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What was initially sold to Mark as a few quiet pints after a late lecture has rapidly devolved. A pint became a double became a treble became shots, and before Mark knew it the sedate after-work drinkers had cleared out and the SmoothFM music turned into something aimed at a younger crowd. He doesn’t know what time it is but he feels good, fantastic even, and he’s having such a good time that he gladly accepts every shot Gav slides across the table towards him without even asking what it is. The taste of them is irrelevant, they’ve long since blurred together in his mouth until all he can taste is the sharp burn of it on his tongue and in the back of his throat.
A few of their group have dropped out already – most of them after the agreed upon pints before things got silly – but there’s still enough for them to struggle to fit around the little table in the corner they’ve taken over. Mark is stuck right at the back on the bench seat with several bodies between him and the open floor, but that’s fine. When it’s his round he just gives Gav his debit card to take to the bar so he doesn’t have to climb over everyone and risk falling on his face.
Eventually he can’t avoid getting up any longer though because he needs to go to the toilet. He held off as long as he could, all the wisdom he’s ever heard about not breaking the seal kept him going but he’s finally reached the point where he’s going to have to give in to it.
There’s the expected groans when he nudges Jeremy next to him and asks him if he can get out, but they all dutifully slide down the bench until Mark only has to pick his way through a few legs to get out.
The alcohol really hits him when he stands up and feels himself wobble, all the time staying still in the booth has kept him from realising just how drunk he really is. It takes him a few steps to get a feel for the way his legs move now, but he makes it to the bathroom without incident. The cool tiles on the wall are heaven when he rests his cheek on them in the queue for the urinal, using the wall to keep himself up without swaying.
When he gets back to the table he sits on one of the chairs so that he doesn’t have to climb over everyone to get back in the booth, and there’s another shot glass of something lurid green waiting for him.
Gav pushes it towards him with a smile. “Here, I saved you one. Phil was going to have it, greedy bastard.”
Mark looks down at the glass and for the first time that night he thinks maybe he’s had enough. He pushes it back towards Phil.
“Thanks, but I think I’m done for the night. He can have it.”
”You going back to Ten’s?”
“Where’s that, I haven’t heard of that one?” One of the boys that Mark doesn’t know very well asks and picks up his coat like he’s getting ready to leave. Mark feels his brows furrow in confusion.
“Ten’s his girlfriend, daft bastard,” Jeremy says.
But Mark ignores the conversation that breaks out over the table about girlfriends and him throwing the towel in because he’s too busy thinking of Ten. Ten is at home, and Johnny left this morning to go back down home to see his gran who isn’t well. He remembers Johnny’s gran as being nice and he hopes she’s ok, but that means Ten is alone in the flat and he’s sitting here in a shitty pub with sticky floors when he could be with her. He hadn’t planned on going over tonight, but as soon as the thought is in his head he can’t see past it — why would he go back to the house he shares with the boys to be on his own when he could be with Ten.
He’d have to walk past the turn to get to Ten’s on the way back to the house anyway. It all makes sense.
”Yeah, I’m off. See you on Monday,” he stands and Gav is already holding out his jacket from where it was draped over the back of the booth. Gav is great.
“Say hi to Ten for me.”
Mark nods as he takes his jacket.
The walk back to Ten's is uneventful enough that by the time he's wobbling in front of Ten’s door trying to get the key in the lock he's already forgotten it. It's not too late, though it's dark outside, so he still tries to stay quiet as he finally lets himself into the entrance and then has to spend another few minutes finding the right key for Ten’s front door. He's long since added her keys and the keyring she'd bought for him to his other keys, which makes the task take far longer as they all look the same in the dim light with eyes that aren't quite up to the task of making out fine detail.
Eventually he finds the right one and slips inside, making sure to flip the lock back into place out of muscle memory more than anything else. His feet carry him towards Ten’s bedroom without any need for him to consciously direct them there – his body knows what he wants.
The smell of Ten's flat is like home to him, for the amount of time he spends here with her and now with Johnny too. But the smell of Ten's perfume that still hangs in the air is more than enough to make his stomach twist with anticipation, the jolt of it going straight to his dick.
Ten still awake when he peers through the door to her bedroom, propped up against the pillows with a book open in her lap. She's wearing the t-shirt he took off last night, the one with the Jupiter Mining Corporation logo on it that his dad bought him. Her hair is pulled up into a bun like she does every night before bed and her skin is still a little shiny from her skincare routine and something about the image of her like this – soft and undone, the way only he and Johnny get to see – makes him feel dizzy with the rush of need that hits him out of nowhere.
