when he’s ready. I know he will. Frankie’s just starting to share with me. Trust me, Will is not unhappy with you.” She squeezes your hand and you squeeze back before she lets go and flips to her back. You reach for the cooler and pull out two more drinks, passing one to her, the conversation soon shifting to lighter topics.
“I want to ask her to move in with me already, but I think it’s too soon, and Gabi doesn’t even know yet.” Frankie says, sailing the frisbee to Benny. It’s like he doesn’t even look at it to catch it and it hits him in the stomach and bounces off.
“Shit, Fish. Really?”
Frankie grimaces. “Well, I mean, I dunno. She’s always at my house anyways and it’d be easier and she could save on rent, it’s not a big de-”
“Do you love her?” Santiago asks, catching Benny’s throw with ease.
Frankie can feel his cheeks burning. But he knows his friends support him. “Yea...fuck, yea I do. But I don’t want to scare her off. I don’t want to ruin it.”
“Well you better hurry up and tell her or I’ll tell her I love her.” Benny teases.
“What?!”
Benny shrugs. “She’s fucking awesome. I love her and I’m not afraid to say it. AS A FRIEND!” Benny laughs and holds his hands up as Frankie looks ready to charge him. “You need to work on your temper, Frank.”
Frankie catches the frisbee from Will and all but flings it at Benny. “I told you not to call me that.”
“You have nothing to lose, Fish.” Will adds.
“Yea I do. I have everything to lose. I’d rather just shut my trap than scare her away.”
Santiago shakes his head. “She’s learning Spanish for you, pendejo! She fucking loves you, it’s so obvious! You know she does. We know she does. Cowboy up and say it. And don’t fuck this up, she’s a good one. Cause we might pick her over you.”
Frankie huffs and turns to look at you, you're stretching out like a cat in the sun next to Dali, laughing over something or another.
Alright. Shit, alright.
As per usual with a game played by a bunch of idiots, the game descends into chaos. Benny turns on Will to try and sabotage his catch mid air, slapping it away with a cackle to throw the game to Frankie and Santiago. That quickly devolves into a ridiculous wrestling match between the two brothers as they try to pick each other up, tumbling and falling down on each other into the sand.
“These boys, I swear to god.” Dali laughs, looking at Will with a soft smile. Will is bigger and uses it to his advantage, lifting Benny up by the thighs and barreling his shoulder into Benny’s waist only to entirely lose balance and tumble in a pile into the sand, Santiago and Frankie looking on with taunts and bets. Benny’s up first, using his hands and arms to scramble away and zip by you, Will close on his heels.
“You son of a bitch. Stop running!” He laughs, pushing himself forward as Benny loops back around you and Dali to try and escape towards the ocean, only to be once again knocked over by his brother into the surf. Santiago stands at the shore with hands on his knees, eyes crinkling in laughter.
You sigh, taking in the levity, warmth seeping deep inside of you and worming its way into a part of you that wants the best for them, wants to keep them this way forever, to take care of them. Your boys. You’re so lost in your head you don’t see Frankie approach until he’s right there, taking you by the hand and pulling you up and towards the ocean.
“Come swim with me.” He murmurs, keeping a hold on your hand as he wades with you into the surf. You turn to look at him, the sun illuminating over his head and glinting off the chestnut highlights in his messy beach hair making them seem almost golden. His eyes are wide and open, completely unguarded, speckles of amber molten in those coffee brown irises. They’re almost wolfish, soft but wild. A ghost of a smile flickers across his lips and it looks like he wants to say something, but then pauses, closing his eyes and inhaling the salt air deeply. You do the same, turning away from him and looking out at the rippling expanse beyond the waves, soaking in the sun hitting your back.
“Race you?” His voice breaks the trance, and you turn to him with a grin. He has that look, that fucking look again, eyebrows arched, mischievous glint in his eyes as he smiles a toothy smile.
You hold your finger up in front of his face. “No. Frankie? No. Don’t you dare- !” He lunges at you but you’re off, charging into the waves to escape his blatant attempt to throw you in backwards again, your legs lifting high and surging through the waves away from him. “Don’t you DARE throw me in this ocean again! Franciscoooooo! NO!” You squeal and slap him away as he almost gets your wrist, diving headfirst into the next cresting wave as it knocks him over.
When you pop back up you don’t see him. You’re out relatively deep, you can’t feel the ocean floor beneath your feet, even with your tiptoes. “Frankie?” You feel your heart drop in your chest as you try to keep above the next waves while looking for him. It feels like forever, but then he suddenly pops back up sputtering, his hair plastered over his face and in his eyes. You let out a gasp of relief, you hadn’t realized you were holding your breath, but you play it off and roll your eyes at him as he makes his way over to you.
