Archive of Our Own

Mark hasn’t seen either Ten or Johnny for three years, and his hands are shaking as his train pulls into the station where Ten is supposed to be waiting for him. 

It’s always hard to keep in touch with friends when they leave to go to uni, especially if you’re three years below them at school. He’s been passively keeping up with them over Instagram and Facebook, liking posts of Johnny and Ten meeting up during term or travelling together during breaks. Johnny hasn’t liked any of Mark’s posts or the messages he’s sent, but Ten has. Every time Mark wishes her a happy birthday she responds, and she always returns the favour on his birthday. She was always so nice to Mark at school; she always made sure Johnny wasn’t too surly with him when Mark got too excited when they were hanging out. 

The train slows to a stop and Mark stands up, shouldering his overnight bag and shuffling his way down the aisle to the doors. 

It had been a surprise when Ten didn’t apply for the same uni as Johnny. It was just a given that the It Couple from school would go on to become the It Couple on campus too, but Johnny was dead set on engineering and Ten had chosen somewhere with a better lit course, and that was that. Mark finds himself desperately grateful for it every time he remembers messaging Ten out of the blue about going to the open day at her uni. He doesn’t think he’d have been able to do it if Johnny had been there too. 

He still tells himself that it was an accident or a coincidence that most of the courses he’d applied for were in the same city and the same uni as Ten. He’d spoken to every rep at every stall at the uni fairs the school had ferried them all to. He took so many prospectuses his arm had ached from trying to carry the tote bag he’d stuffed them all in and the straps had dug into his shoulder. And yet, he’d still convinced himself that the best place for him just happened to be the same uni as Ten. A funny little coincidence, and nothing else.

When he steps off the train he follows the crowd as they spill over the platform towards the gates, letting them sweep him through the barriers and out into the atrium before he’s really ready for it. 

Ten is waiting for him, just like she said she would be. She’s leaning with her back against one of the tall stone columns of the entrance and looking at her phone. 

Mark feels himself stop dead. He’s more than willing to put up with the tutting of the people behind, moving past him like water cutting around a rock in a stream. He just needs a second to take her in before she notices him, to work up the nerve to actually speak to her after so much time since he’s even heard her voice. 

He thinks he might have been in love with her since the first time he ever saw her, but he knows he’s been in love with her since the Christmas concert. He was in Year 7, still fresh to big school and not quite settled in yet. The sharp starched angles of his shirt collar had only just started to soften with repeated washes when he sat in the uncomfortable plastic seat in the main hall watching Ten sing with the choir. She had a solo, and Mark had felt goosebumps on his skin when she sang. She had a fluffy Santa bobble in her hair, and there might have been little bells in it – he could hear something tinkling when she moved her head to sing. He doesn’t think there’s been a day since then that he hasn’t felt a lurch in his stomach every time he saw her, whether at school or at home or on his phone, smiling with Johnny’s arm around her waist. 

And now he’s here, in her adopted hometown, and she’s going to show him around before his open day tomorrow. It feels surreal that he was even brave enough to message her to tell her he’d be there, and to ask her for tips on where would be best to stay overnight. 

She’d told him to come up early the day before so she could give him a real tour, and then like something out of one of Mark’s daydreams she’d told him to just stay with her to save money. When he’d agreed, it was like he was watching himself type the message from outside of his own body. Now he needs to say hello to her without fucking it up at the first hurdle. 

The flow of the crowd makes her look up and she sees him. She smiles wide, swaying on her toes a little and looking excited to see him. His gut swoops like he’s just jumped off a cliff with a bungee cord wrapped around his ankles.

“Marky!” She bounces over to him, somehow smiling even wider. 

He’s unsure what the appropriate greeting is so he waves awkwardly, and suddenly she’s hugging him. He’s only a little taller than her, her hair tickles under his nose as he tries to hug her back without making it weird. The last time he saw her he barely came up to her chin; she’d always been wearing heels for school, and he’d always been dealing with an ongoing delay to his promised growth spurt. 

She holds him out at arms length and gives him a thorough look over, still smiling with cherry red lips and perfect teeth.

“God, look at you! You’ve grown up so much! It’s been so long since I last saw you.”

He gulps, nods, then gulps again.

“Yeah,” he eventually manages, “it’s been a while.” His voice cracks a little bit, but the noise of the station covers it up.

“Ready to see the sights? Or do you want to eat something first?” 

Mark isn’t hungry, and he doesn’t think he could eat right now even if he was. Instead, he can feel the jittery rush of adrenaline running through the muscles in his legs, making them feel wobbly, and he wants to walk it off before he tries to do anything normal.

“Let’s start with the tour, maybe eat after?” 

“Good thinking,” she smiles and hooks her arm through his where he’s gripping the insides of his pockets for dear life.

Newcastle isn’t a huge city, so they walk around while she takes him to her favourite places and points out some of the student life staples: where has cheap drinks on which nights, where does student discounts, which branches of Greggs have bouncers at night time on the weekends. He thinks it’s a joke at first until Ten explains the concept of a cheap bakery having door security like a club to him. 

He’d like to think he takes the details in, that he’s listening and making notes to see if the city is right for him, but if she asked him to repeat anything back to her he doesn’t think he’d be able to. He’s too busy focussing on the way her voice sounds, so much better than he’d remembered after years dimming the memory. She sounds excited, always so enthusiastic about everything she does, whether it was teasing him for having his tie too high under his collar or telling him about what she’d done with Johnny over the weekend, or about a new album she’d been listening to. And he’s always happy to listen to her, happy to let her take charge while he slowly settles back into his own skin as they walk. 

She takes him to the cathedral near the Quayside and he feels himself relax a little more when she says she thought he’d want to see it, and that she remembered him going to church every Sunday. The smell inside makes him feel like he’s at home, comforting and full of history. 

On the way back out she pulls him in close and holds her phone up to take a selfie together in front of one of the stained glass windows. She takes a few different ones, tilting her head and going between a pout and a smile, and Mark tries his best to look relaxed and not all like he’s about to whimper. Then she turns and pouts again, her mouth so close to his cheek that he can feel the soft exhale of her breath as she takes the photo. It looks like she’s kissing his cheek for real on the screen on her phone, and he lets out a strangled laugh to cover up the way his heart is hammering in his chest.

“That’s a nice one,” he manages to choke out, watching her flick through them to see how they came out. 

“I need to send this to Johnny, he won’t believe you’re actually here!” 

“Can you send me them too?” 

He files away the little bit of information about Johnny to examine at a later date while he watches her send them all on Messenger. 

They finally eat after they leave the church, then she takes him to the Metro station and finally back to her’s. She gave him a full rundown of the other girls she lives with; names, degrees, stories of nights out and nights in that sound like she’s having the time of her life. Mark has already forgotten half of them by the time she’s opening the front door.

She gives him a quick tour of the house, and with every room they go into or pass by Mark’s heart sinks. There’s barely enough space for the five of them in here, and when he thinks about it he doesn’t remember her ever mentioning a spare room, and he certainly hasn’t seen one yet. The sofa doesn’t look overly comfortable, but he tries to convince himself it’s better than nothing. 

The tour concludes with her room at the top of the house – a loft conversion judging from the sloped wall at the front of the house.