The soft noise of him pushing the door open makes her look up in surprise, something passing over her face in a moment of confusion before she realises it's only him.
“Marky? I thought you were going home tonight,” she says with a tilted head, slipping the train ticket she's using as a bookmark between the pages before she puts it on the bedside table.
He dimly registers a sour pang in his belly at her calling his uni house home when this should be his home. It stirs an echo of the familiar itch of Johnny moving in with her and him being stuck on the other side of the campus but he doesn't want to think about that now. The fuzziness in his head makes it easy to dismiss the thought anyway, and the feeling in his belly goes back to a slow burning heat that only increases as he gets closer to the bed.
“Wanted to see you,” he grunts as he half-stumbles into the edge of the bed while he tries to kick his trainers off.
Once they're off he climbs his way up on his knees until he can flop on top of Ten and tucks his face into her neck. Her skin smells of the creams and oils she uses in her face, another wave of home-want-Ten hitting him like a truck.
“Hi Marky.” He feels the rumble of her voice under his lips on her throat. “I take it you had a good night?”
He grunts an affirmative but he's not thinking about conversation. He's just thinking about the way Ten feels underneath him like this, small and soft and perfect. He's thinking about how turned on he is, the way his dick is trapped between them in a way that is sending pleasant tingles up his spine. The alcohol has removed all of the voices in his head that he hears every day, the ones that have him doubting himself at every turn and picking apart everything he does – he feels so good right now, like he could do anything or be anyone. He wishes he could feel like this all the time.
His hips start to rock into her through the duvet, slowly at first then once he realises he's doing it and how good it feels he lets himself move faster. But he wants to feel Ten properly, and he paws at the duvet uselessly until Ten helps push it out of the way and there's nothing between them anymore.
She's so warm, her skin smooth and glowing in the lamp light. Mark's shirt is ruched up around her waist and he can see that she's wearing a pair of knickers but nothing else under the shirt.
“Please,” he whines against her throat, “need you.”
“Baby, you're so drunk.”
He is drunk, but he doesn't think he's that drunk. He knows what he's doing and he knows what he wants – as soon as someone mentioned Ten in the pub he knew that he wanted to see her and to kiss her, and as soon as he got here he knew he wanted to make her feel good.
It's a simple thing really, he thinks as his hips continue to grind against her thigh. He wants to fuck her - properly, the way Johnny does. He wants to make her pant and shine and squirt with his fingers, not her doing it for him or her getting herself off while he pumps into her without any kind of skill. He knows he can do it now, all the anxiety and noise in his head that makes him useless is gone now. He could fuck her like Johnny now. He could be like Johnny.
“Love you,” he mumbles, “need you.”
The room tilts around him for a moment and suddenly he can see the ceiling and Ten’s face above him. She watches him closely for a minute or an hour and Mark doesn't know what she's looking for but eventually she fits herself to his side and he sighs happily into her hair.
“If you're so desperate to get off let me do it, then you can sleep the drink off, okay?”
The clink of Ten undoing his belt buckle and her fingers working open his flies sends another Pavlovian response to his cock. This is nice, he likes it when they do this – he can come from Ten's hand and then he can make her feel good, and he can show her all the things he's good at now that she always had to help him with before.
Her hand slips inside her boxers and she rubs at him the way she does when she's warming him up, just pressure and friction. It feels good, but he can feel his hips wanting to twitch and push into her hand, and he wants to tell her that he doesn't need this. He's ready to go, they can get on with it, no need to waste time. The alcohol in his system is making him feel heavy and words seem like so much of an effort when Ten already has her hands on him, so he just lies there bonelessly, feeling himself melt back into the bed.
But then she pulls away and Mark hears himself whine, high and pathetic in his throat like a dog. “N-no, Ten please. Need you, please. Love you.”
She breathes out hard next to his ear and the air tickles at the side of his face. “Marky, you're not even hard. Just go to sleep.”
The blood in his veins freezes and his body turns to lead, the bed under him suddenly feels like water and he's sinking into it. His brain fights to keep up against the pull.
“But… you're… and I'm not…” he stutters uselessly, tongue thick and unwieldy in his mouth.
He tries to look down but his neck doesn't move. None of his muscles do, and the weight of the booze wins.
— — —
Mark wakes up alone in a dark bedroom. It takes him a few moments to realise that it's Ten’s bed instead of his and that it's dark because she's pulled the curtains closed, not because it's early. The clock on the wall tells him it's quarter past ten and he groans as he stretches out stiff muscles, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.