“Damn! You beat me!” He wraps his arms around you and pulls you into him, your back curving into his chest.
You elbow him lightly in the shoulder. “You scared me, you idiot.”
“Really?”
“Yea I...I came up and...I couldn’t see you.”
He turns you around to face him as you both bob up and over the beginnings of waves. “You know you don’t have to worry about me. I’m hard to kill.” You wrap an arm around his neck, your other hand tracing up the broad planes of his chest to absently rest on the gunshot scar tissue above his collarbone.
“Okay.” You pull him to your lips, the salt of the ocean on his skin tangy and delicious. You lick your tongue against the seam of his lips and he opens with a moan, his own eagerly meeting and circling around yours, droplets of water from his wet hair and mustache dripping across your nose and cheeks, his lips. He moans again, reaching down to pull you up by the thighs to wrap them around him, cradling your ass in his palms, planting his feet on the sandy ocean floor that he’s still able to reach. You can feel his hardening cock underwater bumping up against you, right where you want him. Your body responds automatically and you shift so he’s right against you, rolling your hips lightly against his as you tilt your face to kiss him harder, hands gently pulling on the wet hair at the nape of his neck.
You pull away and look at him, your love for him bubbling over like a glass of soda poured too fast. He’s smiling that crinkly smile, his hooked nose pulling down more as it deepens. You nudge your nose against his then kiss the tip of it.
“What are you doing?” He laughs, cradling you in his arms.
“Loving on your nose.”
He hums. “My ugly nose.”
“No. Your sexy nose that I love grinding on so much.”
“Mmmmmmmm yea?” He pulls you back against him by the hips, rubbing you over the bulge in his trunks. “And this too?” His eyes close as his head tilts back, reveling in the pressure of you against him.
“Yea.” You tug his hair to pull his head back more, ravaging his neck with kisses and love bites as your grinding picks up speed.
He groans in disappointment when he pulls you off him. “As much as I love this, we better stop or we’re going to get arrested for indecent behavior on a public beach.”
“Boo.” You pout. Frankie laughs and pulls you onto his back instead, piggybacking you back and forth in the water, carrying you in his arms bridal style, and eventually getting the chance to toss you in a wave before you tire and decide to head back to shore.
“Alright, now mush!” You cry from his back, gently knocking his sides to urge him back to shore. You giggle as he makes a show of racing back to the beach until the waves make it impossible for him to keep carrying you without dropping you. He keeps a hold of your hips as you finally both emerge from the waves, turning for a kiss before grabbing your hand and leading you back to the cabana to enjoy the remainder of the afternoon with your friends.
It’s a good thing Frankie prepped for the barbecue this morning before you went to the beach, because by the time the sun is setting and you head back to the Miller house, he and the guys are absolutely trashed, stumbling up the beach chatting loudly and chasing each other around.
“For fuck’s sake Frankie! Will you let me finish this for you?!” Frankie’s arms are around your waist, his jaw over your shoulder as you do the best you can with his inebriated directions on how to finish everything up. You grumble and turn around, grabbing him by the shoulders and pushing him back. “Frankie, I can’t set everything up if you are hanging off me.”
“Mmmmm you’re so cute when I annoy you.” He slurs, booping your nose.
“Alright. Come on. Sit.” You push him towards the dining table and into his seat. You, Dali, and Will help bring all the food to the table. As you place the last dish next to Frankie, he takes the opportunity to pull you right into his lap.
“Hi baby. Mmmmmm I like you so much. You should eat right here.”
“Yes please.” Santiago chimes in. “Give us a show!”
Benny throws his hands up and whoops, and Frankie’s hands press your hips deeper into his lap. You roll your head and look at Dali in exasperation.
Frankie nuzzles his nose into the back of your neck. “My baby likes it where we could get caught, hmm?”
The boys all howl a ruckus as you turn and slap Frankie in the arm. “Frankie! Shut up! I swear to god I’m never letting you get drunk again.” You pull yourself off his lap and into a chair next to him. He tries to chase you with a kiss but you shove him lightly again. “And that’s you with the “in public” thing, not me.”
That does absolutely nothing to calm everyone down, and you groan, face burning, looking to Dali for some help. She claps her hands loudly, coming to your rescue. “All right. All of you! Eat! Get something in those tummies and sober up or Wildflower and I might kill all of you.”
“Yes mom.” Santiago teases as everyone starts to settle down and dig in.