“It’s a bit annoying to have to go up and down the stairs for a  shower, but it’s worth it for this,” she smiles, walking over to her window. 

It’s cut into the slope of the ceiling like a bay window, looking out over the little front garden and the road below. There’s fairy lights pinned up around it that glow a soft pink and the windowsill is wide enough that she’s put some cushions on one side, and he can imagine her sitting here with a mug of tea watching the world go by. It’s all so her that he feels another wave of nervousness hit him. 

He swallows around the knot in his throat. God, he’s really here, in Ten’s bedroom. He never saw her bedroom at home. He never went inside the house, never saw anything more than the front door and the gate and the hedges outside the house when he’d be in the back of Johnny’s car waiting to pick her up for school. 

“You can just put your stuff anywhere,” Ten cuts through the nervous spiralling in his head and pushes him into the room so she can half-close the door behind her. 

She hangs her bag on the door and wanders over to a tall chest of drawers covered in trinkets and photo frames, a bluetooth speaker to one side. 

It takes him a few moments to process what she actually said to him, and when he does he feels the knot of nerves in his throat tighten. 

“What? I thought I would be sleeping on the sofa?” he chokes out, hoping the panic isn’t audible in his voice. He can’t stay in here with her. He didn’t bring a sleeping bag, her floor is laminate, he’ll be cold and uncomfortable and stiff in the morning. He can’t stay in here with her because he’ll probably end up falling even more in love with her than he already is. He’s fucked. 

“What? Oh God no, you saw the sofa Marky, I can’t let you sleep on that, it’s awful. Trust me, we’ve all made the mistake multiple times and regretted it in the morning.” 

Mark’s mouth is dry. He watches her sit on her bed and crosses her legs, lets himself be momentarily distracted by the way her leggings pull tight around the strong curves of her thighs. She still dances a few times a week, and he’s spent more time than is normal watching the videos from the studio account that she’s tagged in on Instagram. 

“No, it’s fine, you can sleep in here with me!” 

She pats the side of the bed next to her and his heart stops beating. 

God, no. Oh God, he can’t do this. He can’t, he’s going to give himself away, he’s going to make her hate him. 

“Wh- in there?” he stutters. 

“Don’t worry,” Ten laughs, blissfully unaware of Mark’s impending doom, “if Johnny can fit in here without falling out then there’s more than enough room for you.” 

His brain flatlines for a moment, and when it comes back online he can hear himself speaking. 

“Haha,” he wheezes, verbalising the sounds instead of actually laughing, “yeah, cool. Great.”

He lets himself fold weakly into Ten’s deskchair like his legs can’t quite hold him up anymore. 

Maybe he won’t go to the open day after all. Because he’ll be dead, either from humiliation or stress, and Ten will have to call his mum to tell her. It’ll be awful. 

He gets ready for bed in the downstairs bathroom so he can psyche himself up to act like a normal person. He uses the toilet, brushes his teeth, washes his face, changes into his pyjamas, then stands in the middle of the room having a mini panic attack. 

What if he smells – should he put some deodorant on? Maybe he should have a shower, but he didn’t bring any shampoo or shower gel. Is it weird to use someone else’s? What if he gets hard during the night, God, what if she feels it? Should he jerk off before he goes upstairs? No, that’s even weirder, somehow. He doesn’t want to be the freak wanking and staring at the tube of hair removal cream on the corner of the bath wondering if it belongs to Ten. And he’d definitely have to shower after that, so no. Definitely not. 

He hears the groan of old floorboards in the hall as someone walks past and a fresh wave of anxiety sends his stomach knotting all over again. He’s been in here for too long already, far longer than it takes to get ready for bed. Oh God, she definitely thinks he’s been having a shit in their nice tidy girl bathroom. Fucking hell. 

When he finally makes it back up to Ten’s room, the door is halfway closed and he can hear music playing softly. He doesn’t want to just walk in, what if she’s still getting changed? Or what if she doesn’t know he’s there, and he frightens her? 

He settles for a gentle knock at the door, and waits until she tells him he can come in before he opens it. She’s sitting at her desk, smiling at him like she knows exactly how nervous he is. She probably does. He’s probably giving off all kinds of anxious energy, despite his best efforts. 

Still, it’s hardly anything new. He’s always been nervous around her, and she’s still been kind to him. 

There’s a big square case-looking thing in front of her on the desk when she turns back around, filled with tubes and jars and bottles full of who knows what. Her hair is pushed back off her face with a big fluffy hairband. It has cat ears on it, and for some reason it settles something in Mark’s chest. It’s really cute. He sits on the bed watching her rub in creams and wipe cotton pads over her face. There’s something kind of hypnotic about it with the music in the background, he can feel some of the nerves begin to bleed away. 

He used to sleep at Johnny’s house a lot when they were younger. His mum has been friends with Johnny’s mum since school, and she always hoped Johnny would look out for him when he started at the big school. She worried about him, and Johnny’s mum was always really nice to him. Johnny probably didn’t have much of a choice in the matter, and sometimes Mark felt like he was an annoyance Johnny would rather not have to deal with.

There weren’t any sleepovers once Johnny started inviting Ten to stay over instead. He wondered why for a while, until he got older and realised that he wouldn’t be playing Xbox or Monopoly with Ten, that they’d be doing something else entirely that Mark wasn’t welcome to join in with. 

He wonders if Ten used to take all of this over to Johnny’s house to clean her face before bed. 

“Sorry,” she says after a while, “I’m almost done. Did you find everything ok?” 

“Yeah, thanks.” 

“There’s a phone charger plugged in on that side of the bed. I think you and Johnny have the same phone. He left it here last time he stayed, but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind you using it.”

He nods, feeling a little awkward again and glad of the chance to turn away to fish the cable up off the floor. 

“Get into bed if you want, I’ll only be a minute. Make yourself comfortable,” she smiles at him through the mirror while dotting some kind of cream under her eyes.  

This is it. He’s been preparing for this for the last few hours. It’s time to be normal about this. 

He steels himself when she gets in beside him. He resists the urge to curl closer to her when she pulls the covers up over both of them and smiles. 

She’s lying on her side facing Mark with one hand tucked under her cheek while she watches him. He stays on his back, stiff as a board and staring at the shadows from the streetlight on the wall over her shoulder. 

“I’m really glad you decided to come visit,” she says suddenly, and Mark’s heart jumps in his chest hard enough that Ten might be able to feel it. “I know it’s just for the open day, but even if you don’t end up coming here you should visit more.” 

She has no idea that she’s the only reason he applied here, the only reason he’s going to the open day. 

"I didn't realise how long it had really been until I saw how much you've changed."

"Yeah, me too," he chokes out, and forces himself to smile at her. He doesn't know what that actually means, whether the change is good, but he really is glad to see her again.

He wasn't quite ready for how or would feel to be this close to her after so long though, or the way it makes him feel like a kid again just wishing she would kiss him instead of ruffling his hair or straightening his tie. He'd forgotten little things, like the sound of her laugh and the way his fingers burn with the need to touch her, the way she tucks her hair behind her ear and how it felt when she remembered little things about the music he likes. 

He can smell whatever it was that she's rubbed into her skin before bed. The pillow smells soft and fruity, even though he doesn't know if she ever sleeps on this side of the bed. Maybe when Johnny sleeps in the bed with her they share a pillow. 