He doesn't know where Ten is, but if he listens carefully he can hear what sounds like music playing low in the kitchen. He's not entirely sure if he's hungry or not yet, but there doesn't seem to be any nausea to go with the dry mouth and the headache that are entering his awareness as he wakes up fully. There's a glass of water on the bedside table that he assumes is fresh and he downs it, but he's thirsty enough that he wouldn't care if it had been sitting out since yesterday.
When he makes it out into the kitchen after splashing his face with water and brushing his teeth he squints his eyes at the light – it's grey and rainy outside, but it's still enough to send little stabs of pain through his eyes and into his brain. Ten smiles at him when he shuffles into the kitchen from where she's eating toast over the sink. She's still wearing his t-shirt, now knotted at the side of her waist, and a pair of soft leggings. There's a strip of skin visible between the shirt and the waistband that Mark would very much like to lie his head on until he headache recedes.
When she turns towards the fridge to put the butter back she notices him hanging around and gives him a tired smile.
“Morning,” he croaks. His throat still feels dry despite the water.
“Morning. How are you feeling?”
“Okay, I think. Bit rough.”
She huffs out a little laugh as she leans back against the counter top and crosses her arms. It has the effect of pulling the shirt tight across her chest and even through the hangover he can feel a faint stirring at the sight.
“I'm surprised you're even standing this morning with how wrecked you were last night.”
His stomach churns a little at that, a spike of anxiety making his head throb. He doesn't really remember much after the first few shots and absolutely nothing after he left the pub.
“Sorry,” he says immediately, not entirely sure what he's apologising for. He's not sure if there is anything to apologise for but it feels appropriate to say it anyway.
Ten tilts her head and doesn't say anything. It doesn't do anything to make him feel any better.
“Want some breakfast?”
Mark lets out a deep breath – it doesn't do anything to ease the anxiety clawing at the back of his mind, but Ten doesn't mention anything he should be sorry about so he assumes it's just his brain making him feel bad for no reason.
“Um, I'm not sure,” he says lamely. He doesn't feel that hungry right now, but maybe food would be good.
“I'll make you some porridge, it'll be easy on your stomach.”
That sounds nice, he thinks. Maybe a bit heavy but at least it's plain. He goes to the fridge to pour himself some orange juice and passes Ten the milk.
He hovers uselessly behind her with his glass of juice, not really sure if he should offer to help. She turns to look at him over her shoulder and passes the milk back to him to put back in the fridge. “Go lie down, I'll bring it over when it's done.”
He doesn't really want to leave her, which is a stupid thought that he feels embarrassed by as soon as it goes through his head. There isn't anything between the kitchen and the living room, he'll be able to see her from the sofa just as well as he would standing in the middle of the kitchen getting in the way. There's no need to stay in there and the sofa is only a few meters away. Stupid, so stupid his brain tells him unhelpfully when he finally shuffles out of the kitchen.
The sofa is cold when he sits down and he immediately wraps himself up in his special blanket. It still smells of Ten's fabric conditioner, fresh from the wash. Something about the familiar weight and warmth of it immediately settles some of the nerves churning in his gut.
It also muffles the shrill beep of the microwave when his porridge is done for which he and his headache are incredibly grateful. Ten brings it over, holding the bowl with a tea towel so that it doesn't burn her. She drops a strip of paracetamol on his chest and he takes two straight away with a mouthful of his orange juice.
The porridge is warm in his lap even through the blanket and the towel, and Ten is just as warm against his side as she slips under the blanket to sit next to him with her legs pulled up underneath her. It's nice, comforting and quiet in the way only a morning-after can be when he doesn't have anything he needs to do or anywhere he needs to be for the whole day.
She puts the telly on while he blows in each spoonful of porridge – it turns on to the channel he likes, the one with all of the useless documentaries about people buying cars and finding treasure.
“Do you remember anything from last night?” She asks out of nowhere when Mark is almost finished eating. Adverts are playing as he screws up his face and tries to think.
There isn't much, and not much more than he already knows about. He remembers the shots and the pub, Gav mentioning Ten. There's a faint image of the road to Ten's flat in the dark, but that's about it.
“Gav says hi?”
Ten lets out another breathy laugh then gets up and carries Mark's bowl and his empty glass into the kitchen. The baseless anxiety comes back in full force until it feels like there's a weight on his chest.
“Do I do something?” He asks nervously when she comes back. She's refilled his glass with juice and sets it on the table before she gets back under the blanket.
“Well, you-” she pauses. “No, you didn't do anything. You let yourself in, then got into bed and passed out.”
“Did I wake you up?”