The spread of pork barbecue sandwiches, mac and cheese, baked beans, biscuits, and salad does its job, the guys all sobering up to a more reasonable level with all that food to soak up the alcohol. Everyone decides to head back outside to watch Jaws in the outdoor lounge, bellies full and fresh drinks in hand to undo their hard work. Will even breaks open a prized new bottle of whiskey for everyone to enjoy as you watch.
There aren’t enough seats for six, so you let Dali have the final seat as you perch on the floor in between Frankie’s legs, your head leaning against his thigh, his fingers massaging your scalp. When he notices you shifting on your sore butt he pulls you back up and into his arms, your legs hanging off the armrest of the chair, your arms wrapped around his neck.
It’s beautiful out and quiet, you settle into Frankie’s arms, resting your head against his shoulder as you watch the shark wreak havoc on Amity Island. About halfway through, Will stands and collects all the glasses for a whiskey refill, quietly sliding through the door to the kitchen to make up the drinks.
It happens so fast you barely have time to process. The night sky was peaceful and then it wasn’t, a short burst of several loud bangs filling the air over the ocean right by the house, sparks exploding like colored stars and fizzing out as they move towards the ground.
“Fuck!”
In between the booms you hear Will yell and glass shatter, and you scramble off Frankie’s tense body round the back of the couch towards the door to the kitchen.
“Wildflower, no!” Frankie calls, standing once he comes to his senses, reaching out to try and grab your arm. He’s in full flight or fight mode, his body too amped up and he just misses you, failing to get to you before you run through the open door. The fireworks die out as quick as they started, the smell of smoke permeating the air the only evidence they existed.
When you get inside the kitchen Will is just standing there, not moving, facing away from you with his hands out.
“Will?”
He doesn’t answer, so you move forward quickly, gently laying your hand on one of his arms. Before you can get closer he jerks out of your grasp and throws you off him. You stumble a little with the force of it as Will turns around. He...doesn’t look like Will. His eyes are hard and feral, like he’s not even looking directly at you, but through you. He steps forward as if he might throttle you with his bare hands, and you back up and put your hands up in surrender. “Will.” His sharp blue eyes are just staring blankly past you, haunted, icey, and hollow. “Will, it’s okay. It’s me. It’s just me. You’re okay. You’re right here in your kitchen and you’re safe. It’s okay.” He has little to no reaction at all other than his chest heaving too rapidly to be normal.
“It’s okay.” You step towards him again, and this time he doesn’t move. You look down at his feet, some of the whiskey tumblers he’d been carrying had been dropped and shattered to the floor, slicing open the tops of his feet. He’s even standing on some shards now, like he’s so fucking out of it he’s unaware of the puddle of blood, whiskey and glass he’s standing in. You slowly bend to your knees down to the tiled floor, resting back on your heels. Making yourself smaller. Less threatening.
“Will. You cut your feet.” He blinks rapidly, lowering his gaze to his feet then back up to you, his eyes slowly returning to normal as his adrenaline calms down and he processes where he is. “Let me help you?” You whisper. He nods slowly. You shuffle towards him, careful of the shards of glass, but suddenly realize you don’t have anything to clean him up.
But then Benny is there, taking Will by the back of the neck and pressing his forehead to his. “You’re alright bro. You’re good.. I got you, okay? Let's get you out of this...get you on the counter.”
Will obeys, still quiet and shaking, unsteadily hopping up onto the counter with Benny’s help so that you can clean up. Dali arrives at your side with a roll of paper towels and you scoot to allow her to be nearer to Will while you clean up the floor. She mimics you, you’re not sure how long she’d been behind you but she takes your cues, murmuring softly to him as she slides her hands up his ankles to let him know she was there. She carefully wraps his bleeding feet in a mass of paper towels.
You stand up and step back, allowing the people closest to Will comfort him, turning away to move back outside to give them that privacy. Frankie and Santiago are hovering in the doorway, mouths hanging open.
Frankie takes you by the shoulders and looks deep into your eyes. “You okay?”
You nod, and he envelopes you in a tight hug. “Are you okay?”
“Yea.” He rasps. “Kind of was in shock for a minute. Wasn’t expecting that tonight. It’s never happened before…”
“What happened?” You look up at him.
He pulls away and rubs the back of his neck nervously. “Will doesn’t do well with really loud noises.”
“Oh.” Oh. The fireworks. This is why they don’t do anything on July Fourth, you realize, suddenly feeling incredibly stupid. And it was right there. Right on the beach mere yards away. “That’s why you get together before.”
He nods. “Yea. I...it’s never happened before the Fourth before. After? Yea. Usually he just puts in earplugs. But...this was...a surprise. Fucking neighbors...”