Mark's stomach flips when he thinks about the fact that he's on Johnny's side of the bed. The bed where they've kissed and held each other and talked in whispers before falling asleep. The bed where they've had sex. 

"You're still awkward, aren't you?" She smiles gently, like it's not meant to be mean. Mark dares to hope it's maybe a little fond. "It's good to know that at least some things don't change."

"Sorry," Mark says anyway, because he doesn't know what else to say. He didn't actually want to be awkward, but he is dealing with a lot right now. 

"Don't apologise," Ten reaches over to shove him gently, "I think it's cute. The girls at Freshers are going to go crazy over you."

"Yeah?"

She thinks he's cute. She thinks he's cute and he doesn't even know if that's good or bad. Does she mean cute like a puppy, or cute like a brother, or cute like something else. 

"Yeah, you're going to be fighting them off on your first night out!" 

He forces out a laugh. It’s awkward again, but there's no hope of being anything else around her at this point. He doesn't much care about the freshers girls, not when she’s right next to him in soft pyjamas and smelling sweet. But he wants her to keep talking. 

“I don’t know, they probably wouldn’t be interested in someone like me.” 

“No way! Of course they will, you’re a catch!” 

At that he huffs a humourless laugh and rolls his eyes. None of the girls at home seem to think so, and even if Ten did think that, she’s with Johnny anyway, so what does it matter?

“Aw, Marky.” She finds his hand under the cover and squeezes it once. “It's different when you get to uni. You’re with new people, who haven’t spent the last five years growing up with you. You get to be whoever you want to be.” 

She has a point, but it’s still not quite what he wanted to hear. She reaches over to ruffle his hair the way she used to at school, and he shakes his head on the pillow in an attempt to dodge it.

“That, and the fact that you get free condoms in the halls welcome pack, which would be rude to let go to waste. You’ll probably get through them all before you even have your first proper lecture.” 

Mark’s cheeks burn as he hides his face in the pillow to avoid her sly grin. 

“Have you done it yet?” he hears her ask. 

He resolutely does not remove his face from the soft embrace of the cotton. 

“You don't have to answer if you don’t want to, though.” 

He doesn’t know what possesses him. Maybe he’s so overwhelmed by being so close to her. He shakes his head. 

God, why did he do that? She’s going to think he’s stupid now. Still a kid, still the annoying little Year 8 kid trailing after Johnny like a barely-tolerated shadow. He realises now how annoyed Johnny must have been to have his steps haunted by Mark, asking too many questions and wanting so badly to be friends with the older boys. And he knows just how much Ten was responsible for keeping Mark from realising it until much later. What if she still thinks he’s that kid, stuck forever as some kind of little brother she has to look out for?

He feels Ten’s hand on his arm again, rubbing it in what he’s sure is meant to be reassurance. His skin tingles when she pulls it away.

“It’s totally fine if you haven’t yet, nothing to be embarrassed by. Half of the boys in the common room were lying when they said they’d slept with a girl, you know. Some of them still probably haven’t either.” 

He reluctantly moves his head just enough to peek at her with one eye and she smiles softly at him. He knows she means it. She likes to tease, but she’s never been cruel. She’s too kind for that. He remembers when she would fix his tie if it was crooked, the way she’d only let Johnny string him along for so long before she told him it was a joke. He remembers every time she turned around in the passenger seat of Johnny’s mum’s car to ask him what he wanted from McDonalds when they went to the drive through, after Johnny joked Mark should have a Happy Meal.

It makes him feel better that she doesn’t think it’s weird, even if she’s only saying it for his benefit. 

A yawn hits him out of nowhere before he can reply, and a heavy blanket of exhaustion weighs him down into the bed. It’s been a good day, but spending hours on the verge of an anxiety attack has worn him out. 

“Poor Marky, you should get some sleep,” she says, and reaches behind her to turn off the lamp so they can sleep. “You’ll be fine, I promise.” 

He doesn’t know if she means the open day or losing his virginity, but he’s already falling asleep. 

***

When he wakes up Ten is already dressed, sitting at her desk and plaiting her hair in the mirror. 

“Morning, sleepyhead,” she smiles. She’s already done her makeup, perfect little flicks on each eye that makes the sweep of her lashes look longer than they already are. 

Mark tries to say good morning around a jaw-cracking yawn and Ten laughs gently while she ties a bobble at the bottom of her plait. 

“I didn’t know if I should wake you or not. What time do you need to be at campus for?” 

“Half nine.” 

He watches the pink-tinted clouds rolling slowly through the sky, because his chest hurts a little when he looks at Ten in the soft morning light. It feels too much like a good thing, something too close to the mornings he’s imagined with her while he was falling asleep in his too-small single bed at home. Her voice soft and gentle, the blush of the sunrise kissing her skin and her hair. 

He tries very hard not to think about the fact that Johnny gets to see this every time he visits Ten. That he lies exactly where Mark is now and watches her get ready. 

“Oh, perfect, I’ve got a lecture at 9. We could go in together, if you don’t mind being a little early.” 

Mark nods and she smiles brightly. Shepiles her makeup back into its little pouch and stands up.

“You get ready and I’ll make breakfast. Is bacon okay? I think there’s still some bread left if Gem hasn’t had midnight toast again. You can have a sandwich.” 

His brain is a little quieter today for having survived a night sharing a bed with Ten. The thought of the open day is distracting him too. He knows now that this is where he wants to go to uni, all he needs is to get the grades.

There are a few more open days he’s booked onto at other unis, more for appearances than anything else, but he doesn’t think it’s even worth going to them when he’s already made up his mind. 

They eat breakfast at the kitchen table. Half of it is covered in various piles of library books and notepads that Ten pushes aside to give them enough room to eat. She didn’t ask him how he likes his bacon but it’s perfect, soft with the rind around the edges cut off, and it makes something in his chest warm that she took the time to do it. He watches her eat a jar of overnight oats and wonders if she makes it like this for Johnny or if he likes his crispy. Did she know Mark likes it like this? Or did she just make it how she likes it? 

Fucking hell, he’s pathetic. It’s just bacon. He shouldn’t be thinking this deeply about a bacon sandwich. 

“Do you know what time you’re due to finish?” she asks. She drops her spoon in the empty jar after she’s finished her oats. 

“Um, around 3, I think. We’re meant to finish at the library.” 

Ten nods, thinking.

“I’m free after 12, but I need to go to the library anyway. Text me when you’re done and I’ll come and meet you.We can have a coffee or something before you get your train.” 

God. Something in Mark unfurls like a flower in the sun. He thought she’d be glad to wave him off in the morning and that would be it, or that she would be long bored with the way he can barely get through a full sentence without tripping over his own tongue. 

He nods and smiles, ducks his head to take a big gulp of his tea to cover the pleased little flush he can feel spreading over his cheeks. 

“Yeah,” he says, “that would be nice.” 

The open day goes well, and Mark feels secure in his decision to apply here. It’s a nice uni, a nice campus, and right in the middle of the city. He pays attention on the tour and tries to make a mental note of the student union and the media studies building since they’re the places he’ll be spending the most time in. He only gets a little distracted when they pass somewhere Ten told him about on her personal tour the day before.

He texts Ten as promised when they’re wrapping up the last part of the tour and she meets him outside the entrance. 

