They come together in desperate, needy fistfuls of clothes and unravelling words, cursed to the moon in murmured pleas. Angelo feels himself slowly come undone, pulled apart by her attentive lips and fierce touches; wanting her more and more until his chest fucking aches. He doesn’t care that they’re in a creaky crow’s nest in the middle of the harbour, not when he’s drowning in the addictive taste of their combined lust and burning touches. Not when the glow of silver ensnares and lures him into their darkened depths.

It’s too easy to forget about things when he’s with her…

He clutches her too tight and Skyler crumbles. “S-Shit…” She falls into his shoulder with a shudder that leaves him suddenly cold to the bone, his hands instinctually hovering just over her back like he was about to squeeze her to him, only to become frozen in realisation. Angelo’s eyes widen, remembering and picking up the scattered pieces of sanity. He instantly hates himself for it, stomach curling unpleasantly as he stews in the doused embers of lust, dampened by the consequences of his hunger and from seeing her pained because of it. From agitating her injuries with his greed.

Fuck… He fucked up.

“Yeah… Yeah, we should.” His voice escapes him on delayed breathing, still a little ragged at the edges as he slowly comes down from his high, finding his sense again as the fog of desire fades. An afterimage remains of his fingers trailing across exposed skin, lips parted in thirsty gulps for air as they fight and surrender to each other’s lust but Angelo hesitantly lets it slip between his fingers, he’d never even consider pursuing it as Skyler wheezes in pain into his shoulder.

Carefully, he wraps an arm around her lower back and cards fingers through her hair, attempting to comfort her as Skyler fights through the ache of the injuries that he had foolishly dug into. His lips press into golden curls, the scent of her shampoo, smoke and sea breeze washing over him; Angelo closes his eyes and attempts to calm his storm.

“Let me see,” whispering softly after a minute or so had passed, his fingers turn gentle as he pinches the material of her shirt collar, pulling it carefully down over her shoulder enough for a hint of bruised skin to be seen, glossy in the moonlight. How she'd got to this point he has no idea... What a stubborn, amazing idiot.

He leans forward and presses a featherlight kiss to the edge of the purple bloom, his lips leaving a ghost of a brush against her skin as he spoke. “Sorry… I shouldn’t have forgot.”

There’s a sigh exhaled into the night sky as he moves away just enough to mumble in her ear, adjusting the collar of her shirt into place as the thumb on the small of her back brushes back and forth. “You just drive me fucking crazy sometimes, you know, Sunshine?” Not like spilling out a long-unspoken admission into the open would make up for losing himself in the passion but there was something just a little freeing about being able to admit it – finally sharing in the secret of his long-contained fire for her.

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Thank fuck he wasn’t the easily embarrassed type. Angelo’s lips pull at the corners as Skyler shakes with laughter under his fingertips, apparently finding his admission of attraction to be too amusing to contain. It was a much more pleasant sound than hearing her stubbornly grit her teeth to conceal her pain. “Then stop laughing, idiot.” There’s a chuckle bubbling from his throat too as he relaxes back against the mast, lazy smile remaining as Skyler chases him, closing their distance again to whisper in his ear – a warmth blooms within at the familiar, mischievous curl of her tongue.

“Bullshit. I was very, very subtle.” They both know that wasn’t true.

She leans back and Angelo searches her expression, instantly drawn to the lopsided edge to her lips and the warmth in her gaze, allowing it to steadily melt away the chill of guilt that had settled over him. It’s an easy thing for them to fall into, even after sharing a heated exchange, Skyler’s flirtatious comments giving him an opportunity to sink into something familiar; something he knew how to handle.

“You’re an asshole,” he tells her without any real anger, amusement leaking into his voice. Of course, she’d gotten satisfaction out of watching him struggle against her temptations. Perhaps he’d be more frustrated if Skyler hadn’t mirrored his admission, her shared sentiment creating embers of heat to crackle within him like a teased campfire, narrowed ocean blue eyes seeking out the glow of silver to reveal the flicker of a flame she had fanned.

“But what you’re saying,” his voice hums out on teasing tones, the hand that had previously pulled at Skyler’s shirt collar falling to rest on her thigh, fingertips settling over the curve in a relaxed yet newly intimate gesture. “Is that if I pretend tonight never happened, I might be in for a shot at getting a lapdance?” Angelo’s grin twists at the corners until it isn’t quite as innocent as his name implies, just a little devious as he directs it at her. “Tempting.” Not like he would really go back and trade the sensation of her breath fanning against his lips, beckoning him into closing the fragile distance that had been begging to be crossed for some time.

Angelo’s fingers squeeze her leg as a warning when she prods at her wounds and hisses from the consequences. “Yeah, it probably will be if you keep jabbing at it.” He raises a brow at her, silently calling Skyler an idiot with but a look. It’s not a very pleasant thing, seeing her face scrunch up in pain, he decides. He'd much rather see it twist with pleasure, silver eyes hazy at the corners and directed at him. “But let's stay for a bit longer. I've got a nice view up here.” 