You nod, hugging him to you again before you turn to Santiago. He rubs your back and the three of you return to the outside living room. The best thing you can do right now is not make a big deal out of it and allow Will the time to calm down with the people closest to him. Eventually they all come out and say nothing, simply re-seating themselves to relax with some TV together.
“Hey, Flower, can you come here for a minute?” Benny plucks your arm as you are getting ready to go.
You pause, looking at Frankie, who is already halfway to the gate out of the backyard with Santiago. He halts, confused. You hold your finger up to him before turning back to Benny. “Yes. Everything okay?”
“Yea, Will just wants to talk to you.”
“Oh.”
Benny leads you back in through the kitchen door while he remains hovering at the entrance. Will’s leaning against the counter with Dali, his feet wrapped up in gauze and bandages. He steps forward awkwardly.
“Are you...okay? I didn’t hurt you did I?” You’ve never seen Will this scared before. It’s a complete one-eighty from where he was this afternoon. It breaks your heart.
“Oh, Will, yes. Yes, I’m okay.” You advance on him and slowly wrap him into a tight hug, resting your chin on his strong shoulder. He squeezes you tight and exhales as he releases you. Dali moves to his side and reaches out to hold your hand.
Will looks at her then back at you. “I’m sorry if I scared you. Thank you...for helping me. Calming me down.”
“Of course. It’s no problem...I love you guys, all of you. Anything I can do to help.”
Dali smiles and pulls you in for a hug. “Thank you. I didn’t know what to do, I just stood there like an idiot.”
“No.” You soothe. “You were fine. I didn’t know what I was doing either, I just reacted. I’m sorry if I overstepped.” She pulls away, running her fingers along your hair as she parts, shaking her head with a smile. “Alright, well, I’ll leave you guys to have some time together. Thank you for tonight Will.”
He winks and you turn back to the door to rejoin Frankie. Benny’s leaning against the doorframe and he cups your cheek briefly before rejoining his brother to help clean up.
Frankie’s standing not too far behind. “He just wanted to make sure I was okay.” You clarify. He nods and the two of you head to the truck, arguing over who is driving home. You finally put your foot down and physically push Frankie to the passenger side yourself, absolutely refusing to let him drive after drinking so much.
The trip home is chillingly quiet. Your mind is spinning with new information as you handle Frankie’s massive truck and you can almost hear Frankie actively fretting, his teeth nipping on his lips every few minutes. “Frankie?”
“Hmm?”
You hesitate, unsure how to broach the subject tactfully.
“If you have a question, just ask it.”
You swallow. “Why...why did you try to stop me from checking on Will?”
He sighs heavily. “It’s...difficult. I don’t want to say things about him that are really personal.”
“Oh. Okay, I understand.”
“But after today...you might need to know a little.” He shifts in his seat, and you reach out and rest your palm on his thigh. “Will, he has issues sometimes. He doesn’t mean it, he just freaks out occasionally and he can get...aggressive. I just wanted to make sure you didn’t get hurt.”
“Has this happened before?”
“Yea. Sometimes things just set him off. It’s unpredictable. Doesn’t happen often though. He just doesn’t like being surprised with loud noises.”
You hum. “I can understand that. Fuck those assholes for not setting them off on the right fucking day.”
“It’s why we get together before, people have never set them off before the holiday before. After, yea. But if he knows it’s coming he’s okay.”
“You mentioned before that his nickname was metalhead...and that he was shot in the head, right?”
“Ironhead. Yea.”
“I can’t imagine what that must be like, and the after effects of that. He’s doing so well, considering.”
Frankie looks over to you quickly. “So..you’re not mad. Or scared of him now are you?”
“Absolutely not.” You reply firmly. “My friendship is not fragile. It doesn’t go away just because someone has a flaw they can’t help.”
A smile flickers at the corner of his mouth. “Thanks.”
You bob your head, letting the cab of the truck return to silence.
Later you would realize something had been off with him that night. He was quiet, slightly unfocused, kind of twitchy. After getting under the covers he let you into your favorite spot, but there was no chatter. No caresses. No tickles or pinches or jokes or extra snuggles.
You’d felt the way he’d stiffened under you when the fireworks went off, the hand on your thigh squeezing too tight, his eyes like a deer in headlights as you hopped off his lap to see to Will. The others weren’t much better, but you had put that to the back of your mind. You shouldn’t have.
His eyes sting. Fucking dirt or sand or whatever picked up by the wind and forcing him to squint when he knows he needs to see clearly. He moves down the street at the rear of the group, rifles up and at the ready. A pause up front. A commotion. His chest hurts, his heart is racing. Movement. A woman with something strapped to her chest runs down the street towards them. He squeezes his eyes shut and then opens them again. Everyone else is gone. Chunks of flesh and body parts strewn across the street, blood spattered on the walls of the buildings. The smell of burnt flesh. A truck upended and on fire. He closes his eyes again, opening them to murmurs and commands on his com. He moves forward in the dark underground bunker. A maze. He hates mazes.