Ten chatters to him as they walk through the city, asking him what they showed them and what they did, telling him which buildings her lectures are usually in. 

“So, does it match up to the other places you’ve visited?” She asks eventually, and Mark feels his face fight not to look guilty. 

“Uh yeah, it’s pretty great. I like it here.” He can’t tell her he hasn’t visited anywhere else yet, can’t tell her he’s probably not going to visit anywhere else after today either. He can’t tell her that every minute he’s spent with her over the last 24 hours has made his mind up about where he’ll be applying. 

She takes him to a little vegan cafe near the station with comfortable sofas and friendly staff that know Ten by name. She must come here a lot. Or maybe she’s just really friendly with everyone she meets. 

When she orders two hot chocolates for them she waves off Mark’s attempts to pay and tells him to go find somewhere to sit, then comes back with a little plate of pastries and cakes. They look good, perfectly arranged as she takes a picture of them before she cuts them in half with a knife. He has no idea what any of them actually are, though. 

“This one is a pistachio and raspberry slice, coffee and pecan square, that’s an apple tart, and this one is an almond croissant,” she says as she cuts each one, then pushes the plate into the middle of the table between them. “I didn’t know what you’d want so I just got a few. Dig in.” 

The train home is just after 6pm. He didn’t know how long to leave between the end of the open day and getting to the station, didn’t know if he would want to eat after or if Ten would want to do something, so he’d booked a seat on the last train back that didn’t have a ridiculous amount of changes and waits between connections. He has the tickets tucked into the cover of his phone so that he doesn’t lose them, and for the first half an hour they’re in the cafe he keeps an eye on the clock over Ten’s shoulder. 

Then they start talking about school, and he relaxes into a neutral topic that has fewer opportunities for him to make a fool of himself. He loses himself in the conversation, laughing about teachers and old friends and hearing about some of the people Ten still keeps in touch with. She asks him what he’s been doing at sixth form and what’s been going on since the last time she was home, and she listens so intently that Mark doesn’t want to stop talking, not when she looks like she genuinely wants to hear whatever he has to say next. 

After a while she gets up to use the bathroom, and he finishes the last dregs of his hot chocolate that has long since gone cold and a little gritty. 

“What time do you need to leave for the train?” She asks when she comes back, “I could order more drinks if there’s still a while yet.” 

Mark feels a jolt of fear hit him in the chest. Fuck, oh fuck, it’s starting to get dark outside. He forgot about the train. 

He checks his phone and stares at it in horror. The Trainline alert to remind him of his reservation sitting innocently under the clock, which reads 6:58pm. 

“Are you okay Marky? You’ve gone a bit pale.” 

He looks up at her leaning forward in concern and swallows around a suddenly dry mouth. 

“I missed it,” he says dumbly. He doesn’t know what else to say. He doesn’t know what else to do. He’s missed it. 

“Oh, it’s okay, don’t worry! I’m sure there’ll be another one. It’s not that late yet, is it?” 

He shakes his head. It’ll take him hours, sitting in empty stations in the cold, waiting an hour and a half for the connection. He won’t get home until almost midnight, and he can’t ask his mum to pick him up from the station that late. 

Ten hasn’t gone home to visit her parents since she left to move up north, every holiday spent somewhere backpacking with Johnny, and then her semester abroad. She doesn’t know what the trains are like. 

She reaches over the table to squeeze his hand. 

“Oh, Marky, I’m sorry. All that talking about nothing and I made you miss it.” 

“It’s okay,” he croaks, forcing it out through the phantom grip squeezing around his throat, “it’s not your fault.”

He might cry. He doesn’t know what to do, he didn’t plan for this. 

“Well, if there isn’t another train today, you’ll just have to get one tomorrow.”

He nods blankly, staring into space while his stomach churns. Yeah, tomorrow. He doesn’t have much money with him, and he doesn’t know if there’s enough for a hotel for the night. Does he need to buy another train ticket, or can he still use this one? He’s never missed a train before, he doesn’t know. Oh God.

“Come on,” Ten says, and she waves her hand in front of him to make him look up. Then she makes grabby hands until Mark stupidly offers his hand to her to take, stiff and clammy in hers as she pulls him up from the sofa. “Let’s go home. Beth’s doing stir fry tonight and she always makes too much anyway.” 

Oh.

“I- you- I can get a hotel, it’s alr-” he stutters before she shakes her head firmly.

“Don’t be silly, you don’t need to waste money on a hotel when there’s more than enough room at mine. Last night was fun, wasn’t it? We can have another sleepover just like you used to have with Johnny.” 

Her smile is kind as she leans over to pick up his bag and holds the straps for him to slide his arms through. 

“Ready?” 

Mark nods, and she waves bye to the guy behind the counter then pulls Mark out of the cafe and into the chill outside. 

The sleepovers he used to have with Johnny consisted mainly of Mark sitting quietly watching Johnny on the Xbox and waiting for Johnny to let him have a go, then going to bed early. He doesn’t tell her that, though. The sleepover with her last night was far more fun. 

When they get back to the house, Ten pushes him into the bathroom to have a shower and warm up again while they wait for dinner.   He doesn’t have another change of clothes with him since he’d only packed for the night, and she took his bag to her room and told him she’d be back in a moment.

Now he’s standing next to a clean towel and a pile of Johnny’s clothes folded next to the sink while he waits for the shower to warm up. She had to show him how to turn it on but he’s a little too frazzled to be embarrassed about it. He could tell they were Johnny’s clothes before she even said it, but something in his stomach still felt a little funny when he heard it. 

He texts his mum to tell her he missed the train while he waits and tells her he’s staying with a friend. She doesn’t ask who it is, just tells him to sleep well and to take a taxi home from the station since she’ll be at work. His shoulders fall a little, but that’s something to worry about later. 

He feels a bit calmer once he steps into the shower, or at least a bit less like he’s about to cry over the train. He’s delaying the inevitable panic about spending another night sharing a bed with Ten again, and not doing something stupid, until after he’s eaten. Frankly, he doesn’t have the energy for that right now. 

Ten had told him to help himself to whatever products were in the shower, and he sniffs at the bottles of shampoo until he finds one that smells like Ten’s hair. It still feels weird to use anyone else’s stuff, even with their permission.

It feels sort of weird to put his boxers back on after a shower, but it would feel even more weird wearing Johnny’s clothes without them on. The sweatpants are too long for him when he pulls them on, so he rolls over the waistband a few times until he can see his toes poking out from under the hems. Johnny must have gotten even taller since he left school. The shirt is big too, but it’s about the same size as the old shirts he stole from his dad to sleep in at home.

Thinking about Johnny is still a little too complicated, disappointment and hero worship and jealousy all wrapped together into a big knot under his ribs, so he makes the executive decision not to think about that, either. He has enough to worry about now his stomach is rumbling with the promise of a full meal. 

It’s late by the time they finish eating, a glass of wine is enough to make him feel warm and relaxed, but not enough for him to feel tipsy. He follows Ten up the stairs to the bedroom and dutifully turns his back while she changes into her own pyjamas. His skin prickles with the knowledge that she’s undressing behind him, and he focuses on the music Ten turns on first to stop himself from trying to listen and imagine what she looks like.