He can feel the faint edge of a memory, prodded almost into the light but not quite enough to grasp it.
“I was reading. It wasn't that late when you got in, I hadn't been to sleep yet.”
It's enough to knock the memory loose – he can see the book in her lap and he can remember crawling onto the bed. The smell of her face cream and- oh. The porridge turns to cement in his stomach at the clear memory of not being able to get hard for her.
“I'm so sorry,” he blurts out, his ribcage constricting around his lungs.
“For what, Marky?” Her voice isn't cruel but she doesn't sound like herself either. She doesn't smile at him the way she normally would, the mix of encouragement and teasing that makes his stomach squirm in a good way. His stomach is squirming now, but it doesn't feel good at all.
“I- I tried to… and then, well… I couldn't, you know… get hard. And then… I fell asleep?” The last thing he remembers is the rush of shame when he realised his dick was soft and Ten was pulling away from him.
He wishes he could have gotten hard for her. He wishes he could have made her feel as he did, or at least been competent enough to do something . He wishes he'd been able to stay awake.
“It's not… like, it wasn't you.. I think I just, um. There were a lot of shots. And I don't normally… drink that…” In the absence of any response from Ten his mouth won't stop even though he wants it to.
“Okay, okay,” Ten cuts in eventually, “just breathe.”
Mark shuts his mouth so fast his teeth click together. He doesn't know what he's supposed to do now. He doesn't even know if Ten is actually upset and the silence in the room is filled by the presenter on the telly talking about furniture restoration.
“Are you okay?” He asks eventually around a dry mouth that has nothing to do with his hangover. “I didn't mean to do anything to upset you. I'm sorry.”
Ten's face does something complicated that he can't even begin to work out before it's gone and she looks normal again, like the last five minutes hadn't even happened.
She reaches out and threads her fingers through his hair. “It's okay baby, I know you didn't. Don't worry about it. I'm going to go and get dressed.”
Mark lies on the sofa while she's gone and tries to ignore the nerves eating at him. Ten doesn't lie to him, Ten has told him difficult things before so he knows that he can trust what she says. But it doesn't make him feel any better and it doesn't make the feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop – maybe there's nothing to worry about. The possibility of it just being the after effects of the alcohol is something he clings to while he tries to focus on the telly.
The programme has changed to one he's seen a few times before with a guy travelling around the country buying antiques for his shop. It's interesting enough to keep his attention and keeps him from spiralling in his own anxiety.
He's gotten weirdly caught up in a section about Georgian revival furniture by the time Ten comes back out of the bedroom.
She's still wearing Mark's shirt and her leggings even though she'd been in the bedroom for a while, easily long enough to have a shower and get changed. But she's walking over to the sofa like she has a purpose and the gnawing panic in his stomach goes into overdrive in the few seconds it takes her to make it over to his side of the room and climb into his lap.
Wisps of her hair that have escaped the bun fall around her face as she looks down at him intently.
“Hi?” he squeaks. It's not meant to be a question but it sounds like one anyway.
“I think we should give last night another try,” she says simply, and Mark immediately fights his way through the blanket until he can get his hands on her waist.
Despite the headache still sitting on him and the fog of nerves filling his head and his chest with cotton wool his dick begins to stir immediately. The wave of relief that his dick still works rushes through him and makes him pull in a hard breath through his nose.
“Yeah?” He clears his throat and tries again. “Okay, yeah. We should do that.”
Ten smiles down at him through her hair — it’s still not her usual smile, the soft warm one that gives him butterflies, or the smirk that makes him feel like he’s swallowed honey. This is an expression that he hasn’t seen on her face before, but at least it is a smile. She wants to do this with him and that’s enough for him right now, he’s not going to turn it down. Not when the idea of being able to make up for last night already has his chest puffing up — the chance to prove that he wants her and that last night was just a blip, just a weird thing that they can laugh about later. It’s doing a lot to make him feel better already. He’s practically forgotten about his headache.
”You’re going to have to do exactly what I tell you, okay?”
Mark nods eagerly, maybe a little too much with the way it immediately reminds him of that headache.
“Good,” Ten smiles, then fists her hand in his shirt to pull him with her while she shuffles backwards on the sofa. She props herself up against the arm and he has to hold himself up with a hand planted in the cushions either side of her.
She pulls him down into a kiss. It’s harder than usual, and Ten tightens her grip on his shirt until it’s wrapped around her fist, using it to pull him down as she chases his tongue in his mouth. He’s immediately glad that he brushed his teeth before he left the bedroom. The kiss bruises his mouth and he lets it, lets Ten guide him into doing what she wants with her grip and her tongue and her lips while he tries not to let his arms shake too much from holding his weight off her. He doesn’t want to change position for something easier, at least not without Ten telling him that he can — she said he has to follow her instructions, and he’s going to follow them to the letter.