Advance on the door. He does. Out of the dark, a teenager with an automatic rifle guards a door refusing to let him pass. He has to pass. He chokes out a sob but he can’t breathe, the discharge of his gun causing images to flash in cycles in his eyes as he feels himself suffocate on nothing. A man refusing to be brought in for war crimes and shooting himself in the head. Rounds of fire shooting into a crowd of screaming villagers. Crying and calling out in languages he doesn’t understand. The sound of rain in a jungle. A mule squealing and falling off a cliff. The sound of a detonated land mine. A helicopter spinning out. Benny yelling in terror. Tom's head bleeding out on a rock. A man in Delta Force gear getting his throat slit-
Frankie jolts awake with a long gasping breath, his heart pummeling in his chest, a light sweat coating his skin. He thinks he can still smell gunfire smoke. Charred bodies.
Fuck.
This hasn't happened in a long time. Enough time that he thought...hoped, that he was over it. He sits up and curls forward, covering his face with his hands, trying to control his racing heartbeat and buzzing alcohol brain. Everything still feels hazy, but clear at the same time. His body exists, but everything else is blurry, tuned out, unfocused...muffled.
He doesn’t even hear you calling his name.
“Cat?” You hear him jerk up, hear him gasp for air like he’s choking, feel him shift in the bed as he moves. But he isn’t answering, as if he doesn’t even register you’re there in the bed with him.
“Frankie.” Still, no answer. You reach for the lamp on the nightstand at your side of the bed and turn it on.
He’s sitting up, his back arching forwards over bent knees, head slumping into his crossed arms, face covered. Like he’s trying to roll into a ball, like he wants to shrink into a shell of himself that doesn’t have to feel anything. His breathing is too rapid, his back puffing from the inhales and exhales at a rate that makes it pretty clear what’s going on.
He’s having a panic attack too.
You scoot forward slowly until you’re to his right in his peripheral if he were to lift his head, slightly behind him. “Frankie.” You repeat yourself again, and again, softly, reassuringly until he twitches and buries his head further into his arms.
A response. Good.
You remember what happened with Will earlier that night and adjust your technique to not repeat the same mistake. You’re unsure how Frankie is while having an episode. You haven’t seen it before.
“Frankie. Can I touch you?”
He doesn’t react for what seems like forever, but eventually you see him nod the smallest nod. You lay a palm on his shoulder and slide it to the valley between the blades. His shirt is sticking to him with a light sweat. You pause, not wanting to overstimulate him. He whimpers and you continue, gently rub his upper back up and down before reaching your other arm in between his bent thighs and tummy to fully wrap your arm around him, laying your cheek against his shoulder. You press a kiss to the fabric there, and he slumps backwards into your embrace like his bones were made of rubber.
“Oh….baby. It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re right here with me, you’re safe.” You squeeze him tighter. “Bad dream?” Another little nod. “Okay. That’s okay. It’s done now.”
You stay like that for a long time, long enough you can feel your back becoming sore from the odd position. Recalling his back complaints, you know his can’t be much better. “Come on.” You say, tugging him backwards a bit, scooting yourself back up onto the bed and resting your head on the pillow. You reach your arms out to him. “Come here.”
He doesn’t move at first, his paralysis fueled by both anxiety and his already stubborn demeanor. But you wait patiently with your arm out to invite him in and eventually he crawls up the bed and flops down into your arms with a huff. You move the arm his head lays back up and around his back, stroking him soothingly up and down as you were before. He shudders, inhales deeply, the exhale stunted by quivering breath as he burrows himself into the crook of your neck, his arm wrapping around your waist and pulling himself into you, as if you could absorb him and all of his pain.
You wait for him to settle, saying nothing. You know him well enough to be able to read when he wants to talk or not. You don’t even acknowledge when you feel dampness on your neck and the collar of his tee you wore to bed, or the way his body just barely trembles as he cries. You just let him try to cope, try to give him what he needs to do that, gently raking your fingers through the cold, sweaty curls at the back of his head until he falls back asleep.
When he wakes, it’s to the scent of you. You’re both in almost the same position as you fell asleep, his leg flung over one of yours and your head turned away from him. The arm he’s resting on is cradling the back of his head, your hand resting against his ear, your other hand laced with his on your stomach. He doesn’t even remember when that happened. He shifts, inhaling that sweet scent of you deeper, letting it surround and ground him.