He watches her run through the same tubes and jars of apparently different creams just like the night before while she tells him what each one is called. He doesn’t know what they do or why they’re all different, but he lets himself fall into the same comforting rhythm of watching her work them into her skin. 

When she’s done she folds herself down onto the bed in front of him holding a little tube of something and a headband, and he lets her push his hair back and spread the cream over his face. It smells sweet, and it feels nice on his skin that’s still a little warm from the wine. 

Her hands are gentle, soft smooth strokes of her fingers over his skin enough that he forgets to worry about the way he can feel the warmth of her leg pressed against his knee. His brain just goes quiet for a while, and he sways towards her when she eventually stops. 

She laughs gently and he slits his eyes open, his eyelids heavy. 

“You’re like a big cat,” she smiles, rubbing her hands together to get rid of the last of the cream. 

“It felt nice,” he says, “smelled nice too.”

She pulls the headband off his forehead and ruffles his hair back into place, laughing again when he tilts his head into her hand. 

“Here, you can keep it. It’s a little free sample I got, the big one lasts for ages.” She gets up from the bed and starts putting the tubes all back in their home in the square bag thing. “Your skin is really good now, but it never hurts to moisturise.” 

The tube is still mostly full, and he puts it on the bedside table next to his phone that’s plugged into Johnny’s charger again. 

“Time for bed?”

Mark nods, and wiggles down the bed until he’s lying down properly watching Ten climb in next to him.

The music is still playing on her speaker, and she’s left the pink fairy lights around the window switched on. It casts everything in the room in a soft pink glow that feels nice, feels cosy. Like it’s just them in a little bubble and he doesn’t have to worry about anything that’s not in this room until morning.

“If you do decide to come here then we can do this more often,” she smiles as she snuggles into her pillow. Mark is lying on his side facing her this time, a mirror image of her as they curve together. 

“That would be nice”

“You can come over if halls gets a bit too much, but hopefully they’ll put you in a nice one, so it won’t be that bad. But you can still come over, just to hang out, whenever you want. 

He smiles, a warm feeling in his chest.

“Yeah, okay.”

“And when you inevitably get a girlfriend you can introduce us.” 

“Teeeen.” He whines, the warmth in Mark’s chest transfers to his face.

Ten laughs, a pleased little giggle that makes her nose scrunch up. Mark feels it like a punch to the gut. He doesn’t know how he could ever have a girlfriend when Ten is right here, when Ten makes his heart race like he’s just run a marathon every time he sees her. Even if he could never be with her, he doesn’t think he’d be able to look at another girl the same way he looks at her. 

“I wouldn’t even know how to get one,” he says instead. It feels like slightly safer territory.

“You’ll be fine, I told you. All you have to do is talk to them and it’ll happen.”

Mark’s not so sure. And, well, talking to them is half the battle sometimes. 

“But how do I know if she likes me? How do I know if she wants me to kiss her or if she’s just being nice?”

Ten looks at him for a moment, then shuffles a little closer, so that her head is at the edge of her pillow and Mark can feel the puff of her breath against his lips.

“Well, she’ll stand really close to you when she’s talking to you. She might play with her hair or her necklace, or she might look at you like this.” She tilts her chin down a little so she can look at him through her eyelashes, and his traitorous heart skips a beat. 

“She’ll probably bite her lips so that you look at them, and she’ll look at your lips too.” 

Mark watches as Ten’s eyes flick down, presumably to look at his lips. His blood is simultaneously freezing in his veins and burning him up from the inside. She’s so close. He could lean in now and kiss her, but he can’t. 

She’s his friend. She’s with Johnny.She’s being nice to him. She's helping him out. The list forms inside his head as he looks at her, weighing him down with the reality of it. He’d be ruining everything, mistaking her kindness for something else and taking advantage of it. 

He swallows hard and watches her eyelashes as she looks up at him again. 

“And maybe, if you still don’t get the hint that she wants you to kiss her, she’ll kiss you instead.” 

Mark takes a breath to reply, but the thought dies in the back of his throat when he feels soft lips against his own. 

The world stands still for a moment, kindly allowing him a second to process the millions of signals racing from the nerve endings in his lips to his brain. Ten is kissing him, and she’s waiting for him to kiss back. This might be the only opportunity he gets to know what it’s like to kiss her back. 

He meets her gentle pressure with his own and no more, following her lead and keenly aware that he needs to make this count.

When she pulls away a second and a lifetime later he licks his lips. He can taste strawberry lip balm. He wants more. 

“Then what do I do?” He wishes he could say it was suave or even an attempt at sounding like it, but it’s a genuine question. He doesn’t know what Ten is offering or how far, or what he can ask for. Whatever it is that she’s willing to give him, whether it’s out of kindness or pity or something else too scary to think about right now, he wants it with every atom buzzing around inside his body. 

“Well, then you’ve got to touch her, let her know that you’re interested too.” The smoky sweep of her eyelashes fan over her cheeks as she looks at Mark’s lips again. “Not too pushy though. Be gentle.” 

“Yeah, cool.” Because he absolutely knows how to do that.

Ten lets out a breathy, pleased little laugh and finds his hand under the cover, setting it down gently onto the curve of her waist. 

“Touch her, make her feel flattered – but don’t grab her. Soft, purposeful touches on her shoulder or her hip, until she touches you back.” 

She slides her hand up Mark’s arm to cradle the jut of his elbow, effectively stopping him from pulling his hand away. It would be more than easy enough to break the hold – she’s not gripping him – but it would take heaven and hell combined to make him take it away from her skin if that’s where she wanted it. 

“She might touch your thigh.” She squeezes his thigh gently, then brushes away the hair that’s fallen over his face. “She might play with your hair, tell you what pretty brown eyes you have.” 

“You think they’re pretty?” He parrots. 

“Of course I do.” She trails her fingertips down the side of his face to his jaw, turns his head one way then the other like she’s taking him all in, “you’re very handsome, Marky. You really grew into yourself after I left home.”

Mark feels a warmth unfurling in his chest to match the blossoming heat in his cheeks. 

“I missed you,” he finds himself saying. He doesn’t think he meant to say it out loud, but it’s true. He missed her every day after she moved away, and he’s not sure whether it was better or worse to see what she was up to with all her friends and Johnny on social media. 

“I know, baby,” she soothes, cupping his cheek, “but I’m here now.”

All he can do is nod. The silky material of her pyjama shorts is warm under his hand. Grounding and real. 

“So hypothetically, if a boy liked you,” his throat feels dry but he soldiers on, a foreign sense of bravery beginning to grow somewhere inside him, “what should he do next?” 

Ten grins and her nose scrunches up again, and Mark leans in to kiss her before he can think twice about it. 

She kisses him back, arching towards him on the bed and threading her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck. She uses it to hold him close while she sucks on his lower lip. Mark shivers. She’s so close that he can feel the heat of her body between them, but he wants to be even closer. 

Ten squirms a little when he tentatively touches the tip of his tongue to the plush swell of her mouth, and he almost pulls back for fear of doing something wrong until her hand tightens in his hair. Her other hand curls into the front of his ( Johnny’s) t-shirt to pull him against her. 

He can feel the shape of her body along his torso now, and he feels his hands shaking where they frame her waist. 

“Can… can I do more than just kiss you?” 

The sensation of her lips curling into a smile against his is euphoric.

