You’re in Toby’s room, and it feels heavier than it should. The air’s thick, like the walls are keeping in more than just heat. His hoodie’s hanging on you, the fabric soft but smelling faintly of smoke, metal and him. His scent clings to you like it’s already seeped into your skin.
He closes the door with a click, leaning back against it. His head jerks slightly, a quick, sharp twitch, followed by the click of his tongue. His eyes find you — not just looking, fixating. The lamplight catches the jagged stitches that run across his cheeks, the faint shine of the goggles pushed up onto his messy hair. The scars pull slightly when his mouth twitches into something between a grin and a grimace.
His gaze drops to where the hoodie rides up your thighs, and you can almost see the thread of restraint snapping inside him.
“You don’t even… tck—hah—fuckin’ know what you do to me,” he mutters, voice low and shaky, words breaking between ticks. “You come in here, wear my hoodie… sit on my bed like that… and smell like that—” his jaw twitches, teeth grinding for a second “—and you think I’m just gonna sit here?”
You sit on the edge of his bed, feeling his stare like a weight. The lamp glows gold against the pale scars carved into his skin, the faint twitch in his shoulders making his shadow jump on the wall.
“You’re obsessed,” you say, trying to keep it light.
His grin widens, but it’s sharp and wrong, pulling at the stitches in his cheek. “Damn right I am,” he says without missing a beat.
In two jerky steps, he’s in front of you, dropping to his knees. The leather of his gloves creaks as his hands settle on your thighs — heavy, warm, trembling faintly with each twitch. His head tilts, eyes flicking between your face and your neck, and then he’s yanking the collar of the hoodie just enough to bury his face in your skin.
“God… tck—fuck…” he breathes in deep, and you feel the shudder rip through him. “That smell… it’s in my sheets, my clothes, my fucking head. Every time I move, I swear it’s on me. I want it on me.”
You tense, heartbeat pounding. “Toby—”
“I’m not kidding,” he cuts you off, voice rough, almost desperate. “It’s amber… sandalwood… and something else. Something warm. Sweet. You. It’s in my skin now, tck—it’s in my lungs.”
His scars pull as he drags his mouth along your jaw, teeth just barely grazing. “Nobody else gets it. It’s not perfume. It’s your whole… self. I breathe you in, and it’s like—” he twitches hard, grip tightening on your thighs “—like you’re in me. Under my skin. In my blood.”
His hands slip under the hem of the hoodie, fingertips twitching against your waist — not rough, but claiming.
“You’re gonna ruin me,” Toby says into your skin, ticks breaking his words. “Every time I’m alone, I smell you. My bed. My hoodie. My fucking hands. I’m not washing it out. I’m keeping it. Keeping you.”
He pulls back just enough to look at you, stitches tugging as his grin spreads too wide. “And if that means you haunt me every time I breathe, tck—then good.”
Netwrck