He didn’t dream any more last night. Like your simple comfort and acceptance had told his thoughts to be silent, like your arms around him literally shielded him from any more hurt. He wishes he could talk to you, tell you what he’s seen, done, heard, thinking maybe you’d help, you’d lend your kindly ear and support like you always do.
But Delta Force is a different breed. Documents swearing confidentiality and top-secret missions not even some of the members of the government know about. And Colombia...he can’t speak of that out of the shame, the guilt.
You shot innocent people. You didn’t think. You flew the helicopter. You didn’t listen. You were too quick on the trigger. You shot first. You caused Tom to die. It was your fault. They all almost died, because of you. His kids don’t have a father anymore.
No. He can’t talk about that. Ever. It’s better for you not to know. The other things, maybe, in time. Little by little, piece by piece. He feels safe knowing you don’t mind that, you let him come to you when he’s ready. You never push, you never pry, you never demand. He thinks you deserve so much more than him.
He feels you hum under his cheek, the sound vibrating against him as you wake. You stretch out your feet, pointing your toes as much as you can in this position. It’s cloudy today, the early morning sunlight that peeks through the window shades is pockmarked and spotty, leaving the room in a strange state of light but dark. The hand resting around his neck caresses him softly, sliding up to cup the back of his head, fingers threading through his unruly curls.
“Hey.” You croak.
“Hey.”
“How are you? Did you sleep okay...after?”
He nods. “Thanks.” His words are muffled against you.
“Do you want me to make some coffee?”
He grunts and pulls you into him closer. “No. Can we just...lay for a bit?”
“Yea, of course.” You kiss the top of his head and settle into a comforting silence only highlighted by the two of you breathing.
“I’m sorry...that you had to see that. Probably didn’t help that I drank so much yesterday.”
“Don’t be sorry. I just wish I could have done more to help.”
“You did. Thanks for driving us home.”
He pauses. I’m a fucking mess.
“Sometimes I think I don’t deserve you.”
“Frankie, we’ve talked about this. Why?”
“Cause I’ve just...done a lot. Things I had to, things I can’t stop thinking about, things I had to be a part of. Shitty choices I’ve made. I...don’t think I’m a bad person, but it feels like I am.”
You push his chin up with your finger to make him meet your eyes. “Frankie, no. You just said, you had to do those things for work. If anyone is to blame, it’s the government. And you’re not a bad person, you’ve made some mistakes like anyone else, and that’s okay. You have so many people who love you and think you’re good. Please believe us.”
“Yea, who.” He scoffs.
You scoff right back. “Your friends, your family…” You pause, realizing what you were just about to say.
He feels like his chest has seized up, throbbing pangs in his heart spreading through his whole body. Oh shit. This....this is it. I should say it first. No...wait, just wait. He meets your eyes. You’re chewing on your bottom lip, your facial expression twisted as you decide whether or not to roll with it.
You swallow.
His heartbeat is hammering in his ears.
“And me.”
He’s staring at you.
Fuck. Fuck.
You almost back out, playing it off like it wasn’t meant the way it sounded but you stop yourself. He’s still staring at you, warm chocolate brown eyes wide, eyebrows arched. That fucking puppy dog look again, and you remember.
“You’re everything to me. Stay. Don’t ever leave.”
“I...love you Frankie.” And god dammit he’s still staring at you not saying anything and you can’t help but backpeddle, stumbling over your stupid quivering voice. “I- I’m sorry, I know it’s only been a few months and it’s really soon and you don’t have to say it back at all, I don’t expect anyth--MMPH.”
He practically slams his lips into yours, his hand reaching to cup the back of your head to pull you into him more. It’s a mad press of his lips to yours, you feel like your heart is going to explode, like it’s just not capable of experiencing this much feeling all at once. Hope. Fear. Ecstasy. Adrenaline. Relief. He pulls away only to surge forward again, planting several more pecks on your mouth, his hand sliding forward to hold your cheek in his palm.
“I love you too baby, I love you so fucking much.” He lets something out that sounds halfway between a sob and a laugh, and you do the same in return. He lifts himself on his arms and moves to lay on top of you, resting his chin on your chest as he settles between your legs.
You can feel tears starting to form at the corner of your eyes, the prickling not unwelcome, but still, you’d prefer to not start sobbing. “I was so scared to tell you for so long. I thought- I should wait...if you didn’t want to...or if you didn’t..”
“Baby.” He husks, pulling himself forward so he can rest his forehead against yours, his lips a fraction of an inch from you, his warm breath tickling your face. “I fell in love with you that first time you hugged me.”