“Hmm… and what exactly did you have in mind?” 

Mark’s brain seizes briefly, overwhelmed by every fantasy about her that he’s ever had. He doesn’t know where to start, doesn’t know if he wants to hold her hand or kiss her neck first, if he wants to feel her thighs around his waist or if he wants to kiss his way down her soft belly while she giggles and tells him that she’s ticklish. 

“I want to touch you,” is what he settles on eventually. Ambiguous, but he’s hoping that she’ll at least give him some direction and won’t just leave him out to sea without a raft. 

“You are touching me,” she laughs, “you’ll have to be a little more specific, darling.” 

He groans, though it’s closer to a whine if anything. 

“I… I don't… just more. ”

The hand in his shirt loosens and finds the one he has locked on her hip, guides it up until she’s cupping it around one of her tits. 

“What about here, then? I know you’ve been thinking about this for years.” 

Mark’s hand shakes underneath hers. This, almost more than anything else, has been what he thought about the most. The way he could never seem to keep his eyes off her boobs at school, bra straps showing through the thin material of her shirt and pulled taut over her chest. He used to wonder if his hands would ever be big enough to hold them in his palm, if Johnny’s were big enough already. But now he’s older and he’s holding them and he knows that, even with the growth spurt he finally hit at the last minute, her tits are bigger than he can hold in one hand. 

“You were never subtle,” she’s amused but letting Mark in on the joke. “You always tried so hard not to stare, but you’d give yourself away with that guilty look every time. It was so cute.”

She presses his hand harder into her and rolls onto her back, pulling him with her so that he’s hovering over her, propped up on one elbow. 

“Why don’t you help me out of this, Marky? It’s so uncomfortable.”

It’s the same shirt she slept in last night, powder blue silk with a bra underneath, but he’s not about to point that out as he helps her struggle out of it without moving apart. Then she’s lying there, just wearing her bra and shorts, and Mark can’t breathe properly. 

Her hair is loose around her on the pillow like a halo as she guides his hand back to her. He wants to touch her so much that it might just kill him. He’ll take the risk.

“Hmm, I’m still uncomfortable. Maybe you should help me take this off, too,” she smirks, runs her fingers lightly over the edge of her bra. “I’m sure you’ve imagined doing this a few times by now.” 

Fucking hell . Mark gulps and nods, drops his eyes to her bra and stares at it for a moment. He has no idea how to take it off. He thinks it might come apart in the back. Maybe. She lets go of his hand so that he can slide it under her back and run it over the band to find the clasp. 

Only, he doesn’t find it. Ten eyes glitter in the soft pink light as she bites her lip, probably to stop herself laughing as he slips his other hand under her to try again.

There’s just smooth soft material and lace, no seam or break in it, nowhere for it to come apart at all. He takes a brief moment to panic, certain that if he can’t get it off Ten won’t let him kiss her anymore. Clearly he’s fallen at the first hurdle. 

“Is there a… um, how do I get it off?” He’s prepared to admit defeat. He’s already made a fool of himself, there’s no point in making it worse by refusing to ask for help. He’s never been a stubborn person. 

“Oh baby,” Ten laughs, before she covers her mouth to disguise it, “it opens at the front.” 

Mark feels his mouth drop open slightly as he looks down with wide eyes. It opens at the front. Of course it opens at the front, why wouldn’t it? He didn’t even know they could open there. 

Ten laughs at him for real this time, reaching up to pull him into another kiss. She’s still smiling into it when he kisses back, and he feels himself relax into her as she soothes the tension out of his muscles. 

“That was a cruel trick, I’m sorry. Your face was so cute though, you were trying so hard.” 

He lets himself smile, then laugh with her as the realisation that she knows just how new he is to this but that she wants to do it with him anyway. Maybe making her laugh at him isn’t the worst thing that could happen in the grand scheme of things.

“It took Johnny far longer to learn how to unhook a normal one, so don’t worry about it.”

Her hands find his again and she leads them back to her bra, setting each of them on either side of the clasp. He tucks his fingers into the material to grip it and lets her push his hands together until he can see how the clasp fits together and how to open it.

“Ready?” She asks. Her voice sounds a little breathier than it did before. 

He resists her trying to pull his hands apart for a second to take a deep breath, then he moves slowly to unhook the little plastic parts. He moves even slower while he uncovers her tits, every millimetre of perfect skin flaring the fire growing in his belly. 

Fuck, she’s so so perfect. There’s some faint silver lines streaking over her skin, a few hints of veins nestled close to the surface, and in all of his nights spent tugging furiously at his dick and biting his pillow he couldn’t have imagined them looking as good as they do. Some nights he didn’t even get as far as imagining what they’d look like bare, like this, and he’d be stuck remembering the way they felt against him when she hugged him, about how he was just tall enough that he could press his face into her chest if she’d let him. 

In a moment of pure instinct he drops his head and finds her nipple with his mouth, groans desperately at the hard bud of it against his tongue.

Fuck, he can’t believe this is real, that he gets to do this, he can’t believe he’s allowed to feel the way she melts back into the mattress and puts her hand in his hair to keep his mouth on her. 

“That’s it,” she breathes out, just a little unsteady, “I know you’ve wanted this for so long.”

Mark keens a little and sucks harder, squeezes her other tit with his hand to test the soft give of it. It’s so fucking hot. He’s definitely going to die, but he’ll die having achieved his life’s dream, so it’s absolutely fine by him. 

He can hear the way her breathing picks up, the way it gets shakier the harder he sucks. He can tell he’s making her feel good and the thought makes him half-crazed. He has no idea what he’s doing, but even so, he’s still managing to make her gasp softly and flex into his mouth. 

“I’ve always loved having them played with.” Her voice is a whisper, like it’s a secret, and Mark groans as he pulls off one nipple with a wet noise and immediately attaches his mouth to the other.

The sound of his breathing is audible though muffled against her skin while she holds him firmly in place.

“You can bite them if you want.”

Fuck, fuck fuck fuck . He pulls back for a moment before he goes back in with teeth. Tests the concept by squeezing her nipple gently between them just to hear the way she sighs happily, then harder until she groans again. 

“That’s it, baby. Hard enough to feel it properly.”

He bites down just a shade harder and pinches her other nipple between his fingers with the same pressure. 

“Fuck,” she whines, spine rolling against the sheets, “keep doing that, I could come just from this.”

Mark whines pathetically. He was so wrapped up in just being able to get his hands on her that he forgot about anything else, forgot that he might be able to make her feel that good, forgot that he might be about to see the way her face looks when she comes.

He sucks desperately and presses his dick into the bed to get some friction on it. He’s so hard, has been since the moment she kissed him, and he hopes he hasn’t made a little wet spot in his boxers.

Ten huffs out a breathy laugh as she squeezes gently at the nape of his neck.

“Oh, you liked that, didn’t you? Do you want to see how wet you’ve made me already?”

There’s a buzz in his ears as Mark’s brain off-lines for a second and he hears himself moan through the static, nodding hard as he pulls his mouth away from her tits. 

She pulls her knees up and pushes her silky little shorts down her thighs until she can kick them off the side of the bed, leaving her in just a pair of little black briefs. Mark can feel his heart hammering in his chest already, and it doubles in intensity when she pulls the crotch of them to the side so he can see her properly. 