The telly plays to itself in the background and Mark doesn’t hear anything that the host says. He doesn’t even know what programme is on now. All he can think of is Ten, his focus taken up with keeping his arms locked and the feeling of Ten’s spit-slick lips.
By the time she pushes him back slightly — just enough space between them to breathe the same air — he’s already lost track of time entirely. He can feel every breath she exhales against the dampness of his lips and it’s embarrassingly gratifying to see that she’s breathing heavy, even if it’s nothing like the heaving breaths Mark is taking.
“I want you to take your shirt off,” she tells him after a few moments of breathing together.
It takes a few awkward shuffling attempts for him to work out how to push himself back upright so that he can actually comply.
He pulls it off over his head, fighting with the neck hole slightly. He’s sure his hair comes off the worst but he doesn’t care. The shirt is dropped to the floor without any conscious thought from Mark who is too busy watching Ten watch him.
“Now mine”
She doesn’t move at all, making no effort to help him out. Mark fumbles for a while with the knot in the hem at her hip until it comes loose through perseverance more than any kind of ability. He’s far more gentle with her than he was with his own shirt — he guides it up over her chest and pulls one of her arms out at a time before he stretches the neck as wide as the fabric will allow to slip it over her head. The only time Ten moves is to lift her head from the arm of the sofa, but Mark supports her neck in the cradle of his hand all the same. There’s something that flickers over her face when he does it but it’s gone before he can even work out what it means.
Under the shirt all she has on is a bra that looks like a vest top, different to the ones she wears when she goes out or to work. These ones are his favourite. Comfortable and relaxed, the way the soft black cotton cups and holds her tits reverently. He wants to do the same, wants to touch out and feel the weight of them in his hands the way he always does, the way he always wants to even when she’s not undressed. But his hands curl into fists by his sides because Ten didn’t tell him to touch them. All he can do is stare instead. His palms start to sweat slightly.
Ten’s hands cover them instead, pressing them together in the guise of adjusting the fit and smiling sharply when Mark visibly and audibly gulps. ”You want to fuck them, don’t you Marky?”
”Yeah,” Mark nods dumbly.
She pulls her hands away. Her tits flow apart in her bra like ocean waves and Mark gulps again.
“Do it then.”
Mark’s brain screeches like a record skipping and begins to shut down all non-essential systems like breathing and logic. “How do I- What should-“
“I'm not going to do the work for you,” she says, cool but not cruel, “you know where the lube is.”
Lube is a good place to start, he thinks. He pushes up onto his knees and braces himself on the sofa so he can reach over aten to rummage around in the little drawer of the side table for it. Johnny has been keeping a bottle of lube here since he moved in, tucking it into the drawer with an exaggerated wink directed at Mark. What Mark assumed was a joke has in fact proved to be extremely useful on multiple occasions since then and Mark is always grateful to Johnny for that particular bit of forward thinking.
The tube is half empty now, a testament to just how handy it has been.
He settles back down with his knees either side of Ten's hips in a reversal of how she started this whole thing and looks down at her. She watches him calmly, her face serene and not giving him any kind of hints on how to play this behind a a quirked eyebrow which he takes to mean get on with it. He’s not exactly sure how much of it to use, but when push comes to shove he figures that using too much is better than not using enough.
Mark squeezes it out directly onto her cleavage then has the unfortunate realisation that he hasn’t actually taken her bra off yet. Ten still doesn’t react, just watching him like she’s a cat and he’s a particularly fascinating bird outside the window. After a few seconds of hesitation he pulls the fabric down until it tucks underneath her tits and they spill out into his hands, her skin warm and velvet soft. The lube has started to warm up from her body heat in the short time it took him to figure out the logistics but it’s still chilly against his fingertips as he spreads it over Ten’s chest. Light from the window makes it shine as he works, getting lost in the sensation of it all — massaging Ten’s tits like that’s what he’s here to do, the same way he does when she lets him put her body lotion on for her.
His dick is tenting his joggers, fully hard like it has never had any issues the night before, and no doubt Ten can feel it pressing into her stomach as he leans over her. When the throbbing of it gets bad enough to cut through his focus on slicking Ten up he uses the back of his hand to push down the waistband until his dick springs free and it tucks securely under his balls. Making sure it’ll stay put is a lesson he’s learned the hard way and he still hasn’t forgotten the embarrassment of having them snap back up over his cock mid-fuck.