Well that was...that was only after knowing him a month and a half. This whole time? The tears are falling freely now. “Frankie...”
“I was scared too. I still am.” He whispers.
“Don’t be, don’t be. I love you so much.” You reach for him, hands grasping at his sides as you push your face forward, closing that space between your lips once more. It’s like every kiss before was leading up to this one, your heart cresting in emotion as you capture his bottom lip between yours. You tilt your head, delving your tongue into his mouth and he meets you, licking into you as you retract, tasting you, soothing you, loving you. He whimpers into your mouth as his hips subconsciously roll into yours. His whole body is flush against you, but the weight of him is welcome and comforting. It makes you feel held. Safe.
You pull your legs up and plant your feet on the mattress, framing him with your thighs as you kiss him harder, tilting your pelvis into his so minutely he doesn’t even register it. His hands are everywhere, sliding up your thighs, gripping your waist, the sides of your face, your ass, your breasts. Your kisses become sloppier and more frantic and it isn’t long before he’s fully rocking his hard length into you
“Cat. I need you inside me.”
“Fuck, me too.”
He raises himself just enough to push his pajama pants and your panties down before settling back on you, the hot thick length of his cock bumping against your thigh. A bead of pre-cum smears across the sensitive skin there, cooling in the air as it dries. He moves to scoot down your body, pushing your shirt (his shirt) up until your breasts are exposed, but you pull him back up.
“No, I need you now. Please.”
He hums and lurches forward back to your lips, thrusting his tongue into the heat of your mouth. You can’t even bother with taking the tee off, opting to leave it bunched up along your sternum. Frankie lifts his hips and grabs himself, lining the fat head of his cock up and smearing it around your folds before thrusting in completely to the hilt.
His face slackens when he’s fully seated inside you. “Oh, fuck.”
He’s always big, always huge inside of you but this stretch is something else, when he hasn’t spent time working you open for him with his mouth or hands. Making sure you’re thoroughly soaked and weeping for him. He swallows your cry at the intrusion with his mouth. The slight pain feeling so fucking good, his body pressed as close as it can to you.
“Okay?” He pants against your lips, breathless at the way your walls adjust and accommodate him.
“Is there…” You sigh when he rolls his hips, his forearms framing you, the head of his cock hitting someplace so fucking warm and delicious. “Is there a word that’s better than okay? Cause I forgot it.”
He chuckles, pulling back until only the tip of him is still inside you before sliding forward. And again. And again. A gentle rhythm like the waves at low tide.
“I love hearing you get all cock-dumb baby.”
Your giggle turns into a squeak as he nips at your neck, licking a stripe up to your ear and nibbling the lobe. He kisses his way back down, pulling back to look at your face as you take him into you. You’re fucking gorgeous, mouth open, brows tilted, and the way you’re looking at him.
You love him. Him.
He cups your cheek in his hand as he thrusts in and out of you slow enough you can feel every ridge, every vein, the throb of his cock head as he hits that perfect spot over and over. You shift to take him deeper, wrapping your legs around his waist. “Jesus, baby you feel so fucking good. Fucking take me so- so well.”
You whine as he leaves your lips, chasing him but he’s gone, kissing down your neck, clavicle, down to the pillowy tops of your breasts, lathing and licking the valley between them until he takes one of your breasts in his hand, tweaking the nipple oh so gently.
It’s too much, the nervous energy from before seeps back into your nerves, heightening every sensation to a level that’s sublime. He can feel the way your legs are tightening around him, the way your body tenses, your cunt starts to clench around him, your breathy moans pitching higher telling him you’re close. The coarse hair at the base of his cock rubs against you at each reconnection is almost too much.
“You’re so tight. Oh god, you feel so good baby.”
“Don’t stop. Right there.”
He doesn’t, keeps rocking into you until you’re dangling on the edge for a few seconds that feel like they last forever.
“Want to feel you cum. Soak my cock honey, come on.” Your pussy is almost squeezing him to death even as he forces you over the edge, landing a few harder ruts into you as you shatter around him, thighs shaking.
“That’s it baby, hold on to me. I got you. Such a good girl. My sweet- unff - fucking girl.” You're boneless under him, eyes hooded and blissed out, mouth agape. He resumes his languid pace and slides his hand under your ass, pulling a leg up to rest higher on his waist. His other arm curls around the back of your shoulder for leverage, stretching you open and pulling back, the squelch of your juices filling the room.
God, his noises. The fucking sounds he makes are so sinful and intimate paired with the heated puffs of air tickling the skin of your neck. Moans turn to grunts, grunts turn to whines, and again, you realize you’re close. It comes so sudden it’s almost paralyzing.