God, he wants so desperately to know what she feels like. He can already see a glint of wetness, reflecting the pink light in the room. 

“C-can I…?”

“You can touch me baby.”

He trails shaking fingers over her, feeling the heat and the slickness. Without warning his whole body jerks as he feels himself come in his boxers, his dick completely untouched. 

There isn’t even time to feel embarrassed about it, making a mess of himself like a fucking trembling virgin, because Ten crashes into him and kisses him hard. 

“Did you just-? Oh, Marky, just from touching me. Fucking hell, that’s so hot.” 

He nods into the kiss, yes, he did and yes, apparently, it’s hot. More than anything he’s just relieved she thinks so. He continues to rub his fingers over her pussy, spreading the wetness around and working up the courage to push his fingers past her folds. 

If he’s honest, he’s a little disappointed that he won’t get to fuck her now. Maybe she wouldn’t have wanted him to anyway, and maybe she’s just letting him do this to give him a head start. As brief as the notion of maybe being able to fuck her was, it had taken root in the back of his mind. The idea of her being his first was perhaps just a little too good to be true, and being able to touch her like this is still more than enough, more than he ever thought he’d be allowed to have. 

“Poor baby, it’s all a lot to take in isn’t it?”

He’s not sure if she’s being genuine or she’s taking the piss out of him a bit, but he’s still touching her pussy so he finds that he doesn’t much care either way.

“Don’t worry. I’m sure a boy of your age doesn’t need long before you’re ready to go again. Maybe a few minutes?” She leans into him, close enough that he feels her lips against the shell of his ear, “Then you can fuck me properly, hmm?”

Mark feels himself choke on the breath he’s just taken and she laughs again, tipping her head back into the pillow.

“I’ll take that as a yes, shall I?”

He whines her name, thin and reedy and so desperate, and she pulls him down to lie beside her properly just like they were when this all started. 

“Here,” she curves her palm against the back of his hand as she guides his mouth back to her tits, “Use two fingers, push them inside and you can really feel how wet I am.” 

The noise she makes as she helps him work his fingers into her pussy raises goosebumps down the backs of his arms. A happy sigh, a roll of her hips, and a gentle grip working them in and out of her slowly.

It won’t take him long before he’s hard again, not when he can feel the slick clench of her around him. He can feel it already while he sucks and kisses her skin, and as much as he desperately wants to fuck her it’s not a hardship to stay like this a little longer. It’s impossible not to enjoy the way she sounds or the way she shivers when he uses his teeth again. 

“You’re so gentle,” she pets the short hairs at the nape of his neck, “I’m not going to break, you know.” 

“I might, though,” he says, and feels another flip in his stomach when she laughs and kisses his cheek.

“Do you think you’re ready yet?” Her eyes dip down to the very obviously straining and now damp crotch of his borrowed sweatpants. Johnny’s sweatpants. 

Mark gulps and nods, and she slips her hand under the waistband to pull his dick out and over it.

“Just like this,” she says, and Mark nods again. 

Just like this, her on her back with her underwear pulled to the side, Mark fully dressed in her boyfriend’s clothes, in the bed they share when he visits her. He feels a bolt of heat in his gut strike him when he thinks about Johnny, wonders what he’d say about the little kid who used to follow him around like a ghost if he could see him now. 

“I um–” he stammers, her hand on his stomach distracting him momentarily, “I haven’t got any… you know…”

“Any what, darling?” Ten smiles innocently, but he’s certain that she knows what he’s trying to say. She just wants to make him say it.

“Any condoms.” His voice is quiet, almost a whisper. Like he doesn’t want to get caught saying things like that. 

“Don’t worry, I’ve got the coil. You can make as much mess as you want.” 

Another flatline moment where he has to wait for his brain to work through that one fully. He rests his head against her shoulder, breathing in the sweet smell of her shampoo, then nods. Yeah, ok. Alright. He can do this. 

When he rolls on top of her she brackets him with her thighs and reaches between them to line him up against her. 

“Ready?” She asks again, a gentle smile on her face and the first sheen of sweat around her hairline. Mark nods. 

“Then push.”

He sinks into the warm wet heat of her pussy and feels the breath empty from his lungs, never to be seen again. It’s everything, it’s so much more than he imagined. He can feel the rumble of her little groan against his chest where they’re pressed together. 

Now he’s glad that he didn’t manage to hold out earlier. If he’d tried to do this without it then it would have been over before he’d even finished pushing into her. He actually stands a chance of lasting more than a minute now, though it’s certainly not a guarantee when there’s sparks running through every nerve in his body and she feels this good . 

“You doing okay baby?”

Mark lets out a pathetic whimper in confirmation. Words are too much for him right now. 

“Good. Start slow, rock your hips.”

He pulls out by a fraction, slides in again, and any last remnants of oxygen in his body flee. She’s amazing, perfect, oh God it’s too much, too good. How is he supposed to make her feel good too when he can barely manage to get his dick in without feeling like he’s going to melt and soak through the mattress. 

Ten squeezes her thighs around him and nudges his flank with her foot to encourage him.

“Keep going, you can do this, darling,” she smiles, and Mark has to reach up to kiss her. 

She kisses him dirty this time. She holds his jaw with both hands so she can lick into his mouth and suck on his tongue. His hips jerk at the sensation and moans from the bottom of his soul as he sinks even deeper into her heat. 

Once he knows what it feels like to really fuck her he can’t stop rutting his hips into her without any kind of rhythm or finesse. He’s just chasing the sensation of her fluttering and squeezing around him while she plays with her clit at the same time. 

He can’t think, he can’t speak, can’t do anything more than roll his hips and mouth blindly at whatever part of her is near enough to make contact with. 

“You’re doing so good Marky, keep going,” she pants against his cheek. He can feel her hand moving between them, can feel the way she grabs at him and rolls her body in time with him.

“Yuh- You…” he mutters uselessly. He can’t form thoughts, has no idea what he’s even trying to say, but his mouth continues working the shapes of words and hoping they make sense somehow. 

“What, baby? What is it?” Her voice is sweet, syrupy thick, trembling slightly in a way that makes him groan and suck on the skin of her neck. 

“Feel so good.” 

“All the times you imagined this,” she breathes, fingers twisting in his hair to pull him back down to her tits, “every time you touched yourself, was it as good as the real thing?” 

He shakes his head without letting her nipple fall from between his teeth. He had nothing to compare it to, no way to truly imagine what any of it would be like, let alone doing it with the girl he’s been in love with since he first saw her fresh out of junior school. 

“Did you imagine coming inside me?” 

Mark nods. His hips jerk into her as he starts to lose the little rhythm he actually had. 

“I want you to.” 

Oh God, fuck. He’s dreaming. He slipped when he was getting out of the shower and hit his head. He’s lying on the floor somewhere and this is all an elaborate fever dream. It’s the only explanation that makes sense to him. 

She tugs his hair again and he moves his mouth to her other nipple, sucking hard until she rolls her hips and pushes her chest against his face. He could suffocate in her tits, so big and soft that he never wants to stop playing with. 

“I want you to fill me up, Marky, Just like every time you thought about it, alone in bed wishing you were here with me.” 