Once he shuffles around a bit to find a position that feels right he finally presses Ten’s tits together tight to create a space for him to slip his dick into. The lube makes it a bit difficult — he probably should have just kept the lube to her sternum and not spread it over all of her boobs — but he presses in slowly and holds his breath.
It’s hot and slick, not as tight as it would be if he was sliding into her pussy but just as good in a different way. He makes a few tentative thrusts to test it out, slow and explorative, and lets out a deep groan from his chest. It’s hard to keep his balance, and holding Ten’s tits together means he can’t use his hands to help anchor himself, but he wants more already.
He can’t go much faster than his first thrusts with the way he has to fight to stop himself from overbalancing when the sofa cushions dip under his knees. He groans again, this time in frustration.
“I cant- I don’t know how to do this properly.”
”I’m sure you can work it out Marky, you just need to try.” Her smile borders on a smirk. Something hot and humiliating twists in his gun — he wants to do this right. He needs to do it right, to show her that he can do this. He can’t fuck it up again after last night.
After taking a second to think he shuffles further up her torso until his knees are tucked under her armpits. Ten just lets her hands rest either side of her head on the sofa arm, open and amused. The position gives him a little more stability and when he gives another experimental thrust he finds it much easier to keep his balance this time. He should be able to go a bit faster now as long as he keeps his hips tight and rocks up into her chest instead of straining forwards.
He starts fucking them again, adjusting his grip on her tits where they've slipped with the lube. Each rock of his hips is faster, he can feel the way the heat in his stomach begins to grow, but the muscles around his hips are already burning – it's a hard position to maintain for more than a minute or so. It doesn't feel especially natural and he can feel his core starting to burn the longer he keeps it up. It's not like he goes to the gym regularly or ever, really. Walking around the city is the best he does and it's not going to help him much here.
His head is starting to throb with the effort, his headache making itself known once again. It makes him feel like the room is spinning slightly.
After another few thrusts he has to give in, sitting back on Ten's hips and breathing heavier than he'd like to admit. There's prickles of sweat starting to break out over his body.
“Come on Marky, surely that can't be all you've got? You've wanted to do this for so long.” She tilts her head like a cat and it's so teasing that he feels another wave of heat that makes the sweating get worse. That same twist of embarrassment and arousal knots up his insides and goes straight to his dick. It shows no signs of flagging thankfully, staying hard and ready even when the rest of him isn't quite meeting expectations. Thank god for something going right.
“Dizzy,” he says when he's taken a second to catch his breath. “My head still hurts.”
Ten looks like she wants to say something else, maybe to make fun of him a little bit more and see how far she can push him, but in the end she seems to take pity on him. She pushes her tits together and tucks her arms over Mark's thighs before she quirks her eyebrows in another get back to it sort of look.
Mark groans at the sight of it – her long elegant fingers cupping her tits, the swell of them pushing through the gaps between her fingers, dusky nipples next to the rich plum of her painted nails. It's enough to make his mouth go dry.
“Yeah, fuck ,” he breathes out and pushed himself up until he's supporting himself above her on the arm, guiding his dick back between his tits where it belongs.
It's so much better like this – he can actually find some kind of rhythm and put a bit of power behind his hips. He doesn't have to worry about overbalancing like this and hurting Ten in the process either.
The sound of his skin slapping against the underside of her boobs is made louder by the sheer amount of lube he used. It's louder than the telly playing in the background and enough to make Mark blush, obscene and so fucking good. It makes him whine as he watches the head of his cock peek through the mounds of her tits every time he pushes in, a patch of lube shining on her throat where it keeps smearing it against the skin there.
Looking at Ten’s face would be too much while he's doing this, far too overwhelming when he's barely holding on as it is. Something about the fact that he's the only one getting off on this and she's just watching him do it makes him feel exposed, but for some reason it only makes it hotter. Maybe it's because she told him to do it, like she wants to watch him take what he needs.
Instead he stays focused on her tits, captivated by the way they swallow his cock over and over. The slick slide and the way the precome leaking out of him adds to the sheen of the lube on her skin.
“Is it good?” Her voice is deeper, huskier than it was earlier.
He whines and nods his head. “Really good.”
“Better than last night?”
Mark's hips stutter at the memory, unexpected and unpleasant. “Much better. I'm sorry,” he swallows around a dry mouth, more than a little desperation in his voice.
Ten watches him as he keeps fucking between her tits. He can feel her eyes on him, can see her face in his peripheral vision, but he doesn't raise his eyes to meet hers.