“M’close.” He croaks out, adjusting his grip on your elevated leg, his cock jostling inside you as he shifts.
“Oh, my god. Me too, I- I think.”
“Yea? Gonna cum on me again? Cum. Make a fucking mess. Want my baby to feel so fucking good.” You squeeze your legs around him so you don’t lose the position, pulling him into you by the curls at the nape of his neck until you are forehead to forehead again. “Yea, pull me in, take it, just like that.”
The eye contact is overwhelming, but you don’t want to look away from him. You want him to speed up and you don’t, you want to cum but you don’t because you don’t want it to end.
“Wanted to fuck you that first time I saw you. In the coffee place.” He gasps against you. “Fuck you against my shelves when I came home. Jacked off constantly to you. I can’t - mmmm - I can’t stop thinking about you. You’re it for me baby.”
It’s that more than anything that makes you snap, cumming fast while you clench your nails into his back. You chant his name as your walls flutter around him, coating him with another rush of your slick.
“Fuck yes. So fucking pretty.” His hips snap faster against you as he chases his own release and he pulls your face back down so he can see you, to regain that eye contact as he cums for you.
You wrap your arms around his neck and hold him tight. “Frankie. I love you. I love you so much.”
He scrunches his eyes closed, letting the words envelope him and give him that push he needs to release. You coo and praise as he buries his cock deep, filling you up with his spend. The momentum of his final thrust carries him forward and he collapses into your arms with a groan.
Frankie nestles his face into your neck and sighs, that scent of you bringing him out of his haze. You press your cheek to the side of his head, bodies melting together while you catch your breath. He doesn’t move for a long time, taking in the way you stroke up and down his back, the kisses you place on the top of his head. He doesn’t ever want to move, but…
“Mmph. Should move. M’crushing you.”
“Mmm-mmm. No. Want you to stay right here.”
“Okay.” He lifts his head to press his sharp nose into your cheek. He can feel your combined fluids seeping out of you and dripping down his balls, and he feels some small sense of loss that all of it isn’t staying within you. He thrusts into you one more time, hoping his softening cock will keep the rest of it in, causing you to shiver as the movement forces an after shock of your orgasm. He reaches up to palm your cheek, sliding his thumb across your cheekbones and down to your lips. You kiss the pad of his thumb. “I’ll just hold you like this for a while.”
“Yes.” You drop your legs to try to kick up some of the sheets to cover you with mixed results, but you’d rather be half covered than have him leave you.
“I love you, mi amor.” He whispers after a while.
“Yo también te amo, Frankie.”
You fall asleep until late in the afternoon with him in your arms, still inside you. He doesn’t have another nightmare.
Chapter 11
GUY/GEORDI
THEY ARE MY NEW COMFORT SHIP OKAY
Hoo boy this is what I'm talkin about!!
So we have Guy, outspoken, absolute memelord, loud and boisterous and excitable. He's absolutely full of love and affection to give. He's also the type who's made it clear that he loves his partner exactly as they are, even if they're grumpy or closed-off. He can read people well. It's what makes him work so well with Honey. With Geordi, I think Guy's openness and extraversion would blend really well his own insecurity and introversion. They say opposites attract, and this is a perfect example of that!
Geordi has some pretty serious relationship trauma, from what we can ascertain from his audios. Whoever this Ben guy was left a lot of damage. Geordi needs someone understanding and patient, someone who doesn't mind giving him space when he needs it and will shower him in affirmation and love when he's feeling lonely. Most importantly, I think it's pertinent to point out that Geordi's main source of insecurity comes from feeling like he's "too much." Who better to allay those fears than the literal definition of extra, our very own Guy?
In public places, Guy would be able to draw attention away from Geordi if/when he gets anxious. He would be happy to order for the both of them at restaurants and talk to cashiers. Geordi would, in turn, help Guy to slow down a little. He'd help him appreciate time spent quietly in each others' company. He'd play video games with him and make sure he eats more than just pizza all the time. Geordi is incredibly caring and giving, and if you think he wouldn't give all of himself to Guy, you're wrong.
They'd take turns picking their dates. Guy strikes me as the type to prefer arcade dates, dinners out, fireworks shows, things like that. He likes to be out and about, where he can kind of run around and let off some of that pent-up energy he always has. Geordi would opt for movie nights in blanket forts at home, stargazing in quiet spots around Dahlia, and walks in lesser-known parks and trails. They're always in contact while in public. Guy likes physical affection, and the contact helps to ground Geordi. Whether Guy has an arm around Geordi or they're just holding pinkies, they're connected.
This couple would have so much love and mutual trust between them. I feel like they would work incredibly well together. A+ ship.
