Archive of Our Own ^beta

Xefros lay on his bed with his knees touching his chest and his lanky arms draped around himself. For the time being, it was quiet tonight; his father was working the graveyard shift on Thursdays and Fridays, as layoffs grew more frequent. He couldn't risk it even though he was probably one of the most qualified and consistence people there. Around January, as the holiday season died down, his boss would always start laying off those who weren't truly qualified to work there and just got hired to deal with an abundance of customers during that time. Even though Xefros barely a child anymore, he found it difficult to fall asleep in an empty house. It wasn't that he was tired, though. His eyes still closed and opened lazily, but they couldn't manage to make a firm agreement on either position. Leaving the owner of said eyelids not necessarily miserable or even entirely annoyed, but this vague third thing between the two emotions.

It was only inevitable that the tired boy would plummet into the arms of Hypnos, as most high school students are required to awaken at ungodly hours to attend government-mandated education. But the dreams that his hippocampus' would craft would show such damning imagery to illustrate what he already knew was rather... inconvenient and embarrassing to the boy at the very least.

Joey smiled down at Xefros in the dimly lit room. It was her room. Or at least, he thinks it is. He doesn't bother to scrutinize his surroundings and trusts that his peripheral vision has informed him of this location well enough. Not that where he is really matters to Xefros right now, anyway. 

She's straddling him, and she's wearing a nervous grin and seemingly nothing else. From what Xefros can tell, she's not nervous in a "holy crap, what am I doing" way. Rather a, "I haven't a clue what I'm doing sort of way, but you're okay, right?" way. 

Both of them smell faintly of sweat and are trembling badly at the touch of each other. "Can you kiss me?" Xefros asked her while his hand clutched against her's. The black-haired girl on top of him obliged. 

After nearly a second of them holding this kiss, he abandoned Joey's hand to cup her face gingerly. Though the pads of his fingers were slightly sticky with sweat, his touch did not revolt her. Xefros felt Joey's cheeks grow warmer as she tentatively stuck her tongue into his mouth. 

Their breathing grew shallow and quick as the two of them became increasingly comfortable with each other. Xefros reciprocated Joey's action by swiping the tip of his tongue against hers. She placed both of her hands on the sides of Xefros' skull and groaned into his mouth. The boy could feel himself growing too excited to the point where he could no longer hide it from his lover. Although she seemed not to mind. Eventually, the two had to separate from one another as one could only breathe with short, quick puffs of air for so long. Xefros placed his left hand, which had been lying on his stomach, on Joey's lower back as her fingers inched up the sides of his head to his horns, now massaging the roots where they erupt from his scalp. They stayed like this for a brief moment, caressing each other longingly, before Joey asked plainly, "Do you want to have sex with me?" 

Xefros was so stunned he couldn't speak. The girl's mouth quivered as she speedily added, "I'm not a total skank or anything, I promise! I just.." Her face reddened once more, "I really want you. I've never been with anyone else, and I just want you so badly. And not just like this, I really love you. Like I say it all the time," she rolled her eyes playfully and laughed softly. "But I do." 

"I do, too." 

Xefros couldn't believe the words he had just proclaimed, and so boldly, too.

You don't say that to your friends.

You really don't say that to your only friend besides your moirail, whom you can't manage a sincere-sounding "I love you" to after this girl waltzes into your life without a second thought of how it could affect her social standing. 

You don't say that to one of the few people you've ever known that's treated you with genuine kindness, despite it not being deserved or wanting anything in return. Because she doesn't deserve that. She deserves more than the moon, the stars, and the rest of the entire solar system.

She is one with the solar system.

She is a star. She is tacky glitter glue on homemade Valentine's Day cards and warm hugs and trips to gas stations at 10pm, sleepovers, four-leaf clovers, and little flower buds that grow on window sills and abandoned school auditoriums. 

She is Joey.

And Joey looks at you as if she may cry, but doesn't. 

She presses her forehead into yours for a moment, and the two of you shuffle under her sheets for a moment. You feel her all around you, and you're both panting so heavily and holding each other so close, not to make sure you won't float away from each other, but to let each other know you're still here and won't let go. She grinds into you and you throw your head back while whimpering. She moans your name under her breath, and-

No. Nope. That's a big no-no.

Xefros' eyes were wide open. He's no longer in the fetal position under his comforter in mid December. From the amount of sweat on his back and the flush on his gray cheeks, it might as well be mid July.

Xefros lays on his side and grabs his pillow and shoves it onto his face whilst trying to ignore the stirring pleasure-almost-pain in his abdomen and the throbbing from his pelvic region. "I really shouldn't be thinking of her like this. GOD, WHY WAS I THINKING OF HER LIKE THIS?" He whispered to himself furiously. "I wish I could just stop imagining her like this. If only she knew the way that my brain conjures her up. She'd think I was a freak. Well, I mean, I kinda am thinking of my friend in that way. I mean, Dammek's my moirail and I never think of him like that!" Xefros cringed. "We're not even in a quadrant, God!"

Pictures of her flashed in Xefros' mind as he tried furiously to rid his memory of what he had just dreamt. She chewing her pencil in math class. Her face lighting up as she grins at him happily while walking together just at the sound of his voice. During gym class, her wiping sweat off the nape of her neck. Her falling asleep on his arm on bus rides home. 

She.

As Xefros slowly calmed down and the thoughts of Joey continuously circled his brain, subconsciously, his hand traveled down to his penis, which from a previous dream got fairly erected. But he stopped himself. It made him feel rotten to think of his friend in this way, to hope she'd look at him as more than as a companion or a teammate or a close friend, but as a partner. 

The longer Xefros waited, the more intense and painful his erection grew to the point where he could no longer stand it. 

It was just past midnight. His father hadn't come home yet. 

Xefros crept into the bathroom and searched for lotion in the crowded medicine cabinet. The boy did not bother to turn on the light out of shame and a desire not to blind himself. He stared at the bit of lotion in his hand and stood over the toilet for a moment. 

Thoughts of her still flooded his mind, but instead of it being drained once he placed his hand on his cock, it flourished into a full-blown hurricane. Xefros started off fairly slow, avoiding the tip, but after closing his eyes, the entire process seemed much easier.

After only a minute, his entire fist was curled tentatively around his penis, not just his thumb, index, and middle finger. His thighs trembled as he neared his peak and he was sure his knees might buckle as he came. Xefros let out a long whimper as his load shot into the toilet then flushed the evidence of his hormonal-teenager-tendencies down the drain. Of course, that didn't make them go away. 

Even after he picked his shorts and boxers back up and trekked back quickly to his room, he couldn't stop thinking of her. Not just her legs and her lips, but who she is as a person and all that she's done simply out of her compassion for animals and people. And how badly he was trying to prove he was a person worth her time and that he could make her feel as good as she made him feel, even when she wasn't there.