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“You’re telling me,” he agrees, voice a little breathier than he intended, as Skyler’s fingers scrape tauntingly over his chest to snag at his frayed edges. What's really frustrating, he thought, is how she acknowledges that and then keeps on winding me up anyway. There’s no room for respite with her shifting in his lap, purring sultry words into the thickened air between them and yet, Angelo just can’t tear himself away from the sailor bathed in alluring moonglow. His smile is wry – he supposes he’s a real glutton for punishment.

Any retaliation is lost in his throat as Skyler closes the distance between them, words drifting away into the haze when her lips press to his. It’s slower than their previous; languid as he takes the time to submerge himself in the sensation of her and retain the taste of their brushing lips into his memory. Angelo’s fingertips graze leisurely higher up her thigh as they kiss, hungrily seeking to map out more. It ends with teeth playfully tugging at his bottom lip, pulling a growl of frustrated desire free as his blue eyes slide open to shoot Skyler a narrowed, burning look.

“Good,” responding on quiet, gravely tones Angelo remains in place, allowing their breaths to fan against one another’s lips in a teasing gesture, suspended in the rush of a potential kiss. “We only just got up here. I’m not ready to let you leave, yet.” Slowly, he drags the tips of his fingers in the faintest of brushes back down the length of Skyler’s thigh that he had traversed, responding to the curl of her hands around his hips with a lingering squeeze close to her knee. “I can think of worse fates… but really? Sleep? Live a little, Sunshine.”

He’s just settling into a nice position, Skyler tucked into his neck and his cheek pressed against golden curls, when she seems to pick up a strand of a memory that had long been forgotten. “I dropped it. Somewhere. Don’t worry, it was a freebie anyway.” If he had paid for the thing then he’d probably be a little more eager to look but as it stands, Angelo is tempted to just let the remains of the weed float away again to the back of his mind.

Skyler, however, is looking around and so he lazily joins in on the search, reaching out to the blanket that had fallen and giving it a shake. Their blunt drops out from within the folds of the material, long extinguished and only having burnt down to close to half way – more than what they had dragged out but a generous amount left, all things considering.

“Here,” he brings it to her lips to latch onto, before digging in his pocket to retrieve his lighter, tiny sparks drifting into the night sky as the glow of a flame emerges between them. Free hand shielding it from the breeze, he lights the blunt for her, lips curling softly as he catches sight of the fire reflecting molten flecks in silver pools. “So, now that we’ve kissed… I think that it’s only fair,” his gaze slips away as he speaks on hushed flirtatious tones, distracting himself with pocketing the lighter, lest he become entranced by the glow in her eyes and have to address the sudden change in tempo in his chest. “That you reconsider your horribly unjust six and a half. What do you think?”

He’s setting her up for a punchline, he knows. But he really can’t bring himself to care.

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Smoke is exchanged between them like the passing of their teasing comments, drifting over the brushing of lips and lingering through the air to tickle against sensitive skin. Angelo’s gaze doesn’t break away from her, narrowed as he lazily returned the mischievous kiss, distracted from committing himself fully. There’s a storm brewing, electricity crackling in his cloudy head, tempting him to fold to the sky and let the wicked winds of her voice guide him – take him far away.

Fuck… He thinks, pulling up the memory of her tongue curling around the word in his ear, on how he had almost let his spine shiver at the perfect sound. That was exactly what they should be doing.

As Skyler’s lips bring the smoke to him, Angelo’s fingers travel to grip at her hips. Sitting up straighter against the mast, he pulls her closer into him and if there’s a torturous spark from the motion of their hips bumping together, he ignores it.

“Just isn’t enough of it,” his lips are against her collarbone now that she's been dragged higher up his lap, grazing over the thin layer of skin there as he repeats a part of her previous comment; slow and punctuated. Suggestive. “Now that’s an unfair assessment to make for someone who’s had plenty of chances to find out.”

Lips curling slowly against her skin, Angelo ignores the ache of temptation in the pit of his belly in favour of leaning upwards into her, breath tickling up the length of her moon kissed throat. “I’ll look forward to seeing you eat your words,” he mumbles behind a hidden sly smile, tip of his nose brushing against the line of her jaw, before he falls away.

Angelo tells himself that, for the time being, there would be no more balancing acts. Not if he can help it…

Reclined back, reclaiming their less suffocating distance from earlier, Angelo reaches out to take the blunt from Skyler’s hands – falling momentarily silent as he medicates to help get him through the paper-thin willpower he had been struggling to hold onto.