Mark’s brain whites out. His body convulses and he comes inside her, whining and crying against her skin. It’s too much, more than he can even comprehend, like he’s feeling every sensation at the same time. His hips pump mindlessly and he whimpers at the overstimulation but never wants it to stop at the same time. 

If this is the only time he gets to have sex with Ten then he wants to make the most of it. 

“Was that good, baby?” She murmurs sweetly into his ears, fingers gently brushing sweaty strands of hair away from his face. 

“Yeah,” he manages eventually, panting against Ten’s chest. He thinks he might have drooled a little on her, or maybe it’s just from how he was using his mouth on her. “Yeah, it was.” 

It’s not an adequate answer for everything it made him feel, to tell her just how good it really was, but it’s all he has in him right now. 

“Do you want to make me come now?” 

A jolt of electricity races through his veins at that, and he whines at the way his dick twitches pathetically where it’s still inside her wet heat. 

Yes, he wants to make her come. Yes, he wants to know what it feels like when she comes. Yes, he wants to see her face when he makes her come. 

She takes one of his hands from where it was clenching desperately in her duvet and pulls it between him. She lines it up over her pussy and prods at his index and middle fingers. 

“Stay inside, and do what I showed you before.” 

Mark blinks for a second, trying to remember anything that happened before he slipped inside her, and consciously tells his fingers to move over her clit. 

“Like this?” 

“Like that baby, just a little harder,” she moans and clenches around him, falls back into the pillows to angle her hips into his touch, “I want to come on your dick.” 

He knows he can’t get hard again, not this quickly, when he’s already come twice, but he desperately wishes he could. Wishes he could fill her up properly, give her something to really feel while he gets her off instead of going soft inside her. 

She makes little keening noises that sound so perfect, and he wants to taste the way the sound in his mouth but he doesn’t want to stop watching her face until she comes. Ten has always been beautiful, but like this she’s radiant. Her eyes are closed and her eyelashes flutter against her cheeks as he rubs her clit a little faster. His motor control is slowly returning to him as he recovers, but every time she squeezes around him his fingers stutter. 

“I’m so close,” she whines, “keep going.” 

Mark’s elbow is starting to cramp, and his arm is trembling from holding himself up above her, but he doesn’t want to stop to adjust. He won’t stop until he’s made her feel good.

It only takes another few seconds before she clamps down around him harder than she has before and she moans out his name, digging her fingers into his side. Her nails are sharp but he doesn’t care, just dips down to kiss her as he marvels at the face that he did this to her. 

She doesn’t kiss him back properly but he doesn’t mind. The way she pants against his mouth feels just as good. The sense of accomplishment swells his chest as she slowly stops fluttering around his dick and she melts into the bed, breathing hard. 

“Well,” she laughs when her eyes flutter open again, “I think that was a pretty good effort for your first time.” 

Mark lets himself slide off her onto his side. He shivers a little as his cock slips out of her and the cold air hits him. He doesn’t want to crush her, but he immediately feels a little lost without the heat of her skin bleeding through his clothes. Not even his clothes, Johnny’s clothes, and he feels another measure of his confidence desert him. He doesn’t really know what to do now. He doesn’t know what comes after something like this. 

Ten lets out a little whine of complaint as he curls up on his side, and she tugs at his arm until he drapes it over her waist. Then she whines again and shuffles herself closer to him, wiggling her way under him so that her head is tucked under his chin and their bodies are pressed together. 

It settles some of the anxiety starting to filter back through in his brain, if only a little, but enough that he can maybe delay the panic creeping in until he’s alone. 

“Get out of your head, baby,” Ten says. He can’t see her face, but he can feel her smile against his collarbone, “stay here with me.” 

They’re both sweaty and messy, and Mark is keenly aware of the fact that she needs to go and clean up after he came inside her, but he wants to stay like this a while longer. Ten’s hand slips under his shirt to rest against his stomach and he breathes a little easier. 

“How do you feel?” She asks him after they’ve lain for a while and Mark has slowly relaxed into her body more and more. The music still playing in the room is smooth and dreamy and fills the quiet between them nicely. 

“I dunno. Good, happy. I’m not really sure yet,” he says without thinking, but has a moment of doubt as soon as he’s processed what he actually said. Fucking hell, he’s just lost his virginity to his dream girl and it was great, what has he got to be unsure about. She’s going to think he’s so awful and ungrateful and- 

His heart skips anxiously in his chest when he feels her pulling away from him, but he relaxes again when he feels her lips against his temple. A gentle kiss. 

“It’s okay not to know,” she says into his hair, then smiles sweetly at him, “as long as you don’t regret it. Right?”

“Never,” Mark says immediately, and she kisses him again, on the mouth this time. 

“Good, now take these off,” she pings the waistband of his borrowed sweatpants, “they’re dirty now. Keep the bed warm for me while I go clean up. There’s some baby wipes on the dresser if you need them.”

Ten winks at him as she gets up from the bed and Mark feels himself blush, but he’s not embarrassed. Just a little flustered, maybe. 

He gets up to take them off and grimaces at the way his boxers stick to his skin. He uses the wipes then drops the sweats into the washing basket in the corner of the room. After a moment of hesitation he strips off the shirt as well and drops it in too. He’s never really been one to sleep naked at home, but something about taking off Johnny’s clothes feels good, like he’s shrugging off the weight of his imagined gaze. 

He doesn’t want to think about Johnny tonight. Ten hasn’t given him a reason to worry about what might happen when he finds out about Mark, and she hadn’t made any kind of effort to avoid talking about him. So, for once, Mark decides to follow her lead and worry about things later, and to just enjoy the fact that he’s going to fall asleep with her in his arms.

Ten comes back into the room after he’s settled in bed, propped up against the headboard checking his phone. He’s a little disappointed when he looks up and sees that she’s put some new underwear on, and she smirks at him when she notices him looking. 

The blush creeps up his face as she stands at the foot of the bed and peels herself out of the soft sports bra, but he lets himself openly admire her tits once they’re free. 

“Don’t worry Marky, I’d never deprive you,” she says as she climbs in next to him, “I’m not that cruel. Just didn’t want to scare anyone on the way back up.”

Mark smiles at her sheepishly, lets her arrange his body until he’s curled up along her side with his head pillowed on her chest. His dick stirs slightly against her thigh but he’s too tired to react any more than that.

Instead he lets himself melt into her and sighs happily when she soothes her fingers through his hair. Her boobs are soft, and just as perfect to rest his head on and he imagined they would be.

“Go to sleep, baby. I haven’t got anything on until after lunch, but you’re making breakfast this time.”

***

Mark waves through the train window as it pulls out of the station, and doesn’t stop smiling until long after Ten is no longer visible on the platform. His chest feels full, even though he’s wearing yesterday’s clothes and he doesn’t really want to leave. 

He texts his mum to tell her he’s on the way home, then notices a notification from Instagram.

Johnnyjsuh has requested to follow you

He hits accept and locks his phone, setting it down on the table to watch the scenery fly by the window. Ten’s parting words to him, whispered into his ear as she hugged him on the platform, echo in his head.

“Come up to visit again, maybe next time Johnny’s here. I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you, especially when I tell him how much fun we had this time.”

Yeah, Mark thinks. That sounds like a pretty good idea to him. 

Now he just has to make sure he gets the grades that mean he won’t  have to leave at all.