“I know, Marky,” she says eventually. “It's alright.”
Like this he doesn't think he can last much longer. The sensation and the visual and the sound of it, wet and slick and sloppy, is getting to him. It's making him feel dizzy in a way that has nothing to do with his hangover.
He opens his mouth to tell her how good it is just as she presses her tits together even tighter around him and he chokes on the words, curls tighter over her and fucks his hips even faster into the clutch of her.
“C-close,” he pants, and only then does he have the confidence to look at Ten.
Her cheeks are linked but she looks otherwise unaffected by it even though Mark feels like he's about to fall apart into tiny pieces. Her hair is mussed from the sofa and her eyes are bright, intent on him. As he watches her she raises her eyebrow and tilts her head to the side.
“Come on then, show me how good it is.”
He would love to come on command, like all he needed was her word to let go. But since he's been trying to hold back in order to last longer it takes him a few more strokes before he feels the familiar heat in his belly spread through his veins.
His hips stutter then lose the rhythm completely as it hits him and he comes, filling the space between her tits with it. The waves hit him one after another, each one making him jerk and twitch and spread the cum around on her skin with the movement.
Some of it runs out from between her tits onto her throat. He has the strongest urge to bend down and lick it off, so he does. Then he immediately pulls back with his face screwed up, half at the horrible taste in his mouth and half because it made his temples throb in pain.
There's a moment of silence as he sits back on his heels then Ten bursts out laughing, a hand covering her mouth like she tried to hold it in. It breaks the weird tension in the atmosphere that Mark wasn't consciously aware of until it disappeared and Ten is back to looking the way she always does – eyes warm, laughing at him in the way that makes him feel like he's in on the joke instead of the butt of it. He smiles back at her while he catches his breath, his limbs feeling gummy and heavy with a combination of post-orgasm looseness and exertion.
The mess he's made of her is an image he'll remember for a long time – her tits shiny with a mix of cum and lube that he can still taste on the back of his tongue, her hair mussed and falling around her face, the light in her eyes that had been missing all morning. He wants to take a photo of it to keep forever but he doesn't have the eye for it like Johnny does and anyway a picture wouldn't be able to capture the way he feels in the moment looking at her now.
She crosses her arms loosely over her torso as he's taking her in, pushing her tits together and framing them perfectly. His dick gives a weak twitch but he has nothing left in him right now and he probably won't for a while yet – the hangover hasn't quite released its grip on him.
“Go get them wet wipes from the bathroom, baby. We can clean up and stay here for a while, I don't feel like moving anywhere else for a while.”
Mark practically rolls off her, his legs only kicking into fear at the very last moment before he works have face planted into the coffee table, then stumbles into the bathroom. Once he's found the wipes in the drawer under the sink he goes back out before he doubles back into the bedroom to pick up the hoodie he left over the back of the dressing table chair the day before.
Cleaning the mess off her chest is almost enough for him to get lost in it again, the same way he did when he was spreading the lube on her skin. He likes to be thorough, and he doesn't want to miss a spot or for Ten to think he doesn't care about doing it properly.
He uses the wipes liberally, taking long swipes at first to get up the worst of it between her tits. Ten's nipples are hard when he goes at them with a wipe and she arches her back into him as she sucks in a breath between her teeth.
“Keep going,” she says, then snakes her hand between them to slip into her leggings.
Mark feels another weak twitch in his boxers but he still doesn't have it in him for anything else so he just continues with the wipes, flicking and squeezing her nipples with every swipe of his hand. It doesn't take long for Ten's back to bow again, letting out a contented sigh and pulling her hand out. For a moment he's stuck between the rush he gets every time he sees her come and being oddly jealous that he's never managed to make her come that quick on his own.
She uses one of the wipes to clean off her fingers then stays upright so Mark can pull the fabric of her bra back into place and get her shirt back on, much the same way he took it off her.
Then he offers her the hoodie he brought over. “Thought you might be cold,” he says.
She lets him unzip it and wrap it around her shoulders but puts her arms in the sleeves herself. They cover her hands and he feels himself smiling, satisfied and content to bask in the glow of the afternoon after a tense morning.
Neither of them speak for a while after they get settled again. Ten lies on her back and Mark is half on top of her with his head on her chest, the blanket tucked around them both. Her fingers run gently through his hair in the way that makes him melt into her, mindless and feeling good, headache long forgotten.
It's not until Mark's stomach starts rumbling after a few episodes of Combat Dealers that Ten huffs out a laugh and starts the process of extricating herself from the little nest they've made to go and find something for them to eat for lunch.
