Work Text:
100 0100…
“Hey look, it’s Winnie the Pooh.”
Johnny had to tear his eyes away from the study of her profile. The thick lashes that brushed against her glasses’s lenses, the long straight nose, lips parted -always, inexplicably, wonderfully pouted- and the chin she tried to tuck down and hide when he flirted with her in the halls of the Tower. He looked up at the clouds drifting over Central Park, scootched in closer so he could follow the direction of her finger until he saw the teddy bear silhouette, perched on a cloud.
“Think that’s a honey pot?” she said, wiggling the tip of her finger at a lump of white in front of Pooh’s head.
“I think you’re adorable,” he said, not really meaning to, but meaning it all the same.
She snorted and elbowed his side. “God, Storm. I thought you were supposed to be smooth.”
He thought so too.
Her arm wiggled against his and then the backs of her fingers dragged over his, intentional but shy. He latched his knuckles around hers and tried to occupy his head with anything but all the unsmooth things he wanted to say to her. He practiced his binary as she searched for more stories in the sky.
…0110 0001…
She was making little squeaking noises as he mouthed and sucked at the skin of her neck. The more sounds she made - the little sigh, the surprised yip, the high moan, the muffled cry - the more he crowded her in the doorway, let his hands wander over her waist, her hips, up to her ribs, let his teeth catch and nip at her skin.
“You taste so good,” he said against her pulse. “Like popcorn.”
She shifted in his hands, jerking away and he winced, backing off slightly.
Here eyes were wide, bottom lip swollen from biting. “Like popcorn?” she asked. She chewed at the inside of her mouth as she stared at him.
“Like…like kettle corn,” he said. Because kettle corn was sweet, right? He liked the salt flavor on her skin. That’s what he needed to be saying.
She snorted and then the snort turned into a giggle and then the giggle was a gasping laugh and he didn’t want to interrupt her cause she was arching back in the laugh, pressing their hips together, letting him crowd her there too.
“It wasn’t- I didn’t mean,” he tried.
“C’mere you dork,” she said, pulling him down by the strands of hair at the back of his neck, stretching up on her toes to pull his mouth to hers. “Lemme see..” She took a hard kiss and the force pressed them into the wall behind her. He groaned and she hummed into his mouth, tongue flicking and teasing around his teeth. She pulled off with a last nibble and sighed as he drifted down to her jaw.
“You taste like burnt marshmallows,” she whispered.
There was a joke in the words, he knew that, but she was curling a leg around his side and he was reciting zeroes and ones in his head before he said something else dumb or pushed his luck too far with this first kiss.
…0111 0010…
The sounds in the banquet hall dimmed as Darcy walked up to meet him, encased in red velvet like a valentine delivered for him to unwrap. The collar was modest and the hem was at her knees but the fabric was lovingly tight and on Darcy…that was explicit enough.
“You are not allowed to make a temperature pun,” she warned him. “But you look very hot in that tux.”
“You look like Christmas morning,” he said.
“Oh my god,” she said, fighting back a smile and shaking her head. “Where do you get these lines? Is there a website?”
He scoffed and reached up to muss at his hair, but she swiped his hand away.
“You’ve got product, you’ll mess it up,” she said, and her fingertips dragged over his palm.
“That’s your job for later,” he said, smiling as she blushed. “You want a drink?”
“And a place to sit down, I hate wearing heels,” she said.
“I’ll wait at the bar, you find us a table with the least offensive vultures for me to talk to,” he said.
“Go, team, go!” she said, too loudly for the crowd around them, and pumped her fist into the air.
She swiveled on her heels, with a little wobble, and Johnny tried not to stare as she swayed away from him. And then he realized that everyone else was staring because Darcy had a walk in heels that was downright hypnotic. So he fought the urge to snap his fingers in front of every pair of hungry eyes in the room, and mumbled his numerical mantra under his breath as he made his way to the bar.
…0110 0011…
She was everywhere in this bed and he never wanted to leave. The sheets smelled like her and matched the color of her eyes and the pillowcase had a little drool spot on the edge. Her hair was spread out all around them, carefully arranged to avoid getting caught beneath them, tangling at the back of her head as she rocked and writhed beneath him.
“Oh god, Johnny, right there,” she breathed, and her legs wrapped tight around his hips.
“You feel so right,” he blurted out. She did. She was so tight around him, so warm underneath, soft in his ear, sweet on his mouth, squirming and panting and begging and he was barely holding it together. Counting the wrong numbers in the wrong order, just trying to keep this rhythm that she liked so much. “You’re so beautiful, just wanna…fuck, just wanna do this forever. Never wanna-“
“Ah, yes, yes, Johnny,” she squealed slightly, and he lifted her hips up from below until her words fell apart into little catches and hiccups and sobs and her body squeezed and fluttered around him. Her fingernails scraped gently at his neck. “Oh, jesus, that’s so good.”
He buried his face into her neck and mumbled praises tight against her skin as she pulled him down with her.
…0111 1001
“I just,” she sniffled, tucked her chin, tried to twist away and Johnny felt like his heart was curdling in his chest. “I just don’t want to ask for something you aren’t looking to give. I didn’t mean to make this serious. I’m not trying to put pressure on you.”
“Darcy!” His hands cupped the sides of her face, pulled her up to look at him. The numbers stopped running in his head, as he realized she didn’t have to leave if he just didn’t say the wrong thing right now. “Shit. I love you. Put whatever pressure on me you want. You wanna move in? Do I need to - I don’t have a-“
“You love me?” she asked.
He blinked down at her face. The red splotches around her eyes. Her lips that had paled as soon as she started crying. The liquid blue of her eyes and the tears just waiting to drip over the edges.
“Course I do,” he said. “I’m totally stupid about you. It’s…you’re the best- you’re my favorite person.”
“You’re a commitment phobe,” she said.
He grimaced. “I thought I was. Cause that’s what everyone said. I just… I’m cool with committing. I’m all about it! Let’s commit. That’s what I want.”
“You love me,” she said. She blinked and the tears slid out and he caught them with his thumbs.
“I love you,” he said. “I really love you, I’m…Darcy, I-“
“I love you too,” she said, chin wobbling.
“Oh,” he said, and found that all at once he was able to breathe again, even though he hadn’t realized how hard it’d been a minute ago.
“No take backsies,” she said, eyes narrowing, chin firming.
“None whatsoever,” he said, very quickly, and then bent down to press his lips to hers, hard and solid and for as long as she would let him.