Blue travels down her body as he lets the potent scents smooth over him, drawing smoke into his lungs as his gaze lingers over her lips, then expelling it again as they drag lower. He decides that if Skyler wants to claim his lap as her perch more often, then who was he to deny her, when the view was so good. Especially when she lounged and looked down at him with those smug, wild grins that he thinks suit her so damn well.

“Did you decide?” He asks, hand on her thigh again as he relaxes, slowly allowing himself to sink into a less frayed atmosphere. “Chat? Kiss?” His thumb catches the slight indentation of a scar and he grazes against it, back and forth, absentmindedly wondering to himself how many more on her skin he’d get to commit to memory, like he was mapping stars on a constellation chart. “Or that last one. Remind me what it was again...” Angelo’s lips smile around the end of the blunt as he takes another drag.

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Skyler catches his wandering hand in her warm and pleasantly rough fingers, stilling his touch as they danced faint patterns along her skin. Rather than feel disappointed though, Angelo’s lips crack into a slow, satisfied grin. Smoke curls through the air, blurring the corners of his vision into something potentially untrustworthy but he likes to think he caught a hint of a frayed edge in her expression. His fingers twitch, tempted to test his theory but it turns out that Skyler has a stronger grip than he anticipated… Later, then.

“Hm… I think I get it. What you’re saying is - because you want to fuck me senseless - you find me attractive?” Angelo playfully muses, tongue curling slowly around the words, as if he were savouring the taste of a mystery that had long been unsolvable. There was no thought spared for shame. Lips mirrored Skyler’s in a languid version of a smirk as his legs, dangling through the railings lightly begin to sway back and forth; walking on air. He breathes out another plume into the night, gaze seeking her through the haze, his feet not the only part of him floating above the ground. “Wow. Careful or you’ll make me blush, Sunshine.”

They stay reclined for a little while longer, night air and the wisps of weed mellowing out the formally jagged edges of their desires to a tolerable simmer. Skyler melts into him and he accommodates, letting her laze against his torso while ignoring the tingling of numbness in his thighs. It’s not a new sensation to the cyclist and Angelo powers through it so he can appreciate her warmth.

“Another time, then.” Chatting under the stars. That’s a proposition – a tempting idea – that Angelo won’t let them forget in a hurry. Skyler slips away from him then and he lets her go, his fingers sliding off her back like water from where he had been tracing patterns. This probably wasn’t the most comfortable place for her injuries and he didn’t fancy agitating them again. “Let’s get you to bed. It’s been a long day…” Now that he thought about it, it definitely had been an eventful one… What even was the time?

Angelo takes the advice and climbs down the ladder first, steadily descending as he maintains his footing through the lingering haze in his head. Standing at the bottom, he finishes off the remains of the blunt and disposes of it, focus then dragging upwards to keep an eye on Skyler. He learns plenty of pretty new words from her struggle. “Cockwombling… I’m stealing that one,” he chuckles when she hits the deck, gaze drifting over her carefully.

His fingertips faintly touch against her lower back just as she steels herself atop legs that threatened to buckle – like a ghostly whisper. It’s gone as quickly as it arrived, his hand falling away and together, side by side, they head back into the warmth.

In the apartment, Angelo tugs off his jacket and chucks it on the arm of the couch before stumbling out of his trainers, head still a little foggy and making him fumble. He’s caught back up when Skyler is rummaging through the drawers and presents him with a few articles of men’s clothing. “Thanks.” An amused, contemplative eyebrow is raised but he doesn’t ask for details on their existence, accepting them from her outstretched hands.

“Ugh, yeah… Probably a good idea, bet I don't smell like a bed of roses right now,” he grimaces, realising that he probably has the scents of his day, the fighting pit and weed clinging to him. Yeah, he should go get washed up; he didn’t want to get kicked out of bed on a normal day, let alone tonight. Besides, it would give them both the chance to, as Skyler had put it, take a breather. “Okay, go get some water or something... Won’t be long.” Then he slips off towards the bathroom with but a passing, lingering gaze.

Standing underneath the hot water, Angelo’s cloudy head from the blunt slowly melts away to be replaced by something almost as foggy; relaxed exhaustion beginning to settle in. He was sure that in the morning the reality of everything would really start to sink in, with all the good and bad it contained… But tonight, he just really couldn’t give a fuck to think. He’s too blissfully intoxicated and too exhausted to let his baggage get in the way now. Just one night and then I'll deal...

It’s not long later that he emerges from the bathroom, wearing the loaned clothes and his hair towel dried enough to still be damp but not sending droplets down his back. Angelo traces the familiar path to Skyler’s bed…

skyler dross

His first sight when he enters the bedroom is Skyler, lounging on her sheets with a stretch of her back on display, curves and lines bathed in the glow of the artificial light. Shadows creeping like ghostly claws from her ribs towards her spine. Angelo’s gaze slowly trails along it all, drinking in the length of exposed sun kissed skin – conflicted.