She makes sandwiches, simple and easy and enough to hit the spot. The food filling him up just makes him feel sleepy and warm, wrapped around Ten’s back with his eyes heavy. He falls asleep without even noticing.
He's not sure how much time has passed by the time he opens his eyes again – it's still light outside and the same show is playing on the telly but he can tell that it's a different episode. It's almost too warm under the blanket now, so he pushes it off him as much as he can without uncovering Ten as he stretches the stiffness out of his muscles.
“Good sleep?” She asks softly when Mark settles back down with his head tucked into the curve of her neck.
Her hand finds its way into his hair automatically and she scratches at his scalp softly. She's typing something on her phone with her other hand – Mark can't make any of it out without his glasses but he recognises the background of the chat she has with Gem and her other old housemates from the amount of times she's made Mark send messages for her.
He makes a grumbly little noise as an affirmative, still in the slow process of waking up fully.
“You told me you loved me last night.”
Ice pours through his veins and he goes stiff against her, every muscle tending like a prey animal. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. He can't have. He would remember, he wouldn't forget something as big as that. Why would he say it like that, he can't have.
He's been planning how to say it to her for the first time for so long – months, years. Since he first moved to Newcastle for real and she was there to help him and his parents get everything into his room in halls. He's loved her for so long that he doesn't remember what it was like before, for so long that he never knew when he was actually allowed to tell her because it's a fundamental thing for him – up is up and down is down, water is wet, and Mark is in love with Ten.
All that time since she first kissed him, let him sleep next to her, made him breakfast the morning after, he's been planning how to make it special. All the ideas he's had about learning to cook her favourite meal or taking her to the aquarium or saving up to buy her something precious and it's all for nothing. Because he fucking ruined it.
“Mark?” She asks. She doesn't move and he's glad they're not looking at each other. One less thing for him to panic about.
“Um,” he says stupidly. He swallows hard. He doesn't know what he's supposed to say.
“You don't remember it do you?”
Mark shakes his head. Ten doesn't say anything else.
“I do though,” he croaks eventually. “I do love you.” His voice is thin and weak even to his ears, so it must sound pathetic to Ten.
She just hums softly, neutrally, and he has to finally sit up so that he can see her face because he doesn't know what that means.
When he touches her shoulder she lets him roll her over so he can look at her. She watches him and he thinks she looks a little sad, but her face is so blank that he can't really tell what she's thinking at all, and that breaks the dam in his brain holding everything back because he hates seeing her looking at him like that.
“I do love you Ten. I've wanted to tell you for months and months, years really. But I didn't know when I was allowed to say it, because I've loved you this whole time.” He takes a breath but there's more words in his throat that he can't stop. “I loved you before I came for that first uni visit, I loved you when we hadn't spoken after you moved here, I loved you at school. I just… didn't know how to say any of that without it sounding weird or too much. But I do. And I wanted it to be special and do it properly, but I messed it all up.”
Ten watches him in silence for long enough that Mark's stomach starts to churn, his brain convinced she's about to tell him to leave even though he knows it's not going to happen. But the nerves don't go away until she lets out a long sigh and cups his jaw in her palm.
“You can tell me any time you want, Marky. I would like to hear it whenever you want to say it.” It looks like she's going to say more but she cuts herself off before she does. Mark isn't sure if he wants to know what it was going to be, so he doesn't ask. He's a coward, but he just wants to go back to the easy peace he felt when he woke up.
“I didn't mean to get so drunk ,” he starts instead, “it just kind of happened, and then I felt really good and I wanted to see you because I missed you and you make me feel good too and then… yeah. I'm sorry.”
Ten's face does something else that she doesn't understand but then she sweeps her thumb over the skin under his eye and smiles so softly that Mark can feel a burning behind his eyeballs with the wave of sheer relief that hits him. She doesn't hate him. Maybe he didn't ruin everything after all.
“It's alright Marky I'm not angry at you. Just don't do that again, please. You came in and it was like you were someone else, I didn't like it. I missed my little Marky.” She smiles softly again.
Mark feels his stomach swoop, love and relief and remorse all mixing together.
“Or at least call me first so I know you're coming.”
“I will, I promise.”
In that moment he has no desire to drink ever again. As good as he felt on the way out of the pub last night it's nothing compared to the way it feels when Ten pulls him into a kiss that makes his chest ache with how much it means to him.
When she pulls back her smile is bright and he can't help himself from returning it, feeling it get bigger when pushes herself back against his chest and wraps his arm around her waist. They both settle in for a few more episodes of his stupid documentaries and Mark feels like he's exactly where he should be.