It’s not until he lifts his gaze to warm, silver eyes that he realises his brow had been pinched in a mix of emotions. Attraction, frustration, hesitance… It remains behind like his own personal bruise within his chest, only becoming a little easier to live with when Skyler’s voice broaches through the space between them. His expression softens.

There’s no childish whine to her request or no hint of crocodile tears intermingled with a plea; just Skyler’s familiar vocals, teasing and warm at the corners even through her breathlessness. Angelo feels a soft exhale slip past his lightly curled lips. “Good thing I’m here then,” he’s already stretched his hand out, palm up and waiting for Skyler to press the familiar jar into his care.

Opting to sit on the bed beside her, Angelo is barely aware of how the soft mattress sinks under his added weight, busy twisting the lid off and letting his blue eyes linger on the arch of her spine. It’s a dangerous request, asking him to rub cream into her back but what else was he supposed to do? Turn her down just to relieve some of the tension curling hot in his abdomen? No. Angelo was not one to run away from a challenge, just as he wouldn't decline her ask for help, so he scoops out some of the medicine onto his fingers and leans over her to put the pot on the bedside table.

“Hope you’re good with the cold,” there’s a lazy, somewhat amused edge to his smile as he drops a warning barely a second before he presses his fingers, chilly from the cream, around the curve of her side. Focusing on his task and not the sparks that tingle up the length of his arm, Angelo works on her ribs first, gently circling the medicinal scented salve into her skin. When his fingers brush upwards to the edge of her shirt, calloused digits perhaps slipping just slightly under the hem, Angelo’s gaze settles on the back of Skyler’s neck where a string peeks out amongst golden curls.

“Don’t take this as encouragement,” he finds his voice is more hushed than he intended, when he moves to fill the silence with a museful comment. Blinking slowly, half-lidded blues trailing along her bruised back, he takes in the extent of its reach with a complex twist in his chest. “But you better have fucked up the other guy worse than this... Oh, is the pressure okay, by the way?” Angelo asks offhandedly at the end as his fingers graze, light and in circles, towards the soft muscle of her back.

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When Skyler lets out a short laugh, enthusiastic and infectious, he finds the raw edge within his chest soothed just a little. He knew he wouldn’t ever particularly like the thought of her scrapping in some pit, where the rules were even dirtier than the majority of the inhabitants that skulked there but Angelo couldn’t deny the taste of satisfaction on his tongue when she proudly assures him of her victory. This time allowing it to pull at the corner of his lips into a faint smirk.

Angelo listens as she details her conquest, leaning over to scoop more of the medicine out of the pot. When he returns to his place, he catches a spark of silver glinting up at him, wild and untamed. “Good. He’ll have fun dealing with that,” his fingertips return to her back, casting Skyler a brief flash of delight that sneaks out behind a surface of blue, before his gaze drags lower again. His tone holds an inkling that he’d perhaps experienced a broken nose before. “Poor bastard…” He says, not sounding very sorry at all. Still, Angelo suppresses an involuntary cringe – he’d take a punch in the face any day over that.

Falling silent, he guides his fingers over the purpling skin of her back, slowing as his digits press soft hums and blissful sighs from Skyler’s throat. Nearly all of her bruises had been covered now, smoothed over with the calming cream until it shined in the glow of a lamp but despite the torturous twist in his gut, Angelo feels somewhat hesitant to finish. Greedy to hear more of her relaxed, appreciative noises.

He softly brushes a thumb up a section of a familiar, severe looking scar, remembering when he had first seen it during their time in the jungle. Fingertips curiously track as far as the line of her shirt, until her words pull him back, snagging his attention from a wandering thought.

“That so?” There’s an amused, lazy edge to his voice as if some coy inside joke had been shared between them. He had to agree, his evening had gotten significantly better as the time had stretched on, enough so to make him shrug off his loss of a decent paycheque. Money could always be made elsewhere, if he put the effort in. Kissing and having Skyler press her teeth into his neck was not quite as replaceable.

Her question stills the fingertips that had absentmindedly been rubbing against her back, even after he had technically finished. “No,” he answers slowly, after a short pause of consideration. Angelo wasn’t against answering this question but he was aware that it bordered a dangerous territory, one that he was less enthusiastic about crossing. “In general, I try to not make a habit out of kissing my friends at all.” It’s less complicated that way, keeping encounters to those that are gone the next morning or are just a face you sometimes pass in the university halls.

Beneath them the mattress creaks, Angelo leaning over her, hand pressing into the sheets on the other side of Skyler's body to keep himself from falling on top of her. His other brushes the golden strands of hair away from her neck. “Thanks, by the way…” He hums softly, light sarcasm on his tongue that doesn’t sound very bitter at all, breath fanning against her exposed skin. “Now you’ve made me go and break the rules.” A faint kiss is left on the back of Skyler’s neck.

skyler dross